Flew Medevac in Vietnam and a Fifth of Whiskey Was My Entire Debrief – Jim S.

Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com. Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Hello everyone, I'm Jim Shackelford and I'm an alcoholic. It's wonderful to be invited here today and I do so much appreciate the committee asking me and Kathy to be part of your weekend. Already I'm very grateful for the fact that you folks are giving me a clock. I think there might be a message and is there a history of speakers speaking over their allotted time? Well, we've heard a couple of great talks already this weekend, haven't we? Some fabulous talks. I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana and we are so fortunate to have Dudley and Marge and Jill in our community. Some wonderful things are happening in Indiana. I'm from Minneapolis and I'm sure there's wonderful things happening in your community too. I'm always amazed, maybe amazed is not the right word, I'm always overwhelmed when I see the force of God moving through people's lives and as I continue to observe and watch that phenomena, the enrichment of my second step continues to expand. It's a powerful force. Dudley early asked me if I was a little bit nervous. I was nervous. I was nervous. I was nervous. I was nervous. I was nervous. nervous today, and actually I'm not, because I have the foggiest idea of what I'm going to say. When I start to orchestrate things, then I get real nervous. But when I don't have a particular hard theme to talk about, then it's really interesting to hear what I have to say, actually. My sobriety date is October 20th, 1984. That was not the first time I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, though. One of the things I do want to talk about is the progression of alcoholism. And additionally, I want to talk to you about the reason why I drank. I so much... Oh, by the way, you had talked about that you're a crier. I'm going to cry. I'm really going to cry. Well, that's the way I am. That's the way I am. Right, that's what you do, too, right. Right, that's what you do. I think the reason why I have many friends has been, and it's not just my friends, that I met all of a sudden. Not because I came here for a secret. It's just based on my information. I passed it off. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Dave. Regards. Regards. more than one reason to terminate our marriage. And what's really interesting is, you know where I first met Dudley? First time I met Dudley, he was representing my wife in her lawsuit to divorce me. Tell me if there's not a God in that somewhere. Amazing, isn't it? I love the doctor's opinion. Women and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot, after a time, differentiate the truth from the false. Sometimes today, I still have problems with differentiating the truth from the false. Probably more so than I care to admit. But boy, that line about the reason I drank for the effect. And that's exactly what I did. The first time I took a drink, I was 14 years old, and I was with some guys that were 16 and 17 at that age. And I was in the back seat of the car with them, and God I wanted to be part of them. And they reached around and they took the Coke out of my hand and they opened the corridor and they poured it out and they reached down the seat and pulled out some cherry vodka and poured it in there and gave it back to me. And the effect that I liked was I felt a part of. I felt I was part of. I felt I was part of. I felt connected to them. And I liked it. My drinking proceeded through high school, what a surprise. And the effect that I was looking for then was fun and camaraderie. And that was the effect I was looking for. And we would, my buddies and I, we would get a six or a 12 pack and get in the car on a Friday night or Saturday night and we would go to the local drive-in restaurants and drive laps around and try to pick up girls. And of course, all we did was try, we were never really particularly successful. But the effect I was looking for was fun and good times. And I had a lot of fun and a lot of good times. And then in 1967, at the ripe age of 17, I graduated from high school. I had been accepted to go to Purdue University. But it didn't work out. I did not have the economic means and trust me, I was not an excellent high school student. So there was no scholarship. And my draft number was six. There's a man that understands what that means. And so I'm always looking for options. Good managers always do. And I ended up believing in an Air Force recruiter and at the age of 17, a couple weeks after I was in the Air Force, I got in a bicycle, went to the Air Force. And in the Air Force, my drinking took on a little bit different dimension. Again, it was for fun and good times, but I saw it at people who really knew how to drink. And I began to learn the fine art of drinking. You just don't drink large sums of alcohol without some kind of background and training. I mean, gee me. You have to know what to eat before you go out and drink. And then through trial and error you find out what not to mix in terms of different drinks. Or when you get back to the barracks late at night and that room is spinning so bad and I don't know why but the left, the ball of my left foot, if I could just get that on the floor and put not my total body weight but just the right amount of pressure on that left ball of my left foot, the room wouldn't spin as much. I mean those are techniques that you have to acquire. And I was a fairly good student at that point and it was fun and good times. And then I got orders, I was a medic, and then I got orders to Vietnam to fly Aerovac. It was at that point that my drinking began to change. The effect I was looking for was a lot different but I was still drinking for the effect. There was a lot of craziness and insanity of what was going on day to day. And at the end of the mission, at the end of the day back at the base, I'd get a fifth of whiskey and get drunk because I wanted to forget. I wanted to take the edge off. I couldn't deal with what I was feeling or what I was seeing. Or what I was smelling and I got drunk and it worked. It did for me what I could not do for myself. It worked so well that I did it every chance I could and that was the effect I was looking for. There's one particular event that happened there that I talk about which has bearing towards kind of demonstrates the change that takes place in a person's life. I was on this one particular mission. There was a fellow who was a double amputee and I was walking down the very narrow aisle working on all these different casualties and this double amputee grabbed a hold of my leg and he kept screaming over the roar of the engines, man I'm not going to make it back to the world. I'm just not going to make it. And I kept saying, I kept placating, yeah you are, you've got to let go of my leg. I've got to go work on this other guy. I had to go suck out a tracheotomy and keep this guy's airway open but you've got to let go of my leg and he wouldn't do it. So I kicked him off of me and then I came back down the aisle a little while later and he was dead. I got a fifth whiskey that night, got good and drunk, took it all away. Next day I got up and did it again and eventually my tour was over and I came back and that's when I, GI Bill is a wonderful thing. You sign up for college classes, they send you a check and then you drop half your classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . again. You're not the only one with a bad memory. I'm going to say after a period of time, we got married. And I don't know, now I'm going to fast forward a lot of years. Whatever happened in your house, I'll wager probably happened in our house. A few dishes got broke, a few promises probably got met, a lot of dishonesty, and certainly I was emotionally absent. Anytime I began to feel any kind of strong emotion about anything, I got drunk. I certainly distanced myself. I had two emotions. I had rage and I had lust. And that was it. And anything in between, I just couldn't recognize, did not respond to it. And I was extremely absent from my marriage. Again, the effect I was looking for, was I was managing my life with alcohol. My consumption continued to get more and more, and the times that I wasn't drinking was getting less and less. And then when the pressure was on me too much, then I would quit. You know how that looks, don't you? There, I proved to you, two weeks, I'm going to get a six-pack. I'm going to buy a case. Back to the races again. The insanity in our lives, continued. My, Kathy, Kathy went to Al-Anon. I really, I know this is a Baptist facility, but there's no other way to say it. That really pissed me off. It did. And I continued to drink for years. And my drinking continued to progress down and down and down. And there was this point where something began to happen to me. And it happened to me. And it happened to me. And it happened as a direct result of Al-Anon. Kathy not only started going to Al-Anon, but she actually got involved with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. She actually began to work the steps with others. And the result of that was my dirty clothes laid pretty much right where I dropped them. The checkbook no longer was being juggled and balanced. I found myself a lot waking up on the floor. I used to always wake up at a bed, but now I find myself waking up on the floor with my glasses kind of like, you know, floor burn sometimes. And the clincher was that she was walking around the house happy. She would do things like step over me and go about her business. Literally. And I was scared. God, I was scared. And I went to my very first AA meeting. And Ben was there. Ben, he was the first person I ever heard read How It Works. And Ben, what he read was, We were admitted we were perils over alcohol and our wives were unmanageable. The people in the room laughed. I did not laugh because I related. I understood what he was talking about. And so, that was in 82. And I went back from there and I tried to try and understand what he was talking about. So it was tasks. And I went back from there. I tried to understand what he was talking about. But, I was so scared. So don't worry. And I asked Ron, I asked him, which do you want me to talk about? And he said, Okay, so if you want to do this, it's going to be a few minutes. But, I don't know what your problems are. And I said, I can't do this. I'll take it. And he said, And I went back for another meeting, and I didn't drink that day. And the next day, I went back for another meeting. And I got a big book because they say get a big book. And I looked at that and said, yep, I got one of them. It kind of went up here on the shelf. And I did not get a sponsor. And 30 days came up, and I took that token. And 90 days came up, I took that token. Yada, yada, yada. And I forgot to tell anyone I was still smoking a lot of reefer, by the way. I didn't ask your opinion because I didn't want to. I get really tired of hearing some of the things in Alcoholics Anonymous. I kept hearing the same things over and over and over. And I'm a project manager. I used to build federally funded projects, large multi-million dollar road bridge projects. And I worked hard that day. You understand? And Joe keeps saying the same thing over and over. So I decided I don't need to go to the meeting tonight because I can just sit here and have this meeting like in my head because I know what they always say. And it didn't take long before you didn't really see me very much. And guess what? I found myself in Princeton, Indiana. Anyone here from Princeton? Someone asked earlier about Ohio. Does anyone here from Princeton? Okay, now I'll share with you. I was in Princeton, Indiana, and I was staying at the Holiday Inn. I had a bridge project in southern Indiana. And I was staying at the Holiday Inn, and I went to the Holiday Inn. And it was a horrible band. I mean, the worst band I've ever heard in my life. So I ordered a shot of whiskey. So the band would be improved. You understand. And it was controlled drinking right from the start. And less than a week later, I'm drinking over a fifth a day again. And I swear to you, I thought it was controlled drinking because I'm buying it in pints and half pints. Now I want to tell you about the effect that I was drinking for. When I resumed drinking, I picked up right where I left off. Right where I left off. In the mornings, I would drink a half pint to a pint of vodka. And I would have to do that so I could shave. I would have to do that so I could get up and be able to shower. And get dressed and function. And I couldn't always keep that down. So I would follow it with Maalox. Great morning drink. I'm committed. You've got to understand this. I'm committed to this drinking business. And then once I was able to do that, then I could begin to think. I could begin to put sentences together. And then I'd go to work. Sometimes I'd put in a whole four and a half, five hours maybe. And then I'd leave the job site. And I'd be driving down that grass. And I'd be driving down that gravel road. And I'd reach under that pickup truck. And I'd pull out that pint of vodka. And I'd go, like, get with it. Get in the motel room. Close the door. Take another quick shower. Come out. Crack that second one. And I'm drinking for the effect. And the effect is, I want out. I just want out. I want the crazy thoughts to stop. And the thoughts went like this. They were like a lot of words. But they didn't make a whole lot of sense. They were just in my head. I shook badly. In order for me not to throw up the green bile with the little black seeds in it, I had to have a certain level of alcohol in me. The only normal way for me to live was for me to take another drink. And when I didn't have that, I was absolutely insane. That was the only way I knew how to live. That was the effect that I was looking for. All the way through the divorce, I was looking for a job. That was the development of my alcoholism. Through the advancement of it, I was drinking for effect. The effect changed. The effect I was looking for evolved. But it always was for the effect. I couldn't understand why Alcoholics Anonymous didn't work for me the first time. I use a lot of analogies. Bear with me. You hear about the chocolate cake? I know you people in Indianapolis have heard this from me. You know what I'm saying? About the guy who kept coming in. He kept coming in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. He kept coming in and out, and he went to lots of meetings, you know, 90 meetings in 90 days. He read his big book, and then he'd get drunk. And he'd come back, and he'd go to meetings, and he just kept going around and around. He called up his sponsor. He says, I don't understand this. You people tell me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and make coffee and read the big book, and I keep getting drunk. I don't get it. Why is that? And his sponsor says, you've got a cookbook in the house, and he says, yeah. He says, go get it. So he brings the cookbook back to the phone. He says, is there a recipe in there for chocolate cake? And he goes, yeah. He says, why don't you read that to me? And we all know sponsors are crazy, right? So with great reluctance, he reads the recipe. Preheat the oven to 450, grease the pan, cup of flour, yadda, yadda, yadda. And so he finishes reading it, and the sponsor says, OK, why don't you read that to me one more time? The guy says, listen, I'm dying, and you got me reading the chocolate cake recipe to you? He says, trust me, just read it one more time. So he did it. I'd make the frosting. Let it cool before you put the frosting on it. He finishes it, and then the sponsor says, OK, read that to me one more time. Of course, this guy's reading it real fast now, because he wants to get through it real quick. And then the sponsor said, after he finished, he says, now cut me a piece of cake. You can read that recipe till you're blue in the face. But if you actually want a piece of cake, you're going to have to do something. I don't know about you people, but I like chocolate, and I like chocolate cake. Left to my own devices, I'll read it and say, yeah, that's a nice recipe, but I like a lot of sugar. So instead of putting a cup of sugar in, I'm going to put in three cups of sugar. And I'm not real keen about vanilla, so I'm not going to really put that in. And I'll tweak it. I'll tweak that recipe to suit my own, what I think, my own needs. And I may end up with something that looks like a cake, but it's probably not going to taste like that cake. And I was challenged that if I wanted the same cake that Bill and Bob had, that I needed to do what Bill and Bob did. That I need to follow the black ink on the white page, and when I see a question mark, that means I need to answer the question. And when I see hints, like I said, I wanted a little hint. And I was like, well, I'm going to try to find a hint. But next we launched, that's a hint. I went to my very first conference, and there was a fellow named Frank M out of Chicago. And we all know the out-of-town speakers are so wise. No one in your home group. By the way, my home group is the dignitary sympathy group. There's no dignitaries, and there's no sympathy. It was a group conscience to call the group that. I wanted to name the group the Monday Night Procrastinators Meeting, but that didn't go over real well, so it's a dignitary sympathy. I got a family, but that's another story, and now I'm having a senior moment. But I went to, I heard Frank, and Frank was talking about what is a real alcoholic. You ought to have been at that conference, Dudley. Frank talked about what is a real alcoholic, and he stood in front of all, I don't know, there must have been 600 people in that room, and he stood, and I'm sitting way in the back like newcomers do, and he said, well, what we're going to do is we're going to make an alcoholic. So he had this imaginary test tube, and he asked the audience, he says, what's it take to make an alcoholic? And someone in the back yelled, resentment. So he reached over like this and put that in. He says, what else? And someone else yelled, fear. And he went like that, and self-centeredness, and the list went on and on. There's about seven or eight things that were called out, and then he paused and said, what's the one thing no one talked about? Nobody said alcohol, and I had one of those V8 moments, you know. He went on to say, here we have this test tube full of stuff, and we shake it up, and we shake it up. And we shake it up so much, and then we don't know what to do with it, and we put a little alcohol in there to shave it off, to smooth it out, to make it okay. And that works, and then except that quantity doesn't work anymore, then we put a little more in, a little more. And then often what happens is a spouse or an employer or a judge or somebody will help you pull some of that alcohol out. And we may feel better for a while. I think Jill talked about the difference between relief and a solution. You pull the alcohol out, and what happens is that we start sleeping better, and we eat a little bit better, and people pat you on the back, you're doing so good, you look good, but we don't ever do anything with the test tube of stuff. And that was me. Resentment. Do you people have resentments? I don't know. I want you to understand. I'm not the kind of alcoholic I am. Early in our relationship, Kathy and I went horseback riding. I don't like horses. I know I'm standing in the middle of horse country, but the fact is I don't particularly like horses. And Kathy went to go horseback riding, so we went to the stable, and I asked for the oldest, slowest horse that they had, and they gave me this oldest, slowest horse, and we leave the barn, and we go about, I don't know, 50, 100 feet down out of the barn, and this horse takes off at a canter. I think it's called a canter. And for the next mile, my anatomy is getting crushed inside. And I'm livid, needless to say, and I can't get this darn thing to stop, and it comes to a creek, and I'm glad you like this, Marge. The horse comes to a creek, and it stops to get a drink of water, and I get off this horse, and I walk around the woods looking for a big stick, and I want to do to this horse what it did to me. 00. barrenness. and I couldn't find one that would really do the job. And Kathy finally caught up, and she saw my state of mind and didn't say a word. And finally I said, the heck with it, sort of. And I walked away, as far as I know, that horse is still standing there in that creek. Now I want to share with you how I could just really work with that resentment. And for years, and into sobriety, whenever I would go to the grocery store to buy dog food, that's right, I'd read dog food labels looking for horse meat. I'd take that horse meat out, that dog food, I'd throw it in the bowl, and then when I'd throw that bowl down on the table, in my head I'm thinking, take that, you son of a... Yeah. And that's a resentment. I told that story in the lobby of the Music City Roundup down in Nashville. And the person I was sitting in front of looked at me, and they didn't laugh, they looked at me and said, that'll get you drunk. That'll get you drunk. Man, it did. And you know what? They were wrong. They were wrong. They were right. I happened to be in a workshop. That's the thing we do up in Indianapolis. Real quick side note, that's where a bunch of us get together. We make a commitment to each other that we're going to work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. We sit down, we read what the big book says. We only use the big book. We read what the big book says about the first step. We all answer the questions. We share with each other our experience. We do the first step together, and then collectively we go on to the second step. And that's what we do. We do it frequently and often, as a matter of fact. Anyway, so I was in this workshop, and I went back, and I happened to, what a coincidence, happened to be at fourth step. And I, like P.S., footnote in the fourth step, oh, by the way, here's this resentment. It also showed up in my fear inventory, too, by the way. And, of course, I shared it when I did my fifth step, and I'm happy to report to you that I haven't had a need or a compulsion to read a dog food label since. I haven't had a need or a compulsion to read a dog food label since. I haven't had a need or a compulsion to read a dog food label since. So I want to encourage you that when you're engaged in this process, look at the totality of who you are, not just your drinking. Time moves on, and I want to talk a little bit about amends. My sponsor, a lot of you people know my sponsor, Gary B., and Gary's 40 years sober now. After I asked him to be my sponsor, he and his wife, Julie, made a decision that they really wanted to finish up their amends, and they sold their house to come up with the equity out of it to finish their amends. Had I known that Gary B. was going to do something like that, I would not have asked him to be my sponsor. Can you imagine going to someone like that and trying to get a little slack cut to you? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. He shared with me a process on making amends. One of the instructions he gave me was, never ever say you're sorry. He says, everybody on the planet knows you're a sorry son of a... I don't want to hear that. He says, it's about collecting, taking care of it, and correcting the wrongs, and taking responsibility for your actions. And he gave me a process, and the process was, The process was that, of course, try to do it in person if at all possible, and make that amends, and sit down and tell the person the harm that you've caused them. And then after I do that, then ask them the question, is there anything else that I've done that I'm not aware of that I've harmed you? And then my job is to listen. I don't know about you, but I did some blackout drinking. There's harm out there that I have no idea that I caused. There's plenty that I am aware of, but there's others out there that... And then my job is to listen. Not inject yell buts, don't you understand, but to listen. And then after that's on the table, now everything's on the table. Everything I can possibly know about this particular relationship is on the table. And then he told me to ask them the question, Do you need... Do you need to tell me how this has affected you? That's a tough question to ask. And then my job is to listen. And then the last thing after that's done is to say, what is it I need to do to make this right? How do I square the books? And then to take that action. I first thought amends was about, well, I damaged... I did this amount of damage to your property, and I believe I owe you $500. And so I'm going to come back and do it. I'm going to come to you and tell you how I've harmed you, and then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do, and then I'm going to dictate to you how I'm going to do it. Sounds an awful lot like managing my life, but that's how I initially approached it. I found that I got to be a lot freer as a result of this process. There's all kinds of higher powers, by the way. There's one higher power that helped me figure out what my amends was, and he was a judge. The judge helped me figure that out. He... He... He paid $500 a month, which I did for 19 years, and I'm happy to report that that amends now is taken care of. There's an amends that I want to share with you that involved my brother, which was quite an eye-opener for me. My brother and I didn't particularly get along. You may find that hard to believe, although sometimes we got along. Here's a sidebar. My brother and I used to do a lot of drinking together. We had a lot of fun. I remember once I told Kathy I was going to meet him for lunch. We were going to meet him for lunch and, you know, get a sandwich, and I went and met him, and we had a beer. And then on the third or fourth beer, we started talking about the virtues of Coors beer. This is a 76, I think it was. Coors beer wasn't sold at that point east of the Mississippi. You know, the virtues of Coors beer, you know, mountain water and all that. He said, let's go get a Coors beer. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. I said, okay. Coors beer. So we got in this truck, and we decided we would go to St. Louis to get some Coors beer. We got there, and they didn't sell it there. So we thought, well, we'll just keep driving west until we find it. And we found it in Kansas City, Kansas. We walked into the liquor store, and they had a big display of Coors beer. I said, yeah, you can sell it. He goes, yeah. He says, how much do you want? We said all of it. So we bought $600 Coors beer. Ha. Twenty-five hours later when I got back home, Kathy was a little upset with me. But that's the kind of things that my brother and I did when we were drinking. We also got into fights, and he always won, by the way. I was in this particular workshop and I was remembering some harm that I had caused him back when I was 16 years old. And I avoided looking at that because I knew he had caused me more harm than I had ever caused him. You know, when he hits you in the face a few times, you don't want to approach him. And the harm that I caused him when I was 16 was I borrowed his car, it was a big Pontiac Grand Prix, beautiful machine, borrowed it for a date, and I put a big crease in the passenger door. And when I returned the car, I parked it across from his apartment so he would see the driver's door. And then he would go to work. And at some point in time in the future, he would discover the crease, and I'd just plead innocent. And that's what I did. Well, as a result of this workshop, I needed to take responsibility, and I hadn't talked to him in seven years, even though he lived here in town. And I met him at a restaurant that had glass all the way around, it was a steak and shake. I did that for a reason, because I wasn't sure of his response. And I proceeded to tell him the harm that I caused him, and I went through the process. But I talked about it. And then he said there wasn't anything else. And I hadn't anything else on the paper, and I thought it was pretty much a done deal. I reached in my pocket, and I put the money on the table. I showed up with a lot of money. The numbers seemed fair and equitable. And the big book talks about the fact that we'll be amazed how within an hour things will melt and relationships will begin to heal. And that literally happened. I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was simple. I thought it was easy. I thought it was straightforward. I thought it was very overwhelming. And it was very slow. I thought it was slow. And I thought it was fast. I thought it was fast. I thought it was slow. And I thought it was pretty well a done deal. And then something amazing happened at that very moment. And what was amazing was that I found out that wasn't the amend at all. The reality of the amend was I took him to be a fool. I thought I was better than he was. I thought I could get by. I thought I was smarter than he was. And that's the harm that I caused him. It had nothing to do with his car door, not really. I never would have known that until I began the process of the amend. The guy that I kicked off on my leg, how do I make an amends to him? The man who, not the man, several men in the workshop I was in at the time, I hadn't told anyone about that. And I said, the man's dead. How do you amend? How do you make amends? And the guy said, well, you need to write this guy a letter. And in the letter, tell him what was going on at the time, what your confusion and the chaos. But most importantly in this letter, tell him what you're doing today. Tell him what you're trying to do with your life today. I just wanted to get well. I really wasn't out seeking God. I just wanted to get well. And so that's what I, I tried to discount it. I said, well, how can I write him a letter? I don't know his name. And they said, well, get a photograph at the Vietnam Mall and pick a name. So that's what I did. And I wrote the letter. And I was waiting for something miraculous to happen, and nothing happened. I just did the action. I followed direction. It was about a year later, I was on the telephone answering service. And I got this call from some veteran who was drunk calling from a pay phone. Who wasn't looking to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He was just looking for a place to sleep that night. And I called around and I found a halfway house that had a bed. And then I called up with another friend of mine. I said, can you pick this guy up? He said, so and so intersection. And take him over there. And then he did. And then the guy called the guy who I sent on the 12 step. He came back and said, he said, I just thought you'd want to know that this guy, this guy, he didn't, he didn't say he was going to quit drinking. He didn't say I was going to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He just kept saying he couldn't believe that somebody cared. If he was going to sleep under sheets for a roof. And somebody cared. And then I thought back to that letter because that's one of the things that I wrote. I wanted to care again. And this physical sense of warmth came over me. And it took a long time for me to have that feeling. I thought, wow. That one's done. I was in another workshop years later and I was with, with Mike, Mike L. And Mike is also a Vietnam vet. And so we were talking toward the conclusion of that workshop that maybe someday we'll go to the wall. And I was afraid to go to the wall because I was afraid of what was going to happen, meaning my emotions. And, and he said, yeah, well, if we ever get a chance, we'll go do that. And of course, two weeks later, Kathy comes home from work and her employers are going to send her to Washington, D.C. to, to attend the conference and it's a free ride. And I need, you know, and so here I am, I'm either, you know what honesty is, say what you mean and do what you say. So we went and what I, what I was afraid was going to happen at the wall did happen. I saw that and I just, I just lost it. And I went back to the wall the next day and ended up, there's a directory there. I looked up the names and the names are on the wall chronologically. So if a, so if a gunship went down, everybody on that, everybody on that helicopter, their names are together. And it's just chronological. And that, that, that particular incident that was the craziest, craziest for me was during the month of, of May of 1969. It involved Hill 937. And when I looked up that, particular month, there, there were four panels of names for that one month. It was a really chaotic time. So I went, I just, I just felt I needed to know this guy's name. So I went, I went to the panels and I read all the names. Because now I know that I've read his name. And that just seemed like another footnote. I went back to the wall a third time. And I went back, it was a Sunday morning. And, and there was one guy. There was one other guy. It was, it was raining and cold. It was just mirror-like surface, you know, because it was wet. When I got to the far end and I, and I'm walking down the pathway and suddenly out of, this emotion of rage hit me again. And I thought, I thought to myself, nobody cared. Nobody cared then. Nobody gives a damn about these guys. You know, all that luggage that goes with the Vietnam veterans. And right at that moment, I hear this commotion. I look over my shoulder and here comes a school bus of kids who've gotten off, little girls that are about eight or nine years old and a couple of nuns. And each of these children are carrying a rose and they come down the aisle to come down the pathway to the, to the, to the apex there. And they all gather around and this nun proceeds to lead these children in a prayer for all these people. Their names are on the wall. And I see what's beginning to happen. And of course, I just shuffle up and I stand in behind them and I participate in the prayer. And then at the end, these children scatter all around the memorial. Some put the rose down right away and get out of there. Some others go over and they see a name and they start to put it in front of that panel. Then they see another name and they pick it up and they, and then they, and they couldn't, they couldn't make up their mind which one to give it to. Some of these children started crying. These children weren't even alive at the time. Once again, I find out that I'm wrong. That people do care. You people are a tremendous demonstration of that in my life over and over and over again. You, you, in the, in the, in the program talks about our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and to the people around us. Engaging in this process. Engaging. Making the amends. So been terribly. It's pivotal. Just absolutely pivotal to my life. Things have been changing for me a lot in the last 15 months to 15 months ago. I was diagnosed with heart failure. That's good news. Bad news. The bad news is it's progressive and I'm at stage three. The good news is I now have documented proof to the guys that I sponsor that I do have a heart. I, uh, they, they, they, they took me, uh, into surgery and they've done some mojo. They put this computer in my chest with three different leads that go to my heart and it monitors and does all kinds of things. And, and when I, when I came out of one of the, one of the surgical procedures, I came out and I'm coming out of the anesthesia. And you know what the first thing I saw was? There's a guy in my home group named Tom B. Who's got a big full beard. His face is about this far from mine. And he's leaning over. When my father died 11 years ago from an abdominal aneurysm and he was, uh, hauled out of the living room of the house and he lived 20 odd hours. After we came back, after he passed away and we came back to the house during that 20 hour period, my parents' house was broken into. Apparently someone saw the ambulance and hauled him away and then they, they knew the house was empty and they hid it and they robbed it. And that was a tough day. And I called my sponsor. When I got back home and, and told him what, back to their house and told him what had happened. Before the evening was out, two guys from my home group showed up at the house on their own. They showed up with, they stopped at the hardware store, bought new locks. They came into the house. They changed all the locks. When it came time for the showing and the actual funeral, Steve F. At, uh, one of my, uh, one of the guys in my home group, he showed up at my parents' house and sat in the car outside the house just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house. Just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house. Just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house. Just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house. Just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house. Just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house. I hope your home group is a little bit like mine. So, here I am now with, uh, with this diagnosis and, and, uh, and I, and I begin another journey. You know, I, for a long time, I, I thought how could my life be unmanageable early in sobriety? How could my life be unmanageable when, when I manage, you know, $20 million worth of contract? Of course, I got to look at the contract. Of course, I got to look at the contract. Of course, I got to look at the contract. I looked at the fact, am I my job? I looked at the fact, am I my job? Am I my checkbook, all those usual things. And I thought I had come to terms with it pretty, pretty closely. And I thought I had come to terms with it pretty, pretty closely. But, but when, when, uh, when my defibrillator went off the first time, which is a, a real fun experience, Um, I was still trying to work and at that point I went from full-time to part-time work. And then, uh, I did that for several months. And then, uh, I did that for several months. And then it went off again, and now I'm no longer working. I'm on a drawn disability. And things are continuing to progress. And so now I had to go through this grieving process again of loss, of loss of... I thought I knew my identity was not my job, but until you actually are no longer engaged in that task, it's kind of theoretical, you know. What am I going to do? I get a phone call from a guy named Corey, a guy that I'm working with who's still working on baking his first cake, by the way. He says, I'm in trouble. Will you go through the work with me? I said, if you can get to my house, you can do it. We can do it. So, of course. Corey comes to my house on Thursdays. It wasn't too long after that I got a call from a guy named Jim. Jim's over a number of years, but he's extremely unhappy. I said, I don't know, if we go through the work together, maybe your life will get better. He comes to my house on Mondays. I get phone calls every day now. I get visitors who come by my house for visitors to visit every day now. And we sit on the patio, and we talk. We talk about second and third step a lot. I'm happy to report, since I'm no longer really in the workplace, that my amends list is a lot shorter. It's amazing when I don't leave the house and it's just me and the cat how little harm I can do. So instead of employing my time in that process now, I now have lots of opportunity for step 11. And whole new horizons are opening up to me. You know how doctors are. You were talking about, what, 18-year-old doctors? Boy, do I relate to that. Of course, I'm in a heart failure clinic, and I see these people fairly frequently. And they're a team. I don't have a doctor. I have a team. Bear with me. And, you know. Now, one of them is saying things like, you know, with what's happening now, the medicines you're on and so forth, you know, my blood pressure now is like 80 over 40. They want to keep it real low, so I've got to be real careful when I stand up and do those kind of things, because the world goes, and they're saying, we really think that you ought to be considering not driving anymore. And my initial response to these kind of things are, and it's crazy. I know it's crazy. How am I going to get back? How am I going to control this situation? I'll give you one of the plans that I came up with on my own. When I go into the clinic, they put this wand, literally, they put this wand over my chest, and through the power of electronics, they download this computer that's implanted in it. It tracks it and memorizes everything that every chamber does. And then after they do that, then they hit a few buttons, and they accelerate. They accelerate my heart rate real fast. And then they hit a few more buttons, and they take it real slow, and then they recalibrate it, trying to make it to the optimum performance until the next time around. And I'm sitting here thinking, well, what's the end going to look like? Is it going to look like shortness of breath? Is it going to be a slow suffocation? Do you ever do any projection? Oh, my God, this doesn't sound good at all. So here's my plan. I'm going to go in. They're going to download the data. And then during the process of recalibration, they turn it off and calibrate it and so forth. And when they turn it off, my plan is I'm going to get up out of the chair and walk out. Because I'd rather have this thing just have some cardiac death than have this thing drug out. Not a real saying, is it? I thought that this thing was, it really upset me. Because now this device is really going to dictate. And the assumption is that I had control over my heart to begin with. And I don't. Just a new understanding of powerlessness. So I have these guys in my life now. There's a fellow, a gentleman back here. Is it David? Is that David? I met David yesterday. And I just love David. David came up and was sharing with me and Kathy about what he does now and what's going on in his life. And I think you said you were two years sober, as I recall. And he showed me a photograph of what he looked like when he first came into the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. Wow. What a difference. There's a fellow, Sam, that I work with who, right after all this went down in my heart, and I was just so into Jim. And Sam, this fellow Sam, came up to me and knew who was a street person, street background. And he did not look very good. And he asked me to sponsor him. And I didn't really want to do that. You know, the difference between willingness and wanting, differentiating between the true and the false. Sometimes I think that willingness is what I want to do. It has nothing to do with it. You know what Sam does for me? He calls me every day. You know what Sam does? He does things like he calls up and says, Jim, this is Sam. As if I didn't know. I said, yeah, Sam. He says, I just want you to know I didn't drink today. How about you? I said, yeah, I didn't drink either, Sam. I said, Sam, how you doing on that amends list you put together? He said, well, I'm happy to report that I got it, that amends list that we put together up to this point in time, that we got it, that I got it done. And guess what I'm going to do now? I said, what's that, Sam? He says, now I can go buy myself a set of dentures. It's amazing what you people do for me. It helps me to understand my priorities. It helps me to understand that by cleaning the wreckage away, that I can, in fact, begin to have an improved relationship with my wife. And I can, in fact, have a relationship with a power greater than myself. That I can, in fact, begin to truly understand when the big book says that God doesn't make the terms too hard. And that the way for me to begin the process is to take a look at what these spiritual terms mean to me and not enter into them from a position of prejudice. I took that literally. I opened up a dictionary and started looking up words that I thought I knew the meaning of. Spiritual words like prayer, God. And I began to look at those words and see what the meanings were. All of this, all these actions have resulted in a cake that's currently in the oven. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens when this deal is done. But I encourage you to crack open the big book. Take a look at the recipe. Give it a shot. Thank you. To Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.