Kip C. at the Men Among Men Conference – 2005

I just wanted to introduce you to the speaker of tonight, Kip. Do it again. Thank you very much. My name's Chip Collins, and I'm an alcoholic. I ain't had a drink all day long either. I'm really confused. I can't believe a country could have such beautiful women, could have sich ugly men. I want to thank you guys for inviting me and welcoming me, and the hospitality that you've shown has just been phenomenal. Your country's beautiful, but too cold. I keep wanting to set something on fire, you know? I figured out where all the trees went. You know, I can't remember you guys' names. You say your name, and I go, uh-huh. you know and then everyone's name means something you know that's cool you know i was wondering what my name meant one time and i looked up in an old dictionary and my name means something too it's an old english slang from the 12th century it means a prostitute's bed I was kind of the lion hearted or something like that you know but that's not that's my my story my father's Irish Irish and Sioux, Lakota from the Dakotas. And my mother is an Irish and Chippewa from the Oklahoma territories. And my father liked to drink, and my mother liked to fight. You know, and just to tell you a little bit of like what it was like, you know, in a very general way, we'd be waiting for the old man to come home. and it'd be getting later and later my mom's getting madder and madder you know and we're just sitting there waiting and pretty soon you'd hear him bouncing off the curbs coming up the hill and if you looked out the window right then you'd see all the neighbors grabbing their lawn chairs and turning off their lights and running outside they wanted to get a good seat you know and my mom would run outside as soon as he pulled in with a butcher knife to the driver's door and he would dive through the passenger door and then she'd be chasing him around the house and that was just Monday night. It wasn't anything phenomenal. I tell you that my father that's not why I'm an alcoholic, my father taught me exactly what alcoholism and alcohol would do to a family and what it would do to a marriage, what it would do to children. I had no illusions about alcohol. I wanted nothing to do with it. Nothing to do it. I lived in a neighborhood and it was all first generation Hispanic-Mexican and nobody spoke English and everybody had very dark skin and dark hair and dark brown eyes. And my cousins live with me and my cousins have very dark dark skin, brown eyes, you know, and dark brown hair. And I was born with white hair and blue eyes and real white skin. And when I went inside of the house, the Mexicans wanted to kick my ass. And when we went in the house the Indians wanted to kicked my ass, you know, I knew I was different right from the very beginning. I knew my case was just a little bit different. Me and my brother stood out like a sore thumb in that neighborhood and And we got real crazy. You know, I was never going to have nothing to do with alcohol. My dad totally disgusted me. He embarrassed me. And I didn't want nothing to doing with him. You know? And I can't blame it on him. But I do blame it on the San Diego Unified School District because they had this great idea in the early 60s that they needed to teach the young people about this stuff that we don't talk about in a&a you know and they took us into this big hall like this you know when they had some guy get up and talk and they showed us this movie the lights came back on and I hit my friend Balto and in the real I said Balto can you get some of that stuff he goes oh yeah my dad smokes that and I said well get some man and so the next day I said you get it he goes yeah you just meet me after school and so I met met him. I said, so what do we do? He said, we got to go boost some wine. I go, wine? What for? He says, I don't know. But my dad always drinks wine with it, you know, and we didn't want to make any mistakes. So we went in this little store and I boosted the short dog of port wine and we went down this little canyon and he fired up this cigarette and he took a hit off of it and he handed it to me and I took a head off of It made me cough. And I took that wine, I looked at it and I pulled the cap off of it. I'd never had a drink in my life. I tasted it, I took a pull on it, you know, and I swallowed it and it just jumped right back out of me, you know? But I ain't no quitter. You know? And I took another pull on it, and you know what? I just held it down and I had to pinch my nose, you know, because I kept kind of yo-yo, you know, go up and down and up and down. And after a while, it kind of settled you know and I started feeling this feeling and I took another drink and it was getting easier and easier and by that time I finished the bottle it was just going smooth you know. And I looked over at my friend Balto and he's sitting down there and he smoking on this little cigarette you know yeah I said no no I said but you're gonna drink that? He goes oh god that stuff's horrible. I said can I have it? He says knock yourself out. I drank his bottle and it was a beautiful sunny warm day and I leaned back on this bank and there's beautiful clouds going by and I had my head in my hands and I was looking at the sky and I experienced my very first spiritual awakening I don't know what alcohol did for any of you but at that moment something happened inside of me it just clicked and it was the very first time in my life that my skin fit and I realized for the first time that I wasn't afraid of anything because I'd been living in terror and absolute fear all my life and it Was the first Time I noticed I was comfortable you know and I knew a lot about the first three steps of Alcoholics Anonymous a long time before I met any of you You people have heard of your program. Because when I was 12 years old, I knew that I was powerless over this world and I knew that my life was unmanageable and I drank this amazing elixir and I came to believe in a power greater than all of you. And I immediately with no reservation turned my will and life over to it and I never looked back. Two years later I got kicked out of school in the 7th grade for hitting a teacher for the second time and they said that I was antisocial. He was a jerk, you know? And when I came home, I'd been dabbling with this other stuff too and my mom was standing in the doorway and when I walked in, she's just standing there and she holds up this bag of this green vegetable matter and she said, what's this? and I looked at her and I said it's dope she said get out of my house when I was 14 years old you know back up a little bit I'll tell you a little bit about my mom my mom I love her to death I take care of my mom today and but my mom is the meanest woman on the face of the earth I told you she likes to fight you know I watched her she stabbed my dad three different times and the most impressive thing when I was about 11 she was arguing with the neighbor about something and he said something to her and she picked up a shovel and knocked him cold you know and my mom had a certain look on her eye when she told you to do something it was just yes ma'am you know she did not debate and she had that look you know she says get out of my house and I said okay you know and split you know and I lived in a little tiny town and I'd never been anywhere, never done anything. And I went over to a friend of mine's place over in the next town and he says, well, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. And he said, check this out. And he opened up the newspaper and he said look, all these people, man, all These young people they're going up to San Francisco and all they do there is they get high and listen to music and make love. I like music, you know. I like Music a lot, you Know. When I was 14, I really liked music, you know. That's all I thought about was music. And I went up to this place called Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, 1964. And they were right. They were right, there was lots of music there. And there was lot of everything there. And I just share in a real general way about that experience, you now. I didn't fit in there at all. I grow hair pretty good but I like to fight. and these people were pacifists and I just didn't quite get along with them now if not a day that goes by that I don't thank the God of my understanding that I'm not allergic to penicillin you know and that's all I'm going to say about that experience I found out though my true calling was that I was no hippie that actually I'm a capitalist pig you know and I saw opportunity opportunity. I saw people that wanted this certain product, and they were all these square little white kids that come from the suburbs. You know, I know where this stuff comes from. All my friends come from Mexico. And I called Balto. I said, Balto, check this out. He said, no kidding. Come on down. You Know, and me and Balto we put a little business together that I don't want to go into too much. But um, And it worked out very well for a long time until I was 16 years old, and I was arrested down in Mexico with 200 kilos of green vegetable matter. And I was sentenced to 25 years in prison at La Mesa Federal Penitentiary in Baja, California. Nice things don't happen to 16-year-old boys with long blonde hair and blue eyes in a prison. And it should have been, if anything in the world, that experience should have taught me, you know, that I really needed to change my direction. But in all actuality, it turned out to be one of the greatest career moves of my life because Balto was related to half the people in that prison. And most of those people were in the same business and they were conducting their affairs out of there and they realized that I was more valuable outside of the prison than inside of the prison and i love mexico it's a lot like louisiana in the united states it works on the principle of it's called morita and morita means the little bite and what that means is if you can afford it you can do anything if you know the right person who has the key you know and i like living someplace like that you know we found out who it was we paid the people i called my brother i said bring down five thousand dollars and he brought it down and they let me out and i continued doing and what I was doing. You know, by the time I was 18, I was doing this in a real big way. And on my 18th birthday at 5.30 in the morning, the police came in and they arrested me with 27 felonies, indictments. And I was living with a young lady and she was pregnant. And they they didn't arrest her. They just came and took me, and I fought that case. I had the money. I was in a county jail for a little over a year, and I had lawyers in it, but it took almost a year for me to finally beat it, and I couldn't get in touch with that girl, and I was worried to find her, and she didn't write, and nobody would take my phone calls, and when I finally got out, I went to go try to find her,and her family had sent her to Texas, and they said, you know, you stay away away from our family. And I never did get to find out what happened. Right after that, I met this other gal. And, um, I used to do really stupid things sometimes, you know? Has anybody here ever gone to jail for being stupid in public? Just doing the stupidest things for no reason right in front of God and everybody, you now? And they used to lock me up on a regular basis, not for anything criminal, just doing something stupid, you know. And this little girl I was running around with, she bailed me out of jail three times in one week. And the last time, she was only 15 years old, and I said, how come you keep bailing me out Of jail? And she looked at me with this real puzzled look, and she said, I said, well, what else would I do? And I married her. You know? And me and that little girl, she was the greatest crime partner I've ever had in my life. I've known hell's angels that didn't have enough balls as she did. She said, I'll try anything once. You know, and we did. And we had a heck of a good time for a long time. I got busted again, and I went back to prison for another year. And I got back out, and I was on parole. I knew I'd never make parole in California. So me and her, we moved up to a little town in Oregon. And while we were up there, she got pregnant. And one day, she said, come on. We've got to go to the hospital to have the baby. And I drove her down to North Bend, Oregon. And I went and sat in this little hospital, you know, and she went in this room. And after a while, this doctor came out and he brought this little baby. And he put this little Baby in my arms. And I looked at this Baby. And something inside of me just exploded in my heart. It was the very first time in my life I ever felt absolute, total, unconditional love for a human being. And I wasn't even expecting it. I didn't even know where it came from. And I experienced my second spiritual awakening, you know. And I looked at that little boy with more love than I've ever felt for anything in my life. And I said, you're never going to be afraid of nothing. I will protect you all the days of your life. You're going to do all those things I always dreamed about doing with my father. And I meant it with everything I had. You know, I got off a parole up there and then we moved back down to California. and she got pregnant again and we went to another hospital and they came out you know and they put this little girl in my arms and it was exactly the same thing my heart just exploded and I fell in love just felt madly in love with this little girls and I'm an alcoholic in the world I lived in man you had to learn how to think fast and I learned how to think real real fast I think so fast I'll be sitting at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes and one of your pretty gals will walk in I'll fall in love with you we'll get married have a couple of kids you'll cheat on me with that old timer and i hate your guts before you've got to your seat you know i mean like that you know just and i'm looking at this little baby and i thinking she's still wet they have you know I'm going someone's gonna want to marry her okay what's the conditions gonna be where we're gonna have the wedding what am i gonna wear that's the way my mind works I don't live in the now I live way back then or way up there and they said give me the baby we got to weigh the baby but it was the same thing you're my princess I'm going to give you everything at that period of my life alcohol I could pick and choose what I wanted to drink I was always very cautious. The business I was in, every time I drank alcohol, something always happened. But I could pick and choose when I wanted to drink. And for the next five years, my life was totally dedicated to my children. I had made a lot of money. I had a real nice place. And I bathed my children, I fed them almost every meal, I changed their diapers, I taught them how to walk, I taught him how to talk, and we played every day. That's all I did. My brother lived with me and my wife, and that was just us. We had this beautiful place, and it was the best part of my life until I came here. On September 6th in 1976, my wife and daughter had gone. They went downtown to go get school clothes. School was getting ready to start. It was real hot that day. Me and my son were playing. A friend of mine came over, and he brought the stuff to smoke, and we smoked it. and all it did was it made me real thirsty and I wanted some beer and I went in to get some beer and I didn't have any and there was no one there to watch my son you know, and I just wanted a drink and I I just got on my bike the store was down the street and I put it up to the store to get a six pack of beer and I got it and I came right back and when I'm coming down the hill towards my house the police were all in front of my house and the fire department and all the neighbors were running out of their house towards my home and I didn't know what had happened. I thought there had been a wreck or something and I parked my bike and I waded through this crowd and I found out that my son had chased me out of the driveway and he'd been run over by a truck and when I got to him his head was split open and I could see his brains and his legs were broken and his ribs were broken and some of them were protruding and a little piece of me died that day, you know. We got him to a hospital and I sat in that hospital with him in intensive care with him in a coma and I don't know nothing about God but I started crying out to this God whoever he was please give me back my son I'll do anything in this world if you give me Back My Son every day I would talk to the doctors and every day the doctors would tell me pray that he dies because there's so much brain damage there's nothing whatsoever to hope for and I wouldn't let go of him, you know I would just sit there and I'd move one muscle after another and go from the tip of his fingers to his toes just kept exercising his body because he was just in a fetal position and I didn't know what else to do and I just kept working with him and I did this for nine months and I started getting real crazy and I stated drinking and this was one of the very first times where I found out I started giving those looks at people when he was going to have to have an emergency surgery and I would show at the hospital drunk and the look of the doctors would give me a total disgust. You know, how can you be drunk like this at a time like this? I got real used to that look after a while. My son survived. He made medical history as a matter of fact. The little boy, the personality, the little boy I had was gone forever. I got back a little boy who couldn't hear and he couldn't talk And he never emotionally or mentally got past the age of about four years old. And he had lots of physical and lots of emotional and lots of mental problems all of his life. And the guilt of that was so intense, I really started drinking. Because drinking took away the guilt. It took away that picture of him laying there. That picture was burned into my brain. and I couldn't go to sleep at night and I started drinking more and I was in the business I wasn't making no money nobody trusted me with nothing my brother lived with me all my life we were only 11 months apart he was the closest human being I've ever been to my brother came down with a disease called schizophrenia when my son was at the hospital my family had him put on a mental institution and he called me one day and he said, Kip, get me out of here. I said, are you okay? He says, yeah, they're giving me these pills. Just get me outta here. Do whatever you gotta do. Get me outta there. And it wouldn't have mattered where he was. I went and got him. I got a lawyer and I went against the doctors and I Went against the family and everyone and I got my brother outta there and I brought him back home with me. And my son was in a special hospital and I needed to make some money real fast and I put this thing together. I told my brother, I said, Bill, I'm going to be gone for three days. I want you to watch the kids. You know, keep an eye on everything for me. And he started crying. I've never seen my brother cry. He said, you can't go, man. Something's wrong with me. I don't know what's going on. And I said that, you know what? Just hang tight. I'll be back in three days and I gave him a handful of money because money fixed everything all my life, you know, and he just looked at me, you know, and I got in this cab and they took me away and this thing I was doing instead Instead of three days, it turned into three weeks. And when I came back, my little girl, Jana, I said, Jana where's your uncle? She goes, I haven't seen him since you left. I go, you're kidding me. He had a mobile home right across, he lived on my property but I had a creek that runs through it and he lived on the other side of the creek and we went over there and I opened the door to my brother's trailer you know and my brother the third day had blown his head off completely off his shoulders and when i opened the door his head rolled down to the foot of my feet and there was just a big pile of maggots laying there in that doorway and a great big piece of me died you know i don't tell you any of this except that i like to drive one point home there's a part in the book in chapter chapter 5. It's read at every meeting, and a lot of people don't understand what it means, you know. But it said, there's those among us who got here with grave emotional and mental illness, you know, and that's who I am. And I'll tell you this, that when my brother's head hit my feet, my very psyche, my whole, my every soul completely snapped like a branch breaking. And I'll tell you this from my heart to yours, that I thank God I'm an alcoholic. I thank God that alcohol does for me what it does for me. Because if it wouldn't have been for alcohol, I would have blown my brains out. But alcohol took away the pain. It took awaythe guilt. Ittook those pictures out of my brain. When I first came here and I heard you people read the promises, I thought you were talking about alcohol. alcohol. But those promises did everything. They fulfilled those promises. Every time I drank, it took away all that fear. It took everything away. Everything was okay. I could lay down at night. I Could close my eyes. And when I drank when I got up, the screaming would start and I could function in this world one day at a time. Not real well, but I didn't want to blow my brains out. And things in my life started falling apart real quick. My wife, God bless her, Kathy, she's a wonderful member of Alcoholics Anonymous today. She's been sober for 14 years now. But there was a guy that was paying more attention to her. I wasn't paying any attention to her pain. She was in as much pain as I was, but I'm totally self-centered. Nobody Nobody hurts like me, you know. And, oh, you relate to that, don't you? You might be dying of cancer, you know, but I got a hangnail. And I'm not paying no attention. This other man was and she left with him, you know, and I don't blame her a bit. And the only thing that was just left was me and my little girl and she was five years old. And the first five years of her life, man, it had just been Disneyland. And she loved her brother. She loved my uncle. She loved her mother, and she watched everybody leave or die. She was with me when I found my brother. And she was on the couch, and we were sitting there, and she was crying and shaking, and I said, What's the matter? She goes, Daddy, I'm so scared. What's going on? Everyone's dying, and everyone's leaving. And I said、Honey, we don't need nobody. I said،We just hit a bump in the road, and I'm going to get it together here in a little bit, and don't worry about a thing. I'm going to take care of it. And then I had a knock on the door. You know, I've been informed that you don't have this particular product here and that's really too bad. It's the one thing that I always suggest for a newcomer who hasn't quite made that decision. Is anyone here for their first meeting? Anyone here for Their Last? Well, if you ever have any doubts, go to California and order a bottle of Mad Dog 2020. Mad Dog 20-20 should be classified as a Class A narcotic, I think. But it's very cheap, and it's Very, Very Strong. And I'd never heard of it. And he brought this stuff in, and I drank this stuff. And the next thing I know, someone is tapping me on the shoulder. And they're saying, excuse me, sir, you have to get off the plane. I was in my living room the last time I checked, you know? And I open my eyes and I'm on this big wide-bodied jet and it's completely empty. Except for my little girl who's sound asleep leaning next to me, you Know? And I go, where am I? She goes, you're in Fort Lauderdale. I said, Florida? She goes yeah. I said I hate Fort Laudedale. She goes I don't know nothing about that. You got to get off the airplane sir. So I haven't got a clue but you know I don' t want to look stupid in front of my daughter. So I kind of straightened up and I said I woke her up hoping she's going to throw me a bone. You know? I said, wake up. And she woke up and she looked at me and I'm hoping she's going to tell me something. She looked out the window and she said, are we there? I went, yeah. She goes, let's go. And I walked off the airplane, not a clue. I noticed I had some money and called a cab from the airport. I said, take me to a hotel, but stop at a liquor store because I need to figure out what's happened here. You know, and the next thing I know, I opened my eyes and I'm completely naked. And I'm in four-point restraints on this table. And for just a second, I thought I might have missed something really cool. I found out what had happened it was a misunderstanding I'm sure you'll all relate to that but I was drinking tequila and I'd met this young couple and they had this local Floridian additive and you could really drink a lot with this additive and we drank the tequila and then I asked them if they'd ever heard of Mad Dog 2020 and they hadn't so I went and I got a bottle of Bad Dog 2020 and apparently from what I was told at about 3 o'clock in the morning I was down in the lobby of this very nice hotel hotel completely naked trying to introduce myself to this young woman in southern california that's not a really big deal you know but in florida they're very conservative and they called the police and the police didn't know what to make of me so they took me to mental health gave me the big geese of thorazine you know and knocked me down tied me up and um i'm talking to this doctor and i'm telling him i'm going you know what this has been a mistake you know i've been through a a lot of trauma. If you'll let me out of here, I give you my word, I'll be out of your state before the sun sets. And the guy says, be gone, you know, and he didn't know what to do. And I don't know where my daughter is. I haven't got a clue. And you can't say nothing because they could call the police, you Know, and I don't deal with the police at any level at any time for any reason. And, uh, I'm hoping I got some matchbooks or something in my clothes, maybe that I can track her down but i know i'll figure it out and as i'm walking out of the hospital this young couple comes walking up with my little girl and my little girls she runs up to me and i said come on baby we're getting out of florida i told you this place sucks you know and uh and i'd love to tell you that that was it you know if that was the end but that was only the beginning that was only the for the next three years me and my daughter lived like animals i drugged that that little girl. We lived through five different states all through the South, and every place we lived, I promised her it would be different. I'm going to get you in school. You know, I'm going to do this. Everything's going to be okay, and I would do exactly the same thing over and over and over ad infinitum, and in every place where we lived, we left at a dead run at midnight, you know, and the last place was in Oklahoma City, and managed to stay sober for one whole week, and I'd gotten a job and I got a little place for us to live you know and I was trying not to drink and we got paid and this guy says come on we'll go cash our checks and I'll buy you a beer and I came in late that night and my little girl we didn't have a TV or radio or nothing but she was sitting in that couch and she you know she's seven and a half years old now and she looked up at me and she just dropped her eyes and she went over and she picked up her pillow and she grabbed her raggedy old doll and she stood by the door and I grabbed a few things and I said, come on, we're getting out of here. You know, when we got on this bus and I had enough money to get another bottle of wine, I got a bottle of line and we got in that bus and I was like, I said we're going back to California and I passed out on that bus and I woke up the next morning and I Was so sick and I needed a drink and my little girl was just she was rocking back and forth holding her stomach and she was crying and I said what's the matter she goes daddy I'm so hungry I said as soon as we stop I'm gonna get you something to eat now we pulled into this little place and and I went into this liquor store and I grabbed her a little sandwich and I got me a bottle of wine and I gotta have to go pay for it and I only had enough money for one or or the other. And I had to put her sandwich back and I got back on that bus and she saw that bottle in that bag. I just walked past her and I couldn't look at her. I just sat behind her. And there was this elderly black woman on the bus and she'd been watching this whole thing. And she was just a saint, man, because she's never said one word to me. But she said to my little girl, she said, hey honey. She goes, my daughter made me this big lunch and I hate to ride alone. Would you come and sit with me and help me eat this? And she took care of my little girl all the way back to California. And I just sat back and nursed my bottle of wine. You know, I've done a lot of things in my life. I do a lot of things that I would never ever share from the podium, but I've never in my Life done anything that shamed me more than that moment. It shames me me to tell you about it, but I want to express how powerful alcoholism was for me. I got back and I did what all heroes do at the end of the road. I went to mom's house. My mom hadn't heard nothing from us since we left. She didn't know if we were dead or alive. My daughter is the only granddaughter my mother has. She thought the sun rose and set on her. And she opened her door, and she saw her granddaughter there with long stringy hair and a dirty face and this dirty dress holding onto this raggedy old doll. She looked at me with a hate I've never seen her give my father. And she grabbed my little girl and pulled her in the house, and she put her finger on my chest. She goes, you get off my property. If you ever come back here, I'll kill you. And she wasn't joking, you know? And I just left. And, you Know, I thank God for my mother because she saved my daughter's life, I'm sure. The next three years, I don't know. I know from where I got sober, people have told me. I've got police records that I've checked on. and I have brief periods of memory things but for the next three years I drank wine I lived on the Pacific Ocean on this cliff in Carlsbad, California and there was a little restaurant on top of this cliff and their septic tank drained into this big bamboo patch right into the center of it and it smelled real bad and it was dark and nobody would go in there but that was my home you know because it looked and smelled just like the inside of my head and I was safe in there for the cops wouldn't even go in you know and there was a little 7-eleven a little convenience store right across the road and I could go there and I could panhandle for wine and I did my wine and i'd go back to my bush and I would drink when I came to I go back tonight and that's what I did for the the next three years i know that i was arrested in front of that store 52 times for drunken public i knowthat i was in county mental health 17 times for going absolutely insane in the middle of an intersection and just starting to scream at things i know that i remember this one a little bit i was panhandling and the guy says you like like to drink and i said yeah and he went over to his trunk of his car and he opened it up and he had a gallon bottle with white label with these letters that said vodka nothing else you know and he said here and i drank it and it was real hot that day it was like 110 degrees and i decided to get a suntan you know what do you ever sunburned your tongue and the roof of your mouth and your armpit you know third degree burns I remember that one you know and I lived like an animal and I was an animal I drank I drank to the point that I lost the ability to talk because even if the winos avoided me, nobody wanted to talk to me. You know, and that's when it's really, when you see the other winos shuffling down the street and you're walking with a full bottle and they cross the street. You know? You've hit a bottom. I stand in front of this 7-Eleven and i was so sick i was shaking real bad and i needed a drink i needed to drink so bad i knew i was going to go into a seizure at any moment if i couldn't get one i had 65 cents and a pint of wine cost 89 cents and i can't get anyone to give me a penny you know and i'm just standing there shaking and i would just getting scared and scared and this man pulled up and he pulled Pulled up and he's wearing a suit, short hair. He had this square little wife sitting in the front of the car and he had these square little kids sitting in the back, you know, and I looked at him with total contempt, you know, wondering how he could live like that. And he looked at me and he got out and he walked over and he smiled and he opened up his wallet and he gave me two $1 bills. And I didn't even say thank you. I took his money and I ran in that store and I I got a quart of wine and a short dog. And I ran outside and I pulled that bottle up and I just drank that pint of wine almost straight down and leaned my face against that glass until the shaking started to stop and I opened my eyes and I saw that family sitting in that car and I could see their reflection in the glass and they were looking at me and they weren't talking. And I knew they were talking about me and I turned around and I flipped them off and cursed them and wandered back to my bush. You know, I'm here to talk about religion because it has absolutely no business and Alcoholics Anonymous. But that was a good people and they were on the way to a temple to worship the God of their understanding that day and they weren't talking about it. Those people are very good friends of mine today. And they were praying for this poor animal they saw standing there. And I went down in this bush and I'm opening my wine and I've taken a pull on this jug and all of a sudden I had one of those weird, weird experiences where out of the blue I hear this voice in my ears going maybe you ought to go to A&A see I've been to A&A you know I've seen I've gone to A & A and them nut houses and them detoxes and they would hospitals and every once in a while some 90 day wonder would come down to the beach to try to save my soul you know and I'd hustle him out of enough money for a drink you know and I would patiently explain to these people that I'm not an alcoholic no really really, I'm a drug addict. I just can't afford any drugs. No. They did the same thing. You know, they laughed. They said, well, if you ever find yourself drinking when you don't want to be drinking, you know, come to Alcoholics Anonymous and we will love you so you can love yourself. Okay. I don't know what happened. and I don't remember the journey or anything or even the decision. But my whole life for years was just moments of coming to here, you know? You ever come to at twilight and you don't know if it's getting lighter or darker? So you just kind of sit down and wait before you make your next move, you now? That was my life. I'm standing in this room at the back, just like this room. And I'm standin' there and all these people are lookin' at me. And this guy says, are you lookin' for AA? And I nodded my head. And he said, would you like to identify yourself? I've lost the ability to talk. I try. I have absolute epiphanies in my brain but when I try to open my mouth and say something the only thing that comes out is it just gets stuck you know and it was great for panhandling but the guy looked at me and everyone looked at him with a little bit of alarm and they said welcome, have a seat I sat next to this pretty little lady and she scooted all the way down and I'm looking at these people they look like you man these people are clean they got short hair they smell good they're smiling and laughing they're all looking at me I've been wearing the same clothes for three years my hair comes down past my ass my beard comes down past my belt buckle I weigh about 120 pounds I'm covered in wine sores and a whole bunch of stuff lives on me besides me and I was told I had quite a fragrance you know and I'm sitting there waiting for these people to start loving me and I'm feeling like I don't fit in one more time. And they're looking at me and I am looking at them and then they start talking and I hear what they are talking about. They are talking about God. And I am going, oh no. And then they start passing this basket. Uh-huh. They are going to start singing in a minute. I got to get out of here man. I got it. This is just too lame for me, man. And I stood up. I'm going to go get a drink. And there was this lady, elderly lady, that had been looking at me for the minute I walked in the room. She kept trying to... I thought she was just some brain-damaged old gal, you know. And there were some guy talking about something or another. I don't know what. But when I stoodup to walk out, she jumped to her feet and she saved my life. she looked right at me and she wasn't talking to anyone else in that room but no one other people they weren't even going to try to stop me in fact a lot of them were looking forward to me leaving they were opening the windows you know she walked she looked straight at me she goes I walked in these rooms 27 years ago in Long Beach California she goes a cop brought me here he told me to go in there he was tired of arresting me those people might help and I walked in that room and the meeting had already started and I turned around and I looked at all these people and they were all squares you know and I knew and I thought there were ladies in there and I new when those women turned around and saw me and saw what I was they wouldn't want me around their men she goes I've been on the streets of Los Angeles since I was 14 years old and done everything a woman ever had to do to survive out there and when I saw you people I felt dirty and I just wanted to leave but a woman grabbed hold of me and brought me into the rooms and got me a cup of coffee and told me something she whispered in my ear she said don't go nowhere honey we need you this woman started talking about 27 years of continuous sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous about the women who grabbed hold of her and taught her how to be a woman about a home group that grabbed hold of her and helped her get a job and helpedher build a life of 27 years of continuous sobriete and Alcoholic Anonymous and she walked over in front of all those people who didn't know what to make of me and she grabbed hold of me and this woman, she's a tiny little thing she reached up and pulled me down and kissed me right on the mouth the bravest woman I've ever met in my life you know I mean nobody had touched me with anything but a stick for about three years you know and thiswoman, she is holding on to me and she is hugging me you know and I tell you people have been beating on me since the day I've been born and nobody in this world has ever made me cry about nothing I don't show no feeling I don't give nothing up. And this old gal, she's holding on to me and she whispers up in my ear. And she says this, she goes, baby, don't go nowhere. We need you desperately. Please don't leave. And she said that to me. And my stomach started rumbling. And my eyes started getting wet. And pretty soon I'm standing there and I am just sobbing for the first time in my life. I've never cried that hard in my live. and I'm holding on to this little old woman and she's telling me it's going to be okay. And I started coming to A&A and y'all lied to me right from the beginning because there was a lot of what we were talking about earlier, a lot middle-of-the-road AA going on. And they would say, well just don't drink and go to meetings. meetings. Anyone understand the term stark, raving, sober? Yeah. I would not drink and go to meetings for about two days. And I would go absolutely insane. And And, you know, and they said, you need to get a sponsor. I said, what's a sponsor? And they explained what a sponsor was. And I went, no. I've been on parole half my life, man. I'm not about to turn my life over to one of these lops, you know. I'll figure it out, you know. And they said well, you got to take these steps. and I'm looking at these steps, and powerless. I've been carrying a gun since I was 14 years old. I ain't never been powerless, you know? Maybe a little unmanageable, I could relate to that, but I kind of like it that way, you Know? I hate knowing what's going to happen next. Talked about, you Now, this insanity stuff. I don't know nothing about that. I know that I was under psychiatric treatment when I was 11 years old for attempted murder on someone. And if you've always been insane, what are you going to be restored to? So I got real confused on that and I just skipped over it. Then I got to the God stuff. Don't need none of that. I've asked God for help many times, man. He don't like me. He likes the people who love in the suburbs. Something about me just pisses him off, you know. He has nothing coming and neither do I and that's fine. And we got to this next deal and I said, what's this? He says, well, you've got to make an inventory. You've gotto write down everything you've ever done and share it with another human being. now prior to my absolute alcoholic life I was a very successful career criminal and I really prided myself in not any paper trail of my activities and now this member of the PTA is wanting me to write everything down and share it with him I'm not about to do that you know and then I'm going to this other one and I'm going wait a minute what does an amends mean he goes well you got to go face everybody you've ever met and right the wrong I go what do you mean right the wrong because you gotto fix it and I go I'm thinking I'm gone oh boy I have this vision of going hey loopy hey man It's Kip. Hey, brother, wait a minute. I'm sorry I shot you and your brother and your dog and took all your dope, but I'm in a spiritual manner of living today and I'm here to make things right. Loopy would have shot me coming up the driveway, you know? It might be okay for you people from the suburbs that stole a candy bar or something, you don't know? But I'll guarantee you, those places in the United States, I can't go back until all their kinfolk are dead. I couldn't do these things, but I wanted what you had, and I came to meetings. I cameto meetings every single day that I wasn't locked up, that I've walked in these meetings. I've thrown up on your floors. I've pissed on your floor. I've passed out on your fours. I've stolen all the money out of the basket so many times I couldn' t even tell you. And you know what? what? I chased your women. Not very successfully at all, I will admit. And you know what they would tell me everywhere I went? Keep coming back. What a bunch of losers. You know? I wanted them to kick me out, you know? They won't kick you out. See, if you just kick kick me out and tell me you couldn't help me. I can just go on my way and just drink, but you put all this stuff in my head, you know, and it was crazy. And I lived this way for six years. I'm still living in this bush for six years. Every once in a while, I'd start to get together just a little bit and someone would let me move in their garage or something. And as soon as I would, you know get cleaned up just a little bit and I'd get $5 in my pocket and I had it all together again, you know and uh i'm busy man i'd like to go to a meeting with you tonight but i got to do something you knowand i'd be off and running again and this was over and over and over and after six years a lot of people stop sticking their hand out to you when you're doing that there was one guy he came here and spoke here a couple years ago guy named cliff r cliff r was a member of this group and cliff r is one of the men that saved my life because every time i came when all those other people, they didn't want nothing to do with me. Cliff would wade through the people, you know, and he would grab me and welcome me to the rooms. People like that brought me back. I've never seen anybody pass a basket while the speaker was speaking. Very, very rude. I come to in jail, in the rubber room, hog-tied. Cops would beat me down one more time. My face was hog-tagged. My face had been bleeding and was stuck to this mat. And I'm trying to roll over and peel my face off this mat and it was on Christmas morning. And I knew that Santa Claus wasn't coming that day, you know. And they let me out. And they said, just go on your way, Kip, you Know. And I don't know where it came from, but I had $90 and I made a conscious decision that day. I ain't never going back to AA. You know, I'm that person they talk about. I can't get sober. I can do this deal. I can humiliate myself in front of you anymore. I went and spent $90. I don' t know where I came from. I think they might have made a mistake. But I spent every penny of it on Gallo Port Wine. And it's one of the most beautiful sights. It took me two trips to get it to my little hooch, you know. And I started drinking, you know, because alcohol is the only thing that's never lied. Alcohol is the one thing that has ever taken away the pain, the terror, the loneliness. It's the only things in this world that works for me. And I start drinking. You know, and on January 6th, my world collapsed. It talks about it in the book. It says there will come a time where you cannot imagine life without alcohol or without it. and if you've been coming to AA for a long time and AA don't work for you and the day that alcohol stops working you'll know loneliness and terror as few human beings can even imagine you know everyone here we all come from different places different life experiences and everything but there's one thing that we have in common and that's understanding what that word word loneliness means we know what it smells like feels like and tastes like better than any human being in the whole world i do believe we almost have a monopoly on it you know and at that moment i was the loneliest and the most terrified human being on the face of the earth and i couldn't even imagine i couldn'T even imagine life without alcohol without nothing to cut the pain because Because it wouldn't work. It wouldn't do it. And I pulled out my gun and I put it to my chest and I pulled the trigger and I blew my left lung and two ribs out and it knocked me all the way on this wall. I'm sliding down this wall and blood's flying everywhere. You know, and the only thought I think is thank God this nightmare is over with. Let me out of here. And I come to in this hospital. You thought I died, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. for me to drink is to die I go only if you're lucky that was this old man in Alcoholics Anonymous I hated his guts he always wore wingtips and a suit and a tie and he always had this big ugly blue book and he said I'm a grateful alcoholic every time he said it I wanted to throw up on his wingtip and he came up to me one time he'd been sober an A so long he said when he got here they only had one A you know and he came up to me and he got right dead in my face and he's a great big man and he looked at me and said you think you're pretty tough don't you kid and I looked him right in the eye and gave him my best jailhouse look I said I'm tough enough old man don't ever doubt that he got this big grin and he put his nose right almost on mine and he looked me right in the eye and he said you ain't tough he says you're the scaredest son of a bitch in this room and that might make you dangerous but it don't make you tough and he walked away laughing at me I avoided that man like the plague I'd go to a meeting before I'd walk around looking in all the windows to make sure he wasn't in there and I come up there in a coma for about a week and I'm opening my eyes I hear this voice and Charlie had this deep gravelly voice and I listen no no. Oh, no. And I open my eyes and there's Charlie standing at the foot of my bed and he's got these two newcomers and they're looking at me and their eyes are as big as saucers. And I know I've died. I've gone to hell and this is it. Forever. And I'm chained to this thing and I can't get a drink and this guy's going to preach He preached to me through eternity, you know. And I'm looking at him and Charlie looked at me. I've never seen him look at me that way. He looked at my with a love and a compassion I'd never seen on his face. And he put his arms around these two young men and he said, take a look, fellas. Take a look. Pay close attention because this is what happens to an alcoholic who refuses to take the steps. Come on, let's go. I got out of that hospital after about four months. I did an awful lot of damage to myself that I'm still paying for. You know, alcohol didn't work. Nothing worked. I just wanted to die every day. And on May 12th was not much different than any other day. I come to and the first conscious thought is I need to get something in my body as fast as I can. Maybe it'll work today, maybe it'll take away the pain, maybe it will take away, maybe It'll work. And at the same time, I've been to so many of these meetings that you people have poisoned my mind because what I'm hearing at 5.30 in the morning when I need a drink is the ABCs right at the end of Chapter 5 that I'm an alcoholic and my life's unmanageable. And I know I'm not. I know how I am an alcoholic. paperwork from the state of California classifying me as a chronic alcoholic. I am not in denial about me being an alcoholic, you know? But that's not what it's about. What it's about is in my innermost self here. What does that mean? What does that mean that I'm powerless over alcohol? And I had this vision. God gave Gave me this moment of clarity. And I felt that day my daughter was born. And I built that love and I remembered it crystal clear and I knew that I would give my life for my daughter without a hesitation. In the next vision, I was watching this man walk past her on that bus with a bottle of wine. And it suddenly dawned on me that alcohol owns me lock, stock and barrel alcohol is my absolute total master it tells me what I can do where I can go where I have to go how far I can get when I have a bed when I get up when I lay down there's no room for another human being anywhere in this world unless they're buying me a drink and the love that I have for my daughter which is just absolute human survival one of the most strongest feelings a human being can have have can be canceled out for just one more drink. I said that my life's unmanageable and I remember when she was born what kind of father I dreamed that I wanted to be to this little girl and I saw the way I'd run my life, how unmanangeable, what a mess I've made of everything. And I came to the next part that said that no human power was ever going to fix me. I kept hoping you people were going to fixed me.I kept hoping I was going to run into some pretty little girl and she was going to fix me. And there were some that tried, and if they hear this, you should have talked to your sponsor about it. And then I got to that part I've been dodging, man. Dodging since I got here, that God stuff. I've got a resentment against God. God's the one that put me in that insane asylum I grew up in. The things I've seen people do in this world and the things I had to do in this role, if there was a God, He certainly has a perverse sense of humor. I want nothing to do with your God. God. He never cut me any slack, but I started thinking and there was some people around here I've been watching and there's people I saw that had what I wanted and it wasn't their money. It wasn't our women. It wasn't her stuff. It was a look in their eye and the way they walked through life one day at a time with dignity and purpose. And all these people talked about something. They talked about a power that did for them what they couldn't do for themselves. And I got down on my knees that morning and it was the most sincere moment of my life. And i said this prayer that It hasn't changed much from this day to that. I said, I don't know who you are and I don' t know what you are and I sure hope it doesn' t make any difference. But from this Day forward, I will do anything. I will be there for you. I will not do anything that you put in front of me if I don''t have to drink. And if you're not there, I'm screwed. And I do not have the vocabulary, but I do know that I am one of the really blessed people people, because something happened. Something happened that I wasn't expecting and I don't have the vocabulary to tell you what happened. But I know that all of a sudden my spirit became very calm. Everything got real quiet inside and I had a knowing. I had an knowing in my brain that I knew that I was not going to have to drink if I could hold on to that and there was not a shadow of a doubt about it. And I got over to Charlie's house as quick as I could, you know? And I knocked on his door and his wife, a member of Al-Anon for 47 years, she opened the door. We called her St. Edie. And she knocked on the door and she opened it and she goes, oh, Chip! Oh! Charlie's going to be so excited! And then she goes, you're his favorite. it. And I went, really? She goes, why don't you go around the porch and Charlie will be out in a minute. I found out later she told everybody that, you know. Nobody ever needed to hear it more than I did though. And then I went back out there and Charlie came out and he looked at me and he smiled and he just sat down beside me. He said, how are you, Kip? And I said, I don't know. He goes, how can I help you? I said Charlie, I I don't want to drink no more. He goes, yeah, you've been saying that for a while. What are you willing to do? I said, anything. He says, I'm going to ask you one question. Are you done? I said Charlie, from the bottom of my heart I'm gonna tell you I don' t know nothing about God. I know you do. And I pray to your God that I'm done. He goes that's a pretty good answer. sir? He says, Kippy, he says, I got some good news and I got some bad news for you. He says the bad news is people like you don't get sober. You die in institutions. You die on the side of the road. You are a very badly damaged human being. I don't know what the damage is. But you have a lot of problems. And people like, you die. But it's also I've been here for a long time and I see the magic in your eye. I see this sparkle. And I know that God has opened the window for you. And this is the way it's going to have to be for you one day at a time, all the days of your life. One simple fact that absolutely nothing, no woman, no job, no child, no nothing in this world can ever become more important than you doing the things that you must do to maintain your sobriety. And that's a lot, lot more than just going to meetings because are you willing to do that? I said, I'll do anything you tell me to do. He says, just come with me it was on mother's day and there was a park across his house and there was all these families out there having picnics with their mothers and they were all dressed up and nice and i come walking back there and that old man walked right in the middle of them and he dropped on his knees and i'm looking at him i go what are you doing he goes we're gonna pray i said here he goes here he says i'm gonna tell you something kip the only hope you got God, is that God will grant his grace on you. Don't ever, ever be ashamed of him. He said, besides that, these people have been stepping over you for years. You're on your knees. You're halfway to your feet, boy. And I got down on my knee and that old man, he took my hand and he taught me the third step prayer. And then he said, come on, and he took me back and he had a little room that he detoxed the men that he worked with and he called all the men that he sponsored and they came over and those men took turns with me, sitting with me. They'd tell me their stories and he came out and he detoxed me because I couldn't just stop and he gave me, he got a half pint of whiskey and orange juice and kero syrup and he'd give me a shot and he just kept cutting it down and after five days, I stopped shaking and he said, okay, this is a program of action and I'm going, yeah. I said, so what do we do? And he said the magic words. I've always thought they should have made a bumper sticker, the words that changed my life. He said, get in the car. I said, okay. Charlie, I didn't tell you, but Charlie was an old gangster and he had his right eye shot out when he was young and he Had a glass eye there. And Charlie had this big old Cadillac and he lived right off of Interstate 5. I said where are we going? He goes, we're going to county detox. I said I'm detoxed. He goes, I know. We're going to go talk to the drunks. I go, what am I going to talk about? He says, you're going to talk about being sober for five days. I went, okay. And Charlie, when you're new with Charlie, Charlie would never stop talking because he didn't want you to have a thought. You know? And he had to look at you constantly. He had to look at you right in the face and he'd be driving and we got on Interstate 5 which you have no idea if you've never been there. You know, that's a huge freeway. And in the freeways, they've got these little dots on the road. They put them there for Charlie. But Charlie would put his front tires on those little left. And we'd be going down the road and he's looking at you and he is talking to you. And we're going... And by the time you got to San Diego, you knew this man had a relationship with God. You know? And he took me into this detox. And these guys are laying on mats and they came in. And Charlie said a few things, and he says, I want to introduce you to my friend Kip. He's got five days sobriety. He says, tell him how you feel, Kip, and I sat there, and I didn't know what to say, but I just talked. I talked to other drunks, and when we walked out, he goes, how do you feel? I went, that felt good. He goes, that's it, hang on to it. That's the magic. You have to give this away. way. It's the only way you're going to get it. And he took me back and he's laid out a course of action. He says, okay, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna get a haircut. You'RE gonna get his shave. I'm gonna give you some money. YouRE gonna go to a thrift store, get some clean clothes. You'Re gonna get A job. I said, A job? I don't know how to do anything. He goes, God will take care of that. Don't worry. You know? And he said, I want you to get an identification in your real name. Oh, I've never done that before. And I went and got an I did all these things, and he said, you're going to be at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single night. You will get there an hour early. You'll wait for the people to show up. You'll help them set up. You'll shake hands with every man that walks in there. You will not hug the women. Leave them alone. You will NOT borrow cigarettes from people. You will Not borrow money from people You will beg them. You don't tell them anything about you unless they ask. And when the meeting's over, you'll help him clean it up. and you'll do whatever you can possibly do to get in there and be a part of that and you will do this every night I said for 90 days he goes 90 days I go you know 90 and 90 he goes none of that applies to you you know I said how long I got to do it he goes until you like it and I said okay so I go to him he says you're going to have a commitment at a men's meeting at a book study at a step study and you're gonna be at another meeting every single night of this week and you are gonna get a job and you gonna go to work every single day and you're going to pay your bills on time as the money comes in. You know, when I got paid, my first check was $150. And I said, Charlie, they're going take all my money. He goes, no, they are not going to take any of your money. They are just going to takethers. Oh, that's how it works. And he started teaching me how to do things that I didn't know how to do. And he taught me the word that changed my life, the most important word an alcoholic in new recovery ever learns. And it's a word called commitment. Commitment. It means something different to us in here than it does to the people out there. Because the word commitment will save your life. I don't know about you all, but I ran out of excuses the day before I got here for anything. I was done. My bag was empty of excuses. He says, when you give us your word, you're going to do something. There's only one excuse for not doing it, and that is you died on the way there. Period. period. Nothing to talk about. And he said, you're going to make a commitment. You're going to hold this job for a year. You'RE going to be at a meeting. You'Re going to do this. YouRE going to dO that, blah, blah. And I said okay and I started doing it. You know what? And things started happening very slowly. This man took me through those steps, man. He set me down in that room and he helped me do my fourth step because I could hardly ride. My brain was so addled. It was so added. He would help me even write it. He sat there and he worked with me and he He worked with me, and we did that fifth step. And he made out that list of my defects of character that had been said. I've just been stumbling over all of my life. And, you know, and he made me this other list of the opposite of those defects. And he told me to start practicing those and stop practicing that. You know, we made a list of people that I could harm. And thank God he told мне I didn't have to make any amends to any drug dealers. You know? Because if you give them back their money, they'll just sell dope to God's kids. So leave those people alone. They took their chances. But he said, everyone else you've got to make an amends to. You know, one of the hardest amends I ever made, the hardest Amends I made to anybody in my life was to my little girl. And I was scared. I loved that little girl with all my life. Everything I had, I loved. That girl and the regret and the guilt and the pain was so intense I couldn't even look at her at two years sober. She was still living with my mother. And I went over to talk to her and I said, said, honey, I said, I'm trying to get my life together and I need to do this. This is one of the steps. And I have to make amends with you. I haveと make things right. And she just hugged me and she said, Daddy, don't worry about it. You're sober. You'rе living good. That's all I ever wanted, Daddy. It's okay. You don't owe me any amends. I go, no, honey. That ain't enough. I said because I don't know how bad I hurt you.I don't knоw when I hurt yоu. I donоw know the fears you had, how many times I embarrassed yоou, how mоny times I humiliated yоу, how many times you were scared. If you're going to forgive me for all that, you need to go do an inventory yourself and you needto write that all down and then we need to come back and talk and you tell me everything that I've done because I don't know. And we did that and it took eight hours and it was the most painful thing I've ever done in my life. But you know what it did? It changed my relationship with my daughter and when she saw that I was willing to walk through that, our relationship changed. And there was a couple of times we laughed. Most of the time it was a lot of tears. And three different times she jumped up and slapped me as hard as she could right in the face. And we spent that whole day going through that, you know what, and we started healing. You know, he got me busy in service right at the very beginning. My sponsor said this is, of course, a vigorous action. And I'd say, well, you don't have to do that. He said, well you know how I feel. He says, I don't care how you feel, I want to know what you're doing. Keep busy. and that man kept me busy every single day for the next three years I met a woman I fell in love she got sober on the same day I did and she liked to fish so it had to have been God's will you know and I didn't tell my sponsor about it but we got married boy was he pissed I don't ever do that you know but you know she was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and she was as active as I was you know and it worked out okay for a long, long time because after the next nine years I had arrived man I had the big house in California I had the boats. I had new trucks. I got 18 people working for me. I just got through traveling around the world. I'm sponsoring all of San Diego, you know. I'm the director of everything. I'm a secretary of this. I'm doing this. I'm going to do that. I'm not doing that. You know, I've got men at my house doing steps every single night, you know, and I'm busy. And at three years sober, I needed to back up just a little bit. You know? At three years over, the state of California gave me my driver's license back and i got my contractor's license and i came home and i had a little house and i just gotten married and the phone rang and i picked it up this little girl she said is your name kip collins i said yeah she goes do you know so-and-so i said a long time ago she goes that's my mother and you're my father and i've been looking for you and that little girl that was born so many years ago back there she came into my life and she brought me three grandchildren children you know three little two little girls and a little boy yeah and i got to make amends to her family and i Got to bring her welcome in and let her meet her brothers and sisters and we became a family you know and i fell in love with her we built a relationship over the next few years with those children and her and i loved her i just got back from a trip from australia and i was looking at my house and you know my life i just i'm was sitting there thinking how How can you come from there to here? That's impossible. And I opened up the front page of the paper, and there's a story about a man who the day before when I was gone had broke into this woman's house and raped her all night long in front of her children. And when he was done with her, he took a knife and cut her to pieces. And it was my daughter. You people don't know me, but I'll tell you straight up, I'm perfectly capable of first-degree murder with no problem if you touch any of my children. you know and i am absolutely insane he did not kill my daughter but she lost her face she lost her right arm and she lost a breast and i went to that hospital and i saw this lump of humanity laying there that didn't even look human and i wanted revenge i wanted vengeance more than anything in this world and the cops that got this man but he ain't beyond me you know i'll get him and I can't talk about it and I'm nuts and I am crazy and I didn't even go to a meeting man because I can not let this out and I cannot sleep and I are nuts and I AM CRAZY and I Am reading that book or the sponsor said the answer is in that book and I'M READING THAT BOOK and if there is anyone here that has got a resentment they can't get I have read it letter by letter there are no loopholes it says if that is the dubious luxury of normal people for an alcoholic it will kill us it will cut us off from the sunlight of the spirit spirit will become insane again and we'll have to drink. And if we drink, we'll have to die. You know, I read the book and I remembered he said that nothing can be more important. And I'm looking on that book and i found a thing so that if I got a resentment, I can't get rid of that. I got to get on my knees and pray for that animal to have everything out of life I want. And the hardest thing I've ever done in my life since i landed on your planet you know was to get on my knees and pray for that animal but i did it and i did every day and i'm not going to lie to you and tell you that i have totally forgiven that man but i will tell you this that i turned him over to god you know and he's god's business in the laws business ain't none of my business you know, and the insanity went away and i was able to go talk to the men in my group and I was able to start crying about it and feeling emotion and I had the means to go take care of my daughter and my grandchildren to get them the medical and psychological help that they needed and I wasn't alone I was their grandfather and their father because that's what they needed she needed me the most in her life as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous her father was there and willing and able to do what needed to be done what I could do and you know what, it worked because I didn't have to hurt nobody and I didn'y have to drink you know right after that they told me I had cancer and they're going to cut off my lips. I like my lips, I'm really attached to them. And I went to see this doctor and he said, well we're going to do this for you, it's going to be very very painful, you're going to have to take it. He says, are you allergic to anything? I said lead and anything that affects me from the neck up. He goes, what do you mean? I say, I cannot take any narcotics or anything for any reason whatsoever and he goes you could never go through this without it i said then i'd rather die of the cancer you know and he said and i talked him into it we did this surgery and they cut my lip and great plastic surgeon they cut almost two inches out of here all the way down to here and then put everything back together and i did it with absolutely no dignity whatsoever i cried and and screamed like a little schoolgirl. Thank you. You know, I know I'm long-winded, but I want to tell you something. I rode for 22 hours on an airplane. I got stuck in an airport for 24 hours. So if I get a little bit loud, you want to hear the short version, you can come to California, you can take the ride, but I'm going to give you everything I got. the men and alcoholics anonymous my home group robbers roost those men stayed with me they never let me out of their sight they took turns when a member of our group needs help we're there we're 24-7 whatever they need we're here we don't leave their side and i called for help and they came and they took care of me and these sick guys These guys are real jerks, I'll tell you. Because my mouth was all sewed together and they would try to come up with really good jokes to make me laugh. Sick people. I just love them. You know, and I got through that, you know. And something had been going on with my wife. I don't know. She was the very first woman, the very First Woman I ever experienced intimacy with. Not sex, but intimacy. of taking off all the armor and letting her see exactly who I was, and she didn't back up. And I adored this woman. I just loved her. Her name was Connie. Something had been going on, but I'd been trying to take care of my daughter and my cancer and my grandchildren. And I came home one day, and she was sitting there, and She was crying. I said, What's the matter? She said, Sit down. I've got to talk to you. And I sit down, and she goes, Kip, she looked me in the eye, and she was crying. She goes, I don't want to hurt you. I went, oh, please then don't. Don't do anything you don't wanna do. She goes Kip. She goes I can't do this no more. I can' t do this. It's a lie, and I'm gonna drink. I can''t do it. I don''t wanna hurt you, but I don' t know what to do. I said, what are you talking about? She goes kip, I'm a lesbian. I'm in love with Chrissy, and I have to leave. I didn't think she was going to tell me that just I went what and I you know I don't know what to say I don' t know what to do you know you can shoot me you can stab me you set me on fire I know how to handle that don't tell me you don't need me no more you know it's like you just rip my guts out and dropped them right on my new boots. I react the way I always react when I don't know what to do with anger, you know? And I called her names and I cursed her and I ran out of the house and, you now, she was Catholic and I had joined the Catholic Church and we had this great priest, Father, his name was Bill Wilson, by the way. He's dead so I'll break his anonymity. He was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for almost 28 years and we went to, I went to the church to get some advice. Actually, I wanted to rat her out, you know? And I go into his study with him and I'm talking to him and I tell him in a sad woe and he's sitting there looking at me. And I get done and he says, so what do you think, Father? He goes, I think you make me sick. I go, what? He goes you ever read that book you're always talking about? I go what are you talking about He says, you don't know that one page, I believe it's 61. remember that guy that thought he could rest satisfaction out of life if he did everything just right you keep telling me what a wonderful husband you've been you've done this for her and you've done that for her you know and now she has done this was there a hook in everything you did was it done out of love or was it done out of thinking you had something coming from it I don't understand he goes here's the reality this was your wife she made a vow to you she kept her vow to you something changed in her i don't know that's between her and god but you're not in charge of her sexuality you know that'S her business and god's business she was a good wife to you she was faithful to you until it threatened her sobriety in her very life and she loved you enough to come and tell you face to face she didn't just do it behind your back I said, yeah. He says, so go apologize. I'm going, yeah, and he said, and give her her divorce and give Her anything she wants. She's been a good wife to you. And I said okay, and that's what I did, you know, and she kept my last name. She tells everybody she's my sister, you know, and me and Connie, our relationship as a result of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous autonomous got to change and i love her with all my heart she loves me i'll guarantee you she loves me uh she's with this woman they've been together ever since she comes and babysits my children sometimes we we we celebrate the same birthday and we exchange cakes every year and she i did not have to throw that relationship out it had just changed and evolved into something else that's all i didn't know you could do that you know i didn'T KNOW YOU COULD DO THAT And we did it. You know, and I got through that. And I didn't have to drink. I didn'T have to hurt nothing, you know? And then I got attacked by this dog. And it almost tore my arm completely off. And I'm in this ambulance, and blood is flying everywhere. And I call my guy Scotty. He's this outlaw motorcycle guy. And he runs with all these sober bikers. And there's the only person I could think of to call. And I called him. I said, Scotty, I'm bleeding to death. I'm at an ambulance. They're taking me to a hospital. Meet me there. Don't let them put any narcotics in my body if I pass out. and we pulled under that hospital and there was about 20 outlaw motorcycles there with all these guys in leather screaming, don't give that man any narcotics and those guys went into that hospital with me man and I told the doctor this guy has total say so over everything and these guys never left me they inspected everything that doctor did to him they would not let them put anything in me that would affect me from the neck up You know, and I'm not telling anyone to do with your pain medication. That's your business. I don't care anything about it. See, you get loaded and drunk, my wife won't leave me, you know? I'm Not Real Smart. I used up most of my brain cells on cheap wine, you know? The only thing I know absolutely with a certainty in granted is that no matter what I got to do to stay sober, it's easier to stay sober than to get sober again. That's all I know. I don' t play no games with anything that goes in my body. You know what? And I got through that, you know, but I couldn't work. And as a result of that, I lost my home. I lost everything. You know, right down to it was just me and my son and my dog. And my son got sick, and I had to go sit in the hospital with him. I didn't tell you, but at the age of 23 years old, my son, see, I got involved with the men that had handicapped children, and they got me involved in the Special Olympics, and they taught me a lot of things about how to be a father to a handicapped child. And they got through the guilt of it, you know? And I got really involved in this little boy's life. And he graduated from high school at the age of 23 years old. And he couldn't talk, and he had a lot mental problems. But he walked down that aisle in that black robe and he gave me his diploma. you know and he said I love you daddy in sign language you know and he was my dearest child and you know and he got sick and we had to go to a hospital and I sat with that little boy for the next three months and on October 4th of 1993 he died in my arms and the promises it tells us that we will know serenity I want to tell you what serenety is to me I don't know what it is to you serenty has nothing to do with standing watching a beautiful sunset with a pocket full of money and a beautiful woman. It's a lot of fun, but it's not serenity. Serenity is having a relationship with the God of your understanding to a level that you're able to watch the person you love more than your own life and hurt more than you knew it was humanly possible to hurt. But at exactly the same time knowing without a shadow of a doubt in your heart of hearts that this was god's business and none of it was personal to you it's just god's just life on life's terms that's all and i don't have to drink from it it's juste part of life people are born people die period you know and i knew a serenity and i got on my knees and my sponsor came in and we got on our knees and we prayed and I thank God and I thanked all you people of Alcoholics Anonymous who taught me to be the kind of father and to have the relationship with that little boy that I dreamed about the day he was born and you guys gave that to me I had thrown it all away that little girl that I had drugged all over she had gone to college and one day a man came and said can I have your daughter's hand in marriage I said do you drink he goes nope nope. I said, you got a job? He goes, yep, I'm a pilot for American Airlines. I go, let me tell you something, pal. If you ever hit my daughter in anger, don't ever sleep in the same place twice. Got it? And he said, yes, sir. And I went and got some credit cards And I gave my daughter the wedding that I dreamed about the day she was there. They've been married for 11 years. I'm still paying. I will have it paid off in the year 2012. But you guys gave that to me. I mean, we got married in exactly the place I dreamed about the day she was born. Right down on Torrey Pines in this beautiful building and we walked her down and my whole home group was there and you ought to see all these outlaws in tuxedos and tattoos. It was absolutely insane. Trying to act like gentlemen. It was like a Godfather movie or something. But everything was gone, you know, and it was just me. And I told my sponsor, I didn't know what to do. And he said, well, why don't you go to school? You've always wanted to go to schooI because I'd only been to the seventh grade. He goes, you got no one to worry about no more, just you. So I said, okay. So, you now, I went down and I talked to this university and I found out what I wanted to do today. I said so what do I got to do? They go, well it's going to take you about five years. I said I can't do that. I'll give you about two and a half. She goes, well you can't doing it unless you do this. And I said okay, I'll do that It was taking 24 units nonstop around the clock for two and a half years with no breaks. And anything worth doing is worth abusing, you know? He says in that book, he says, we are extreme examples of anything we set our minds to. It doesn't matter what it is, you Know? And I started going to school, and I fell absolutely in love with education. And I graduated. I got that degree. And I was getting ready to graduate, and the dean called me in, and she goes, you know, we have a problem. I said, what's that? She goes, we're not going to be able to give you your diploma. I said why? She goes we don't have your high school transcript. I said that's easy to explain. I never went to high school. She goes well, you can't graduate without that. I went, why not? She goes because. And she goes – I said what do I do? She said, well, you've got to go take the GED test. And I don't think you have enough time to do that. And I walked into this office and I said, listen, I've got to take this test today. She goes, we don't do it that way. You've got a study for six months. I said no. This is what's going on. I've gotta take this task today. What have we got to lose? If I pass it, I pass. If I don' t, I'll have to do it your way. She goes okay, so I passed it. I got a 95 on it. and I graduated with a black hat and a gown and all that and my home group came and watched me and about this time you know, I told my sponsor one day he said, you know man I'm really lonely I think I want a relationship and he told me to stay away from women and I healed up from that last one. And he goes, do you need one? And I went, yeah. He goes, can't have it. So I'm going to give you the best advice I've ever given you. He says, it's absolutely impossible for an alcoholic to have a relationship if they need one. That's not a relationship. You can't be a man You can have a woman until you don't need a woman to validate you as a man. When you get to that point you can have relationship but not a minute before because the worst will happen you'll hurt yourself. I don't care about that but you might hurt someone else. so you just I said well can I date he goes keep it light and I kept it light and I started going to work I had I was seduced it was I'm only human you know I was sitting in my house one day I just waxed my truck fed my dog we had a big pot of beans going I had some cornbread going I'm just kicked back man my whole life my little house is all together and I'm watching a ball game and there was this young lady called me and she said Kip you've been alone a long time and I said yeah and she goes I was thinking about that and she says how would you like to come over and I'll cook you dinner and maybe we could mess around and I went wow I'm very flattered I said but you know I got a big pot of beans going here and I got cornbread and I am watching this ball game maybe I can come over some other time and she hung up on me you know and I thought oh well And I went, wow, that's what he was talking about. It's okay. You know? And I'm like, this is cool. And I said, God, thank you. But if it be your will, after all, you learn how to negotiate. But be careful. You've got to say it just right. I said if it'd be your well, I would love to experience true love one more time in my life. life but if not that's cool two weeks later i was getting ready to go to work and i got a phone call and it was this girl who had seduced me and uh i think that's the way it happened but anyway she heard her mother and i said hi how are you and she goes oh we had a horrible accident she got drunk last night and she got in a car wreck and she's got massive brain damage and her body she'll never get out of the hospital oh god i'm sorry is there anything i can do to help She said, yeah, could you come up and pick up your daughter? I'm thinking, what's my daughter doing up there? And she goes, you don't know, do you? I said, know what? She goes, You have a three-month-old daughter. I'm 50 years old. She goes... And I'm too old to raise any more kids. Do you want her? I went, okay. And I got in my car, and I had to drive about 100 miles up to Burbank, California, and I knocked on this apartment door and this lady opened the door, she said hi and she handed me a diaper bag and a little bassinet and said good luck sailor and shut the door I'm looking at this little girl and she looked up at me and she smiled and my heart exploded and I fell head over heels in love man and God gave me see I was thinking of a blonde with a house with credit cards you know i didn't know i have to change their diaper every hour but i'm absolutely convinced it's been my experience to your women that your love for me is very conditional about my behavior i believe that the children that we have man and the people that i sponsor are the only unconditional love i ever experienced in my life you know and all the guys well you need to get a blood test I'm going uh-uh God gave me this baby I ain't giving it back you know this is my baby and all the men I ainít got nothing for kids so all these outlaws throw a baby shower for me and they're bringing little long haired bearded crazy looking at her little pink dress And we had a party and we served cake and punch, you know. And my life started filling up, man. And I'd put my baby to sleep and I gave her her bath at night and I'd sing to her, you now. And the lady next door would take care of her while I went to work. And for the next year, it was just me and my baby girl, Natalie Marie, you kno. And one day, after about a year, I was at a meeting because I couldn't get a babysitter. She goes to meetings with me. Everybody knew her. And I was sitting at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, holding my little girl. And there was this lady that me and her have been on many committees together over the years. She's been sober as long as I have. And she looked over at me and she said, hi, Kip. She goes, can I hold your baby? And I said, do you know how to hold a baby? She said, give me that baby. So I let her hold the baby, but I'm watching her. And I'm looking at the way this woman is looking at my daughter. her. And I saw something in her I've never seen before, a certain different facet I'd never seen. I saw the look in her eye and I saw my little girl looking at her. And I walked over after the meeting. I said, so Sabrina, how's John? This was her husband. She goes, oh, you didn't hear me. John got divorced two years ago. I say, oh God, I'm so sorry. I sad, what happened if you don't ask? She goes He goes, I wanted to have children and he didn't. I said, do you like children? He goes. I've wanted to be a mother all my life. I said really? Sabrina is the love of my life I have the greatest wife a man has ever had She's my lover She's by partner I dated her for six months Like a gentleman Like I was taught to do in Alcoholics Anonymous You know I courted her and I proposed to her on my knee and she accepted and we just celebrated eight years of marriage and we've never had a real serious fight. You know, sometimes I don't mind her and she yells but most of the time I follow directions pretty good. Seven years ago we went to a hospital and I delivered this little boy white hair clear blue eyes. And I cut the cord and I named him Will. I call him God's Will until I got to knowing, you know. Unfortunately, I got my seed back. He is my clone, you know. He ist my clone. And uh, I'm going to wind this up just right now but I want to tell you two...I've been, I've received so many gifts I can't even tell you. I I cannot even begin to tell you. One of the greatest things I've been given, and you'll never see it, no one will ever see it because I get it at midnight when there ain't no one around to impress when my family's asleep and it's just me sitting there. It's okay inside here. There's no screaming. It's calm. It's peaceful. I never thought it could be that way. But I want to share two little things with you before I leave. My little girl, I read to my daughter every night. I read her a story. I get up in the morning with my children, and I make their breakfast. That's my job. I read my daughter a story, and Natalie, I said, I'm going to be gone for a few days. I'm not going tobe here to make you breakfast. I need you to be a good girl. She looks at me, and she's a singer and a dancer, and she has tears. She says, Daddy, I'm kind of missing you so much. my heart's going to be so sad but dad if you bring me back some jewelry it won't be so bad I will treasure I said baby give me five I said that is going to get you stuff girl don't ever lose that line and she's the sunshine of my life That little boy, my son, you know, he just won the award at school for the best student in the school. I went to talk to his teacher and they say, your son is the kind of kid that teachers pray for. I go, no, I'm Will's father. You know, I don't know what your son's like at home, but when he's here, he's one of the most well-adjusted children we have here. He's very polite to everybody in this school. He follows directions. He raises his hands. He gets along well with all the other children. And I'm going, really? And they go, yeah. And I go, wow. You know, because this is the way he is at home. I come home and I go where's Will? And they say he's down in the playground. And I got down to the playground and my son has long, he just cut his hair but he had long white hair and he's on this swing and I can hear this screaming as I come around the corner and he is butt naked. it. And he's standing up on the swing and the swing is just rocking and he's screaming at the top of his lungs, you'll never take me alive! I don't want anyone to change Alcoholics Anonymous. I think he's going to need it, you know? My message to you all is one simple simple thing, that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is absolutely infallible. It will work for absolutely anybody, anywhere, under any circumstances. It doesn't matter what's going on. This works. It works every single time you work it. There are millions and millions of people that need this program, and it's not for any of them. There are millions more that want this more than anything in the world, and And it's not for them either. It's only for the people that are willing to do the work. When we ask you if you're willing to go at any length, when you're new, you haven't even got the wildest imagination what that means. You haven't ever gotten a clue. But don't get afraid. Come on in, man. And keep doing what we do until you can hear the music. I want to thank you for my life and everything else you've given me. Thank you. Thank you.