She Had Set Good Standards for Herself and Then Could Not Live by Them – Alabam C.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Jim. I am an alcoholic and we got that out of the way. I'm glad to be here this morning. I want to first thank Mert and everybody involved with this conference for having me here and Chet and all the speakers. I'll tell you, I just had a tremendous time, and I know my wife and kids have. They've been out gallivanting around Orlando, and I haven't seen them too much since I got here. You want to show any? My wife has come to a few of the meetings with me, and she's really gotten a lot out of it, too. My son almost came this morning to hear me talk. He generally does, but he finally went about and went over to the studios over there with his mother. So I was kind of glad. He said, If I come down, will you make me nervous? And I said, Probably not, son. But it's really been a treat for us, and it's really been joy for us. And I appreciate being asked to do these things in this program. I haven't had a drink of alcohol or anything of the chemical nature since January 10, 1972. And that's because of the grace of God that I found here in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous through you people. I am so grateful for that. And to be able to get up and share on a Sunday morning and be at this point in time in my life is a miracle for me, because I was one of those individuals when I came to you people who, whenever you mentioned God, I got up and left the room. I didn't go very far, but I'd go to men's rooms, and people thought I had bad kidneys when I got here. But I got out very frequently, because I didn't think this God business was going to work for me. But I know that this time that I came to you people, I knew one thing, that out there in that world isn't the place for Jim to go anymore. I run out of these meetings many times in the earlier years of my life and I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. I knew that one thing that out here doing it my way got me my best shot and that was for the gutters of life. And I knew if I run back out there again that I was going continue to do this thing over and over and again. again. And I didn't know how long I was going to live. You know, I was told by a psychiatrist in January 1972 that I probably wasn't going to die. I was probably going to live. And that I was gonna live to be a bum on Skid Road while I was eighty years old, so don't try to kill myself in my addiction. You know, and that was the first time in my life that something ever clicked in me, that maybe that doctor was telling me the truth. Because you see, whenever somebody told me that I had to stop drinking. It didn't really matter with me whether I lived or died. To tell me that if I didn't stop drinking, I was going to die was like telling me that I didn'T stop breathing, I WAS GOING TO DIE. Because alcohol was the only thing I ever found in my life again that put me back together. It's the only think that I ever find in my live that did the same thing for me the next time I did it as a last thing. And if it wasn't for the results of what happened to me and it turning on me, I'd still be out there doing it. I got here, frankly, by default. I was alive when it was over, and I was glad. That was the only reason that I made this program, because I was alive when he was over. And I had that one more glimpse at trying to get to the top of this, whatever I was in, I was trying to crawl my way out of these gutters. And there came that time in my life when I had to get sober again. You see, my problems didn't start the day I started drinking. My problems always started the day that somebody told me I had to quit. And that's when my problems started. If I could have stayed out there and continued to drink for the rest of my life, it wouldn't have mattered. But every time I picked up a drink of alcohol, there always came a time in my life when I had to get sober again. And that is when the madness would start. Because I knew that the only way that I knew how to survive in this world, and every speaker talked about it, was filling that void in me. There was something missing in me. And the only thing that would fill that void was alcohol and I didn't know any other way to live in except by drinking. My alcoholic life, no matter what I learned prior to my drink and my alcoholic life as it says in the doctor's opinion had become the only normal life I ever had and without alcohol I knew that I was destined to have self-destruct somewhere along the way. I knew the solution to my problem was a problem I couldn't do anything about it. I love what it says in the chapter, we're agnostics, it says the simplest thing about describing alcoholism. If when you honestly want to, if when you obviously want to you find you cannot quit entirely or once you start you have little control of the amount you take you're probably alcoholic and that's the thing that you know I got to that point where I honestly wanted to stop and I couldn't stop. You know there was always an excuse in the back of my mind, well they wanted me to do it or these people wanted me the do it. But I got to that point in my life when I honestly wanted to stop and I could not. The one word that I got underlined more than any other word in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is the word baffling. I was baffled by my addiction. It had gotten my attention. And I could no believe from the time I came to my first meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous that when you people stood up here and you shared your story I could non-believe that I would live I thought I had enough dignity and pride that I'd at least blow my brains out before I did the things you people talked about. I thought i had enough pride within me that i'd never go through the things you talked about but i learned a lesson in this program when i came to you people and it illustrates that in the chapter more about alcoholism and what talks about you know coming to these meetings and listen to what you people had to say and it talks about in here thanks for the information well i have not gone to the extremes that you fellows have, and I certainly did not intend to. And now that after all you have told me, I've learned my lesson. And I appreciated what you people had done for me. I wish you people would have been around for my grandfather and my dad who went to their graves with this illness and knowing nothing about it, but I knew it didn't apply to me. Thanks for the information. And i love you people for that because I knew that you were like my grandfather, my dad, but you weren't unlike me because I was different. I still had a wife. I still had a job. I still had what I called self-respect or dignity back then. I still had all the things that I thought would make me not an alcoholic. And the only way I know how to describe my story, I heard a speaker share this once. He talked about a little boy whose mother caught him in the bathroom messing around with himself. And she sets him down and gives him this doomsday story about what happens to little boys that do these things. And finally she tells him if you keep doing it you're going to He says, well, Ma's all right if I do it just until I have to wear glasses. I don't have to say another thing about my alcoholism because that was it. That's the way I felt about it. I was going to stop drinking right before I lost my first wife. I love my first life. I love myself today as much as I loved her then. I'm married to another woman, but that love is still there. It's not been nurtured. It's nothing taken care of. There's still an emotion there for it. You know, I knew that before that woman walked out, when she'd go into the ultimatum, I knew, that I'd stop. I knew it. I knew more than anything else had in me. But before I stopped drinking, I lost two lives. I lost to, I asked two women that I loved deeply. You know I was going to stop drinking right before I lost my job. I knew intuitively that a man has to, he has to work in order to buy his alcohol. I knew if a man didn't work, he couldn't drink anyways because he can't buy it. I knew how much money I spent on the booze I drank. And by the time I got to you people, I hadn't worked in over two years. And you know the amazing thing about that? I'd stay drunk most every day of my life in those last two years of my drinking. You know, I was going to stop drinking right before I lost my dignity and my self-respect. But before I came to you, people, I didn't have anything left within me. I had no dignity or self-respect. And I guess I realize today that I probably never knew any way of how to gain those things. I never knew the principles that were involved in this program. I never really knew how to put them into action. I had people in my life who were—I come from people that drank a lot. There were two types of people in our family. There were alcoholics and religious fanatics. And I know, I understand why these people were religious fanatiques. The few people in My family that were religious panatics were trying to save the drunk. And I knew that's a hopeless job, and they resented the hell out of these drunks. And there was nothing about it. The religious people in my family were very vicious people, and they were. They were violent people. It's like one of the speakers talked about. I knew the difference. There was violent people, and then there were these happy drunks, and they Were violent some of the times, but the religious people In my family Were violent all the time. They hated alcohol. They hated Alcohol for what it did to them, to their family. And that's what I had to compare with All my life. You know, and I was also an individual that, you know, I swore within me that I would never ever touch a drop of alcohol for as long as I could drink when I was 11 years old. I quit drinking when I Was 11 Years Old. My mother and father owned a bar, a hotel, and I lived in that hotel by the time I was five years old, they bought that bar. They brought most of the family in there with alcoholics. They lived up there, up in the rooms up above that bar room. That was just a nice place for the alcoholics to live. I could tell a story about living in that bar that probably did at times make little social workers cry in the nuthouse, you know, and all these things. But, you now, when I was living that way of life back there, I didn't know any different. It didn't make any—I only had one life. When I lived in that barn, everybody in that neighborhood ended me because I lived at the bar, you kno. And there was nothing wrong with the way I was raised. You people gave me back my childhood after I came to this program. When you realize that, before I came to you people, I could tell you a story about negative things that happened to me all through life. And it was unbelievable. And today I realize I had a good childhood. That my childhood didn't make me an alcoholic. It was drinking alcohol that made me an alcoholic. And I had something missing inside of me that made be different. And I became an alcoholic by putting alcohol into my system. And I know that today. My sisters came up with me on top right with me. And they're not alcoholic. They don't drink a lot, but they're not alcoholic. You know, and they were raised in the same stuff that I was raised in. My father was told when I was 11 years old, if you don't stop drinking, you're going to die. You know—and one thing I have to stop here is to share, because I love my father today. He went to his grave in 1955 with alcoholism. He was given one ultimatum. If you don' t stop drinking you're gonna die. I believe that's a death sentence for an alcoholic. Today I realize that without giving them another ultimatum or a solution that you people gave to me. And the other thing I realized today, despite his alcoholism, my dad went to his grave and he still had some dignity about him. He was a good businessman, and he was a Goodman. The only thing that my dad was poor about is he thought he was going to live forever, and he didn't leave my mother with any insurance, that's all. He really thought he Was going to Live forever. He didn't think he was Going to die. And he died when he was, in 1935, in 1955, he was 35 years old. And I remember going to my father's funeral with my grandmother, the religious person of my family, and I didn't cry. My grandmother and I did not cry at my dad's funeral. I remember standing there without the gift of tears that God gives a little 11-year-old boy who has lost his father. I remember staying there, and then I made a couple of vows that day. I made the vow that if I lived to be 100 years old, but I never touched another drop of alcohol for as long as I lived. I was 11 years old, and I was swearing off the stuff. The other thing I realized in my earlier times in my life, I don't remember booze changing me. If I went through any social drinking period, it was the time I was three years old when I used to take beer off the table at home and drink it, and they'd give it to me until I was eleven years old. I don' t ever remember. I could sit and drink a bottle of rolling rock or a bottle pop. It didn' t really. I didn' d have a craving for alcohol. and the other thing and I did this in another convention I always say there are a couple things I remember vividly and I always forget them I was talking down here someplace and I said there were two things I remember very vividly the day I got sober and I couldn't remember them but I vowed I'd never touch a drop of alcohol for as long as I live and there was another part of me that ingrew a sheer, distinct hatred toward my father. I made a statement that day that's the most incorrect, most erroneous statement that's ever said about an alcoholic. And that statement was, if he loved me, and if he liked my mother, and if she loved my sisters, he wouldn't have drank. And I hated him. And that was to be probably the basis, the foundation of my true alcoholism into that. Because for the next four years, I went to church and I tried to do everything not to become an alcoholic. I wanted to be unlike my father. And I know today that I was building this spiritual foundation on pure hatred. And I knew that, I didn't know it then, but I know Today that everything I did in my life was to try to be like my father, and that's not the way to grow spiritually. By the time I was 15 years old, I was sitting outside a youth center dance, and these guys were passing around a bottle of wine. And I let it go the first couple times it went around because I didn' t drink. And the third time I come around, for some reason I took a drink out of that bottle of wine. And it went down inside of me and made me feel a little bit better about myself. It made me feeling a little better about the guys I was sitting around talking to. It made feel a bit better the God that was running this universe. I even felt a little good about my old man. And I never took a drank of alcohol from that day to the day I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous without having that feeling. That feeling of fitting in, that feeling of sense of ease and comfort that I felt that night. That's why I drank, for that feeling. Not for the after effects, the getting sick and all the blackouts and the getting in jail and all those other things. I never took a drink of alcohol for that. I took it for the sense of peace and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. The other thing that was really significant about what alcohol did to me that night, I used to be in love with this little girl named Beverly from the time I guess I was in first grade, second grade, third grade. I loved this little girl. She was blonde. Her and I always talked together. I didn't have a hard time talking to Beverly. But one thing that changed in our relationship was when we went to these youth-centered dances. I went over there to that dance that one night, and I went in there and I looked at Beverly, and by God, she looked meaner than hell. I never asked Beverly to dance. And I remember when I got into that wine that night, I come back into the dance, I looked across the dance hall, and I look at Beverly and she looked happy to see me. And I went up there and asked her to dance And that wine made her say yes. I know it did, because I didn't ask Beverly from that day to this day to dance unless I had a little bit of wine in me. And I checked it out. The next weekend I went back to the dance and I looked across the room at Beverly and she was mean. I went right back there and I got into that wine and came back into the dance and she wasn't happy again. You know, Beverly didn't drink. Beverly didn' t have a drink at all. That wine just changed Beverly. It made her more casual, easier to get along with, easier to talk to. Maybe dance better, too. You know, there ain't nobody in this world can tell me I can't dance better half-drunk than I can sober. I can try it anymore, but by God, I can limbo drunk. Do you know that? Being as big as I am, I can't limbo down as far as I used to, but I can limbo drunk. They got one guy on one side and one guy on the other, and they threw me under the limbo stick. That guy called me up that morning after that happened up in that lounge that night, and I didn't go back into that lounge for six months. I was humiliated. They said, man, you ought to sing last night. You did the limbo. I said, where at? Up in a dance band at Viola's? You know, I'd been in fights in that bar, and I'd go back in the next day. I thought it was tough. You do the limбо up there in the dance band. You don't go out there. You don' t go back for about six months." I was humiliated. That didn't have a ring of being a macho guy, you know. Don't tell me I sang with the band last night You won't see me for a while. You know, it says in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that while we're drinking little by little, we withdrew from life. You know? We're getting back, you know, and while we stand still, we're getting into the social life of the world. Little by little I withdrew from life while drinking. Something happened in the next three or four or five years of my life because for some reason my life began to get a little bit better despite the problems I had would drink. And I wasn't a daily drunk. You know, even though my grades fell off at school, I still had a lot of motivation to work and I became a heavy equipment mechanic. And even though that my drinking was, every time I drank, I got into trouble, I still, I was able to maintain some semblance of sanity from my working career and I was able to rise and go up into the world. But there was a lot of things that were significant in my life that I can look back at today that made me realize I was an alcoholic. I was baffled by my alcoholism even earlier on in my drinking. I used to have an old Brian Mudd at home. This dog was high-trained, but it had real long ears on it. It was an old, brown dog. It was a mixed-breed dog. This dog, it was just a dumb-looking dog. And I was about 18 years old. I was 18 years older. I came home one night. I had a six-pack of beer. And on our step down in the house, my mother lost the hotel, and we moved up on a hill up in the House, up on the hill from Bakerstown. By the way, I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I know people don't—you know, I don't sound like I'm a southerner. But I got sober in Pittsburgh in 72, and me and my wife moved to Birmingham in 75. And I lived in a little suburb. I was raised in a Little Suburb outside of Pittsburgh called Bakerstown. Anyways, I would come home one night, and I was drinking. I was half drunk, and had a six-pack of beer. And I sat down on the stoop. There was a stoop going into the kitchen. and we had these linoleum floors at home, and this old dog come up there and started licking around me and sniffing around me. I just poured a little bit of beer out on the floor, you know, and that old dog started licking up the beer, you known. I poured a Little Bit More Beer out in the floor. Man, that dog, it kept on drinking that beer, and the more beer that dog would drink, the drunker it would get. The old ears were starting to flop forward on this dog, and it started looking like a drunk dog. And every once in a while, this dog would get up and leave me. You know, it'd go back in the back hall, and it would come back out and he would sit there and drink with me. I'd be dumping his deer out on the floor and the dog would lap it up. Next time I hang, I knew the dog got up and rapped. The next thing I heard, my grandfather was back in the bedroom drunk and he got up to go to the bathroom. Well, this dog, when it would leave me, it was urinating and nothing down the hall. Well, the last time it went in there, it passed out in the hall drunk and my grandfather got up to go to the bathroom and he's slipping and sliding his dog and him and the dog get into it and there's my grandpa and this dog are into it i mean he's beating the hell out of this dog going down the hall and i'm sitting there laughing at my drunk grandpa and his drunk dog as he throws the dog out the door and he come back in i said man that's the darndest thing i ever said in my life in my life dad i said come on sit down here have a beer with me you know he was all covered with everything, man. It was just a mess, you know. And I'm sitting there and I was laughing. I just thought if I told that thing, man, I'd say, damn this thing. You know, I don't know how long it was after that. I don' t know whether it was a week, two weeks or three weeks after that I come home with another six pack of beer and I sat down on my seat and I called the dog over there to take a drink. You know that dog never drank again? Never drank again. A few years later, after me and my first wife got divorced, I come back home to live with my mother and my grandfather for a while. And it wasn't the dog that was going up and down the hall with me, and it wasn' t the dog that my grandfather got into it with. It was me. And it wasn't my dog that my grandfather threw out the door. It's me. You know, when I woke up the next morning, I drank again. And I was baffled. I thought, you know, that dog learned its lesson once. And here I am. I'm drinking again. You now. And that's the amazing thing about alcoholism. I didn't know I was an alcoholic. And I made value judgments about myself because of doing these things. You see, I didn't want to be like that. I didn' t want to cause my family the pain I caused them. I didn''t understand why I was doing these things. You know, I really just didn'' t understand. You know. I was getting more and more baffled. You know? And I think the thing that happened along the way is that something happened inside of me where all of a sudden I got the mind of a chronic alcoholic. And all of the sudden, you know, the thing about it is I started waking up in the morning, earlier, earlier, early in the morning. And I didn't wake up with a hangover anymore. All of a sudden I started waking up and I was detoxing. And I didn't realize that I was going through withdrawals early in the morning at three or four o'clock in the morning. I had these unfounded fears. You know, long before I hit the gutter for life, by the time I got to Skid Row, it was almost acceptable for me to live the way I was living. I was used to it almost. And that's the sad thing about my life. The hardest part of my story was four or five years before I stopped drinking. I was standing beside a pile of snap-on pulls in the trucking farm that I was working for. I was the second mechanic in charge of a fleet of trucks. I was married to my first wife. I had everything in life that a 23-year-old kid could ever want in life, you know, everything. I was in the process of buying a truck off the old man I worked for. He loved me like a son. He watched my dad dive alcohols and he was a good friend of my dad. They were both the businessmen at the time. And he loved melike a son, And he gave me every opportunity in the world. And I remember standing beside that box of tools, and I had pills all through that toolbox because that was something I could take during the day to get me there at night. And that's the only reason I took drugs. I never took a drug in my life to get high. I took a drugs just to get even through the day, to get you through the days so I didn't have these anxiety attacks anymore. And I had all the pills in the room that an individual could ever want to take. I had booze in my car, booze on my truck. I had the best I had, all the booze all over my house that I could ever wanna do. I had enough booze in me that, you know, with me that I didn't ever have to worry about drinking again. I had protected my supply again. But I remember standing beside that toolbox this day in particular and I knew I was going to lose everything I had. I knewI was goingto lose my wife. I knewi was goingtolose this job. I knew iwas goingtolooseeverything I had and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. That was probably the worst day of my life because I knew that I was ultimately going to self-destruct and all I had to do was live. And I was going to lose it all. And that's when the panic began to draw inside of me. That's when my fear began to draw inside me. That's why I'd wake up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and I'd tell my first wife Linda to drive me and she'd say, Jimmy, where do you want to go? And I'd just say, drive me. And she'd go walk through those dirt roads back out into the countryside and I laid in the backseat of that brand new Camaro that we owned, sucking on a fist of Imperial whiskey because I didn't know where I was going. I couldn't stay in that brand, that nice new apartment that we had gotten. I just couldn't, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought I was going absolutely insane. And I didn' t know what that girl ever thought as we were driving out through those roads. But I used to, there was a time in my life when I used to protect that girl from things like this. And, and I used to stay beside her and was with her. And then, and my God, I lived in that kind of stuff. I had to live like that. You know, and finally the day come when she divorced me and when she divorced me i honestly god felt deep inside of me she was better off getting out because i knew something bad was going to happen in that relationship i was terrified she was terrified to leave and terrified to stay and i gave her permission i told her to get out into drunken stupor and i was a it was the hardest thing i ever done in my life probably the best thing i've ever done on my life and she left me and i went out there to wander around this world just to die because i know it was i was an ultimate self-destruct just by living my life. I remember before my grandfather died, I was 23 years old. I was up in Shadyside Hospital and I was doing a visual over him. I was watching him night and day as he was dying of cancer. And my grandfather, a couple of hours before he died, he'd come to. And I looked that man deep in the eyes and I said to him, I said, Dad, I wish I could trade places with you. And my grandpa looked back at me with one of the most distraught looks I'd ever seen any human being give another human being. But my reply back was, Dad, I don't think I could take it another 50 years. That's the only thing I had to look forward to, that I knew I was going to wind up the way he was, and I was already tired. They talked about it last night. Clara talked about being tired. I was all ready tired. I was 23 years old, andI didn't thinkI could takeit anymore. If somebody whispered in my ear, said, Jim, you've got four more years of this hell to go through, I'd say, that's insane. So I knew it was almost over for me then. I never believed that I could have lived another day out there in this world like that. And I knew absolutely nothing about the disease of alcoholism. I'd already been to AA and it didn't work. I'd been to treatment, it didn'T work. I'd be in the nut houses and it DIDN'T work I've been all over the place and it didN'T work. And I KNEW THAT ULTIMATELY I WAS JUST GOING TO DIE JUST BY LIVING MY LIFE. You know, in 1970 I got married to my second wife and that lasted a year and she left me and I was left out into my own resources again. In 1971, in March, I was given an ultimatum by a psychiatrist, a psychologist of the courts, and a probation officer. I had a meeting in there, and my mother hunted me down. She knew I was out there self-destructing somewhere. It was almost like I was on a suicide mission. My mother hunted Meadon, and she promised me. I promised her I wouldn't drink, I wouldn'T be drunk at that meeting. She promised me that she wouldn'T let him put me in jail. My mother's a good Al-Anon. She'd make a good Al-A-Non. And she convinced me that she wouldn't let me put me in jail. The only thing was, I couldn't go to that hearing sober. I stayed sober for about 12 hours, and I knew going to that hearing I had to drink. And I told my mom to stop, and I'd get a couple of bubble airs of vodka. They won't smell it. Of course, I was drunk by the time I got to that meeting. And they gave me an ultimatum in that hearing. By the time I went in there, they'd ask me to leave the room. I'd get down seven floors, go out and have a drink and come back up, and they gave me the ultimatum. They signed commitment papers to Danville Statemental Institution for a year and a day or serve out the remainder of my probation in the Allegheny County Prison. And I looked at those people at that time, and I thought to myself, I'm not signing any more commitment papers anymore. I am not going to sign any more commitment papers. I said, you do what you want to do with me, but I'm no longer signing any new papers anymore And they come up and they put this walking around in a straitjacket on me and they ushered me off to the Allegheny County Prison. And right before I walked out the door, I turned and looked at my mother and I said, look what you've done to me now. I could not take the responsibility of my life at that point in time. That assault on my mother could have killed her. The last thing I've seen as they marched me off of the prison was my mother collapsing on the floor in total disarray and hysteria because she didn't want her son to go to prison. And I couldn't take the responsibility. I could have killed my mother with that statement. I'm a very fortunate person that I still have my mother alive today and that nothing happened to my mother. You know, I went on DTs in receiving range of that jail and I woke up tied down to a cot in the infirmary at the Allegheny County Prison. And this was in 1971. I was on an army cot, tied down on an Army cot. They had a hole underneath your rear. They had a wash bucket underneath that hole. They had to pan beside you to spit up in, and you were draped. And that's the way they detoxed you was for aldehyde in the Allegheny County prison. I knew that my life was over. I was 26 years old, and I knew my life Was over. I knew That I was ultimately just going to die someplace. And the reason I knew when I got out of that prison, I was going to go far enough away from my loved ones To leave them alone so I could die in peace. And I did. When I got out of that prison, I went to Philadelphia, 300 miles from Pittsburgh, and I wound up on Skid Row, Philadelphia, and I lived out there to die. I had ferocious liver. I had kidneys that were malfunctioning. I was a walk-in infirmary. I was dying. I had had esophagus hemorrhage by this time. The doctors told me in St. Francis Hospital that it's fun if you have an esophagous hemorrhoge on the operating table, you generally die. You're a very fortunate person. Three or four years before I stopped drinking, I had that hemorrhage, and many times I had to dry heath. Many times it could have come back. When I was alone in them flop houses, it should have come out. It never did. And I lived out there to die. That's the only reason I lived out there, to die." I lived and functioned, slept in areas of Philadelphia that, honestly, God wouldn't drive my automobile through today. And I did it without fear. I did without any anticipation. If you knew me today and watched me today, my sponsor up until several years ago used to tell me, I'd call him up and he'd say, what's the matter? Is it your wife at home? I'd say no. How do you know? He said, you don't like to be alone. And you know, an amazing thing to live out there alone, to live in a place alone and away from your family and your loved ones is the most amazing thing of my addiction without fear. But I made the adjustments to my addiction. I made the adjustments in knowing that I was going to self-destruct. I got rid of everything that I thought was possible or having in order to hang on to, you know. And, you only, you don't know, the one thing that kept me going when I was on Skid Row, I hated my parents, I mean, my people. I hated myself. I hated sisters and my mother because of one thing. I knew when I died they were going to send my remains back to Pittsburgh and my mother and my sisters were going to come to my funeral, look inside that coffin, they never going to say, well, at least my son's out of his misery. I knew they were going do that, and I hated them for it. I hated him for it, and that's probably the thing that kept me going. In November 1971, I came back to Pennsylvania, and I wound up in a flop house over on the north side, and for some reason in January 1972, too. I called my oldest sister, Tom. And my brother-in-law, Tommy, who was a misfit of the family all his life, answered the phone. And the first thing my brother in law, Tommy told me, he said, Jimmy, why don't you kill yourself? And I said, you know, what's bothering you people now? I mean, these people used to put me away because I threatened suicide. Now they thought it was a good thing to do. He said, your sisters found out you're in town. She's running through all those flop houses over there on the north side trying to find you. He said, we've got two little babies here that need taking care of. You ain't worth it anymore. We're taking you off to every meth house, every rehabilitation center, every detox in the state of Pennsylvania, and it's very apparent you don't want to get well. I understood what my brother-in-law was telling me that night. I really honestly God did. I told him where I was, and he brought my sister over to see me that night. And I hope and pray to God I never forget this night. It wasn't the day I quit drinking, but I hope and prayer I never forgot this incident. My sister came through the door that flopped off with a bowl of spaghetti, tossed salads, silverware napkins, bread, everything. She was going to feed me back into hell. I was sitting on the springs of a bed that I had the mattress up against the wall because I urinated so many times. I don't know whether my fly was rusted or not. Ha! Ha! Well, by God, I was in bad shape. I can identify with them clothes disintegrating because after I got sober, I washed them things and my shirt did disintegrate. It was unbelievable. But you don't take your clothes off when you're on a skid row. That's why I had all my clothes still in it. It's hell when you wake up and you have to run around trying to find something you only need in your underwear. So I just kept my clothes on, you know. And here comes my sister. She has a smile on her face and she sets this spaghetti down in front of me And I thought, my God, she is. She's out of her mind. And the only thing I could think of in my sick mind at that time was to try to drive that girl away from me. And the Only Way I Knew How to Do That Was Be Myself. So I started screaming at her, and I started eating spaghetti with my hands and a pot salad. I didn't use the silverware. I was cramming everything into me, and I'd cram it in, spit it out at her and yell at her and curse her God and everything that she ever felt was dear to her. And when I was finished, I looked up, you know, and she was still standing. It was amazing. And she looked down at me. She said, Jimmy, you're finished. And I just kind of shrugged my shoulders. I knew right then and there that she was nuts. And she said, I'm going to tell you something. You're my brother, and I love you. If you walk out of this flop house, if you get sober and you get saved, and you become the most decent person that ever walked the face of God's earth, she said I won't love you any more than I do tonight. She said, on the other hand, if you continue to drink and drug and destroy yourself as a human being, never draw another sober breath for as long as you live. I don't love you any more than I do right now tonight. She said I need less than I did right now. And I love you because you're my brother. If you want this, so be it. Several years later, my sister's come down to visit me. She said she finished the story. She said when she went to the door, she threw a dime at me. And she told me, if he wanted to get sober, you'd call me. But I'm not coming back here to visit you anymore. I'd rather be coming to your funeral. And she left. I did not understand that message that night. There was no way in God's will that I could have understood that message that night, something must have struck me. I would still hear that message repeatedly over and over and again the last 21 years that I've been in this program. It's a message of unconditional love from one human being to another. That's the message my sister gave me and I didn't understand it. I drank that day, and three days later I woke up and I knew it was over. I didn't know what was over, but I knew one thing, that there were two things that drove me all my life. I was terrified of death and terrified of life, and the only thing I did was just want to hang around. I was scared of killing myself because I was afraid of dying, and I was terrifying of living because I knew I couldn't function out there in that world and I just wanted to hang about a while. And when I woke up on January 10, 1972, it was over. I didn't fear life and I didn' t fear death. And that's bad, especially if you start thinking about what if you want to kill yourself? You're not afraid to die anymore. I sat across the table from psychiatrists that told me I have to get rid of my fear. And when them doctors told me that, I thought, My God, you don't understand. You know, three days before that, I sat there with a German Luger, a gun pointed to the back of my head. And if I didn't have any fear, I wouldn't be sitting there talking to these guys. Fear was my asset. Fear was the only asset I had. You know, it was one of the only assets I had along with resentments and pride and all those other things. All those instincts that had become overdeveloped in me were the only access I had in life. Dishonesty was a tremendous asset for me in my addiction. If I would have been dishonest, there's no way in God's world that I could have survived my addiction and I had to become a pathological liar. How in the world could I watch my life disintegrate in front of me and sit there and tell the truth? Especially, I remember when my first wife walked out that door. How does a woman you really love as deeply as I loved her? And then my second wife, Gloria, whom Gloria and I remarried again, by the way, my second life, and I love her as deeply as I love any other human being in this world or my kids. But that first marriage, that first instinct was really there for me and I never thought it would ever end, you know. And when that girl walked out that door, something inside of me said I didn't need her and I took a drink of alcohol and somehow I justified her walking out that doorway. It was a lie. I loved her the way I know my mother, my dad loved my mother and me and my sister but I couldn't stop drinking and I didn' t understand that. I just could not figure that out and that was the nature of my alcoholism, you now. I was no longer terrified of life, and I was no longer terrifying of dying. I walked out of that broth house, I walked in the sink. For God, I don't know how many, but umpteenth time, and I sat across the table from the same psychiatrist who committed me to the Allegheny County Prison almost nine months before that. And I told him that morning I'm ready to go, and he said, where are you going? I said, I'm already going to Danville. But I'm going to tell you something, I didn't want to go to Danville for a year and a day. I just want you to put me in Danville for the rest of my life. I said, I've got to get away from that crazy damn sister of mine. And that doctor looked back at me and he said, Son, you're not going to Banville. You're not doing the Mayview. You're no going to Woodville. You're going to Titchell, Titchad, Eagleville. He run down a list of institutions I was at. He said, there's only one place left for somebody like you. And I said where is that? He said that's Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thought, my God, they've given up on me for sure now. I came to you people just persistent with the fact that I knew I wasn't going to make this program. I was going to do everything you people told me to do. When Wade buried me out in that cemetery, they were going to put on my headstone, he cried AA and it failed. And I've been here ever since. And I'm living proof that you can bring an attitude into this program, put it into action if something happens to it. All you got to do is put it in action. Come to me and put it back if something will happen to it." I once heard a guy say, and just sheer resentment, and it saved my life. He said, when I can't stay sober of a love, I stay sober over hatred. My God, that's a heck of a thing. You know, and I realized that. You know? I thought, my God, what's this? You know. That worked for me for a while. I hated these people that wanted to see me drunk again. I knew there was a few around AA that wanted me to be drunk again, I could tell. Another reason I stayed sober, I heard some guy say once, he said the only reason I'm staying sober is I don't want to change my anniversary date anymore. My God, that worked for me. I didn't have any other reason for staying. I didn' t like myself. People say you got to get this thing for yourself. I couldn' t get it for myself. I hated myself. So that was another reason. I stayed sober from my group. Anyways, I walked out, and that doctor told me, he said, that's when he told me. Son, you're going to live to be a bum on Skid Row until you're 80 years old. He said, I'm going to send you back to that plop house and get a sponsor to go to meetings. Go to meetings and get it sponsored. And I did. I went back to the plophouse, and I started going to meetings and for the first time in my life, I got a sponsor. And for the third time in our life, I got a sponsor, and this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me with my sponsor because I really believe that he was the only person I ever met in my life that told me to go get drunk more than he ever told me stay sober. You know? I call him, I say, man, I feel like drinking. He'll say, drink. I said, but I want to stay sober, he said, then stay sober! And he said it's not my job, son, to stop you from drinking if you want to drink. He said, well, if you hang around me a little bit longer, he said, you won't die ignorant of what's wrong with you. That's for sure. And that's what he did. I told him, I said, I want to stop drinking. He said you don't have to stop drinkin', son. Just stay sober tonight. Just stay sober today. You can go out and get drunk tomorrow if you want to. I said but by God, I gotta keep goin' in them bars. Nah, I says you don' have to do that either. He said if you just stay sober today and go to an AA meeting tonight, you can go and get drunken at the bar tomorrow night if you wanted to. I said, well, by God, I wouldn't give up all my old friends. Nope, don't have to do that either. You stay sober today, go on an AA meeting tonight and meet a new friend in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. He said the bars and the booze and the friends will always be out there tomorrow. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous will take nothing away from you. It's a giving program. It'll give you a day of sobriety and needing to go to and a new trend in the programme. But it'll never take away that other way of life. It's always going to be out here for you to have if you want to. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous gave me a choice. The program of Alcoholic Anonymous gave back to me something that was as dear to me as anything else in this world. It's even more dear to me than my own dignity and self-respect. And that's the thing that God gave me that he won't let me gain on, and that's my right of choice, free will. That's what you people gave back for me. Something I forgot or didn't even realize I ever had. The freedom to choose what I want to do and not to do. They're working the principles of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've got to write these things today, whether it stays sober or not. And that's a beautiful gift. It's a gift that God gave me. It's the gift that my addiction took away from me. It's also a gift you people gave back to me too, that God. And I'll always be a part of his grace for that. I'll all be in his grace forever. I started going to meetings and I got this sponsor and all of a sudden another miracle happened my wife and I came back together and that was a miracle I never thought once you're finished with me you're done not under real good conditions and I've always told her in the last 21 years hey look at the conditions you come back to this guy with Don't don't complain to me about them You thought so tell me I'm crazy and I didn't have a lot to go from going for you come back to me Who was crazy She's my best friend today My kids are much fun. You can tell that too we fight like hell, okay But where we do our battles and we get it over But the thing that happened to her and I got back together again. It's like Claire said last night, after about three months she came back. And I was going to all these meetings, 10, 12, 8 meetings a week. Everything was going great in my life. It was fantastic. And she come home from work one day, very gently, very lovingly, very sweetly. She said, Jimmy, I really appreciate you being so willing to go into all these meetings. I said, honey, when are you going to get a job? i thought my god i didn't i was in a dilemma and i went off and marched off to my sponsor and i said uh what am i going to do he said well you know that flop box he was living in on welfare back there you know a couple months ago i said yeah you can go back here and live and not work right i said yes or you can stay you stay with that woman up there and get a job you got a Well, once again I had to make a decision and I chose going back to Gloria and I decided I was going out back and get a heavy truck, heavy equipment mechanic job. I'd sold my tools two years before that at least. When you sell your tools with the heavy equipment mechanics, you're done. You don't just, you know, you can lose your wife, you could lose a lot of things, but when a mechanic sells his pools you don't plan on working anymore and uh but i went out there to try to get a job and nobody would hire me i didn't have a very good work record and one of my old employers took pity on me and went up and he talked to his preacher up at his church and they gave me a job mowing grass in the cemetery you know for two dollars an hour and i had gone around aa telling everybody i was going to get big truck truck mechanics And I told my wife I was going to give a big shot truck mechanic job. So I come back after getting that job, and I told her, I said, well, you know, it's not a big-shot truck mechanic's job, but I'll do these people a lot of good. I'm a mechanic. I'll be able to service all the machinery. I'll become an asset to this church, dedicate my recovery to that church. And I still have a lot pride after two or three months. You know, growing back, you now. Whatever I lost out there, the booze took away. You know? My ego has a way of getting me back. I went up there to work at 8 o'clock on Monday morning, and at 10 o' clock I got fired. This old man who volunteered his time working at the church tried to tell me the big stuff, how to run this red tractor. And I was out there slipping the clutch. I was real nervous, you know, still nervous. Man, my foot was jumping on that clutch, and man, the smoke was flying. He came out there and he yelled at me and got me off that tractor. Right in front of a couple other people out there that you know that i was trying to impress he he got up on that track and showed me how to run it i let him have it with my vocabulary which consisted of about four or five four-letter words and i prefaced them all with mother adam and he fired me and i went running away from giving him those gyrations that claire was showing you last night still trying to give him you know tell him what i thought about him and i wouldn't go around that old car of mine and I thought, you know, Big Shot, when are you going to go home and tell that woman that we've got back together if you can't keep this kid all in our job? When are you gonna go tell those people in Alcoholics Anonymous after you went around bragging how much you're gonna help these people at the church? You better go back and tell the old man you're sorry. And I went back there and I apologized to that old man and I didn't expect him to forgive me. And I probably was the most touched of anything that's ever happened in this program because that old monk forgave me and I don't expect that. He forgave me unconditionally. He gave me back my job. And that hit me probably harder than anything had ever hit me before in my life because I'd never been forgiven like that. He never mentioned the incident from that day. And I walked nine more months to that church, and I mowed grass out there in that cemetery, and it's the best job I ever had in my lifetime. It was like going on a drive here to this amusement park. So, my God, those people a day had to put up with this mess. I was out there mowing grass in the cemetery one day. And, you know, every time I was terrified of cemeteries. And I didn't mind the cemetery, the new part of the cemetery which is up by the church. But I had to mow an old part down over the hill, an historical part of it. And, man, I was dying there one night just about dust. And a couple of those people come back to life on me and I've died there. I know they do. I've seen them. A man and I took off out of that cemetery. My butt was going that high off the tractor. I had it in high gear to get back to the shed up there. I parked that tractor at the shed. I run over two or three headstones getting out of there. I parked the tractor at a shed. I jumped in my car, and I went to an AA meeting. I forgot all about it. Went back to work 7 o'clock the next morning. They have a meeting in there. I went in, and they said, What are you meeting about? Oh, Jim, something terrible happened. And I said, what's happened? Somebody vandalized the cemetery. I said no, nobody vandalizes the cemetery and I said that, I did that I run over them headstones with a tractor trying to get out of them last night didn't explain why but I said they put my ride lawnmower off and they gave me a push motor to get down there Now you think it's bad being three months sober riding on dead people. You ought to walk on them a while. I was the fastest lawnmower cemetery guy in the world. I subcontracted it out a couple times. The guy that worked with me up there, he'd see kids. I used to go out and get them, and I'd pay them $3 an hour to do what I did in $2 an hour. Just do that part over there, kids. I got back down there mowing that grass again one day, and I was bitching, you know, because me and my wife weren't getting along very well. I was complaining because maybe I should get my lawnmower back. I was complainin' about everything in this world that I could possibly complain about. And all of a sudden, as I was mowing grass, I looked down there and there was an old shale headstone with a name etched upon it, Timon. This grave was almost 200 years old when this kid was seven years old, and there I am. I'm bitching about my life. You know, the greatest spiritual experience I've ever had in my life, I got down on my hands and knees and I apologized for that little boy who had been dead almost 200 days. because you see I was standing up there bitching. And I apologized to that little boy because I knew he never had a chance in life. And I said, I'm sorry, little boy, because I know you never had a chance. You never had any chance in your life. Please forgive me. And when I got out and walked away from that little grave, for the first time that I could ever remember, I had a sense of gratitude for just being alive. That's been 100% effective from that day to this day. It's the greatest spiritual experience I've ever had in my life on life and off the steps. But I realize today that that was the steps in action. Because if I can think about somebody else just a little bit, if I can get me away from me long enough to care about somebody elses, that's the principle of what you people told me to do, then I can feel a little bit better about myself. And that's what I did. I did probably all 12 of those steps in that one act of humility that I didn't have that I did just out of curiosity that I took just out at the fall because I was hit off. It came, it was blindsided by me. I don't know where those thoughts came from. I believe they were implanted by you people little by little over a period of time. I was incapable of working step. I was incapable of reading a big book. I was capable of doing certain things. But you people put me back together again piece by piece because if there was one thing that was going on with me, I was willing to listen. I was open-minded, as it says in the 12 and 12. I was as willing to listen as a dying could be. And that wasn't just after three months. It continued on and on and on because I believe that that's where this guy had to get in order to get this program. Willing to listen. Willing to take somebody else's instructions. I don't know where it came from in my life. I don' t know where that thought ever came, but I think the worst character defect I ever had was that I should have known better. I don''t know better. I might know the difference between right and wrong right now, here today. But by God, when my instincts unleash out there in that world, outside of these rooms, whether it's down at Little League Baseball Park or in the church that I go to or in an AA meeting, I really don't know better at that point in time. Now, I'm responsible for those actions. You people made me realize that. But when it happens, I just overreact to it. And I don't listen to my responsibilities, but it helps me to make a man's life easier, and it helps you to feel that I'm not that different. That's what YouTube has taught me, that you're not that far off those things, that you are not that distant. My sponsor sent me to talk to a young woman because she had taken some of the sedatives that I'd taken, and he didn't understand that. My sponsor was good about plugging me into people that could identify with me. He wasn't one that would sit there and say, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn' t do that. He says, I don't understand about those things. They've never taken them. You know, whether you take them or not ain't my business. But I know a little lady that's been through all this stuff. She said, why don't you go talk to her? That little lady did something great for me then. She gave me the second step that night. I remember my story. I always wound up talking to psychiatrists and always ended up telling them, you know, doctor, I'm crazy. And every time they'd look back at me, they'd say, no, son, you're not crazy. And I'd wonder. I'd sit there and I'd think to myself, I wonder why they keep on putting me in nut houses and telling me I'm not crazy, you know. What kind of a place is this? This ain't no detoxification center. This ain' the general hospital. It's a nut hospital. And that's the doctor who said to me, I wasn't crazy. I remember getting with Mary Lou about an hour before the noon meeting that Friday afternoon, and I sat there and I shared across the table with her about the commitments I made as a kid, about never wanting to drink and all the things that happened to me in my addiction, the love I had of my wife and all these things. And finally I looked back and I said, you know, I'm just crazy. You look back at me, she says, you're damn right you're crazy. But at least today you can do something about it. And that was the day I took the second step of this program. It was the way that I realized that somebody else felt like I did Don Deacon's side of me, that I wasn't that different and I wasn' that unique. And I got to know that gal over the phone I used to call all the time when I was in these anxiety attacks and things like that, and I was looking at that church up there. And I remember one day I called her up and I told her I've got to come see her. She said, well, come on over. I'd only been in that woman's house one other time in my life. I drove 90 miles an hour to her house because I knew this day in particular I wasn't going to make it. I was just going to blow up. I get that feeling. I had anxiety attacks all the time. I felt like I was going to flow up. I remember screeching the tires in front of her house as I came in there like a jet land and screaming. Didn't even knock on the door. I run straight through the door down the hallway. She was standing doing dishes at the sink. I weighed 300 pounds. I must have looked like a hippopotamus coming down the hall. She never flinched her buds. I made a left turn at the kitchen and went in there and I sat at the table. She said, my God, Jim, what's wrong with you? I said, I feel like I'm going to blow up. And she just kept staring at me. I said for God's sake, don't you realize I feel like I am going to explode and she just keeps staring at it. I said my God woman, I said don't you understand I'm gonna blow. She said I'm just waiting to see what happens when you blow, Jim. But she saved my life. Nobody ever waited to see what happened when I blowed. That 135-pound woman put her life in jeopardy and she waited me out. And those are the people that saved my wife. They didn't stick nothing in my arm. They didn' t put any handcuffs on me. She just sat there and waited me off. And I love these people, these people that took time away from their families, their jobs, their occupations, put their life on the line for me, and they waited me out. That's why I'm grateful to the program of Alcoholics Alarm. I'm thankful to you for staring your steps at me. I'm Grateful to you, for telling me that if you don't believe in God, you better find something else to believe in. You better find someone bigger than you to believe again, because you ain't gonna make it. I'm grateful for my sponsor who told me that when I was having trouble with the fourth step, to go back and take the third step. If you're having trouble the third set, go back to take the second step. If you have in trouble the foot second step, go about to take a first step. If you are having trouble, the first step in your mother's back on drink again. And I said, man, I drink. I'm just having trouble doing it. If you don't get the inventory, why prolong the agony? Well, maybe it ain't that hard. That might not be that hard. But that's the way it worked with him. And that was a simplicity he knew to live with. I don't think he knew too much other than this thing. But that man gave me some things that I'll never forget as long as I live. He gave me something and he gave me simplicity to live. But he didn't complicate things. He was just an even-keeled man. I could stand there and tell you things that he said and done to people that I just thought, my God, that's unbelievable of any human being could treat another human being that way a guy that i learned to love and sponsored this program i went up to see him in the psychiatric ward and uh and i'd known this guy sober he had drank after being sober a couple of years and he lost his family lost everything he's laying up there in a psychiatric board tied down to a pot and i went in there and the guy's laying there crying on him in his in his pot and it's not hot up there and i'm standing beside my sponsor, you know, and this guy's crying his eyes out. You know, he said, you know, it can't get any worse. And my sponsor looked there and said, yes, it could get worse. The guy said, how could it be any worse? He said, it could be me laying in that bed and you talking to me. I thought, I walked out of the room. I said, this guy is an animal. How in the world do you do stuff like that. Man, I used to get mad at him. Who was it that said he wanted to drive a truck over their sponsor? I did him a couple times. I thought he didn't care. I almost put my fist to his 12th anniversary cake. But he was always right. You know, the thing about this program, it's like the big book talk. This program is a wee program up until get to working with others you know what happened to the big book it turned from we to you the wording and description is different when it comes to chapter seven in the big book of alcoholic synonyms that no longer said we they say you that's what my sponsor called after i worked in steps that all of a sudden it became you got to be starting and that was one of the things you know I didn't find out Chet was saying something I was looking at the big book and how that wording changed after it says in chapter 6 we let God discipline us then it starts talking about how important it is to work with others and I think that's one of the things that my sponsor began to do with me after I worked these principles to a point and my sponsor did that me my other sponsors i find in birmingham and i've been my sponsor for 18 years he passed away a year and a half ago he passed the way to life he was also in the program died two months later beautifully that's kind of lonely living with sponsors like that i got another sponsor and i love him dearly but it leaves you with avoiding you when you become a friend of somebody like that and you love people like that, but you people gave that to me. You people put me together and helped me get in that position to be able to work instead, and I'm so grateful for you. I know I'm almost out of time, and then I realized, I just want to share a couple of things that are happening with you today. I think the one thing that I share with people is that i uh my kids have never seen their father drink yet you know my children were born in recovery but my kids suffer from alcoholism i'm not proud of it but my i share this because they talked about this in the chapter to the wise because i realize that that raising kids in this world out there is a tough thing to do and i think with my character defects that we feel untreated, and I don't use that as a pop-up. But my kids still suffer from the effects of my own alcoholism. I don' t know how to raise children. You know, it's a sad thing that you raise kids once and you don't get to do it anymore because you don' t learn how to be a parent until you raise them. I'm sure of that. I got a 15-year-old and a 12-year old that have raised me. And I hope and pray to God I can share back with them. But I only share this because I hear a lot of people say, well, my kids were, I was drunk around my kids and they, I missed them. Well, I almost miss my kids too. and my kids suffer a lot of the effects of my own alcoholism and I've had to go back and redo some things because of that my relationship with my children and I'd like to share that with you and I got back involved with church after being sober 13 years but I called the church my understanding for a long time and I realized another thing I think it's in these fellowships that I find at the church that are unliking me to this program You know, the similarities are so tremendous. My wife and I still, after joining church and being involved with church, I got up, and we don't have family meditation every morning. We have family brawls in the morning. I mean, my God. And this was one morning in particular. It was a Sunday morning, and I know the neighbors two doors down heard this upset of the household. And I put on my shirt and tie, and I went out, and I tried to be effective getting in the car with my two kids and my wife dragging behind me. And I get in the car, and I drive off to work. I mean, to church, and I feel so damn guilty down inside. And I go to church and I listen to the priest going through the mass and doing all the deals in the church and I sat there and I thought, you know, these people will never understand a guy like me or what I've just done this morning. You know, they'll never understand it. I missed the whole thing in the Church. I miss it all. And I got out of church that morning and went over and I was standing there and I Was bringing a cup of coffee and I but right beside these two women who had served communion that morning. And I was standing there off to myself. I wasn't even talking to my friend at church, feeling real down in the dumps and feeling bad and guilty. Then all of a sudden this three-year-old little girl, this beautiful little girl run by. And one woman looked at that little girl and said, boy, is that little girly ever beautiful. And the other woman says, yeah, I know. You know why God makes little girls so beautiful? She said, no, why? She said it stops you from killing them. And I thought to myself, my God. I never felt like I didn't fit into that church from this day to this day. Those people saved my life. I thought they might not have done what I did, but they felt like God did sometimes. And that's the only thing that made it significant. I realized that. Because people, you know, I think recovery to me and it's a bribe that means just being awake when things happen and watch it go through. There were things in my fourth and fifth step that could have never come out over a period of time. But they come out as I go back out there in the life and I see things happening all of a sudden these light bulbs keep going off. You know, it's like, my God, I should have had a V8, you name it. And that's just about the way it is. Because I never got that out of me in the story. You know, I used to get upset when people told me to read the Word. Read the Word, I got upset with a guy in the golf course. He said, you ought to read the Word and I got angry at that guy after he was playing golf and I said, don't tell me to do that. If I need preaching, I go to my priest. And man, I was ready to hit him and he backed away because I'd never seen him act that way. And it was a few months after that I went up to a meeting of a parent teacher principal meeting with my boy. He was having some behavior problems and we're sitting in there discussing my son and i said well when he comes home with a bad grade and conduct i'll make him sit in his room and read for an hour that principal looked back at me she said don't you ever punish that kid by making them read i said i understand what you're talking about she said if you punish that kid by makin him read he'll resent reading for the rest of his life all of a sudden man the light bubbling on my grandmother when i was a little kid when she punished me to make me go read the Bible for an hour. You know, any time that somebody told me to read the Bible, they were punishing me. That's what they were doing. They were punishing me, whether it was out in the middle of the golf course or anywhere. That was the tape that was going on. How in the world am I ever going to figure that out? You know. Man, I'm sitting here thinking, God, man, it would take me 93 hours of psychiatric analyzation to try to figure it out. I still wouldn't have known. That has sedated me long before I figured it out, that's for sure. you know when you're as big as i am you go right to the quiet room it don't matter what kind of condition you're in you know you're immediately put into restraint they don't care you can go in there calm man manner put them in strengths you know they never put their handcuffs on me tight enough put them on tighter if you put up they put them all loose i might start kicking and I made them put them on tighter. They ain't tight enough. Evidently, that's the way it was. You know, that seems insanity. I never had enough. You know that I realized another thing. You know I took communion in my church and I got back involved with my church and I remember TJ, my son, my youngest and my only son, he had been playing in a cryptic play and the priest called me forward to take communion that night at the church for the first time and God knows, I don't know how many years, I guess it was 18 years And I realized I'd been sober and Alcoholics Anonymous at that point in time in my life for 15 years. And after I took the meeting that night, I realized that getting right with church and getting right to God was two different things. That I had been right with God in a program called AlcoholicsAnonymous for 15 year. For 15 years of my life. And when I got right with that church, that's exactly what I did. I got left with church and the congregation of people that I was involved with. But also I knew that there were two different thing all together. because you people had given me a God to be right with, and I was right with that God. And I'm grateful for that. You know, I thank God for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous with everything I got in there. I thank god for you people and everything that's in this program. But more important than anything else in my life, I thank each and every one of you people in this room for giving me my dad. Thank you very much.