Higher Power Became Personal Not Because I Believed but Because I Repeated Words I Didn’t Mean – Jay P.

My name's Jay Plumbach, I'm an alcoholic.
Hi Jay!
But I got, now that I got that mic down there,
I'm gonna be here tonight just to watch the other people.
I'm seven foot a bunch to five foot nothing.
That'll do.
When I said I'm Jay
and I'm an alcoholic, I said it all.
That's all there is.
And I didn't know that for a long, long time.
My sobriety date
was March the 8th, 1974.
Right on.
The fact that I even had to take a drink
a day at a time from then till now,
I will never, never
ever feel this sense of gratitude I feel.
I can say frankly,
that certain gratitude is being committed
to alcoholics now.
And I just sometimes feel like I've come up short.
I'm trying to, I'm trying to
admit that I have this gratitude.
I see it in people.
You know, we talked about the twins,
eleven years old.
Think about your own kids.
I think about mine.
How tough is it to leave their birthday?
That's a big day in a kid's life.
You know?
You leave their birthday,
you get them white, they're like racing,
but you still call a few with a commitment.
And you know, that's alcoholics.
I don't just look at old times.
I look at the eyes of alcoholics,
the eyes of people in AA.
And I see who's committed.
And those are the people that I want to be like.
Because all I got
is alcoholics now.
That's all.
And I didn't plan on that.
I didn't plan on being an alcoholic.
Don't know the hell a lot of people that did.
I've done some surveys in AA,
and I don't know anyone that said,
you know, what I really want to do
is grow up and be a wino.
In fact, if I do real good at that,
someday I'll be in
the Kansas talking about it.
Wasn't my plan.
Toto didn't mean nothing to me.
But I had other aspirations growing up.
There were other things I wanted to be.
One time I wanted to be a lawyer.
You know, then it was an honorable profession.
I read a book about a guy named Clarence Darrow,
and as I read that book,
I was impressed.
This is a guy that was good at what he did.
He made a lot of money.
He was flamboyant.
People liked him, and he was successful.
And I said, I want to be like that.
That was a model for me.
You know, there were many other models in my life,
and every one of these models had attained them.
Certain material things,
and not just material things,
but other things.
I'd pick them out and say, I want to be like that.
But you know, as I looked at it,
I learned discipline.
I learned certain things,
and I was never willing to pay those prices.
I wasn't willing to go through them.
And yet, if one of you would have pointed out to me
the price that I was going to pay
to get to today,
I'd have said, you're crazy.
If you'd have told me, you'd have said,
Jay, you're going to sacrifice every principle in your life.
You're going to give up everything that means anything
just to get there.
I'd have said, you're crazy.
I'll never give up.
And I gave all those things up and more
and I didn't know I was giving them up.
I was born like everybody else.
I thought I was normal.
Hell, I felt normal.
I didn't know anything else but what I felt.
I didn't know I was mad until I was sober a year and a half.
Because I was mad
as far back as I can remember,
but I thought that was normal.
But I was sober a year and a half.
I was sitting in a meeting about all the phenomena
from my home region, West Palm Beach, Florida at that time.
It was in West Esperanza, Big Big City.
And in that group, we studied the book.
And we would talk about the principles in the book
and we'd share our experiences.
And since I had very little experience with those principles,
what I did was go to a meeting across town
the day before,
pick up some information,
bring it back as though it were mine.
And I was sharing it at that meeting that night
when it came my turn.
Because at discussion meetings, I don't know about you,
but discussion meetings are a place for me
to share information that didn't mean a hell of a lot.
I sort of like speaker meetings.
I don't have to say anything at a speaker meeting
when I'm not talking.
All I have to do is listen.
I can identify with
and somebody can help me stay focused another day.
And when I'm in a deep spot,
I don't have to throw my problem out on a table
whether I can listen to a solution in your life
and he tell your story.
And I can get hope.
But anyhow, I was at this meeting
and I shared this information.
It wasn't original.
And a guy grabbed me after the meeting
and he told me that he loved me.
He put his arm around my shoulder
and he said that I was a phony
and that I was about to get drunk.
And he said,
I was any bigger than I was right then,
I'd have hit it.
Well, I always had been a hitter,
never had been a winner.
But common sense prevailed and I didn't
and he carried me home with him that night
and he set me down on the stoop to his trailer
out in Loxahatchee, Florida.
It's just a swamp out there.
It was randy.
They got it sort of filled up.
And he set me down on the stoop to that trailer.
Well, wait a minute.
Since that time,
I've had a 3,500 square foot home
on the 16th fairway of the Country Club.
Since that 3,500 square foot home,
I now live in a 95-foot home.
Perspective changes
when you've got them.
But anyhow,
he set me down on the stoop to that deal
and he began to talk to me
about Alcoholics Anonymous.
And you know,
from the day that I got to Alcoholics Anonymous,
I knew that my drinking habits
were going to change.
My drinking was different.
And a very short time after I got here,
I accepted what you gave to me
as the definition of alcoholism.
I knew that my drinking was different.
I knew that, like it says on page 21,
where it says,
what about the real alcohol?
What about the real alcohol?
It says, you know,
at some stage of our drinking career,
we may or may not be a heavy drinker,
may or may not be a daily drinker,
but at some stage of our drinking career,
we begin to lose control of our consumption
and I could see it
and see how it progressed.
That allergy is what defines alcoholism
from everything else.
If you ain't got the allergy,
you're just screwed up.
So as a kid, I was just screwed up.
I wasn't an alcoholic.
You know, but I had this stuff around.
But anyhow,
John talked to me about that.
And I accepted the first half of the first step.
I had accepted it for that year and a half.
But I'd never gone beyond that.
You don't have all the information.
John talked to me about
unmanageability.
Here's my life a year and a half forward.
My wife and I were still together,
although she was in another bedroom.
Hell, things were so bad at home,
I was going to sex without partying.
That might have not got up here
to the breadbasket of the United States
if it was a self-help keeping floor.
My marital life
was not real good.
My kids and I didn't get along at all.
They hated me.
I was unemployed again.
I couldn't go back to work on a shift.
I'd been successful.
I couldn't go back because I was going bankrupt.
I'd gone into business.
I was in the import-export business.
What happened was,
I was in a country called Sri Lanka
for about a month,
going to AA meetings every night.
And I found guys over there
that practiced the same lack of principles that I practiced.
And it wasn't drugs.
It was semi-fresh with gemstone.
But my conception of business
and the government's conception of business
was somewhat a little different.
They called it smuggling.
So I had some legal problems.
I was getting ready to go bankrupt
because all the money
that I'd managed to put aside
and had behind me was gone.
And these guys had got it.
I was in family life.
I was in trouble.
Spiritually, I was dead.
All I had going for me is that I was active.
Active.
An alcoholic phenomenon.
I was sort of a poster child of AA
down in South Florida.
If you can picture that.
I mean, I was everything in that group.
I was chairman when they let me be chairman.
I was a reader when they let me be a reader.
I did everything.
Never was crazy.
Never have been crazy.
Maybe my group will get a copy of this tape
and it might elect me traitor.
But I was everything in AA
except active in the program of recovery.
So activity didn't keep me sober.
It just kept me from the drink
for a period of time.
I call it a state of grace that maybe God gave me
where desperation forced me to do something else.
And I was forced to look at the unmanageability
of my life
and it was the very first time I accepted step one.
I was powerless over alcohol
and my life had become unmanageable.
John said,
let's just boil that down to two words,
I believe.
And we looked at step two then.
Tangible is a part of creating ourselves
to restore us to sanity.
Sanity, John said to me,
didn't mean I'd stop doing bizarre things.
And he was right, I never have.
I continued to do bizarre things from then till now.
But the sanity he talked about
was the sanity our book talked about.
That strength in sanity that precedes the first drink.
It manifests itself in that thought that says,
this time I can take a drink
and I won't get drunk.
This time I won't do those things that I did.
This time I won't hurt her.
This time I won't do that.
And yet every time I did that, I did it.
And that's the insanity John talked about.
The book talks further on about it
after the promises
where it says, you know,
it's tempted by alcohol when the act exists
from a hot flame.
So sanity has this thing.
So for me, sanity was going to be real simple.
That drinking would not be an acceptable alternative.
And I believe,
step two, I've come to believe
that God greater than myself
could restore me to that state
where drinking would not be an acceptable alternative.
And John said, why don't we boil that down to two years?
Keep drinking.
And I accepted that promise.
And armed with that information
we got on our knees,
we prayed this step three prayer.
And we used the one in the book.
And I know the wording is optional.
I have no argument with that.
But to me, those words worked good.
They just worked good.
And I've got a good mind. And I know it.
We prayed that prayer that night on our knees.
And from that day to this day,
I pray that prayer
on just about a daily basis.
And I'm not retaking step three when I pray it.
What I'm doing is recommitting myself
to the decision that I made then.
Just reaffirming.
But anyhow, when I made that decision
that John got off for an evening,
it says then, and right away,
he handed me
a legal tablet.
And at the very end, he had it in columns.
He had one little old skinny column
and then a big wide column
and a skinny column on the right.
And then he had column four written on the back side.
And that was an empty page.
He said, at the very top left-hand corner,
I want you to write the word, John, I resent.
I said, John, I don't resent anybody.
And I didn't. I didn't resent a soul.
He said, why don't you put down, I hate.
Oh, hell, I could do that. I hated everybody.
I hate. Hell, yeah.
I know what hate is.
Hate's that deal that goes inside of you
and makes you feel warm all over.
You ain't got a drink to feel it.
You ain't got a chance of what you're gonna do to them
for what they did to you.
I put down, I hate.
He told me who to put down first.
He said, put down Sarai.
It means nothing to you to tell you who it was to me.
It was one of them guys from Salon
that I brought over to my house.
He was on a visa, and I had signed for the visa.
And the reason he was there
was to watch out for them.
He was gonna be there for Texas
so I wouldn't get the money.
Hell, he got my money.
I hated him for getting my money.
I hated him because he was sleeping in a bed
and my little boy was sleeping on the floor.
God, I hated him. He wore a dress.
I hated him for that.
They didn't call it a dress. They called it a sari or something.
It was a dress.
I hated him.
And once I put down that I hated him,
I knew that I hated him.
And the deal was that that's what I've been doing all my life.
I agree.
Inventories, you know, they aren't hard.
If you stop and think about it,
it's the most natural thing that an alcoholic does.
You get around, sit outside,
how many of you or how many of me
are talking about me?
I'm really talking about you.
And that's what the inventory is.
Put down who you hate and why you hate them.
Hell, I'd sit in a bar and do that.
So now I was gonna do it on paper.
I put down who I hated and why I hated them.
And I went all the way back to my childhood
and I found that I hated my parents.
I hated my dad because he had never given me
what I wanted as a child.
He'd never take me to ball games or been a daddy to me.
I hated my mom because she always
played with the other kids I knew.
I had a date run through me
as far back as I can remember
and I didn't know it.
As a kid, I thought I was lying.
As a kid, I was a liar.
I was a liar as far back as I can remember
and I always thought of lying as sort of a gift.
You know, I thought God gave it to me.
I said, by words, I could make me into
whatever you wanted me to be.
If you wanted me to be smart, I'd tell you I was smart.
If you wanted me to be a criminal, wanted me to be an athlete,
whatever you wanted, I'd tell you and I believed it.
And if you didn't believe it,
I got mad.
I didn't have the ability to lie like that.
I set myself up to the biggest lie I ever told.
The lie I needed to worry.
The lie that this time I can take a drink
and something will be good.
This time I can take a drink and it'll be all right.
I didn't always set myself up for that.
I just knew I was doing what I did.
And nobody taught me that.
It came naturally.
And I think that's a part of alcoholism.
Yet it didn't make me alcoholic.
It just made me a kid that was mad into the lie.
I was a thief as far back as I can remember.
I didn't picture myself as a liar.
You see?
I guess I thought I was a short, fat Robin Hood.
I don't know.
I might take something from Ed,
I'd turn around and give it to Tom.
And I didn't take it from Ed because,
you know, think about the fact that he earned money
to get that and that it was his.
I never gave that a thought.
I merely thought about it.
If I gave it to Tom, he'd say I was a nice guy
and he'd want me around.
You know, if I was talking to a counselor
or a social worker, they'd say,
well, you know, you're a thief.
And I guess I was, but I didn't know I was.
And I think that's a part of alcoholism.
Yet it did not make me an alcoholic.
It made me a thief.
So when you're a thief and a liar
and you don't get along and you don't feel a part of
and you haven't even started school yet,
you're in trouble.
And I was in trouble.
I went off to the first grade.
That was an experience.
I went to a parochial school.
We lived in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.
My daddy was a news announcer.
He was on the back of buses.
He traveled behind something.
And I thought because he did that
that I was somebody and I was nobody.
And then I went off to the first grade
to this parochial school.
And I had a nun there, a sister.
Her name was Sister Lisa.
She was my first experience with F&M.
Well, you have to picture Sister Lisa.
She was old.
She was old as dirt.
She had a black robe on that she wore
and a white thing up here.
And she walked.
And she scared the hell out of me.
I later found out she was a very loving person.
But anyhow, halfway through the first grade
she called my parents in
for a parent-teacher conference.
And being a nosy individual then and now,
I stood outside and listened
to what they had to say.
And she told my parents,
I thought I'd done something wrong.
It wasn't that at all.
She told my parents
that I was a gifted child
and that I could go anywhere
and do anything that I wanted to do
if I applied myself.
And as soon as I heard that,
my education stopped.
When I heard I was smart,
nobody was smart enough to teach me anything.
So I started getting in trouble.
And like it's been said by a lot of the speakers,
you know, by the time I got to AA,
nobody was here but dummies.
Hell, I couldn't learn a damn thing
the first year and a half because I knew it all.
Well, you know the answers
and I'm writing on the board.
And I didn't want it to be that way.
I wanted to be like other people.
I wanted to have that thing inside of me
that they showed on their face.
If I could just have that, I'd be alright.
And yet I couldn't be that way.
You know, my life used to be that way
that I always wanted to be like somebody else.
When I got to AA,
I'd look around and I'd stop somebody
and say I want to be like him
or I want to be like her.
And as soon as I'd see their voice,
I wouldn't want to be like them.
The deal he gave me with the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
is that what I can do is that I can look at you
and I see things in you that I aspire towards,
that I want to be like.
And I can take those things from you
and say how did you do that?
How did you get there?
What did you do?
How did you apply it?
And I can put that in my life.
No longer do I have to put people way up here
where all of a sudden when their words appear
I don't want nothing to do with them.
But I can see them just as a person,
just a drunk.
We ain't got no president.
Believe me.
He's sober, he's high as he gets.
But I can spot people in AA
and I have heroes in AA
that I want what they have.
And then I find out what they did to get it.
Anyhow, there I was with the kid
and I had all this stuff running around inside of me
getting in trouble and stealing and not getting along
and started to run away from home
and they took me in front of a juvenile referee
and they labeled me an employee.
That was a big long word.
I didn't know what it meant. I found out later.
I was a little punk that had been off to an orphanage.
The funny thing about this orphanage
there wasn't no orphans in there.
They were just punks like me.
And they wanted me to become something
and to get better and I didn't know that.
I thought they were hurting me and they were
punishing me and they were interfering in my life.
But I stayed there for a short period of time
and I got out and I did the same thing I did
and I got locked up again.
And I would stay locked up off and on
from then until I was 17 and a half years old.
I was never on the streets from 8 and a half
to 17 and a half for more than a few months at a time.
I would do what I did and go back again.
And I didn't want it to be that way.
And I hadn't even taken a drink
in my life.
And that wasn't alcoholism.
It's all been for a part of alcoholism.
To be an alcoholic I was going to have to have
that allergy inside of me.
And if I don't have that allergy
all I am is screwed up.
At 13 years old a miracle came into my life.
I decided to drink.
I didn't look. In Ohio you had to be 21
and I didn't look 13 for God's sake.
So I knew I had to improve my
behavior and so I did.
I stole an eyebrow pen.
I sort of gave myself a beard and a mustache.
I can just imagine what it would look like
now as I was heading down to the lower end of
2050 with the skid row in Cleveland
with 10,000 blackheads dotted on
like an after five shadow.
Just a little old punk with a dirty face.
Anyhow.
We went down there and we went to
an up-and-coming place with the money I had
stole out of my mother's purse and we ordered
what we wanted to drink.
We got two bottles of mixed screwdrivers
and two bottles of Thunderbird wine.
I remember clearly ordering it and I don't remember
why I ordered that. I can only guess.
Screwdrivers do sort of promise something.
I'm not sure.
But Thunderbird because of the time.
There used to be a billboard on 25th and Spranton.
I remember I could close my eyes and picture it.
It showed a bird soaring.
It showed that bottle of wine.
And it was the stuff I learned about that.
You know, what's the word? Thunderbird!
My God, that'll fire your cannon.
What's that?
You guys talk about MD 2020
and junk mogans. That don't do nothing, man.
Thunderbird had a promise to it.
And it was cheap.
It was affordable.
And if you ever observed, you know,
the very cheapest wines, the ones the guys like me
were going to be able to afford, well,
it's put so low on the shelf they didn't care if you stole it.
See?
The good stuff was up where they could watch it.
But we got that stuff and we left that bar
and went behind some bushes and we started to drink.
And I don't know what it tasted like.
I don't remember anything about it.
I remember starting to drink whatever it was we started with.
And something happened.
For the very first time
in my life, I no longer
was afraid. No longer was I
afraid of getting out of jail, going to jail,
not being able to love, being loved,
not being able to get. All that went away.
And I became a nun.
And I didn't even realize. I didn't
try to write that down.
But in looking back at my life,
I see that that feeling had to be the most
fantastic thing that could ever have happened
to a guy like me.
Because I pursued to be captain of it
at every opportunity from that day
until the day I came to you.
And I never got it back quite that way.
And some things
happened that night. And I woke up the next morning
in a way that I was going to wake up in
over and over again until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous.
I woke up in a mess and it was mine.
I woke up with a new fear about it.
I told you I'd been afraid a lot
but now I had a new fear.
And I didn't know I had that fear then.
I didn't know until I was doing that inventory.
I started out on that paper writing down
who I hated and why I hated.
I went back and found in that column
everybody I hated and why I hated them.
My sponsor had me do something else then.
I'm able to tell you before I get serious.
He had me, what I put down about that guy
Thoreau and what he had done to me.
Got my money. I was going bankrupt.
All that stuff I hated him for.
He had me put down how it affected me.
I told you how it affected my
sex life. It affected my self esteem
because I knew I wasn't a husband and a father
like I should be.
He said I was going broke.
There was fear underneath it all.
He had me write that down.
He had me go down that list, those lists I had
and put it next to every resentment I had.
Put down the ways it affected me.
And then John said we're going to do something
a little different now, Jay.
Yeah, some of those people wronged me.
Yeah, you went all wrong.
But he said we're going to try and look at each
and every one of those little things.
He said I want you to look and see where you were wrong.
And I said John, how can I?
I wasn't wrong with this guy.
I knew he had desires too.
How could I have done it?
He said Jay, stop and pray about it.
Maybe you said something that did something.
And I prayed about that and I'll tell you what I found.
I had uprooted a man from his home country.
And because of what we had done
he would never go home again.
If he ever did, he would never get out of jail.
I had no regard for him.
I did it because I thought I could make a lot of money.
Yeah, my money was gone.
They hadn't got me.
It was just gone.
My intent was to get their money
because I thought they had a lot of money in Germany
for the factory.
And I thought I could get my hands on it.
Once I looked at my greed, my avid,
my selfishness, I put down what I had done.
The anger went away.
Not only did the anger go away
but I also had something written down on paper
that I was going to have to do
to repair that situation.
Saying I'm sorry
would never get him back home.
But I was going to have to do something
to amend that situation.
And I can tell you this.
I was going through my spirit.
And going through that resentment
there was not a single individual on there
no matter what they had done to me
where I was not able to find
my part in the wrong.
And once I found my part in the wrong
the anger would kick in.
When I got through with that part of the list
John had me look at tears.
And I put them all down.
And that's where I uncovered this fear
that I told you about that I had that night.
You know, I put down my fears
and when I had them all down,
I prayed about them.
Because that's what the book says to do.
We prayed about them.
And the book says there you'll feel they were listed
and they weren't listed.
I still felt afraid.
And I told John that.
He said what are you afraid of?
I said I don't know I'm just afraid.
And he showed me where Bill writes
about that fear of impending calamity.
And God when he said that
I knew what he meant.
He said the fear that something bad
is going to happen and you can't stop it.
I wouldn't turn an address.
I wouldn't open it up.
Knock on the door and I wouldn't answer the door.
You don't think that fear is around in an alcoholic?
Hell, I make a lot of,
I make a number of 12 step calls
and I deal with a lot of newcomers.
They can't pay the light bill.
They had to carve it because every damn one of them
got a cell phone with caller ID.
Bill calls it an evil and corroding threat.
Our lives are shot through.
And that was my life.
I was 13 to 30 until it completely consumed me.
I could escape from it at times
when I'd be in a blackout
or when I'd pass out or when I'd just be out.
But when I'd come back it'd be bigger than ever.
Once I had talked to John about it
we got on our knees and we prayed that prayer.
I asked God would he please take it
and he took it.
And he took it from then till now.
But not completely.
Whenever I'm doing things I shouldn't do
or not doing things I should do
I get a twinge of that again.
And it drives me to re-examine
right then what exactly I'm doing or not doing.
And once I deal with that
and I ask God to remove it, it's gone again.
So God uses that as a wake-up call
for guys like me.
What does it say in the book
we continue to watch out for a period of time?
And it doesn't say
if it happens to crop up once in a lifetime.
It doesn't say that.
It says when do you crop up?
Which sort of tells me they're going to come back periodically.
And I'm going to have to be watchful for it
and do something about it.
But anyhow I found that period.
There's a third part of that inventory
one that I'll touch on briefly
before I go on and that's sex.
And the reason I'll touch on it
is because the book spends more time on sex
than it does on fear or resentment.
And the way it starts off is sort of neat.
It says now about sex.
We all have problems there.
There's something about that word all
that cuts off the loophole.
I couldn't get out of it.
It's either all or what.
I don't know.
So I was one of them.
I said we have problems there.
What are we going to do about it?
And it said we avoid.
People are going to tell us too much pepper
or not enough flavor.
It said we avoid.
What we do is talk to other people.
Fine.
But we let God be the ultimate judge.
Put down what our behavior has been.
Pray about it.
And then ask God to help us
come up with the code of living.
The sexual code of living
that's good with us and our God.
Because as I try to grow
in the sunlight of the spirit
that standard has to change.
It has to change.
And my standard is changed.
But I came up with a standard
and I live by it.
And when that standard is not enough
the standard changes.
And when I try to work with guys
and talk to guys about this
I don't tell them what they have to do.
It's none of my business.
I tell them what I had to do
to get drunk.
What was our motive?
Do we try again harder?
And then it says something else.
It says when nothing else fails
it says work with another alcoholic.
That quiet, that imperious
what a word that is.
Imperious urge when all else fails.
Phil seemed to figure out
real quick that working with another drunk
will help me when nothing else works.
And I guess what I'm trying to say
is if you haven't looked at that
don't ignore it.
But there I was 13 years old
coming off my first drunk.
And I didn't want it to be that way.
I got locked up again and I went off
to a reformatory on an indefinite sentence.
I stayed there almost four years.
And when I got out of there
I went into the Navy.
I didn't get out because I had done well
and they said I was rehabilitated.
I got out because I ran away.
And I went into the Navy
and I lasted in the Navy for six months.
I wanted to save our country.
I wanted to fight for our country.
That's what I saw in the recruiting posters.
I wrote my parents and I told them that I'd changed
and things were going to be different
and they were going to be proud of me.
And my mom and dad told me they were
and they came up to Chicago.
They were outside of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center
to watch a little graduation ceremony.
And they watched me graduate
and they'd fallen on hard times financially.
They had all money and everything before
and now they had nothing.
They rode a bus up there.
And they took me into Chicago on a 12-hour path.
And God I felt good to be with them.
My dad looked at me and he said,
Son, you're not old enough to drink legally
but if you're old enough to be in the service
I'll buy you a drink. Hope you like it.
I said I'll have a beer.
I'll have a beer.
My dad said he ordered me one
and he said he had a cup of coffee
and ordered my mother a Coca-Cola.
And I remember looking at my dad and saying
what's the matter, don't you drink?
See my daddy always drank.
As far back as I can remember
he was never without a drink in his hand.
When we went to church there was a drink in the car.
When we came home he drank.
He always drank.
And now he wasn't drinking.
And I knew the only reason he wasn't drinking
is because he didn't love me.
And I got that feeling inside of me
that I'm not enough.
He don't love me and don't want to be my friend.
And I looked at my watch and I wondered
how soon can I get away from my friends
and get away from my folks and meet my friends
and do some drinking.
As one of you told me,
as a self-centered, as the leader of my tribe
might have said you were crazy.
He took my life in two.
My mother looked at me at that time
and she had a funny look in her eyes
and she said, now your daddy doesn't drink anymore.
He's a number of alcoholics anonymous.
He's been sober for three months.
I'll tell you a little bit about my daddy.
He got sober in 1959 in Rosary Hall.
And when he got sober in Rosary Hall,
Rosary Hall at that time was strictly
a drying out joint for men.
And it was only a three to five day detox
run by Sister Ignatius.
He got one shot in there and that was all.
He was checked in by an AA sponsor.
The only person that saw you
was your AA sponsor and the men
that he put on the list of people.
No family, no phone.
The only stuff in there really was a big book of 12 and 12
and I think a grapevine.
That was it.
And after you got through shaking it out,
they discharged you.
And they discharged you and you carried your sponsor
and took you to AA.
I heard about my dad later
that he had spent five days in traps in the hallway
because they thought he died
and gulped out of his last drunk.
And he took a hard bag to give him
and a little bronze thing with it
and he suggested to my dad that he go
to the sponsor of the Alcoholics Anonymous
and said that if you do what those men tell you to do
you'll never have to come off another drunk.
My daddy went with his sponsor
of the Alcoholics Anonymous
and he stayed sober by doing what he told him to do
from that day until the day he died
on March 21st, 1981.
I didn't know what my dad had done
when he offered to buy me a drink.
I did not see that as a sign of unconditional love
and non-judgmental behavior.
I didn't see it.
I saw it as an act of selfishness on his part
that he didn't love me.
And I got away from him.
I met my friends and I drank.
And I woke up the next morning
the same way I woke up the last time I drank.
But now I had more problems
because I was in the Navy
and they didn't like my behavior.
29 days after I was in, I was out.
And I didn't get out
because I went in.
I went in as an E-1 and got out as an E-1.
The way I got out is I woke up in a room.
It was a big room.
It was the Nutwood Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Florida.
I didn't know where I was.
The last thing I knew was I'd got off the ship
and gone ashore.
I woke up in that hospital and they called me
to four board offices
and they gave me a paper to sign.
And they said that if I would sign it
they would give me an honorable discharge.
So I gave them the alternative.
I signed the paper.
Then I asked them what it was.
They said it was a guarantee that I'd never attempt
to re-enlist in any of the armed forces
as long as I lived.
But I was a lousy sailor
and I forfeited all rights and benefits.
I didn't think that.
I thought to myself, if they'd have left me alone
and gave me a break, I'd have been all right.
You see, it was never drinking that gave me the problem.
It was always you that gave me the problem.
It was them that gave me the problem.
It was that that gave me the problem.
They said if you stop now you can have a good life
but if you continue it won't be long
and you'll be crunk.
How did they tell me that?
I wasn't quite 18 yet.
I hadn't had my first date for God's sake.
If I had, I wouldn't tell you about it.
I remember where I'd been.
But anyhow,
my career in the Navy was less than glorious.
So I was out there and I went back to my mother's house.
It wasn't to be the last time there.
I went up to my mom and dad's house.
I got me a driver's license on my 18th birthday.
I got up there on my 18th birthday.
I got a driver's license that day.
And I got an old Studebaker,
a real old car,
and rusted up real bad.
I got that and I went out to celebrate my 18th birthday.
I went to a bar and I began to drink.
And I woke up the next morning the way I woke up
in every time that I drank.
But the environment was slightly different once again.
This time it was a jail.
And they had arrested me for eight traffic violations.
Started with drunk driving and went downhill from there.
They always throw in assaulting an officer
with little guys. I don't know why.
Probably because
they can get away with beating us up.
I don't know.
But I had eight traffic violations
and they let me out of jail.
And the reason they let me out of jail
is because my mother was put to court
in that trouble this evening.
And I went back to her house.
And when I walked in my sister was there
and my mother was there.
My sister was a year younger than I
and she had just joined the earth from convent.
She was going to become a nun.
She was still in the earth from convent.
And she was there with my mother
and she was crying.
I'm the one that was in jail.
I'm the one that got accused falsely
of behaving that way.
You shouldn't be crying.
And she looked at me.
And she said I'm pregnant.
And right now I'm praying that I will naturally
abort this child so there will be a girl.
Because I don't want another boy like you.
When we talk about
that we only hurt ourselves
my whole cry was to
you say something to me
I'm only hurting myself.
All I got to do is look at my life
and what I have done.
And I see who I've hurt and why I've hurt.
Everybody that came in contact with me
was hurt.
I destroyed that life.
I wasn't close to my mother for a very long
long time.
So I left her house and I joined the merchant
union shortly after that.
They told me I was allowed to sail
so I got on my first ship.
My sea going career was sort of special to begin with.
I went over to Japan on that first ship.
I wanted to go. I took a drink and I got on the boat.
The captain got me three days later.
Brought me back to the ship and he logged me.
That's a disciplinary action on a merchant ship.
He logged me and fired me.
He had me in the log book and I was fired.
And I was concerned about that.
I was 18 years old and I didn't want to have problems like this.
And I talked to the other guys in this old trance trader
and they laughed.
They said hell we all quit when we get off the ship
so don't worry about it.
We got 300 ships on a union agreement.
Each one of them is a separate entity.
So one company can't refuse you
for your actions on another ship.
300 ships, that's 1200 working months.
Hell I ain't going to live long enough
to run out of companies to work for.
So I had a secure career.
And I made a lot of money.
When you got off the ship you didn't get paid a lot an hour
but you got a lot of hours of work
and they didn't give it to you until you got off.
And they paid you in $100 bills
and that makes you feel like a big shot if you're like me.
And I'd have a pocket full of $100 bills
I'd go buy a nice suit and I'd drink on skid rubber.
And I'd feel better than the people that I was around.
And as long as I felt better than you
I didn't think I had a problem.
I didn't think I had a problem.
And things kept getting worse.
I had rules in my drinking and those rules worked for a while.
I wouldn't drink while I was on the ship then.
And as long as I didn't take the first drink
I knew I didn't get drunk.
That wasn't something I learned in AA.
I knew if I didn't start it never got bad.
But those periods of not starting
got closer and closer together.
And if I couldn't live by those rules
those rules changed.
By the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous
I couldn't live by any rules.
The last few years of my drinking will apply that.
And as things were getting worse
I got a license from the mercenary
and became an officer and things got worse.
I said well I'll get married.
Marriage is the solution.
I've studied married people. They never had problems.
I'll just get married, have kids and no problems.
So I was sitting in the pipe and she walked in.
Sat right down next to me.
First woman I'd met smaller than me.
A little bitty old redhead and God she was mad.
She was mad. I was always mad.
She made me look happy.
I asked her what was wrong
and she told me.
I said I really don't care much for you.
I don't care much for anyone else.
And I found out why.
She had a husband that had abused her badly for a number of years.
She had a little baby four years old.
She had another one just born.
And this man had beat her badly.
And she wanted nothing to do with men or nothing to do with life.
That was a challenge.
I hauled the money out of my pocket
spread them hundred dollar bills out.
I began to lie and she began to listen.
And after a lengthy courtship I proposed to her.
Now was she here for you to ask
and how long it was she'd tell you it was about ten minutes.
I personally think it was twenty minutes.
You who are alcoholics understand.
We don't rush into it.
We don't have to make hasty moves into big decisions
and take our time.
Twenty minutes is a long time.
Well stop and think about it.
I do a three minute slow dance with somebody.
We're married, divorced.
She cheated on me and I beat her.
I don't know what happened.
The alcoholic mind is a tool.
Anyhow.
Anyhow it was a challenge.
She disappeared from there because she was afraid of me
because I was acting sort of nuts.
And I found her in Florida a few months later
and she was living with her family
and I told her that I needed her and I wanted her.
And she told me if I quit drinking
the way I drank and if I stopped using the language that I used
she'd consent to seeing me again.
To make a long story short
on October 14, 1966
she was divorced.
And on October 15, 1966
we got married.
And I'll tell you about the wedding.
As we're getting married I got a little boy
holding onto my leg, Ricky.
And he's looking up at me and he's crying.
And he's saying, please be my dad.
I'm a guy that never had a daddy growing up
and never felt like it.
And I made a commitment to him.
I'll be your daddy.
I'll be all the things to you that a daddy's gonna be.
A little girl.
Holding her in my arms.
I said I'll be her daddy.
And I'll do all the things that daddies do
with little girls.
And the woman I was marrying
I was gonna be committed to her.
I mentioned that word earlier.
I was gonna be committed to her.
I was gonna be faithful to her.
I was gonna give her security.
I was gonna do everything that a loving husband's
supposed to do.
And if one of you would have told me
alcoholism will keep you from it
I'd have said you're crazy.
I thought because I wanted to do it
and I really, really wanted to do it
that I could do it.
I didn't know I had no power to do it.
All I had was the desire.
And it takes more than that.
And we got married.
We got married at the Candlelight Flower Shop
on Congress Avenue right across from
Farmers Market in West Palm Beach, Florida.
It wasn't a fancy wedding.
Hell, I'd run short of money.
I got her down to about 25 bucks.
They hummed Here Comes the Bride.
Vaughn got one rose with very little petals on it.
We had two witnesses.
Left there and went over to her aunt's house.
They had a little reception for us.
I remember walking in that house with my new wife.
This woman I'm gonna be committed to.
And they gave me a glass of punch.
And I took a drink.
And I got mad.
Hell, it was just punch.
There wasn't no liquor in it.
None of them people drank.
When you go to weddings,
you're supposed to drink and celebrate.
I knew that.
So I grabbed my new wife.
I was mad and I grabbed my new wife
and I left that wedding.
And I stopped at a liquor store
and I got a bottle and I began to drink.
And she wouldn't drink with me
so I picked up a drinking buddy.
And I drank every time I drank.
Same fear.
Same not remembering what happened the night before.
And the environment again had once again changed.
I had a woman laying next to me
and she was crying.
And I don't mean tears just running down
to mess up her face.
I'm talking about that deep down sobbing.
And everybody in here has either heard it or done it.
And you know how bad it feels
when you're hearing someone cry that way.
And you want to do anything to stop it.
And I asked her.
And she said I won't live this way anymore.
I've lived this way before and I'll not live this way again.
And I took a bow.
I told her that I was sorry
and that I wouldn't do it anymore.
Please give me just one more chance.
Please give me just one more chance.
And she did.
And she gave me another chance
and another chance
and another chance
all the way up until March the 8th of 1974.
And never once did I tell her a lie.
I meant it just as sincerely as I meant anything.
I don't know how we stayed married.
I can only guess.
I kept going to see her
and working on ships.
And I'd be gone for three months or six months
or nine months, one time fourteen months.
And when I was gone I'd write a letter every day
and I'd write a letter telling her of my love for her
and what she meant to me
and how sorry I was for what had happened.
And I promised her things in that letter
and I thought that because I wrote it
and because I meant it I could do it.
I didn't know that I was powerless.
I didn't know.
And I kept going wherever it came to,
whether it was Halifax, Nova Scotia, or Fort Lauderdale.
Wherever it was she'd meet me.
She'd meet me in an airport when I flew in.
And when she'd see me,
I could see that hope in her eyes
all the way to where she is.
And I'd see that hope until I got up close to her
and she'd smell liquor on my breath
and go out of her as though I'd seen cold water on her.
I didn't know why.
I didn't want it to be that way.
In 1973
I was blackballed out of the Merchant Marines
for chronic alcoholism.
They labeled me a performer.
That's the word they used in that industry.
And they said they wouldn't have guys like me
running their ships.
And they threw me out.
And they said they wouldn't let me back in
and let me back on the ship until I proved
I could stay sober for a while.
In 1974
I found myself knocking on a man's back door
1,200 miles away from where we lived.
When I knocked on his door,
the first words out of my mouth to him were
I think I have a problem drinking.
I had never said that to anyone.
People had talked to me about
you're going to go to hell.
You're going to die.
I'm going to leave you.
You're going to get fired.
They talked to me about my drinking
but I never admitted it.
I never said it.
I don't know where it came from that night.
It just came out.
I think I have a problem drinking.
And that man laughed.
He gave me real laughter when he laughed.
And it didn't make me feel bad.
And he pulled out a copy of this book right here.
And he handed it to me.
He said open it up son.
I opened it up.
And there were some words written inside that said
if you want what we have
and are willing to go to any lengths to get it
God will help.
And he signed love dad.
My dad had had that book for a number of years
waiting for me and had that.
My dad had been active in Alcoholics Anonymous
from the day he got here.
And see my dad listened to you people.
He'd come to you people and he'd say
my son's killing himself.
My son's losing the career that he's earned.
My son's losing the family.
And you people said leave him alone.
You didn't talk to him about intervention.
You didn't talk to him about raising his body.
You said leave him alone.
And I'm so glad you did.
Because you said if you leave him alone
maybe he'll have somewhere to go
when he has nowhere else to go.
And that's how it was for me.
When I had nowhere else to go
I had somewhere to go.
Because I never paid any attention
to anything he said.
As soon as he said it I did the opposite
but by saying nothing I had somewhere to go.
That doesn't mean he hadn't given him
little hints around there.
Hell when I was thrown out of the Navy
he took me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I thought he was taking me there
like to show off the Lions Club or something.
And there would be them pamphlets
around the house when I'd go over there.
You know I used to have the John Hopkins Institute pamphlet.
The questions I'd try and score on the test.
But you know I never let them know.
But he never said anything.
So he just let me go where I had to go
and do what I had to do.
When I had nowhere else to go
I had somewhere to go.
And then he said this on March the 7th
he said come with me to a meeting
and I wouldn't go because I was drunk.
And he tried to talk me into it but wouldn't go.
He said well tomorrow morning
when you wake up, if you wake up
he said here's three phone numbers
call one of them before you take a drink
and meet me tomorrow night and we'll go to a meeting.
Put those phone numbers in my pocket
and my billfold and I went out that night
and I drank because that's all I did then.
At that stage of my drinking
my life was only drinking.
I'd wake up and I'd drink.
I'd pass out and I'd wake up
and that's all I did was drink.
And there was always a drink next to me.
And I woke up that next morning and there was a drink next to me
and I needed it.
And I wanted it.
But there was something different.
And that thing that was different was that inside of me
there was a feeling that I didn't want to drink
that was stronger than that wanting to drink.
You know in our meeting rooms
many times where our slogans we see them up there
there's one that's got real special meaning to me
and it's that one that says but for the grace of God.
Grace today I know
comes from a Latin word
that means mercy and gift.
And I believe God's merciful gift to me
was that morning that desire
not to drink that was stronger than
the desire to drink.
I had not said God help me
and yet he had given it to me.
Why? Because I had a moment of silence
in the alcoholic.
Because my mom prayed for me and my wife
and my kids and dad. I don't know.
I don't have to know. I just know it was there.
And I know it was there with a responsibility.
A responsibility given to me
just like it was given to a responsibility
that I do everything I can to keep it
or I'd lose it.
Now what can you do the first day?
What's everything you can do? Everything I could do
was just not drink that morning.
I had those numbers and I didn't call them.
She took me to the hospital and they gave me a shot.
Back then they didn't use the stuff
they use now. They used vitamin B12.
To my knowledge the needles were about that long
and they were square.
And they used the same spot in the left cheek.
Unerringly they hit the same spot.
It still hurts when I think about it.
And I don't know if it helped or not
but I didn't have to drink. They said it helped my nerves
and it must have because I didn't drink.
And then they told her to give them honey and orange juice.
That'll help. She said the sugar in it
is the same stuff as in alcohol
and that can help with the craving.
So she got it but she didn't get honey.
We didn't get along real well. She got K-Road syrup.
Now,
Kansas has some climate
sort of like Cleveland, Ohio.
When it gets cold in March, it's cold.
You mix you up some K-Road syrup and orange juice
you'll see what it looks like. Chunks of road tar
floating around.
It'll eat you up when you drink it.
I don't know if it helped or not
but I didn't have to drink.
And then they told her to give him candy.
Every time he acts grouchy, give him a piece of hard candy.
She got Sour Ball.
Be a little more loving than that. Get something sweet.
Anyhow, and I don't know what,
but they told me to do it and I did it.
I didn't question it.
And then I met my daddy that night
and he carried me to a meeting.
It was a meeting just like any meeting. It was Alcoholics Anonymous.
We came in the back door and there was a guy standing there.
And my dad said, this guy's shaking my hand.
And my dad said, that's Jimmy and he's your sponsor.
My dad takes off and I got this idiot
hanging onto my hand.
God, I pray that I never forget it.
He gave me the handshake of Alcoholics Anonymous
As he shook my hand,
I can remember it right now.
The hand was firm and it was warm and it was dry.
And I know what my hand was.
It was scared and it was cold and it was wet.
And as he shook my hand,
he said, my name is Jimmy
and I'm glad to meet you.
And I just accepted that.
I didn't think about it.
I just accepted it.
And then he did something no one else had ever done.
He began to talk to me about him.
He told me what happened once.
He told me what happened when he drank.
He told me where it took him.
He told me when he tried to stop,
how he couldn't stop.
When he tried to moderate, he couldn't moderate.
And things would get worse.
And I tried all them things and I'd done all them things
and I'd lived that way.
And I knew that he'd live like I'd lived.
And then he said, it ain't that way anymore.
And he left me sort of hanging
and the meeting started
and the guy told his story much like I'm telling mine.
And when it got all finished,
Jimmy talked to me some more.
Called him the winner.
I remember them guys, every one of them telling me,
keep coming back here, you'll be alright.
Keep coming back here, keep hanging in there.
They all said that.
Every one of them shook my hand.
Made me feel welcome.
Jimmy talked to me some more.
He talked to me about that he hadn't had to have a drink
in like four years and that was so long
I could hardly believe it.
And I said, how'd you do?
He said, I'll tell you what, I'll guarantee
that if you do three things on a daily basis,
you will never have to come off another drum.
What are you doing?
I said, yeah, I'll do anything.
What is it?
He said, number one, when you get up in the morning,
you say, God help me not take a drink today.
And then number two, if you can,
you go to a meeting of alcoholics and all.
Jimmy knew I was a merchant seaman.
He knew I'd probably go back to sea.
He said, every day you'd be on a ship and you can't go.
But if you can, you go.
Every day is home, maybe you can't go.
But if you can, go.
He said, and then number three,
when you go to bed at night, you say,
Jimmy, I can go to meetings,
but I cannot pray.
I'd been raised in a religion.
I explained to him I'd been raised in a religion
with a God of love.
I knew about a God of love,
but I also knew about a God that I bargained with,
a God that I had damned,
a God that I had lost any conception of inside of me.
I might have conceded there was one,
but I didn't believe in one.
I had nothing.
And he looked at me and laughed again.
You know, laughter is a great healing tool
in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And he said, hell, Jay,
you don't have to believe.
Just say the words.
And that's what our book says, you see.
Our book doesn't say you have to believe.
It says if you believe,
or are even willing to believe,
you're on your way.
And all he was doing was establishing willingness.
And I was willing to say those words
without believing them or having any need for them.
The very next day he said,
don't worry, I'm not going to take you through
26 years, 5 months of sobriety a day at a time,
but I need to tell you a few things.
The very next day,
he picked me up for a meeting.
Now,
he didn't say, Jay, do you want to go to a meeting?
There wasn't any question.
He just said, I'll be there at 7 and we'll go into a meeting.
So I just accepted that.
By the time I thought I had a choice,
we were already in the rhythm.
You know, so he picked me up the next night
and we're on our way to a meeting
and he asked me one of the dumbest questions
anybody's ever asked me.
He said, have you had a drink since I dropped you off last night?
6 o'clock he called so I could get to the hospital.
8 o'clock he called to make sure I got back
from the hospital.
Noon, called again to make sure I was doing alright.
4 o'clock checked again and 7 o'clock picked me up.
I couldn't drink.
Didn't have no time.
Didn't tell him that.
Told him, no, of course not.
He said, by God,
that's great.
He said, do you know if you drink now it's because you want to drink?
Not because you have to drink?
I said, what are you talking about? Are you crazy?
He said, no, man.
He said, you just stay sober.
The longest period of time you ever got to stay sober.
One day.
That's all we got to do is one day and you did it.
You did what I told you to do and you did it
and you ain't drinking a day.
He said, you got it now, man.
Because that's all we do.
I'm glad he made it simple.
If he'd have said 90 and 90,
I'd been screwed on 91.
Attainable goals is what this deal is all about.
A day at a time.
Simple.
And he took away every excuse I'd ever had.
Every excuse.
Two weeks into this program,
we're coming back from a meeting.
I looked over at him and I said,
Jimmy, I still don't believe in this God business.
And he laughed again.
And he said, today was the very first time he did anything in AA
other than be there. What was it?
I said, well, I read the traditions.
He said, before you read them, what did you say?
I said, I'm Jay and I'm an alcoholic.
And he asked me what an alcoholic was and I explained to him.
I said, well, I read it on page 21.
I knew I had what the doctor called the expression of the mind
and that allergy of the body.
I had that phenomenon of craving that is unique
to our class of drinkers.
We're the only ones that got it.
And I had it. And I accepted it.
And he laughed. He said, I know you have it.
I want to make sure you knew you had it.
He said, yes, you've been doing what I told you to do
every morning and every night.
I said, yes, I have. I don't believe it.
I don't believe in what I'm saying, but I do it.
And I feel like a hypocrite. And I feel phony, but I'm doing it.
He said, that's all right.
He said, how long has it been since you had a drink?
Now, today I don't remember exactly.
Then you can bet I did remember, whether it was 13 or 14.
I knew how long.
And I told him.
And then he asked me that question that changed the course of my life.
He said, when was the last time
that you've been this long
without taking a drink a day at a time?
And a feeling came over me
that I can only describe to you
as the awareness of a policy
that became personal to me.
God became personal
because God had done something personal to me.
He had done something to me
that I hadn't even asked Him to do.
In reality, I was just repeating words.
And He became personal.
He allowed me not to. Because I wanted to drink.
See, a lot of people come to AA. They don't want to drink
from the moment they get here. That won't mean.
I wanted to drink every day. I'd think about it.
I'd say, thank you, God, for a sober day. And I didn't mean it.
I wished I'd have been drunk, I'd think.
I'd think, I should have been drunk today.
I didn't feel any thankfulness.
And I didn't mean it when I'd say, help me.
And yet He helped me because I went through the motions.
And at that point, I became aware
of the power.
My relationship with that power
from that day to this
could literally take a lifetime to explain.
But it's been
absolutely fantastic.
It's grown into something
I never would have dreamed possible.
Because it's with a personal power,
a personal God.
You know, there's a guy named Pierre Chardin
that wrote a book about things, about guys like me.
He wrote, he had some statements in there.
He said, man needs physical manifestation
of intangible beings.
And that's why many of us
have to have something physical
to be able to say it represents God.
I know that.
A lot of us use AA.
A lot of us use certain deities.
Whatever it is, you gotta have something
that's personal to you.
Something you can grab onto.
I'd have something I could grab onto
that was personal to me.
And I found other ways to work with that
over the years.
As a result of those steps working in my life
I took step three.
Started that night and finished the next day.
And the reason we finished the next day
is because we took step five the next day.
Six and seven were that night.
We talked about eight the next morning.
I was making amends that night.
I don't know how long it takes to work
the steps for anyone.
For me it was a year and a half and three days.
Give it a shot.
What have you got to lose?
You can drag it out for a lifetime.
Pardon me.
But I had the desperation to do it.
I was desperate and had nowhere to go.
And as I read the stories in the book of the first hundred
that's what happened.
Desperation forced immediate action.
But anyhow, as a result of taking those actions
things began to happen.
The mother, the mother that I told you about
that would rather have naturally aborted that child
or had a girl rather than have a boy
because of what I had done in their lives.
In 1975 I called my mother for the first time
in many years.
Called her on a Sunday.
Was off the ship and I called her.
She told me what to do.
She said do what a loving son does.
And I did. I called her.
I didn't like my mother. I didn't love my mother.
I didn't want anything to do with it.
But he told me I had to amend that relationship.
So I called her up and I said hi mom.
And she said hi son. It's been a long time.
And I said yeah I've been busy.
I gotta go.
I don't know.
And I called her the next Sunday
and I said hi mom.
She said hi son.
And I said mom it was good to hear your voice last Sunday.
And that was a lie because it wasn't what I said.
And she said something to that
and I added to that.
And over the course of the next 25 years
24 years
I built a relationship with my mother.
We had long long conversations.
We became very close.
My mom died
in February of 1999.
My mom had diabetes
and she had like 22 operations
in 18 months.
There was nothing left of her.
It was all cut off.
I went to see her a week before she died
and I went back home.
I'd flown up to see her and she was living in Cleveland
and I was living in Middle Beach.
And I flew back home and I got a call
and it was my mom.
My mom said mom's gonna die
probably tomorrow or the next day
and she wants to see you one more time.
And I flew up there to Cleveland
and I'm going in to the hospital
where she was
and there was doctors in there
and there was nurses in there
and there was my mom in there.
My mom looked at me and said
this must be your son.
My mom said that's my son.
And he's the best son a mother could have.
You know he's an academic
and has almost 25 years.
Don't tell me this
Don't tell me
that making amends means saying I'm sorry.
It means taking actions
that you don't want to take
in ways that you don't know how
to repair a situation
to repair a relationship.
My dad and I
different deal.
My dad was a cold man.
I never got very close to him.
I knew that he loved me
but I never felt that he loved me.
My dad had cancer.
He died in 1981.
It was a terrible, terrible death.
He kept himself away from me
and my sisters and brothers.
Wouldn't let anyone near him.
Moved to Florida.
I didn't know if things were okay
or not.
I didn't know what to do.
I did what a loving son does.
And I did.
I left him alone.
I allowed him to die with dignity.
I did not force something on him
that he didn't want.
I thought there were things
he should stop doing
or start doing.
My father said leave it be.
Do what a loving son does.
When I said what's that
my letter fell out
and it was from my mom.
And my mom said you need to know
what dad was trying to tell you
before he sent this.
He'd taken himself all his pain medication
and he wanted you to know how he felt.
He said his words were this.
Dear son,
congratulations on your 8th birthday.
What a glorious and wonderful day.
And how can we ever be
grateful enough
for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous
and for all that it's given us.
For it's given us a loving God
who's returned a lost son
and you've discovered a lost father.
Don't tell me you've gotten worse.
Don't tell me you've gotten worse.
How can I be
grateful enough?
I'll tell you in a minute.
Let me tell you about my wife and kids.
Kids are all grown up now.
One's 40, one's 36, one's 32.
I've got an 18 year old granddaughter
who's going to have a baby
two weeks from now.
Got a good relationship with all of them.
With all of them.
My wife and I,
we had a normal marriage.
That meant we fought some days,
we got along some days.
It was a normal marriage.
I was married to her.
I had always wanted to be committed to her.
In 1994 she had a heart attack.
They found some trouble with her circulatory system.
She had rapid aging.
She was very advanced.
She was 50 a couple years old.
Two months later
they were trying to
clean out her carotid arteries
and they collapsed on her.
The veins and arteries were just shutting.
She had a massive stroke.
The woman I'd been married to since 1996
changed that day
and became a different woman entirely.
We stayed married.
I found what it was to be committed.
I tried to do the right thing.
I would keep trying to do the next right thing.
I didn't want to.
But I kept trying to do it.
I kept working.
And I loved my wife.
My wife died July 12th of this year.
At 1.20 a.m.
My wife had cancer at 96.
That didn't get her.
That other thing got her.
July 12th at 1.20 a.m.
We were going to Mexico the next day
for our son's wedding.
It was going to be a big gala wedding down in Mexico.
He wanted to go to it.
It was the day before she died that I told her she couldn't make it.
I could do it if she demanded it.
I thought she'd die in the flood.
And she agreed that she couldn't go.
And I brought her son up for the day and he went back home.
And I remember that night that she died then.
The last words she said to me were,
I love you.
And the last words I said to her were,
I love you.
My wife had been confined pretty much to the house
the last three weeks of her life.
She couldn't have cramps without her chairs, without a bed.
She couldn't control herself.
And I didn't have to call in a nurse.
A nurse would take me.
She was my wife.
It doesn't make me special.
It doesn't make me anything.
It just meant that I was able to do things
I never thought I was capable of doing.
And I knew that everything was okay
with me and my wife.
I think I know something about God.
The relationship with God.
I share something about it.
She was scared to death.
They told her it was coming in April.
They said she had eight months.
It turned out she didn't have but a couple.
But they told her eight months.
She went to the bathroom to clean up.
I'm talking to the doctor.
We went home and we talked about this deal.
This fear.
And I told her what I do when I have this fear.
I said I've never faced death like that.
But what I do when fear is killing me.
When I can't get away.
My prayer to God is God you take it.
I can't handle it.
God you take it.
I can't handle it.
Over and over and over.
And God takes it and it's okay.
And she began trying to do that.
She didn't tell me why or how.
It was just wrong.
And that night a few hours or an hour before she died.
I called.
We called in hospice that day.
Because we knew it was just a matter of time.
We called in hospice.
I was cleaning the bedroom out.
All the jewelry and stuff that might walk away.
I was starting to put it in the office and lock it up.
And as I cleared it there was a little box laying on the dresser.
And it was a box with a little old cheap hinge on it.
And a cheap padlock.
And keys wired to it.
Now my wife and I were very.
She wanted a purse.
She'd never go in my wallet.
She wanted something I'd hand her for her to get it.
And as I'm clearing this stuff off.
I saw this box and I shook it.
And it sounded like money in it and paper in it.
And I figured there were bills in it.
To hell I better get this stuff put away.
So I went to open the box up.
And as I opened it.
I sat on the side of the bed.
I looked at her over there sort of fitfully resting.
And as I started to open the box.
I felt almost as though I were violating her.
But I was opening something that I shouldn't.
See my wife was an active member of Al-Anon
for the day she died.
So I took that piece of paper out and I read it.
And I realized the depth of her relationship
with her God and I knew that everything was alright.
Because it just said this.
It said dear God.
Please take away this awful fear.
And please help me to accept
your plan for me.
And that wasn't even
the strong part of the prayer my friend.
It was how she signed it.
She signed it with all my love
bond.
I've never talked to my God
and ended the prayer by saying it's all my love
gift.
I've always just left the prayer at the end.
And I realized that with her relationship
with her God that she was alright.
She'd never found Al-Anon
had it not been for Alcoholics Anon.
Because he directed her there.
So how can I be
grateful enough to this deal we got called
Alcoholics Anon?
I'll tell you how.
God gave these principles
to a couple of guys. He gave them to other guys.
He gave them to you. He gave them to me.
Each and every one of us in that line
charged with the same responsibility.
That we do nothing to weaken it. Nothing to water it down.
Nothing to make it better or improve it.
But leave it exactly the way it was when we got it.
So there's a place
for a drunk to go like you.
He's got nowhere else to go.
Thank you so much to my God, my God.