The Concede That Happens at the Innermost Self – Tom

I knew, you know, it was the right path for me as an alcoholic to follow. You know, I've spent nights up at Montana with him staying up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and I've seen him get up then an hour after he goes to bed and get up to catch a flight back and I always wondered where in the world he ever got that energy from. And I've not seen any energy decline any at all over the years. Last year sometime we had a banquet in Jacksonville And we put on a great prime rib dinner there. At least for Tom, he had a prime rib dinner. And you know, during the meal I was walking around the room and people were saying things like, well this is really a great brown dinner. Because we have brown beans and brown meat and brown whatever else you want. And it was really quite a disaster. and uh unfortunately i was the the chairman of that banquet and tom tried to help me out and when he got up he started talking about his great prime red dinner and tried to pull pull the irons out of the fire there i don't think he quite made it but uh you know what one thing tom has always shown me since i've known him and it's the most valuable thing I think he's showing me is that, you know, no matter how far down the road of sobriety we go, all we're ever going to be is human. And Tom has always shown me the human side of him. And I hope I can return the favor for anybody else along the way from me. Tom? Hi, folks. I'm Tom Ivester, an alcoholic. Delighted to see you. I'm a member of the Primary Purpose Group of AA in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Don't worry to lay my watch. And I am delighted to be here. It's a special pleasure tonight to have my beautiful and talented wife, Fern. She hates to stand up, but I'm going to ask her to do it anyway just so you get it. She has a strange way of making decisions. I invite her to go everywhere I go. She never goes to Kansas. Somehow Edith Stowe Beach just sounded a little more enticing. There's something about her dedication, I guess. I wanted you to meet her because I want to say before God in this country, country, company, that now that's the woman I love. That's my wife, and I am absolutely crazy about that girl. She stays on my mind all the time. She is never, never out of my conscious awareness. And I have an extremely sensitive and caring husband. And I say that because there are a couple of folk from the left coast that are trying to start a vicious rumor that I forgot her today and drove off and left her. Never happened. I even think she's plotting with them because she accused me of it. Will that get me out of the doghouse? Oh, God. Senior instant is what happened. I am delighted to be here. I'll work my way out of that. Thanks for a good conference, and thanks for the good work. I'm not the only one in here who goes to more than a few conferences. I've got a lot of folks here I see on a regular basis around. And we go to all kinds of places. Sometimes we go opulence and splendor, and somebody's waiting at your beck and call every second. Another time, we go the other extreme. Here we're at the other-extreme, because everything that happens at this conference is an action of service, every single thing. And to me, I guess that's one of the things that makes it sort of special because that human touch is in everything that happens here. And it's just absolutely a great kind of spirit that pervades this thing and I'm just delighted to be here. It truly is one of God's special places and what a nice weekend. What a great time to just come in and relax and kick back, just sort of spiritually nourish a little bit and get a little closer to those that are near and dear to us. So I'm just really pleased to be here. Now, I guess if anybody just came by and took a look at this group, we wouldn't look a lot different than any other bunch here. We're borderline suntanned. Hard to get suntanned when you've got a schedule that's unceasing, I mean, it just goes on and on. But we make an effort. We've got few little red splotches here and there. So we look like an average slice of life. We don't look a lot different than any other conference that would be here. And yet if you look a little closer, you'd find something that's a little bit different about us. We'll laugh a little quicker than the average cat. My sponsor has been telling the same joke for 35 years, all over the world to the same people, and we still laugh. And it was a lousy joke the first time I ever heard it. So we laugh a little easier. And I'll guarantee you, we cry a little easier! My God, I cry sometimes somebody reading the steps, particularly if they have to really suck it up to get it out. And we just are a little different folk, and I think there's probably a reason for that. We do look like any other bunch. We're a group of a slice of life. We're people who come from all kinds of places, and we come from all kinds experiences and all kinds background. all folks who are in, we all got the same condition, we're just in various stages of repair. And so we come together. By the way, one other thing I want to mention about the creativity. We had the pleasure of having dinner tonight, a fellow that read Cecil was the master chef put together something and when they told me what they were cooking I said there ain't no way I'm not eating that. And went down there and took a look at it And I said, give me the recipe. And he looked at me funny and he said, well, you just catch anything that walks by, crawls by, swims by, flies by, throw it in the pot. And they call it low bottom, not low bottom. Low bottom soup. but and uh you talk about creativity i'll tell you that stuff lit up my life bet i tell you that's great i'm gonna get some more of that good stuff and we are that's who we are we're just kind of a group of folk who come in here and we come to god's special place and and enjoy a fellowship second to none we enjoy a scholarship that's powerful a fellowship that pulls us through unbelievable situations, and that's who we are. We just kind of come here together in this kind of place and share together, sort of celebrate our recovery. And I think the thing that sort of brings that dimension to this group that may be a little lacking in some is that across the board in this room tonight, I seriously doubt, unless somebody has gotten the wrong meeting, I seriously doubt that there's a single person here who hasn't come back from the brink of disaster. Every person in this room has looked death bang in the eye and lived to tell about it. We're folks who have known bondage that most folks don't know, and we are becoming free people. So we are a special kind of a group in terms of where we come. we meet around and about, and our focal point is an illness, a killer illness called alcoholism that's a very deadly illness, one that takes out the overwhelming majority of its victims. Most alcoholics die fairly young and usually tragically. And there are a precious few of us, a precious view of us who are fortunate enough to catch that brass ring called recovery and hang on to that sucker. And that's who we are. So we're people who come here not for just a frivolous vacation. We may have some fun, but we're People Who Come Here with a sure awareness that we deal with an illness when we can hang on is, God knows in my judgment, a tremendous miracle. And I'm one. We're people who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Two young folks with eight days' sobriety have recovered from a seemly hopeless state OF MIND AND BODY. The only difference between them and me is time, eh, Ruby? A little bit of time. We have recovered FROM THE SAME ILLNESS, and it's just a matter of time and state of repair. And I hope someday that they'll be able to fully understand that and fully appreciate it for you. And I thank my God that I'm one who has been in that crowd who has recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And that's what I want to talk with you about tonight. I just want to share what we do. We share our experience, strength, and hope. We don't teach. We don' t preach. If anybody leaves here any smarter than they came in, it won't be my fault. You'll probably not take any new information. Copious notes will not be helpful. Now, I'm just going to share with you about how that illness occurred in my life, what happened to bring it to what I hope and pray was an end, and then what this gift of recovery is about in my lifetime. You know, the hell, oh, I thought the chairman left. That's a terrible sign. The captain leaves the ship. All of it wasn't all true, but one of it was true. I have been blessed with an energy level that has just held up pretty well. I'm now 81 years old. No, not quite. I've only ever thought I'd be. And if there's any good news that I'm going to offer tonight, and there's a ton of it, But one that I want to be sure you understand, and I'm going to open with it, and I hope I close somewhere around it. I'm a guy who has not only been blessed with being recovered from a seemingly hopeless mind of illness, hopeless mind and body. I was sick puppy is what I was. And not only have been recovered from that, but I'm a guy who's been given a way of life that is absolutely unbelievable. And in my 44th year of recovery, and believe me, this is not cheerleader talk. In my 44TH year of recover, I had my very finest year in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I mean that. I mean the most enthusiastic, most dynamic, most creative, most involved year that I've ever had, and I've had a lot of good years. And so the good news is that this ain't a place to just go wither and dry up and die. This is a place for living. And so that's what I want to get at. I don't know why I'm an alcoholic, don't particularly care. Heard a lot of theories, most of them interesting, very few of them very important. They're nice if you're bored and don't have much to do. You can study alcoholism. A lot of people do. A lot are there, read a lot. of them. Not most of them, kind of goofy. My favorite one is that we seem to be people who are not quite like average folk, that we're just sort of a cut above the average slice of life. We're a little more charismatic, a little more dynamic, a lot more dashing personality, a lot more creativity, innovative people, just absolute inventors of stuff. Some say that we're just part of our alphabet, and that we are frustrated artists, and we are just sort of urinating. Now, that's a great theory. I like that one very, very much. It probably ain't true. I've always heard ever since I've been in AA that we were cut above, that we seemed to be a little smarter than the average cat. Only place I have ever heard that discussed is in AA meetings. Nowhere else. But it's a nice thought. I don't know if that's it or not. All I know is this, is that I'm a guy who came into alcoholics and I was going to identify with a soul. Today I identify with practically every alcoholic that I meet, none excluded. They just seem to be a little more like me than they used to be. They must be changing or something. And like most alcoholics, I was a guy who seemed to be born with a little something lacking or a little too much of something. I'm not sure which it was. But whatever it was, it made it a little difficult for me to fit in. Life didn't comfortably comport with people, didn't interact with people very well, always was kind of locked into myself. I became a very self-centered and selfish and isolated person as a child and never grew out of that until well into recovery. And so that's who I was, and kind of an uncomfortable guy. You wouldn't have known it because I was always loud and always made a mess of stuff and was the guy that would cut up at the party. But inside, I never felt what I showed because I was a guy who lived within himself, led two lives. One was the one I really was and the one that I showed to the world around me so I could fit in. Well, that dilemma got sort of solved for me when I discovered the healing effects of alcohol. I started serious drinking, now that mine is a little nibbling at the high school gym, it dances, but I started seriously drinking when I was 16. And I don't think I was born alcoholic, don't Think I was an instant alcoholic, don't THINK I WAS AN ALCOHOLIC AT ALL FOR A LONG TIME. Well, short time. But I was a guy for whom that stuff just worked. It did stuff for me that was important, valuable. Well, I would have been stupid not to drink. My God, anybody got that much stuff for $2 worth of moonshine whiskey would have Been an idiot not to Drink. And so I just loved what that stuff did for me. I loved how it made me feel. It gave me that sense of adequacy and comfort and confidence to do anything that my beady little mind could conceive. There was no longer any isolation from me. I just sort of broke out. And I was not alcoholic. I was a guy who found tremendous relief. I was the guy who enjoyed the party life. I was that guy who enjoy the drinking life, I enjoyed the noise, I've enjoyed the action, I loved all of the goofy behavior that went with it. And that's all that was going on with me. I was just a guy that loved the party and never wanted it to end. And I don't know how many alcoholics are like this, don't hear many people say it, but when I came to the end of, I hope, the end of my autism and looked back, my life looked like a blur. You know, it just sort of started happening, and it happened so quickly that I didn't even know it was going wrong until I was in way beyond the point of no return on my own resources. And so I didnít have a clue of what was happening. I was just sort of a guy that went through banging his way through life and never had any real definition of what WAS happening. I never did have pronounced success or failure. I was just a guy who fell in love with it. I think if I had to characterize the kind of guy I was, I was the kindof guy who, if he took a drink, God only knows what would be happening that night. And I was a guy that always had sort of an unusual ability to get overrated. I was the kind of guy that people always had a good impression of me if I was sober. People made some horrible mistakes with that, but I looked good. I was a kind of a guy who would go in looking for a job and they would hire me for a better job than I'm looking for. My career pattern was always that I'd go in, get a job, and start out pretty decent and didn't just sort of work my way down. I don't remember ever having a promotion in my life on marriage, not a one. I went in the Army right after the First World War and I was an E-1 when I went into it, day one. When I left the Army 38 months later, I was an E minus 1. The last demotion I ever had, the man said we're going to demote you below The grade, if you ever get a promotion, you'll be at the bottom. I never did get one. But I always got overrated. When I was in the military, I was picked out to be an officer. A doofus kid from North Carolina, been nowhere, never done anything, picked out for being an officer, good deal, isn't it? An amazing ability to get overrated Thirty-eight months later, I Was Thrown Out With An Undesirable Discharge For Alcoholism because I also had an uncanny ability to sabotage the best thing that ever happened. The year I got thrown out of the military, went to work in a sales job. The first year I was out, I was elected Salesman of the Year in the city of Charlotte, my company. Pretty good, eh? Fired the same year for alcoholism. Had an opportunity to go to the University of Missouri Law School at Columbia with guaranteed employment at the end of my law training. And I decided to have a little drink instead and go to jail. And that was the story of my life. It was unbelievably good starts and an amazing ability to screw up, no matter what it was, to drink at the wrong time. And so that pattern set in. And so, that was me. I was just this kind of a wild, crazy guy bouncing around and get into a lot of difficulties. Anybody that drinks as much as I did would be bound to get into a little bit of trouble, and so I early on started having encounters with police. I've been locked up a lot of times, don't even know how many times, but a lot. And even though there was some baggage associated with the way I drank, had I been able to continue drinking as ugly as it was, I would be doing it tonight. I'm not here because I heard about a wonderful cause called Alcoholics Anonymous, I said, jeez, I think I'll join and do some volunteer work. I guarantee you that was never a consideration. And the only reason I'm here is that I developed alcoholism. Now, I say, and I mean that, that had I been unable to continue drinking and not develop alcoholism, I would be doing it. But the strange thing is, what happens in recovery, is that today, if somebody hit me over the head with a magic wand and said, son, it's all over, you can go party if you'd like, I wouldn't go. I wouldn' t go. And it's not because I've become a moralist, but this thing has worked to such an extent, I was thinking about it the other day, I cannot think of one possible way that a drink would improve my life in any way whatsoever. I mean none. Improved my personality, my circle of friends, my finances, my place in the community, my professional career, my marriage, anything, even my pleasure. I cannot think of one way that I could possibly use a drink, so I don't think I would go. But that's who I was. I was just kind of a guy running wild in that thing. Developed alcoholism. Like I said, I understand alcoholism, but what it really comes down to is simply this, that once I cross that line into alcoholism as opposed to heavy drinking. I was somebody that couldn't predict what he would do if he took a drink, and my life just sort of became a series, a seemingly endless series of bizarre kinds of incidents that happened where I would start drinking in one place, wind up, and just unbelievable stuff happened. You know, jails all too often, psych wards, wake up in the hospital with casts on and not even know who had an accident, and it seemed to be me. a lot of time waking up in the wrong state woke up married one time to a woman that I didn't even know and I'll guarantee you you've got to be drinking strong liquor for that drink stronger afterward too but that was me I was just one of those kind of wild crazy dudes that just went that way and when I look at it mine was a pretty quick and episodic kind of a career I was a guy that never did have the peaks and valleys. I just sort of started out pretty low and stayed there. I just got worse. I never did ever have any real pinnacle success. But when I look at it and contrast the two ends of that thing, that 16-year-old fellow coming out of high school over in North Carolina, over near Charlotte, and then compared to the guy eight years later had gone through this kind of crazy-looking mess like that and was living up in the city of Flint, Michigan, a city of half a million people up in Michigan. And there's a guy there. Scott, stick your hand up. This man, fine-looking young man, was one of Flint Michigan's finest. He is a retired police officer from Flint, Michigan. And you can tell by looking at him. Stand up, Scott. So they see you. Look at that. Now, that's how young you have to retire as a policeman in Flint, Michigan. Some of his predecessors used to get me on a regular basis, but that's where I wound up in Flint Michigan and living a kind of life that I, honest to God, didn't even know existed when I started out. I wound up, essentially, yeah, I got to that point in my career where I couldn't say employed. And my basic living address the last year that I was there was either jails or hospitals or flopping at somebody's place or on the street or sleeping in the old Rialto Theater and just crazy, crazy stuff like that. Now, I'll assure you, I never had any inclinations of going to a place like that, didn't even know there were places like that but I just sort of went where drunks went, That's where they went, that's where I went, and that's where I crashed and burned as a young fellow in his early 20s. And I never want to forget the devastating nature of that, not in terms of just the squalor and the anger and the social role that I was in, the disgust and humiliation and fear and embarrassment and all of that. But I never wanted to forget what I felt like on the inside as a young person who just died on the inside and was unable to even have any sense of decency or self-respect or even a desire to be that. And I never want to forget that guy who lived in those conditions. And any time I get to thinking about the consequences of alcoholism, to me that's what I want to remember is what happened on the outside to this guy. Now it would be nice, many of you are well aware, I'm not sure, I've got lots of friends here, And I wish, God knows how much I wish that I could tell you that I had enough and sought help and found it and got into AA and things turned around. It just didn't happen. Instead, I was one of those who wound up doing the kind of thing I know every alcoholic in the world fears doing, families probably more, because they have to clearly see what's going on. I was the kind of guy who always knew I was capable of anything, but I never really thought I would ever do major damage to anybody. I didn't intend to, but God knows what will happen when an alcoholic is running wild. One night, I was driving a car up the main street of the city there in Flint, Saginaw street and struck and killed two people on the street. And yeah, I didn't even know it until the next morning when I woke up in jail. And I assumed when I woke up that I was in there for the same as always, you know, just street behavior or whatever. And the jailer came by, knew him well, and I said, when can I get out? And he would usually say 10 o'clock. That was drunk getting out time. And that's normally what he'd say, 10 o'clock, and he'd go. And at that time he said, I hope never, and walked off. Had not a clue what he was talking about, but knew he wasn't kidding. And then some of the other guys in the drunk tank told me that it had been in the papers and that what had happened. And my mind was incapable of accepting the information i mean i knew i could have done anything but that is an unthinkable kind of thing to deal with and my response was just to push it away and then gradually accepted the truth and then 76 days later my family uh they didn't learn it though some somebody i think one of the officers at the police station had to be nobody else had enough sense to call the phone use the phone and i think when the officers called my folks learned that i had family down there and contacted them, and they came up and got an attorney and negotiated my release on bond. I didn't want out, but I didn' t know how to say that I didn''t want out. I knew that I would never drink again. I mean, God, how could you drink after something like that? Once you understand alcoholism, the question changes. How could you not drink after someone like that And I did, of course. When I was released, I stayed sober a day and a half just by walking the streets. I couldn't stand to be around anybody. Couldn't stand or look at anybody. I was ashamed of breathing. I stayed blind drunk from July to November of 1956, and then the 19th of November of 56 was the date of what I hope and pray was my last drink. Didn't know it was going to be, but I knew it was gonna be for a long time because that day I was to be tried on the charge of mass slaughter, and I knew when I went to that court that I was not coming back. There was absolutely no notion. And I didn't even want to come back. When I presented myself to that court, I knew that I was gone and I never believed I would ever come back to society again. It was really, really telling to me when my attorney had told me when they asked you to submit your plea, he had me to plea stand and mute. And I never knew there was such a plea. I was always in a drunk line, you know, and just guilty with an automatic response. and he said, stay in mute. And that's what I pleaded. What more could you say? What more Could you say it? When you wake up in a blackout and you have not a clue what you've done, I couldn't even tell them what I'd done. They had to tell me what I've done. I was coursebound guilty. Sentenced to a 5-15 year sentence in the Michigan State Penitentiary. And I remember that as clearly as if today and I had an instinctive reaction of fear against a very normal thing. But the most real sense of relief I'd ever known at the same time, because I knew it was over. Not optimism, not hope. I knew It Was Done. And I walked into that place the next day, resigned to my fate, never believed I would ever come out of there alive, and I would not have had I tried to get through doing that sentence on my own devices. If I'd tried to do my time in there on street behavior, using my old skills, I'd have got eaten alive before breakfast. And i don't have any illusions That was a nasty place to be. The day I walked in there, there were 6,000 guys locked up in that institution. Some very fine people. Some that are my dear friends to this day. Some that have fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous. One up in Detroit. That's one of my closest friends on this earth, I guess. But a very, very generous portion of the sorriest excuses for human beings I've ever seen. And that was my place to live. And who would have ever believed that in a place like that, that was an absolute just wall-to-wall negativity 24 hours a day, a place where violence and tension and anxiety permeated every breath that you took, a place Where kindness was considered weakness and where the strong survived. Had I tried to cope in there with street behavior, ain't no way. I would not have made it. And so I was a mighty beat-up young fellow. I was the very isolated guy and then was just hammered with that mountain of guilt. When they put me in there, I just sat in my cell, didn't communicate with anybody, nobody. Never visited with anybody. Just sat there like a guy in a coma almost. And then one day, it's an amazing thing to me. I'll never quit being marveled by what happens. With a runaway killer illness like alcoholism, obviously it takes something profound to turn it around. Well, it makes something profound but not necessarily complex. And the thing that amazed me is that I'd had a lot of people talk to me about my alcoholism but one day a guy called me out for an interview and I didn't think I had alcoholism. A lot of other people did think that, but I didn't. And this guy called me out, a little rookie social worker from Michigan State, and interviewed me, did a standard social work interview that I know now, and I did a standardized alcoholic response. I'm confident. I couldn't have told him the truth. I didn'T even know the truth, and the amazing thing was that he made exactly the same diagnosis everybody who had ever talked to me made. never had but one. My God, you're an awful drunk or you drink too much or you're an alcoholic and always it had gone on to something like why don't you quit drinking, you know, or other such wisdom as that. Or why don' you not, why don''t you drink less? You know, quit being so stupid. Well I mean that was all nice, didn't mean anything. And this guy exclaimed about my alcoholism and then he said something I'd never heard before. He said we have a group here at the institution I think you ought to go. It wasn't an order. He didn't draft me or anything like that. It was just sort of a flat statement. We have a group, you oughta go. And I really believe the only reason I went to that first meeting in Groundhog Day of 57 was the day I walked into that first meetin'. That's my sobriety date. And the day I walked in, I had not a clue what to expect. Probably much like you were at your first meet. Didn't have a clue. And they ran the meeting, much like we ran this one. They prayed the same prayer, same prayer. I had not changed one lick, read the same steps, same how it works, traditions, the whole bit. They prayed, and I knew they were going to pray. I mean, I couldn't imagine anybody helping drunks that didn't pray about it. I mean that just sort of went with it. And so a lot of it was sort of in the norm of what I would expect. and uh then they introduced the speaker and when i think back to the things that fell in place to make this program come alive for me you know they were little things but they were critical things and and yeah i'm one who believes that first we were talking some about meetings you know and and and walking into some ragtag misshaped thing called it's supposed to look like Alcoholics Anonymous, I always worry about the impact of that first impression because they're so difficult to overcome. And thank God when I walked into that group, even though it was in a maximum custody penitentiary or maybe because it was within a maximum custodian penitentiary, I've never been in a more solid group. Well, maybe the one I'm in now. But it would be close competition because it was an excellent group of AlcoholicsAnonymous. And many things in that group came to have great meaning and great value for me, and I'll just mention a little of it. I know at that first meeting the thing that I think probably the most critical thing that happened in terms of immediate impact was the guy who spoke at the meeting. It was a guy named Shy Walker. I forget his name, but that's what he went by, Shy Walker, from Kalamazoo, Michigan. And he was a man who was a great man. He was a young guy with an unbelievable history. I've never seen anybody like that, that talked about it. I mean, I've seen people with bad history, but they didn't talk about them. And this guy talked about him like he was a Medal of Honor or something. You know, he got up there and told that story. I never heard a drunk tell anything like that. And I didn't identify with it, and he was as different for me as anybody ever met. I didn' t identify with the experience. I didn''t identify with what the type of fellow he was. He wasn't the same kind of guy I was. And the amazing thing is that I came back the next week. And the only reason that I came back was not curiosity. It was not because I thought I might have a drinking problem. I didn't believe it did. The only thing that brought me back is that i was a guy at the absolute bottom and i know that now. And this guy gave off some signal of life. He didn't say words but he had that galvanizing magnetic spirit of enthusiasm that I think is just as valuable as a transfusion. That guy just gave me a little hint of enthusiasm, that there may be life after surviving and that's the only reason. The next week I found myself sitting in that room, didn't a bit more consider myself a member than anything but I kept back. I stayed in that place three and a half years, never missed a single meeting whether it was once a week or once a day, I never never missed a single one. Now, for a good while, it was not any sense of belonging. Yeah, I sat in there. There were 300 people in that group, and they all said they were alcoholics. I'd say I was too, but it didn't mean a thing. It was just a word. And I am so thankful that that group that I was in was a solid group that went about the purpose of the fifth tradition. You know, I believe that every time we meet, I don't care what the venue. The primary purpose is what it's all about. Just like here tonight, this weekend, we're having a good time. We're having some relaxation. We're pigging out on unknown substances. But that's not our primary purpose. Those things contribute to our primary purpose of reaching the alcoholic who still suffers. And so they're tremendously important. But I think wherever we meet, our general service conference that will meet in three weeks, its primary purpose is those young folks who walked in here tonight or those whoever we are in here who may still be suffering. And so that's what we're about, and that's why that group was about, thank God. They went about it in a great way. They did a super job of introducing new people to Alcoholics Anonymous. They didn't just keep saying, well, come on back, it'll rub off on you, rat manure. It didn't say anything, even rhyme with that. They've explained in very logical terms what this design for living is about. The first three months that I was in this program, guys from that group every week would meet with new people, three-month people, and go over this design-for-living that we call alcoholism anomaly. Take some of the mystery out of it, that it's not some mystique that happens to a fortunate few. It's a very logical, rational plan for living. I've been a manager for, well I'm retired now but I've done a manager for 35 years or so and my whole life has worked around planning and projections and evaluations and designs for things I have never seen a single design that has more logic and power and reason than the design for living in Al-Qaeda didn't look that way to start with but I found it to be so And I was given that just by a bunch of guys. The only difference between them and me is that their stage of repair was just a little ahead of mine. And they turned around and did what we're supposed to do and say to the guy behind them, hey, here's what we did. No rocket scientists, just sort of guys finding their way through. I'll always be grateful for that. It gave me a fundamental grounding in this program that was tremendously important. Wasn't healed. Still didn't believe it was an alcoholic deep down. but I kept coming back. I've always been a reader and I read everything we had, we didn't have a lot. Billy's got the copy of the second booklet ever published today and we had about 12 things when I came into AA and about 125,000 members so we didn t have a lots. I read all that stuff. It was more like reading at the library though, I didn't really hook into it, it It was just, I knew the words. And I'll tell you the next significant thing. One, I'll say one more thing about that group. I'm a group guy because I guess that's where I started and your legacy always comes from its foundation. And so I'm a group guide because looking back, that group meant so much to me because it was the first place I ever invested trust in my life. Now, I was always somebody who didn't believe words. I didn't believe nobody about nothing. And I was not somebody who had any notion that somebody was going to go out of their way to do something for me. Trust was born in Alcoholics Anonymous because I saw people doing exactly what they said they would do, carrying out exactly what their commitments would be. And that That gave me trust that there was something here. The first power that I ever believed in in my life, I mean ever in my life, was the power that sensed in that group. And I'm not talking about collective muscle. I'm talking about a spiritual power that was greater than us that permeated that room. That's the first power I ever believe in, that's the very first power that I ever honestly prayed to. Always be grateful for that. That happens in strong, purposeful groups. It may not happen in just little coffee clutches. It was powerful for me. And so I'll always be grateful to that. Those are tremendously important things. I mentioned it in the beginning. Fellowship is a powerful thing, and I don't minimize it whatsoever. But it isn't enough. It isn't Enough. I'll give you one example of why I think that's so important, why it's so important to have full resolution about this illness. I believe that recovery comes out of surrender. I don't think it's connected much at all to affirmation and all this kind of stuff. It comes out of surrender, it comes out of defeat and how tremendously important it is to have that thing resolved at depth. There's a place in our book where it talks about it and it uses a rather innocuous sounding term in the third chapter where it's describing alcoholism, and it says something like this, that we had to concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. That word concede is tremendously important because it moves to a different level. You know, like I told you I was an alcoholic when I started out. That's one level of admission. That's not first step. That's communication to me. It's where I say, Cliff says he's an alcoholic. I say yeah, me too. Okay, we can talk. That's what level. Concede is an inside job. Concede it's what I do when I know I am absolutely whipped. I'm whipped. And then I concede to my innermost self, man, it's done. And how important that is. I'd been in the program three and a half years, very, very active, strong member. I was a founding member of AA in the town that I was in by then, at 300 ... I was wildly active in AA. Been to a meeting the night before, and then I had to make a trip to Detroit, fall on a plane. Nothing radical about that. It was a jet, my first jet I'd ever seen. They invented those while I was drunk. I woke up, and here they're flying with no propellers. I might have been a little interested in that, but I wasn't rattled about anything. And we got on the plane, and you know the drill. You get on that plane, and that sucker doesn't even level off, and they start hustling that hooch. And I heard that all my life. And they start telling what they got on cart, and they usually pay no attention to it. Might as well be Muzak. I'd pay him no attention. but all at once i heard it you know what i mean i heard it and for why i don't know why but all at once my mind shifted to that that that booze and i developed an overwhelming obsession to drink now i'm not talking about goofy thinking like yeah i'm 30 000 feet in the air who would know Or maybe I'm not really an alcoholic. I have never doubted it one second since I admitted it and conceded it at them. Not that. Or wouldn't a drink be nice? Didn't even enter the picture. There's a place in the book that says something like, I can't quote anything unless I make it up, but it says something likes this, that the time will come with a mind like mine that the thought of a drink will be so powerful that no human power will be sufficient. That ain't poetry. Go back and read that sucker again because that's exactly what happened. I'm a spiritual giant. I'm in AA in my community and I've got no presenting difficulties. I've Got No Major Crisis on My Hands. I've Had No Euphoria. Didn't Win The Lottery. I'm just a guy on a plane who all at once has an absolutely gut-wrenching obsession, and I knew that I was going to drink. And fellow alcoholics, I didn't want to drink, and I was caught in that all-too-familiar dilemma of I don't want a drink, I'm going to drink. Took a dollar out of my pocket, put it in my shirt pocket, sat there sweating bullets. That's why conceding to my innermost self is so important. because I didn't want to drink. And I thought about what you're supposed to do. I'd heard in meetings that you ought to remember your last drink, did that, help some, near enough, and then bad memories won't do it. And then I heard that when the chips are down and you're right up against it and you don't know what to do, pray. Now, I'm the same guy who walked in here that didn't even know they were our fathers, But I developed a belief in that power that I sensed between those 300 hairy-legged convicts. And I believed that power could save my life. So I prayed. It wasn't much of a prayer by preacher standards, only the most profound prayer that man's ever uttered from the depth of my soul. I said, God help me. The obsession was gone as quickly as it came. i believe that happens to folks sometimes who are just not prepared for it and i believe when it happens you're either prepared or you're dead meat there ain't no middle ground and so i had to concede to my innermost self and and the way that started to come about for me was uh i don't think i've ever really intended to do anything i did of substance and alcoholism i don' t know I've ever planfully done stuff. I sort of get trapped into it, and I usually talk as if I've done it a while before I've done it too. And so one day I went to a meeting, didn't mean to do anything life-changing, but fella spoke unusual talking, spent the entire meeting talking about nothing but the inventory step, course step, made the search and credit moral inventory with ourselves. And we got, I knew the words, I'd read that, and I'd seen the stuff in there, and somewhat familiar with what he was saying in the words. But there's a difference between the words and the action. And when he finished that thing, I went over to myself, and said, okay, I'm going to do that. And I'd been sort of thinking about how a nice fellow like me got in such a mess is what I was really thinking about. And what I meant to do, I didn't mean to write any search in his fairly moral image, or I might have caused that. But what I really meant to do was to write a little explanation about how a nice fellow like me got in such a mess and what a victim of circumstances I was, and you know the drill. The founders were wise when they said to write it. I sat down on the edge of my bunk. I started to write. I wrote two lines of what I had in mind, and then I swear to you with absolutely no preparation, it was as if I hit a wall. It was as If I Hit a Wall. And that charade stopped for the first time in my life with all of that pretense and sham and delusional kind of junk. All at once I hit the wall, and it was over. The charade was over, and almost in one motion I shifted in and just opened up, and it wasn't just a torrent of tortured and twisted stuff that had been bound in my wife forever. Wasn't a classic looking inventory, wasn't in columns and spaced out and all that. Didn't have a lot of analytical thinking into it. What some folks call that is a cathartic experience I guess. I just sort of opened up and it just poured. I couldn't have not taken an inventory had I wanted. Wasn't much of an inventory but I'll tell you this, it was without question the most important days' work this old boy has ever done in his entire life, bar none. Bar none. More important than the day I married this little lady. More important than the day my son was born or my daughter was born or my career started or my career ended. More important. Because that foundation became the foundation for the life that makes these things possible. That That day I knew, I conceded to my innermost self that I was beat. I'm an alcoholic. I'm not a heavy drinker, I'm a drunk, I am not an aggravated case, I am not a problem drinker. I'm alcoholic. I have an illness whose nature is that if I take one drink of anything with alcohol in it, I simply cannot predict my behavior. I have never doubted that one second to this day. The foundation for recovery was born in Old Town High. That day, I became a member of Alcoholics Novice. Didn't sign anything, didn't tell anybody, don't have to. But I've never gone to an AA meeting since without knowing 100% why I'm there. I'm a man with a purpose. I'm the man who's committed to a program of recovery. I know why I am here tonight and have absolutely no illusions about it. So it changed the nature of the game. And I've never once since been the lost face in a crowd, not one single time since. So I don't overstate that when I talk about, in my mind, about the importance of conceding and giving up all of that mental kind of jousting with the world and getting up close and then, I am hooked. It was a good fight, but it's over and I lost. and it opens up the door for a new life. And I jumped in with both feet, went wide open. Some people say that Alcoholics Anonymous in a prison is a bit of a qualified type of recovery. You better believe it's a qualified type of discovery. The toughest living I have ever done in my life is living in that zoo. the most powerful product this program has ever given me was allow me to live in that kind of an environment with dignity, with some honor, with some concern for other human beings. My God, it's never been more powerful for me because what I did was the guys didn't... I didn't volunteer to get in service or anything. The guys in that group, that's just what they did. nobody asked me if I wanted to get in on it. They'd just say, come on. And I started functioning as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in full stride and had a wonderful time. Wonderful time. Did the same thing stuff we do here. Started new groups. Started one in a mental health unit one time. You know, loony bin. And interesting meeting. Sometimes we had several going on at the same time, and it did a lot for me. Help Start Narcotics Anonymous came out shortly after I came into AA. It started to exist as a fellowship, and back then we didn't have any dissension stuff much about drugs. We didn't have a lot of the drug culture in the way we have it now. We had a lot horse junkies, and I never had used any of that stuff. It looked dull to me. I sold some, but I never did use any. Anyway, we were sort of mixed up then, and what we noticed was that when drunk to talking, junkies sort of zoned out, and vice versa. And so we got interested in that NA thing it started. Listen to how I say this now, that we, the members of the recovery group, my old home group, helped the guys who were junkies who wanted to do so start a group of narcotics anonymous. We weren't members. We were good neighbors and we helped start that group. One of the things in my legacy, whatever it is, that I am deeply grateful for is that that group exists to this day. Suppose we would have just said, oh, just come on in here and hang out with us. You'll be okay. Put it alone. Put it along. And what we did was said, let's find the place and let's get into this dude. And tremendously important work. Anyway, it was a great experience for me. And it worked for me as effectively as it ever has. I became a free man, locked up like a monkey in a zoo, and I became a free man in every sense of the word except physically. I got turned on to living, you know most alcoholics there are some notable exceptions but most alcoholics do have fairly good drive you know I don't know if it's compulsive behavior or what but we tend to be pretty well geared people. We like to get on with stuff right quick like and most of us first come in want to get two or three jobs make up for lost time. You don't need to say giddy up to most of us, you need to say, whoa. And I was no different. I had an awful lot of energy back then. I won't get off track with this too much, but I was not a pure alcoholic. I don't know if there's ever been such a thing. I used everything I knew about except heroin. That's the only thing I called it. But anything else, if it had any even suggestion, it might make me feel better and especially make the party last longer and then i'd gobble that sucker up i was i was quite a speed mechanic i really really admired speed and uh i chomped that stuff and just go wild for three or four days and just just absolutely dissipate from every pore and then when i finally crash and come out of it i mean i'm just dead and my big old black shirt look like a raccoon with big old black circles around my eyes, dead. And that stuff stays with you. I don't know if I'm permanently brain damaged or not. Sometimes I may be what called me to leave my wife today. It's an old war injury from my battle. I don't if it's permanent brain injury, but I can tell you this, there is a residual effect to that stuff that's interesting. When I got sober and got that stuff out of my system, I discovered that I couldn't sleep in a dark room. That's a little pesky. You know, when you're a cute young thing in a maximum custody penitentiary, I'm the youngest guy in there and I was one of the cutest guys in there. Now, I can just see me going out on the yard and saying, you know, no, I can't sleep. I'm kind of afraid of that. Now, I wasn't going to say that because I knew somebody would offer solace for that condition. But it was a bare thing. I couldn't sleep, and I'm absolutely amazed at the wisdom you hear in alcoholics and alcoholics. Went to a meeting one day, guy mentioned that he had a tremendous problem with being able to sleep when he came in, And he said, what I've learned is that if you can't sleep, stay awake. Well, that's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life, but it made sense. And I started staying awake because I couldn't sleep. I enrolled in Michigan State University over television, finished two years of my college education while I couldn'T sleep. It's amazing what happens with how to make assets out of liability, and that's the kind of thing that I've learned over the years in Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, I didn't have a good time in that place. I hated every second that I lived there, but I came alive, and I became a functioning real member of AlcoholicsAnonymous. When I hit the street, all I had to do was keep doing it. And I just wish I had time to talk about it, but I don't. I'll just kind of gloss over, and then I won't explain why I said what I did to start with. When I hit the street, I don' t know how I compared to other guys walking out of there. I do know this. At the depth of my soul, at the level of that conceding thing, I had resolved where I live that I would never go through that experience again, and I meant that. I meant it. And that's been many, many, years ago, but I mean that just as fervently today. And what I meant was that I could do anything that I had to do to avoid going through that indignity again, and I did mean that. But otherwise, I was just like anybody else. I was a guy with small dreams. I wanted to find a way to make an honest living and hold a job for once. I wanted it to be a part of a community. I wanted her to be part of the family. I wanted them to have friends. I wanted him to be trusted by somebody. Just little things that most people take for granted, and I'm happy to report to you that dreams come true. They truly do. Every little dream I've ever had and some big ones that I wouldn't have even dared to have come true for me. And I'll just tell you this, because I know that everybody is not in nirvana. There are some people who have some rough going. And just in the interest of folks that might be a little shaky in the hope department, let me assure you that there's hope. And let me also assure you that I'm exactly who I said I am. I'm nobody special. I wasn't some brilliant mental society guy who just sort of strayed off and then straightened up and jumped to his potential. No, I'm a guy who turned around by the grace of God and was given a chance in a program called AA. And that's all. I'm absolutely nobody special And when I hit the street, I was a pretty practical-minded sort of guy. I got immediately active. I started doing prison work right after I got out. Two months after I was out, I Was Named Outside Sponsor of a Prison. Now you imagine, now nobody usually cuts cartwheels getting something like that. But can you imagine what that meant for me? I had to walk out of one of these places where I was absolutely a zero. I wasn't at the bottom of the barrel. They moved it over and dug a hole. That's where I went. And too much later, I'm a trusted servant going back into one of those places and out. A tremendous thing. About the same time, my parole supervisor came to me one day and he said, Tom, you're real active in AA, and it concerned me a little because I thought he would want me to slow down, and I wouldn't do that. I knew it. And he said wouldn't it help you if you could drive? And I said yes, sir, but I can't like you didn't know. And he said, well, let me take a look at that. And a little later, a couple weeks, he called me and said, meet me at the Sears store. And I had my sister drive me up there. And the story is absolutely true. That Sears story was just one long room and at the rear end of it was a counter and my man was standing back there with a guy I didn't know who turned out to be the licensee and went back, introduced me to the guy, we talked a bit. Visiting is all we did. I didn't take a road test, a written test, a verbal test, no test. When we got through visiting, the guy handed me a driver's license. Didn't even pay for it. Now you know that there's something shaky about that. There just can't be that that's only up and up. But I've been driving ever since. You can call that anything you like. It wouldn't matter to me in the least. Except political connections, don't call it that now. I knew one politician in that county, that was the sheriff for whom I was a regular customer. I don't think he would have been an advocate. What I believe is this, is that when I give my life to this simple program and I agree to do his work, the walls will come down, and I don' t care what those walls are. I can't help but believe that, not only on the evidence of my life, but on the unbelievable life of, God knows, you guys have seen them just like I have, the unbelievable recoveries and restorations that are commonplace. That are commonplaced. And so it's just a powerful thing that if I'd been planning and scheming and trying to make stuff happen like that, the old guy trying to be in charge, I guarantee you I'd be walking today. But I gave my life to this simple program and let it take me into a new life. And two years after that, I was sitting in my house one day, got a call from our state capitol. And the guy, I met the guy that was on the phone one time, and he asked me, he identified himself. He had visited the group for which I was sponsored at one time. And the only time I'd ever seen him. He got on the phone and he said, Mr. Ivester, we're expanding the rehabilitation program in our prison system and we were wondering if you would consider accepting a position in that. And the first thing I said to that guy, now back then there had never been an ex-con hired or anything like that. I don't think anybody had ever even thought of it. I sure hadn't. And so he told me that and I said, my God, man, I'd rather do that. First thing I did was, do you know who you're talking to? And he said, yeah, we know you better than you know yourself, probably. And they did. And inside, you know what I said. There ain't no way, man. They had never done it like that. They ain't going to start with me, but they did, and offered me a job as a rehab supervisor and a rehab officer in the corrections system. And it was just absolutely unbelievable. I mean, there ain't any way that can happen. But sure enough, I went to work We had a marvelous time for a number of years. That's what I did. Worked in rehab, started to work my way up a little bit. Wasn't trying to, but it's the amazing thing about good performance. It just pushes you up sometimes further than you want to go. And that's what happened there. I went up through and moved into management, and one day the head of our system called me in and asked me to come by. He said, Tom, I've got an assignment I'd like you to take. And I said, What? Now, normally he'd want me to pitch hit for him somewhere. He said, I would like you to take over an institution as warden. And I swear to God, even though I was in the system, that is still an unbelievable thing. To me, I don't know of it ever happening anywhere else in the world except one. I hear rumors of Montana. I'm going to check that sucker out. I need a companion somewhere. And I didn't really want to do it, but I agreed and then finally did. And for the next 20 years that's what I did was ran institutions and had a – it was a grand career. It's a lousy job, but i had a grand career. Enormous power in that job. That's one of the reasons I took it, not to be powerful, but I just thought that if I had enough power and influence, I might be able to do some things that needed done. And that did indeed happen. I have some treasured memories of things that I was able to make a contribution, some of which were directly on my amends list that were related to what I was unable to do professionally. So that was a tremendously fine experience. And then the last several years, I was not running an institution. I retired December 1, and I really know how to retire. I uh to the untrained eye you wouldn't see much difference that I retired the way I think I would have wanted to do it some people have a sort of a luncheon and they go out and eat hot dogs or whatever I spent the last night of my employment in a close custody institution in the east part of our at eastern part of state sort of referee and arrange for and then dropped in on an AA meeting with about 80% retarded guys in the prison, and I finished up. It wouldn't have had any difference. And when I retired, I had already been nominated as the Correctional Facilities Committee chair for North Carolina, so I stepped out. The only difference was I just quit getting a paycheck. And now I'm still involved in prison just as much as ever, and I'm back where I started. That's a great place. I'm now a full-time volunteer in a system in which I had a great career. So it's a strange kind of a homecoming. That's my professional deal. I mention that because of the, I hope, the obvious implications of hope in that because if that can happen to me, God only knows what can happen. Any alcoholic will give himself to this program. i'll just wrap up around this i'm i'm uh i'm an enormously fortunate man i've been richly rewarded now because i've i've done as busy in aa for 44 years as anybody i've ever met i've been an incredibly busy man in our class but i have been the most richly rewarded man that i know and and life has been good we've had a good family life and we've had a good home, and I don't take that for granted. I'll say just one thing and then wrap up on what I want to do about why I'm still enthusiastic all these years. Many people, I know that there are a number of people in this room who are active in service, and I hope all of y'all, because for my money, that's where the joy is. That's where they excite me. Now, there's a place in the book where it says that in our recovery, our imagination will be fired. I guarantee you not drinking will not fire imagination. It's what I do with that. And it's in what I'm doing, my active being a channel in this program that fires my imagination. And so I hope very much that you're involved in that. I've been involved up to my ears. and anybody that's involved up to their ears has concerns you worry sometimes about the impact on family and as much as I've been busy I've always I've got a young family and I have concerns I have a wife there's one thing for me to be heroic can get on a plane and go to Kansas and miss planes and sleep over not sitting in a thing that's one time but that's nothing compared to the family I leave behind who have to handle every single thing that happens and so you can't help but worry when you're active in the program about the price you pay well I'll tell you this after 44 years of that kind of thing if there is anything in my family that has been injuriously impacted by this activity I I don't know. We have been enormously blessed and enhanced. Kids have done well. We haven't even been separated. We've been separated sometimes in the house, but we haven't been separated outside, you know, in other ways. But it's been a good deal. And this program is at the heart of it. This little gal never saw me drink. I was sober 11 years when we married. And I heard her tell somebody one night, had it not been for Al-Anon, our marriage wouldn't have survived the hot minute. I believe it's enormously important for families to recover together so that there is a spiritual kind of communion about what's going on in devices. The way I look at it is this, that Alcoholics Anonymous, sometimes we say that AA has got to be here, jobs here. I'm one who believes that Alcoholics Anonymous does not compete with anything in my life. I mean none. If there's anything in Alcoholics Andonymous that I'm doing that's competing with anything else in my wife, I'm not doing it right. If it doesn't make me a better husband, a better employee, a better supervisor, a greater manager, a bigger citizen, I guarantee you I'm going to be a better person. I'm just not doing anything right. So it's not designed to be hurtful. It's designed to bring peace, harmony, joy, worth, and purpose to a life. And so I'm a tremendously rewarded guy. I'm the guy who believes that this is a plan for living. It's not a sideline activity that I visit. This is a way of life. And I'm an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Panzer and I go to the same group in North Carolina. And I am a strong, active member of Alcoholic Anonymous, as I didn't used to be. I'm a guy who is in it as deeply as I'm able to be in it, and a guy that's committed to what's going on. And it's not because I'm the lonely guy. I'm guy that is committed to home groups, and my group is a strong group is what I want. I want a strong group for two reasons. One, I want a place that I can go and the climate is healing. I want to be a place where it's solution oriented, where you can walk in and you feel like we're dealing in the business of getting better. I want that for myself. In addition to that, I don't want to I want my home group to be a strong place because it's where I do my work. Now, I Don't care how cute and wise and send where I might be with somebody I'm working with. If I don't have a strong group to take them to, I'm false advertising because I'm no better than what I can deliver. See, I believe that in sponsorship, my job is simple. It's to help the person understand that there's a solution and that I'm not it. I'm the channel. And so my group is where I want to have confidence that if I take somebody, they're going to have a fighting chance to deal with an absolute killer illness. And so I wrote my home group for that, and I want it to be a good place. And it is a good space. But the product of that is a guy, and I don't think I've gone slap happy. I'm a guy in my 44th year, I truly am having my best year. So far, I've never sponsored a soul that could keep up with me. Not race it either, but it's just something that happens. I hear old-timers talking about the old days and romancing what we used to be. You won't hear me talking about what we use to do unless I'm making a point because I'm busy with what I'm doing today. If you're not on fire with your recovery, if you're not so doggone grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous that you can't sit still, if you can wait to get back home so you can check on those folks that you're working with, if you're hooked into this thing knowing that you are a vital link in the chain that reaches around this world, for God's sake, man, don't let it pass you by. For you're the loser when you do that. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you for watching.