The Promises – Stuart R. – Promises in Paradise – St. Thomas, USVI – 2012

I knock a lot of things over. Back home they say that I tump over. Stuart Reeves, an alcoholic. It's true that by God's grace I've been kept sober since February the 10th of 1992. I'm very thankful for that. And I know that y'all haven't done that here this weekend, but I do it at home and I just got to do it. And it's an old timer that whenever I got sober, and please don't take this the wrong way, I'm just sharing with you my experience. An old timer when I got sober by the name of David A. who went on to the big meeting in the sky was my grand sponsor. And he told me if I didn't say my sobriety date I might not have one. So I want to keep my sobriety date so I said it. My home group is the Simply AA group in Irving, Texas. That's right in the middle of Dallas-Fort Worth if you don't know where Irving, Texas is. And we meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church. And if you're ever in that neck of the woods and want to go to a meeting, give us a call and we'll be glad to take care of you. And we do pretty much what the name says. We just practice AA. And when it's not AA we call it BB and somebody said, what's that? And we said, we don't know but it ain't AA. AA. AA. AA. AA. AA. AA. I'm going to get going here in a minute. God, we were talking about shaking. God's trying to shake the truth out of me, I can promise you. I'm honored and privileged to be here and you have a beautiful home. And I've already been talking to a guy, a sponsor back home about we need to plan on coming back next year and staying a little longer. And so again, thank you and thank the committee for having me. they called me and I'm a guy that's pretty new to this sort of thing right here and I don't believe in circuit speakers or anything like that I'm just an A member it's my turn in the barrel and if you stay in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous you'll get your turn in the barrel Dave called me and asked me and my first response to him was are you sure you've got the right guy and I have a sneaking suspicion how I wound up here and one of your speakers that was here last year Deb H she and I have become fast friends and she was out here and I think she dropped my name or left a CD or something anyway so if you don't like what I say tonight you can blame her and anyway it's been a really great weekend right up to now and at about I'm going to guess somewhere around 840 I will be a used up speaker and then it will continue to be a really good weekend and is this a gift well thank you that's my last great sin I think cigar smoking and cussing and I won't do that I won't do either one of those behind the podium I'm born and raised in Irving Texas and I've lived there my whole life and I've lived there for a long time and I'm going to probably use some geography tonight that a lot of y'all won't be familiar with but just work with me on it and I live today a quarter mile from where I grew up I tell them at dinner night I moved in in this house in 2001 and the people that lived across the street from me I went to all 12 years of school with their daughter and so her parents knew me pretty well and I was not a stellar student or anything I was getting in a lot of trouble and I was getting in a lot of trouble and I was getting in a lot of trouble as you can imagine drinking and the dad came out and said hello to me very warily whenever I moved in across the street from him and he just had a oh my god he's back and I looked at him and I said no Dave I've changed I promise and I'll do my best to be a good neighbor today to those around me I didn't wake up one day and decided I needed to just skip happily to own the Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't know anything about alcoholism or any of that stuff growing up I had a I've got three older siblings and of course a mom and dad and I'm the youngest in the family and my parents split up when I was 8 years old and that was due to my dad's alcoholism and I can say that because my dad's an admitted alcoholic he's passed away now in 2006 from alcoholism he went in and out of the doors of the AA for quite a while. And, you know, some of us don't make it so others of us can. And I'll tell you the story about that real quick. I got sober, like I said, in 1992, and I was in a meeting at about a year's sobriety, and the meeting ended, and we were sitting down in the room talking afterwards, and I was bashing my father for his inability to get sober. He had been to the treatment center ten times, the VA hospital ten times to try to get dried out, and it just hadn't taken, and I was giving him a good lashing, and, of course, he wasn't there. And a guy came up to me and said, Is your dad J.R.? And I said, Well, yes, he is. And this guy said, I need to talk to you for a minute. And we went up in another room and sat down, and he said, You really need to lay off your father. And I said, Well, you know, and I just kind of blubbered some more, and he said, Let me tell you something. He said, And this man's sobriety date was September, and he said, I called the Irving North Group of Alcoholics Anonymous on such and such a day in 1985, and a man answered the phone during the day. And that man came and got me and took me to coffee over at Denny's, and we had lunch, and he brought me back to the Irving North Group, and he sat across the table from me, and we drank coffee, and he talked to me about the big book and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, And I hadn't had a drink from that day to this. And he said, That man was your father. And he said, I can't answer the riddle as to why your father didn't stay sober, but I'm here to tell you that during your father's periods of sobriety, he was as good an AA member as there was. And I had to quit bashing my dad after that. And I can't answer that riddle either. You know? But anyway, my parents... Laughter Laughter Laughter Laughter Laughter Laughter I'm not commenting on that. Laughter Laughter Laughter Oh, Lord. It's getting hotter by the minute. I might come out of this in a minute. I want you to know I left my rope at home on purpose. And when you talk in Texas or in most of the mainland conferences, you want to talk about this. I had to wear a coat and tie. And I had to call and say, What do I wear? But anyway, at 14 years old, I had watched my dad do a lot of drinking. And he was a good weekend dad. He loved sports. I loved sports. He worked for the Dallas Cowboys from their origination until 1974, the first 14 years of their existence. He was a super promoter. He was in the car sales business at home. As soon as the Texas Rangers came to town in 1974, he started leasing the owners and the managers and everybody with the Rangers cars. And I was in the dugout their first year. They played ball, meeting Toby Harron, Mike Hargrove, and a bunch of guys. It doesn't matter. And he took me everywhere playing sports. And at 11 years old, I fell in love with golf. And he joined a country club for us. We played golf every weekend and either went to or watched Dallas Cowboys football. Friday night, he picked me up from my mom. And we'd go to the local bar. Now, I don't know if y'all experience any of this, but I know there's people here from a lot of different areas of the country. And in Texas, there's a lot of dry cities and dry counties where they don't sell any booze at all. And if you want to go, so somebody will open up an Elks Lodge or a hotel bar and you've got to buy a membership and it's a great excuse for drinking, you know. And my dad was a charter member of every hotel that opened in Irving, Texas. Starting in 1958. And I was to have my own memberships for those as soon as I became 18 years old. But he would take me to the bar and I'd watch these guys drink. And I loved it. And I loved what they did. And at 11 and 12 years old, I was playing shoot and pull and playing shuffleboard and liar's poker and pitching quarters and craps and blackjack and just all sorts of great games that any 11-year-old ought to learn. And I'd go back to school on Monday morning and tell, all these stories and it got me some acceptance into the in crowd. And I watched these guys drink every weekend and all I saw was the romance of it. All I saw was the fun of it. I didn't realize until some years later that there was something else that used to happen there on Fridays and Saturday night about 10 o'clock p.m. And that little bar, the phone would start ringing and it was the wives and maybe kids or girlfriends of those men that were in there and they were calling and I'd hear three or four guys and when the phone would ring they would say, tell her I'm not here or I'm not tipping you tonight. And they'd all laugh and laugh and then the bartender would tell them whoever it was for that they weren't here. And so, you know, I don't know the damage that went on at those homes. All I saw was the fun all these guys had and at 14 years old I wanted to know what that was about. And my first drunk was a planned event. And a guy's older sister and she was two years underage to buy booze but at 16 years old she showed up at where we were on a Friday night with a case of Slitsmont Liquor Baby Bulls and a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka. And she dumped those out of the car and said something smart out to us and turned and walked away and she had on a pair of white jeans that I can remember right now. And, um, and we went to drinking. And my two buddies didn't like drinking. It wasn't even a matter of liking it or disliking it. I wanted to know what getting drunk was. And I got drunk. And I got rimspin and sick and did all those great things that we do when we get drunk and we don't know what we're doing and had a great time. And the next day we were sitting around the swimming pool talking about this and those guys told me how crazy I was the night before and I told them what they were missing. And, um, and, and, you know, those two guys don't need to be at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous tonight some 35 years later. But I needed to be at one that night. Because you don't go looking for a solution to a problem that you don't even know you have yet. And, but, but I was to drink from that day until the day of my last drink alcoholically. Um, I don't social drink. I don't, you know, we were talking at dinner tonight about somebody buying a bottle of wine and it's still in their refrigerator eight months later. Or something. And I just looked down and I said that's strange behavior. You know, I don't understand that. Go give it to somebody that'll use it or something. Gee. And, um, you know, and, um, and that's the way I'm wired. You know, and if you understand that of course you're in the right spot. And, and, and people that don't understand that there's nothing you can do to understand it. And people that do understand it there's nothing we can do to not understand it. And, um, um, so, I didn't drink every day at 14 years old but I drank every opportunity I got. And by the time I was in high school I was, uh, playing on the golf team and I was looking forward to making a career out of golf. And, uh, drinking and girls came along. And, and it's funny, the girl that came along was the girl in the white jeans. And when I was a 14 year old brat and she was a 16 year old girl I didn't need, I, I wasn't a twinkle in her eye. But when I was 17 and she was 19 we, we started out, we fell in heat or lust or love or something all of the above and, and, and, and we started our first fling. And, um, and I married that girl once at 23 years old. Um, married the girl that bought me my first drink. How about that? And, um, I married her again at 40. And, um, sober. And, um, and we're not married today. Um, and I was, I'll shorten my marriage history up real quick. I, I, I married another gal when I was six months sober that was four years and six months sober. And I don't recommend that for anybody. But it's what happened to me. And we're, of course, we're not married anymore either. And, and I've been bad to marry. And, um, and I haven't been married now in about five years and I'm not looking to get married. And, um, and that's pretty good with me. And, and it took me a long time to figure that out. I ain't saying I'm never going to do it again, but I'm not going to do it again right now. And, um, but anyway, she came along and, and we started running around and she wasn't in high school anymore. And all of a sudden, everything that had been important to me just went out, went out one side of my head or something. And, and, um, and, and I didn't know what higher powers were, but she had become mine and I didn't even know it. And it became a lot more fun for me and important for me to go hang around with her than it did to go to school. And I had a college scholarship lined up to go play golf and all this stuff was going on and, and, and we were drinking and partying all the time and I was skipping a lot of school. I was making straight A's. I'd made straight A's my whole life. I wish school had been harder for me. And senior, senior year of high school at Christmas break, um, they cleaned out my locker and had me come to the office when the break was over. And, and, and, and the principal of the high school who had known me since I was 11 years old, who I'd been playing golf with for years, told me to leave Irving High School that I was no longer welcome there, that I could not graduate. And there were literally tears in his eyes as he was telling me this. He called me Lefty. I'm a left-handed golfer. He, that was his nickname for me. And, um, and good people like him and teachers and counselors and parents and, um, the mother of that girl, a lot of good people tried to help me along the way and I wasn't having any of them. You know. Um, and I got dismissed from Irving High School and started, uh, and, and all I did was go to work at the coffee shop. That her family owned. Um, and, and that was great because now she was there. And, and we, we, we'd, we'd run around together for six weeks and one of us would make the other one mad and we'd split up for six weeks. And, and while she was gone, I don't know what she was doing, but I know what I was doing. I was drinking and wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was doing it with, and when she was going to be back. And that's a higher power. And it wasn't very healthy. I can promise you that. Um. I went to work at that coffee shop and in a couple of years I became the night manager of that coffee shop. You know, they say we're good employees. And, um, and all I was was a liar, cheat, and a thief. And I devised a plan to sneak about $10 or $15 a night out of the cash box and, and, and go to late night happy hour at Binigan's. And, uh, late night happy hours from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. They had three-for-one drinks. Um, I'd close the night shift to that restaurant down, go over there at 2 a.m., go home, might sleep by 5 a.m. or 6 in the morning, wake up at noon, go to Binigan's for before happy hour, and, um, then go to work from 2 to 10. And that's just kind of what I did every day. Kept a case of beer in the cooler of that restaurant at all times. Um, and by the time I was 18 years old I was a daily drinker. And, um, started getting in trouble. Um, you know, I've had two DWIs. They're not any requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous. They're just one of the things that I do. And I'll tell you about them real quick. Um, the first one I was so drunk I couldn't hit the ground with my hat. And, um, and the second one, and I'll tell you this, I got that first DW guy when I was about 21 years old. I was no longer working at the coffee shop. I got caught stealing. Imagine that. And, um, and I didn't admit my guilt and I left. And I got caught stealing by her mother. And her mother loved me like I was her own blood. I still call that lady mom to this day. And thanks to the amends process we've got a great relationship. Um, but I was fired from there so now I'm out running around doing all that and I get a DW guy and I'm 100 miles from home and I get to stay in jail two days and, and, and and I go to the family logger and that was my dad's logger because he got in a lot of trouble too. And, um, and the guy tells me you shouldn't have taken the breath test I could have got you off on some technicalities. Now this is in 1983. The brain has a great recall in 1983. In 1983, I got DWI number two and I will swear as I'm standing here I was not drunk that night. I know we've often times said we've just had two. Well I was on number two that wasn't all I was going to have but I just got started. And I was racing the, I was racing the car down interstate 35 coming south from, coming north from Austin to Dallas and, and I had number five limo tinted windows that you couldn't see in and at night you can't even see out of. And, um, and I'm racing this car and I mean we're doing about nine miles an hour and we've been goosing each other and all this and all of a sudden floored it. Well when I floored it he just got in behind me and turned his lights on and it was one of the Camaro highway patrols. And he pulled me over and asked me to take the roadside breath test and the brain has a great recall. I said no, don't take the breath test that you could have got off on a technicality. So I refused. And I'm a pretty big guy and I, but I was pretty docile. I know not to mess with the police and, and, and I just, just refused. And they took me to jail and, and I still think there's something constitutionally wrong with this but I found out that I was guilty right there on the spot without ever going to trial or anything. I was done. They took my license and by refusing to take that breath test I lost my license for six months. Um, all sorts of things happened and I hadn't even, I hadn't even been proven guilty yet. But, um, it didn't matter. So I stayed there two days, got out, went to the same turning. I'm kind of proud of myself for not, for not taking that breath test. I don't think it's going to turn out better this time. I go into his office and I tell him my story and he says, you should have taken the breath test. I can't help you. And I said, now three years ago you told me not to take the breath test. And he says, well I know but the laws have changed. And I said, well you need to send me a memo telling me how I'm supposed to behave when I get in trouble. And, uh, I blamed that DWI on that lawyer for a long time. The truth is I probably should have had 20 DWIs and only got two. You know, and I went on and committed various other offenses and, um, and, and in the middle of all this, um, oh, about the time of DWI number two, uh, Tammy and I got back together. We hadn't seen each other in about two years. Um, there was some real, uh, you know, resentment and everything over me stealing from her family's coffee shop. But, but sick attracts sick and we fell back and sick together and, and, and I went to work for my family in December of 85 and spring of 86 she walked in that restaurant, I mean that truck shop on a, on a, on a faucet that she wanted to buy a stereo for her car and she told me later all she wanted to do was see me and we started dating again and before long we, nobody even proposed to each other and, um, I was thinking about that. Somebody was talking about there were boat captains there and you could just get married like that and that's kind of what happened only we didn't have any boat captains around but, but we sat in one of those local bars in Irving and, and just had some drinks and negotiated out our marriage and, guys you'll be proud of me I negotiated out two nights a week with the guys and I thought that was pretty good and if I could have done two nights a week you'd have a different speaker tonight and, and I'd have never got to come to St. Thomas so I'm glad I couldn't and, and, and I did two nights for the first six months and we had marital bliss. Had two little daughters, had a daughter and stepdaughter they were eight and three and, and they wanted some things out of me they wanted me to be a participatory husband and father in that relationship and I treated them just like my father treated my mother and us and that was I showered them with gifts way beyond their age and wanted them to leave me alone so I could drink. I mean we had Olympic sized trampolines we had stereo systems any adult would have been proud to own in their home they were in the girls bedrooms jewelry for her got them a house and all that stuff and I'd taken my first geographic and again the geography I'd moved a whole twenty miles to Arlington, Texas and I only lasted there a year and a half and I came back to Irving but we're living out there and, and, and I would drink six, you know, before long it was four nights and then five nights and then six nights a week now the sixth night she'd drink with me and, and she, and we'd go home together and, and we'd have a great weekend and, and I, and I kind of did what my dad did I was a Saturday and Sunday dad and we'd all go have fun on Sunday and all that stuff and then Monday the Bishop's Cycle would start all over again and, well you know it rode along and, and, and I ought to be the guy that sleeps the clock around on Sunday and I'm the first guy up I'm up at seven, seven thirty in the morning and I knocked the, the top off a bottle of whiskey and set it on the, the end table and get me a Budweiser and that's what I have for breakfast. I've never drank a cup of coffee in my life drunk or sober I don't know what coffee tastes like I just drank Budweiser for breakfast and today I drink Dr. Pepper's for breakfast I drink Dr. Pepper's alcoholically I told somebody that before I got here and, and, and you know I've been just obsessive about most everything in my life but if one's good two's better and, and, so I get up and, and I start watching TV and back then this is again about 25 years ago the only sports station on Sunday morning early was TNN the Nashville Network and they would show the monster truck pulls and Gravedigger would be chasing Bigfoot around and they'd be smashing regular cars oh it was great and I'd be drinking and watching them do all that and, and then the fishing shows would come on and I love fishing and, and, and Bill Dance would come on and Jimmy Houston would come on and, and they'd do their little 30 minute shows and then Bassmasters would come on and they'd be showing the Bassmasters Classic or something and then they'd end it with Roland Martin out of Lake Okeechobee in Florida and I learned how to balloon fish watching Roland Martin on TV and Roland would catch them big old bass and hold them up like that and by the way if you don't know it they're bigger if you hold them farther away from you they look bigger on the picture if you hold them away from your body and, and, and, and I would be watching that stuff and, and, and I was I heard Norm I didn't hear him I heard a tape of Norm Albee say that, we should drink or think people like us should drink or think but never do both at the same time and I'm drinking that morning and watching those guys fish and I started thinking and, I suffer from something and I'll let you call it whatever you want to I'll just describe it to you and that is I have an idea it's the best idea I've ever had in my life and I must act on it immediately and, I bought a lot of things that way so I'm watching the shows that morning and I'm drinking and I start thinking and the thought occurs to me that I could be a professional fisherman and then it really gets to visions of grandeur where I'll have my own show and we'll be rich and you know just all sorts of things and, and it was such a great idea that while they were still asleep I went and bought a bass boat at stellar credit I had about two hours I was the owner of a bass boat had it at the house and they, they just woke up brought her outside to look at it and we were getting along so well at about a year so married that she took one look at the bass boat and said it looks really nice you can sleep with it and the next Friday me and, me and her little brother who was the guy that I had my first drink with at 14 he's now at that time my brother-in-law we go to Chris and the bass boat to Lake Brownwood, Texas and Lake Brownwood, Texas is home to a conference called the Lakeside Conference that I was to go to many years after the story I'm telling you right now I've had the opportunity to go a lot of places sober that I went drunk and in the mid-80s I had a roommate who came to Dallas to go to a technical school and he was from Lake Brownwood and he lived his parents owned the marina on that lake and he and I became fast friends and went down there and drank all several times on the weekends and just had a ball down there for a couple of years and in 1995 I was in the at two and a half years of sobriety I got a sponsor who told me to give him $50 and I said for what and he said you said you was willing to go to any lengths didn't you give me $50 and I gave him $50 and he took me to that Lakeside Conference and I walked down this hill on a Sunday morning to go to this meeting and there was a cross on the rocks at the water's edge and I stopped dead in my tracks and he was walking on ahead of me and he turned around and he said what are you doing and I said I can't go down there and he said I didn't have any relationship with God or our power really at this time I was kind of faking until I make it at two and a half years sober I had a belief but I didn't know how to expand that belief and he said why can't you go down there and I said well back in the 80's I used to drink down here and fish a lot and I said and it wasn't anything for me to throw Budweiser bottles at that cross I know that cross and I said if I go down there God's going to get me and that's the kind of God I had and he laughed and grabbed me by the arm and took me on down there and God didn't get me and um and in 1997 I took a guy that I still sponsor today I'd been sponsoring him 11 days and I took that guy down there and we went down to that same cross and did his third step and I asked God to accept that as my amends for throwing beer bottles at that cross and he hadn't got me yet so I guess it's okay but anyway back to our saga here um it's we're going to Brownwood to go fishing at this at this lake and an ice storm comes it's April in Texas and it's it's April in Texas and an ice storm comes it's the latest one I know you have on record um we get we race the ice storm down there and we lose we never even take the boat off the trailer we sat down there with that old roommate of mine and drank for about a day and a half and it iced and it snowed and it iced and it snowed and we kind of ran out of time and we said well we better get headed back home and it's about 175 miles from my house to where we were and um Bobby drives us out of there and we get up on interstate 20 and he says we're heading east and again don't worry I'll just I'll tell the geography because I've got to tell you the geography but um and Bobby's driving and I'm drinking and I start thinking again and the thought occurred to me I looked over at Bobby and I said today's the day what do you think and he said for what and I said let's go buy a pig and he said sounds like a great idea to me and that little coffee shop in Irving that I'm talking about has a sign up on it it's been open it's the second oldest restaurant in Irving it's been there 42 years there's one other that's been there 44 and I've been eating at both of them since I was about 6 and the sign says where Irving meets and eats and we knew everybody in Irving and Irving's not a small town it's 250,000 people but at that time it was smaller than it is now and all the old store keepers and independent people everybody went in there and ate but we knew the feed store owner so we called the food store and we called the feed store owner and we're out on I-20 driving along in an ice storm and we called the feed store owner and told him what we wanted to do and when he got through laughing he said cool and he said I'll make a call for you call you back in a minute I had one of them mash phones you know about that big and he called me back in a minute and told me where we could go get one and said he called the farmer and told him we were coming now I want to tell you that 18 wheelers weren't even driving on this stuff and here's a couple of drunks or I'm the drunk and I'm the drunk and they used to send my brother-in-law out to watch after me only problem is he'd pass out and I'd take him home and go back and do what I had to do anyway but we're driving along and trucks aren't even driving on this stuff and we finally get out to this farmhouse and it was there were three opportunities in between to call this whole thing off and go home but you know best idea I ever had must act on it immediately and we weren't going home we were going to get the pig and we were going to get the pig and we drove all the way out and went down I-45 south toward Houston, Texas to this little town called Palmer and pulled into this farmhouse and the farmer and his wife came out and they knew it was us two drunks pulling a boat in an ice storm and and I said how much are they? and the man said thirty-five dollars and I paid him and he said well get on over and get you one and there was about a twenty-five by twenty-five foot pen over here that was full of just weaned piglets and they were about twenty pounds they were about as big as my Boston Terrier and I jumped over in the middle of all of them and got me one and fell in love with him and named him Burl and he was champion red duroc show blood for you pig farmers and and I got him and the farmer finally says son what are you going to do with that pig? and I said I'm going to train this pig and he will be smarter than Arnold on Green Acres and when him and his wife got through laughing he said I don't believe I've ever sold a pig for domestication before and I said well you have now and we hopped in the truck and headed back to Arlington and we get out on this one particular stretch of I-20 and it's a big downhill deal and a truck jackknocked and we were stuck and I work in the car audio and electronics and I had every police scanning device and CB radio known to man back in those days and we got a little bored with the traffic jam because the truck we weren't going anywhere and I said well Bobby watch this and I said I jacked the mic up on the CB radio and gig that pig right in the ribs and he went he went to squealing and I have it and they loved it make him do it again we're squealing on the CB radio we're having a great time lady trucker comes on and says I want to see him I take my sunroof out and stick old Burl up out there where everybody can get a good look at him and we just had a ball in the middle of a traffic jam and we got through with all that and we got to the house and it occurred to me that the daughters were having a slumber party now they were supposed to have it in the backyard in pup tents and my wife being a very creative person that she was moved all the furniture into the garage and had all the pup tents set up in the living room and there were 13 little girls in there having their slumber party and they were in the Weebles and the Brownies and them kind of things that little girls did and the Weebles Weebles wobbled Weeblos and I miss my kids growing up and I'm not proud of that and I'm not proud of that but they were doing all that and my dad had always told me if you don't know if it's safe to go in the house or not throw your hat in and if it don't come back out in a minute you can go on in so we opened the door and threw the pig in and we shut the door and had another beer and thanks to the program by Alcoholics Anonymous that about three years of sobriety I'm telling this story at my home group and from behind the podium and my then ex-wife came up to me and said you know it's pretty accurate the way you tell that and of course she was the sober one and she said but you missed something and I said well what could I possibly have missed and she said well the child was pregnant and the child went into labor on the pig's first pass so that's good I gotta use that so we got the child over here spitting out puppies the rabbit went on the couch for a week the cat disappeared forever and I had two guinea pigs back in the back room for the school project and they went to squeal into high heaven because they thought they were going to die or higher power had arrived and that's my story and I'm sticking to it I threatened to do things like this all the time and so she wasn't that surprised by it and everybody kind of thought it was funny and all them kids were screaming and giggling and having a good time the pig's going crazy everywhere and I finally got him crowed up and she said well he stinks and I said well I'll take care of that and I don't want to get you too much of a visual of this but I went back and got butt naked and hopped in the shower with this pig and I said I mean I'd been out about two and a half days drinking myself I ain't sure who smelled worse me or him but and you've heard of a greased pig well once I got him in there and he got some water on him I couldn't I was losing him and so I scream at her honey and I have great respect for the Al-Anon family groups honey she comes back there and and I said could you put some shampoo on us or I'm going to drop him and she joined Al-Anon shortly after our first divorce 1990 but if you ask her today she will tell you that she got in the shower and helped me shampoo that pig and I told her that's why she should go to Al-Anon we did get divorced not long after that but anyway I got to finish with the pig here and I tell somebody tonight how you know I'm going to tell you how I found God and everything and somebody's going to come to me after the meeting and I go man I love you man pig story and but we had one I didn't think I hallucinated when I drank and but she said we didn't have a cat and for a long time I didn't believe her even in sobriety but then it occurred to me that the cat spoke English and he and I talked and I hated him and we kept talking and we cussed each other a lot he was a filthy cat we cussed each other didn't like him and all I can tell you is that real or imagined when Burrow came along the pig disappeared so I'm grateful I brought that I mean the cat disappeared I never saw the cat again after I brought that pig home real or imagined and that hallucination went away anyway we divorced not long after that little story and I moved back to Irving moved 500 yards from the accomplice group of Alcoholics Anonymous didn't know it was there wouldn't have cared if I did like I told you and did a bunch more stuff in the next year or two that got me ready to get here and I committed more offenses in 1991 that landed me in some real trouble with the law and my family fired me and then they called me and said we found a client that has a nephew like you and they sent him to a place in Oklahoma to get some help and he's been sober four years and if you want to go do that we'll keep you on the insurance and I didn't have anything better to do so I said sure I'll go and I went to Nolan Ryan's 7th no-hitter on May the 2nd or whatever that was 1991 and the next day I drove myself 277 miles for treatment drinking the whole way that was the day I couldn't get my head drunk because I pulled up there and I was stark raving absolutely drunk as you could be but I felt sober as a judge and I stopped and had another six-pack and had another six-pack and had another six-pack and I could drink an enormous amount of beer and I drank a whole bunch it took me nine hours to get there it took me nine hours to get there it took me nine hours to get there it took me nine hours to get there it took me nine hours to make a four and a half hour drive and I walked in there and checked into treatment and they took my blood pressure and all I can tell you is the first number was in the 200s and I stayed in detox for nine days and they finally let me out of there and I started a journey toward you all it had a little bump in the road here not too long after the date I'm talking about but they got me started they screwed up my drinking they told me about AA and I stayed there 30 days and some good things happened and some good things happened I got introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous I got the first inkling of this god whatever he was and I got to realize that the failure of my marriage was not 199% her fault it was more like 95% of mine 5% of hers and I had never taken a look at that and they let me come home before they let me come home they told me I needed to get a sponsor and I didn't know what one of those was we kind of talked about sponsors today but I remember the guy that was in AA I worked for him before I went to work for my family he pulled me off at his office one day and showed me a chip with about a 10 or 11 Roman numeral year on it and he pulled it out and he just showed it to me and he said I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and if you keep drinking the way you're drinking you're going to need to go with me someday I said oh I'm too young for that and he just so I remembered him and I called him he's a family friend and as soon as he picked up the phone I said will you be my sponsor he didn't even know who it was I get calls like that today from the local treatment center at home somebody's put a sign up in there and said if you live in Irving, Texas call this guy and these people call me will you be my sponsor who is this but he said no he said something very interesting that you may have heard about and he said something very interesting that you may have heard about I have some experience with I don't know I have experience with it at home we celebrate birthdays we talked about somebody if you get a chip this weekend I assume they're going to do something sometime here but we do it every Thursday night at my own group my own group on Thursday night you get to get up and somebody gives you a cake and a chip and you get two minutes to talk and then we go we're going to eat shut up my first home group however we had a big birthday night at the end of the month and had a big spread and you're sponsored to get up and talk about you and you know we loved to hear ourselves talk and the guy introducing often times would talk longer than the guy getting the chip and they had a four hour meeting and if you had a big home group well that's what this guy told me he said I don't participate in the program anymore I just go to birthday night once a year and get my chip and I didn't have any idea what he meant in 1991 when I was in the treatment center trying to get out for a number of years I would see that man and we would pull our chip out and show it to each other and he'd ask me how that was going I said man that's great I'm getting involved I'm having a great time in sobriety life is good and it was and he didn't ever have anything to say because he wasn't going to meetings in 2005 I was at a benefit for the local hospital system at home it was a casino night and I walked in I saw him sitting down there he's 70 years old and I pulled my chip out and went up and showed it to him and he showed me a gin and tonic and alcoholism is cunning, baffling, and powerful and it's also patient and I can give you countless examples of people that quit doing this deal that quit doing this deal that quit doing this deal that sooner or later they got drunk or they blew their brains out and that's sad but it's true he immediately went into rationalization and justification telling me why it was okay he was drinking and I never said a word I said sir our hats are off to you if you can drink like a gentleman but I said if you can't just remember where we're at if you need us and I tried my best to be the best example I could be to that man right there that day and he reminded me of the man in the book he quit drinking for 25 years then he retired he turned the business over to his sons and out came the carpet slippers and a bottle and in four years that guy was dead and this man isn't dead yet but within a year he had a stroke and almost died and he turned to you and he's kind of living out that exact story but anyway he wouldn't be my sponsor so they let me come home and I walked into the Compass Group Alcoholics Anonymous in Irving, Texas sometime in the late spring of 1991 and I know who chaired that meeting I know who gave me the desire chip that night and the most important thing I thought at that time was that my then ex-wife was three rows up and three seats to the left and I didn't even know she had joined Al-Anon but she was there for the open speaker meeting and she was to tell me something shortly after that a few weeks after that she was to say I don't think Alcoholics Anonymous will work for you and I proved her right I stayed 95 days and I went out and got drunk I went to a meeting every day for those 95 days I got a three month chip the sponsor got up and said something nice about me I got to get up and say a few words and I'd been drinking that day and if you've gone to a meeting every day for 95 days you can get up here and say what you need to say we call it talking the talk but your walk talks louder than your talk talks and I didn't have much of a walk I just knew the talk and I got up and told everybody how great it was to be sober and I'd been drinking Budweiser that afternoon and I went out and got the job done and I wasn't ever going to come back again I didn't want to come back to A.A. and I drank for six months and I was on five years felony probation for offenses I'd committed and I started getting in a lot of trouble with that because drinking leads to other things and a lot of things and trouble and I wound up at an unscheduled probation meeting on February the 1st of 1992 and there was my probation officer in there and her boss, the director of Dallas Probation was in there and a constable was over there with handcuffs and paperwork and I thought, my God, I've been rebutted for that I'm going to prison and I think they put him in there to scare me and he got my attention if my eyes could look like that I was watching him and trying to watch the man that was talking to me at the same time so I didn't make any one of them mad but they scared me within an inch of my life that morning but they let me go and now here's the alcoholism as I began to understand it that morning within 30 minutes my best idea was to stop at the Big G Grocery on Industrial Boulevard in Dallas, Ohio and get a quart of Budweiser because that's a lot of pressure and I need a drink and they just told me I was going to prison if I do that and that was my best plan that's alcoholism I drank that quart of Budweiser while I was drinking it sitting in my truck in the parking lot I caught myself in the mirror of my truck and I believe I did what's on page 30 of our book that morning I fully conceded my innermost self as alcoholic I took the first step nine days before I got here I said, I'm Stuart Reeves and I'm an alcoholic and I said that right to myself in the mirror of my pickup but that first quart was so good I went in and got a second and I drank all of it and I went in and got me a third and now I'm driving down Urban Boulevard in Dallas, Texas heading to my job and I got this quart of Budweiser between my legs and I've drank about half of it and you can do the math but that's going to be somewhere around 7-12 ounce beers two and a half quarts of Budweiser and here's the alcoholism as I understand it I went from Stuart Reeves, the hopeless alcoholic the most gut-wrenching admission I'd ever made to myself in the mirror of my truck seven beers before to the next thought that came out of my mind driving down that road was I got 30 days to figure out how to beat him again because I'm a liar, a cheat, and a thief I'm a con and I'm a manipulator and that was my best plan nine days later my family did an intervention they didn't do any good they called the only guy if you're not sure if you're through drinking don't introduce your family to your sponsor and as they might call him I introduced my... all my family lives within three miles of my house within three miles of me brother, sister, mom I didn't introduce any of them to anybody in AA and Irving but I slipped up and introduced them to a guy who lived in Chickasha, Oklahoma and he and I had become friends in treatment and we went to Texas OU games together and all this stuff and they'd met him and so ten minutes after my brother leaves my house that morning threatened me with an inch of my life the phone rings and it's this guy in Oklahoma and he says, your brother tells me you're drinking and Budweiser in hand I said, he's a liar you know and he said, he's a liar we had my video phones he couldn't see me and I started bawling for whatever reason and I said, yeah I am man, what do I do? and this guy had been to treatment seven times he was a seven time retread and there were 72 of us in that place in 1991 and 20 years later he and I are the only ones sober and I don't know what that says about all that but 20 years later we're still here but he said, call that guy that was your sponsor so I called my first sponsor what an idea told him what was going on and he said something very strange to me he said, my wife and I have been praying for you every day for the last six months ever since you left us we've been praying for your desperation that's what I tell guys today if somebody tells me they got their kid drinking or one of the guys they're working with is having trouble I tell them to pray for their desperation if we don't have the desperation I had to be desperate enough to get here as long as I still had other ideas and all that and that last six months I went out and drank what I did was I exhausted all my energy all my better ideas and I beat myself into a state of willingness to where when that guy called me on the carpet I was able to call that guy and say, what do I do? him and his wife met me at the Compass Group again on February 10th, 1992 and I've been with y'all from that day to this and I took a thousand mile walk down the middle aisle to go get a desire chip and I've been catapulted into a life I couldn't dream of and that first wife didn't want to remarry me so I got me another one and that one of the she had four years and six months and I had six months and I don't recommend that for anybody but that's what we did I had a stepson in that deal and went to raising kids and being a family and going to Alcoholics Anonymous and being sponsored and sponsoring people and being in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous being active and it's a life that I wouldn't trade you for I was rolling along about three years sober and a guy came and did a step talk at our group and I became attracted to what he was pitching and he became my second sponsor and he opened my eyes up to a whole new world in Alcoholics Anonymous he took me through the book page by page, step by step and showed me how to put the principles into practice in my life and he didn't water it down a bit he gave it to me just like it had been given to him from the old timer before him and I love that man still to this day he was my sponsor for ten years but he called me one day in 1995 and said what are you doing on Saturday? and he'd been sponsoring me about a year at this time and I had learned to say well I don't know what am I doing on Saturday and he said I need you to drive me to Wichita Falls we're going to go up there and have chicken fried steak and I said I'm in and I'm always thinking a meal ahead and we ain't finished dinner tonight and I was talking about breakfast tomorrow and he takes me to Wichita Falls and we go to the world famous Pioneer Restaurant and have chicken fried steak and it was delicious and then he takes me over to this Holiday Inn and we go into this conference hall and they're having an area assembly I have no idea what that was but he took me to my first area assembly and I was to keep going to area assemblies from 1995 until the middle of 2010 and uh... and some changes happened in my life at that time and I had to take a job working weekends with some bad economy and all that and I was and I had to finally get out of area service if you will and I really didn't have any problem with that I'd tallied up I'd had a vote in our area for 11 years and it was time to rotate and let somebody else have that vote and by saying a vote I mean I had different positions I was GSR and then I was DCM and then I was this and that and then I was corrections chair and then I became alternate treasurer and that was about the time that it was time for me to go and it was time to let somebody else have the voice in the vote and um but I'm forever grateful for learning about our third legacy and um and that was an experience that I wouldn't trade for and I encourage the people that I work with today and the people that are from my home group to get involved in that also because it's a whole nother it's a whole nother side of Alcoholics Anonymous that's very rewarding and um and service is inconvenient and um but I seem to get the most out of things that are inconvenient I rocked along and I'm not proud of this but at ten years at about ten years of sobriety um I woke up about two and a half years into that marriage with that lady when I was six months sober and I was not in love and I knew I hadn't been in love and I knew I'd made a terrible mistake and I did my M.O. you know when I met her at six months old I was sober um and I and I hope I don't offend anybody with this but you know we slept together we got married and then we got to know each other and um and and for me that doesn't work very well and um and I've done that three times in my life and uh it hasn't worked very well any yet and I was miserable and I and I put everything I could into saving that deal for as long as I could and I and did a lot of work with my sponsor and I'm talking about more than more than a year's worth of work and and I finally got his blessing that it was okay to ask for a divorce and this lady was totally oblivious to that stuff that was going on because I had another problem when something was wrong in a personal relationship I didn't talk about it I just internalized it and I just rocked along like nothing was wrong and then I absolutely blindsided her and broke her heart when I told her I wanted a divorce and I'm not proud of those actions I'm just telling you what happened to me and um and as a result of that we got divorced um the son had already left at sixteen the stepson uh he was uh bad to drink and do other stuff and I caught him at it all the time and I finally looked at him one day and told him you're not very good at this you really ought to quit before you get in trouble and um and cause I'd find his stash here and do this there and he wasn't any good at it and he got in a lot of trouble and um um but I got divorced from her and some strange things happened and um the oldest daughter of those two girls my stepdaughter was killed by a drunk driver in 1997 at eighteen years old her first week home from college and of course my first wife and I were divorced at that time and really weren't seeing much of each other and um and I hadn't seen my daughter and and and and I kinda I kinda watched my daughter from afar because her and my stepson went to the same junior high school and uh but I kinda I kinda stayed off to the side and we were just kinda friendly with each other every now and then and and she came back to work at Irving at that coffee shop and I was welcome in that coffee shop because I made amends for my mother-in-law and it's still my favorite place to eat and um and I go in there and Tammy had been my waitress since I was twelve years old and she's back there and she's the best waitress there is and she starts waiting on me again and I'm single and she's single and before long we fell in sick again and um and in December 2003 we got married again and and the blessing and and and I don't even know when we actually got divorced and she left in 2003 2006 and um and I'm not gonna go into all the details of that but I hadn't been very good at that we made it twice as long the second time we did the first time neither one of those was very long but um the blessing out of all that is is that I got to rekindle a relationship with that little girl who was 16 years old when all when we started our journey getting back together she's born on the same day as me um her name is Jessica she's 28 years old today and her affectionate name is Burl um she's nicknamed after the pig I can assure you she doesn't look anything like a pig she uh she has been to the Virgin Islands as one of the Coors Light Girls and um that was her that's how she paid herself through school she was a she was a Coors Light Girl um and she's my best friend today she just today she does promotional work for Toyota and she travels the State Fair circuit she lives down in Austin 200 miles from home and she spent the last month in Dallas at the State Fair of Texas doing work for Toyota and we got to see a lot of each other and she's my movie friend and I have to tell you about that real quick because I don't know about any of you and when you got sober and all that it doesn't matter but but at 28 years old the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go do anything with my parents and ever since she and I got back into each other's lives and that was not that's now been 11 years ago um you know anytime she comes to town or even when she lived here and was in college um she and I went to movies she and I were the only ones that went even when I was married to her mother we were movie partners and we went to movies and we go to movies and we go have dinner and we go hang out and we've gotten to where now we like to go have dinner because our time is is less and rather than spending two hours a day two hours in a movie theater where we can't talk to each other now we've started going to dinner so we can have talk have have conversation with each other and I love that and cherish it and you gave me that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous absolutely gave me a relationship with that little girl who's now 28 years old I'm gonna be 50 in January and she won't know what what we were gonna do for our birthday and I said I don't know whatever you come up with I'm game and and and that's just the neatest thing in the world to me that she cares like that and and for you I could have missed it all things got kinda bad for me economically and financially and everything with the way the economy went a few years ago and I was forced to to take on a second job and I got to take on a second job doing something I love and that's cooking and when I say a job it's really a love and what I did was I bought a concession trailer and I run around and do this concession trailer on Sunday afternoons and a few other events throughout the year and and I just cook regular old greasy food you know we'll fry you something or we'll do this or we'll fix you a hamburger and but I like to say that I put a little bit of love into everything I serve and and I give it some personal attention and y'all taught me how to do that in Alcoholics Anonymous and I got a little enterprise today called Stew Daddies and I still work for my family five days a week and I work for Stew Daddies one day a week and and things are okay and she'll come up every now and again and help me do that and and and people and and all my little employees are all people in the program you know I'll find some new guy or I'll find somebody that needs a little extra cash and I'll let them come help me work and and and we got a little sign on the side of the door that thing that said friends of Bill W so if anybody's in the program and sees that they they know they can stop by and say hello and and I've met some people out of that kind of stuff and and and just experiences you know I've had the experiences to go around the country and meet people and I told you all about meeting them and the girl that talked here last year I met her and and in 2008 I worked the state convention out in Odessa, Texas I was the hospitality chair and it was the biggest job that they wanted us to serve sandwiches like we do for 300 at a little conference only this was for 1500 and we did it and it was so busy all weekend I didn't get to hear any speakers and that gal that was here last year I listened to her tape about three weeks after that conference and I was on a conference committee in Irving and and I invited her out to talk and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and friends for life and um but i'll tell you all that tell you that that i ended up in um in april this year i had a little event happen i had some surgery happen and didn't and surgery went fine but the recovery sucked and um and i developed i didn't know it but i ended up in the emergency room on april the 4th and i developed a two and a half centimeter pulmonary embolism and just about killed over and um i did all that and and and but god's got a plan for me that girl was here last year told me god obviously had a plan for me um and they start telling me i may not live through the night and 70 of the people die of this and all this stuff and and i've been laughing and taking a picture of me and my hospital gown and putting it on facebook and just been having a good time and then they about five doctors came in told me i was going to die in about three hours and i told the fifth one i said you know i hadn't died yet so why don't we talk about the solution and i learned that in alcoholics and others and they put a thing down through my neck went down above my pulmonary artery and and it was a little catcher and um they left it in for six months and anyway i came through all that and and and but i i put my i was the first the first talk i made after i got out of the hospital was about a month later and i was down i was down i was down south of houston at a little conference and i made then i made the talk and i told the story i'm telling you right now a guy came up to me and that night in my hospital room my sponsor he had my telephone calling all sorts of people and telling them i was sick and one of the people he called was dead well i told this story and this guy came up to me in the audience last may and said i've heard this story before but i couldn't figure out where until just now and i said what are you talking about man i've never met you and he said i know but you're that guy from dallas and he said you know deb helton and deb was here she was on her way home to new orleans there have been tornadoes in dallas the day before i had the deal and she got diverted around dfw and couldn't get to new orleans and she had to get off in houston and somebody in the program called and asked me if i'd pick her up and me and my wife put her up at my house and we didn't know her either and he said and your buddy called her and we were talking about her and he said and your buddy called her and we were talking about her and we were sitting at my kitchen table when your buddy called her and told her what was going on with you and he said i just want you to know the people of houston texas started praying for you immediately and um i got chill bumps thinking about that my sponsee's wife has 27 years sober and she was celebrating her 25th a.a birthday no her 27th a.a birthday that day or the next day oh i did it i did john madden my guy used to bet on how many times i'd hit a microphone in a talk and um sorry about that it probably hurt you didn't have one of these ones do i need to quit i'm not going that long i promise you my sponsor will shoot me um she people would call her and wish her a happy birthday and they'd say by the way how's stewart and she's like what do you mean how's stewart's my birthday and and you people went into action and the next day the doctor comes in and says he really made a remarkable recovery for a guy 24 hours ago we thought we were going to die and i kind of laughed at him and he said what are you laughing about and i said doc do you believe in prayer and he kind of bristled at that a little bit he didn't say he didn't and he said why do you ask that and i said well let me tell you a little bit about me doc i said i already told you i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous i've told every doctor that's ever worked on me since i got I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was told to. I didn't tell you, I'm telling you that. But anyway, I said, I already told you I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, the word went out yesterday that I was down. And people went into action. And people called people, and people called people, and people. And I said, I'm just going to guesstimate to you that thousands of people prayed for me last night and this morning around the North American continent. And I said, I don't know if you believe in prayer, but I believe in prayer. And I said, and I've got faith in God today. And he said, well, son, I don't know, but I just want you to hold on to that. And I said, don't worry, I will. And I said, I'm not discounting your techniques and your abilities one bit. You went to school and studied and spent a lot of money to do all the stuff you do, and you've taken great care of me. I said, what I'm telling you is that those people I believe prayed and asked God, asked God to bless you and help you be the very best you could for me. And he said, I can do it. I can live with that. And he went on and made his next call. And I believe that with all my heart, you know, that I'm here because of the power of prayer. And you're looking at a guy that when he got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm a Texan, and I'm just going to, I'm 20 years sober, and I'm not sure I know what the definition of an agnostic is yet. And that's okay. But what I can tell you is that I was plum ignorant of the concept of God when I got to UP. And I got, and I was, I'll tell you, in 1995, I went to the International Convention of San Diego with that man that had just become my second sponsor. And we got through with that, and we came home, and we hadn't had a chance to talk to him. And he said, I'm going to go to the International Convention of San Diego. And I said, I'm going to go to the International Convention of San Diego. And he said, I'm going to go to the International Convention of San Diego. And we hadn't had enough travel, so we unloaded one bag and grabbed another bag and some golf clubs and went 200 miles to Austin, Texas to pick him up a new car and play golf at a Lakeway Country Club. And we did all that, and we're sitting down there in this lady's house who was the wife of my sponsor's sponsor who had already, the man had died. I never met his sponsor. He had a new sponsor when he became mine. But he still went by and saw this guy's wife. They were very close. And I sat in this room with a bunch of old-timers and listened to them talk and tell stories down in Austin, Texas. She was a member of the Illinois Family Group. Her name's Pat Claytor. And I'm watching this, and she fixed me a glass of lemonade, and I sat over in the corner and listened to all the old-timers talk and didn't say a word. And I'm just soaking it all up. And in the middle of all that, she turned away from all those people and turned over to me, and she said, Honey, Jack, Jack was her husband, Jack used to say that the 12 steps well worked inevitably lead us into the hands of God. I thought, That's pretty cool. And I got me something and wrote that down. And I wrote it in my big book. And I've wrote it in every big book I've ever had. I wrote it in those big books out there. Because I'm here to tell you that I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I was plum-eggier to the concept of God. And y'all cared enough about me to say, Are you willing to believe that we believe? My first sponsor looked at me and he said, Look around the group. Do you think these people are doing pretty good? And I said, They're doing a whole lot better than I am. And he said, Well, how about making a group of drunks your higher power? G-O-D. That was my first higher power group of drunks. Somebody said it today in the sponsorship meeting. My sponsor was my higher power until I could get one of my own. I don't think there's anything wrong with that because his life was going a whole lot better than mine. And, uh, and, and, but what he did was he took me through the principles of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. One through twelve in order. And, um, and an amazing thing happened. The, the, the, the book says the main object of our book is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. I don't take that as a maybe. I take that as a promise. It tells me that if I do what's asked in the book and put these principles into my life, the very best of my ability, then something's going to happen. The twelfth step says it. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result. The only result. And I'm here to tell you that you took that guy that was broken and done when he got here and an awesome thing happened to me. I put those principles into practice in my life one through twelve. I've done everything I can to be a sponsor and use a sponsor and to do service work and I take meetings to prisons and I'm involved in Alcoholics Anonymous and I extend my hand to the newcomers. And an awesome, awesome thing happened. You walked me right into the hands of God. Priceless, priceless gift. I cannot pay you back for it no matter how far I try. No matter how hard I try. I thank you so much for having me here. Good night. Thank you.