He Refused to Get Academic About the Nature of the Illness – Tom I.

Charlie, thank you. That is the shortest I've seen him and heard him. It's great to see you. I'm Tom Ivister, an alcoholic. Delighted to be here. It's a great Sunday morning crowd and it is a real pleasure to be here. The reunion, I was just thinking about the, if I'm not mistaken, this is, well, certainly the only state that I've ever been where what's normally called a convention is called a reunion, and it's a great term. It's also kind of indicative of my experience because over the years, as I go around to different places and groups all around the place, it more and more becomes like a reunion. Because when I come in, it's just like old family. Yeah, I usually get to meet a few new folks, but most people I've seen pretty recently. Most of them heard me in the last three weeks somewhere. And it'sjust great to have that spirit be involved in what I do for sure. I'll tell you what that means by just a point of contrast. When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'll tell you a little bit more about this later, I honestly believe I was the most isolated person I have ever seen come into these rooms. I don't know of anybody I've ever met that was more isolated. And what a great feeling to be able to travel around North America and cannot go into a state or a province where I don' t have a good close friend that's very important to me. So that's what the story of a convention becoming a reunion is about for a guy like me, and so I am delighted to be here. I appreciate Charlie's good leadership in what he's doing. Knows how to pass the buck. That was the shortest silent moment before the meeting I've ever heard or not heard. You don't hear a silent moment. He's aware that I have to catch a plane at six o'clock over in Omaha and it's a two-hour drive and he knows that I might no I won't do that. Real proud of Cammie. I think she's either stealing the money or looking after it. Hadn't seen her all weekend without the money bag, and she's tough. She is tough. That girl told me that I could fly any way I wanted to as long as it didn't cost anything. Not bad in the baggage compartment. Beat me to death on the way here. Well, it is super to be here. I wasn't going to do it, but I was thinking about it. I just want to throw in a little something extra. No extra charge, Tammy, but Cammy, but i'm gonna throw in just one unanticipated thing. It is our birthday and it's a good time to sort of take a look at what kind of fix we're in in 66. The, uh, I say about the celebration of a birthday today and celebrating of our collective birthday, it reminds me of a thing that I always like to sort of keep in mind about one of the experiences I've had. I'm a great lover of our history. I'ma great lover going to Akron. I've been there a lot of times. One trip up there, I never had gone into the Mayflower. I'd go into all of the historic sites, but I'd never gone into The Mayflower because it's now a residential facility and I don't like to just walk into folks' residences. And I used to, but I tried to quit that stuff. And one of those enterprising drunks in Akron said, Come on, man, we can get in there. So we walked in and I went in not knowing exactly what it looked like. The building is in essentially the same shape as it was back then as far as the way it's laid out. If you haven't been, I hope to God that you get a chance to go sometime and your experience will be a little like mine. So I went ahead and we walked the lobby, what they call a lobby, not to lobby, it's to mezzanine, what we call mezzanein, the second landing of the thing. And I went up there and I'll just share with you just very quickly because I do want to catch that plane about what was going on in my mind. I've relived our history many, many times but once in a while I've had a chance to retrace the steps of our history and that's what I did that day. I stood there in the Mayflower and just kind of mentally and spiritually relived that story as bill told it you know of standing in that mezzanine hanging in the balance of whether to reach back for the comfortable release that he knew all too well or to hang on and take that blind step of faith into something he didn't know because as you know the story he was flat down he He had run out of options. He was up against it in the city of Akron in a strange town. He was the only recovered alcoholic that he knew, and he knew he was in trouble. And so what he did was that pacing back and forth, listening to the sounds in the bar with that come on, Bill, we got something for you in here. And Bill knew what was in there, and he wanted to go. But he also knew that he had one shot if he could hang on to it. And I thought, my God, as I was looking at that, what a slender thread held the destiny of me and you. That wasn't just one guy surviving. That was a fellowship in the making surviving. And our stories would be totally different had he made a different move than he made that day. What a slinder thread. We might have had stories, but they would have been different stories. and I just sort of did a little role play thing in a way I walked how I thought Bill walked and I felt like I know Bill felt and that was no real performance on my part I felt that way as I just sort of relived that with Bill and thought about what a perilous slender thread held this thing and tremendously grateful that that guy was able to hang on and see us into a new beginning. Always grateful. And I'll tell you something that I believe, that I like contrasting. Let me contrast that. I don't think those days of harrowing peril are behind us. I think every new member of Alcoholics Anonymous that comes here, like the young fellow with four days yesterday who stood up, I don't know how you have the courage at four days to stand up but he did. But I'll guarantee you this thread is slender for that young fellow. About as slender as it was for Bill. I'll give you one example and then I'm going to get on in to drink and throw it up. I was in Ardmore, Oklahoma a while back on a Thursday night and I went down to a meeting with a buddy and there was a normal kind of a meeting that very common in this part of the world they're sort of call-up meeting where you just call up folks to talk a few minutes and and they're usually very good meetings and and that's what it was and and in the course of the meeting i mean it was an average kind of looking meeting and they called on a fellow named alan now listen to this story alan went up i've seen nervous speakers and i've been a nervous speaker a few thousand times, but I have never seen anybody that suffered more trying to get out what he wanted to share. Guy was almost hyperventilating and so he kept gasping and he finally got out a little bit of what he want to share, and here's what Allen did. He had been in AA one time seven years earlier, apparently had a decent experience, and then And he did what, unfortunately, many do. He went back out and tried it again. And he was coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous. And here he is breathing and going through agony just trying to share the experience. He came to town at 5 o'clock. And he spent the time between 5 and 8 driving around the town and circling the block that the meeting was in very frequently trying to get up the nerve to go in. How slender the thread, how slender the thread. Be real easy to say well Alan already knows about this you can forget that it ain't about knowledge is it? It's about a spirit it's about a willingness to reach out hang on how slendered the thread 66 years later we're looking at the same dilemma and I hope that we don't get so relaxed and complacent in the notion that well everybody knows about it and they already know, that we forget about the desperation that surrounds every case. I'm kind of thinking about that, excuse me, on our birthday. Well, I'm an alcoholic. And I thought I was a unique kind of breed like most folks when I first got here. I don't really think so. I'm a fairly average slice of life. I think we come in two basic packages. One is the kind who just sort of goes through a semblance of normalcy, He runs General Motors or something. And, you know, has a little ups and downs and stuff and then just sort of goes off to deep end and stays there. Now that's an alcoholic, bourbon-swilling alcoholic. True to the species, absolutely, no question. There's another type of whom I think I was an early model. I thinkI was just a forerunner of the species who's a basket case from day one. And I was that kind. I was the kind of guy that was just ready-made to have trouble with booze. And so when I started to drink, something happened to me. Something happened that was very important. Now, I don't think I was an instant alcoholic. Don't think it was born alcoholic. Don't thing I was somebody that was a real quick—well, I was a fairly quickly developed alcoholic, but I wasn't an alcoholic first. I was guy who had a very uncomfortable kind of a life that I hear about every time I hear somebody speak at AA. And I was a guy, like many, for whom it solved the problem. And it gave me a real sense of well-being. It made me feel good. It made my feel more than adequate. Not only let me fit in the crowd, it let me take that sucker over most of the time. And I just loved it. I enjoyed it. I almost enjoyed myself to death. I mean, I just flat loved it I loved everything about it. Loved the effect. Didn't want the party to end. And that's all it was. it made imminent sense to me for me to have not drunk would have been abnormal i mean it wouldn't make a bit of sense if if this feels good and it's enjoyable and this feels lousy and it sucks why would i do that i mean that makes sense to be i mean dumb as i was i could figure that out And so I just stayed there and wanted to stay there and would have stayed there, except for one thing. I was the guy that was just set up to develop alcoholism. Don't know why. Don't really care why. There are a lot of stuff about it. My friend was mentioning about it coming down to large contingencies thinking it's genetic. I don't know if it's genetic, chemical, heredity, environmental, social. Couldn't care less. Doesn't really matter. It's kind of interesting if I don' t have anything else to do to read some of that stuff. But I have found absolutely none of it of much importance in my recovery. It is very important and the most important thing that I know about alcoholism is that I have it. And that's all I really need to know. Now, I'm not the village idiot. Of course, there's some causation involved in the inventory process, but I'll guarantee you I'm nicht studying die Ideologie des Alkoholismus, but it was ideology. Sound like a foreign language or something. Well, it is a foreign langauge to me. I'm no interest in that stuff. All I know about alcoholism is that somewhere along in about my 18th year, I developed it. Now,I didn't know it. No bail run. No light went off. No revelation came. I had not a clue that anything had changed in my life until I was sober a good while in AA. And then in looking back, I could see that at some point, best I can tell in my 18th year, I did what we call cross the line and developed alcoholism. And the way I like to understand alcoholism, well, there's two things. There's a basic thing in the book that's my favorite line of books says that we're men and women who've lost the ability to control our drinking. And that's the heart of the matter to me. That's exactly what it looks like. And it's reflected in my life, in that it causes continuing, continuing disruption in important areas of my life. And when I take a look at that thing, and as I started to take a Look at It, my God, I could see a disruption in everything about my life and anybody that knew me. Home, family, job, money, society, anything. was really impacted heavily by my alcoholism. So that's what happened to me. I went over that line, and though I didn't realize it, my life became totally unpredictable from that point on if I took one drink of anything with alcohol. And I didn'T know that. I never knew until I was sober in Alcoholics Anonymous that there was a direct connection between the first drink and problems. I never connected the two. It made no sense to me. When I got in the A and heard people talk about it's the first drink that gets you, I thought that's the dumbest thing I'd ever heard grown folks say. Sounded to me like when they took a drink, they sort of fell out kicking or something and had running fits or something. Well, I never did anything like that. When I took a drank, all I did was take another drink and another one and then wind up married to somebody i don't know you know but i didn't connect that to the first drink ever at all till i was sober and a and uh and so so i had not a clue and and my life just became a an almost endless series of of bizarre situations i mean i was forever winding up in in bizarre situations because i'd stop to have a couple drinks with the guys wind up closing the joint in a bootleg to join in jail or in the wrong state or God knows what. And it was just, never do I recall giving any serious consideration to well if I hadn't started drinking this wouldn't have happened. I never considered that. I didn't think that way. What I thought was that I was just no good. That I was worthless. That I had no responsibility, no moral build up, no character, no fiber to my being. That's what I thought and I honestly believed that. Never seriously considered that booze was driving my life until I was sober and alcoholics or not. So I just got caught up in it. I just kind of, because I do want to talk about some other stuff but I want to just kind of describe it this way. That was one description of my life, just that kind of meaningless headlong rush into oblivion is what i was doing it had no real meaning or purpose or or fights and does that stuff it was just a headlong rush mine happened so quickly that when i got sober and looked back at it then and now it looked like a blur it was not a well-defined history it was just a blur of wild reckless uh crashing crashing through life the other thing i think was was Characteristic is, you know, we kid around a lot about potential. You know, about, we say it's a really overused word in regard to alcoholics. I don't think it's overused. I'm constantly amazed at how many alcoholics I see get sober and become tremendously productive people, become very talented people. You know Peg, Peg, our buddy Peg, great artist. You know got her stuff hanging all over my house trying to make me pay for it. to no avail, I might add. A guy named Wallace that some of you have met out here, is a guy I've been working with for 38 years. I'd watched that boy, oh man, but he was a boy when I met him. I watched him come to his senses locked up in a zoo of a prison and watched him discover he was an artist. a tremendous gift in his life i see it all the time well i was the kind of guy when when i was drinking still i was sober too i think really i fulton arsler wrote an article charming is the alcoholic something like that i had a remarkable ability to make great impressions on people. I always looked good and I was the kind of guy that got routinely overrated and I'll just give you a couple examples of what I'm talking about. I went military, I was a doofus kid, just a real doofas kid, never been anywhere done anything except screw up in North Carolina. Went in the army, loved it about 30 minutes then i met the first guy in charge that sucker talked to me like a dog and i'd never seen him before in my life and i hated it tried to quit for the next three years they wouldn't let me go and well i mean i was a goofball i was what eight ball they call it i mean of the first order went through training and i mean shoot man I'd have made Gomer Pyle look like Ollie North I was a bad case and at the end of it they put a thousand of us going through training they stuck us out in a big field and they were going to pick out the five guys out of a thousand who were the most outstanding leader types in the crowd they called me when they called my name I said huh several other guys did too that was an that was a military government evaluation well I knew that was a mistake and they sent me off they were going to OCS to be an officer a leader of men and a little while later they learned what they had and i spent my military career up in alaska and the aleutian islands instead well that's a great start isn't it i mean how could you get a better start than that i had a great ability to make good impressions and get overrated but an even greater ability to screw up the best thing going an amazing amazing quality of drinking at exactly the wrong time and disaster always came so no matter how good the opportunity year i got thrown out i was thrown out of the army finally with an undesirable discharge for alcoholism 20 years old year i hit the street i was voted salesman of the year in a company that i went to work for fired the same year. Valor and court-martialed in one swoop. Fired the same year. And that's something, typical of alcoholics of my type. Had an opportunity, one more, had an opportunity to go to the University of Missouri Law School. No cost whatsoever. books room drinking nothing no cost at all the only downside was that when I went came out I had to go for two years to Fargo North Dakota I must have thought what an order I probably didn't know where Fargo was they don't care but what a great opportunity but i decided to go on a drunk instead well god on and on but that was the story of my life unbelievable starts and and even more unbelievable finishes and that that just was the story in my life and i just crashed on and and and my my uh my drinking in one respect lasted an unbelievable period of time but in reality it lasted a total of eight years. I started serious drinking at 16, wound up what I hope was my last drinking eight years later at the age of 24. And in that period, I did about as much devastation to this guy and to many others as I could do. Guys like me, I guarantee you guys like me don't become old drunks. They don't make it. I used to rather morbidly predict that I wouldn't live to 30, even drunk. I didn't have any illusions about lasting long and I didn'T even think I had a problem with alcohol. I just knew I was a wild and crazy guy and a guy that crazy is not going to survive too long. And so I wound up up in Flint, Michigan, worked in General Motors till my reputation got in front of me and then wound up darn near unemployable in a city of a half million people, and I'm not proud of my existence. I'm not a criminal. I never have been. I'm an alcoholic and I did a lot of things that were legally frowned on but I didn't consider them crime it was just the way the world worked where I was and you either did that or you didn't survive. I mean if you live in a jungle you live by the laws of the jungle and so I wasn't somebody who plotted to rob somebody or something like that i just sort of did it because they were there and unavailable but it was survival it was the food chain in that in that in that world well yeah i wound up uh living a life that i never even knew about when i started drinking i went up basically living on the streets unemployed darn near employed i didn't hole up with somebody that would be crazy enough to take me and never found anybody crazy enough to keep me but a lot of them took me in and rushed me out and and they slept in the theater that charlie's ambition to go to rialto theater in flint and see my old bed that's probably still there and that existence i never believed i would i didn't even know it existed and it was unbelievable amazing thing is that you know you don't just wake up in that hey you don't just go from a bright young kid to a to a street drunk in one fell swoop you know that happened it happened in a real reckless and loud way but in a subtle way you know i got to that point in such a way that it became the only normal existence for me i didn't wake up in a horrible environment that was unthinkable i kind of worked my way there And it was the only normal thing for me. Well, that was my existence for the last year that I drank it. I pray to God I never forget it. I never want to get to thinking that alcoholism is some cute little social misbehavior. I don't want to ever get real academic about the nature of this illness because I know what it will do to me. I have no illusions whatsoever. And so that's where I wound up. Many of you know that my story was to include great tragedy, not in terms of what happened to me but in terms of what I did because, you know, unfortunately, I never came in contact with any awareness. I've never looked for any, but of all the people who captured me, I never had anybody tell me anything about Help for Drunks. I guess it was there, but I didn't know anything about it. And it'd be nice if I could say I learned about that and grabbed hold and got back, but it didn't happen. And I stayed there too long. Wound up doing the kind of thing I know every alcoholic in this world has feared doing and thank God most don't, most don'T. I knew that I was as crazy as I was. I knewthat I was capable of anything but I never meant to do anything. It was just an outgrowth of the way I lived. And one morning I woke up in jail in Flint. No novelty. I was there and God knows that was one of my more frequent addresses. And I assumed I was there for the same as always, you know, drunk or hustling or some street behavior. And a jailer came by, knew him well, asked him when I could get out. He said, I hope never. And I didn't know what he was talking about. Normally he would say 10 o'clock. That was the drunk getting out time. And he said, oh, never, and walked off. I knew he wasn't kidding. And then a little later, some of the other guys in there told me that the night before, they'd read it in the paper, the night before, I'd been driving somebody's car down blind, drunk, blacked out down to Main Street in the city and ran down and killed two people. And my response, I guess, is understandable to somebody that understands the human mind. It was just shock and disbelief and, you know, the mind withholds what it can't handle. And that was my response. I just could not take that in. I mean, I could believe anything. I just couldn't live with it, and there's no point in trying to explain the aftermath of that. It was deeply, deeply a shame to be alive, a shame to be breathing. A street drunk and two fine young folks don't balance out very well, and only time I'd ever been in jail didn't try to get out, and there was somebody there. I don't even know who it was. I think one of the policemen had learned that I had family in North Carolina and called them said, you got a guy up here in a lot of trouble. And they came up, my mother and sister came up to see what they could do. They got an attorney, negotiated my release on bond. I didn't know how to tell them I didn' t want out. I was afraid to get out. And couldn't face anybody, as you can understand. But I didn''t know how to say that. So I was released July 17th of 56, knew that I would never drink again. My God, if you understand anything about alcoholism, you know what a whistle in the dark that is stayed sober day and a half and then of course i drank like nobody i've ever seen from july to november of 56 and then i had what i hope pray was my last drink on the 19th of november or 56. i didn't know it was going to be but i knew it was going to last me for a long time and that day i was to be tried on the charge of manslaughter and i knew there was to have been a one-way trip when i went to court i had no defense I couldn't even tell them what I'd done. They had to tell me what I was done. My attorney told me to stand mute I had never heard that plea But how eloquent a plea when you don't know what happened Yeah, when when someone has to tell you what you've done How could you plead anything else and then of course found guilty and sentenced to five to fifteen years in the in the Michigan State Penitentiary Well, I mean I was not as you probably have gathered I was not a hothouse flower, but and I'd been in jail ad infinitum. It seemed like that. I was in jail a lot But there's a big difference between an overnight drunk tank or a stockade or a Peafarm or something like that and a maximum custody penitentiary And I knew some guys on the street that were in and out of the place I was going so I had no illusions about it it was really telling to me that when that sentence was passed I had an instinctive reaction of fear but the most real sense of relief I'd ever known because I knew it was over and I'm not talking about optimism it was just absolute resignation it's done, it's over and the next day I walked in resigned to my fate never believed I would ever come out of there alive and would not if it weren't for what we're celebrating 66 years of today this program I'm sure they do lots of well I'm not sure I know that they do lots of well-intended things but the one thing that made the difference in my entire life as far as being able to live life was Alcoholics Anonymous now I certainly wasn't looking for anything I didn't know it existed and a guy called me for an interview one day it's one of the reasons that I'm glad that my buddy Bobby is going on board of CPCPI critically important area of service that is often neglected because we've gone through a generation of very little active outreach for alcoholics you know and as treatment declines that needs going to be more and more apparent and so Godspeed in that work buddy then I guess one of the reasons that I feel strongly about that kind of thing there was my experience of course, you always feel strongly about what you experience. And a guy called me out for an interview, little social worker, rookie, knew nothing about alcoholism. Thank God he didn't try to teach me anything about it. He just did what social workers are supposed to do. He talked to me about my history. He didn't have any trouble diagnosing me. I've never had a diagnosis in my life except, my God, you drink a lot or you're drunk or youre awful or you re alcoholic. None ever had any meaning to me. And this guy did the same litany of stuff about my history and all that, made the same diagnosis. Then he said something I never heard. He said, we have an AA group here and I think you ought to go. The exact way he put it. He didn't draft me or anything like that. He just sort of said, here's your case. You got this and they fixed it over there. You ought to go. And I walked into my first meeting, February 2nd of 57. Not a clue what to expect. Not a clue. Just like anybody. I thought sure they'd sing Amazing Grace. I just knew they were going to do that. I had never been anywhere where anybody called themselves trying to reform drunks. I though that was the Drunk's National Anthem when I first came in here. It's a great song. I love it now. They didn't do it. We did pray a lot, and that worried me some. But that started a brand new life for me. Now, I certainly didn't know that that day. Yeah, there were 300 guys in that group. When I walked in, there was one person spoke to me. He had an officer on the door. I walked into him. His name right there is Ivester. Yes, sir. Sit down. And I sat down in the middle of that 300. I'm absolutely unaware of anything about that program whatsoever. Didn't believe I was an alcoholic. Been drunk all those years. Done more damage than any human ever ought to do. Been in jackpots and jails and psych wards and hospitals my entire teenage years. I didn't believe it was alcoholics. Yeah, I believe I Was a guy who just sort of was short in the character department and that I really could handle this stuff. I really believed that. I had not a clue what alcoholism meant. So I sat down and listened to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I'll value to my grave. Now, I would not have said that that day, but I sat there and listened at my first speaker, a guy named Shai Walker, and I came to love the man dearly. He became my first sponsor. And I truly loved the guy. And the reason I think that that was such an important, defining day for me was that I caught the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not the words. You know, I didn't believe I was an alcoholic. Going to that meeting didn't change it. Listening to Shy tell his story didn't change it, he was as different from me as night is from day. But I caught his spirit. Shy was a speaker who was absolutely imbued with a sense of enthusiasm second to none. Thank God for that guy. thank god for enthusiastic people i i think enthusiasm is a tremendous healing force and and a and a big big need in the work we do and that and i know that that was the only thing that really had any impact on me that day and i couldn't have described that i just came back to next meeting didn't have to but the next week i just found myself back there i stayed in there three and a half years, never missed a single meeting. Now whether it was once a week or once a day, I never missed the single one but for a good while certainly not because I had any sense of belonging, of being in the right place. I mentioned early on talking about that reunion that I was an extremely isolated fellow and I believe isolation is a critical part of the illness for a lot of people. More severe in some than others but I was extremely isolated felt. I felt exquisitely alone in Alcoholics Anonymous, in 300 people. I had no sense of connection, no sense belonging in that group. I'm a face in the crowd, just another tragic face in a crowd of a chain of human misery and that's all it was. But it kept going back and I think it was just that kind of wistful hope or something, just that sense of going back that maybe there's something there and and and i'll tell you i'm afraid to look at my watch again i want to tell you sort of definitively about about um you know you know what clicked for me i'm not somebody who thinks he thinks in terms of just sort of being overcome with the karma and stuff like that yeah i'm somebody who's a fairly practical thinker and and And when I think about those things that really shaped a new life for me that we call what happened, well, I think what happened includes all the stuff I've been talking about and then very critically include that little old social worker. The reason he did what he did was somebody had enough insight to say, well, you got a guy with a file like this and it's all about booze, tell him to go over there. Thank God somebody told him that. Usually that comes from folks like us when we do CPCPI. and that was certainly a part of it is what started the process very interesting to me more than interesting it's tremendously meaningful to me i responded to the first invitation i ever heard and have never looked back wonder how many other alcoholics well just that was certain part of what happened the other part of what happened was shy you know i met a member who was who was filled with the spirit of enthusiasm who didn't say it but who demonstrated that there is life after sobriety i never was sure there was not drinking looked like a fairly poor second to drinking and so it was tremendously important for me to read to see somebody who genuinely demonstrated that hey there's life here now i didn't understand that at the time i just simply responded to it tremendously my group there the recovery group of jackson prison one of the finest a groups i've ever been in thank god it was good enough for a guy like me it was good enough to take this runaway wrecking ball and give him a good founding and grounding in alcoholism thank god for that and what i mean by a good group not not that you just had wonderful whoop-dee-doo meetings, but it was a group that was well-structured and purposefully structured. It was a Group that did a great job of carrying out our purpose of helping other alcoholics to recover from this illness. And I'm talking about guys in the joint. Now certainly it was wonderful for guys from the outside to come in and give that message of love and hope and all of the things that accrue to that. but it was tremendously important for the interaction to occur with the guys with whom i lived and that was a solid group they did a great job in charlotte talking about the group that they're in had to go through 12 weeks of use the steps as a framework to introduce somebody to the design for living design for leaving had a lot of meaning for me a lot more than charismatic experience or something that said something. It was solid, it was functional, it was workable and this is designed for living. The mystery was taken out of it somewhat and I was given to understand that this is not something that happens to a fortunate few. It's not something that just sort of takes you over. That it's a program in which if I take the action, the results occur and it doesn't matter about my motives doesn't matter how sincere I am it just matters about my willingness to take the step take the action and results happen that's not a theory with me folks that's a fact that's the fact because that's exactly the way it works so I thank God for a group like that this was a group that was sound not only because it did a great job of introducing people the program of recovery, but it was one in which all the legacies were in place. It wasn't a group that spent all of its time on recovery and checking my emotional pulse. It was a group that got busy with the business of practicing the other legacies like unity. Of how tremendously important it is for me to learn how to be a fellow member. of how to be helpful in the world around me. Tremendously important for a guy like me. It was a group that believed in active service. And I got pushed into service. That was not some vague idea that I had when I got out. I got pushed into service in a maximum custody penitentiary and have never been more richly rewarded anywhere in my life. never even been as richly rewarded because I was doing the toughest living I have ever done. This program was equal to it not only in terms of surviving, but of learning to grow and flourish as a human being simply by carrying out the legacies. What I did basically was just give a broken wasted life to this simple program and what it did was give me back a life beyond anything I would have even dared hope and that's before I got out I became a free man strange as it seems a free man in a maximum custody penitentiary makes no sense to the logical mind but if you've experienced the freedom that we experience in recovery, you know what I'm talking about. It doesn't have to do with station and place and possessions. That's a spiritual thing. And I've never been freer in my life. First day I ever experienced pure joy. Ever. Right there. Powerful stuff. That's why I'm a strong believer in groups. I'm not a chat room guy. I got a guy, a sponsor down in another state that he refers to what I call lightweight meetings. He refers to them as the wine and cheese crowd. I'm not a lightweight guy. I believe that groups are powerful, powerful tools in recovery and I think they're powerful tools in our society. I was a fortunate guy. Let me just talk about three, maybe two or three elements of that. Well, I was talking about it last night when Don was talking. I love to be around people older than me I'm running out of them I really treasure that don't you die boy don't don't treasure folks like and I was thinking about I never have sort of codified this or anything but if you look about our history it looks to me like we break up into three sort of distinct periods of development. Sound like a sociologist, you know. One was that period with the first hundred. Now I didn't identify with that crowd. Here were a bunch of drunks headed out on a trip, didn't have a clue where they're going. Didn't even have a place to meet. They just huddled up my alley or something. You would talk and no rules, nobody in charge except Bill and there wasn't anybody listening to him. and and they were just like a herd of goats out running around doing their thing you know i'm sure it had a lot of spiritual magnetism to it but they didn't have a clue they couldn't tell what they're doing they just say come on do it and here we go now i can identify with that bunch man i would have felt right at home with that crowd but the crowd that followed that you know right i won't go into history much but right after the the alexander article hit you know and a few things started to happen. Picture this. Here's on a good day, 100, and I'm not sure we ever had 100 during that period, but on a Good Day, let's be generous and say 100. Here's 100 people running around like chickens with their head cut off, don't have a clue what's going on. They start to get some publicity just because it seemed like a good idea. Alexander article hits, we get flooded with 8,000 8, 000 pleas for help all over the place what on earth do you do what do you do well I really believe that there were a rather heroic sort of level of people who responded to that challenge. Think about what that old boy was talking about last night. Here were a group of guys in northern Ontario and your closest neighbor in northern Ontario is a moose. Believe me, it's a moos. And here are a group of guys up there in a remote place in northern Ontario and they get this sort of hunch that there's hope and they plant the flag. Plant the flag They hang on They've got no Rockefeller dinner to go to Man, they're lucky to eat if they have to catch it if they're going to eat anything They've Got No Support They've Gotta No Community That's Supporting The Work They're A Bunch Of Guys In The Wilderness Holding The Flag Somebody Did That In Grand Island, Nebraska Heard A Little Mention of some people who sounded like flag planters to me well i think there was a kind of a heroic response when alcoholics anonymous started to come together as a purposeful fellowship and people met in convention and sort of plotted the future that we wanted to do right we uh that group and i mentioned them because i was blessed with having the message carried to me by that group that's where guys like shy came from and i was blest to have those i like to look at it that i was carried into alcoholics anonymous on the shoulders of giants And I truly mean that Very fortunate to have had that So that was a tremendously important experience for me That group was tremendously important for me Where you settle down and get into the business of recovery I'm going to run out of time I'm not even going to have time to tell you about A lot of stuff I guess y'all know that I went on Got sober and became an angel i don't mean to minimize anything but you can only talk about certain certain amount you know and then the plane goes that's the uh and so do you and i always like to quit just before the crowd does is what i'm so so so i can time that uh and i don' t mean to minute because i to know how important it is to me and also what the symbolic value is when with what happened my life i said about last night dinner i was absolutely blessed because when i when i gave my life to this simple program it honest to god took me through doors i wouldn't have knocked on and it gave me a way of life that was unbelievable they let me out of prison after three and a half years tremendously active in the outside two years after i was out i was recruited by the state of North Carolina to join the correction system, the first ex-con in history anywhere to do that and I was given the high honor and privilege of planting that flag. And just finished up a 39 year career last December and wonderful career became a warden doing that career. I mean that sounded like you're drinking when you tell a story like that. Can't happen you know but it's amazing what happens when i give my life to the simple program and so they're tremendous things but i wanted i want to just sort of sort of head for home you don't want to give you optimism on this unduly but i want a head for hum on on this note there are things that i got to thinking about this uh theme of this conference this road of happy destiny interesting to me it doesn't say road to happy destiny they wrote off happy destiny huge difference in the today Road twos where I'm going road of is where I am and what we talk about in this program that sobriety is recovery of sobrieta either one is not a destination it's not somewhere we're going recovery is a practice it's a practice and the journey is just that it's a journey it's not getting somewhere and the whole measure of alcoholics to me anonymous to me it is it's how well am i traveling in this journey let me take a second and do something that that uh i was thinking about if i could plan 164 which Used to be easy. Now they got it at 194. Think about this just one second, and then we'll talk about two other things and sit down. The last part of that thing where it uses that theme, and I've never seen that quite that way at a conference, so I was glad to see it. It says, abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Steps 1, 2, and 3 is what that's about. It's about surrender and a power. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. That's how we start. Admit your faults to him and your fellows. Steps 4 through 7 is about getting rid of the garbage. Getting cleaned out inside so that I can get rid of those demons that drive me. Those character defects. Okay? clear away the wreckage of your past 8 and 9 simple little exercises all they do is make it possible for me to look my fellow man in the eye no matter who he is to be able to say to anybody my life's an open book if you want to know ask me it's the freedom the freedom you're freely of what you find and join us first I'm out with the legacies yeah you're free practice these principles in my affairs give freely to other people be a maximum service to God and those about us and that's what the program of recovery does that's what lays out the road of happy destiny and i always tell how i'm doing on that road of happy destiny by how well i live it in principle principle-based relationships with the people around me and with the world i live in and if i'm not living in principle- based relationships with people I've got work to do and it won't be happy destiny it'll look like the road into this motel a drunk designed that I guarantee you and then we'll be with you in the fellowship spirit. And to me, that's what's so profound about a thing like that. And it's so profound about why those fundamental things like solid members who are purposefully working, about well-ordered groups that meet and act like they're doing serious business. Now, I don't mean somber meetings, but I'm one who believes that every meeting is important. Every meeting. Because we're dealing with a killer illness. We're dealing with an illness who produces the lad who was driving around that square trying to get up nerve to go in. Groups that act like it's an important thing and it's a big deal now we do have a lot of fun in it but bottom line serious is a heart attack about what this news about yeah I belong to a strong group and I believe in stronger I believe in well-ordered groups that are purposefully organized that's where I started that's the way I believe and I believed that that the group is the basic the basic unit of service and alcoholics not the basic it's where it starts I wanted to just mention a little bit here because I know Nebraska is in pretty good shape but you probably have no weak meetings in North Carolina and Nebraska the whole world ain't like Nebraska I'll tell you that when I take a look around I'm not a prophet of gloom yeah I'm having more fun and Alcoholics Anonymous at my 44th year was the best year I've ever had I'm as active as I've ever been I've never been more fired with imagination I've had more creative energy in my in my entire life and I thought it's not so I'm not some old goat that sitting back said oh Jesus what are they doing to us us includes me you know and and so I am tremendously concerned about the proliferation of kind of lightweight little meetings that have no real basis and structure of things. When you start looking at leadership, and leadership's not a dirty word. That's a real word. It's not an easy word. It's just not a dirt word. We just aren't bosses. We're folks who have bothered to step up and say, use me. That's all a leader is. Easy to tell if you're a good leader. All you got to do is look around behind you. There ain't nobody following you. You ain't leading us. But it's an important word. It's an important deal. Well, where do leaders come from? They don't just magically appear or fall out of a tree. Some of us act like we do but we don't. They come out of solid experience of learning how to give and take and practice legacies and make decisions. And so I'm somebody who's committed deeply to sound groups that deal with the solution, that are not just sort of waiting to see what's going to happen, that are in the business of trying to actively reach out to the alcoholic who's still suffering, no matter where he is. And that's what my group is. I'll tell you one thing that's a downside on that a little bit. It's not enough, I don't think. It's it's not enough to have a good, strong, structured group. And I'm deeply grateful that I belong to one. But that's not enough, because my group is no better than the world it lives in. My group's no better than the next group to it. And it's not enough for me to sit back in my group and say, well, I'm all well-fed and we really got something good going here. I wish other people did. That's not good enough. Autonomy doesn't mean isolation. It means some independence in how we operate but it doesn't mean isolation. It doesn't separate me from the world and so a part of the evaluation of my group is not only how sound it is but what kind of a neighbor we are to the groups around us and so for that reason we're strongly committed in our work at the district level and at the area level. We have three area officers in my home group right now and so we're deeply committed to to certainly that aspect very very important part of alcoholics anonymous and as leaders in alcoholics anonymous i know there are a lot of folks here who've got leadership positions i think those are issues that we need to to worry a little and and to pay attention to the last thing i just you know i'm going backward in a way i'm talking about the general down you know i'm a i'm a member i'm one member i'm one guy that's all i am i got the same vote as the guy who walks into my group as a newcomer tomorrow night i got to say both same authority but i'm one member and what i want to do is a member one i want to be a good member i want to be somebody who adds to the fellowship. I want to be somebody who brings something worthwhile to the scholarship. I want a guy who contributes to the atmosphere and the demeanor of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want do that. I want be a decent example of recovery. I don't want to some off-the-wall jackass that spends his whole time gossiping and criticizing and cutting up folks. I only don't what to, I'm not going to. don't do it and I don't listen to it because I think it's one of the most destructive forces that alcoholics anonymous ever sees so it's it's my choice you know what kind I'm gonna be you know the way I like to look at it you know when I walked into alcoholics Anonymous I became one link in a chain if i can borrow your hand a minute mike i became a link in a chain reaction of love and service that's reached around this world many times my question that poses to me is what kind of link am i going to be am i gonna be a weak link am I going to be a strong link am Am I going be one that makes the change stronger or am I are going to be selfish enough to say, gee folks, that's nice. I think I'll just stop and take mine over here. Deliver me. I want to be somebody who adds to this program. I wantto be somebody who when I welcome a newcomer I actually look at them and pay attention to them. I wanto make them know that they're in the right place and that theyre welcome here. Theyre not intruding. That theyre our lifeblood. I say to every new person I greet in the Alkosh Namas that I need them more than they need me now I know that they never believe that how could you my prayer is that I believe it that I belief it if I ever get to thinking that I'm doing some real benevolent thing for somebody I'm in deep trouble. If I ever get to thinking that my job is to teach somebody the facts of Alcoholics Anonymous and I lose the spirit of what this sucker's about. I want to be somebody who does what we do better than anybody this world has ever known, and that's to honestly connect with another alcoholic and share at a level other folks can't touch. Well, shoot. I got to go. Y'all been a good bunch. I appreciate you sticking around to Sunday. I appreciate you listening to me for a while. I look forward to seeing you before long.