The Misery of Loneliness That Only an Alcoholic Understands – Ray M.

I'm Ray Mawson. I'm a responsible alcoholic. What a fellowship. If you missed last night's meeting, you missed a marvelous experience. I had a great time. I've still been letting it filter through my system. What a wonderful experience it was. And I know the rest of the week is going to be great. I met God this morning. I got up early and I've already met Him. I'm always amazed He's up before I get up. Always. I never get him up, and I've always appreciated the fact that I could meet God. Had a good time already today. Stopped by to say hello to Bob. I want to thank him for Bob inviting me to be here and to thank the committee for allowing that to happen. I always like to check with Bob and ask him how long the tape is. and he told me this morning that the tape that he had for me was only 70 minutes. So I warn you ahead of time. I learned a lot of things from other people and I learned that I really don't have to look at my watch to tell how long I'm going to talk. I learned how to shorten or lengthen my AA talk from an old preacher friend of mine who said he learned it from somebody else, but this is what he did. Now, I think it's good practice. He said when he went to a place, he always was able to stop on time. And one Sunday in a new church, he preached and he did real well. And along about two or three months after he had been there, he always stopped his preaching at five minutes till twelve. And they got out of church and got down to Shoney's before the Baptists did, and that made everybody happy. He did that every Sunday And one of the church members came up to him one Sunday And said to him, Reverend, I want to ask you a question How do you do that? How do You stop every Sunday? You never look at your watch You never check anything You just stop at five minutes to twelve And he said, well, I learned it this way He said, right before I start to talk I put a cough drop in my mouth And when that cough drop dissolves Wherever I am, I just quit. Well, he thought that was an excellent idea. And a few Sundays after that, the old boy went 1215 and 1230. At a quarter of one, people started getting up. You know, when people get up to leave you, you know you've gone too long. So he stopped, and that boy walked up to him afterwards and said to him, Reverend, what happened this morning? Why did you go so long? He said, you Know, I put a damn button in my mouth by mistake. But I want to assure you that I've got a cough drop and we will not go too long because Francine is going to talk here in just a short while. I was stirred last night by what Ken said about his grandchildren or his grandchild. I've Got a Little Eight-Year-Old Grandson comes to see me every once in a while. Everybody on my daddy's side is an alcoholic if they're males. It just seemed like that's the prerequisite. You've got to drink and be a male, and you're going to be an alcoholic. And this little boy was visiting with us, and he was hearing a lot of things about the program when he was about four years old. He couldn't quite get some of the little sayings, but one morning as I started to work and he Was there, he said to me as I Started out the door, Be easy, Papa. He almost had it. Not long ago I had an experience that I want to share with you It moved me And it helped me realize that what we've got is a gift of God And we need to pass it on to anybody we can I put him in the car one day Now he's eight And he's an excellent reader in the second grade Third grade, I guess now I keep a big book in my car and we were riding around and we were talking. And he picked this book up and he said to me, Papa, this is the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, isn't it? And I said, yes it is, Darrell. And he opened it up and I said, why don't you turn over there to about page 58 and read some to me. And he started reading the steps and here was an eight-year-old boy who probably is destined if he takes a drink to become one of us who, at eight years old, has been introduced to the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe that's what it's all about for us. Maybe we've got to start early with the little fellas and the little girls to help them understand that that disease, insidious as it is, begins so early. You see, I wasn't insane when I drank. I didn't get insane whenI drank. I got insane before I ever took a drink. I lived in an insane environment. I didn't know there was a normal environment. I look back on it now, and it looked pretty normal. Even today, it looks pretty normal, but I was insane before I ever got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm glad you're here. I heard the cutest story not long ago. I want to share it with you. I don't think it has anything to do with what I'm going to say this morning, but it's a good story, and I like to pass them on. A little five-year-old boy was at home, and the telephone rang. And he picked up the telephone and said in a very quiet, low voice, Hello. And the person on the other end said, May I speak to your mother? She's busy. Well, let me speak to Daddy. He's busy too. Who else is there? The firemen. Well, Let me speak To the firemen, They're busy too Who else Is there? The police. Well, let me speak to police. They're busy. And the boy said, what are they doing? They're looking for me. I tell you that only that when I heard it, I said to myself, that little fellow's going to be one of us. I can't even begin to tell you anything about my recovery until I tell you where I came from. I was born in a little mill village. I hope you know what that is, Cotton Mill Town up in North Carolina. I lived in a small town called Cotton Mill Village. I lived there in a middle mill house, little Cotton Mill village house, three rooms, no bath. I had a mom and a dad and a sister. Man, I hated that place. They called me a lint head. I didn't like that. My dad was a drunk, and I didn' t like that . . . He wasn' t a drunk. He was a town alcoholic. He was the town drunk. I grew up in that environment. My mother was untreated, didn' T know anything about what treatment was. We didn' Te know my dad had a disease. We just thought he was mean as hell. Now, I learned to hate him. I don't think I'd have a thing in the world to do with my drinking, but I learned to hate Him. Now, that was a part of my growing up. I learned an awful lot from my parents. I guess most of the things we know we learn from our parents. About 90% of all I know, I suppose, I learn from them. I learned how to drink from my daddy. He was a periodic drinker. I never understood that But he was periodic He could drink when he wanted to It seemed like And I always thought he drank when he didn't want to But mom said he drank When he wanted too Lived in a little three room house And you know There's not much space in there When there are four of you living there And dad couldn't drink in the house He was not allowed to have social drinks In that little house Mama was the authority And he couldn't drank there But he could drink in a Little Pantry off to the left of the little kitchen. When he'd choose to drink, he'd go in that little pantry and back in the corner on the floor in a jar was his drink. And he'd shut the door and I could hear him rustling around and moving that bag and twisting that top off. And I'd hear him say, God Almighty, that's good! And then he'd come in two or three times come out, and about the third time in he'd leave the door open and I'd watch him. And he began to feel good. I couldn't understand how he felt so good. He'd come out and he'd want to dance with Mama, and Mama wouldn't dance with him. And he'd pet her up on the back end and she wouldn't allow that. And she'd get mad and he would leave. I never remembered the hell that went on. I just remembered what he felt like for a few minutes, maybe an hour. If Mama wouldn't dance with him, he'd get a broom and he'd hold that broom close to him and dance all over the kitchen. And I thought, that's the dumbest, foolishest old man I've ever known in my life. And my friends, I tell you, I drank enough alcohol and I danced with a lot of brooms. People don't dance with drunks I learned that from Dad My dad was drafted in the Second World War Long about 1942 He spent about three and a half years In the service I prayed for him every day I prayed he'd die I say that to you today I prayed every day That that man would not come back into that home But he did I share those basic Early years with you because it's important for me to realize where I came from. None of that made me become an alcoholic. Drinking made me became an alcoholic Drinking too much made me becoming an alcoholic but something happened in that little home that I learned how to drink. My wife, I met this lady that I'm married to we've been married a long time we had a little hiatus in between about four years of divorce but we've being married a lot of time You can look at us and tell that. But we got married, and this was a little woman that lived the other side of the town. And in my little hometown, the train track runs, the railroad track runs directly down the town On one side of town, there are no mill village houses on the east side. And on the west side where I lived, all of that part is mill village. And I thought if I could ever meet somebody, some woman from the other site of town That I'd probably be the luckiest man in the world. And one night, one night we got together. And I'm not sure that she had what I wanted, except she had the location that I thought was important. And in that relationship, a marriage developed. I thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen in my life. She smelled good. She looked good. She felt good. And you know, I wanted what she had. And I went after it and I got it. And we tried to live happily ever after. I quit high school when I was 16 years old because I didn't want to go to school. And if you live in my little hometown, if you do anything other than work in the cotton mill, you've got to leave there because that's all there is. So I went to work in a cotton mill. Ben and I were married. In a couple of years, we had our first child starting. And something happened to me, and I want to share this with you because I think it's so important in my life. It's what has made me across the years as an individual. The Almighty that I did not understand, that I had disassociated myself with when He failed to answer the prayer that I have made that my father die, get killed. I didn't have anything to do with Him. But God got me from the rear end. You know, He gets us that way. It was years later that he got me again from the rear end. I didn't want to get sober. God knows I didn'T want to getsober. I had no intentions of doing what God wanted me to do in sobriety, but God gets us sometimes when we don't want Him to get us. And God got me from the rear end. And I had what you Georgia folks will understand. I had a conversion experience. I was saved. Okay? I'd never been to church. I didn' t go to church, Church was not a part of my life, but God got me from the rear end and I was converted. And a year or so later, I had a call to the Christian ministry. In other words, God called me to preach. My God, I hade quit school when I was 16 years old. I didn't even have an education. Talked to an old fellow and he told me you had to go to school if you were going to be a preacher. So I had to do that. Had to go back to high school, back on to college and to graduate school. In that 13 to 14 year period, there was not a cleaner living individual than I. And I know that. As I inventory my life, I lived a very good life, an honest, good life. I like to say it this way. I didn't drink, smoke, cheat, steal. Hardly ever looked at women. I was a clean living person. Betty and I had a great Christian family. But what had happened in my earlier years Had already formulated my life I started drinking When I was just a young fellow I said to myself one day If my dad's not home and mama's not here I'm going to go in that pantry And I'm gonna get some of that stuff That makes him feel good And I slipped in one day And I screwed the top off And I turned the jar up And I took a drink and I said exactly what he said, and I acted just like he did. And I'm going to tell you, I'm not sure it made me feel good. I can't remember a drink ever making me feel good, but this is what it did for me. When I had a drink, it didn't make a damn bit of difference if I was a glint head. When I Had a Drink, my dad wasn't an alcoholic. Hell, he was a king of the road. And when I had to drink, I liked Mama. And when i had a drank, I liked everybody. And I made it a practice in my life as soon as I could, as long as I could, I had a drink. And so by the time I had had that conversion experience, I probably was already a blooming alcoholic. So for 13 years, I didn't have a drink. I didn' t do bad stuff. And then one day, you know that day comes, doesn' t it? That day comes to all of us who sit here. We have it. One day, playing golf with a young physician, I said to him, Bob, I can't sleep at night I'm going to Duke Divinity School down in Durham I'm driving 60 miles a day Back and forth 120 miles each way Both ways I got two big old Methodist churches They're about to work me to death And I can's sleep And he said, why don't you come by my office I'll give you something I tell this because pills Early in my life Was a part of it Prescription pills But those pills led me into that drug of choice. And he gave me that little yellow sleep and all sleeping capsule that changed my whole life. It altered my whole life. It did exactly what I wanted to do. It put me to sleep made me feel good and I got up the next morning went on about my work and did what I was supposed to do but you're supposed to take one of them a night and they give you 30 and after a period of time one wouldn't do and I took two and damned if I could make 30 pills last 30 days if I took two of them a night it just wouldn't work out. I did something that I hadn't done in years. I went back to see that doctor. I said to him, Bob, my wife lost that prescription. Throw it away. I was always blaming Betty for everything. I read the Bible a lot and I found out that, you know, God... Adam said to God when he caught him in the garden, damn, he's putting some clothes on. And God said to Him, what's wrong with you, fella? Why did you do that? Remember what He said to John? Eve made me do it. Well, I said, they threw it away. And he said, that's not a problem. He gave me another prescription. And now I've started a pattern. One doctor, two drugstores, two prescriptions. Nineteen years later, it almost led me to hell. It did lead me into the gates of hell. I don't want to spend much time telling you what happened, but you know what happened. It didn't take me long. When I could start drinking, I did drink. And from then on out, it was downhill. deal. It's hard. I stood in envy of you people. Y'all walked into the liquor store and bought it when you wanted to. Had no trouble, did you? Anybody here ever had any trouble buying it? A couple of you. Yeah, Sunday school teacher probably. Preachers have a hard time buying liquor. I used to sit for hours, well not hours, sometimes 30-40 minutes outside that liquor store. I usually went to those self-serve deals where you could run in and run out, I'd sit for a long time and I'd watch and watch and when it would be empty. Now this was not in my hometown. It'd be other places. I'd run in that store and pick my bottle up and I'D run back out. One day I was going in and one of my church members was coming out. And I said, I didn't say anything to him, he didn't saying anything to me, and we haven't spoken about that matter since. Awfully hard. It's extremely hard. I had one special place in the last few years of my drinking, one special store I could buy it in. People couldn't see me there. It was just one of those little isolated places where you never saw anybody. But some fool had put one of these billboard signs up as I crossed to go into the store that said, Jesus is coming soon. And I'd look at that and I'd think, God, I hope he doesn't come today. One night, one day into that drinking period Now church people didn't know I was drinking Isn't that amazing how we can fool people? It was baffling stuff to them There's all kind of problems but alcohol was never a part of it I said to the lovely lady that I'd married Betty, I don't love you anymore You see what had happened was that I still loved her But I didn't even know how to love her You know what I mean. She was good, honest. I was doing everything that was wrong. I'd almost had to quit preaching. It's difficult to preach down to people about things they're not supposed to be doing when you're doing them all. You know, adultery, stealing, cheating. I got to where I had to preach on all kinds of little social issues, you know. Don't play bingo and be careful who you gamble with and that kind of stuff. Don't talk about those main issues. When I said to Betty, I don't love you anymore, it's hard for someone to love you when you've told them you don't live with them. And that led to some real tragic times in our life. We separated a lot. You know the story. Eventually we got a divorce. I still was a minister and still had my credentials with the church, but I had gotten me another job. I didn't have to preach to people. I was working for the state of North Carolina. Back in North Carolina, we had a terrible upheaval. Democrats thought it was a few years ago, 15 years ago that Republicans were elected, the first time in many years. And I happened to be registered as a Republican and they offered this old drunk a job, a very responsible job. And I took that job. Everybody that I worked with around me had a divorce. Well, it was very fashionable to have one in the 70s. So I just got one. Betty and I weren't getting along, so I just Got Me a Divorce. I want to tell you just a couple little things that happened during that divorce period. My drinking accelerated. You know, when you get free, if you've ever been married to somebody that didn't like you to drink and you get away from that, my God, you can just be free to drink like you want to. And I decided I'd get me a bar. Now, the method is partially don't furnish bars. And, you know, in the church's house, it's not standard equipment. And I never had a bar. I didn't know how to drink out of one anyway. I drank like my daddy did, out of the cabinet and hidden somewhere. But anyway, when we got us a divorce, separation, headed toward a divorce. I went out and got me a swinging singles apartment. I was 42 years old. I never swung in my life. By God, I got married when I was 18 and I wanted to swing. And I went out to a place and got me a little apartment in Swinging Singles. It was called the Hilton West. Isn't that alcoholic? Sounds good. And then I went and bought me a bar, and then I Went to the liquor store and got Me a buggy. By God, I wasn't in the church anymore. I didn't have any church people to see me, and I got me A buggy, and I stood proud and tall, and I walked around and put me a lot of stuff In the buggy now. I didn' t know how to mix a drink. I drank it straight, but I got it. It's very important for me to tell you this because I need to hear it always. My drinking didn't change. I just got me another house and got a place to keep it, but my drinking didn'T change. Every time I walked, every time I took a drink, I had a drinking chair, a liquor cabinet, and that was about the only furniture I had. I had mattress upstairs on the floor in that swagging singles apartment. Now, this drunk's idea was when I got into that wonderful apartment and all the women in the world were going to come see me. And I was going to take them up those 20 steps to the mattress on the floor in the bedroom. Nobody ever came, and I never took a drink from that bar. My drinking took place like this. I walked up the steps, reached back in the closet on the door, on the lower, in a bag, stripped the top down, poured me a glass full, went back downstairs, sat down to take another drink. When that one was gone, repeat after repeat after repeating. I didn't change a pattern. Drinking was the same. Well, I didn' t stay there long, you know, stayed a year. I didn''t do any swinging and nobody ever came to drink with me. And I moved. I moved to a new location across town. You know, when we make moves, we do drastic moves. I moved from that swinging apartment to a senior citizen's complex. And I was 44 years old. And I got me a little duplex apartment in that little senior citizens group near the high school. Respectable little community. And I couldn't find anybody to drink with. People had quit talking to me. You might have come that far yourself, but they just didn't talk. Betty had told me if you call me anymore, I'm going to call the police. And I didn't want that to happen. Nobody came to see me. And one evening, while I sat alone in the misery of loneliness that only an alcoholic understands, that loneliness that Al-Anon people don't understand. You Al-Ans always were waiting on us to come back, waiting on uns to call, waiting on ns to do something foolish so that you could be ready. Well, I wasn't waiting on anybody. Nobody ever called me. Nobody ever expected anything from me. But one night I said, nobody was talking to me on the phone anymore, so I said out loud to myself, I'm going to get me somebody over here. I loaded up a shotgun, double-barrel shotgun with buckshot. I walked out in front of that little duplex apartment about 2 o'clock in the morning, and in my loneliness and craziness, I shot the window out in the bedroom. I ran back in the house and hid that gun Got in the bed, fell out in the floor Picked up the telephone Called the police and said to them Somebody's shooting at me That seemed logical to me About five minutes or less Three or four squad cars rolled up in front of the house Sirens whining, lights flashing And they ran into the house And looked all over the place Ran out and looked everywhere started asking me questions, and I'm already into it and can't get out of it now. And that story begins to grow. I walked out when they were leaving and looked out across the yard, and there must have been 25 or 30 little senior citizen men and women. Now, folks, about six weeks or more after that, I wasn't lonely at night. Those little ladies were down there wanting to know, Reverend, who do you think that was shooting? That story got bigger and bigger and bigger. And the last night the detective was there, the last day as he came out to conclude his investigation, several weeks later he said to me, You know, brother, I believe I'd leave that man's wife alone. Now in the midst of all that craziness, I knew that something was wrong. I could remember when it was good you see there were 13 to 14 years of my life when I didn't drink that were good years I wanted to be like that again I wanted to put it back in place and I thought if I could just get me a couple of churches just little churches back like it used to be when I was a young minister and dedicated and consecrated And I went to see the bishop At that time we had a black man as a bishop In the Western North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Church He was a Mississippi man Very stern I drove a hundred miles with an appointment And sat down with him I said to him, Bishop This is what I've come for today I want a couple of churches And he said, Brother Moss You're divorced, aren't you? I said, well, I am And he says, I've never given a Methodist minister who's divorced a church. Now, we do think quick on our feet. I said, Bishop, I'm about to get married. And he said, Who are you going to marry? And I said I'm going to remarry Betty. Now, he liked Betty. I knew that. And he says, Now, if you can do that I'll give you a couple of churches. Well, I had 100 miles to make some plans. And you know how our mind moves. And when I got back to that little town that city that we lived in She lived on one side of the town. I lived on the other. I called her up. And with all that persuasive power of an alcoholic, I convinced her to start seeing me again. And we had, we wined and dined. I spent more money on her than I'd ever spent before. And I have spent, I spent most of my time more money only then than I did have ever since we remarried. One night when the light was low, the candle was lit and the wine was poured and I'm about half drunk. I want to show you out on folks how sick you were. I said to her, Betty, will you remarry me? And in her insanity, she said, I will. And we did. And I stood up before we stood up there in the Methodist church, had my district superintendent to do it. I wanted the bishop to hear about it. And we were married, remarried. Now, I know you think I'm crazy, but I'll tell you one thing I didn't do. I didn'T buy new rings. I kept the old ones. That began the three years of total crazy living. We moved to three little churches. My God, they gave me three churches. And that was below my dignity to have three churches I thought they ought to give me at least one big one if I had to put them all together. But it turned out to be a blessing for an alcoholic. The people over here at this little church would say, Reverend, we haven't seen you lately. And I'd say, well, I've been visiting the folks over here at this church. And these people would say, we haven't seen you lately, Reverend. I said, well, I've been visiting the people over here. And the truth of the matter was, I was laid up down to late drunk. Three years of hell. I went there knowing that I'd never take another drink. God had put my family back together. I had a church. I had the ability now to do exactly what I ought to be doing. And it didn't work. And it worked all right until somebody asked me to have a drink with them. An old Presbyterian boy lived down across the way. I never drank with Methodists. I didn't drink from my own denomination, but this old boy was a Presbyperian. And he said, Reverend, we're going to have Labor Day party. I'd been there in that three months. Those people liked me and I liked them. We were getting along well together. My wife and I were at least having a fairly good time. and this old boy invited us over the next day for a Labor Day party. Now, before he came, he wanted to check me out. He said, do you drink? And I said, well, I do once in a while. He said、Well, come on over. And I did and they carried me home. And that began three years of literal hell. I wonder how many of you, by show of hands, how many have ever been to a psychiatric hospital? My God, isn't that amazing? Those of you who haven't, as a patient, ought to try it. You really ought to. I had three admissions to psychiatric hospitals, and one of them I thought was long-term. Thirty days is a long time in a psych hospital. For three years, I ran crazy, absolutely crazy in that church, those three churches. I did things that were awfully hard for me to make amends for. I buried people that I didn't even know died until after I got sober. I married young couples that I had no idea had been married. And I visited the sick in the hospital. I stood behind a sacred desk and I preached the Word of God as I knew it. But the insane thing was that I'd start out on Sunday morning still reeling and rocking, and those folks would say, Reverend, that was a good sermon. I'm not sure who was the sickest, me or them. I had an awful hard time making those amends. Well, my miracle happened as yours did and all of us have one and I want to share my miracle with you. I picked up the telephone one day and I called the psychiatrist that I'd been seeing for about ten years. I must have paid him $10,000 to lie to me. Maybe more than that. But I told him the truth. That was the beginning of a miracle when I told Him the truth Doctor, I'm drinking too much and I need some help. Come on over to the hospital about 50 miles away or 60. I'll put you in. Well, I'd been there before and they hadn't helped me and I didn't know why they were going to be able to do so this time. But it went over. Now, this had to be a part of the miracle. If you've never been in a psychiatric hospital, they lock the doors. You can't get out. But alcoholics get well quick. Have you ever noticed that? How we get on our feet quick. Hell, we don't want anybody to know we're alcoholics. We get up and move fast. And about three days, we have shook it off and we're okay. And the first thing you know, first thing I knew, they had me on the staff. I was the assistant to the assistant. It snowed real big that year, 1980, when I was in hopefully the last admission to a psychiatric hospital. We had about 15 adolescents on that wing mixed in with the adults, and I was a real cool dude, you know. And those kids liked me. At least I thought they did. It snowed real big, and I said to the nurses, it'd be very therapeutic if I'd take these children outside and we'd get some snow and we would make some snow cream. They'd never heard of it. They thought it would be therapeutic. So I got all 15 or 16 of them, and we went down the elevator with our buckets in our hand. Parking lot was closed, too big of snow for people to get in, and we straightened up the snow. Those kids got me in a powwow circle, you know, just sitting around on the ground. There I was, 48 years old, passing around something. I smoked it. Before long, I was flying. I was up on the ninth story, flying around with them up there. We made our way back in, and you know, that was the beginning of the miracle of change in my life. I realized something was bad wrong. I called the doctor, and I told him. And I said, you know, they'd given me a pass and I could go in and out. He said, now don't get me in trouble. I said I'm going to the movie. You know where I went? Went to the bar. Got me a couple of fists when I came back. I told him, I said doctor I'm drinking more liquor here. Smoking more stuff that I don't know what it is. I need to get out of this place. He came over the next morning. Told me he said I am chief of staff and that couldn't be happening. And I blew my breath to his face and he discharged me. And I went back to that old church, that old parsonage, and once again everybody had left me. And there it was. And I said to myself, I'll never get sober again. I don't want to even try. Don't want a try. But a miracle happened. My wife and the only friend I had got together. and they remembered an old boy that I hadn't known myself, drunk a lot of liquor with Bob. They called him and he had gotten into a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, Bob Kane. Bob put me in his car and I can remember some of the things Bob told me. He never told me what my wife did. He never scolded me. He didn't kick my butt. But Bob said, Ray, he told me what had happened to him and how he had stopped drinking. And I wasn't interested in hearing it, but I sure wanted to be like Bob. And one of the key things that he said to me that I've never forgotten is, Ray, I'm an alcoholic, and I know how you feel. Now, nobody had ever told me that. I can't remember from the time I was a little fella till that date that anybody had ever called me that they knew how I felt. But he did He took me to a hospital And the next morning when I woke up I'd been in a lot of hospitals God, I've been in dozens of them Across the years I knew how to get out You have to find out two things First, you've got to find OUT where you are And secondly, you're got to Find OUT who your doctor is They will not let you out of a hospital If you can't get your doctor To discharge you And if you go AMA Against medical advice Your insurance won't pay sometimes And I didn't want that to happen So I said to myself, now, I'm not going to let anybody know I don't know where I am. But whenever somebody walks in here, I am going to ask them so that they won't know that I don' t know. And when this pretty little girl walked in, I knew that she was a nurse. She was dressed like one. And I said, honey, where am I? And who is my doctor? And these are the words she said to me. Reverend Moss, when you were my mom and daddy's preacher, and I wanted to die. I'd puked all over myself. I was sick, shaking, having delusions. I just wanted to Die, but I couldn't. I said, Tell me where I am, and she told me. She said, You're in Ashburn, North Carolina. And I thought, Gee whiz, all of this has been a bad dream because it was 19 years prior to that date that the young doctor that I'd gone to see that I was playing golf with had given me the sleeping pill in that little town. My son was born in that Little Hospital. And I thought, my God, it's all been a dream. But it wasn't. And the next morning, the doctor who, when I last saw him, was a young man, now he'd gotten old like me, came and sat down on the side of the bed, stuck his hand in my hand and said to me, Ray, my name's Bob and I'm an alcoholic. I know how you feel. Two people, two people have told me in two days that they know how this drunk feels. Nobody had ever told me that. Not the bishop who ordained me, not the wife who loved me, not the family who cared. Nobody knew how I felt except these two men. I began to have what I call a magnificent hookup. I was attracted to them. Old Bob said, we're going to take you to a treatment program. Now he didn't say treatment for alcoholism. And he said, do a treatment program. I didn't know what in the world they were talking about. I'd been treated before for a lot of things. So I just went along for the ride. Had no other place to go. So I got in his car after a couple of days and he took me to another place. And I drove through and it just said, treatment center. Didn't have any treatment for what? I thought maybe I needed some surgery or something. I wasn't sure. We arrived and I sat in the lobby of that place. It was a treatment problem for alcoholism. I sat in the lobby of that place, seemed like me forever. And finally a fellow came up the hall. He looked good, well-dressed, hairs in place. I had an old black jacket with no shirt. I puked all over myself. I had a bad habit of vomiting when I was sobering up. He walked straight toward me, walked over where I seated, stooped right down beside of me, got close up in my ear so that nobody would hear him and I wouldn't be embarrassed. And he said to me, Ray, my name's Jamie and I'm an alcoholic and I know how you feel. That moment, that moment, the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous took place in my life. That attraction. He got up to walk away and I said to myself, I'm going to be like him someday. Someday, I'm gonna be like you. I look good this morning, best I can. I feel good this morning. I smell good this morning. I haven't puked on myself in a long time and I'm as close to being that way as a man can be. The program of attraction kicked in. Those of us who know anything about treatment realize I stayed there for a while and what they did for me was a miracle. They didn't help me recover. They just simply introduced me to some things that caused me to want to be sober. I got well quick, you know we always do. Weeks time I got up and went up to my counselor's office already packed my bags I'm going home I said Dorothy I've gotten well I want to thank you I've worked all the steps I left them on the bed and you can get them. And you know we go through this great spill and I thought honest to God I thought I was well I felt better than I'd ever felt in my life and I knew I was an alcoholic and I just knew I had it and the only reason I hadn't left is nobody to come get me. And she said to me, Ray, you're sicker than anybody I've ever seen in my life. I want you to go on back down to your room. I started back down the room and she stuck her head out the door and said, pray about it. And I said to her, you too, lady. I sat down on the side of that bed and I'm going to tell you what happened. And I believe this with all my heart. I believe everything that's happened to me God's hand has been working in it from the very beginning. I sat down there and I was trying to think of who would come. Betty, I knew wouldn't come. John, I know wouldn't coming. Old Bobby took me there. He wasn't going to come back and I'm ashamed to ask him. And while I sat there, two thoughts came to my mind that I had drunk myself to sleep over many, many nights. About seven years prior to that date, I had gotten up on a Sunday morning to go speak at a Methodist men's group across town, and that's in the city I lived in. I'd been drunk the night before. I'd be drinking all morning, not until about 3 or 4 o'clock. I got up about 6 o' clock, and I know I was still drunk. I didn't have a drink, but I was Still Drunk. I dressed, and then I got in the car, and went up to a stoplight, and that stoplight was on red. And I stopped. And when it turned green, I turned left. And I heard a bump about like that. Tells you how drunk I was. And I looked back in the turn and I saw a guy lying in the road. And I said, damn, somebody's walked in front of me. And when I got out, I had turned left in front of a big motorcycle. And this young boy was lying in this in the road with every bone. Both legs were broken, both arms broken, facial bones broken. and he was convulsing. I knew he was dying. And it seemed to me like it was an eternity before anyone came. And when the police came and they picked him up and took him to the hospital, he was getting information from me and when he asked my name, this is what I told him. My name's Reverend Moss. You see, I hid behind there. I knew I was drunk. He didn't know it and I didn't tell him. This young man stayed in the hospital six months. He didn' t die. I fed his family every week that passed. I visited with him every week. I carried guilt for them. I drank over it. I still can see. And then back to back with that was another thought. One morning, my son shook me awake from a drunken stupor and said to me, Daddy, you know what you did last night? And I said, No, I don't. He said, You slapped Mama. and I loaded my gun and I put it to your head and I was going to blow your brains out but Mama wouldn't let me. I just prayed that my daddy would die and it haunted me for years. What if this young man had killed me, I thought? Wouldn't have mattered to me but it would have ruined his life. I got back up and I went back down there and I said, Dorothy, I'm going to stay. And I did. And they introduced me to you folks. They carried me to meetings. I didn't really want to go but they carried me. When I got out of treatment, March 24th, 1980, I walked into the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on my own. It was my decision. Mine. Prior to that, I'd gone to see my superintendent. See, when I got sober, I was going to preach the Word of God. Every sermon that I had was going be alcoholic-ridden. I was gonna talk about alcohol and alcoholism and the family disease. You know, I had all those notes Father Martin had given me And I just had written them all down. I went to sit down with that superintendent, and he said to me, Ray, Bishop and I have decided we're going to put you on leave of absence. Now, that's a kind way of saying, brother, you're fired. And they did right. They didn't take my credentials. They just put me on leaveofabsence. I didn't have a job. I didn' t have a place to stay. I didn''t have a family. I'd spent all my resources. I was totally annihilated, all except the will to live. I drove back about 16 miles to my mama's house. I walked in, 49 years old. I looked at her and said to her, Mama, can I live with you? And she said, If you don't drink, you can live in the back bedroom. And I said, There's not a bed back there. She said, Get you a mattress and throw it on the floor. That just tells me how far I had come in my drinking. I just slept on the damn floor more than any other place. That night, I went to an AA meeting on my own in what became my first home group. When I walked in that door, I was scared to death. If they had asked me, where are you living? I wouldn't have told them and I wouldn'T have come back. If they'd have said, where do you work? I wouldn't have told them and I wouldn'T come back. And if they'd asked me, where's your family? I wouldn'VE told them and I WOULDN'T come back. But they didn't ask me that. They just said, man, we're glad to have you. And before I left, I had 16 names and 16 phone numbers. They liked to work me to death. I was the first newcomer to that group in years. You know what they do to newcomers. i swore to god i'd never open another church i'd never go in another church to have to open the key not carry a church key 30 90 days sober my sponsor said to me here's the key to the church open it up we got a meeting there two nights a week you know how to make coffee and that that gave me a key couldn't find a job his job's hard fine if you've been a preacher And I went around looking for a job. And they said, what have you been doing for the last 25 years? Well, I've been preaching. And they say, we're not hiring preachers today. And I worked in the cotton mill in the same department for the first job I'd ever had. Taking hand trucks and going down into the warehouse and picking up 500-pound bales of cotton, bringing them back to an opening room, opening them up. Damn, that job liked to kill me. I hadn't worked in years, but it kept me sober. A boss man came by one night and I did not let him know who I was. I just didn't want to do that yet. And he said to me, boy, you're too old to be doing this. And I agreed with him 100%. I found a sponsor, you know. They told me in treatment, that's one of the things they did help me do is find a sponsor. Tell me how. And I found me a sponsor He never has told me to do a thing. He's just always showed me how to do it. Just walked ahead of me, showing me how to do this. And just say, come on, Ray, let's go. I was mad as hell. I worked on the third shift in that cotton mill. That's 11 at night to 7 in the morning. And they'd given me 24 big old machines to run. I couldn't run those things. Didn't know much about them. And I was made out of them. They'd break down all the time. And that man is so brilliant. I don't know. I think he finished high school. And here I was with a master's degree. And there I was in that cotton mill, and I was irritated as hell about it. And he came over. He worked there too. And he come over one morning before he went to work, and he looked that situation over. And I was telling him about these 24 machines, and they all kept breaking down. I didn't know what to do with them. Let me tell you how intelligent he is. He's brilliant. He just looked that situational over, and he said, Well, Ray, why don't you do this? There's 12 of them on this side, and there are 12 of em on this sid of the aisle. Why don't name these the 12 steps? Are these machines the 12 traditions? And when one of them breaks down, if it's step two, well, go on back there and work on that machine. While you're doing that, you're working on step two. You know, I learned the steps and the traditions by doing that. And I thought, isn't that a brilliant man? I'm going to say this, and I hope you'll understand it. I've written something down. It comes out of the big book, andI don't want to try to commit it to memory. I want to read it to you. I've never had a bad day since I've been sober. And people say, that's a damn lie. I've not had a good day since the day I was born. a bad day since I've been sober. I've had a lot of things that have happened. I've Had Problems and Troubles. There was a time in my life that Ben and I both were without a job twice, three times. Three times. Neither one of us had a job. Then we had a great time. We walked around a little hometown, picked up cans, made love. Had a marvelous time. I wished it could have lasted forever, but it didn't. On page 133, these are the words, quote, avoid the deliberate manufacturing of misery. You know we have a tendency to do that. We'll make ourselves sick and we'll make all kinds of problems if we want to but if trouble comes cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity to demonstrate God's omnipotence in your life when trouble comes handle it then you'll show the people how powerful God is in your lives. I've not had a bad day it's all been up Of course, you've got to remember where I came from, but it's all been up. Every bit of it. I say to you, I'm a responsible alcoholic. I wanted to stay in that little old hometown where I lived forever. I got sober there. I loved those people. I didn't want to ever move. I just wanted to say, I love you. I love to stay working on that job. I love those 12 cards and those 12 cars. I learned so much. But opportunity comes and responsibilities come back to us when we get sober. And I was offered another job and I had to take it. I didn't want it, but I had to take it. And I've had to taketh others and had to teketh others. I work in a hospital now. I've been there almost ten years. God has a sense of humor. He has a sens of humor About a month ago, we've got a new administrator, and I was in another place, and he had his secretary call me to approve a memo he was sending out to four of us. And I was one of them. and he wanted us to be the administrators on call in two hospitals. The hospital I work in is the hospital I've always run, but he was assigning us to have weekend responsibilities in a psychiatric hospital. My first instinct was to tell him to stick it, but I didn't want it. But I had read in the 24-hour book that morning that 13 years ago I was in a pediatric hospital as a patient. and I got to thinking about that and I started laughing I said you tell Ryan that I'll just be delighted to do that it's just a marvelous experience 13 years ago I was a patient in a psych hospital two Sundays ago three Sundays ago Saturdays ago I walked through one of the big psychiatric hospitals I'm the big honcho down there I don't know a damn thing about it I know where to keep liquor if you're an alcoholic and I looked under mattresses and I know what you do when you're a psychologist in a psycho hospital But isn't that marvelous, the sense of humor God has? Up my way in Greenville, South Carolina, they refer to me as Reverend Ray in AA. Yeah, I like that. AA people get sick and they die. They get sick, go to the hospitals. They get married. I've had the privilege of, and I count it a real privilege, of conducting a lot of AA funerals. My, what a marvelous experience. I've sat with men, women who've died long-lingering illnesses, and I've watched the courage. Nobody can die like an AA member who's really in recovery. What a dignity it is. I marry a lot of them. I don't ever do any counseling to AA people when they get married. Hell, they've been married three or four times anyway. They know more about it than I do. I just perform the service, and we have a good time and go on about it. Old Jim Christopher, who was one of my first sponsors. Jim's dead now, but he was one OF my first sponsor up in North Carolina. He'd always say to me, Ray, keep your attitude in condition. Keep our gratitude there. Don't ever think negative. And I tried to do that. I remember a story I heard a long time ago. It's been around the program a long time. Maybe you've heard it, but if you haven't, it's still a good laugh. A great old big boy got married. He and the little girl he was about 6'4", weighed 210 pounds. His heart is nails. He married a little petite girl. She was about 5'2", weighed 110 pounds. She had everything in the right places. They got married and they got in her car and started off after the wedding. Got about 65-70 miles away from the church and he just pulled into a motel room, couldn't wait any longer. Went in, got the room, went into the room. He went into his shower the first thing, took him a shower, came out in his birthday suit, had his big old long jeans in his hands and threw them over at her and she's sitting on the bed and fell in her lap and he said to her, get in those jeans. She said, you know I can't wear your pants. He said, get into them anyway. And she got in them and looked out the fly and said to him, I told you I couldn't wear you pants. And he said, that's the message. You get it loud and clear. I wear the britches in this family. Don't ever forget it. A little while later, she went into the bathroom and carried in one hand the little thing she was going to wear for the evening's activities and went in and took her shower and had a little bikini panties in her hand and threw them over at him and they kind of hit him on the nose and hung loose and fell down and she said to him, why don't you get in those panties, big boy? He held them up and looked at them and said, you know I can't get in your panties. And she said, if your attitude don't change, you never will. I appreciate Ken talking about attitude last night. I never want to have a negative attitude. Ben and I have had a lot of problems. We run through a lot things. We're going through some problems now with our children. But we've not allowed that to change our attitude. I'm sober today. I'm free. I'm happy. I'm joyous. Life's good. And I'm with you, and that's so important. My dad got sober the last six years of his life. I picked him up one day after he called me and said he was sick, and I went to get him, and I thought he was physically sick, and he was. But he said to me, first time ever, I've got a drinking problem. I put his little butt in my back seat of the car and took him to a treatment program. He stayed there over two months. He got sober. He went to AA. I carried him to AA and I gave him every chip he picked up. He was in the hospital and he was dying. I said to him, Dad, you won't be able to go to a meeting and pick up a chip but we're going to bring a meeting to you. He agreed with it. But he died on the 29th of August and his birthday was the 1st of September, his AA birthday. Lying there in the funeral home I had his chip in my pocket I'd already bought it I walked over to the casket When nobody was around Stuck it in his pocket And touched his cold hand And said to him Dad, you're cold sober He would have liked that What a wonderful experience he and I had Six years of recovery together I hated that man But I loved him when he died like I loved nobody else. My mother died March last year, the 18th. I was with her when she died. I held her hand and she looked at me and the last word she said was, I love you, son. And I said, I loveyou, Mama. And if it hadn't have been for this program, this fellowship, God's grace, I could have never said that to her. Wouldn't have had a chance. My sponsor tells me, Ray, if you can't remember your last drink, Well, most of us can remember the last track. But he says also, you better remember your first birthday. Remember your first one? Go back. God Almighty, what I had a good time. I had done what they told me to do. And on a Saturday night, March the 24th, on a Sunday night, or May 1st, on Saturday night. That little old group in Epworth, Concord, North Carolina. Saturday night 200 people were there. I thought every one of them came to see me pick up a chip, but they really came to an AA meeting. And the people who were there, my mother, my wife, my children, my father-in-law, those people that I'd hurt the most after the service, after everything was over and I'd received a chip. An old boy that took me to detox and later to treatment, an old Bob came. He shared his story. I looked for my son he was a young man Navy man he's a Navy man of 14 years now strapling young Navy submariner I couldn't find him in that crowd looked everywhere I remembered what I taught him I taught them just like my daddy taught me men don't cry and men don' t hug each other I knew where he was went outside he was down under the parking lot I looked down there and there he stood and I walked toward him, he walked toward me. The closer we got, our arms went out. I wrapped my arms around him, and he wrapped his arms around me. He said to me, you're the best daddy in the whole world. A few years before that, he put a gun to my head and said, I'm going to kill you. You know what I had to do to do that? To get those words? Don't drink, go to meetings, read the big book, Worked with other alcoholics, by God, and it all came back. Turn of the year, somebody said to me, what are you going to do different this year to stay sober? Man, I thought I was supposed to do something. I got to thinking about it. I brought it up the next night at a meeting, and I said, you know, I've got a topic. I want to know what I ought to do to stay sober this year and, you know, turn around and be what you've been doing. Just put some quality in it and try to grow a little more, but you're doing the right things. It took me a long time to make amends to the church people I hurt. If you haven't done a fourth step, up in my... I'm moving back to North Carolina in a couple of months. We're going to retire. And I found out, a fellow told me who knows that 80% of the folks in the meetings up there have never done an inventory. Gee, are they borderlining? If you've not done one, if you haven't moved on to do your amends, by God, you're not even halfway through. You haven't even started yet. Before you're halfway through your amending is when it opens up. I struggle under that. I couldn't go back and make amends to those church people. I asked one reverend to let me come back and stand up in the pulpit and apologize to everybody, and he said, Hell no. You've hurt more people here now, and I don't want you back. Couldn't do it. I was down in Daytona Beach, lived down there for about a year, and I saw in a morning paper that Bishop Hunt, who was the bishop in North Carolina when I was running crazy, was there as the bishop. I wrote him a long letter over at Lakeland, sent it to Lakeland. And I explained to him as clearly as I could, a great church man, what I wanted to do. He didn't understand me. Isn't it amazing that people don't understand us? They don't understant our program. Well, he said, Ray, you don't owe me an apology. Well, I wasn't wanting to apologize to him. He's the head of the church. And God had put in my heart that if I could go apologize, make my amends to the head of the church for those wrongs that I'd done in the church, it would be right. And he said, come on over. I sat with that great man for about four and a half hours. I did a fourth step, shared a fifth step with him. He said to me after it was over, Ray, I have never in my life heard the honesty that I've heard this morning. I said, Bishop, that's only two steps out of 12 that AA people work. I was able to do it. I walked away from there a free man. Free. Forever free. I don't lie anymore and don't cheat anymore. Free men and women. It's a great program. The grace of God brought me here. The fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous has kept me here but let me tell you in that triangle there is a triangle there's God and AA and you you're important you couldn't stay sober if you didn't want to you wouldn't stay sober if you didn't work for it it's not given away you have to work for think about your first year what did you have to do 470 meetings I attended that year how many did you go the first year You see, they don't give it away. You've got to work for him. Remember, you're important in the triangle. A mama got a little boy ready to go to school one morning. First grader. He'd never been to school. Mama never sent him. She had him dressed up, new sneakers, new pants, new shirt, new little jacket. Hair was all in place. She took him by the hand and walked him down to the bus stop. She was crying. He was scared. Put him on the bus. He jumped on. She cried and walked back to the house. Two o'clock, she got up, walked back down there waiting on him. The bus came. He jumped off. He didn't look like he did when he got on. He lost a shoe. His pants were torn. His shirt was ripped. He didn'T have his jacket either. His hair was all messed up, and he had two big old black eyes. His mama looked at him and said to him, My God, son, who gave you those black eyes? And the little boy squared his shoulders and stuck his chest out and looked her straight in the eye like a little Trojan and said to her, Mama, they don't give those things away. You've got to fight for them. If you don't need 465 meetings a year now, and you've got, you've just got to be doing some other things, remember this, add some dimension to your recovery. I keep trying to add new, Bob Paul added a new dimension to my recovery several years ago, eight or nine now. I didn't listen to tapes. Once in a while, I listened to some of Bob and Bill. Somebody had given me. But Bob introduced me to the tapes of the month and the tapes. I've cut grass with Clancy. He's helped me and I'll wear that little thing and cut my grass. I've taken a shower with Jim Williams. He doesn't know that. You see, tapes are important. to, we came down here Bob naked this time. I bet he said about 30 minutes out of town, you forgot your tapes. Carried them in a big bag and we didn't have them. We missed them. Make that apart. Keep adding new things to your program so you can grow. What a fellowship. I thank you for letting me share and I thank Bob and the committee for inviting me and I hope we have a great day today. Thank you.