THIS IS AMERICA: I AM AN ALCOHOLIC

[Music] you [Music] [Music] battering sounds will be recognized At Once by him who says in all frankness I am an alcoholic grandfather would have said dip Maniac or inebriate in deepest contempt never imagining that medicine one day would insist on classifying as an invilet usually chronic the type a case of Philip Brown Philip Brown came wearing Soden rags to pay his 10th enforced visit to the alcoholic Ward these he wore instead of shoes without socks a quick targan ride Philip Browns only a week ago he started out cleanly shaven and hopeful in his last good suit to mend his stricken fortunes and redeem for his wife an off broken but sacred [Music] vow it was a crisp day and there was hope in the heart of Philip Brown he believed in his promise he wore it like a shield blazed with the inscription no beer no liquor No Light wine very simple all I have to do is don't not an ounce not an ounce not a drop not a sniff now this is not a Temperance lecture or a tra on abstinence this story has no application whatever to other Urbane cheerful souls in this Cafe who can take a drink or not take a drink a Galla pole would prove that of all the hundreds visiting this bar today only one is qualified to play a role in this film just Philip Brown looking much like the others nonchalant and calm sipping a quiet sniff all alone a significant word alone the interesting thing about Brown the lamentable one is this he planned not to be here he didn't want to be here to him this tavern's [Music] haunted haunted by a most appreciative Insurance executive who made him general manager of an old line firm and reluctantly fired him three times in a year before making it final and absolute haunted by a bleak morning after when he first opened his door to a process server and by the house in the country he lovingly designed the just right place he had to sell 6 months after building to head off foreclosure by the car that never ran Again by the mother who gave up her flat for a corner of her daughter-in-law's living [Music] room and by another Brown Philip Jr and his Afterschool business netting daily perhaps the price of one highball the tragic thing about Brown is that when he starts here he always come what may despite Prayers and Promises hat and taxes winds up here to swallow the same trike bitter pronouncement allergic to alcohol one drinks 100 not enough the old routine but wife has sent the nice new Mr so kind as to bring him clean clothing efficient Mr Norris thinks Philip might be discouraged to know that he's presiding at my 10th discharge from this interesting old institution he means well of course they all [Music] meanwhile but it's perfectly obvious that he hasn't the remotest idea what he's walking into what he's up against what I'm up against how could he know well he'll soon find out come on in if you must my cheerful new friend enter the house of disillusionment but abandon hope all ye who enter here as a matter of fact Bob Norris of a a Alcoholics Anonymous knows perfectly well what he's up against and if he proceeds with an air of assurance it is because he has practiced this routine some 30 times since joining Alcoholics Anonymous a 12-year-old organization for and by which has no is interested in the convivial habits of no man save of Philip Brown observe nor a perfectly calm normal human being who knows all the cricks and twists to which an obsessed mind is air because he has experienced them the hiding places of tomorrow's drunkenness absurd ever shifting supposedly clever hiding places and the spiritual hiding places of Shame the conviction of wrong to other others your son says Norris is luckier than mine mine spent two years in an orphan's home but then I lost my wife entirely thus Brown is stripped of a dear illusion his personal torture chamber isn't private Norris as and then in proof that Norris is not a freak an isolated case Philip Brown is introduced at a typical AA meeting to the most democratic Fellowship possibly on Earth no rank no official chairman Norris ex drunk currently a college registar here a banker in a really important position of trust 5 years ago this was his office 5 years ago he took the last ornament left to his wife to spend in a transaction that seemed terribly important at the time he's Guardian today of a 100 Estates here a stonemason whose busy days shaped granate walls of a courthouse four years ago he was learning dreary lessons about public buildings of a certain sort from the inside lessons of appreciation of unbarred windows nearby the wife of a prosperous Merchant his wealth her cushion against the gutter she once wore the best tailored straight jackets in Scottish institutions which she now visits on errands of mercy and who is this saintly grandmother of some reprehensible drunkard no she came to the fellowship fully qualified this is an ailment respecting neither years nor station these are AAS typical of thousands much publicized yet maintaining personal anonymity Phil Brown's group for example isn't aware that these visitors are the founders of Midwest call him ran an Eastern broker call him Bill Evans naaa history must go back a dozen years to the tense crisis leading to their chance meeting here was Evans worn veteran of uncontrollable drinking in a strange city crushed by a devastating business defeat on one side of The Ledger he was broke friendless far from home on the other he had managed to do without a drink for [Music] [Applause] months and had been following a hopeful project for overcoming alcoholism through a fellowship of drunks but across the street beckoned a scene for surren place to liquidate all [Music] plans call it fate and make a sermon of it call it a whim a gamble fact is AA was founded on the final desperate impulse of a sinking man who couldn't have wagered a highball against Doom Evans called a clergyman though it was not spiritual counsel he asked on this dark evening in the strange city of arra his quest was unusual but the minister referred him to a gracious woman though it was not feminine companionship he sought so [Music] urgently she understood his need at once and promised to produce within the hour an acquaint who happened to be a doctor though Evans was not seeking Medical Aid what was special about Dr Regan an almost lifelong Mania since early college nightmare of insatiable craving a finely trained practitioner this rean who had researched extend his own complaint psychiatrics philosophy formal religion death and the despair of his left him with just one pitiful illusion that he was hiding his ailment from most of the people most of the [Music] time Beyond this he was so hopeless that when he heard the nature of this call he grudgingly granted 15 minutes oh very urgent office duties were waiting just a quarter hour could be spared well Dr Regan could sum up a lifetime study of alcoholism his and yours in 15 minutes 15 minutes the conversation never ended it continued here 5 hours with early diagnosis of potential super boozers with isolation and loneliness it had its spiritual overtones and its philosophic ones this long conversation 15 minutes this brief consultation continued for weeks into many a dawn in a dozen places once the Layman treated The Physician who had slipped and skitted into his last saturation then religion and science were distilled in this principle only one of us can know our Obsession we cannot save ourselves alone and for our spiritual release survival for our lives we must find sick people like us alcoholic invilid and help them if we can it began in Ohio it spread to New York this campaign of two virtually penniless men the associates turned their homes into unofficial sanitaria alcoholic clinics what you will for problem drinkers with nothing to pay for treatment a unique altruism for no fees ever were charged but there were large human [Music] dividends the heal turned Rescuers and wrote a book together the first group who could say in truth we are alcoholics but we drink no more wrote edited and published a book whose chapters began in torture and concluded in confidence with this hop spreading record first there were two then 10 then 100 troubleshooting in our book the problems of Alcoholics now the book has run through many additions been translated traveled to 10 countries and now there are 50,000 AAS most of whom never can know the founders faces or the names that are not Evans and rean at many meetings Philip Brown you will hear discussed this principle agreed upon by the first hund any call at any hour from any alcoholic of whatever degree who is earnest trying to stop drinking is an obligation that never can be shered postponed slued off you will learn Mr Brown to gallop two gets to be a hobby like five alarm fires now if he wishes a little group of volunteers leads the recruit through an analysis whose counsel and questions may be sampled through such fragments as these you could admit slandering Mr gains to him and to everyone who has heard you speak against him does this girl still think you love her you should redeem her bracelet so the stock was worthless plan to buy it back then pay your Forest D [Music] first it's no Inquisition really but an entirely voluntary bringing into light the shames fears and deaths resentments that made full Consciousness unbearable a catalog a bookful years full of reasons for drunkenness a full of amends to make forgiveness to ask Hardo when the wronged party is by nature a hardened hater still restitution is the medicine a steady laborious straightening up of bads in the bookkeeping of Human Relationships of cruelties and ing gratitudes some imaginary but all needing to be met moral debts old moral debts and money debts too the repayment of all who trusted him and lost through him starting with the humblest most obscure embarrassing program to begin but easing in strain as it progresses until there is something new in Philip [Applause] Browns himself unexpectedly calm conscious and beable an absolutely new and novel Brown men and women of AA attribute this regeneration to help from a Supreme Being according to Conventional religion but the ranks are not all Orthodox and others find their higher being in the fellowship of former wrecks and ruins with a new obsession rescue [Music] Philip Brown is a practicing member of a fraternity which assesses no fees accepts no outside donations and bars no one the most friendless in his dreariest and abandonment is qualified if ever he has asked for their help their therapy for here A Philip Brown can say but for the grace of God I must stay Anonymous struggle praise let the credit go for I too have this illness this drab and dingy speci I on another night for I am an alcoholic [Music] [Applause] [Music]