The Program Is Not for the Intellect – Tom B.

My name's Tom. I'm an alcoholic. I want to give Don this ashtray to cover his butt when he goes out of the room. A little brown round, huh? It's nice to be out here in the stomping grounds of the president. I talked with President McQueenie a couple hours in the lobby yesterday. That's got to go. I want to thank the committee for inviting me and then for saving me a space on the front row, and I'll tell the other speakers I can't sit on the front row. I've always had a bladder problem, and since I had cancer surgery a couple of years ago, my bladder is absolutely unpredictable, and I don't want to get up and walk out and disturb anybody. As a matter of fact, it may go any minute, y'all. And if it does, I'll just head for the bathroom. Please wait. I'll be back. This reminds me where I was. It's, you know, the first talk I made after that surgery. I told the group I was standing there talking to a big macho man wearing support hose and a panty shield. And I'm an alcoholic. And by the grace of God, which has come to me through the finest and most effective life-changing program on the face of the earth, The Twelve Steps, a God that really loves me somehow, very, very good sponsor, and a lot of work. I've not had a drink since July 20th, 1965. And I've got to tell you, you've heard my story this weekend already. If you heard Karetha, if you heard Don, if you heard James, if you heard Edie and Ajit, you heard my story because each of these people did what is described in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Each one described in his or her own personal way how they established their relationship with God. Each one of them did, in their own way. And that's all I'm going to do this morning. That's what this program's about, I think. And it's not a program of the intellect, and it doesn't lend itself to intellectual understanding. I learned that the hard way. If there are any intellectuals in here, and I assume that there are, I've got to tell you, the program makes no sense intellectually. It makes no sense. Can you imagine when the AMA reviewed the book Alcoholics Anonymous way back in the old days when it first came out? They found no redeeming value in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. None. Because they critically reviewed it using the intellect. And they're right. It makes no sense. The book makes no sense man it's a bunch of ramblings of a bunch of drunks you know can you imagine trying to explain somebody or an intellectual level he's coming that way uh how you got sober and stayed so it's the hoot you know now you've been sober over 27 years damn you must be strong no i'm weak well that makes no sense i know you must have fought real hard to win the victory over alcohol no I surrendered well it makes no sense I know well what do you do we go to meetings ah group therapy no not group therapy we just get together and share share what experience strength and hope that makes no since I know what else do you do well I got this sponsor ah you got a therapist no sir he's a plumber well that makes no sense I know well what else do you have what else do you got I got this program aha now we're to it the greatest philosophers and psychologists and theologians in the world got together and laid out a path for you to follow. No, sir, it was put together by a bunch of drunks. Now that really makes no sense. I know. Isn't it strange how we discount things that come through people who don't somehow measure up to standard? God's always chosen strange messengers. Think about it. How about Elijah? A man ran buck naked in the desert eating grasshoppers. Never cut his hair, never shaved, man. Stunk. Dressed up every once in a while, he put on loincloth and go to town, you know. Take his big stick and said, this is what God says. They said, tell us, Elijah. How about Moses? The Bible says Moses was slow of speech. Right, Bob? Meant Moses stuttered. God says, go to Egypt and get my people. Moses said, I can't go. God said, I'll send your brother to do the talking. You're going to Egypt. How about Jonah? God said you're going to Nineveh. Jonah said, no, I ain't. I'll run got on a boat you know any of y'all ever run from God got on the boat man they threw his ass overboard big old whale swallowed him up you know you remember where the whale spit him out in Nineveh the moral of that story is if God says you're going to NineveH your ass going to Nineveh. How about a carpenter? That's a weird messenger, isn't it? Somebody said, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Makes no sense. How about Don's sponsor? Man's from outer space, played piano in a whorehouse in San Francisco. How about Don? Twenty-one out of twenty-six first years he spent in prison, strange messenger. God is a poet. more poetic than to send the message to his children who happen to be alcoholics than to send it through alcoholics. It's a beautiful thing, a grand and glorious thing, and I love God for that. As a matter of fact, only a poet could love people like me and even understand people like me. So it's a spiritual program. It's a program of transformation. It is a program of the deepest possible, the most radical change in human beings that you can imagine as put together by a bunch of drunks. When I say I'm an alcoholic, I mean I'm the kind of person who always seemed to believe that if anything felt good, I should do it to excess. I know none of y'all are that way. I have trouble with eating sometimes. It feels good and I just eat, you know? Sleeping feels good. I just sleep. I remember when I found out sex felt good. I was by myself just like y'ALL were. And in spite of dire warnings from my mama about a certain part of my anatomy going to rot off and I was going to go blind, I said, shit, I can do it until I get nearsighted. It was one of my first great successes in life Then I found out it felt good with somebody else And all hell broke loose I had a unique experience After I came in the program I went through puberty and the change of life at the same time I say I'm an alcoholic, I mean I've always had two basic speeds. You know, I'm a great starter and a poor finisher. It's either fast forward or stop, man. No other speed. I don't know any other speed got a job to do. It doesn't sound like a big problem. It's a huge problem for alcoholics. It's driven by pain and suffering and the police. We go full speed in Alcoholics Anonymous and something strange happens. the pain goes away and the suffering goes away. And we put it on stop. And we do the same thing over again. Great on striking the ball, lousy on the follow-through. And this is a program of follow-thru. There's a word in the 12th step, practice. That means do it, do it. Like my sponsor used to say to me, I won't say shut up, shut up. I say I'm an alcoholic, I mean I live in a body that will not handle alcohol. Some people say that's due to a biochemical genetic disorder having to do with the hypothalamic information control center in my brain. Others say that the acetaldehyde which is produced when I ingest ethyl hydroxide is converted into tetrahydroisoquinoline in my brain, and I lose control. Alcoholics Anonymous says I'm allergic to alcohol. Take your pick. It's up to you. Took me four months to learn how to pronounce that shit. I got a disease that deals with my body and my mind and my spirit. All of me, all of me. My mind kept telling me if I just figured out a way I could make this body handle alcohol. One psychiatrist said that I had a narcissistic egocentric core dominated by feelings of omnipotence. AA says I was insane. Take your pick. And I'm spiritually sick, says the program, and I believe it. And God how eloquently they describe it and many of us go right over it you know i'm an idealist a perfectionist a hypersensitive romantic dreamer who has never been satisfied with life self and others the way they are i always wanted more and so i became like an actor who wanted to run the whole show who was forever trying to arrange the lights the ballet the scenery and the rest of the players in my own way. And if my arrangements would only stay put, life would be wonderful. And people rebelled against that. And I got resentful. And that resentment says the program shut me off from them and from God, and isolated me and separated me and disconnected me from others and God. And disconnection is spiritual sickness. And the program's remedy is very simple. If I can reconnect with others and with God, I will be restored to sanity. And if I am restored to my sanity, I won't drink. That seems almost too simple, doesn't it? Bill said in his story in the book, it's simple but it's not easy. It meant the destruction of self-centeredness. I've been transformed, I ain't the same. It's not because I'm smart or great, it was because I gave up and I started growing spiritually. Spiritual growth is not like physical growth. grow up physically, you grow down spiritually. Spiritual teachers said we have to become like little children again. The big book Alcoholics Anonymous says we have to quit playing God. Hereafter in this drama of life he's the director, he's the principal, we're his agents, he is the father, we are his what? The deal is has become like a kid again. It gets simple. And spiritual growth always follows a certain pattern, Don. Always. I don't care where you grow and change spiritually, it's always a pattern. And that pattern is there's a death and there's rebirth and there' s a regeneration. Always. And you say, that's religion. No, it's not. It's Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. above everything, we must be rid of this selfishness. We must be entirely rid of self. God makes that possible, and ain't that a death? When we sincerely take such a position, it says. What position? I'm the kid. He's the papa. We were reborn. And then later on in that book, what does it say? It's talking about a new person. It's talking about a guy who intuitively knows how to handle things that used to baffle him. It's talkin' about a guys no longer troubled by alcohol, Marky. Is that regeneration or not? There's powerful stuff we're into here in this little old book put together by that bunch of spiritual mongrel drunks, man. This is dynamite. Boy, am I grateful for it. It took dynamite to blow my ass up. and so i kind of want to talk to you today about my life and my death you know and my rebirth and my regeneration because that's what this program is all about this program has designed to connect me back to you and connect me back to god and it's all one the same thing if i get connected with you i'm gonna get connected to the father and if i don't get connected to you ain't no way i'm connect with the Father. That's one of the conditions. And any human being in this room or in this world that will meet the basic conditions of the 12-step program will be radically transformed into a new person, I guarantee it. And if you don't meet the conditions of this program, there is no way you'll ever be transformed. No way. As long as I can remember in my life, I was angry, but I didn't know what I was mad at. And I was scared to death and I didn' t know what l was afraid of. And l was guilty. And l couldn' t figure out what l had done wrong. And at a certain level within myself, l always felt like a loser, a failure, someone who was really worthless. i had a lot of reason to feel that way i was the ugliest baby you ever saw my own mama told me that she said son i never seen an ugly baby till you was born i wouldn't take you out the house first six weeks you was here i want nobody to see you i told that to a psychiatrist one time he said oh that must have been traumatic for you I said no sir I've seen my baby pictures mama's right I was ugly and as I grew up things didn't get much better I got skinny I was one of those kids whose shoulder blades stuck out in the back you know and I'd try to compensate by bringing my arms around and my chest would disappear and mama made me wear knickers brown corduroy knickers and my leg is that big and the knicker hole is that huge and it's always falling down somebody said to me not long ago said knickers are coming back I said not on my ass they ain't And I had freckles all over my body. From the soles of my feet to the top of my head, I had Freckles. I was covered with Freckle. I love Freckless on other people. Don't get me wrong. But I had more Freckled than a person can use. You know? I didn't like them at all. And I always wanted to be a macho man. That's what Don was saying last night. Always want to have some power and some control. You all into control? He said, no, not me. Man, if I pulled the bus of life into this room today, every person in here would go for the steering wheel. I'd beat all of you there because it's my damn bus and I'll drive it. What does the book say? We're not cured. I wanted to be a macho man. My mother had four big brothers, my Uncle Glenn, my Uncle Cedric, my Uncle Durwood and my Uncle Lloyd. Uncle Durhood was the most macho man ever met in my life uncle duds what they called him he was a motorcycle cop back in the days when they wore riding britches and leather spats up to their knees and they had a harness across here with silver bullets stuck in it pearl handle 38 riding up on his hip you know and smelled like gunpowder and shaving lotion and he squeaked when he walked i said by god that's macho i get behind dud on that motorcycle i wasn't scared and I wasn't mad and I wasn't guilty it has something to do with the second step and along with the freckles and the skinniness I grew this great shock of snow white hair and all of my uncles called me pudding head last time I checked the list of macho names. The pudding head was not on the list. And I ain't like that either. And I used to figure it was the freckles. I said, if these freckLES ever go away, everything will be all right and they'll be replaced with the ugliest set of pimples you ever saw in your life. Other kids got zits. Man, I didn't get zits, I got cysts and balls and risins. That's what we call them in North Carolina. Y'all think it's funny. It's no fun have a boil on your ass. You ever had one there? And I hated my complexion, so I'd take my dad's razor and shave off the side of my face. What I'm trying to say is there was nothing about me I liked. Nothing. I just didn't fit in. I had this image, you know, And whatever it was, I wasn't it. It bothered me, and I mean deep bother. You know, I used to joke back on my childhood and all I could see was ugly stuff, man. All I could say was ugly shit. All I saw was ugly and ugly stuff. When I started looking back, once in a while I'd find some good stuff sticking out there. You know I had the greatest daddy ever walked the face of the earth. Most beautiful human being I have ever known. Sweet, gentle, kind. Not educated. he used to come visit us when I had children you know and the word would spread through the neighborhood that Big Daddy was there that's what they called him and every kid and every dog in the neighborhood would show up at my house my daddy would walk down the street followed by children and dogs and man when children and dogs take to you you got some kind of spiritual thing going and he was wonderful God what a man and you know I was raised in a little old cotton mill town down in north carolina and i had some good times i had some good friends there it was a community and it was very tight you know i'd stay at your house sleep at yourhouse i get punished at your home but you know your house was my house i mean we all kind of had to do with one another and i remember strange what you remember i remember the lady next door her name was lena she's the best cook on the block and the best eater on the block she's fat man and i member you i used to love to hug lena when you'd hug lina you'd have a titty in both ears. Now, there wasn't anything sexual about that. You know, it just was like being surrounded by warm flesh, you know? And it ain't strange what you remember. And I remember her son, Bill Jr., you know, hated to bathe. She'd be bathing him, turn her back, and he'd escape. And she'd call for Puddinghead and I'd chase him down the street and catch him and hold him while she bathed him, you know? Funny what you remember. I remember old man Lucas coming by the house going out to slop the hogs. Y'all ever slop any hogs out here? And he'd call me and I would get an old wheelbarrow and I could go down to the hog pen with him and while he slopped the hog I'd go over in the creek and wade barefoot and drink some cool water and catch crawdads. i didn't know that spiritual stuff that's spiritual stuff you know and i walk home barefooted sometime you know just being somewhere in my life i quit being and started pretending and this program says be honest and and and to me what that means is be like popeye was I am what I am and that's all that I am Popeye just beads you know I'd lay down on the grass in the front yard you know and look at the sky say it's pretty wonder who made it it's a nice cloud I wonder where it came from wonder where he went y'all remember stuff like that it's good stuff now my mother was diametrically opposite from my father my mother is a black belt southern baptist who would breathe for me this morning if she could a phenomenally strong woman brilliant woman okay who treated me as if I were absolutely incapable to doing anything for myself, who never seemed to be pleased with anything I ever did, and who gave me no privacy whatsoever, emotional, physical, any other way. And boy, when you've got a mama like that, them psychiatrists can have a field day, can't they? Well, I've got to tell you, I'm out of the blame. I'm out of the blame y'all you know I love my mama she's 87 years old going on 18 she still considers me totally incompetent totally incapable of doing anything myself still gives me no privacy wants to cut my meat for me when I'm up at the house you know and I love her I love mama she busted her ass to try to raise me and my sister raise me Marky educate me get me out of that cotton mill town and I respect her for that she gets up at 430 every morning gives God his directions for the day. She calls it praying. Hell, I know better. And she reads ten chapters in the Bible because Billy Graham said to. And she lives her life to the best of her ability. She is what she is. And she loves me. and my sponsor says you might as well love her like she is she ain't never going to change and I used to sit out y'all got Cheney Ball trees out here China Berry tree in Arkansas I used sit in CheneY Ball tree and do my deep thinking and I'd think about my daddy and what a wonderful man he was by the way I unashamedly tell you I hope I'll be like him someday it's one of my goals in life to be anonymous and be like my daddy you know strange ain't it not sitting that tiny ball tree and i'll say i got a good mom and a good daddy and i got good friends here i gotta tell you about going to movies on saturday that was a hoot i go see my western heroes every saturday a little theater in that cotton mill town you know cost me nine cent to go to the movie and five cents for a box of popcorn some of y'all remember that you know good fresh pop popcorn man next door ran to theater when I ran out of popcorn. I'd just stick my box out there and get some more. And I loved cowboys. Hop along Cassidy and Rocky Lane and the Durango Kid and Wild Bill Elliott wore his guns backwards, you know. You'd draw down on Bill, he'd spin them guns and shoot you. But did you ever notice cowboys in them days was polite? If they could, they'd shoot your gun out of your hand. Cowboys today spread your guts all over the pasture. And even when they died, they just, ooh, and laid down, you no? He'd leave something to the imagination. My favorite cowboy was Lash LaRue. Y'all remember Lash? I called him Lash because he carried a bullwhip. You draw down old Lash, he'd whip the gun out of your hand. Lash is about the coolest cowboy there ever was, man. I loved old Lasha. I remember watching Lash one day and he's standing on the roof of the saloon. He'd run all the bad guys out of town, you know, and he stands there looking macho, which I always wanted to look, you now. And he popped his whip and whistled and his horse come running by. he popped that whip again and he jumped on that horse and rode off into the sunset and I went to crying, man. Tears come to my eyes. That was a moving experience. I sat through that movie again and again and against the old Lash. I said, damn, look at Lash! Went home and got me a piece of rope and went up on the garage and called my friend John Q next door, he had a pony named Beauty. I said, walk old Beauty past the garage. And he did and I popped my rope and whistled and jumped into the saddle. When I hit it, you could have heard me screaming Myrtle Beach. That was damn near a life-changing experience. Thirty minutes later, when I got my breath back, I started wondering about Lashley Ruth. Still wonder if he had some surgery. But I digress. I sit in the Chanty Ball tree and I think got a good mama, good daddy, good movie to go to good friends here on the block good community to live in I'm loved and valued and respected in this community even though I don't like me everybody else seems to and I don' t know what it is that's missing but something is and I dont' know where to look for it but I know if I ever find it life's going to be wonderful Johnny describes it so beautifully a big hole in the middle of me with the wind blowing through it and it hurt God I can identify an emptiness inside that wouldn't be filled man I was 15 years old I was in Greensboro, North Carolina on a high school singing convention and I was with my running buddies Egghead and Ducky Boots and junk, you know. They called the cab driver and gave him $7.50 and he came back in a little while and he had a bottle of brown liquid in his hand. The label on it said Cream of Kentucky. Ain't it strange what you remember? And I said to Egghead, what do we do with this stuff? He said, you drink a water glass of it as fast as you can. Then you drink another glass of water and then you do it again. And I followed directions precisely. Went and stood in front of the bathroom mirror and watched myself take my first drink. Man, it was like the nicest, warmest shower came down over me I'd ever felt in my life, Doc. Like big soft arms come around me and squeeze me and I said to myself, by God, this is it. It's what I've been looking for in the chain-a-ball tree. I ain't never going to be without this stuff again. You know what it was? It was a spiritual experience is what it wasn't. It was powerful, and I liked it, and it felt good. When all my friends passed out, I called the cab driver. I gave him seven and a half, and that got me a pint of cream of Kentucky. And I said, I'm never going to be without this stuff again. You know, for the next fifteen years, with all of my heart, soul, mind, body, and energy, I tried to recapture that same feeling again, and I never did. I went right past it. Alcohol's cunning, baffling, powerful. It's also a liar. It produces an illusion that seems like reality. It seems to change reality, but it doesn't. And it fooled me real good. by the time I'm 16, 17 I'm getting locked up regularly in the Wake County Jail where we'd gone Daddy's on the board of deacons Mama's the hostess of Tabernacle Baptist Church and their son's on the social page every other day drunk and disruptive public drunk drunken driving drunken disorderly I never ever remember being locked up a single time I was a blackout drinker but I remember waking up in a bullpen with 30 guys and everybody got diarrhea and there's one John. Damn, I ain't going to forget that. And the grits in the Wake County jail. Y'all eat grits out here? Old powdered eggs laying in old tin plates, you know. Excuse me, you don't have to listen, Don. I swear to God, I think they soaked the bread. Man, it's soggy. It just bends in your hand, you Know. Split a weenie down the middle and burn it. Grit's been sitting on that plate so long you stick your fork in, the whole damn pile would come up. It's like eating a cone of ice cream. One reason I stay sober is I don't want no more of them grits. I'm going to tell you that. By the time I'm 23, I've had over a thousand stitches taken in my face alone as a result of drinking. And I'm still telling myself this time it'll be different. This time if I just handle it right, I'm gonna be able to drink like everybody and I never wanted to drink like anybody else. Y'all ever think about that? I didn't want to drink like these people. These people go to these cocktail parties. You ever thought about that word cocktail? That's an interesting damn word, ain't it? They go to these cocktail parties and they chit-chat. That means you talk at me and I don't care what you say and I talk at you and you don't give a damn what I'm saying. We're just putting in our time at this cocktail party and they take good liquor and start putting shit in it. Pepsi-Cola and Sprite And water And club soda And milk Milk, man Tomato juice Orange juice Then they put vegetables in it You know, celery And carrots And olives And all that Then they'd put fruit in it This is good liquor Squirt whipped cream on top of it Put an umbrella in it You know And suck out of that straw On top of that umbrella That's cute And chit-chat And you know what They chit chat about? Us They call us substance abusers. By God, when you put all that shit in good liquor, you're abusing. I didn't want to drink like them people. I ain't know one way to drink, man. Take the top off, throw it away, and drink. What's this sipping shit? I don't understand that. All right, go up. Let's get on with it. And I went to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was about 23. Now, mind you, I am an intellectual. That's got to tell you something. I was a straight-A student. I never made below an A in school until I started drinking. I was perfect. Ambassador of Plenty Potentiary and the Ambassadors for Christ in the Baptist Church. That's the highest rank. That's the bus driver. Y'all getting the picture, ain't you? Did you drink because alcohol gave you the illusion of control? Hmm? I did. Hey, Lord. And when I approached Alcoholics Anonymous, as I was in college. I went through college, by the way, and majored in philosophy and history and minored in religion and Greek and English and carried a 3.94 average. Who's who among students at American universities and colleges? Junior and senior year, outstanding biblical student. That's pretty good for a drunk. Founded the college dance band. Had my own combo. Soloist with the college choir. Sang with the alumni quartet. Was president of the student body. Of course, that's the bus driver. And I was drunk 75% of the time. I'm talking about a real whack over here, y'all. So being Southern Baptist ain't enough. You've got to be smart on top of it. That's double dipping. And I go to Alcoholics Anonymous, and the guy up front with a blue book in front of him. And on this side of the plaque had 12 steps on it, and this side the plaque had 12 traditions on it. And my great mind went to work. And I said, all I've got to do is memorize those steps, memorize those traditions, memorize what's in that book, and they'll put me up front. Well, I'll be president of Alcoholics Anonymous in six months. And I went to the office and I went out to work memorizing. And I can quote great portions of the book Alcoholics and Honesty, but I don't have to. Lord God, I don't have to. But if you're ever in a discussion meeting with me, don't misquote the damn book. Yeah. And these people put me up front. And I delivered some of the windiest dissertations on axiology and epistemology and the various other kind of bullshit you ever heard in your life. The only thing I couldn't do was stay sober. For the next seven years, as a matter of fact. The longest I ever stayed dry was 89 days. And I knew it was 89 días because we'd give a red poker chip over in North Carolina for 90 days. I wanted one of them suckers. I went up to the chip box after the meeting and stole one and I had me a calendar on the wall and on the 90th day I had my red chip pasted up there and I was going to get that sucker for the last thing I ever did and I worked through the steps according to my specifications so I went to the meditation part in step 11 i knew what meditators come out of great meditator you know wear orange bathrobes and shave her head and sit down with her legs crossed up all funny and chant and i wasn't a bit interested in the discipline of that or the process of that i was interested in the results of that these guys could walk across hot coals barefooted they could lay down on beds and nails don they could lie under a truck let it run over them get up and walk away smiling I didn't care about the process. What I wanted was for y'all to notice me. Say, shit, look at Tom, man. He's walking across coals again. Ain't he something, you know? He laid on, lookie Tom, lookie Thomas laying on a bed of nails. See, when you hate your own guts, it's absolutely necessary for everybody else to look up to you and respect you and tell you that you're worth something even if you don't believe them. And I couldn't find an orange bathrobe. So I wore my old blue terrycloth drinking liquor bathrobe With the cigarette burns in it It stunk I'm too vain to shave all the hair off my head I had busted up my leg so many times driving drunk I could get into lotus position But I could not get out of it So I'd get my wife to help me into it And it hurt, man And I'd sit there and chant Waiting for my spiritual awakening need to happen. Now, I did this, y'all. In addition to being a poet, God's got a sense of humor too. I know that. I see him up there, him and Peter, you know, and he said, Peter said, there he is again. Peter say who? God say old pudding head. Sitting down there that nasty bathrobe. Damn, I wish he'd wash that thing. Tell me, Peter, what does oh mean anyway? 89 days I meditated and on the 90th day I rested. Now, mind you, all this time, I wasn't trying not to get sober. I was trying to get silver, man. I met some hateful people. Ugly people. Called them old-timers up in North Carolina. One old boy up in Brunton, North Carolina, his name was Bill Crumpler. He's dead now. I called him Grumpy, and I hated his guts. Man had X-ray vision. Y'all got them in California, got x-ray vision? I come in the door. He'd point his finger at me and say, how you doing, boy? I didn't like that. And I'd say, fine. And he'd start cussing and back me into the wall with that finger, and he'd tell me how I was. It was incredible. It scared me. And the man was terminally stupid. He talked in circles, man, like nursery rhyme shit, you know? Boy, you can't think your way into good living. and you've got to live your way into good thinking. I'd think to myself, shut up, you old bastard. I didn't say it out loud because I was scared of the man. Boy, he'd say, how come you always run around looking for God? God ain't lost. I wanted to kill him. It was necessary for me to get grumpy on my side So I went out to save a soul. I found a drunk man in a log cabin for two months. Didn't have no indoor plumbing. That place was an unsightly mess. He was turning blue. Got him to the hospital, got a woman down the street. We shoveled out, swept out, raked out and hosed out that old cabin. Got him back in the hospital and he was going to live. And that place was clean. And I called Grumpy to come see what I had done. and then going through all that mess in that cabin we found a gallon of wine and when Grumpy got there me and that guy both were drunk. He was underwhelmed by the whole thing. He shook his head and walked away. I used to call for help when it was too late None of y'all ever did that, I know All the liquor be gone Test patterns gone off TV I said, well shit, I need some help I called Grumpy one time About three in the morning Before I could say a word He said, boy, don't you ever call me Grumpy again He said Matter of fact, don's you ever Call me again If you want to get sober He said You know where we meet And don't call me to come get you You can walk and I don't give a damn if you ever get sober. I'm a sensitive human being. And you know what I said into the phone, you know. And I bless him for that. Today I bless him for it. I wish more people had treated me with that much love. These old dudes don't change, man. Last time I ever saw them, up. He was dying with cancer, and I walked in his hospital room, and up went the finger. I'd been sober 18 years, and he pointed his finger at me and said, boy, you'll never make it. God bless him. God blessed Chuck. God bless bob white god bless jack bowler god bless all of these human beings who contributed so much to my life and i'm gonna tell you something as long as they're i'm here they ain't dead ain't gonna be i ain't going to let them die because in a real way they're me i didn't love them then but i do now i drank on i knew all the answers i could quote them i'm this close to the switch and i can't reach it i can'T REACH IT i kind of overlooked the fact when i was memorizing that the first word in the first step of the program is the word we kind of overlook that the first word in The Forward the first edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous first printing is the word we this is a we program this is community that's the power whole room full of people all doing the same thing one purpose that's community that spot whole roomful of people everybody about a different purpose that a crowd. That's powerlessness. Alcoholics Anonymous is for alcoholics for that reason. And I couldn't reach the switch. Man, I suffered. God, I suffered. Don't even fit here for crying out loud! I can't even be a drunk! I am a loser, I am a failure God doesn't care about me I'm too bad Lord I prayed, I prayed desperately I prayed with fear I prayed in despair and I thought I was never and I came to the worst place in my life and the most blessed place in my life I hit bottom I didn't know it if I'd known it I'd have screwed it up I hit this point in my life when I was 30 years old and I knew I was going to die just as sure as I'm standing here I knew I couldn't drink and I knew I couldn' quit drinking and therefore I knew I was powerless I was on five years probation with a two year active road sentence hanging over my head the chain gang in North Carolina if you will no driver's license never supposed to drive again in the state of North Carolina and I made a profit out of grumpy I walked back to Alcoholics Niles and it had been up to this mind here don i'd never come back i love james taylor's music and one of his songs he says i guess my feet know where they want me to go god bless my feet they brought me back to you and they brought me back in complete utter desperation they brought me back to you in surrender. I didn't know that then, but they brought me to you and surrendered. I went to meetings late and I left early. And people said strange things to me like, we're glad to see you. We're glad you're here. That was nice to hear. I couldn't believe it and I knew they couldn't mean it. And if they knew me, they certainly wouldn't be glad to say me, but it was nice. And then they found out i was walking to meetings and i never walked again the first two years i was in the program of alcoholics anonymous went to a meeting every night sometimes two a day and i never walked a single block somebody pull up in front of my house every night i got six and seven phone calls a day i kept going kept going and listening to them say these nice things which I knew they didn't mean, but God, I needed to hear them. God, I needed to hear them. I started watching this man in the group and I liked the way he moved and I liked his eyes. His old eyes about shone out of his head. They just brighted at you and he looked at you when he's talking to you. You know what I mean? Right at you. Kind of made me nervous, but I liked it. And I saddled up to him one night and I said, I don't want to die. Will you be my sponsor? And he pointed his finger at me and said, boy, I've heard about you. They tell me you're not just an alcoholic. They tell me your crazy. But I'll help you on one condition. I said what's that? He said we'll do it my way, and I don't know but one way. And you know what I'm saying? Yes, sir, please. When I could begin to say yes to somebody else's directions, I was in surrender. Only then. You can surrender your ass off, and if your sponsor tells you to do something and you don't do it. You back into ego and arrogance. You ain't surrendered. You ever notice how wise sponsors seem to you? You ask them to become your sponsor, and then they go stupid on you. Harry went stupid immediately. He said, the first thing I want you to do is come to meetings early and shake everybody's hand and ask them how they're doing. And I said, I don't want to come to meetings early and I don' t want to shake their hand and I do not care how they are doing. I just do not want to die. And why do I have to do that? And he said, Boy, you do not ask me why. You do what I tell you to do. I get tickled when some of these people come through these treatment centers and they have had a counselor and they confuse a sponsor with a counselor. Now, I have a master's degree in counseling and I hope you are properly impressed by that. And if I told you as a counselor to go to meetings early and shake hands and ask everybody how they were doing, my next question to you would be, how does that make you feel? My sponsor did not give a happy shit how it made me feel. My sponsor talked that weird circular tongue to me. If you go through the motion, the emotion will be there. If you do that, you're going to get what you want. If you don't go through with the emotion, the emotional will be their effort result. Effort result. I want to say, shut up. Please shut up I did everything a man told me to do. I started going in, shaking hands, looking at the floor and mumbling, see? After a few weeks, I saw some ankles and saw some shins and some thighs and I saw some wonderful hips, man. And finally, I was looking them in the eye and I did care how they were doing and I was glad to see them and I knew they were too and I new I was home damn I belong here for the first time in my life I am valued you couldn't run me away from here with a stick now I start getting sober where people say, you sure are growing. I couldn't see it. This monster talked about doing things. He let me wash the coffee cups. And he let me empty ashtrays. First thing you know, I'm walking around Charlotte with the key to the biggest Baptist church in town in my pocket because I'm the coffee chairman. I had a ride. and it's necessary for me to say this I didn't talk because I couldn't talk I couldn' t even get up and read I'd stand there and bawl they asked me to read and I'd get up there and go to bawling and Harry would come up and put his arm around me and say it's okay son we love you come on sit down your time will come I couldn''t remember anything the intellectual would read the big book and forget the first sentence before he got to the second one Now, Harry said, get a notebook and a pencil. And here's the intellectual going to the meeting with a notebook and pencil to take notes on what's said by a bunch of spiritual drunken mongrels. In the first talks I made in the program, I opened a little black book. People find this hard to believe, and I read what was in it, and I closed it up, and then I sat down. That's the God's truth. Might have been sober six months. They called Grumpy. They'd been sober six months, Grumpy said, you're a damn lie. No way. They took bets on me, Doc. They bet on me. My sponsor took the bets. I always wondered why he was so hell-bent on my going to the state convention when I'd been sober a year and it took him five years As you get the guts to tell me that, he's collecting on his bets. My year would come around and my ego would come back. My wife and my sponsor was arguing about who was going to give me a party. I'm in there on the bed, you know, getting all puffed up and writing my speech for my reception. Lord, we're sick. Got up that night to pick up my chip and went to balding. Good speech went to waste, man. And they kept counting. And they counted up to 25 years. and i had the same anniversary as this little gray-haired unnoticeable man in the group his name was wilson booty he was a man who would be sober 52 years had he not died three years ago he was my spiritual tutor he walked with god you didn't have to talk program hell he was the program. And I had the same anniversary, and my ego was deflated even more. And every year after that his wife would have our birthday party. And Elsie was a little Dutch lady, and she'd cook Dutch meatballs, and we'd get on Wilson's back porch, a couple of hundreds of us, and eat and gorge and talk, you know. Everybody had to eat out of a big pot except me, so I had my own special pot of meatballs. Don't sound like much, does it? God, the whole world hangs by a thread, y'all. I miss those meatballs. I missed calling Wilson and singing happy birthday to him every July 20th. I'd miss Elsie. But he ain't dead. Then my sponsor got Alzheimer's, and I got another sponsor who was sponsored by Wilson named Buck. He Down to earth is dirt. I don't even know where I'm at right now. I don' t care. I'm in my heart. That's a good place. I could go on and tell you about the growth, but you know about the grove. You know when this program puts you in the way of God, He's going to run over you. he's gonna take you man you get pro-man just sits you in his way and look out here comes God fantastic some of the things that have happened to me it's unbelievable I cannot believe it sometimes and then sometimes I forget or take for granted and a new guy comes into the meeting who's scared he's going to die and he couldn't hold a cup of coffee if he had four damn hands and he's got no driver's license and he is worried sick about it and he saddles up to me and says I don't want to die would you be my sponsor and I say boy I've heard about you we'll do it my way and I don' t know but one way and it's in the book Alcoholics Not Us It's the only way. My daddy died with cancer, lung cancer. It was not pretty. I remember when I was eighteen years old, a judge had given me an alternative. Go to jail or go to service. and I got patriotic. I volunteered for the Air Force, and this daddy who loved me, he took me down to the bus, and while he was telling me how much he loved me he had his hand planted firmly on my butt pushing me up them steps. He couldn't wait to get me out of town. The day before he died he turned over and asked me was he going to die? And I said yes sir. And he said when? And I says the doctor says soon. And I said, is that frightening you? He said, yeah. But he said, son, I learned a long time ago when you're afraid to give the fear to God and go about your business. There are spiritual people who are not in this program. And then he said the words to me I'll never forget. He said Tommy, I love you. You're one of the finest men I have ever known in my life who needs a Nobel Prize. when the person you admire most admires you back. Big payoff in this program. I ain't done in this program, you know. I got to grow. This program demands growth. I can't rest on my laurels because I can not stand it when I do. There's so many times I'd love to get in my high chair and just beat it with a spoon and say damn it y'all straighten up! And I can't sit in the high chair. The minute I raise the spoon, something says to me, bus driver. And it's me. I remember hearing a lady say one time, I can' t get away with that stuff anymore. I've been found out. I have found me out. And it' s a program of love. Not romantic love. The real thing. Love is a responsibility of me for you. It means I accept and respect, honor, and love you just like you are. That it's not my job to change you. It's God's job. And if I love you enough, he'll use my love for a channel to make that change. we magic word most powerful word in the universe we for people like you and me most of whom are loners who can't stand being alone and i love you some of y'all ugly i love you anyway any damn thing you do about it ain't nothing you know about I could ramble on, but I'm not going to. I've got to pee. I'd like to salute you, you and God, with a song that James Taylor used to sing, that's dear to my heart. And I can't even remember the first line. I needed the shelter of someone's arms, and there you were. I needed someone to understand my ups and downs, and there we are. There you were, with sweet love and devotion deeply touching my emotions. I've got to stop and thank you, baby. i gotta stop and thank you how sweet it is to be loved by you i close my eyes at night wondering where i'd be without you in my life everything i did was just a bore everywhere i went i felt i'd been there before but you brighten up for me all of my days with love so sweet in so many ways I gotta stop and thank you baby how sweet it is to be loved by you thank you so much