The AA Unity Of Drunken Mongrels And Spiritual Misfits – Tom B.

I'm Tom, I'm an alcoholic. I haven't had a drink since July 20th, 1965. You know, when Brad and Ruth picked me up at the airport today, it became apparent to me right away that Brad didn't know where the hell he was going. And Ruth kept telling him what he was doing wrong and how to correct it. And I knew right away she was in Al-Anon. And I thought to myself, Al-Alanon and AA work together the same way in Kansas they do in North Carolina. How about sex? Sex is wonderful, right? Feels incredibly good. It's the greatest proof that there is that God loves us more than he loves himself. Because he gave us sex and as far as I know he doesn't get any. I don't know if you ever thought about that. That's one of my most profound thoughts. Every time I say that, I kind of hear a little voice saying, yes, I do. Yeah, I'm an alcoholic and I don' t drink. That is something. I don't know if you've stopped to think about that today, and even to take a little time to be grateful for that today. It's not logical for an alcoholic to be sober. It is not even reasonable for an alcoholic to be sober. People even wonder why we continue to call ourselves alcoholics after we're sober. And it's a miracle. it's a small miracle that grows in small increments day by day until we see the losers of life transformed into winners we see them totally and completely changed not just personality we see them transformed we see their minds made new and their hearts made glad, even in tragedy. We see people whose character was so flawed that people thought they'd never get well. And yet something reaches down, gets into that character, and turns it, changes it, transforms it. And that something is God. And God has come to me, and whatever change has come to me has come to me by virtue of being a member of the finest and most effective life-changing fellowship on the face of God's earth. And that is Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a simple program, most profound, life-changing things are very simple. Do it or don't do it. Do it or don' t do it Is it right? Is it wrong? Is it for the good of everyone or is it selfish? Those are the simple ideas that keep us sober and I believe that with all my heart. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand this program. As a matter of fact, most rocket scientists wouldn't understand it at all. It has nothing to do with going to the moon, and yet it does. Some of us have had feelings that carried us much further, we thought, than outer space. some of us have stayed around here long enough to realize that the space inside of us is what's important and that the universe which is inside of us is vastly more important and more complex and more wonderful than all that space outside beautiful though it may be we don't know much about it and we find out in a simple program put together by a bunch of spiritual misfits a bunch of drunken mongrels who stumbled into God and he wrapped his loving arms around them and I'm alive and you are too and that's good stuff I like stuff like that I'm not going to spend much time talking to you probably tonight about drinking I think we spend an awful lot of time maybe waste an awful lot of time sometimes trying to match drinking patterns and tell war stories and say if we're periodic or high bottom or low bottom or mid bottom I had a friend at home and she was a pretty large lady and she'd turn her rear end toward the audience and say she was wide bottom and I agreed with her you know look around you here as every kind of human being, all sizes and shapes and colors, all educational backgrounds, various different drinking patterns, professional, non-professionals, plumbers, carpenters, you know, lawyers, doctors, architects, housewives, winos, wineettes. And we're all here together. and we're bound together we're bound together and the book Alcoholics Anonymous says we're people who normally would not mix and that's an understatement and yet it says we're bounded by this powerful cement one element of which that we've shared in a common peril and the other element that we found a way out on which we can absolutely agree. What holds us together is common problem, common solution. And it creates a community, a family. This is my family, y'all. I don't even know your names, but you're my family. My spiritual brothers and sisters. That's important to me. And on this common problem and common solution is built this thing called unity that the first tradition talks about. Our common welfare should come first. It says personal recovery. My recovery depends upon AA unity. In other words, it depends upon this community staying together. And what would happen to this beautiful community that you see around you here tonight if the housewives decided to go off and have their own group and the doctors decided togo off andhave their owngroup and the winos and winettes went off and decided to have their own group and the ministers went off and the architects went off and the cowboys went off and everybody formed their own group based not on common problem and common solution but on what they did or which sex they preferred etc. etc. What would happen to this? It would disintegrate The unity, the oneness, the wholeness, the bond would disappear and I might not live. My personal recovery is dependent on the unity in this fellowship. I believe that tradition means what it says. What would happen? Well, it is happening. It's happening all over this country. people are going on off and forming groups like this. They're not malicious, they don't mean any harm, but they seem to be ignorant of the power and the vitality that's involved in this community. And the fact that though well-meaning they might be, they could destroy this thing? Let's pay attention to ourselves. Let's take heed of what we're doing. The future of Alcoholics Anonymous isn't out there somewhere. It's in our hands. God, let us treasure it. I've got a son who's two years sober. I've Got a daughter who needs this program. I want it to be here. As far as that goes, I'm going to be here a few more years if I have anything to do with it because I found what I was always looking for, a home with a family that warms me and loves me and accepts me and tells me I belong even when I feel like I don't. It tells me I'm a good person when I'm not. When I feel Like A Son Of A Bitch. It tells Me Everything's Going To Be All Right When My Whole World Is Falling Down Around Me. It Doesn't Ask Me What's Wrong But Hugs My Neck And Kisses Me And Pats On Me Strokes Me. Finest, Most Effective, Life-Changing Fellowship On The Face Of The Earth. I'm going to talk about my alcoholism in my terms. When I say I'm an alcoholic, I mean I'm the kind of person who has always believed that if anything feels good it should be done to excess. If it feels good, overdo it. Now I've had problems with gambling, I've have problems with food, I have had problems with sex. I remember when I found out sex felt good. I was by myself, just like all of y'all were. And in spite of dire warnings from my mother, who was a black belt Southern Baptist, about a certain part of my anatomy rotting off and the fact that I was going to go blind if I kept it up. I figured I'd keep it on until I was nearsighted. You see those glasses over there on the table? When I say I'm an alcoholic, I mean I'm the kind of person who's always been a great starter and a poor finisher. Everything I ever did in my life, I had two basic speeds. Fast forward and stop. Let's get in there and get it over with and stop, and stop when it feels good, okay? I tried that in Alcoholics Anonymous. It didn't work too good, you know? If I was hurting real bad and suffering or the law was behind me, I wanted help bad, full steam ahead. Then when the law went away and the suffering went away and the pain went away, it went on to stop,and I did it again. Doesn't seem like a big problem, does it? Look around you. Watch the people come in and they're on fire. They really want this thing because pain demands it. And the pain goes away, and they go away. And the sad part about it is they often don't return. You'd think pain wasn't a good thing, but I think it is. I sit in meetings sometime and there'll be a guy who just came in, and you know the type I'm talking about. He couldn't hold a cup of coffee if he had four hands. You know, he's just shaking all over. And I go up to him after the meeting and I say, thank you. He says, what are you thanking me for, man? You've been sober a long time. You help me remember. It's been a long time since I shook that way. God, don't let me forget. I want to keep it in full speed ahead. Don't let me get complacent and self-satisfied and arrogant. So did I pull it back, because I'm only one drink away from a drunk. Now see, I'm an alcoholic, I mean I'm the kind of person that likes to do everything perfectly and do it all at the same time. None of y'all are that way, I know it sounds strange to you. I have three or four things to do, you know, and I start doing them all at one time. I'm talking about trying to pee and comb your hair at the sametime. Now, women may be able to do that. I don't know. But when you're six foot three, you ain't going to do it. Then I think of something else I've got to do, and you know what happens? I just walk around in the bathroom. Sometimes I get one of the worst cases of the I got us. Y'all ever had the I-got-us? I got a, I got-a, I-go-t-a. Like a ping pong ball bouncing off the wall, you know? And I didn't say I used to be that way. I said I am that way, and I've discovered something in this program. Excuse my language. It is quite all right to be a dipshit if you can accept the fact that you're a dipshin. And I found I may as well accept it. I say I'm an alcoholic. like I mean I'm a guy that lives in a body that won't handle alcohol. It never would. When I put alcohol into my body, my body sent me a clear message. Get some more of that stuff and get it right now. That's what they call the phenomenon of craving. A drink sets off the allergic reaction. Some people tell us that it's because we have a biochemical genetic imbalance, you know, in the hypothalamic information control center in our brains. Others say that the acetaldehyde which is formed when we ingest ethyl hydroxide is converted when it combines with dopamine in the brain into a substance called tetrahydroisoquinalin and we lose control. You understand that shit? AA says I'm allergic to alcohol. Hey, you know, same thing, different language. But I had a mind that kept telling me that I could figure out a way to do my body what my body had told me it wasn't going to do. You know, I had problems. Some people have problems with insanity in this program, you know? The The program never said I was schizophrenic. Never said I Was manic depressive, clinically depressed, hypoglycemic, anything else. It said I WAS AN ABLE, INTELLIGENT, FRIENDLY PERSON. I like that part of the book. Entirely normal in every respect. But when it came to alcohol, I WAS STRANGELY INSANE. What a strange insanity. I'll tell you what it is. Suppose we're sitting around an old wood stove, you know, warming our hands on a cold winter day and talking to each other. And when alcoholics are talking, they're lying. You know that. Can you accept that? I can. It's all right. I got so good at lying in my life, I couldn't tell when I was lying anymore. I actually believed my own lies. So we're setting around lying and warm our hands, and old Joe comes walking in the room, and he walks dead over at that wood stove before we can tell him not to. he puts his hand on top of it and it burns him because that's what wood stoves do. And we feel sorry for old Joe. We take him off to the doctor and get his hand all wrapped up and fixed. And three weeks later, it's healed up pretty good. And we're sitting around the stove warming our hands and lying again. Here comes old Joe and he stops at the door and he says, give me your attention. And I said, I'm going to put my hand on that stove again, but it's not going to burn me this time. And he walks right over to that stove and he does it again and it burns him because that's what stoves do. And he does this 10 or 12 times, you know? And old Sam turns to Mary and says, you know, says, oh Joe's a nice fellow, able, intelligent, friendly person too. Seems entirely normal in every respect. But you know when it comes to wood stoves, he ain't got a goddamn lick of sense. That's strange insanity. Strange insanity is that suicidal predisposition to continue to do that which is killing me and tell myself it's not going to kill me. That's beyond regular insanity. And this is the only program on the face of the earth, and I believe it's the only reason it works, that says I'm spiritually sick too. If I get straightened out spiritually, it says, I'm going to straighten out mentally and physically in that order. What does it mean to be spiritually sick? I can only tell you my opinion. I've always been an idealist and a perfectionist, a hypersensitive romantic dreamer who was never satisfied with myself or you or life as it was. I always wanted more. And in order to get that more, it was necessary for me to manipulate you and use you and con you and cheat you and steal from you. And when I tried to manipulate and use you and set you up in my own way, you rebelled because you wanted your way too. And a wall came up between you and me and I became isolated and separated from you, I became disconnected from you and when I am disconnected from my brother or my sister I am disconnected from that which I must not be disconnected from Almighty God and a person who is disconnected is spiritually sick deathly sick and the AA prescription for recovery is so simple just quit trying to run the show look at that wall that you've built. You build it. Take it down. Rejoin with your brother and your sister. If you can reconnect with them, you'll be restored to sanity. And if you're restored to insanity, you will no longer have to put your hand on the hot stove. God, isn't it beautiful in its simplicity? Intellectuals can't understand that. Intellectually looks at the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous reads through it and said, this is the worst book I've ever read. I said that when I first got here. The grammar is terrible. The adjectives are in the wrong place. There's just too many prepositional phrases in the damn thing. The American Medical Association Journal reviewed the book Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939 when it first came out and found absolutely nothing of redeeming value in the big book. how about that intellectuals have a hard time in this program because it's not an intellectual program it goes beyond that it transcends this up here can you imagine an intellectual saying to me you've been sober as long as you have you must be a strong person I'll say no sir, I'm kind of weak and he'd say well that makes no sense and I'd say I know it doesn't he said well what do you do to stay sober I go to meetings aha group therapy no sir it's not group therapy it's a bunch of drunks get together sit around and talk mostly lie to each other he said that makes no sense I said I know it doesn' he said what else do you do he said well I have a sponsor aha a psychotherapist no sir he's a plumber well what else you got we got this program oh I see the great theologians philosophers and metaphysicians got together and put you together a spiritual path to walk on no sir it was put together by a bunch of drunks and he says that makes no sense and I say I know it doesn't he said well how does this thing work I said so far it's working real good isn't it funny how we expect answers to come only from those that we have designated as answer givers god has never felt that way god has always chosen some of the strangest messengers on the face of his earth to carry his message y'all remember ezekiel you can read about him in some non-conference approved literature Ezekiel was wild man walking around in a valley of dry bones seeing wheels inside a little wheel I think Ezekial was in DTs that's my opinion picked on Moses that book says Moses was slow of speech that meant Moses stuttered can't you imagine God saying to Moses go to Egypt and get my kids and Moses is saying I can't go Moses said he said I'll send your brother to do the talking you go into Egypt you know how about a carpenter that's weird isn't it some people even said can anything good come out of Nazareth this man's a carpender what can he know and I've learned something in this program where God sends you you're going to go where you want to go or not do you remember Jonah God said to Jonah go to Nineveh Jonah said I ain't going to Ninevah got in a boat man went the other way fast as he could paddle come a great storm and they threw him out you know and this big fish swallowed him up you remember where he spit him out in NineveH there's a message in that y'all God wants your ass to go to nineveh you're going to Nineva And I find nothing strange about the message which saved my alcoholic soul coming through alcoholics. As a matter of fact, I find that poetic and beautiful. God's a poet, y'all know that? far back in my life as I can remember, I was afraid. And I didn't know what I was afraid of. I just was. I was angry and I didn' t know what I was mad at or about. But I was in a rage for the first 30 years of my life. I was always guilty and I did not know what had done wrong. I could not even find anything, but I still felt guilt. And at a certain level, I always felt like a loser, like I didn't fit, like I wasn't enough, like I was a failure, like I was sorry, no good. Nobody told me that, but I believed that. And I had a lot of reason to be afraid. You know, I was the ugliest baby you ever saw in your life. People say, how you know that? I said, my mama told me. My own mama told me she had never seen an ugly baby till I was born. And she wouldn't take me out of the house for six weeks. I was on earth. She didn't want nobody to see me. And I told a psychotherapist that one time and he said, ooh, that must have been traumatic for you. I said no sir, it wasn't traumatic. I've seen my baby pictures. Mama's right. I was ugly. As I grew up, things didn't get much better. I was one of those skinny little old boys, you know. God, I was skinny. My shoulder blades protruded a long ways. And I'd try to compensate by bringing my shoulders around and then my chest would disappear. And Mama made me wear knickers. Any of y'all ever have to wear knickers? Any of you guys? and my leg is this big and the knicker hole was this big and it's always falling down somebody told me not long ago they said knickers are coming back I said not on my ass they ain't and I had freckles I love freckle as long as they're on other people I want you to understand that I had Freckles all over me I had Freckles where people have never ever reported having Freckle before I had them there you know and I always wanted to be a macho man big and strong and tough my mother had four big brothers my uncle Glenn, my uncle Lloyd my uncle Cedric, my Uncle Durwood and I wanted to be big and stronger like them my uncle Durwood they called him Dud he was a motorcycle cop in the days when they wore riding britches and leather spats up to their knees and he had a harness across here with silver bullets in it and a pearl handle 38 sitting high on his hip man smelled like gunpowder and shaving lotion and he squeaked when he walked, you know. And that's macho to me. And I had this great shock of snow white hair and you know what my macho uncles called me? Pudding head. It's hard to be macho when people call you pudding head, man. That ain't on the list of macho names. Pudding Head. And the only time I wasn't scared and the only times I didn't feel my anger was when I was sitting behind my Uncle Dud on his motorcycle with my arms wrapped around him. Even then, I needed a higher power. And Uncle Dud was my hero, and he still is. He's 85 years old, and he's still the machoest man I've ever seen in my life. Last year, he got real sick. He had blood clots in his lungs, and he was about to die. And I walked into his hospital room, and I said, you can't die. And he said, why? I said because I won't have a hero. And he says, okay, I won' t die. And he didn't. and we need heroes in this program you hear me we don't need idols we don'T need to take people and put them on pedestals and expect perfection of them and then when they fall short destroy them which is the reason we put them there in the first place that's idols we need heros and the heros in this programme are the guys and gals that get out there and they fall and they skin themselves and they bleed and they hurt and they get up and do it again. And they fall again and they fall and they give up and they do it again. And things go good and they keep on doing it. And things go better and they keep on doing it doesn't matter what's happening around them they keep on doing it. They trudge the road of happy destiny. Those are the heroes I've had many. I would not be alive tonight if it weren't for the heroes I've had in this program. Harry Jack Bob and Chuck and Wilson and Earl and a lot of others. The people are gone now but they're not. You know what I mean? Not long as I'm walking around they ain't gone. Everything I know they gave me. Everything I am they molded. We need heroes. It's all right. I used to figure if the freckles would go away everything would be okay and they did along about the age of 12, 13 replaced with the ugliest set of pimples you ever saw in your life. Even my pimples weren't like other kids. They had these little old zits. They just squared them out, you know. I had cysts and risins and balls. You ever had a ball on your ass? I had them all over me. I hated those things. I hated me. I hated my face. I'd take my daddy's razor and shave off the side of my face and the self-loathing that I already felt deepened and I felt more like a loser and more and more and more like I'm not what I want to be and I never am going to be I don't want to lay it out like I had a horrible childhood I had to find his father ever walked the face of this earth bar none he's my hero number one The quietest, simplest, gentlest, finest man I've ever known in my life. And God, I adored him. And I had a good mama. Strong, dominant woman who would have breathed for me if she could. You know the type? I was like an extension of her for most of my life I remember one time I got in a wreck and I was unconscious for three weeks. And when I came to, Mama was standing beside my bed and she said to me, Son, how could you do this to me? and I lived in a little old textile mill village down in North Carolina, and I was happy as a kid, man. I had some good friends. You know, I had Bill Jr. live next door, and Bill Jr., he had kinky black hair, and he didn't like it, and we found some lard and straightened out his hair one day, and that's the happiest I ever seen him, you know, and I had to chase his naked tail down the street because he'd escape when his mama gave him a bath, you known? And his mama was the best cook on the block, a big heavyset woman named Lena. I used to love to hug Lena. Ain't it funny what you remember? Man, when you hugged Lena, you had a titty in both ears. It was absolutely wonderful. And there wasn't nothing sexual about it, man. I'd just run up there and they'd surround me, you know? And she'd pat me on the head and say, I love you, Puddin'. And I felt valued and safe in that little community. And my friend John Q next door and my friend Martha, first little girl I ever played doctor with, ain't never forgot Martha. an old man Lucas had come by the house going down to slop the hogs y'all slop hogs out in Kansas and he'd put me in that wheelbarrow and ride me down to the hog pen and while he slopped the hogs I go over and wade in the creek and drink some cool water out of it and catch some crawdads that's a good time sometimes I walk back along that old path you know from the hog pen I sneak my shoes off before May 1st because that was the day we could take our shoes off It could be 30 below zero on May 1st, but you could take your shoes off. 110 on April 15th and you got whooped for it. And your mama whooped you and talked that mama talk to you. It didn't make no damn sense. Remember son, this hurts me worse than it hurts you. I used to say, Mama, give me the stick. And I'd walk along that path with my shoes off and that dirt in between my toes just being. How long has it been since you just beed? god it felt good go home lay flat on my back in the front lawn and look up at the sky because it was there i'm trying to analyze it i just looked at it reflected on it who made it cloud come over i said that's pretty i wonder where it came from it go away i said i wonder where it went and i'd get up and go about my business I go to the movie you know on Saturday I could see a double feature western for nine cents box of popcorn was a nickel man next door ran to theater so if I ran out of popcorn I'd just hold my box out there and every Saturday I'd spend the whole day at the movie getting gorged on popcorn and watching my heroes you know Sunset Carson and Wild Bill Elliot and Rocky Lane and Hopalong Cassidy the great cowboys some of you youngins ain't never seen wild bill elliott god i'd get you a copy one of his movies wild bill had a square jaw on him man he wore two silver six guns turned backwards you draw down on wild bill he'd spin those six guns and shoot your guns out of your hands see cowboys is polite in them days and then he'd twirl them back and he put them in his holsters i used to wonder if his wrist was broken or something, you know? And, and, and you know, Westerns nowadays, like I saw the unforgiving, they beat a guy half to death, broke his hands and then shot him. You know, there's guts all over the pasture. It's almost like wild bills. They hold it out a little further. I don't want to hit you. And my favorite cowboy was a dude named Lash LaRue. Oh God, they called him Lash because he used a bull whip. You draw down on Lash, he whooped a gun out of your hand. Lash is cool. I'm going to tell I was watching old Lash one day and he's standing up on the roof of the saloon he done run all the bad guys out of town he popped his whip and whistled and his horse come running by and he popped His whip again and jumped off on that horse and rode off in the sunset popping that whip and tears come to my eyes I said damn look at Lash it moved me I'm telling you and I sat through it again and again and again see him do that And you got to emulate your heroes, ain't you? So I went home and got me a piece of rope. And I went up on the garage. And John Q., the little boy next door, had a pony named Beauty. I said, John Q. go saddle up Beauty. And he did. And I said now walk her past the garage and he did and I popped my rope and whistled just like Lash had done and jumped into the saddle. And when I hit it you could have heard me scream in Myrtle Beach. I don't know if that's a spiritual experience or not, but I ain't never forgot it. I'll tell you that. Thirty minutes later when I got my breath back, I started wondering about Lash LaRue. Now I'm going to tell you. People hear me tell that story, you know, I've got a LashLaRue knife now and I've Got Three Pictures of LashlaRue, I got all kinds of Lass LaRoe. I'm expecting his whip to come in any day. I loved old Lash he was my hero and I wanted to be like him and sometimes I'd sit up in the China berry tree and just relax and mama would be in the kitchen cooking that mill town soul food collard greens and fatback pinto beans frying chicken frying some pan fried corn bread in that metal pan on top of the stove. And I'd think how nice my mother was and my daddy was and John Q and Lena. And I said, I really got it made here even though I don't like me. Something's missing and I don' t know what it is. But I know if I ever find it everything's going to be okay. it's like I was longing for something and I didn't know what it was I'm just a little old boy but I knew something was missing I knew that I had a need that was going unfilled and I did not know how to fill it it is like what Johnny H. called a big hole in the middle of me with the wind blowing through it it is what philosophers have called existential despair there are a lot of songs written about this longing One of them is an old country and western song Home folks think I'm big in Detroit City And the letters that I write they think I am fine By day I make the cars At night I make bars If only they could read between the lines I want to go home I want To go home Lord I want To go And I did Not die connect. I was 15 years old, I was on a high school singing trip up in Greensboro, North Carolina with some of my friends. And we was up in a hotel room and they called a cab driver and gave him $7.50 and he came back after a while and came back with a bottle of brown liquid in his hand and the label on it said Cream of Kentucky. I'll never forget that. And I said to my friend Egghead, Egghead what do we do with this stuff? and he says, you drink a water glass of it as fast as you can. Then you drink a glass of water and then you do it again. And I went and stood in front of the mirror. It was incredible how good I took directions. Stood in frontof the mirror in the bathroom and watched myself take my first drink. And I connected. Right there. The hole closed. The existential despair was gone. Whatever you want to call it. That's fine, thank you. My friends puked, passed out. I thought that's silly. When they was all passed out I called the cab driver and I got me a pint of cream at Kentucky. I didn't know they made nothing else. And I blacked out that first night. By the time I was 16 or 17 I was a regular visitor at the Wake County Jail in Raleigh, North Carolina. Never been locked up in my life except with something connected with drinking. My mother's hostess of a Tabernacle Baptist Church and my dad on the board of Dickens there for 55 years and their son is being locked up in the drunk tank pretty often. Some of y'all had that experience. That deepened my guilt and deepened my shame and deepended my self-loathing. I didn't want to do it but I had to have that feeling. I was already telling myself, the alcoholics lie. This time it'll be different. This time if I just handle it right I'm going to be able to drink like everybody else. And even that was a lie. I never wanted to drink like everybody other. I never understood and do not now understand social drinkers. These people who call us alcohol abusers Oh, I love that. It's like they got it backwards, ain't they? Every time they talk about alcohol abuser, I can see a wino with a ball-peen hammer just beating hell out of a jar of MD-2020. These normsies, you know. You ever try to drink with them? They have these things called cocktail parties. That's an interesting word. You ever thought about that word? Cocktail. they go to these places and chit-chat that means you talk at me and I don't care what you're saying and you talk to me and I won't care what you say and we just chit chat and putting in our time at this cocktail party and they take perfectly good liquor and start putting a bunch of mess in it Pepsi Cola and Sprite and club soda and water tomato juice orange juice milk milk that ain't enough then they start putting vegetables in it carrots and celery and onions and olives. And then they start with the fruits, you know, and they put lemons and limes and bananas, squirt whipped cream on top of it, stick a little umbrella with a straw in it and suck on the damn stuff. Now, in my opinion, when you take good liquor and put all that shit in it, that is alcohol abuse. And then they're crazy. They suck it through that straw, and it gets about half down. Now when it's half down, I'm an alcoholic, it's a half empty, man. It ain't half full, it' s half empty. And the host comes over. That's what they call the pusher at a cocktail party. He says, your drink is a little low. May I freshen it? You used to think, what does that mean? More whipped cream? And they'd pull it back and say, oh no, I am beginning to feel it. And I wanted to kill him. I wanted to say, what the hell are you drinking it for? You're standing there sucking it through a straw. You done messed it up. That is no way to drink liquor. You take the cap off, you throw it away, and you gulp. Tell me how good it tastes. The hell would it taste? I want the effect. By the time I was 23, I'd had over a thousand stitches taken in my face alone as a result of drinking. And I couldn't quit. Or more correctly, I couldn'T stay quit. Every once in a while I'd get too sick to get it up and too sick to get down and too thick to live and too thicc to die and I'd quit for a while and I swear off and I go back to the Baptist church and approach Jesus again. and don't misunderstand me I bless the name but I was looking for magic fix me make it effortless like alcohol was effortless close this big hole in the middle of me make me feel better make me even care about myself and be able to forgive myself and do it now and do that and do so by magic God's no fool and as soon as things would get good I'd do it again when things got good for me that was bad I came to you when I was 23 years old I'd always made straight A's in school on the IQ test everybody had looked at me with wonder in their eyes I was in college I was studying to be a Baptist preacher how about that I figured if God won't help me I'll go out and help him and I'll help him so good he'll sober me up that's good thinking and I was a self-styled intellectual reeking with philosophy and religiosity and I came in Alcoholics Anonymous and came to my first meeting and there was a guy up front he had a blue book in front of him and on one side was 12 steps on the plaque and on the other side was 12 traditions and I said to myself all I got to do is memorize what's on those plaques memorize what's in that book they'll put me up front and they'll listen to me I'll be in control of Alcoholics Anonymous in six months or less that's the way I'd always done it y'all get in control I like control do y'ALL like control? some people say they don't, you know shake your head, no, I don't like control if I pulled the bus of life into this room tonight everyone in here would go for the steering wheel I ain't leaving the Alderney they'd be first in line and I memorized it and I could quote it and I can quote great portions of the book Alcoholics Anonymous to you tonight verbatim but I do not have to anymore, thank God. And they put me up front and they listened to me. I delivered some of the windiest dissertations you've ever heard in your life. And for the next seven years with all the knowledge sitting right up here the longest I ever stayed dry was 89 days. You got that? I know from hard experience this is not an intellectual program and I know I had 89 days up in North Carolina would give a red poker chip for 90 days I wanted one so bad I'd go up to the chip box after the meeting was over and steal one that would make me somebody do you understand and I was tired of being nothing I was even a failure with a bunch of drunks and I got me a red chip and I pasted it on the calendar on the 90th day and I was working the steps not according to the directions in the big book and they're very specific in this big book you want to know how to take step 2 it tells you you don't need a hazelnut pamphlet to guide you on inventory the old boys and girls that put that book together said in the very beginning of it to show you precisely how we have recovered is the main object of this book precise means exact doesn't it a lot of the steps seem like kindergarten to me I knew how to pray I went to the 11th step and I didn't know how to meditate though that intrigued me God help a drunk who gets intrigued and I found out the best meditators were these guys that wore these orange bathrobes and shaved all the hair off their head and crossed up their legs and sat on the ground and real funny and chanted I said that's it And I've got to tell you the truth. I wasn't interested in the discipline of meditation, and that's what's important. I was interested always and ever throughout my entire life in results. That's it. And I had seen what these guys could do after 30 and 40 years of serious discipline and meditation. They could walk across hot beds of coals. They could be hung up by hooks in their back. They could lay down on beds of nails. They could hold their breath for hours on end. that could be buried in airtight caskets for two days and not die. That's what I wanted to do. See, that would get your damn attention. Y'all say, look at Tom, man, he's walking on hot coals there. Look at him. He is somebody. See, you had to tell me I was somebody because to me I wasn't. I was nothing. You understand me? God, when you hate your own guts, it's tough, ain't it? You'd do anything for them just to look at you. Nice. I couldn't find an orange bathrobe nowhere. And I had to wear my old dirty blue terrycloth drinking liquor bathrobe with the cigarette burns in it. Y'all had one of them. I'm too vain to shave the hair off my head. I done busted up my legs so much driving drunk I could get into lotus position, but I could not get out of it. But you got to do it right. So I put on my dirty bathrobe and get down there and get my wife to help me in the Lotus Pazillion. It hurt. And sit there an hour on end saying, Oh. Going for that red chip, man. Which is an outer symbol of inner change. Ain't nothing changing on the inside. The outer symbol means nothing. Oh, God's got a terrific sense of humor. I can see him now looking down on me and saying to Peter, there he is. And Peter said, who? And God said, Puddin' Head. Sitting down there in that dirty blue bathrobe again. I wish he had washed that thing or throw it away. It stinks. Pudtin's legs are hurting real bad. He's in pain. And what does ohm mean anyway, Peter? I know what Puddin' wants. He wants one of them sudden spiritual awakenings. He wants me to throw him a lightning bolt. And I got plenty of lightning bolts, but if I threw him one, he wouldn't like the color. So arrogant was I. I was trying to manipulate the Almighty and have him do it my way. Think about it. If any human being could get any more arrogant than that, I'd like to know how. And of course nothing happened. Eighty-nine days I chanted and on the 90th day I rested. and I drank on, and I got sicker and sicker. I did brilliant alcoholic things like driving under a tractor-trailer in a blackout which put me in traction for three and a half months. Ended up addicted to morphine, Percodan, Zigenal, chlorohydrate, and booze. Weighing 130 pounds, dripping wet with the insanity. this time it'll be different I'm dying and I'm believing this lie it's like I had two minds working inside of me you know what I mean it's not like one part of my mind to say one little drink ain't gonna hurt you another part of mine to say don't do that in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous is parallel with our sound reasoning they're invariably wearing some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink Y'all know that part? I was double-minded. I had a mind that was divided against itself. In the book of James, which we laid heavily on, or the old-timers did, before there was a big book. Y'All know that? Old James is a hard-nosed guy. I can almost see him at an AA meeting, one of them hard-nosed old-timers. Don't talk no mess. He just tells you to straight poop, you know? And old James said, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. He's like a blade of grass blown in the wind. First this way and then that way. And that was me. Totally out of control. I met some of the hatefulest people in alcoholics and I'm sure I've met them a lot. They're as ugly, they're as profane, and they call them old-timers. and i hate them i went to a group up in burlington north carolina where it was so traditional everybody had a seat nobody didn't sit in their seats man not these old-timers you go in that meeting in burleton north carolina tomorrow night and sin against the wall will be barney lean back against the walls i know it if he ain't dead and if he's dead ain't nobody sitting in his seat. There'll be Jim, there'll be Freeman, fourth row, fourth chair is Martha's seat. Martha's been dead about 17 years. Nobody don't sit in Martha's feet. And over on the right-hand side, second row, second chair from the wall lived the meanest man God ever put on the face of this earth. His name was Bill C., and I called him grumpy, and I hated his guts. He was stupid, profane, and ugly. And he had x-ray vision. And he called me boy. And he'd wait for me to come to the meeting. I know he'd just stand there waiting for me. Probably look out the window. And I'd come in and he'd say, how you doing, boy? And I say, I'm fine. And he'd say, bullshit, and back me into the corner and tell me how I was. I don't like nobody reading my insides. And it was internally stupid. You talked in circles. Boy, you can't think your way into good living. You've got to live your way into good thinking. I wanted to say to him, shut up, you ugly old bastard. I Don't Like You. But I didn't say nothing to him because I was scared of him. You know what I mean? boy how come you always run around looking for God God ain't lost I love that I'm studying theology and this old bastard telling me about God come on he's one of my heroes but he wasn't on my side at the time and if people ain't on your side and you're an alcoholic you got to convert them you all know what i mean don't you i knew i had to lay a big impression on grumpy to convert him so i went out and found me a drunk in a log cabin been laid up there two months he's turning blue and about to die log cabin didn't have any indoor plumbing you can imagine what that place looked like after a two-month drunk i got him to hospital got a woman down the street we shoveled out, raked out, swept out and hosed out that little old cabin. I got him back in the hospital. He was going to live. The place was immaculate. And I went and called Grumpy. I wanted him to come see the wonder that I had wrought. And then going through all that mess, I found a gallon of wine. And when Grumpy got there, me and that old boy both was drunk. He just stood there and looked at me and shook his head and turned around and walked off. He was not the least impressed. Man tried to help me hard, man. I always call when it was too late. I call for help when it's too late, all the booze is gone, the test pattern's off TV. I'd say, well shit, I need some help now. And I called him one morning about three o'clock in the morning before I could say a word. He said, boy, don't you ever call me again, drunk. He says, matter of fact, don'T YOU EVER CALL ME AGAIN. If you want to get sober, you know where we meet. And don't call me to come get you. You can walk. And frankly, I don't give a damn if you ever get sober. Oh, you can't imagine what I said about that man. And tonight in front of all of you, I bless him. And he's one of my heroes. and he never changed. God bless him, he never changed. The last time I saw Grumpy he was laying on his deathbed dying with bone cancer. And I walked into his hospital room and I'd been sober either 16 or 18 years and up came the finger and he said boy you'll never make it. You know I had good help I had good help. It was there, it was available. This finest, most effective program on the face of the earth was mine and it required only one thing. Surrender. I drank on. I didn't know what else to do. I had just about given up. Even AA won't work for me. and on july 20th 1965 on or about i came to and i said to myself you can't drink and i've known that for a long time but this time it wasn't up here and you can't quit God I understood here what it was to be powerless you can do it you can quit doing it what else are you and the third idea was and you're going to die and I walked back to Alcoholics Anonymous see I was never supposed to drive a car in the state of north carolina again i was on five years probation i had two year sentence on the chain gang hanging over my head and i made a profit out of grumpy and i'll tell you something in all seriousness i blessed my feet had i thought about coming back to you had i rationalized and analyzed it intellectualized it, I'd have never come back and I would have been long ago dead. I could not think. Do you understand? It wouldn't work anymore. But my feet did. We got an old boy up in North Carolina named James Taylor who writes a little music. He wrote a song called Walking Down the Country Road. One of the lines in that song says, I guess my feet know where they want me to go. God bless my feet. They brought me back to you and I went to meetings late and I left early. I knew you didn't want anything to do with me and I was scared to death of you. I know if you understood about me and could see my insides, you'd run me out of that place. But it kept going. Grumpy said, that's the only thing I ever did right was I kept coming back. And I hung around there and people started saying strange things to me. We're glad you're here. We need you. And oh God, that scared me to death and say, and we love you. Oh God, that scared us. That scared me. And I'd think, hey, if you knew me, you wouldn't even let me in the same room. But that was the very reason that they loved me. and I never understood love like that. How a person can take another person who feels that he or she is the scum of the earth and embrace them and tell them they're precious. My God, it escaped me. Oh, but it sounded so good. I didn't believe it. And they found out I was walking and I'd never walked again. Somebody would pull up in front of my house every night. My sponsor would pull open his Lincoln Town Car, you know, and wave that $6 Cuban cigar out the window. And my wife would say, he's here. I'd say, who? She'd say the Lone Arranger. I kept going, you see, and after a few months I saw this guy in the group. I liked the way he moved. I liked to way he talked. I liked way he lived. But most especially, he had a certain something in his eyes. Man, they were alive and they sparkled and they kind of jumped out. They scared the hell out of me, but I wanted my eyes to be like that and they were dead. And I went up to him one night and I said, I don't want to die. Will you be my sponsor? And he turned on me and he said, Boy, I have heard about you. They tell me you're not just an alcoholic. They tell you they tell me you're crazy. But I'll help you on one condition. And I said what's that? He said we'll do it my way. And I says yes sir. Please. I surrendered. Talk about surrender until you're blue in the face is one thing. To really be surrendered is quite another. When an alcoholic begins to take direction, he or she is then surrendered and only then. And I believe that with all my heart. Don't talk to me about surrender. Don't talk to me about it. You do surrender. You ever notice how when you choose your sponsor that they're so wise and all-knowing and beautiful and then they go stupid on you immediately? Or Harry went stupid on them right away. First thing he told me to do, I come to meetings early, shake everybody's hand and ask them how they're doing. And I said, I don't want to come to meetings early. I don' t want to shake their hands. I don''t care how they''re doing. I told you I just don'''t want to die. And why do I have to do that? And he said, boy, you don't ask me why. You do what I tell you to do. Is that clear? Now, you see, a lot of people go through treatment centers and they have counselors in there and they confuse a counselor with a sponsor. They ain't the same. I got a master's degree in counseling. I hope you're impressed by that. And if I told you to go to meetings early and shake everybody's hand and ask them how they're doing, my next question to you would be, how does that make you feel? My sponsor didn't give a happy shit how it made me feel. He respected my feelings, but he knew something about feelings because he kept saying to me, you go through the emotion, the emotion will take care of itself, son. You go through emotion, the emotion won't follow. Effort, result, effort, result. God, I hated to hear that. And I loved it at the same time. I'd do what he told me to do just to prove him wrong. And he was never wrong. And he wasn't that smart. And he's not that smart today. But he was one of the greatest channels for Almighty God that was ever put on the face of this earth. He was my channel. They made bets on me. People all over North Carolina bet my sponsor he'll never make it for a year. The boy's crazy. Now, I was sober five years before my sponsor got up the nerve to tell me that. He took me to this North Carolina State Convention when I'd been sober a year just to show me off and collect his bets, y'all. I said in meetings, you know, I think I had something to say and I'd open my mouth and that cigar would drop and I didn't have nothing to say. And he took me out. You know, he called me at 3 o'clock in the morning on a 12-step call. I went on a12-step with him. And I went in. I remember the first one. This guy was real sick. I was going to save him, man. I said, what do I say and what do i do? He said, you don't know nothing. You don't say nothing. Sit down and shut up. I mean, I understood that kind of talk. And God, that man loved me. And he gave me a gift. He put me in the book. And he'd say, read page so-and-so. I'd say, Harry, I can't read a page. Before I get to the second line, I have forgotten the first one. That's a hell of an admission for an intellectual, isn't it? And he said, son, read one line then. If that's all you can do, read it and think about it. You have been demanding of yourself all of your life more than any person could ever give. Why don't you cut yourself some slack? That thought had never occurred to me. So I read one line, and I'd go to meetings, and I'd hear things, you know, and I wanted to remember them, and I couldn't. And he said, get you a notebook and a pencil. And I had the passing thought, wait a minute, man, I'm a college-educated human being. What am I going in with, a bunch of spiritual mongrels with a pencil and a notebook? You're damn right I did. In the first few talks I made in Alcoholics Anonymous, I had a little black notebook. I opened it up and read what was in it and sat down, unless the cigar dropped sooner. And change started to happen. I didn't even know it. Everybody else knew it. Everybody else new it. You're doing good, aren't you, Tom? I said, what? I was a college professor and people on campus didn't know I'm an alcoholic saying, hey man, you're changing. I don't know what you're doing but you sure are changing into a different human being. I said, I am? I was sitting up to college one day and it dawned on me that I hadn't wanted a drink for over three months. Ain't that something? Just whoop, popped into my head. And I sat there and cried and cried and cried. I said damn happy I know what to do. It had been years since I'd gone two days or one day even without thinking about a drink. First thing you know, I'm, you know. So am I. I remember sitting in a chapel after I'd taken the seventh step. You know, I'm sitting there and I'm looking up at this stained glass window. God, it was beautiful. And the carpenter was there, but there was no cross there. And a thought came in my mind, well, where's the cross? And the thought came right behind it. It's been removed and yours has too. You okay, son? And I cried like a baby. I cried a lot, man. Yeah. And things started changing. And I began to realize what my problem had always been, me and my fear and the need to control everything that came out of that fear and the needs to always be right and the needed to always understand everything and the need to have all of the world be the backdrop for my personal drama. That Pogo was right. I has found the enemy, and he is me. And I copped to it. I accepted the responsibility. I began to understand at a certain level what the spiritual law that makes this world go around really is. you put it on the wheel over here it will come back to you if it is bad it will be good it will become back to you if it's good it will return to you get into the 60s in the big book like page 62 and start reading about we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt what goes around comes around I began to understand that I began to understand that freedom was not driving the bus of life. Freedom was letting go of the wheel and going back in the passenger section and kicking up my feet and enjoying a ride. That Chris Christopherson was right. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. And if I let God be God, I was pretty comfortable. If I let you be you at the same time, I was even more comfortable. And God helped me if I could let me be me. And that's been my hardest job. Y'all understand what I mean? I learned to love you and love God a long time before I learned to love me. I still have a tendency when you tell me that you love me to give you five reasons why you shouldn't automatically that's what they call a character defect an unconscious habitual action or response to something that's done or said to you people still nail me on that Even my own son. The boy ain't been sober but two years. And I had this big problem not long ago, and I was hassling with him about it. He said, man, I heard a good tape on that. I said, well, who was it? He said you. I ought to have killed him. I said boy you don't talk to an old timer like that they call they call him pudding number two I don't get no respect in my home group these young guys there you know a year two years five years and they hot to trot God they're beautiful behind this big book you know God I just sit back and just glorify in them sometimes it's so wonderful these guys are so turned on And I'll go walking back into my meeting when I get back Monday night, and they say, there's old what's-his-name. Where the hell have you been this time? Who have you Been lying to? Sit down and shut up. You might learn something. I'm 28 years sober, man. And a friend of mine who's very caught up in his years of sobriety said, you don't have to take that, you know. You're an old timer. I said, I love that. You don't understand. That's my family. They're razzing me. They're taking me apart, you Know. That means they love me. And I pick up a lot of coffee cups and empty a lot of ashtrays, not because I'm good, because I was trained. And a young person will say, why are you doing that, man? You don't have to do that. You've been sober a long time. I'll say to him, how do you think I got that way? You think it's because I am smart? You think it's cause I'm over and above other alcoholics? No. It's cause I finally got beat almost to death to the point where I could say, yes, I'll do it when somebody told me to do something. That's all. That's it. And my life has changed. There's been a lot of happiness in my life. There's had a lot tragedy in my life, a lot of problems in my life, but I've not even thought about taking a drink. Isn't that amazing? Thought about dying a few times. To be perfectly honest with you, but not about taking a drink. Something has changed. You know, this daddy that I love so much, my number one hero, you know, when I was 18 years old, the judge gave me an ultimatum. Go to jail or go to service. And I got patriotic in a hurry. And I joined the U.S. Air Force and this daddy who loved me took me down to the bus to go off at the Air Force and while he was telling me how much he loved me He had his hand planted firmly on my butt, pushing me up in that bus. He had to have me out of his life. I was driving him and Mama crazy. My daddy died with lung cancer. And I was with him most of the time. And it was harsh and it was ugly. Ah, but it was glorious. And the day before he died, he rolled over and he looked at me and he said, Am I going to die? And I said, Yes, sir. And he said when? I said the doctor says real soon. And I says, Does that frighten you? He said, sure it does. But I learned a long time ago, you know, when you're afraid, you give the fear to God and you go about your business. And then he said something to me which I'll never forget. He said Tommy, I love you. You're one of the finest men I've ever known in my life. And I mind you as the same father and the same son but something had changed and by the grace of God it was me. i'm not the same i got a long way to go you know being alive means you got a long way to go there's no end to spiritual growth you know and what spiritual growth is all about i've come to understand it's something quite different it's not being bigger than it's being smaller than it is precisely what the carpenter said it was spiritual growth means i must turn again and become as a little child where things are real simple and where i understand things intuitively like i always did it's like you know we make such heavy going to the steps sometimes at meetings and we talk about them and philosophize about them and and we must i know this you know it's necessary to exercise this But when I was a kid, I took the first three steps many times. And so did you, but you weren't aware of it. I knew what my limits were. And I knew when I Was Beyond Those Limits to reach for someone bigger. And you knew it too. Every time in my life I got into a life-threatening situation, I would cry out the equivalent of God, oh God, please help me. I didn't have to think about it. It was there. Deep down in every man, woman, and child says a book I read somewhere is the fundamental idea of God. I had a friend when I was a kid named Ronnie. Ronnie's the filthiest kid God ever made. Ronnie stunk. You smell him coming two blocks away. Ronnie picked boogers out his nose, put them in his hair and twist his hair up all over his head. Stuck out like pig pen. And Ronnie's mom and daddy were street drunk, y'all. He didn't have nobody to take care of him. And I loved him. He was a good friend of mine. And i could beat Ronnie at two things. I could outrun him, which was good because I was scared of him, and I could beat him shooting marbles. And l'd take him home with me sometime and mom and daddy keep him around the house for a week or 10 days, you know. Mom would wash him up and wash his clothes up before he ever got in the house. And he loved them. And ld beat Ronnie shooting marables in the rule of the marble game in North Carolina. I don't know about Kansas. If you won, you got the marbles. And I'd win and Ronnie would take the damn marbles and I was scared of Ronnie. I'd be on my limits. Well, I knew what to do. I go get my daddy and I say, daddy, Ronnie got my marbles again. He said, you win son? I'd say yes. He says, that's not right. Let's go get your marbles, and we go over there and he said, Ronnie, did you get Tommy's marbles? And I think Ronnie stole them just to get to see my daddy. I swear I do because he said you get to Tommy's Marbles? He said yes, sir. Do you win? No, sir? Give them back. Okay. Now that's the first three steps, ain't it? Step one says I've lost my marbles. Step two says common sense tells me if I get somebody bigger than me to get my marables back, I might get them back and I put it in that big one's hands and guess what? I got my damn marbles back. Ain't nothing profound about that? Oh, Lord, but don't we complicate it. I had much rather stay at home this weekend and crawled under the bed and died. But I can't. If something wouldn't let me, I didn't know what it was. Ten years ago, I'd have done it. Now I can. That's not my option. I don't belong to me. I ain't mine. And I've changed, and I've changed in a good way. I heard a song one time, a friend of mine, I don't know how long I've talked, I don' t particularly give a damn. This friend of mine heard a tape, you know, and she knew the singer, and the guy's a singer who writes top 40 hits for lots of people, but for himself he goes around to churches and sings gospel music. That's his thing. And he had written this little song, and Betty says, This song really reminds me of you. She said, Listen to this tape. And I listened to it, and there's a dialogue kind of a thing, and I'd like to share this dialogue with you if I can remember the words that came out of this song as if it were a dialogue between, you know, my son Jason and myself and my daughter Crystal and my daugther Frances and my mama and me. So if I remember the word, let me put it on you. christy says to me daddy why aren't you famous and i said christy i think i am because all the people you see here tonight came out here to give me a hand but their applause isn't what really matters it's what i can feel from their hearts and if tonight i made dreamers of some who had lost them or made friends with a few who were scared or if there's one new believer who came here a critic, and I told him that somebody cared. And Christy, I always feel famous, though I'm not seen on TV. I get all the attention my ego can handle doing this live and for free. You see, I do this live, and for free. My daughter Frances said, but Daddy, why are you lonely? And I said, Frances, I guess I am. Because there are a few people who aren't here tonight and i'll miss them giving me a hand but you know in some ways they're closer than the people out on the front row if i'm quiet i can hear grumpy's heart beating rhythm see bob white driving his car there are preachers and poets that i never met like bill wilson who hasn't gone far so i'm alone but i'm not really lonely i just got a group you can't see they give me all the companionship my faith can handle doing this talking with me you see They do this talking with me. And Jason says, well, Daddy, I think you're crazy. And I said, Jason, that's what keeps me sane. I was born with a strange sense of humor to go with a strong sense of pain. And I found that there's nothing so serious that it can't hold its own in a joke, so I may laugh at stories about people suffering and laugh about losing my hat, make people think I give talks without answers because I tease them and hide where they're at. But I also like things that are simple, and a smile is the last thing you'll see on the face of this crazy old outlaw laughing out loud because I'm me. I laugh like this because I am free. And then Mama in her own inimitable style says, but Tommy, do you love Jesus? And I said, Mother, doesn't it show? She said, I've been listening to you for an hour, and frankly, I got to say no. Because if you did, you'd be famous, big concerts and Christian TV. you'd be so well known that you'd never get lonely you'd ever be crazy or weird but you gotta give up making talks without answers and you ought to shave off that old beard and I said well I love you too mother but you sure found it different than me you see I do my best and I do it like Jesus cause he did it live and for free thank you very much