Step 1 and the Wall He Built to Protect Him from You – Tom B.

Open this meeting with a moment of silence, and then those who care to join with me in praying the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking There are no dues or fees for AA membership We are self-supporting through our own contributions AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, organization institution does not wish to engage in any politics, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. I'm Bill, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm not nervous, I'm scared. I've got an announcement here. There are tapes available for this conference. You can get one tape for $6.50 or the whole conference for $25, and if you're interested, see Bill O'Neill. He can fix you up. I'd like to welcome all the alcoholics, Alanoans, Alateens, and anybody else that's interested and ask people what this common problem is. I'm here this morning not to make a speech, but to introduce a fellow to you that I've come to know through these conferences and listening to his tape. This fellow is Tom B., from North Carolina. Tom talks in his talk about four things that he left with me about AA, about God, about love and about service. His talks have been real meaningful to me in my life as this whole AA program has been. At this time, I'd like to introduce Tom Beat. My name is Tom Brady, Jr., and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. You can't hear back there? Somebody turn it up. I haven't got the switch. This is liable to be a very short talk because my bladder is on a strict timing mechanism and they loused me up with the microphone, so I don't know what's going to happen here. I'm an alcoholic. And by the grace of God, which has come to me through the steps of this program, I have not had the compulsion to drink since July 20th, 1965. And for this I'm very grateful. I want you to know that while I'm talking this morning, it's not important really who I am. What's really important in Alcoholics Anonymous is what I am, my name is unimportant, the quality of my talk is un-important. What's important in this thing is a thing called anonymity and my own version of anonymity I hope to get to the point someday where the name of God is more important to me than my own, where I can quietly go about loving and serving and ask for no recognition at all. I know people who do this. There's an old-timer in my town with 30 years sobriety, and this is a man who no longer has to talk about AA. He has practiced it so long he is AA. absolutely the most beautiful person I know. I go over there with the weight of the world on my shoulders and sit down in this man's presence for 15 seconds and I'm as quiet as I can be, just sitting down with him. Something is there and that something is a presence greater than his and greater than mine. And that's part of what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about, the presence of God. And I can tell you now if he's not with us this morning we're in a whole lot of trouble. I'm sponsoring a young man now, and I want to tell you a true story, which is one of the funniest things that ever happened to me in my life. We took an airplane trip down to Atlanta not long ago, and as we were getting ready to return to Charlotte, we were standing in the air terminal. And I don't know about some of you guys, but I have never gotten used to this braless look. and this girl came walking by and she was the brawless look. And I'm not going to lie to you, we watched her just as far as we could see her. And when she went around the corner and we could no longer see her I turned to Doug and he turned to me and we just stared at one another for a minute and he says, you know Tom, that girl reminds me of Alcoholics Anonymous and I said, how in the world? He said, she's self-supporting through her own contribution True story I believe that in a talk In Alcoholics Anonymous For me anyway It's a matter of spontaneous emission I can't and I don't make notes I can't and I don't cannot talk. If you hear me talk now and hear me three months from now, you're going to hear something different because I believe in growth and I believe en change. And I'm firmly convinced that every day that I get up, I have a new life ahead of me for that day. And there's change and there's growth involved and my perception changes of a lot of things. And so every time I get out of here, the reason I'm so nervous is that I don' t know what I'm going to say. I really don't. i have one little story which is dear to my heart has it gone again don't do that to me is it back we'll wait is it back it's humming can you hear wow I think it's okay now I'm warning you, AA hasn't done a thing for my bladder. This story I was going to tell you is about a little boy who was always getting lost. He lived up in the flat pine forest in the sand hills of North Carolina and every day about dark he'd be out in the pine forest playing. It was very flat and he'd get lost. Nightly he'd got lost and they'd have to send out a search party to hunt for the little guy and bring him home. And one day his mother says to him, Johnny, the next time you're out there and you're lost and you can't find your way home, ask God to show you the way, and he will. So the little boy is out there a couple days later, and dark's coming, and he can't see which way to go home, and they're all out there. He remembered what his mother had told him, and then he got down on his knees, and he says, Lord, I'm lost, and I want you to show me by some way how I can get home. Amen. he stood up put his hand out here and nothing happened put it out here nothing happened put it over here nothing happened he put it down in front and a little bird flew over and did one right in his hand the little boy stood there and he looked at it threw it off he got back down on his knees he says Lord don't hand me no crap I'm really lost So I hope that we can find some direction this morning. And one personal note, the last time I was in Kansas, my wife had just had major cancer surgery, and many of you have asked me about her, and she's absolutely beautiful. Evidently it had done an awful lot of damage, and she is recuperating very, very well. She's healthier than she has ever been in her life. and I'll tell you something too a new dimension has been added to my life I was astonished by the number of people who remembered her and remembered what had happened to her and who had been praying for her you know, I knew there was power coming in from somewhere but I surely didn't know it was Kansas she's more beautiful because the spiritual cancer that was there before Al-Anon is gone away too I think she's the best Al-Aman in the state of North Carolina and you can tell that cancer is gone when you look in their eyes just like you look in an alcoholic's eyes and there's something there that is not of this world it's God coming out just like he comes out of an alcoholic so I want to thank you for remembering her and for remembering me and she'll be very pleased but please don't ever tell her I said she was the best Alabama in the state of North Carolina you have to wipe that part off the tape, Bill. I'm nervous, but I feel good this morning because I'm reasonably certain that I'm where I'm supposed to be. And I'm reasonably certain that I're doing what it is that I am supposed to do. And I've come to find in Alcoholics Anonymous that if you find an alcoholic who is reasonably certain that he's where God wants him to be and reasonably certain that he is doing what God wants them to do I'll show you a sober alcoholic. This program is very simple. I was one of those who tried to complicate this program, and I almost died in the process. I'm going to tell you some of my story this morning, certainly not all of it, but I'd like to cover the things about me that have come to me through inventory in this program. Am I taking it? Are other people taking it ? There's a lot of that going around too. far back as I can remember, I was always afraid. I tried to compensate for this fear, and it was the fear that Jack was talking about last night. I read a psychology book a couple of years ago in which the guy listed 206 different kinds of fear. Now you've got to know I had them all. And when I got to the end of the list of 206 different kinds of fear. I said, no, he missed one. There was 207. It's the fear that Bill Wilson talked about, the fear of impending calamity. I don't know what's going to happen. I don' t know when it's going happen. I do not know who is going to do it to me. I do not how it is going come about, but something has got to happen to me, and I walked around in this fear for as far back as I can remember. Now, I was a lovely child. I want you to know that. I was a cotton top to all my uncles or pudding head or something. I never knew what my name was until I was six years old. Snow white hair, freckles from top to bottom, the skinniest thing you have ever seen in your life. When I turned sideways, my shoulder blades looked like handlebars. I've never had a picture took in my life. Here we go again. I never had a picture taken in my life that I wasn't standing with one eye closed and my legs all curled around one another and my hands on my hips and my head cocked to one side. If I'm really honest about it, that was amazing. And I felt this. And out of this fear came a thing which is very big in my life. It was bigger, thank God, than it is now, but it's still here. This is a program of progress. I became a perfectionist. Everything that I did in my life, I had to go into it and master it quicker and do it better than anyone else had ever done it. I had the ability to do it. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what I had to be on top of the heap. Second place was never, ever good enough for me in anything. I felt that this fear of impending calamity was going to be brought on me by other people. One part of my escape from this fear was to try to get the approval of other people, and I lived my entire life up until a little over six years ago based on the approval of other people. I got all the pats on the back. I was a straight-A student in school. I was the little boy soprano in all the Christmas pageants. I wasn't ever just a shepherd when I was in the Baptist church in the Christmas Pageant. I was THE Shepherd, the one the spotlight was on, and I made sure of it. Everything I did, I mastered it well. I was that little boy that everybody's mother pointed to and said, Why aren't you like Tommy? I was one of those. Now, I was doing all this thing for other people, all these things for other People, and I was getting the pats on the back, but somehow the fear was still there and the emptiness was still There. And I began to do another thing. I began To build a wall to protect me from you. And this wall is a well-built wall, and if you're an alcoholic, you've probably built the same wall. It was built out of this fear and resentment and jealousy guilt sex problems a lot of them a lot of them and I built this wall very well I built it so well in fact that I cut myself off completely from you and I never came out from behind my wall except when I wanted to use you I couldn't love you I wanted to I couldn' t trust you I wanted too but I never came out from behind my wall unless I had some need something I wanted to get from you I made many mistakes in my life the biggest mistake that I probably made was trying to get things for myself I even went out when I was drinking frantically seeking God in order to get him for myself. And if I've learned one thing in Alcoholics Anonymous, I no longer go out to God to get Him for myself, I go out to give myself to Him. I was a real good kid. I was Baptist and I was a good Baptist. I was there every time the door of the church opened. My mother today is a hostess of one of the largest Baptist churches in the state of north carolina my father deacon emeritus 40 years on the board of deacons singing in the choir teaching sunday school he's a fine man and by the way i used to think my father was a weakling and now there are two people in the world i want to be like one of them is this guy i told you about with 30 years sobriety and the other is my father he's that beautiful person Beautiful, quiet, and strong. In the Baptist Church they have an organization called the Royal Ambassadors. It's an organization for boys. And remember what I told you about how I always had to end up on top. The highest rank in the Royal ambassadors was Ambassador Plenty Potentiary. Now I couldn't pronounce it, but I was one quicker than anybody else. And I was one of those kids that you just name chapter and verse in the Bible, and I'd spout it off to you. I didn't know what it meant, but I knew just about every verse in the Bible by heart because this is what I had to do to get the pat on the back. This is what i had to protect me from you. This is what I had to do, and I was feeding this fear all the time. It was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Ambassador Plenty Potentiaries have a sword and a shield and a little old crown that you wear on your head. I always thought that was nice. I had a good mind. I still have a good mind. When I was in school, whatever the teacher said, I could take down in notes. When she gave the test, I had the ability to picture my notes in my mind, and all I had to do was match the numbers. I went through grammar school that way, I went through high school that well, went through college that way. I reflect back on my college days and I graduated cum laude from college and I won every academic honor they had in this college and i didn't learn a thing. I didn't learn a things except from one man in that college who found me out very quickly and this was a man who taught philosophy and I love him today. I I didn't love him at the time, though. And this man never gave anybody an A. An A minus? Yes. An A? No. Now what does this do to a perfectionist? Okay, I went in his logic course one quarter. And in this logic course I had 100 average. I said, I got him this time. My report came out, I had an A minus. And I hit the ceiling. And I went in and I talked to Dr. Reynolds and I said, why? I had a hundred average, why?" And he said, Tom, nobody's perfect, not even you. And that really blew me. That really did it. I really love that man. He laughs at me today. I went on doing these things on the outside, doing just what the big book says we do, putting on the act for the people on the outside, doing the things I wanted them to see, while inside I was turning to mush. There was nothing there, nothing for me. When I was 15 years old, I was on a singing trip for the high school choir in Greensboro, North Carolina, and something happened. I remember the hotel we were in, I remember the room we were in. I remember the brand, and I remember how much we paid for it. Some of these older boys I was with sent out by cab and paid $7.50 for a pint of cream of Kentucky. They brought it up to the room, and one of these experienced hands told me how to drink it. You fill up a water glass full, and you drink it down. Then you drink a water glass full of water and you keep on doing that until you felt good. And I did. Now, something was different. All these other guys, even the older experienced hands of 17, they got sick. They threw up all over the place. They passed out. They acted funny to me. I didn't throw up. I didn'T pass out. I called that cab driver back and got me another pint of cream at the time. Only this time it was for me, nobody else but for me. And I drank that, and that night was my first blackout. I remember nothing. I was told I stayed on my feet all night, and this became my pattern—blackout drinking from the beginning. I know nothing of social drinking, unlike Jack. The problem was there when I took that first drink. I believe what the big book says about alcoholism is true, that alcohol is just a symptom. School was out for me. I never made A's again. As a matter of fact, I had to take a whipping when I was eighteen years old to get out of high school. I was standing in the bathroom one day smoking a cigarette and that was forbidden. the principal had become one of those guys who was always after me. Everything that happened in the school, he'd come to me first. And he was usually right, I'll have to admit that. And he came walking in and I cupped the cigarette in my hand and put it in my overcoat pocket so I wouldn't be caught. And He came in and He grinned at me. He said, Tom, are you smoking? I said, no, sir. Well, why don't you just take your hands out of your pockets? I said all right. I figured He'd turn around and leave. You know, I took my hands out and He stood there and grinned at me. He always was a smart ass. You see, he let burn a hole in my pocket and hit the floor and he just laughed like, you know, like a maniac. I've got him now. Took me to the office and he said, we'll let you graduate if you'll take a beating and I took a beating. I got to tell you that was some beating. The boys advisor in this high school was one of the most huge men you've ever seen in your life. He was one of the giants before the basketball giant days. And he laid it on me, but I got out of high school. And I started getting locked up already. It seemed like every time I'd start drinking, I'd get locked up in the Wake County Jail. If I have one bad shortcoming that I have problems with today more than any other, it's a simple thing called forgetting. Forgetting. This is what got me in an awful lot of problems, and it gets me in an awful lot of problems today if I don't watch it. And I used to get locked up in the Wake County Jail in Raleigh, North Carolina, an awful life. And I don' t know about you, but I never woke up in a jail with any cigarettes. I always woke up in the bullpen not knowing why I was there. I never got locked up that I remember being locked up. But the one thing that I will never forget, and this may sound silly to you, is a breakfast in the Lake County Jial. I don''t want any more of that breakfast. I'd be in the bullpen marching up and down with a cotton mouth which only alcoholics can understand. And I was an inside shaker, I didn't shake much outside. And I'd pace up and that floor and they'd come in with a breakfast at the Wake County jail. This breakfast usually consisted of what was on a tin plate. And on that tin plate was grease on the bottom, and sitting in the grease was a pile of old powdered eggs, and a couple of wieners split down the middle and fried. And I guess that was their equivalency of sausage. But the grits is what I'll never forget. The grits were on that tin plate, and they'd been sitting there so long it got cold when you stick your fork in, the whole pile would come up. It was like eating an ice cream cone. You may laugh at this, but those grits in the Wake County Jail have kept me sober a lot of times. I do not want to forget it. I do now want to get rid of it. I do want to never want to forget the shakes. I do never want to ever forget the dry heaves. I do ever want to forget the times when I would buy my wife a gift or my daughter a gift because I knew I was going to get drunk and there was nothing I could do about it and I was somehow trying to make amends beforehand. My wife knew when I was going to be drunk later on. But you know, when I graduated from high school, I decided that I would join the service, and I went into the service. And in the service I found out very quickly that being on top was the place to be, and I got there very quick. Within a week I was a flight chief of my flight in the Air Force, and that was a guy who didn't have to pull any KP and told everybody else what to do. I liked it. When I left basic training, my drill instructor was busted from sergeant to private for bringing some booze into the bags for one of his trainees. Guess who? I could get it anywhere. I was sent to rodeo school in Mississippi when everybody else in the class was copying 10 words a minute Morse code. I was copying 30 and 35, always on top. When they chose the guys for the security service, I was the first one chosen. I was given a top-secret clearance, and I was sent to Japan. And the drinking went with me. And it got worse, and it got worst, and he got worse. And I was confined to the stockade over there. That's the service's answer to everything. They put me in the stockage. I stayed there 12 days, and my commanding officer made the mistake of coming down to see me. And I sat down with that man and conned him into believing I'd never drink again. and that night, you've got to know, I jumped the fence and I was in Misawa, Japan, drunk. I begged for an undesirable discharge. I begged för a bad conduct discharge. I begged für anything and they wouldn't give it to me. I finally was released from the service with a general discharge under honorable conditions. I don't even know why I got there. And I decided that with my great intellect that I should go into the colleges and avail them of my presence. And I did. I started at North Carolina State University. I made straight A's. I'd go to school three out of five days, maybe. And my schooling started interfering with my drinking, and I dropped out. And after that it was a merry-go-round of schools, always straight A'S, always a soloist with the college choir, Never lasted over one semester at any school. I always went out under the gun. It was either you leave or we'll throw you out. And, you know, by the time I was 23 years old, I had already begun making religious homes for alcoholics, alcoholic rehabilitation centers, psychiatric wards, jails, time after time after times after times it was jail. It seemed like I couldn't drink one can of slits without ending up in jail somewhere. And I'd been convicted of drunk driving three times. I've had over 450 stitches taken in my face alone as a result of wrecks that I had while I was driving. I have scars all over my body. You know, I was a good straight-line driver. I want you to know that. I could drive the straightest line that you've ever seen in your life when I was drunk. My problem was I couldn't turn a curve. Every wreck I ever had in my life, I went straight on the curve. I've ended up in front yards. I drove under a tractor-trailer one night. That was a doozy. And I started getting into trouble constantly. And in one of these religious homes for alcoholics, the perfectionist picked up the J.B. Phillips version of the New Testament and started reading the Apostle Paul, I got really turned on by Paul. I don't know how turned on Paul would have been with me. Again, it was I could spout all the words. I could give you everything from here, everything from there, and absolutely nothing from here. We talk a lot about logic in this world. Everything's got to be so logical. when I'm talking at an AA meeting I'm not speaking from logic I'm trying my best to speak in the language of the heart there is something greater than logic in this universe and if you don't believe it reflect on this for one minute if you're an alcoholic and you're here sober this morning that is not logical think on it there is one who has all power. But I knew everything here. It was the royal ambassadors all over again. I spit the words out, and at age 23 I showed up at Alcoholics Anonymous for my first meeting. I looked at the 12 steps. Very simple. I read the big book. Very simple I could give you page number not only page number anybody could do that I gave you paragraph and sentence if you wanted them and I could spout off all the right words and you know why I was doing it so I could get up here and be in the spotlight and be on top again 23 years old I went in Alcoholics Anonymous and I memorized everything again and I tried to hit the top and what I did was get closer and closer and closer to the bottom For seven years, seven years around Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not stay sober as much as 90 days. I made it 89 days one time, and I know I can tell you why exactly, why 89 days. I had a calendar on my wall. And every day when I'd come home, I'd X off another day and go to bed right quick. I never made it to the 90th day. In North Carolina, we give out poker chips for a surprise. A white chip for a beginner, a red chip for three months. I wanted a red ship. A red ship would make me somebody and I was so sick of being nothing. And I'd sit in those AA meetings and I went a lot. I went sometimes eight times a week if I got there sober. Sometimes I'd get drunk on the way. Sometimes I get drunk when I'm home. Sometimes I got drunk on my way home. and I wanted one of those red chips so bad that after the meeting when everybody else would go across the hall to the kitchen to have some coffee I have gone to the chip box and stole me a red chip I had gotten married and let me tell you about my wife because this is funny when I got out of the religious home for alcoholics I was convinced I should become a Baptist minister. And I was convinced that by doing all the good deeds which I was going to do that everything was going to be alright and I was really insanely serious about this thing that I could undo everything that I had done in the past and I went to work in a mission of the Baptist church and I met my wife there and I Was preaching and I WAS singing and IWas doing everything but staying sober it did not work my wife married me and she said you just had so much and I knew that all you needed was a woman to support you and you'd really be fine boy was that a bomb I got worse I kept getting worse I'd go to Alcoholics Anonymous and it seemed to me the dumbest thing in the world there was a group up in Burlington, North Carolina where I was going at that time and on Tuesday night they have a discussion meeting I can tell you next Tuesday night where every one of them will be sitting. And I can show you almost what they're going to say. Barney will be leaned over against that wall. Jim S. will be seated in two chairs from the wall on this side. And over on the right-hand side sits the man that I hated most. I called him Grumpy. And old Grumpy would sit over there, second row, two chairs From the Wall, every Tuesday night. Now, I had been out. I was in college at the time. I had ben out there in my den reading all the great books. I was reading Paul Tillich, and I was reading Aristotle, and i was reading anything else that I could get my hands on. And I was going to AA meetings to throw this heavy knowledge on these people. Some of you have done that, haven't you? You ever go to a meeting where you've got so much to throw on the people that you sit there and shake waiting for them to call on you? Well, I'm going to tell you something. They always called on me last. It was like the meeting was over when they called on me, and hell it was. And I'd sit back there and shake, and they'd go around the room, and every one of them would say the same thing every Tuesday night. Same thing. And me sitting back there with the great intellect just churning, even figuring out exactly how I was going to say the words for the greatest effect. and they'd get to Grumpy. And Grumpy would rattle his change in his pocket, and then he'd pull his nose, and then He'd run His hand through His hair. And then He would raffle His change again and pull His nose and run His hands through His head and say the same damn thing every Tuesday night. And He'd get up to me and I'd say, Paul Tillich said so-and-so, and He didn't give a damn what Paul Tillrich said. Grumpy's been sober 23 years. You know what I do now? I rattle the hell out of my chains. I couldn't understand why he didn't like me. He chased me all over that town. I never called himself when I was drunk. And you know, I figured that the name that everybody told me had to give it away to keep it. They didn't tell me you had to have something first. I'm like a friend of mine in North Carolina said he carried a mess, not a message. And you know, every once in a while I'd run out of the house and I'd jump on that white Charger and get my lance and I take off to fix me a drunk. I go in a bar and I talk to some guy you're killing yourself let me do this for you let me doing that for you well Tom, I don't want to quit drinking I say give me a slitz. I remember well one time I went down to save a drunk You know, I've given up saving souls, man. That's God's business. I went out to save this drunk, and he was really sick. He'd been drinking for a couple of months, wine, everything. He lived in a little old cabin. And the floor of that cabin was unbelievable. There was a refuse of about a month's drunk on the floor. An old white charger walked in. I went and got me a lady to help me clean out the place. Cleaned it out, washed up all the dishes, Just called a doctor for him, a doctor fixing him up. And you know what I found in all that refuse? Half a gallon of wine. When Grumpy got there, I was drunk too. And he used to tell me, Tom, you don't think yourself into good living. You live yourself into a good thing. And I'd say, Cornball, get out of here. And I called him drunk. I used to go over to well one day I got a couple of Al-Anons cornered and they couldn't get rid of me and I was drunk and I would and I was crying now let me tell you please what I was crying about cause one of their husbands AA talks was better than mine you talk about egocentrism I had it one of the worst cases you've ever seen and I still got a little bit of it and this was me in Alcoholics and Albums I'm beautiful give you all the philosophical truths you wanted to hear give you everything give you the logic you wanted to hear give you all the theology you wanted to hear and of course you didn't want to hear any but I couldn't stay sober and I called Grumpy one night and I was drunk and Grumpy taught me about love this night an aspect of it that I have never seen. Oh, you know what he said to me? Tom, don't you ever call me drunk again. As a matter of fact, he said, don'tyouevercallmeagain. He said, if you want to get sober, you know where we meet. And he said frankly, I don't give a goddamn if you ever get sober. But if you go into that meeting and you walk, don't call me to come get you. And slammed down the phone. Boy, that just broke my heart. cruel. And my daddy, you know, I called him one time from Wake County Jail. I'm talking about using people. I called my daddy and said, come bail me out. He said, no son, you can stay there. That's what love's all about. And you know I became a real periodic. They talk about the manic depressive type of alcoholic in the big book. Said a whole chapter could be written about him. And I'm one. I'm one. My whole life was a series of peaks and valleys and peaks and valleys and peaks and valleys. I drank that way. I lived that way everything I did was that way and you know I'd get drunk and I'd get sick definite cycle and when I was sick I needed you and that's when I'd make the promises I'll never do it again. And that's when I take the baths. You ever take baths when you're coming off a drunk? I took so many baths, I shouldn't have any skin left. And while I was taking baths I participated in a few sexual activities also, which I'd like to tell some of you about if you've got that problem. And I'd bathe and I'd do this other thing and I'll bathe and I do this another thing and everybody would be sweet to me and I would be sweet to them and I go back to the Baptist church and I hit the aisle. Soon as they sang almost persuaded, just as I am, what a friend, anything. I was down that aisle, and I meant it. Every time I believe I meant it, only I had an insane view of God. Walked down the aisle, I said to myself, the magician will tap you on the head, and he'll fix you, and you won't have to do anything. I think today the greatest insanity that any man can suffer from is a denial of God. And as an egocentric, there was only room for one God in my life and that was me and I was taking his place. And that's the reason I believe today there's only one antidote for insanity. One. Honesty. This book tells me when it's talking about the hows and whys of this program, first of all, comma, we had to quit playing God. Period. And you know, I started getting over this period of sickness after a drunk. You see, as I became physically well and as I began feeling better, the mind started to work again. I no longer needed you. Get out of my life, I said, and I went back behind my wall. And I'm going to tell you something. My two greatest enemies as an alcoholic were not depression and anything else. They were health and success. Because when I came back up to the top of that hill, I did the very same thing again I had always done before. That idea would come back. I would forget, and the idea would come back. This time, Tom, it's going to be different. This time you can drink like everybody else. They talk about insanity in this program. One thing insane people have in common is dishonesty. They believe a lie. You can go in the back ward of a mental hospital, go to the hopeless ward, and you'll see a guy sitting over in the corner, and he's giggling and laughing and he is talking to himself and he usually all balled up like this and the psychiatrists call him Hebraphrenic and he was talking to myself because he believes there is no one else to talk to and this is a lie and we look at him and we say oh boy is he crazy and you take the paranoid and he has developed a system to beat the bank in Las Vegas and he thinks everybody is chasing him to get the system away he hasn't got a system and nobody is chasing and that's a lie and we point at him and we said He's crazy. I'm not like that. The hell I wasn't. Take the alcoholic who no matter how many jails I had been in, no matter however many hospitals, no matter what, how many other things had happened to me as a result of drinking and as a resultado of my alcoholism, I could tell myself this time it's going to be different. That's a lie. You know, you could take a normal person and a schizo and an alcoholic and put them in this room. Let them walk out that door back there, and there's a man standing outside with a baseball bat. And he really lets them have it upside the head as they walk out the door. The normal person will never go through that door again. Now, the schizo might try it one more time just to see if it was real. The alcoholic will go through that door time after time after time after time. And one day he'll get there and the man with the bat's not there, he'll sit down and wait for him. It's all got something to do with this feeling of omnipotence that we have. It cannot happen to me. It cannot happen to me. but it did you know I was in psycho ward once and I was diagnosed as manic depressive with paranoid tendencies I liked the psycho ward I want you to know that I had attention whenever I wanted it egocentrics like psycho warts that's the reason we become institutionalized if I looked a little upset the nurse was always there with a couple of pills or a shot and I was good at looking upset you better believe it and my psychiatrist says a good honest man said Tom you're really fouled up and I can help you with that but you're an alcoholic And I cannot help you with that. You go to AA. I'll let you out. I was behind the locked door. I'll get you out on Wednesday night and you go to A.A. I never made it. And you know, he gave me a pass to the medical library for about a week and I came up with symptoms he had never heard of. He had to cut that out. Gave me a pencil and a piece of paper and said, write down your dreams. Boy, did I write down some doozies. They were lies. I didn't dare tell him my real dreams. It blows his mind. And they gave me all these tests, the Rorschach test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. That's a good one. And they came in one day and they had a box about this big. And they opened it up and in that box was every kind of paper doll you ever saw in your life. They took out a frame and they put it on the table and said, Tom, take these paper dolls and put them in this frame. And when you get them just like you want them, we want you to tell us a story about them. Now I had the fleeting thought, this is a hell of a thing for an intellectual to be doing. But I hadn't met many intellectuals up there where I was anyway. That was one of the high points of my entire life, playing them paper dolls. You know, I put those paper dolls where I wanted them and they stayed. Absolutely stayed. They didn't talk back to me. They didn' t argue. They didn''t do anything except do what I wanted him to do. And why did I enjoy it? Because I really was God in that situation. And finishing on top was still with me. And by the way, let me tell you how I went into the psycho ward. Intellectual perfectionist, right? And I had a wreck before I went over there and I knocked out this tooth up here. And the next day while I was taking one of my baths, I fell over in the bathtub and knocked out his tooth. And I knocked this one down here. When I reported to the psycho ward, I was a perfectionist who was snaggled to it. Now, it's hard to be a perfectionists with two teeth knocked out, I want to tell you. But, you know, I kept on going for the top. I played ping pong with a schizophrenic Cherokee Indian for 12 hours a day. We played ping-pong and we played ping pong. This man never spoke to anybody. He wouldn't have anything to do with anybody but me and I played him ping- pong, you now? And everybody said, look at old Tom taking care of so-and-so. Isn't that nice of him to do that, to play ping pong with him and everything? You know why I kept playing him ping pong? Because I ain't ever beat him yet. And I had to be on top. And I remember one day they took us out for a little recreation in our green psycho ward uniform and went out to play volleyball. And I never played volleyball in my life. But I was going to be the best. And it was in August, and we played on a concrete court, and it was hot. And I was the best. I picked up on it real quick. I scored more points than anybody else scored, and after the game was over, I sat down and I had a burning sensation on my feet playing barefoot. I looked at my feet and I didn't have the first piece of skin on the bottom of either foot. I finished on top. I was kicked out of the psycho ward, not asked to leave, kicked out. We were getting drunk in the hospital with a couple other guys on some of that North Carolina white lightning. Went to an alcoholic rehabilitation center. Lasted about two weeks. I had all the answers again, you see, up here to all the other guys. We'd be sitting in group therapy session. And some guy would say the problems he was having. I'd say, I know what your problem is. He'd say what? I'd said, it's your mama. If you straighten your mama out, she'd be okay. You see, I'd come in psychotherapy to the point where everything was my mother's fault. I was even suggesting to her that she needed the psychotherapy, not me. And it got worse. and the peaks got higher and the valleys got lower and they got closer and closer between I graduated from college cum laude I was voted into who's who in American universities and colleges both my junior and senior year I was a member of every honor society they had I was soloist with the college choir I sang with the college quartet I had so many scholarships in college and this is the truth When I graduated, they owed me $16. And I want to tell you that I had the press clippings too. Local newspapers, I can take you to my house today and show you my college annual half-page picture of me. I always thought I'd done a full page. And underneath is my pedigree and what a brilliant man I am. I look at that thing today and I just die laughing. I was drunk when they took the picture. You know, to the outer world, this guy's got it knocked. All he's got to do is go out here and take over and do his thing. Success. I was so successful that two weeks before graduation my wife took me back to the psycho ward. That's how successful I was. But again, I had the facade for the outer world to see. And I was sick. I took a job traveling for a publishing company. All I had to do was go around and talk to college professors about a book. I never had to take an order. Just talk to them about books, take them out, wine them and dine them. Big expense account, car to drive. Ideal alcoholic job. Somehow we're blessed really with the ability to do things faster and better than anybody else. I really believe this. We have to. I'd work two days and drink the rest of the week I spent a lot of expense money but it wasn't on any professors I'll tell you that then one night in Wheeling, West Virginia in a blackout I drove my car under this tractor-trailer truck on a curve I went straight and I went to the hospital and I was in traction for near three and a half months flat on my back I almost died But you know, I think back, I did not once think about dying. Not once, Beth. I thought about hurting because I can't stand pain. And the doctor gave me morphine. And it got to the point if my morphine wasn't there right when it was supposed to be, I'd start screaming for it. And I didn't care if there were other sick people up there, and I didn' t care if I bothered them. This was me that was hurting. They'd bring it to me and they'd shoot me full of it. One day they came in and they stuck it in his arm, and the biggest blackest knot came up on that arm. That's another thing I never want to forget. The biggest black is not you ever saw in your life. My system wouldn't even accept any more morphine. And I went through withdrawal for about five days. I can really feel for the drug addicts. If you've never burned up and froze at the same time, and giggled and cried at the same time—for God's sake, don't try it! He took me off that, and he put me on Panepon, he took me off that and he puts me on codeine. When I got out of that hospital, I never ate. I didn't eat when I was on these drugs. When I got out of the hospital, I weighed 140 pounds. When I went in I weighed 220. My left leg wouldn't work. I didn't think it ever would. We went back home and the doctor there put me on a strong aspirin drug, he called it. It's called Percodam. It's now Class A narcotic. And I knew the first Percadam that I ever took, it was not a strong aspirin. Every alcoholic can tell that. Nobody has to tell us. And I took them by the hands full. And he gave me seek-an-owl to sleep at night, and I took that by the hand full. I sat around my house in a lawn chair because I couldn't walk. And I put these drugs, and then I found out that coffee would boost them and Pepsi-Cola would boost him. Nobody had to tell me this. I knew it. And I sat in my lawn chair, and I floated, this euphoric feeling, I floatered. And I was fine as long as I stayed in my chair. If I got up, I'd puke. I was in trouble, so I went back to my mother and father to use them again, this time with a wife and a child. I want you to know back at my mother's house the period started that I call the Watch Tom period. I couldn't even go to the bathroom without an escort. Every time I'd head for the door, somebody would say, Where are you going, Tom? I'm going for a little walk. Well, I want to go too. And let me tell you something. I didn't see any need in it, but when they didn't go with me, I'd run as fast as I could because I didn' t have a driver's license to the nearest bar and I'd get drunk before they found me. Or I'd take all my mother's little nerve pills. Do you have a mother who takes little nerve bills? Little Fina Barbertaw nerve pills? I got married. I didn''t even know I was there. gave me something for a nerve pill. Didn't have a job, no income, sponging off my mother and father. Was out of work a year. Couldn't walk. I went to Charlotte. A job at a college down there where I still am. And I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous and do you know how I got there? I walked. Just like Grumpy said, damn it, I walked! And I'm going to tell you something else. When I went to Alcoholic Anonymous, I just went. I didn't think it would work. And neither did my wife think it was work. She thought it would be another two weeks, another month, maybe even another 89-day period. But it'd never work. And I went to those meetings. I had hit bottom. I know that now. I had gotten to that place where I could no longer lie to me, where none of my rationalizations worked anymore, where I had to come face-to-face with my real problem, me. It's the darkest place I have ever been in my life. And I realized that the wall that I had built was too high for me to get over and too thick for me to get through. And bottom is a beautiful place. I even look on bottom as a holy place because you see that's where the intellect and the perfectionism died and that's where God came into my life I didn't know it but I got to the point where I knew I could not drink, and I knew I could quit. I could not drink and I could not quit. In the words of the first step, I admitted I was powerless over alcohol. Powerless! I can't do it and I can't not do it. And with other problems in my life today when I get to the point where I can take me out of the picture in this way, where I can say I'm powerless over this problem, the problem is solved. I went to Alcoholics Anonymous and got me a sponsor. I didn't like him, but I asked him to sponsor me. He had something I wanted. And I went over to his house and I sat down in the den and I said, Harry, would you sponsor me? And he says yes, and he pointed his finger at me And he says, I've heard about you. He says, people in this state tell me you're crazy and that if you came around for me to go the other way, he said, but I'll help you on one condition. We do it my way. When I think today how close I came to leaving when he said that, it frightens me still. You know what his way was? He put a big book in my hand and he said, you read it slow. I had a sponsor who taught me to do things. I had an advisor who said, Tom, do this. And I said, Harry, why? And he said don't ask me why, do it. And he introduced me in this way to a spiritual way of life. I always thought I had to understand things before I did them. Alcoholics Anonymous teaches me that I do them, and then I understand them. And this was the beauty of his sponsorship. I used to go to meetings and sit on the very last row. And at 9 o'clock when it was over, I left. I didn't say anything to anybody. I wanted to stay sober, but I did not want to have anything to do with other people. And Harry told me, Tom, you get there early. And you go in and you shake everybody's hand and you ask them what they're doing. And I said, hey, I don't want to get there early and I don' t give a damn how anybody is doing. He said, you do it. And I did it. And you know something happened? After a little bit of this I kind of enjoyed getting there early. I kind of enjoyed shaking everybody's hand and what I enjoyed more than anything else is something I enjoy more today than anything else. I began to look people in the eye. I had looked at my shoe tops for a long time. And I got to work. Perry worked me to death. We made more 12-step calls, and it was always, Tom, we're going on a 12- step call, you shut up, and I'll talk. And then one night he let me talk, and And I didn't know what to say. And that's probably good." And, you know, I was sitting up at the school one day after about three months without a drink and all of a sudden something dawned on me, Tom, you haven't wanted a drink in three months. Goosebumps came all over. When I got my three-month chip, that red chip, you would have thought I'd been sober 30 years. They made the biggest fuss over me that you've ever seen in your life. And you see, I was getting sober and I was beginning and to think they should make a fuss over me. I'm going to tell you what happened on my first birthday. It was my night. My sponsor was arguing with my wife over who was going to give me the party, and I was giggling to myself. Ain't I somebody? I finally have arrived, you see. And I got up in my France up there and I picked up my ear chip and I made my little speech, which I had planned and rehearsed and was shaken to give. And they kept counting. And they counted up to 25 years. And this beautiful man that I told you about first got up and walked up and picked up his chip. You see, I had picked his birth date without knowing it. I call him my pigeon now, and I tell him if he keeps doing what I tell him to do, he just might get sober. And beautiful man that he is, he takes that. Good things have happened. I am now the chairman of the largest department in the largest community College in North Carolina, and finally finishing up a master's degree in counseling. The guy who was on five years' probation during his first year and a half of sobriety was offered three jobs by the Probation Department, and I was still on probation. I was never supposed to drive again, and my sponsor got my license back. I have two AA babies, beautiful, fantastic children. So many things, but most of all it ain't here anymore, it's here, and as far as I'm concerned that's where everything is. The big book tells me that deep down within every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. In the final analysis it says it is only there that he may be found. And through this blessed program I started breaking down that wall, and it didn't come down as fast as I wanted it to. I was tempted to bulldoze it, but bulldozing doesn't work. I put it up brick-by-brick, and I had to take it down brick- by-bricks. And you know, what I found inside was not what I thought I was. You see, I thought I was the sorriest, as I told my psychiatrist, the sorrier son of a bitch in the world. I lived with this. And I couldn't let this go. I couldn'T let it go after four years in Alcoholics Anonymous. So one of my friends told me one day, Tom, you are not the same person you were four years ago. Why do you drag the dead body around? And I let me go. I'm going to tell you something else. I don't give a damn if I never talk in AA again. I love sponsorship. That's where my life is. I love my local group. I love 12-step calls. and another friend of mine I got some real good friends told me one time Tom it's easy to talk the talk it's hard to walk the walk and this program is about walking the walk it's about going out and doing things for people and not getting found out and not needing that pat on the back for God's sake not needing it and I can't even do that yet I went down to a college in South Carolina us to address the student body. It was real funny. They wanted me to give a lecture on alcoholism and drugs. I said, I can't do that. The lady said, what can you do? I said I'll tell them a story. Well, what kind of publicity do you want? None. Well how shall I introduce you? Just as tall, drunk. Well what's your fee? I don't have a fee. So this lady, she didn't know what to do. And I went down there and I got turned on with those kids. God, it was beautiful. Really beautiful. And afterwards I was getting ready to leave and this little lady never had understood and saddled up to me and handed me a white envelope. And I figured, well, if it's gas money, it'll be all right, you know. Do you know I got out on the highway and I couldn't wait to open that damn envelope up? And I it up and there was a certain amount of money, and I said, You've done it again. And I went home and I wrote a letter to the president of the student body, and I sent this check back, and I said give it to some student who needs books. And I didn't tell anybody about this. I'm practicing anonymity. My wife turned over to me one night I said, by the way, what did you do with that money? I let her have it. Could not contain myself. And you know, I believe progress in this program is a gift of God. Have you ever thought that if I could have seen myself as I really was when I took my first inventory, as I truly was, I think I would have exploded into a million pieces. God believes in progress. God doesn't take away all my defenses right now, no matter how I ask him to take them away. He takes them away in his time. I have some arguments with him about that. And I watch my children today. Children are beautiful. I watch me two-year-old and my three-year old. And you know a kid can go out and they can sit down with a leaf and they can spend an awful long time with that leaf and they draw everything in that leaf that's in that leave out and there's nothing there but them and that leaf and they love that leaf and they try to understand that leaf they don't know what it is and they spontaneously love people my son three years old we go to my house after a meeting the sickest drunk in the bunch. The one who just got there is the one he goes to. And he crawls up in his lap and he says, I'm Jason and hugs his neck and kisses him. He loves those drunks more than I do. And it's spontaneous. You see? Nobody has to tell Jason how to love anybody. Jason doesn't even know what love is. But he is it. He's got it. And you know, when I took all the wall down and it's all not down yet, I don't mean that. when I started taking it down, you know what I saw inside of me? What God had given me to begin with. I can love. I can relate to people. I can related to God. It's like God is saying to me, Tom, I didn't make any sons of bitches. What I did make was some transcendent children. And under all that stuff, you're still just like I made you. I sang a song when I was in college under the spotlight, which I never understood. And it went this way, and I'll share it with you. A beggar stood by the house of God, by the sacred gates one morn. And the wind was sharp with winter's teeth, and he shook in his rags forlorn. The organ pealed within the church A hymn of warmth and cheer And the beggar smiled As a beggar will who has no God to fear The rich man pushed him rough aside And the worker spoke a while The widow dropped her widow mite And the courtesan a smile The organ peeled within the Church The saints on flowers trod and I looked beneath the beggar's robe and there revealed stood God I was that beggar and that robe was mine and it took me a long time to weave that robe and it will take a long time to unweave it and uncover what God gave me to begin with but thank God I'm doing it I was sitting on the couch with Jason the other night. I get my spiritual teaching from Jason. I have to sit down with him when he's sitting on his potty because he likes to talk. And we're sitting there one night, and we're having some small chatter while he's sitting on His potty, see? And all of a sudden, he looks up at me, and he says, Daddy, God turns the power on. And I said, Son, how do you know that? Did you learn that in Sunday school? And he said, no, I just know it. That's why. I just know it, that's why and we're sitting on the couch just before I came out here and he said daddy I'm going to be the daddy and you're going to be the son and I said how's that going to happen? He said I'll grow up to be a daddy and you grow down to be his son and isn't that what this program is all about? think about it, growing down to be a son, growing down to being the child that God made me to be. The big book says he is the father and we are his children. Most good ideas are simple. And this concept is the keystone, the keystone of the arts through which we pass to freedom lest grow down and become children. it. You're looking at a guy who's still a yo-yo. I still have my ups and I still have my downs, but they're not as high and they're not as low. And thank God they're not as close together. My life has changed immeasurably. I have turned and I am going the other way. And I'm trying my best to use that sick will of mine to tune it in on God's will and try to follow him, not lead him. And as a result you're looking at a twice-born man. I wasn't given life once, I was given it two times! And I was given the most precious gift that any man could be given, and the name of that gift is freedom. Freedom! And thank God for freedom from the bondage of self. What more can any man ask for? What more? Thank you. I just want to say thank you, Tom, for sharing with us this morning. I'll turn the meeting back over to Delbert. I didn't take that out because I've got a lot of notes on it I took it out because I don't want to know who I am. I want to thank everybody. All the speakers, all the hidden workers, the herb that runs the kitchen wanted me to apologize to you who eat breakfast because the management forgot to put bacon on his orders. You see, I'm not the only one who makes mistakes. The Kansas Conference next year will be here, September 29-30, the first of October. I wish I could tell you how I feel, but I can't. I can say is thanks. Let's stand, hold hands, and pray together for the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.