At 52,300 Feet Where the Sky Turns Black I Saw the Curvature of the Earth — My First Spiritual Experience – Scott L.

Good morning. I'm Scott L.. I'm an alcoholic. I'm very grateful and honored to be here. I love this fellowship with all my heart, and it's always an honor and a privilege to do anything involved with AA. And thanks to Jerry and Karen for being, and their one that's on the way here, for being such great hosts. We've had a wonderful time. We have eaten crabs. It was a good plan. I liked it. I do what the tour guide says. It always seems to be the right thing. I'm a member of the Backroom Group in Nashville, Tennessee, and I bring you love from the Backroom Group, and boy, do they know how to give it. And I'd like to, I didn't, by the way, come to talk to you. I came to talk with you, and so I want to get started with that. Could I see the hands? Anybody sober 90 days or less, please? Come on. All right. Welcome. We sure are glad you're here. All right. I'm not sure at 90 days I would have understood. The questions. I think that was, I think that was really good. You know, they got it. And Al-Anon, could I see your hands, please? Thank you. I am honored by your presence. Thank you for coming. I appreciate your support very much. Over my way, they say that a lot of alcoholics originally got sober when Al-Anon helped one of you get too healthy to continue to help one of us stay sick. So I really honor what you do. And there's a wonderful story that Bill went to love. And he said, you know, Lois, I've been working with these other alcoholics for six months, and none of them have stayed sober. And she said, you have. My life hung by that thread. So thanks for coming. Oh, this is good. Maybe we'll get my heart to my head today. Anyway, we're just thrilled and thanks to the committee. And we know these things don't just fall together. So thanks for everyone that worked and put this together. I'm talking a little bit about drinking. I started when I was 18 years old. Now, I needed a drink way before. Then I needed one the day before kindergarten. Then, you know, but I didn't know what it would do. They didn't tell me what it would do. But I got out with the boys. I was a freshman in college, got out with fraternity boys, and they were drinking beer. And I wanted to be one of the boys. So I started drinking beer. And somewhere between the first sip of that first one and the bottom of the second one, it happened. You're an alcoholic. You know what I'm talking about. You're not an alcoholic. You will never understand this. And boy, it happened. And just all of a sudden, boom. I got taller. Can I see your hands? Who got taller? Come on. Where are you? Yes. We had an epidemic of taller, didn't we? Yeah. And better looking, huh? Were you good? Did you get gorgeous? I tell you, my pimples fell right off. I'm still surprised they don't use that on the TV ads. You know, Budweiser cures acne. I think it cured mine. Now, of course, it relapsed in the morning. But I was a handsome dude that night. You should have seen me. Yeah. Expert on many subjects. Come on. Where are you? A lot of experts. Yes. Yes. Boy, I just got so smart. I'll tell you a little bit later how smart I got. And fantastic dancer. Yes. Yes. I want to tell you the biggest thing it did for me is it made me feel like I was as good as everybody else. And I'd never had the feeling before in my life. I had become convinced as a very small boy. I mean, very small. That I was somehow defective. Something was wrong with me that was irreparable. And there was no sense in talking about it because it couldn't be fixed. And that I was simply not as good as everyone else. And there was no way I could ever measure up. And I became an actor as a very small boy. And my act was I pretended to be whoever I thought the people immediately in front of me wanted me to be. That's who I became. And that makes me a different guy to everybody. And the crux of my act is what I realized. My act is what I refer to as the John Wayne syndrome. It was big boys don't cry, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness. Never give up. Never surrender. Never ask for help. Never ask a stupid question. Be cool at any cost. Sound familiar? Huh? And you know what? It was all a lie. I thought that was what a man was. And it's not. Every bit of that turned out to be wrong in my case. I mean, God bless you if it's working for you. But. But that was my act. And you know, the actor has to have relief. And that's what booze brought for me. And when I started drinking that first time, all of a sudden I was tall enough and pretty enough and smart enough. And what actually happened was an entire psychic change. We went from in two beers. We went from I'm afraid you're going to find out who I really am and run me off to y'all's pretty lucky I was there. And that is an entire psychic change. Dr. Sittler. Dr. Silkworth recommends I'm going to need one of those if I'm going to get over my alcoholism. Anyway, to sort of fast forward, I'm on a time constraint this morning. I zipped through a four-year college in five years in two summer schools. Come on! Where are you? Yes sir. All right. Okay. And I graduated. I can tell you why I graduated. I just figured this out a year or so ago. I was actually standing at one of these podiums when I figured it out. The staff at that college finally figured out that I was going to keep coming back. And I guess I'm not going to keep coming back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm going to keep coming back. keep coming back. The United States Air Force gave me a commission as a second lieutenant. I went into the Air Force as a student pilot. We started out flying a Cessna 172. We graduated to a T-37, which is a twin-engine jet. It's about 400 miles an hour wide open. And we moved from there to the T-38, which you are all familiar with, although you thought it was a MiG. Okay, you saw Top Gun, right? Beginning and the end of that movie, the dogfight with MiGs. You didn't actually think Hollywood had borrowed MiGs from the Russian government, did you? I'm so sorry to have to bust that bubble for you. That's the Air Force's advanced jet trainer. It's a supersonic aircraft. When it was introduced, it took the climb record away from the F-104. When I say it's a high-performance aircraft, those letters are all capital, high performance. Fully acrobatic, also capitalized with an exclamation point on the end. Talk a little bit about that. This plane has twin afterburning jet engines. It will fly at about one and a half times the speed of sound. It's a high-performance aircraft. It's a high-performance aircraft. It's a high-performance aircraft. It's a high-performance aircraft. It's a high-performance I've been through the mock about 15 or 20 times in it. I've been through the mock in overlap formation, tight like this. The U.S. Air Force demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, flew this plane for about seven years. I'm trying to give you a feel for what this thing is like. It would go from break-release to 40,000 feet in three and a half minutes. It has a roll rate. If you use a maximum deflection on your control stick, it'll roll in excess of 420 degrees a second. That is more than once around every second. If you're trying, I don't want to get you She didn't want anybody to get a brain hernia, you know, early, trying to do the math. A loop in this airplane, it's one of these guys, and it's at 10,000 feet, you enter at 500 knots, you pull up at 5 Gs. Now, you're pulling at 1 G now, it's force of gravity. At 1 G, a 200-pound man weighs 200 pounds. At 5 Gs, a 200-pound man weighs 1,000 pounds. That's exactly what that means. Pull up at 5 Gs, wings level inverted at 20,000 feet. You lose 8,000 feet coming down the backside. The total elapsed time on the maneuver is under 25 seconds. I tell you all about the airplane for two reasons. The first one, of course, is to impress you. Okay. And the second one is because it tells the story of my alcoholism so easily. Because I come down from a day of flying that plane, I head for the officer's club about 5.30 to socialize with the other pilots of my squadron. Now, I used to go out and get drunk intentionally a lot, frequently. That's my mission. I'm going out to get drunk. But I also used to get drunk by mistake. Did you ever get drunk by mistake? You just kind of take drunk. Yeah, kind of like a virus. Just boom, there it was. Okay. So I'm heading over to the... Would you be willing to do audience participation with me? Can we try that again? Are you willing to do audience participation? Yes. Good. When I point at you, fill in the blanks, you know all the answers. You ready? Okay. Not going to get drunk. Absolutely not going to get drunk. That's not the plan. I'm just going to socialize. I'm just going to go by the club and have one beer, no more than... Some of you Al-Anons didn't play. Now, listen up. You know the answers to these questions. This is what you heard on the phone. Okay. And you believed it again. That's why you're here. The ones that didn't believe it after a while, they ran screaming. They don't have to come to your thing. Okay. All right, not together now. I'm going to have one beer, no more than... Should be home by 6.30, no later than... But somewhere between the first sip of the first beer and the bottom of the second one, I get taller and better looking and have the entire psychic change. And I develop this phenomenon of craving. Dr. Silkworth also talks about it in the Doctors of... And I don't get home at 7. I leave the club at exactly 1 o'clock in the morning because they... This is one of the biggest groups of pilots I've ever talked to, I guess. I don't remember you. I drive home drunk. I listen to my first wife tearing to me. A lot of information there in that sentence. And I go into the bathroom for my after-drinking chores. And... All right, let's see you pukers. Come on. Where are you? Ah, these are my people. Yes. Let's... Let's... Let's try another one. This is much harder one, Hal. Long quiz here. Let's see the hands of the people who quit solemn oath on the Bible in front of witnesses more than once. Where are you? Wow. Man, I'm telling you, we tried it all, didn't we? Anyway, I thought the two most important and creative inventions of the 20th century were that little half-moon shape of carpet they put around the commode for you to kneel on. One of our boys invented that, you know. His knees are all torn up from that. You know, that's what he did. And the other one was that soft commode seat you could rest your head on. You kind of in between your ears. Yeah, boy. And I'm in there. And I'm in there bringing it up. And I'd quit forever. Huh? Who quit forever when they puked? Come on. Where are you? Yes. Yes, sir. For those of you who are new, they're going to tell you you can't quit forever. We all know that's a lie. I quit forever over 2,000 times. It didn't work. But, boy, I kept doing it. And then I would... I call it the pre-AA prayer. That's just my terminology. We'll do it together. I do the first line. You do the second. All right? God, get me out of this. Blech. That's alcoholic for amen, you know. Blech. If you're new here and you're not sure you need to be here, I have a one-question test for you. Did you know the prayer? The social drinkers don't know the prayer. They don't know it. Okay. Brush my teeth and go to bed. It's got to be, what, 2 in the morning, 2.30, something like that? Well, I get up at 6 in that wonderland, fairyland, through the looking glass between drunk and hungover. Remember? Remember that? I really miss that, don't you? And I get cleaned up and go out to the base about 7.30 in the morning. I am in that airplane I was just telling you about. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I got about a 4-6 hangover. You remember the 4-6 hangover, the one where the butcher knife goes in here and sticks out the back? Remember that one? I was surprised the helmet went on over it. And I am absolutely dying of this hangover. My throat and my nasal passage... Oh, this is awful. Nose pukers? Come on, where are you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's all raw up in there, too, right? I got a tremor in my hands. I put the oxygen selector lever on 100%. It will not cure a hangover. I've talked to plenty of professional pilots in our fellowship. Nobody ever had a hangover cured by oxygen. We tried it every day, and it never worked. Never worked, right? I am dying. My eyelids are made out of sandpaper. I'm sweating booze out of every pore. I am dying. And the only thing that keeps me going is assuring certain knowledge that I'll never feel this way in a plane again. Because last night, I quit forever, and I met it with all my heart. Right? You know what I just described to you? You know what that is? That's willpower. That's willpower. We alcoholics have an astounding willpower. We do. To have continued to function that way. It's my sincere belief that's the reason that non-alcoholics don't become alcoholics. They don't have the willpower for it. They don't. And the guy goes out on prom night, right? He drinks a pint of Jack Daniels. He pukes on his date's dress. He wrecks his Chevy. He wakes up in the drunk tank, and he says, I'm never doing that again. And he never does. Obvious lack of willpower, huh? I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's pretty clear. Anyway, I'm dying in that plane, and by about 5.30 that afternoon, they release us from the flight line, and my young body is responding, and I'm not well yet, but I'm feeling a lot better. I can tell you I know for sure I'm not getting drunk tonight, but I do want to socialize with the pilots in my squadron. So I think I'll drop by the officer's club and have one beer, no more than, should be home by 6.30, no later than, but I leave the club at exactly one because they, I drive home drunk, and I listen to her, I go to the bathroom and puke my guts out, and God get me out of this. And that's my story. Over and over again. Over and over again, you know. I couldn't look into the past all the way to yesterday and say, wow, weren't you dying of a hangover when you lit the afterburners yesterday and the day before? I couldn't see it. Powerless over alcohol and ignorant of the fact that I was powerless over alcohol. Tough combination. I graduated second in my pilot training class. I'm not kidding. It's astonishing. I had the gift, that's all. I could just do it. I flew 400 jets all over the world for about a year. After that, I was sent to Vietnam in the old DC-3 that hung some machine guns in the back and called us Puff the Magic Dragon. If you were there and knew her well, it was called Spooky, was the call sign. I flew that for the first six months. They were phasing that plane out, and they put me flying an intelligence mission, which today I still shake my head. And it was about this time that my colonel had me counseling some of the enlisted men because of their drinking. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm sitting there with about a force-4 hangover counseling these guys. And I was so drunk at 4 o'clock one morning taxing my plane out that when we get to the end of the, well, I was going to say how smart I was. I had my window open so as I was taxing out, in case I puked, I could puke out of the airplane. And I can remember thinking how smart I was to have that window open so I could throw up out of the airplane. Does it strike you as a terribly intelligent plan? I'm about to fly over some, I think it's still classified. Anyway, we're going someplace your president swears we're not. And I'm so drunk, I couldn't have driven the crew bus over to here. And when I got to the end of the taxiway, I applied, I was being gentle on the controls so I didn't make myself sick. Didn't want to jostle me. And I applied the brakes so smoothly that I didn't stop the plane, taxied that beast right off into the weeds off the end of the taxiway. And, boy, I'll tell you what, that's exciting. You know, if there had been a drainage ditch out there, or a rock or a stump, or if there had been another plane taxiing behind mine, or if it had been 4 in the afternoon instead of 4 in the morning, because, see, I was a mile from the town, and they couldn't see, they couldn't tell. They just knew we'd stop down there. They couldn't see where we were. Somebody else talking to you this morning, and I served the rest of my natural life in the military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. That's where I'm supposed to be. And I want you to know that I have the high honor and privilege of taking meetings into jails and prisons on a regular basis. I'm on the corrections team for my home group. I'm gonna brag on my group for a second. This is my group. This is not my district or my area. My group has taken about 50 meetings a month into jails and prisons. And we are, we are in, about six facilities, and we are having a fantastic time. We did an intensive step weekend in one of them, nine of us and 45 inmates a couple of months ago. If anybody's interested in that, see me later. I'll tell you about it. Had a phenomenal time. I have no arrest record, by the way. It's not necessary. Those guys know how to get arrested. All right, that's not my message. Who here is carrying, who's doing corrections? Come on, where are you? Wow, fantastic. For those, if anybody else in the room, if you're suffering from depression, my recommendation, see one of these people. Take a couple of meetings into the jail. It will knock out depression faster than anything I know of, and unlike some of what's being prescribed today, it will not have a negative effect on your recovery. Forgive the soapbox. I feel pretty strongly about that. Someone asked Miss Linda one time what she thought about all the time I spend in jail. She said, I love it, because I love who he is when he comes out. Because I come out of there a foot off the ground with tears running down my face. I had an experience a few years ago, sitting in a little restaurant in Nashville, just having lunch, and a guy walks up to my table, and he says, you don't remember me, do you? And I said, mister, if I should, I apologize. I don't know you. And he said, well, you came into a prison I was in a couple years ago, and you spoke, and I heard you, and I believed you, and I'm doing what you said, and I'm never gonna be locked up again in my whole life, and I want to thank you for my freedom. I want you to know something. I'm overpaid for the rest of my life, and it doesn't have to do with I walk out, and the door's closed behind me, and I go home. It has to do with going out of your way just a little bit to maybe be a tool in the master's hand, and for me, that's what carrying this message is about. If you haven't tried corrections, I really recommend it. If you can't do that, if you can't find it in your heart, see one of these people and hit them with some serious cash, probably they're digging pretty deep on their own to provide the big books that are going in there. Anyway, so we're back at this classified air base fixing to fly a classified mission, classified exceeding drunk. I was drunk, by the way, by your standards, not this candy, wussy, .10 DUI thingy. I'm talking about drunk, you know what I mean, yeah. And And we flew that mission, by the way. For those of you who are wondering, somebody must be wondering, how could you have possibly flown drunk? Let me explain it to you. It's a big sky, you know. Don't take my word for it. Next time you're outside, peek. And if you'll study it, you'll notice there isn't much up there. So the trick when you're flying really drunk is you just keep the airplane up in the sky part. It worked for me. Well, everything you hit was on the ground, wasn't it? Really isn't much, too, if you think about it. At the end of a five-year hitch, I had to resign my commission and walk away from the greatest job I've ever had. They tell me that you're cured of the flying bug if you can ever hear a plane go over and not look up and see what it is. That story's 30 years old, and I miss it every day. Alcohol didn't take away my dreams. It took away any chance I had of coming true. That was my experience with it. I got a job as a traveling salesman. If you're not serious about staying in recovery, I'd like to recommend that you interview. Get yourself a job as a traveling salesman. Overnight traveling salesman. I got a job as a traveling salesman. If you're not serious about staying in recovery, I'd like to recommend that you interview. Get yourself a job as a traveling salesman. Overnight traveling salesman. Overnight travel expense account. Anyway, you get the idea on that one. And I eventually became an independent manufacturer's rep, and in the summer of 1984, my business partner realized I was in trouble. And what actually happened was he put his wife in treatment for prescription drug addiction, and he went through family week. You'd never guess what happened to me. We played a new game that was sweeping the country called Intervention. Some of you have probably played. And I'm sitting here, and I'm going to have to start. Something I normally do, and I don't know how it got away this morning, but it did. I normally open with a second moment of silence, and I'm going to go back and do that now. Someone asked Lois Wilson one time what she did in the moment of silence, and she said, I invite God to the meeting. And I need to stop and do that. And it's not that I don't believe God's here. I believe that. But something real special happens for me when I stop and honor that, and I somehow missed that this morning. And there might be somebody here that doesn't have a God, or you've got one you're afraid of. And if that's the case, I want to invite you to borrow mine for this time we're here together this morning. I recommend him very highly. He's been keeping me sober a long time, and he has a great sense of humor. He's not mad. If you don't think he's got a great sense of humor, look around the room, all right? Aren't we funny? I think we're hilarious. But anyway, let's all take a moment. And borrow my God. I'm not kidding. You can address him as the God of Scott's limited understanding. You all just go ahead and get off on the right foot. Right foot there. And let's take a moment and ask the Master to join us and fill this room with love and bless us all with open hearts. I'll just meet you back here. Amen. Thank you. That's the first time it's happened to me in a long time. I was actually asked to tell my story this morning, which is what I've kind of raced into. I found the directions here in the big book on page 29. It says, each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God. That's actually what I've been doing. I've been explaining. I've been explaining what didn't work. We're approaching what will or what has so far. Anyway, my business partner realized I was in trouble. And he told me very simply, either I was going to treatment immediately, or he and I were finished. And I couldn't dial my own home phone number in three tries at that point. I was in bad shape. And on June the 28th of 1984, which is my sobriety date, it was also my belly button birthday. And I mention that because it still is my belly button birthday. Because that's the only thing I didn't have to change. I don't know about you, but everything else had to go, pretty much. And anyway, I signed at a little treatment center outside of Atlanta. And they told me later I was one of the saddest looking people that ever came in that place. And the reason, of course, was I was one of the saddest people that ever came in there. Because they told me I couldn't drink scotch on the rocks or Miller Lite or use some of the alcohol substitutes I was using in pretty big quantities by then. I never thought I was going to have any more fun. I had no suspicion that life without that stuff was going to end. It's going to be fun. It has been phenomenal. It has been astounding. But I also paid the price. And I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. Anyway, I signed into this treatment center. And I didn't sleep the first three nights I was there. And that's not uncommon for somebody on the mixture I was on, they say. And I'm laying there in that bed the fourth night in this treatment center. And I'm not going to sleep again. And I know it. And it's like, lights out at 11, and you've got to stay in the room until 630. That's not exact, but that's about it. And I have this review of my life. My life happened to me. And I'm laying there in this bed. And as you may recall, if you're not sleeping and you're not drinking, man, it stays dark a long time. God, it goes on and on. I couldn't believe it. And bored to death laying there. And this review of my life happened to me. It wasn't one of those instantaneous near-death kind of things. If you've had one, I want to hear about it. But this one lasted for quite a while. And what I saw was my life in detail. And I'd always given myself credit for my intentions. I'm one of the best intended people I guess you'll ever run across. My favorite intention, I was an amateur magician. And my favorite intention was I was going to get a clown suit. And when I was on the road, instead of running the saloons, I was going to put on the clown suit and go into a children's hospital with my magic kit and do a show. And I intended to do that for over 20 years. And I thought I was a fabulous, fabulous guy. Only a really fabulous guy would do that thing. And I was going to do it. I was going to do it one of these days. And I had taken full credit for that. Our third step talks about a decision. For me, the difference between an intention and a decision is an intention is followed by more intentions. A decision is followed by action. That's the difference. And this night, the intentions evaporated. And all I saw was the actions. And it was not pretty. And I got to the point where I began to think about the single worst thing I had ever done. And I have one that stands alone. And I'd always been able to stop those thoughts. Three fast scotches will do it. Six pack, take that out. Man, I'm laying in a bed in a treatment center. I have no way to turn it off. And I reached what I call bottom. Bottom, for me, was not on the physical plane. I had puked blood a couple of times. I've been in plenty of kinds of trouble. Bottom, for me, was of the spirit. It was in here. When I hated my guts so bad, was so repulsed by the things that I had done, that I would pay any price and do anything not to be that man. That, for me, was bottom. And at that point, from in here, I must assume it was my spirit. Because this happened in my chest. It did not happen in my throat. It did not happen in my mouth or my head. From in my chest, screamed. I mean screamed to a God that I don't think I believed in. And screamed out, God, forgive me. And I received the forgiveness in that moment. I had one of the big experiences you hear about. And I'm going to try to tell you what it was like. Suddenly, lying on my back in this bed with my eyes closed, I could see the entire room. There was this magnificent light shining just on me. And it felt like something heavy. If you've had x-rays taken to your teeth, when they finish doing that, they lift that lead blanket thingy off of you. That's what it felt like. Something heavy flew up off of my body at a very high rate of speed. And I felt so light, I thought I might float up off of that bed. And I knew in an instant that there was a God, that God had the power to forgive me and that I was forgiven. And I think I took the first three steps in that moment. And I lay there in the Master's presence for a while. I'm not aware of anything else that passed between us. But I think any time I sit quietly in the Master's presence, that something does pass. My monkey mind didn't always pick it up, but it happens. And I don't know how long I lay there. I'm convinced that in that place, there isn't what we call time. What we call time does not exist there. And I lay there for a while. And after that, I slept some. I awakened the next morning wanting to be one of his guys. And that was my first cornerstone. My second one happened a few weeks later. I went into my counselor's office, 11 o'clock one morning. He was working on my aftercare plan. And I knew that. That's what this appointment was for. And I went in there to assist him with this aftercare plan. If you're new. And you don't know why that was funny, please listen really close right now. And I explained to him that I wasn't going to take antabuse. I wasn't going to halfway house. And they had a 28-day program. And I wasn't staying a minute longer. Just trying to lay out the parameters so the man could do his work. I was just trying to be helpful. And he said, well, you've left out something you aren't going to do. I said, what? He said, well, you aren't going to make it. I took that personally. And in some really rough language, I said to him generally, why did you say that? It's not exactly what I said. And he responded with a question. By the way, he was a member of Allen and I'd like to salute you again. Changed my life. He responded with a question that set my second cornerstone. He said, if you already know how to run a program to keep yourself sober, how is it you happen to be a patient here? And I responded by saying, and I was the most surprised guy on the planet. Because something always came out. He always had an answer. Didn't you always have an answer? Always had. I couldn't. I had never faced the unanswerable question before in my life. I always had an answer. I left there and went to lunch. And through lunch, all I could do was think about the unanswerable question. And that afternoon, my body went to group and coping skills and a movie and physics. Whatever it was, I was there. My mind's back in this office. And I could show you within a couple of feet of where I was walking about 9 o'clock that night about dusk when I got the answer. And the answer arrived here, same place the prayer had come from. And the answer was and is, I don't know how to run a program to keep myself sober. And if I'm going to be one of the very few that make it, I'm going to have to do it all. This is not smorgasbord for me. I do not get to take what I want and leave the rest. My wager is too high. I have too many chips in this pot. Let me tell you what my wager is today. This is first person singular present tense where I am today. Here's my recovery. Here are the things that are suspended from it. My sanity. I've been to the insane asylum. I awoke in the rubber room hallucinating things as real as this podium. My life. How many times can a drunken pilot or car driver, anybody, been killed? My freedom. I told you I'm supposed to be serving life on a military prison at Leavenworth. My self-respect, my self-esteem, my peace of mind, my relationship with this fabulous woman that I'm married to that you heard yesterday morning. If you didn't hear her, do yourself a favor. Get the tape. She's fabulous. Our relationship with our kids, my house, my cars. Virtually anything in my life that means anything to me is suspended from my recovery. If I lose it, all of that hits the floor. It hits the floor and shatters. I don't know where you are. That's where I am. This is not take what I want and leave the rest. My wager's too high. And at that point, I surrender to what I lovingly call step one, section B. Yeah. What I've done is I have fired me as general manager of my own life. Based on my performance, a decent manager would have fired me decades ago. One more last chance, you know? And uh. And I have invited God into my life as God. Not a Bush League pitch hitter. My original plan, I wouldn't want to work him too hard, was I'll take sex and money and he can kind of cover the rest. And as I understand it today, it's a package deal. It's two bowling balls. God's will, Scott's will, pick one. Package deal. Turns out the package is pretty great. But I surrendered to the idea that I'm no longer here to run it. And my God has a first sergeant. We call him Ice Cream Steve, my sponsor, right? And I'm surrendered to the ice cream man. And what he says, I very simply do. And I made that decision when Don Roy, my former sponsor, died. And Steve agreed to sponsor me. And I said, tell me what you want me to do. He said, open and close your days on pages 86 and 87 in the big book. I want you in so many jail meetings. I want you in so many treatment centers. I want you to. He laid out this stuff for me. And I said, great. I'm doing it. It's just that simple. I'm just simply doing what he says. And what that does, see, my disease continues to reside up here, continues to flourish up here. I got a friend that says he wakes up every morning and he sincerely believes that God can restore him to sanity. But when he opens his eyes every morning, pretty sure it hadn't happened yet. And what I do when I surrender to my sponsors, I take my disease out of the decision-making processes that applies to my recovery. That's working for me. So anyway, I surrendered to the staff at that hospital. And I zipped through their 28-day treatment program in six weeks flat. And these are awake, too, huh? Yeah. And I went back to Nashville. And the only human I knew in the city of Nashville that was in recovery owned one of the businesses I called on. He was my customer. And I didn't want him to know. Newcomer thinking. Is there anything like it? Huh? On the planet, is there anything like newcomer thinking? I have a friend that says he believes the reason God blesses AA so deeply is because of all the belly laughs. He gets it from our newcomer's prayers. But it might be. I don't know. But anyway, I was suffering from a severe, near-terminal case of newcomer thinking. But I set out to follow this aftercare plan. And my favorite watering hole was on 8th Avenue South. My vehicle did not turn onto 8th Avenue South until I had a two-year chip in my pocket. I'm not kidding. I was not on that street. They told me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I went to 87. There were three days. It was physically not possible. I was just about to go to a meeting one night, and my young son was trying to learn how to stand and dance in a rocking chair. And we went to the emergency room instead of to the meeting. And I didn't know you could go to two meetings in a day. Newcomer thinking. And I completed this four-step guide that they'd given me in the treatment center. I would like to take a break right now and recommend the actual four-step, the real live, sure enough. Yeah. Let's do it. The real live, sure enough, changed your life four-step that is not about writing. Four-step is a series of lists, observations, and prayers, and in my experience, it has been the observations and prayers that were life-changing. The writing had little, if any, therapeutic effect. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please get with somebody that just went nuts applauding. Please, because you are really missing it. I was astounded to find that there's seven or eight prayers in the four-step and a tremendous number of observations. The forgiveness process is in the four-step. And writing doesn't do it. Please find out. Talk to somebody that knows. Somebody grinned and just went like that. Talk to them. Anyway, I completed this fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice-do-you-still-hate-your-mother four-step. And God bless them, but that's...anyway, I need to get off that soapbox. I've got a time problem here. And I called back down to the treatment center to Bernie, who had not been my counselor, but he was a counselor at the treatment center, and he had agreed to hear my fifth step. When I had my big spiritual experience, I realized I was going to have to do this. I was going to have to do this. I realized I was going to have to do the 12 steps. And I thought, well, who would you dump this bucket of garbage to? And I selected Bernie, and he agreed to it. The reason I chose him is because you could look at him and tell he was stoned out of his mind. Well, it makes good sense. I mean, you look at his face, you know how it looks when somebody's stoned. His face is real relaxed, and he's got this dumb grin. And any time he moves, he moves slow. You know what it looks like when somebody's ripped out of their gourd. And I thought, I'm going to do my fifth step with Bernie. A week later, will he know what I said? He won't know if we did it. I think he's a great choice. So I called Bernie. We booked it. I drove down to Atlanta. I took my fifth step with Bernie, and that's where I began to get relief. If you're new and the steps look to you like they were written by a hanging judge, it was having a bad day. That's how they look to me. Don't they look like they were designed to punish you? Didn't they look that way to you? You've been around a while. When you first saw them, didn't they look that way to you? They did to me. That was one of the many, many things I was wrong about. In my experience, what the steps did was they provided relief, which is what I needed. I needed relief from my spirit. I needed to be the kind of person that I was. I needed to be the kind of guy who isn't thirsty. When they said to me, lay down booze, they didn't say, put down your problem. They said, lay down the only answer you've ever known. The only thing that ever made you tall enough and pretty enough and smart enough and as good as everybody else. Only thing that ever made your skin fit. Only thing that ever made your life work. Put that down. Good God, that's not my problem. That's my only answer. So I need a new answer. And the answer is I need to become the kind of guy who isn't thirsty. And it was my experience that in the doing of the, do, take, work, the steps, to me those are interchangeable. I'd like to point out it is not learn or understand or interpret, all right? But action, verb, the steps, changes me into the kind of guy who's not thirsty anymore. But anyway, I did my fifth step with Bernie and I headed back to Nashville. And by the way, sort of as an aside, Bernie was not stoned. Bernie was sober over 20 years. That was serenity. I didn't know what it looked like. Newcomer thinking, huh? Doesn't quite like it. I get back to Nashville. I get back to Nashville. I get back to Nashville. I get back to Nashville. And the only thing I haven't done, I bet you can fill in this blank too, the only thing I haven't done on my aftercare list is get a sponsor. And I was so insane that I was looking for a sponsor I could relate to. Yeah. Whoa! Can you think of anything crazier than that? A sponsor I can relate to. Let me tell you about relate to. I can't figure out in a day who can I relate to. I can relate to the squirrel on the next branch that does not know his fanny from a hot rock either. That's what I'm talking about. That's who I can relate to. I don't need a sponsor I can relate to today. What I needed was a sponsor I could obey. It was a concept I was not familiar with. And I saw this guy in a meeting and his lights were on and I wanted to feel like he looked. And I said, would you sponsor me? And he said, yes. I sponsored by assignment. Here's your first one. I am today sponsored by assignment. I hope you are. And ask me later. I'd love to tell you the story. I just don't have time right now. I came back a week later. I said, OK, Jerry. I did the assignment. He said, I'll sponsor you my way. I said, fine. What is that? He said, you are too sick to stay sober on the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. You will need the program also. Jerry died a few years ago with a lot of time and he outlived what the doctor said by a very long time. It's not uncommon among us. He was terminal. And he said to the end, he thought the very best kept secret in our fellowship was the definition of our program. It's the most important thing I'm going to say today. Very best kept secret we have is the actual definition of our program. And how do we keep it secret? Well, we read it at every meeting. That's how we keep it secret. It's on page 59 in the text. It's the sentence before the first step. And it says, here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. No steps, no program, period. It's soapbox time again. I'm sorry. Don't drink and go to meetings. It's killing people. We are committing mayhem and murder with that because people think that's going to get... Let me ask you a question. If sitting around with a bunch of other alcoholics talking about your problem is going to get people sober. Wouldn't the guys under the Woodland Street Bridge in Nashville, Tennessee be sober right this second? Huh? You bet they would. That ain't it. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. Steps are not part of the program. According to my big book, they are the program. Forward to the third edition says the steps I see in the wall are a summary. That's the cliff notes. That's if you're trying to slide with a C. Okay? That scares me to death. I have got to get a passing grade in this. Got to. So I had to go for the full shot. So Jerry says, you're going to have to do the 12 steps. I was rigorously honest with him. I want to recommend that to anybody here in the room. Be rigorously honest with your sponsor. I said, Jerry, I don't want to do the 12 steps. And he said, that's okay. I said, good. He said, as long as you do them. Jerry, we're graduates of the same university. I swear we're not communicating. Yeah, we are. Sure we are. That's the definition of willingness. Willingness is when you do what your sponsor says whether you feel like it or not. Ooh. I can do things I don't feel like doing? Uh-huh. We're going to start now. And I said, Jerry, why do I have to do the 12 steps? Because I'm looking for the door. You know, when I'm asking why, I don't want an answer anyway. I want to fight. I mean, tell me why. I'm going to show you where you're confused. And he said, all the why questions have the same answer. And the answer is, because why is a management question, step one, section B says you're not in management, all the management questions have the same answer. And the answer is, you don't need to know. I didn't like that. Uh-huh. I love it now. Because I always thought it was not knowing that made me crazy. Uh-uh. It was needing to know. That was what made me nuts, was the needing to know. If I lay down the need to know, I do okay. Anyway, he said, think of yourself as a garbage can. Boy, was that easy, huh? And he says, what we're going to do with these 12 steps is we're going to dump you out and scrub you, stand you back upright. We're going to fish through your life. Most of it's garbage. We're going to throw it away. Some of it is good. That portion we will keep. He gave two examples. He said, do you love your children? I said, very much. He said, great. We'll keep that. That's a good piece. We'll keep that one. And then he said, he liked to get smart with me, he said, when you go to work, you do a good job, huh? I said, well, yeah. He said, well, we'll keep some of that. When we get through with these 12 steps, you're going to be a big, clean can with just a little bit of good stuff in the bottom. If we just try to fill with the good stuff, the poison's still in there. It's going to get you sicker and sicker, and you're going to explode with it one of these days, because alcohol's not your problem. It was your answer. It was your answer. So you've got to have the new answer. And part of that new answer is, you're going to need that big, empty, clean can one of these days, because something heavy is just going to slam into your heart. And on that day, if you don't have that big, empty, clean can with just a little good stuff in the bottom to store that pain in while we love you back to spiritual health, you'll escape. That's what you are. You're an escape artist. And the only escapes you know are killing you and devastating everybody around you. And I just ran out of wine. And I allowed him to coach me through the 12 steps, and I think he saved my life. And it changed me from being an actor to becoming genuine. And I wouldn't say I had that by the tail, but I've moved dramatically in that direction. There's an old boy named Cherry Carpenter, who was one of the deans of Nashville AA when I got sober. And he said, I'd rather be despised for who I actually am than loved for who I'm not. And I couldn't say that when I got here. I hope you like me. I really do. And I'm okay if you don't. And I did not have that when I got here, what a huge gift it is to be at peace inside me. And I had no idea who I was. I didn't know anything about myself. It was the journey through these steps, the actual steps, that changed me and continue to change me. So anyway, I'm going to tell a horror story. I'm going to tell you it has a happy ending. On July the 4th of 1992, my beautiful daughter fired a pistol in her mouth. And we found her like six hours later. We rushed to Vanderbilt Hospital. Within 30 minutes, there was 20, 30 of you in the lobby. By dark, it looked just like this. I don't know how long that prayer meeting went on. They told us for the first four days that they could not save this little girl's life. And I want to tell you something. Four days is a very long time. It's a very long time to sit by your baby's bed holding her hand. And she's conscious now. She's got these tubes stuck in her, but she can't talk. And she's a nightmare to look at. She can squeeze you once for yes and twice for no, and she don't want to die anymore. And the staff at this hospital says they can't save her. Four days is a long time. And I found myself offering up to my God the most precious thing in my life and saying, if it's your will to take her, take her. If it's your will to leave her here in bad shape, do that. And if it's your will for her to be okay, do that. Thy will be done. This God of mine is worthy of the most precious thing in my life. And you people were phenomenal. You put a 24-hour watch on me 24-7. There was never a time when there wasn't somebody from my home group at least as close as me to Kim in this front row right here. They camped out in the hall two or three at a time. And not to keep me from drinking. But so if I needed to cry at 3 o'clock in the morning, one of my people would be there to hold me. I know who you are. I saw what you did. Your words don't impress me much. I'm a word merchant myself, okay? I saw what you did. I saw what you did. And that's how I know who you are. And I'm so proud to be one of you. So proud to be one of you. I belong here. See, I am one of you. And it is such a wonderful gift. And I had been taught to cry by a member of my home group when I was sober about a year. I couldn't cry. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. And if you need to learn to cry, if you will please see me after this meeting, I'm serious I can be. I can teach you. All right? And in a room this size, there's probably 20 of you, okay, because I get to make this offer a lot. Please see me. I can teach you to cry. And I wouldn't take anything for it, because that's who I am. I mean, if you have now disrespect for a man that cries, I'm good with it, all right? Because I'm me today. I'm genuine. Anyway, my daughter lived, and she's doing great. A year and a half ago, a beautiful young man. She started dating a human, and it was big news in our family. And this beautiful young man called and asked me for her hand in marriage, and they were married back in November, and they're doing fantastic. She's blind in one eye, and she's doing some work with suicide prevention, and it's just dynamite. I'm sorry she isn't here. She's just really dynamite. A fellow that I sponsor's son did not live. And I had the privilege. I had the privilege of doing some all-nighters and holding him while he cried at 3 in the morning. He did not drink again. I gave him. I have permission, by the way, to tell this story. And in December, I gave him his 16-year chip. He did not drink again, but emotionally, he was gone. You could get up in his face and scream, and he just couldn't hear you. The voices were so loud. He's back. He's doing great now. He said it better than I could, and this is what he said. He said, one of these days, you're going to have to go to the mountain all by yourself. And if you haven't done the work out of this book, and you don't know how to reach up and take the Master's hand, you're not going to be able to go. Boy, that wears me out sometimes. Anyway, I started going to Clubhouse AA. They had the slogans on the wall. First things first. I understood that. But I was a newcomer, of course. I wasn't doing it. And I had one that said, let go and let God. I thought, oh, that's pretty. And I had one that said, one day at a time. I know what that means. That means don't drink today. And if you're new, it doesn't mean that. But I'll tell you something else about one day at a time. In the first 10 steps, I cleaned up my past. There's nothing gaining on me. Steps 11 and 12 are helpful. They're helping me to develop a relationship with a loving God who holds my future. I've got a friend that says he spends too much time in his head trying to clear away the wreckage of his future. Mm-hmm. A little epidemic of that, too, huh? Yeah. OK. First 10 steps, past is clean. Steps 11 and 12, I develop a relationship with a loving God to the point where I'm excited that he holds my future instead of me. Past is clean. Loving God holds the future. Those two facts free me to live today in this day. If I don't have them both in place, I can't be here. I can't borrow pain from the future. It makes me crazy. And they had one on the wall that just made me nuts even to look at it. It was the only one I was doing. You know which one that was, don't you? Think. Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think. Boy, did I have that covered. And I can't find the definition in the literature, so I've taken it upon myself, OK? For me, what that means is three things is the limit. That's it. Right? Whatever it is, I can think about it once. That's OK. I can think about it twice. I can think about it the third time. But after three things, I can think about it twice. I must put it down. For if I were going to out-think it, I would have out-thunk it in three things. If I go to the fourth thing, I've got a problem with Step 1, Section B. I'm trying to manage it. Hmm? All of my problems today fall under Step 1, Section B. If I'm upset about it, it's because I'm trying to manage it, from international politics to the way you drive your automobile to the fact that this fabulous woman that I'm married to puts the toilet paper on the roll backwards. Right? It should feed over the top, as you well know. I fixed the one in the men's room, by the way. She says she puts it on the other way because we have a cat. But I'm going to tell you something. I've been watching that cat for eight and a half years, and he don't use it. All my life, they've told me I learn from my mistakes, and they're wrong about that. I don't. I learn from living with the results of my mistakes. All right? And that's what Steps 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 are about. They're about me embracing the results of my mistakes. I'm like the dog that wets on the rug. What did he learn? Nothing. When did he start learning? When you rubbed his nose in it. Right? I'm the same way. So an untreated Al-anonic is someone who takes away somebody's results, therefore blocking the learning process. So I embrace the results of my own mistakes, and I heard a guy in a meeting define freedom. He said, freedom is when I accept full responsibility for all of my own actions. At that point, I am free, absolutely free to do anything I'm prepared to live with. Up until then, I may have been at large. But that can be temporary, as some of us know. But to be free, I have to realize that the rules apply to me, and that I have to be prepared to live with the things that I do. I moved out of the home my first wife and I were living in one day. I'm 6 feet and 200 pounds, and she's 5'5 and 105, and I'm 6 years sober, and I'm just before giving her a straight right and following up. And I just couldn't stand it. And I was going in 48. I mean, she was going to the hospital. I was going to jail. It was a bad plan. And I moved into a ratty little apartment. I didn't know what to do. I'm not terribly religious, but I didn't believe in divorce. And I also knew if I lived with her, I would eventually beat her. And God bless her. I'm not angry with her today, but I didn't know what to do. And I was given a gift, and the gift was three prayers. And I prayed them each morning. The first one was, God, if it's your will for us to be together, put us together. And the second one is, God, if it's your will for us to be apart, put us apart. Those are the easy ones. Here's the one that counts. And God, if it's your will for me not to know today, leave me not knowing. That's the one. That for me is step one, section B in prayer form. I believe his guidance will be here right on time. Right on time. The question is, am I open to it? And if he's not ready, I'm not ready. I hear people saying there are no big deals. I can't find that in my big book. If you can tell me what page that's on, I'd appreciate it very much. I happen to believe in big deals. I saw a guy get his 60-day chip. That's a big deal to me. But anyway, when I've got a big deal coming, if I can pray that third prayer and ask God to withhold the guidance if it's not part of today's plan, then I can be at peace and I can be here for today. And I think it's important. That's a little bit about what, to me, about what one day at a time is about. I had an experience, I'm going to talk about anonymity for a second. No. I'll tell you what, Linda and I are privileged to do workshops after, and I'll tell that story then because I'm going to be tight on time here. If somebody disagrees with something I have to say, I would really love to hear from you, which is different from talking to you, because give me a chance to learn something. So please. And I had a fellow after a meeting, actually I'm his grand sponsor, came to me and said I disagree. What I had said in a meeting was that my amends to my children would never be complete. And he said, I don't think that's right. He said, did you go to your children and tell them what you thought you'd done wrong? Did you ask them how you could repair that damage? Did you do that? Did you ask for their forgiveness? Did they give it? I said yes to all that. He said, you're trying to be the best dad you can be. Today is not ninth step work. It's twelfth. It's the principles in all your affairs. If you think it's ninth step work, you have not received their forgiveness or God's or your own and you have work to do. This is just where I am because I got free that day. My big book doesn't say anything about living amends or continuing amends. If you're making them, it's fine with me. But I don't have to be guilty anymore. I have received the forgiveness. I'm trying to be a good dad today. It's twelfth step work. I got free. And that's why I share it with you in the hope that somebody else might get free. I'm going to tell this next story. I'm going to hope that somebody gets free too. And this one's pretty rough. I'm going to talk to you about the worst thing I ever did. And if you've done this thing and you're okay with it, I'm okay with it. I didn't come to indict you. This is my story. As a young man, I paid for an abortion. As far as I'm concerned, I killed one of my own children. Nothing just happened in here when I said that because that's what I was screamed out for forgiveness for when I was laying in that hospital bed and treatment. And I received the forgiveness. But when I got to the ninth step, it looked to me like I owed amends to an unborn child and I didn't believe it could be done. I've been fortunate. In my early days, to be in the hands of people who knew what was in this book. I've got to tell you, I have not yet seen a single individual actually do take work these 12 steps under the tutelage of a sponsor who's already done the steps to stay active carrying our message and drinking again. I'm a couple weeks short of 18 years. I haven't seen it yet. Has anybody here seen anyone do that? I didn't think so. This is not a crap shoot. This is not some get it, some don't. This is some do it and some don't. This is some do it and some don't. This is some do it and some don't. This is some do it and some don't. This is some do it and some don't. This is some do it and some don't. This is some do it and some don't. Anyway, it says here on page 83, some people cannot be seen. We send them an honest letter. And I was coached through the process. And interestingly enough, as the fourth step was not about writing, it was the observations and prayers that were so massively therapeutic. In my experience, in this letter thing, it was not the writing. It was the tears. If you can't cry, I really recommend you learn to cry before you try the letter. And I've had the privilege of sitting with a lot of people who needed to write letters. And I got free. And you can get free. I serve a powerful God gave me a powerful program. I'm not saying horrible stuff didn't happen. I didn't do horrible stuff. I'm saying I'm tapped into a power that's more powerful than all of that. And so are you. And the directions are in here. If you have a letter to write to an unborn child or someone else who's going to the other side, if you have some interest in my experience in that, I'd be really thrilled to share it with you and talk to you about how I got free. Because nothing happened in here when I stood up here and talked about that. I am at peace about that. It just absolutely astounds me how powerful this stuff is. My sponsor, when I was sober five years, coached me through the process of dropping someone I was trying to sponsor. I didn't believe him in the first place. And I called him and asked him about this guy one more time. And he says, I want you to drop this guy. And I said, now, come on now, let's talk. He said, no, I want you to drop him. He said, what are you asking him to do that he's not doing? And it was like, open and close your days on 86 and 87, go to a meeting every day, call your parole officer, look for a job, and start your four-step. He said, how much of that is he doing? I said, none. He said, you're not his sponsor, he is. You're his fire chief. He calls you when his tail feathers are on fire. He siphons off some of your serenity. He puts out his fire and he goes right back to doing it his way, and you are not helping him. He is his sponsor, and you're cosigning a lie. And then he said, how do you feel when you work with him? I said, it drains me. He said, that's right. And he named another guy. He said, how do you feel when you work with Bill? I said, I feel great. He said, and what are you asking him to do that he's not doing? I said, oh, he's doing it all. He said, all right. You feel great. That one's working. Sponsorship is a two-way street. If it's not working for you, it's not working for him. And you are not helping this man. You're helping him stay sick. You're cosigning a lie. And then he asked the great questions. Could you stay sober in the program that man's working? I said, I don't think so. He said, can he? I said, I don't think so. He said, you are probably right. And when he drinks again and kills himself or somebody else who goes to prison for a long stretch, you're going to have to sleep knowing you told him the truth. Now you go tell him he's dropped. And I went with heavy heart. And I want to tell you, if he'd said give me one more chance, I would have given it. Because I always do that. And I always take him back. All right. I'm not giving up on you, but you've given up on me. By the way, if you're not familiar with it, I'm on pages 95 and 96 in the text, Alcoholics Anonymous, where it talks about this very thing. And I had to let the guy go. And I've come up with some other reasons since then. I'm responsible for the integrity of the message. I'm responsible for him knowing that until he is done taking work the 12 steps with a sponsor and been out there trying to carry the message, he may be in the fellowship but he is not in the program because the program is the 12 steps. And I need him to know that so that when his way doesn't work again and he wakes up in a jail cell in a pool of his own blood and vomit again, I want him to have three options. And the options are to continue to live that way, to take his own life, or to try Alcoholics Anonymous knowing that he has not tried it because I told him. And if I don't tell him the truth, and continue to let him think he's doing the deal when he's not, I've signed his death warrant. And that's just kind of where I am with it. I believe in sponsorship by assignment. It's working for me. And it seems to be working for a lot of people around me. I carry a picture of me taken when I was about four years old. Ask me, by the way. I'd be glad to show it to you later. But I had it blown up two feet wide, three feet high, put on the wall at the foot of the bed when I was living alone in that little apartment for three years. And I didn't know why. I looked at that picture one time and I wondered, this thought, beautiful thought came across, who would that child have become? Because at about that age I started being abused and I was abused for a lot of years after that. And nothing happened in here when I just said that. And I don't think about it. Because I've been through the forgiveness process in the big book, in the four steps. Please find out if you don't know what I'm talking about. But I was wondering, who would that little boy become? And I got my answer. And the answer is, that's my assignment. It is my assignment to become the man that that beautiful little boy would have become. That's my assignment. And the only directions I ever found that moved me in that direction were in this book. I'm not saying there aren't other ways. I'm saying these are the ones that work for me. They tell me that to a man who is skilled with a hammer, most problems look like nails. I meant to mention the steps. Did I mention the steps? I'll try to get to that in a minute. And you know, I really do belong here. I'm one of you. And it's a phenomenal feeling. And it'll be here tomorrow morning. Unlike the beer that wore off, I do belong. It's a phenomenal, phenomenal feeling. I'm so proud to be one of you. I want to tell you the story of my last flight in a high-performance aircraft. I was curious to see how high this thing would go. We're not supposed to be above 45,000 feet in the plane. Ask me later. I'll tell you. Among other things, it can kill you real easy. And you owe them an airplane. But I just kind of wondered how high it would go. And that was back before the radar told them how high you were. So I found out a T-38 in military power, which is short of afterburner, will go to 52,300 feet. And then it won't go up anymore. This is the plane that rolls at 420 degrees per second. You can do this at 52,300 feet and nothing happens with that stick, man. It just sort of... Nine-tenths of the speed of sound. I had done an instrument climb. I had not looked out of the cockpit. I had just come to a northerly heading. Ten o'clock, nine, ten o'clock in the morning on a clear day, 80 miles west of Jacksonville, 80 miles west of Jacksonville, Florida. The sun's coming up over my right shoulder. At 52,300 feet, the sky above me is black. And I looked out to the west and I saw the curvature of the earth. And I mean, I really saw it. In 1966, there were not a lot of people that had seen it. And I'm one of them. Magnificent experience. Magnificent experience. This beautiful peace and calm feeling washed over me that lasted for several weeks after that. I didn't tell the story. I couldn't tell it. Believe me, I was in trouble. And I was a drunkard. I was the town drunk, not the village idiot. I didn't tell them. And I found myself. I spoke at the AA birthday of one of my heroes, a guy named Burke Harland from High Point, North Carolina. I spoke at his 12th AA birthday. And I was halfway in that story and I thought, I wonder why I'm telling this. And I got my answer at the end. That was my first spiritual experience. It was the first one I remember. And I want to see the curvature of the earth again while I'm still trapped in this prison. I want to see that again. That's on my list. I serve a big God. I'm dreaming big. I hope you're dreaming big. God forgives me for everything I ever did and He loved me while I was doing it. I believe that. And God takes the worst things I ever did and uses them as tools to help other people. It's a powerful God, powerful program. I want to thank that God for an open heart. I asked for one in that delayed moment of silence and this has felt very open for me. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for you. I thank you for studying and knowing your lines when I call on you. I always appreciate that. I want to tell you I stand before you in stock and feet. I'm serious. I take my shoes off to speak because we ask God to join us here. I might be standing on holy ground. I've tried to carry that in my heart while I was up here. And I tell a story of an experience I had in Knoxville, Tennessee a number of years ago, a little discussion meeting. And they're going around the room and everybody's going to talk for a minute or two. And there was this old guy sitting there with his chair rocked back in the back legs and this scowl on his face and little half glasses. And I thought, oh boy, an attitude case. I can't wait. And they finally got to him and he said, I've just come back from an ancient ritual, from a medieval ceremony where 10,000 people sat in an un-air-conditioned auditorium wearing long robes. I figured that out. Graduation, University of Tennessee. All right, I got it, I got it, I got it. All right. Commencement. Okay. This guy's a professor. Alex Haley, the gentleman that wrote Ruth, was the featured speaker. And he said Mr. Haley had only said a couple of words and Alex Haley was not talking about AA. But his first few sentences sounded so much like AA to this guy that he forgot about the robes and the air conditioning and started doing a gratitude list. And what Alex Haley said that to me describes us better than anything I ever heard was, if you ever see a turtle sitting up on top of a fence post, you'll know he's had help. Thank you for the help. God bless you.