Nightly Tenth Step Since Treatment — Where the Arrogance and Judgment Finally Surfaced – John A.

Hey everybody, I'm Julie and I'm an alcoholic. Let's have an AA meeting. Let's do it.
Welcome to the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story.
I'm Tyler and I'm an alcoholic. Good evening and happy Labor Day everybody.
Thank you.
This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God.
These give a fair cross-section of our membership and clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives.
We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts of bad taste.
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women are in room tonight and listening later on AABlueChipSpeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker.
And we believe that it is only by...
By fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say,
Yes, I am one of them too. I must have this thing.
Before I introduce our speaker, I met him about nine and a half months ago.
I was on the hunt, so to speak, for a sponsor.
And I actually heard this gentleman share in a meeting.
I was very adamant about wanting...
A sponsor who was working and on this program.
A gentleman who actually put principles before personalities.
I asked him after he shared after that meeting that day to be my sponsor.
I have come to the conclusion after the nine and a half months that this gentleman is a man of integrity, of principles.
And I couldn't be more honored that he is my sponsor.
And without further ado, I give you John A.
Thank you, Tyler.
I am John A.
I am from the friendship group of the Halt Club in Gainesville, Georgia, which is the poultry capital of the world.
If you don't know that, you should.
But anyway, we've got a really nice recovery program in Gainesville.
Lots of options.
But I guess I met Tim about five years ago.
Five years ago when I came in, I really enjoyed getting to know him.
And he asked me to come down here and speak and share my story with you.
So without further ado, my sobriety date is September the 19th, 2011.
So I'm coming up right on five years.
What I thought I would do is go back through kind of my history and what got me here today.
I had a normal upbringing.
You know?
Gainesville, my mother and father, everything was just kind of average.
My father and mother both came from nothing.
And my father was an absentee dad, you know, trying to build a business.
I don't fault him for it, but it just is what it was.
And so I didn't have a lot of positive male influence in my upbringing.
But as I said, I don't fault him for it, you know.
And it was that kind of...
You know, back in the 70s, and it was just kind of that type of thing.
But it didn't seem to harm me too much.
We had kind of the, you know, Sergeant Carter-Private Powell relationship going on.
You know, he said, jump, and I did it.
And so, anyway, it was a relatively normal childhood.
I never did anything bad enough to get in the newspaper,
and I never did anything good enough to get in the newspaper.
I was just rolling.
Just rolling down the road.
My first drink, I was about 13 or 14 years old.
It's kind of comical.
My father had a friend who was in the trucking business,
and they had this truck of low-and-brow beer.
I don't even know if they can sell that stuff anymore.
Anyway, but it had jackknifed.
And they were thinking that there were one or two empties missing probably out of every case.
So he ended up buying...
He ended up buying half a tractor trailer load of low-and-brow beer.
You know, me being a 13-year-old, he needed some labor to get it in the basement,
and so he enlisted me and a neighbor friend to cart it around, you know, put it in the basement.
Well, his shrinkage level was a lot more than he had anticipated.
He was not missing two beers out of every case.
It was more like half.
And so we were carting them off to the woods, you know.
Anyway, didn't really get in any trouble.
But we...
You know, but that was my first taste of alcohol, and, you know, I liked it.
I liked the way it made me feel, the confidence it gave me, and it was fun.
It was fun.
You know, I drank when I had the opportunity, but didn't drink to huge excess.
I was just a normal kid.
I did like it.
I loved that warm feeling you get.
I got to high school age, and I absolutely hated public high school.
I don't know.
I can't really remember what it was.
Maybe it's just my lack of direction.
So I asked my parents to send me off to boarding school,
and I went to boarding school for my high school career in Tennessee.
And it's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made.
You know, I got there and got a positive male influence,
and they, you know, they taught me how to study and kind of live on my own,
which was good because I spent the next four years driving.
I was a good boy.
I was a good boy.
I was a good drunk at the University of Georgia.
So, you know, I did well.
I stayed out of trouble all through UGA.
I graduated with a 3.0 from the accounting program on time.
I don't know how I did it drunk all the time, but, you know, I was in a fraternity,
and it was just always just drinking, drinking, drinking.
I saw Tinsley earlier.
He used to play in our fraternity house.
I don't remember his act or his songs.
He probably doesn't remember me, and, you know, who knows.
But there were kind of years that just floated on by.
Well, after graduating from the University of Georgia,
I moved back to Gainesville and went to work for my father's company.
Things were good, but I was still living like I did in Athens.
I was still drinking every night.
I was putting a buzz on every day.
On the weekends, it got to be more.
During my 20s, you know, it seemed like, you know, I got married.
My wife drank, too.
And it just seemed like it was getting more and more, but it was primarily me.
Just more drinking, more drinking.
And I just had this love affair with alcohol that, you know, I can't really explain it.
I know a lot of y'all know.
I don't know what I'm talking about, but I would just stockpile it like crazy.
I had this separate refrigerator in my basement that was slammed full.
I mean, you know, six cases of beer, and I'd buy a truckload of –
I'd come down here to Green's and buy six cases of Magnums of Chardonnay.
And I was just a beer and wine guy.
You know, I didn't like liquor, but I was just, you know, just pounding it.
And it just started – it just kind of got –
it seemed like it got into my soul or something.
I was just – every day I would wake up and I would think about,
okay, how am I going to – how's this day going to unfold as it – you know, with drinking.
So that kept going, kept going.
At the end of my 20s, that's when I feel like I lost the power of choice.
It was not a bad habit.
It was not a –
it was an obsession.
My friends who, you know, my peers in my social group, they had all scaled back.
I was out there drinking by myself.
You know, they were getting ready to have children and do those kind of things.
And I'm still getting hammered every night.
I got to my 30th birthday, and I went in, and I had a physical with my doctor.
And he said, your liver numbers are too high.
He said, I think you're drinking too much.
You've got to throttle that back.
You can't drink this much.
And I guess in my mind, I was thinking, golly, my dad drinks more than I do.
You know, all the kind of common things that we think of that you try to rationalize your behavior.
And he said, look, he said, you're – these liver numbers are off my chart.
You know, you've got to stop something.
So what do I do?
In my mind, I thought, well, the best way – I'm not going to give up my love affair with alcohol.
Well, what I'm going to do is start exercising.
So exercising, you might think, you know, hey, he walks a mile or two a day or something like that.
No, I started training for a marathon.
So I did, and I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2002.
And I had a 10-year running career.
It was an alcoholic running career, if you can believe that.
I ran 35 miles a week.
I ran 35 miles a week for 10 years.
I mean, religiously.
Come hell or high water, I was going to get my mileage number in.
I can't really explain it.
I just – that was my counterbalance in my mind.
All the way, still drinking the whole time.
Just drinking, just wide open.
Drinking and running.
And I don't know if the running did any good or, you know, who knows.
My liver numbers came down a little bit.
My quality.
My vision of decision-making really started to get poor.
Let me back up.
I had four kids.
Between age 30 and 40, I had two sets of twins that are 13 months apart.
So maybe it was stress.
I don't know.
Yes, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am.
Well, during my 30s, I was running all the time.
And my life just revolved around drinking.
I got to where I'm lying to my wife.
I consider myself so honest, I mean, except when it comes to drinking.
You know, do the typical things.
You know, hey, I'd go have a couple of tall boys at the convenience store before I got home
so it didn't look like I was drinking so much.
You know, that kind of crazy alcoholic behavior.
Well, in my late 30s, the quality of my decision-making skills started to really go down.
Some things that come to mind, you know, I would just go and on the weekends I was just drunk the whole time.
I was bush hogging.
Our family has a farm in Dawson County, and I was out there bush hogging, drunk one day,
rolled the tractor over.
So this is a 6,000-pound tractor.
With a 2,000-pound bush hog on the back of it.
And I turned it on its lid, the bush hog running wide open.
Had I not had on my seat belt and had the roll bar up, it would have killed me.
There's no question.
You know, that's dangerous anyway.
But when you're blowing a 2.5, it's really dangerous.
But, you know, we do stuff like that.
I can't even, it's hard for me to even say this, but I caught some trespassers on my,
farm, riding motorcycles on my pasture, and I sat there and leveled down a 9-millimeter
and emptied it in their direction.
Because in my mind, I'm sitting there thinking, they're trespassing.
They got no business on this property.
They don't need to be doing that.
So in my mind, I'm thinking, trespasser, you know, I can beat that.
And I rationalized it.
And making decisions like that, I mean, I am a razor's,
edge away from, you know, I could have been in prison.
You know, just doing things that were just asinine.
Drinking and driving, I've done it a thousand times or more.
I've never had a DUI.
You know, I don't know if I'm the slipperiest fish in the pond or what.
But it's not from a lack of doing it.
I've deserved one so, so many times.
I have.
I've got 16 broken bones over my drinking career
just for various stupid different things.
I didn't get in a car wreck.
I didn't fall off a skyscraper or anything else.
It's just being an idiot.
Drunk, falling down a set of stairs.
You know, I was trying to teach my daughter how to jump rope
with a child-sized jump rope.
And after having a Magnum, a Chardonnay,
you know, and it just, it just, it's just stupid.
Broke three ribs doing that, you know.
But, you know, I could rationalize all that stuff.
Well, I mean, I could keep going on and on, you know.
You know, drinking with the children in the car.
It's just, it was just absurd.
Well, my life was really, really,
kind of unraveling.
And I'm that guy who had one foot on the banana peel
and one foot hanging over the side of the cliff.
I was just about there.
But, I'm that yet guy.
I'd never had a DUI.
I've never gone to jail.
I've run a successful business with 20 employees.
And, you know, I've never not paid a bill.
I've never had a bill in my life that was legitimate.
You know, I hadn't suffered any of those consequences.
So, that's the way I rationalized it.
You know, I'm okay.
You know, I, I, you can't be an alcoholic
and be successful in, in, in society's eyes.
You know, the problem with me is
when they were handing out yardsticks for success,
mine had dollar signs on it.
And it should have had steps.
And it should have had serenity on it.
And I picked up the wrong one.
And so, you know, well, let me, I'll fast forward.
When I turned 40, I still had liver, elevated liver enzymes.
And I had developed a hernia.
And so, I was going to get the hernia fixed.
And so, they, I checked into the hospital.
They had sedated me with a little bit of a drug.
I was in the hospital.
I was in the hospital.
They brought me in the ER.
And the doctor, who's a friend of mine, made a, made his incision.
He was going to patch the hernia.
And he cut through a vein or, or artery or something.
I don't, I don't know.
But I lost three pints of blood in about 30 seconds in the operating room.
And he quickly stitched me back up.
And he went back in.
He came in the recovery room and said, something's not right.
He said, I've done this procedure.
I've done this procedure a thousand times.
He goes, in that vein, it's not supposed to be there.
He said, something is jiggled around in your abdomen.
And he said, we got a serious problem.
And he said, let's get you down to Piedmont, the liver transplant place, or the liver place, quickly.
And so, I had to heal from the, from that surgery.
And then here comes Piedmont.
And I go in, do a lot of blood work.
And meet with this doctor I wasn't real fond of at the first sitting.
I've never been spoken to quite like that.
And I came in and he said, well, he said, you have advanced cirrhosis of the liver.
He said, so, you're never going to have another drink as long as you live.
And he said, that's not negotiable.
He said, you drink.
You drink too much.
And, but you also have a genetic defect.
I've got a double mutated gene I got from my mother that amplifies the effects of alcohol on your liver and your organs.
It's called hemochromatosis.
But anyway, it's basically iron settles in your organs.
And it's like, when you add alcohol, it's like putting a flamethrower to it.
I didn't know.
I didn't know.
I didn't know.
I didn't know.
But then again, I don't know what I would have done, you know, with the behavior that I've already demonstrated.
And I said, well, you don't understand, you know, but I'm not an alcoholic.
I pay my bills.
I mean, how does this process work?
And he goes, let me tell you how it works.
He said, the only reason you're sitting in my office is because you have a friend in Dr. Brown who did your hernia surgery.
He's a buddy of mine.
And he somehow.
He somehow thinks that you've done something, so you deserve a few more days on this planet.
He said, I've got folks waiting out the door coming to see me.
And I will help you, but you're going to be my rock star patient.
And he said, this is not negotiable.
He said, you're going to Talbot.
And then following that, you're going to go to AA.
And I'm going to drug.
I'm going to test you randomly.
If I pick up the phone, you've got six hours to get to a testing station, and I want a result.
I said, Talbot.
I said, how much does that cost?
And he said, it's $40,000.
He said, what the hell would you do if I said it was $400,000?
I mean, he made his point.
He made his point.
But he said, look, if you take another drink and I catch you,
I will turn my back on you so fast your head will spin,
and you'll be down in some unknown hospital in South Alabama
trying to get treatment from a doctor that I wouldn't hire because I think he sucks.
And I was like, that's not really nice, you know?
He was putting it to me, so, you know.
And I said, well, this Talbot thing,
can I think about it for a while?
And he goes, yeah, you've got about 15 minutes.
And that was it.
And I went to Talbot.
I did not want to go to Talbot.
But they kept me sober.
They kept me from not drinking.
And they didn't convince me that I was an alcoholic.
Oh, I need to back up one thing.
When he was laying all this,
you're going to have to have a liver transplant.
Maybe it's a junk ball.
I'm right there on the borderline of being listed for transplant.
You know, my numbers, so to speak.
I sat there and thought to myself,
you know what, this is really going to suck having not been able to drink.
And, you know, basically I don't know how I'm going to have fun anymore
and how I'm going to go through life with this.
So,
I'm going to do it.
But if I get a new liver,
it's back on, baby.
I mean,
if that's not alcoholic thinking,
I don't know what is.
But I went as far after that.
I was looking at the actuarial tables
of the life expectancy of a white male in the southeastern United States.
And that life expectancy is 76.
I was 43.
And so I thought, well,
you know,
life expectancy is 76.
If I can get above 70 with my,
even with the bum liver,
I can start drinking maybe at age 70.
So I calculated it backwards to figure out.
I was counting down to my next drink.
I was going the wrong way.
As screwed up as that is.
But anyway,
it's just craziness.
Just craziness.
And I've forgotten.
I've forgotten to tell you that in my running career,
I'd read in a liver,
I'd read in a running magazine one time that your liver is capable of storing
up to 20 miles worth of sugar or glycogen in the liver.
So you can run 20 miles and your liver is basically depleted of sugar.
And that's why these long distance marathon runners,
they eat when they're running.
So they're like eating.
They're like something with the consistency of baby food.
So when he gave me that news,
I was like,
you know,
I can still run 10 miles and 20 is the whole tank of the liver.
So I can't be more than half gone.
So,
I mean,
cause I can do 10 miles and I'm sitting there thinking that I'm sitting there looking at my liver gauge.
I'm half a tank.
I mean,
just demented,
demented.
Well I got to Talbot and I can't say that I understand it,
but I was there and they gave me tools to keep me sober.
They taught me what to do as far as how to have a plan B everywhere I go.
You know,
if I'm going to encounter drinking,
you know,
I'll take a separate car or I'll,
I always have an escape hatch that I can,
that I can pull that you know,
they taught me things what to do if you're having an issue and you feel like you're going to drink.
They gave me a,
they gave me a workbook to do these 12 steps and I had them done in an afternoon and put in a binder and in on the treatment person's desk and I was like,
there you go.
Early release for me.
So,
uh,
you know,
so obviously I didn't have it figured out.
I didn't have it figured out by a long shot,
but then I came to AA.
I agreed when I left from Talbot that I would do whatever they said and my wife is sticking by me the whole way from between Piedmont hospital and Talbot.
You know,
I had to go to the AA 90 and 90 get a sponsor.
I did.
So I did self imposed drug testing in addition to the Piedmont hospital,
but I kept it together and uh,
I did the 90 and 90 in,
in AA and you know,
one of the most,
the best things I did at Talbot,
they taught me how to do the step step 10 and I have done that daily since I've,
since I've,
whatever time I've learned it,
learn that in Talbot,
and I credit that for learning the program of AA basically every night before I go to bed,
I will sit down and I will list my character assets,
my character defects.
What did I do good today?
What did not not do so well today?
What do I need to do to make it right?
What part did I play in things?
And I started looking at this and over time,
you know,
it kind of rears its head.
You're an arrogant ass.
You lack humility.
You're judgmental.
You're mean spirited at times.
And I started looking at that and I'm like,
what am I doing?
I sat there and thought to myself,
you know,
God has given me this gift of life and I've blown it and I'm going to sit there.
I mean,
what I'm miserable because I'm not drinking.
But I'm sober.
What?
What am I?
What the hell am I going to do?
I was just at a point and I just kept working the 10 steps.
The excuse me.
I kept working the 10th step every day and,
you know,
was going back and reworking the ones that I so quickly went through.
But just over time,
you know,
I realized that when I was drinking,
I was wound.
So,
I was wound up like a spring.
I was tense all the time.
We,
you know,
we would be on vacation at some someplace and,
you know,
I'd say for the vacation and everything's good.
It's time to relax and I can't sit still.
I'm worried about things happening at my office.
I just,
I can't relax.
I'm not comfortable in my own skin.
Maybe,
maybe that's kind of just the way I was taught,
the way,
I was,
you know,
the way I learned things,
but life was going past me at 200 miles an hour and I was blowing it.
And I sat there and thought,
you know,
is that really where I want to be when,
you know,
on my last day on earth that I've wasted my life by worrying about everything by looking for where my next buzz is going to come from one day,
it just seemed like,
I just,
I just kind of had the feeling that everything's going to be okay.
You know that there's somebody out there.
This isn't a big coincidence that there's,
there's higher power out there and he's walking with me every step that I take every day and it's going to be okay.
I just need to work the steps and you know,
I used to be petrified of dying.
You know,
the guy leaves from kill me.
You know what?
There's nothing I can do about it.
I have no part in it.
I mean,
you know,
I can not drink.
And the condition that I have,
I basically have to give blood about every six weeks to get the,
let get the iron out of my system.
And so,
you know,
Hey,
I'm benefiting somebody by giving blood,
you know?
Um,
but I still think regardless of that,
that blood defect,
the genetic defect,
I think I'm in the right place.
I mean,
I think,
I think that AA has taught me far more about life.
I mean,
about life than just not drinking that I had gotten so many words of wisdom from people that I never would have given the time of day to when I was drinking because I was so judgmental.
I had y'all,
I had y'all figured out from top to bottom,
you know,
in the first 10 seconds.
I'm ashamed of that,
but it is what it is.
But I try to look at the,
try to look at the,
uh,
the program and the condition that I have,
you know,
with a little bit of sense of humor to,
uh,
you know,
some of this stuff's funny.
I mean,
I,
it,
that's not,
I mean,
it wasn't then when I was upside down,
you know,
in a,
in a big old tractor,
you know,
with a high oil leaking on me and,
uh,
you know,
that kind of stuff just,
you know,
but it's,
it's kind of funny now.
It's funny.
I,
I shared this,
uh,
this liver story with,
uh,
with someone,
I think at my home group and I was,
I was sharing and this guy came up to me and he said,
you seem like you really kind of rattled by all that.
He said,
you know what?
I heard a doctor one time,
he gave me the best advice and I think that when you hear this,
you're going to know that everything's going to be okay.
And he said that doctor was Dr.
Dre and don't ever slip because if you slip,
then you're slipping and I just sat there and just laughed.
I mean,
you know,
I mean,
you got to kind of look at this stuff like,
Hey,
you know what the hell,
you know,
let's,
uh,
but anyway,
it,
I was all serious looking at the guy and he comes up with that,
you know,
I think once I tapped into the realization of having a higher power that I gained serenity and it's just priceless and,
and these promises are coming through and it's,
it's just a,
it's a beautiful program.
You know,
if you,
if you,
if you work it and you have a desire to stop drinking,
that's just kind of where I started out.
Just some,
somebody just,
uh,
sitting in the chair in my mind,
kind of doing time,
you know,
doing my 90 and 90.
I would like to touch on the,
the step 12.
Uh,
I do have a spot C in Tyler.
I've had some other ones with mixed results.
I was doing a pretty good job.
I had somebody come up to me.
After a meeting one day at the hall club and the guy said,
you don't remember me,
do you?
And I said,
I'm,
I'm sorry,
but,
but I,
but I don't.
And,
uh,
he said,
well,
my name's Chris.
And he said,
you gave me a big book after a meeting.
And I said,
when was that?
I don't remember that.
And he said,
it was one year ago.
He said it was a year ago today.
And he goes,
now I go to a different meeting.
So we haven't seen each other.
He said,
but I,
I just,
I just want to let you,
I want to say thank you.
And he said,
I wanted to let you know that I had just gotten out of jail.
And I decided to go to the hall club to go to an AA meeting.
And I was sitting in there weighing my options.
Should I just live life on the run?
You know,
because I'm out of,
you know,
out on about to go to drug court or,
or treatment or a residential men's program.
And he said,
I just sat there and he said,
you showed,
you know,
you sat there and listened for a few minutes for 15 minutes.
And you bought me a,
you know,
a big book.
And I was like,
it was three and a half dollars or whatever for that little one,
you know?
And he said,
well,
just,
you know,
thank you.
And I was floored.
I never thought I did anything.
I never thought I did anything.
You know,
I mean,
I'm just sitting there just a dummy in the seat and you,
you,
you,
you share,
and you show,
a little bit of benevolence towards someone.
And it makes that kind of impact.
And for me,
that's one that will keep you coming back.
It does me.
And I just feel so blessed.
AA has given me a second chance at life.
I hope I'm measuring up to the task.
You know,
I've got two 17 year olds and two 16 year olds now,
which they're,
they're lots of,
they are lots of fun.
They're lots of fun.
But you know,
when I got sober,
they were 10 and 11.
I'm hoping that they don't remember that part of me.
I never did anything,
you know,
never had a high speed chase or anything else.
Sat there in the chair with a glass of wine and just drank till I went out,
passed out or whatever.
I think being absent from my family's lives is just as bad as any,
as anything else.
And you know,
AA brought me here and you know,
it,
it showed me how I need to be living.
And I just had no idea that other people,
how can you have fun in sobriety?
I mean,
but you can,
I mean,
I don't,
I mean,
I guess it may be a true testament that the fact that I am certifiably crazy,
because I can have just,
I mean,
just as much of a good time with a cup of coffee or ginger ale than I could when I was low,
loaded,
making bad decisions.
And,
and truth be told,
I mean,
I was so close to losing everything,
but I had,
you know,
I still have a wonderful life of,
you know,
22 years and four happy children.
She started,
decided to stuck by,
stick by me.
I wouldn't have stuck bolted probably,
but that's,
that's how I got here.
And I'm here to tell you that these promises will,
they do come true.
It's an amazing thing.
Thank you so much for that.
That was a great story.
And I'm keeping the jumping rope with the little kids jump rope in my mind,
so that I can have a laugh every once in a while at your expense.
Um,
but that's really funny in my mind.
I don't know.
Everybody didn't see it.
I've asked,
I'm trying to give up.
I'm a tray.
I'm an alcoholic.
Okay.
And here in AA,
we have a chip system to denote time and sobriety.
And the first chip we offer is the white chip for anyone who wants to give this way of life a chance.
Okay.
And the second chip is the silver chip for 30 days.
Okay.
The next is a red chip for 90 days,
a yellow chip for six months,
a green,
green chip for nine months.
Okay.
And we've got the blue chip for years or multiple.
Hi, I'm Tara and I'm a very grateful alcoholic.
I am humbled and honored to be presenting this chip to a friend of mine of 28 years.
Uh,
we lost touch a little bit over the time,
over the time,
but,
um,
he's asked me to be here with him tonight and I couldn't be prouder.
He's come from Villa Rica.
This is Greg.
I'll tell you what,
when we were,
we were visiting over coffee before we got here and,
uh,
this guy's service work puts mine way to shame.
So,
um,
I'm gonna have to step up my game so I can match his.
Can't touch this.
I'm Greg.
I'm an alcoholic.
Thanks for having me.
That was awesome.
I've enjoyed what you had to say.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say up here other than,
uh,
I've had one heck of a year.
I've been in the program for 10.
It's taken that long to,
uh,
get through a year.
Uh,
that's how crazy it is.
You know,
I'd get to six months to nine months to 30 days to,
I mean,
I just couldn't ever put it all together.
I put God first,
took the tools that I had,
started using them.
It's amazing.
What do you do?
It's a life changer.
For sure.
And the only chip we offer at Splice is the white chip,
because it is very,
very important.
Be careful for the chips you'll hold.
Thank you,
Trey.
Congratulations,
everybody.
Thank you,
one and all,
for joining the blue chip speakers meeting tonight.
Thank you.
I need something to take the edge, you see.
I got nowhere to hide.
An empty hole inside.
Is the Bible the book or the gun for me?
Seems like heaven's out to get me.
Trouble always following me.
Feeling like I just can't outrun.
Stevens that are all around me.
I hate to see it through.
There's a grave instead of me.
I need a friend to take me.
I need someone permitted to take me.
A frozen offering for me.
Find me a room and comfort me with mentioned numbers.
Where our hearts may always invaluable.
I tried to go attend those meetings
Had a problem with honesty
What you see is my heart beating
On letters from a son I'll never see
I'm a victim of life's circumstances
I take every pill from A to Z
I try to blot it out
That feeling of self-doubt
It's the Bible, the book, or the gun for me
It's the Bible, the book, or the gun for me
It's the Bible, the book, or the gun for me
It's the Bible, the book, or the gun for me
It's the Bible, the book, or the gun for me