The Promises of Page 83 and the End of Self-Pity – Jim S.

Then I present Jim S. Hi everyone, my name is Jim Shaw and I'm an alcoholic. God, what an introduction. I like it gaudy, you know, just gaudly. Oh, goodness. Because this program works one day at a time in my life, it has not been necessary nor have i had any kind of any alcohol of any kind nor have I had any of those funny little pills or cigarettes that do make you do funny things either and I'm extremely grateful for this period of time because it uh I haven't done anything in my life for 17 years in a row nothing ever did I do for 17 years and to not drink or take any of that stuff for 17 years has truly got to be something that I didn't do. You know, it had to be a power greater than me that did it. And I'm glad to be here today. I really am. By the way, I'm a member of the Big Book Group in Norman, Oklahoma, and I also am the GSR there. And I want to thank the committee for inviting me, and i certainly want to thank Chuck and Barbara. Boy, you talk about having a host and hostess that really have they've really done a job and i uh really can i got a room sitting up there on the 15th floor overlooking the whole city it's beautiful up there it really is and uh you people have been real great i uh i came here to give you truth and it won't be flavored with a texas accent I some of you might remember that my wife spoke here last year and uh so I came to bring you truth that was the Al-Anon version I'm going to give the AA version this time and uh it's not so that I dumped her for those of you who might remember that part of it is not so I just I just got chicken is what it was oh gosh i uh i don't even know where to start after that one but i really am glad to be here and i'll try to do what we're supposed to do when we get up here and that is to share my experience strength and hope with you and that's all we can do in alcoholics anonymous i guess because that's what the book tells me I'm supposed to do and I'm supposed to be willing to do that at any time. And when they called and asked me to come, I said yes. That was one of the things I learned from my sponsor a long time ago. I learned it from him in a very peculiar fashion. He demanded that I say yes. One of his conditions for sponsoring was okay but you will never say no to an AA request and I mean never do you understand that yes I understood that and so that since that time I haven't done it and I'm very pleased that I have been a lot of times I've been tempted but I haven t I I'm from Norman Oklahoma and I was born in Edmond Oklahoma and uh i was there spent my childhood there and i can remember my first memories when we lived out on that farm north of edmond oklahoma and i was uh had a hole in my hand and i'm looking down one of those long rows i didn't like the farm then at all i hated the farm because when we went to town they called us country hicks and god i hated to be called a country hick you know and I swore that one day I was going to show them and I didn't even know who them was at that time but I was gonna show them and so that's the way it began I believe that I was different from my brother and my brothers and sister and they you know I knew that I just I dreamed a lot I was a dreamer you know and I had dreams of grandeur and all that sort of stuff and I don't think that they did at least if they did they didn't say so and I did and that's the way it was and we grew up and we moved into Edmond the city of Edmond and I went to school there and I learned about honky tonks real early and I got drunk for the first time on 3-2 beer and I drank about 4 bottles and I walked home and got to bed and that was a mistake because immediately when I laid down I just laid down and I just started puking about 3 feet in the air and i've been a puker ever since boy i mean there's some of you pukers out there might know what i'm talking about and it uh but i accepted that as part of the package right off it didn't bother me at all you know that was just part of what you had to do in order to drink but i loved what it did for me and i was the kind of guy that uh well i'll have to tell you that i loved uh i just loved them the those honky-tonk scenes you know and i i like to drink no matter where it was but i sure loved to drink in them honky tonks you know because uh that made me six feet tall and and handsome and all that sort of stuff whenever i got into those places with those dark lights and uh i um i was the kind of guy that wanted to do everyone to please everybody you know i uh lived in the bible belt you none of you folks around here know anything about that but i did i i lived inthebiblebeltandonsunday i went to sunday school and church first christian church in Edmond, Oklahoma. And I got a brother that's a minister. I got another brother that's minister. Have a brother who's a deacon in his church. And my sister at one time was very large in the WCTU. And then there was me, you know, and they so these I had quite a bit of stuff. And we had alcoholic parents, if you can believe that. And my mother died of alcoholism in the year I got sober in February. I I got sober in June, and she died of alcoholism in February in 1966. But these brothers and this sister, you know, they look at me strangely, because I'd go down to Oklahoma City and do a lot of hell raising that night before, and then on Sunday morning while I'm up in the choir loft singing a choir up there in the First Christian Church. One morning I was particularly hungover, and this brother Bill, who's a minister, and he came over and he looked at me real sternly and he says, Jim, why do you sin so much? And I looked him right back in the eye and I says, I sin because I like it. That's why I sin. And he just kind of shook his head and walked off. He didn't know what the hell to say about that. So that ought to give you some kind of idea about personality that you got before you today. uh but you know i had the usual things that every alcoholic that i know of uh i i enjoyed those those years were fun years and all that sort of thing but i i really as i look back on it i think there probably is only about five years of uh any kind of fun drinking and i was always getting in trouble then but that was fun anyway and then they the the bad stuff started being mixed in between those fun times you know and that's the way it was so uh i got married because that's what everybody does you know you get married and you have kids and you're going to settle down kids having kids will make you settle down right sure well uh it didn't me i uh i'll tell you what did with me when i got marry and had those kids all it did was those two kids became a millstone around my neck my god the responsibility part of that thing hit me right in the head nothing my my God, I'm going to have to raise these kids until they're grown up. And I'm here to tell you that was a serious problem with me because they were holding me back, you know, for the things I wanted to do. And, of course, the guilt was along with that, you know that that's not the way you're supposed to feel. So all of this started taking place and then the thing that started happening, of coarse, was blackouts. And I remember one time in particular that really scared me. and uh i was raised that you a man was the kind of guy that took care of his family you raised you know even provided for them and and uh you certainly did not do one thing you didn't hit a woman if you were a man a real man you just didn't get a woman and uh that was one of the things that happened one time and i uh i came and woke up out of a blackout my father i was living i was on one of my down cycles you know i was having to live behind my father's house in one of these little rent houses and uh my father woke me up and he looked at me and he had you know the look of uh disgust in his face and he says well i hope you're happy this time big shot and i don't know what he's talking about and i looked at him confused i'm sure and he uh says oh i guess you don't remember what happened and i said no and he said well you two came in last night and yeah and when you did you started beating up on and you twisted her leg so badly that she's over in St. Anthony's Hospital having the cartilage removed from her knee right now and I guess you're really proud of yourself, aren't you? And God, I felt horrible inside. I just couldn't stand the thought of what I'd done and so the only way I could get over there and face that woman at all was to get about half drunk and then I could go over there and I went over there and I made her a promise then, you know, that I'll never take another drink again as long as i live so help me god and to the best of my knowledge and the best of my ability i meant every word of it at that moment six hours later i was drunker than a coot you know that's the way it was and uh i that happened many many many times made that same kind of vow forever you know we do that a lot so that's not new in alcoholics anonymous but it was the fact where after a while it was only a show i didn't really mean it anymore because i knew i couldn't do it and uh that's the way it began and finally i'm just through a whole series of things and uh children that uh you know crying and afraid because their mother was being hit and a divorce and then running to california and you know that's where all good okies go they run to califonia you know and so i thought well it'll change things you know get marriage may not work and all that sort of thing, but I'll run to California and things will be different back over there. I went to California, made one fatal mistake with that kind of thinking, though. I took me with me, and not a hell of a lot you can do about that. You just take you with you wherever you go, and the same thing started happening. And the difference was that I slowed down on the drinking for a while and got things put back together again, got me a good job, and I was credit manager in a jewelry store, and, you know, things were coming. I found another lady who really was nice. You know, I better tell you about that part of it too. You see, I have another problem besides my alcoholism. It's called marriage-itis. I used to get married a lot. You'd notice I said used to gets married a little bit. Used to get divorced a lot, and I had lots of mother-in-law trouble. just lots of mother-in-law I know none of you ever did but I had lots of mother in law trouble I had the ability to make them think I was the greatest guy in the world for about six months and after that my antics they didn't really appreciate them too much and so they would say where did you get that bum you know but anyway I found this lady and you know we got married and all these sort of things started happening and things good things came back together again you know got my own business and in the jewelry business and that's why i was in the jewelry business that's what caused it uh chuck and uh it was it was just one of those um one of the things that started happening i thought god now this is the way it's supposed to be you know and we were really happy and things were going well and and uh then all of a sudden my my this little girl she had a little girl and i had all these two children that i had left back in oklahoma god there was a source of guilt and pain to me like you cannot believe you know it's just guilt guilt and remorse and all this sort of stuff going all the time and this little girl she was a beautiful little child and i just loved her to death you know and so it was a mutual thing she just loved me and things were going wonderful then all of a sudden i found out that this little girl uh was uh was ill not only was she ill she was terminally ill and uh i couldn't believe that and i started cussing god and i said how could you tell you how could he do that you know this beautiful little child and you're gonna and she's terminally real what are you talking about this is terrible and finally she did die and uh when she did uh i i just kind of snapped inside you know back into my alcoholism it's just another reason or excuse or whatever but i used it to to move back into active alcoholism and uh i found myself out there a couple of weeks after the little girl was buried and i was over her grave and i was over there shouting at god calling him a dirty sob and why didn't you take why did you take her why don't you tak me i'm rotten and no good but why did you take this little girl and just shouting and screaming you know and that's where i was uh you know in my uh spiritual approach to life. And I was drinking very badly. And so, to make a long story short, the business went under and this wife says, can't you see what you're doing? What happened to the gym I married? Where are you? What are you doing? Can't you say what you were doing? What are they doing to us? And about that time I got custody of these two kids back in Oklahoma because their mother's alcoholism had caught up with her and uh they had been put in the foster home so i took them out of the frying pan and put them in the you know out of fire and put him in the fryingpan out there because i was in the last stages my alcoholism i hope it's my last stages and uh um it uh it was just one of these things that god when i got those kids out there again i knew the responsibility was mine but when i got them out there that same old responsibility thing got me and i did my god here they are again you know and i was a disciplinarian and those kids were scared to death and it was a mess it was terrible and so uh this woman and i kept drinking all the time and the business was going to hell and the money was going along with it and then my wife said to me god jim won't you do something can't you stop that drinking don't you see what it's doing to us and i just would the only remark i could say to her would just leave me alone you don't understand you know and so finally she left and those two kids were there I had those two kids you know and I don't blame her for leaving at all you know it was chaos around our house it was insanity is what it was so I took these two kids over to my brother over in Arizona and when he looked at me I never will forget what he you know the way that he looked me because I took those two kids over there and I said I need help and he said yeah I know and he says I'll help these kids because they can't help the situation they're in. But he looked at me and he said, as far as you're concerned, Jim, I want to tell you something. You know, you've had more of everything than anybody else in the family ever has or probably ever will have. And you've Had it lots of times. And each and every time you've always blown it away and thrown it away. And you know why that's happened? That's because you're a drunken bum. Now, you know, I'll Help these kids because they Can't help where they are. But as far As you're Concerned, I want you To get the hell out of here and never come back again. And so I indignantly got my showing. I was good at that, you know. I could show hostility well. And I got raised up all that hostility I could because I was crying inside. I knew he was right. But I had to get hostile to cover that up. And I Got Hostile with him and I left, you know. And but the look that he had was the one that got me the most because it was a look of about half contempt and half pity. And I knew we were going to win. We were going right. And that's the way it was. and i wound up back in uh through you know at this point i i got to tell you that i'm also a thief you know when the last part of alcoholism was active in me and uh i had nowhere to go i was managing an apartment house and i set up two sets of books you know one for them and one for me and that's against the law and so they uh while i was trying to get my way back to los angeles they um they uh the law came in and picked me up and put me in jail and so they extradited me to back to los angeles and i spent 68 days in jail in the sheriff peter j pitch's hotel there on downtown los angelo and i want to tell you that that that was that was the first time i had been truly sober in over 20 years for that anytime anything approaching that length of time And I had a chance for a lot of reflection. And the only reflection that I ever got out there was guilt, remorse, degradation, all the things that I'd done, and I had to good look at me. And God, I didn't like what I saw. Oh, I hated it. And it was just to go through the day. It was terrible. And finally, I got out on bail. And I figured, well, they had, of course, one of the provisions that I should get out of bail was that I go to Alcoholics Anonymous. my first reaction to that was who me go to those people they gotta be kidding and uh so when i got out i didn't and i stayed sober for about a week and had no money and i was staying in a luxury hotel downtown los angeles by this time i didnít have very many friends i guarantee you because i used them up and i was staying at this hotel the lancashire hotel at at the corner of 7th and Broadway in Los Angeles. And I worked two blocks away in a jewelry store. That's the funny thing about that jewelry store, I got that job 30 minutes after I got out of jail. And I just, as a credit manager by the way, I often wondered whether or not, you know, if they knew where I'd come from, whether they'd give me that job or not. Kind of doubt it. nevertheless i uh i didn't drink for that first week and then on saturday was payday i thought well maybe i'll go over duties that's a place i used to hang out and go see if uh and by the way the the place that i worked was only three doors from the store that i used to have and uh i hang around the corner at this place called duties and uh go around see all my buddies and i have a little coke with them and you know i did i had two cokes and then somebody talked me into having a beer and you the rest of it i closed the place up and that began three weeks of the hardest drinking that i believe i ever did in my life just suicidal drinking and trying to work at the same time there wasn't any such thing as sleeping at all it was passing out and waking up passing out waking up and then trying to make it through the day drinking all day i had a boss that was a lush and he didn't care if i drank drinking all day and uh passing out two or three times at night and finally one day i got up and i my morning having to have at least a half pint in order to be able to even go to work and i had my half pint nothing happened had another half pint and nothing happened now what happened what it usually happened was it had dulled all that all that fear and that anxiety and the guilt and the remorse and it had dulled enough to where I could get through the day, but it didn't do a thing. It just didn't doing anything. Made me weave a little bit, but it did not do anything up here. I said, oh my God, I really am in trouble. And so I drank more and didn't go to work. And I drank all day long. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing happened. And that night I found myself about 1 o'clock in the morning. and I'm in my room and my mind is just as clear as it can be and I am on the 7th floor and I look out this window and I think why not you have been a rotten worthless no good individual all your life why don't you just end it save a lot of people a lot trouble I said yeah that's a good idea and I got out sat out on the ledge and there I was and I don't remember fear I just remember the futility of the whole scene and then the one thing that came to my mind was you've been a rotten father all your life and now you're going to give him a suicidal father and for that reason I couldn't do it I just couldn't I got back and then I thought about the words I came back in the room and I thought about the the words that I'd heard when I was in jail why don't you go to Alcoholics Anonymous and I said well you know what else like the old saying goes you know we come to Alcoholic Anonymous and we've got no place else to go and uh so i called alcoholics anonymous and this is like uh maybe 1 30 or 2 o'clock in the morning of course there's nobody there but they had the answering service on and i didn't i just hung up you know and the next morning i said besides that in the morgen it'll be different the next morgen i got up and i had that same of course i had my stash always you know that i saw to it that i had mine my morning supply and i have my half pint in the morning, and it didn't do anything at all. The same thing kept happening. And so I finally went to work, and when I got to work I called Alcoholics Anonymous. It was that simple. And I want to tell you that calling AlcoholicsAnonymous was... The lady on the other end of the phone, she knew exactly who she had, but I called to get some information for a friend. You know how that goes. You get some information for... So I started talking to this lady and she listened to me and uh she started all the while she's sharing a little bit of her story and she talked about how she had abandoned two kids and i'm saying oh my god i did the same thing and and one of the things that i had going for me at that time was it was arrogance and hostility and you know nobody ever really got close to me you didn't get very close to me i could talk to you for a while but if you started getting close then i got the hell away from you and uh it was uh it was this kind of thing was going on with her she was getting to me and uh then all of a sudden i don't know what happened uh you know um i started talking to her and uh you know sharing some stuff with her and um well i don' t to this day know exactly what was said except that i do remember she says uh i had said something and then she says oh yes i understand i'm an alcoholic too. And with that boy, I just went, I started crying up a storm, just bawling boy. And she just let me bawl for a while. And then she says, could I ask you a personal question? Could it possibly be that this person that you were calling for, could it possibly be you? I said, yes. And I cried some more, you know. And she let me cry and I cried. And then when I got through, she says, oh, thank God. Thank God. Because if you're an alcoholic like I'm an alcoholic, we have the answers for you here in Alcoholics Anonymous. Won't you let me send someone out to talk to you? Now with this, I'd already gone much too far, much, much too far and i gotta pull back now you see and so she says uh i said well no i'm at work now and i couldn't possibly do that you see but uh we uh uh well she says let me uh let me at least have a male member of alcoholics anonymous call you and so in about an hour i said yeah well that'll be fine here's my private number and and so about an our tom called and he says my name is tom and I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Does anyone there have a problem with alcohol? And I thought that went over. I wanted to give a good, intelligent answer. And so I thought that went on for a while and I says, well, yes, I think I've been an alcoholic for about the past two weeks. He later told me, he said, I damn near busted out laughing with that one, Jim. But uh so we made an arrangement to meet and uh that's the way it was i got to tell you about that uh the meeting that uh he was to pick me up you know chuck didn't have any problem identifying me last night right uh and that's really true i knew the second i saw him i said that's him but uh i uh i was to meet this guy in front of my hotel and seventh and broadway in Los Angeles at 5 30 in the evening is pretty busy you know there's lots of foot traffic and all this sort of thing and there were a lot of people standing around catching buses there must have been 40 40 40 50 people there and I'm standing I got my suit and tie on you know and uh there was car pulled over off of Broadway and right onto 7th street where I was standing over here and two guys in one driving this guy gets out he gets out of the car and he walks directly over to me and he says, are you Jim? I got my first resentment in Alcoholics Anonymous right there. I knew damn well I didn't look like an alcoholic. But he did. He later told me, he said, you had that look, Jim, that we all had at one time or another. And he said that was a look of loneliness that is the hallmark of the alcoholic. And boy, he couldn't have been further from it. He could have been, he was exactly on the truth because this time nobody wanted to be around me, and I didn't want to be around anybody. You know, I was...I didn't have any hope left, and that was it. I just didn't want anybody around me or I didn t want to be around anyone. So he took me to my first meeting, and my first meeting was something else. I walked into this place. Smoke was pouring out of it, low ceiling by a basement of a church. The smoke was boiling out of the church, and the laughter was raucous oh all kinds of laughter going on you know i said oh my god what kind of place is this you know and i get in there and they've got all these funny signs on the walls all around the whole walls easy does it let go and let god there but for the grace of god i said uh-oh boy my intelligence is starting to work now and then says think that was the one who really got me Think, think, think. Jim says something about that from time to time. And that got me too. But they were saying all these things and I said, with my keen religious background, I said I know what this place is. These people are a bunch of holy rollers and they're going to pray over me and that's what's going to happen. I started yelling at Tom and I says, Tom, I know What you're going to do, you're Going to pray Over Me. He says, Jim, for Christ's sake, shut up. And he says, now Jim, look, honestly, this may mean your life. Keep an open mind tonight, will you please? So I saddled back down again. I shut up is what I did. I got one of the first directions that I followed was to shut up. And I got a lot. I got that thing a lot, you know, about telling me to shut up and listen a lot because I had a big mouth. And so I sat there and listened. And they had this thing before that, and it was a participation meeting, you know. And this one gal gets up and says, my name is Mary, and I've been sober for three months and everything is just wonderful and I just think it's the greatest thing in the world and I'd just sit, yeah, oh God, you know. What is all this? Oh, what is this? Then some guy gets up and man, he looked bad and he says, I've bee sober for two months. I've be in a depression ever since I've bin sober and things are bad and I said, yeah they're bad and I'll never get no better. and uh i disliked with him boy i could sing for bad and uh then you know some more got up and the one thing that happened that i remember about that meeting particularly was that the one things that hadn't happened around my been around me very much was any kind of laughter and i caught myself during that meeting somebody was relating a tale about how they'd gotten drunk or something and something funny had happened and i laughed i don't remember the details but And I remember laughing. And I remembered Tom next to me says, feel good to laugh, doesn't it, Jim? And I thought, yeah, he's right. And so it began. The adventure of Alcoholics Anonymous began. And I mean, it's been an adventure. It really has been an venture. Now, to any of you who are real new out there, that might sound about like me talking about that gal, how wonderful it is. But I want you to know it's not a joke. It's been and adventure and one that I didn't, it has not been anything like what I really expected. In the early years, if I had known the pain and all that stuff that was involved, I wouldn't have done it. I just wouldn't Have done it, but if you're in the middle of some of that pain right now And you happen to be new, I want to tell you that the other side of it is worth it. The other side Of that pain is worth where it is, And the way you get to the other Side of that Pain is you stay here on the, You know, you keep coming To meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, And the miracle of Alcoholic Anonymous works. one of the first things that they started they put me in a 12 step house I didn't like that not for a big shot like me and I looked at this big old two story clapboard house over there in bad shape paint was peeling off of it and everything else and I said oh my god you really done it this time big shot and I walked in there and here's all these guys and about three of them are doing the St. Mattis dance over there you know they're just getting sober and I'm saying oh boy and then the guy looks at me and he says you're an alcoholic i said well i don't know but it seems like every time i uh get in trouble there's alcohol involved they said you're an alcoholic and so uh they still did about getting a sponsor now getting a sponsor was uh you know something i didn't really wasn't going to do i'd heard that talk when i didn't no i'm not going to have any of that and so they kept on i kept going to meetings i kept going to meeting all the times and they were coming by and picking me up this 12-step house and i was going out to the west end of los angeles out there and everything was going along fine but i wasn't gonna have any of that sponsor business and so i was in this participation meeting one night and uh i was way up on this end of it and then the door was at the far end and about as far from here the end of this room and a guy by the name of byron and i were sitting there and all of a sudden this guy comes in and byron looks over there and i saw him the second he came in and byron hits me in the side like that he says jim you see that guy up there i said yeah i see that got there he said that's the guy you need for a sponsor and i looked at him i looked to him i looked with him and i look at him i said you got to be crazy i can't stand that little much less ask him to be my sponsor and he says jim i'm telling you that's a guy you needs to get a sponsor yeah yeah yeah yeah and so uh he says uh jim if you don't get a sponsor you're going to get drunk well i heard what he what he said and i had just seen enough of what you people had around here or what you were doing around here and i really didn't know what you had but i knew what i'd had and i didn't want any more of that so i thought well maybe i better look at this thing and so um i uh he kept on at me and i said all right all right at the coffee break i'll go ask him to be my sponsor so at the coffee break because remember now that i'm as arrogant as anything you've ever seen in your life and i'm you know hostile and all this sort of crap and it's still with me i'm just sober is all i am and uh i walk over to this guy at the coffee break and he's sitting at one of these long tables like this and i walked up to him and i stuck my finger right in his face and i said listen clancy i want you to be my sponsor he looked up at me and he says you what I said I want you to be my sponsor he got real quiet he said listen puke people don't come around telling me I'm gonna be their sponsor they asked me now you get the hell out of here Come back later and maybe I will and maybe I won't. And I twirled around there and I walked back and I said to Byron, I said, you see there? I humbled myself and I went over there and I he says, Jim go over and ask that man Wright to be your sponsor. So when the meeting was over I went over to him and I says, Clancy, I really would like you to be my sponsor. He says, well that's a hell of a lot better. But he said, there's something I need to talk to you about. There are certain rules that I have that i that i have when i sponsor people and i want you to understand what they are and then he started listing them and he says you will be at all meetings at least 30 minutes before the meeting starts and you will find six people whom you do not know and you'll go over and shake hands and introduce yourself with them and you're going to be the first person to meet shake hands with everybody but you'll find six that you don't know at every meeting and you get yourself acquainted with him and you went on and he went on you call me at a certain time every day and he went on and on and on and funny words came out of my mouth after he got through there I heard myself saying okay I will you know I because I didn't take direction from anybody so direction in my life began I assure you I started calling him and all this sort of thing and and he began to have me to do things in Alcoholics Anonymous, he had begun to make me do some actions in Alcoholic Anonymous besides just coming to meetings and taking. And I had to pick up ashtrays, and I had to start giving a little bit, and i had to go get people who were newer than me, and I sometimes had to get them on bus when that old $10 car of mine wouldn't work. But I became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous because of the direction of my sponsor. He made me do things that I did not want to do. And thank God he did. And it really began. And I'm still staying in this 12-step house, and I'm about, oh, I don't know, five or six months sober. And I'm spouting off there one Sunday. There's a whole bunch of those guys around there, and there's no guy who'd come there every Sunday. And he heard me spouting off. And—I had a big mouth anyway—and he said, you know, I've been listening to you asking what you're going to get out of this thing, and you're talking about what you're going to get out of this thing and all that sort of thing all this time. I keep hearing you being selfish and selfish and wanting to know what you are getting out of here. I'm going to tell you something, mister. In the book there's a place for you to find out. But better than that, I'm going to read it to you right now. And he took the big book and he turned over there at page 83. And at the bottom of page 83 he started reading. And He says, these are the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous, but you've got a hell of a long way to go before they're going be any of them are going to be yours but they're promised to every member of alcoholics anonymous who keeps trying and working for him and he started reading the promises and i want to tell you that when he got through with the promises everything that i'd ever wanted in life he had just got through quoting and i didn't even know it he had just got though telling me that you know and he started in with the whole thing and he went through the promises so if i can take just a couple of minutes here i'd like to tell you how the promises applied to my life because nothing had a bigger impact on me than the promises i hadn't worked i hadn t gone anywhere close to the middle of uh step nine i'll tell you that but they really impressed me because it was everything that i'd wanted and then when they uh started out you know with that i was going to find a new freedom and a new happiness new freedom and new happiness i had no idea that that happiness and that freedom especially the freedom because god i used to stand around i want to be free nobody's going to put me in a box and tie me up there i want to be free and i didn't have any ideas that freedom was going to come from the discipline that my sponsor and the and the uh and the program of alcoholics anonymous were going to instill in my life i had no idea that discipline was going to make me free and yet it did because i had to start doing certain things i had do certain things in alcoholics anonymous and i i didn't realize that that's what they were talking about i did i came to know that but i didn t know it then and we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it man when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I wanted to shut the door on all of it I wanted to get that stuff behind me because I wasn't proud of any of that nothing but guilt remorse and pain was there and I wanted to shut the door on it and my sponsor told me no no no no what you'll do is you'll be able to forgive yourself if you work these steps and that you can use I'll teach you further down the line what you can do with those experiences that you had, because they'll benefit. That's the best thing you got is those experiences. So you don't want to shut the door on them. Then it was, you know, then it came and said, we will come to comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. My God, how many times had I stood around in my total frustration and confusion and ever say, give me some peace. God almighty, giveme some peace! I just want a little peace and i did i just wanted some peace as we all did i didn't know that i'd have to come here by the discipline of alcoholics anonymous that i would get that kind of that peace and that i indeed would know serenity wouldn't have it every day wouldn't be there all the time but i would have it it would be mine and i'd know it was there and i know it wasn't real And then, you know, no matter how far down the scale we've gone We had realized that our experiences could benefit others When I was laying in a parking lot down on Main Street In Los Angeles Dressed in a suit Drunk, no money No job No place to stay Wondering how in the hell did I ever get here How did I never get here and knew there was never any hope that it was going to be any different. I didn't ever know that that one day that I'd be able to tell a guy by the name of Charlie, a Chippewa Indian who'd been arrested 74 times for drunk and that that would be what he would cling to and come to Alcoholics Anonymous and stay sober to this day. Fourteen years ago that happened when I relayed the message of hope to Charlie. I had no earthly idea that those experiences would be worth anything until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And the thrill to see Charlie go up there and get his first 30-day chip and his 90-day tip and then get his year birthday and for him to call me sponsor. You know, that's a thrill I wouldn't want to miss. I wouldn't want to miss that one, but didn't even know it was possible. So when we talk about how far down we go, that's as far down as I'd ever hoped to go, but it was a benefit to me and somebody else. And then we talk about that feeling of uselessness and self-pity. And there's three of them. They throw three of em in there right in a row because I guess that's pretty profound for us as alcoholics and they say no matter how that we will We will lose we will lose interest in ourselves and gain interest in our fellows And it says self-seeking will slip away They kind of put all three of those in there together because to tell us that we are Self-obsessed and that those are the things that we do all the time time and yes i was self-self-seeking in everything that i did and it didn't mean one single thing to me if i was hurting you or if i wasn't before i came to alcoholics anonymous and you taught me through the discipline of the fellowship and the program of alcoholics autonomous that i could change that that my thinking could change and then it then it comes along and tells me it tells me that our whole outlook on life will change. Our whole outlook, my God, that it will just turn around. When that man read that to me, I knew he just didn't know what he was talking about. And it took several years in Alcoholics Anonymous for me to be firmly convinced that yes indeed, my whole outlook did change. And It only changed because of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and a willingness that somehow God had given me the willingness and I didn't know how anything I didn' t know how any of these promises were going to come about and I told him I said hell I can't do that that can't happen to me and he says you don't know the power of the program of Alcoholic Anonymous you've got to stay around and watch the power at work you've gotta ask for the help cause there's power in this program and I did'nt know that And last year, I never heard a more poignant talk on power than in my life than I did when Bob White talked at the Canyon Conference in western Oklahoma. And Bob was talking about the power that he needed because he had a daughter that had passed away over in Mexico and he'd had to go bring her back. and he was coming up through San Diego and he would warn out and he had no more power. His power had run down because he was on an emotional strain and he walked into the airport in San Diego and there was this good friend of his, Jack Claytor and he went over to Jack and he said, Jack, I'm in trouble. My power is gone. and they walked into the restroom the men's restroom and kneeled down in the restroom both of them and they prayed and they were there all together about 15 minutes together and they talked about the power of the program and Bob says after they got out of the restroom he says it's like a huge burden had been lifted but he said I needed the power of the contact of another alcoholic to help me restore what God gave me in the first place. The reason that I feel so much about that particular thing when I think about it about a month ago I was talking in Tyler, Texas and just before I was to talk. There were some other people there, and they said, have you heard about Bob? I said, what do you mean? He says, didn't you know that Bob's got inoperable cancer? And man, it's just like somebody taking a baseball bat and hitting me in the stomach. Because if there's anybody in this world that I'd like to emulate, it'd be Bob White. He's kind of man that puts more into the mainstream of life as the book calls on he puts more in the mainstream life than any one individual i know he's a hell of a dedicated a for many many years i said no i didn't so when i got up i i really didn't i didn' t really feel like talking i guarantee you that and i got up and i related you know what i felt about bob and how i loved him and somehow the power was given to me to go ahead and finish what I had to do and the next morning I was still feeling the same way and I just thought I asked God this has just got me I don't know what to do with it then I thought what would my sponsor do I know exactly what my sponsor would do I'm in Tyler he lived in Whitney, Texas and I headed that car toward Whitney, TX and I went there and we drove there and uh he says jim i want to tell you something i don't know what god's plans are for me but i said no i know he has great power and if he wants to heal me he'll heal me and if she doesn't he's given me the best life i've ever ever known and the best of all gave me alcoholics anonymous and people like you who care about me he said that's all i really need to know he said i still got the power jim because we've talked about the power a lot He said, I still got it. I just told him I loved him and I walked out. You know, had to go. But I felt ten times better. That man felt better about the whole deal than I did because he had the power. The power of the program, Alcoholics Anonymous. The greatest thing that I've ever dreamed, that I ever saw in my life. It just happens so many, many times. And if you're new tonight or today, I'm sorry, if you knew and you're wondering what this thing is all about, it's about power. There's lots of power to change our life, to change our way of thinking, to change those hostilities that I had then, the arrogance. No, it didn't take them all away, but it sure shrunk them, you know, and I can live with them today. And then it says that my whole outlook on life would change. Absolutely, that happened to me. the uh it's just a total different outlook it is not something that it's today is me me me i must i must a must or i want i want a lot of days it's a hope and perhaps and maybe and i get up in the morning and i read my my 86 and 87 and kind of lays out my day for me and that's what i do i go out and try to do the best i can to think that whatever god's will is that's what I want to do. And the book is filled through with me trying to think about other individuals. It just talks about it all the time, other members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that that's where my power can come from if I need it. And I've had to get on the phone a lot of times to use that power. But that contact of another individual is God working in my life and I'm convinced of it. Then it says that fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. Golly, boy, what a... That's a biggie. That's biggie because fear of people, although I had this veneer on the outside of arrogance and hostility and all that sort of stuff and I wouldn't let you get close to me, that's only because I was afraid of you. Afraid you might get to know me inside and know what a real mushy guy I was on the inside. God forbid you should know I was mushy. Oh, golly. And so they said that would leave us. And you know what happened in my life? That really happened in my life. Didn't stay gone all the time. Sometimes there's even today sometimes I think you're looking at me a little funny. But you know it most of the time you know the thing I learned really I think in Alcoholics Anonymous I think I've really learned it to a pretty good deal, is that I try not ever to judge your outsides. My insides and your outsids don't match up. It's my insides and your insides. They match up, you know. But I know that none of us came here to improve on our social prestige. You know, we just didn't do that. We really didn't. We came here because we were sick down here where we live. And we had to do something about it. We wanted some help. and we came here to do it and the help was here the power one more time the power the power of alcoholics and honest I get goose pimples thinking about it then it says that we will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us my god life baffled me every day baffLED me every single waking moment I was baffLEd In the last three years of my sobriety, my God, I couldn't do anything right. In the first three or four months when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I remember standing in that 12-step house down there one time and it's just like my head was a Grand Central Station. Boy, thoughts were going all through there, you know, like trains running out of there. And I'd get some brilliant insight. God, oh yes! And then I'd turn my head to act on it and where'd it go? It left! And I said, my god! You know. And I asked him, God, is this a... I am really nuts. Is this ever going to happen? Is it ever goingto lose? Is it never going to leave me? Oh, yes, it'll work. It'll happen in God's time, and I want to smack them right in the mouth in Godstime, you know. Now I want it now. Get it out of here now, you know. And in Godtimes, you know. And then the power worked. Took the time. It took the time, but the how I work. The steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were that power that would boost those things to where they would work. Intuitively know how to handle situations used to baffle us. God Almighty, how many times today have I... I use it all the time. I have to because left to my own devices, I don't have the power. And every once in a while at the end of the day, God, I need an intuitive thought. You said so in the book. I need one now. And then have to go about my business and sure enough in you know half hour whenever it comes it comes god's time uh the answer will be there you know and i today i i know though and i don't think those are those way out kind of thoughts you know that that sort of stuff when we get out there i think it's what the program promises is we will intuitively know how to handle situations at baffled so if you're new and you've got that thing that i was talking about you know The thoughts are going all over your head, and you can't wonder. You can't focus, and apprehension is something that you live with all day. Keep coming back. I promise you it'll work. The power is here. The power to change that is here, but you have to be able to be here to hear the message. And it works here in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. That's where AlcoholicsAnonymous works. It starts here, and then we take it into our daily lives. But we have to start it sitting in these chairs, you know, listening to the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, being part of it. And then we can carry it into our lives outside. And then the last part. The last part, we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Good Lord, what a relief. What a relief because the burden of life that I carried around was bigger than this hotel and i carried it around right up here you know it was just there and i cared it and got it got weary i mean i got weary and i said is there no rest is there no peace you know and uh the thing was that when i look always in hindsight you know you you've got 20-20 vision in hindsight, you know. So when I look back... Yeah, you're right. Hindsight, 20-21. But when I look back, when I Look at the things the way they've transpired in my life after coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, they were just exactly the way they were supposed to be. Just exactly the way They were supposed To be. And I didn't Know it At the time. Today I know that I'm Exactly where I'm Supposed to be doing exactly what I'm supposed To Be doing right this moment, and God's doing it for me. He's the one that put me here, he's the one that puts me in this place today, and you're the people who's got to suffer for it. But nevertheless, that's the whole deal. Today I can realize that God is doing for me what I could not do for myself. I've got to show you a very good example of that, and Her name is Vannoy. Now, I told you about my marriages and all this sort of stuff. And what happened was that I got divorced and I went through a marriage and divorce in sobriety, in my early sobriete. And I just was total frustration. Good Lord, I can't even get a relationship going sober. a successful one and so for 12 years i stayed single and uh i was chicken is what i was i really wouldn't let any real relationship to get started because hey i'm not going to go through that anymore i'm just going to do it without it then one time i went down to to midland texas down there and i walked into this conference down there and there was this big, long, tall drink of water and she was pretty. And I said, oh, I think I'll go talk to her, you know. And I went over and talked to this lady and instantly I liked her and we carried on a whirlwind cross-country courtship and all that sort of thing and finally the day came when she was going to come to California and we were going to try to put it together. We were goingto try to get a marriage going and all this sort of stuff and so she uh just that just before that happened i just got totally just scared to death that this one too would be the same kind of thing and i can't i can'T go through another one of these so i the longest airplane trip i ever took in my life was from los angeles california to lubbock texas to go tell her that i couldn't go through with it that was the longest trip i never took And the closer we got to Lubbock, you talk about frustration and hypertension and all that sort of thing, it began to build. And finally I just told her when we got there, I said, I can't do it, I'm scared to death and I just can't doing it and this won't work. And so, well, we just didn't do It. She says I dumped her, that's not really, well you know. Nevertheless, we did that. And then about a year later, I'm back at this same place. And the same woman is still there. And them same feelings are inside, you know. I said, oh, hell with it. Give up. That's what they do in Alcoholics Anonymous is you give up. You know, just give in to it. So I gave in. And I want to tell you that I really had apprehension on a lot of it, you We were married on my A.A. birthday, and I want to tell you that I am the most grateful person that you can imagine for a relationship that I didn't believe could exist that we have today. I am comfortable in our relationship, and never was comfortable before. And I don't know that—listen, we have our fights and that sort of stuff, but the difference is I don't have to carry those things on and I don' t have to take them as a personal threat you know, that they're a personal attack or something like that and I want to tell you I am comfortable in this marriage and that's a gift from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because she's a member of Al-Anon for 15 years you know and we work our program and besides that she's my best friend and that' s a good deal that' S a good dealer I'd have missed it if I hadn' t come to Alcoholics Aanonymous I'd ha' missed that deal I got to tell y'all one little thing I'll close. In 1975, I was elected delegate from the Southern California Assembly Area to the General Service Conference in New York. And just after that had happened, I got a call from my brother Bill in Oklahoma City. Now, my mother died of alcoholism, as I told you. My father's alcoholic, and he'd been out to California to visit me lots of times. and he'd gone to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous with me and he didn't drink when he was out there and he just loved Alcoholics Anonymous when he Was Out There and he thought, oh it's wonderful for you. I just, you know in fact, God, I'd just die and so I got a call from my brother Bill. My brother Bill says, Jim, you better get back here your dad's been out on another drunk 30 to 45 days we don't know how long really and it looks like he's going to die so i came back to oklahoma city and uh i walked into saint anthony's hospital there was my father and he looked horrible he looked like an alcoholic look who'd been drunk on an extended drunk bloated and all this stuff and i looked at my dad because all the way back on the plane i'm saying god give me some give me one of those intuitive thoughts about what to say i'm just torn up and i don't know what to saying so i went back there and i i said to my dad i said uh dad you've been to lots of meetings with me out in california and you know what it's done alcoholics anonymous have done in my life but i want to tell you i'm not back here to criticize you or condemn you i just came back here to tellyou i love you because i may not get the chance to again with that i just kissed him and i turned around walked out And one of the greatest gifts that I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous has been when a year later on April 4th, I was able to call back to Oklahoma City and wish my 79-year-old father Happy number one, A.A. birthday. I'm pleased to tell you that my father is still sober, that he goes to five meetings a week. He has been secretary of the senior citizens group in Oklahoma City, and he loves and lives A.I. He's down in Florida now to get out of the cold. He's down there for the winter, and he goes to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous down there three times a week. And it's a beautiful thing. But I'd have missed it all. I'd Have Missed The Power Of That Relationship. I'd Had MissedThe Power Of The Fellowship If I Hadn't Given Up. If I hadn't have been forced to give up. It's The Greatest Gift That God Ever Gave Me Was When I Was Forced To Give Up. you know there's a story that goes that I believe it's attributed to Dr. Bob and that is the story about a little boy who went to the doctor because he'd been burned and the doctor put the medicine on there and put the bandages on and sent the little boy home and about two weeks later the little Boy was back and he came back and he took the bandages off and it was all healed. And the doctor in the little boy says, gosh, you're a wonderful doctor. You heal a lot of people, don't you? The doctor said, no, I just apply the bandage and the medicine and God does the healing. You know, I think that applies to us here. We come here, we sit down in these seats in Alcoholics Anonymous and through people, God does a healing. thank you all very much for being here