Doc Said the Librium Would Make Me Drink Less — Mostly by Keeping Me Unconscious 🫠 – Dave P.

Please join me in extending a warm welcome to our speaker tonight, who is Dave P. from the Third Legacy Group in Bellingham, Washington. Hi, everybody. My name is Dave Pistol. I'm an alcoholic. That is, I just knocked something off. That is P-I-S-T-O-L-E. And I insist on using my full name because our tradition of anonymity is at the public level. And if you guys are ever in Bellingham, Washington, you know, one of the benefits of sobriety is you can be listed in the phone book. And so if you're ever up in Bellingham, I want you to be able to find me or my wife, Polly, and you may need to know where there's a good meeting, and we know. So feel free to call. Also, if I'm, you know, if I get busted up in an accident and you want to visit me, visit me in the hospital, it's nice to know which Dave you're talking about. Anyway, my home group is the Third Legacy Group in Bellingham, Washington. My sponsor's name is Keith. And my sobriety date is April the 18th of 1976. And, yeah, it scares me, too. You know, it gets kind of scary when you begin to be one of the oldest people around that may not be as old as you are. And that means, you know, you're up for dying before long. You know, you're not that far away from it. So, anyway, I am so grateful to get to come here and speak at this meeting. First of all, I'm grateful because I have some good friends in this room, you know. And I got a call from Dave and asked me if I would come here and speak. And I didn't know that my friends, you know, the first thing I thought was, you know, I thought I was like, I got to call Barbara and Barry, you know. And I got to hook up with them and Chris and, you know, my buddy Dave from Hood River. And it turns out this is all their meeting. So, you know, so I'm right at home here. Oh, you like my tie? I got to tell you about my tie. My wife was invited to speak in San Francisco. It's Scotland. And she just got back and she brought me this tie as a gift from the people in Scotland. This tartan, that this tie is the pattern for this tie, the tartan. You can't just go around in Scotland and make tartans of any kind, you know. I mean, you got to have these things have to be registered and all that. So this is a registered tartan. You know, it's like registered like the Black Watch, Dress Stewart. My wife's maiden name is Duncan and that's pretty Scottish. And so she brought back some tartan. It's called Ancient Duncan. And when a tartan is, I don't know what they do. I don't know if they approve or certify or whatever. But there's a whole organization over there that takes care of this. And so the Royal Tartan Society or whatever they're called. When they give you an official blessing on your tartan, your tartan has a name. And the name of this tartan is Recovery. This is the Recovery Tartan. If you see the recipe for this tartan, there's this long string of letters and numbers. And it tells you exactly by thread color how to set up the loom to weave this tartan. How many black threads? How many yellow threads? How many red threads? And so this is a recovery tartan from Scotland. And I'm really jazzed. I love it. So anyway, I'm grateful to be here because this is a great meeting. You know, this is a really good meeting. Now, you're sitting there saying, how the hell is this all duped? I don't know what kind of meeting this is. It's the first time he's ever been here. Well, I'll tell you. First of all, you know, if you've been married to my wife as long as I have, you get to believe in certain things. And one of the things is that you can pick up a lot of energy in a room full of people. So the energy in this room is really good. And if that's a little woo-woo for you, there are other reasons why I say that. And I hope... I hope you really can let in what I consider to be the enormous impact of why I think this is a great meeting. Do you know that because of this meeting, there's going to be some little kids going to bed tonight that will have eaten a warm supper, and somebody will have told them, I love you, and will have tucked them in, and they will sleep peacefully through the night. Do you know that because of this meeting, there's going to be some little kids going to bed tonight that will have eaten a warm supper, and somebody will have tucked them in, and they will sleep peacefully through the night. Because of this meeting. You know that because of this meeting, there's an empty bunk in the jailhouse tonight. Some guy is not laying in an alley in his own vomit because of this meeting. You know that because of this meeting, some lady's not walking around with a big fat lip because she got into a drunken brawl with her husband or her significant other. I can't bear it when I say things like that. You know, but, yeah, I mean, some lady's not walking around all beat up because of this meeting. Because of, you know, and it's that way throughout Alcoholics Anonymous. We change lives here. You know, the stuff that we do changes lives. And I hope you know that whatever contribution that you make, nobody, no one person in this meeting gave those little kids, a warm supper and a warm bed to sleep in. No one person kept that guy out of an alley. You know, it is the collective effort of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, of this meeting, that does that. And I don't know if you are really in touch with what you contribute or not. You know, many of us aren't. And don't need to be. We don't need to know, you know, what I did versus what you did. I mean, that was. Boy, the whole thing. Just by coming here on Saturday night and doing what you can, by sitting in this chair, when these new people that came here tonight, when they came in, somebody was here. Somebody was here when you came in. Somebody was here when I came in. I don't know about you, but I wasn't terribly lovable when I got here. So, those of you who are new here tonight, I enthusiastically welcome you. To Alcoholics Anonymous. I hope you're glad you're here. We're delighted you're here. I hope you're glad you're here. We get people. I don't know why you came. You know, we get people that come here for different reasons. Occasionally, we get people that come in here because they have a real problem with alcohol. You know, and sometimes we get people that come here because their spouse says, if you don't do something about your drinking, you can't live here anymore. Sometimes, people come here because their boss says, if you don't do something about your drinking, you can't work here anymore. Sometimes, you know, in California, when I lived in California, we got a lot of people that came looking for romance. And you laugh, but it's true. And if you're brand new and that's why you came, you need to know that the odds are good, but the goods are odd. So. You know, as they used to say down in Texas, son, you better take a deep seat and get a faraway look in your eyes and pull your hat on tight because it's going to be a tough ride. Okay. I'm going to spend a little time telling you about a week in my life. This is the week of April the 12th through April the 18th. Actually, April the 11th through the 18th. And it ties in with the last paragraph that we read from Chapter 5, which says, Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And C, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. And C, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And D, that God could and would if he were sought. Not if he were found, if he were sought. On April the 11th of 1976, the facts of my life were not terribly good. I was drinking six-half gallons of vodka a week. In addition to my many other wonderful traits, I'm at least 51% anal. And my wife says sometimes it's more like 98%. But the reason I know that figure so precisely is because I was unemployed, what else, and unemployable, what else, and I was getting the munificent sum of 63 bucks a week from the Texas Unemployment Commission. And when the check came every Friday, I would cash it, and I would go down to a... I lived in Dallas at the time, Carrollton, a little suburb out north of Dallas. And you had to drive in because at that time it was precinct by precinct as to whether or not you could buy booze. In the state of Texas and North Walnut Hill Lane was the closest street that I could buy booze on, so I drove down to this drugstore and I bought a case of whatever was on sale. And whatever brand it was, it was a drugstore. And it was totally irrelevant to me. As long as it was 80 proof, that's close enough. And so I just drank whatever they had on sale. And I would buy a case of it because my reasoning was that, you know, I only have 63 bucks. This case of booze cost at that time $44, you know, leaving me 19 bucks. And I was concerned that if I didn't lay in a case while I had that 63 bucks, that I was going to foolishly waste some of that money through the week on food or clothing or rent or something. And I'd wind up, before the week was up, before the next check came with no booze and no money. And I could not take that chance. The operative words there, I could not take that chance. I could not, you know. I mean, I could not go without a drink. And so my diet at that time consisted of... It was a little sporadic. I used to get these 59-cent Swanson frozen chicken dinners, you know. And they look really good if you just look on the package. But first of all, they only use anorexic chickens. And you always got a wing. And by the time they cooked one of those things, you know, those little scrawny wings, there was nothing but, you know, just bones and hide. That's all it was. And they had these little green pellets up in the corner of the tray. The package said it was English peas. Maybe. I don't, you know, I'm not... Over in the other corner was some white viscous goop that the package said was mashed potatoes, you know. And if I remember to put one of those in the oven, and then if I remember to take it out before it burned, I would eat some of it. And that was my diet. And the rest of it was just booze. I just drank. I had not had a bath in quite some time. I don't know how long, but a long time. And, you know, and that's not a big deal, really. That's just one of the normal eventualities of unbridled alcoholism. I mean, if you keep going... Just get to the point where things like bathing and brushing your teeth and combing your hair and changing your clothes just become irrelevant, you know. My life would not have been improved materially one whit if I had done all those things. So I didn't. And, you know, you smell about as bad as you're going to smell within the first two weeks. And so, you know, it doesn't get much worse after that. And I was going to the Dallas County Mental Health. I had a standing appointment every Monday afternoon at 1 o'clock. And I was just sitting there in this dump I lived in about 2 a.m. and having a nightcap. And a public service announcement came on about Dallas County Mental Health Clinic that said, you know, if you're depressed, maybe you can help. Well, you know, I was terribly depressed. You know, I mean, if you drink six half gallons a week and you don't bathe and you don't change clothes and you live in a dump, you know, I mean, that's depressing. And so I thought, you know, that would probably help if I went down there and checked in with these people. So I called them up and they said, well, are you suicidal? And I thought, well, no, good Lord, suicidal. Although I did, you know, I considered that from time to time. But I thought, you know, that was at least a year or two away. And so I. I went down. I had a standing appointment every Monday afternoon and I went down there. I think I think it started somewhere around February that I started doing that. You know, I mean, it's hard. Your memory is not really sharp when you're putting away six half gallons a week. You know, and I, in fact, my my. I got married to some lady along the way. And I'll tell you, I swear on all it's holy. I don't even know what. A year, much less a month or day. The only thing we ever thought of her was who got the last drink. Anyway, I I'm going down to the Dallas County Mental Health Clinic and I'm telling this lady what's wrong with my life. And, you know, none of it had anything to do with reality. You know, I had no idea that was true at the time. I didn't know that. You know, I mean, I thought I was really. You know, the idea behind that is that, you know, you go tell this lady how you react to the world. And and I had no idea that what I was telling her was just pure alcoholic drivel, just a routine drivel. It comes flowing out of an alcoholic's mouth. You know, you know that none of the things that happened to me were my fault. Look what they did to me. Why? I mean, you know, as corny as this is, as many times. As many thousands of times as you've heard this, you know, my attitude was if you had to live like I live with all these crazy people, you drink, too. That's such a routine, trite attitude. But we all have it. Or most of us had it. Had it. I didn't take responsibility for anything. You know, that guy fired me for no reason. That that wife left me for no reason. And. And I don't know what I don't know what she thought about all this. I'm sure she didn't. You know, I'm sure she pegged me within 10 or 15 minutes of my first entry into her office. And I'm sure she's absolutely delighted that she spent all that time in school getting all those degrees so she could sit there and listen to me every Monday afternoon at one o'clock. I'm sure she felt it was all worthwhile just to be able to help me. And that's the way. Thanks. Things were going for me. I had I mean, my life was effectively over. You know, it's not a fair question to pose in this room. But if you go out in the world and you hold me up or any alcoholic like me up, you know, you see what the hell we're going to do with this guy. Nobody knows. Who knows what to do with us? You know, I mean, you know, you. Those of you who are new here, you know, it's it's Alcoholics Anonymous is a funny outfit. We're a funny group here. You know, I mean, we were talking about some things tonight when they were reading all those things, you know, we ought never be organized. We're not organized. You know, our whole attitude is, why don't you be reasonable and do it my way? You know, we can't have leaders. There's not a person in anywhere. They anywhere that knows how to be a leader. We have dictators. Everybody, you know, everybody thinks that, you know, that this would be an ideal cult if I get to be the bug one. But if you're going to be the bug one. No, I don't think so. We don't have any money, no property. Wouldn't do us any good. All we do is fight over it. That's all we ever do when we get anything is squabble over who's going to get to control it. You know, we're a funny outfit. And so, you know, if you're new or nearly new here. As strange as this may sound to you, it's not okay with us that you are here. We want you here. We want you here. We are delighted you are here. That's not podium flash. That's real. We are delighted you are here. You know why? Because somebody was delighted when I got here. A little lady named Helen Elliott. I was at the most unlovable I have ever been in my life. And she walked up to me and she put her arms around me. And gave me a big hug and said, I'm glad you're here. I hope you come back. You know, and trust us. We know more about you right now than you know about you. It's true. All you know about you is what you've done and where you've been. We know what's going to happen to you. We know all that. We can tell you where you've been and what you've done. How you feel. This guy wrote a book in 1935. Beginning in 1935, he finished it. Don't you think it's great? The first edition of the big book was published on April Fool's Day. He wrote a book telling us how we all feel. You know, the only difference between, you know, between any one of us and any other one of us are the names of the hotels and, you know, the motel, motels and all that sort of trivia, you know. The rest of it's all the same. We just do what drunks do. And all you know about you is that. But we know what's going to happen to you. We know that if you can find it within yourself to stay here, just hang out with us. You know, hang out with us. We're going to get you to do some stuff you're not going to be thrilled with. But that's all right. Nobody's ever thrilled with it. And on top of that, it doesn't look like it's going to work anyway. So, you know, it doesn't matter. Ignore all of that. Just stay here and do what we do. And if you can find it within yourself to do that, your life will be transformed beyond anything I could ever describe. Anything I could ever describe to you. So I'm going down to see Jeanette. And that's the shape I was in when I got here. I was a derelict, you know, doing the very best job that I could do to have a decent life or any kind of life. I turned me into a derelict. That is my very best shot at conducting my affairs, my own affairs. I turned me into a derelict. The description of the alcoholic. The alcoholic is described all over the Big Book. The thing where it really is telling is in, I think, for me at least, is in the doctor's opinion. Dr. Silkworth says that, you know, he describes the thing called the phenomenon of craving, which means if I take a drink, the phenomenon of craving sets in. We were talking about that at dinner tonight, one little tiny corona, you know, one of those little bitty ones. The size of a bud vase. A week later, I can't even walk. If I take one drink, the phenomenon of craving sets in. The drink takes the drink, and the next thing you know, I'm gone. I have no control over how much more I drink or when I'm going to stop. Nobody wanted to drive off in the ditch like we did. I mean, who would ever want to do that? But the chapter to the agnostic. You know, people talk about the big book being an inspired book and all of that. I'll tell you what. I hold the big book to be a sacred document. That book is as sacred to me as the Bible is to Christians, the New Testament is to Christians, as the Torah is to the Jews, as the Koran is to the Muslims, as the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita are to the Hindus. It's as sacred to me as all those books. Because that book says, if you have these problems and you do these things, this is what will happen to you. And I had those problems, and I did those things, and what happened to me is exactly what that book promised me would happen to me. And that book was written. The writing of that book began shortly before I was born. And so that book, to me, is a sacred book. And if I wonder whether or not it was divinely inspired, I don't even want to get into that. You know, I don't have to. All I know is that if you want to know if there are any miracles going on in the world anymore, what would you do if you're sitting here tonight, you have three years of sobriety, which is what Bill Wilson had when he wrote the chapter to the, and your job was to sit down and write a chapter in the big book called We Agnostics. And in that chapter, in a relatively few paragraphs, you had to make God approachable by practicing alcoholics. How'd you like that job? But that's what happened. That chapter says God either is or he isn't. He's either all things or he's nothing. What's your choice going to be? You know, you're going to... You're going to die an alcoholic death or you're going to learn to live on a spiritual basis. You know, it's like, here's door number one, which is alcoholic death. Here's door number two, which is spiritual basis. What is your choice to be? You don't... There's no third door? I mean, he just lays it out there. Throughout the big book, it says we don't apologize for God. It's our higher power. You know what the term God offends you? We don't care. You call him something else. He doesn't seem to mind what you call him. Higher power? If that's what you need to call him, that's fine. It's okay. We can all live with that. That's great. And our personal adventures before and after. Well, you know, my personal adventures... You know, I could beef him up, put a little podium flash in there, you know. But they're the same as yours. You know, what do we do? We just drink too much and we misbehave. In the same way. You know, some of us are prone to violence and some of us aren't. You know, some of us get in fights and some of us just sit in the corner and sob. You know. You know, our morals degenerate to the level of a billy goat. You know, we just all do the same thing. Some of my personal adventures were a lot like yours. You know. I was of the... I was of the bar drinker variety. You know, I liked... I had a lot of fun in bars. I liked to party. And anyway, all of that in my square three pertinent ideas. I was an alcoholic and could not manage my own life. I told you, doing the best I can. You know, I never got up in the morning and said, I think I'll screw up my life today. You know, I think I'll make a few bad decisions. You know, I think I'll just... You know, have maybe a car wreck. Or two. You know, maybe I'll back out over the neighbor's lawn and take out a couple of bushes. You know, I never once did that kind of thinking. You know, and my life looked good for a while. I had every opportunity to be a star. I really did. You know, I wandered off when I was a really young guy without... You know, I graduated from high school and started going to college. At night... And I got a job with a big chemical company, and they sent me packing off to computer school. When I was 19 years old, I began programming computers. The first computer I programmed was a vacuum tube machine. We have people in this room who don't even know what the hell a vacuum tube is. They're so old. But that's when I started. And I've had some really spiffy sounding titles. You know, I mean, I've been vice president of operations. I've been senior. I've been senior scientist. I've been director of program management. And I had plenty of opportunity to be a star. Because I just wandered off into the computer field by accident. I just was chosen because nobody else could be available. And I have an aptitude for it. I found out. I didn't know that until I got into it that I really like it. And I have an aptitude with it. And I'm very, very good at it when I'm not drinking. But I could not keep my career on track. I could not keep doing that. I mean, I just, you know, I floated on my resume for a long time. And I just finally wound up just destroying everything. You know, any chance I ever had at any kind of a successful career, I ruined it. Because I'm an alcoholic and I can't manage my own life. And the next statement says it. Probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. I started all this on, just to keep our chronology going, I started on April the 11th of 1976. I'm a six-half-gallon-a-week vodka drinker. And on April the 12th, which was a Monday, I went to see Jeanette Beavers at the Dallas County Mental Health Clinic. On Wednesday, April the 14th, I went to my first AA meeting. But. No human power could have relieved our alcoholism. We have a long tradition. We have a lot of history regarding how we have tried to bring human power to bear on the disease of alcoholism. If you're new, when you got here, you think like I used to. You might think that the problem has to do with an addiction to alcohol. That's not the problem. I know it seems like it is, but it's not. The book says drinking was but a symptom. And everywhere we look, it says that every attempt made by humans to resolve this problem has met with utter failure. You know, one of the earliest was back in 1932, one of the earliest in modern times, recent times. That may not be too recent to some of you, but anyway, a guy named Roland Hazard spent a year working with Dr. Carl Jung, Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, preeminent psychiatrist. You know, the father of psychiatry, or at least one of the fathers of psychiatry, his contemporaries were Adler and Freud and these enormous men of medical science. Spent a year working with Dr. Jung. Dr. Jung says, I'm sorry, Roland, but I can't help you. Not only that, I don't know anybody that can. The only thing I have ever seen that helped a person such as you. Uh, has been through some kind of religious or spiritual experience, and I have no idea how to induce those. So if I were you, I'd go back home and get affiliated with some religious group you can begin in. That's where they happen to seem to happen the most often. Get affiliated with something back there and see if something like that doesn't happen to you. But other than that, you're circling the drain, pal. You know, it's over. I don't know. I have no idea how to help you. Uh, of my own personal experience. Um, I went to every powerful human I knew about that I could think of, you know. I went to ministers. I tried to talk to ministers, you know. And, uh, I want you to know I go to church every Sunday morning because I like to go to church every Sunday morning. I've only been doing that for a couple of years. Uh, before that, I didn't find a church that really plucked my strings. Like this one does. This one does. And so I go every Sunday. I have nothing, nothing. Do not now, nor have I for some 29 years had anything against any kind of organized religion. So, um, this, this will not be a religious bashing. Uh, I, I go to preachers and talk to them, you know, and I don't know what they said. And, but I know what I heard, you know, and I'm sure what I heard is not what they said. I really am. But I, I listened with the ear of an alcoholic and I know what I heard. What I heard was, look, pal, we own God. Okay. Here's who God is. And here's what he likes. And here's what he doesn't like. And here's what he approves of. And here's a long list of stuff he doesn't approve of. And, uh, you know, and if, if you want to get to God, you know, you. You have to go through us, you know, and, and here's how you, here's the shape you have to be in, in order to, for us to present you to God or for you to present yourself to God. Here's the, here are the conditions you have to meet. Well, I can't do that. I can't rise to that level of purity to make myself acceptable to God. I, I mean, I, yeah, we can talk about it, you know, and I can give you a sunshine enema about what a good God is. I, I am, but I can't do that. I can't rise to that level of purity. So, you know, I'm sunk as far as finding an answer here. Um, I went to a doctor, you know, I'm raised in a society where, you know, when you have some kind of serious problems like this, one of the best resources you have available is the medical doctor. So, uh, you know, but I hate. I'm not calling, I'm not going to go to just any doctor. So I called the American Medical Association and asked them to recommend a doctor that was experienced, uh, treating people who drink too much. I can't remember if I identified myself as an alcoholic or not, but I might have. And, uh, they weren't really that pleased to hear from me and they, uh, they finally, you know, coughed up a name and I call us guys off it by this time. I have wandered off and I'm out. Okay. Kentucky. And, uh, so he said it as an aside. And, uh, so I call this guy's office and got an appointment, went in, told him I drink too much. You know, I don't know what I told him. Uh, my sense of it is that I probably came closer to telling him the truth about how much I drank that I ever told anybody else, but I'm sure I didn't level with him. You know, we don't, we don't level with anybody. Uh, not even ourselves. Uh, so that's true. So, uh, anyway, he whipped out his pad and, uh, said, here, I want you to take this medication as directed. Won't cause you to quit drinking, but it will make you drink a lot less. And I said, all right, this is working. This is cool. Look at this. See, this is exactly what I wanted. I just want to drink less. So I took the script and looked at it. Librium, 75 milligrams. What, see, my first wife was a nurse and we were married 14 years and throughout that whole 14 years, I had a PDR at home. And for those of you who don't know, a PDR is a physician's desk reference. And in that book, in living color are pictures of every last drug, compound, spansiole, capsule, tablet. Suppository, everything that's made on this planet for medical purposes is in that book. Plus a lot of information that tells you how you are likely to feel if you put some of that in your mouth and swallow it or shoot it in your arm or use whatever route of administration is recommended. But, uh, I knew about drugs. You know, I found out a long time ago before this happened. That, uh, if you have an unlimited supply of amphetamines, which I did because my wife just ordered them for me on the doctor's stationery and I'm buying these stuff in bottles of a thousand and I'm buying two or three thousand at a time and I'm paying $5 and 75 cents a bottle for it because that's the doctor. That was the doctor's price at that time. And this stuff is not something some dude made in his trailer out in the desert. This is. This is an ethical pharmaceutical company that made this. This is Smith, Klein and French. And, uh, and I passed that stuff out among all my friends. I took that every day and carry a little tube of it around and a little plastic tube around in my pocket that said titralac on it, which was a antacid. So, you know, my thinking was the cops see this. I'll just think, you know, these are my stomach tablets. I don't know where we get this stuff. Anyway, I just gave this away to my friends. You know. If you're living in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California and you're drinking up and down Ventura Boulevard and you're giving away unlimited quantities of speed to everybody that wants it, you can build up a hell of an entourage, you know. And so I, uh, I looked at this thing and, and, uh, Librium, you know, I think this is not going to help. I knew that, you know, as dopey as I was, I knew this is not going to help. This is. It's going to make it worse, you know, in all fairness to the doctor. Yeah. You're going to drink less. You're going to spend a lot more time unconscious than you used to, you know? I mean, so I, I felt really hopeless after all that, you know, I never went back to see him. I didn't take the Librium. I mean, what's the point, you know, I, I mean, this is not going to help. This is really going to make it just worse, a lot worse if I take this stuff. So nothing coming from medical science. It's not going to solve my problem. Uh, I told you I was going to see Jeanette Beavers to see the fundamental of, of, uh, psychology. Psychotherapy is that, uh, I will come to you as a therapist and I will explain to you how I react to the world. You know, here's how I react to external stimuli, you know, uh, when I'm in the world and, and I'm confronted with situations like this, here's what I do, you know, and, and from that, the therapist then can, can see the behavior. I'll be very careful. I'll try to look at the behavioral anomalies, which is a nice way of saying how you screw up your life. And, uh, you know, I make little recommendations that will produce some course changes in your life and change your behavior a little bit in your life, gets more acceptable to you, and hopefully to the rest of the world around you. And, um, now the fly in that ointment is that I have to explain to this lady how I react to the world. Well, I don't care about that. You know, I mean, I, I'm not sure if you're going to be the same, but, um, uh, I'm going to have to explain to you how I react to the world. Well, I don't care about that. You know, I mean, I, I don't care about that. I don't care about that. She's the last human being I have any kind of ongoing contact with. My sole interest in her was to get her to like me. I mean, what do I care about the truth? Who the hell even knows what that is? I mean, so in other words, I have to help her help me, and I can't. I can't help her help me. You know, this is a big hole that you can drive a truck through when it comes to alcoholism being treated by a mental therapist in many cases. You know, what was wrong with me at that time? Well, I was an alcoholic. What else was wrong with me? Did I have abandonment issues? Yeah. Yeah. Did I have self-esteem issues? Absolutely. I had a lot of issues. Were they important? Not in the least. Not in the least. They were so overpowered by my alcoholism that, you know, their contribution to my overall lifestyle problems was so minuscule in relation to the alcoholism that you couldn't even find them. Those things don't mean anything. Will I ever have to go to a therapist and try to deal with some of those issues, my inner child issues and all that? Well, probably I have. But until I get a handle on my alcoholism... Alcoholism is pointless. Why bother working on any of that stuff if you're drinking six half gallons of vodka a week for crying out loud? You know, what's the point? So I could not help this lady help me. No human power could have relieved our alcoholism. You know, I looked all over the place. So in my case, that is really true. Now, what do you do at that point? You know, here you are. You're a seriously bad alcoholic. You're very close to dying from the disease, which is no joke. I really was. And you've been to doctors and ministers and therapists and other people looking for a way out of the trap, and you cannot find anything. What do you do? What's the next step? What's the next move? I didn't know. You know? I didn't know that going to see Jeanette wasn't working. And one day, out burbling out of my mouth, without any plan or forethought to this at all, I said, Jeanette, when are we going to talk about my drinking? You know, those therapists, man, they'll lay in the weeds and wait as long as they have to. And they are ready to pounce when you open the door. Jeanette said, Dave, we've got a program starting here. We're going to get some federal money. And we're going to have an alcoholism program going here at the county mental health clinic. But I can get you into it if you want me to. I recommend that you don't. I recommend that you go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I strongly recommend that you go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thought, why? Why? You know, we will. In the gutter, too drunk to get up and feel superior to people looking down on us. You know, why would you want me to go there? And she said, because they do better than anybody. They're the only game in town when it comes to alcoholism. They do better than anybody. And she said, if you'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous, you don't need to come back here anymore. You don't need to bother coming back here. If you'll go to AA. And that was on Monday. I didn't go to my first meeting until Wednesday. I had to think about it. It's like the same question, you know. To die an alcoholic death or to go to AA. What is your choice to be? I had to think about it. It's incredible. We are just incredible. So on April the 14th of 1976, I walked into my first meeting. And I had exhausted any hope I could have ever found or mustered or that I had ever come up with. On finding any help for my alcoholism anywhere. I desperately no longer wanted to be an alcoholic. I desperately no longer wanted to drink and live the kind of life I was living. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous on April the 14th of 1976 to my first meeting. And Helen Elliott put her arms around me and locked me into this outfit. And I had been an extremely active, highly enthusiastic, totally involved member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous ever since. Have not the slightest interest in changing that. But I didn't know anything then. And I walked in and she did that. And another guy named Buddy Newton stood at a podium and talked about being an alcoholic, you know. And I'm sitting there saying, oh, man, don't tell people that in public. But I went back every single night. But I went to my first meeting drinking. Because if I was awake, I was drinking. I mean, if my eyes were open, I'm drinking. That's it. I mean, there was, you know, and I woke up every morning. You know, well, actually, you don't wake up. You get to a point where you just pass out and come to. You don't go to sleep and wake up. You pass out and you come to. And when you come to and your eyes fly open, you know, when that happened to me every day, I knew two things immediately. One was, if I don't quit drinking pretty soon, I'm going to die. I knew that. I knew that. And it was true. But the other thing I knew in that same instant. Is if I don't have a drink in the next five seconds, I'm going to die. And that's what the book refers to as the dilemma of the outcalling. And so I talked to a few people that night. And they said, Dave, you know, it says in our book that lack of power is our dilemma. You know. You've tried all these other. Human powers. You know, Dave, we don't we don't have enough power. Collectively or individually to get you sober or keep you sober. We don't even have enough power to keep ourselves sober. You know. When you've tried everything and struck out everywhere. You got to throw in the towel and give up. So we recommend that you go home tonight and ask whatever kind of God you can believe in to help. And I said something I said a lot for the first few weeks I was in Alcoholics Anonymous. I said, you don't understand. You know, even if there was a God, look at me. Do you think he's going to help me? Look at the shape I'm in. Look at. I mean, I have made a mockery out of him with most of my life. You think he's going to help me? I'm one of the last people in the world he would help. And you said, oh, no. Oh, stop that. Not that God. Not the God you learned about in some Sunday school somewhere that your parents drug you off to. We're telling you to just stop for a minute and think about what you need God to be. What do you think he is? Who do you think he is? And whatever your idea of God is, that's who he is for you. And I was horrified. I said, you can't do that. And you said, oh, yeah, that's the way we do it here. So I went back on Thursday night drinking. And you told me the same thing. And I went back on Friday night drinking. And you told me the same thing. And I went back on Saturday night drinking. And you told me the same thing. But on Saturday night, I went home. And I stood in that dump that I lived in. And with a drink in my hand. April the 17th, 1976. And I said, God, if I'm going to quit drinking, you're going to have to help me. Because I absolutely cannot do it by myself. And the best I could tell, absolutely nothing happened. I woke up the next morning. And that was Sunday morning. And that group that I've been going to had a tentacle. And that group that I've been going to had a tentacle. And that group that I've been going to had a meeting on Sunday morning. And somehow I managed not to take a drink before I got to that meeting. And a guy named John, who was a paramedic with the Dallas Fire Department, when he found out I hadn't had a drink yet, he made arrangements for my ride home to vaporize. And he took me to his house. And he kept me there all day. And I tried every trick I had to get away from him. I told him, you know, I may be sick, John. And he said, ah, people throw up on this rug all the time. Don't worry about it. But the long and the short of it is, I haven't had a drink since. April the 18th is my sobriety date. You know, and the enormity of that miracle escaped me for a long time. I had been trying my best for years to get out of the trap. I had gone to every human being I knew of that had any kind of power at all that I thought could help me get out of that trap. It had been going on and on and on. And I had been a judge. And I had been a judge. And I had been a judge. And I had been a judge. And I had been a daily drinker for about 20 years, as near as I can tell. And my alcoholism just continued to grow progressively worse. Day by day, inch by inch, it got worse. And in less than 12 hours, when I asked God, you know, I'd like to tell you how inspired I felt before I said that prayer or how much hope I had or any of that stuff. You know, you can't. You can't drink that much and remember how the hell you felt about anything. I have no idea how I felt. I just did it because you told me to. You know, I mean, I suspect I felt like it was pretty silly. I suspect I felt like, you know, if anybody's watching, I'll be embarrassed. I suspect I didn't want anybody to know I was doing it. But in less than 12 hours, I no longer drank anything. Haven't drank since. When I came here. I'm sure God was angry, easily angered, very judgmental, very short-tempered, you know, grouchy, you know, snarling, unpleasant, insecure. Well, you know, I mean, you stop to think about it. How many people do you know of that need all that worship and praise all the time that aren't insecure? You know, I mean, I used to think, why the hell would God care what I thought? I mean, he made this whole universe and everybody in it. Why the hell would he care what I thought? You know, but that's the way he was when I got here. You know, I didn't want to have anything to do with him. I didn't want to pray to him. I didn't want him to know where I was. But, you know, I got to thinking as part of the enormity of that. It wasn't just that I quit drinking. You know, I started thinking, how did God know to be in Carrollton, Texas on that particular night? How did he know I was going to say that prayer? How did God know I was going to throw in the towel? You know, he didn't hang out in my neighborhood. How would he know to be there? And the only explanation I could come up with, and I still go with it today. Is that because God is in here. God is here. His spirit lives in me. He had, if he's there now, he has always been there. I've had God living in a dump for most of my life. I got to clean this place up. And then it occurs to me, if he lives in here in me. He lives there in you, too, because without even. The absurdity of saying anything about modesty. There's nothing that special about me. I'm just another person. If God lives in here in me, he lives in you, too. That same way. No human power could have believed our alcoholism. But God could and would if he were song. How could he forgive me enough to give me the gift of life that he had already given me? And I had destroyed. How could he give that back to me and hold no grudge against me? See, I had to learn a whole new way of thinking. And that's what you learn here. You learn a whole new way of thinking. Of looking at the world around you. Of seeing things differently. You know, Wayne Dyer says it really well. If you ever watch his PBS special. You know, he says, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. I used to be really scared of you guys. Not just you, but anybody. You know, I had to do anything I could to keep you from finding out about me. You know, because if you found out about me, you'd throw me away. You would. You know, because I, you know, I'm just not acceptable. No, I'm not. You know, I'm just, I'm too weird. You know. I think too weird. You know, and I had to come to Alcoholics Anonymous for you to tell me, Dave, you are comparing your insides to their outsides. It's not going to work. You know, I never thought I would ever walk into a room full of drunks to have the issues of my life resolved for me. Nothing ever led me to think that a room full of drunks, would hold the answers to my life. Nothing would ever have led me to believe that some old creaky book written back in 1930, in the late 1930s, would still to this day be relevant in my life. It says, it's not about getting anything. It's about giving something. That's the secret to life. It's about giving something. You know, you came here, Dave, when you were at the most unlovable. You have ever been in your life. And look at the condition you're in right now. Look at the things that you have done. See, nobody is ever going to know what's in your heart but you. Nobody's ever going to know for sure what's in my heart but me. And if I'm a good enough actor, I can convince you that I got a lot of stuff going on in here that is just BS. You know, but I... You have given me the courage to adopt some attitudes in my life that serve me extremely well. You know, the first time I heard some of this stuff, I thought, oh, man, this is really sad. You know, this is scary. I'm not doing this. I got a friend named Cease from Canada. He says, his prayer is, God, treat me tomorrow the way I treat others today. What? What? What? What? What? Don't make your sphincter oscillate. Say that a few times. Say that a few times. Whenever I am upset, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me. Are you kidding me? You know, did you see what that lady just did? She cut me off. Let's take that as an example and analyze that for a minute. I'm driving down the freeway. Dave, the alcoholic, cruising on down the freeway, and some lady pulls in front of me. You know, and I'm screaming and yelling and, you know, giving her the one-finger salute and all. that stuff because she cut me off because i assumed that she saw me she knew that i was driving along there i assumed that she clearly understood that for so many feet in front of me and behind me as i go along that that freeway lane belongs to me i have exclusive right to it and that she's just better by god stay out of my way and if she doesn't she gets what she gets what if i change that around a little bit to something that is equally unknown to me because i don't know i don't know what she's doing what if i change that around a little bit what if i say what if i assume she's a mother trying to get home she's got two little kids she's late getting over to daycare and she's got to get home and get get her kids from daycare and get home and feed them because she's got a second job she has to go to or or maybe a night school class she has to make because she's trying to improve her daycare life and she's trying to improve her daycare life her life she's a single mom and she's just trying to take care of business and some jerk back there wouldn't let her in and so she almost missed her off ramp what's my feeling then oh man i can be courteous i can let off i can back off i can help her get in what's the difference between the two situations not a damn thing as far as i know i have no idea why she did that but my life depends on what i think about you my sponsor used to tell me that all the time so you know it is none of your business what people think about you but your life depends on what you think about them so when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change so i have i have you know and i i am so anal i have to i have to have some rules for myself you know if your signal blinker comes on to use my lane and i can see it i slow down that's my rule i don't care what you're doing or anything else if i see your blinker on you're getting in and i'm a happier guy i don't know what that helps you any but it helps a hell out of me and uh when was it late 80s early 90s my son michael called me and uh he said i can't go anymore uh i just i just can't drink anymore i'm going into this program and uh i'm gonna go into an outpatient treatment program and i'm going to try to pull it together and i said okay good and uh he came in and he called me about a week later and he had just gotten the results back from the screening they do on people when they go into treatment programs even though they may be outpatient and he found out to his heart that he was hiv positive and he found out that uh the drugs that he was going to have to take were far and away above his ability to pay for them so he was going to be required to go on disability ssi and that way the state would take care of his drugs for him but instead of sitting home and feeling sorry for himself and all that he's a member of alcoholics anonymous now and he's going to meetings and my son was gay and he found a gay church that he liked very much and uh he started going to that church and he got involved in their program and their outreach program and uh he began to volunteer for the texas aids commission he was driving people long distances in his car at his own on his own time and at his own expense to get medical treatment because there were dentists for example that wouldn't treat AIDS patients and where he lived in corpus christi and he cooked for them and he took food to their houses and you know through through this thing he got involved in and uh and he didn't do all this instead of aa he did all this in addition to aa and three years ago he died and i wish you could have seen what you did with him uh the church where his memorial service was held was overflowing many many people were there from alcoholics anonymous uh the church where his memorial service was held was overflowing many many people were there from alcoholics anonymous and uh he was dying we were gathered around his bed my daughter's been gone by at this time for a long time i haven't seen her in about 15 years and uh didn't want to see her because the last time i saw her she was a bad drunk and you know was having some tough times and all and when we talked she just lied to me and and uh you know built up her own guilt and remorse and uh and and it broke my heart because i i knew that she meant what she was telling me she was telling me that she was telling me that she was going to do as much as she could but it just wasn't going to happen and uh she walked in a few hours before my son died and she'd been clean and sober for eight months and uh the following this was in november and when my son died his whole family was around him there was no unfinished business uh he was cheering up people who were trying to cheer him up you know saying don't worry about me you know i i am i am straight i am straight just to see this man that's our son that's straight with God, you know, I'm okay, I'm fine, you know, and he brought, you know, his whole family back together, you know, his sister is there, his mother, his grandfather, everybody's there, and in March, the following March, I gave my daughter her first birthday cake, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous, so, you know, we touch many lives in here, you know, I have a zillion adventures that I could tell you about, and they're all much the same, so if you've come here, and you're new here, and you're not sure what you've wandered into, give it a chance, okay, don't, don't make any big decisions about anything, just keep coming, sit in the room, to what, does what you feel coming from us, does it feel like it's true, you know, does it feel like we're telling you the truth, do you really believe that I used to drink six half gallons of vodka uncontrollably each and every week, you know, do you really believe that all these other people sitting around you are telling you the truth when they tell you about them, do you really think, can you feel that we are glad you are here, you know, you don't have to do much, you got to show up, you know, show up, ask whatever God you think you can believe in, see, at first, we don't need much God, you know, don't, don't tell me about some big guy in robes, and, you know, with a lot of, you know, all that stuff, I don't need that much God at first, I just need a little help to stop drinking, okay, God can get, God has gotten a lot bigger as we've gone along, but at first, don't scare me off with some big, grand, you know, mumbo-jumbo, and we don't want to scare you off, we want you to, whatever you consider, conceive of God to be, that's what he is for you, you don't like God, call him something else, call him Harry, he doesn't seem to mind what you call him, but you've thrown enough of your life away, you've thrown enough away, so have we all, don't throw any more, thank you very much.