Everything in My Life Had to Fail Me Before I’d Go to Higher Power — So Everything Did – Keith D.

I'd like to introduce our main speaker, Keith D. from Loma Linda, California. Hello, everybody. I'm an alcoholic. My name's Keith. By God's grace, Alcoholics Anonymous is a room full of people like you. I'm doing a little effort on my own. I've not had to take a drink of alcohol or use any kind of narcotics since May 11, 1976. And for that, I'm especially grateful. Glad to be here. Glad to be sober. I want to thank Bob for inviting me back. It's always good to come back somewhere. I didn't have those privileges when I got here. But it's good. I want to thank my friend Chris for driving us out here from beautiful Orange County, California. And my wife for coming along. She's been coming along with me for 45 years now. And continuously, we've been intimately involved. Up until now. Including tonight. I always want to thank Bob for a free room. I always do my best in a free room, Bob. It's good to be in an AA meeting. It's good to be sober. When I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, the world is a safer place. And when I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, my wants and my needs are exactly the same. I want to be here, and I certainly need to be here. I come from a long line of alcoholics. Alcoholics? That isn't necessarily maybe your case, but it's mine. It's my story. I was born in Texas. And so you'll know the difference between a fairy tale and a Texas tale. A fairy tale starts out once upon a time, and a Texas tale starts out... You're probably not going to believe this, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I'm at least a fifth generation alcoholic. My dad, just December, about a month ago, died. Eighty-nine years old with 27 and a half years of continuous sobriety. And I had about 14 months on him and never let him forget it. I'm still ahead of the pack. But his dad was an alcoholic. His dad was an alcoholic, and so on and so forth. And I didn't, you know, really, that isn't a resume, but if you're a budding alcoholic, it helps if you grow up an alcoholic home. There's a lot of alcohol there. And I did. By the same token, more importantly, for my part, is that each generation, each generation in my family got worse, and then it got worser, and then it got worser, worser, and then there was me. And I was the family's best, worst example. In the stories in the big book, there's a lot of different stories of different types of alcoholic. I'm a type 4 alcoholic. I was insanely drunk most of the time from a very early age. And I liked it. It affected me, but I got in a lot of trouble. And wherever I went, while there was trouble and there was always alcohol there, I just... it just went together. And I gravitated and started doing that at an early age. By the time I was 12 and a half years old, I was incarcerated because of an alcohol-related car accident. I grew up in a farming community, and you can get a driver's license when you're 12. You can get a farm permit. I had a car driver's license. I had it set on a pillow, but I could drive. And I was going to get some alcohol, and I was in a hit and run. And... got drunk and got busted and got locked up. And from the time I was 12 and a half years old until, oh, 18, 19 years old, somewhere in there, I was in 27 different jails and two penitentiaries. And, you know, all related to alcohol. No big deal. It's just where I was. I went to some of them more than once. But that's my story. My father was a lawyer, by the way. And I kept him on retainer for years. And that's how you do that. And I also had a couple of character defects. You can line 10 women up against the wall over there, and I'll get the sickest one out of the bunch every time. Every time. Guaranteed. There's a couple of them in here. I can feel them. I brought my own this night. But I... My grandmother said she was a very wise lady. She said it doesn't take any more effort to marry a rich woman than to marry a poor woman. And she was right, except she didn't tell me that it takes more effort to keep one. And so I married this young lady, sweet and innocent. And her father had lots and lots of money. And in the 50s, that was... Man, that was some wild and crazy stuff. And a lot of money and a lot of going places and doing things. And I got in a lot of trouble. And I was in Juarez exploring the ladies of the evening. And I ended up in Fort Worth. Fort Worth and jail. I don't know how you get from Juarez to Fort Worth. I can't tell you. But we did it. And I was in jail. My father-in-law came to see me. And he said, I've got a lot of money. And I said, I know that. And he said, the reason I have a lot of money is because I don't make bad investments. And you're a bad investment. And continued on with a bunch of abandonment issues there. You know, I didn't realize that's what it was. But they didn't have anger management then either, baby, let me tell you. And as a result of that thing, I had to do some time in Huntsville. And I got out of there. And the usual thing, I went back home. That's what I always do. I got drunk and went back home. And I went to a Saturday night dance with some friends of mine. And honky-tonk. And I walked in. And it was midnight. And the band was taking an intermission. And I started to fight. And the fight got out of hand. It looked like I was going to get whooped. So I ran into the woman's restroom. And just left. The lady sitting in the front row was leaning up against the door waiting for me. And I said, tell me when the fight's over. And I ran in and hid in the woman's restroom. And pretty soon she came in and said, you can come out now. And the band was playing. And she was handy. And I asked her for the dance. And we've been dancing ever since for 45 years. I also found out she finished the fight that I started. We dated for two weeks. And they nicknamed us Hatchet and Hammer. Very, very violent relationship. I know a lot of people don't do that. But I did. And if you lived with her, you would too. And every time we had a fight, it was like to the death. It was to the death. You fought for your life. And if you happen to be somebody coming by to read the Bible to the local neighbors, when we were fighting, we brought you right on in, man. We brought you right on in. And it was just, I mean, it was beat the hell out of each other and call it foreplay time. It was terrible. And she got pregnant and said I was the father. And I don't remember that. I was crossing over the invisible line when that happened. I said yes because I didn't think any better to do. I mean, she had a job. She had a car. She had money in the bank. She had a checking account. She had a driver's license, a place to stay, none of which did I have. And so it met all my needs. I was willing to let her raise two children. And after a period of time, it became necessary for me. It became necessary for me to leave Texas. That'll happen to you. Hang around long enough, you're going to have to leave. And I had a buddy named Lion Shorty, and Shorty told me I could get a job on a ranch 40 miles west of Long Beach. And that's ocean, but I didn't care. No. And we loaded up everything, a kid and a dog. You know, I had a 120-pound German Shepherd dog and a cat and a rabbit with ringworm. And we threw them all in there with the kid and the back seat of the station wagon and piled our stuff in. And took off for California. And it took us about a month to get here, you know. Got lost a lot. And got to California and found a drunken uncle. He moved me into a good deal in a house. And we set up a little lighthouse keeping there. And there was a bunch of hippies right next door. This is early 70s in there. 60s, 70s, 60s, yeah, 60s. Remember the 60s? Yeah, man, hippies. I never seen no hippies down in Texas. No, man, I mean, that's something strange. That's some strange people. I need to meet them right away. I can tell that. Yeah, went right over there. Dropped some acid. Went to see 2001. Bam, you know. No problem. Right in. Right in. Fit right in. Motorcycle gang on the other side of me. You know, I just moved my family around. I didn't geographic my family a lot. I left, you know. And I would go off and I would, you know, do my thing. And I'd come home. And, you know. I'd go up and knock on the door. And she'd open the door. And it was like her mouth was attached to the doorknob. You know, it was like, bah. And she always knew where I'd been more than I knew where I'd been. And, you know, we'd have all those, you know, fights. And, I mean, the house wasn't too good a shape when I got it. But I'm going to tell you, my house always suffered when I drank. I mean, I ran through the doors and the windows had tape on them. And, I mean, you know, antiques in the front yard. Corvair and a nettle, you know. Good stuff. I'd come home with a Corvair and a piano tied to the top with a bungee cord, you know. Wanted a poker game, you know. Hell of a deal. We got rid of the Corvair. We still got the organ, don't we, baby? That was a hell of a deal on that one. I always brought people home with me. I'd bring people home with me. You know, one of the guys always brings somebody home. And who's that? I don't know. Who's that? I don't know. Where are we? I don't know. You got any money? You know. Terrible, terrible. Always had strangers in there, people. My kid was like a wounded animal. She ran around with, you know, hair in her face and making funny noises and had an old beat-up coat with, you know, and usually she fixed hard-boiled eggs for the kid. And she'd put them in her, you know, coat and it'd go in the lighting. She sat on it so she smelled like a rotten egg. My dog chewed all the hair off his body everywhere his mouth had reached so he looked like a laughing hyena, you know what I mean? Had a twitch and a snarl, you know, their mouth's real dry and they're a big old German shepherd and he's pretty skinny though because he ran around chasing his tail a lot and terrible. The cat would run through the house and jump from chair to chair and I'd try to shoot it, you know, with a BB gun or whatever, you know, and it'd jump, jump, jump. I sobered up and I moved a chair and that cat went bang, hit the wall. Gotcha. I mean, it was crazy. Everybody was crazy. She wore this hairdo back then. I had them hairdos, real tall ones, you know, about a can and a half of spray net in it, you know, and I lit a cigar next to her one time and went, poof, turned blue, you know, throw a coat over. But our family wagon was a Pinto, kind of one of them baby poop brown Pintos, you know, no reverse, holding a muffler, went down the road crooked and window half down, half up. Her hair always blew out the window so, you know, she always looked like the leaning Tarapita, you know. Yeah. Terrible, terrible. My house was painted four different colors because I lost interest easy, you know what I mean? Hey, I mean, it wasn't, you know, red, white and blue. It was a little brown, a little white and a little brown and white, you know. Things up on the roof, you know, strange things up on the roof, left over from Halloween. We're the ones that always shut the fireworks off on Christmas because we was in jail on the 4th of July. Had them pictures in the house I bought down in Tijuana. My best thing, man, I went from Amarillo, Texas to California, Southern California and right to Tijuana. Got me some of them felt pictures with the ladies and the fruit bowl, you know. No frame, you know. That's another trip to Tijuana, you know. You get the pictures, then you got to go to Tijuana and get the frames, man. We got to get frames. You get deals on big frames to hang on little pictures. Yeah. Hang down at the top and then you take a pin or something, draw little pictures around in the space. So when the people come to convert you while they're sitting on that side of the room looking at the pictures behind your head and they're looking, they're looking at, what is it? Yeah. Yeah, and we weren't ashamed. I mean, that's the worst part. We didn't come from that at all, man, but I mean, we were just right, like, there, huh? I had to drive through my neighbor the hippie's driveway through their yard and park in my front yard because I had no reverse in this pinhole, see. And you got to be careful, you know. Somebody put a big rock in my front yard once. Why did they do that to me? I don't need a rock. I mean, a big rock, big rock. And then the hippies had a party and somebody rolled a rock in my driveway. The rock. And we had a terrible, terrible fight about that rock. Oh, man. And everybody got busted, man. You know, and I'm trying to say, but I didn't put the rock in my driveway. Where did the rock come from? Who owns the rock? It belongs to those. This was before rock cocaine, so we were fighting over a rock, you know. And went to jail. And the judge said, you're here again and you're going to go down this time, bub. But it was a rock, man. It was just a rock. Yeah, but 14 people are broken bones and they've driven three cars into the shrubbery and beat up two cop cars and the kids are all crying. And here we are again. And so they said, well, we'll try AA. Now let me tell you something. I may be sick, but I ain't stupid. You're looking at three to five in a pen versus AA. I don't know what AA is. I've been doing B&B myself, but I'll take AA. Huh? Huh? Huh? I'll take it. Yeah, I owe people money in jail. And sign me up for AA. Now, I've been in a fight over the rock. And some guy hit me upside the head with a crescent wrench. I think that's what they said. I don't remember. And I had this big grip and I had this big Band-Aid on my head. And it was blood soaked. And I've been laying on a gurney in the jailhouse medical ward, laying there. Boy, you want to feel alone. You're laying on a gurney in a jailhouse medical ward and nobody cares. The janitor sweeps by you. And you're laying there and you just know. And then the cops come and take you to court and it's like, yay, hi, family. And the judge said, we're going to send you to AA. And so I took the deal. I had this old guy come and give me, Ivan Miller. He was the founder of my home group, come to find out. And he came and got me and he took me out of there and got the little court thing going, you know, with the judge, whatever. And this old guy took me. He showed me where an AA meeting was and then took me home. I went to my house and laid down on a couch bleeding and stuck to the couch. And she came home and she'd been to see a new lawyer and the lawyer said I should go to AA. So I let her think it was her idea. And I didn't tell her I was on a court card. And so I said, well, there's a meeting over here. It starts at 8.30 and it's over at 10. So 8 o'clock she come in there with a butcher knife and said, get up. I had some references there. I'd passed out on her once 15 minutes into a two-hour conversation. That made her real mad and she stabbed me all over my back. And when I came to, my back was all sore and I didn't know what it was. Peeled my shirt off and she said, you've broken out of acne of the back. You need rubbing alcohol. So when she came in, yeah, yeah, justice, torture. And we went out and got in a P&O and her driving and me in there and the kid in the back and the dog in the back and hair all over the windows. You know, the dogs had licked the windows and hair all over the windows. The cat shedding and rolling around and pulled out of that driveway of that old house like that and went over to a church, had a big AA sign outside. And I remember looking in and people were going in, much like tonight, you know, walking in front, AA sign out there, and she pulled up in that P&O. And I looked in and I thought, well, I've sunk to the bottom now. Now, if my friends see me going in here, they'll never have anything to do with me, you know. That's low-bottom snobbery. That's what that's called. And she stuck the knife in my face, said, what time's the meeting over? And I said, I think it's over at 10. She said, I'm going to tell you something, Mace. Your ass comes out of the door at 410. I'm going to gut you. Nobody asked me if I had a sponsor. They could see her sitting out in the P&O. They didn't ask me if I need a ride home. They could see her sitting out in the P&O. And I went in that meeting all like that. And I... And I sat in there and looked around. I didn't have no clue because I didn't go there to, you know, change. I didn't go there to get anything. I went there to get the heat on. I went there to change the conditions in my life. I didn't go there to change my life. And I can assure you the conditions in my life changed. And that was somewhere in the very early 70s. And I was in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for the next several years. I counted one time I went to 500 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, partially drunk, almost drunk, real drunk, blacked out, came out of a blackout in an AA meeting, got up and left and went and got drunk. And I went to at least 500 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous like that. And never had any amount of sobriety. I didn't know that was part of the deal. I just thought this was like sitting, you know, in one of those parent planning or something. I don't know what it was. I didn't care what it was. I didn't get a book. I didn't get the steps. I didn't get a sponsor. She was outside. They could see her sitting in a P&O. And... Yeah. But I know what it's like to stand in my kitchen, take a drink off a bottle of vodka, and look down a hallway and a nine-year-old girl stands at the end of the hallway. And she's got her chin on her chest and her hair's in her face. And she's watching me take a pull off that bottle of vodka. And she didn't run down there and grab me by the leg and say, Daddy, come play with me. And I know what it's like to stand in my bathroom and I'm putting that stuff in me. And I look in the reflection in the mirror and there's a 10-year-old girl looking through the hole in the door in the bathroom where I probably stuck my foot and her eyes meet mine for just a second, just that long. She didn't say, Daddy, what are you doing? Come play with me. Please don't beat me. Mommy, nothing. She didn't say nothing. She just wants to know which direction I'm going so she can go the other way. I know what it's like to be broke, busted, needing a drink. I've got to have a drink. More than anything in the world, I need a drink. I've got to have a drink. And I'm crawling around on the floor and the only money in my house is in my daughter's piggy bank. And I crawl on my hands and my knees in my daughter's room and pull her raggedy-ass piggy bank out from underneath her bed and I bust it and I'm separating the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters because I'm not going to be showing no copper when I go to the liquor store. It's silver all the way. And that little girl is watching me. She's watching me out of the closet, steal her money. And being the very best father I could be, I give her a break and let her shoot out behind me without inflicting any more pain in her life. And I live like that not a day or a week or a month. I lived like that for a number of years, going to Alcoholics Anonymous and church. I was baptized so many times I always made my daughter go get baptized with me. And she talked to me. She showed me her hand one day. She said, Daddy, please, look, I look like a prune. I've been in that water so much, you know. And, you know, I drug her right down there with me. Sometime in December 1975, some people offered me an opportunity to make some money. I owed a lot of money. I bought that house for, I couldn't pay rent so the owner sold it to me. And I bought it for like 20-some thousand. I owed 140 on it. And I owed Avco Finance, all them finance companies, high finance companies, all for bail, bonds, lawyer stuff. And I owed a couple hundred thousand there. I'd done a couple of deals and I owed a couple hundred thousand here and there, whatever, you know. What difference does it make? What are you going to do? Get money from me? No. And so some people gave me an opportunity to make some money, drive a vehicle from Los Angeles to San Francisco and had a lot of cocaine in it and I got in that car and I got a quart of whiskey and I drove it about halfway up the coast and I drank a half quart of whiskey and I had an alcoholic idea. I decided to steal the coke and so I went inland and stole the coke and drank the rest of the whiskey and forgot where I hid the coke. And that's how I know I'm an alcoholic, not an addict. And I went over and hid out because I sobered up and it recognized the fact that I'm in a lot of trouble. I'm in a lot of trouble because I can't remember what I did and I'm late. And I hid out. I hid out from January, sometime in January 1976 until sometime in May. Sometime in May, first part of May I crawled out of this place where I was hiding and went back to AA. That's what happened to me. I went back to AA because if you don't die and you keep getting drunk and sober you're going to end up back in AA. And I came back to AA and there was people there and they 12-stepped me and took me and detoxed me and I had a lot of problems. I had lots and lots of problems. The book says waves of the past will roll over you and I had lots of waves rolling over me, man. Lots of waves. And at 52 days sober I remember where I hid the coke. Yay! Oh, all right. And I made a phone call and went and gave it back and I share that for one reason, one reason only, that part in the big book where it says your enemies will welcome you. Please be careful with that, all right? . . I was crazy. I had that house and all that thing. I didn't have a job really. I didn't know what to do. I owed all this money to people. I'd go to a meeting and people would say, well, just write them a letter and say you sent them $100 a month. Ha, no, can't do that. And I didn't know what to do. I was just nuts. And she went to Al-Anon, the kid went to Ali Teen, the dog went to Ali Dog, and the cat went to Ali Cat and they released me. And I got a sponsor. And he's hauling me around to meetings all the time. I went to meetings all the time. I had hair down to my ass and a beard down to my navel and I didn't wear any underwear or any socks. I was traveling pretty light. I had so many aliases I could have posed for a family portrait by myself, you know. Social Security numbers and, oh, man, it was just. I had about eight different checking accounts and I'd put like, you know, $800 in each one or, you know, $100 in each one of them, write $8,000 worth of checks. I had paper hung all over everywhere. And she'd gone to jail for my paper and it was just like, you know, we couldn't have a conversation about anything. And she went to Al-Anon and released me. So there I was. I was just nuts. I was just crazy. And I wanted to drink and use all the time. And I just, you know, hang with these people all the time. And they would take me to these jail panels, you know, and drag me along, you know, come on, we need to go over to jail and see somebody in jail. And we'd go see somebody in jail, you know, and then they'd want to keep me, you know, because I had warrants, you know. . They would take me to all these different road camps and I'd go to these meetings. And I had to go to men's meetings because my primary vocabulary was profanity. And soon I used to lay awake at night and think of combinations of profanity to talk to each other. I mean, it was just blazing all the time. And I had no idea, you know, how to communicate with anybody without yelling and screaming. The thing I knew, you know, I'd been in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous so many times and I'd done so many things wrong. And I didn't remember anything when I came in May of 1976. I didn't remember the book. I didn't remember anything anybody said. It was fresh and I was sweetly reasonable. And the guy that got me to be, I asked to be my sponsor was somebody that I didn't like. He didn't like me. It didn't make any difference. It wasn't a popularity contest. When I got out of that detox, there was 39 of us in the detox and they let us kind of talk to each other and then they kicked us out and 38 people said I was going to get drunk when I hit the street. And it gave me my first AA resentment, really. But, you know, ironically, I'm the only one out of 39 that's still sober. And over half of them are dead today, 28 and a half years later, see. So it ain't the vote. It ain't a popularity contest. It's something two inches behind my belly button, a pilot light of life that wanted me to, you know, get a hold of it and hang on to it. And I got a sponsor and I started going places with them and they'd take me to penitentiaries and I'd go to these penitentiaries. I'd go to these penitentiaries with them and they'd get me in and had so many aliases and different things, no problem, you know, I can get in and get clearance, whatever. And I lied and said I had a year of sobriety, you know, but they're taking me to jails and penitentiaries all the time. And I, you know, I liked it. You know, I liked it. The gate shut behind me. That was a real good thing. And I remember I went to San Quentin one time and, you know, we go in on this panel and I was under an alias with a, you know, phony driver's license. I don't remember the driver's license and social security number, but it got me in. And I'm sitting in there with 350 convicts in there and there was on that little panel why there was a, you know, a lady that had a short skirt on and they all wondered what she had and then there was a doctor and a psychiatrist and all this stuff and, you know, I'm the token bad guy, you know. So I'm sitting there with 350 cons looking at the back of my head, you know, and now everybody tells their little racy story and, you know, then I got up and I said, well, I beat the hell out of everybody. Not the dog, you know, and they all stood up and yelled, yeah, it's like their team won, you know, I mean, I felt good, you know, I felt good. And I've been doing that ever since. I've been going to those penitentiaries and jails regularly ever since I've done that H&I work has been a very, very important part of my sobriety. I lied about the steps I did. You know, what do you mean powerless? You know, if I got a gun to the back of your head and I'm taking your billfold, I'm not powerless, you're powerless. But I had my values backwards. You see, I didn't know that you had me. I didn't have you. And I said, how can you be restored to sanity? You can't be restored to something you never had anymore. You can come back from someplace you've never been, you know. And God, they said, there is one and you're not him. Okay, thanks, you know. And a fourth step, come on. A fourth, I'm not, my lawyers have told me forever don't tell anybody that stuff. They'll lock you up forever, you know. And character defects. Hey. I have some character defects. Who are you and what are you? I mean, come on. That's character. That's what they call, you got character. Yeah, that's what that means. And amends, if you had anything to do with me at all, you had to be a little bit wrong. I mean, maybe 1%, but you're wrong. Wrong's wrong. And, you know, look at myself every day and, you know, I did thousands of dollars worth of alcohol to keep from looking at me every day. They want to look at me every day and pray and meditate. I always went into a sexual fantasy when I did that. You know. And give it away. Give it away, man. I don't want to give nothing away. I want you to help me, you know. And I don't know. I don't know. I did an immoral inventory and went to Alaska and gave it to an Eskimo. And he said, man, that's bad, but let me tell you about this. And they do some strange stuff up there in Alaska on a tundra. I got by, man. I slid by. One year sober, I went back to that place where all the 39 of us were going to take a birthday. 11 out of 39 could come there and take a birthday in one year. And I remember some of them got up and quoted the steps by memory. And some of them talked about getting their company back and their wife back and their family back. And I said, I ain't been to jail in a year. That's it. Thanks. And it was. That's the best I could do, you know. And I hid out. I hid out. I was in Alaska trying to, you know, make some money, hiding out, going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went. I went over to see about going to a meeting and a blizzard on and I had this four-wheel drive truck and I got to find a meeting and I had to dumpster dive to get the book that had the AA number in it. So, you know, my character defects weren't all that bad. I knew how to do that. The cop said, the book comes out on Monday. This is Sunday. You got to hit the dumpster and find the book. Get the number. I called the guy up and he said, oh, the meeting was Saturday. Don't have another one until next week unless you want to go out on the reservation. And I, well, I'll go out on a reservation. He said, no, but those people will kill you. And I said, that's the kind of people I drank with. And I got in my four-wheel drive and drove through a blizzard for, I don't know how long, out into a reservation of the native Canadians up there and there was a big, huge building like a teepee and I went running in that room and, dude, I'm going to tell you, there was one chair just like right there and I sat down, but over 200 years of sobriety on the front row. It was like, ah. And those people rocked me. They rocked me. They told me about their God. They told me about their sobriety. They told me about their values. They rocked me to sleep and I went to those meetings with those people for the next six months and worked and did what I had to do and went to jails and penitentiaries up in Canada. People got me in and I'd go in and, you know, I'd say, you know, I don't know, I used to come here all the time and do all this stuff and now I'm going to AA and I don't come here anymore. I get to come in here and tell you about Alcoholics Anonymous. I got to bring Alcoholics Anonymous into those places and basically I was more comfortable in there than I was any other place in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm grateful for the people. I'm grateful for the people that took me into the jails and institutions to do Alcoholics Anonymous and it's some of the greatest basic 12-step work. There's more alcohol and drugs in those places today, man. You get any raw 12-step work in there. And I'm so grateful those people took me into those places and showed me Alcoholics Anonymous. I could be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in a place where very thankless stuff, thankless stuff, no praise, no big deal. You get to go in there and by that I got to clean up all my mess and by the time I was three and a half years sober I was doing pretty good. You know, I was the secretary of a meeting and I trimmed up a little bit, you know, and I was cool and I had the, you know, got to hug people and I was standing around, you know, I hated everybody but I, you know, sober, I'd work the steps and I'm three and a half years sober and you want to know how I'm doing, look at my car. Got a big car, got a big Lincoln out here, that's my car. That's how I'm doing, doing fine. Look at her, she's doing good. Look at the kid, look at the dog, huh? Everybody's fine, everybody's in their place. I'm three and a half years sober and I've washed the cups and put up the chairs and done all the deal and secretary and intergroup and world service and this and I'm the president of AA and I'm a humble little guy standing here. You're bleeding to death and I was. I was bleeding out of every opening in my body, three and a half years sober because I was terminally cool and I didn't have a clue. I had no clue. I was so absorbed in myself, it was like an ingrown hair. You could just walk up to me and I didn't even know you were there and it was just, if there was a mirror, I was looking, you know, huh, huh, yeah, cool, hmm, yeah. Totally absorbed in myself. God, what do you mean God? And they sent an ambulance to my house and picked me up and hauled me over to intensive care, wheeled me in and put nine pints of blood back in me and said, you only have 13. And the doctor said to her, said, you know, we had to put nine pints of blood in him. If he would have sneezed, he would have had brain damage. And she said, how would we have known the difference? Three and a half years sober. I'm laying in a bed. In a hospital and they don't know what's wrong with me. The doctors say, we don't know what's wrong with you. I'm an alcoholic, that's what. And we may have to open you up. And they came in and did a bone marrow test on my pelvis with 12 alcoholics watching that I hated. And they said, don't die, we love you. And I, ugh, I hate you. I hate you all. Get away from me. And we love you. We love you. We love you. And I really didn't know what to do. I was three and a half years sober and I was just, I would just eat up with alcoholism. I was just, I was so serene and I just like, I was so near dying that I thought God had moved into my spirit and I was going home and I didn't die. And nothing happened. Alcoholics come and drug me out of there before they opened me up. And they took me and said, you know, you need to change some things. And you need to. You need to work with others. And I, what's that? What's that? I don't know. What do you mean work with others? What am I going to do? You know? And they took me over to this meeting and I was standing by this meeting and my sponsor was standing over in the corner and I was standing there terminally cool, had my best on and I looked around and there's a guy standing next to me. I mean, this guy ain't tall enough to be a midget or short enough to be a man. He's got hair everywhere. He's got a weller's hat pulled down over one ear. He's got thongs on and he's painted his feet black like he's got socks on and he was a treasure of the meeting. I was in the night before and he stole all the money and they said, you got to keep doing it till you do it right. And he's standing next to me and I say, what do you want? And he said, will you be my sponsor? And I, oh, give me another bone marrow. And my sponsor's grinning over there and I went over and asked him what I should do. And he said, you go back over and tell that guy you'll be a sponsor and do exactly what he says. And it didn't make sense to me then, nor does it now, but I didn't argue with him. And I went back over and I told that guy, my sponsor says I got to be your sponsor. What do you want to do? And he says, I need a ride home. You got a car? And I said, yeah, I got a car. And he grabbed hold of my arm and we started out the door and we got right over by the door and two guys I knew, the only two friends I had in AA, were leaning against the door jam and this weirdo says, that's my new sponsor. And he pointed at me and them guys said, boy, it's going to be fun to watch you two grow. Go out and get in the Lincoln and away we go. And he starts talking all this sick stuff and then he just stopped and said, did you ever do anything like that? Yeah. Yeah. We did some stuff like that. And I started telling him some of my stuff and he said, man, you're sick. We need to go to a meeting. I said, we're going to a meeting. I'd take him home, drop him off and I'd be back and I'd go back and get him. Looked like he just stood inside the door, you know. Get in the car and he said, how about this? You know, and he lays some other sick, sick thing on me, you know. How about that? You know, and I start telling him my stuff and he said, man, you're so sick. I can't believe it, man. We're never going to make it. And we go on. I took him to here. Chuck Chamberlain and talk about God and get all this, you know, the water Walker to lay it on us, you know, and afterwards we're sitting in the car and he said, we need a miracle. What do you know? Like parting of the water or something. I think I got some lighter fluid. I'd torch a hedge over here, but I had a 45 in the glove box, pulled her out, run around a chamber, put it upside his head. I said, I'll count to 10. You pray. If I don't have a floating resentment, decide to pop a cap on you. You've just done step three. Ha ha ha. And I counted and he prayed. Laid the gun hammer down, put it in the glove box. He ran in where my sponsor was. Rat finked on me, showed my sponsor that little ring on the side of his head. And my sponsor said, yeah, I know. Ain't he spiritual? You can laugh, baby. I'll tell you what. But all three of us are still sober continuously. And you work with what you got, man. And a guy showed up at my house. I'd moved out of the old house and got a new house. And then he came over and parked his old car on my new concrete driveway. And oil running down my driveway. And he's standing in the front yard. And neighbors are out there looking like, what's this? And he's got a big book and paper, you know. And he's like one foot stuck in the concrete. And the rest of them, he's going to Tijuana. What do you want? I want to work the steps, man. I got to work the steps. Well, I'm powerless, so come on in. My life's unmanageable because you're going to be here a while. You're crazy and I'm crazy. We're on step three. He said, you ain't going to put that gun again, huh? Mm-mm-mm. At that time. At that time. I was trying a little transcendental meditation. That's where, in my case, I would take all my clothes off and put on a gi, sit in the middle of the room, and hum. That's about three and three quarters you're sober. You go into that phase. So I had a gi on with no underwear. And he's standing at the door. And he says, so we're going to do step three, huh, huh? Yeah, we're going in the kitchen. We get on our knees. He cuddles up underneath my arm. And I had that tingling sensation. Questioned my sexuality. Cat walked by. And looked at us weird, you know. Well, OK. Here's some paper and a pen. I'll go put some clothes on. We'll do step four. He said, I can't write. Threw the pencil at me. And he said, I'll talk. You write. And he started talking. I started writing. And then he said, you ever do anything like that? And I checked around. There wasn't nobody in the room. We'd already invited God in the room. He can't read. I just thought, a couple of things I need to get out here. I put a little of my stuff on his. Ha, ha, ha. Hey, when God sends a dumpster, dumpster, don't wait for the tugboat. Put it in. I put it in. I put it in. And he jumped up and kissed me and said, I love you. And we burnt that one. And ran out in the front yard and waved real big and said, I love you. And jumped in his old car and went down the road. And standing in my front yard almost four years sober, it went from the head to the heart. It went from the head to the heart. It takes what it takes. I am so grateful for the old time. The old timers, there's all kinds of old timers. God bless them. But there's old timers that have the patience to wait and wait until you're just about to implode. And then they send AA. And I'm so grateful that they send Alcoholics Anonymous. One drunk talking to another drunk. Because that day, the magic happened to me. And I have been doing that ever since. And I've listened to over 800 fifth steps. I'm not a priest or a counselor or anything like that. I did it because that's the only way I could keep from doing the stuff that they were telling me they did and got drunk. It literally gave me a conscience. And most all of the people are not even sober. It doesn't make any difference. It's the therapy I needed. It's impossible for me to sit there and look a guy in the eye and say, you did that and you got drunk. And think, I could possibly do that and not drink. See? I turned a sociopath into a human being and developed a conscience. And there are certain things that I've had to do in my sobriety. There are certain absolutes. And they're just as absolute for me today as they were in my first part of my sobriety. In the very beginning, really. And I don't know what your absolutes are. I'm going to tell you mine. The violence had to stop. I have never, ever come up against a sponsor and challenged them. Ever. Why would I do that? What am I going to do? Why would I tell an old timer, you're wrong? I came here asking them, give me my life. I've never, ever challenged what they told me to do. I haven't. I've been there. I've been tore up. I was tore up. And I came in here and I asked them to help me. Help me. Save my life. I've never forgotten that. It says we share what it used to be like. What happened and what it's like today in a general way. What happened for me is this sweetly reasonable point in my life when I asked those people to help me and I've never quit asking them. I've never quit asking them. And they said, you've got to stop those things. Stop them. Absolutely. Half measures avail you nothing. I haven't hit anybody since May 11, 1976. I haven't cheated on my wife since May 11, 1976, nor has she cheated on me. That had to stop. I haven't written a hot check since May 11, 1976. That had to stop. I haven't debated God since May 11, 1976. If talking about God offends you, I'm sorry, I'd much rather offend you than I would offend God. I don't do that anymore. It's absolute. Those are absolute. Believe me, that left me with plenty of character defects. But those are absolute. And I started my journey. I started my journey. And at 10 years sober, my past caught up with me. My past caught up with me. And at 10 years sober, I sat in meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous and was like a newcomer. My life stopped. I had no employment. I had no income. I had some money. My wife was working. My family was working. I watched 10 years sober. I watched my wife and daughter go right back where they were when I was brand new because I had failed them. They had expectations on me. I had expectations. I had expectations on Alcoholics Anonymous. And it had failed me. Everything in my life has had to fail me before I would go to God. Everything in my life has had to fail me before I would go to God. And today I can share with you, there's many, many things, many, many things that have happened in my life that God had something to do with. I'll share real quickly. I've got five minutes. In 1984, I was sobered up in 76 and 84. I got real involved in service, and I got elected to Chairman-Elect for the Southern California Convention, at that time the largest annual convention in Alcoholics Anonymous. And at that time, there was 8,000, 9,000 people went to that convention. Soon, my daughter, Ben Allen, on an Allentine chairman, and I wrote on their little service tale, and the Alkies elected me, and I got to be a co-chairman and eventually chairman of that convention in 1984, 85. At that time, I was going through these serendipities. I was a renter, IRS was after me, people were after me, money was short. And I got real involved in this service, and I was doing a convention planning meeting, and after the planning meeting, I had my daughter with me and a newcomer. And after the planning meeting, I was cleaning up because I was the co, so I got to clean up, and I saw an organizer underneath the table, a man's organizer, and I went right over and picked it up, opened it up, there was money in it, credit cards in it, calendar checks, all the stuff I needed, and the old me was, if you can't attend to your stuff, you don't deserve it, you know. But I had a newcomer with me, and I opened that thing up, and I looked in there, and I looked up, and the newcomer's watching me, and my daughter's watching me, and I shut it up, and I found the man's name, and I called him, and he was part of the Pacific group. I went over there and gave it back to him, a nice man, and I said, here's your purse. He said to me, he said to me, if there's ever anything I can do for you, let me know. And I thought, there'll never be nothing you can do for me, slick, just be glad you got your purse. But I was seven years sober or so, and I didn't say that. I just thought it. And some four years later, my daughter decided to be a model, went to Milan, Italy, couldn't speak the language, didn't know anything, just on a wing and a prayer, and she's over there sick in a room. And... through a series of events she couldn't find Alan on, she went to a closed AA meeting, and the people in the AA meeting let her share, and sitting in that meeting was that guy I gave that organizer back to. Four years later, still sober, still had that debt to me. And he recognized my daughter, and he said, you're dead, Keith, I owe him a favor. He took my daughter and introduced her to people and agents and got her a place to live, and then he came home and told us that she was fine. Now that's a God story. I have many, many God stories. I'm not so egotistical to say if I'd have stole his money it wouldn't have worked out. But I want to tell you something. It was different for me because I had my daughter there, and I'm trying to be an example. The amazing thing is four years later, I had changed enough that my daughter, in a moment in her life when she could have died, reached out to Alcoholics Anonymous because what she saw Alcoholics Anonymous do to her father was an attraction, and she trusted you and she asked you for help. And you came and got her. And because of that, so many, many years later, my daughter has touched thousands of alcoholics' lives. She's translated all kinds of literature over there for alcoholics, started all kinds of meetings, took tapes over there, done thousands of 12-step calls because that was so primitive over there that there was nothing there. Now is that odd or is that God? I don't know. It's the way it is. And I'll take it. God bless and thank you.