The Moment of Clarity When the Gig Is Up – John A.

You got anybody else who want to read something? We haven't read chapter three yet. Read the whole damn book tonight. I didn't, I don't want to get into that. My name is John Allred and I'm an alcoholic. and I'm not even going to say anything about it y'all know him so how do you just say nothing about it but I have to tell you this this has been a great conference hasn't it it's been wonderful I I do want to say this I hope nobody I hope none of you take this for granted this is going to happen next year because it may not you know And that's a literal fact. My Dallas, my hometown, a lot of you know one of the biggest conferences, a great conference, my hometown conference is Lone Star Roundup. It's a great confidence. Ten years ago we had 4,000 people, Lone Start Roundup, you know? Five years later it was gone. No more Roundup You know, these things don't just happen. And if you want to make sure it happens, the best way to ensure that is to get with one of the committee members and say, what can I do next year? And if he'll do that, then you're ensuring that this conference will happen next year. Because this doesn't just happen. The committee has done a great job. I want to thank the committee for all their efforts. they uh they've uh they they have done an incredible job of getting the speakers they some of my favorite speakers here to this year i love bob he's just one of my heroes in a.a got a lot of heroes in aa uh bob's are right at the top of that list and sheila just knocked my socks off this morning she was just wonderful and and doug was great it's just been a great great great conference and then i'm surprised they call on me you know uh i really am because i don't do this very good and i don'T do a very good i wish i did a better but i really DON'T but then i DON'T KNOW ANYBODY THAT DOES a real good you know i REALLY DON'T i love the meeting after the meeting you know when you're out having coffee and you're having ice cream you're trying to help another Another alcoholic who's usually not there, you know. And you're just talking about him a little bit, you know, trying to help him out. Somebody inevitably says, I love this one. They say, oh yeah, yeah, I know that guy. He talks the talk, but he can't walk the walk. Who are we kidding? None of us can walk the walking. I mean, if I could walk the work, I wouldn't need to come to AA. I come to A because I can't work the work. That's what I'm doing here. You know? That's exactly what I am doing. I think that's what the book says, doesn't it? Doesn't the book say that? When it gets to reading how it works, we read the 12 steps, what does it say? Wow. What an order. Can't go through with it. Don't be discouraged. No one. They don't exclude anybody. They don' t exclude Dr. Bob. They don''t exclude Bill Wilson. They certainly don'' t exclude John Allred. no one among us has been able to maintain anything like. You know what that means? We didn't come close. So none of us can do this. Yet those of us who can't do it like talking about the rest of you that can't. Well, I don't do a better day than Dave don't. I don' t do it. But that's not my fault that I can't doing it. This is true. I'm an adult child of non-alcoholics. That's a bitch. I mean, I got nobody to blame. Nobody in my family drank. They still don't drink. My dad never drank. Brothers and sisters don't drank. Mom never drank, nobody drank. I grew up very normal environment. Very middle income America type stuff. you know we never like we never had to move in the middle of the night the lights always worked I flipped on a switch it always worked I was shocked when I got on my own and I flipped the switch on the lights didn't come on you know I thought they'd just come on you flip the switch and they ought to come on it's just a very normal healthy environment went to college like you're supposed to go to college never drank never drank in college got married my senior year like you're supposed to you know get senioritis so you get married and married a lovely gal i'm living in salt lake city utah things are going pretty good but i've always had i've almost been driven by one underlying force always drives me and everything i do that's fear and i was i i'm used to it i don't know i'm afraid i don'T know know I'm afraid. And when you're afraid and you don't know you're afraid, you're screwed up. You know? I'd go in the office, secretary would come in and give me these little messages, little pink slips. I'd say, well, what are these? She says, well those are your messages. Who from? She'd say I don't know. I said, well what do you think they want? She'd said, I guess they want to buy insurance you know I think from I mean phones are scary aren't phones scary God it scared me to death that phone ring ring ring who is it you know and you look at it and you wonder if it should answer it shouldn't answer it I want to tell you young alcoholics you young guys coming in today boy you have no idea the stark terror it is to be a practicing alcoholic have a telephone with no caller ID I mean that'll scare the hell out of you you know that phone rang ring and you'd look at it, you know. And then we finally got an answering machine so you could screen your calls. And the early ones, you had these little levers. You could have it pick up on the first ring or up to the sixth or seventh ring, you knows. I always picked mine up first ring. I mean, I want to know who's calling now. Now. In fact, I wanted to know whose calling before they call. Just, I'm going to know now, you kno. Only problem with that is when they wouldn't leave a message. And then your wife would walk around all day wondering, well, who called? didn't leave a message just drive you nuts I want to tell you all that technology stuff that was all invented by alcoholics for alcoholics make a lot easier on us but I'm working things are pretty good got a little wife got a baby insurance business winning some awards doing pretty good scared but I found out I had a random buddy, Stuart. Stuart drank and he drank in the bar. So I go down to Stuart, sit in the bar with Stuart. I love the bar God, I love it. I love everything about the bar and I like all kinds of bars I really do. I like dark, dingy bars. I like those bars. I like a lot of those New York fern bars you know, lots of brass and glass I like cowboy bars I've never been in a bar I didn't like I just like the bar. So I got out of the bar with Stuart. He drank whatever he was drinking, whiskey. I was drinking Coke. Never drinking. Drinking Coke. I love it. You get down there and see Ben and you want to be in the bar and you can sit down there and get some women over to the table and start talking and they say, what do you do? I like to do a lot of stuff. Sometimes I retire. I retired. 24-year-old retiree. Really? You must have made a lot of money. Oh, yeah, I sure did. That's why I drive a Toyota. Sometimes I like to be the mystery guy when you don't really tell them what you're doing. They say, What do you do? Well, nothing. Well, you've got to do something. What do YOU do? Look, I can't talk about it, okay? Please, just drop it now. If you know what's good for you, drop it, OK? OK, one thing, then we've gotto drop it. Let's just say I work for the government. That's all I'm going to say. Okay, one more thing and then we've got to drop it. If I leave here tonight real quick, you break them out for me because there's some shit going on here tonight. That's what I'm gonna say about it. I love to do that. By the way, I'm doing all that sobering instead of drinking yet. But see, it never was good enough for me to be John Allred's insurance agent. I had to be johnallred's somebody else. It didn't really matter what that something else was as long as it was something other than what I really was. It could be anything other than what I truly was. And finally, when my second child was born, I had my first drunk. I'm only going to talk about my first and last drunk. First drunk was great. Stuart called me up and congratulated me. He says, we're going out partying tonight. You know, the wife's in the hospital. Grandma and Grandpa are watching the baby. So they got the other baby in the house. So you're alone, we'll go out drinking. We're going to celebrate. I'm buying. So I thought, great. Had my first drink. drunk. So we got to a private club. You've got to remember a private club in Utah doing drinking. We're out there, it's called the wineries, right across from the salt pass. You walk down these steps, we walked in, lights flashing, live band, music. God, it was great. And I had my first drink. I don't know what I drank. Some people know what they drank. I didn't know. I had no idea what I was drinking. I was drinking. They bring a drink, drink, dark drink, got a cherry in it. I drink it down. Next time somebody buy me a drink. It's light, light colored drink, gotta twist around it.I drink it it down. Somebody bought me a drink, had salt all around the room. I just drank it down. Whatever they buy, I'm drinking. Had a great drunk. God, it was great. Danced. I want to tell you something. A few drinks, I can dance. I don't think I can can dance. I know I can dance and I know that you want to dance with me. And I'm sitting there, just dance that night, dance with two lesbians. Okay. Well they're out there dancing together and I thought they probably want me to join them. So I went out and then they left together and there I was alone, you know. It's okay. No rejection. I found out when you're drunk, you're just drunk. There's no rejection when you drink, you just drunk got up the next morning. Really felt pretty good. A little tired. Not too bad. I called up Stuart. I said, Stuart, I had a ball had a bowl. He said, you did. You flat got after it. I think you're going to think you to go have a drink tonight. He says, I don't, I dunno. I hadn't thought about it. I'll probably stop by and have one, yeah. He says, what time? She says, well, I've got to work until 3 o'clock. So let's meet at 3.30. So we meet at 4.30, got drunk again. That's what I do, I get drunk. I love to get drunk, I love to drink. I just love to drink, you know. I never drank socially. I never got that cocktail or that glass of wine and visited, you know, and stirred your drink and all that stuff. I just drink to get drunken. That's What I Do. In fact, three weeks weeks after that first drunk. I remember pulling up in front of the liquor store at 10 in the morning because they open at 10, so I'm on time. And I go in there and I buy three little mini bottles of vodka because they told me you can't smell vodka. And I'd sit in the car and I'd crack those little mini-bottles open, those little mini-botles you get on an airplane. I'd crank those up and suck those down. That's hard. The hole's only that big in those little bottles. You get a hernia sucking on those puppies, you know. Then I'd be okay to go to work. And my life's changing immediately. I mean, immediately it's changing. And at that time, the mothers were getting organized. And they didn't like drunk drivers. And they were getting organised against drunk drivers and they were publishing a lot of articles in the newspaper. I read this one article in the paper that said only 1 in 2,000 drunk drivers gets picked up for DWI. One in 2000. I read that and I thought, that's pretty good odds. I can get drunk every single night. I got like five, six years before I need to worry about getting picked up for DWI. That's every night. I've been drinking six months getting my first DWI I thought what are the odds against that? That's okay. I got ten years for my next DWI You know, I looked at it. But my life's changing. People are starting to tell me stuff. Even the guys I'm drinking with are telling me, hey, you're drinking is crazy, man. Then they start to tell Me, I'm an alcoholic. So you're an alcoholic? And I say, well, and once they start telling you that, man, you've been drunk. Because there's no correct response to that accusation. You can't say, yeah, I am not. Because then they say, see, denial. You're in the first poop, denial, youre in denial. And you can't I say, yeah, you're probably right because then you've got to go to AA. So you're just screwed. I say what's an alcoholic? How do you know you're alcoholic? What's an alcoholic? Don't get excited, John. It's a disease. Okay, fine. Let's go to the doctor and get a proper diagnosis. Well, we can't do that. What do you mean you can't deal with it? We've got a disease we can' t go to a doctor for? Well, yeah. We can't go get like an MRI, CAT scan, find out if I really got alcoholism? No, we ca' n't do it. Well, how do you know you're an alcoholic? Can we go get some blood analysis? I mean, I've been watching CSI. They can do anything with blood. Can we get some血 analysis on this deal? No. How do you Know You're An Alcoholic? How do You Know That? I want you to know, they gave me that test, 20 questions. I can take that test and I can pass it non-alcoholic. I did it three times. Because I lie. Okay? In fact, I'm so good at lying, I don't know I'm lying. That's how good a liar I am. A lot of people call that denial. That's not denial. And we're not in denial. The book doesn't say that we're in denial, it's a wimpy deal, isn't it? Denial, the not willing to accept the truth, that's not us. The book says we're delusional. that's what i that's right that's that's that's a word we can buy into you know that's that's the inability to distinguish reality from fantasy we don't know what reality is and what fantasy is we're delusional you know but i didn't i just said what how do you know you're alcoholic what's an alcoholic what is that and you want you want me to quit drinking you know that's nuts you know that's not because when i'm drinking Drinking, it's amazing what happens. It's like a little bomb explodes inside of me and I'm complete and I'M full and I am happy, joyous and free. And you want me to quit? Why would you quit? When I quit, what happens is I'm restless, irritable and discontent. But when I'm drinking, I'm okay. And why would you quite? Hell, you're not going to quit. That's not what you're going to do. and so what happens is they keep throwing this alcoholism on you and they keep telling you you're alcoholic and you're an alcoholic and I'm saying how do you know you're not an alcoholic I'm okay and they say well you drink too much as soon as they told me I drank too much I know that I'm not an alcoholic because I never drank too much in my life in fact there's not an alcoholic in this room that ever drank too many too much that's impossible for an alcoholic to do You'll never do it if you're an alcoholic. You know? Do you ever drink too much in your life? See, I am an alcoholic not because I drank too much. But I'm an alcoholic because I couldn't drink enough. You ever drink enough? I never drank enough. Yeah, I can see somebody from this conference. You go to the bar, you have a couple of cocktails. The bartender says, You care for another cocktail? Let's see, Saturday night. Tomorrow is Sunday. I really don't want to miss church. I think I've had enough. Never had enough! You know, I just never... I go to the bar at noon, you ever do that? You start drinking at noon? It's now midnight. Been drinking 12 hours in the same bar. And I'm drunk, hell, I know I'm talking about it. I said, Stuart! God, I'm a drunk. He says, me too. Can I buy another drink? Just never had enough. Well, if you can't drink enough, it's impossible to drink too much. It'll never happen. See, those normal drinkers, you know who you are. Those normal drinker can drink enough. And so occasionally, but not very often, they might drink too many. Too much. But if you're an alcoholic, like, I'm an alcoholic? It's impossible to do that. And they don't understand that because they can drink enough. And I don't know how they can never drink enough? That's why we never understand each other in that whole process, the normal drinker and the alcoholic because they can drink and I can't. In fact, I'm sitting there. Years ago, a single buddy of mine not in AA invited me to come over to his house one Sunday afternoon to have a pool party. This girl wanted me to meet. She says, we're going to barbecue at this little pool party if you want to meet this gal. So I said, fine. So I go over there There's only going to be like four of us. I go over there and walk in, and they have one bucket of ice. And in that bucket is one bottle of champagne. And I said, Steve, what's this? He says, oh, that's our champagne. I said really? He said yeah. He said the girls want to have mimosas this afternoon. No kidding. They're going to mix it with orange juice, right? So I got these mimosans. I said how many bottles y'all got? out he gets a funny look on his face is just the one why so hell it's your party you know so we barbecue we lay around the pool we're getting ready to leave to go I'm at a great great afternoon we're going home they're in the kitchen we're cleaning up the kitchen I see all three of them fussing with this bucket gathering this messing with this bucket I said what are y'all doing Steve looks up and says oh John you're an alcoholic you don't know how to do this how do we recork this bottle I said I don't have a clue how to recork that bottle Steve did you ever have to recork a bottle in your life come on I'm a hell embarrassed for these three of them all afternoon can't knock off one bottle of champagne I drank a 12 pack of Diet Coke by myself south you know they can't knock off one measly bottle of champagne unbelievable i said steve i said even if i would have bought that one of the cork i usually buy the screw on cap kind but if you bought that another court there so i'd throw that cork away though see they'd had enough and they were done to me that makes no sense whatsoever because when i'm drinking that little bomb explodes inside and man i'm okay in fact when i'M DRINKING you know those promises in the book come after we We read them tonight. Those promises come true in my life every single time when I'm drinking. Every time. I don't know about you, but after that first drink, I begin to know a new freedom and a new happiness. And after three or four drinks, it's amazing. I don' t know about your life, but that fear of financial insecurity just kind of slips away. We don'''t need money. I got checks. You know, we're okay. After six or seven drinks, I don't know about you, but I intuitively know how to handle situations that are baffling me. Every time it happens like that. After eight or nine drinks, I don' t know about yu, but I actually begin to comprehend serenity. And after nine or ten drinks, I don''t know about u, but it becomes real clear alcohol is doing for me what I can''t do for myself. And you want me to quit? Quit. Hell, you're not going to quit. Why would you quit when I was doing that for you? It makes no sense. I'll tell you the truth. When I first came in today, they read me those promises as kind of motivation to get me to come around. I was very disappointed. I really was. Because what I wanted is a promise. They promised me a job. You know, promised me an apartment. Some money in the bank. Girlfriend. Maybe my wife come back. My wife said, oh, no, wait a minute. We can't promise wife comeback. No. No, can't promise. But he said, here's what we can do. He said, we got a lot of guys here in AA. They're married. They keep screwing up. Maybe you can get one of theirs. That's pretty much the way it works in AA, you know? Now, the reality is my whole life, if you go through those promises as an alcoholic, It's like my whole life I have insisted on having those promises in my life. I demand them. I have got to have them, and I will do anything to get them, including drink. And the reality is if I don't have a program of recovery that's going to give me those promises without drinking, I'm going to go drink to get him because I've got tohave him. and the only program I know that gives you those promises about drinking is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and they don't come until after step 9 because it means you've got to work the steps so you can jack around with that all you want you can attend all the A's, it means you want to attend you can talk to your sponsor all you wanna talk to is your sponsor you can go pray to God all you wannna pray to God but if you're not working the steps the clock is ticking and the time will come when you need those promises and you're gonna go drink to get them it's that simple you know I didn't know any of that then I just know that it's working for me you know I'm drinking and I'm not quitting I got a lot of problems but alcohol ain't one of them finally I figured out my real problem my brother my brother says you better straighten up fly right the folks think you're crazy they're going to lock you up they got the judge ready to sign the commitment papers they're gonna commit you they're gunna sign and you're guna be gone straighten up that's when I had intuitive thought Utah Utah, high altitude. Y'all see the Olympics? It's in the mountains. Up in the mountain. Scientific fact. People live at high altitudes for long periods of time, have thinner blood than people live at low altitudes. That's a fact. I saw it on Discovery Channel. I've been living in Utah my whole life. I got to have thin blood. You go out and you party hard on thin blood, you have a problem. What I need to do is get to sea level. level. Thicken up my blood a little bit, I'd be okay. So I called up a buddy who lives in Seattle. I'm telling him about his problems I got. He said, get away from there. Come up here. Take some time off. Stay with me and Gail. I said, I don't want to pose on you and Gale, you know, and your five kids. He says, no impositions. I'll be there Tuesday. I said move to Seattle. Wasn't doing anything in Seattle, just doing a little drinking. Working on thickening up my flood. And the next logical thing you want to do when you're in that condition, the next logical thing you want to do, you're going to want to gamble. You know? Best time to gamble is when you're unemployed. Right? So I started playing poker. It was legal up there. And when you shot in a high four like I am, you want it to be where the real action is. Back then it was in Nevada so I started running down Nevada playing in the casinos and I finally thought, who am I kidding? I'm just going to move to Nevada. That's lower than CW. You get thick, thick blood down there in Nevada. You know, So I moved to Nevada, bounced around a lot. Ended up in Reno, Tahoe. It wasn't nothing. Just doing a little drinking, playing a little poker, working on sticking up my blood. And I got an invite. A buddy of mine called me from Salt Lake and said, come on over. We're going out this weekend. Shouldn't have gone. Doing real good in Reno. But I go over there to Salt Lake and went out to a place called the One More Time Club Friday night. Had a great drunk. Fell in love. You know, beautiful gal. Met her at the bar. Always waiting for me at the car. Wanted to take her out on Saturday. She couldn't go out Saturday or Sunday. I stayed till Monday. Supposed to go on Sunday. Sunday. Should have gone home Sunday. Stayed till Monday. Got on this date Monday. That Monday was October 6, 1981. And it was a bad date. Terrible date. I don't know what had gone wrong with her. She had to change her personality. You know, she was no fun that night at all. You know because she thought that when... I had a real problem because when you invite them to go to dinner, you know, they're not going to go. She really wanted to eat. Well, I never eat when I'm drinking. and so I mean I'm drinking whiskey she's eating so every time I buy me a whiskey I buy her a glass of wine well she's busy eating she can't keep up the wine's stacking up on her now to keep from being embarrassed I drink my whiskey and drink her wine and it was just a bad date finally she said take me home when I want to take her she had no fun that night took her home dropped her off went out knocked on Price's door it was 10.30 at night knocked on his door I'm staying at Price's house he opens the door and he says I thought you had a date and I said that damn woman went in there had a gallon of wine She said it's like wine, so I bought a gallon. And I went in there and I said, now tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 7th, 1981, we'll hit this town one more time, then I gotta get out of here. High out to drink will get me in trouble. So we drank that wine all night. We went out Tuesday, September 7th. 1981. Started the Joker Club. It was just a little 3-2 beer bar. You remember seeing the fashion show at the Hilton? Then I blacked out. Blacked out a lot. Some blackouts were scary, some weren't too bad. People say, did you blackout every time you drank? I think, well, how do you know? Don't know. Some blackouts are a little scary, some aren't too bad. There's two factors to determine how scary a blackout is. First factor is how long are you blacked out? The longer you're blacked OUT, the more scary they are. The second factor is what are you doing when you come out of your blackout? That'll add to the scary factor a lot. And I wasn't blacked Out that long, but I came out of my blackout at the worst time. The worst time to come out with a black out. In fact, number two is way back there. Because the worst time to come out of a blackout is when you're talking to the cops. Because you have no idea where you are in the conversation. And you can't ask them, what are we doing here? You can't asking that, you know? So you've got to figure out, what do we do? What are they giving them? What have they already admitted to? What do they want? You've gotto figure all that out without asking any questions. Very bad time to kind of have a black out. Very bad times to kind off a black-out. Finally figured out they wanted my driver's license. I didn't have a driver's license. They had taken that three DWIs earlier, you know? But I'm telling the cop, listen, I'm going over there. That's probably where... I'm gonna leave my car parked here. I'm goin' right over there and just walk over there but that's probably where my driver's licenses are breakin' down to you in the morning if I can do that. They would not let me go. Finally ran my license like Thonahoe was, arrested me and I'm in lockup and this time they're really ticked because I can't even bond out. See, I knew the system. You get arrested no matter what you're arrested for you plead not guilty. Not guilty, right? It's not guilty. And then back then you get out of your OR. If you had a job or anything like that, you'd get out in your OR I think the biggest bond I ever posted for drunk driving was 50 bucks. And you get on your OR and then you go to get an attorney and they set a court date and you start that postponing process, right. You postpone, you postpone. Let's be honest. What you're doing is you're hoping the cop dies. Just one time. Just let him die one time I feel bad about it but let him died one time that's all. And then you want to be sure, and when the attorney says, okay, tomorrow we go to court, no more postponing. We go to Court tomorrow. You want to make sure on the day before Court, you move. Okay? Because I never went to Court, I just moved. So I had all this failure to appear. And they said, no, we're letting you in. You don't come back. You're going to Court. So I'm in lockup, don't like lockup. Don't like nothing about lockup Finally, a buddy of mine named Stan came down to get me. Stan had a lot of money. I grew up with Stan. And he had a little influence on some people. He said, okay, I've talked to some friends. They're going to let you out, but you've got to be in my custody. The only way I'll do that is if you promise me you go to treatment because you're sick, you need help. I said, oh, Stan, you are so right. Man, I mean, I get down here, I go down to those bars, I get drunk, I'm in all kinds of trouble, I need help, I guess an alcoholic. I need health, but I can't get any in here. He said I'll get you out. So I got out of jail. Now, I had no intention. I didn't want to quit. I'm not going to quit, I'm just getting out of jail and I'll do or say anything to get out of the jail. So I had to stay with Stan next day he throws me the yellow pages says you're going to go to treatment if you're gonna stay out. So I'm looking at the yellow pages find all these treatment centers a lot of them in 81 I called this treatment center and I said I need to come in for a little treatment. The guy says well do you have any insurance? I said no I haven't worked for three and a half years you know I don't have any insurance. She says well this is an 81 it was $12,000 in 81. I said I don't want to stay all year don't you have a little treatment? They said that is a little treatment. It was very fresh they wanted $18,000 in 1981 $18.000 for treatment. I said honey listen if I had $18000 I wouldn't need your god damn treatment. That's the only problem I had Unbelievable. A fellow cop at one place says, I need to come in for a little treatment. The guy says, okay. And I said, well, you need to know I don't have any insurance. She says, Okay. And I say, well how much is it? So she gave me benefits first, right? So she says, well when you check in here you get room, board and therapy. Both individual therapy and group therapy from one of our certified registered counselors. And it's nine bucks a day. And we check in and we apply for food stamps. We credit the food stamps to the bill. And then we get some state aid. Right here we pay $1.50 a day you can buy cigarettes with if you want. and sales were a buck and a quarter a pack back then. Or you could apply it to the bill. If you apply it to the deal, we'd take everything down and it'd be about five bucks a day. I couldn't believe it. I said, how long is your waiting list? She says, there's other places that had, you know, they had 12, they had 30 to 60 waiting lists just to get in. I said how long is your wait list? She says oh, we have a bed for you tonight. I said what? I don't really want to come tonight. You know? She says I think you ought to come. I said I don' t need to come tonight. Don't need that tonight. And I got a problem with this. Think about that. They got bargain rates, nine bucks a day, room bar and therapy. They can't fill their beds but I pressured me to get me to come in down there. Okay, I'm the consumer here. I got my rights. I said, honey, listen, you make reservations for Saturday just forget the whole damn deal. Switched me in for Saturday and I didn't drink. Stayed with Stan. Saturday came and drove down there parking that parking lot. I sat in that parking lots all morning watching them go in and out of there, in and Out of There. I wanted to see what kind of person goes to a $9 a day jitter joint. You know? and those guys going in there were alcoholic you could tell looking at him no wonder he's look at that guy he's alcohol you can tell looking to that guy's alcohol he needs to go there alcoholic it didn't look like they don't look y'all look y´all don't looks like alcoholics guy going there looked like he needed to go yeah I wasn't alcoholic but it fit my budget so I checked in nothing happened thought a whole bunch of papers got my room nice place clean place Sunday had my first exposure to Alcoholics Anonymous two guys from outside came in chaired the meeting Didn't listen to a thing they said. I'm watching everybody else, see how they do AA. I'm a real chameleon. I go someplace, I'm going to kick back and see how we're supposed to act and then I'm gonna blend, I'll do whatever we need to do to fit, right? So I'm watchin' these guys. Two guys talked, they got through talking, they started down the row. First guy introduced himself, said my name's Joe B., I'm alcoholic, I pass. Second guy said my names Jim S., I am alcoholic, I'll pass. I caught on real quick. What they do in AA, first name, last initial, admit you're an alcoholic and then pass. There's something magical. If you do that, there's magic in that. It's going to take the burden of alcoholism off your shoulders and sit over there. That must be the deal. They had it written on the wall, admitted you're powerless over alcohol. That must been the deal, so it got to me. I did it right. I said, my name is John A. I'm an alcoholic, and I'll pass. Nothing happened. Not a damn thing happened. I thought, well, all these Alcoholics Anonymous must be for really simple-minded people. If this is their program, I mean, this is a simplistic program. And I'm not alcoholic anyway. That's why I didn't want to do anything, you know? Now, it's a distorted perception. That was my perception of Alcoholics Aeronautics. It ain't for me. That was on Sunday. Monday got me and my counselor, Del, lovely lady, had my hour consultation with Del. She wanted me to stay two months. Two months. I said, Del. Del. Del. Del. Del. Okay, I've been here all weekend. Okay? been talking to these guys, they've told me they're alcoholics they look like they probably are alcoholics, I believe them I don't know whether I'm an alcoholic or not I may have a little bit of alcoholism in me, I'm not sure but I'm too busy, I cannot stay two months, I am too busy she said you're busy? I said yes, I'am busy she looks through her papers and says where were you working? well I'm NOT working, but I'AM BUSY can't you understand, busy? busy. I'm busy. You know that truth about alcoholics? Alcoholics are the most busy, unemployed people you're going to meet in your life. Right? Go to the meeting Monday, right? Now, the guy's unemployed. He's got nothing to do but get to the meeting and he's late. And you say, where have you been? Oh, hell, I've been busy. I don't know what we do, but we're busy doing it. We really are busy. So I said, so I'll give you two weeks. Dale, I'll gave you two two weeks. So you give me whatever material you're going to study during that two-month period. I'll read ahead. You can give me some pop quizzes if you want, because two weeks I'm out of here. You know? Because see, I'm not going to quit drinking. That's not what I'm doing there. I'm just doing treatment time. And I figure treatment time is a lot better than jail time. That'S what I'M DOING. Now, I don't tell anybody that, but that's what my plan is. So she says, this is all that BS and I said, we'd better hurry. I said yeah, that's fine. She said, I have two weeks, I'm gone. that was on Tuesday I had to go to group therapy love group Wednesday's alcoholic education seminar they're showing a movie about drug addiction alcoholism I'm bored with movies about drug addictions I don't like even today I don'y like them so I'm sitting there all my ego all my pride all my content prepared not to like that movie and the name of the movie they're shown was I'll quit tomorrow I'm watching that thing tore me apart I related everything in that movie I related to everything I did everything that guy did. I looked like the guy looked. I talked like the guys talked. I acted like the man acted. I dressed like the men dressed. I drank. I drank like the young man drank. I related to the whole movie. It's like they made a movie of my life and they were showing it to the group. You know? And I knew the gig was up. That was my moment of clarity as I related that movie that I knew that gig was out. My moment of Clarity. What happened to me that night is I quit looking for that definition. You know, what's an alcoholic? How do you know you're an alcoholic, what is an alcoholic ? I later found out in AA, see we don't have a definition of an alcoholic. I couldn't define an alcoholic for you tonight. I don't know how to define that. What we have in AA is a description, so you can't argue with the description. You can argue with a definition. That's why Webster's got ten definitions for every word, right? The most powerful tool God has given AA is our description of the alcoholic. Because it's that description that seems to have the power to literally strip everything that separates the alcoholic from himself as he relates to it. And I could see me in that light like I'd never seen. I could seem me in the light like my ex-wife saw me. I could seam me in a light like my mom saw me difference was I could see me and I knew the gig was up my moment of clarity I wasn't happy about it. Sometimes you'll hear from the audience how people will say how relieved they were to know their problem and how at home they felt in AA. That was not my experience. I cried all night. I was scared to death. I mean, I'm an alcoholic. My whole life just changed. My God, I am an alcoholic! I got to go get like a job. And how am I going to function in a world that scares me to death? I cried. ride all night. I'm an alcoholic. I stayed there six weeks. Couldn't stay two months. Too busy, you know. But I got out of there and I left it. They said, now you need aftercare. A very important part of recovery is aftercare where you're living in Reno. So like 800 miles, you can't come back here three times a week for aftercare, so we're going to prescribe you go to AA for your aftercare so they gave me Intergroup's phone number. So I drove back there on the 2nd of December and there were two things when I got back there. there. I know I'm an alcoholic. I don't want to drink. I know that for a fact. The second thing was, I knew AA has nothing to offer. I mean, come on, man. You go there, you give your first name, last initial, admit to the group you're an alcoholic, and then pass. Why do we got to do that? That's silly. But I don' t want to d r i n k. So the first day I'm back in town, I call AA, get into a group on the phone. Guy answers the phone and I said, my name is John A. I'm alcoholic. Guy says, I'm Bruce. I' m alcoholic. John, what can I do for you? And I said well, listen, and just got out of treatment, Salt Lake City, living here in Reno. You know, I wanted to call and report in. I thought they had me on a computer, you know? And if you don't check in, they put out a failure to appear on you and you're kind of screwed on that. So he says, well, I'm glad you're here. He says, you want to go to a meeting tonight? It was Thursday night. I said, yeah. He said, I can go to the meeting. You'll probably want to meet me. He said、Well, I am not going to go but there is a men's stag at Holt Riverside Casino. It starts at 830 in the Sierra Room. I said、I don't know right where it is. I'll be there early so we can meet. He said, I'm not going. I said, well, call them. Tell them John A is coming to their meeting tonight. He said they'll be. They don't worry about it. So I show up 20 after 8. First resentment, alcoholics, and all this. I called, made a reservation. Told them I'm coming. Guy didn't tell them I was coming. Nobody there would say, oh, you must be John A. Here's your coffee. Nope, just some guy smoking cigarettes waiting for a meeting. I got my coffee, sat down. Pretty soon an old guy named Red got up to check the meeting. Red looked like an alcoholic. He talked for a little while, didn't listen to a thing Red said because I'm watching how they do AA in Reno. Watching everybody else, how they deal with AA in Renault. Red got through talking. They started down the row. First guy introduced himself. He did not pass. He talked. These guys, none of them passed. They all talked. Don't know what they were talking about. Don't have a clue what they're talking about because nothing we talk about in treatment. In fact, these guys, they couldn't even introduce themselves right. Some of them did not give their last initial. They said, my name is John. I'm alcoholic. Jesus. Come on, man. man, you're supposed to give your last initial. Give your last initial. You're supposedto give your last initial." Some of them gave their last name. They said, "'My name's John Allred. I'm an alcoholic.'" Jesus! What does he think anonymous means, man? Oh, my God. First and last name? I could look him up in the phone book if I wanted to. My God. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I thought, you know what? If he won't respect his anonymity, I will. I won't look at that guy. I don't know who you are. I'm not looking at you. If I see you on the street, we're not saying hi. This is an anonymous program. I may wink at you, but that's all I'm going to do. This is anonymous program, you know? It's unbelievable. I sat half the meeting. They're talking about stuff. I don't know what they're talking About. Nothing we talked about. I sat halfway through that meeting. Nobody mentioned we got this XY chromosome deficiency problem. But how are they going to stay sober? It's incredible. So it got to me, I thought I could help him. And I did it right. I said, my name is John A., and I'm an alcoholic. When I qualified, I said... Listen, guys, I just got out of treatment over in Salt Lake City. I don't want you to know I have the latest, most up-to-date medical and psychological information on the disease. Second resentment, red cut me off. I said thank you, John, but I'm going to ask God. Son of a bitch is jealous. He knows I know stuff he don't know. Unbelievable. Half a million guys come up and shake my hand and say, we hope you come back. Oh, I'll be back. Don't worry, you need me now. You need me. Now, Chuck Chamberlain used to always say, every man's my teacher. Some people teach me what to do, some people teach мне what not to do. Please keep in mind, most of what I share is what not to do because I've done this deal all wrong. I don't know where I was when they said 90 meetings in 90 days. Not the way I did it. One meeting a week. Every Thursday, I'm out at my men's staff. Now, they will not let me share but I keep going back I figure you know I'm a hell of a lot younger than Red he's gonna die then I get to share now I tell you what happens when you do one meeting a week and you haven't tried that program one of the things they told me in treatment which is true they toldme they said John don't drink if you don't just don't you're gonna feel better and that's true but see they didn't explain to me what that meant if you don't you will feel better you're going to feel everything better you're going to feel all the pain all the anger all the resentment you're gonna feel that shit a whole lot better I mean, I drink when I'm feeling that stuff I'm walking around Reno feeling better going nuts you know oh good it's Thursday go down my man's stag and not share again the guys won't call me anymore you know so I'm down there I'm done there it was Christmas Eve Thursday night it was Christmaseve and they said now tomorrow's Christmas those of you who got nowhere to go for Christmas there's a free dinner at the Dryers Club Skid Row Clubhouse over on Wells Street. Go over there. Starts at noon. It's free. You can go eat. I didn't know where to go Christmas, so I go over to the Dryers Club. I found it. Still there. Ate. It was good. I'm not bothering anyone. I'm sitting there drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette. Old timer spotted me. You know when they spot you, their eyes kind of glaze over, you know? Newcomer, you now? Then they start to salivate, you don't they? And he gets up. I see him coming over. I said, look at this guy coming over to talk to me. He's not my kind of guy. He's an old guy. Fat old guy He's a fat old guy I like cool guys. This guy is not cool. Not cool. Comes over here. Got a big nose, funny hair. Nothing cool about the guy. Comes over and introduces himself. His name is Don. Tells me he's the coordinator of Intergroup. I don't know what that is but I thought, you know I'm glad they found something for you to do. So we're talking and it became real clear after just a few minutes since Don had not been to treatment. So I started to share with Don the stuff they did not want me to talk about in my home group. He gets a funny look on his face. He says, would you like to go to a meeting with me tonight? I said, well, hell, Don, it's Friday. I go Thursdays over to men's stag meeting. He said, we got a meeting every night in Reno. And in that short time I'd been going to AA, I'd heard something about spirituality. This is a spiritual program. I heard something like that. Okay, it'S a spiritual programme. Okay, it's Christmas. I can go twice this week. It won't hurt. So Don comes by and gets me. We've got a state hospital. They've got an meeting at 7 o'clock at the state hospital out there. Walk into the meeting and they give you a raffle ticket at that meeting. It's a free raffle. They raffle off a big book or as Bill sees it, they end the meeting. Women in the meeting! First meeting I've been to with women in the meet-up. I didn't know the other men. I thought I was a man. I'd been to Men's Drought Joint, Men's Stag Meeting. I got women. First meeting with women. And I thought, I immediately thought that was my home group. Why am I going Thursday when I come here Friday? Well, I'm coming here next Friday, man. My new home group, baby. This is it. So they got, I don't know what they talk about. They had a meeting. I don'T know what to talk about because I'm busy praying. Because although I have a great mind, I read real fast and do real good in school, I had forgot to get a big book. Now this is it, man, I'M winning the book. It's Christmas. This is going to be God's gift to me on Christmas. I'M not going to get here without a bigbook. God is going let me win that book. I'm winning that book tonight. Never got a Christmas gift. This is going to be gone. The only Christmas gift I get is going from God. It's going to me the big book. I want the book. Prayed. All meaning. Book's mine. I want it. I want my book. At the end of the meeting, they had the raffle. Raffle out the big books. Third resentment. Something a little greater today. 25 years sober. Wins my book? What's she doing winning my book?! It's Christmas! She wins my book! I'm strolling. Before I can get out of there, that little lady comes up and gives me that book. That's where I got my big book, and that literally was the only Christmas gift I got that year. I took that book home, and I used to say that. I took a book home that night, and I read that book from cover to cover. So if you ever heard me say that, or if you're ever holding an old, old tape where I said that on the tape, please believe me that when I said it, when I did that, hell, I believed it. Then I got involved in a big movie. You wouldn't be the chaps that got in that book book. They got a chapter in the book, you know, chapter to the wives. Well, I wasn't a wife, didn't have a wife. Didn't want a wife! Didn't read that chapter. Got a chapter to the employer. Hell, I'm not an employee! Didn' t read that chapter. We agnostics. I am not an agnostic. I knew God real well. Didn' t read THAT chapter. Well you know if you just read chapter 3 and chapter 5, you can read that book tonight. It won't take that long to do it. The next day Don calls me on my phone, takes me to the meeting. Every day this guy's calling my phone taking me to a meeting and I don't really want to go. But he doesn't ask he just calls up and says pick up in 20 minutes, clicks, hang up the phone. I'm not going to go, I don'T want to go. He didn't ask if I wanted to, he just said I'm picking up. I'M NOT GOING TO GO, I'M not going to, no wait a minute, wait a minute. You know he's the only guy talking to me in AA. If I don' t go he's going to talk behind my back, he's going to say things about me behind my back. I better go, better go defend myself. So I'm going to a meeting every day. Now at that time hadn't, didn't have a sponsor, Hadn't worked any steps. The only change in my life is a meeting every single day. And it's remarkable what happened. It's fascinating. I not only start to feel different, but I start to feeling good at the same time. I'm feeling better and good at the sametime. And I hadn't felt those two things at the simetime in years. And all of a sudden sobriety started to put on flesh and bones. and I started meeting other alcoholics and I just started to get pumped up about going to these AA meetings. I was really excited about it and it was funny how excited I was and I was embarrassed, man. I mean, I felt like a little kid. You know, Don would come by and pick me up and we're going out to meet in the car sitting there on the passenger side. Don's driving the car. I said, Don, do you think we can go get ice cream tonight? We'll see. But I'm excited about this thing. I'm starting to hang out out down to intergroup during the day i'm going down to enter i'm not working so i'm going on intergroup During the day, having coffee with Don going to a at night. I'm excited about I'm down there week later. It was Thursday, New Year's Eve, getting ready to go my man stag meeting Thursday night, that intergroup in the afternoon, the phone rings in the afternoon, I grabbed the phone intergroup young kid named Glenn Glenn 17 years old wants know how to stay sober New Year's Eve. I said, why? God damn, Glenn, you're 17, okay? It's New Year'S Eve. You know, we'll be here tomorrow. You can call tomorrow. We're going to be a big day for us. New Year is a big day für us tomorrow, you know? Fourth was that Don grabs that phone away from me and when he passed the rule at central office, you must have six months of sobriety to answer the phone. But a big sign up, must have six six months to answer this phone arrow pointing down at the phone you know don talked to him for a while i don't know what he said gave me his phone and not give me my phone number but the next day don calls me said hey glenn stayed sober last night wants to go to a meeting i thought great 12 my first 12-step call perfect i didn't have to learn how to do 12- step work don's gonna show me so we get in the car we go get glenn we're taking that state hospital right on my big butt we're driving the car i'm waiting for glenn for don to prepare glenn für aa don's just driving in the car. He's not preparing Glenn for AA. Hell, I've got to do it all. I've just got to be prepared. I've gotta do it all here, you know? So I started to prepare Glenn. I started to tell Glenn, Glenn, you're gonna love this. When you get there, they're gonna give you a raffle ticket, okay? It doesn't mean they raffle off a big book or hang on to that raffle ticket because if God loves you, you win the book. And you're gonna have women in your first meeting. I didn't know they had women there, Glenn. For a while, but you get women in your first meeting and I've been to several groups here in Reno. Okay, this group's got the best looking women. Okay, now next Friday, next Friday without Don, you and me by ourselves, we go to the meeting. I'll take you there. Don is everywhere. Don just drives to the meet. So we get to the meetings, get our raffle tickets. I don't really talk about it because I'm busy praying for Glenn. I thought, man, come on God, let Glenn, if Glenn can just stay sober after I've prepared him like this, like I have, that'll be proof that God is working in his life and Glenn will stay sober forever. You know? And not that it really matters, but I would have 100% 12-step cost success rate. I'll be able to write articles in the grapevine how to have 100%, 12-set cost, etc. So they had a meeting after the meeting and went to Rathalos, the big book. I won the big one. Don turned to me and said, see how that works? I said, yeah, I signed it and gave it to Glenn. That's where Glenn got his big book and Glenn's sober today because I gave him that book Now, that little experience early in my sobriety taught me a lot. It's been the foundation of my whole program because it taught me how God works. God works through people. See, whenever God works, it's a win-win deal. Always at least two winners when God works minimum two winners when God worked. It's got to be a win win deal or God didn't play. It's a won win deal whenever God Works. God works for people. See, I could have won the big book the first night through but one winner, me. But that little old lady wanted to be able to share with me and I wanted to receive from her. Two winners. A week later, two winners. I wanted by being able to share it with Glenn and Glenn wanted by being able to receive for me. God works through people. See? By working through people he gets twice the result for the same effort. Very efficient God. Very efficient guy. God works with people. It's a win-win deal. It also taught me how Alcoholics Anonymous works. AlcoholicsAnonymous is one drunk working with another. One drunk sharing with another, that's what makes it a win-win deal. It only happens when one drunk shares with another because it's a win‑win deal So I've told that story that's the only story I got so I tell it every time I talk and I guess in 29 years a thousand or more times and every time I tell that story I remember that moment of clarity when I know the gig is up Remember like it happened yesterday. I'm convinced that all of us here that are sober and Alcoholics Anonymous have had that moment of clarity. You know, when you knew the gig was up. I'm equally convinced that those that come today for a while and leave and are out there drinking and dying tonight had that moments. When they knew the jig was up? What's the difference between those of us that are here sober and those of use that have left and are not drinking at night? We both came today and had the moment of charity. What'sthe difference? I think what happens in Alcoholics Anonymous is really pretty simple. But what we do in here is we keep that moment alive. We keep it alive. As I've shared my moment with you, what have you thought about? And when I'm on that side of the podium and one of y'all is up here and you're remembering your moment of what it was like and what happened and you are keeping your moment alive... By the way, isn't this the perfect program for people whose root problem is they're selfish, self-centered? Because when you're remembering your moment, I'm so self-centered, what am I thinking about? My moment, screw your deal. We keep it alive. And nowhere can you keep that moment alive but when one alcoholic shares with another. You can't keep the moment alive by sharing it with your doctor. Your doctor doesn't need to hear it. My life depends on hearing about your moment so that my moment stays alive. You can'T keep your moment alive by sharing with your therapist. It ain't a win-win deal. I've got to hear about your moment so that my moment stays alive or I die if I don't hear about your moment I will lose my moment what happens when you lose your moment you drink we keep that moment alive it only happens when one alcoholic shares with another Okay. Dave was real serious about cutting this thing off right there. Now, let me tell you an interesting fact about that. It's that moment of clarity that is God's gift. That's what God's guilt is. And I'll tell you what happens. See, because we can't make that moment happen. We think we can by intervention and all that stuff, but it's really a gift from God. that happens. Every alcoholic that I've ever known and met has that moment of clarity. And the proof of that statement... See, what happens is we usually have that moment before you come into AA. When you show up in AA, we assume you've had it. Okay? And the truth of that is your last drink. I'm willing to bet you a whole lot of money when you had your last drinking. you sat it down. You had no idea that was your last drink. No idea. I didn't. If I'd have known, I'd Have done it different. What happened? How come that was my last drink? Didn't know it was my Last drink. Had no intention of that being My last drink, because it was My last Drink. What happened to it? Divine intervention. That always happens To the alcoholic. They always get that Chance of recovery. and my time in Alcoholics Anonymous has been an incredible trip I moved to Dallas in 83 my whole life fell together real quick in Dallas I got back in the insurance business in Dallas I got a sponsor in Dallas took my fourth step in Dallas got married in Dallas it was an incredible, incredible trip made a lot of money in Dallas got divorced in Dallas you know i'll tell you about we had a couple of people she did a couple of people talk about divorce i found out in aa funny thing about divorce you can't do divorce right you can do divorce right in aa no matter what you do if you're getting divorced it's gonna a third of the group will be mad at you just accept that fact you'll be okay because you may even you get divorced you say okay i'm not gonna date anybody i'm just gonna work on me stay focused on me and and after a little bit a third Third of the group is going to say, oh, look, John is isolating. He's isolating. He's never accepted that divorce. He needs to get on with life and put his life back together again. I'm worried about John. He's isolated out there. So you think, okay, I'm going to start dating somebody. And a third of the groups are going to see, he's getting involved way too soon. Way too soon! This is rebounding. He's rebounding, we shouldn't get involved like this. This is wrong, John. Concerned about John, you know? So you say, okay I'm gonna date a bunch of people. So you start dating a bunch people. people, a third of the group is going to say, look at the guy. He's screwing the whole group, going through the whole group, screwing all over. Terrible. Terrible, what's he doing? He's just twisted off his time. So no matter what you do, a third of the group is going to be mad. So you just accept that in A and you'll be okay. And it was a trying time. I've had a couple trying times. I think what happens is at various times, in fact, somewhere between three years and ten I think what happens to most alcoholics I know is that you become the ash you really are and you wake up one morning and you've worked the steps and you're in more pain than you ever were drinking and you can't figure out what's wrong because you're having a ton of pain and maybe some things are going on in the outside world and you couldn't even put your finger on what's right or what's not wrong you know I went through that when I got that divorce God I was just screwed up you know and I couldn't figure out because that wasn't part of the plan and I was a lot like what Bob was talking about I thought if you come into Alcoholics Anonymous and you're practicing you're staying sober and you practice these principles and you are talking to your sponsor that you I equated pain with being sick and I thought that if you get if you are hurting then you are in pain then you're sick you know And I thought that you wouldn't be in any pain if you were sober. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, nobody ever told me that. In fact, the book tells us just the opposite. The book says, in our adventures before and after. That means after you get sober, you're going to have some adventures. And I want to promise you, you'll feel those a lot differently than you did while you were drinking. a lot differently than when you were drinking. And I learned an awful lot about going through pain and that whole process. I'm going through a lot of pain right now. My wife and I are having a real struggle right now with a lot for the last five years. But I found out going through that divorce when I was about nine years sober, a lot about pain. See, if I get in a wreck, automobile wreck, and I break my leg, I'm in the hospital, and I'm laid up, and they give me some painkillers. You come in to visit me. What are you going to say? You're going to say, John, slow down. Take it easy. Don't overdo it. You need something? Call us. We'll get it for you. And the doctors give me some painkillers. And you know what? That's real hard. They could give me enough painkiller to take away all my pain. So I didn't feel it. They never do that. They give you enough paankiller to make it bearable so that you can bear the pain but still get through it. Because, see, if they take away all the pain, the fear is that you'll forget you've got a broken leg, jump up and re-injure it. Re-break it. Hurt it more than it was. So they give you just enough painkiller to make it tolerable. And I think that's the way God works a lot of times when we're going through that stuff. He can take away All the Pain. He never does that. And I'm amazed. We sit in an alcoholic's lounge and some guy comes in and he's just been nuked, man. His wife has left him. He had his car repossessed. They posted an eviction notice on his door, and he's been fired. And he walks in AA, just wiped out. And we say, how you doing, Bob? Fine. You know? And the guy's in a lot of pain, but he can't show it. You know, you're afraid to show it because you've been sober too damn long, right? And you can't tell him that you're just falling apart inside. And then when you do show it, then somebody says, you know, I'll accept it, man. You're not the first guy to get divorced. You know, accept it. Like acceptance... Here's what I found out. I'm a big believer, by the way, in acceptance is the solution to all of my problems. Big believer in that. But see, I found OUT what acceptance is. Acceptance doesn't change the way you feel. It changes the way you act. See? When you get sober, what happens? Did I accept my alcoholism? Yeah. Yeah. Do I still have a compulsion to drink sometimes? Dr. Bob did for two years. But my actions changed. So eventually, my emotions caught up with my actions merely by changing my actions. So the acceptance isn't going to change your feelings, your emotions. It's going to changed the way you act. So when you accept that divorce, then you can change your actions. You can quit like doing those, you know, those location drive-bys. You know, just where you drive by to make sure everybody's in the right place. at the right time. All those telephone calls, all those location calls. Caller ID messed that up, didn't it? When you could call and hang up. She answered the phone and you hang up, you know. No, none of y'all ever did that. You can stop all that. You don't have to do any of that. And then finally, do you still miss them? Yeah. You know. And I was going through the worst and it hit me in waves. You know? And I would go to my sponsor and I would say, what am I going to get well? and my sponsor was knitting. His wife was knitting, she got more time than anybody, and hated her. And she was knitting and she'd put on and she said, why do you think you're sick? I said, well look at me, I'm a basket case. It's been two months, I'm crying. And she started laughing and she says, yeah. Yeah. She said, you know, why are you equating pain with being sick? i said well because the book says she says it does i said yeah whenever i'm disturbed or upset spiritual axiom something wrong with me she says yeah something wrong is that mean you're sick i mean if that phone rings i pick up the phone and they tell me my son's been hit by a car and dead that's going to hurt i'm going to mourn does that mean i'm sick is that pretty normal you know she said the very fact that you're hurting the way you are tells me you're not that sick. If you weren't, I'd be real worried about you. See, I always thought that I shouldn't feel the pain instead of the pain being put there by God for a reason to protect me. And he's making the pain bearable. I can get through this. God's going to take care of me. And I can gets through it. But the pain is going to be there for a reason. Bob has described it beautifully last night about mourning, you know? It's going to put there for reason. And I had to go through that. I'm going through a lot of that now. Bats and I had a great business for a while. My wife has just... Her and I met and we dated and we debated and we outdated and we did it for 70 years before we got married. And we started this little business up. We had a Great Business House business. They've worked with us in Missouri. We did a lot of family portraits. We did about 800 family portraits a week. And my stepdaughter was 16. We had to find a treatment center for her. Got hooked on drugs, and it was a disaster. I knew her family has never had any experience with the disease of alcoholism, drug addiction. and they went and took Chandra out of the treatment center a week after she'd been in there because she promised never to do that again and it's just been a hard 10 years you know we had her house broke into and Patsy's just I think Patsie finally just got tired you know we took custody of the kid of course they had a baby we have two grandbabies now they're wonderful wonderful, and Haven, the first one, was two days old when we took custody. And now we've got another one, Charlie. They're beautiful kids. It's not kind of what we had planned at 59 years old to be raising a three-year-old and a seven-year‑old, but it's been hard. And we lost that business. And then I've had a couple of things my heart has not been in, and I've done a lot of things. And I made a decision. This was an interesting thing. I'm going to wrap this up pretty quick, but I want to share this with you because this is important to me to share. About 15 years ago, I gave 163 talks one year, and I hated AA. The last three months of the year, I mean, it was all I could do was drag my butt to a meeting. You know, I hated going to meetings. And I'm talking to my sponsor about it, and I was on empty. And my sponsor said, in Texas, in Dallas, we have a thing where the groups do the steps one month. So the step speaker will come in like on Wednesday night, every night that month, every Wednesday that month and cover the 12 steps. you'll cover maybe steps one through three on week one by the end of the month you've covered all 12 steps and i was doing this i'd done the steps for 12 15 years every month and so my sponsor said you know this is a pass it on program john maybe you should pass that on as soon as you did that i eliminated 52 talks and what happens when you do that some people would would come here to do the steps, and they'd say, can you come talk to my group next Monday? So I was giving three, four talks a week. And then traveling out of the conference and all that. So I quit doing the steps. Except for the glass house, because I couldn't tell Jimmy Williams no. And another little lady that was at the primary purpose group in Arlington. Those were the two places I continued to do them. Other than that, I quit dealing with them. And And I made a conscious decision just a few months ago that I had to get back to your motto, the basics, because my life was falling apart. And so I started to accept to do the steps again. And it's amazing what happens when you go back to the few basic things that you're doing. And God takes care of things instantly. As soon as you reach out and start to fulfill your primary purpose, God starts to do things instantly? Now, my life hadn't changed a lot. But I did another thing as I started to go back to trying to do what I know needs to be done. Because see, knowing what to do and doing it are two different things when you've been around the program for a while. you know and I've had to force myself to do some things that I used to do on a regular basis I used listen to Chuck Chamberlain all the time talking about doing things for free and for fun without a price tag on them and I did that for years and you want to know if you got a price tag on it by waiting to see if they recognize you did something if you're waiting for a compliment or recognition that thank you for doing this you're not doing it for free and for fund and so I started to do some things around the house for free and for fun without putting a price tag on you know I tried to start to fix my wife lunch so I'd fix her lunch I started to try to do the dishes before she got up in the morning just some things like that that in an indirect manner but are totally related to my spirituality. I need to get out of self and do things for freedom. And I don't know where any of this is going because my life right now is totally up in the air. I don' t know what I'm going to do. I have, since we got out of that business, there's some other businesses I've looked at and played around with. I went to work for a competitor of ours. What I was doing, there's only about four main players in the United States and we all know each other. So this guy, they called and wanted me to be the Southeast Regional Vice President and I went and did that and that didn't work out. I mean, I covered from North Carolina down to Miami and I was home 23 days one year. The rest of the time I was on the road and that was very tough on my wife because she's got a little three-year-old she had at home. You know? She'd been a trooper, man. My wife is a... Besides being beautiful, she's committed and she doesn't lie. She's an incredible mate and I love her a lot. But I had to quit that to be home and then I had take a little job to show a paycheck. I hated the job hated the job but I had to show a paycheck the pay step and I did what all alcoholics do I set it up so I would no longer have that job you know and I've got a couple things I'm looking at but I don't know what I'm gonna do I know what what I did when I first got sober you know I know I know what needs to happen now. And I know that I can do that. And I know that i'm totally willing to do that There's a couple things that have to take place First, I have to be totally honest Okay There's an old guy named Jack used to go to Trinity group and Jack said John, he's dead now, he had like 45 years 20 years ago, but he said John, if you could be totally honest then you'd be totally humble and God could hold nothing back because God can keep nothing from a humble man so he said you need to work on honesty because if you can be honest you can get it all and I was in a meeting just the other day about honesty and it dawned on me that what's happened with honesty becomes technology has made it real tough to lie hasn't it used to be that if you got a DWI you could go across the county line and get another driver's license. You'd be okay. And then it got so you had to go to a different state to get a driver's licence. You'dbe okay, right? And thenit used to be that youcould get insurance. Youcould just lie and say have you ever been treated for alcoholism or drug addiction? Youcould say no and they'd accept that. Today technology has brought all that down so that you've got to tell the truth. And if you don't you may get caught. And that applies in every area of your life. I'm sitting there I'm getting ready to go I was going to Manitoba, Canada this is about nine years ago and I'm landing at the airport I landed at the air port went back there and I am going through customs I am speaking to the congressman the guy says what are you coming for I said I am coming to a convention what kind of convention okay you got to go over there that line woman says what do you come to Canada for convention what kind of convention? Alcoholics Anonymous. You ever been arrested? Now, what does that mean to you? Yeah, to me that means felony stuff, right? I never been arrested for this. I said no. She's okay we'll find out. So she goes back to the room, enters my information in the computer. All of a sudden the computer starts spitting out paper. She was looking at it, looking at me, looking the paper. Her boss comes in, they're looking at the paper, looking looking at me. She goes, why did you lie? I said, I didn't lie. She says, yeah, you lied. I asked you if you'd been arrested. She says you have two FBI jackets. I said FBI? She says yeah, You have a DWI in 1976 and another DWI in 1981. I say those are DWIs. She says Yeah, we take them real seriously. I says well back then it was on misdemeanor. You paid 250 bucks. I never said that. You were arrested. I was like yeah, it was a misdementor. you know what do you know about that stuff you get the relationship I'm going to an AA meeting that was a DWI kind of see the correlation there she said well you're undesirable and I said well yeah so and she said you can't come in we don't allow undesirables and I says what do I got to do she said you got to go back or pay $200 $200 fine you got paid too didn't you yeah Yeah, so it went up. Anyway, so I said, well, I'm not paying it. She said, Well, you can't go. Just then a guy comes in. He says, Is John already in here? I said、Yeah, I am here. She said、He can't do it. He is undesirable. And I said، He said、Well, there are two guys out front waiting for you. And I说、「Well, I can't goto." He said、「Well they pay the fine." I said、「I'm not asking them." So they go back in. They finally come back out. They said、There's 1,200 people down there waiting to hear you. So they've got to pay this $200. So they paid the fine. and I realized that about every fourth or fifth time I go into Canada, they'll stop me. And I used to think, what is this stuff? And you know, it's their country. They don't want you to come in if you've got a DWI. Now you can, if you want to go to the country, you can follow their rules. I hate this, by the way. You can fill out a form. The last thing I said, how do I get in? She said, well, you haven't been rehabilitated. I said, I've been sober 27 years. She says, I know, but you haven't been rehabilitated. I said what do I do to get rehabilitated? You fill out this form and pay $200 for that rehabilitation. Okay. So it's simple. I got to cease fighting that. I got fill out the damn form, pay the $200. Then they give me a little receipt I put with my passport. When I go in there, I hand them that and I get through. That's the reality of the situation. It's their country. I have to cease fighting that kind of stuff and I've got to get honest with you, I've gotta get honest with my sponsor with my wife, with my kids and when that happens my experience tells me that God gets involved and it happens on a regular basis and it happened instantly you know and my life right now I'm looking more forward to the next year because I don't know what's coming up but I know that it's going to be different than what I think it's gonna be because I know God has always taken care of me he's taken care of me when I was drinking he took care of my when I got divorced he took car of me when we started that business he's taking care of me and I know that today and I'm grateful that you let me share thank you