The Perfectionist Who Only Knew How to Be on Top – 1968 – Tom B.

My name's Tom and I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody. See if I can get this thing up a little bit. First off, I want to get rid of a few resentments. You people out there are not nervous and I am. I'll lay odds. I've been to the bathroom five times as much as any of you. You're well-fed. I haven't eaten anything. I can't eat before I talk. Warren just got up here and ruined my damn reputation and I'm happy I said I'm Tom that's not important I said of an alcoholic and that is anonymity is I suppose misunderstood as much as it's understood. Anonymity means to me that I set myself a goal of someday reaching the point where your name is more important than mine, where God's name is more important then all of us, where I can go out and do things for people and not have to tell anybody about it, where my ego stays deflated and I'm a long way from that point i got a big ego fella just reminded me of a story that's very dear to my heart so i'll tell it to you i sponsored a fellow named doug in alcoholics anonymous he's been sober almost three years now doug's an executive with a major tire company and doug thought he was going to get fired by this major tire company when he was about three months sober so we went down to atlanta georgia to see his boss man. He was thinking he was going to get fired. He didn't get fired as a matter of fact he got a promotion and we were out in the airport in Atlanta after he had talked to his boss man and we were standing in this hot dog stand having a hot dog and I don't know about you fellas but I've never gotten used to the brawlish look and I think I don' t think I ever will and this gal came walking down the hall and she was the most bravest thing I've ever seen in my life. And she looked good. And we stopped our hot dogs in midair like this and watched her just as far as we could see because she had some nice things going the other way too. I'm not a holy man, don't get me wrong. Doug turned around to me after that And he said, Tom, he said that girl sure did remind me of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, why? And he says she is self-supporting through her own contribution. And being a good Southern Baptist, all I could say to that was amen. I don't know what I'm going to talk about today other than me and this program. Kind of nitty-gritty things. I feel like getting nitty gritty today. Never really know which direction I'm gonna head, and that's why I'm nervous. Kind of like the little boys down in North Carolina. And there are places in North Colorado, believe it or not, that are as flat as Kansas, only we got pine trees. They're covered with pine trees, and this little boy would go out every night after supper and he'd get lost out in this flat pine forest and he couldn't find his way home, Vern. I think his name was Vern as a matter of fact. Vern would go outside every day and get lost in this plat pine forest and they'd have to send out a search party every day to find this little boys and bring him home. His mother told him one night when you get out there and you get lost if you just get on your knees and ask God to show you a way out he'll do it. Well old Vern's out there the next day dusk is coming along sure enough he's lost and he got down on his knees he says Lord I'm lost so I want you to show me by some way how to get out of here thank you he got up off his knees and he held his hand out here nothing happened and he hold it out here nothing happened and held it out there nothing happened he held out his hand out in front and a little bird came over and dropped one right in him he looked at that he got back down on his knee and he says Lord, don't hand me no crap. I'm really lost now. I'm just like that little old boy in that I'm kind of hoping for some direction up here. I've got to show you something. Before you make any smart remarks, remember that I'm an alcoholic and not a flower child, okay? But I have been utterly transfixed by this thing ever since I was sitting there at the table. This is, look at it. It is beautiful. You know that thing started from a dirty, grimy, ugly seed. A nothing. But within that seed was a possibility of beauty such as you see here in front of you. Within me is that seed. And within you is that seed. The possibility that we can become something beautiful. Coming into here dirty, grimy, and ugly. And through the grace of God be turned into something beautiful. I don't know why I thought of that. I'll put it back now. I can't hold it. There's a song by a guy named John Denver called Rocky Mountain High. And I was listening to the first few lines of that song the other day for the first time. I like the tune, you know, and I listened to the First Few Lines, and let me give it to you. It goes like this. He was born in the summer of his 27th year, coming home to a place he had never been before. He left yesterday behind him. You might say he was born again. You might say he found the key to every door. Change the age. Change the season. This is what happened to me. I was born in the summer of my 30th year, and I came home to a place I'd never been before. through the grace of God and through this program I've left yesterday behind me and I know I found the key to every door I want to get nitty gritty like I said today this program as I understand it is a program of rebirth it's a program of regeneration it's a program of beginning again There's a great big Greek word, metanoeo, which stands for, or is translated, rebirth, regeneration. And it means, I have changed my mind. I have changing my attitude and I am seeking a new direction. Now I have believed that what Bill W. said for a long time is true certainly in my life. and that is that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a program of the mind it's a program of the heart it's not a problem it's no program that deals with the intellect it's an old program that deals with something which transcends intellect as one philosopher said I think Descartes I don't even know and don't ever care the heart has its reasons which reason cannot know and you know when I talk I like to forget about all my logic, because logic almost killed me. And I like to forget about my intellect, because that came even closer to killing me. I like to forget the mind and get out inside my guts where I really live. I don't know about you, but I operate on feelings. I don't operate on mind. I never did, and I never will. I am motivated by what I feel inside. I make lots of mistakes because of this, but the beauty of this program is that even mistakes teach us something. I've learned more from my mistakes, as a matter of fact, than I have from anything else. Thank God I make a lot out of them. I want to talk about things like miracles. I wantto talk aboutthings that go above logic. Those of you who are alcoholic and who are here today, you know, just think about something for one minute. It ain't logical for you to be sober. If you're an alcoholic and you're sober for one hour, that is not logic. Something transcends logic. And this program tells me there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. And this is the power of this program which transcends all logic. I am by definition supposed to be drunk. I suffer from an incurable fatal disease. and I'm sober. Why? If not by miracle. You know, I don't know how God keeps me sober and I don' t care. I'm rather content to let him keep his mysteries. He's got some things I'm never going to know and I' m through trying to find out. I beat my head against that wall for a long time. God's got his business and I've got mine but I know why he keeps me sober. There's one outstanding reason, and I know it in my heart. He loves me. That's simple. And that's the beauty of this program. He loved me. So let's forget some logic, and let's forget some reason, let's get all our scientific conditioning. Because you know this program doesn't fit into those things. This program to me is a spiritual program. It encircles and transcends all of these things and is greater than any one of them because the power behind this program is greater than any power in the universe. So when I talk to you today, if it's not logical, I'm sorry. I'm going to talk to you in the language of the heart. You know, I ran around looking for God for a long time. I stormed the gates of heaven and it's a funny thing about storming the gatesof heaven. I expected God to storm me in return. One old-timer told me one time in Alcoholics Anonymous, and this made me mad. This old man always told me the truth, and he always called me boy, and I didn't like that. He said, Boy, how come you're always running around trying to find God? He ain't lost. You know, when I used to do things that I knew in my heart that I shouldn't do, I thought God was going to strike me dead and wondered why he didn't. When I would assume the Buddhist position and meditate and read The Imitation of Christ and Martin Buber's I and Thou and these other holy books, I wondered why the thunderbolt didn't come through the window. Stimulus response. God, I'll do this if you'll do that. Never happened. And it still hasn't happened. You know what? and I don't believe it's going to happen, and that's another resentment I get sometimes. He won't play the game according to my rules. Never has, and he never will. I was an ugly kid. I still ain't too pretty. i had freckles from the soles of my feet to the top of my head my hair was as white as snow everybody called me cotton top or pudding head i don't think i knew what my name was till i was six years old every picture i ever had taken i was standing there with one eye squinted up and my knees knocked together holding on to my mother's apron God, I held on to that apron. I was 30 years old before I let go of that damn apron. And I was still squinching and my knees were still knocking. And I Was Skinny. Shoulder blades stuck out. Very self-conscious. You know, I figured if I got rid of those freckles, I'd get some self-confidence. And you know, when I was about 12 or 13, I traded those freckels in for the damnedest set of pimples you ever saw. And mine didn't go away. I had a bad face. And I was still ugly. And I'm still self-conscious. And if I was ugly and self-conscious, you've got to know I was afraid. And I wasn't. As far back in my life as I can remember before, during, and after my drinking, I have been subject to fear. Now, I read a psychology book one time in which this very smart psychologist, and he was, listed 206 different kinds of fear. I had them all but I got to the end of the list and I said no there's one more there's 207 kinds let me tell you about that one this fear of impending calamity I don't know what's going to happen to me I don' t know where it's going to happen I don''t know who's going to do it but somebody's going to hurt me and they're going to hurt my life and they'll hurt me bad And every alcoholic in this room knows what I'm talking about. That's the fear that drove me. That'sthe fear that haunted me every minute of my life as far back as I can remember and still gets me today sometimes. The fear of impending disaster, and I had it. And you know that you have to compensate for fear. Well, I compensated. I was the smartest kid you ever saw in your life. I made straight A's in school. I never made below an A until I took my first drink in the 10th grade. When there was a song to be sung, I was the soloist who sung it. When there was a part to be played in the church pageant, a speaking part where the spotlight was turned on you, I was the one that got that part. I developed a pattern of always finishing on top, never in second place, always on top. I couldn't stand second place. And I'd try to master every job I did and do it better and quicker than anybody else had ever done it. And, I succeeded most of the time. And when I didn't succeed, I'd sneak away when nobody was looking because I couldn�t stand for you to know that I was less than perfect. I was a disgustingly perfect kid. I was the one the other mothers pointed to and said, why aren't you like Tommy? But you know something? With all the spotlights, with all the approval, with all of the pats on the back that I got because of my perfectionism, I'm still afraid. And I started building a wall. And I put that wall up good. it's taken quite a while for it to come down. Walls are funny things. They come down one brick at a time, just like you put them up. And I built my wall out of this fear and resentment and guilt and anger and hate. You name it, you know the blocks if you're an alcoholic. If you're in Al-Anon, you're not that different. If you were in Al Anon, you know The Blocks too. You're not That Different. And I got in my little wall, you know. And when I needed you, I'd come out from behind it and I'd use you to get just what I wanted to get, and then I'd go back behind my wall. And you know what? I was still afraid. I was a sensitive creature. I am a sensitive creature. Alcoholics are sensitive creatures. We walk around looking for people to hurt us. Can't find one getting mad as hell. I walked around with my feelings stretched out in all directions and God help you if you stepped on them and God helped you if you didn't. I mean, you stick your chin out, it's going to get hit if you demand it, and I demanded it. I demanded it of me so much that I became my worst punishment. Gert Bahanna says the alcoholic is a self-flagellating perfectionist. As a Southern Baptist, I'll again say amen. We beat ourselves continually. I'm still sensitive. if I can still sit down and listen to a beautiful piece of music and break out in tears, chill bumps all over and start crying. I can't help it. I'm sensitive in that way, and I'm glad. If a psychiatrist were to ask me today what are the two greatest things I've gotten in Alcoholics Anonymous, I would say first, I can look people in the eye. And secondly, I could cry for someone other than myself when it's necessary. And he'd call the guy in the white coat, If they come get him, he's still nutty. But I submit to you that for a guy who was always afraid to be able to look somebody directly in the eye is a fantastic thing. And for a man who was afraid to look someone in the eyes and for a God who never cared about anybody but himself to cry for someone else is another fantastic thing, see? And I'll tell you something else, if they're going to put me away again, they're gonna have to chase me. Yeah, sensitive. And smart. Oh, God was I smart. I told you about mastering tasks very quickly, you know, and everything. You know, in the Baptist Church they got a little group of boys called the Royal Ambassadors for Christ. I was an R.A. And the highest rank in the royal ambassadors is ambassador plenipotentiary. And I couldn't even pronounce it, but I was one quicker than anybody had ever been one before. Always right to the top. Never second place. And I remember they gave me a sword and a shield and a crown, and I thought that was pretty good, and they put that spotlight on me. You know, when I graduated from college, I graduated with honors with a 3.94 average out of a possible four, was elected the who's who among students in universities and colleges both my junior and senior year, was a soloist with the college choir, sang with the alumni quartet, was in every honor society that they had, had so many scholarships in college that when I graduated, the college owed me $16. Virginia said it. Beautiful on the outside, and on the inside a bottle of fearful mush. A nothing. All success on the outsides. I can take you to my home, you know, and show you a half-page picture in my college annual, which tells you, by the way, how outstanding I am. You know, I was drunk when they took the picture. I was so successful that two weeks before graduation from college My wife had to take me back to the psychiatric ward From whence I had come Smart You know, when I was a royal ambassador I had to memorize memory verses out of the Bible All you had to do was push my button And I'd recite that verse, you know Some years later at the age of 23 I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, there are people in North Carolina today who will not believe that I am sober. Because they say, Tom, you're the craziest son of a bitch I've ever seen. I came into Alcoholics Enormous and I sat down. And I looked up in the front of the room and I I saw 12 steps on one side and 12 traditions on the other side. And I looked up in the front of the room, and there was a fellow standing up there in front who looked like he might have a spotlight on him. Well, you know how my mind worked. See, first you memorize this and that, and then they put you up there and get the spotlight on you, and you tell them how to do it. That's the way a perfectionist works. Let's do it yesterday. let's get this thing all mastered and wrapped up real quick I got news for you you ain't mastering this program I don't care if you live to be 962 like Methuselah because if you ever master this program God help your soul I memorized everything they told me about this book Alcoholics Anonymous I memorized it every jot and every tittle So, Tom, where does it say so-and-so in the book? Oh, that's on page so-in-so paragraph number three. I knew it by heart. When I was 30 years old, I was still drunk. I used to sit at home, you know, getting off a drunk and drinking that old good slits and crying and listening to one record by the four freshmen called Their Hearts Are Young as Spring. Oh, God, that was a sad song. I'd play it over and over Well, it was about a man and woman You know, very much in love And they died And the little birds came And sat on their tombstones That's the kind of song I like, see And I'd sit there and shake And suck on my slits And cry at that song And read the big book Now, there are whiskey glass stains On the front of this book And beer can stains On the back of this On the part of this book, Alcoholics Anonymous. That ain't the way to work this program. And what I'm trying to say is I knew it all. I knew at all. And I couldn't do it. Seven years in Alcoholics Anonymous and I couldn'T do it! And I'd come into those AA meetings with heavy stuff for those people. You ever come into a meeting and you had something so heavy to throw on the people that your palms would be sweating and you'd be shaking waiting for your turn to come? Don't say you ain't done it. If you're an alcoholic, you've damn well done it. Gotta impress somebody. Gotta get that spotlight. Gotta hear them say, ain't Tom smart. And you know, I'd go to this group where I was attending off and on. And if you go there next Tuesday night in Burlington, North Carolina, I can tell you where everybody would be sitting. I can tells you who will be there. I could tell you what they'll say every Tuesday night. You know? And here I'd come in with all this heavy knowledge, sitting in the back waiting my turn. You know, they always got to me last. It was like the meeting was over when they got to meet. And I guess it was. And they'd say the same thing every Tuesday night. And one old guy there, the one that used to call me boy, I didn't like him anyhow. And he'd sit over there on Tuesday night and he'd rattle his change and pull his nose and run his hand through his hair. And rattle his change, pull his nose, run his hand though his hair, say the same damn thing every Tuesday night. It's over twenty-four years. I don't mind telling you, my wife kids me about it now, I rattle my change a lot. Say the same thing, you know And after him would come my turn I'd say, Paul Tillich said so-and-so And Martin Buber said so and so And they didn't give a damn what Paul Tillick and Martin Buberg said They were staying sober And we'd give out chips in North Carolina For three months, you get a red chip Now the longest period of time I stayed sober during that seven years was 89 days. And I knew it because I made a project out of it. Had a big calendar on the wall of my den and I X'd off the days as they passed and got in bed before I could get drunk. 89 days I made it and the 90th day I rested. I wanted a red chip so bad that I could taste it, you know, because that would make me somebody and God, I was tired of being nothing. I wanted one so bad that after the meetings when they go across the hall to have coffee, I have gone up front to the chip box and stolen a red chip. Matter of fact, when I finally did pick up a red tip, you'd thought I'd been sober 30 years. I still call it the red devil. And I was a guy, let me tell you this, when i'd come back after a quote-quote slip, I'd make speech when I picked up a white chip. Every time I'd come back, you know, I'd tell them, never again. Get them off my side. You know, if a new man comes in my group and he walks up front and he picks up a beginner's token and he turns around and starts to say something, I'm the one in that group that's going to say, shut your damn mouth. I have done that for you. You don't have to go through what I went through. Don't do it. And I'm a depressive, a manic depressive. I was once diagnosed as a manic depressive by a bona fide psychiatrist so I know I'm a damn manic depresseur. I knew it before he knew it. Only I call myself a yo-yo. I was always too happy or too sad. Always running around getting things done, or sitting on my fantasy and, oh, I can't do that. Any of you depressives? Let me hear it from the depressive. Boy, if you're a depressive, I feel, you know, I really feel for you because I've had some doozies. I still have some dorozies. I probably always will have some doonzies but I have a program which will help me deal with it. For a long time in AA I thought you know that I wasn't supposed to have feelings of guilt and fear and resentment and selfishness and dishonesty anymore because I'd been through this program and I'd asked God to remove these defects of character and willy nilly they were gone forever. Well, that's a bunch of bull. That's a perfectionist talking. I'm going to be afraid again. I'm gonna be guilty again. I'm gona be selfish again. I'm gunna be mad again. Many times. The difference is that I know what to do when this happens now. These bad feelings so-called are the raw material which help me to grow. and God help me if I don't have this raw material. So in a way, you might say, I need my depressions, Pat, because I learned something. And maybe you need yours because you'll learn something. I don' t like them. But you know, I came in this program to get well and I got an old friend at home in Greensboro who'd been sober 20-some years and he said the trouble with most alcoholics is they want to get good before they get well. And he tells a little story that I like so I'll tell it to you about this old railroad boy and he got in AA and he Got Sober and next trip he went on he went into his compartment on the train and there's two women in there waiting for him and he says, look, I'm in AA and I'm trying to get straight now one of y'all is going to have to go. He says, you've got to get well before you can get good. But a perfectionist like me comes into Alcoholics Anonymous, everything's been bad, I want it to be good. I want to be a sinner, so to speak, and I want the place where I'm going to live, you know, is somewhere in between these two points. And I don't think, and I hope to God, I'll never reach either of these points. But I hope my direction will be more in the positive than in the negative. And it will be if I practice this program. Now, by the time I was 23 years old, I had been in religious homes for alcoholics. I had Been In Jails More Times Than I Care To Remember. I'd Been In Hospitals, Alcoholic Rehabilitation Centers, Psychiatric Wards. I'd had over 450 stitches taken in my face alone as a result of windshields that I went through while I was driving straight I was a mess third offense drunk and driving five years probation a two year active sentence waiting for me if I was caught drunk and I kept on drinking I couldn't quit now I'll tell you something i liked the psychiatric ward that i was in i was an egocentric you see and a perfectionist let me tell you what happened to me before i went in the psycho ward i like to remember this god help me not to forget the night before i went in the psycho award i had driven straight and hit another car head on and had knocked out this tooth right up here. And you know, when I was getting off the drunk, I took a lot of painkillers and I took it off. I took off a lot or baths. Any of you ever take a lot o' baths when you're getting over drunk? I damn near wash my skin off. I'd take a bath and then I'd tak' a shower and thenI'd tak a shower and theni'd taka' a bath. Well, this morning, with this tooth knocked out, I was takin' a bathtub and I was so shaky I fell over in the bathtub and knocked outthis tooth. and when I checked in the psycho ward I had two front teeth knocked out and it's hard to be a perfectionist with two front tooth knocked out and I checked in the psych ward and right away I liked it because there was wire between me and you and I liked it because all I had to do was look a little funny and everybody paid attention to me anytime and you know what my main occupation was in the cycle ward I played ping pong about 12 hours a day with a schizophrenic Cherokee Indian friend. Every day. The man never even changed expression. And he'd stand over there and play the doggone ping pong you've ever seen in your life. Never changed his expression. Drove me up a tree. You know how come I kept playing him? Because I couldn't beat him. And I had to be on top. The doctor told me, he is dangerous. Stay away from him. I said, I like him. I didn't like him, I wanted to beat him at ping pong. I took Rorschach tests, you know, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and all these psychological tests. I think I passed them all pretty well. I had special interviews. One day they came walking in and they had a box about this big and in that box was every kind of paper doll you've ever seen in your life. and they took a frame out and put it on the table and said, Tom, take these paper dolls put them in this frame and when you get them in there tell us a story about them. Well I had the fleeting thought that this is a hell of a thing for an intellectual to be doing playing with paper dolls but you know I enjoyed that more than anything I ever did in my life. You know I put those paper dolls there and they stayed where I put them the paper furniture stayed where I put it no argument No feedback at all. In that situation, I really was the power. Now, I call your attention to the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. It says if you want to get sober in this program, first of all, comma, we had to quit playing God, period. You know, I was kicked out of the psychiatric ward. Yeah. asked to leave. He gave me a pass to go to an AA meeting, and you know where I went. We were out on the lawn one Sunday afternoon, you know, and I was showing some new fellas around the lawn of the hospital. And one of them had a gallon of Stump Hole North Carolina white liquor in the trunk of his car, and we proceeded to drink it. And with green psychiatric uniforms on, we went into Durham, North Carolina to a bootlegger's house and proceeded to finish the job. And I came back and ran my Cherokee Indian friend out of his bed that night and I slept in it. And the next morning, the first thing I remember is Dr. Nelson, my psychiatrist, looking at me through those horn-rimmed glasses and saying, Tom, I have done all I can do for you. You will have to leave. You see, I had done to that psychiatrist what I did to every other person in my life, my mother, my father, my wife, my children, and anybody else I could get hold of, I got in control of them some way. Like the book says, you know, we'll control. We'll either be very, very nice or very, very mean, but we'll control one way or the other. And I had that doctor wrapped around my finger. He did what I told him more than I did what he told me. And he knew it. I haven't found him to this day to make amends to him. And I want to, but I'm so afraid that if the man sees me coming, he's going to turn tail. I got in the psycho ward too. You know, I went out to play volleyball one day with the rest of the nuts. I never played volleyball. But with me, I had to be the best volleyball player out there. and it was barefoot and it was in August and it was about 100 degrees and we played on a cement court I was the best volleyball player out there the game was over I went over my feet burned and I sat down on this bench and I looked at the bottom of my feet there was not one piece of skin on the bottom of either foot But I finished on top And that made it worth it And I was insane I suffered from the alcoholic obsession Which to me quite simply is this No matter what's happened in the past, Tom no matter how many jails, hospitals, psycho wards, religious homes, no matter How many people you've hurt. This time, Tom, it's going to be different. This time you can drink like everybody else if you just handle it right. How many times did I go through that one? And you know when I went through that, and this is strange but not so strange. I was an up-and-down kind of person, you know. And after a drunk was over, I'd scramble like the devil to get everything in order again. You know, I would be hurting physically and I would begin to feel better. And I would hurt mentally and I began to think better. The great wheels would start turning. And when I felt good and I was thinking good, watch out. That's when I was going to get drunk. My two greatest enemies as an alcoholic were health and success. every time I did something mastered something shone on something and got the approval and the pats on the back I immediately got drunk if you don't believe it bring a new man to Alcoholics Anonymous sometime or watch him the first time he comes in and he's like this and he can't hold that cup of coffee he'll listen to every word you say two weeks pass he's not shaking so much He can hold his own coffee. He'll listen to half of what you say. And God bless his heart, in a month, if he doesn't really want this program, he's not listening to anything you say, and in two months he's telling you what to do. Watch it! It happens! And he's going to get drunk. You know, I suffer from a peculiar kind of insanity. I think only alcoholics suffer from this kind of insanity where booze is concerned. Let me make that clear so I don't make any Al-Anons mad. You take any dog or any cat and give them something to eat and drink that makes them sick, and they will not eat or drink that thing again. A dog or a cat has the basic intelligence to know what's good for them and say yes to it and what's bad for them, and say no to it. As an alcoholic, I did not have this basic intelligence and this basic will. As a matter of fact, even though I knew when I took the first drink what was going to happen, I did Not Have the Power Not to Take that Drink. And this book tells me that my real problem as an alcoholic was a lack of power. That I understood myself perfectly, that I knew what was wrong with me, but I was powerless to do anything about it. That's my real problem, they say. And I buy that hook, line, and sinker. Basic intelligence and the basic will, and the difference today is I can recognize most of the time what's good for me and say yes to it and what's bad for me. And this is a peculiar kind of insanity. I have a friend at home who tells a story about the alcoholic insanity, which I want to pass on to you. He says, you can take an alcoholic, a schizophrenic, and a normal person and put them in a room like this. And when they walk out this door over here today, there's a man outside with a baseball bat, and he just clobbers them right up beside the head as they walk outside the door. He said, the normal person will never walk out that door again. He'll go out back there, over there. If there's no door, he'll go down a window. But he will not go through that door yet. And the schizo, he'd go over there one more time, you know, just to see if it was real. Then he won't go through it again. He said, but the alcoholic will walk through that door time after time after time after Time and one day if the man with the bat is not there, the alcoholic will sit down and wait for him. Think about it. How many times did I do it? knowing what was going to happen. But I didn't have the power or the will to stay away from that door. Now, when you're out of will, you're not going to be able to do anything else. You're out a something that nobody can replace except God. That's it. I drank on until I was 30 years old. And by the way, after I sobered up, I used to think it was nice that Jesus had his spiritual awakening at the same age that I did. Remember, I'm just kidding, Will. I've confused myself with Moses and God and Jesus many times in this program. Even played Buddha for a while. Sat around AA meetings and talked about the eightfold middle path. but you know I'm Tom and I always have to come back to that and sometimes I don't like it but I do yeah I was insane perfectionistic intellectual sensitive fearful slob the old boy that used to rattle his chains and pull his nose and run his hand through his hair told me something one night. He did me a great favor. I called him up when I was drunk. I always call when I'm drunk. I never called before I took a drink. He said, boy, don't you ever call me again, drunk. He says, as a matter of fact, don't You ever call Me again. He says if You want this program, You know where we meet and You can come get it. But don't call Me to come get You. You can walk Boy, I thought that was cruel. It's one of the most loving things that anyone ever did for me in my entire life. He pulled out the stops. And do you know how I got back to Alcoholics Anonymous at age 30? I walked. And I'll tell you something else. When I walked in, I didn't think this program was going to work for me. I knew everything about this program and it hadn't worked. But I had nowhere else to go. I had reached the point in my life where I realized two things. First, that I could not drink successfully, and second, that I could no quit successfully. That's bottom. I go on a 12-step call now, and the guy says to me, Tom, I know that I can't drink. And I respond, but do you know that you can't quit either? You know, you can do either one. And that's where I was at, and I didn't even know it when I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh, my hair shaved off, my face scarred up, dirty Levi's, stinky tennis shoes. I mean, this is the thing now, but it wasn't then. Go in and sit on the back row. Nine o'clock came, I hit the door. And I made the best thing, best mistake I ever made in my life. You wonder why I call it that, but I got me a sponsor. Yeah, I like this old boy. Went over, I said, will you sponsor me, Harry? And you know, he pointed his finger at me and he says, I've heard about you. People say you're crazy. They say if you come my way for me to go the other way. And he said, Yeah, I'll sponsor you on one condition. What's that, Harry? We do it my way. Well, nobody ever told me that before, and I had never listened to that before. But I listened that day. That's the reason I'm convinced that I was at that point in time where I was ready. And every alcoholic has this point in times. you know harry like to run me to death he took me on 12 step calls you know and i knew all about the book i mean after all i memorized the thing i go out on a 12 step call and i say harry what do i say to this guy he says you don't know nothing you don' t say nothing sit down and shut up let me tell you one more thing the only thing you've ever done right in alcoholics anonymous as you kept coming back. And he said, I want you to get the meetings early. You get there at 730 and you shake everybody's hand and you ask them how they're doing. I said, don't want to get there at 7 30. I don't wanna shake any hands and I don' give a damn how they do it. And why should I do that, Harry? And he says, do it! I don''t know how many times I asked him why, Harry. And the response was always the same. Do it! Don''t ask me why. Do It! And this is the kind of sponsor I needed. Other types of alcoholics need cuddling, gentle sponsors, but I didn't. I needed a hard nose that I knew was not as smart as I was. Harry worked me to death. He took me everywhere I wanted to go and to places I didn't want to go. He made me shut up and listen. I didn' t want to do that very often. God bless his heart. I'd be dead but for him and the God that came through him. I started to begin to like getting there early. I started to begin to like shaking hands and this thing about looking people in the eye began to happen, you know. And I began to care about these people. Not many, just a few. And I started going through the process of this program, this time doing it. In this program there's a story that's analogous to this program to me. Remember the story that was in the Bible? I had a friend in Florida that called the Bible the manufacturer's handbook. I like that. In the manufacturer'S handbook there's the story this guy who lay by this pool of water for years and years and years. And the legend was when the waters were troubled, if you got to the waters then you'd be healed from this thing. And The Guy never could get to these waters. And the carpenter comes walking by and he says some pretty pointed things to This Guy. First off, you can't get to the water, can you? and secondly do you believe that somebody can get you to that war he said yeah and afterwards he said now pick up your bed and walk look at the first three steps of this program we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable we could not get through the water. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We had a way that we believed we could get to the water, and we turned our will and our lives over to this power, and then from step four through nine, we pick up our beds and we walk. That's our part of the deal. We've got nothing new in Alcoholics Anonymous this is as old as God. You know, I started getting sober and I started talking and I was in that spotlight and let me tell you what happened. I want to tell you what happened when I did start talking. When people would come up and compliment me with my background knowing what an egocentric I was I would turn away. I was going to quit talking and never talk again. because I couldn't take the compliments. I couldn'T take the praise. I hope you understand what I'm talking about from my background. And I talked to a very spiritual old-timer in this program. Thank God for him. And he says, You have no right to quit talking. And I said, Well, I'm quitting. He says, Have you ever worked in a store? I said yes. I said, what'd you do? I said I sold stuff. He said, where'd you put the money? I said in the cash register. Most of the time. And he said, who'd the money go to? And I said the boss. He said you do the same thing when you make an ATO. You take the compliment and you turn around and give it to the one that it really belongs to. And I've been yakking ever since. Now, sometimes I kind of hold on to the compliments and final them a little bit before I hand them over. Remember, I'm trying to get well. This is a fantastic program. There's nothing on the face of God's earth that can touch it. I mean that. I enjoy little things in life now. I have a five-year-old son named Jason now Don and I hadn't been able to have any children after the first one for a period of seven years we had tried and we couldn't and we decided that we would pray did some other things too but we prayed She was pregnant almost immediately And the result was Jason This little boy that's five years old Fantastic kid Hey, baby You've heard of armchair philosophers Well, Jason's a potty chair philosopher He sits on the pot He wants somebody to sit there with him So he can talk to him now i challenge you today to do one thing within the next few days watch the kids around you and listen to them for god's sake do it and for your own sake do it kids are so open and honest and non-pony and in love with life and in trust with god and you know they don't know who God is but they trust him. Our big book says faith is a part of our makeup that deep down inside every man, woman, and child is this fundamental idea of God it's just there. That's what kids have got and that's what I lost and that' s what I want back. I'm sitting there with Jason one day and I'll throw a couple things on you that he threw on me he scares me sometimes. Sitting there he's on his potty and I'm just sitting there listening he looks up at me and says Dad Jesus turns the power on these are his words and son how do you know that did your mama tell you that nope did you learn that in Sunday school nah how do yo know it son he says I just know that's why now when I reach that point that we call bottom when any human being on the face of the earth alcoholic, al-anon normal person, anything else reaches that point where everything is out of control and he can no longer handle the situation I'll bet you and I'll lay you odds that he'll say the equivalent of three words, God help me. Why? Because we just know that's why. We don't have to think about it. We do it. It's automatic. I'm sitting there with Jason on the couch. Got our arms around each other and we're kissing and hugging. We do a lot of that around the house. If one person gets a disease, hell, everybody's going to have it. Except nobody's caught my hemorrhoids yet. I wish somebody'd catch them. You know, we sat there and he looked up at me and he's beautiful. He's just out of sight. And he says, Dad, why don't I be the dad for a while and you be the son? I said, okay son, how do we do that? He said, it's simple. He said I'll grow up and be the dad you grow down and be the son. Again, I'll call your attention to the 12 steps of this program and I'll called your attention to this big book and this big book says that the keystone of the arch through which we pass to freedom is the simple idea that God is the principle, we're the agents, that he is the father and we're the children. And without the keystone you don't have an arch. Growing down to be a child and for an egocentric to try to do this is some hard thing to do. I've been in this program since 1965 July 20th, 1965. I have been sober that long and that is not supposed to be. I am not supposed to be sober. I'm still an egocentric. I still get afraid. I still am run over with problems. But again, I'll say thank God for it. I'm growing. That's what this program is all about. We grow. The first time I went through my inventory I wanted to find out everything about me. If I'd found out everything about me, I'd have turned to dust. I was not ready to see me as I really was, Doyle. I couldn't have taken it. I continue my inventory. About once a year I get off and I take a formal inventory and fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth step follow. I have to do it because I can't keep up with it on a daily basis. I'm too much of a ding-a-ling. And now I can see things about me that I couldn't see then. Same events, same people, same past. Only my past is getting cleaned up. And my past, as a funny thing, this is the reason I'm telling you part of my story today. The wreckage of my past is the foundation for my future and my present. I can't change one event in my past, but I can take away the guilt and the fear connected with it because I've got a program that helps me do it. But I've gotta hold on to that past. We were talking when John picked me up at the airport about some people who were five years or four years sober and they were getting drunk. I said, hell, we got an old boy at home that's even got a name for that. He said, what? I said five-year menopause. almost every alcoholic suffers from it i suffered from it and you know what it's based on a character defect that not many of us think of as a character defect we forget what got me drunk time after time i forgot what gets me in trouble time after time i forget and you don't know how it came to me i was down the sleazy hotel and about this time I think I was the equivalent of Moses. I was really riding that cloud of self-righteousness about six years sober, and I went in this sleazy hotel where this guy was sitting there shaking and having the audacity to throw up. And I looked at him, and—and I didn't realize this was happening, folks. I didn' t realize I was like this. And I looked a that man, and said, What are you willing to do to stay sober? And he looked me dead in my eyes. I've never been looked at like that, and he said anything. A little voice inside of me said, oh hell, Tom, what do you say now? Here was the guy with all the answers. Here was a guy that quit going on 12-step calls and went to soul saving. And there's soul saving in his 12-stepped calls. Old Grumpy, that old guy that rattled his chains, you know, knew me when I was a soul saver. I'd get a drunk, didn't want quit drinking or anything else, but I was going to save his soul. I remember one old guy down in the country living in a little old log cabin outside of Elon College, North Carolina. He called me one Sunday and he'd been laying up there drunk for about a month, hadn't been out of that cabin. There were no toilet facilities in the cabin, and you can imagine what it looked like. I got a lady from down the road and we shoveled stuff out of the cabin and swept it up, cleaned it up. I gave him a doctor, and then you know what I did? I called Grumpy to come and behold what wonders I had wrought. Well, you know something, in shoveling through all that stuff, I found a half a gallon of wine that the old boy hadn't drunk, and when Grumpy got there, I was drunk too. That's what soul savers do. If the soul is not saved, you say to hell with it and get drunk with him. I used to go in bars and try to sober them up. They'd say, Tom, I don't want to quit drinking. Give this six-pack. I still do. I'll probably do it again. The point is, I can learn from it. I can grow from it, and God ain't going to stop loving me for one minute. He's going to have some good belly laughs out of me before it's all over. Say, look at that damn yo-yo. Look at him. He're doing it again, and love me right on. And God knows I wish I could look at other people like that. I wish I could look at the person that I disagree with strongly and say, look at that yo-yo, he's doing it again and keep right on loving him. I can't do that all the time and that's one of the things I need to learn in this program. I've grown a lot in this program. Not enough, but a lot. And I've learned some things about God. you know, I'm no theologian and I don't want to be. I know a few things. I know that God is not a thing to be talked about or studied or categorized or chopped into little pieces. To me, he's a person to be met. I know he's not a person to be taught about. He's to be told to as far as I'm concerned. And I know very little about him. and don't need to know much more. I know that as long as I do what I think is right, I will have all of the power that I could ever need and then some. And that's all this program tells me to ask for. We pray for the knowledge of his will for our lives and the power to carry it out, just those two things, and go ahead about our business, which turns out to be most of the time God's business. And that's the way he works, I guess. Or he's a father and I'm a kid. I don't know what I've said today. And I don' t much care. It's been coming out. Probably disjointed. Might not have made much sense. I know this. I've seen a lot of people out here today that I have loved for a long time and I've met some new people that I'm going to love for a very long time and for me to love is something I'm gonna close with a poem which has become very, very close to me if you bear with me I'm not a poet but I'll try it was battered and worn and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin but he held it up with a smile what am I bidding good folk he cried who'll start the bidding for me a dollar two dollars and who'll make it three three dollars once three dollars twice going for three but no from the back of the room a gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow, and wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening up all the strings, he played a melody soft and sweet, as sweet as an angel sings. And the music stopped, and the auctioneer in a voice now soft and low said, When am I bid for the old violin? And he held it up with the bow. A thousand and who'll make it two? Two thousand and who will make it three? Three thousand once, three thousand twice and going and gone said he and the people cheered but some of them said we just don't understand what changed its worth and the man replied the touch of the master's hand and many a person with life out of tune and battered and torn within is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd much like the old violin. A mess of pottage, a glass of wine, a game, and they travel on. They're going once. They're gone twice. They're goin' and almost gone. But the master comes. And the foolish crowd will never quite understand the worth of a soul and the change that's wrought by the touch of the master's hand. what changed my worth? Who dusted me off and tightened up the strings? There is but one answer, folks. And may he bless you real good. Thank you. Thank you.