The Secret Weapon and the Logic of the Chronic Alcoholic – John S.

My name is John Scott and I am an alcoholic, and it's by the grace of God, strong sponsorship and actions of Alcoholics Anonymous have managed to stay sober since December 19th, 1982. And the topic, it sounds like it's fear, and I'm afraid that I drank a little too much iced tea before I got up here tonight. I'm about ready to free you down, but Bill says I'll warm up here quickly. I want to thank certain members of the committee for asking me to speak. I feel like I had it in and it's been ... I don't know, I was at this conference, Cindy I was at this conference, I don't know, a couple years ago. And our host and hostess this week has been absolutely phenomenal. I know you other speakers have probably had fairly decent hosts, but not like us. We happen to have a host and a hostess that give us a grandkid to play around with. So it's kind of been a great blast. It's been a good trip for us. And it's always good to be here. It seems like this is kind of getting to be a home away from home. There's all kinds of folks here that we've met over the years and gotten to be pretty good friends with, and it's good to see you folks. My mom died a few months ago And I seem to have a hard time giving a talk anymore It seems like I've always got other things on my mind About 30 days after my mom died A guy that I sponsored for 25 years of sobriety, he died And on that same day, my dad had a heart attack My dad's had a stroke since then And now I got a call yesterday, and he's in the hospital again. So I'm headed to San Angelo, Texas. It's one of those places that you really got to be going there to get there in the morning. So I am going to miss tomorrow's talk. But I don't know. You know, it is just the way things are. I thought that when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, the way some of these old folks sounded like everything was going to be hunky-dory for the rest of my life. And it just don't work like that. It seems like I've had a lot of times that I really needed to drink, it seems like, but I just never got around to it because of you folks. And I'm really glad because it seems to me that every time I ended up getting drunk, I endedup getting more trouble than what I started out to have. And it's because of people like you and rooms like this I've been able to stay sober. It's an amazing process for a guy like me because I like to drink. I like the drink. I like do drugs. I do everything. Anything that screw up my life, I just love it. You know, and I've absolutely enjoyed my sobriety. I really have. It hasn't always been wonderful, but I got to tell you, it's always been pretty good. It really has. Jeez, I'd have missed the whole thing if it was left up to me, you know, because I have the secret weapon. I'm sure that there's one or two people in this room that have the secret weapon. You know, it's that gray matter between years. I'll tell you how good my secret weapon works. I'm in the ranch and farming business, and here about a year or two before I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, which had almost been about 25 years ago, I got a new banker. And me and this friend of mine, we went out looking for hay one day, and we were discussing this new banker that we both had gotten. And we haven't met him yet, you know. And I don't know if you've got a business like mine, it's really important that you take care of your banker. You've kind of got to really treat them right. And me and this guy are out looking for this hay this day talking about this new banker. The way we looked for hay is I'd buy a fifth and he'd buy another. He'd buy the fifth and we'd just drive around looking at hay. I mean, you knows, wasn't too deep. And that night we ended up at the – I drink at one or two places usually. I always drink at the Keg Bar, the Northern Hotel. The Northern Hotel was a really nice place. The Keg bar was not so really nice. And I remember that night me and this friend of mine, we endedup at the Northern and we were having a few drinks and here comes this new banker. And Jay says to me, there he is, that's the guy. And so we sent him a drink, you know, and he didn't wave to us. He didn't say thank you, didn't send us a drink back. Now I got the secret weapon inside here that starts telling me what's going on. Obviously, I'm going to be foreclosed on in just a short period of time. And he doesn't want to get to know us. And so We sent him another drink in about an hour and nothing, nothing. I mean, not even a smile. So it's obviously I'm gonna have to leave the state. And about a third hour goes by, and we send him another drink. And this time he gets up and he comes over. The people he was with, they went home or something and sat down next to me and my friend Jay. Almost immediately, he and I got into this argument about sheep, me and this banker. And I've got to tell you, I don't know nothing about sheep. I've never been around them. I don'T know how to work them. I don' t know how ta take care of them or nothing. But I have the secret weapon, and that means that once I have 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20 drinks, all of a sudden I begin to know things that I never knew that I knew. And I can tell you that this argument was really – it really got to be really deep. And this guy would tell me things, and I would disagree with him, and then he'd disagree with me. And my friend says, you know, let's go have something to eat. Come on, guys. This is not going well. let's go. And I hate to eat. I mean, if I'm drinking, I hate to eat, you know, used to always kind of, you know, $5 bill wrecking a hundred dollar drink, you know, drunk and you just didn't want it. You know, who wants to eat? Well, Al-Anon's like to eat, but I want to drink, and so I, but anyway, Jay talked me into getting in his car. I don't know about you folks, but when I have quite a few drinks, I get really tired in this. I just laid down in this banker's lap and went to I mean, that's how you impress a new banker. Lo and behold, a couple of months later, I ended up finally going to AA because of, mostly because of her, but I had to go to AA because my life was absolutely upside down and I hated every part of my life and I got into Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm sitting there in the meetings of AlcoholicsAnonymous for four, five, six months, seven months, eight months about nine months guess who walks in the door it's my banker I had to make amends to him I said you know I got to tell you something I don't know nothing about sheep he says listen buddy neither do I so that's how my secret weapon works and you know I enjoy drinking I like to drink I just like to drink it just absolutely always helped me be better at Whatever it was, I thought I was doing. And, you know, Cindy and I, we've been together forever, it seems like. And I can remember after I was sober for a few months, we went to eat at a restaurant one time, and this guy was over there kind of talking in tongues, you know how we'll do if he's by himself, and he's probably going to do that. I said to Cindy, I says, thank God I never got that bad. And she got one of those Al-Anon looks that, you know, just all of a sudden is like, what are you talking about? That's the way you always were. So I have no concept. I don't know how I can live with me as long as I live with mean and not know a dang thing about me. You know, but that's kind of how I came to you. You know? I always want to remember how it was the last day I drank. I woke up in the basement of a friend's house. I didn't know that at the time. I didn'T know what house I was in. And I don't know if you guys have had this experience. It's like when you wake up, it's like, you know, it' s like, you always, I always hate waking up like that because you're always going to ask people about what you did. And I hate people who know more about me and what I've been doing than what I know about it, you now. And it always causes a little friction in my life anyway. And anyway, that morning I stumbled upstairs and this friend of mine and I had been on a dream. And I'm the kind of guy who kind of, you know, it's Thanksgiving or so and I go after bread and next thing you know it's like Christmas. I mean, that's how I operate. And I woke up and this is the 18th of December. You know, It's getting pretty close to Christmas. Thanksgiving has been over for a while. But I don't know what's going on. I don' t know. I have these black periods in my life. And I thought that was the way you were supposed to drink. You know, it seemed like I always blacked out. If you're blacking out, you're kind of doing it right, it seems like. And I can remember waking up in this basement and just absolutely not having a clue about what was going on in my life. I couldn't even find my pickup. I don't know where it was. And we got upstairs, and so we started looking for this pickup of mine. And somebody was like, it's like they'd steal it or something. It's like it ended up in places I'd never go, you know. But we found it. he'd been drinking a lot I've been drinking a lot and there's a friend of mine his name was Frank and Frank I was running the feedlot at the time and this Frank would come out and visit with me every once in a while and one day Frank came out I was always good to see Frank Frank was kind of like Bill and Ebby you know and like Bill said he was really glad that Ebby was coming because now I could have a few drinks well Frank was like that Frank would come out and I was going to have a few drinks with Frank and the next thing you know Frank wouldn't drink with me And I couldn't figure it out. I said, Frank, what's going on? Well, he says, I've got to go to a meeting later on this afternoon. He says, that'll work great. The fact is, I'm not drinking today. Now, there's something really wrong with Frank when he's not drinking because Frank and I drink a lot together. And he just wouldn't do it. And I'm really kind of an obnoxious drunk. If you don't want to drink with me and have fun, I'll have fun with you while I'm drinking. And I can remember I was down in the basement where our bar was and Frank had tried to leave And I'd just kind of grab him by the hind leg and drag him back down the stairs and put him in the chair, and we'd have a few more drinks. And I kept asking him, what was so important? What kind of meeting would be so important that you couldn't have a fewer drinks with your old buddy John? And finally he tells me he's going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, dang, Frank, I think you're overreacting a little bit, don't you think? I said, shoot, Franky, drink just like I do. And Frank says, yeah, I know. Cindy and I, at the time, was kind of getting this divorce. Cindy was the black belt Allen on. I didn't realize that this is the kind of person I was married to. Like I said, one of the favorite places that I drank was at the Keg Bar. Keg bar was kind where the truck drivers and the motorcycle guys, and kind of like all these has-beens and wannabes and near-do-wells, they all met there and drank and I felt right at home. And them guys, it was kind of a depression period in Billings at the time and Cindy told me one morning that she was going to go find a job and I had to laugh because I'd been down there at the keg bar with all my friends. Some of them people hadn't had a job in over a year, year and a half. They'd been looking all over the place, couldn't find a Job. I didn't know that I was married to an Al-Anon. She went into town that day, got three jobs and worked all three of them and she was working that day that frank showed up and uh i was telling frank about cindy and i we wasn't getting along she hated me and i hated her and and i was trying to get a divorce and frank is having kind of same kind of marital problems that i was having and you know i couldn't figure out why in the heck he was going to alcoholics anonymous and he says well he said my life is really bad and he says i needed some help and he said i think it's helped me a little bit. I said, well, Frank, my life is really not going really well either and maybe you'd take me to a meeting. He says, no way. Yeah, I ain't going to take you to a Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I say, well why not, Frank? And he says, well it's really simple. AA is for people who want to quit drinking and obviously you still want to drink. And I don't know how he knew that but anyway, I can remember waking up that next morning going, my God, I almost overcorrected. I almost went to AA last night. I was so relieved. I had to die one day at a time for the next six months. And so Johnny and I, this guy that I woke up in his house on the morning of the 19th, I told Johnny, I said, you know, there's one guy I know who's in AA. His name is Frank. Let's go see him. And Johnny says, all right. He says, let's go See him. So we drove down to the feed store where Frank worked and I walked in there and I told Frank that me and Johnny were thinking about quitting drinking. Frank was happy to see us, he was really happy to see us. It was only about 8 o'clock in the morning. Johnny and I had already gone to the store and got us some beer because I always get real nervous when I drink a lot. So, Johnny and I was having a few beers and Frank came out with these 20 questions. I don't know if you guys have seen the 20 questions, nobody can pass the test 20 questions And I can remember he had these 20 questions. He was giving it to me and Johnny, and shoot, we were both flunking. I'm cheating, and I'm still flunked. You know, it says if you answer one right, you could be two. You probably are three. You're just cooked. And I figured that I had the secret weapon. I figured, well, here's the deal, Alcoholics Anonymous. The name is not going to help. People are not goingto be flocking to a place called AlcoholicsAnonymous. us. What these guys have done is they come up with this test, 20 questions that no alcoholic or nobody who even drank a little bit could pass. Now I gave that test to Cindy's L-E-99s at home every once in a while just for the fun of it. They can't pass it. They can drink right and they can't passed the test either. I ended up taking this test and flunking it. I asked Frank, I said, well John and I, we'd kind of like to go to AA. How about taking us to AA? And he says, no way. Because we was drinking. It was already drinking. It was 8 o'clock in the morning. And I've had people come up to me and tell me that's not right. Well, it may not be right, but that's exactly what happened. And Frank says to me, he says well, I'll tell you what you do, John. He says, you guys go and drink all you want the rest of the day. But tomorrow don't drink and I'll take you to a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I always like to remember that last day how much fun I had drinking. And I'd sit over there in the keg bar by myself in the corner crying because I was alone and lonely. And every once in a while, one of you guys would come by and want to talk to me, and I'd want to fight you. And then you'd leave, and then I'd be crying because of that, alone and alone. And that's how most of that day went, all day long. And I finally, you know, that next morning I woke up and I thought, my God, I've got to do something about this stuff. It's just killing me. This drinking is just killing Me. You know, it was one thing to have fights with my wife. It was another thing of what was going on inside. It's like everything I ever stood for or wanted to stand for, every respectful thing that I wanted to do in my life was getting chipped away a little piece at a time. I mean, I could not be trusted. My word was absolutely worthless. I had no integrity. I could não fazer um comitimento. Eu tinha nenhuma responsabilidade. Eu quero dizer que tudo o que eu queria ser, eu era zero. E eu sabia. it. And I hated myself and I hated everybody around me. It's something, you know how it is. It's just that blackness and it gets darker and darker and darker. I mean, I've been trying to, I'd been working on trying to commit suicide. I've tried to drink myself to death, all kinds of things. And it's like nothing was working. And I went to that meeting that first night and I almost sometimes feel like you almost need to make an apology. I've never had a drink since then. Now, some people, if they're new here tonight or today, you don't have to go back out there and drink again. You really don't. And I don't know why I was able to stay sober and some people can't. I just have. I've just been able to say sober. And I think it's because I was more afraid of drinking than I was not drinking. I was given the great gift of desperation. And I was absolutely... I got to the place where I got terrified when I drank because when I drink, anything can happen. And I mean anything can happen. And I got to that first meeting of AA that night. Frank had called up and says, come in a little bit early. He says, I want you to meet this guy, this guy Richard. He's my sponsor, and I'd like you to met him. And, you know, I knew about AA. I had the secret weapon. I knew About AA because what the deal was is you would take advantage of people who were down on their luck like me, and you'd start going to these meetings, and the next thing you know you'd have to pay $25, $30, $40 a month. You know, and that's what the sponsor was for. You know you had to pay him to take care of you. And I just know these things. I mean it just comes to me. And I can remember going in there and geez they were happy to see me. They was laughing and joking and I was just shaking and rocking and rolling. You know I wasn't feeling good at all. They ordered a steak and they wanted me to have one and I didn't want it but they ordered it anyway and they ate it. And I just sitting there, I didn't know what to expect. I was scared to death because, you know, I can live okay if I can have a little drink every once in a while. But what happens to me is when I quit drinking, everything gets tighter and tighter and tighter and goofier and crazier. My wife gets weirder and the kids get stranger. And the people that I work with are just absolutely working at making me go nuts. and I have to have a drink every once in a while to keep all that calm down. And now we're talking about quitting drinking. And I know you guys are talking about one day at a time, but it sounded to me like forever. I don't know if anybody else got that, but it sounds like it's going to be a long-time thing. There was people in that group, they were lying, but they would tell me they had 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 years. Now, why would you do that to yourself? There was a guy at that first meeting, however, He was sitting right next to me, and I asked him, I says, how long have you been here? He says, I've been here for two weeks. And he looked like he'd been there for two week. He was a nervous wreck, you know. But I thought, you now, by God if he can do it for two weks, I can do if for two weks. It's an amazing deal what happens to us here sometimes. The new guy seems to be able to talk to the new guy better than sometimes the old folks, it seems like. It's amazing deal. I was very fortunate to be with that guy that night. And as far as I know, he's still sober. I sponsored his brother several years later. And you get to AA, if you're like me, you get to AA and I'm always trying to figure the angles. I'm sure there's probably one or two people in here like that. But I'm also trying to make sure that I'm always trying for the angles. You know, what do these people really want? Because I can't believe that a group of people would freely give their time and their energy and their lives to other people just so they can get better. You know, there's got to be more to it than that. It can't be that simple. You know? There's got, there has to be, and so I'm for the longest time, I'm holding back. I don't want to, you know, why would I rush into anything that might really help me? You know so I am holding back, I don' t want to do what these folks are really talking about doing because it sounds like a lot of work to me. And that first night I was in this meeting, and they said, you need a sponsor. And this guy named Johnny says, yeah, and I'm going to be your sponsor. And so he says, I'll tell you what I want you to do. I want You to come home with me. So he took me to his house, and he introduced me to His family, and heintroduced me to HIS wife. And they started talking to me about how great their life was in Alcoholics Anonymous and now that He's been sober for seven years and His life is really going good. And he talks to me until about 2 o'clock. Now, in Billings, Montana, at 2 o', the bar was closed, and he says, well, it's 2 o'. Now it's time for you to go home. So I went home, and the next morning he calls me up and tells me to come in. He was an auctioneer. So I came into town, and I was just absolutely rocking and rolling because I had not drank anything, andI need something to drink. And he sits there and talks tome for a couple of hours, and thenext thing you know, two guys from AA show up, and they take me to lunch, and the next thing you know, two more guys from AA show up and they take me supper. And the next day, you know, two guys from a show up and they took me to the meeting. After the meeting, Johnny says it's time for you to go home with me now. So I go home with him until 2 o'clock, 2 o clock comes. He says, it's time for you to go home the next morning. I end up at his place and then guys showed up again the next day doing the same thing. I was a nervous wreck. They fixed this concoction of Carol syrup, orange juice, a little bit of honey, some vitamins. I don't know what kind of vitamins. Put it in a blender and it says, drink this. It'll make you feel better. And I don' t think it made me feel better, but almost immediately I got to acting better than I felt. And I would tell them I felt, I feel fine. I don''t want anymore. I just... I had about as much orange juice and syrup as I could stand. I hadn''t had a piece of pie in years. And, you know, I didn't feel better right away. But something was changing, though. There was something that I was getting out of those meetings that I was missing in my life, and it was a little thing called hope. And I didn'T really know whether or not this thing would work for me, but I felt like you guys were, for some reason, you guys are able to connect to me at a level that I had not been connected to in a long time. and I began to believe that you believed. And I began to believe that you had an answer for at least yourselves and maybe, maybe if I was lucky I'd be able to do what you guys have done. And little by little I started to be better than I felt and I started to get hope. I started to get that feeling that maybe something will happen to me. And within a short period of time and I usually say about 40 days I don't know how long it was. It was around 40 days. My sponsor, Johnny, started getting weird. And he would say things like, you better come over to my house because they're in the closet and they're about to get me. I mean, I was new, but I was not stupid. He would say, you better get over here. They're outside in the cars and they were watching me. You know, I'd get phone calls from people that he was sponsoring. They'd say, have you talked to Johnny tonight? And I says, yeah. And he's a little twisted, isn't he? I said, yeah. And then Johnny would call right after that. Who you been talking to? Who you being talking to here? You know, and I'd talk to these old guys in the group and ask them what to do, and they said, just stay close. Just stay close, and within a few more days, Johnny went out and got drunk after seven years of sobriety, and he taught me a great lesson. He taught me that time was important, but it wasn't the answer, you know, and this friend of mine, this Frank, had this sponsor named Richard, And Richard was a guy who ran around in a three-piece suit, smoked cigarettes like this all the time. And he was a little rigid and kind of nervous. And I knew that I needed to get a new sponsor. And I've been looking at his little blonde. She kind of had what I wanted, and I was willing to go to any lengths to get it. And I remember walking across the room that night because that's kind of my first resentment. You know, I didn't get to pick my sponsor because Johnny told me he was going to be my sponsor, and I didn't get to pick, but this one I was going to pick. And I can remember Richard just kind of coming out in front of me and says, sorry about your sponsor out here. He's out drinking. I said, yeah. He said, well, I'm going to be your sponsor now. I said well, Richard, I don't know if I really want you to be my... Oh, he says, I didn' t ask you if you wanted me to be a sponsor. I'm gonna be your spon-surer. He says, you need a sponsor and I need somebody to spon... He always knew what I needed. He was a used car salesman and in about two weeks he sold me a diesel car. You know? Oh, there was all kinds of weird people in my home group. There's this little old gal named Millie. And Millie would sit there in her same little chair night after night after night. And it kind of gave me a sense of well-being just with her being there. She never said much. But if I sat next to her every once in a while when I was new, she'd say, geez, John, look at all the miracles. You know, I'm looking around. I ain't seeing them. She says, you just keep coming back. She says, one of these days you'll be able to see the miracles because they're all around you. And there's this other old gal. Her name was Margaret. Margaret. I don't even know why they bothered calling her Margaret. Margaret. You know, they'd ask Margaret to chair and she'd say, my name is Margaret and I'm an alcoholic. And them that stay sober or them that go to meetings stay sober and them that don't, don't. Thank you very much. Call her Margaret six months from now. She'd say my name ist Margaret and i'm an alcoholic. and then to go to meet and stay sober and then the don't, don't. Thank you very much. It's like, jeez, come on. I need a little more than that. There was this guy named Gerald who was in our home group and Gerald was a guy from down south and it was terrible. If they called on Gerald early in the meeting you knew who was going to talk at the end. If they call on Gerald at the beginning of the end of the meeting you knew it was going to be a long meeting. You know, jail just goes on and on and on and then there's this guy named Rotten Ralph. Now Rotten Roth was an attorney, I heard the name and he had to sit there and he would hammer on, say like some new guy who had been saying bad things about his wife, he would sit there and just hammer on them and then after he got through he'd always keep his dollar for his collection plate in his shirt pocket and say now if I've really pissed you off, he says let me be the first to buy you a drink. I mean, that's no way to treat a new guy. I know. And there's a guy named Nick. And Nick's favorite deal was if you've been in this group for less than six months there's absolutely no need for me to learn your name whatsoever. Oh yeah, it's just a bunch of they talk about love and tolerance was their code but you know it wasn't their code. And I was just having a hard time with Cindy because she was just so weird. And I was trying to get away from her, you know, and this sponsor of mine, this Richard, he says, now how's your relationship with Cindy going? Well, I know that he'd been talking to Frank and Frank had been talking with Cindy because they were old buddies and so I knew I kind of had to tell him the truth and I said, well, I'm getting a divorce. He says, now let me get this straight. You're the one who's getting a divorced? And I says, yeah, I've got a divorce I'm in a divorce, I mean, she's crazy as a loon. Oh, yeah. He says, I'm sure she has anybody to stay with you for 13 years. It's got to be plumb out of her mind. And he says, but he said, I want to tell you something. He says you're not going to get a divorce. He says we don't make any sudden changes for the first year. And he said for you, a divorce right now would be a sudden change. He says besides that, he says you don't know how to have a relationship, and we're going to work on that. That's one of the things that we're doing. We're going work on is having a relationship. And man, I tell you what, I didn't want to hear that because I really kind of wanted out of that deal because I didn't even like her a little bit. And I just, you know, somehow I just listened to this guy. I just listening to this guys. I mean, like I told you, he sold me that dang car to begin with. And I can remember, you now, I thought, you kno, I need a second opinion. So this Nick after the meeting, you kow, I though, well, there's two things I want to happen here. First off, I want him to remember my name. And I want to tell him about how bad it is I got at home with her, you know. So in my best newcomer language, I don't know if you guys ever did this kind of stuff when you're trying to get an old guy to kind of suck into your deal. And I says, you Know, Nick, do you have a few minutes? After the meeting, you notice eight, nine, ten people around. The meeting was over. He says, Sure, John, sit down. And so I started talking to him a little bit and telling him about How Bad My Life Was With Her. And he jumps up out of his chair and says, so you're an alcoholic. What are you going to do about it? That's what I want to know. What are You going to Do About It? And I was so embarrassed, you know. And I thought, that's it. I'm leaving. I'm done with alcoholics. And not only do these guys don't understand, they're a ruthless bunch of drunks. And I'm not going to fool with them anymore. And I can remember getting up, and I was walking out the door. And Nick was a little old guy, and he was crippled up on top of that. And he gets me up against this refrigerator and pushes me. and says, now listen kid, you're wasting my time and their time and your time. He says, all you're trying to do is go out there and get drunk, so get after it. Just get out there and get junk. And over the top of his shoulder, I don't know where comes rotten rot for this dollar. And yeah, let me buy you a first drink. Let me buy your first drink, you know. Absolutely just drove me crazy. I jumped in that diesel car and I'm going to spin gravel, you known. I floorboarded that thing as hard as I could It's just, and I'm driving home, and I'm cussing, and I'm yelling, and I'm hollering. I don't want you to think I was immature or nothing, but I was just absolutely going crazy about this group of mine, this crazy group of mind. You know, a few days earlier, this Gerald had sat there, and he says, how are you doing, John? And I told him, and he didn't want to know how I was doing. He wanted me to lie to him. You know I told him that I hated God, hated A, hated her. He says, quit that. I'm so sick and tired of that crap. He says from now on when I come up to you and I shake your hand and I ask you how you're doing John I want you to tell me that you're getting better in every way, every day. Thank you very much Gerald. I got that going on I got Ralph's deal I got Nick's deal and I got Richard trying to keep me with her. This is not what AA should be about. I mean, we're supposed to learn about how to quit drinking, not all this stuff. And I can remember just driving that car and just crazy, just absolutely crazy going home. And it's like something happened to me somewhere along the road. I had a long ways to go, and it's, like, all of a sudden, all I could hear is Nick's voice going, you're wasting their time, you're wasted my time, you know, so you're an alcoholic now. What are you going to do about it? And it started to click on me. It's like, so I'm an alcoholic. What am I going to do about it? And that night and the next day, it's like it started to come to me that I need to really take a serious look at what's going on in my life because of myself and by myself, I simply self-destruct. And I kind of knew this. And I thought, my God, I'm going to have to go back to those people. They seem to be the only people that I've ever been around. I mean, I've been around preachers and priests and treatment center people and shrinks you name it and those guys they seem it seems like I'd always kind of tell them the truth but not really the truth but these guys seemed to know what the game was and they seemed to understand the nature of the illness and I can remember finally deciding somewhere that next day that I needed to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous God, I hated going back to alcoholics getting in that diesel car drive back there give Ralph back his damn dollar You know, reintroduce myself to Nick. Shake Gerald's hand. You know how, Gerald, I'm getting better in every way every day. Thank you very much. You know? Start listening to my sponsor about my relationship. But you know something happened. It was like for the first time in a long time, I was willing to listen to somebody else help me get better. Thank God I was that sick. If I had been a little bit more well, I probably never would have came back, but I was that sick. I was so sick, I was willing to listen to these people try to help me, and that's all they were trying to do. They were just trying to help Me. A year later, this lady shows up that I had barely met just right when I first got there, and she says she wanted to see Nick, and Nick had died. He had cancer, and I didn't know he had cancer at the time. He talked to me that night he had Cancer, and she said, I want to thank Nick, and I want you to thank Ralph, and I said, what for? She says, do you know what those two guys did to me one day? They just team tagged me, you know. Nick got me up against the wall and told me that I was wasting his time and their time and my time. And that doggone Rob come at me with a damn dollar and says, why don't you just go get drunk? That's all you're trying to do. And she says, and by God, I showed them. I didn't get drunk. And now I'm here to thank them. It's like, them sons of guns. But that's how they seem to have this little dog and pony show that they pull off pretty well with. People with secret weapons, I guess. What an amazing process. I was so fortunate to get into a group who seemed to understand the nature of the illness, who seemed To understand that if you pat me, at least a guy like me on the back, You'll kill me because I'll con you. I'm just that kind of guy. And little by little, I started doing things that I really didn't believe in, and it would help. You know, this relationship that I had with Cindy, I mean, my Lord. I mean if you had a wife like mine you would drink to, you've heard that? Well, you would. I mean I sat there and I could not believe these people trying to keep us together. It's like I didn't want any part of that. And old Richard says, Don, I'll tell you what I want you to do. He says, I want your wife to go home, and I want to tell your wife that you love her. And, you know, rigorous on-issue program again, they got you lying. And I can remember, you Know, it's like, I just don't think I want her to do that. He says I want You to tell her that You love her, and I want Your to show her that Your love her Now my ears started going up a little bit right there, but he's not what you're thinking. He says, what I want you to do is I want you to start cleaning up after yourself. He said, every once in a while, I want you to take the garbage out. I want to clean up the kitchen. I wanted to take her out to eat. He say, I wanted you to date her. I want you treat her with kindness. And I told him, I said, I just don't believe I want to do that. And he says, I don't really care whether or not you want to it or not, but I want you to do it. He said, but I'm going to give you a carrot. If you do it and you do it right, it will drive her crazy. Well, I believe I'll do it then, I said. So sure enough, I went out there and I started to do those things and she went nuts. I just, yes. It was fantastic for a while because I was doing my inventory at the time and I went out there one day and she was one of these gals it's like I couldn't understand why this was what was happening but it's up until I got to alcoholic I was just a worthless damn drunk and when are you going to do something about it and as soon as I got into AA it was like well you wasn't that bad you don't need to go to those meetings you wasn t as bad as those people And it's like, I couldn't figure this out. So one night I'm trying to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and she's going through this little deal that she did trying to keep me from walking out the door to go to an AA meeting. And I told her, I says, you know, listen, I got to do this. I really do. And she kind of started to, she didn't kind of, she started taking my inventory. She'd been working on it for quite some time, I guess. And she started talking about it. She started talking in my inventory about I did this wrong and I did that wrong and I would have been working on mine so i just pulled mine out and i said well you missed a few and so i so i went down the list on these things that she missed and i can remember she just you could just see it just it just created she just walked off in the other room and i just i ran told richard just loved every part of that and and uh you know it's like little by little in spite of ourselves we started to get better you know and it's an amazing deal i'd have got rid of the wrong person i you know when i was trying to commit suicide i'd have killed the wrong guy you know and uh i'd got i just would have made a tremendous mistake because i gotta tell you over the years now that we've been in a and alan on things have really gotten better they really have it's just been a blessing and i i love my wife i love her a lot and she's just absolutely phenomenal she's been a great member of Al-Anon. She's been a great mom and a great wife, and it's just been a blast. It's just been a blast, but I'd have missed it, see, because I know what I need, you know, and the trouble is with me, knowing what I need, it's not what I need. What I need is I need the stuff that you guys give me here. You know, one of the biggest things that you hear here over and over again is working with others. How in the world can I work with somebody else to make me feel better? It's like that just don't make no sense, but this society that we have here is upside down and backwards, it seems. And it seems like everything that you think you know, you don't know. It seems like everything that you know that you have to have, you really don't need. But the things that you don't need, that you know you don't need, you really need. I need to develop a relationship with you. I don't know I need that. I need to develop a relationship with a power greater than myself. I don't know that I need that. I know that I need to begin to be able to believe in And this altruistic movement, and I don't know that I need that. I think I need more money, more power, more prestige, more tools, more barbecue sets. Jeez, I've gone through a rash of that. I don' t know if everybody else in here is not like this. I only bought three in the last couple of months now. I don''t even hardly cook. It's an amazing deal what happens when you come here and you start to work those steps. Those steps seem to be designed for a guy just like me. The doctor's opinion talks about how we have this allergy coupled with this mental obsession, you know, and I can remember when I first got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I really wanted to be careful. You really do. You want to be fearful that you don't overcorrect and become an alcoholic if you're not an alcoholic, you know, and they talk about this allergy covered with a mental obsession and I can remember talking to Richard about this allergy that I ... I'm allergic to apples, bananas, cherries, and avocados. If I take a bite out of any of those my chest swells shut, my eyes swell shut, and I can't breathe. They talk about this allergy happening when I take a drink of alcohol. I told my sponsor, he says, I don't have any kind of abnormal reaction. He told me, he says yeah you do. He says, you break out in spots like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles. Oh, I see. It's an amazing deal. But it's not the same as those allergies that I have with those apples, say. I, to this day, well, if you're a new person in this room, you can tell me exactly what my doctor told me about what to do about apples. Just don't eat them. It's pretty deep. That's one thing. But now you think about that. That's kind of like AA, you know. I wanted AA to be really deep. You know, if AA was really deep, if the spirituality was really deep, I might not be able to get it. You know? It's like, why don't don't eat apples? Just don't need apples, you know? And I've never had to, to this day, I've ever had to go to AA, Apples Anonymous. It's not happening, you know? Now, I don't sit there on a really wonderful day and decide, you know, I'm going to go down and I'm gonna have an apple. I just, it's just, you Know, on a bad day, I don' t go to the store and buy 12 apples, put two in the glove compartment, two in trunk and eat one on the way home and get to the house and eat one right in front of her just to show that I can, it just doesn't happen. It's not the same. To this day, I have never been in a real fancy restaurant and looked across there And there's these people, and they're having fruit salad. Why, Lord, why can't I have fruit salad? You know, waves of self-pity flow it. But that sure happens with wine. I mean, if you're an AA, I'm sure that's happened to you before. With wine, you sit there, and if you like me, I'm watching those people, and I'm thinking about, geez, why couldn't I have some wine? And then it dawns on me, I hate wine. I always hated wine. Wine made me sick. My deal is two at a time and keep them coming, and it's not wine. It's whiskey and beer, you know? Whiskey with a beer chaser. That's my drink. You know, and I've got this imagination, this fantasy world that I live in, you know? It's like it describes in the book. It's that thought process prior to taking the first drink. It's a problem that's centered in my mind. I don't have the same problem that I have with apples. I mean, there's no abnormal thinking about me having a good time eating apples. But it sure happens with booze, it seems like. It talks about that. And I love Jim's story in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, especially the part where he says, I vaguely sensed I wasn't being any too smart. He said, oh yeah, Jim, that's good, that' s good. You got that down. But, you now, it's like, and then it goes on. And it says, and the experiment went so well, I decided to have another. You know, boy, that sounds right. That sounds right, I'm with you, I went jibble on that one. But it gives us those four examples in that book, in that chapter, and it says mostly that they failed to enlarge their spiritual house. Now how do you, we're like boxers, we all know that we're going to have to have a fight. It's going to happen. One of these days, out of the blue, one of us is going to get this stinking idea that, you know, I can have a drink. I was four years and two months sober. I had just completed one of the biggest deals that I'll probably ever complete in my life, and I was driving home from a town not too far away. And I was coming up on our bar that I drank at a lot. The bartender's name just happened to be John Scott. Now, this is what I used to think was living. I used to jump in my helicopter and I'd fly over to John's place and Cindy would call him or I'd call him on the phone and he'd come out and he had a white towel over his arm and he have a tray with a 12-pack of Coors Light with a fifth of black velvet whiskey. Now that's living, you know. I don't care how you call it. That's living and I'm about four years and two months sober and I'm driving down the road. My life has absolutely changed. I've just made a great deal this day and I am driving down the road and I listen to a Clancy tape and there's a thought that comes across my mind. You deserve a drink. And my other head says, yeah, you deserve a drink. And there was nothing that stood between me and that drink right then except the effort that I had put into trying to keep my spiritual house in order. I was very fortunate at the time because I was actively involved in my sobriety. I was sponsoring people. I had been to a meeting that night. I was active and current with my sponsor. I was listening to a tape. The only thing that stood between me and a drink was if my spiritual health was in order. My other mind says, yeah, you deserve a drink. And I remember driving down the road and I was going to see my old buddy John. And it's like something happened. I don't, you know, there's something happened. All of a sudden it's like, I can't, this ain't right. This doesn't, and it was like all of a sudden my mind started to come back. And that's how subtle it is. And that' s how quick it is, and it seems like we are all like that. We're all fighters. We're all going to have that fight, except we have to stay in shape, and the difference between us and a regular boxer is he knows what the date is. We don't know whether it's today, next week, three years from now. We don't have any idea. So that's why we... It's like this old lady said one time, she came to our meeting one night and said one thing that I'll never forget. She says the reason that I come to meetings is because my brain leaks. That's good enough. It doesn't have to be too deep for us. If I get this thing to being deep, I probably won't make it because it's just the way I am. I don't want to make AA too deep. I think it's fairly simple. You go to meetings, you work with others, you pray. You try to keep current with the people around you. You try and stay involved. You try treat other people like you'd want to be treated. It's really pretty simple. It doesn't have to be deep. You act as if and you will become. It's just simple things like that. That's what I love about Alcoholics Anonymous. But on the other hand, it's everything I need to stay here, provided that I just get me out of the way. That's all. It's an amazing process, it seems like. I've gotten everything that I ever wanted and I didn't even know this is what I really wanted. I'm comfortable in my own skin. I can breathe in and out most of the time. Don't get me wrong, Sidney and I, sometimes we fight like cats and dogs. You would swear. Some days you could come over to our house at 8 o'clock in the morning and you'd swear that neither one of us had ever been to a meeting of any kind. But the thing is, is that it doesn't last because we can't afford it. That has a very high price tag. I can't affordable to treat my own wife poorly and she can't afforde to treat me poorly. And it's just that simple. You know, it's juste that simple I was sober for about 10 years, and my sister had a store. And she was really depressed. I mean, she's not like us. You know, what kind of symptoms do you want? Okay, I can be depressed. No, it's not that. It's not the same thing. She was depressed. And she's sitting there, and she's going to, you know, she wasn't. And somehow I ended up running this store of hers. And I called her up that morning, and I asked her. I says, you know, Maggie, how would you like for me to take you out to lunch today? And she says, oh, I'd like that. And I was sponsoring this very wealthy man at the time, and he called me right after that and fired me as a sponsor. And he was really good because he was telling me why he was firing me. It was mostly because I was doing too much, you now, and I was expecting him to follow me, I guess. And, yeah, you're talking, and it's one of those conversations when you hang up the phone, And it keeps going around and around in your head. And by the time lunch had came, I decided I went over to pick my sister up. This had been rolling in my head a lot. And I remember driving down the street. My sister hadn't smiled in who knows how long. And I was like, oh, my God. I remember telling her, you know, Maggie, I think really the truth of the matter is I've overcorrected going to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now this is only, what, 10, 11 years sober. I mean, you Know, it's not like yesterday. And I'm going along there, and she looks at me funny. She says, what are you talking about? I said, well, you know, Cindy and I was having some tough times there for a while, but we got over that. And the truth of the matter is I don't really think I drink that much. And now she starts laughing. She gets down laughing. She says pull into the gas station. I need to go now. And she's just cracked up laughing. I can't figure out what's wrong with her. So anyway, I pull in the gasstation. She runs into the bathroom, and she comes back laughing still. I said, what? It's so dang funny. She says, my God, you are sick, just like you've been telling us for the last 10 years. I said、What do you mean? She says、You don't remember? You don't even remember how you drank? You never drew a sober breath the last three years before you went into AA. What are you talking about? You wasn't that bad. I thought、My God, my brain does leak. Maybe I need to go to a meeting or something. It's just that simple. It's just that simple. So I keep going to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I keep having the time of my life. And every once in a while, I get this little thought, you know, you weren't really that bad. But just for the heck of it, I think I'll keep going because I probably really was that bad because I have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. It seems like my mind is on the side of the booze. It seems Like my mind Is on the Side of the Disease of Alcoholism. It has everything it needs to kill me, and my mind's on its side. so I want to keep coming back I want the things that keep me in the center and it keeps having me the time I keep having the time of my life while I'm doing it now why wouldn't you why wouldn'T we just stay here and keep doing that and I guess the reason is really simple we're alcoholics our problem is centered in our mind and our mind works all the time trying to get us to a place where we'll eat so without help from a power greater than myself I'm just not able to stay spiritually fit I'm not able to stay in shape for that fight that's coming so I want to keep coming back and I wantto keep doing the things that we have to do to stay sober and in the meantime I get to enjoy things like having a weekend with my kid, my grandkid and my kid and Tim and I get to see her sponsor and I get to meet new friends It's like, what a gift. What a gift we have here. And if you're new and it hasn't happened for you yet, all I've got to tell you is it's going to happen. It's not something, it's not like lightning that might hit you or it might not. You do what we do, it will happen for you. One of these days, if you are new, find some person come in and they'll be hurting, they'll been bleeding all over the floor and you put your arm around them and you'll tell them about what happened to you. And little by little, the lights are going to come on in their eyes. And you're going to experience an experience that we've all felt. You're goingto feel that something in your life is really beginning to be important. It says life will take on new meaning and it will take own new meaning. And all of a sudden, your life has turned into something that you never dreamed it could be and it's absolutely phenomenal. It's absolutely phenoeminal. So I thank you for asking me to come. I thank your for spending a few minutes with me this morning or this afternoon. And God, I hope we're not coming back in a few more months or years or however long it is I get to see all of you again. So thanks a bunch. Thanks.