Don P. on Big Book Workshops, Sponsorship, and the Baffled Mind

My name is Don, and I am an alcoholic. And I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing today. I've not had a drink of alcohol. I've had a face-to-face encounter with another alcoholic. I prayed and meditated and cussed a little bit. My home group is the Denver Thursday Night Group. We meet in Denver every Thursday night. and most of us still need it that simple this is a good group I'm delighted to be with you all I get to a lot of these things and you're all very warm and very healthy from what I can gather and I want to personally thank Earl and Millie and Sonny and the others who have held this thing together long enough for me to get here I promise you I'll take as good a care of it as you did the same way you did my home group is a very basic little AA group we have a podium and you're asked to come up and you have five to seven minutes to talk about the only topic we have, what you were like what happened and what you are like now and in seven and a half minutes you get the hook and the next guy gets out And a wonderful thing happens at that meeting. I don't remember much over the years what's said there. It's pretty basic. But we gather about a half hour to 45 minutes early, and they have to run us off. And the spirit in that room draws people to it. Great spirit of healing there. We're a family, a true family. This little group also, for those who want to get serious, and because we were overwhelmed with new people 10, 12 years ago because we believe in personal sponsorship. To me, the definition of sponsorship, by the way, is found in the big book in the second sentence of the first forward to show others precisely how we recovered is the purpose of this book. So that's what we do. If I sponsor you, you're required, if I'm going to sponsor you to show up at my house on a regular basis. I don't care whether it's once a day or once a week or once in a month, but on a regularly basis. And you and I will sit down together and I'll read the big book to you word by word. And then you and together we'll do everything it says together. And when we got overwhelmed, we learned from some of our family up in Winnipeg, Canada. Mac Cheater came and talked to us one time in the early 70s. and we do what we call a big book workshop which is exactly the same thing we gather on a regular basis and read the big book out loud and do everything it says there's a little group of 10 or 15 people and the only result we get out of this kind of activity is that the bulk of the people who do that seem to stay sober and grow our little group, if you came to my home group there will probably be at least one squalling baby and several pregnant women because our group, for whatever the reason, tends to get married and start making families as they get older. It's just what happens there. And I've seen those babies save the lives of some of our psychopaths because we do draw them. The angriest human being I know is my little friend Chuck. Oh, he was angry when he got here. Chuck and Laura's baby started crying one night. None of us could reach Chuck. and the baby started to cry and Chuck walked over and picked it up and started walking with it and the Baby got quiet and Chuck began to get quiet anyway that's the commercial I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous you see God gave me back my life as a free clear gift December 26th of 1967 and then I was hand-carried five months later to Alcoholics Anonymous so that gift could take on some meaning and some purpose and some dimension because I had reached the bottom and I think the bottom for any human being and I hit it was the moment when I finally understood I was completely useless. For me, the key to sobriety It's a good sobriety for me, is that I'm now useful. No better, no worse, but I'm useful. I have a reason to get up today. A lot of days I only didn't have a reason. I didn't want to. I drank alcoholic way from the very beginning of my drinking, and yet my understanding of alcoholism comes from a very limited source, a book called Alcoholics Anonymous. And it defines it so simply that, Albert, you never have to worry about whether you've got it or not. If when you wish to stop drinking alcohol you find you cannot stop entirely or wish to control the amount you drink once you start and find you can't do that, then you're probably alcoholic. And all the rest of it is interesting and academic. Well, I've never had any control over the amount of alcohol I drank, nor did I ever try. That's the silliest thing I can think of, is to try to control the amount I drank. I tried to control my life and your life and circumstances, but from my first drink, I loved what this stuff did for me. It changed me. I came to alcohol desperately needing to be changed. I was little, and I was stupid, and I was ugly. And if we were going to talk, you were going to be brilliant and I was going to Belch. I was neither front hall nor back hall in high school. I hung out with six other guys that ran up and down East Colfax in an old battered Ford looking for girls. And I'll never forget the night we found some. We didn't know what to do. As a rite of passage where I came from, around 15 or 16 years of age, we got a fellow from Lowry Air Force Base to buy us a bottle of whiskey. And we took it out east of Denver in order to get drunk like the big kids did. And I went out east to Denver stupid and little and frightened and angry. and I had me a couple of drinks of bonded bourbon. It changed me. I got taller and I got smarter. I can tell you a number of things that happened. What I remember most about that evening is that I had some plans for the first time in my life. Up until then, I'd been bouncing, ricocheting really off of life. Whatever came by, I bounced. And this night I had to go and I said I had some plans. There was a fellow in my high school class who had not been treating me very well. And I knew he was going to be at Bill Bonsib's driving later that night, and I was goingto go back and whip him. And I could have done it. And there was a girl in my class who hadn't been treatingme at all. She and I were going to have a visit. And Icould have doneit that night. And I must tell you, in all honesty as I stand here today, if that's all that alcohol did for me, I would have to recommend it to anyone. It produced what I now know to be something very much like a spiritual experience. It brought a sense of ease and comfort, a sense that it is all right for me to be me and it is alright for you to be you, and if that is all it did, why not? It isn't, unfortunately, all it did for me. I didn't know it then, but it's in my nature that if one works, take ten. When I read the Big Book and saw the definition of insanity in there, it was very simple—lack of proportion and the ability to think straight. I don't have a slightest idea about proportion. I'm rubber-minded. I can't think straight. So before the evening was out, I was almost dead of acute alcohol poisoning. I drank too much bonded bourbon and got sick. What the guy I was going to whip saw and what the girl I was willing to visit with saw, despite my good plans, was my partners hauling me around the driveway in Bill Bonson's drive-in while Lay poured coffee down me, and I poured it right back out. And that's essentially how it was for me. Now, I have a keen alcoholic mind. I knew instantly what caused that debacle. Bonded bourbon. I haven't had any bonded bourbon since. I really haven't. I'm not drinking Estee. Although I tell you, had that been all there was, I'd drink that again. but I very quickly found out what wouldn't make me have that reaction. And I began to drink for the effect produced by alcohol. What I love about Alcoholics Anonymous is from the very beginning you've been very specific in what's wrong with me and I can identify with it. If we were going to fight, I drank vodka because when I drink vodka, the effect is that I get mean. And if you're going to a fight, you ought to be a little bit mean. there was a chance that we were going to meet some girls tonight I drank dark Bacardi rum it turns me into a lover with red wine particularly Manischewitz I am a poet I can remember some terrible nights when I couldn't feel anything, so I'd drink Coors beer and listen to Ferlin Husky singing Four Walls, and I could just cry like a baby. I was in my first federal penitentiary when I was nineteen years old as a direct result of drinking alcohol, and I didn't know that. You see, when I drink, one of the symptoms of my alcoholism is that I get lost and I can't find my way home. And there is a federal law against that when you're in the Navy. out it's a felony. My favorite word in our big book is the word baffled, because that was my lifestyle. And I was baffLED by this series of events. See, I quit high school when I was 17 and joined the Navy to save America from the communist menace and to come home a hero, because I desperately needed to be a hero to somebody at 17 years of age. And two years later, I'm in the penitentiary. They would give me a 24-hour liberty, and I would go ashore expecting to be home in 24 hours. They expected it, and I expected it, that I'd have a drink. And it'd be 25 hours or 26 or 28. And one time it was 23 days late. And when I got home, it wasn't there anymore. It was on its way to Korea, and at that time, that was a shooting offense. Fortunately, I ran with a real slick drunk. We're not idiots. We're no dummies. He got us on a Pan Am Clipper. We flew over that ship and were in Japan three weeks before it ever got there. Now, that sounds smart. It turned out to be a bad mistake. I don't know how mad the skipper was when we weren't there and he left. I suppose he was probably some relieved. But I can tell you from looking into his cold steel blue eyes how mad he was when he saw us standing on the dock waiting for him. And I ended up in a marine brig in the federal penitentiary in Tokyo, and at 19 I was back on the streets of Denver with a bad conduct discharge and a heart full of pain, and my life was over. And i don't believe to this day that my bottom on Christmas Day of 1967 was any lower than the bottom at that time. It's just that I'm tough, and I'm resilient, and I bounced. I think the greatest pain that I caused the people who loved me the most was that I kept getting up. I'd stumble, and they'd help me up, and I am a quick study. Up until I met you, I was a sprinter in the game of life, not a long-distance runner. And sprinters are terrific off the line, and I was. This need to be accepted again and to have some hope for me means that I'm a quick study. I'll learn very quickly from you what you expect of me, and I do it well for a while. And I went back and forth between trying to be super straight and super freak for a number of years. My dad got me a job with Mountain Bell, and three months later I drank my way out of it. In fact, it's very simple. I can shorten this whole talk up by telling you that I drank my way out of everything worthwhile in my life before I'd ever finished with any of it. Jobs and marriages and schools. I just never finished anything. And that'll eat on you. And I didn't know what was wrong with me. I'm also one of the people... I used a lot of drugs. I am not, however, a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic who just happened to use an awful lot of amphetamines and LSD. Taking drugs doesn't make you a drug addict any more than drinking alcohol makes you an alcoholic. See, I always had a choice with that stuff, but I used it. We don't need to talk anymore about that. I used it, which expedited my weight-loss program. When my oldest boy was two and a half years of age and his little brother was a year old, their mother abandoned ship, and I became a single parent and homeless long before it was even fashionable. And I raised those kids in the midst of active alcoholism, trying from time to time to be super straight and then finally giving up and I became one of the freaks that came out of Berkeley in the 60s throwing LSD around screaming out where there's dope there's hope burn down city hall and we tried one of my parole officers suggested that I have an awful lot of cleaning up to do over that me and people like me Christmas week of 1967 was a bitch I was at 133 pounds at this time I was on federal parole for a little mistake I'd made in 1966 and I'd run out of lies I want to tell you about this week because this was the week that I entered into the surrender process For me, surrender was a process, a series of events. I tend to experience life in segments, and it isn't. It's a flowing thing made up of a number of elements. The surrender process for me was very simple. It was recognizing the lies of my life for what they were, lies. And there weren't very many of them left. We were on ADC and welfare, so we ate when the checks got there. One of my lies was that no matter what else, the boys and I are still together and intact and we have a warm, clean place to live in and we're well fed. And as I looked around my house that week, I could see the lie. We lived beneath an old lady that raised cats. There were cats everywhere. and as I looked around my house that week I was able to see that her place was cleaner than mine was and the food we got was when the check got there and I couldn't get out of bed in the morning until this kid came by and gave me enough amphetamines to get me up so I could go steal something and we could get some booze and I could function I was not a good father that thing began to crumple on me I come from a functional family. I know that's worthy of an apology these days, but I do. My people are still married to each other. In their early 80s, still talk to each other. I just came from their house on the way to the airport to come out here because it's part of my new life. My brother is a professor of music at the University of Colorado. He was writing music for Stan Kenton when he was 19 years old, the foremost synthesizer musician in the United States. They have engineering shows they bring him in. My sister just retired from IBM as one of their top executives. She made wonderful money and great babies. Some of her babies began to produce babies but had a hard time producing husbands. And it's my family's attitudes that that's all right, we raise babies. So we are raising a lot of little babies. It's just the way we are. And then there was Don. See, it wasn't that we didn't have problems in my home. You can't be in a human condition and not have some problems. But my family always faced them and worked them out and dealt with, except for me. I'm the only alcoholic in my family. We've looked. My Uncle Walter, God love him, we thought he was one for a long time. He drank kind of like I did, a lot and all the time. And about 20 years ago, Walter's doctor said, Walter, if you don't stop drinking, you're going to die. So he quit. No stamina. Walter's a nice guy, but he just doesn't have what it takes. I can't lay my alcoholism off on anything except the fact that I drank alcohol and I have a disease. On the 24th of December, as I looked around my house, it didn't look like Christmas. And I know what Christmas is supposed to look like. I come from a family where Christmas looks like Christmas, our welfare check hadn't got there and we had no money, so we didn't have a tree. We didn't have any presents. We went down to the public merchandise mart on East Colfax, and I still had just enough glib tongue that I was able this nice man gave me a pair of cowboy boots and little shirts for each of my boys that have one present on credit. And I must tell you, I fully intended to pay for those as soon as the welfare check got there. and we found a dollar in the snow. And found out that they'll sell you the biggest tree on the lot for a dollar on Christmas Eve, and we bought the big one. The ceiling was about seven feet tall. The tree was about nine feet tall, and I didn't have the strength to cut it, so it tilted over at the top. And it was dressed with what people like me dress their trees with. You cut out some cardboard stars, and crinkle up a little bit of aluminum foil. And if you cut the bottom off of the milk carton and hang it, it looks like a bell. And this pitiful two little presents underneath it. And then my little boys did something. They took some blue paper towel I could wash your car windshields with and they wrapped up everything that would fit and put it under the tree for me. And I began to die. I began to recognize this is wrong. This isn't what it's supposed to be like. Christmas day we got down to my folks place so the kids could spend a little time with grandma and grandpa and my dad met us at the door and he said Don I'm sorry but your mother said I can't let you in here anymore she can't stand watching you die and I saw clearly for the first time in my life what I've been doing to my people the lie was leave me the hell alone I'm not hurting anybody but me and that day it was a lie and I knew it was it was just a lie and then dad destroyed my last lie he snuck us in we've got a big old house in East Denver and he snucks us in and I had been saying nobody loves us nobody cares and he did and I couldn't duck it anymore I was out of lies not a clue as to what was wrong with me I just knew I'm useless I knew what I'd been doing to everybody on the planet And there's some self-pity when I got home. But I walked past the self-pitie into the truth, and the honest truth that day was I'm useless. Everybody will be better off if I weren't here. The kids can go to the folks or a foster home even and be better than what I'm giving them. Everybody will Be Better Off. At that point, surrender is an imperative. There are no choices left. Now, I didn't know how to surrender to anything because at this point in my life, I didn't believe in anything. So I just quit. I took a two-month supply of the garbage I was using at that time and shot it up in my arm, drank everything in the house, and laid down and died. And I believe I died. I've never been the same. But I didn'T feel good when I woke up the next morning. The police were at the door, so I knew I wasn't dead. Without knowing it had happened, I had entered into something I understand today. A beautiful state. I was now in a body that wouldn't die carrying around a mind that wouldn' t work. A complete failure at living and now a complete failure at dying. I had finally become willing to go anywhere anyone said and do anything anyone said if it meant I didn't have to be me anymore. That's all I brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't looking for you, by the way. I believe in trolling for the drunks. It distresses me every time I hear they know where we are. If they want what we had, they can come and get it. I didn' t know what you had. I didn''t know I needed you. It took an act of God for me to get to you, by the way. And I think it occurred simply because I'd surrendered. The police had nine charges. I'd gotten careless. One of them called for three years to life in the penitentiary. The Denver District's attorney promised me he'd bring the rest of them one at a time, but I was through and I didn't care. And I still owed the federal government four years for a parole violation. It seems that it's a parole evaluation when you're arrested by the state for a felony. But I didn't care. In five months, laying in the Denver County Jail, healing up a little bit, went to trial, and they offered me a deal. They said, we don't want the expense of a trial. We've already talked to the federal people. They've agreed that if you'll plead guilty to a little reduced charge we've got here, we'll give you a one-and-a-half to three-year sentence, suspend it, give you back to the feds, and they'll take you to Fort Worth, Texas, to that lovely hospital down there, and fix what's wrong with you. And I'm not an idiot, I'm a drunk. Hospital's better than penitentiary. Two of me made the decision that day. There's always at least two of me at work up here. At least. I work with a schizophrenic kid and he hasn't had a chance from day one. I know who we are. I knew if you put me in a hospital with doctors and books, I'll be on the street in six months. I knew it. They would tell me what was wrong with me. They would say, they would tellme about how long it would take to fix that, and then they would give me all of the symptoms I'd have to show them in order to convince them I was getting better, and that's been my best game since I was a baby. But I was also willing to go anywhere. No hope. I've got to find something. And so I took their deal, and they kept their bargain. They reduced my age to 17, by the way. I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time for Social Security so I can qualify for this charge. Gave me one and a half to three, suspended it, turned me over to the federal people who had already agreed to take me, and five days later I was in the Colorado State Penitentiary saying, hold it, I didn't sign up for this deal here. I'm supposed to be over there. And I believe it was because God loves me and I had surrendered. I was brought to you and didn't know I needed you. I was certified by one government agency as a sociopath type 2. Another government man said I was a psychopath. One doctor thought I was manic depressive. You played that, too, didn't you? Oh, yeah. You want to keep the crowd back so you can figure out who's home here today? Give them a mood swing or two. That's all manic-depressive is. I don't feel good. Or I'm the life of the party. Keep them off balance. That's the way you get through life. In my third week there, I can still hear it. The guard downstairs said, You people will come down and you will listen. And I didn't have a hell of a lot to do that day, so... I came down and began to participate in the first miracle of my life. I listened. That's a miraculous thing for alcoholics. I listened they had three guys there with numbers on their chests from Alcoholics Anonymous and the first fellow got up and he said my name's Doc and I'm an alcoholic and that means that I'm powerless over alcohol and drugs and guards and all of the other circumstances of my life and my life has become unmanageable and if any of you smart bastards think you can still manage your lives, look at the reward the state just gave you for the nifty job you've been doing and I heard him one of those three said your very best thinking got you to the penitentiary you're not doing so good are you well there I was what am I going to do argue and then they gave us the message of Alcoholics Anonymous and this is it Albert if you're an alcoholic you don't ever have to drink alcohol again ever you don'T ever have TO feel like you've been feeling ever again in your life we do NOT promise you a pain-free life but the pain of alcoholism need never be yours again and they said it was such assurance that I heard them and I didn't even know that's what was wrong with me but I heard the stuff about the pain then they invited us to their 12-step study school Well, I had no idea what that was. What it meant was that we had to give up our yard privileges and our movies every Saturday and every Sunday for the next five weekends and go to school. My friend Jim and I talked it over and decided we'd go for the wrong reasons. If you're kind of new here and you're worrying about doing this thing right, let me assure you, you can't. But you can do it wrong either. Just do it. I wasn't afraid of that penitentiary it's just another community you learn the rules you live you don't you die it's like anywhere else what had me frightened is that I knew that sometime in the next year and a half to five years they're going to put me back on the streets of Denver and I don't have the slightest idea how to live out there and I can't possibly live the way I've been living ever again, and I don't have any clues. So we went, and I encountered sponsorship. These guys had obviously been to the mean sponsor school. Harold thinks it's in Jersey. It's in Colorado Springs, Harold. Convicts in their natural habitat are a little intimidating. Smiling convicts are frightening. We walked into that school and these three guys were standing there smiling at us. And one of them said, now for the next five weeks you guys have nothing to say. If you knew anything at all you wouldn't be here and i heard we weren't allowed to speak anything in our first five weeks in a in the meetings the meetings had only one purpose to hand carry us through the book called alcoholics anonymous using their experience in that book so that we could participate in the recovery process now new people have to talk a lot you know but we all worked in the dish room and we babbled to each other. And our sponsors would talk with us outside of that formal meeting. So I was carried, thank God, immediately into the recovery process as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The first thing they did was tell me precisely what's wrong with me. They told me in terms that I could understand why I went to the penitentiary when I was 19 years old. It's because I have an allergy. If I had an allergy to tomatoes and I ate tomatoes, I'd break out with an itch. Biology is alcohol. If I put alcohol in my body, the symptom is I'd broke out with a itch for another drink of alcohol. And I don't have any choice in the matter. None. Once I've taken a drink, I will take another drink. I love working with new people because they teach me effective prayer. You see, when you come to me, you put your life in my hands. And I'm fully aware of that. And I do not take that lightly. I'm also aware... I don't know what the hell to say to you. So I do what I was taught to do. I get the big book out and we start to read it and see if you're one of these kind. Because alcoholics are described very clearly in that book. And by the way, I'm going to bust another bubble. We all think we're so smart and slick. Everything we know about alcoholism of any value came to us from non-alcoholics. Think about it. Carl Jung, Dr. Silkworth, some others. Everything that we know about progressing on a spiritual path came to use from non alcoholics. The one thing you and I have that they don't have. They know all there is to know about us and things that we don't even want to know. But we don' t believe that. And that's the thing that you and I have here in Alcoholics Anonymous. We can sit down across from each other and present that information in such a way and they did that for me that I came to believe that they knew what was going on in here. See, I was alone. I was the only one on the planet that thought like I did. I wasthe only oneon the planet that laughed at funerals and cried at hockey games. I personally was responsible for World War II. I don't know how, but I was. Huh? They told me about my disease. I took a drink in Long Beach, California one day when I was 19 years old. and 23 days later I was in Pershing Square in Los Angeles on the 22nd day I was mooching drinks and quarters and could not go back to that ship period no way I couldn't even think of going back to that shit on day 23 the madness wasn't there anymore and I turned myself in and went back to face the consequences like any rational human being and there I was Dr. Selfworth describes men he'd been working with who had been working for months on a business deal that would be settled favorably to them and they took a drink a day or two before and they missed their appointment and I began to find me in the shared experience of alcoholics and then my sponsors would share their experience with that and I got comfortable isn't that nice now I know what's wrong with me and then they hit me with it as sponsors tend to do they said now that's really important information you probably won't stay sober without knowing that but that won't keep you sober it's academic if you never take another drink of alcohol oh, you'll never have that happen again. So what's really wrong with me then? I've got a lifetime of experience of having that happen. I keep doing it. Well, it's because there's a piece missing up here in my head. My neighbor has it. Yeah. One of the things that will happen, Al, I've been living in the same house for so long I've outlived an entire dog from puppyhood to the end. 14 years, 15 now, married to the same woman. I didn't even do that much time. But there's a thing that happens there if you live in the same place long enough. Pretty soon you have to start talking with your neighbors or they'll start talking about you. now I'm still a very private person I heard today I'm a private person God has a wonderful sense of humor I'm not a public person but I'ma private person so I have hedges around my house my wife has convinced me that seven foot hedges are too much in our little neighborhood we can cut them off so you can see our heads above them and I was talking with my neighbor across the fence one day, or the hedge. Lovely man. Owns a bar. Nice guy. But I've discovered something since I started hanging out with some normal people. They small talk. I don't have the slightest idea how to do that. They can spend a half hour and never really even say anything. And you and I all know that life is important and it must be done in earnest, and it's passionate. But I want to be a good neighbor. I really do. So I've learned how to small talk, and I'm up to almost four minutes now. I can tell you at least three kinds of grass we don't want growing in our neighborhood. I caught my neighbor's kid growing one of them in my backyard, too. But if you push me past my limit, we're going to end up... I either have to leave, or we're gonna end up talking about the only thing I know anything about. And that's alcoholism. Alcoholics Anonymous and God. And he pushed me one day. So I had to start sharing with him. Now, I don't share with my neighbor anywhere near the depth I'll share with you. It would really make him nervous to know who lives next door. But I shared enough, and I know from how we do it that it's my turn and then it's his turn. And he was interested because he shared with me a common experience that he and I have both had. He told me about a night that he drank too much whiskey. And he got drunk. And he fell down and he threw up. And he made a fool of himself. And he hasn't done that since. Bizarre? I did the same thing. I drank too Much, fell down, threw up, made a Fool of myself, got up, drank too Much, Fell down, Threw up. But she taught me early in sobriety why that happens. He can remember how badly he felt about what he had done, and it attaches to this thing in his mind that says, then don't do that again. I can remember vividly many, many times feeling bad about what I'd done, but it doesn't attach to anything. oh one night it was bad and chilly that's why we threw up bonded bourbon so I didn't drink that stuff again I am convinced in my heart that I cannot learn enough information in my head about alcoholism about Alcoholics Anonymous about the spiritual life or anything else to keep me sober. There have been and will be days in my life when I will reach, for some reason, there'll be a blank spot. Everything I know won't show up. Or if it does, it'll be warped when it does. And I had an experience in my sixth year of sobriety that drove that home to me. God in His mercy keeps my life full circle. I don't have any loose ends. It's wonderful. If there are loose ends, I know they're about to be tied up. And in my six years of sobriety, I was now working behind the walls of the penitentiary, getting a chance to give it back where I got it, helping the guys get jobs and transportation. The ones who were getting ready to get out, they were the ones I worked with. And that meant, you know, they put prisons at least 100 miles away from anything. So once a week, I had to drive over to Denver. My home group met on Monday night and I had business to do. and one of these meetings at the old leo's restaurant in denver one of the fellows had discovered a new liqueur it was green and it came in a tall skinny glass and there wasn't enough in it to do anybody any good but they were passing it around so everyone could taste it and everything i knew showed up i felt no stress no anxiety at all i knew i was not going to drink that i knew why. I mean, it was all there. As it came by my nose, I thought, I'll sniff it and see what it smells like. And while it was there under my nose it burst into my mind that the difference between life and death for me at that moment would be the twitch of a muscle. With everything going, when my hand is here it does that. And then I got out of my body quick and watched God move that thing on so I didn't drink it. I haven't sniffed anything green sense either. It's green, it doesn't belong near my mouth. It's that serious to me. I must have, and they helped me understand, I must be a man and I must take care of myself to take care of me during those times. But I didn't believe in anything. I came to believe in the power of God before I came to believe in God and I find it interesting that the big book doesn't require us to believe in God. But it says it is essential to believe in the power of God. And I came to believe that by watching three men walk around. If you're new here, despite your doubt and cynicism, look around this room. At the meetings I go to, I look at their eyes. I love the front row. That's where I sit. My sponsor said we will always sit in the front. I want you to see their eyes not just hear their words. Bruce was a killer. He had killed some people one morning when he was 17 years old in a mad alcoholic rage. Roy Nichols was a stick-up man, another angry man. Phil Gutierrez threw people out of third-story windows when he was drunk, terribly violent human being. But the men telling me these stories could not do what they said they had done. They were different human beings. And I didn't come here to stop drinking because I didn' t know I needed to do that. I came here to be changed. And these three men had been changed, and I'm a bit of a skeptic to this day. I watched them as well as listening. I wanted to see how they walked, and they were different. Bruce had a couple things I really wanted. First of all, he got in and out of his cell whenever he wanted to. And the way I knew that is when I was locked up for the night and couldn't get out, he'd come by and visit with me. And I wondered what he had. And on one of those visits, he said to me, Don, do you know that it's possible for me to think one thought at a time? And he had me forever. What do I have to do for that one? See, I'd become everybody I'd ever met and they were all talking at once. One thought at the time. That's peace of mind. They had been changed and when it didn't come, it scared me. It was a terrible experience that day. I expected this great boom and my uniform would turn white I guess and the door would spring open and they'd say, okay you can go home now, we don't need you anymore. Something goofy like that. Absolutely nothing happened and I don't know an alcoholic alive who can stand nothing happening and I did what I had begun to learn. I went and bitched at my sponsor about that i gave him the alcoholic war cry where's mine you want to synthesize self-centeredness that's all it is where's my he said you dummy you ought to be grateful you didn't have a flashlight they really killed you all your life and we talked about because i've had some beauties southern comfort on a roof in Phoenix, Arizona in September. We'll give you a flashlight. Along the way I've had the privilege of participating in an Easter ceremony with the peyote Indians in Nevada and I had a real vision. A real one. I saw a great bird flying high with no head and I understood clearly that was me and my life. Flying high going nowhere. That kept me sober four months. If you're new here and you're contemplating visions, I've got to tell you the truth, they work. They're good for four months of sobriety. I'm in for the game. I don't have any choice. We discussed those. Then he put me through an exercise that I loved. Today, I hated him that day. We examined my concepts of God and they were garbage. Santa Claus. Where's mine? The whole thing boiled down. Even Jesus Loves Me was getting in the way of me having a meaningful spiritual experience. And I remember screaming at him that day, you're asking me to turn my woman life over to the care of nothing. And he said, why not? Nothing can run it better than you've been doing it. Then he took some time and shared with me how it had come for him. He said, God knows, Don, you probably can't stand one more big shock anyway. and began to talk about this gentle, loving God that he had found. And then he went for the throat. I asked him, how do I make it real? He said, God will reveal himself to you as you reveal yourself to you. Went off and did my inventory, and two hours later when I finished it, brought it back to him in the fifth step, and he looked at it and said, that's garbage. You wrote that to impress me. Get away. Well, I'd worked for two hard hours on that thing. I'd written down some really bizarre stuff. So I found me a guy who would listen. And I'd tell him one of these things I'd done and he'd say, well, that wasn't that bad. And then I'd call him another one and he'll say, it wasn't that bad and I began to have a series of spiritual awakenings. Spiritual awakenings simple, Robert. Anytime any alcoholic anywhere understands any part of the truth, that's a spiritual awakening. I woke up to the fact that I had once again picked someone who would tell me what I wanted to hear so I didn't have to do anything to change that. And if I didn' t stop that, I was going to die a very ugly death. And I knew it. And I'm not afraid of death. I haven' t been afraid of death for a long time. There's a lot of ways of dying I'm not interested in. but death itself is no big deal. But to die an ugly death means that for some period of time just before that, I'm going to have to live a very ugly life. And that thought terrifies me. So I went back to him. He and I made a discovery that day. I believe that truth without love is cruelty. Confrontation without some kind a real answer is brutality. So I won't participate in that. But He loved me and He had a real answer, so He didn't pussyfoot. We began to dig and He found I had one final reservation. I really believed at that time if I surrendered entirely to this God that He would put me on the corner of Colfax and Broadway handing out Watchtower magazines and asking strangers, have you been saved, brother? And I just couldn't see me doing that. And my sponsor said, well, let's talk about that. Which means, by the way, if you're new, why don't you be quiet for a few minutes? He said, Don, do you suppose that the fellow that's handing out watchtowers down there today had breakfast where he wanted to and I said probably and he said well you didn't do you suppose that that guy that's making a fool of himself asking strangers if they've been saved is wearing clothes that he picked out to do it in and I asked him and I answered probably and he says you're not do you supposed when he's all through that he gets to go home well I didn't we're promised a new mind here. It's a promise. And He carried me to that new mind. And it's very simply this. Anything at all that God may have in mind for me is better than anything at all that I will ever have in my mind for you. That's what God has in mind for me, period. And I have been living that way for 24 years now. Imperfectly, but that is how I live. and it's been marvelous and it has been painful and it is been exciting dull it has not been when I ran my own life the very best I could do was get me into an 8 by 10 toilet making deals with cockroaches oh yeah I made a deal with them you stay on that end of the cell I'll stay on this end my children got to live in foster homes that were bad foster homes. And my people had to be put in a position where on Christmas Day they had to say to me, you and your kids can't come here. That's the best I can do. Since I have given up, I have literally been all over the world for what that means. In 1988, you all sent me to the Soviet Union to talk about Alcoholics Anonymous with the Russians. I've gotten to go to Guatemala and Puerto Rico last weekend I was in Calgary, Alberta tonight I'm in where? Hagerstown I can find my way home and I have in my pocket a key that lets me in and out and when I get home they're glad I'm home I must tell you all something though about sacrifice my family is the one that makes the sacrifice when I was on your board of trustees I was gone almost every weekend for nearly five years and people used to say to me oh what a wonderful sacrifice you're making for us no I love this come on you give me attention and applause and you let me talk to you and do all the things you feed me You put me in motel rooms I can't afford. My life means something because of you. My wife doesn't need you. She makes the sacrifice, she and my children. They stay home while I go. And it's important you know that. We tend to get caught up in this deal and forget. My sponsor told me one time, we're to practice the principles in all of our affairs and that means you have to do that at home too. And to do that, you have to be there once in a while. Anyway, I got earnest about this deal and went to my big book through my school and my big books to reveal myself to me so God could reveal Himself to me. And I made some interesting discoveries on the second one by reading the directions. I thought that the inventory process was just so I could find out who I was. and it says very clearly in there it's to help me find out who I'm not one of the promises at the beginning of the fourth step is the reason I was able to face the things I had done to my children I couldn't have faced them without it says it's an effort to face and be rid of the things in myself that have been blocking me from this God face and being rid of I can get rid of the stuff I've been doing over and over and again that have driven me crazy In 1966, federal narcotics agents broke down my house and in that raid almost shot my son. My four-year-old let out a shriek and the cops swung around and almost shot him. And I hated that guy. I found out who he was and where he lived. I had some wonderful schemes but thank God I didn't get to put it into effect. When I got to you and you said, well, what we're going to do with that is put that on paper. I put down him, I was mad at him and I put down 22 reasons I was mad at him. That's all I had to do. Yeah, it's funny to me today, 220. There's only one arrest. Well, he had made a criminal out of me. He had violated my civil liberties. He'd talk ugly about me in front of my people and he'd almost killed my son. And that affected everything in my life. And I tried to take the attitude you suggest I take that he, like myself, was perhaps spiritually sick. Damn right, and I still hated him. I could not grant him the same sympathy and pity I would grant cheerfully to a sick friend because at that time, sick people didn't get any sympathy out of me. I had to have a script for everything in my life. And there's only one script for visiting with sick folks. What can I do for you? And that was beyond me at that point. I couldn't do that. So I just kept hating him. But I went ahead and did what it said next and I forgot to think. he said I was to look for my own mistakes where was I selfish, self-centered, dishonest, fearful where was i at fault and as I wrote that out it became very clear I had invited him into my house with a hand engraved invitation I'd been smuggling marijuana out of Mexico and not paying the tax on it and how was his job had it not been for the promise that I could be rid of the kind of thinking that allowed that to happen, I couldn't have faced the fact that I almost got my son killed. It was my fault what happened that day. But I don't have to think like that anymore. Does it work? Well, there hasn't been a federal narcotics agent in my house for 25 years. I don'T even invite them to dinner. The IRS showed up about three years ago. I'M ON A LOT OF NON-PROFIT BOARDS and the tax deal on one of them wasn't right and he came to my house and he really confused me. You've taught me when I'm confused, just be confused. You know, real sanity for the alcoholic is when they say, I don't know. And I said this often and he finally got mad. He said, oh, just sign this. I'll take care of it. And he left and I haven't heard another word. So if you're looking for a way to deal with the IRS, just get stupid. I learned about fear writing inventory in a penitentiary. And I learned about release from fear as it began to awaken. I thought fear lived here in my belly because that's where I feel it. I have a high-grade manufacturing plant up here in the head. Terry can save me. morning Don I wonder what the hell he means by that he wasn't that friendly yesterday oh it's payday he probably went to borrow some money and I will work that thing clear off into la la land nameless fears I had a lot of them my sponsor said well let's put some names on them then and we did and then I discovered mercy this whole deal is about mercy we live in a world that is filled with people with all kinds of problems and all of the other therapy modes that I see insist that they have to learn how to cope with them and how to deal with them and here I am promised I get to be rid of them isn't that wonderful to this day I don't know how to cope with fear how do you walk through your fears I'm afraid to do that I'm scared I'm not afraid to be afraid and a lot of other things too. Well, in my book of common experience it says once I've admitted them and found out that the problem is that I simply am not trusting and relying on God. I'm relying on my resources or yours. There's a little prayer in there. God remove this fear from me and direct my attention to what you would have me be. And I find that interesting. It doesn't say what you'd have me do. It says what you'll have me to be. And I learn some things. I'm not what I do. I'm not my car, and I'm not my job, and I'm not my group. I'm not the money in my pocket. I'm none of the things that I do. Every one of those, if I can't do them, then I'm not me anymore. What I am is a child of God. God's my dad. What am I ever going to do to top that? A self-esteem problem to solve. I may be a stupid kid, but God's my dad. I learned that part of my problem was that I thought I was a human being trying to have a spiritual experience. What I have discovered here is that I am a spiritual being having a human experience, and that makes me very human, and it changes my approach to things. It's two and a half years before I could do a sex inventory. I couldn't remember anything. when I finally got it done it fit on a little 3x5 card I was a legend in my own mind I found out something about Don Don is a family man and wants it that way one woman at a time is enough and that's a positive statement not a negative statement. I'm a dedicated family man and you taught me how to live as a spiritual being in a family because this is a family here. We have a lot of different groups because as with any family there's also immediate family and from time to time I need to get with my immediate family but I love y'all, kissing cousins and all. And that saved the life of one of our girls in our group just knowing that. But when we were all going to go to Seattle, she was very afraid to go. She was a year sober, had come from a very bad background. She was just frankly frightened to go, but because the rest of us were going and the family was going to be there, she went. My wife and I had the privilege in 1989 of going to Japan to help them celebrate their 15th anniversary of A.A. in Japan, and I met some of my family there. They were Japanese, but they were immediate family. Two of them came up to me in the hotel lobby in Osaka and reminded me that we had met on Oahu four years before that. We got to Seattle, and this girl told me the story later. She said she lost us. There were over 40,000 of us walking around the street, but she had lost the immediate family. She said he was standing on the street petrified, terrified, unable to even move with all these people around her. And she said a little Japanese couple walking down the street walked by her and saw her badge, and it said Denver on it. And they stopped and said, Oh, do you know Don Song? And she was fine. The family had showed up. Our family is all over this world. I can literally, and the contrast startles me sometimes, I came from a place where even my own family would not talk to me. and today I can go literally anywhere in the world and I know somebody personally and if I don't a phone call in five minutes and I'm home what a wonderful thing that is I never worry about coming here I can't tell you a little story I flew into Baltimore y'all sent somebody down to pick me up we got to the outskirts of Hagerstown they said do you know where we're going because we don't we have no idea where this convention is being held and we all three said at the same time well it won't be hard to find them so we pulled in across the street and they said yeah they're right across the Street what a comforting thing that is and if I can't find you I'm at home here I work, young Chuck and I work together this winter in a very strange environment for both of us. I'm currently helping a friend who opened a casino so I'm working in the vault dealing with a little blackjack. It's really a weird environment and it made Chuck a little crazy. He was a cook up there and he came to me one afternoon and he said, I just don't fit here. And I heard myself say to Chuck, Chuck, I don't either but I fit here and because I fit here I can fit in anywhere this means nothing out here what a lovely thing to be able to walk through life that way I only have a few minutes left and in that few minutes I need to share a couple of events with you because they were so meaningful to me you want to remember when I came to my evangelistic stage which occurs around the 8th and 9th step if I sponsor you and you don't want to save the world about then, we start over. They wouldn't let me out. And I wanted to go make these amends and they wouldn't Let Me. My sponsor was to never leave the penitentiary but he was free and I could see it and I wanted To Know How He Did That and he helped me to understand that the key to real freedom here is in willingness. Was I willing to make any amends I had to make as soon as the opportunity was clear. And he gave me an exercise to do. He sent me back to my cell that night and he said, now, I want you to make a list of all the people you've ever harmed. We started with my inventory list. It's clearer than I did harm every one of those people. Then he said just add anybody else you can think of because if you met them you messed with them. I don't have to make direct amends to the whole world but the attitude was correct. Then he said, Don, I want you to picture each one separately in your mind. And see if you can feel a willingness to look each right in the eye and say to them, I've been wrong, I've harmed you. Would you please tell me what I have to do so we can get these books to balance? And as I went over that list that night, I began to realize that if I have caused anyone on this planet any harm at all, I'm willing to set the matter straight. I had the experience I waited for my whole life I was lifted and set free they didn't know I was free they kept me another eight months but I was freed a couple weeks after that they began letting me out of my cell whenever I wanted found out what that was about it was 12 step work they let the guys who'd been through the school out to talk to the guys who couldn't be trusted yet What happens after you ask that question made it possible for me to make the really tough amends and once to my folks? My mom, how do you make amends to the mother you put in a position to say on Christmas Day you and your kids can't come to my house? I'm sorry, Mom, won't get it. But what you do after you answer the question is you shut up and listen while they tell you what you have to do. That's easy. God has made me a listener. And months after I got out, she allowed me to come by. Very reluctant. And I found a way to ask the question. I'm also told as I make these amends I'm to be very kind to the people. Hard on me and kind to them. When I found a way to ask the question then I showed up and listened and she said honey all I've ever wanted for you was that you'd be happy. So for the last 22 years I've been going by my mother's house on a regular basis happy. And it worked. The key is regular. Regular. When I'm sick, I'm undependable and unreliable. If I'm going to demonstrate that this thing works, I found something out about spiritual people. They tell you what they're going to do and then they do that. They tell me when they're gonna be and where they're gunna be and if you go there, they'll be there on time. Amazing. And because of that growing development, she said it was six years before she believed I was going to amount to anything, but I wasn't going to prove anything. Because of that development, I have been privileged to participate in an event that gave me a personal experience of anonymity and has become a healing tool for hundreds of people. And I couldn't have figured it out if I had tried. I have seen I have not been able to see God take the very worst thing I think I ever did and turn it into a tool of healing for others. of all the stuff I did the worst thing of all was one time in desperation I stole my mother's two dollar bill collection because I needed the money and I was too tired to go steal anywhere else and I took it and bought booze with it and after I got out and after a while I was able to tell her about it but if you remember back in the early 70's they were out of circulation for a while so I was never able to replace them and because my life is none of my business and I just go where God sends me and He talks to me through you about six years ago I ended up over here in West Virginia at an area assembly I was trustee at large and they didn't trust themselves so I came down to do an election assembly for them and they took us up to Monticello Thomas Jefferson's home and he's on the two dollar bill and they are back in circulation they had boxes of them and I'm cursed with a clear memory I bought 16 of them because that's what I'd stolen and took them home and that night of course I was touched and I love to have the crowd cry a little bit so I told the story and bawled a little and we all had a good cry and I took them home and gave them to mom and she pretended it didn't matter and I could see it really did two weeks later I got an envelope from West Virginia with no return address on it with some $2 bills in it. And I knew. I knew about anonymity. God, through me, helped someone else get free who had not been able to get free. Through me they could. And since that time it's been an amazing phenomenon. Wherever I go, $2 bill will show up. Last week an envelope came from Calgary with a Canadian $2 bill in it. I was in Texas and this big biker in his leathers was standing there crying like a baby with one in his hand. His wife said, take it. He did the same thing. A kid told me one time he'd been trying to get free for years and his sponsor said, go give that to him. It'll do it. And it did. But let me tell you what she's doing with them. It's wonderful. She has two collections. The one I replaced and then this growing envelope She thinks we're really weird, by the way. My sister tells me that when real people come over to her house, she takes this big envelope of $2 bills out and uses that in an effort to explain to them what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. She tells people that each of these represents someone getting well from a very serious disease and getting healed. She says, and my son's part of that. You gave her a great gift one time. while I was on your board I was gone every weekend practically and her mother died my grandmother it was on Wednesday or Thursday and of course I went over and I said I'll just cancel this weekend mom she said honey the funeral's on Monday I said I know but I'll cancel the weekend I don't have to go she said well you'll be back Monday and I says yeah but let me cancel it she says no no you have an obligation to the living you're going to take care of that I'll be all right. You gave her that. I did grave damage to my two little boys. They were on the road with me because I was restless, irritable, and discontent. They thought living in Hells Angels hideouts and crash pads was the normal way of life. And the younger one and I made peace. We've talked about all this because I believe what you taught me as long as we're talking to each other we're going to be okay. But my older boy, Terry, and I never made peace. We chatted. But every time I thought of him there was pain in my heart and I could see there was pain in his heart and his brother would tell me about that pain. Something was desperately wrong and he was so mad at me. I stay involved in the recovery process to grow spiritually by working with others a lot. But every now and then I put myself in someone else's hands that I trust and let them just carry me through it. It's only a two or three day process, it's no big deal. Because I believe this, I truly believe this. God talks to me directly. Either through your mouths or in the quiet of my inner garden. Now I don't get ideas like lead everybody to Jerusalem and all that. But God never yells at me. Never. And my mind must be very still or I won't hear you or Him. I have to have a clear mind. So I try to keep it clear, that's all. In November of 1988, I was 22 years sober and I just cleaned house and I was able to be still in my basement again and go into that quiet place, which by the way, one of these days I'm not coming back from. I can only think one thought at a time. Every now and then I'm able to not think at all. Oh, that sweet. And in that quiet time, I began to think of Terry. And I remember that the last time that I was arrested, so was he, and he was only eight years old. And I went to prison, and they went to a very bad foster home. Bad things happened to my kids there, and we talked about that. But the worst thing that happened, I realized, was that at eight, my older boy had to grow up and become a man very quickly in order to protect his six-and-a-half-year-old brother. And I had never thanked him for that. And I believe there's only one time, and that's right now, and there's the only one place, and it's right here. So in that here and now, I got a hold of him immediately. I didn't want to die before I thanked him. And I said, Terry, I know that we've talked about this a lot, but I want you to know that what you did at that time was a very brave thing. and I want to thank you for taking care of your little brother when I couldn't. And I heard his voice change on the spot. Now, I get Denver Bronco tickets. I don't know what they do, so I don' t go. And they tell me they don' te know what to do either. But the kids like it. Two weeks before our little talk, I'd given Terry some Bronco Tickets and he came by and got them and went to the game. two weeks after our visit I called him and said I've got some Giants tickets would you like to go and he said dad are you going to go with us brand new about six weeks later he called you parents in the audience know what I'm talking about when your kids call you just visit and listen until they tell you why they called they want something and we visited and I waited and we did and we went to and I waited and we visited and in about ten minutes I realized my son and I had been visiting for about ten months and that's why he called. The most important event of all took place a year and six weeks ago. When Terry first got married he planned it on a weekend when he knew I'd be gone. He got remarried a year and six weeks ago and he had me do the ceremony. And that's just part of it. The most important thing of all was that a couple weeks later, he and his new bride were going to Indianapolis to visit with her folks. And Terry called me. He said, Dad, we're leaving tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, and we're going to take I-70 through Kansas City all the way into Indianapolis. We're going stay X number of days, and if that's in such a time we're living in Indianapolis, then we're gonna take I 70 and come back home. And should be in by 10 o' clock Friday. and I knew see that's what families do there's no pain in my heart anymore and he's part of the family again what families do is tell each other about the journeys they're taking they keep each other posted that's why that's what we do here I may know of a detour around Colby Kansas somewhere that I can tip him off about if I've been over that road and I do or on the way back he can tell me what he found out there so that when I take the same journey he didn't want me to worry about him he loves me i don't want you to worry about me i love you and you love me and i don'T WANT YOU WORRIED so i've told you tonight about my journey and i'm on the same JOURNEY TODAY that i was on the day i walked into alcoholics anonymous i'm trying to find out how to be more effective i can't get any closer to god than i at this moment because where I am God is but I want to know him better and I want to know you better you're my family let me give him a little gift and we'll all go dance this came to me out of one of those meditations one night I try so hard to find a way to tell you how I see you and this came to I had become everybody I'd ever met or read about or seen in a movie and they were all talking at once and I was afraid I was going to have to spend the rest of my life finding out who I was and you told me we don't worry about that we'll help you find out who you're not we'll get rid of that and whoever you are is just going to show up see it's like what happened when the fellow saw Michelangelo's statue of David for the first time and was awestruck and he went to Michelangelo and he said how in the world did you do that and Michelangolo said well I just took this block of stone and I chipped away everything that didn't look like David and that's what I got and that is how I see us God is the sculptor and our little meetings and all these funny little things we do together that is the chisel me I am a very willing block ofstone and one day at a time we're simply chipping away everything that doesn't look like none and so far this is what we've got I've been thinking about thank you and that's all the 12th step is for me to think of saying thank you to God is beyond me the whole concept of God is beyondme so in his mercy he gave me you so I can say thank you to him through you that's what our 12th Step work is about keeping the gift moving i'm left with two deep awarenesses from that experience by the way the depth of my alcoholic self-centeredness is clear to me it took 22 years of doing this rigorously day after day and an act of god for me to even think to say thank you to my child. That's self-centeredness. I'm also fully aware that one day sooner would have been one day too soon for Terry. It's in God's time. Bill left us with a little salutation that I think is appropriate today. It's an old Arabic salutation, and that's what it says. I salute you, and I thank you for your lives. Thank you.