The Sliding Definitions of a Progressive Disease – Kent C.

Can everybody in here hear me? Okay, because there have been some issues with that. It's been a while since we prayed. I think we ought to pray a little bit more. Dear God, use me tonight as the instrument of thy will. Speak through me so whatever results that you desire here tonight will be accomplished in all things thy will not mine be done amen what i love most about a and i love everything about a you'll know that before i'm done is how simple it is where god is present simplicity exists there's a line in the book of alcoholics anonymous that bottom lines is simplicity in here for me and what it says is simply this remind the prospect that his recovery is not dependent upon people it is dependent upon his relationship with god if i had the power to quit drinking on my own I'd have never come to AA. Why should I? If I had the power to quit drinking on my own, I'd never come TOA. Why Should I? And that's the reason that I pray before I tell you who I am from behind the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous, because left to my own devices, I absolutely guarantee you I would have destroyed myself years ago. That prayer reminds me of two things that I believe are vital and crucial to me staying here. First and foremost, the reason I'm in Prescott tonight is to do God's will not Kent's and it also serves to remind me that he is in charge here tonight and as always thank God I am not good evening my name is Kent Coleman I'm an alcoholic my parents raised me right if my mother was here she'll stand up and say you ain't turn out right but anyway my parents raise me right I want to demonstrate that I want to thank the committee for the honor and the privilege of participating in this celebration of Alcoholics Anonymous. Anytime I'm asked to do anything at Alcoholics Anonymous, I say thank you. Whether it's set up or clean up at my home group, go into the jails, detox institutions, all the things I've been blessed to do in AA because what you do when you ask me to give is you allow me to live in the solution. If selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of the problem, it don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that unselfishness is the root of the solution. So anytime anybody gives me the opportunity to give, I say thank you because it ain't my nature to give. It's my nature. It's not my nature for me to take. So thank you very much for having me here. How many people here tonight are in your first year of sobriety? Please raise your hand. I want to talk to y'all for a minute. welcome home. When I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't walk up in here with AA etiquette. I didn' t know what an open meeting was. I did' n't know what a closed meeting was, I did not know what the sponsor was, and I did know a big book from a rambling Nellie Atlas up in there. And I definitely didn't know who the alcoholic was. So I walked into the room of Alcoholic Anonymous exactly as I was. Nobody sprinkled pixie dust over my head when I walked up in here. And so now all of a sudden, I understand what y'all talking about. Do you notice that Alcoholics Anonymous has its own vernacular? It has its own language, right? And I'm coming in here off the street. I don't know nothing about nothing, right. I came in here with a skill set. I'm a street guy. And I came in here would escape a street guys skill set, you know how you survive in the street is by doing two things, watching and listening, right? So I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I started watching and I stated listening. And when I came up in here watching and listening I saw two very clearly distinct groups of people, okay? First group of people was in-and-out, in- and out, in and out. I noticed every time they came back in from being out they looked worse than the last time they come back in for being out. I didn't see nobody come up in here passing out $100 bills and driving a new Beamer and talking about how good it was out there in the street. They were restless, irritable, and discontented. They talked about terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. We'll call them group one. And I am not disparaging people who don't get this the first time. We don't shoot our wounded in here. I've been asked to come in here and tell the truth, and that is exactly what I saw when I got here. Then I saw another group of people. We'll called them group two. If you've been here any amount of time this weekend, you've seen the group two people in action, volunteering. You saw the committee up here a minute ago, right? You go to any AA meeting, you will see group two two people. They make coffee. They put out the tables and chairs. They greet people at the door. They talk about God, big books, spirituality, enjoying life sober, and helping other people. We'll call them group two. Now, as I said earlier, I ain't no rocket scientist, but it sure looked to me like these group two people got a heck of a better deal than group one. All right? So I asked myself, okay, Kent, what are the group two People doing that the group one People ain't doing because obviously the results are different, okay? So the group Two People had some things in common. The group Two people had something called a sponsor. Now, when I came in AA, I didn't know what a sponsor was. I used to play softball for Cronin's Tavern. They was our sponsor. And I got a lot of booze and clothes out of that deal, so I thought, well, hey, baby, AA ain't so bad, right? But y'all sat me down and you told me what a sponsored was. You didn't assume that I knew. you told me a sponsor is somebody who has working knowledge and experience with the 12 steps as outlined by the founders in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous who is willing to take the time to walk me through those steps page by page and just as importantly is a living demonstration of those steps in their life who can show me what my life can be like if I do what they do Notice I said working knowledge and experience, not book knowledge and experience. I came here with a college education. Reading is not my problem. I don't know how to live sober. I have sponsorship in Alcoholics Anonymous today. I'm sponsored by Bob D in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Ken B in Cleveland, Ohio. Ken is sober. Kenny's sober 45 years. Bob is sober 38 years. That's the least impressive thing I can tell you about him. What I can tell you about the help that i have i give you i'll tell you something when i talk to my sponsor on the phone they never ask me where you going tonight they tell me where they're going tonight does anybody get it right if you want what we got do what we do my friend al used to say a is monkey see monkey do just make sure you follow the right monkey in here right it's just that simple right and I was raised in Alcoholics Anonymous by the late Bill Finley in Lorain, Ohio when Bill died 52 years sober I'm a guy that's been blessed with a lot of good health I talk to Bob twice a week, I talk To Kenny once a week Kenny's in Cleveland, Bob's in Las Vegas and by the way, I am not from Cleveland I know it was on this, but I am not from Cleveland, I've never lived in Cleveland a day of my life I actually I live in Sandusky, Ohio, I'm an hour west of Cleveland but I do this sometimes. Well, I do it a lot of times. Would everybody in here right now who would be willing to sponsor a new person in AA please raise your hand? Thank you very much. For all of you who don't have a sponsor, I just hooked you up. No one ever need leave an AA meeting without the benefit of sponsorship. Right? And if you anything like me, when I came in here, I don't know you. I don't know if you got 10 years or 10 minutes. How could I? Nor do I know whether or not you'd be willing to help a guy like me who did not feel he even deserved any help. So if you're new in here tonight and you need help, the help that you need just identified itself. What you do with that information is entirely up to you. I spoke at a thing down in Mexico A couple years ago And I said that you know In the thank you line A young lady came up to me Speaking rapidly in Spanish And pointing at this older lady Well Kent doesn't speak rapid Spanish Kent does not speak slow Spanish But I had an interpreter And the interpreter said Kent she's telling you That she just asked that lady To be her sponsor i do not assume that people who walk in here know any of this and as a as a member of an aa group it is our responsibility when you walk into our meeting to see that you're exposed to those things if if if i sit outside your home group and a new person walks in and they walk out an hour later and I call them over to my car and I ask them, what did you find in there? What will they tell me? What would they tell me? They asked if there was any new people and then they all clapped and got up and went home. Did they walk by me and pat me on the back and say, hey, keep coming and walk away? At our home group, when a hand goes up, it's like fresh blood in the water. Go get him. And that's what we do at my home group. And for that, I am responsible. Second thing these people had in common in Group 2 was a home group I came in AA. I went to tons of meetings because I wasn't welcome anywhere else. And I always liked AA meetings. I couldn't tell you why. I had no sponsoring, working no steps. But no matter what went on during the day, I always went to AA meetings and I always felt better after an AA meeting. Anybody here know what I'm talking about? There was an old timer in our town. His name was Walter. Walter got sober in 1948. I used to give Walter rides to meetings. Nobody liked Walter. He was a little crusty, right? But I knew an Alcoholics Anonymous. I got no sponsor. I've worked no steps and I'm nutty as a fruitcake. So me and Walter got along well, right? Walter lived out at the veterans home, he had some of them hearing aids that was big as earmuffs. Y'all remember those guys, right? Walter screamed everything he said because he was stone deaf, right, and we was riding in the car, and I said, hey, Walter, I always feel better after an AA meeting, and Walter looked at me, and he said, don't you know why that is, dummy? And I said no, Walter. Why is that? He said what's the first thing we do at an AA meet? I said we say the serenity prayer. He said what's the last thing we do in an AA meeting? I said, we say the Lord's prayer. And he said, and where two or more are gathered together and call on God's name, he is in the midst. You've been sitting in the midst of the spirit and that's why you always feel better after an AA meet. And I learned that because I gave an old timer a ride to a meeting. We do a lot of talking in here about give the new guy a ride for the meeting and by all means do that. But how many old timers in Arizona would like to be here tonight and they can't drive in the dark no more or they can't drive anymore and now we discard them. Give an old timer a ride to a meeting, you might learn something. I know I did. My sponsor in Cleveland, Kenny, is sober 45 years and it is Kenny who gives the 55 and 60 year old guys rides to meetings in Cleveland and I love Kenny and I love that Kenny does that but I think it's a shame that he has to. I think it's a shame that he has to having a sponsor and a home group is a great thing okay I have sponsorship but more importantly I'm sponsorable being sponsorable is a whole lot more important than just having a sponsor. My sponsors know that they are my sponsor by my actions. I am accountable to them. And I'm not new here. Bob and Kenny both have a sponsor Okay? To our new friends here tonight the treatment for alcoholism is the spiritual awakening as a result of these steps period at home now we got people standing up in meetings and they go like this my name is john doe i've relapsed and i'm back and we all clap because john doe ain't dead and we mean it because a lot of people leaving here they ain't coming back but after the meeting I'll talk to John I'll say John can I talk to you for a minute sure Kent can I ask you a couple of questions absolutely John did you have a sponsor no did you have a home group no did you work the 12 steps as outlined in the book to the best of your ability a day at a time no No. Then my question, John, is this. What did you relapse from? A relapse is a return to a prior condition. If the prior condition is untreated alcoholism and the treatment for alcoholism is a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I got a message for you tonight. You have not relapsed. You've continued to pick up. You know, somewhere we've gotten the notion that attendance at these meetings is a treatment for this disease. It is not. It is Not. We have a program here. Meetings, literature, conferences and conventions, workshops, CDs like Rusty got back there. All of these are what? They're support mechanisms for your recovery. They're not substitutes for it. Old timer said to me when I was new, boy, sending a chicken coupe ain't going to make you no chicken. Somebody comes in here, works the steps, has a spiritual awakening, stops doing the things that they did to get sober, they drink again, that's a relapse. You haven't done those things. I'm sorry you haven't relapsed. You ain't been here yet. You ain'T been here yet. I described myself as an alcoholic when I came up here. When I came here, I didn't know what that was either. If you'd asked me, I always had a definition of an alcoholic since I was a kid, right? And I like to say my definitions of alcoholism were sliding definitions. Because alcoholism is progressive. And as my disease was progressing, I kept fitting my definitions. So every time I fitted, I'd have to lower the bar a little bit. If you had asked me when I was teenager what an alcoholic was, I'd say somebody's drunk every day. I have no idea where I got that from. Maybe TV or something. But that's what I would have told you. Somebody's drunk everyday. As a teenager, I became a daily drinker. That ain't it. Alcoholic is somebody that misses work, school, or important things in life because of drinking. It interferes with your priorities in life. That must be alcoholic. As a teenage, I began to miss work, skill, ball practice, important things in life cause of drinking, that ain't it. Thought about it a little bit more, figured it out. Alcoholic is somebody who goes to jail because of drinking that certainly must be it as you'll hear in a few minutes i really had to change that one by the time i staggered into the doors of alcoholics anonymous my definition of the alcoholic y'all remember old otis on the andy griffin show y'al remember otis clothes always wrinkled he always had a cheap pint on him in and out of jail i watch every episode of the Andy Griffith show I don't remember Otis work in no place right yes that certainly must be an alcoholic I always tell the story it's a true story I was speaking at a convention 10 or 12 years ago in London England and I asked them I said y'all remember Otus on the Andy Griffeth show and 2,000 people went no messed me up I thought they had cable. I didn't know that. But y'all know what I'm talking about. Long trench coat, stocking cap on, drinking Wild Irish Rose, Mad Dog Thunderbird out of brown paper sack, sleeping under a cardboard box. Yes, that certainly must be an alcoholic. That's my definition when I got to you for one reason and one reason only. Because it is the only thing that had not yet happened to me. And if I didnít have the family that I had, thatís exactly where I would have been. And I can tell you in all honesty tonight, in my early 20s, I drank in Wynos Alley in downtown Sandusky, Ohio when I got off work at 8 o'clock in the morning. I know what it's like to put 50 cent on a wine when I'm 22, 23 years old and get my hands to stop from shaking. The only difference between me and them old men in that alley is that when it got dark there was somebody still left to open the door for me and there was nobody left to Open the Door for them, right? And I come to Alcoholics Anonymous to our new friends here tonight. I come here with my disease still active. I come here with my disease. I didn't walk into Alcoholics Anonymous and then, oh, I see the light. I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous sick. This is not the well house, this is the sick house. And I walked up in here and my disease doesn't like you. Right? And it starts looking for things that will make me different than you so it can get me out of here. alcoholism is a disease of separation right chamberlain used to say there is but one problem which includes all problems and that's conscious separation from god and our fellows there is but one solution which includes All Solutions and that is conscious contact with god and our fellows this disease knows that there are strength in numbers and what it wants to do is it wants to keep me at the edge of the bed it wants to keep me away from it. Anybody ever here watch them TV shows about nature like Wild Kingdom and all that? You ever watch them shows? There's a whole herd of zebra right? And they getting some water. And around them is a whole circle of lions watching them, right? Now the lions, they ain't trying to run up in there and fight that whole herd zebras because they know they got a battle on their hands. They looking for that zebra that's lingering back here by the weeds, by himself, right? That's what alcoholism does. It's looking for the one who's lingering out here. They told me when I came in here, get in the middle of the bed. If you sit on the edge, you're going to fall off. So I come in here and my disease is comparing, right, and I heard terrible stories, but y'all had some terrible lives. and one of my favorites what it was homelessness there's a lot of people that I was homeless I lived in the shelter immediately my disease said you ain't homeless and so I told him that in the meeting I poked my chest out at AA meeting and I said you know I ain't never been homeless and there was a man at that meeting God rest his soul his name was Jim Redmond he was 53 years sober he was sitting in the back of the room and here's what really upset me about this whole incident it was not his turn to share i made that statement and jim redmond went really he said let me ask you something big shot he said if you've grown right and you're living in your mom and daddy's house and you ain't paying no rent you're homeless hurt my feelings but the truth will set you free won't it so what is this theme called alcoholism doctor's opinion first thing in the book the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is broke down into three very distinct sections what is the problem what is solution then gives me a practical program of action to apply the solution to my life the big Book of Alcoholic synonymous is the original sponsor it is the regional 12-step call when I go on a 12 step call I use that exact same formula I I talk to you about my experience out there drinking. I establish identification. I tell you that I've found an answer, and then I share with you a practical program of action to bring that solution alive in your life, and that's what I do, and that'S the way that our book is laid out. So if you sponsoring people, this is just on a side note, you ain't got to figure out nothing in here. The work's already been done for you. Sponsoring people is the easiest touch in the world. All you got to do is follow the book. Alcoholics Anonymous grew out of the book The book did not grow out of The Fellowship. There was less than 100 people when that thing hit the street, and somebody in Prescott, Arizona got a copy of that book. They had no sponsors. They hadno meetings. They hadnothellowship. They had known nothing. They followed the directions in the book, and now take a look at Alcoholics Anonymous in Prescock, Arizona, Los Angeles, California, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Kansas, Miami, Florida, Dallas, Texas, and the beat goes on, baby, and it all came out the book. The answers are in thebook, okay? so what is this thing like doctor's opinion mental upset dr silkworth there's a line in the book that nails me completely he said that we were restless irritable and discontented restlessness is physical right i can't i can'T sit still i always feel like right i i just i gotta be somewhere else right i'm irritable irritable is mental right good morning for what right my nickname prior to AA and I'm not proud of this was poison and that's not because of my sunny disposition my mother said I had the most negative aura of any human being she ever met she said when you walk into a room the lights dim I'm irritable what's good about life why am i even here i don't care does anybody relate to that and i'm discontented discontentedness is a state of spirit nothing is ever enough there's something in me that's lacking and in here we talk about feelings of inadequacy feelings of of less than feelings i've never been comfortable that's a condition of spirit mental physical spiritual this mental obsession and obsession is a thought that's so strong that it'll override any thinking that i can raise as a defense against it what are some of the mental defenses i tried to raise against taking the first drink I tried common sense self-knowledge I tried willpower well willpower worked really good there was a guy in AA said I can tell you why that didn't work he said it's like eating a box of x-lax didn't use your willpower not to go to the bathroom like that's how good willpower works for a guy like me right I tried fear of consequences I might face if anybody try to stay sober on fear remember Bill's story Bill said fear sobered me for a bit right i wake up in the morning i'm in my late teens and early 20s and i'm making a list of all the reasons why i can't drink today if i drink today i'm gonna get kicked off the team flunk out of school lose my job girlfriend gonna leave me get kicked out the house a dirty urine i'm going to prison all them things true in my life at one time or another and if you do what I do the way I do it several of them going on simultaneously right so I lay in the bed make a list of all the reasons why I ain't drinking and I come to that easiest conclusion you can come to I don't want these consequences therefore I ainít drinking and it was a decision based on truth easiest kind of decision there is to make I meant it as much as I mean it tonight and then I get out of the bed and about 10 seconds later another thought comes floating in my head and it usually goes something like this if you knew, follow me it's Friday it's Friday and you know none of this is really my fault I've worked all week Which for me is three days This is the United States Of America I'm grown I ain't hurting anybody And by God, I deserve a beer. Is anybody following this? Now, let me share something with you. This is the killer right here. All that thinking, the truth from a couple minutes ago doesn't come back. It's not like there's a debate now. Such is the power of obsession. Our book says that the problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than in his body. Our book calls that thinking, laying into bed, sound reasoning. Here's the consequences. I eat drinking. That is sound reasoning, isn't it? But the book says the parallel to this sound reasoning ran some insanely, let's circle the word insanely trivial excuse to take a drink. It's Friday. Now, if you're anything like me, I take the drink. Y'all know what happens, don't you? 24 hours later, I'm standing in front of some authority figure it's a judge parents girlfriend boss right and they look at me and this is what they say did you think we were kidding did you do that did you think we're joking ken how could you have you ever had that one how could you. It was Friday? That's insane. It don't make no sense to me. So now I'm only going to have one. I pick up the drink and I drink it. The second part of the disease, Silkworth referred to it as the phenomenon of craving allergy to alcohol. Real, real simple. It's a little story I love to tell. It's a true story. On a hot night like this, and yes, it is hot up in here. On the hot day, I'm out cutting my grass, riding on my lawnmower. I'm sober 10 or 12 years at that time. So is my non-alcoholic next door neighbor. I watch an old boy. He gets hot and thirsty. He shut his lawnmow off, go over to the deck, flip open a cooler full of cold beer. He pulls out a cold one. He pops the top on her. He sucks it down. It quenches his thirst. And I know ain't nobody here gonna believe it but i've seen this with my old two eyes with that full cooler beer still sitting there that man actually got back on his lawnmower and finished cutting his i'm 10 or 12 years sober i'm next door going because i don't get that right see because i ain't like my neighbor when i drink a cold beer it don't quench my thirst When I drink a cold beer, if you're new in here, follow me. What it does to me is it makes me thirstier. Anybody get it? And grass cutting is over at the Coleman house. My lawnmower will be sitting in that same spot two weeks from now when I get out of the county. Spiritual malady, soul sickness. My disease is rooted in selfishness and self-centeredness. I'm a guy at the age of 14 made a conscious decision to call my own shots. It was a conscious decision and as a result of that I began to try to control and manipulate the people, places and things in my life to give me those basic instincts that Bill talks about to satisfy them in the 12 and 12 for companionship, sex, security right by by maneuvering and controlling the people places and things in my life well there's a small problem with that and i'm sure that's why this room is so full tonight the people places and thinks that my life absolutely refused to cooperate and as a result of that i push harder i pull harder i try to be angrier i try be nicer right to can try to to control life and to get my way, right? Any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. That's the reason I'm here, right, and it just increases the sense of restlessness, irritability, and discontentedness in me and the fear in me, and I learned at the age of 14 that if I pour booze on restless, irritable, discontent, and afraid, it produces in me what Silkworth calls a feeling of ease and comfort, right? We know it like this. Our book goes on to tell us that when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. A spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. So now we know what the problem is and we know where we're going. And we know who the solution is, right. The steps. this disease of mind body and spirit is called alcoholism and if you got it and i don't know if you do but i definitely do and i won't treat it death imprisonment or commitment are guaranteed my two best drinking buddies won't be at this conference tonight matter of fact they won't be at any conference because they're in oakland cemetery in sandusky ohio and they died very very young men and they die as a direct result of the disease of alcoholism And I drank like they did, I did the things that they did and I thought like they did. And they came to Alcoholics Anonymous after I was here for a while and they decided that they didn't want this. Death, imprisonment or commitment. All you got to do is take a look around you. It's happening every day. I was born in the city of Sandusky. I was the second of three boys. I was raised in a Christian home. I Was taught the difference between right and wrong before my feet ever hit the front yard. All of the spiritual principles that you will find contained in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous I was taught as a child. My mother worked for Chrysler Corporation, my father worked for General Motors I'm retired from Ford and there was a lot of craziness in the house but we had really nice cars anyway my mother was the president of the Ohio Baptist Women's Convention my father was the commissioner of the youth football and baseball leagues in our town My mother's older brother was a two-term mayor in the city of Sandusky. I come from a family of very accomplished, professional, highly educated people. And growing up, we got everything that we needed, most of what we wanted. And if we didn't get everything that мы wanted, there was another person who lived in our house named our grandmother. And the word no was not in her vocabulary. She just slept us to bed. That's how I was raised. We went on vacations every year. I wore $100 tennis shoes in the early 1970s, 10 speeds, mini bikes. When I went off to college, I peeled a sticker out of the window of a brand new car and drove off. That's the kind of mom and dad that I had, right? Wilson called the 12 steps a set of principles spiritual in nature. As I said, I was introduced to that before my feet ever hit the grass in the front yard. In our house, they told us honesty is the best policy. A real man is always honest with himself and other people. In my house, maybe in yours, we got automatic whoopings when we got caught lying. Did that happen in anybody else's house in here? That's step one. The principle of step one is honesty. I learned it at the end of a hickory stick. My mother said to me, I was six or seven years old. Kenny, come here. I'm worried about you. She said, contrary to what you seem to believe, the sun don't rise when you wake up and set when you go to bed. She said look out the window and tell me what you see. sky grass cars dogs cats people right she said you think this just popped up out of nowhere she said there's a power greater than you that's created all of this and all you need to do is be willing to believe that step two in our house they told us if we would make a decision to put our life in the hands of the power that created all this in my house they call that power god they said you will always have what you need no matter what is happening outside or around you they was telling us that the answer is inside not outside step three in our house they told us anytime you got a problem no matter how bad you think it is come talk to us about it a problem shared is a problem half solved you're only as sick as your secrets no man is an island anybody ever heard that before steps four and five my mother used to say the biggest room in a human being's life is the room for improvement if you can make c's you can made b's if you could make B's, you can make A's. If you can make all conference, you can make Allstate. And if you'll ask the power that created all of this to help you grow in any positive area in your life, the power will always help you. That's what the power does. Step six and seven. In our house they told us anytime you heard harm or wrong someone else go clean up your mess. If your own apology make it, if your own time give it, pay it, right? Make right the wrongs that you do that steps eight and nine my mother used to say you could never go forward in life if you don't know where you are today and what you need to work on to get where you want to go how can you go anywhere if you don't Know Where You Are stop and think about that for a second I read a book when I was in high school about Socrates Socrates said the unexamined life is a waste step 10 our grandmother told us when we were little boys the secret to having a good day is simple when you wake up in the morning slide out of the bed onto your knees say one word please as you go through the day and you don't know what to do ask the power that created all of this for some help and at night before you get back into bed hit your knees again say two words thank you and go to bed conscious contact with god step 11 and in our house they told us the greatest thing that a human being could do with their life was not acquire money and material things it would to be of service to other people. We was taught to follow the golden rule, talk to folk the way you want to be talked to, treat folk the way you want them to be treated, respect your elders, offer to share what you have with others before you have your own, be of services to your fellow man. That is step 12. When I got on the bus to go to kindergarten, I was already armed with a set of principles, spiritual and nature that I recognized immediately when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. To our new friends in here, I just took you through the steps. i just took you through the steps and i want you to understand something those principles are ancient and there's a lot of people who live like that out there every single day and check this out they don't expect a pat on the back for it either alcoholics anonymous is the only place in the world i got a 45 year old man sitting in my dining room table and i'm saying listen buddy tomorrow i want you to do something nice for somebody else and if you tell anybody you did it it doesn't count right such is the depth of the selfishness and self-centeredness of guys like me i want a pat on the back for doing what i should have been doing all along i was seven months sober i went to see my grandmother i said mama guess what she said what i said i paid my bill seven months in a row. She looked at me and said, I paid mine 72 years in a row, get out of my house. I love, I go to AA meetings, I love the arrogance in AA meetings. You ever hear this in an AA meeting? Boy, those earth people out there sure could use what we've got in here. Where Where do you think we got it? Read your AA history. It wasn't them drunks over here in Akron, Cleveland and New York. Those principles are ancient. I'm in here doing what I should have been doing all along. And I was raised that way. I've always been shy, insecure, and afraid. I know you can't tell that now. And growing up as a kid, I was never comfortable in my own skin. I was addicted to acceptance long before I picked up a drink of alcohol. I'm a guy who goes through life trying to say the right thing, make the right move because everybody's watching me. Now later on, you'll find out no one was watching you, right? But that's how self-absorbed I am. I think the whole world is watching me, right, so uh i started i started looking outside of myself for things to make this thing in here feel better i read a lot i daydreamed a lot I watched a lot of tv I'm a character in a book or a tv show I'm somebody else doing something else right I'm different than what I am what I am is an uncomfortable and in an untenable place and I'm and I don't like it so I start looking What I didn't realize, the different avenues of escape. My first real drink of choice was my older brother. I come from a football family. I come form a football state. My family do football. My father played at West Virginia State. My uncle Bo played at Penn State. I had two cousins that played in the National Football League for over 10 years. That's what we do. We was raised to do that. That's where we do Saturdays and Sundays in front of 100,000 people. that's what I was raised to do that's my brother my older brother was a running back and he was six foot two he weighed 215 pounds when he was 16 years old he could run a 4-4-40 on a cinder track in tennis shoes and uh he was going to University of Michigan and uh we had a coach at Ohio State named Woody Hayes and Woody HayES came to our house talked to my brother for 10 minutes and my brother wasn't going to Michigan no more and uh I followed my brother everywhere that he went. He took me everywhere. Every time he left the house, he grabbed me by the ear and said, come with me. And I guess God knew because I got a brother four years younger than me. We're in our 50s and we ain't been nowhere together yet, right? And it was very unusual but my brother took me with him everywhere that he wanted and I guess god knew that that was how that was supposed to be. I lived in his shadow. When I was with my brother, I was around older people. I didn't have to be, say or do anything. I found ease and comfort in the shadow of another human being. I'm looking for something outside of me to make me feel better on the inside. September 1972, we go to Massillon, Ohio to scrimmage the Massillon Tigers. And my brother suffers a head injury in that scrimmage. I'm going to make a long story short. He had a blood clot on the side of his brain. They didn't know it at that time. They didn' t have the MRI stuff they have now. What happened was he fell funny and it moved. He stopped breathing. Long story short, nine hours of brain surgery. on Monday. He died Wednesday, September 5th, 1972. I remember like it was yesterday. Is that what made me alcoholic? Absolutely not. Anybody in this room can give me a story of death and tragedy. It's life, is it not? Didn't make me alcoholic. What did it do to me beside break my heart? It almost killed my mom and daddy. And I'm not going to tell you what it did to my grandparents nor am I going to say it changed athletics at Sandusky High school forever. I was in 1972. I couldn't talk to my mom and dad about that. They had a tough enough time as it was. It was 1972, not 2017. They didn't send counselors to Sandusky High School. So I'm 13 years old now. I'm on my own. And so I'm hanging out on the street corner with guys my own age I've known these guys since I'm two years old topics of conversation in 72 among our crew at the age of 13 was drinking beer smoking weed and climbing in and out of girls bedroom windows in the middle of the night and I was back zero zero zero my mother didn't play that I went to school church ball practice at home that's what my life looked like but do I let you know that I don't know absolutely not the same way I came in AA I've never let you know that I don't know. Because how I feel about me, my sense of self is based on what I think you think of me. I'm imprisoned by my own mind. Does anybody in here know what I'm talking about? The book talks about the bondage of self. You don't have to put me in a jail cell to bind me. I'm bound up and I'm 13 years old. I'm like the dog they put in the back window of the car with the head that go like this, right? Oh yeah, I've done that. Yeah, I'm 13 years old. I'm telling people I've been places I ain't been. I know things I don't know and that I've done things that I haven't done. That's the length I'm willing to go to to gain your acceptance. I'm looking for something outside to deal with the inside. My mom used to talk to me a lot after my brother died. She would tell me, you know, God's been really good to you, Kenny. You're going to have a good life and help people, blah, blah. My response to my mother was I ain't got no desire to be a service to God you or nobody else what I want in life is I want to get mine I want to get it my way and I'm gonna need you to leave me alone while I'm doing it because I ain'T gonna do it like you do my mother would get that you know that look mothers get on their face when they realize one of their kids is crazy my mother will get that look on her face and she would look at me and she'd say you know you don't get it and I'd point my finger and I say, no, you don't get it. If you don't think the way and watch me. That's me at 13. One of the gifts God did give me is I did well in school. I give God credit for that today. I'm an A student and there was no effort on my part. School came easy for me. And I'm sitting in study hall. I'm 14 years old. My first sponsor told me one day that anytime I'm in a room alone all my enemies are there. and he's referred to as my thinking. And I'm sitting in a study hall, and I have a visit from the enemy, and this is what the enemy told me. These people in this study hall are breaking their neck trying to get Bs and Cs taking general math and science. I'm taking calculus, physics, fourth year Latin, fourth year English. I'm in the 10th grade, and I'm getting straight As. You know it just might be entirely possible that I know everything. Y'all know where this is going, don't you? Straight to the penitentiary, right? I had no evidence to support that thought as being true. I accepted it as a fact. I left the room and took action on it. I went home and told that to my mother and father. I thought they ought to know things around the house might change a little bit, right. Now I was scared of my father My father was My father played football when he didn't have face masks My father Was a decorated war Hero from the Korean conflict My father Was in the woods in Korea All the big medals all that So I knew that my father was a man that was capable Of great and spontaneous violence And when I made That statement My father is coming up off that couch Right and I made a quick decision not to stay there and wait for us to see what he wanted and I broke for that screen door as quick as I could to the day my father died, I never asked him what he intended to do, he must have been thinking hey look what we got in the house, I'm going to kill it anyway I get out the screen door, I close the screen door, my father's right behind me and I turn around and he used to talk about this moment my father looked me in my eye and he told me, he said boy, he says I got news for you you have a hard life Kenny because don't nobody know everything and I stood in that porch and I looked my father dead in his eye and I laughed in his face and that was a significant day in my life because on that day I closed the door and I know it's a whole lot of people young people up in here I'm going to tell you where I was at when I was your age you couldn't tell me nothing everything's a joke I have no life experience I've been successful at nothing I ain't been through nothing and everything you tell me is a joke because I know better and I grew up with guys like that and they're dead at some point I'm going to learn that the most valuable thing I know is that I don't know I was in detox counseling the other detox patients this is a terrible group of people got the problems that they had and this was in the good old days and we could smoke in the hospitals. And we're down there smoking and I'm counseling the other people in detox. There's always an AA guy sitting in detox, ain't there? And there's an AA guys sitting in the corner. And when I got done giving everybody their advice for the evening, the AA guy looked at me and he said, hey, big shot. He said, let me ask you a question. He said if you know so much, what are you doing sitting in here in pajamas and paper shoes? Don't you hate people like that? Because I had no answer. That's how I've gone through my whole life. That's why I've been in this world. That's what I've done through my entire life. Restless, irritable, discontented, shy, insecure and afraid and according to my mother, mean as a rattlesnake. I had yet to pick up a drink of alcohol. I tell people I was the perfectly tilled soil for the disease of alcoholism All I had to do was water it and see if I had the allergy And one day I did I got in the car with a guy whose life I lived in my head Because I don't live in the real world with the rest of y'all He had a snazzy car pocket full of money He ran around with the kind of girls I ran away from I got into the car With Johnny we played basketball together At Sandusky High School It was my best friend's older brother We all played up there in the mid 70's And he said you want to get something to drink And I had been warned about drinking Alcoholism does not run In my family it gallops And I have been told we do not do alcohol well. Look at your Uncle Ed, look at Junior, look at Bobby. Cirrhosis runs through my family like a river. And if Johnny had said that day to me let's go rob the carryout I guarantee you I would have done it because that's how little sense of self that I have. Does anybody in here know what I'm talking about? And we went through the drive-thru. We bought 10 quarts of Slissmore Liquor Bowl. To the youngsters in here, the quart preceded the 40 ounce. was 32 ounces of beer we bought 10 quarts he said five for you five for me why did we buy 10 quartzes just more liquor bull because it was on sale more bang for your buck johnny said we dropped the convertible top on that beautiful pontiac cranked up the parliament funkadelic and we rolled through the streets of sandusky and we drank that beer and my life changed i'm gonna make just quick what happened to me that day I went from shy insecure and afraid to bold confident suave debonair and absolutely fearless in about 20 minutes we went behind the derrick apartments where the thugs hung out I ain't said five words in public in the last three years people surrounded the car the music is blasting I looked at Johnny I said turn that music down because there's a few things i want to tell a few people who are present here this afternoon that i've been wanting to tell them for quite some time i went around that circle of hoodlums told each and every one of what i thought of them and what they needed to do in my opinion to improve themselves the reaction of the boys around the car they lead it into convertible and hugging me and they say see i told you colman all right he's drinking he's loosening up he's one of us uh separation conscious contact baby I realized on that day That when I drink I change And so do you And on that Day alcohol did for me what I couldn't Or wouldn't do for myself We left there we went over to the home of some of them Girls he run around with I run away from Never been there in my life I walked into that home like I had just paid Off the mortgage I sat down at the dining room table and I made eye-to-eye contact with what I still think is the finest girl to graduate from Sandusky High School in its 178 year history. I had never even breathed in her direction, much less said hello. And I looked at, you know, I saw her at the bank about two weeks ago and she's still fucking, anyway. And that's a true story. But I looked at her and she looked at me and I said, come here. and she got up and started walking toward me any sane human being would have thought to themselves gee kent if you wasn't so shy and scared look what you could have done by speaking up is that what i thought absolutely not if you knew follow me because here's what i though if you had been drinking before now look what you could've done look what i immediately attributed to drinking right now you know this is an honest program be honest with you tonight when she got over there to me I had a faintest idea what to do with it I don't think that far ahead what I'm drinking but guys like me watch a lot of tv on tv they go like this so I did and she sat down in my lap and my life changed again and the up shoot to that whole little story is very simple on that day I started drinking I started growing and you started shrinking story of my life what happened to me the rest of that day will give you the rest of my drinking history and we can go on and start moving toward wrapping this thing up because there's a dance here tonight now you know you've talked too long at an AA event when people come by the podium like this what happened that night was this I went into a blackout I have no idea what went on the next four or five hours according to eyewitnesses at the house I came in the front door and I threw up a trail through the house. I went in the bathroom hit everything but the toilet The next thing I remember is my mom Knocking on that door You know how they do, don't you? Come on and clean up this mess You know you've been drinking Blah, blah, blah I staggered into the hallway In what later years would be My drinking uniform My underwear Father Pete used to say I had a hangover You could take out and look at I'm dying I go in the bathroom I lock the door I put my hands on the bathroom sink I look through bloodshot eyes Into the mirror if you knew follow me and this is what i said man oh man i cannot wait to do that again grounded for life is what was being discussed in the living room right i got grounded for life so i had a meeting with myself in about i used to love to have a meeting with myself before i ate but i had to meet him with myself i need to solve anything that's going on if it's in china wherever it is not a meeting with myself, and this is what I came up with. Okay, Kent, you got drunk? Yep. You got sick? Yep, and you got grounded for life. Now, Kent the reason, right, that you got grounded for Life is not because you got Drunk. The reason you got Grounded for Life is because you Got Sick. So what you got to do is learn how to drink, come on, without getting sick. I knew y'all was my people. Now what kind of thinking is that? The book talks about a man who puts his hand on a hot stove. If he's saying he don't do it again, I'm in the bathroom and I'm already going back to the hot stove and that's the rest of my drinking history. I'm a consequences drinker. There's a lot of people that come in here, you ain't been in trouble with the law, you ain't had DUIs, and you haven't lost jobs. You don't have to. You can get off the elevator at any floor. The price of admission here is honesty, not the penitentiary. But that ain't my experience. If this was a beer and I stood here tonight and took a drink, a cop would drop right out of that light and land in the middle of the floor. Do anybody here know what I'm talking about? I'm one of them guys. I came in AA them old timers used to say drink trouble I'm like no kidding I get that right and I was gone and that was the last on the the next 18 years and during that next 18 year um I died I've been pronounced dead I've being cut out of cars with the jaws of life I've been convicted on felony weapons and drug charges. I've had a lot of bad experiences. I've also been sentenced to state penitentiary. Those are social consequences for antisocial behavior. I'm 16 years old, I get a car. I had a one o'clock curfew. Somebody was talking about these fake driver's licenses back in the day. I had one of them paper driver's license. It was from the state of Indiana. I don't know how I got it. And I'm 16 years old. I put on a three-piece suit, drove from Sandusky to Toledo, Ohio. I had an 1 a.m. curfue. I went to the all-beautiful Shea Nightclub in Toledo. That's what they called it on the radio anyway. That ain't what it was when I got there, but whatever. It was a dump. and at 1 o'clock in the morning when I was supposed to be home I'm 16 years old at 1o'clock in the morning I was sipping a gin and juice and slow dancing with a woman older than my mother I got home at 4 o' clock in the morning and as I drove down the street I had a plan like I'm going to climb in this window right you know what I mean in the house right you ever do this come home after hours with a plan and when you turn a corner to get to the house the whole house lit up like it's noon every light in that house was on so into the front door i go ain't no sneaking in my mother's sitting on the couch she got tears running down her face and this is what my mother said to me she said as your parents we owe you a roof over your head food to eat clothes on your back and an education and we've done that she said but buddy i got something you can't have and that's my peace of mind she said kenny you're going to penitentiary or the cemetery and buddy i got news for you i ain't going with you i'm giving you to God, I'm done. Go do what you want. I'm gone. Tears running down her face. This is what I said to my mom. I broke you. I broke you and I want you to know something, mama. You're such a spiritual giant. I'm a little bit disappointed because it wasn't even that hard. And I walked away. that's me at the age of 16 you should have seen me at 20 I went off to college to play ball I was a drunken lunatic I graduated from let me tell you something about the progression of alcoholism, I did this in my book study Wednesday night alcoholism is like you get on a train but when you get On The Train you don't get on the train by yourself everybody and everything gets on with you. Your education gets on, your family get on your significant other get on your employer get on your creditors get on everybody gets on the train of progression and as the train rolled down the track read Bill's story that's Kent's story read The Doctor's Nightmare that's Kemp's nightmare everything in my life is suffering every person is suffering and I'm so arrogant I can't even see you I can'y even see you but there's a progression of recovery too ain't there and everybody gets on the train for that right at the end of my drinking no baths no showers I got a liver that's extended about 7 inches every time I take a drink of whiskey I cough this I had shakes when I was 19 years old I was in college I died in 1986 as a result of the use of alcohol and some of his cousins they put the paddles on me and they resuscitated my heart and I laid in the cardiac unit in the Providence Hospital in Sandusky, and I said, God, if you let me live, I never touch, I never drink again, I'll never do nothing. And I meant it as much as I mean it now. 48 hours, they moved me from the cardiac unit to a regular room. If you knew, follow me. Here's the thought that came to me. Whoo! That was close. But I'm all right now. This calls For a celebration. Does anybody get this? If I had the power to quit on my own, I'd have never came here. I didn't drink because I'd rather be dead than alive. I didn's drink because I'd better be drunk than sober. It's one of the worst statements in here. If I have the power to quit all my life, I don't need this. So no baths, no shower. I got a distended liver. I'm working two days a week I come out of the pump lounge I got in the car my brother was driving I had to be at work at midnight if I'm a minute late I'm fired and I worked at Ford I had no car you're looking at a man who worked at Fort and didn't have a car I know that this is difficult but you're look at the man who pulled it off and I had what they call a moment of clarity or a moment of sanity there's a guy in Cleveland six pack Charlie and he said that's the moment when God paralyzes the liar and you long enough for you to see the truth. People call it a moment of clarity and this is what I saw. Ken, if you don't stop drinking, you're going to die and you better get some help because you can't do it by yourself and you'd better do it now because you're running out of time. Out of nowhere. I never stood in front of a judge who said to me, I have seven DUI convictions in Ohio. Not arrests, convictions. no judge ever said to me you've got a problem with alcohol son you need to go to AA what judges did is they did this and I went somewhere else I went home called my best drinking buddy from college he's a doctor and what he told me was this pack a bag stay by the phone I got you this is a guy I owe thousands of dollars hadn't paid him a dime I didn't even know if he would take a call from me Pack a bag, stay by the phone. I got you. When I get a phone call in the middle of the night, you know what I tell the other person? Pack a bad, stay buy the phone, I got to you. And for that, I am responsible and I'm going to tell you something. I've got some place to take you. My first sponsor told me you ought to be a resource to people who need help and I make sure that my sponsees do the same thing. I ended up in treatment in Xenia, Ohio, outside of Dayton, 225 miles away from my home. I spent 35 days in a 28-day program. That'll tell you how treatment went. I got out of treatment. I came home. I played a game. It's called don't drink, go to meetings and don't do nothing else. If I put my arm through a window, I cut an artery in my arm. I'm bleeding all over the house. I put a towel on my arm, I drive to the hospital, I run in the emergency room, I'm bleedin' all over floor. The doctor comes out, says, come on back, Mr. Coleman, we'll treat you now. I sit there in the emergency room bleeding to death, look at the doctor and say, no thank you, I'll just sit here. And I bleed to death in the Emergency Room. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Emergency Raum. I've attended these meetings, I've watched people attend these meetings seven days a week and die before my very eyes of untreated alcoholism. The treatment for the disease I suffer from is the spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, period. Meetings support it, sponsorships support it. Events like this support it? commitment support it but they all have a purpose right and that's to facilitate the actions of the 12 steps in my life they're not a substitute i went to over 300 meetings in my first three months and ended up in the parking lot at daly's pub in downtown sandusky gonna drink again i went to three or four meetings a day i was working midnights i gotta go to meetings all day and i sat in the car and i said to myself what am i some kind of freak I go to these meetings three times a day I said my first prayer In Alcoholics Anonymous Three months sober sitting in the parking lot of a bar And it was a simple prayer God what am I doing wrong I got an immediate answer What are you doing right If you go to that many meetings You hear it every day don't you Get a sponsor Read the book Work the staff Get a homebrew Help us I didn't do none of that I treated AA like a cigarette smoking Donut dunking coffee clutch I used to say the meetings didn't do me no good but they did you know why because when that moment came because I had been to all those meetings I knew exactly where to go and I knew exactly who to go to and I went to Lorraine and I walked into a gymnasium with 600 people in it and I was sitting there and I looked at Bill Finley sitting in the back with his arms crossed that was his group and Kenny was sitting with him and I said would you help me And what Bill told me was this, he said we'll take you through the steps of this program the way we were taken through them. He said I want you to bury yourself knee deep, he says no, no scratch that. He said, I want your to bury yourselves shoulder deep in this thing called AA so you can't teeter and fall. And I've been shoulder deep AA from that day to this and they took me through the steps of his program as I try to live him in my life today. And they did it out of the book in a real simple way. Bill's sponsor was Danny. Danny's sponsor was Dr. Bob. Kenny's sponsor was Neil and Gus and Ted R. Ted R got sober in 1941 under Dr. Bobby. And I was taken through the steps in a very, very simple way I got the chance to make amends to my parents before they died. I want to say something to you in here, if you're new. Sobriety is not absence of the problems of life. If you're a new one here, you better buckle up because life is coming. You stay here long enough, you're going to bury people. You stay her long enough people are going to get sick, people are gonna get divorced, right? Life is going to be life, right. I want to stand here tonight and tell you something honestly. With all the things that have happened to me, I got divorced 20 years sober, a lot of stuff. Life been life, right? I've had death. Never once have I thought of taking a drink. Never once has the thought crossed my mind. I am a chronic alcoholic. I got married. I was about three years sober. At about a year and a half sober, My mother had bone cancer. I had moved back into my mother and father's house from which I had been banned for stealing. They let me come home. And I helped my dad. My sponsor told me, keep your mouth shut. Go in there and be the kind of son God put you on this earth to be. And for the next year and a half, my mother watched me go to three or four AA meetings a day. My mom watched me bring my first sponsees to her dining room table, or open the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and talk about God. My mama saw me put on a shirt and a tie and go speak at AA meetings when I didn't even have a suit. When she got close to the end, my sponsor said, okay, it's time, go make your direct. And I had a big speech planned out, and I drove to the hospital. They got her off the morphine. And I sat down, and then I looked at my mom, and my mom looked at me. My mother had the biggest brown eyes I've ever seen. and she had tears running down her face and I had tears running down mine and the only thing that came out of my mouth was mama I'm sorry and my mom smiled at me and she said I forgive you she said Kenny I want you to promise me something stay with those people in AA because they were the answer to my prayer they were able to do for you what we could not I promised her that I would and I have my mother died holding in my hands and looking in my eyes with my whole family up there And I got a big family calling her name. And my uncle stood in the back of the room and said, don't call her no more because she ain't going to look away from him. That's how she wants to go. And that's how my mom left this earth. And I've been blessed a million times since that day. And if I never got nothing other than that, I would have been okay. Thank God for the fellowship and the program at Alcoholics Anonymous. My father died. I was 17 or 18 years sober. Nothing left on the table between me and the old man. My father respected me when he died. you know my father fought for his country worked at General Motors he never missed a day's work in 42 years not one day and I made my father hang his head I made my father hanging his head he said for the first time in my life he said I know what shame feels like I was sober one year and there's a guy at GM he told me this after my dad died his name is Joe and he worked with my dad Joe sober 40 years now and uh he said the day that you got a year Kent he said your dad came up to me at work and he said hey Joe do you know my boy Joe said yeah Pete I know him and he said that my dad looked at him and said man ain't he something don't talk to me about what can't happen here don't talked to me I went back to school I went into management at Ford when I retired from Ford I was working in the world headquarters in Dearborn and I was material control advisor for service part distribution in North America don't talk to me about what can happen in here I got divorced I moved to Las Vegas I think if you get divorced you should move to Las vegas my spouse of Bob is in Vegas and I too far away from my children my children are now 20 and 16 my oldest daughter as a junior at the University Cincinnati she's married and um and my baby is 16 she got two more years of high school after that I might show up in Prescott I don't know but I could say this to you um my girls are light and life and love my ex-wife is 27 years sober she's a good member of AA we ain't got no problem with her my life is good I'm enjoying see if you're new in here I want to leave you with something um my problem is not alcohol My problem is unbearable and untenable sobriety. That's why the world couldn't help me. The world thinks alcohol is my problem, alcohol is my answer. I don't know how to live sober. And as a result of that restless irritability and discontentedness, I got an obsession that tells me that even when it's burned my life to the ground that it drinks an answer. Does anybody in here know what I'm talking about? What the steps of this program have done for me one day at a time incrementally, right, is give me that same sense of ease and comfort every morning when I get up off my knees. It gives me that sense of peace and comfort when I work with another alcoholic. Give me that same sense the ease and comfortable when I go to my home group. I sponsor sponsors in Alcoholics Anonymous, not sponsees. I work men who work with men. And I love Alcoholics Anonymous. So if you're new here, I'm going to leave you with this. Anyone who comes here, They give me a tape of Warren Chisholm Sr., 12th man in A.A. in Cleveland. Anyone who comes here who is willing to practice the precepts and principles of this program is outlined by the founders in the big book, and you never drink again a day at a time. I went to my sponsor, who was a friend of this Warren Chism, and I said, he can't say that, never drink a dayatatime. And my sponsor said, yes, he kan, Kenton, I'm going to tell you why. It's because this is a spiritual program, and God doesn't fail. There is no failure here. If this doesn't work for me, it's because I have failed to fulfill the conditions that have been laid down. I have to participate in my own recovery. God ain't going to do for me what I can do for myself, but he will do for Me what I cannot do for Myself. Those who do get and those who don't, don't. And it's just that simple. If I said anything to help you tonight, thank God. Do not thank Me. If I didn't say nothing to help You tonight, guess what? Come listen to Mike in the morning. God does not make too hard turns with those who seek him. God could and would if he were sought. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him until your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. Good night.