The Hopeless Variety – 2121 Beginners Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Jim B.

I got my bag of books. By the way, I'm a German alcoholic. I always carry my bag of books with me. My daughter and them said I should buy a real bag but the brown paper bag sufficient for me. I say I'm German alcoholic and I want to say that I'm an alcoholic of the hopeless variety because if I don't say that, I may not remember that if I do change, I'm almost certainly doomed to die an alcoholic death. And I'm not used to these things up in my face. The last time I had something on my face it was a gun so I'm a little shy about that. Okay let me Let me first say that I've never seen so many beautiful people in one place in a long, long time. Who would have thought there'd be a room full of sober people tonight here in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous? I guess we change and change is essential for us. Bill W. said the essence of all growth is willingness to be open-minded to change and then an unremitting commitment to stay the course of recovery. And if we do that, and that's what I've done over the years. I've doing what BOW said. And I did something that my home group told me to do too. And I'm going to get this out here so you'll know what they told me. And you can kind of fish around and understand what they tell me. They told me the first thing that I needed to do was to learn how to K-I-S-S A-S S. And I didn't like you, and I looked at them kind of strange. And I said, I'm not going to do that. And they said, Jim, if you don't do that you will never get the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'll tell you what that means if you haven't already asked it. Let me say this tonight. I want to ask a question tonight before y'all ask me, and the question I want to ask is, say if we were at 10 years old, you could have got up one morning out of your bed and went downstairs in your house and opened the basement door. Instead of being the basement door, it would have been the door of the future. Just pulled open the door of a future at 10 years old and glanced in and saw just what was ahead of you. Just what was waiting at this day say August 13 2004. The question I want to ask is who would be here tonight? Which one of us would not have done something different? You know I mean perhaps in that look in the future I'm I'm almost certain that we would have done something different. I know the first thing I'd have done different was, I wouldn't have married that woman I married. And it wasn't so... Now, she was not bad, but it was that damn mother-in-law of mine. Couldn't stand her. She didn't like me, and I didn't have a reason to like her. And, you know, when I got to the crossroads in life, you know... Who would have turned to the right instead of going left? You know, I'm pretty sure that some of us would have done something different about our education. Probably wouldn't have took some of the jobs we took. You know probably never would have taken that drink. Not the first thing but the one that put us over the line. The one as the doctor's opinion says, the one who made us the chronic alcoholic. The one who put us in that mode where we came under the addiction of a phenomenal craving and a mental obsession. And tonight I want to ask, which one of us, who in the audience tonight would have, had they had a look at the future, not done what they've done? Wouldn't be here tonight. And I ask myself the same question. And just as I'm about to raise my hand and say I wouldn't, I think back of all those times that, let me say that I'm from a big family. I got 13 brothers and sisters, and my mother comes from a family of 19. My father has got 21 brothers and sister. And we all live in, around, behind, up front, around the house in the projects. And when we had our backs turned, they said that they built the projects for us. they didn't hardly say it to our face because they'd make us mad and on Friday nights tonight was our big night we were a family of celebrators and if you gave us a reason, we'd celebrate if Aunt Louise came home with twins, great reason to celebrate if Cousin Joey was coming home from penitentiary the best reason to celebration If somebody was going off to school, another good reason. If somebody were going to jail, even better reason. And I think sometimes on Fridays when there wasn't nothing going on, it was the best time to celebrate. And it was at those celebrations that I got a look at the future. I got chance to see that those things that, as Bill W. said, that only was warning. I got to change to see what was going to happen to me. because my family drank and they did other stuff too. And it was in those drinking scenarios that I got a chance to look, and what he told me was Jim if you drink like them over that period of time like them, those things that happen to them are gonna happen to you. And you know I always thought that? Not Jim. You know even you know that that I was an exception to the rules and it wouldn't happen to me. In fact when I come to the rooms with alcoholics I raise my hand And I said, I'm Jim, an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. And then in the back of my mind, I said yeah, but I'm an alcoholic extraordinaire. I'm not like Jim. But to that end, I know different. I mean you guys have told me enough to make me know different and at those celebrations, I had two families. The one sitting over here was the one that seemed to be having the fun and the one sitting there didn't seem to be that happy. So I migrated over there to those people over there and because they did the things, you know, they did happy stuff and they looked happy and they danced and they sang out loud and they gave high fives and they've done all those things that happy people seem to be doing under the influence. and just let me give you an example of some of the glances I had at the future I remember one of my favorite aunties she used to get drunk and she couldn't drink that much but she'd get drunk and she danced all the time and every time she'd gets drunk she would throw her dress over her head and she always had holes in her drawers and we would make between the guys we would sit on the sideline and we'd make bets on how many holes she had in the drawer and she had quite a few of them sometimes they looked like Swiss cheese and I understand now that I'm sober that she had 16 kids so she bought she gave the kids the underwear and but whenever she got drunk she always imagined her husband when he was leaving the party she always imagined he was going to his girlfriend's house and finally one night she couldn't take it no more and she went now back in those days when I was a kid some time ago well it wasn't that long ago she we used to heat the house with coal and wood and stuff. And so she went to the courtyard and she got some kerosene or something and went to The House. She thought he was dead and she poured this keroslene and stuff all around the doors and the windows of The House and set the place on fire. And she went home and she laid passed out on the couch and earlier that morning we got that knock. It was a certain kind of knock that came through our house that always said that whoever was knocking was bringing some real bad news, some tragic news. And when my mother answered the door, you could always tell it was bad because after she received the news, she would always say, oh, my God, tell me it's not true. And what my auntie did was on the street where she went to pour that kerosene on the house, every house on the block looked alike and she snuck in the back door, I mean, in the And what she done was she poured this kerosene around her sister's house and set her sister house on fire. And when they came that morning with the news, they shook her on the couch and said you better wake up. It's been a terrible fire. And she said well why are you waking me up? Some people have been burned up, it's been husband and wife and five kids and they said well why you telling me? She said because it's your sister and her husband and their five kids. She said, in a moment of clarity, she said, well, they didn't have five kids. And my uncle said, don't you remember our little boy was staying over last night? And I remember I had a couple uncles, and they were my favorite uncles. And they had the best jobs in the family. I had one uncle, he worked at the automobile plant, and the other one worked at General Electric. And they came to a celebration on a Friday night driving two brand-new cars, the first time that anybody in our family had ever owned a new car. And it was an exciting moment. And all night long they argued about the cars being, that the Chevy, one was a Chevy and one was the Dodge. And all-night long they arguing about the car's being the fastest. Which car was the fastest? And finally at closing time, well it wasn't closing time but they were going home and they loaded their families in the car and then once again in a moment of clarity they decided to prove which car was fastest. So we all got in the street, we lined up and they stood out in the street and somebody dropped a handshake and they took off down the street. And down there a little ways, some ways down, the Chevy hit the Dodge or the Dodge hit the Chevy, I can't remember now, it was just a kid. And the car jumped the curve and hit a tree. And I ran down there amongst that glass and that smoke and the broken little headlights and stuff. I ran down there and when I got through the crowd up there past the grown folks I looked down on the ground and there was my auntie's head laying on the grind and I look back at the car and she was wedged up in the windshield you could see the jagged ends of her neck and you could see that blood squirting from a jugglers a heartbeat those final few heartbeats and the first thing I said was I would never do anything like that not me and I can remember a hundred stories of that similarity, and every time it happened, I say, I'll never do anything like that. Well, I'm standing here tonight not because I didn't do anything like that, I've done all those things that my family members did, and then I did some more. You know, I put my kids in the car and drove down. I remember one time I was coming out the expressway way over in the left-hand lane in a hurry going nowhere, and at the I thought I could make the exit ramp, and I hit a guard rail with such a force it slammed my daughter forward and then back. The force was so great that it popped her eyeball out of its socket. And when we took her to the hospital and when we got over there and the doctors was carrying in the back, I said to my wife who was my wife at the time, I say, you go back here with her. I need to go across the street and get me a drink because my nerves are shot. And all through my life, as an alcoholic, I did those kind of things. I would come home in the middle of the night. I don't know why an alcoholic—especially like me—I wish they had microwaves back then, but at the time they didn't have microwaves. And I would always come home at night after the bars closed and go in the refrigerator and get food out, put it on the stove, turn the fire up high, and pass out on the couch. Just lucky I didn't set the house on fire. I had a wife who didn't drink, and I understand now that over the years she would be on guard. She heard me come in, and then she would get up and stand guard to make sure I didn't burn the damn house down. Maybe she was worried about herself, not the house. And then one night, you know, the more you drink, the most insane it becomes. You know, especially when you be dead drunk. and I mean really drunk I mean drunk where you pissing on yourself pissy drunk and you make a statement like I drive a lot better when I'm drunk you know something there should have told me that I was sick but I couldn't catch that but anyway one night I was coming home going home, holiday and I thought that it was going to be a long weekend and I felt I better stock up so I stocked up and got my jack and I got my bud and I can do other stuff too, you know. It seems like that when you graduate from, you know, in your drinking it's like going to class. Eventually you graduate junior high and go on up. So I was in college by then so I drank more. I mean my college was drinking and that's what I did and I did drugs too. And so I got my stuff and I'm going home And I lived out in the country, and I was going home with my stuff on the brown paper bag sitting on the seat. And I wasn't going to drink until I got home. I wasn' t going to mess with that other stuff until I get home. And what happened was I'm sick, and the phenomenon of craving stepped in, and I couldn't let the bag sit there any longer. So I went over and I got that bottle, and you know what I did? I don't ever know why I always hit the bottle on the bottom. and I popped that top and I got ready to take a drink and just as I got the bottle up I saw something in the road I set the bottle down hurriedly swerved to Mr. Deer in the Road and when I did my brown sack my bottle fell over now you know I'm sick and the sickest sound for me to hear is the bottle going and I'm not getting that warm and fuzzy feeling so I wrenched down on the floorboard to get my bottle and when I did, I crossed the double yellow line and I hit a family head on and killed some people you see, under the influence of alcohol I'm a dangerous person when I take a drink if you see me drinking, get off the street because I'll do some dangerous stuff out there and I don't care who it is and the newspaper said that it told a gruesome tale it said another senseless killing that was the headline and he said last night a drunk driver crossed the double yellow line and he had a family and he killed a family. And he killed her mother and her daughter and he said the story had a triple tragedy because he killed a little baby in the car and what makes it so tragic is that the baby was on the way to the hospital to be born and the woman was pregnant driving herself to the hospital And I crossed that line and hit her head on. And, you know, you would think that once I came to and got out of my car and walked across the street and I looked in that car and I saw that woman slumped over that broken steering wheel and it was sticking through her stomach, out of her back where her spine should have been, you think, and I could see the lights of houses in the distance, you think I would have ran down there and called somebody and knocked on the door and said, look, I had a terrible accident and I've killed some people. like some people was in there, blood everywhere. I might have killed somebody. Called the ambulance. The only thought that came to me on that dark night was that I better get that bag of stuff out of that car. I better take a good still drink, snort two or three lines of that stuff and hide that bag and hide the package because it may be a while before I get out of jail again and that's what I did. I offered no help whatsoever, none whatsoever. The alcohol had I had taken complete control, and therefore it told me what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. And that's what I did. I did what he told me. And you know, that's when I came to AA. My attorney told me to come. He said, Jim, you've done a real bad thing, and here's the deal. You need to go to that AA place and go there as long as you can. I'm going to try to stall this case for a year or so, and you go every night. It'll look good on your record, and we'll try to plead you out because right now you're facing 15 to 45. And he said, it don't look good. And so I did. I came here and what happened was the car I bought, the guys were dealing in hot cars and the cars were wrecked. They were buying them for the junkyard wrecked cars and they were fixing them up and then the wheel had been cracked and they had welded it back together and when I hit that hole in the road, the wheel collapsed and I crossed the road. And they dismissed my case. I went to court armed with that information and they dismissed my case. And coming down the courthouse steps, I said to my lawyer, you know what, man? Today is a good day for a celebration. I went across the street to the courtheous bar and stayed there. And I was to stay there for a long time. And you know, the funny thing about it is that here in the program, when I was coming to those meetings, I really wasn't paying attention, but occasionally something would hit me and I would kind of sit up straight but it didn't last long. And then on that same road, a few years later I was on the way home in the same situation. Bag on the seat, package loaded down, going home when I passed out at the wheel, went down the 30-foot embankment and landed upside down in a creek. That for as long as I had lived in that house whenever it rained it always flooded. It always ran bang full. And there I was in the car upside down with a broken collarbone, fractured shoulder, busted kneecap and I was upside down on water right there on my forehead. And I could hear the thunder and see the light from the flashes of lightning, and I knew that any moment they was going to call my number. The big guy upstairs was goingto call mynumber. And you know, the only thing I thought of was what I say every night is that thought kept coming back to me, a hopeless variety, doomed to die an alcoholic death if you don't change. and it kept coming back and in that situation I was just hopeless you know what I mean I knew that I was going to die there and that was the only thought on my mind that I hadn't changed and because I hadn's changed I doomed myself to an alcoholic death but God is good even to the alcoholic God is god because in one of those flashes of lightning it struck a tree and knocked the tree over in the creek and forced the water to go a different water course And two days later, the game warden came through and said, there's a car in the creek upside down. It looked like somebody was in it. And he walked over and he said, I believe there's somebody in there. He looked like he's alive. And I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. The joy of being, like the book says, being rescued from shipwreck was just indescribable. And when I got out of the hospital, I went. I didn't go to AA immediately. I won't tell you that. I still, you know I'm still Jim Extraordinary, and you know, and I'll take him faith if I can. But what I did was finally I got up in the middle of the night, someone set me up in my bed in the middle of night, and this is my spiritual experience, that God had wakened me in the middle of tonight, and my only thought was that I needed to go to the gravesite of that woman and then that child that I'd kill, make my amends to them so that I could be at peace with myself. And I called my lawyer who gave me the other lawyer's number. I called the lawyer. He gave me this guy's number, the father of the family, and I called him and explained my situation. And I went, and he told me where to go. I went to the graveyard, and kneeled down in that grave, and apologized and freed myself. As the book says, I was able to remove the guilt and the remorse that had cloaked my drinking years. And I got up off of that grave and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I've been coming there ever since. And it was April 7th, 1977. Thank God that I'm alive and well tonight. And when I first came in, I gotta say this fast because they're staring at me back here. I came here, I listened. I came back and I listened, I knew that I'd been spared from a horrible life, I mean from a horrible death and I knew if I didn't get it right this time I was a goner and God knows I wanted to live. So I came in and I did what they told me to do. They told me get that book out and read it and re-read it and then read it some more and read some more because they said Jim you're a smart guy and they said you're a real smart guy, Jim." I said, yeah. They said, but you're not that smart. I said I'm pretty smart. They say, well then Jim don't you wish you'd have been a little smarter? I said no, I'm pretty smart, they said don't wish you had been as little as me. I say why do you say that? They said because if you'd of been a little smarter than you'd known how dumb and stupid you was to turn your life over to alcohol. So tonight I know I'm not that small. I'm not a bright guy. And under the influence I'm really not smart. And so what they did They told me when I first came in, they said, Jim, I had been back about a week. They said, are you ready to do step work? I said, yeah. They said go to the office supply place and get a legal tablet and tape the pages together until they're tall as you and bring a big black marker with you and roll that paper up like a scroll and bring it with you because we're going to write down some stuff. And I said well isn't that supposed to be in step eight to make a list? They said, no, Jim, for you it's right away. So I done that. I brought the paper with me the next day. I came to the meeting and they said, are you sure, Jim that you want to practice this program? I said, yeah. They said well this is what you write on your paper. And they asked me again before I started to write it. They said are you certain? I said yeah. They said then write on there that this is stupid Jim's things Jim does stupid list. And I looked at them like y'all but I didn't laugh. And I said I ain't going to write that down. They said Jim, you need to. You need to write down the stupid stuff you do so you can see exactly why you need to change. And I got ready to write it on, and they said, well, I wrote everything on there, the stupid Jim, stupid Liz thing, I do stupid Liz. I didn't want to when I wrote it on down there, but I didn' t write it that big. I wrote It small. And they said now, and I put a number one on there. They said, now, Jim, before you put down the number one thing you do stupid is, you need To think about what you can do not to add anything to your list. They said, go home and think for about a week, and when you come back, tell us what is it that you need to do not to put anything on your list. And I came back. I couldn't bring up the answer. And finally I asked them, and they said, don't do nothing stupid, Jim. I said, okay, I can do that. And that's how simple it was for me. I didn't do the stupid stuff, and I realized that working in the program of alcoholism was a simple program. All I had to do was just be patient in my understanding, read the literature, understand, ask questions when I head down, and be asserted in my process of recovery. Then they told me something else. They told me to think of AA as a football team. They said, AA is the owner, and we, your home group members, are your coach. And we're going to tell you what to do, Jim. I said, oh, I love football. Y'all going to let me play quarterback? They said hell no, Jim I said you know how good? They said not that good, Jim They said, your position, Jim, on the team, and since you're the kind of guy you are, we're going to give you three positions. Jim, you are to play, and every time the ball is snapped, and what you're goingto play is end, guard, and tackle. I said, end, guards, and tackles? I can't catch the ball. I can' t run the ball? He said, no, Jim. You're on the defensive team, and your job is to get at the beginning end of your recovery life. Guard your recovery as if your life depends on it and tackle every situation that comes in between you and possibly your sobriety. And tonight, I'm not just suiting up and showing up. I'm still playing in the game because I know that if I don't do what they told me to do, if I Don't K-I-S-S, A-S‑S, I don�t stand a snowball chance in hell of being sober, you know, of being able to live the type of life that I want to live. If I don't do the things that the membership and the literature tells me to do, I suggest that I do, then I'm going down and I'm doing down hard because that's the kind of guy I am. What I've learned by coming here is that I'm not Jim Extraordinary. I'm just a typical ordinary garden variety drunk who needs to weed his garden every cover on a daily basis. I need to practice the AA program each and every single day. In order for me to have continual sobriety, I have to continuously do the things that is requested of me in the big book, in the 12 and 12. And Bill W. says for me to read anything that we here at the fellowship are not policemen and that AAs are free to read everything we can because you see alcohol's anomalous may not be my cure-all. It's nothing in the book that says you're guaranteed never to take another drink again. But the book does tell me that I'm not immune to alcohol, that at any given moment when my old way of thinking comes back And if I let it sit there, I can go back out again. Because, you know, I kind of believe sometimes, you know, the 49-51% syndrome, 49% of me still wants to take a drink. You know, kind of think that maybe after being here for a while, maybe these people are not right. Maybe Jim, extraordinary, maybe he'll take a drink. But that's the 49% percent of me. But the 51% tells me to look back. Look back at a career of drinking. Look through the bottle, look over the glass of beer, look past the liquor store, look beyond the night before, Jim, and see the morning after. See how bad it was. Remember that accident out there? Remember being in that creek? If you think you can drink, Jim go ahead. But we will gladly refund your misery. And tonight, because I'm suiting up, showing up, playing in the game. And because I've learned how to K-I-S-S A-S I'm no longer paying the high price to live a low life. And that K-IS-S AS means keep it simple stupid and stay sober. And now for the second moment of silence the meeting is open for questions and answers. Absolutely. That's pretty. Yes, you're there. You'll be welcome. We at AA? All right then. Come on, baby girl. Hi, I'm Christine. I'm an alcoholic. Christine, you looking good? Did you choose your first sponsor or did they choose you? And how many days of sobriety did you have when that happened? Well, I was in a home group and the guys were older than me. home group, and the guys were older than me. I think a couple of them was old as thread. And what they told me was that they said that in the big book I would not find the word sponsorship in the first 164 pages. But what they tell me was I should get another alcoholic to help me with my problems associated with alcohol. And so what they did was each one of them. What they did was, they would start out like, give me a call, Jim, and call me tomorrow. And each one of them is 15 of them, each one of them said, call me tomorrow, Jim. And my family owned a restaurant, I was in the restaurant business, so what I'd do was, I would get up early because I'm going to work, open the restaurant up and stuff. I would get on the phone and start calling. And they'd say, I can't talk now, Jim call me back later. And from 5 in the morning until like midnight, I'd be calling, called every day. And every time I called, they'd say something like, what meeting you going to, Jim? Call me later. Look, I can't talk right now, Jim. Call me later. And what I didn't realize was that they was keeping me in contact with them all day long. Because see, that's when I, see, I only drink once a day, all day long, you know what I'm saying? So they knew me. So I got a chance to do all my steps with them. Each time I did step one with one, I'd go right to the next one. So I did step one 15 times and then when I got through doing all that stuff these were tough guys and then I chose the first guy that I done my step with but they didn't waste no time. They told me to hurry up and get busy because I had a mind that was working on overtime and if I didn't get busy it's no telling what I would do. So I didn' delay. I believed that these guys were doing the right thing I could see in their faces that they were doing the right thing. Their lives had changed, and I wanted my life to change also. So I immediately got a sponsor. I had them, they adopted me, and then after that I adopted them. Terry? Yeah, I have a question. With that much wreckage, how do you use Step 9 to straighten out your life? I hate to talk about Step 9. I remember my, you know, the book says that, Bill W. says that we will become a citizen again. We will come back to the world that we once turned our back on and once turned his back on us. And let me tell you about that step nine. It's a dangerous step. And I'll tell the newcomer to go slow on there because people can be harmed in step nine, but it's a necessary step. It's a step of freedom, it'll free you up from a lot of stuff and you'll get back with old friends in the end sometimes. But let me tell you this story. I was drinking at the time. I was in California and one of my uncles died. And we had a family tradition in the family where if you died, somebody died, that the The oldest sons and daughters, or the oldest sons would carry the casket in the church and the youngest sons would carried the caskets out of the church. And my mother called me she said boy your uncle's son died you need to come home right away. And the last thing she said is don't come home drunk. I said you know I wouldn't do that she said yes sure. So I had a cousin working for the airline. back then they give you little coupons. You know, you get headsets and beers and little bottles of stuff. So I called him and he said, I'll meet you there by the desk. And he gave me a big stack of coupons so I was coming on back home and it was raining and on the plane was about 20 Marines from down at Seven Palms in California. And so the plane would hit a little flutter and we'd all yell and take a drink. And the more it flooded, the more we drank. And I had the coupons. I'd buy a round, they'd buy around, you know. I would buy two meatballs to put in my pocket. So one of my cousins picked me up at the airport and I had to change clothes in the cab. So I get to the church and like always I'm late. I come in late and my mother looks at me like this, shaking ahead and discuss, and all through the service. Now, like I said, I'm from a big family, so when the funeral, everybody got to speak. You know, you get up and say something good about Uncle Henry. He really wasn't no good, but you know in the main stage, you don't want to say nothing bad about him. So I'm running out to the hall. I didn't take my medicine. I drank two or three bottles. So anyway, make it long story short, when it was time to leave the church, they rolled the casket back to the front of the church and they told me to get in front so you get the front Jim you and your other cousin you get over there boy you get up front so I grabbed the casket and being drunk as I was I lost my balance on the first step and I wasn't gonna fall so I let go of the caskets Now you know it wasn't my fault. And what my fault was when the casket, when I let go of the caskets everybody else lost their balance and let go the casquet and the top hatch flew open and my uncle slid out. Went on down about, went down the first few steps hit the landing and then went down a few more slammed against the hearse. Now, like you guys, I laughed like y'all did. You know, I thought it was funny but it wasn't that funny. You know my auntie been married to that man for 50-something years and it wasn t that funny and you know I went to apologize to her but she didn't want, after I got sober I tried to apologize to her but, she didn t want to hear it. You Whenever she saw me, what she saw was the casket, the body sliding out, and me at the top of the step cussing them out and everything. So in Step 9, for the newcomer, if you—and by the way, they don't let me carry caskets anymore. If you haven't—if you've done some stuff to people, if your girlfriend's sister, there are some things you need to talk over with your sponsor. It may not be wise to, you know, to tell them. But step nine is a very, very important step. It gives you a chance to sweep your side of the street clean and to make amends to those people who so earnestly deserve it. Wait a minute. I've got Terry there. Hi, Terry. How long was it before you got permission to reach that kind of contact with your higher power? Well, now, I had always had a God. And what the question was, when did I reach my conscious contact with a higher power? Now I'd always had a God. It was what I called my emergency God. You know, when the blue light showed up in the rear view mirror and I had that can of beer between my legs and that straight thing over there, I said, oh God, I hope it ain't for me. But after six blocks down the street and the lights still flashing, you get an idea that you know, it's for you. And you know and when you go before that judge that says don't come back in there no more if you do then you know you're a goner and I'd show up in the court and the judge say did not and I said oh God help me but it didn't it didn't work so I had an emergency guard but when I came to the program I you know I have to remember what I what it says in the book it says that I agreed from the beginning to go to any land to help me over alcohol so they told me that I should get a spiritual awareness about me and do and that I stood seek out a higher power you know and somebody that in quiet moments I could just sit with until I could get the full understanding and then I remembered that you know when I was upside down in that car God was with me all the time. So it only took me a few minutes, a few days to get that spiritual contact with him. Now I still call on him in emergencies but today I think he answers a little quicker than he used to life yeah thanks them life is not a better road now here's the big problem I head. You know, AA has not always been good to me. I was going to an AA meeting one night. You know I want to think I missed the AA. I go to meetings all the time. You know what I mean? I read the books. You know what I mean if I don't know what I'm reading. I look in the book and I can tell you something. So I'm going to the meeting when my wife at the time says, if you go to that meeting, let me go back. I took her to a meeting. She said, what's going on down in those meetings down there? You've got to go so much. I said, well, I'm learning how to stay sober, you know, doing the things I'm supposed to do. That's why I'm home at night, you Know What I Mean? I'm fathering now. I'm playing the husband role. I got all that from the AA program. She said yes, sure. She says, I don't want to go to the meeting with you. So I didn't know that a girl had been calling me all day to remind me that so-and-so was having an anniversary country, and I need to be there. So she come home, she says, uh, I'm going to meet with you tonight. I'm ready. So I said, okay then. So, I get to the meeting, and I come in the door, and you know we are happy, bud. I love to hug the women. You know what I mean? Now, whiskey and women have always been my weakness. I've gotten over the whiskey, but I'm still a little weak for the women, so those that smell good, I want to hug them. I hug them tight. So, I guess it's where she figured that I was, you know what I mean? I mean, I must've done something to make her whatever. But anyway, I was doing my usual. I came in, I hugged some women tonight. I huged a few guys, but not like I hug the women. But anyway. I hug and every woman in the place hugged me. Hug, kiss on the jaw, hug, kiss. So on the way home, she says, I said, I knew that shit was going on down there. I figured. I'm only sober because of the fellowship and the hugs I get in the room. So one night, to answer your question, one night I'm getting ready to go to the meeting and she says to me nonchalantly if you go to that meeting me and the kids will not be here when you get back. And I said wow. I had to sit down. You know, I can't even stand up. I got to sit Down when I'm thinking. And I sit there for a few minutes thinking. And finally it dawned on me that AA was calling me. You know I'm a member of AA and I got to come. You know if I don't come here I'm going somewhere else. So I said well I got to go to that meeting. She said well just remember what I said. if you go to that meeting, we won't be here when you get back. I went on down to that meeting and sure enough, when I got back, she wasn't there. It hurt me, man. I said, damn, AA done double-crossed me. It said my life would get better. That the promises would come true. That everything would be crystal clear and it'd be a bed of roses. Here I then come home and the house empty. The wife gone. I really didn't care because she was over to my mother-in-law's, I thought maybe, I figured they'd be over there. When she got six kids, I figure that mother- in- law was going to run them on back home sooner or later because you know six kids in your refrigerator, six kids in your bathroom, you know using your hot water up. Six kids in your house is a whole lot of kids in your house. But it didn't work out that way. And she came back eventually, about two or three months she was gone, about three months and when she came back. Things never did get right. Every time I would go to a meeting it was a little comment, where you going down there? And she didn't have a nice name to call the females in the program and I said no I'm going down here to practice my recovery. She said yes sure. And after a while one night on the way home I just turned over and went to my mom's house because I knew then that you know whatever magic was there, it was gone. I used to think sleeping single in a king-size bed was a big deal but when you've got peace of mind, it ain't no big deal. When I went to my mom's house and got my old room out, I laid down and slept for the first time, a real good sleep in about six or seven months. I was free of the misery associated with trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed. It was a Humpty Dumpty situation and it was broken and it couldn't fix and now we're the best of friends now as long as the mother-in-law don't come over. Come on baby girl. You, yeah. Hi Gloria. How did you learn to forgive yourself? Now, that's a good one. As soon as I quit drinking, I said, well, I'm better. And the more I said I'm better, the more was better. And what I did was after I did that step four, I hate it, man. Because what step four told me was it was simple as one, two, three, that as an active alcoholic, I am a poor example of a human being. That's how I got on Planet Jim, I didn't tell you that did I? It was in my forgiveness. You see, not only do I suffer from alcoholism but I've got another disease, it's mental. It's called, I suffer from fantasize-ism. See, every time I took a drink, my imagination took over and I fantasized. And the first thing I'd fantasize was that I was an astronaut. And you know, that's when I got to have a spaceship. And that's what I did. I would put on my suit, jump in my spaceship, leave planet Earth and go live on planet Jim. I didn't have no problems on Jim. I didn�t have to come in. I did not have to go to work. I do not have to look after the kids. I don't have to be with my mother-in-law. I didn't do nothing. All I had to do was just drink. It was perfect. But it was in the end when I came back to Earth, it was always in a crash landing. And I'd land in places like the county jail. You know, I was a fire hydrant. I parked my car on top of fire hydrants. You know what I mean? I'd end up in emergency. I crashed in the emergency room. And in doing so, I damaged people, but I damaged myself. And forgiving myself was, I understood who I was. The program gave me a sense of who I was in step four. I realized who I I was and what I was. And therefore, what I did was I changed. And by a positive change, people could see it. They'd say, hey Jim, what's up? Now, I changed to a lot of degrees and people saw me on the street, they said, oh man, you lost a lot weight, ain't you? I told them I was on the three-mil diet. I didn't tell them the truth. I I didn't tell them what the diet was. I was on the three meal diet, which was oatmeal, cornmeal, and when I took a drink, I missed a meal. So I told them that I was long the three-meal plan, but what I hadn't done, I hadn' taken a drink in a long time and I had become aware of my thing. I was weighing 325 pounds at the time because you know when your family owns a restaurant, I gotta sample all the food 100 times a day. And so I had gained a lot of weight, I lost weight. And I did constructive things, you know. I made that 360 degree circle and turned back to the right. And by doing constructive things I wasn't doing the old things and therefore that's where my forgiveness came because people saw me and said, man, I'm glad you ain't drinking no more. You know? And my mother, and I went to my sister's house one time, you know, and to show you about the change in how I forgive myself was I knocked on my sister door, this was when I was drinking, and I heard the little chain. You know back in the old days they had a little chain go across the door? And I heard it, the chain, I thought they was opening to put it up but they was closing it. And what had happened was I had gone over there and some stuff had come up. You know, when I left, stuff left. And so they had, so when I knocked And the chain slid, my little niece opened the door and she whispered, and she whispered. She said, Uncle Jim, Mom and Daddy's in the kitchen but they told me to tell you they're not home. Now, you know it was one of my favorite sisters. I couldn't understand it. I mean, I didn't have the watch or whatever was missing. I didn' You know I was talking if I got it by mistake. But anyway when i knocked again in my sober life they flung the door wide open and so i i realized that since people have forgiven me then i could forgive myself and that's unless i was able to do that i they i just thought that my once my character defects and my shortcomings left the door was wide open oh we down to we're down to the last minute one more question somebody asked me come Come on back there, Stan. Hey, Cleve. Hey. Sick. Oh, yeah. Once you're in the program, how do you keep the fire burning? well you got to remember one thing that each of us in recovery is one candle and we are standing along the tunnel along the funnel towards the exit towards that arch towards freedom you know each one of us and we're here for the newcomer you know and we have ourselves too And when we light that candle, it's not a big glow until we all line up together and then the candle burns bright. Same way with recovery. You know, recovery is about honesty, self-honesty and self-truth. The book says that truth is our liberator. It cuts the cord that has bound us to alcohol, frees us up in a way that we can't even imagine. So what happens is, when you say to yourself in a self-truth and self-honest way, you ask yourself, do I want to be sober more than I want to get drunk? When you can answer that question truthfully and honestly, the fire just burns. See AA has a way of magnetizing it. You know, I come to meetings all the time. time. I've been to a meeting this morning, and I rest over here, you know, see because if I don't come here, I listen when I come here too. And this is what I listen to, I hear people say, I had 10 years, I went back out. I had 15 years, I went out. Or people say well you know once God went back out and died. See that makes me stare at the ashes and the emeralds and then I would feed some wood to it because I know tonight that no matter how many meetings I go to, how often I share with you, how many phone calls I make, how often i do whatever I do in AA, I know that at times my old way of thinking can come back and it can come at times with an overwhelming force and if I'm not careful that 49%? See, here's the thing they told me in my home group. They said, Jim, be on guard because guess what? Your disease does step work too. You ain't careful because your disease will take advantage of a bad situation. If I wasn't careful when my wife left, man, any other time with her gone and the kids gone, the house empty, it would have been a great time to celebrate. you know what i mean she's gone and most of all my mother-in-law gone with it i know she ain't gonna know about this i guess but you you must remember that continuous sobriety you know the book tells us that that this is a lifelong process lifelong and that we must always be attuned to our recovery when we go when we don't want to go we come to the meetings because someone there is in need of our help. The book tells us that Alcoholics Anonymous is more than a set of principles. It is alcoholics in action who must carry the message or they put their own sobriety in jeopardy and those that have not heard the truth might die. Now, if that don't spark your furnace, keep coming back. Now... I'm going to say this here and shut my mouth. You know, I feel like Al Sharpton now. I'm gonna read you some of my home group that believed in reading the book. And they told me to read, and every night at the meeting I had to read something that was directly related to the topic in the meeting. and they told me to find a story in the book that I would want to emulate, you know, get back there and find something, Jim, in the big book, in those stories that you would want your life, that you will be able to say about your life. Tonight, a long time back, I found that story and you know in my book, if you notice in my books, I never write anything. They told me don't highlighting that in the book. They said because if I highlight something, if I highlight one thing, I'll put a little light on something else and everything in the big book is important. Everything we read about recovery is important so I don't highlight it but let me tell you this every now and then I do kind of fold the page over. I'm still alcoholic and I'll say this and shut my mouth guys right here in the book and if you don't know where it is, just start on page one. It says these last years have been the happiest of my life, trite as this statement might seem. I would not have been able to enjoy my life had I not stopped drinking. This latest part of my has had a purpose, not in great things accomplished but in daily living. Courage to face each day has replaced the fear and uncertainties of early years. Acceptance of the things as they are has replaced the old patience, impatience, chomping at the bit to conquer the world. I have stopped tilling at windmills and instead I have tried to accomplish the little daily tasks unimportant in themselves but the tasks that aren't any good part of living life to the fullest. Where terrorism, contempt and pity were once shown me, I now enjoy the respect of many people. Where I once had casual acquaintances, all of whom were fairer than friends, I have a host of friends who accept me for what I am. Over my A.A. years, I have made many real, honest, sincere friendships that I should always cherish—Terry, Howard, Father, Cleve, Darlene, Cookie, all of you. I am rated a modestly successful man. My stock in material goods isn't great, but I have a fortune in friendship, courage, self-assurance, and an honest appraisal of my own abilities. Above all, I have gained the greatest thing accorded to any man, the love and understanding of a gracious God who has lifted me, Jim, an alcoholic from the alcoholic scrap heap to a position of trust where I have been able to reap the rich rewards that comes from showing a little love for others and from serving them as I can. I'm Jim, alcoholic. Thank you.