The Difference Between a Survivor and a Sober Child of Higher Power – Don M.

Hi everyone, my name is Don. I'm an alcoholic and thank you Tom, good to be introduced by him. Good to be here. I want to thank the Maryland and the committee for inviting me down to Hilton Head. You guys that live here, you are used to it all the time, but we've just been marveling as we drive around. And, you know, it's not like Los Angeles. Valley Village, by the way, is people ask me, I'm going to just tell you so everyone knows, is in the San Fernando Valley. It's part of Los Angeles, but we have, for real estate purposes, we call ourselves Valley Village. You can put an extra $10,000 on the houses and that's pretty cool there. But Tom comes out and the guys at my men's stag on Monday, Chapter 12 Men's Stag, look forward to seeing him. He brings a good message and I love our old timers. And you guys had a ton of them here last night at the countdown. That was very, very cool. And I would have been an old timer except for the not drinking part. You know, in this book, it says that we all have moral and philosophical convictions galore, though we couldn't live up to them even if we wanted to. And I always wanted to not be able to drink. Long before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I knew I had a problem. I was not one of these men that came here and, oh, I'm going to see if I'm an alcoholic. Like, I knew right away. I didn't realize for the longest time that it is a disease and that there is a treatment for it. And I was using the – I have this disease called alcoholism, and I'm just guessing that a whole bunch of you in this room are alcoholics. And there is, by the way, a really good medicine for alcoholism. And it's called alcohol. And it'S good except for the side effects. And I think you guys understand what those are. And, you know, each person who comes here, anyone could have come up here tonight and talked. It's kind of like a really good channel or CBS miniseries. We all, you Know, we started out and we were pretty good people and we did this and this and we had these dreams and we heard about potential and, You know, we all had this great potential. My teachers were always calling my mom in to the school and saying that, You Know, Don has great potential And the problem is if you take potential and put it over here and take alcoholism and put It over here, alcoholism will kick butt on potential every single time. And that's kind of what happened to me. And I'm especially thrilled tonight for many reasons, but one of them is my youngest sister, also a sober lady in Alcoholics Anonymous, Maxine, has come down from Curie Beach, North Carolina. I think there are Yankees up there, I'm not sure. And my brother-in-law, Bob, is down. And, of course, my lovely lady, Terry, came out. And we've just been having a great time. And we heard some – you know, it's like I was wondering what I was going to say, and the good stuff got said in the last couple days. But I got a little bit more, and I'll just tell you a little about how it was. How I could have been an old-timer had I just gotten sober. I got sent to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1969. I don't know if you guys do it here, but in Los Angeles, The judge will commit you, and I was committed. You know, I got into trouble. It wasn't my fault, this trouble I got in to. It was actually my girlfriend's fault. Well, no, I mean, you laugh, but really, I'll tell you, and you decide if it wasn't her fault because... All right. I was keeping my machine gun over at her house, all right? And the reason I was doing that Was because the cops were always out at my house So it was a good place to keep it And that was in 69 Long before automatic weapons were in style So I am a man ahead of my time I got drunk one night And she threw me out And she said go and take your toothbrush or whatever and take this with you. And she held this gun out. You know how women hold guns? Well, sometimes men hold them like this too. And she said, go. And I would have been just fine except I didn't do what you guys would have done. You would have walked out to your car, put the weapon in your trunk and driven with one eye or your head out the window home. I would've been fine except I had one problem. I didn' t have a car. And I always, you know, moral and philosophical conviction, I always meant to have a car. It is good to have a car, but I didn't have one for various reasons. I had many cars, and the thing I noticed was that they like you to pay the payments. And every car I ever had, and I always mean to pay them, I always pay the payment too, just like I always meant to do my child support. And I had these good intentions, you But I just had this disease, and it was talked about that my desire to feel better. And alcohol made me feel better, and I don't need to explain it to you guys. When I was 17, which would make me kind of a lightweight in this day and age, but I took my first drink at 17, and man, it went down, and It was so warm. I don' t know why I'm telling you guys this, but anyway. And it made me stand up straight, and for the first time in my young life, I felt like I was 6'2", and I'm already 6'4", you know, which is pretty sad. And I said what I was to say for about the next 24 years. If one drink makes me feel this good, what do you suppose two will do? And on I went. And it comes on you, and I would lay off for a while and whatever, all of the stuff that we do. and I was constantly going to jail. I was always getting arrested, and that's what I go out with this machine gun, and I'm in Hollywood, and I have no car, and I've got to get back to North Hollywood where I lived at the time, and I am walking up Harper Street in Hollywood and I figure, well, heck, I might as well look good as long as I'm going up the street, so I'm walking up the streets and all of a sudden the sheriffs came And the lights are going around. Well, I was drunk. I was boiled as an owl, as Bill Dee says in here. But I knew gun police, not a good idea. So I secreted the weapon in the bushes. And, you know, I'm just standing around trying. You ever see a drunk trying to look nonchalant? You know, and this young kid sergeant came up to me. And I said, well, we've seen that we got a report that there was a man with a gun walking in the street. And I said, I know, officer, this is a dangerous neighborhood. That's why I'm trying to get out of here. And he didn't think I was very funny, and he looked me right in the face. And he said, look, pal, if you don't tell us where that gun is, I'm going to bust you for drunk. $25 fine. And I had to think this over in this masterful mind. And I says, you know, Officer, sir, you know, if I tell you where the weapon is, would you let me go? And he said, oh yeah, I'd let you go, but there's all these people around now. I've got to do something. So I thought it over with this masterful mind of mine and I said, should I go for the $25 fine or the felony behind Bush number three over here? I've only been in town a short while but you know what I did and I led him over there to the gun he did not arrest me he had his partner arrest me they took me to jail and the judge gave me six meetings I don't know if you guys get it so I had to go and I showed up some nights I drank and some nightsI didn't and get my little court card signed. And I looked around, and the people were all old like me, you know, and square. You know, I wished I had a little time to stick around and hip them up, you know, but I still had some lives I needed to ruin. So, you know, I wanted to get back out there. And so I'm there, and I'm feeling superior. By the way, I like this deal. It is an alcoholic's dream to be in a room full of people and be about this much higher than everyone else. I kind of like that. That makes me feel good. And the deal is I liked Alcoholics Anonymous because they were friendly, as you know. But I didn't want to stay there because I knew that they didn't drink, and I didn' t want to stop drinking. So I took off, and I thought I was so hip, slick, and cool, you know, and of course I was the only guy in there with a court card to get it signed. I was hip, sleek, and cold that I didn''t realize I could sign it myself, you know. In case there's any new people here, that was in 1969 when you could get away with it. You can't get away with that anymore, so don't even try it, all right? You get the secretary to sign it. So I'm out of there, and I figure, well, they're nice people, and maybe I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous if things get worse for me, like if I'm captured with a bazooka or something like that. And I'm off for 11 years, and you know that old deal, gee, AlcoholicsAnonymous, you've got a head full of AA and a belly full of booze, we've ruined your drinking, you guys didn't ruin anything for me. I was out there just getting after it. I wasn't sitting around wondering what you guys were doing. I was up there just, you know, trying to make it happen. And we are, you want to achieve something and we have these moral and philosophical convictions. And I never would get dressed and go out at night and say, you know, this will look really good in jail. You know, I just, my deal was, you know, and I had this, there's a thing called self-deception in here. We're driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self seeking, self deception and self seeking. And I don't know if that's 25 or beach or whatever, but that's self. One of the things of self delusion was that I was going to find her in one of the bars I was still allowed to drink in, you know. And what I was really doing was I was growing out to look like look for folks just about like you that drank like I drank. I mean, you never a waitress never had to hustle me for drinks. I wanted her to be setting a drink down when I was putting my empty glass down. And I like to drink. I'm an alcoholic, and I made no bones about it. And I liked how I felt. And that's what it talks about in the doctor's opinion is we like the feeling it gets. It makes us feel complete. You know, everyone else is, you know, like normie, you Know, we'll get a drink, and they'll say, Oh, I'm going to stop drinking. I'm starting to feel out of control. And when I start drinking, I start feeling in control. So there's a different deal that goes on, and we understand this. And we understand what it is. And that's why our fellowship, we talk one drunk talking to another drunk, and it's very important. You don't want to work the Don program that I worked for the longest of time, and that is one drunk taking a drink. Talking to himself. It's just something that's not going to work for you. And I spent a lot of times trying to do that, and it wasn't coming off. And I didn't see my pamphlet around here anywhere. It's a small pamphelet as Don sees it. But if you happen to run across it, whatever you do, don't read it. So I'm going along, and I'm doing this. I'm not going through the marriages. I had this deal, and we're talking about when I was younger and still had that potential and could still attract women who thought, I thought, well, this guy might do all right. And I always had that feeling that if I got just the right woman on my arm and just the right job, you know, and one time I had gotten my real estate license. You guys won't know it here, but there's a mental institution called Camarillo State Hospital, and I was a resident there a couple of times. I don't want you laughing at me because I have something you probably don't have, a certificate of competency from Camarillo and I have two of them and I really do and one time a lady it was in Burbank and I was there trying to do my thing and she said Don you're crazy and I said well not according to Governor Brown and she made me leave and so when I got here And they had that step, too. I didn't have to worry about it because I needed to be returned to sanity. And so, you know, it took me a long time to get here. But what happened was I was, you Know, I would find these ladies, and I don't know if I took them hostage or whatever. You know, that's kind of a cliche. But we had, you Now, I was giving something. I was given some kind of value for them. But I'm only valuable for just, I'm only good for a few months. Because if you've ever been on a first date, and I know you have, the first date oh yes my dear let me get that door for you. And it deteriorates from there. And then when you add to me, you add alcohol we got big problems. So I got married a lot of times trying to find just the right time. I don't know if I hold the record down here. Remember I'm from Los Angeles. In my lifetime I've had I've had eight wives and don't worry only three of them were mine so you know so so that makes me a lot like the male version of Linda you know so and I owe a lot of amends but But one time I had gotten my real estate license and I was pretty drunked up and it was a Sunday and I had to answer the phone and lie about these leaders that we had and then switch them over to something else. And I was feeling terrible. I was hungover terribly and I wasn't feeling well. I was really feeling sorry for myself. Self-pity is one of those things that drives us. And self-pitty for me is like a drug, you know. And if you don't think it's a drug, check it out. Next time you have self-pity, and you will have it again, your shoulders get down like this and your eyes water and you get a lump in your throat and someone taps you on the shoulder and says, It's going to be all right, and then you get chills. That's what drugs used to do to me. And alcohol is a drug. I respect Alcoholics Anonymous. I did drugs too. We aren't supposed to do that heathen devil weed. I was doing that heathen devil weed for when I finally did start to get sober. I was smoking that heithen devilweed, and I will tell you one thing. I'm not recommending you do it, but they make the meetings a lot more enjoyable. But the other problem is they're really long, you know. I can see there's a pot smoker or two in this place. But let me be clear on this in case there's new people, and there may be, that alcoholism and drug addiction are different. They are different, they're different by about just this much but they are different and if you don't know about this an alcoholic will steal your money, go downtown, get all drunked up come back and say I'm sorry I took your dough and I swear to God I'll pay you back first of the month when I get my SSI check, that's an alcoholic. Drug addict, steal your money, go downtown, get loaded, come back, and he will help you look for the money. So it's this close. It's so close. It's this close. Here's the good news. There is good news The good news is if you work these 12 steps and get in touch with a power greater than yourself that can solve your problem, then it's going to take care of any kind of thing. You know, if I have a hangnail and someone gives me penicillin for pneumonia, that hangnaile that's infected will clear up. And that's the same thing. Whatever is alienous, it's going to get better when we get close to God and we start trying to do stuff for other people. And, and that'sthe whole thing. And in this book, it tells us that the main purpose of the book, first of all, it says in the beginning, when they're just getting us, they say, we're going to show you how we recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. We're going to show you how. And then you get into Chapter 4, and it says the main purpose of this book is to get you in touch with a power greater than yourself that can solve your problem. Now, I always had a power bigger than myself. Happy birthday over there, by the way. That's cool. Well into his second decade here. That's not too shabby. That's all right. So we need a power great than ourselves that can resolve our problem. Now, I always had a God in my life of one form or another, but I wasn't working with him. And for me, what I needed is that very same God with me trying to do some things. So that's what we have to get around here is, you know, we haveと change things. And it's talked about in the spiritual experience. And how you do it is kind of up to you. The steps will take care of us. In the third step, we make a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of God as we understand Him. But nothing will happen until we take some steps. If I make a decision to put that glass to my lips, nothing happens until I take some steps. And that's the same thing with getting to God. And it was talked about this morning is that we're going to have to do that inventory. We're goingto have to get down to those defects of character. We're gonna have to find out about those fears and we're gonnahave to get to those sexual problems. And that''s the deal. And it''s not a scary thing. It''s a good thing. And I have guys come over to my house. And Terry and I have an AA house. When her ladies are over, I'm upstairs watching television. And when my men are over she's upstairs. And it is about showing someone like we were showing them. I have a great sponsor and he's quite a spiritual man. If you ever saw the movie Cool Hand Luke, he is the man who broke Paul Newman's thumbs. So he's my spiritual advisor. So that's why I'm like this today. But the deal is we come around here and we stay for whatever reason and I don't know why I stayed. I know why I came. I almost was going to kill myself and that's not a requisite for alcoholics but a lot of times we think here's the problem with killing yourself. People say oh, it's still an option. The deal with killing yourself is we don't know what happens afterwards and it could be that you have to go somewhere else and be the same guy and it might be worse there. They might not have cable or something like we don't know We don't know. It's all an adventure into the unknown, so we've got to go there. That's another thing about the adventure intotheunknown. We have two ways to go into theunknowned. We can be positive and say this is going to be good, or we can be negative. And we ask ourselves why in the heck would we ever be negative? And I'm going to tell you why, for me anyway, is when I'm negative, then it fulfills my self-centered desire to be in control. And I get to say, you see? Told you it was going to be like that. And then I get to be right. And it has a payoff. Our defects of character have payoffs. I'm a big guy. One of my defects of characters is I'm a bully. Hard to give up because it works a lot of times. A lot of other times some little guy will come up and just hit you in the kneecap and you're down. You never know. Especially if you have a belly full of booze. Your aim isn't just what it's supposed to be. And, you know, whatever it is that gets us here, the deal is can we stay? Around L.A., we have a thing that says that we're not supposed to get into a relationship in the first year. I don't know if you guys have that. And if your sponsor tells you that, then do that. But we don't have anyone in Los Angeles that's ever made it a year, all right? What we do ask you to do is not take a drink in your first year that might be a good idea give us a little shot at you don't take a drink and come around and see why people are smiling like this that's one of the beautiful things of alcoholics and I'm we're not a glum lot we go and we have some fun and people come in and they see this and they're accepted and hi how are you and they are welcomed in and feel good and get their 30 days and everything and for some reason I know what the reason is not because I'm smart because it says in here, they do it to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. They go back out and drink. We come in here to Alcoholics Anonymous, it gets neat, people start recognizing us, being nice to us, and then we go back to the way it was. But the news is good, and you've heard this a million times, that you don't have to drink again as long as you live if you don'T want to. And I'm going to even tell you that the news IS better than that tonight. You don'T have to ever drink again as long as you live, even if you do want to. But the thing to do is when you want to take a drink, come tell one of us. And I have the greatest men stag in the world and the funny thing is, let a wet drunk come in there and these guys who are spiritual giants go, oh what's he doing here? You know, it's Alcoholics Anonymous that's what he's doing. You know? And the deal is, is that we need those guys to come in the door and we need to reach some kind of a spiritual plane if I'm going to be around here tomorrow Terry and I are going home tomorrow. And the most spiritual you will see me, for the rest of my stay in Hilton Head, is with my hand out to the hand of another alcoholic. That's as spiritual as I ever get. And why is that spiritual? Because I don't care, you see. And I had to be retrained in Alcoholics Anonymous to actually care about someone else. And it tells us in there that it'll just happen. And that's what happens. You come around here long enough, and you start doing things. Why do I work with men like Tom was talking about? I don't do it because I'm a good guy. I do it cause I feel better. It makes me feel good. I drank because it made me feel good. I go to meetings cause it makes me feels good. I try and help another man cause it makes me feel great. I used to try and help other women too, you know, but I had to stop that. I first at about three or four years was sponsoring women and I had to stop that because I would be sitting, this is my fifth step pose, very pensive and spiritual and I'd be sitting there thinking, well, I'd never do that to you. And so I had to stop. Not necessarily for them because they could take care of themselves for me so I wouldn't have to do it. Anyway, in 81, I finally ran out of stuff. I was 41 years old and felt my life was over with and I decided I was going to kill myself. And I got a six-pack, and I went home. Hang on, I've got to get this watch going. I got the six-packs, and when I got home, I got my six- pack, and then I went back home. I liked Budweiser, and in the place I lived at the time, I have a picture window, and when it's dark, you can see yourself in it, which is a thing I like to do a lot, was see myself. I used to go out to bars, and where would I position myself? I didn't have to have my back to the wall I didn' t care I wanted to be where that smoky mirror was so I could look at myself drinking hand and smoking and looking cool and the reason I know I was looking cool was every once in a while a woman would walk across the room and she would say those words that let me know that one more time my charm had trapped another lady she'd say something like or do you care to buy a lady a drink so so if i had any money left i probably would do it you know and we're talking about you know i'm 20 25 30 you know in in and probably about 70 pounds lighter than i am now uh you know sometimes they would actually stay and and we would leave at the end of the night some other times they would say let's let's go and i'd say well it's only 10 30 now we got drinking time left you know sometimes they'd go and sometimes they're staying at the end of the night we'd go out and and uh when they that thing about your car or mine i'd always say her car because i never knew one of two things either where i parked mine or if i owned one at the time so you know it's always safer and uh you know what i'm going to uh i wish they you know maybe they'll edit this out when I drank, it'll be hard for you to believe when I drink I wasn't that good of a lover and I'm not the first guy in Shakespeare's time I don't know if you remember it it was a porter in Macbeth and they've had a little party there at the castle in Scotland and the only guy that's still sober is the porter and they got the king of Scotland coming over to their house that night and they're all boiled as an owl off somewhere else. I don't know where it is. And so the king is knocking on the front door and a porter comes across and this is his big scene and he's in the green room until this scene and He comes out and He says oh there's a knocking indeed. There are three things that drink provokes. Merry sir, lechery, nose painting and urine. It provokes the act but takes away the performance. and I'm sorry to say that's the way it was with me kind of like trying to shove a marshmallow into a light socket not something that you can Okay, but it was a big marshmallow, all right? I wish you could see this from up here because all the women are laughing and all the guys are going, oh. One time I was in Burbank. But, I mean, you know, I always tell the new people, we don't have to make stuff up. We do enough stuff, we do enough work. We don't need to make it. This gal says to me, I'm with her and it's not going so well, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink. And I said to her, gee, this has never happened to me before. And she said, yes, it has. You were with my cousin last week. So if you think guys talk, all right? So anyway, that's, you know, we do whatever we do to get here. And part of my deal was women. You know, women would take care of me, and I'm not proud of it, you know, but that's what happened. And the thing is, it's a neat deal when you're with the boys and, yes, I'm a studly man and everything. But you get home and you lay your head down on the pillow, and it says deep down inside of us there's a little bit of god and you lay your head down and say i wonder why i can't go out and make a living and take care of her you know but you only say that for a couple minutes and then you're you're off planning and scheming again and it's up and down and up and down kind of like dr bob you know what a roller coaster he was on he'd go out and work so he could drink and then he'd goes back out and works so he can make some money you know and and remember when i told you about uh being uh this hip slick and cool guy one of the greatest thrills of my lifetime was to actually go to Dr. Bob's house in Akron, Ohio. You know, old hip me. And there I am and they opened it. First of all we went to Akron and figured oh well we'll drive and we'll see Dr. Bob's House from the freeway or something. Everyone will know where Dr. Bob'shouse is. Nobody knows where Dr.-Bob'shouse except central office. So we called Bob's and the guys were there and they said well we close it too but come on over so we went over and and uh and they opened the door and if you've ever been there they at that time they greeted you with welcome home and i got to sit at that table where where bill and bob the first two alcoholics sat and talked to one another long past when dr bob told lois you know uh you know get me out of here you know i don't want to talk to this jasper from new york and these guys were great these guys Were my hero well actually the You know who the real hero was? Dr. Bob was a proctologist, as you know. And the real superhero was he took a beer on the last day of his sobriety, took a bear, went to work, and operated on this guy. And the guy that he operated on, that's the real Hero in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I think more should be said about him, or maybe not, I don't know. But here are these two guys. And I'm going to tell you about faith. Those guys were great. let's hope we're like that. Let's hope that we have that kind of faith and they're talking to one another for weeks and months and all of a sudden they said gee, no they weren't talking for months because Bob was only about 21 days sober when they went to see Bill D and they said well let's go try and carry it on to another guy so they didn't get you know a minister's son or someone nice. They called the hospital and the nurse answers and they said we have a cure a treatment for alcoholism And the nurse said, oh, yes, Dr. Bob, have you tried it on yourself? And he said, yes I have, thank you for sharing. And do you have anyone that we can come in and talk to? And she said, yeah, we have a man who just blacked the eyes of two nurses and they got him strapped down. And these two guys' belief in God was so strong that they said put him in a separate room and we'll be over there. And they went over and they shared their experience. They told their story. And the guy said, oh, you know, that's great for you guys, but my case is different. Thanks for stopping by. And, you Know, he could have died. And on the way out, these guys were just about to leave because they wrote it in here. You don't spend too much time with a guy. If he doesn't want it, he doesn' t want it. And he said, well, you might come back tomorrow. And, of course, they did come back to him tomorrow, and he introduced them to his wife. And it's really, I love in this book how the stories, you know, you go from Bill's story to Bob's story to alcoholic number three and they all mesh, you know on how this thing happened. We were inches away from the thing going wrong but it didn't go wrong. And because of those 12 traditions, you and I haven't been able to screw it up, you know and we just, our numbers keep growing and the thing is that we have to be here and we have pass this thing on and that's why they put the book down. You know, I was thinking about this, We have committees out in L.A. who do various things, and I suppose you guys. I'm just thinking about how many months was the committee in session to decide that we were going to have yellow across the big book? You know, think about it, you know. You'll think about het later, all right? Warm up the car, Tom, all Right? So the deal is that I knew I had to get some help, and And I knew Alcoholics Anonymous might be there for me, but I first wanted to kill myself. And I was going to... I wanted to look good because in my mind, I wanted to look even though dead, like someone was gonna come see my funeral. I don't think there was anyone that was still talking to me. So I figured I'd get out my Marine uniform with the medals, silver-plated... Well, I was never in the service, so my sister knows that. So then I decided I was going to overdose on drugs, and I couldn't do that because I'd already done that on Tuesday. And so I'm looking around the house, and I come up with my instrument of demise, a 6-inch Ginzu steak knife. Thank you for caring. Guaranteed for a lifetime, and it was going to make it. But you know what? And don't go home and do this, all right? Don't say, oh, the guy from California. You know, don't do this. But, you know, I'd cut my wrist before, and don't new that because, you Know, all it does is it just when you put sober up and put your watch on the next day, it just hurts like hell, you know? But I read somewhere or someone told me if you'll cut your throat, you'll just go off and meet God and, you And then I figured, you know, then they could put my collar on and no one would see that. You know, because if a suicide, you get in there and all they do is baste you. And I wanted to look good while I was lying there. And so I said, you Know what I'm going to do? I'm Going to open up the collar and I'm Going to cut real low. You know not as low as Lorena Bobbitt cut but at least so that when all of those women saw me they'd feel sorry. and this is sad and you may laugh at this, I don't care at the time I was going to kill myself I thought that every woman I had ever kissed was thinking about me and that's pretty sad but that's how I got here and instead of dying some guy came up to my door a friend of mine, Stu B or I can say Burton because he's not an alcoholic and he said what are you doing I said, I'm killing myself. He says, with that? And I said... Leave me alone. And so he got the phone book and he called the suicide lady on the phone and not the suicide lady, the anti-suicide lady. If he would have misdialed, you might have a better speaker tonight, but he called the suicide Lady and the anti suicide Lady and she said, you need either West Valley Mental Health or Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'd already been up to Camarillo and abused the women up there, and I thought, I remember Alcoholics Anonymous. They had some fine-looking ladies there, and they have jobs. So gang, that's how you got me. Anyone that says you've got to come to AlcoholicsAnonymous for the right reasons, in my case, they were wrong. You have to stay for the rights of the people. For the right reason. So I walked in looking for a wife in Alcoholics Анonymous. By the way, I had a girlfriend at the time, But, you know, I was trying to upgrade or something like that. I don't know what I did. And I went in and I looked around the room and boom, I saw her. I said, oh yeah, that one, yeah, yeah. And she's smart too and everything. You know, and at the end of the deal, we're over there and we're holding hands and they said the Lord's Prayer and I knew most of the words. I was pretty proud. And at the End of It, they shook my hands and said, keep coming back. And I'm so self-centered, I thought the whole room, like a wave, was telling me to keep coming back. So I figured if that many people wanted me back, I'd give them another shot. And I began to come, and I met my sponsor, didn't ask him to be my sponsor. And as I said, I didn't quite stop drinking right away. The reason I stopped drinking was there was a guy in our group, Radford. I don't know, probably some of you guys have been out to Radford, it's moved. but he was on a television show and he got me he was sober and he got me in the back and he said I notice that you're enjoying these meetings a lot you know and you know we don't do drugs and he says could you do that for 30 days? And I figured if I did it for 30 day you know I might be his sidekick next year on the program. So it was a selfish thing that made me try it for thirty days and I was about fifteen days in, no drugs, no alcohol, and I'm feeling crummy. Why? Because my medicine was gone. And I was with this lady and he had marked my meeting book and I said, I'm leaving Alcoholics Anonymous. I think I'll not drink anymore because I feel pretty good not drinking. But you know, a man like myself needs drugs to calm down after coming home from a day of doing nothing, which I was doing at the time but you know so uh and she's like lois said oh okay don and uh so i said i'm going to go to one more meeting i was in westwood it was across the hill and i've pulled out this meeting book these meeting books are very important second to the big book it's a good book to have in case you're in trouble or in case someone is in trouble someone is dying from alcoholism you say try this and he had marked the two plus two speaker meeting now you're about half a year ahead before i had seen this television program uh it was hill street blues and i this guy was on there and he was a sober alcoholic on the program and he had a uh i guess they were a detective or whatever and the guy was i sort of identified with the guy please don't come up and tell me i'm nothing like him because you know i live up here and and uh you know the women didn't understand him and he'd asked to borrow some money from the this woman and she wouldn't give the money, and she had it. I mean, we knew she had it, and the captain says, you either do something about your drinking or you're out of here. And so, about three scenes later, he's in this basement in this Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Now I'm in Beverly Hills in a beautiful place with a beautiful girlfriend, and I'm watching this guy, a whole bunch of pixels on a television screen, a fictional character. He's getting sober, and I'm bawling, and he said, what's wrong? He's going to get sober. Because I remembered. Remember I said I hadn't thought of you in 11 years? I remembered. And I decided right then and there that I was going to get sober. And the next day, I called over, and the guy says, oh, yes, come on over. We're having a stag, and I'll introduce you around because you'll be afraid when you first come here. Oh, hey, don't worry about it, pal. When you see that door get dark, that's me walking through it. And I meant to go to that meeting the next day, except when I was in the kitchen, I was going to just make a sandwich. And there was a tall can of Fosters in the refrigerator there, and I figured there were guys on skid roll in Australia, you know, like your mom told you, so I started drinking that, and I wasn't to make it until this suicide episode. But anyway, I'm leaving, and it's 15 days. I'm getting ready to go out and die. But I go to a meeting. I didn't know why I went to a meeting then I know now why I told you before I felt better when I went to meetings even when I was a newcomer it made me feel good to go to a meet so I'm there in Westwood and Westwood is a lot like Hilton Head a lot of people that have great clothing you know the women with stockings and the men in those days used to tie your sweater anyone for tennis kind of thing and I'm in a fatigue jacket and it's been raining and I don't look so hot, and I'm 15 days sober. So you can kind of mentally picture this. So I'm deciding to leave. And on the way out, I figure I'm going to get some cookies to take to the girls, to the daughters, my girlfriend's daughter. I reach down and got a handful of cookies. I got a six-cookie hand. And I started to leave, and about where that water is over there, there was a guy leaning against the door. And I recognized this guy, and he pushed off, And he came over to me, and he said, hi, my name is so-and-so. And I said, my names Don. And he says, how you doing? And of course I lied to him. I said I'm fine. You know, I was a newcomer. Newcomers lie, you know. Newcomer's aren't the only ones that lie. We've got to tell the truth like with the golf thing and the strokes and everything. That's important. We've go to tell truth or we might drink again. So the deal is that even old timers will lie. I have a man that I sponsor. It's maybe eight years ago. He actually has a tape over there, and we're in another man's office, the three of us back there, myself and two men I sponsor, us, God, and the big book, you know, solving the problems of alcoholism. And all of a sudden this guy with ten years of sobriety, listen to this, lied. So what does a good sponsor do? Do I bust him right here in front of his fellow alcoholic or do I wait until later and get him off to the side? And I'm saying, God, help me on this. I want to be a good man. And God did help me. The guy lied again. And I said, hold it right there. That's a lie. And he said, I know, but hear me out. This is why I love to hang out with alcoholics. This is what I do. This is my way. So anyway, finally, after I decide, I walk in there. I'm going to leave. And the guy walks up to me. And he is the guy, the actor, that played the captain on the show. And he said, I'm talking tonight. Why don't you come in and sit down front with me and listen to it? And so I went in with him. And I don't know if that was a spiritual experience. If it wasn't, don't tell me because it's worked for almost 20 years. I have had to renew those spiritual experiences. and I went the next day and I did something I hadn't done for my first 15 days of sobriety when they said is there anyone in their first 30 days of sobrietty I raised my hand and I said my name is Don and I'm an alcoholic like Tom was saying admitted to my innermost self and that's the deal and people came up and gave me their numbers and everything and I wondered where they were before and they said Don you were big and scaring us and telling us to get away and what happened was I softened a little bit, but that was just the beginning. I got a sponsor, Cliff, and I don't know why I got him. I just like him, and he got me into this book right away, you know, and occasionally, I'm sure you have it down here, occasionally people call me a big book thumper, and it's better than what they used to call me, which was The Defendant, and so this is, and he liked this book, and He got me in there, and II like Cliff, And at the end of the meeting, when everyone was breaking up and there were all these beautiful girls around, you know, Cliff would be over talking to some man with one tooth, you know with a cavity in it. And I wanted to be like Cliff, you know, I want to be Mike, I wanted to be Cliff. So I'd be over there and every once in a while he'd say, Don, tell him how you stayed sober 40 days. And I, well, I didn't drink, you know, whatever it is. And we'd go on 12-step calls all around. And I love this man, still love this man. This man has been my sponsor for 20 years. and we are friends as well. And one day there was a kid walks up to me and I was 11 months sober and Cliff had started me on the fourth step but I was not doing it very fast and the reason is, if you read on page 25 it says almost no one likes the self-searching leveling of our pride, confession of shortcomings that the program requires for successful consummation And I realized early on the way Cliff had laid it out to me, resentment, fear, and sexual problems, that I was going to have to give up some of these defects, like holding grudges and like being a bully. And I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not going to get a good woman on my arm if I tell her who I really am. You know, it's not going work out for me. But I wanted to be sober. So this guy finally comes to me at 11 months, and he was a biker from New Jersey with tattoos on him, 17 years old. And he said, would you be my sponsor? I went, oh man, the cream in Alcoholics Anonymous has risen to the top. I went over to my sponsor. I said to my sponsors, Steve wants me to sponsor him. And you know what my sponsor said to me? He said, poor Steve. And I said, hold it. Wait a second. I go to 12-step calls with you. I'm at meetings every day. I try and, you know, he says, you can tell Steve how not to drink for 11 months, but you can't tell him how to do a four-step because you haven't done one. And he had me on a technicality there. So even though I'm an alcoholic, and with a peculiar mental twist up here, I'm smart enough to know, so I'm over here writing fast as I can to get this four-stepped. And I'm, yes, we're powerless over alcohol in our lives. And we're going on and, you know, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. And he says, what about that four-step? Oh, it's okay. So we're gonna, you're going to list your resentments. Then you're gonna find out where your selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened. You're going say, did it affect your self-esteem, pocketbook, ambition, personal relationships. Then you are gonna forget what they did. And you're gona write your defects down. Ooh, heavy, you now. And we are talking about fears, just list them, go ahead. And the sexual problems, where were you selfish, dishonest, and inconsiderate? Did you unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness? And we're going fine. And I'm over here writing like a son of a gun. And he says, what about step five? I said, don't worry until step five. We're going to do it sometime after July 14th. All right? And I beat the kid. All right. And what happened was that this biker that I thought was a punk from Jersey started to become a human being to me. And he had hopes and dreams, and he had a mom and dad, and he has a life just like me. And there we were, as different as night and day. We're people who wouldn't normally mix, but we're as different at night and in the day, and yet he had my same disease. And he did his inventory, and we went forward. I had this Don M. life that I thought was so huge and used to brag about it, and I'm so cool. You know, it was this big. And every time we added someone to the AA family, the life got huge where i started caring about people and i didn't do it on purpose it just sort of sort of happened my sister maxine and i we used to say we we used to get after it pretty good and uh... we used to say yeah we're survivors you know we're survival everyone in this room is a survivor we come into alcoholics anonymous and now we're getting by and all the guys that are getting by are supposed to help the survivors who are just coming in and then you do the twelve steps of alcoholics synonymous. You get a God in your life and you're living way up here, a sober child of God. And no one can take you off there except yourself. I haven't ever heard of anyone pouring drinks down anyone's throat. Maybe they do it. And that's the deal around here. And we have to share our experience with someone else. I have to talk to someone else when I'm thinking. I need someone around like my sponsor. I never go up into my head alone because there is no adult supervision up there not a good place to be and so we're going along and steve is coming along and then dave comes and and the guys start to come and these men saved my life i'm not kidding you they would come to me and they'd say what do you think i ought to do and i'd say well i think you ought to do this and this or the big book says do this And I'd send them out and they do it and then if it worked, I'd do it. It seemed logical to me and we're going along and one time I'm about 13 months sober and we get a 12-step call and Cliff isn't there and I called him and he was at work and I got him at work and he says, well you go ahead and take it and I said, I can't take it, I've only got 13 months of sobriety. He says, when Ebby came to Bill, he only had two months. you go out there grab another guy and go out there and see if you can help this guy so I looked around and I got one guy Dave P had three months and we went and I said on the way out we saw this other guy had 11 days we took him we're over there us of God in the big book and we go to this guy's house knocked on the door he opened the door yeah what do you want oh we're from Alcoholics Anonymous you did call us oh yeah come on in And we walked into this place. Now, friends, I have lived in some pretty scroungy places. But this place was, if it was as big as this dais, I'm surprised. And there was a, in the corner, there was mattress laying on the floor. No, and it had funky old bedclothes. And there were no mattresses. There was a little kitchen thing there. And in the bathroom, there Was a cat box that the cat had long since beaten. And there Was top ramen and all of this stuff around. And there There was no place to sit. So we just kind of squatted down next to this guy. and I'm telling him about God and how everything is going to be good and he shouldn't drink and everything and he doesn't care. So I sort of gave Dave the high sign and Dave was saying, well, I've been sober for 90 days and I have a record deal. I'm going to Miami to record this record and the guy didn't like music or something so the only guy we got left is English Bill with 11 days and Bill looked at this guy and the name is Bruce And he says, Bruce, if you don't stop drinking alcohol, you're going to lose all this. He stopped that day. And I don't know where he is, but I know he made 10 years because I got to give him a cake at a morning meeting. And that's the deal. We go along and we try and help one another out. And we have dreams, and we share our dreams with one another. And when we come to gatherings like this, we get to interact with people. And we get the opportunity to talk to each other. We get to see how people in different parts of the country do it. And basically, we're all pretty much the same. But I want to leave you tonight with something I always like to talk about because it's been important to me. I hope it's important to you. People seem to do that in Alcoholics Anonymous. I wantto talk to you about dreams. and we all have dreams and they're all different kinds when I got here I had some dreams I used to sit on the bar stool and I love art and I always wanted to see all of these wonderful paintings in Europe and I usedto sit on a bar stool and say someday I'm going to go to Europe and I never went while I was working the Don program and believe it or not about 50 pounds ago I wanted to run a marathon This is not exactly your marathoner's body, but I wanted to do it. And I went to my sponsor, and he didn't say you're too old and fat to do it. He says you've got to train. You've got put one foot in front of the other just like an Alcoholics Anonymous. And I wanted the skydive. I'd always dreamed about skydiving. And my daughter Heather was going to graduate, Maxine's niece was going to graduate from high school, and I had done nothing for her older sister Cindy. Not even a card. And I was determined I was going to do something nice for her. And she wanted to go to New York, and she wanted to see Phantom of the Opera, and I wanted to go fishing in Alaska, and I had these dreams. And my sponsor said, you can have these things if you will do the work for them. And what happened for me, it didn't happen the first year or the second year or the third year, it happened in the seventh year. And in the sixth year of my sobriety, I had trained and I went to New Yorke City with a credit card that had my name on it and not the name of a woman. And I checked into a hotel, and I didn't trash it. And the next day, I got $15 standing room only tickets for Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford. And I stood there and watched that. I started at the top seeing my first Broadway show. I used to run around the house doing all the show tunes. And I'm straight, by the way. You know, but I like to, you know, I can move, or I could in those days. And I saw that, and the next morning I got up and I ran and I completed the New York City Marathon. And, you Know, you just applauded Alcoholics Anonymous because for the 41 years before I got here when I was a younger man, I never did it. But I'm going to tell you, I'm a little bragging, okay? And I don't mind, you know, don't get a resentment because I'm going back to California. It's a waste of time. You know, the guy that won the race, one of these little spindly guys. You've seen him, you now. He's got the wreath on his head and two hours and 15 minutes he's waving, you know, from the finish line. Two hours and in 15 minutes I'm still over in Queens waving at him. Anybody can run for 2 hours and 15 minutes. It takes a sober man like myself to run for 5 hours and 18 minutes. But I'm a marathoner, all right? And I did. I got to go to Europe. One of the men I sponsored was getting married, and he said, would you stand up with us? And I said, I sure will. Where's the wedding? Where's The Meeting? Where's THE Wedding? By the way, we did go to a meeting. St. Paul's within the walls in Rome. Downstairs there's a meeting, and these kids were married upstairs. And I went there, and because I had learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, not because I wanted to do it, but because there's enough men around who showed me how to behave like a gentleman and enough women who have got a God in their life and who insist on being treated like a lady that I was able to be nice to an Italian lady and she invited me back and I got to go again. And then some guys I sponsored were doing a record thing over there and they said, let's bring Don with us, you know, and that's cool. And one of the most fun things was a guy I sponsor got his one-year cake when he was 66 years old and he'd always dreamed of going to Madrid. And because I am a full-service sponsor, I went with him. And I've been back several times, and Terry and I were in Paris and Nice and Monte Carlo, and I did skydive, and I have been up to our sister who has a fish camp in Alaska. And you're here, and you've had a great dinner, and it's been a great conference, and we're going to have, by the way, speaker tomorrow, great. My brother-in-law tells me, so I know I'm going to be here, so that's a place to be in the morning. But if you're sitting here and life isn't going too good or if the economy has hit you or whatever, and you're saying, hey, you know, Don, we're glad you came out here from La La Land to tell us about yourself. You know, we're happy you got your fat butt around 26 miles, and we're Glad Heather Got to See Phantom of the Opera. I've got to just tell you one thing about Heather. This is, again, Alcoholics Anonymous, not me. By the way, if you hear me and you say, well, hell, this guy feels pretty good about himself, I'm going to tell you something I do but remember I told you how I felt about myself when I got here I was willing to kill myself and my daughter got married and I got to give her away and Terry was there now she's going to cry and they had a baby baby boy and when they were getting ready I said honey I wish show business was a little better for me and I'd make sure that that boy had his education taken care of And my daughter said this to me and to you. She said, Dad, you'll teach the boy integrity. And that's a heavy-duty deal because I know every bad, rotten thing. You know, they say we're not bad people getting good, we're sick people getting well. Gang, I'm a bad person getting good. All right? And I'm trying my best to do the deal. So if you're saying, you know, we're glad that Heather got to go see Phantom and the Opera and we're happy you skydived and your parachute opened. By the way, whoever that lady with six days that got this big book, this bigbook is like a parachute. It will not save your life unless you open it. All right? So try and remember that. And we're gladly that you did all of that stuff, Don. But, you now, we paid $28 for this dinner. What does that have to do with Alcoholics Anonymous and not drinking? And I'm going to tell you, well, nothing. Unless you happen to be a man or a woman who has the disease of alcoholism, who came to Alcoholics Anonymous, found another man or woman who could help you with the 12 steps, and got a God of your very own, then it has everything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous and being sober. You know we're going to have the Olympics soon and they say let the games begin. They're goingto say that pretty soon. You know what you can do tonight? You don't have to wait till tomorrow. You don' t have to wait till you're 20 years sober or whatever. You can do it tonight. You go home and you say thank you God for letting me be sober. Thank you for the people I got to meet tonight. Thank you för the things that you've given me. Lay your head down on your pillow tonight, and tonight, let the dreams begin. Thank you.