John K. on the Big Book, Higher Power, and the New Employer

And I'm John Kelly. I'm a grateful, recovered alcoholic. And my sobriety date is September the 4th, 1999. And for that, I am very, very grateful. And I'll just do this. You know, and I'm not one of these dudes that walk around going, oh, I got me a little job today. God's so good. I got мне a cool little car. God is so good, look what God's doing for me. I got mee a little girlfriend. God don't want to hear that from me. God wants to see me in action. So what better way for me to thank the God of my understanding and show him my gratitude is to get off my butt and take this program to somebody who was dying just like I was. That's how I show God my gratitude, and for that I am very, very grateful. And I am glad to be here. You know, it's pretty humbling listening to Cliff. Cliff was my sponsor when I got here. There's a few people, Myers and Eds back there, that were here when I got here, I did not look like this when I got here September the 4th, 1990. Myers has over the years has called me rat boy or gerbil boy because he said it looked like he had crawled out of the gutter and like the rats had like licked my hair, it was like sticking all up and God, that was a friggin' wreck That was a disaster But You know, and I have a good life And I've got to meet all you cats And people from all over the world But without Cliff Bishop I mean, Cliff Bishop was my guy You know And I love that man And when I do my story tonight You'll hear a little Cliff Bishop-isms As we go along But I would not be here without that man I would Not be here at all Because the smart money on me In 1999 was This dude's gonna die in the gutter You know Other groups that I was going to At the time trying to get sober And stuff I mean they weren't They didn't even clap for desire chips anymore You know I think he's been drinking It gave me wide Birth you know and um but god look at me now um it's a cool thing um so we'll just jump right into it because i am a big book dumper um and i owe my life to this group and i want to do whatever i can do to pass that on um i'm the first kid you know the first kids of my mama my mama she'll tell you we grew up together right and I'm the first kid there's two sets of twins below me so I was like the test kid you know and I come from a good family we knew right from wrong you know I'd go to church and church camps and do all that stuff I made straight A's I played every sport and I was freaking good at all of them I mean like on the outside as a kid growing up on the inside I look like a pretty sharp kid on the Inside I'm a wreck right my dad left me and my mom when I was like two you know and we moved my mom remarried and we moved around a lot and so i'm like always the new guy you know when i'd get adjusted to some school and we have to move somewhere else so i always had this internal conflict in my head doesn't make me an alcoholic it's just the way i grew up right but i always had this internally you could tell me how great i am but i got this voice in my head going you suck and that's the way I grew up you know and I always heard the stories about my dad's drinking and his My dad grew up in a brutal Irish household, and his dad, my granddad Kelly, was a brutal, violent drunk. And so I'd heard those stories, despite the warnings and prejudices of my people concerning drink. And I have Uncle Melvin in my story. Uncle MelVIN bled out on the front porch of a gastric hemage due to alcoholism. Don't be like Uncle MelVIN. So there's no drinking in my immediate vicinity growing up. And I remember being 15 years old. We lived in Miami, Florida. I'm going to this little fancy pants tennis camp, you know, trying to be the best tennis player in the world and everything. And it was on a Saturday night. We had another two weeks coming up. We had a free night. It's me, another little boy who's 15 years Old and three older women. They were like 17. and I remember the girls, they thought we had a free night they thought it would be great if we had some beer or something and I don't know where I got the courage to do this but I immediately rose to the occasion and said that me and Peter, the other little boy we'll supply the beer and y'all come back to our room later never mind that I don'T have a driver's license a vehicle, anything like that So we ran two miles uphill both ways to this little convenience store. Got me a case of Budweiser, put it on the counter. The guy looked at me like my head was going to explode. And I told him our situation and he said, meet me out back. And I met him out back and gave him a $20 bill. We ran the beer back to tennis camp, put in the bathtub, put on ice, called the girls, and they showed up. and now we started drinking the beer right i don't know if it was like the first beer the second beer but suddenly i had arrived suddenly all of i mean i was hip slick and cool those chicks wanted me it was the best i had answers to questions that hadn't even been asked yet. You know what I'm saying? It was freaking magical. And that was my first experience with alcohol. And from the time I was 15 till I was like 25, 26 years old, alcohol was the best thing in my life. It worked. It made a good day better and it made a crappy day tolerable. it fixed everything until it stopped. You know, and during that time you know, and I'm not like some of you knuckleheads my little knucklehead brothers out here you know I didn't get into fights and go to jails and all that stuff but you know over time my drinking starts to worry my family and I remember going I was like 19 years old and I had My mom had me on an appointment with a psychiatrist, right, to talk about my drinking and stuff. Because she sees me going down the wrong path and all this stuff. And I remember lying through my teeth about how much I drink. And like the psychiatrist was like, oh, he's an alcoholic. And I'm like, geez, dude. And it just starts to build up and to buildup and to builtup. You know, and then over time, you know, we start to move. I start to go from one university to another because I'm always looking. I got to have something to fix me, right? Alcohol was working, but now I got I got a I got us. I got To do something else. And the problems start to pile up. And, you Know, we fast forward to 1988. It's in the summer. I'm in between colleges. I'm In between relationships. I'm working at a bar in Addison, which is perfect for an alcoholic. If you all know Memphis and Addison. I was there. And it was full throttle. And it's all going to crap, you know? And my mom's sister, she was an AA in Dallas. And I remember sitting there on a weekend night. And just my life is a mess. And I had this epiphany like maybe I need treatment. and I called my sainted mother up and told her I think I needed treatment and you'd have thought I won Powerball. She's like, oh my God, come to the house. I'll get you into treatment, blah, blah. And I get to the House and my mom starts dialing through the phone book. They got insurance. They're going to get me going and I go to my first treatment center that summer, one of those fancy pants treatment centers, you know what I mean? Where you get the $30,000 big book and it's co-ed and, you know, you've got swimming and all the chicks still have all their teeth and it was a good treatment center, you know. And that was my first little experience with Alcoholics Anonymous and they had some people coming by from various groups and they'd talk about the big book and all this stuff and I remember getting out and getting a little home group and this guy kind of took me under his wing and I don't you know we don't do that here but you know at this group you know it's kind of a cool group you know and a lot of people would show up for the six o'clock meeting and they'd have this like it's called a discussion meeting and so you'd have like a chair person who would open up the meeting and he'd think of a topic and then he would cruelly and maliciously point out people in the room for that hour and ask them to talk and I remember sitting there scared to death and it was just a miserable frigging experience and I don't stick. And I'm going to fast forward through a whole bunch of stuff because I go in and out of AA because drinking is not that bad of a problem but I knew if I could go to AA and I could get 30 days standing on my head, you know what I'm saying? Get a little job, Hard Rock Cafe when it opens up and started out as a waiter, become head waiter, bartender, head bartender going to management, going to go to corporate management travel the world, see the places and I can't stay sober you know, I can' t do it and I'm thinking I'm with all my buddies and everything and big guys are in bands and doing all this crazy stuff and they go to pass out at 4 o'clock in the morning and I' m drinking the night through and then trying to work and i love those people and i loved that job and it was a great opportunity and i know it was on a saturday and i was trying not to drink and um not a cloud on the horizon a buddy of mine comes by and says hey when you do checkouts let's get out of here let's go down to hooters and grab some wings and see our buddy i'm like man i gotta work on this presentation you know the big wigs are in and gotta do this presentation tomorrow morning all staff meeting like 7 a.m. on a Sunday, I got to work on my shtick, you know? He's like, oh, come on, let's go have some wings. And lo and behold, I acquiesced and we went and the first picture turned into the second picture to the third picture and then we're leaving that place to another bar, then we were at a bar where girls are very athletic and a lot of loud music. And I, you know, come rolling into my house at like 6 a.m., smelling like god-awful mess. And I walked into the Hard Rock Cafe, and my boss looked at me. You know, and I could have fallen on my sword the next day because I had to work that shift, right? And I felt awful. and i could have probably pulled out the treatment card and i thought you know what i'll show these sobs and i stopped drinking and i resigned from hard rock cafe and i started running 10 miles a day again doing push-ups reading tony robbins books i got way of the peaceful warrior and stuff man and i am like I am like at one with the frigging universe. And I'm going to do my own restaurant. My bank is all behind me. I'm gonna do a little bar in Deep Ellum and it's awesome. Again, not a cloud on the horizon. Two days before I get the money for that business, the thought crosses my mind that a little Sambuca would be nice. And there'd been a bottle of Sambucas in the freezer for about six months, and I poured a shot and drank the shot and another and another, and drank the bottle. Called my buddies from PK's Liquors who knew me intimately well, and they brought me some more after they closed. And I didn't get the restaurant. I didn't pass go. I didn'T get the money. And a few weeks later, I ended up in Puerto Rico. I don't know if you've ever been to Puerto Rico, but for drunks, Puerto Rico's a cool place because the rum is cheap and the girls are pretty and the outside issues are very, very pure. And it was full throttle. And And it just gets worse and worse and worse. That's my first trip through delirium tremens was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I tried to kick. Didn't know anything about DTs or anything. It was on a Sunday afternoon. My buddy was leaving the island for a few days with his girlfriend. And I stopped drinking. I said, when you get back, I'll be sober. I kicked. It Was awful. Monday, if I drank a sip of water, I mean, it was, I could barely You know how we walk when you're detoxing, and your hands are flying all over? It just is a mess. By Wednesday, I thought I had turned the corner. And later on Wednesday night, I started to hear the voices and the music. And from that Wednesday night until Saturday, people saw me in old San Juan, Puerto Rico. And I was known as the crazy gringo when I lived there. So they gave me wide berth. But I'm walking around San Juan with like some ratty Nike swimsuit on, flip flops and a butcher knife. And people were just like parting. And I made it to this little group though that Saturday night. And this guy, I think he lost the bet, but he took me under his wing. His name was Andy Aponte. And he took my under his wings. And he's the first guy that ever talked to me about the Alcoholics Anonymous that was like on fire. because my experience, and I passed over like hundreds and hundreds of meetings over the years, right? This is in 1994 to 96. My experience with Alcoholics Anonymous is a bunch of sad sack people sitting around at the table. I'm just glad to be sober today. Hanging on for frigging dear life. Miserable as crap. And this guy Andy was on fire, man. And he started taking me, he started reading me the big book and I started making a beginning. And again, I'm going to go get like a 30-day chip or a 60-day chip. Never been in jail. Never nothing. I'm not done. My mama's loving me again because I'm sober. I mean, everything is going the way it's supposed to go. Walking to the bus to go across the bridge to get a 60 day chip. I hear, Mira JK. And I turn around and it's two girls I knew. And I sat down to talk with them for a little bit. And the next thing you know, I'm coming out of like an eight day blackout. You know, my buddy had to call my mom back in Texas and say, you got to get him off this island. He's going to die here. You know? And little did I, I didn't know this till after I got sober. But during this time, my mom is crying herself to sleep every frigging day. Cause her oldest kid is drinking himself to death. and so i get back to texas and now i'm like 30 something years old mid-30s i'm living with my mama spending her money driving her car and i'm trying to get sober again and i make a good beginning i was going to this little group up in denton and there was this girl in this group an older girl an older lady at the time or for me at the time it she was she was one of them you know she was hot and everybody and i got her right and we started kind of dating around and we start going to see a little this and a little that and we're talking big book and everything's going cool up until two days before christmas and She don't want to play ball anymore. And I know what's going to happen. I know. And my mom was up by Gainesville, and I went into the Gainesvale meeting that night, two days before Christmas. And there's some old school, old grizzled sobriety, or at least there used to be in the Gainsville group. And I knew these men. and all you see cliff bishop when i got sober i remember him pounding into my head your ego and your arrogance will kill you and so i go in here i know i'm gonna drink and i see these old men in there and they're like hey how you doing i'm doing great merry christmas and they start the meeting and they had what because it was right before christmas And they decided they were going to have a gratitude meeting. And it starts going around the little table there, and everybody's so frigging grateful. You know, Jim Bob Sr.'s happy because Jim Bob Jr.'s in from Podunk, Oklahoma, and he's got 32 days and ain't God glorious. And I am frigging dying. And I remember getting up and going to the bathroom, and I looked at my watch, And it was like 8.43, and my brain says, because I've got to get outside the city limits to get to the liquor store. And I ain't one of these teetotallers, man. I don't go buy pints and stuff. I get the 1.75 of Skoll vodka, pop out that little governor in the top, and I drink. So my saint and mama got to come home on Christmas Eve to find me blacked out, drunk. And I did that the next Christmas too. And now I'm resorted to like having to crash at other people's houses and stuff like that. In 96, I made my first visit to Homeward Bound. You know, back then it was a 90-day deal. So I'd go from a $30,000 big book to Homeword Bound in case you've never been to Homeworld Bound it ain't the Taj Mahal. got little gangbangers you got every all walks of life it's a little melting pot and home we're bound and i'm amen and i got i mean so i had a little guy that i knew up there and he was a big book guy and he starts to take me through the work and i stay the 90 days i get out and i decided instead of you can see my mama was always my ace in the hole If I needed money, I'd call mom. If I need a car, call mom Whatever I needed, I could call mom And this time, leaving home or bound Because I'm all fixed now I'm going to follow my sword And I'm not going to have my family take care of me And I am going to live in a halfway house In South Dallas That's what I'm gonna do And so I do that Right? And I get a job How crazy is that? Nobody else in the halfway house had a job But I had a Job And I'm catching the bus to the train, to the bus, to go to work all day. And after a week or two or three or four of this nonsense, it's like, man, I don't want to go to an AA meeting. That's like I'm tired, you know? And I had some money in the bank from this little job. It was a beautiful spring day. It was during March Madness. So you got your brackets all filled out and everything. And I think, man I'm going to get me a new place to live. So I catch the bus, the train and the bus Get to lower Greenville Got my little Dallas Observer Start using pay phones to call places Because I'm going to get a place to live Stopped off at Milo's To have a couple of tacos and a Coke Checked my brackets Used the pay phone It's all good Not a cloud on the horizon There's a tap on my shoulder I look around It's a dude I hired at the Hard Rock Like five years before Hey, I heard you were dead You're not dead I'm like, no, it's all good. He leaves. A few minutes later he comes by and he has a beer and a shot of rumple mints. There was no thought like, I didn't think I was being any too smart. There was not thought. It's like, hey, thanks. Next thing I remember is coming to Parkland Hospital at like 3 in the morning, handcuffed to a bed with a felony possession, a public intox, and assault on a police officer. And I was out looking for an apartment. I remember sitting in loose there that day, or that morning and that Monday, and I'm just praying all day long, God, I am so sorry. I am sorry. If you will get me out of this, I'll do anything. I'll call Frank. I'll get back plugged in. I know a hot-ass attorney that'll get me out of this. I got money. Just help me get out of here and get this over with, and I'll never do this again. And I'm pleading in my brain and praying all day long. And by the time they bonded me out Monday night and they gave me my little backpack and I got out of loose stare and I looked at my watch, 845. And I walked straight across the street and got a bottle of vodka. And it gets worse. It gets worse, what I thought was bad. I remember in that first treatment center that my roommate at the time, when I was coming out of detox, it was his day in group to tell his story, his little sad sack story of how he made it to this fancy pants treatment center and I was like 20 something years old and this guy's like, you know, he's old, he's like 45, you now. and he tells this story and I'm just thinking oh my god this guy's a psychopath he needs to be here right because I hadn't experienced any of that but fast forward my story made him look like a friggin Cub Scout you know and I got no more friends at this time my family's pretty much done with me I'm living at my uncle's house in Plano trying to stay sober I'm not doing a good job of it. It's just awful. And I ended up at Homeward Bound. I went on another run. It was a bad run. I'd quit all the outside issues. That ain't my deal. Alcohol is my master. And I landed up at Homward Bounds, and on this trip at Homword Bound, I literally almost died in detox. A nurse, and I used to have verification because my nurse, my detox nurse, went to this group. She's the one who had to stick depressors down my throat so I didn't swallow my tongue as they tried to resuscitate me and stuff. I'm in bad shape, and I remember I was coming out of detox on a Friday, and they wheeled me out there, and there's guys holding me up, and I'm vibrating and shaking, and up from down, and they're telling us we got group on Friday night, and I lean over to this guy, this bald guy named Kurt, and I am like what kind of group do you all have on Friday? He is like oh, we got an AA group, And I was like, oh, God, kill me. Because up until that time, my thought of AA is, AA sucks. And in comes walking Cliff Bishop and Myers R.. And they got me propped up in the corner. And Myers gets up there frothing at the mouth and stuff. And then he passes it off to Cliff. Cliff's got this old, tattered big book. And he doesn't even open the big book, He just starts rattling off stuff. And I'm sitting there, and I have never heard this crap. And I am sitting there locked in like, my God. And I wheel myself up after that, andI talk to Cliff for a minute. And Cliff had one of his protégés, Matthew, there and says, Matthew is your guy. And Matthew and I made a beginning, man. And I mean, I am fired up, man, we are going to beat this deal. And I remember getting out of Homeward Bound, started coming up to group here and sitting in the meetings. They're trying to feed it to me. It's real small back in the day, right? 1998, 20 people max, you know, 25. And I mean, they're trying to feed heto me, but I can't get out of my own way because by now I'm thousands of dollars in debt. My family is done with me. I got zero friends. I got Zero Prospects. I got nothing, but I don't have any money. But I can get out of my old way. And I remember being here on a Thursday night and I know I'm going to drink. I tell you how great I'm doing. I remember talking to Matthew over there by that little doorway to the bathroom, telling him how everything was cool. And we closed the meeting, said the prayer, put up a few chairs. I made a beeline to Walnut Hill, got me a couple bottles of vodka. And look, I got a head full of big book, but I ain't going to drink for a day or two and get all remorseful and shit. I'm going to burn it to the ground, because that's the way I roll. And they didn't hear from me. 99, January, February of 99, I'm in six emergency rooms, alcohol-related. I can't stay away from booze. Parkland Hospital never wants to see me again. They're a little pissed at me. I jumped the line I had to go back to detox or I was trying to work him for some meds you know Parkland emergency room you got to wait a long time so the third time I went there I wised up I'd gotten a big bottle of Avion and dumped out the Avion filled it full of vodka went in there checked myself in and told them that I was experiencing this stuff and I had chest pains boom, front of the line so they get me in the back they got me IV'd and stuff and I'm drinking vodka and the doctor caught me and he was none too pleased and he got me a little script for like five or six librarians and said he doesn't ever want to see me again I started going to these other little groups trying to get a desire chip you know and it's it's so weird because i remember i knew what my goose was cooked but i couldn't stay away from it because i'm i ain't drinking to capture the moments of the past i'm drinking for oblivion and when you do that day in day out you can't fight it the next day you just got to keep the ball rolling and i remember coming to whatever it was and just pleading with god god please make it stop i do not want to do it again and i gotta do it again and i can't stay sober with a gun to my head for 24 hours there is no way because i've been through dt's by then a couple of times and i know what the warning signs are right and my brain is telling me you better drink dude or you're gonna hear the music so somehow i got this little job drunk as i was in the design district and i they took pity on me and I hardly ever went on Mondays but it was in the summer I somehow saved up a grand or something like that and I got this little garage apartment in Kessler Park a little carriage house whatever you want to call it it's a garage apartment whatever and all I had in it was a dirty sofa that a client had given me my work clothes and a clock radio so I could listen to the ticket winner and i remember it was in the end end of july of 99 and i didn't show up to work on monday i tried to taper on mondAY mondAY was a tapering day but very bad taperer and on this particular night i overshot the mark and i had to call in sick on tuesday and i tried a taper on tursday and i over shot the mark and I called in on Wednesday, and I'm like, Pat, I'm not going to be able to make it, dude. I don't know what's wrong. And he starts yakking at me over the phone. And by then, I've just, like, done. And I'm just like, you know what? Screw you. Screw your little job. I'm out. And I remember throwing my phone on the ground in my dirty little apartment, and I just hit my knees, and I just started crying. And I was like, And I said, And I went, And I go, And I say, you know what, God? I've been to AA, and it don't work. And I know I'm screwed, and I know I'm like this close medically from dying drunk, and I'm cool with it. Make it happen. And the only time I left that little garage apartment for the rest of that summer was to go down to Industrial and get as many plastic bottles of Skull Vodka as I could carry, get back to the house, lock the door, and guzzle. And I kept coming to, and it was just over and over. On Friday of Labor Day weekend in 99, I came to, and I'm covered in blood, and I haven't been stabbed. That's just me. It smells like something has died in my apartment, and that's just me. And I got empty skull bottles everywhere. And then I have this thought, it's like, I don't want to die drunk. I don' t know what to do. And I don''t remember calling Matthew, but apparently I called Matthew. And somehow one of my brothers, my younger brothers, got word and he came over to my house. Now he's going, he's getting his master's in theology at seminary in Fort Worth. right I taught these kids how to like ride bikes play sports do all this stuff so he gets to walk in on his 35 year old brother who's like severely malnourished drinking himself to death and smells like death he's like well we need to get you to the hospital I'm like they ain't gonna take me they're gonna take it they ain'T gonna take him he's like well what do I do and I said well if I just start to spin out of control just call the ambulance. And that Labor Day weekend, I rode it out and it was awful. Awful, awful, awful. On Tuesday, so I get back to my house. My brother helped me clean my house just trash bags full of vodka bottles. And I lived alone and there's like hidden everywhere. He's like crawling up and he's like, how did, why? I'm like, don't, i don't know dude whatever i'm a psychopath you know so on that tuesday my on that labor day while i was out my boss had called me and said hey the owners are in europe they're not going to be back for a month we got a project that came in you're the only schmuck that can do this project will you please show you know in your heart can you show up tuesday after labor day it'll be about a two-week project we'll pay in cash and basically we don't want to see you again. So here I is Tuesday after detoxing all weekend, go back to the design district, shaking and vibrating, right? My brain's screaming for vodka. Matthew's calling me. You're coming to the meeting tonight, right, Chipper Matthew? Hey, John, it's Matthew. And I'm like, ah. So it's like the third or fourth call that day. It's like right at closing time. Matthew calls me, and I'm like, oh my God, Matthew, I'm coming to The Meeting. He's like, well, I am not. Rachel's having a baby go see Cliff I'm like okay and by God's grace I didn't go home or anything I just was nasty and filthy and I just went and got a big gulp I came up here I walk in that little door and Cliff's over there in that shirt that he is wearing tonight he's in that shirt over there by that coffee and I walk into the door remember I gotta be hip slick and cool I'm dying but you know come on we gotta keep up appearances right I look like absolute heck and Cliff makes a beeline over to me and he starts to give me a hug and he's hugging me, he's smelling me. He likes ripe alcoholics. And I said, well, I'm supposed to talk to you, Cliff. And he looked at me over the top of his glasses dead in the eye and he was like, what the hell can I do for you? And here I am trying to be tough guy and I get choked up And I'm like, I don't want to die drunk. And he said, follow me. And we went back into that room right there. We used to have couches and stuff in there. And we sat down before the meeting started. And the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous starts to take place. I'd heard Cliff's story before. So he starts telling me some stuff about him. He's asking me some self about me. We're matching stuff. I'm shaking and vibrating everything the whole day. My brain is screaming for vodka. And Cliff gets me right where he wants to get me, and he says, are you a real alcoholic? And by then I'm snotting. He said, I'm a real alcoholic. And he says you're screwed. And he didn't use that word. He says he did. He didn't. That's not what my ears are. He says you'RE screwed. Look at you. And he wasn't doing it to shock me. That's just the truth. I'm 35 years old drinking myself to death. He says, you're done. I'm like, yeah. He says, well, do you believe it works for me? Well, yeah, well do you think it works for Myers and Ed and Sandy and Dara? Well, yes, damn right it does. If it didn't work, they'd be playing bingo in this church tonight. He said, how well is your way working? And I said, it's not. He said excellent i am now your sponsor and i was like oh crap i went from like chipper matthew to this guy and i Was like oh my god He says i'm now your Sponsor you're gonna read what i tell you to read you're going to go where i tell You to go you're, gonna do what i. Tell you to do which is in the first 164 of this book in the minute You balk go away And i said yes sir He says, let's go get you a desire chip. And as we're walking out of that room, right before he walked out, he says, when you get home tonight, I need you to start reading through the doctor's opinion. If you can't sleep, go through Bill's story. We'll talk about it tomorrow morning. He says. But when you are ready to go to bed tonight, I need your to hit your knees and look up at your ceiling and just say thank you for giving me another shot. All right. I sat right there where Chris is sitting right there trying to keep it together and right before the meeting started Laura Long came by and leaned over and said I'm glad you're back and I just friggin lost it and I got my last desired chip and I called my Satan mom because she had been blowing up my phone did you make it to the meeting I made it tothe meeting mom did you see Matthew well Matthew wasn't there and you could hear her hopes fall because she heard about Matthew I said, okay, his wife's having a baby. I have a new sponsor. She goes, well, who's your sponsor? And I said Cliff Bishop. And then my mom starts crying. And I say, why are you crying? And she says, because I've been praying. And I says, well listen, I've got some reading to do and I have prayer to my ceiling. Don't ask. I'll call you tomorrow. Everything's cool. And so I did. I did the reading and stuff and I remember getting in front of my dirty little sofa and I said a little prayer and I looked up at my ceiling and I told God thanks. And I got on that sofa to go to sleep and I'm laying there trying to go sleep and after a minute or two I have this thought go through my head it was like, dude, we don't got to drink no more. And I don't know where the hell that came from. And I went to sleep I called Cliff the next morning we talked about some big book stuff And he says, oh, by the way, tonight I'm speaking at the CASA group, 7 o'clock. Be there at 630. Click. He didn't ask if – does that work in your schedule? So I get to CASA Group. Cliff's got all these little old-timer buddies there from World War I or whatever. Ulysses Grant, I don't know. cliff doesn't even talk to me so i hear his story again and then we're sitting in the parking lot we go over the stuff that i read he gives me some more stuff to read he said call me in the morning so i call him the next day you're coming to the meet it's thursday right so he says you're coming tothe meeting right i'm like well absolutely he says excellent on your way to the meeting i need you to stop by salvation army and pick up manny moe and jack get them to our meeting get them back to the salvation army so they don't miss curfew click again And he didn't ask, like, if it's on your way, is this convenient for you? So I'm like, I'm rolling up in front of Salvation Army. Like, I see three knuckles. Like, hey, guys, come on, get in the car. You know, that was the right guys, though. We got here to the meeting and everything. But I remember sitting, and I was sitting like where B.B. is. Cliff and Myers were up there. Got my new little big book that Cliff had given me. We're doing the big book study. They're writing out the questions. We don't even have the study guide yet. they're writing the questions out right my buddy kurt who's been in homer bound he stayed sober he's kicking butt taking names he's sitting right next to me we're on page 46 says on page 46 we found that as soon as we're able to lay aside prejudice express even a willingness to believe in a power great in ourselves we commence to get results even though it's impossible for us to fully define or comprehend that power which is god and i'm underlying my new little highlight I'm underlining, and I'm hearing the good people in the group talk about that. And then it clicks. I'm like, my God, that happened to me. I'm hitting curtain. I'm Like, dude, this stuff is real. He's like, hello? And I'm locked in at that point, man. I'm This is awesome. I go to Cliff's house that weekend. We sat down. We spent about an hour or so together. We went and made sure my step one was cool. Step two was cool. He went over to my step three, and he says, you ready to make a decision to work these steps? I'm like, buddy, I'll do anything. And he's like, well, we'll see about that. Follow me. And he takes my new little big book. He's got it open to page 63. God, I should have wore glasses. So this is the book that Myers covered. This is my first big book from here. It's like patina and stuff. It's cool. but we get in our knees and the book is open to page 63 and i've done this prayer before right in various attempts throughout the years right and so you got the prayer right in the middle of the page and he says before we do your prayer i'm going to say a prayer make sure god's with us and so i remember sitting he said it was a prayer bench looked like a coffee table in the dining room where nobody goes but whatever um so we're like down on our knees i'm still shaking out vodka I'm still vibrating. I put my arm around him. He bows his head, and he starts praying. And I got no idea what he's saying because in my head, I'm praying my butt off because I've got to get sober now. Not next week, now. And I guess there was some silence there after he quit praying, and he nudges me. And he says, I need to hear what you're saying to God. And I said something like this. I said, God, I've tried to get sober since 1988 and I'm scared and I don't want to die drunk. I need your help. Please give me the willingness to do whatever I got to do to get what's in this book. And I said amen. And he said, stand up. And I thought I'd screwed up, you know, because we ain't reading it out of the book. And I stood up and he gave me a big old hug and he says, you just did the third step prayer. I voiced it without reservation. There was no lurking notion, the job, the car, the girl, one going to fix it. I surrendered and I had a sincere plea for help. And we walked back into his office of his house. He sat me down and gave me instructions for step four. And he said, you've got one week to complete it or else. But look at this stuff on the top of page, I did bring glasses, on the top of Page 63 because this is pretty cool that he pointed out to me. It says, when we sincerely take such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We have a new employer. Now that's a cool concept for God. God is the employer. What does that make me? The employee, right? Or the new guy. If I'm the new guys at a new job, I need to bust my butt, right. I need show up on time, kick some butt. You know, if I'm going to get through the probationary period and get a 401k and all, I got to be there and perform, right.? God is the employer. It says, being all powerful, he provided what we needed, comma, if we keep close to him and perform his work well. He said, underline it. I underlined it. He says, big boy, there's your job description until the day you die. And my job is no different that day than it is today. My job today is to stay close to God, perform his works well, today, no matter what happens. That is my job. All the other crap ain't my job whether I get hired, whether I get fired, whether i get divorced, whether she comes back, they're born, they die it don't matter. My job is to do my job today and during that week when I'm writing on my four step because see God wants to see me in action so from that day forward my actions today show God how willing I am not to pick up a drink. Me sitting on the couch thinking about it shows God zero. God wants to see me get up off the couch and go help, right? Every day there in that week when I'm writing my four-step, I'd call Cliff like I'm supposed to, and we'd talk about whatever drivel I had going on, and right before we'd hang up, he'd say, where are you at on your four-stepp? Well, I'm done with my resemblance. I'm working on my fears. Great. Call me when you're done. Click. and the week was up. My fourth step was done. It was on a Saturday night. I told him my fourth step was done, and he says, be at my house tomorrow at noon, and that's when I did my fifth step, so at that point, I'm like 12 days sober, and on that Sunday afternoon, I got to find out the truth about me. I who think so highly of myself and of my abilities ain't all that I lie, I cheat I con, I steal, I manipulate I annihilate everything in my path just to get my way and it was brutal remember him we said a little prayer before my fifth step and he said resentments are the number one offender what time did I start? I didn't know are we good? Because I'm looking at that clock, and I'm like, oh, crap. But my biggest resentment at that time was my dad. And so Cliff says, all right, well, let's talk about your dad. Now, in case you've never done a fifth step, let me tell you something. What you say can and will be used against you in your fifth step. So he said, tell me about your father. Tell me about my dad, and man, I let her rip. Because up until that time, my dad, God, he just rubbed me the wrong way. My dad left me when I was a little boy. He used to call me and tell me he was coming over when I Was little And he would never show up. What do you want for your birthday? What do You want for Christmas? On and on and on And on and it just got so bad That after all these visits That he never showed up As soon as I got old enough I just withdrew from his side of the family completely. I treated them like death. Like they were dead to me. and they didn't do anything to me. And so I'm getting it all out and Cliff's asking me questions, he's making little notes, he's got to get it all, word vomit all out. He's like, huh, sounds like your dad has a drinking problem. You think? And he said, what a coincidence, you seem to have a drinking problems. And that was about as good as I got Because the rest of that stuff, he flipped back to me. And I got to learn the truth about all that. You know, given the upbringing my dad had been brought up with, my dad did the best he could do. And my dad made some bad decisions, but so have I. And who the heck am I to judge him? This is stuff that happened like 30 years ago, and I'm using it current day as an excuse for me to behave like a jerk and drink myself to death, that ain't my dad's problem. My dad is one of God's kids too. And I lied to that man and cheated him and withdrew from his side of the family. And that's all on me. And we went through the rest of that stuff and it got quiet like this room. God dang, it was like eight miles from Cliff's house to my house. And I mean, I left that and I was just like a puddle. I didn't feel good about it. And I remember being home, quiet for an hour, and it says, at the end of that fifth step, it says we ask if we have omitted anything for we are building an arch to which we shall walk a free man at last. Omit and forget are two different things. Forget, I've forgotten most of the 80s and 90s. Omit is me leaving something out on purpose and I left something out. Good John Kelly saying, call Cliff. Bad John Kelly's like, nah, that's embarrassing. I remember, this is the book, I mean, I drew a black box around the word free man. And I don't know how many minutes I stared there doing that debate in my head, looking at my book. But it was like all these years of me trying to get sober was like passing before my eyes. And out of all those times, all those desire chips, 50, 60, 70 desire chips over the years, whether I had 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever it was, the one thing that I never, ever, ever was was free. Because even when I wasn't drinking, I was thinking about drinking. Even when I Wasn't Drinking, I Was Thinking About How The Heck To Get Through The Day With That. Stone cold sober, alcohol owned me. And by God's grace, I picked up the phone and called him and told him, got it off what I needed to do. He laughed at me and said, don't do that. That'll kill you. Start your hour over. And so on like one little Sunday afternoon, 12 days or 13 days sober, I did step five, step six, step seven, started on my ASAP list. That Monday, I went back to that little job and made my first little piddly amends. And my life changes. My life changes and we had my amends and he's guided me through the process and I'm knocking them out because I went through Homer Bound Myers and Curt and then we're going to Homer Bown on Friday night so like my first week you know Cliff says well since you came through Homer bound you got to go to Homer bound on Friday nights help them listen to them it was like the second week or the third week we were standing over in the corner and Cliff told Myers well since he's going to Homer Bounds give him something to read so I remember getting there on that Friday night and you may not know this but i don't really like speaking in front of people especially back then so i remember sitting there and myers like okay jk you're gonna we're at homer bound and he goes like you're going to read like page whatever it was 23 and 24 okay okay well what do i do myers he says well big boy why don't you get up and say your name and read page 23 and 24. And it was awful, you know, bad inflection. War fever ran high into, yeah, I mean, it's just terrible, terrible, terrible. Cliff's like, go down to the 24-hour club. Well, Cliff, I got three weeks. What can I do down there? You got three more days. Three weeks more than those knuckleheads. Meet a friend. Give me your number. Okay. My life starts to change. you know one of my big amends was to my mom you know I broke her heart over and over and over I stole from her purse I stole from her business you know I lied to I would get them all fired up so they've heard every middle-of-the-road slogan that you could fire at him as a family oh mom I'm a meeting maker meeting makers make it. And I'd get them trusting me again and I'd kick them in the teeth one more time and over this two or three or four week period you know every time I talked to my mom she'd you know she'd always hang up with saying you know you're different, you sound different. Okay and I remember going over to Cliff's house on a Friday and we went over it again and he said make the appointment. We prayed about it, he said make the apartment and I called her and she says well, I'm around tomorrow. So on a Saturday morning, I drove up to her house in Gainesville and I'm praying my butt off on the way. And I get to her house. She's sitting on the front porch drinking coffee, saying another little prayer and I get out of my little beater car and I start walking around my car up the sidewalk and she's walking down towards me and she starts to cry. I thought I ran over the dog. So she gets up to me and she's crying. I'm hugging her now. Of course, I'm not a tough guy. So I start crying and I'm like, why are you crying? And she stared back at me and she says, because you're different. She says, as soon as I saw your head pop up out of the car, I knew you were changed. And she grabbed my hand and we sat on the front porch and I got to go make this the mother of all amends, right? And I start to let her rip. And she says no, she grabbed him. She grabbed my hand with both of her hands she's not you don't owe me anything and a little evil JK is like well we're getting off easy and then she hits me with the mother of all the men she goes I don't know what you and Cliff and all those cats are doing in Dallas but whatever it is I want you to keep doing it because it makes me happy so if my mama lives to be 100 years old I better be 83 and three quarters kicking butt taking names because it makes my mama happy and i'm fortunate because my family came back to me i've taken my mom through this very book line by line just like i would a newcomer right we've gone through it she understands what alcoholism is because my mom's the lady like at walmart that the sad sack person next to her will just like dump on all right my mom was like back in the early days back when i first got the CDs. My mom's like passing out CDs all over North Texas, right? She's passing out Chris R. and Myers R. and Peter Marinelli and all this stuff. She's just passing them out to people. And my family got to heal over that because my family hit their all-time lows as a family because of my drinking and they don't drink. Before I got a 30-day chip, a little guy at Homer Bound pulled me aside as we were leaving And he says, hey, can I talk to you? I'm like, sure. And he's like, man, I just heard you talk for a couple minutes and I need some help. Will you help me? I'm, like, dude, I got, like 28 days. And he said, I heard you talked up there. If you can get 28 days, I'll give this a shot. I called Cliff. Cliff, you didn't tell him no, did you? Well, no, but I got like 20. John, read the damn book. That's why they wrote it. Can't screw it up. You know, and it was so cool. I mean, got to learn from Myers and Ed and Cliff and all these guys. And they're feeding it to us, and we're going out and trying to transmit it. I mean Homeward Bound was just awesome back in the day. It was just frigging awesome, and it changed my life. You know what I mean? I used to have a piece of notebook paper in the back of this book at all times, and it'd have 10, 15, 20 guys' names that I'm meeting on a regular basis, breaking down doctor's opinion, breaking down Bill's story over and over and over every day of the week. I was single and you know little ones and twos started to stay around then you get little knuckleheads like Don Teal come into my life if you look at the guys that I sponsor I get the end of the line guys little disco drunks don't they don't want what I got oh no don't call JK we might have to actually do something and hey these little but you know that's the coolest I mean look I got a cool life it's pretty amazing my life but the best part of my life is not the stuff that's happened to me it's the stuffthat happens to Jared and the stuffhat happens to Don and to Schaefer, to Phil, to see those men recover, to see these guys to see them helping other men. That is the ticket. That's the secret handshake. You know? And I spent all those years in and out of AA sitting on the damn back row trying to let the game come to me hoping one of you knuckleheads would say something witty enough, cool enough, funny enough to keep my dumb ass sober for 23 and a half more hours. and all i had to do was have somebody guide me through the work see the steps are designed to get me out of the way so god can do his perfect work that's pretty slick that's all it's about god intended me to do this i had to go through all of that crap all of those years and break all of those hearts and almost die several times to get me to the spot where God can help me. There's a whole lot of people that have been in this room over the years that can't get that. You know? Maybe they will someday. I don't know. You know, there's a whole lot if people out there that want to try to disprove what the big book says, disprove what the traditions say. And to quote Cliff or to loosely paraphrase Cliff, you know, forgive me if I don't want to believe that crap. You know, we have a legacy to uphold here. You know? And not just the legacy from Cliff and Gene and those guys, the founders 31 years ago. We got a legacy too. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob and Clarence Snyder and Abby Thatcher and all of those people. Because without those people, you take a look at your perfect little lives. You wouldn't have nothing without those guys. And I know life gets busy as we get older and we get in relationships and stuff happens. Look, I get it. I got a little nine-year-old kid. I'm a late bloomer. He keeps me busy. And I try to do as much as I can do. But I got to spend time with that little kid too. but the greatest thing in my life is to be able to sit down with a little busted up unit just like i was and sit down and maybe shoot them some hope it ain't my job to fix them my job is just lay it out if you want to come on little fellow let's go if you got your own ideas i wish you the best hang on to my number you know and by and just by some of the cool i mean i've got to meet people all over the world. I mean, I've been asked to speak quite a few places, right? And everywhere I go, whether it's in the United States or in Europe or wherever, they all know about primary purpose. All of them. You know, so, you know, I'm passionate about it and I want everybody to have the best opportunity. But I want them to have the best opportunity in Albuquerque too, you know what I'm saying? And so that's what we got to do. We got to keep on rolling the way we're rolling. You know those page 63 promises are pretty cool but let's flip over to page 84 and let's look at these. Some 10 step promises it says we've ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol for this time sanity will have returned. So the hope of step two has come true, right? It says we'll seldom be interested in liquor if tempted we recoil from as it were a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically. See I didn't do it. I spent all those years trying to get sober and I was trying not to drink. Trying to have that experience but now all I did was take the steps and this happens and I didn's do that. See that's pretty cool. We'll see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part it just comes that is the miracle of it we're not fighting it neither are we avoiding temptation god that's good stuff i got treatment centers one through five having me do a trigger list right can't hang around these people got to hang around those people got it can't be in these temptation places right? Well, let's think about some stuff in the big book. Bill Wilson walks into a cafe to use the telephone and ends up drunk. Cafes and telephones on his trigger list. Jim, the car salesman stops off at a roadside cafe for some sandwiches and milk and ends up drunk. Sandwiches and milk on his trigger list. And the coup de grace. Good old Fred the accountant. The end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon, steps across the threshold of a dining room and ends up drunk doorways on his trigger list. Come on, man. I feel like Randy Moss. Come on, man. It says we feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We've not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. I don't think about drinking. I don't think about not drinking. It does not exist. It has been removed. It goes on to say that's how long, that's how we stay, we'll stay like that as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition, work and self-sacrifice for others. So let me ask you, you maybe got some knuckleheads in here, can't seem to get it, can'T seem to get sober. Let me ask your question. Page 63, we did a third step prayer. I just left off page 85, that'S 22 pages. So if you can'T SEEM to get sober, here'S a question you got to answer in your little heart of hearts. Is your life worth doing 22 pages of work. Because that's all it is to get you from the gutter to being free, to being a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous and have the best years of life in front of your face. It's that thick. That's it. You know, I'll end with this. I spent a whole lot of years pissing and moaning and crying. Woe is me. Why did God make me an alcoholic? and by god's grace in this program in this group the worst thing that could have ever happened to me being an alcoholic is transformed into the best thing that happened to me being an alcoholic and for that i am free thank you Thank you.