Faith Without Forensic Proof – Dave P.

I know you wouldn't screw up. Hi, everybody. My name is Dave Pistol. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is April the 18th, 1976. My sponsor's name is Keith Lewis, and my home group is the Monday Night Bellingham Washington Third Legacy Group. And I have a great home group that's getting better all the time, and I hope you do too. And we have a lot of fun in my group, and there's an old man named Bill up in Canada. We live very close to the Canadian border, and he says if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong. and uh i um you know i i have seen when conferences open i have seen marines march in with flags i've seen tap dancers i've seen all kinds you know dancing bears all kinds of stuff to open a conference but the people that did the music tonight were just what what appropriate music gail thank you so much that was great oh there's john john thank you thank you you guys are super uh i'm delighted to be here me and my wife polly drove in through a category five thunderstorm this afternoon and she she was driving and man you should have seen her you talk about intensity have mercy I'm just cruising along in the passenger seat watching the lightning flash if well I also want to sincerely thank the committee for inviting Polly and I to come here we love to come to this part of the country she's here more often than I am but we love it down here and we came in early so we could go down to Clearwater and see some friends And we're just having an absolutely special time down here because all of you are so hospitable down here, and we love you a lot. And I like the theme of your conference, you know, A Bridge Toward Faith. I came here with no faith in anything, and I have an enormous amount of faith right now and have had for some time. I don't know how much I have because I don' t know how much there is but I have a lot and one thing I've noticed about faith is that it greatly simplifies things my faith has let me abandon my requirement for forensic proof that God exists my faith has allowed me to quit asking questions that don't have any answers and uh and it just lets me breathe deeply and uh not worry about anything and uh i i spent a lot of time worrying about a lot of stuff that i don't have to worry about anymore because uh i came to alcoholics anonymous uh trying to save my rear and found out it was attached to my soul And faith comes naturally, you know. If you're new or nearly new, I want to welcome you, sincerely welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. You may not know this. I'm relatively sure that the enormity of your good fortune has not occurred to you yet. but you have landed smack dab in the middle of a relatively few people on this planet who have the faintest idea what to do with you. And not only that, we're glad you're here. You wouldn't believe where we go looking for you. You know, wait till you find out about our hospitals and institutions work. I mean, we go to—I mean, there's just no place bad enough that we won't go, seeing as we can't round up a new one, you know, get a net over somebody else. And we are sincerely glad you're here, and we hope you're glad you'RE here. We have people that come to Alcoholics Anonymous for a lot of different reasons. Some people come because their spouse says, you Know, either you clean it up, buddy, or I'm out of here. Or sometimes the boss says, you know, if you don't do something about your drinking, you can't work here anymore. You know, in California, Polly and I lived in California for 21 years. We've only been up in Washington for about a year. But in California they have people that come to AA looking for romance. And, yeah, oh, and New York too. You know in New York there was an article in the New York Times several months ago that was about the best places in New York to pick up women, and AA was at the top of the list. Anyway, if you came here looking for romance, I can tell you that the odds are good. But the goods are odd. sometimes my wife gets these uh phone calls i answer the phone she sponsors a lot of women you know it's hi dave hi sweetheart how you doing good is paulie there no she's not have you got a minute yeah uh and then they launch into some dreadful tale about some guy they've tried to, you know, pick up and rehabilitate and dust off. And I said, well, you don't – this is Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't interview the graduating class at Harvard for membership here, you know. That's not where we get our new people, usually. Anyway, I'm very glad to be here, and I'm glad you're here. and uh my intention i have every intention of having a lot of fun this weekend and i hope you do too uh so the last paragraph of uh the the part of chapter five that russell read up here a few minutes ago says that uh the chapter our description of the alcoholic the chapter to the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after made clear three pertinent ideas a that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives be that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism and see that god could and would if he were sought so i'll take a couple of minutes and tell you how that applies to me uh you know my alcoholism uh going back into my earliest memories started off a lot like yours you know i've heard my story many times in alcoholics anonymous i came from a very poor family uh you know it was a dysfunctional family because i was in it but uh i came from a uh a lot of poverty uh i was uh you know pretty much on my own i've been i've been self-supporting since i was 10 or 11 years old uh if i wanted anything i had to buy it uh my first bicycle i bought put it layaway, paid it off. And I was running the streets because we lived, when I was in the third grade, we moved to a new town and we lived in a hotel called the Plaza Hotel. This was absolutely boring. No resemblance whatsoever to the plaza in New York City. And I played in the basement of that hotel and the elevator guy would let me drive the elevator, and I'm happy to report that I always remembered the route. And I, you know, just things didn't look too bright for me when I was growing up. I was sexually molested on the streets of that little town. You know, I was out all hours of the night running in the streets. I look at my grandchildren today with amazement. You You know, they are so carefully watched and cared for and all. And I was just never at home and never felt any need to be at home. And my parents didn't seem like it was important for me to be at home, and I was out on the streets all the time. And I'm just sort of a sitting duck for alcoholism, you know, because life is very painful when you live like that. You know, when you don't fit in. I've heard people say that if you have enough love, it overcomes all that stuff. That may be true. I don't know about that. All I know is that I didn't fit into the world. I just didn't. And my big objective was to keep you from finding out how weird I was. and uh and i grew up with those ideas in my head and i got to take a drink for the first time when i was about eight years old and i felt very grown up but i'd start drinking every day all right in fact i didn't even have another drink for several years after that but when i finally got to drink as much as i wanted to i got drunk and uh you all know what happens the first time you get drunk. Whatever the details, the minor peripheral details are, how long it took you to start puking and what you puked on and all that, those are just minor peripheral details. If you're an alcoholic, it's like getting let out of jail. For the first time in my life, I was comfortable in my own skin. Well, if you think I'm not going to drink anymore after that, you're crazy. I drank every chance I had after that. And by the time I was in my late teens, I was a daily drinker, I had forged ID, I had all the stuff I needed and I drank a lot every day. And I got married when I was 23 years old to a lady who had a seven-year-old daughter and I mean I was just such an incredibly poor father. You know my dad was actually my stepfather and I used to fuss all the time about him not ever working and taking care of us and stuff like that I was a much worse stepfather than mine was. You know, I didn't hate my stepfather. I loved him. I just loved him! He treated me well. You know? I mean, as far as... He didn't work very much. But he wasn't mean to me. He never physically abused me or yelled at me or any of that stuff. He treated be well. And I was much worse a stepfather then he was. Right out of the chute. And that didn't even occur to me until I'd been sober for a long time and began to examine my own life more thoroughly. It never occurred to me that my stepchildren, that I loved my stepfather and that my stepchildren hated me and that was an appropriate way to feel about me because of the way I treated them. and the way I treated them that way because I was an alcoholic I was irritable and restless and discontented and I didn't like things and I took it out on them and it just went on and on and you know the decline was well I discovered my first wife was a nurse and she worked for an internist and she frequently ordered pills and other medications for him from these ethical pharmaceutical companies. And I got her to start adding a few things for me onto the doctor's orders. And I used to take a lot of amphetamines, like every day, and I never did care about drugs. I mean, I never didn't care about taking drugs. I just liked amphetamine because if you have an unlimited supply of amphetamines you can drink forever, you know. I mean, you can just really put it away. And on top of that, if you're getting them like I was, she was ordering two or three bottles at a time. The bottles were $1,000 each, and we were paying about $5.75 a bottle for them. That was the doctor's price. You know, they cost me nothing, so I just gave them away to all my friends. Well, if you're giving away three free pharmaceutical-grade amphetamines, you can build up a hell of an entourage really quick. And it just spiraled totally out of control from that point on. And by the time I got to you, on the day I reported for duty in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was 40 years old. I had been drinking on a daily basis since I was in my late teens. At the day I walked in, I was drinking about six-half gallons of vodka a week because I was unemployed and unemployable, wouldn't you just know it? And the unemployment check came on Friday, and I cashed it and went down to the liquor store and bought a case of whatever vodkas was on sale. And that's what I drank from Friday to Friday. and I just, I quit eating. You know, I mean, you get to the point. You know? I hadn't had a bath in months or brushed my teeth or combed my hair. And, you know, those are the inevitabilities of alcoholism if you just keep going. I mean it becomes irrelevant whether you bathe or not. You know you smell about as bad as you're going to smell in a couple of weeks And from then on, there's not much to it. And who am I going to comb my hair for? Who cares if my hair is combed or not? I used to eat occasionally, but by the time I got here, I always kept a couple of those Swanson frozen dinners in the freezer, you know, those chicken dinners. And, you know, if you look at the package, they look pretty good. But when you open them up, you see a little scrawny leg and a little scrawny piece of white meat. You always get a wing. They always throw a wing at you. And then over in the right-hand corner were some green pellets. The package said they were English peas. And over in the left corner, it was some viscous white stuff that the package said was mashed potatoes and gravy. And there was some kind of apple doodah in the middle. And I'd pop one of those in the oven, and if I remembered to take it out, I'd have a few bites of it. But, you know, if I got it out before it burned, usually, you knows, that was it. That's all I ate. and I walked into my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because I'd been going to the Dallas County Mental Health Clinic because I was watching TV one night having a nightcap and a public service announcement came on saying if you're depressed, maybe we can help and it was an ad for the Dallas Country Mental Health clinic well God, I was depressed so I thought, you know, maybe these guys can help me so I went down there And they appointed me a therapist. Her name was Jeanette. And I'd go see her every Monday afternoon. And I had a standing appointment at 1 o'clock. And I would go down there and tell her what was wrong with my life every Monday. You know, and I don't know why I kept going there. I don'T – you know, if you're drinking six-and-a-half gallons of vodka a week, it's hard to remember a lot of things. And I don't remember much of what went on between Jeanette and me, you know. But I seem to recall that I explained to her very carefully how I had been mistreated throughout my life and told her about that rotten lady that had divorced me and that rotten guy that had fired me from my job, you now, and on and on. Just a routine drivel that comes out of an alcoholic's mouth. And, you know, none of it was my fault. I was as innocent as the new-driven snow. You know, and look what these people have done to me. And she just patiently listened to me, and finally one day I said, Jeanette, you Know, when are we going to talk about my drinking? I have no idea where that came from. I didn't ever go there to talk about my drinking. I didn't talk about my drinking. If you wanted to, you could. But I wasn't going to join in. In fact, I used to tell my wife that. You know, if you want to talk about MyDrinking, go ahead and talk. And those therapists, boy, they are good. They will lay there in the weeds and outweigh you every time. They're ready to get you the minute you bring it up they will wait forever if they have to for you to bring it up you know you get to bring up the problem and man they are so ready when you do this lady says Dave you know you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and I said why do you want me to go there she said they do better than anybody they're the only people in town that even have any idea what to do with you She said, you know, we're getting a federal grant. You know, we're starting some kind of alcohol program here and I can get you in it if you want but it's not going to help you. She said you just really need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, well okay so that was Monday. She said in fact You know, I recall exactly what she said to me when I asked her when we were going to talk about my drinking problem. She said, oh, do you have a drinking problem? I mean, if you had any of your five senses working, any one of them would have done. You know? If you could smell, if he could see. I mean hey. So that was a Monday afternoon. And on Tuesday, I finally looked up AA in the phone book. And on Wednesday, I called them, and they told me there was a meeting that night. See, I had no idea about anything. I didn't know anybody would come to see me. I didn' t know anything about treatment centers. I didn''t know anythingabout anything. And I walked into my meeting for the first time blissfully ignorant. And, you know, I didn ''t want to go. Oh, God, I did ''t wanna go. I had a lot of what Mr. Spencer calls contempt prior to investigation, because I knew. See, I have always been able to know things, you know. I mean, I don't need to ask you what you think of me. I can look at your face and tell. You know, I mean I can feel the energy vibrations coming in, and I can tell I know what you thing of me, and I know you don't like me. And I knew what I was going to find in my first AA meeting. You know, just a bunch of old dudes with, you know, no bath, no shaves, no socks, army overcoat, rope belt. You know? I didn't want to associate with people like that. You know. And I'm happy to report there was one person at my first AA meeting who met my description of an alcoholic. And that was me. i was the only one there that that fit my description of an alcoholic i mean duh first man that introduced himself to me was a doctor his name was michael healy he was head of radiology at parkland hospital and you know if i'd have known i was going to meet this guy i don't know if I'd have gone i was too ashamed of what i thought i had become to be seen by people like that, but you nailed me. Alcoholics Anonymous nailed me the very first time I walked into your presence and you did it with two things. The first thing you nailed me with was a guy named Buddy Newton stood up behind the podium, a lot like we're doing right here tonight, and he talked about what it's like to be an alcoholic. And I'm sitting there thinking, God, man, don't tell those people that stuff about yourself. Are you crazy? Don't say things like that. Don't tell him about the terpenhydrate you were drinking, you know? I mean, that's bad. You don't ever tell people about stuff like that." He stood up there with a big grin on his face and what I sensed in him—and I didn't know what it was for a long time—what I sensED in him was he was a free man. He was free. He could tell you anything. He did. And I was intrigued by that. and the other thing that happened at my first meeting that i remember um i don't remember much of buddy's story but i i remember some of it i identified with he talked about you know wearing out towns he was a he was uh this was down in dallas texas where i got sober in case i forgot to mention that and and buddy was from west texans and they have a a very they have a unique sense of humor in west teexas and he talked about wearing out the towns that he lived in and went on to explain that when you have developed a fondness for terpenhydrate cough syrup, and you go into a small town in West Texas and there's only one drugstore, and that one drug store only has six bottles of terpenhydrite cough syrup, after you have purchased and consumed all six, the town's wore out. You've got to move because you're going to need some tomorrow and there isn't any more. so uh the other thing that happened which is probably more significant than buddy is the lady named helen elliott came out put her arms around me and gave me a big hug and you know she didn't flinch at all when she got a whiff of me and she didn't slow down when she gotta look at me she just moved right in on me put her hands around me she said we're glad you're here and we hope you come back. And it had been a long time, a long, long time since anybody had showed me any kindness, much less affection, or shown any interest of any kind in me. It had been along time since anybody invited me back. People didn't want, were usually glad when I wasn't there rather than when I was. and i was really touched by this lady i had no idea what you had i didn't know if i wanted what you had you know i read the stuff on the wall you know 12 steps and and 12 traditions and i thought what the hell is that you know I mean I had no idea what it meant seemed pretty lame to me you know it's kind of churchy I thought it's got God in there and all that stuff I don't know what all that meant, but I thought it was, you know, I mean, is that it, you guys? I mean I was expecting some deep dish therapy or medical treatment or something and that's it? I mean you know. Is there anybody here that upon reading the 12 steps for the first time had the thought, of course that's the answer. God how much clearer could it be of course that's what I need oh yeah a fearless moral inventory I'm starting it tonight so you know what that makes me that makes be typical not unusual much less unique it just makes me typical what a blessing that is anyway i uh i went back the next night and the next night and i've been here ever since now the next part of that thing says that uh you know we're alcoholic well this is the chapter to the agnostic our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas the chapter to be agnestic to me is an absolutely miraculous piece of work, because there's nothing in the world that is going to help me in terms of human power. Our book says that. And that That book, the chapter to the agnostic, has been written by a guy who was sober about three years, somewhere in the neighborhood of three years. And a bad news drunk like Bill Wilson sat down and wrote a chapter that makes God approachable by alcoholics. I don't know about you, but I didn't want nothing to do with God when I got here. I mean, I just did. I mean I, you know, I, I just, no. And yet he has sat down with three, I don't know anybody three years sober that can do something like that, that can write a chapter like that. I'll guarantee you I couldn't when I was three years sober, but that chapter makes God approachable. Then it goes on to say the chapter to the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after. I told you some of my personal adventures to make clear three pertinent ideas A. That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives You know, I wasn't fooling around out there with my life I was trying hard to have a good life I wandered off into the computer field I was very fortunate I got into computers And I was doing a lot of work I was just trying really hard To have a successful life I had some stuff on my resume that looked pretty good i'd been a vice president of a company you know there's an old comedian named fred allen who says a vice resident is a fungus that attaches itself to a desk but you know i mean i i'd had i'd i'd been looking good and that's all i ever cared about you know to hell with how i feel how do i look and i had tried really hard i had trying as hard as i could to have a successful life to get my name in the top box on the org chart. And I had tried to dress well and to do all the right stuff. Most of it, I didn't feel at all. Most of what I'm just playing. I'm pretending that I feel the way I feel and that I believe in what I say and all that stuff because I don't know what I believe and I don' t know what i feel. I'm an alcoholic. When I'm not with you and not at work, I'm usually drinking. So, you know, I didn't know how I felt or anything. All I know is that it seemed to me like from what I knew about what I was supposed to do, from whatI knew of a man's role in contemporary Western society, I thought I'm doing my part and nobody else is. You know, my wife is not, my kids are not, my children are insolent, my wife is always yelling at me about something or other. You know? I mean, it's not working. But I didn't dare tell anybody. I'll look like a failure. So doing the very best job I could do to have a successful life, I turned me into a derelict. That's what I was when I got to you. I was 40 years old. I was a derelicht. I was down to nobody and nothing, and that's all that was left of me. I had no idea for sure what the problem was. I knew I probably drank too much. But I hadno idea what the enormity of the problemwas. Thank heavens I didn't know how sick I was. If I'd have had any ideahow sick Iwas when I came here, I didn'know that I'dhave been ableto even bother to come here. You know, who knowswhat I might have done? You never know when you're faced with doing it, but I don't know if I'd have come to you or not. I was just totally bereft of anything decent and human. There was none of that left in me. And the second part of that says that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. i i went to a lot of humans along my along the way to you that i thought were powerful humans um i i remember uh ministers you know i went the minister and uh my favorite minister was an episcopal because he'd come over to my house and drink beer and we'd get drunk together but uh you know and your wife can't say anything if you're drinking it with the preacher. But, you know, I don't know. And I went to a lot of different churches over the course of things, none of them for very long at a time. You know, I just bounce in here and there and everywhere. And, you know what? I don' t know what they said. You know, l'm not, l can't stand up here and tell you that they said this and l reacted this way or did this or that I don't know what they said but I do know what I heard and what I heard was look Dave we own God see and if you want to get next to God you got to go through us and you got to do it our way I couldn't do that I can't do that to this day I canít do that when I meet people like that I cannot rise to the level of purity that they seem to be demanding to have a relationship with God. I can't do that, you know? I mean, I used to think I could and I tried many times and I just can't, you know? I mean I go pretty good for a while but pretty soon, you know, I get more restless and more irritable and more discontented and I to have a drink, and I cannot rise to that level. So, you know, I guess if there's a God, then I'm probably going to be about the last one he's going to help because I, you know—I just—I can't do it. I can't. Now, I have nothing against churches. In fact, I go to a church every Sunday now. I found a church I really like, and And I go there because I want to, not in addition to—I mean, not instead of AA, but in addition to AA. And I've changed my mind about a lot of things, you know? I like this church I go to. I go here because our minister gets up with the big book and does a series of sermons on the 12 steps and reads out of the big books. So I just found someplace where I feel at home, and I go. I'm fine there. we have you know it's it's like therapy you know therapy is good for information but it's not good for it doesn't help me in recovery you know aa is good for recovery so i uh i tried uh ministers and churches and all i got was angry and bitter and and just you know worse i got emotionally and mentally worse I tried therapists. I told you about Jeanette. You know, she tried very hard to help me and did help me more than probably any other human before I got to AA because she sent me to you. You know but there were a lot of therapists that, you know, that were like psychiatrists. You know Dr. Silkworth was a psychiatrist. and he was a very enthusiastic promoter of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Carl Jung was a psychiatrist and when Roland Hazard, after spending a year with him, promptly got drunk when he went back to Paris and then called him up and went back to Switzerland to see him, he said, you know, Roland, I can't help you. I don't know of anything that can help you The only thing I've ever seen that helps anybody like you is some sort of religious or spiritual experience. And I don't know how to induce those. So I suggest you go home and see if you can't get affiliated with some kind of religious organization that you like and hope that something happens to you. Doctors, they're powerful. I went to a doctor once. I decided in 1973, three years before I got to you, that maybe, just maybe, drinking might be a problem. And so I thought, well, you know, I'll go to a Doctor. But being a true blue alcoholic, I'm not going to just any doctor. I called the American Medical Association. I asked them to recommend a doctor that had experience treating alcoholics. They weren't all that thrilled to hear from me. And they were not interested in giving me anybody's name. You know how obnoxious we can be, you know? Hey, I'm no quitter. You know, I'll keep calling you. Hang up. I'll call you back. I don't care. I need a doctor. so they finally gave me the name of some guy and i i called his office and i got an appointment and uh went to see him and i don't know what i told him because you know i my appointment was in the afternoon and by the afternoon i've been drinking a long time now in the meantime i had taken a geographic cure from i had lived in california at this time and i'd taken a geographic cure to Kentucky so I'm in Kentucky at this time and if you ever want to take a geographic cure and you're thinking about Kentucky you might want to check with me before you leave but I went to see this doc you know and he pounded my knee with a little rubber mallet and you know looked in my mouth and convinced himself that I could frost a mirror so I was you know, probably still living. And I don't know what we talked about. You know, I don' t know if he asked me any questions or I gave many answers. But I do remember he said, okay, Dave, here's the deal, pal. I'm going to give you a prescription and you get it filled and you take this medication as directed and this medication will not cause you to quit drinking but it will cause youto drink less. And I thought, all right, that's it. Hey, we're making some progress. So I took the prescription from him and it said Librium, 75 milligrams. I thought oh my God. You know, I mean my wife was a nurse, the one I used to have. You know? I know about this stuff. This is not going to help. This is going to make it a lot worse. You know, in all fairness to the doctor, yeah, you're going to drink less. You're going be unconscious a lot more than you used to be. You can't drink a quart of vodka a day and take 75 milligrams of Librium and stay upright. I mean, probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. I tried all these people. I looked everywhere I could think of to help me. You know, I must admit, I didn't try a shaman. But if I'd have known one, I would have probably checked in with him. No human power could have relieved my alcoholism. But the third idea, the third concept, God could and would if he were sought. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous drunk my first meeting. I was drunk. I was one of those upright drunks. I didn't stagger and I didn' t slur my words or anything, but I would have a quart, quart and a half in me and still be ambulating. I went to AA meetings my first few times. I had these big tall Tupperware glasses and I got those especially because they would fit in one of the styrofoam beer containers, You know, the styrofoam things you put cans of beer in. These glasses were slender enough to fit in there. And because I never went anywhere without a drink, and if you just take a normal glass and you fill it full of vodka and ice and you put it in your lap, it gets your pants wet. But if you have one of those styro Foam things, it doesn't. So, you know, I'm a careful guy. I plan things out. And I was careful not to drink more than half of that on the way to that meeting because I knew I would need something to get home on. And I showed up for my first meeting, and I got hugged by Helen Elliott, and I heard Buddy Newton speak, and I met Michael Healy, and they told me to come back. And I'll guarantee you I was coming back. I left there knowing I was going to be there. I was not going to come when I was coming back, not because I had any great ideas about getting sober. the primary thing that you heard me say about the only thing you heard me say in my first few days of sobriety was you don't understand you don' t understand but I came in as I said drunk and I drank my drink on the way there and I went back the next night but I went back the next night drunk again same thing and the first night I came to you you told me nobody ever ever backed away from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous nobody ever broke faith with AA in my life that I've ever known and what you told me the first tonight was Dave we don't have enough power individually or collectively to get or keep you sober we think you're going to have to do what we had to do. You're going to go have to ask a power greater than yourself. You're a higher power, God as you understand him, a higher powers you understand Him, to help you. So I don't want to hear that. I already told you, I can't rise to the level of purity God demands. I can not. I mean it's pointless to try but I went back because you showed me kindness and you showed me some attention, and you were aware of me. Nobody had been aware of me in a long time. I went back the second night, and the same thing happened. I went back in the same condition, and You said the same thing. And I went back the third night, and You said the same thing. And I went back the fourth night. I started an Alcoholics Anonymous on Wednesday, April the 14th, and the 15th, and the 16th, and the 17th. And the 17 was a Saturday, and I went to AA again. And I spent some time down there during the day Saturday at this clubhouse town north in Dallas. And i went back that night for a meeting, and i'm still drinking and drinking and you're still telling me the same thing and i'm telling you you don't understand. And finally on Saturday night, April the 17, 1976, I went back to that dump I was living in and with a drink in my hand you know and I don't know I can't tell you that I had some ray of hope or that I said I don' t know what I had I mean you don't know what you have when you drink like that I don''t remember how I felt I don'T remember if I was inspired I don ''t know all I do know is that I walked back into that dump and I stood in the dark with a drinking in my hands And I said, God, if I'm going to quit drinking, you're going to have to help me because I can't do it by myself. That was Saturday night, April the 17th, 1976. My sobriety date is Sunday, April 18th, 1986. I mean, I just, you know, I mean... God could and would if he were sought. It doesn't say you have to find him. You have to seek him. The other big book says, God says in the other big book, if you knock on my door, I'll open it. Knock and it shall be opened. Everything I know about God says, if you seek me, you will find me. You don't have to know a lot about God. You don'T have to do anything special for God. And if you're new or nearly new here and you think, you know, you're the last person on earth God would help, I'll tell you what, I came here believing that. But I don't believe that anymore. I'll say what I do believe. I don' t think you're one of the last at all. I think you' re one of first. Who could possibly need God more than a drinking alcoholic? Who could need him more? You know, when I came her, God was punitive. easily angered I mean he was just you know unpleasant he was impossible there's no way I could measure up he was insecure I mean who else would need all that praise only insecure people need to be worshipped all the time and I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have turned my life and my will over to the care of God as I understand him. And just like you told me to do. It wasn't a big deal at first. I just simply said a variation of the standard alcoholic prayer, God help me. And in that prayer was an admission that I am so totally and completely powerless over this world and everything in it. My life, my ideas, I am totally and completely powerless. I cannot do anything to have any kind of positive effect on my life. And if you don't help me, it's over. It's just over. The enormity of that miracle, you know, that I went right into April the 17th believing, sincerely believing I was a hopeless, helpless, incurable alcoholic. And to be transformed, to be reborn overnight. Not into some, anything in particular other than I just didn't drink anymore. The desire to drink was gone. And I had some other miracles early. Well, I call them miracles. You can call them what you like. I mean, that wasn't the only one. I was unemployed and unemployable. I had been fired by a computer company that I had worked for. General Computer Systems. They no longer exist. But they had fired me for all the obvious reasons. I couldn't get to work sober, and when I got there, I couldn'T stay there. uh and two weeks later i had exhausted every last thing i knew to do to find a job i had been looking for a job for weeks and in about almost exactly two weeks from the day i walked into aa for the first time i went through my list of contacts for jobs and i and i just struck out everywhere i called and at 11 o'clock in the morning i sat down on the couch and i said god if you want me to work, you're going to have to find me a job. And at 2 o'clock that afternoon, three hours later, the company that had fired me called me and asked me if I could come back to work. I had no idea why. Well, I do. Of course I know why. But that has been the story of my life ever since. You know, in a vision for you, it says, abandon yourself to God as you understand God. That's a bold statement. That's bold. You know what that means? God, I am yours. Every morning when I get up, my wife and I have a little meditation time. We read several things, one of which is Emmett Fox. And I say we pray together out loud. Boy, that takes a while to get used to that. let me tell you. But that didn't happen overnight, but it happened. And my prayer every morning is the third step prayer. God, I offer myself to you to build with me and do with me as you will. I abandon myself to God every day. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could do that, where I can honestly say and feel like I do not care what God does with me. You know why? Because my head says, for a long time, my head says, if you do that, Dave, you dumbass, you're going to get sent packing off to Africa to be a missionary. You know, God's real stuff, you know, the real stuff is not fun. You know? Don't do it. but i say that prayer you know and and it occurs to me one day that uh if i am sincerely saying that prayer and i'm very careful when i say that very very careful not to let those just be words that come rolling out of my mouth you know that i gather up all the sincerity i have every single morning when i say that prayer. And it occurred to me one day that if I say that prayer with great sincerity, then I belong to God. Whatever he does with me is whatever he does with me. I don't care. And I had spent a long time saying, I am not going to live here. I am not going go there. You know, I'm not doing that stuff. I'm not living in Chicago. No way I'm not going to do it. I don't care if our son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren are there. I had all these reasons why I'm NOT living there. It's just on and on. And suddenly, I noticed one day that I have lost interest in where I live. I seem to have lost interested in what you think of me. I seem to have lost interest in being right you know it doesn't you know i mean i i just i just have adopted the attitude that if i insist that i am right i am insisting you are wrong and i don't know if you're wrong or not how do i know what's right there's a guy named saxie that wrote a poem about six blind guys felt an elephant you know what i'm felt his tail and what i've felt his trunk and what of them felt his leg and and they all described what an elephant felt like and none of the six agreed who's right all of them are right i lost interest in being right i laid down my sword of righteousness and just abandoned that battle just gave it up and then it occurred to me one day if i really believe that i have turned myself over to god and that i belong to god How can I possibly whine about what goes on in my life? On what basis do I gripe about where I'm centered, what I do? So I can't gripe anymore. Can't whine anymore. I hate to give up whining. I mean, I had gotten pretty good at that. And I have never been more at peace than I am today. Never. I am so happy today, I can't even tell you. Great events have come to pass. I have been gone from home for almost two weeks. And one of those weeks, my wife and I spent with our son and daughter-in-law and three grandchildren, and we all stayed together in a condo. And there was a time when I couldn't do that. You know, kids drove me nuts. I couldn'T do that and we had a great time. You know, I mean, I don't know how my wife feels about me. That's not quite true, but of course I do. But you know, I mean you can ask her if you really want to know because I don' t want to sit up here and tell you how much she adores me. If you want to know that you have to ask her. But she does. She'll tell you. But I adore her. She knows everything there is to know about me, no wife I have ever had before. And she is not the first, okay? Just to keep the record straight, she is the fourth. And as one of our dear Al-Anon friends likes to point out, I was the only common thread in all those first three figures. My life goes well, you know. I can stand up here and tell you that I have learned more from my wife and from you than I ever thought I would ever learn from anybody. My wife taught me how to be generous. I told you, I came from a very poor background. What do you mean? You know, what do you means share? I'm not sharing nothing. There's already not enough to go around. I'm out sharing nothing, and my wife taught me about generosity and about unconditional love. She used to say I I would come home from time to time and tell her about an incident that had happened to me during the day in which I had clearly been screwed. You know, I mean, it was just painstakingly, I mean it was painfully obvious that I had been screwed over by somebody. And I would tell her all about it. And she would look at me and give me that little smile and say, And what was your part in it? And I would say, did you hear what I said? I didn't have any part in it. You know, because of her influence, you know, I learned a whole new thing about, you know how to drive a car, driving manners and all that, you know. I mean, when you live this kind of life, you have to think about things. Well, you don't have to, but I don't know how you're going to avoid it. But, you think about like, what is God's will for me? You know, one of the burning questions in Alcoholics Anonymous is what is God's will for me? You know I don't know what it is all the time but I know what it is not. It is not yelling and screaming at his kids. It is NOT flipping off his kids on a freeway. You know if you're getting cut off all the time and you're finding yourself having to flip people off all the same maybe we need to look in the mirror to see who's the real bad driver here. I have a stepson. I have two stepsons that I love very dearly. We have a very, very tight family. I have five grandchildren, and they love me. You know, I told you what a bad stepfather I was. I had stepchildren in all three of those other marriages, and they all hated me and should have because of the way I treated them. because of you, the first grandchild that was born into our family is named Ryan David. He's named after me. That's not my doing. You know, my stepchildren don't name their children after me until you came into my life. They just don't do it. i have uh i have the capacity to love my family now that i just absolutely never thought would ever occur in my life all of my dreams have come true i live in in a way that i thought would be impossible i remember clearly thinking when i came to you i will never again be eligible for a lot of the benefits of human life. I will never, ever be eligible for the love of a good woman who I can really love and who will really love me. You know what? The shape I was in when I thought that, that was absolutely true. I didn't need to be cleaned up and brushed up. I needed to be reborn and that's what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me, done with me, given me a chance to be reborn. I want to tell you a little something to close us up. It's about my wife, Polly. She usually doesn't tell this story when she talks and I think it is a very significant thing. When Polly was trying to get sober she went to a county detox a couple of times and no big deal just a couple de-talks You know, county detox centers, seven days each time. And finally, she was court committed to a treatment center in Dallas, 28-day program. Kept her six weeks. And she walked in there, but, you know, she'd been to treatment twice. She knew how it worked. You go in and, you start rattling around in the detox room and some little cute nurse comes running down the hall and hands you a couple of pills and, you know, kind of level things out. And you start going to group every day and going to meetings at night and so forth. And so she's sitting there and she's beginning to rattle around in there and nobody's coming with any tablets. So she marched down to the nurse's station and announced that she was ready for her medication. and uh this big tall guy named tom t for teller uh walked up to her and put his arms on her shoulders and said polly not this time you need to know how sick you really are so we're not going to have any medications this time and uh polly had a very tough detox and the next few days were kind of a nightmare the next four days, you know, with DTs and hallucinations and all kinds of things going on. And she came out of there four days later, and she got up as much as she could into Tom Tiefenthaler's face and said, you son of a bitch, I hate you. You don't treat an animal the way you've treated me for the last four days. He said, Polly, if you make it, you'll love me. And if you don't make it really doesn't matter, does it? so if you got a sponsor that's getting in your face telling you to do a lot of things that sound like a bad idea just remember if you make it you'll love us and if you don't make it what does it matter who cares what's the point i love you all very much thanks for inviting me