He Thought Al-Anon Was an Aluminum Kitchen Utensil – Jerry J.

Hi, I'm Jerry Jones and I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God and because this program works, I've been sober since January the 1st of 1973. I have many things. I'm a reformed lawyer. I started my reformation on January 1st when I retired after 40 years. I'm the adult spouse of an Al-Anon, a victim of Al-A-Non brutality, I can tell you. I'm delighted to be here. I've been wonderfully treated. Had baskets of goodies in my room, lovely people. Gary and Karen had picked me up at the airport. Sandy, who called me and talked to me from time to time, and she and Karen wrote me letters. I'm really honored to be here. I have enjoyed the programs, all of the programs that I've heard while I've been here. Sharon and Dottie, I enjoy their talks a lot. Mr. I is one of my favorite AA speakers, and I've been blessed to hear him on panels today, and don't miss tomorrow morning because you're going to hear a great talk by Tom. I won't get to be here, but I'll get the tape, and I'll listen to that. And then there's young Bob. Young Bob's going to, when he matures, is going to be a pretty good speaker, I'll tell you. It's been good for me to be with Bob, and Betty was a great gal, and we all feel for you. She made a difference. And so have you. So did your dad and Bill and all those that preceded us. It's good to go back to basics. Did you know that? I'm not going to get anybody sober here. That's God's business. All I can hope to do is give you my experience, and maybe it will encourage you, will nudge you along a little bit to go for it. You haven't got a hell of a lot to lose, but you don't know that. And the thing, you can have your misery back almost any time you want to. But it seems that we get here, we've got these preconceived ideas, and we know what we need and what we don't have, and we're kind of hard to move off the die, try to get going. And maybe these programs are good along that line. At least we share with each other, we get to experience each other. And they're good from that standpoint. But the basics of this program, Myler, is that you and I, those of us who are alcoholics, have an incurable disease or condition. We are different bodily and physically from our fellows. Now, our book tells us, and I believe the book, our book tell us that we have an abnormal physical reaction to alcohol. And that, to me, means it sets up a condition of craving when I put ethyl alcohol in my body. I take a drink, and i'll tell you what happens to me when I take the drink. I take a drink, and I don't know what happens after it goes in my mouth and down my throat and hits the bottom down there. It kind of warms things up, and my shoulders get a little looser, and my mind begins to run. And the mind says, I think we'll have another one of those. And another one, and another one. And another on until I've had too many. I did that a thousand times, maybe more. The other part of our condition is that we have a mind. Alcoholism centers in our mind, our book says. And I believe that today because I had this obsession. You know what an obsession is? An obsession is a great big thought. It is. It's so big it pushes all the other thoughts out of your head. It just takes over the whole damn mind. And my obsession with alcohol was, my thought was, a drink will make this situation better. A drink would improve this situation, whatever it is. Having a flat tire, celebrating a wedding, whatever happened to be, a drink would help this situation. And so I take the drink. I decide I'll have another one. I have another one. I drink too much. I wake up with a hangover. I know a drink will make this better? And the cycle continues on and on and I lose control. And at some point in my time, and I don't know whether there was ever a time when I could have stopped because I started very young having these kind of problems. Somewhere along the line I reach a point where I am beyond human aid. That means doctors, medicines, and drugs cannot cure me. That means the preacher can't necessarily cure me, he may help me find some spiritual help but what we're really looking for here the purpose of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is to enable you and I to make contact with a power greater than ourselves that will allow us to live happily despite this disease, to stay sober and be joyous and free Don't ever, ever discount that. Because that's the truth. That is the reality of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we can jazz it up with a bunch of cypher babble. We can try doing all kinds of goofy things. We can pop pills. We can do everything all around. But the basic fact is that's what 99.9% of us, that's all we need is this program. if we go for it. And what we have to do is find a way to go for it. Alcoholism is a strange disease. When I was a kid out in West Texas, I had a dog. And my dog had an experience that helped me explain alcoholism wasn't anything I ever could do. My dog's name was Patches. Patches was mostly an English bulldog. Patches was a brave, courageous dog. Everybody knew that. And he was kind of a hero, because in our community, he had whipped the badger. The badger weighed one pound more than he did, because after he killed that badger, we weighed them both, and the badge had him by a pound. To give you a little insight into Patch's character, after he'd killed that bagger, he'd go up in the field where he had that fight every day for about a week and pick up that old carcass and just shake hell out of it. Just to let that badge know that if he decided to come back through reincarnation or whatever, that he was there and he was ready. On the morning of the experience I'm going to tell you about, though, Patches was happy. He had no problems. He was a hero. Everybody knew about him. He was well fed. He was loved. He was not being worked. Everything was going his way until a neighbor's hog, big, ugly boar hog came in our yard. Bad hog. Long, yellow tusk. And Patches made a bulldog-like decision to get hold of the hog. And he went charging out there, and he was barking and growling. The hog began to squeal. Dad came running out of the barn to see what in the world was going on out there. And he saw that the dog was in this mess, and He was kicking hogs and dogs and cussing. I saw my dog go into that fray, so I went sailing out there to try to get that. Mother saw me get into there. She saw our kid going at this hog-dog kicking contest, you know. She came right out. Everybody in the barnyard had a problem. And we all had a problem. We'd gone from peaceful to chaos in just a minute. And we already knew the solution. The solution was Patches turned loose the hog, which was not his nature. He didn't turn him loose, but he came off after a while. And when he came up, he got cut along the back of the neck and shoulder. And Dad got him there. Dad picked that old bulldog up, and he was snapping and snarling. And he won that hog so bad. And Dad got him over to the water hydrant, and we turned the water on and cooled him off. And he sent me to the barn to get some pine tar to stop the bleeding. And we got that on his shoulder, and he settled down. He was all right again. And we turned old Patches loose, and Patches went right back and got hold of that damn hog again. Like a bullet. And he was barking and growling. The hog was squealing. Dad's cussing and kicking. I'm in the middle trying to get my dog out there. Your mother's trying to get me out of there. Everybody's got the problem. Once again, we all know the solution. Hogg knows it. We know it. Everybody knows it." Patches turned loose the hog. Well, he came off again. He came off. This time, Dad recognized that Patches was not himself. The psychiatrist among us would say that Patche's emotional nature was in charge of his intellect. which translated in lay terms is he was crazy as hell he was getting hold of something that he had no chance of winning this hog weighed four or five hundred pounds big hog patches weighed thirty five forty pounds you know he ain't going to whip that hog make him take badgers but he can't take hogs so dad took him over to the water hydrant and chained him up You committed him. That's what we're doing, committing him. Some of you know about that sort of thing. Dad then got in the pickup and drove the hog off because he wanted to remove the source of temptation. And he gave me the job of being the counselor to my bulldog. And I sat with my bulldogs, and I helped him think. I petted him and I nurtured him And we talked about deep things Like, Patches did you ever have a good day Getting hold of hogs What does your family think About this when you get a hold of a hog Do you recognize this causes stress Among all your friends And in about two hours I had cured him I could tell I had Cured him because he was now He wasn't straining to chain anymore He was laying down on the ground. His little stub of a tail was working. He had that bulldog grin on his face with his tongue hanging out. So I went to see my dad, the warden, and I said, Patches is next. Dad had had a little bad experience with him that day, so he checked him out himself, personal inspection, and he walked around me, and then he scratched his head, and he cut it, and they turned him loose. And Patches had to go two miles to find the hog this time. Can anybody here identify with any of the players? Did anybody ever suggest you turn loose the hog? I first identified, of course, with the other participants. I was the first hogging on in West Texas, I guess. But later on, I came to be like Patches. People told me, Leave it alone. Turn it loose. You would be a better man, husband, father, student, all kinds of adjectives if you just didn't drink. and it seemed like my problem was drinking. That's what everyone told me. Your problem is the way you drink. Otherwise, you're good at what you do. But Patch's problem only seemed to be getting hold of the hog. His real problem was what drove him out there in the first place. And what sent him back again and again and again. Now, Alcoholics Anonymous can't do anything to get you to stop drinking. Our book is written assuming that you have stopped. The secret is staying stopped. The secret ist finding some way that you can change yourself internally, mentally and emotionally so that you can live happy and free without alcohol. And that takes a power greater than human power. And our program is designed to put us in touch with that power. Now, we've all read a lot of articles about alcoholics and oddness, and very few of them ever describe it that way. Why? Because the world's a little skeptical because the world thinks it's saying a little too much to say that this bunch of drunks have found a way to make contact with a power greater than yourself, God. So they talk about group therapy. They talk about fellowship. And all those things are really true. They really help. But the underlying solution is the spiritual awakening that puts you in touch with the power. And I think that we must go back to that. I think we kind of get away from it. I think that we've listened to a lot of people too long talking about other things. And I think, you know, I think the treatment centers don't bring us drunks anymore. We've got to go back to hunting drunks. And some of us around us still have done some of that. We know where to find them. Some of you have been places where they are. But it's okay to go back to those places if you go to catch drugs. And bring them back. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't believe it was even a disease. I thought it was lack of willpower. I thought somewhere or other I had lost my internal strength. I turned into some kind of a wimp who couldn't decide what he was going to drink and drink it. I'd been very proud to drink. I liked drinking. I didn't drink until probably I was a young man I was an athlete I didn' t drink until I got through with athletics when I was about part of my freshman year and finally I just started running with a bunch of guys who drank and very quickly I liked it I liked where we did it I liked what we did when we did I liked the whole damn thing I get absolutely excited about getting drunk a week from tonight you know boy We are going to pool our money, get somebody to buy us some booze, get in a car that's got some gas in it, and we're going to start drinking, and there's no telling where the hell we'll be the next morning. And there wasn't. That was part of the excitement. Wake up somewhere. We're out. No one seemed to know. Followed closely by, what did we do? And nobody had the answer to that. We just kind of had to put that together. And the difference between the other guys and I was that I was always the guy who said, let's do it again. Why do you say we do that again? We could go north this time instead of south. There's no telling where that would take us. And I ran with a bunch of guys, and they all seemed to me like that's what we did. And I liked it, and I wasn't ever going to give it up. I wasn'T never going to get up. It helped me. I was raised on a little farm in Panhandle, Texas. My parents on both sides were, my family's on both sides were pioneers out there, first-generation pioneers that homesteaded over in New Mexico. We were self-reliant. We were, men were men. And that had a special kind of meaning, at least it did to me. It meant that, you know, you're supposed to take care of your own damn problems. You're not supposed to ask anybody for help. You're supposed to take care of your problems yourself. If it's bad enough, somebody will notice you've got a problem and they'll come help you. But you don't ask them for help." Now, you help your neighbors, but you don' t ask them to help you." You don't know anything about fear, because men out in West Texas are just not fearful. You never heard John Wayne or Robert Redford or any of those guys in the movies say, I'm a little insecure today, I'm not going to fight any of you, and say this guy. The only problem was, the only problem with me was that I grew up playing like that was who I was. But it wasn't true. I had fear. I had all kinds of fear. And it drove me places. I needed to be accepted. I needed a job. I needed something to be looked up to. I needed to be what you wanted me to be, whatever it happened to be. If you were the town bootlegger, I wanted you to think I was wild and crazy. If you're a Baptist preacher, I want you to thank God for a real nice kid, you know. I had a little trouble when I got those two together, but you know what I'm saying. And I knew that I wasn't some of those things. I had fear. I have felt pain. I didn't think other men did, but I did. I went out to football one day. And I was in eighth grade and they saw I was tall and they thought, well, you know, that kid may put on some weight sometime and we might use him. And so I went up one day and they put me in one of them uniforms to keep me from getting hurt. And we just ran around for a while, ran me a long time, further than I'd ever run before. And it's hard to run with all that stuff on you, but it's to keep you from getting hit. hurt and then they began to do a little scrimmage and then they hit each other pretty good and you know, it hurts like hell. And I was getting skin up bad and tired. Muscles were cramping and then they made me run some more. And I got all the football I ever wanted in about an hour and a half, two hours. But I had some buddies with me and we all decided we ain't going to play football. And so we went in and we were going to turn our equipment in to this coach. And they got their equipment off before I did and turned it in and told the coach they didn't want to play football. And the coach had a bunch of the older guys standing around there and they began to talk and they were going to talk about some guys having it and some guys not having it. And what they were talking about was that it was the yellow stripe down your back. And some guys had a yellow stripe and some people didn't. And the Coach turned to me and said, Jones, what do you think about football? I said, I've been wanting to play football all my life. I played every day on the football a coach would ever let me play. Broke bones, did all kinds of cute things, and I guess I got to like it somewhere along the line, but I sure was not motivated by a true interest in football when I began. So I let those values that I picked up all around me control my life, and I began to live them. I was competitive too. That was another thing that drove me. I considered achievement equivalent to importance and being. What are you? That means what have you achieved and what can you do? And if you couldn't do anything or if you hadn't achieved anything, you weren't much at all. And so I was after achievement on selective terms. Now, when I got to drinking, I ceased to try to make A's. I was not even interested in making A's or B's. C's were fine because I was having fun and I didn't. Whiskey gave me a chance to be irresponsible. I discovered irresponsibility from the loads that I put on myself And so I drank. Later on, it came back again. And I went to the Navy and did a pretty good job there and got married and had a son and got out with no visible means of support. Went to law school. Did well in law school。 Didn't drink much in law skill. Went to a law firm in Dallas where I stayed for four years. And pretty quick, I had to be a trial lawyer because you can't tell whether you're winning or losing if you're writing wills. I needed to know. I wanted to play. There was a game going on down at the courthouse called Trying Lawsuits, and they told you did you win or did you lose, and so I was a trial lawyer. And pressures got heavier. The money in the cases got larger. The responsibility got bigger. I had another little daughter, and the load became heavier on me, And I used that excuse or that stress or whatever. Alcohol served me for a long time. I drank more often. I could not be caught drunk in public for fear that I would get a DWI or my clients would see me or whatever, and so as I showed my disease at various times, I quit going to those places. And when you drink as long as I drank, there's a lot of places in Dallas you couldn't go because I'd shown my ass in quite a few places and so I wound up as a recluse in my home country and I drank every day and when I stopped to think, I didn't know anyone who drank like I did. I was drinking a quart of whiskey a day besides a little bit I could get at lunch occasionally that sort of thing and I functioned that way I got up every day and I went to work and And I kept succeeding. I failed succeeding. I made more money every year. I tried bigger losses every year, I got a little meaner every year I was a little more angry every year but it just folded into this practice and I kept moving up. And then the wheels began to come off. I lost interest I knew there was no purpose in my life I was an empty shell I wanted to be and tried to be I thought my clients wanted me to be the meanest sum of itch and doubts And I did a pretty good job imitating that And I didn't like being that kind of person It didn't fulfill me at all And winning, every time I'd win a case I just knew there would be just a little time until I'd lose one And the more I won, the more pressure I had on me because I knew the loser was coming. And everybody was going to look at me and say, well, he's a loser. I couldn't find any meaning in my work. I stayed at home when I wasn't working. And I sat in a green chair and I drank whiskey. And it was a miserable life. And my wife did something that was absolutely, absolutely against my wishes. And she began to go to Al-Anon. She didn't ask me if she could go to al-Anan. She didn' t discuss with me the wisdom of going to al anan. She didn''t ask my permission to go down. She just started going and she had been going quite a while when I found out about it. I found about it by my daughter. I asked her where her mother was. She said, well, I don't know daddy, she might be at one of those meetings. And I said, what kind of a meeting are you talking about? She said, oh, I don't know, Daddy. It's some kind of family meeting. Well, at this point in time, my wife and I had decided that if our marriage did not improve in the six-month period, we'd just get a divorce. Because all we did was fight about drinking. And she couldn't do anything to please me. and I had no joy. I wasn't having any fun. She wasn't Having any fun We were both pretty sick and it occurred to me that if she was going to family meetings under those circumstances probably I ought to have a representative present at those meetings. So she came in and I said where have you been? Now let me just interrupt this for a moment My wife is the most difficult witness I have ever cross-examined. If she does not want to give me information, it's virtually impossible to dig it out of her. And this was a night very early I recognized she didn't want to Give Me Information because I said, Where have you been? And she said, Out. Out where? To a shopping center. Which one? Preston Center. What did you do there? Oh, just met some friends. Who were they? You wouldn't know them. What did you do? Oh, we just shared our experience, strength, and hope. So I know I've got this job to do. I'm going to have to find out what the hell this is all about. So I just roll up my sleeves and I start closing doors and narrowing in, trying to get to the core of this whole thing. I finally get this word, Al-Anon. Al-A-Non. Al-Al-An-On. What would be an Al-Am-An? I'd never heard that word. Now, we weren't engaged in the kind of conversation where you can casually ask, What's an Al-Anon? That would not have served me well. It would take me another 25 minutes to get an answer to that. So I made an assumption. I assumed it sounded to me like that it was probable that Al-Al-Anons were some kind of an aluminum kitchen utensil. It wasn't. And when she started telling me what Al-Anon was, she ceased to be close with her answers. She began to just pour information out to me. It was a wonderful organization. People would pay $500 a seat if they only knew how good it was. Everyone was welcome. it was the most beautiful thing she had ever encountered the finest people and the only thing you needed to go to Al-Anon was a friend or family member who had a problem with alcohol I'm the ticket I'm just been made senior partner in the largest law firm in Dallas and my wife is going to a public meeting where everyone is welcome to proclaim that I have a problem drinking. That's not bad enough. That's no good. That's just not bad enough. My law firm's already got two alcoholics, and I'm pretty sure that's a full complement of alcoholics they don't want anymore. I've heard them say what they're going to do with those guys, and they're a lot more senior, a lot mehr powerful men than I am. They're going get rid of them just as quick as they can. And I know since I just got in the door, they're gonna kick me out the day they hear about it. And I got sober almost instantly. And I said, Billy, you must listen to me now. And I gazed deeply into her eyes and I said have you noticed that I'm the only one who brings any money to this house? She said yes. Yes, I understand. I said did you notice that we owe a lot of people money on furniture and cars and houses things like that. Yes, she knows that. I said, do you know if you don't make payments on that, do you Know what they do? She said, what do they do. I said they come and get it. They take it away from you. Now when my partners hear that you're going to Al-Anon for my problem and you think I'm an alcoholic I'll be out of work immediately. The pay will stop. The creditors will come and get all this stuff. And we're not talking about our children's education now. We're talking about survival. We're talkng about standing naked in the streets of Dallas with our children in the middle of the damn winter. That's the risk you're subjecting us to. And I said, You've got to quit going to that thing. She said, I think I need to go. And I say, Billy, please do not go to those meetings. And she said, Jerry, I believe I'm going to go. And I said, Billy, if you go to another damn one of those meetings, I'll kill you just sure as hell. And she went and I didn't kill her. But she drove me crazy. Every time I saw her, I thought, Al-Anon, Al Anon. Every day I went to work, I thought, today they're going to ask me about this. Somebody's going to call in. I could think of thousands of people who drifted into one of those meetings. Clients, clients' wives, lawyers, lawyers' wives. Judges are always going everywhere, you know, glad-handing. There were thousands of them. If one of them saw, they'd call my partners and I'm out. And I was just living in constant dread of getting her out of that damn thing. And we argued and we fought and we did all sorts of things. I could not leave this alone. I became obsessed with getting her out of the home. One night, I was going to sneak up on her. I'm not always totally straightforward when I get ready to get in a fight. This night, I went in the kitchen and she was cooking dinner and I put my arm around her and said, did you have a nice day? And she said she did. How's the dog and the kids? Everything's just fine. What are all of us good for dinner? Yes, yes. I said, Billy, I've been thinking. I've Been Thinking. You think I'm an alcoholic. And she said, I don't know whether you are or not. I said, well, that's damn funny. You've been calling me an alcoholic for years. She said, yes, but I was wrong. So it doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't care what your partners think. It doesn' t matter what your mother and father thinks. It doesn't matter what the kids think. It doesn' t matter what your doctor thinks. It matters only what you think, because you' re the only one that can do anything with that information. And if you don' t think you' ve got a drinking problem, you' ll never do anything about it. This wasn' t going exactly my way. I had received lots of information that I never even dreamed I would get. And it's hard to start a fight when they're acting like this, I'll tell you that. And I said, well, I made a mistake here. This is a very basic tactical mistake for lawyers. You should never ask a question when you don't know the answer, particularly in a situation like this. And I said, well, if I wanted to find out if I was an alcoholic, how would I do it? And the jaws of the Al-Anon trap closed just like that. She had me. I wanted you to know the answer. I really did. I was even open to hearing it. And she said, well, they tell me that you could quit entirely, but I don't think you want to do that. She said, but they say if you really want to find out, then you could just try some controlled drinking. I said, what is controlled drinking? I never heard of such a concept. You drink what you want, don't you? She said, well, they say that if you drink two drinks a day, every day, never miss a day for six months, and you never exceed the two, then you're not an alcoholic. I said, are you telling me that you want me to continue? We've been talking about me quitting drinking, and you're trying to get me to quit drinking for years. Are you trying to getting me to drink another six months? She said yes. And I realized I was dealing with a very sick woman. Nothing in this conversation had gone the way I thought it was, and I'm smart enough now to get the hell out of Dodge if things are not going your way. So I said, that's the stupidest test I ever heard in my life. And I walked off, and I sat down in my chair and had a drink and thought about that thing. Now, I believe that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous takes an alcoholic who is living in the world of illusion and delusion and moves him into the world. The world of reality. I didn't think I had a problem. I've done a lot of things at that point in my life that should have indicated to any sensible human being that I had problem. Now, I had, on one occasion, or several occasions, I smoked heavily and I burned some little holes in the bedcloth. Well, I get up, you know, I'm tired. She puts me to bed without letting me go to the bathroom or without taking me to the bedroom. I've got to go find the damn thing, you Know. And I'm an automatic smoker and I know where my cigarettes are and I grab them, I light up and I go searching for the damn bathroom. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't. There's a lot of similarity between closets and bathrooms. Did you ever know that? Then I'd come back, and I wasn't through with my cigarette, and I'd kind of lay back, but I was tired. Drinking must have made me tired because I'd lay back on the pillows and I would smoke a little while, and once in a while I did burn a tiny little hole in the blanket. And she overreacted. She just, you know, overreacting. And I explained to her, the reason you have that nice cover on the top is to cover up little imperfections like that. And that worked pretty good until one night I woke up and there was a pretty good fire going on my side of the door. We got it out, and the next morning I intuitively knew, they say we don't intuitively know something, but I intuitively new the next moment I need to get the hell out of that house. And so I shaved and showered and got out of the house. As I went out, I said, buy any kind of bed you want. When I came home, she had written me a letter. I was coming home. I don't know why she wrote me a letter, but she wrote me a letter. She said, Jerry, I've been talking to you about your smoking and drinking. We've now reached the point where I can no longer go to bed at night without worrying about my own life or the lives of our children. You've got to do something about your smoking and drinking. And I did. I quit smoking. if you ever burn up a bed like that it's really hard to explain that and the best explanation I've ever heard is to just tell them you think he was on fire when you got in well back to my little test I thought about that test for several weeks and I'd go to work I knew they were going to fire me today, and I'd see my wife, and I'd think about the test. And I didn't talk to anybody. I had nobody I could talk to. And I decided that somebody was going to have to try to save that damn family. It looked like I was the only one who was responsible enough to do it. I was goingto lose my profession. I was gonna lose, you know, everything. So I had to pass that damn test to get her out of Al-Anon. I didn' t mean to cut back a little, to be honest. And so I decided what I'd do is I would take the test, and I wouldn't tell her anything about taking it. I'd just start doing it. And I knew she counted and watched all the time. And she'd see that she was making a terrible mistake in the forelock, that I was truly in control of my destiny, and I could drink what I wanted to drink. And so, I started taking the test. I had to change the test a little. Well, you don't understand. And two drinks didn't do me any good, but I had a pretty good-sized glass. And I thought I would just have two big martinis before dinner, eat dinner, have one cup of coffee, drink a big brandy, and then switch to coffee and finish out the day. Nobody could fuss at a man for drinking like that, not when they had the kind of pressures I had on me, living the kind pressure cooker life that I did and fighting with judges and lawyers and hell. So I started trying to do that. And I got my first dose of reality. Something happened that I didn't even suspect. I would get one drink down, begin to loosen up a little, you know, drink about half the second drink, and I'd think, My. It's about all the martinis today. Hmm. Hmm. Then it would happen. Then it would happen, a voice, a thought, would come into my head. And it would be something like this, it would say, what are you doing? What are you doing? Are you over 21? Are you a man? Do you have all those pressures on you? Are you supporting all these damn kids and the family and the dogs? Or do you have a bunch of little old ladies in tennis shoes telling you how to drink whiskey now? The answer was, hell no. And I drank the bottle. Or I'd go to the bar and I'd think, I've had a bad day. It's a bad way. Bad day. Not going to be any test today. and I'd drink the bottle. Or I could forget it. I could just forget the damn thing for some short period of time. But then my wife sponsored God Love Her. God Love Er. I certainly didn't. She told her to start every day, the moment she became conscious in the morning, to say aloud, God, this is the day the Lord has made. I shall rejoice and be glad in it. Now, when you've had a quart of whiskey the night before, one of your eyes has been propped open for two or three hours and you're as dry as a bone in there. You can't close it or open it any further or anything. Your tongue's got that fuzz on it about so thick, you know. Your heart's up here in your head just banging away and it's hurting like hell. And you hear those words. At least when I heard those words, it occurred to me that I'm not going to rejoice a hell of a lot today. I'm just not going do it. And I wondered why I couldn't do that. Why couldn't I drink three drinks? I'm a grown man. I've achieved a lot. I've got a lot of willpower. Why can't I decide to drink three drinks and just drink three drink? and for a long time my answer was well I'll do it today I'll give the test a good chance I ran it for a year and a half never passed it one time and what happened to me was that I was completely demoralized I took a whipping internally no one ever knew I was taking that test I was the only person who knew it my wife didn't know it for over a year after I got an AA that thing beat me to death on December 31, 1972 I'd had a bad December I'd have a bad 1972 and I was ready for a new year let me tell you The only objective I had, just had one objective. I had to be on my feet functioning at midnight. I could be drunk, but I needed to be functioning. I needed it to be with the people. We were going to go out to dinner and then we were coming back to my house. I know why we're coming back because we're going to be drinking. We're going back to our house because already that month, one time I got out and got drunk and it took a long time to get me back. And so we're going to have me at the house sober when we start the New Year celebration. And that's okay. I'm a man of accepted responsibility, and I was willing to come home. Of course, I could mix better drinks than I'd buy in a bar anyway. So I got it all set up, and now I'm going to make it. Mixed my first drink of the day that morning. Billy says very kindly, Jerry, remember, we're doing out this evening. That means watch it, Clyde, don't get drunk on me. I said, I got it. I got to go. I got out of it. Don't worry. I didn't have any pressure on me that day. I wasn't mad at anybody. I wasn'T being nagged. I had no excuse in the world. But I woke up and looked out the window and it was pitch black outside. I looked over at my wife and she was sitting in her chair. She was wearing a robe and reading a little book. And I said, Billy, shouldn't we be getting dressed to go to dinner? She said, Oh, Jerry, don't you know what time it is? It's after ten that night. I'd passed out at five o'clock in the afternoon. And I was sick of me. Lots of you know that feeling. You don't know what's wrong. You don'T know why. You hate yourself for being what you are. You're disappointed with yourself. You're ashamed of yourself. I knew my wife had had to call those people and say, Folks, we can't go to dinner with you. And oh, by the way, you can't come to our house either because Jerry isn't feeling well or she may have told him he's drunk or in hell he passed out. She was an Al-Anon for a while then and they tell the truth a lot. And I got up from my chair and went to the bar and mixed a big drink. And I knocked myself out, which is exactly what I wanted to do. God willing, that's the last drink I will ever have. Got up the next morning and I knew that, I don't know, I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time just sitting on the edges of thebed thinking about what I'd done and thinking about what I tried to do and how I couldn't pass that damn test how all I thought about was drinking and wishing I'd never drank wishing I could drink all I wanted to and nobody was keeping up with me but knowing full well that I was the one that was keeping UP with this nobody was counting my drinks and I thought about what I could try to do and the only thing I could think of there was only one thing I hadn't tried and that was to stop drinking something I promised I would never ever do but that morning didn't seem like such a bad idea so I walked in the kitchen and I told Billy I said, Billy, I'm sorry about last night she was really, you know she didn't react too well to that statement because she had heard that before a time or two and I said I'm going to try to quit drinking and she heard that she said I am delighted that she ran over and grabbed a copy of the book Alcoholics Anonymous which just happened to be in the bookshelf had a copy of the little 24 hour book with it and she came trotting over and she said you may find these helpful would you like for me to call someone from AlcoholicsAnonymous and the West Texan rose up and said hell no I got myself in this deal and if anybody's going to get me out of it, it'll be me. And you keep them damn kids and the dogs and MAs the hell out of my way because this may not be pretty. She said something loving, and now I'm like, You got it, and walked off. I lasted two days. I shook and chimed, and when you're doing something bad for yourself, you quit, and it ought to get better. But it didn't. I couldn't sleep. I was shaking on the inside and the out. I sweat all the time. I couldn'T be in the right place. If I was outside, I ought to be inside. If Iwas inside, Iought to be laying down. IfIwas laying down, I'd be standing up. I oughtto be outside. I'm just moving and grooving, you know. And I'm watching people. Nobody else is having my kind of problems. I am totally isolated and alone. I don't have anybody I can talk to. I don't have anybody that can empathize with me. No one in this outfit understands me, and I'm dying. So I decide, well, I'll sneak in there when she's not around, and I'll read some of that stuff that them AA&As have there, you know, see what they do. And so I sneaked in there, and sure enough, she left the books out where I could find them. And I didn't want to get caught doing this now because I've told her I'm going to do this by myself, you see. So it took a little 24-hour book, and I opened it up to January 2nd. And on January 2rd, it says something about alcohol has ruined your life. I said, yes, yes! And it said something about this year we're going to give our drinking problem to God and leave it there. I've never been as disappointed in my life. I've got an industrial grade problem, and here they're giving me Sunday school class. I'm proud all right. How are you going to give somebody something you can't find? I've been looking for God ever since I was a little old bitty kid. I mean, I've done it. I've gone down to the front. I've become baptized, dumped, sprinkled, all of them things. People grab me and say tears in their eyes, Oh, Jerry, this is wonderful. Don't you feel different? And you know what I told them? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. I was more disappointed than ever because nothing had happened to me I wanted something to happen I wanted a bush to talk to me or walk on a little water or something now don't get me wrong I believe there are people like Bill Wilson who have vital spiritual experiences which occur to them in an instant I think the world is full of people like that the churches are full of people who've had that kind of experience or the educational variety that you and I, many of us have had. But I didn't have that. The reason being that I had too much self-centeredness in my life and I was blocking God from me. I didn'T know that then and I don'T know why I did what I did next but I threw that little book out in the middle of the table and said, God, if You're there I'm going to give You this drinking problem and if You take it I may do some more business with You. I guess that's the best prayer I ever said I was honest as I could be I was in deep need I was scared to death I was really needing a drink bad and nothing happened woke up the next morning still wanting a drink still shaking still all that stuff going on only thing different was I knew something this day that I had never known before I knew that day that I was not going to be able to get through that day unless I got some help I needed some help and I needed help that had skin on it I needed another human being to be with me in this room and I called Alcoholics Anonymous and I came to you with all the reservations that you can imagine I only wanted a little bit of what you had to offer I didn't want to encumber my life with you And I called this lady and told her that I had a little problem with drinking. And I wondered what, for some kind of a meeting I might be entitled to go to. And she said there was. She asked me how much I drank. And I told her how muchI drank pretty accurately. And shesaid, well, you need to goto a meeting every night. And I thought, that's impossible. That's impossible, I'm a very busy lawyer and have a lot of important clients. And I just couldn't do that. She said, why not? What do you do in the evenings? And I said, well, I've been drinking. She said. Well, you're going to quit that so you're going to have a lot of time on your hands. I kind of skipped over that and I said I need to go to a very discreet group. I need to be, you know, my clients will not want an alcoholic lawyer and no one wants an alcoholic lawyer. Even drunks don't want an alcoholic lawyer. We don't advertise in the phone books, nothing. Anyway, I said, she said, what kind of group do you want to go to? And I said well, you know, something that's sort of near a country club or it's made up of college graduates, that kind of a group. And she said well, we ain't got none of them. This thing was going nowhere. You can see that. Finally, I selected one called the Town and Country Group. It had kind of a woodsy sound to it, you know. I thought probably most people there drove station wagons. So I went. I went and met her once a week, whether you needed it or not. And I went to the meeting, and I met some nice people there. I met my first sponsor there. And they were nice folks. They had years of sobriety. I mean, their baby had a year and a half. The next guy had five years. And then they got serious about it. They had 12, 15, 20 years. There were a bunch of old-timers who met at homes, just didn't want to do the big group scene, and there were about eight or ten of them, and they were very nice to me, and They talked to me. But I could look at those people, and they didn't look like drunks to me! I mean, if you had the kind of problems I was having on a daily basis, you could not stay sober a year and a half. You just couldn't do it. must have been light cases. I had a heavy case of what was going on. And I was having a lot of trouble with that, and I kept hanging on. One night after about a month, a guy came in from Hartview, South Dakota, where he'd been in a treatment center. He had six glorious months of sobriety. He has literature sticking out of every pocket. He knew more about alcoholism than anybody I'd ever heard in my life. And besides that, he was still quick. I was quick when I got sober in the beginning, you know. And we sat at that meeting and he looked at me and I looked at him. And we knew we were dealing with real alcoholics. And I followed him right out the door and I said, David, What do you think about this Alcoholics Anonymous thing? And he said, Oh, this little group is not for us. He said, We need to go to a meeting every night. It sounded different coming from David. He said we've got to get in the middle of AlcoholicsAnonymous. We've gotto change the way we think and react to life. We've gotta do the steps, whatever that is. We've got to have sponsors. We've Got to Make Coffee. I don't know what coffee had to do with this, but that's what David was telling me. And the miracle happened for me because I said, Where are we going to go? Now, this guy just came into town one day, and I'm asking him where we're going to go, and he's got an answer. He tells me about a new little group that's formed, just starting, way out north over the top of a 7-Eleven store, and I told him I might go there. And he said, well, I might see you tomorrow night. And I said, okay, we might see each other. And I chased that place just like I was going to rob it. I had the street address, and the first time I went by, I drove about 50 miles an hour, just boom, looked outside, made the block, and came back, and pulled into the 7-11 store and went inside and got myself a drink and as I went in, I glanced up to see if they had spies at the window and I didn't see any spies. That was a good sign. And they weren't photographing my car or anything like that. I got my drink and I never noticed there was a driveway around the end of the building. And I drove around the back of it and just like I knew what I was doing, I drove down that driveway and turned in the back and there it was. Six parking places in the alley. I could park my car in the alley, climb the fire escape and go to Alcoholics an opportunity. And that's the way I went. I was as skeptical as anyone you've ever seen. I did not want to be there early. I did NOT want to BE hugged. I didn't want you shaking my hands. I DIDN'T tell you my name, except my first name. I just wanted to get in and get out of there with whatever you had to offer. And they were different. They hugged you, and I was telling Sandy and I, this one woman got you to just grab me and hug me all the time and tried to get me coffee, and I didn't want hugged. I didn' t want coffee. I wanted her to leave me the hell alone. She was always so cheerful. God, I just couldn' t stand her. They did funny things there. They did really strange things for me. A guy would get behind the podium, and he'd say, My name's George, and everybody would say, Hi, George. Like high school Harry, you know, the funniest damn thing I'd ever seen in my life. Some kind of, I want them to teach me the grip now, you know. I was cool, you Know. And they told terrible stories about themselves. Just god-awful things they told. And the worst things they'd told, the more people laughed. They just laughed like hell because it was the worst sense of humor I'd ever heard in my life. But I'm competitive. and I've done a couple of things that were kind of cute so I told them one of my things and they put their arms around me and laughed and said look at Jerry he's beginning to open up he's being a good boy he's getting to be who he really is the facade is falling all you can ever be my friends is who you are in the chair you're in tonight And that's enough. There's a part of you you just can't screw up. It's bright and it's clean and as good as it was the day you were born. And what we have to do is get all the stuff off the top of that and let it shine. It's God's Spirit that's in each one of us. We're God's kids and He didn't make no grandkids. We're all alike. And when you're being yourself, living inside your own values, you have the greatest freedom you'll ever know. If you're doing something that makes you feel bad that's outside your values, you better change your values or change your conduct if you want to live free and comfortable in this world. And the process of Alcoholics Anonymous was designed to let us find those things, to get rid of the trash in our lives, to learn the lessons of our lives in that fourth step and fifth step, to rectify the wrongs that we've done other people And life changes. I had people in that first year that stopped me on the street and said, what happened to you? Whatever you're doing, keep doing it because you're sure looking different and looking better. I had a man that I'd been there hunting with that I had been on a church board with that I've been in his home. Knew him pretty good. Didn't know him well, but we're close friends. I was fishing in Colorado a couple of years after I got sober and he stopped me. I was in a fly shop up there And I saw him and I said, hi Bill. And he got this quizzical look on his face and he came walking up toward me and he said, aren't you Jerry Jones? I said well yes. Yes. He said what happened to you? And I said well I've got a few more gray hairs lost a couple got some nicks he said no no you're not angry anymore you're never going to get angry anymore what happened? to you. And I couldn't put him off. I had to take him by the side and we sat on the curb and I told him about what had taken place in my life. I hadn't worked a day on stopping being angry. What I tried to do is learn to live above anger. To live a life where anger doesn't happen the way it used to happen. Where I didn't have so much to protect. Where I Didn't Have to Prove Things. Where I lived an easier, softer life. My life radically changed. I've had so many wonderful things happen to me I can't begin to tell you all of them I got to help people I got to take people to meetings that I found in deplorable circumstances people that I knew could not get well they'd just too far gone they couldn't talk and make a complete sentence and I would have taken a picture of them if I thought there was any chance that they were going to get well so we could have a before and after picture And in a little while, doing what you told them to do, they turned into sensible, attractive human beings. And that was a wonderful city. And one time you've participated in one of those changes, you don't ever have to wonder again what the meaning of life is. I don't know what it is generally, but for me it's to help drunks. It's to keep doing it. That's the best feeling I've ever had in my life, is to see someone else make it and begin to help stick out their hand and help somebody else. It is a remarkable... You won't want to miss this, our book says. You will not want to missed this. And I guarantee you, you won't wanna miss it. I put my life back together. I went and told those partners. Eleven months after I'd been sober, Every day I went to work, I continued to worry that they knew. Not only was my wife going down, now I'm going to this AA thing. And then they began to push me around and have me talk at different places. And I'd scan the audience to see if there was anybody there who wasn't supposed to be there. And I just knew they were going to call in. Call in. And they would call me. Then one day, my paranoia took over. I still had a little paranoia. And I thought, they know. They know. They're waiting until the annual partners meeting, and they're going to embarrass me, stand me up in front of the whole damn partnership, and fire me right there on the spot. And then I said I'm relatively competitive and a little aggressive. I thought to hell with them. I'm going on the offense. And I picked out five of them, and I went to tell them by God so they couldn't get me in that big room and tell me that. They were going to fire me before the thing started, or they weren't going to find me at all. And I went through the meanest one first. The man had no sense of humor. The man has never been considered loving in his life, I don't think. Cold as steel. Immediate reactions to things. And I walked in. He was the managing partner of the law firm. And I walk in and I said, I've got something to tell you. He said, what is it? And I sat down and I started to have a cup of coffee. He said,"What is it?" I said,"Well, it is that I'm an alcoholic and I've been sober for 11 months in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm not telling you this because it's good or bad I'm just telling you because it is and you need to know it if you ever see me drinking again some of our clients are in trouble and if you never know anybody that's got my problem I think I know a way to help them and I waited for his reaction and it was instantaneous he said I am delighted we knew something was wrong with you but we didn't know what the hell it was I said, I asked you about drinking and you said you didn't have a problem and I said I lied or I didn't know I don't know which and he sat there for a half hour and told me how badly that law firm needed me and what he said we noticed a change in you he said I'd even heard you quit drinking but I'm not much impressed with people who get on the water wagon so they get off and push from time to time he said but that AA he said that's a hell of a deal and he said you know when you say you're an alcoholic that's something people who've got your problem can hardly ever say and he says we need you here you've got a great future here and we've already started sending you work have you noticed we're sending you a lot more work and I said yeah I noticed I was getting a little work here again and I walked out of his office I knew no fear I could have whipped King Kong left handed and I went and told those other partners by God me and the boss had a conversation and I told him I was in Alcoholics Anonymous and he said he was glad to hear that I was there and every one of them reacted the same way except one one of the two one had died one was left and he wouldn't talk to me about this he wanted to talk about anything in the world except what I was talking about I finally said you're just going to have to listen to this because I've got to tell you. He said, Oh, I know. I'm an alcoholic. And I said, Well, if you ever need any help, I know a way out. And he said, well, I'm not drinking right now and I think I've got a good handle on it this time. Well, he did have a handle for about two months and he got off and got drunk and got the damnedest mess you ever saw in your life. He had clients mad, locked in his hotel room, lawyers on the other side raising hell trying to find out where he was. It was just a zoo, just the kind of alcoholic calamity that we can create. And a whole team of lawyers left my law firm and went down and got the thing straightened out, and they got him on an airplane and called me and said he's on flight number so-and-so. He arrives at the airport at a certain time. When he gets off the airport, off the airplane, I mean, he belongs to you. Do with him as you will. This guy was the attorney to one of our presidents. And a brilliant man. And he got off the airplane. He was having a little trouble. He was navigating a little. He had to walk one foot before the other one. And he had his glasses off for some reason and a little hat on his head and he couldn't get his glasses on because one earpiece kept tangling up in the middle of his hat and the other one kept going in his ear. And he went to treatment and he's never had another drink. That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had the good fortune to get rid of that anonymity, get rid off it as quick as you can if you want to work with other alcoholics. Be a recovering alcoholic in your community. let your employer know it. It's rampant. It's shot through. I can't tell you the number of times I've been caught by people to try to help. I've bee involved in bar association activities to find lawyers who are alcoholics. I helped start an organization that's now spread across the state of Texas to work with lawyers called Lawyers for the General Lawyers all because I dropped that M&A and had no fear then about who knew I was an alcoholic. I've never known anyone to be harmed in any way by being a sober member of Alcoholics Not. I believe it. Internal things have happened to me. My mother had cancer. She had cancer for a long time, and one time I went to see her when she had cancer and she was going to be operated on, and I wasn't going to drink. I wasn' t going to bring this drink. She didn' t drink. She died with five years of continuous sobriety. She wasn't much impressed with my need to drink. She told me that I was ruining my family. She told Me, I was Ruining My Life. And I just had to tell her to mind her business because I had to drink it. But at the time, I wasn't going to drink because she was in trouble and she had been my buddy forever. She and I fought things together on that little farm. She was as close a friend as I'll ever have. Man, I went up there and they operated and the doctor came out almost immediately. I leave one of the doctors and said, you know, it's no good, Jerry. There's cancer spread everywhere. She will not live a year. And it was like somebody turned a switch inside me. All the resolve I had just went up to her. And I turned and just walked right past my dad out of the hospital, got in the car, drove to the liquor store, and bought me a bottle of vodka. And for two or three days, I stayed around there and drank vodka and coffee and Coke or anything I could get it in. Trying to play like I was sober, and everybody knew I was drunk. She came out of recovery and she didn't die right away and she knew I Was Drunk. And they sent me home because I was of no value. I got into Alcoholics Anonymous and chemotherapy. They tried chemotherapy on my mom. Apparently it worked because she had a number of good years after that. But then one day, about five years sober, I got another call. And the call was that, you know, we found another lump. Will you come up? so I went and I sat in the hospital with her and we everything was easy but then first thing first amend I ever made was to mail my folks a copy of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous tell them this is the way I'm going to try to live my life from this point forward and they thought God they thought that was the best thing they ever had they went to a lot of meetings with me and it was we were easy and comfortable and loving and it was okay she said Jerry I want you to get the family in here I want to talk to them. So I went and got everybody and rounded them up and we all got in a room and she said, folks, I've been fighting cancer for 17 years and I'm pretty tired. I'm older and I don't know whether I'm going to make it this time or not. I don' t know. She said, I'm gonna try. I'm not giving up at all. Please don't think I am but it's gonna be hard. And she said it's going to be hard for you too. And while this is going on lean on Jerry. He'll be your strength. And it was. She died after two horrible, horrible weeks. She never really ever gained any kind of consciousness. It was just a nightmare. My dad blew a big ulcer right in the middle of that and I had to take out most of his stomach. He didn't get to go to the funeral. And I went through that. You know, I never thought about taking a drink. Not once. not one time, not a second did I ever want to escape that situation. I wanted it to be over but I could handle reality. The steps of Alcoholics Anonymous had moved me into reality. I had found the great reality deep inside me and it was enough to carry the date for me. It was a wonderful experience when I look back on it. A gift, if you will. And it's available to all of us. It's not anything spectacular for me. It's available for all of you. We're all going to have life experiences that are not good. We have some good times and some bad times. But the power is with us always, good and bad. It makes the good times better. It makes them horrible. I don't know what my role is in life from this point forward I've been a lawyer for a long time and I've stopped doing that I've got two wonderful kids they each have three grandkids for me they're glad we go see them but they're supporting themselves they're good sober citizens my son's got 16 years he's doing well and he came in through me and that was a wonderful thing that I was able to restore that relationship so that he could come to me when he was in trouble. My wife, Billy and I will celebrate 44 years of marriage this year. I asked her recently, I said, Billy, I've been thinking about something and she's always when I use that word think. Her alarm system goes off So now, she never knows quite what's coming. I said, I've been thinking, if I drank again, would you still love me without batting an eye? She said, yes, yes I'd love you. I'd miss you, but I'd like it. I want to close tonight by this is my absolute favorite story in recent years I was told this story by a young woman from the general service office and I was speaking at a conference a few years back it's about Lois Lois Wilson, one of our co-founders. And Lois lived a long, poor life. She was the last one of us, the last ones of our founders to leave us. And she was in the hospital in New York and she was dying. Everyone knew that she was died. She was in intensive care. She had tubes everywhere like they do. She couldn't speak. And the manager of the general service office said that he felt like he should go and say goodbye to her and thank her on behalf of Alcoholics Anonymous for the contribution she had made in saving our lives. So he went. And they visited a little. She had a little pad she could write a few words on. He told her the news of the day. Then he said, Lois, I came here today on behalf of Alcoholic Anonymous to thank you for saving our life. and she picked up a little pad and she wrote not me God he said ok Lois you got me yes yes you're right it is God but Lois you were his messenger and she picked up a little pad and wrote and so are you and so are all of you we didn't deserve what we got here we are the least deserving people you could imagine you know we didn't really if we can you imagine the miracle of just us being allowed to come here going to the manager of a large hotel and saying look we got about 300 drunks who would like to come in we've broken most of the laws of this country we've ran off from all of our obligations don't pay our debts at all So we'd like to get together and just share our experience. Here you sit. Here you sit. That's come to us because of a loving God. That's called God's grace. And we owe the obligation to pass it on. You can look at it selfishly and say, we get to keep it as long as we give it away. But there's more to it than that. You need to be grateful, and we are for what we have. I heard a lot of gratitude this weekend. And, you know, there's a guy in my group that says, you know if you can't be grateful for what you've got, be grateful towards what you don't have that you don' t want. So we live a life of gratitude. And the way we give back the thing that's been given to us is to pass it on to the alcoholic who still suffers. We ought to have a lot more people here next year. I hope every one of you has got a sniveling, shaking drunk sitting next to him when you come here. One of those kind, you know, with a three-day growth on his beard and his flies rusted. and he talks about being a perfectionist you know him you know it bring him here the power is here the power is in your home group the power is in those meetings the power the vehicle that gets us to the power of those steps don't sell this thing short Don't go second best. Go for the best there is, which is to be clean and sober and God-fearing and trying to carry His message to those who still suffer. God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Thank you again for having me.