Step 7 and the Prayer That Lifted the Fear – Jay P.

My name is Jay Plumbach. I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody, and I got all my directions. They said there's a clock in the back and a guy got a stop sign and there's another guy with a hook and I'm sure there's two or three guns. Don't worry at 23 after I'll be almost done. At quarter of 10 I'll I'll be near done. I'll be all done and we'll be out of here on time. I'm honored to be here. I want to thank Bob for asking me. I want the individual members of this group that I've had the opportunity to meet at meetings at Detox and at the club yesterday afternoon and this afternoon. And the ones I met outside and got to talk to that stuck their hand out and said, hi, I'm glad you're here. I've been sober in Alcoholics Anonymous through the grace of God and the miracle of this program, the help of a sponsor since March 8, 1974. And I will never be able to truly show you how grateful I am for that. When I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous, and if some of you have heard my story before, it's going to be a little different. And the reason it's gonna be a Little Different, I'm gonna tell you what I was like, what happened and what I'm like now and still be done by 23 after 8. Got you covered. But so I'm going to have to talk about some things I haven't talked about, and I'm not going to talk about some of the things I used to talk about because if I talk about all them, I can't get done in that amount of time. But I never planned on being here in Las Vegas on a Thursday night talking at an AA meeting. Usually a Thursday night I was playing blackjack somewhere or, you know, I was scouting drinks and playing blackjack and chasing. I've been coming to Las Vegas since 1960. I've been to a lot of meetings here because since my sobriety, I still came to Vegas, but I come to meetings. When I come to meeting, I came to meetings so I wouldn't have to drink. So I wouldn' t have to drink. And I'm sure I've met some of you at meetings because I've been coming here and going to them. A lot of my friends, Bob knows them that we've seen around, they come out here with me. We just come out to play. But the real deal in my life is that no matter what, I don't want to take a drink today. And I never planned it that way. You know, I never planned on being an alcoholic. I wanted to be a lot of other things. I had dreams as a kid and I'm sure most you had dreams. I had things that I wanted. My dad was a news commentator. He had a coast-to-coast radio show every morning with CBS and we lived in Cleveland, Ohio or a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. He was a well-known personality and as a child I was afforded all the things that kids in that environment were afforded. I'm sure that they gave me love, and I'm sure they gave my attention, but I don't remember that. I remember they never did for me what I wanted. I don' t remember Dad ever taking me to a ball game. I don''t remember Dad every playing catch with me. I don ''t remember anything as a child between me and my dad. I don?'t remember any kind of relationship with them. I dont remember either one of my parents ever hugging me or kissing me or telling me they loved me. I always felt that I was excluded, and yet I'm true that they must have given me that kind of love and attention because I look at my family. I got a sister a year older than I am One a year younger Another one five years younger A baby brother born when I was 18 I've seen my siblings given all that emotional attention And physical love So I must have been given it But there was something inside of me That kept me from ever feeling it And it's kept me From ever being able to remember it And I think that's called alcoholism Yet it didn't make me an alcoholic It was just there inside of you Inside of me I was a liar as far back as I can remember You ain't got to be a liar to be an alcoholic, but it'll help. And I never read no books on lying. I started lying right about the same time I started talking. You know, I thought lying was a gift from God. I thought he just really said, because by using words and using things, I could make myself into whatever you wanted me to be. If you wanted Me to be smart, I'd tell you how smart I was. if you wanted to be a criminal, no matter what you wanted me to be, I would tell you that I was that. And I would say it in such a way that I believed it and you'd believe it. And I'd look at other people and they'd tell lies and I'd catch them right away and other people would catch them. But you couldn't catch me because I believed my lies. And if you didn't believe them, I got mad at you. I'd fight you over them. When you're able to lie like that, I set myself up for the lie that almost killed me. The lie that this time I can take a drink and it'll be all right. This time I can take a drink, and I won't go there, or I won t do that, or hurt them. And yet I d take that drink and I d do just that which I said I wouldn t do. And I didn t know that, but I was lying long before I was drinking. I was a thief as far back as I can remember, and I never thought I was the thief. You know, I guess I pictured myself sort of as a short fat Robin Hood. Well, I might take something from you and I turn around and give it to you. And, I wouldn't think anything about the fact that you might have worked hard to to earn the money to pay for whatever it was. I never thought about that. I said, if I gave it to that individual, though, they'd like me and they'd want me around. And if I was talking to a social worker or a counselor, I'm sure they'd tell me that I was trying to buy attention or buy affection. And I guess I was, but I didn't know that I was. Nobody taught me that. And I think those things were part of alcoholism. And I know there's some new people here. I know these people that don't even know it, but I know those new people. And I'm going to beg of you something. Don't try and compare with me. Don't try and think, well, I had to be just like he was. But try and identify. If you can identify with some of what was going on in my head and some of the things that were going on, some of it happened after I took a drink and what went on in the progression of my drinking, then perhaps, perhaps you'll hear or feel the hope that I felt at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on March the 8th. All it's about is identifying it, that's all. You know, I was in the middle of a meeting and I had that line going on. I had the stealing going on and I was mad as hell. I didn't know I was made. Hell, I didn't know. I was mad until I was sober a year and a half. I was over a year and a have in Alcoholics Anonymous at a meeting of Alcoholics anonymous, the New West Esperanza group in West Palm Beach, Florida. That's my home group is a big book study group. Well structured group. And I was a poster child in that group. I'd done everything in there. I've got to greet people. That was my first job. And then they let me wash ashtrays. My next job was washing coffee cups. We had ceramic coffee cups, I got to watch them. I didn' like that group real well. I used to mix the coffee cups and ashtrays together. You've got to get your shots when you can. Well, it's a way to get them, you know? Then they let me make coffee, lousy coffee, but I made it. And I got to chair meetings. I got zu do everything in that group except be treasurer. I still ain't been treasuer. That might be a good thing. But anyhow, I was sort of a poster child. I'd done everything in AA except work the steps. And a guy took me aside that night. His name was John. He put his arm around my shoulder, and he told me that he loved me. And he said that I was a phony and I was about to get drunk, and I hated him. And he took me home with him that night, and he set me down on the stoop of his trailer. He lived out in Loxahatchee, Florida. It was just a swamp. Well, it wasn't really a trailer. It was a manufactured home. You have to think about that for a minute because, you see, back then they were trailers and I had a house on a golf course. I live in one today, so they're manufactured homes. It's all about perspective. I was sitting in a meeting at a club, somebody talking about a $400,000 home yesterday. Christ, you can buy all the trailers in my park for $400.000, you know? Manufactured homes, I'm sorry. But anyhow, John sat me down there and he put his arm around my shoulder and he said, Jay, he began to talk to me about the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous and he asked me what I thought about the First Step and I told him what I thought because I accepted what it says in the book where the doctor talks about that obsession of the mind and I didn't know what obsession meant. He said, that thing that goes on saying this time it'll be different. This time I can take a drink and it'll be alright. And then I take that drink and it set off that allergy of the body that the doctor talks about. He calls it a phenomena and a phenomena comes from a Greek word that means we don't know what the hell it means. I didn't know how to spell it so I didn' t know what it meant but I had whatever it was I had. If I took a drink something happened and made me different and I didn''t know when I'd stop In the book on page 21 there's that beautiful definition that says what about the real alcoholic That was me, real Isn't that nice to have a title sort of like being a lawyer? Real alcoholic If there's any lawyers I don't mean anything bad by that. Lawyers used to be respectable but It says he or she may or may not have been a heavy drinker May or may Not have been A daily drinker But at some stage of his drinking career Begins to lose control Once he starts to drink That was me I accepted that I knew whatever a real alcoholic was That was mean I had no control once I started And I thought that was the first step We were talking about that at a meeting at noon today The delusion that I am like or ever will be Like normal people when it comes to drinking must be smashed. It says that is the first step in recovery. You know, that's an important statement. That's the first steps in recovery, I said. Well, if that's the 1st step, I've took it. And I tried to work the remaining 11 steps based on that foundation. That's like trying to use half a brick for a cornerstone. It don't work. John said the 1 st step is more than that. It says we were powerless over alcohol and there's a hyphen. He said that means there's another thought coming in line with the 1 s that our lives have become unmanageable. He said look at your life. And I looked at my life for probably the first time with any degree of honesty. He said, look at your marriage. My marriage was a disaster. I'd been married to the same woman since 1964, and my marriage was an absolute disaster. It was so bad that I was the most active member of Sex Without Partners in South Florida. It's a self-help group. It probably ain't got here in Nevada yet, but it's working its way west. So my marriage wasn't good. Employment-wise, I was a marine engineer and worked on ships, but I wasn't working on ships. I'd gone into business. I'd met some guys at AA meetings in the country of Sri Lanka. That's an island off the coast to India. And I met these guys. They had the same lack of principles in their life that I had in mine, and we went into the import-export business. But our government called it smuggling, and so did theirs. We were smuggling gemstones out of Sri Lankan, smuggling them into the United States. And I was going to New York down in the Diamond District, and I'm selling these expensive stones and anyhow we're making a lot of money and spending just a little bit more than what we made and I had all these delusions going on the government wanted me for customs said I broke a lot of laws I was in a lot of trouble financially I was on the verge of bankruptcy I was In trouble in every area of my life and I was On the verge Of taking a drink and I accepted For the very first time the first step John said let's put it into real simple words, I can't. So step one simply meant for me, I can't." He said, let's look at step two. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. He said what does that mean to you? And I started to think about crazy things I'd done in my life. He said that's not what I'm talking about and he opened the book up. The book is such a wealth of information if I just open it up and look for it. Bill talks about that strange insanity that precedes the first drink. That's that thought that I was telling about that this time I can take a drink and it'll be different. That thought that I believed every time. And he mentions it two or three times, and then he talks after the promises. The promises are read at almost every meeting I'm at. And after them there's an important line. It says, when the thought of drinking crosses our minds, we react as if from a hot flame, when tempted by alcohol. We react as If from a Hot Flame, for sanity has returned. John said for me, sanity was simply going to me that taking a drink would not be an acceptable alternative under any situation. Simply put, he can. So here I had two things to look at. Number one, I can't step one and number two, he kan. And John said with those two facts let's look at step three. If I was a lousy manager I needed a manager and he read what was in the book about it and I accepted those precepts and he said let's say the prayer. And he got on his knees and he suggested I get on mine if I wanted to. He said, if you don't want to, you don t have to. But as he got on his knees, I got on mine. And he opened the book up and we read the third step prayer. You know, up until that point, many times in meetings I ve been saying I m working the third-step prayer. I would repeat stuff that I heard other people say at meetings. In reality, what I was working on was accepting unmanageability because when I got to step three, all I was doing was making a decision. There was no work involved. When you get to step 3, you re either going to get drunk or do something. It's that simple. So I made a decision in step three. The work came as I got off my knees. He handed me a yellow legal tablet, and he said up in the upper left-hand corner, he said, because the book says, next we launched on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a house cleaning. John told me where that was going to be, how I was going to take that inventory. He said in the lower left-hander corner, write down the word I resent. I said, John, I don't resent anybody. He says, why don't you put down I hate? Hell, I could do that. I broke the pencil. I mean, I'll tell you, I love hate. If you can hate like I hate, it was a great thing, man. My mouth would drool with hate. I'd go to bed at night and just think what I'd do to them for what they did to me, and I'd feel warm all over. It was good, and I'd write it down, and he told me who to put first. He said, write down Siraj. Now, that name might not mean anything to you, but that was the Indian that was living in my house, the guy from Sri blanket that they sent over here to watch their money. I hated him. I hated him because they got my money and I was broke. I hated him, because he slept in a bed and my little boy was sleeping on the floor. I hated them because he ate raw meat and we're eating rice and beans. I hated him cuz he wore a dress. Didn't call it a dress, they called it a sari. But you put a skirt on a man, it's a dress! John told me to write down why I I hated people, and it didn't make any difference if it was true or I didn't have to. I'd just write it down, and I could do that. You see, taking an inventory wasn't anything different for me. That part of it, all I'd ever done all my life is talk about you. And the beginning of that inventory is just doing what I'd always done, talk about you. So I started from there and went back and found way back in my childhood I hated. I hated my mother and my father. I hated myself. I hated sisters. They got what I didn'T get. Mom and Dad didn'T do for me what I wanted them to do. I had everybody between childhood and age 32 or 32 1⁄2 on that sheet of paper, and I hated them. And I put down why I hated it, and then John had me go back and look at it again. He said, Put down how it affected you. I used that guy's surrogate. It affected my self-esteem. I didn't feel like I was a very good human being. I certainly didn't feeling like a good husband. I had no self-worth. Financially, I was in trouble. My security was ruined. My sex life, I told you about that. It was virtually non-existent for the most part. It affected every area of my life, and he had me go through that whole inventory and list how each one of those resentments affected me. And then he hadme write down the last column. He said, now we're going to look back at that list and see where you're wrong. And the book says we put out of our mind the wrongs others have done, real or imagined, and we looked where we were wrong. And I couldn't do that. I looked at it, and I couldn' find where I was wrong. How was I wrong to this guy? I brought him over from a third world country I brought them to the land of the big PX he had everything at his fingertips that he never had before how did I hurt him and I went to John and said I didn't do anything to him and John said why don't you ask God to help you and I did, I said God help me did I say or do something or could I have done something or said something differently and I'll tell you what I found by me going into business with him and bringing him here I brought Him from His country on a visa And as soon as I started to get spiritual and work the steps, I pulled the visa, and he was here as an illegal immigrant. If he were arrested, he would go back to his country to jail and never get out for what we had done. And if he didn't go back into his country and stayed here, he would never see his family again. And that was because of me. My part in the wrong was what I had done I was not a gemologist. I was a marine engineer. My greed and my selfishness and my wanting to get their money is what made me go into business with them. And once I wrote that down, I saw my part in the wrong and my hate for him left. And I also had clear-cut directions because I wrote the exact nature of my wrong down. I cleared cut directions there what I was going to have to do to make it right later on. And anyhow, but there I was as a kid, I hadn't had a drink yet and I had that anger going on inside of me and then I started getting locked up because I was running away. Make a long story short, I stayed locked up from eight years old until 17 and a half. I'd get out of one institution, go back into another. And I went into the institutions because of my behavior. And I always thought I was being punished, but I wasn't being punished. What they were trying to do was redirect me and mold me into something productive. I thought they were doing things to me and they weredoing them for me. It was how I looked at it. At 13, a miracle came into my life. I decided to get a drink. Now, I'm sure I had alcohol in me many times before that because of how I grew up. The family drank all the time. Dad was a heavy drinker, daily drinker. Dad was a drunk. Dad got sober in 1959, stayed sober until the day he died in 1981, March 25th. But dad was a junk, drank himself out of the radio industry. Mom was a regular drinker. They had get-togethers with all the family and they'd give us kids whatever the adults had. We'd get sips of beer, wine, mixed drinks, whatever they had we got a little bit of. So I had alcohol in me but it did nothing to me or for me so it meant nothing to be. You know where it said in the book the delusion that we will be like other people when it comes to alcohol must be smashed. I don't ever want to drink like other people. You know, I don' t want to drink like social drinkers. I don t understand them. That's a strange insanity that I don t understand. They don t drink right. That' s how I drank as a kid. I didn' t drink right. I'd have a little drink and that was it. I d remember nothing about it. But at 13, I decided to drink. You had to be 21 in Ohio. Hell, I didn't look 13. I stole an eyebrow pencil. I gave myself a beard and a mustache. Just sort of dotted it on. I don't know what the hell I look like. You know, a little punk kid with 10,000 blackheads dotted onto his face. Headed on down to a skid row because that's where I knew you could drink. It was a place I'd been locked up in. Walk in enough of them gin mills to meet this other guy and we finally got what we wanted. We got two bottles of mixed screwdrivers and two bottles of Thunderbird wine. I can only guess why we ordered it. Screwdrivers, I didn't know what it meant but it sounded sexy. It sounded like there was some mystique to it that promised something. I don't, anyhow, I knew why I ordered that. Thunderbird, I know why I ordered. I'd heard about that. There was a billboard on Scranton and 25th, as big as that wall as I remember. It probably wasn't, but I remember it being that big. Had a bottle of Thunderbird on it. That bird just soaring. God, it looked great. And it was the words you heard, you know, what's the word? Thunderbird. It promised something was going to happen. You try and do that with Mogan David, it ain't going to flip your knot. I mean, it's not. Thunderbird had excitement to it And another thing was affordable Back then it was $25 twice It's gone up a little bit But it's always been affordable All throughout my drinking it was affordable If you go looking for it right now It's still affordable They keep it on the low shelf The bottom shelf They want you to steal it The good shit's up here Well, it's true You know the good stuff they can watch But anyhow, we got that stuff Went out behind some bushes We started drinking Don't know what it tasted like. Got no idea. Don't Know What We Started With. But I know what happened shortly after we started with whatever we started with. For the first time in my life, I felt okay. I had the most fantastic feeling come over me that ever could have come over a human being, and I didn't even know what had happened. It's only in retrospect that I know what happened because I pursued the recapturing of it at every opportunity for the next 17 1⁄2 years. and I never got it back. I was to sacrifice everything that was of any importance to me just to try and capture that feeling again, and I Never Got It Back. I woke up the next morning in a way that I was going to wake up over and over again until I got to you people. I wokeup in a mess, and it was mine. I wokep with a new fear about me. I didn't know what I was afraid of. I was just afraid. I found that when I was doing that inventory. John had me list my fears. I had them all down there after we got done with resentments, And we got all the fears down, and John had me get on my knees and ask God to take them. And I got off my knees and said, John, I'm still afraid. He said, what are you afraid of? I said, I don't know. And that was as honest as I could be. He opened up the book to Bill's story, and Bill talks about that fear of impending calamity. Bill talks About Fear of Being an Evil and Corroding Threads. Our lives are shot through with it. It ought to be classed with stealing. And I looked at that fear in my life, and I understood it. For the very first time, I understood it. That was that fear that came every time there was a knock on the door and I didn't want to answer it, didn't know who was there The phone had rang I wouldn't pick it up because I didn't knew who was on the other end The envelope with no return address I knew that fear And I knew the fear progressed in my life from that day until the day I got to you or until John sat me down and talked to me And I could evade that fear and avoid that fear and be passed out at times and go away and come back stronger than ever And I firmly believed that had I not found you and the answer you gave me in the steps, I would have had to kill myself or I'd have died drinking because I could not live with that fear. It was killing me. We got back on our knees and I asked God to take that fear and I'm here to tell you it was lifted from me right then. It was gone but I'm also here to say it wasn't gone for good. Every once in a while there will be a night I can't go to sleep or in the daytime they'll just creep over me and and I know what's going on, and I've got to stop and look at my life and see what it is that I'm not doing that I should be doing or that I am doing thatI shouldn't be doing and ask God to help me change that. Ask him to remove the fear, and it's gone. That fear comes as a wake-up call to me. I know that if I let it linger, if Ilet it stay there, eventually I will drink. I can't live with it. You know, sociopaths don't feel fear and don'tfeel guilt. Alcoholics do. I can't live with them I learned a little prayer back then and I use it today many, many times some of you might want to try it if you ever get in that situation or the situations that I get in it's just simply put God, you take it I can handle it God, You take it I can hand it I'll say that simple little phrase over and over again and whatever the crisis of the moment is or the fear of the movement is will be lifted from me if it's at night the next thing you know I'm waking up and it's gone if it was in the daytime and it's coming, I start saying that, God, you take it. I can't handle it, and it is gone. But anyhow, there I was, 13, coming off that first drunk. Had a blackout that night, and I had blackouts all through my drinking. And I know a lot of people are afraid of blackouts. I wasn't. I love blackouts。 If I was in a black out and I didn't remember, I wasn' t responsible. That' s how my mind worked. I know today I was responsible. My mind said, if you don' t remember, you' re not responsible. Now, blackouts can give you problems when you get married or when you're in situations went. I remember her, you know, there'd be many nights I'd come to the next morning and she'd be laying there mad. And I didn't know what happened. I didn'T have any clue what happened, I might not remember a couple of days. And l'd have to get rid of that stuff from her. And being a good alcoholic, l'd get rid it. An example, l wake up in the morning, ld look at her, she'd give me that look they give you, you knoW. And, and l'd say, l just think quick, just say, well, if your mother would've kept her mouth shut, it wouldn't happen. She said, we ain't seen my mother in six months. She lives in Florida. I said, I know, but I've been thinking about it. And if you give me two or three minutes, pretty soon she's apologizing for her mother's behavior and it's over. You know what? Black House, if you learn to handle them, we're all right. But I come off that first drunk and I got locked up again. And I stayed locked up until 17 and a half and I ran away from the reformatory I was in and went into the Navy. My career in the Navy lasted six months and they threw me out. Called me before board officers and gave me the option to sign in a paper that if I signed it, I'd get an honorable discharge. If I didn't, they'd court-martial me. I signed the paper. The paper was just a guarantee I'd never attempt to reenlist in the armed forces as long as I lived. That was a long time ago, and I ain't been back. I've lived up to my word on that one. But I left the Navy, and I went back up to My Mom and Dad's house where it was going to be the last time in a long term. And I got to their house, and I turned 18 the day I got there, and I bought a car. It was a Studebaker. It was one of them cars that looks like it's coming and going at the same time. If you ever look at one there, it was a good car. It was stick shift and I'd never driven before. But I got the car. I didn't bother getting license plates. And I got a license. Didn't bother get an insurance. And I went out to celebrate my birthday. And I woke up the next morning like I woke up the last time I drank. Woke up in that mess. Wokeup with that fear. Wokeop not remembering what happened the night before. And I was in a jail, in a Parma jail. And the cops came and they let me out of jail and they gave me a handful of tickets and told me I had to go to court. And they letme out on my own recognizance. It's not because I was an up-and-coming young citizen, but because my mother was clerk of courts in that small town. And I went over to her house. And I remember going into her house, and as I walked in, she was crying. She's sitting in the living room crying, and my sister's there. My sister had just joined the Ursuline Convent, and she's crying. And I looked at my mom and said, why are you crying? My mom said, I'm thinking to myself, why is she? I should be crying. I'm the one that just got out of jail. I'm the one that needs a bath and needs a drink. My mom told me, she said, Jay, your dad is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and he's sober for three months. My daddy got sober in a place called Rosary Hall. She said, and we've been blessed. They were in their late 40s. She said we've being blessed. She said and I'm pregnant. She said I am so afraid this child is going to be a boy that I'm praying that he will be born dead rather than be born a boy like you. and I hated that bitch and I swore I'd never speak to her again how could she say that about me the son that had been everything to her and I left her house they told me I was a lousy sailor and I joined a merchant marine and I was to go to sea from then until in the 80's when I was injured got on my first ship and I found a wonderful career it was just fantastic I made a lot of money I got fired on a lot of ships and didn't make any difference we were getting off anyhow at the end of the voyage and they paid you a $100 bill so I could go down on a skid row and be a big shot, run out of money, ship out again. It just was great. And I found that I put rules in my drinking and I had an ability to learn so I began to go up the ladder in the Merchant Marine. In 1963, I got a license as an officer in the Mercant Marine. I thought that would make me better and my drinking kept getting worse. You know, when I took my license when I turned 18, I didn't get one back until I was sober three years. You know it was many years before I got licensed. I just kept driving. Back then you could go to other states. I had a Nevada license one time, and California, Washington, Oregon. I've had them everywhere, but they'd catch me with them and take them again, and I'd just go get another one somewhere. That's four computers. Computers mess that up, I guess. But anyhow, I'm on merchant ships, and I'm getting in more trouble, and I said to them, and i just wanted it to get better. If it'd just get better, I'd be all right. And I thought to myself, you know, I made a study. If I got married, I'D BE ALL RIGHT. I'VE LOOKED AT PEOPLE WITH FAMILIES, AND THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO GET ALONG FINE. and they've got kids and houses and fences and that. I'll get married, and things will be wonderful. So I was sitting in a bar one day shopping for a wife, and she walked in, sat right down next to me. She's a little bitty redhead, 4'9". She is madder than hell. I mean, when she sat down, she was mad. She'd come in with her girlfriend. Her girlfriend's mother was barmaid in that bar and it was the only reason she'd come in with here, and I remember looking over at her, and I said, can I buy you a drink? And she said, no, I don't drink. And she says it real disgustingly, and that was true love. I couldn't afford to drink her, I knew that. There was no doubt about that. I bought her a Coke Cola and I hauled them hundred dollar bills out because I just got off the ship and I started lying and she started listening. And after a lengthy courtship, I proposed to her. And if you were to ask her how long, she'd have told you it was 10 minutes. I think it was 20 minutes. Alcoholics take a long time with important decisions. We don't rush into things, you know. But then I found out why she is mad. She had choke marks on her neck where her husband had choked her and beat her in black eye. This guy she'd been married to would just beat her real badly and she had two children, one four years old and one just born. She hated alcohol. She hated men. She hated life. Now that's a challenge. Make a long story short, on October 14th, 1964 she was divorced. On October 15th, 64 we got married. We got married at the Candlelight Flower Shop in West Palm Beach, Florida on Congress Avenue. I'd gone in, and I'd been off the ship for a while. I was running out of money, and I got this woman that was adjusted to peace to agree to marry us. And she was gonna do a whole ceremony for like $100. And Vonnie get a big chorus size, and they're gonna play the organ, here comes the bride, all the stuff you do. And we're gonna have our two witnesses there. I got the woman down to about 25 bucks, I think. And they hummed, here comes a bride, and Von got some wilted roses, you know, and that was the deal. Now marriage was not a joke. I just had to economize with money at that time. but marriage wasn't a joke to us, or to me. I didn't know what divorce was. In my family there had been no divorces. I thought you got married and you stayed married and lived happily ever after. I remember little Ricky, little boy, holding on to my pant leg looking up at me and saying please be my daddy. I'd never felt my dad was my daddy and I swore I'd be his daddy. I remember holding Kim in my arms, now she's a year old. I'm gonna be this little girl's daddy. I'm going to do everything for her that a daddy does For a little girl Protect her and shelter her The woman I'm marrying God, I loved her and I needed her I needed here then and I didn't know it I needed it because I felt superior to her Had I but known how superior she was To me, I'd have been afraid to talk to her And I knew That I was going to take care of her The vows meant something I was gonna honor her I was gunna love her I was gona protect her I was guana give her all the security That she was deserving had you told me that alcoholism was going to keep me from it I'd have said you're crazy I thought because I wanted to do it with that deep sincere wanting that I could do it I didn't know that lack of power was my dilemma and we left that service and we went over to her aunt's house for a little get together and they gave us the toasters and stuff that they give you and I remember they gave me a glass they gaveme a glass of punch and I took a drink of it and I spit it out there wasn't no liquor in it You don't drink punch if it ain't full of vodka. You know, I just can't swallow it. And at weddings you're supposed to celebrate them. You're supposedto get drunk and there wasn't nothing to drink and none of them drank. So this same guy that was going to be his model husband grabbed his new wife and left. We got in an old Chevy we had and headed down to Miami for a two-day honeymoon. I stopped at a liquor store and I got a bottle so I could celebrate the wedding. And she wouldn't drink with me so I picked the guy up on the side of the road. He was a bum. And he sat there and I sat here and we passed the bottle back and forth across my new wife. And I woke up the next morning the same way I wokeup the last time I drank, the same fear, the same not remembering what happened after I started to drink. And she was crying, and everybody in this room, be you alcoholic or non-alcoholic, has either cried these tears or heard them cried, that deep down sobbing, that as they're crying it, it's breaking your heart as it's breakin' theirs. And I remember lookin' over at her and sayin', Bon, what's wrong? I knew what was wrong, but she told me. She said, I've lived this way before and I will not live this way again. And then I took that vow that maybe you took. I looked at her and I said with the deepest sincerity I ever had in my life, I said, I'm sorry. And if you give me one more chance, one more chance, I'll never behave this way again. And she gave me one more chance. And for almost 10 years, she gave me one more chance and one more chance and one more chance. I don't know how the marriage stayed together. I can only guess. Perhaps because when I went to sea, I'd write letters every day and they'd be long letters full of love and full of promises, well-meaning promises but unable to keep them. But I'd writer these letters and by the time I'd get off a ship and come home, she'd be waiting for me at the airport. She'd have that hope in her eyes that they have and she'd have hope in their eyes until I got close enough to her where she could smell the liquor on my breath and the hope went out of her eyes like it threw ice water on her. And I'd run out of money and then be back on another ship and it kept getting worse. In 1973, I was blackballed out of the Merchant Marine for chronic alcoholism. They told me I was a drunk and they took my papers away and my license away. March 7th of 1974, I found myself knocking on a man's back door 1,200 miles away from where we lived and the only thing I knew about him was that he didn't drink and that he used to drink. And when he answered the door, all that came out of my mouth was, I think I have a problem drinking, and he laughed. He laughed that great laugh of Alcoholics Anonymous, a loving laugh, and said, come on in. He took me back to his study, sat me down on the couch, reached into his desk, and gave me a copy of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, open it up, and I did, and on a fly leaf there was words written in ink. It said, if you want what we have, and are willing to go to any length to get it, God will help. And it was signed, Love Dad. My dad had been an active member of Alcoholic synonymous at that time for 15 years, and he'd come to the meetings, and he'd whine about me. He'd come to you, and he'd say, what can I do about my son? He's killing himself. He's destroying his career. He is losing his family, and you did not tell him to intervene. Thank God you didn't. Thank God who didn't mention words like intervention or get in his way. You said leave him alone. You said don't say anything to him. He's never listened to you before. Why would he listen to you now? Just be an example of sobriety. Don't say anything. Thank God he listened to you because when I had nowhere else to go, I had somewhere to go and that was his door. And then he didn't give me the message of Alcoholics Anonymous but rather he said to me, come with me son, we'll go to a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous and I wouldn't go with him because I was drunk and he tried to talk me into it but I wouldn' t go. So he wrote two numbers down on a piece of paper and he handed it to me. He said put these in your billfold. He said tomorrow morning, he said when you wake up, if you wake up, call one of those numbers before you take a drink and then meet me tomorrow night at 7 and we'll go to a meeting. And I went out that night, and I don't know where I went or what I did. I know that I drank because that's all I did by then was drink. And I woke up or came to the next morning, and there was a drink next to me because at that stage of my drinking, there was always a drink next to be. The last two years of my drinking were a gray fog. I remember only bits and pieces. And as the years have gone by, I don' t remember any more now than I did then. But I woke up or came to that morning, there was that drink there, and I wanted that drink. I needed that drink, but as badly as I needed it and wanted it, I didn't want it just a little bit more. You know, in the slogans we see around our meeting places, there's one that really hits me every time I see it, the one that says, but for the grace of God. I know that grace comes from a Latin word that means gift, and I believe that God's unasked-for-by-me gift that morning was a gift of a desire not to drink that was stronger than the desire to drink. And I further believe that that gift given to me was given to every alcoholic sitting in this room who is not drinking this moment. But I believe it was given each of us with a responsibility, a responsibility that we do all we can to keep it or I will lose it. Well, that morning I couldn't do much. I just didn't drink. And she took me to the hospital. She lost her name by then. It was just she or her or you. But she took my to the hospital and gave me a shot. And it wasn't the stuff they give today. It's vitamin B12. Give me a shout of B12 in the left hip. You got a needle about that long, I think. It hurt like hell, I was to get them for two weeks. They said it helped me. I don't know if it did or not, but I didn't drink. And then she, so I got that and then they told us to give them orange juice and honey, that that has the same stuff chemically that alcohol does. We can still use that today. It's a good way to come off a liquor. It's got the same staff as alcohol. They say it helped my nerves. Don't know whether it did of not, but I did have to drink. She didn't get honey. We didn't get along, I told you. She got k-rose syrup. March in Cleveland is real cold. If you mix k-ose syrup and orange juice, it's like road tart that's frozen. It'll cut your throat going down, son, I'll tell you that. And she'd keep putting that in, he'd keep cutting me, but anyhow, I didn't have to drink. And then they told her, they said, give him candy. If you give him candy every time he says something a little grouchy or a little out of the way, a little ornery, give them candy. Sugar will help. She's got a big sack of sour balls. If you're working with a newcomer, get chocolate-covered cherries or turtles, something nice, you know, snicker bars, you know. Love and tolerance of others. She didn't learn that. But anyhow, that night I met my dad and we went to a meeting. A meeting like this where people just like you, we come in the back door. As we walk in the backdoor, there's this guy standing there with a Levi jacket on and a baseball cap. Stuck his hand out. Grabbed mine. My dad said, that's Jimmy and he's your sponsor. My dad took off and I got this yo-yo hanging on to my hand. I pray God I never forget it. His hand was firm and it was warm and it Was dry. I can feel it today. Just I feel it every time I come into a meeting. And he said, my name's Jimmy and I'm glad to meet you. I know what my hand felt like. I felt it tonight in a few hands. It was cold and wet and scared. And as he began to talk to me did something no one else had ever done before. He told me about him. He told me what happened when he drank, where it took him, what happened with his family, how it tried to get better, how it got worse. As he talked to me about his life, I knew that he lived like I'd lived. We had nothing else in common. He's a hillbilly from West Virginia. He had a religion I didn't believe in. He had politics I had no knowledge of. We had nothing in common, but when he talked to me about his alcoholist, we had everything in common. I identified with what he was saying, and then he said something I didn' t want to believe. He said, I haven't had a drink in three years. Three years? Are you kidding me? And then a guy told his story. It was just an AA meeting like this and this guy told a story. A story much like mine. I don't know what he said. It wasn't no seminar on the traditions or steps. It was just his story all. All I remember is laughing. That's the only thing I remember from that meeting was laughing. And you know, laughing is the best thing you can do. You can inventory your ass off. But if you laugh, you can't think. Thinking gets us in trouble. Laugh a little bit. Endorphins get loose. I don't know what the hell they are, but they make you feel good. They tell me people go running to get endorphins loose and all I got to do is laugh. If I'm going to run, I'm too lazy. People take chemicals to get endorphines loose for Christ's sake. All you got to doing is laugh, cheapest high in the world. Best medicine, they say, and I believe it. And then Jimmy gave me a miracle. He said, how do you feel? And I told him I was scared and I was sick. And he said, I understand. And I knew that he did. And she said, Jay, I'm going to make you a promise. If you do three things on a daily basis, I guarantee you'll never have to come off another drunk while you're doing them. And I said, yeah, what are they? She said, number one, in the morning when you get up, say, God, help me not drink today. And then number two, if you can, go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. You go back on ships, you might not be able to go. Something comes up, you can't go to a meet-up. That's okay. But if you can go. And number three, when you go to bed at night, you say, thank you, God for a sober day. He said, well, you do it. And I said, Jimmy, I can go to meetings but I can't pray. I don't believe in God. He said you don't have to believe. Just say the words. You don't even have to mean it. And I was able to say those words the next day, and don't worry, we only got six minutes left. I'm not going to take you through 30 years. The next day we're on our way to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and he asked me the dumbest question I've ever been asked. He said, have you had a drink since last night? And I'll tell you why it was dumb. He didn't drop me off until two in the morning. Called me at six to get that damn shot. Called my at eight to make sure I got back from the shot. Called me at noon. Called at four and picked me up. I couldn't have drank if I wanted to. He's just right there. But I didn't tell him that. I just said, no, of course not. He said, man, that's fantastic. You'd have thought I'd have won the World Series. I said, what do you mean? He said you've just stayed sober the absolute longest period of time you ever got to stay sober. I say, what the hell are you talking about? He said one day. He says all we got is one day and you've just stayed so over a day. And you can use that as information for your brain that you ain't got to stay, you ain't gotta stay sober anymore in your life but one day, and you can do this a day at the time. Now if you drink, it's because you want to, not because you have to. Thank God he didn't talk to me about 90 and 60 or whatever the hell it is they talk about. He talked to me About One Day. And I'm not putting nothing down. No pot shot. I didn't mean that nasty. But if I just stay sober one day, I ain't got to worry about day 89 or day 93. One day. Do we mark time in Alcoholics Anonymous? You bet your ass we do. But all I've got to do is for one day. And I can break it down smaller than that if I have to. And if I can stay sober for a day, I can use that as information for tomorrow. But anyhow, one other story about how my early sobriety. Two weeks sober, I'm getting ready to go back to Florida where I live, and I looked over at Jimmy on the way back from meeting him. I said, I still don't believe in this God crap. And he laughed. He says, today was the first day you'd done anything in AA. What was it? I said well, I read the traditions before you read them. What did you say? And he said I'm Jay and I'm an alcoholic. And he asked me what I meant by that. By then I accepted what I told you earlier about that phenomenon of craving and the obsession with the mind. I accepted it. I knew my drinking was different, and I convinced him. He said, I know you were. I wanted to make sure you knew you were, he said. Have you been asking for help every morning and thanking God every night? I said, yes, I have, but I don't believe it, andI don't even mean it, butI've been doing it. He said., That's good, man. That's all I want to know. He said,, But how many days have you been doingit a day at a time? And I knew then how long it was, Bob, 13 days or 14. I knew exactly how longit was. And he asked me a question then that changed my life. He said, when was the last time you've been this long a day at a time without taking a drink? And a feeling came over me and awareness came over me that there was a power in my life that was personal to me. Today I call it God. Then I didn't. It was just a power. It wasn't a power that had done for me what I couldn't do before. I hadn't had to drink a day of the time for that unbelievably long period of 13 or 14 days. From the birth of that relationship that came as a result of saying words I didn't believe just by being willing to say them, it's blossomed into a relationship with a God that would take me 30 years to tell you about. 32 years. It's been absolutely fantastic. And as a result of it, things began to happen. There I was sober a year and a half started to work the steps. I've started that. I see the two minutes. I'll try and tell some promises. If I run a minute past it, I'm still going to tell some promises you can hang me after. But anyhow, I didn't mean it that way. You're doing this job. Good job. But anyhow got to tell the promises unless you don't want to hear them. You want to? Alright. I won't go too long. Don't worry. You did your job. Great. Anyhow there I was a year and a half sober began to work the steps. On Tuesday I began an inventory. Wednesday I took a fifth step. Thursday I began went back and looked at step six. Prayed step seven, Friday he and I sat down and we talked about step eight. Saturday I began making amends and it wasn't calling people and saying I'm sorry but we went over the amends. He and I went over them. I called my mom. You know in that inventory I found out she was a lousy mother in my opinion but I found Out she had done the best she could. I was lousie son. That was my part in the wrong. So John said you don't call your mother and tell her you stole, you did this, you do that. You tell her you were a lousy son, and then now you're going to be a good son. I said, well, how am I going to do that? He said, if you're a good sun, you'll know. So I called my mother. I hated her. I really hated her, right? I didn't like her at all. I hated what she had said. I called on the phone, and she answered, and I said this is Jay. She said, I know who it is, and I've been wanting to call you and ask how you were. And she said, everything's fine here. I said how you been doing? I said I'm doing well. I'll call you next week, and hung the phone up. And I called my mother every Saturday or Sunday from that day until the time she died in 1999. And a woman that I hated, I learned how to love and I learned how to become a loving son. I learned to talk about macrame and pottery and bullshit that I don't care about, you know? I became her friend. I became the master of small talk with her. When I was back on ships, I wrote her letters when I couldn't call her and I built a loving relationship with my mother. She died of diabetes in 1999, and I'd been back and forth to see her many times. We lived in South Carolina, and they were cutting her legs and feet off inches at a time. But anyhow, I went up there, and she had just been up two weeks before, and she called and wanted me to see here. They knew she was dying, and then I flew up there and I walked into the hospital room and the nurses and doctors are there and the lights are low and they're playing that really terrible music they play in the terminal ill rooms. And as I walked in, the room seemed to light up with a smile on her face. and a nurse said Rita this must be your son you've been telling us about and my mom said yeah that's my son Jay and you know he's the best son mother could ever have and I love him he said do you know if he stays sober until March he'll have 25 years sobriety thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous you gave me that you didn't let me say I'm sorry you made me take actions. My wife, that lovely wife I had, God she was fantastic. She got active in Al-Anon, I'm active in AA, we're running all over, we are doing this thing in our lives and our lives got fantastic. 1994 she had a stroke, changed her life dramatically they said she had disease, she could die in a day, die in year, didn't know when. She She died six years later. She died July 12, 2000 after 13 more strokes, three major heart attacks, breast cancer. She died of renal failure in my arms at 1.30 in the morning on July 12th, three days before our son was going to get married in Monterrey, Mexico. I remember holding her in my arm. My last words to her were, I wish I had been a better husband. I thought about all the things I hadn't done, the things that I wished I'd have done, things I'd have said. I wish I'd have been a better husband. And she hugged me as best she could and she said, I love you. She said, and I thank God for having given you to me as a husband. And you gave me that. She died right then. But you gave Me that because you didn't let Me tell her I was sorry. You didn't Let Me run away when things were bad. You told Me to be a loving husband. You Let Me take care of her when she was dying for that six years. I got to be her husband I got to be her partner I learned how to be faithful before she got sick and stay faithful while she was sick that don't make me nothing special you taught me how to do it by making me take actions my kids and I we get along great sometimes they love me sometimes they don't we get along normal you know I got married after Von died it was a disaster I got a relationship now it's good life is fantastic. Tell you about my dad and I'm done. Dad died in 1981. And by the way, happy birthday, man. Birthdays are so special. My dad was an unemotional guy and I never knew if he and I, if I'd really made amends to him. And I remember I'd go to my sponsor and I'd say, Brian, I don't know if I made things right with dad. And Brian would say, just be a loving son. And my dad had cancer and he was dying. He wouldn't let any of us kids near him. and I felt like I was pushed away, and I wanted to be warm and fuzzy with him, and he wouldn't allow it. He was too intellectually whatever. And I just didn't know. And Brian would say, God will let you know if you're supposed to know. And on my birthday that year, my 78th birthday, I got a card in the mail, a big thick card, and I opened it up, and it just scribbles. A letter falls off. It just scribbbles in there, but I could see love dad. And a letter come out of there from my mom because I talked to her every day on the phone, but she explained the card. She said your dad took him off all medication, off everything because he wanted to communicate with you on your A.A. birthday because it was so important here's the words she said she had him quote, said dear son congratulations on your AA birthday what a glorious and wonderful day and how can we ever be grateful enough to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and for all that it's given us for it's giving us a loving God who has returned a lost father and rediscovered a lost son. And I knew at that moment that everything was okay between me and Dad and God. My life ain't done. I got more to do. I want to be a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't want to become a good speaker in AlcoholicsAnonymous. I don' t give a damn about speaking. I want the live the program of AlcoholicAnonymous and be the example to you that he was to me. And I've got heroes in here that do that. You know, God has let me go my deal and run my race and do all this stuff and get all these jams I've been in in my life. And every time I'd pick myself up and things would get worse and I wanted to be better and when I thought there was absolutely nothing else left for me or nowhere else to go, God gave me the greatest gift he could have ever given me. He gave me the opportunity to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I thank you. applause