My Mind Is Out to Get My A*s — First Line I Ever Heard in AA – Phil M.

Let's have an AA meeting. My name is Amy and I am an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip speaker meeting at the Navajo Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describe in their own language, from their own point of view, the way they establish their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what happened in their lives. We hope that no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker. And we will believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problem that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them, too. I must have this thing. Our speaker tonight, he's been sober all my life, so I give you Phil. I'm Phil Moore and I'm an alcoholic. And, oh me, I tell you what, I say I ought to get the truth out of the way first. I guess my sobriety day is February the 12th, 1988. And I just celebrated 31 years of sobriety through the grace of God and Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am eternally grateful for that. I got here young, Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm really not old now. Y'all might think I am, but I'm not. I don't know. I just, I got to tell you, I had, I've had a few, I left, my wife will tell you, that's her, I left this weekend to go to a memorial for a friend of mine. He had 35 years when he passed. And we had a memorial up in Dahlonegan. My old sponsor and some of us that got sober together met up and spent the night in the cabin. And it's funny, my old sponsor, Cliff, he's a, he's a character. I mean, he was a character. He got about 36 years. But he's starting to have some physical problems and he's getting dementia and stuff. And it's really sad. Really hard. You know, it's really sad for me to see that. He shared so much of his life with me and helped me so much. And then I've been talking to him. I've got every sponsor I've ever had. I hate to tell you all that. They just die off. But I, I ain't never fired a sponsor. He was my first sponsor. And my second sponsor was Roop. And my third sponsor was Jack B. Who his sponsor made him get me as his sponsor when he was dying on his bed. And I kept Jack until I got Chris B. Who's my sponsor now. And I still talk to all of them. Except for Roop. And I just talk to him in prayer. And y'all might know Roop. I don't know. But anyway. So I'm a little bit, I would, when Tim gave me the email, I thought I missed it or something. Because he'd asked me to do this one time. And I thought I'd missed it. And then I got, I was really pumped because I was going to see my people and all that this weekend. And then I come back and I was just kind of drained. Been down all day. You know, about it. It's really, it really upset me. I didn't realize how bad it upset me until I really saw him in his element and how far he had progressed. It's hard to tell on the phone sometimes. But when you get around somebody in person, it's easy to see. But I, you know, but all in all in that, you know, we are people, you got to admit now, we are people who have, we've, if you stay here, I mean, you had a hell of a life. Two lives. Two lives. I've had two lives. I'm still on my second one. I hope I don't have three. But I've had two lives and both have been enlightening. I'll put it that way. Both lives. And all the people. And I still see all, I mean, I'm a person that, I mean, from the gate out, I don't know if, I think I was alcoholic from the gate just waiting on a drink. And, and, and, and I had a lot of childhood trauma, but I don't think that had a lot to do with my alcoholism. But, because I loved it from the get-go. My first drink that I remember was I had an uncle and I just loved him to death. I thought he walked on water. He rode motorcycles, stayed piled up in bed drunk, wouldn't go to work. And I just thought he hung the moon. I really did as a little kid. And I, we was all going over to my, my grandmother's birthday party, which was Christmas Eve. She, that's her birthday. And, I was about five years old and I was hanging over at my uncle's house and he was pouring him a big tall tumbler of bourbon and he had filled it up with a little Coke in it and handed it down there to me and let me knock the top off of it. And I tried to kill it every time I could. And the only thing I remember about that night was trying to take sips off that tumbler and then I remember, standing up in that old 65 Falcon standing in the front seat, riding over to my grandmother's because I could still stand in the front seat. We didn't use seat belts or nothing like that. I don't know how y'all were when I was growing up. I used to sit and sleep in the back of the station wagon and have been thrown all the way to the front and hit the damn dashboards and they were metal back then. Kids are just weak now. They just can't take it, you know. I mean, I don't understand it. In fact, we got thrown all over everywhere. But, you know, I forgot what I said. You know, what was it? Huh? Tommy? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, and going over there and then they said that our guy was drunk and they had to hide me from my grandmama and all that stuff and I don't remember a thing about it. Didn't set off the crave and I woke up. I know that she woke me up at his house in the yard. The next day. That's all I know about it. And I couldn't wait to do it again. You know, I couldn't wait to do it again. And I did. We grew up and we used to camp out and, you know, I grew up, we're Baptists and Methodists and all. It was, you know, I grew up before divorces were cool and shit like that and, excuse me, and, but we used to go around and raid the houses on the weekend and we knew what everybody drank, you know, because Baptists and all and they kept their liquor out in the car porch in the storage room and they didn't keep it in the house back then. And all us kids, we knew exactly everybody where, so we just picked, y'all want to drink liquor tonight or you want to drink beer? We'd go to the Martins or we'd go to the Bentleys, whichever one you want to hit. And we'd get drunk and chase cars, get naked and chase cars. Don't know what you do when you catch one, but that's what we did. We thought it was fun and it was cool. Right? I mean, alcohol was wonderful to me. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, man. Made me feel... It did. Made me feel powerful. I think, and I think about this because I thought about this story and the only two times I thought about it was when it happened and when I was in treatment. When I was about five years old, my, I got a Superman suit for Christmas. A real one. I ain't talking about no fake stuff. I'm talking about with the cape, the ass, the shirt, the pants, the whole nine yards. And I'll never forget it. Because we'd been, you know, like everybody else, common folks. We tied towels with pins around our necks and flew around the yards and fought and wrestled. And I got me a real suit and I was going to climb up on the porch and I was going to fly around the neighborhood and show everybody how bulletproof I was. I put that suit on. Boy, I climbed up off that railing. And I dove. And I hit the ground. And I was humiliated. Embarrassed. And I'll never forget Belle, my neighbor next door. She was with Mama. And she picked up the thing. Of course, later I found where it said machine washable. She said, this suit will not make you fly. I took that suit off. I never wore it again. Ever. I didn't think about that until I was in treatment. And that was like my alcoholism. It was. Every time I took a drink it was like standing on that front porch. Standing there fixing the goat. And many, many days I'd wake up feeling humiliated and embarrassed. But I did not put that suit on again. I put it on again. Every day. Trying to get there. Now, I didn't drink. I didn't start drinking in the mornings out of necessity. I started drinking in the mornings at 15 years old just before my 16th birthday. Me and a buddy were out burgerizing beer. We were drinking beer. We were drinking beer. We stole 96 cases of beer. I don't know about y'all and y'all's alcoholism but mine when you're 15 years old and you've got 96 cases of beer you start drinking in the morning. And I did. And I never I don't know when I crossed the line but I never not drank in the morning. I never not started my day off drinking. And that was to go on until I got sober at 30 years old. And when I got and I'll just qualify just a little bit. I got 14 DUIs and I hardly ever got caught drinking and driving. Hardly ever got caught drinking and driving. Because if I was I do not ever remember I took my test drinking. I don't ever remember being in a car driving it that I wasn't drinking or wasn't under the influence. So I hardly ever got caught drinking and driving. I'd have got caught twice in 24 hours but that was their fault for letting me out. It was not my fault. I got caught on Thanksgiving Day and the day after. Same bondsman I had it was DUI number 4 and 5 and the first night scared the police of course you know how it is out the back maybe from here that's Jif Johnny out there from the house you know how we are. And the cop pulls me over and I was just I was wore out wore out so when I got finally got I couldn't walk I just barely get around I finally eased over and he had the blue lights flashing doing his thing whatever they do I just got out and walked up to the back door and opened it to get in. He jumped out with a damn gun I mean you'd have thought you'd have thought I was fixing to commit murder or something and I was like he's like whoa whoa whoa and I was like look buddy listen I'm too tired to argue just let me lay down let's go. He took me on to jail and then I got bonded out by a bondsman and damn if I didn't get a DUI almost in the same place the next day after I got out. Matter of fact the same people on jail were coming back in for shift when I got there and they was like deja vu wasn't you just in here I said yeah I called the bail bondsman and I said sir can you come get me out of jail and he said this is DUI number 5 you're a bitch you're a violator he said I just got you out of jail are you out of your mind I said the fact that I'm back in jail or tell you I'm good for it I mean hell I'm right here where am I going you know and of course he wouldn't make bond but I did eventually get bond and but for me I mean I loved everything about pranking I just it just did something for me it made me instantly okay and most of my drinking career I drank around the clock I never considered myself a drunk or anything like that I mean there were times it got out of hand now towards the end it got real bad the last five years of my drinking I got up every day puking and gagging trying to get a drink down to get through another day and and of course you know like a lot of young people I learned better living through chemistry early on in my life and that that got me a lot of trouble I went I went got busted went to prison in 79 70 something I don't know for a couple pounds of MDA I think they call it ecstasy today but they wasn't real cool about that and they put me in jail for that and and I did good I kept I kept getting my parole retarded for buck making drink and I started selling drugs in jail because I was I was in North Carolina Buckner, North Carolina a federal institution there and they they put me on a work run and I'd never had a visit or anything and the whole time I was in and they they locked me up in the carpentry shop to make because they wouldn't let me go outside the gate because I didn't have a carpentry shop and I didn't have a carpentry shop because I'd got in trouble in the other institution I was in and anyway so I I didn't know what to do in there so I started making stuff I started making picture frames and and clipboards and stuff with stash holes in them and stuff and I started trading and selling that stuff and I got kicked out of the carpentry shop because I had cut up something like ten thousand dollars worth of material and made it all into frames and boxes and stuff and stuff and sold it while I was supposed to be in there watching the shop they didn't like that but anyway and but I just I never thought and one thing about alcohol is me you know I never thought I had a problem I mean you know and they talk about alcohol as you know the book says that when you want to you cannot stop entirely or when which you drink you drink more than you intend to well I know that many many times I'd get locked up and I would swear to God I ain't never drinking again then I'd make bond and you know you just change your mind when I got to alcohol that's what I thought I just changed my mind I was going to quit but I ain't now you know and I kept doing that over and over and nobody told me that has that might be alcohol is I didn't know I said well the only reason I'm drinking now is because I want to you know and but I did that over and over and over and over I just changed my mind and the real the reason was is because I was just like the book says I could not conceive I could not imagine life without alcohol could not imagine during those early years could not imagine why would you quit why even with the trouble I mean I started getting in trouble from the gate my from from age 14 to 30 I was either paying off some lawyer some probation department some judge some something wrecked car something something due to my drinking and I thought you know I just can't get a break just can't get a break I never understood it I just could not understand it and with a lot of you know it takes what it takes it took every drink I ever drank to get here and I know in Alcoholics Anonymous you hear a lot of people say you know it's a choice today it is not a choice for me it is not a choice for me I do not have a choice I cannot not drink no matter what I say bet promise do it don't make no damn difference what I do have a choice in is that if I want to stay sober I'm not going to drink I'll have to work the program of Alcoholics Anonymous some of y'all don't have to that's fine I'm just speaking for me because I am powerless over alcohol that means I can't fix it I can't stop it I can't keep from drinking it I can't do anything with it you know there's nothing I can do with it I can't even keep it out myself from drinking it see y'all may can but I never could I can't do anything with it I never could I could bet everything bet the whole farm I'll never take another drink something will change my mind in 30 minutes somewhere down the road and I'll just change my mind that's alcoholism that's not free will that's alcoholism when I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I was 30 years old and I was a complete failure in every area of my life I was unemployable I couldn't hold a job I didn't want to work I really didn't want to be threatened with a job and I years before I got sober I would work for peace of mind I never I did not work for money I worked for peace of mind I had more money than I needed to work but I'd get so out there I'd get so damn crazy that I'd go in go to work with some guys I'm a carpenter I've been slinging hammers my whole life I hate to work with them I hate to work with them I hate to work with them I hate to work with them I hate to work with them got no training. And I would go to work for peace of mind. Towards the end of my drinking, I got a job with an old buddy of mine that didn't allow you to drink on the job. Prior to that, the first requirement for getting a job was you was able to drink on the job. I started out drinking on the job. Everybody drank on the job back when I was working. And the builder drank, the subs worked, everybody drank on the job. You would have got blackballed if you didn't drink on the job. So I learned it honestly. And that's what attracted me to that profession right off the bat. I knew, oh yeah, this is the kind of work I like. I started out using beer cans in my nail labor and found out that don't work. Cork bottles work a lot better. They don't punch your nears easy. Because you will punch your cans if you keep them in. But for me, towards the end, I had my brother. My brother and I, boy, we were, I guess we've been called white trash, hoodlums, some of that kind of stuff. But we wasn't no worse than nobody else we run with. They was all hoodlums. My brother, God rest his soul, he succumbed to the disease two years before I got sober. His last words to me was, Phil, I think I'm going to die. My last words to him were, it won't be no great loss. And I went out to relieve myself off the porch and he blew a hole in his heart and withdraws from alcohol and he died. And I fell off the porch, shattered my dang ankle. I got an artificial ankle now, but that was years later when I had it replaced. But I shattered it. Ended up calling Amherst, went to the hospital. They didn't want to tell me that my brother had died. And I was in the hospital doing surgery. And the only instructions my doctor gave was, get him all the Valium and Phenobarbital to detox him that you can and don't let him out until his brother's in the ground. And that's all they did. They kept me until he was buried and after he was buried they let me out. Because I had said something in the surgery that freaked him out. I don't know what that was, but it freaked him out enough to tell him to say that. And the reason I know that is because a guy I sponsor, a nurse that was in the surgery. Lived across the street, was in there when it happened. But one of the things about that is at least, and this sickness of alcoholism, boy, you know, your brother just dies. I get released. The girl I'm with takes me home. She's feeling awful remorseful and bad about everything that's happening. She gets all dressed up to go to church at night. Me, first I got out. I went by and got my pain medication filled. I went over. I was going to try to do right, but she got all dressed up to go out and I thought, hell, she's going out on the town. She said she's going to church. Made me mad. I called a buddy of mine and told him, bring me a bottle of liquor. I was getting the hell out of here. I was going back where my brother died because that was home and I didn't want to be around nobody having parties. And he did. And I left. And I'll never forget it. In the middle of the night, I got sober. I had a spiritual experience. And it was the presence of my brother. Of course, I didn't see it. It was just a feeling. It felt like I was stone cold sober. It said, live as I live and you'll die as I die. And it's all for nothing. That was it. My daddy called me at 6 a.m. in the morning crying, saying, I don't want to go to one more funeral. Please do something. Please do something. I made it for two and a half more years. Hard. I went at it hard, hard for two and a half more years. And I ended up with a stroke and withdrawals at Gwinnett Medical Center. And that started my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was, they tried to talk me into going to treatment and all that stuff. And I wasn't, I wasn't hearing it. And this little lady named Angela Hagen was a social worker. She's retired now from Gainesville. She came into my room after I'd done cussed every doctor out and all this foolishness. And she said, I know a place that might could help you. And she remembered my brother. I used to take my brother and all our cronies, what, down to GMHI. We'd take them down to GMHI when it got too bad drinking. They were drinking English leather one time. Because you get all kind of colors when you drink English leather. The colors are really nice. I promise you they are. They're really nice. And, but I'd always, we'd cart them down there to sober up and usually pick up two or three on the way back. We've done that several times. But she said, she said, I remember your brother. And I tried to help him. And for some reason, God moved on me. And I did not want to hurt her feelings for some reason. I just didn't. I just told her what she wanted to hear. I said, yeah. She said, if I could get you in a place, would you go? I said, yeah. And knowing, I immediately, I had already made the phone call for somebody to come get me, get me out of there. And old amulets come rolling in, paramedics. That guy running the paramedics ended up being my general. GSR at my home group. I didn't know that at the time. But he come in railing in to get me in the ambulance and I throwed my radio on the gurney and I had a half bottle of liquid codeine. I drank it while I was in the hospital just for a case I was going to get where I couldn't get nothing. And we went to Beaufort Treatment Center. You know, nothing happened, nothing expected. But I'll tell you my moment of clarity. I was in that nut house and I guess I'd been in there a couple of weeks. I don't know. Really don't know. And I heard old boy down in the AA meeting first words I ever heard in Alcoholics Anonymous. The old boy said my mind is out to get my ass. I don't mean nothing to y'all. Light bulb went off on me. Light bulb went off on me and I went back. I was back in my room. Now, I'm in treatment. I've been turned down by every halfway house. I'm getting close to getting out. No halfway house in Atlanta area or surrounding area will take me because of my record in jail. And so I'm getting irritated. I go back to my room and I had this moment of clarity. And the moment of clarity was that I remembered getting out of prison and this is what I had going on with me. When I was getting out of prison. I was getting out of prison. I had a job. I was going to get married. I was going to start a business. I had to go to work here. I was getting married and I was just going to start a business. Well, I was coming home and the bus, Greyhound bus, had to beat the parole office, federal parole office the next morning. Bus come through Knoxville, Tennessee and had a 15 minute layover. And I had done everything to sober up in there to make it out for the last six months. I hadn't had a thing to drink. And I caught a neon sign out of the corner of my eye and I bought ran over there and bought me two beers and killed them and I bought four more and put them in my overalls and got on that bus and come on to Atlanta. Nothing happened. I did not get married. I did not start a business and I did not go to work. And and boy when I came out I was fighting weight too. I was. I had a 45 inch chest, 15 inch arms and 32 inch waist. I was fighting weight boy. It wasn't six months. How that done dropped down here like this again. I done got drinking and it went away quick. I worked hard on that too. But I lost all that and oh it was a trip. My brother, I got to say a little about my brother because he didn't make it. And he was the type of guy that was funny. I'll never forget the first car he ever paid off that they didn't repossess. It was a Buick Skylark 67 Buick Skylark and we we offered it to the gods down at Lake Lanier on the river. We set that bitch apart. Let it up to the gods because it was the only thing he'd ever paid for in his whole life. Completely. Makes sense don't it? Doesn't make sense to me. And it was a good sacrifice. But when I hit my bottom it was that two years when he died I felt so sorry for myself and I just kept going in the hole in the rabbit hole deeper and deeper and deeper. The year before I got sober that August I think Dennis came over and got me and took me to a race because I didn't come out in the day time you know like Pulp Fiction. I had one of them house coats. I got up four o'clock in the afternoon and went and checked the mail. That's about the only sunlight I got. And he took me out one day and went to race. I got third degree burns all over me. I hadn't been out in the damn sun so long. I lit up like a damn firecracker. Just burnt me slap up. And that's been like I said I got sober February the 12th of 1988. And if y'all don't remember that was the day after New Year's. I went in there and blacked out. Christmas I went by and told my parents. I went by to see them and I was drunk shooting cocaine. Went in there and told them what I thought about all their Christmas ideas and how bullshit it was and it was just putting on airs and all. That stuff. And the next time I come to it was February. I was in that hospital in February. I'd had three grand mal seizures. I had been on a death run. And I had pneumonia. I got cirrhosis of the liver. My liver's shot. It's shot to this day. There ain't nothing left of it. I've had my last biopsy about three years. Tried it twice. Broken needle both times. They'll never do another biopsy on me. There ain't nothing there. Stick one needle in. But I'm sober and alcohol's not. And living good. Don't need it if you don't drink. Don't much. Don't need much of it. And that you know, I come here though and what it was for me I didn't know if I had a desire to stop drinking. I really did not know what I did to have a desire for was pain stop. Because what happened to me is that self-centered fear. I couldn't drink it away anymore. No matter how much dope I did, how much alcohol I drank and I drank every single day I could not drink it away. I'd be sitting. I'd be trying to have a good time and I'd be you know, I'm going to sit here and have drank a few and I'm going to enjoy it. And I'd always go in a damn blackout. Come back I'd be sitting there. I got it marked. I got how many. I'm going to sit here and just drink these few beers and I'm chilled. And I'd start hell, I'd come to might be the next day and I'd be in the same chair. Them beers wouldn't be there. I'd be pissed all in my damn britches and people would tell me all the damn places I went. No, I could not. And then what would happen was people around and drinking that self-centered, I would go in there. I couldn't communicate anymore. I didn't have anything to say to anybody. I didn't have nothing for nobody anymore. And I was just afraid on the inside. And I got I had got on a run trying. I had pneumonia so I was trying not to drink. I know it's an alcoholic's anomaly so I bought me an ounce of crank. I started shooting crank so I wouldn't have to drink. I ended up in the hospital with withdrawals from alcohol trying. Shoot crank. Don't work. And they said I was saturated with cocaine and crank and opiates. A lot of opiates. I did a lot of that stuff. My last, like that bottle I had, my mother it was like a 22 ounce bottle. If you had it, if it was Percocets or lower tabs, there'd probably be about 300 in there. And I drank two bottles of it. I drank a bottle of it and put my mama's head through a sheetrock wall for her to call a doctor and tell her she spilt it and order me another one. I did that. And I ended up going into withdrawals. I started hallucinating and a girlfriend of mine took me and dropped me off at the hospital and left. And my blood pressure was 200 over 200 and I was having a mild stroke. That started the journey. And then, now I'm going to tell you something, that moment, that moment of clarity, if I don't know, that moment of clarity, that moment of clarity that I had, I knew when I went back to that room and that guy had said that, about that thought about Knoxville, Kentucky, I knew that I was going to drink again and there was nothing I could do about it. Absolutely nothing. Because I had thought about all that. I had people pulling for me. I was going to get married, start a job, do all, I had people pulling for me, sweating everything on the line. I caught one knee and I was fine. Changed it all. Didn't happen instantly, but it changed instantly. I mean, it changed. And I fell to my knees and I said, God, I don't know who you are or what you are, but I need help. I didn't get no bolt of lightning. Nothing happened. But I haven't had a drink since. I've been in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous since. And I want to tell you something. I made that big surrender right then. Nothing happened. Right? Nothing happened. I got out. I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. First day I got out, a guy pulled up in Miami and threw a kilo of cocaine on my table and said, I heard you about died. Here, get yourself back right. Get you some money and get back right. You'll be all right. And I said no. First time in my life, I said no. And I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And I've been going ever since. And I'm going to tell you, I'm a person that cannot not drink no matter what I say, bet, promise, it don't make a shit. Whatever I tell you. I ain't had a drink since. And I haven't wanted to drink. And I don't know why that happened. See, that has to come from something outside of me. Because the book says, if a better code of morals, a better philosophy of life, if better thinking, better acting, better any damn thing would do it, hell, we wouldn't be here. We'd fix ourselves and go on. This ain't a place you fix yourself. This is a place you allow to get fixed. All you gotta do, and then when I found out that getting sober didn't have a damn thing to do with me, oh man, I lit in this shit like it was going out of style. I found out that it has nothing to do with me. I don't have to be smart. I don't have to understand it. I don't have to read it right. I don't have to do shit. All I gotta do is be willing to work the steps. I gotta be willing to see if I'm powerless. Am I really powerless? If I am, is there a power that can restore me to sanity? Can it happen? You think it happens? I said, hell no, it won't happen for me. Ain't no way God gonna do anything for me. Well, poor boy Rice gave me a message, said you didn't have to get good to get God. You need to get God to get out of hell yet. I understand that. Hey, I get that. When I found out God meets me where I am and not where I think I ought to be, I like that. That means he can take a screwed up mess and do something with it. As long as I think I gotta do something to get that, I ain't gonna get it. Cause I can't. See, it don't work that way. It's about me continually surrendering to this power greater than my... and on a daily basis, finding out and being aware of what the hell I'm powerless over and what I ain't. I'll guarantee you, if you'll look, you'll find out that 90% of the stuff that caused you the most aggravation in your life, you can't do nothing about it. I'll bet you. I'll bet you. And if I stopped concentrating on all the stuff I can't do nothing about and I start focusing on what's in front of me, life gets a hell of a lot easier. A lot easier. If I can put off worrying about stuff I'm supposed to worry about at 5 o'clock till 5 o'clock, my life goes good. This program tells me how to do that. It tells me how to plug into a power greater than myself. It says, let go and let God. Don't say, get God to do what you want. It says, let go of it. Leave it alone. Let go of hell if I can fix it. What do I need God for? Right? It's continually, continually, finding this power that is my source. And man, I'm going to tell you what, once you find that crap out, it gets good. It gets real good. I promise you, I can do anything, anything anybody can do other than take a drink. I guarantee you, I can do anything. I can experience anything. If I'm willing to suffer the consequences, I can do anything without taking a drink. And the cool thing, the cool thing is, is that life gets pretty damn good. You think about all the personalities and the people that you know, and do you know that they say if a man dies and he can count his true friends on one hand, if he can count three true friends in his life, he's lived a rich life. I can't count them on my hands and toes. I'm talking about people that come to rescue me and my wife. My second child was coming along. I met my wife in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bless her heart. She survived, we survived 22 years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've got two kids. One's about to graduate from college and the other one's about to earn a seat in Alcoholics Anonymous. And they've never seen me drink. Or her. That's a miracle, Alcoholics Anonymous. Didn't keep them from drinking. Didn't break the chain. I used to hear that all the time. They'd break the chain. Hell, if I could have damn broke the chain, I wouldn't be in AA. You know? What I think is I am real grateful that Alcoholics Anonymous is here just the way it is, should they ever need it. Should they ever need it. And it took me 16 years to grace the doors of a church after I got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. Hair used to raise up on the back of my neck every time I went in one. Had nothing to do with churches. Had to do with my hearing. My kids started growing up and I figured, by God, I didn't have what's necessary to give them. Just because I had found what I had found didn't mean I could transfer it to them. Yes, they could see me live and they know that. But they didn't know anything about a power grader. So I thought, well, hell, church is pretty good. Good place to raise kids. I got involved. Spent 10 years or so teaching Sunday school. Loved it. Loved it. They quit going, hell, I quit going. I ain't quit going to AA. There's a big difference than being in Alcoholics Anonymous and coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. I did treatment for 10 years and all the questions I'd always ask the people coming in treatment, I'd ask them about their experience with AA. Tell me about AA. What do you think about AA? How's it work? I can tell you hundreds and hundreds of people that have been through Alcoholics Anonymous through treatment many times in their life and don't know. They don't know one thing about Alcoholics Anonymous. Not one. Not one thing other than you go to some meetings. This is the least of Alcoholics Anonymous right here in this meeting hall. I'll promise you that. The work is one-on-one. It's one drunk helping another. It's one drunk helping another. Learning how to turn it over. That there's a source that will help you, will solve your damn problems, and you can learn to live by and depend on. It's personal to you. Not me. You. I'm to help the man find through the steps that hopefully he'll find a power greater than his self that's personal to him. Not my power. Not my higher power. His power. And it's a miracle. It's just a damn miracle. It's happening all the time. It's always happening. And what I've been guilty of in the last few years, and I've done it over and over in AA, I'm just as sorry as the rest of you. I get to resting on my laurels and get to going to AA meetings and get to not sharing a lot and sitting around. Because I don't know how y'all are. You get some time around. You get in your home group and there's small people getting around. You get to sharing a few times and they think, oh, that was profound. You know. They get to putting you up on a pedestal and I don't want to be on no damn pedestal because I'm going to fall off. And then I get all swelled up and quit sharing. And then I suffer bad. And, you know. So, I'm just coming out of one of those things. So, I went back to one of that room the other night and I shared to see if I couldn't. I got me up two new pigeons. One of them's living in the parking lot. You know, I just love hell. I probably won't stay sober, but Sam sure helped me. I told him, he said, I ain't got no clothes. I said, let me see if my wife, she likes to go to Goodwill. I went home and told Amy I had a drop over there that probably needs a few things. We got in the damn biggest knock-down drag-out. I said, hell, give him a short and a pair of t-shirts. What about a pillow? Next thing I know, I come back, bring him the homeless guy up there to the room. I bring him a suitcase. This guy, he ain't got no place to put it. With a pillow and all this stuff in it. I said, hell, throw the pillow away when it gets dirty. I said, Amy. I said, Amy, let's just do one thing today and do something tomorrow. It might not last that long. But I said, hell, we fighting like hell arguing about how to help somebody. I said, I should have never told you. I got to thinking about it. How silly is it? Because my idea is I help a guy out. I ain't going to give you too much. I'm going to make you work for it. She's like, she's going to put him in a feather bed. I said, he ain't never going to get sober like that. I'm going to cut it. I just want to say that I am I am absolutely blessed that I am to be a member of Alcoholics and Alcoholics. It's an honor and a privilege to be here. It's a gift. And I don't want to give it back. Thank you. Thank you. That was awesome. I've asked Julie to come up and pass out the chips. I'm Julie and I'm an alcoholic. That was wonderful. Thank you very much. We have a chip system here at this speaker meeting and it goes like this. We have a white chip for anybody who wants to start our way of life or for the first time or is coming back. All right. Anybody else? We have a silver chip for 30 days. Anybody else for 30 days? How about 60 days? Anybody else for 60? How about 90 days? Six months? Nine months? Any years that I don't know about? How about the year that we do know? Tell us who you are. Okay, my name's Julie. This is my second year. All right. I've pretty much was just tired of being disappointed with my life. I asked God to help me and he sat me down for quite a bit of time and I had a lot of time to think and when I got out I just chose that this is what I want to do. I can't go back to where I was so I'm here and we're going to keep going. My name's Amy and I'm an alcoholic. This is my other half. But I have seen him struggle. I've seen him do good. I've seen him work the program and he constantly works for newcomers. And I'm proud of you, babe. Thank you. I've just cornbread another drunk. I don't sit in here for the speaker meeting. I work with guys downstairs on Monday nights but the fellow that just spoke I really can relate to that last few statements that he made because we do we get caught the bull and then we get to share and it's so profound and we're so foolish. We really are. And this is 13 years but that don't mean nothing. Man, you can still I can still drink tomorrow. You know, people in here think because we got this time that we're all this pervert. Trust me. Trust me. I make a lot of mistakes and recover but there's only one thing that I've done right and that's not take a drink. And I try to work with other alcoholics to remind me where I was at. And, you know, anybody if you're a drunkard you know, the guy that picked up the white chip, man, if I can do it I promise you you can do it. I promise. Just got to get in here stick to it get a sponsor work some steps and figure out that alcohol was your solution and that you are the problem. So, thank y'all. Congratulations, Wendy and Julie. Does anybody else want to go come into our way of life for a white chip? Anybody? All right. Way to go, y'all. Thank you, Wendy and I for joining the Blue Chip Society. We're going to have a speaker tonight.