The Buzz of Seeing a Newcomer’s Eyes Clear Up – Jack K.

Yeah, my name is Jack, and I'm a great recovered alcoholic. You know, you get such a cheap smile from giving a piece of candy at the maid, and I like to make people smile. I looked in the mirror at home today, andI said, Oh, geez, I'm either going to a funeral or I'm going to court. What's going on, you know? I haven't worn a tie since I retired eight years ago. And I said, no, I've got to go report to God today. I have a feeling right now, I have a buzz right now inside of me that is freaking huge and it's gratitude of everything that's happened and everything that I don't know that's going to happen because i have a faith today that is it's just huge i don't know about you people but i used to like to chase the buzz you know and the buzz i have today is totally different the greatest buzz is to see somebody come up and his eyes are a little glossy and and he can almost say a sentence but not yet you know any and he asks for help and you're there and a little while later you look at him and his eyes have cleared up and he looks at you and says thank you for being here and you look back at him and you go back at ya see cause they don't know that it helps us just as much as it helps them my buddy Phillip and I went to breakfast today we talked about a lot of stuff and I heard here last yesterday about, you know, organized religions that all we have to do is think of the sin. And it's there. I didn't sin. I wasn't even thinking about it. You know, I was born in a very religious home. My mother was in the convent. She was going to be a nun. And she took a sabbatical and I believe today they call it stalking. but my dad chased her and they married and my mother went to church every day of my life Monday through Friday, 7 o'clock mass, Saturday and Sunday weddings, funerals, she sang in the choir the whole nine yards so I went to Catholic school and this isn't a beat on Catholicism I don't know what they said I know what I heard and it scared the bejesus out of me I mean, this guy that they were praying to, you know, he was a flamethrower scorekeeping guy. And I was thinking about that stuff and so I was already nailed. So if you're thinking about it, might as well do it. I'm a blackout drunk from, I think, pretty close to day one. And you know what? There are voids in my life that are huge. And I wish I remembered some of them because I was told they were fun, but I have no clue. In between the 7th and 8th grade, my parents' home from the front of it, it was on level with a second story, but in the back it was three stories. It was a basement. You came out the back. And my parents entertained a lot. and I used to watch him from my bedroom on the third level looking down and I watched him change you know the beginning of the party was quiet and hi how are you haven't seen you at the end of the party it was a mess and they were talking in rhythms over and over and I said man I don't want to be like that you know my dad was a very functional drunk he owned his own business and he was drunk the whole time i lived in that house and i thought he was the most selfish self-centered son of a bitch that there was because i was the baby my sister was 10 years older i had twin brothers five years older which is like hell anyways because they wanted nothing to do with me and she paid them to keep them away from her and so i was a loner from the beginning you know between seventh and eighth grade that summer I came home and my parents were having a party so I was going to skate in the front door and go right upstairs and go to my room see because I was drunk and I had blood all over me and it was mine um I used to lead with my face you know I'm I'm a tough Irishman let me tell you you know it's right out there and boom and it goes off like a fire hose and I walked in the front door and holy crap, they're all right there in the living room and the dining room and this guy comes up and he's a doctor and he looks at me and he calls my mother over and he says, your son's drunk. So two or three women rush me upstairs and they clean me up and they put me to bed. And the next day, nothing is said. I don't know if you lived in that house with the elephants in every flipping room, you know. And I'm a wise guy so I'm coming home, you know, and mom would say, you know, don't go in the den. Your dad's not himself. And I'd go in the den and look at him. He was passed out in his chair and I'd come back in the kitchen and I said, Dad's himself. He's passed out like he is every night now. Don't you talk about your father like that. Well, between the 8th grade and the 9th grade, going from Blessed Sacrament School to St. Peter's, they took me for a ride one Sunday and we went from outside of Boston to Woonsocket, Rhode Island to this school on top of a hill I'm not too bright you're going to learn that and they took me through the whole school and everything we went driving home and they said what did you think of Mount St. Charles Academy for boys I said I don't know going to St. Peter's I don' really care nothing was said. About a week before I'm going to St. Peter's we go out and buy clothes and again you had to wear a tie The last thing they pick up is a footlocker and I don't get it. I don' t know why they needed a footlocker They didn't. I did because the next week they took me that 120 miles away to Mount St. Charles Academy and said you're going here to school you know I was already that little selfish self-centered son of a bitch, I was already running the house, I Was Already Drinking I drank, I can't tell you my first drink I could always pop a beer and take a sip of it and I knew how to make a Windsor in water at a really young age you know, my dad bought terrible beer and there was a refrigerator downstairs and he never knew how many were there so you could have them all the time, there was a pool room downstairs, you could just go down and have a beer I went to that boarding school and I believe I've never been diagnosed but I believe I have ADHD or whatever if I'm enthused about something 100% if I am not enthuse about something push it away I can't tell you how many books I have that I've cracked the cover and read a first couple three chapters and up on the shelf it's just not there so I did quite well there except we were behind locked doors and things happened there that were pretty twisted and sick. It was 1964, 5 and 6 and there was physical abuse there and there was sexual abuse there. Now the reason they sent me to this school is because I'm already lying. I'm a good liar. So I try to tell my parents what's happening They think I'm lying because I want out of there. I was there for two years, and things happened. It didn't make me alcoholic, but it brought some of those things eventually that I found out were character defects really, really close to the surface. Anger, a challenge with authority, wanting to be there and not here. and once you get there you want to be there and you just don't want to be here wherever it is I came out of there and I did well there again you know if you force me to study four hours a day or you're going to beat me up or put me in the infirmary and you don't want to go to the infarmary that's where it happened you don'T get sick so I came out of here and I had all straight A's and I remember Mr. Stedman and I went to a public school, brand new. I'm going back in October for my 50th high school reunion. I've never been to a high school union. I left that town in 1968, the day after I graduated from high school. I had a job in Boston. I was going to be a recreational pharmacist. Hey, I was doing it. I was just going for it, you know? And I really haven't been back since, so I'm gonna meet a bunch of people I haven't seen in 50 years that are really old, and I hope they have big pictures of us back then. I don't know. But this guy, he put me in all these advanced classes. Man, I was going to be his star. See, they didn't teach anything to my parents. I moved back into the same house. Now there's people in the room looking around. You don't understand what I'm going to talk about. Phones used to have a cord on them. And it went from the hall upstairs by the bedrooms down the hall underneath your door, and then you had a phone in your room. And we had the first TV back then on that street, and they moved me right back in. I was right back where I started from. I don't know if that was progressive, but boy, I was. My poor mom. so my dad and i weren't seeing eye to eye and i had a ponytail he used to call me a fruit and it was ugly and when i came out of that uh school at the end of my sophomore year on my first report card i had three f's anyways poor mr stedman i really didn't care I didn't care about anything. See, because I had thrown God away. Because those men worked for him and I didnít understand anything and it really didnít matter. And I had an enabler. My fatherís brother was the head probation officer in the town that I lived in. In that junior-senior year of high school, I got arrested 14 times and I got a six-months continuance every time. I got arrested once leaving the courthouse in the morning going to court for inciting a riot resisting arrest in the elevator of the courithouse I was back in front of the judge that afternoon six months continuance my uncle would just lean over and say that's my brother, Paul's kid give him six months so in my head I'm untouchable they can't get me which was pretty dangerous but I knew at the end of high school, I had to get the hell out of there. And I did. Moved to Boston again. And then I moved to a little island called Martha's Vineyard. And, I met a gentleman and I lived there for five seasons and I live in a hotel for free. I mean it was a terrible life. And, you know these poor people that were coming to the vineyard and they didn't have money for a room. I had help them. It was just terrible. That's when it all started to happen. other things have entered into my life I don't know about you guys but I'm the type of alcoholic that really likes drugs and they're filtering into my life any way that I can in 1970 I got hepatitis from shooting dope my buddy who was one of them that I did it with he passed away in the hospital that summer he was still getting off my other buddy went to Hawaii and laid on a beach for three months and got better, that pissed me off But I go to the Vermont in the winters. Everybody went three places that worked there in the summer. If you made a lot of money, you went to Jamaica in the winter and you didn't work. If you wanted to be warm and you still had to work, you Went to Florida. And if you skied, you Went to Vermont. So I went to Vermont every winter. And I was pretty impressionable. The gentleman who I did an apprenticeship under on the vineyard was a wonderful man and he gave me a trade that I carried for the next 40 years. But being as impressionable as I was, I went to Vermont and there was a gentleman who had just been brought back to the hotel I was living in, working under. His name was Horny Horn. And Chef Hornyhorn had been fired two years earlier because of his drinking. and it was a high-class hotel and the meals were included and all of his customers said, you know, I don't know what happened to Chef Robert but you better bring him back or I'm not coming back here. So Lou went all the way to Florida and brought Horny Horn back and I used to go and set up the kitchen in the morning and I'd go wake him up before kitchen and he'd roll over out of his bed, crack a cigarette and push open the curtain which had snow on the outside, and there was beers on the ledge of his window. Before his feet hit, he's drinking. Oh, I like this. So I'd work with him until about 10 o'clock, and then I'd go get my ski pass, and we'd go skiing, and I'd come back, and by 3 o' clock in the afternoon, Horny Horn's sitting on a milk crate at the end babbling, and I ran the kitchen for him. Well, one day he reached over and grabbed the prime rib, and it slipped and fell and went on the floor and the fat kernel inside spun open and it destroyed the ribeye. And I'm in the pantry about over where that sign is. And all of a sudden, here comes Horny Horn with a knife after me calling me a shoemaker and he's going to kill me. So he's drunk as a hoo-dow and I go and tell Lou, well, Lou gave me an option. He said, well, you can either go back in the kitchen or you can leave, you know. Holy crap. so i walked i worked for horny horn but again it showed me that you can be a drunk chef if you're good because this guy was a magician and they'll keep you hired the worst thing is to do is being blackballed as a drunk chief so the fear of that jekyll and hyde you know carried me uh through for a long time. Left the vineyard, joined a company. Two DUIs on the vine yard, 1972. I'm in Barnstable State Hospital. Nice place. Nice. February. Lockdown. Alcoholic ward. I'm 22 and I look around and I'm going, what the hell happened to me? And they wanted me to go upstairs for six months and I said, no, I got a job. I gotta go. and I drove myself there, and I had a backgammon board. I went there for a rest. And they wanted to give me pills so I wouldn't shake. I said, I don't shake, you know, I'm good. Everybody wanted to take the pills from me, and it was sick. And I said three things. All this stuff that I'm hearing, I said it's never going to happen to me. Never going to do that. You know, never goingto go there. Ten years later, fast forward. I got the t-shirt three more DUIs my last five years were in Akron, Ohio didn't know AA was there we talked about God there were adjectives connected to it where we were and it was usually at after hours bars because I ran clubs there and we'd go out at night you know at 2.30 till 6 and ran with some pretty crazy people And in my head, oh, three more DUIs there. I had to leave that town. But in my Head, it was the people I ran with, you know, because I was a nice guy, you know? So I transferred in 82 to come out here and I could make some money with the company because I drove myself here. Because I don't know about you, but the hobbies that I had, which were drugs and alcohol, were extremely expensive. cars, lawyers fines, telephone poles I mean everything so I come here to Phoenix Arizona in February of 1982 I left Cleveland Airport to come look at this place and two other places with this company and it was zero in Cleveland and I ended out here and I'm going oh boy this is amazing I didn't know what Arizona was I thought it was a safari desert or whatever. But this was amazing, so I called the corporate and I said, you know, the other two places, I'm not going. I'm taking that one there. And I did. I showed up everywhere. And I don't know about you, but I said that prayer. I drove out. It took me five days to drive out. I had a U-Haul, and I made some money by mileage. And so when I got here, on the outside, I would look good. Whoops. Yeah. but on the inside i'm a hollow shell i'm dying i'm scared to death of everything most areas of my life i got my act together there's one area of my life that now is really filtering into every area of my life and it's really starting to screw things up so i moved here and i said i'm never going to drink again and if i had taken a lie detector test that day i would have passed because with every single inch of powerlessness that I didn't know I had, I meant it. And I didnít drink all the way out. And I went into that kitchen on Sunday and set my office up on Monday and we opened it on Tuesday and it was a big property. I had 1,000 seats. I had a room just like this, 26 cooks. oh yeah my car it was a 1976 Oldsmobile Tornado and it had bullet holes in it boy if you want to tighten up a kitchen crew be the new chef and park out by the dumpster with bullet holes down one side I got something out of them I don't know if it was respect or fear but that's a whole other story but there was a lady in Ohio and I kidnapped her I sent her a check and had her come out here because I was lonely and I wasn't drinking for six days and that Saturday it started again and you know what I believe the lie we all know what that lie is sure I'll go down I'm just going to have a couple blackout don't know my last eui was november of 82 out here and it scared the crap out of me because i was trying not to drink and it was the first time i really tried i mean when i had hepatitis in 1970 i didn't drink from when i was diagnosed in june till my birthday february of the next year about eight nine months but i had that carrot you know And that night of my birthday, I just bought a Chevy Greenbrier van. I don't think anybody knows what that is. But it can turn into a snow coaster real easy if you flip it on its roof and it'll go all the way down. I know this because that night I went down into this valley on its rooftop. First night I drank. See, remember I told you I'm not too bright. God was there, but I didn't think he was. so this lady comes out and she sees how i'm drinking and she can't understand this at all because i would come home in a blackout and the first thing i would do is go to the refrigerator and kill everything in the refrigerator after that dui they sent me to court and sent me to a therapist i lost track of her her name was lois arnold She owned a company called New Directions. She had just gotten out of getting her college, getting her degree. She was an ex-cocaine addict and she was one tough girl. And I had to go see her for 10 weeks. In about the eighth week, she looked at me and she said, you know, you're trying to figure something out. I said, yeah, I am. I don't understand why I can't stay stopped. I can stop. I just can't stay stopped. I stopped for 40 days, I stopped for 50 days, and I stopped for 60 days. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, nice night to get drunk. Christmas Eve, I've got 1,400 people to serve the next day. I'm out until 3 o'clock in the morning in a blackout, and then I've gotta be back to work at 6. See? Not too bright. Quit from then to my birthday, which was February 20th drunk for a week and then i quit until the first of may and every time it was the same thing i did not want to drink and i thought i could have one and you know what that sets up we suffer from a physical addiction a mental obsession and a spiritual malady then it says when the spiritual mality is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically well i wanted nothing to do with that spiritual malady you know who he works for this therapist kept telling me to go to this place called 4848 and i and i live in north phoenix and i run this big club and i'm going you know what are you talking about so i'm gonna a meetings i'm not in aa and i went to a meetings in 70 but i never bought a book i never had a sponsor and i never was in it So I never tried AA. And she's telling me to go to 4848. Well, I got home about, I don't know, 3.30 that Sunday night the day before May 1st in a blackout, lost my car. And the lady who I was living with, we're in separate rooms and I wanted to leave and I don' t want to leave and life is just... And she said, go to that 4848 place. In May 1st of 1983, I went to 4848, and it was a little yellow house then. And I walked in, and there were two rooms. This one you couldn't even see through because that was the smoking room. And they put the non-smoking room on the other side of that. So to see the speaker, you've got to look through the smoke. That didn't make any sense. But I went into the meeting. At the end of the meeting, this guy comes up. He puts his arm around me, scared to be Jesus out of me. Somebody knows me here? and I turned around and it's a guy I bought produce from for the last 14 months he owned Grand Avenue Produce he's no longer with us his name was Rain Dew he was a wonderful man and he said Jack we've been saving you a seat and I said what are you doing here and he laughed at me yeah that's really nice I feel like a pile of crap you know and he's chuckling at me And he goes, I've been coming here for 10 years, Jack. And he said something that I'll never forget. He said, if you don't want to drink one day at a time for the rest of your life, I can show you how. See, I heard last night that we were a rock. I was a rock, you know? I was an island. I needed nobody. I was self-made and I'm climbing this pit right into another pit, you now? And I mean, I'm doing well and I never asked another man for help. And when I walked into that room, I was a drunk. I was not an alcoholic like my dad now, you know, but not me. And I looked at Ray and he shared a little bit of his experience, strength and hope. And I shared a Little Bit of My Experience, Strength and Hope. I didn't know that's what it was called. I thought we were telling a story. And when we got done, I said, Ray, you you know what, I think I'm an alcoholic. I need your help. That started me on a journey. I haven't had a drop of alcohol since that day. I didn't know about him yet because he has heard a little bit of my story and he goes, you know, you know it? We're going to work on this God thing. All right. What are we going to do? He says, well, you see these people in the rooms? They're sober. I know they're sober, I know them all. They're a power greater than you. Believe in them right now. That's all you gotta do. Just believe that there's something bigger than you and that it works and you can stay sober. I said, I can do that. He was my sponsor for the next 10 years. And we talked every day, if not twice a day. And at 20 years sober, he had a massive heart attack one morning. It was the 4th of July, walking from his bedroom through the living room, gave Millie, his wife, a kiss and said, I'm going to go get a cup of coffee, and she heard a huge thud. And he was dead before he hit the floor. You know what I want? What that man had. Died sober. See, I don't know about you, we don't share this outside these rooms, You know, some of our aspirations like to die. So, well, my cat has never drank Jack. Oh, Jesus. They don't understand. You know? Never had a drop Jack. Yeah, that's great. His obituary was huge. And at the bottom, it said that he was an active member in good standing with the 4848 group of Alcoholics Anonymous Phoenix, Arizona. active member in good standing active member he had a home group he sponsored men he did a lot of service work in good standings one day at a time he had continuous sobriety and he gave hope wonderful man i had a spiritual advisor at that time and i asked him that afternoon if we could meet for breakfast the next day and I got another sponsor. Don Lee. He's since passed. I need help. I still need help! You know, I used to listen...we talked about the music. Well, the radio station I used to listen to it was KF radio and you know what F is so up here KF radio was usually on you know and it was just scrambled and it was really loud and I couldn't find the knob to turn it down and it was just God knows where that knob is God can turn that down he's quieted quite a bit It's amazing. That Christmas of 82, after my DUI, my parents came out. And we went to the Grand Canyon. We stayed at the altar of our lodge. And Pop said, hey, you know what? It's happy hour. I said, okay, Pop. so my mom and him and I went down to the bar and he goes so what are you drinking son I said I'm not drinking pop okay boy sorry so he had a cocktail and I've never seen my mother drunk and I was a caged animal I wanted to drink but I knew that I was at the Grand Canyon if I started drinking I knew by that time that I couldn't figure out where I was going to come out of this thing And it could be California or I don't know. And, you know, and I'm also, you know, I'm an exhibitionist. Yeah. I'm Irish so, you know, I'm hung like a hamster. But anyways. I didn't think my mother wanted to see this show and I couldn't project if that was going to happen so I couldn' drink. I went for a walk that morning Saturday and I walked down this dirt road and man, there are three telephone poles about this wide and this high blocking off a dirt road that goes right down. This is way before Selma and Louise. And I own telephone poles and I know what my car can do. I drove big cars because I needed stuff around me because I was going to total them. Anyways, never traded in an automobile until I got sober. So I knew if I hit this at about 60 miles an hour, I could just pop those things and go over. And that KF radio that I was listening to, for about the last year and a half, thoughts of suicide were in my mind every day. Now again, 99% of my life is good, but this thing, and I don't know what this thing is, is infiltrating into that and it's clouding it. And it's a mess. And I want to die. I came home to that lady, you know, we're living in separate bedrooms, and she had had two brothers, and I knew them both. One committed suicide successfully. And she found him in the basement of their parents' house. You know, this disease is very deadly. We don't talk about that sometimes. It's not pretty. Our recovery rate is terrible. What's changed? The beginning of the first edition, you know, 50% the book says. You know, they had 300 books out there and it was 150,000 silver. Now there's, what do we got, 5%, 4%? What are we doing? Are we soft? Are we sending the wrong message? I don't know. I love you all enough to tell you the truth to your face. And I've had sponsees leave me because I love them enough to tell them the truth. how do you say I'm afraid for you? I feel, don't take my feelings away, I feel that you're going down the wrong path, man. You know, that flimsy reed we heard, we talk about, that turns out to be his hand, I wanted nothing to do with his hand. I'd spit on his hand because of what he did to me. So anyways, I come home and I tell that lady And the other brother leaned out a car And hit a bridge abutment He still to this day is partially paralyzed He couldn't do it right The other guy put a shotgun in his mouth This way Because you can't do It this way Barrel's too long And he blew his shoulder off He died from loss of blood in his parents' basement And she found him So this is the kind of guy I am I come Home from Grand Canyons Telling her I'm going to disappear and I'm going to kill myself, I'm gonna drive off the Grand Canyon. And you know, the tornado that I was, I thought I was gonna get a little sympathy jump or something, you know? All she could do is look at me and say thanks for the information and she walked into her bedroom. Before I went there, because I was going to, God put up roadblocks that I know today until I met Ray and when I met Ray that part of KF radio was missing I had hope and I didn't want to die today I don't fear death my side of the street is clean, I don' know what's out there I don''t have to figure that out Phillip and I talked about that today, I'd much rather get there and find out that there is something you know and prepare myself for it than you know get there and believe that there's nothing and all of a sudden And oops, you know, sorry, St. Peter, I guess they were right. You know, I don't know. So what do I try to do on a daily basis is be a good boy. My dad, my mom comes to me a couple years after it gets over and she says, can you ask your dad to go to one of those meetings? Because they're coming out in the winter. And I say, well, that's really not the way. Can you do me a favor? Jack, please. So I said, yeah. And my mom, sweet lady, she didn't understand why my dad's beer always smelled like whiskey. Hello? Let me think. The refrigerator's here. The whiskey, you know. Well, he can't drink whiskey until 5 o'clock, Jack. He can drink beer, but not whiskey until five. Why does it always smell like whiskey? So I says, hey, pop, you want to go to a meeting with me? I don't need those meetings. No, thank you. I said, okay, Pop. And I went back. Mom, I asked. Next year they came out. It was the 15th of December. This is 1984. And they get off the plane and Big Daddy comes up to me and goes, hey, let's go to the bar and get a drink. Girls can get in their luggage. I said Pop, I'm not drinking. You're still not drinking? No, Pop, still not drinkin'. It's been about a year and a half. And he looks at me, he says, yeah, me neither. I looked at my mom, and she said, yeah. I said, really? He says, yes, it's been 90 days. I said really? Well you don't know my dad. He was about 6'4", and my mom's about 5'2". And he was retired, and she wasn't. She was working part-time. And he went to feed the dog on the 14th of September. and there was a 50 gallon dog food bag on the back porch and he lost his footing and he went into this dog food bag head first and he got stuck in there oh yeah I can picture this you think it's funny so my mom comes home from dinner Paul, Paul house is wide open, there's no Paul she walks into the kitchen and she can see his feet at the door going to the porch and she goes in and he is stuck from here up into a dog food bag. I don't know how long he's been there but when she pulls him out he's salivating in there. He's got dry dog food stuck all over his face. You know what we do. Come on. So he looks at my mom and says oh sweet. Oh thanks. And she went, I'm done. he was 72 years old i'm done paul my son is in phoenix arizona and he's sober i can't do this anymore stop drinking or i'm dead now the only reason i'm going to tell you my dad's an alcoholic is because he told me he was an alcoholic i heard it from his lips never went to a meeting uh he went to church often i don't believe his i don'T KNOW WHO HIS HIGHER POWER WAS IT COULD have been my mother. But that next day, the 15th of September, they went out to dinner as they did a lot because that was the business he had that he got rid of. And he walked into a joint for dinner and the bartender said, all right Kirby, frying water and slid it across the bar. It wasn't even in the, you know, the door hadn't even closed. And my dad walked up and said, no I'm going to have a Diet Coke. He drank alcoholically for 50 years. He did not have a tremor. He didn't have a shake. I would not suggest that to anybody who drinks for that long. You should have medical assistance to sober, but he never went through the DTs. Holy crap. He died 16 years sober at the age of 88. Full-blown dementia. and we got to talk to each other and again I know now or then that he wasn't that selfish self-centered son of a bitch he was just trying to feed the beast just like I was and I got to tell him what I thought he was and then I apologized for it and at the end he didn't even know my name and he called me kid and we had to move him into a dementia facility because my mom couldn't take care of him anymore. He was only there for a couple months. And I'd go see him every day, you know, and, hey kid, how long's it been? I said, it's been 15 years, Pop. I'm not drinking today, how about you? He said, I'm nicht trinken today. And then he'd go into La La Land. He remembered every freaking day that he didn't drink. He didn't remember anything else. That was a gift to me. I had a niece. My sister passed away. It's going to be in three days, it'll be 18 years. My sister had a drinking problem. I'm not going to say that she was an alcoholic because she never said she was an alcoholic, but she drank herself to sleep for 10 years. And she was a wonderful, wonderful woman. and she was the first one in our family to die. She died of cancer at the age of 49 and she tried everything, man and they burnt the crap out of her on experimental radiation. Hopefully somebody benefited from that eventually because they said we can't give you anymore but if you sign this we can do some experiments on you and she never walked again. She died about two months later. Very deadly disease. Our cure rate is less than that. Can you imagine if all my sister had to do was wake up every morning and say, good morning God, keep me cancer free today. Let me go out here and do your bidding and be that good representative and at the end say, Heavenly Father, thank you for being there today and keeping me cancer-free today. I'll see you tomorrow. Imagine if that. She would have been one praying mofo. that's us that's what we have to do good morning God keep me clean and sober today let me stay close to you and do your work well let me be that good sober boy today and go out and do it and at night say Heavenly Father thank you for today thank you für keeping me clean und sober see I ask people when they go back out did you ask god to keep you clean and sober that day oh no i gave up on that you know freaking this and freaking that you don't freaking sponsor the program was a pain in the ass you know the time they had those meetings you know said really wow well i'm glad you're back i hope you ask him today to keep me clean and so about four years after my sister passed away her daughter was in six detoxes in two years, last one in Boston for six months and she walked out on a Saturday her daughter came home from preschool that Tuesday and she was sleeping on the couch she went and got the neighbor because mommy's sick, she's sleeping mommy's heart had stopped mommy was dead she had two warm bottles of vodka and a bunch of prescription sedatives that they gave her and she called my brother the day before and said I can't shut the tapes off and he said I'll take you to a meeting she said maybe tomorrow and she died she had a .40 blood alcohol content with the sedatives, two sedatives and the alcohol sedatives her heart stopped boy her brother Johnny, big strapping boy he was so upset that she left that daughter there. The bank that she worked for said it was a this doesn't make any sense an accidental suicide what the hell does that mean? Well what it means is as soon as they put that word suicide no matter what's in front of it, they don't have to pay insurance an accidental suicide But Johnny was so angry at her that she left her daughter. He hung himself about four years after that. This is my family. Those were the thoughts in my head that screamed for a year and a half, you piece of crap jack. You know? My other niece, the only one that's left, I had a premature, 60-day-old premature baby. And I'd never been to her house. And she rolled over on him in a blackout and crushed him. Now he never drank, but alcoholism took him out. A lifestyle of drugs and alcohol. I was called to that house That morning and I went there And I helped her as much as I could My brother and I paid To bury the little boy I've never been invited back And that's okay She has my number Vicious disease I don't like the disease of alcoholism I love Sobriety If there was a list of diseases on the wall today that I could choose from. God says, you can pick one. I'd pick alcoholism because I know that I can put it in remission one day at a time for as long as I ask him and do a few things. That other stuff, I don't know. But I know this one. I say it all the time if you're here, stay. And we do want you to keep coming back but stay you don't understand what's in front of you it's beautiful happy, joyous and free freedom oh my lord you know I owed five years of taxes when I got here again I'm not too free to write so my brother takes me and we do a six year income averaging and all this stuff, you know, and I get my stuff from the company because I still work for that company. And the lady who prepared it all said, well, for these, for the first three years, you get nothing back because the statute of limitations is gone. I said, I would have had money coming back? Oh, yes, you would have. And she told me how much. My brain was so closed that when the beginning of the year came, and we had to do taxes, I was afraid I had to pay. And if I hadto pay, it would cut into my lifestyle because, you know, my lifestyle is very expensive because I probably needed a new car, and then I hadtobuy this and this and then my lawyer, so I just wouldn't go look at it. And around the 16th, 17th of April, everybody's going, hey, did you get your, you known, did you file? Oh, yeah, yeah sure, I filed. No, I didn't file. I got money back those last three years. We've become productive members of society. What the hell was that? You know, we paid our bills. My buddy Phillip says, you know, I threw my God away when that happened in boarding school. After that, because of the drugs and alcohol, I pretty much lost who I was. I didn't know who the hell I was, and because of that, everybody else was gone, and I was alone. so he said they hand us these steps in 1, 2 and 3 we get our relationship right with God again 4, 5, 6 and 7 we figure out who we are and what we are 8, 9 and 10 we get straight with them and 11 and 12 we carry it out there you know those are the growth steps oh no jack those are maintenance steps no those are pretty much growth steps in my mind the 11th step says to actively seek through prayer and meditation to improve improve means to change for the better it doesn't say stay the same and then the twelfth step this is the funny one having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we carry this message what's the message you carry having had a spiritual awakening as the results of these and then we practice these principles in all our affairs for the last seven years my wife and I retired 2010. We've been traveling in a motorhome for six months. And we have a beautiful country out there, and there are meetings everywhere. And if I'm in a place... We belong to the 222 Club. Do you know what that is? Of course you don't. I made it up. The hell are you thinking for? 222 club is you drive 200 miles, you get there by 2 o'clock in the afternoon, you stay for two weeks because if you're RVing and you're setting up and breaking down every other day, it gets really old fast. So if you are somewhere for two weeks, after the second day, I'm already okay. Honey, you want to go do some retail therapy? I'm going to go to a meeting. Yep, okay. I married a normie. She's a sweetheart. Jack. this wine, I don't know I feel a little funny oh shit I don' t want anymore thought we were going to start a family again you know I've never been blessed with children my wife and I married first marriage for both of us I was 2 months shy of 40 she was 39 she was 38 and she had a career and I had a career and we didn't have time and we discussed it, we dated for 5 years this resort right here I met my wife at this resort at the point in time November 4th of 1984 I was a year and a half sober and it was a blind date and she says it was the first blind date she was ever on and it was the first date I ever went on that I wasn't blind so you know it happened, it was good it was great now about six months into this she had her house, I had my house about six month into this I went to work on a Sunday and I didn't call her Sunday. I was off Monday, Tuesday. I didn' t call her. I didn''t call her Wednesday. I'm at work and she calls me and she goes what's wrong? I said honey we just have to stop. We can't see each other anymore. I don't want to hurt you. I was worried about her. See I never had a relationship that worked and I knew it was going to blow up but I didn ''t know it had anything to do with no alcohol or whatever and I really didn'' t care if she got I started having feelings and she was using that L word you know love I was using the L word too I like you a lot because I told her I'm not going to use the L word until I really honestly know that I love you and I didn't know what love was that word was a tool that I used all my life to get whatever the hell I wanted and she can tell you the day i can't but she can tell you the day but it was into our second year that i looked at her and i said i love you a lot and i want you in my life and you are the love of my life and we're still together married and she's never seen me drink because she wouldn't have stuck around i don't know about some of you people but i used to really really like low dangling fruit because I hate rejection, you know. So she was up here, man. She's a sweetheart. What a gift. I want to thank everybody in the committee, Robin and Kelly, for asking me. They asked me a year ago, and I said, you know what, I don't know where I'm going to be next year. And we bought a place up outside of Show Low and I called him back up. I said, you still want me to speak? Yeah. I said well I'm going to be up in Sholo so I'll be there. I'll come down and do it. And buddy for taking care of me. Thank you my friend. Musical chairs last night? Yeah that's okay. Didn't hear any music. KF radio was turned off. It was one word. The other speakers. We had fun at that table last night. my god today i call him gus gus not you gus no no we're on gus gus stands for the guy upstairs because you know what i don't have to i don' t have to go there i say he has blue eyes i live in north phoenix and if I look off my deck, I look about 50 miles and it's usually blue skies. And I say his eyes are blue. He's huge. He's everything. The book says he has all power. So if he has awe, what do I have? I have the opportunity to ask him every day over and over again. Thy will not my will, Father. Help me. You know, I say a prayer that takes 31 seconds. now that only allows me 23 hours 59 minutes and 29 seconds to completely screw up my day but i say it over and over and bits and pieces of it and because of that i stay connected and i don't know how many times a day i say keep me clean and sober father you know traveling going to those meetings you know what i look for i look for the principles on the wall because we share in every meeting in the 12 step we practice these principles and all our affairs now some people say well the 12 steps of the principles okay there's a principle there's tradition there's a step of tradition in the principle and I have to say over 50% of the meetings don't have the principles on the wall. And if we practice these principles, if we put those, incorporate those 12 things into our life, I challenge you to not change. It's not going to happen. You have to. First one that we had challenged, honesty, oh my Lord, hold on here. What do you mean lying through omission? I don't understand what that means. I mean, it's amazing. These are some of the things we have to take out there and share with the men and young ladies that we're working with. It's in my wallet. I don'T go anywhere without it. Those are the principles. You know what? I love you dearly. all of you I will help any one of you that asks me and that needs help with Alcoholics Anonymous and staying sober I'm not a bank I'm not a marriage counselor I've never had children so I don't know what it's like to have a teething baby my wife was in menopause for 10 years if you want to talk well good morning who are you today oh jesus so i made it through that you know so i i have experience about that but there are so many things that i don't have experience with that i know people that did and do and i'll say you know what let me make a phone call i'll get right back to you hey can i have somebody call you they're having the challenge with this shirt. That's the network we have here. That is the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. We were talking yesterday. Damn, that's a big book. Boy, they weren't kidding. That is The Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous The program is in there. The fellowship is right here. Again, remember we suffer from a physical addiction a mental obsession in the spiritual malady when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically I love you dearly thanks