The Spirituality of Being Humble Enough for Higher Power – Ray V.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Ray Vowell and I'm an alcoholic. I didn't realize that everything I said was for public broadcasting. I'm glad we didn't go any further than we did. Let me thank you for that wonderful introduction. It's nice to be introduced after having had to be explained for so many years. I want to, before I forget, thank a few people. I want to thank all the committee and Roy and Norma Young who've been such wonderful hosts and Roy's been out where he was supposed to be every time he said he would be and my requests were very simple I've tried to make it real easy on him I said I just want to go to Delaware and he said why and I said I've never been so I had lunch today in Delaware it might be a big deal to you but it is in South Texas I mean, from my house I can drive to Mexico for coffee but I've never been to Delaware It's really neat to go to these things and see old friends and make new friends I'm sorry to report to you that my talk tonight is not going to be nearly as good as I had anticipated because it was really going to be great. My wife didn't come with me and so I wasn't going to being hampered by truth and then when I got here the first three people I see you know are Dick and Peggy and Patty and I'm like yeah they know more about me than my wife does so it's nice to see them again and I've known them for many years I was glad to see Dick because there's somebody here older than me and let's see oh John thank you for arranging the wonderful meal tonight and Dave of course thank you for everything Dave has already paid me so came up and handed it to me in cash I didn't even look oh jeez $20 dollars wow somebody asked me today said how much do y'all get paid for doing this and I said it's immeasurable you wouldn't believe it if I told you you know what and I meant that sincerely because the reward is tremendous someone asked me once one of my people that I sponsor said how you get on the speaker circuit? And I said, I don't know. I got on as a substitute. I was a friend of a guy in Dallas and every time they wanted him, he couldn't go. He'd give him my name. And the first time I ever spoke at a conference, I was introduced by a state senator. And he said, uh, I've never heard him. I've not met him. And the only thing I can tell you is the guy responsible for him being here didn't show up. So anyway, this sponsoree of mine says, do you get a big ego when you do this? And I said, oh no. You know, I lied like all the other speakers do. Well, gosh, there's no ego involved in this. I mean, you know, I mean everybody gets up at 4 o'clock in the morning, drives two hours to the airport to catch a 6 o' clock flight. Change planes in Houston, run for a mile and a half to catch their next flight. Fly to Baltimore, run another mile and half, catch another flight to get here because they're humble. Sure. but what you do is you keep this in perspective by remembering that the reason you're here is because you're a bigger screw up than other people and people want to hear about it I don't believe I've ever been invited any place to speak because I was such a good alcoholic in all seriousness it's a humbling experience and I do appreciate being allowed to do this because you know being allowed to did this helps me now I want to say one thing that the committee has done everything they could for you they took me out and they fed me tremendously rich food hoping that that would shorten my talk Roy has driven me everywhere I have been this weekend until tonight. He said, walk over there. I guess he thought I'd be too tired to talk. It's not going to work. I just want to say right here and now that if you get through before I get through, you go ahead. it's all right it won't hurt my feelings it's been done before okay so let me let me finish introducing myself as I said I'm an alcoholic I have not had a drink since July the 20th of 1971 and for that I try to be grateful every day okay the next thing is i'm a i'm a preacher i'm not baptist preacher i'm a southern baptist preacher and and i don't apologize for that i'm no more ashamed of that than i am being an alcoholic they're both incurable you just have to learn to live with them i If I had it to do over again, I probably would rethink my career. I don't think that I would be a Southern Baptist preacher if I had it to go over again. I probably wouldn't be a televangelist. Because I like the idea of having a white suit and a white piano and being on television and telling everybody to send their money to God and give them my address. I just think that's fantastic. But lately I've had some problems with T-Evangelist because sometimes I think they're not truthful. They have a tendency to get on TV and say, God told me to tell you. And that implies that if I disagree with them, I'm disagreeing directly with God. you know i'm not sure god talks to these people don't you think if god really talked to these people he would have said jimmy don't pick up the prostitute the police is right behind you it's just a thought my wife says that I have weird thoughts I don't think so so I'm an alcoholic and I'm a southern Baptist preacher and I also am a psychotherapist in the state of Texas I'm all the things that you like to talk about at meetings and so when I get through tonight you'll have ammunition for the next six months one of the things that Dick said last night this afternoon he says he's not old, he's older uh oldest relative last night i was extremely tired we went back to the hotel and i just i had one thought on my mind and that was to get in the bed i was just really bone weary and i'm waiting on the elevator and i and the fellow standing there i met him and i said how you doing and he said i'm doing great he said I'm 91 years old and I said uh you waiting on the elevator no he said I'm going somewhere else and I got thinking this guy's 26 years older than I am and he ain't going to be it so I went back around setting a lobby for a while something wrong with this getting old is not not uh i'm uh i just turned 65 i'm going to retire the end of may and and uh you just have to adjust your lifestyle you know i have found out that uh that you can eat anything you want to and if you're not if it's something that's prohibited you just change the name you know I can't have mayonnaise by any stretch of the imagination but I can have all the sandwich spread I want. I can't eat butter, but I can have bread spread. The other day I found a jar of peanut spread. Looked like peanut butter. Tasted like peanut butter. It even came in creamy and crunchy. But I know it was alright because it was spread. And I found some strawberry spread and so see this is not a bad deal so we've always had bed spreads so uh that'll come to you there in just a minute so anyway as uh as a therapist i sit in my office every day listening to people over and over and again say the same thing week in week out who are a lot sicker than we are and don't have a clue. The world is full of people out there that are a lot more crazy than we are and don'T have a CLUE. I believe that we're the most fortunate people on the face of the earth because we know what our problem is and we have a solution to our problem if we'll take advantage of it. I'm thoroughly convinced that we'RE just very fortunate people. In fact, I think that's just my opinion And I think God likes us better than he likes everybody else out there. Now, I'm not supposed to stand here behind this podium on Saturday night and make statements that I can't support, right? And so let me explain something to you. You know, I suffer from alcoholism which manifests itself by more-ism. I never wanted one of anything in my whole life. And anything I ever did more than twice that felt good, I became addicted to. And God knows how we are. God understands us. He gave the whole world ten commandments. He gave us twelve steps. Because he knew that if we didn't have more than they did, we wouldn't play. So I sit in my office every day with these people, and they're just nuts. I don't know what to do with them. Sometimes I just want to say, why don't you all go get drunk? I mean, go get drunks, stay drunk for five or ten years, come back, I'll introduce you to some people who can really help you. I don'sn't do that because Blue Cross doesn't cover it, but I mean... interesting thought. And so my wife says to me, you know, you're crazy. And I said, well, you know I admit that there's a lot of insanity. Uh, uh, I don't know that I've ever become totally sane or that I want to because I deal with people, you know, who think they're sane and they're boring. And, uh yeah. So my wife says your problem is that you have this jaded outlook on life. You don't see things the way other people see them and i said it's not me it's them nobody would listen to me everybody misunderstands me you know they misunderstood me yesterday when i checked in here yeah i they gave me this big room upstairs it has two double beds in it it's a huge room and i sent to the lady at the desk if y'all are overbooked and there's a couple of girls that I need a place to stay. And everybody looked at me like, well, what a terrible thing. And I thought, isn't that what we're supposed to do, share? So anyway, my wife keeps saying these things and I said, no, it's not me, it is them. So I'd like to ask you to indulge me for a couple of minutes because I want you to judge. Is it me or is it them? The other day my wife and I were shopping in a local mall. Now, the way we shop is I go sit in the middle of the mall. And she goes from store to store and occasionally stops by and gets some money. Now, I have found a way to speed her up. I sit in front of Victoria's Secret. And folks, let me tell you something. Victoria does not have any secrets. So I'm sitting there in front of Victoria's Secret in December, and they've got this thing hanging in the window. It's a teddy, and it's got black lace over red satin. Kind of a fluffy-looking thing. And the girl comes out, and she says, wouldn't you like to get your wife one of these for Christmas? And I said, gosh, yeah. Do they come in flannel? So She definitely didn't answer me She just went on back in I'm sitting there waiting for my wife And this young couple Comes down through the mall Now this kid Has a punk rock haircut I mean, it's spiked out to here, folks. It's orange on one side and blue on the other. He's got things hanging from his earlobes, his nose, probably things that I don't even want to go through. And they get right in front of where I'm sitting and there's a little sunglass booth there and he picks up a pair of sunglasses and he puts them on and he turns around to her and he says, how do these look? and she says take those off they make you look stupid so I ask you is it me or is it them I'm sitting in church the other morning the other Sunday morning a lady comes in and walks by where I'm sitting she's got three little kids with her and she stops right in front of me and she says to those children do y'all want a whipping? that's gotta be the dumbest question I've ever heard can you imagine her reaction if one of those children had said yeah mama beat the tar out of us hit me first you hit him first last time is it me or is it them I don't know I'm on the way home from a conference up in Minneapolis changed planes in Chicago Sunday afternoon always a thrill I didn't realize I'm sitting on a newspaper a little guy comes up to me and he says, excuse me, are you reading that paper? I stood up, turned the page, sat back down and said, yes, I am. so i began to wonder you know is it me or is it them yeah it's everywhere it's everyone i mean every post office in this country has a sign on the front door that says no dogs allowed except cni dogs who the heck's supposed to read that Is it me? Or is it them? So anyway, 25 years ago I felt the call to enter the ministry because I thought that's where I'll find some sanity in this world. I'll go to church. Now, I didn't want to go to Church. I'm an alcoholic. I wanted to run a church. And so I did. I went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, and I graduated. And I became pastor of a little church down in Simmons City, Texas. Had 17 members. I mean, I've got to tell you folks, I graduated, I was almost 40 years old. And, you know, I had a Pat Robertson haircut and a Billy Graham suit. A Jim Baker Bible. Which is for sale. And there wasn't anybody there when I graduated waiting on a 40-year-old Baptist preacher with no experience who had been drunk for 20-something years. So anyway, I wind up as pastor of this little church and so I go out to do my pastoral duties. I go to visit my flock. first house i went to was the home of three old maids now we don't say old maid in the church anymore i want you to understand that see i'm 65 years old and i just can't keep up with the terminology i do not mean to offend anybody i just you know i just don't keep up well and but uh see we can't even say hymnal in the baptist church anymore we tried saying hernal and that didn't work real well yeah and there's something about when you stand up on sunday morning and say everybody stand up and with your personal in hand and let's sing it kind of loses something so we don't say old maid anymore in the baptist church we say single by choice and so i'm visiting these three ladies who are single by choice who i personally feel if they'd ever had a choice but anyway they they uh so they asked me if i'd like some refreshments and i said yes that would be nice and all three of get up and go to the kitchen to prepare the refreshments and i'm sitting there looking at a magazine i look over on the bowl on the table there and there's a bowl of peanuts and so I got a handful of peanuts and they still hadn't come back. I got another handful of peanut and before they came back, I ate the whole bowl. They came back in and the lady said, well, I see you found our peanuts. I said, yes ma'am, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to eat all of them and she said, oh, that's all right. She said, since we had our teeth pulled, we can't do enough to suck the chocolate off of them anyway. So we're sitting here and we're drinking coffee and eating cookies and I'm visiting these three little ladies that are single by choice and I look up on the piano and there's a glass of water with a condom floating in it. And I'm trying not to look at it. Have you ever noticed that when there's something you don't want to look, no matter where you look, there it is? And I've been trying to ignore this. And I couldn't. And finally, I just said to one of these ladies, what is that and she said we don't know she said, we found it in the park and it said on the package place on organ for prevention of disease And she said, we didn't have an organ so we just put it up there on the piano. And she says, you know what? We haven't even had a cold all winter. And I share that story with you because it reminds me of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't have a clue how it works, and yet if we follow the directions, it always seems to come out right. Now I told that story years ago up at Cornhuskers Roundup in Omaha with Dick and Peggy. lady came up to me after the meeting and said you did not finish the story and i said what story and she said the story about the condom why was it in a glass of water i said hey lady i don't know i made the whole thing up i mean you don't really think that here i am fresh out of the seminary and my first pastor that I'm sitting around discussing condoms with three old maids. I don't think so. So anyway, now that I see where you are and I know where I am, on with the story. On July 19, 1971, in a little tract home in Irving, Texas, my wife came to me and said the children and I have had a meeting and we have audited you and I said how did I make out and she said we have figured out that it cost us $500 a month more to keep you than you bring in and we can't afford you anymore and I was unaware that she had become that sick and I realized immediately that she needed some help and some relief. And I asked for permission to use her telephone. Uh, I didn't have a telephone. I was living in the garage at the time. And, um, she said, what do you want to use the phone for? And I said, uh, I want to call Alcoholics Anonymous. And she said it won't do any good. And I says, well sure it will. We need some help. And then she said you've called and called and called it does no good. And I did. I had called Alcoholics Anonymous many times in Irving, Texas. They have an answering machine and it says you have reached the Irving group of Alcoholics Anonymous. There is no one here at this time. And i love that message. I found out later that it also says if you have an immediate need and it gives six phone numbers you can call. I never heard that part because at that point I would break the connection and I would confess to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I would say things like, AlcoholicsAnonymous, I've really been bad today and I've done some terrible things and I'm awful to my family and I really have just created a mess for my wife and I just don't know what to do. And then I'd go back and she'd say, What did they say? And I'd say, well, they said that maybe drinking red wine had probably burned the lining of my stomach and was upsetting my emotions. And I probably should switch to white wine for a while. And the tragic part of this story is that she would believe that because she needed so desperately to have something to believe in. you see i'm convinced that the people who live with us get a lot sicker than we do and i do not mean that in a jocular sense at all because when the alcoholic gets under pressure when times get hard for them they always have that relief valve they just go off get drunk when those who live with the alcoholic get in the same circumstances they're just stuck and that goes on and on and it did in our lives until that night on july the 19th when my wife had reached the point where she just no longer wished to participate in that and i said to her i'll straighten this out and so i went in and called alcoholics anonymous got a people on the telephone. Like to have scared me to death. I mean, I don't like people, you know. I mean not at that point in my life. People will mess you up. You know, people will fire you just because you don't show up for two or three weeks. People will tell your wife where you've been when you don' t show up for two of three weeks, you kno. People will send your checks back from the bank just because you don''t make deposits. I still got a thing about bankers. I think they're all crazy. Why else would they charge you $25 of what they already know you ain't got when you write a bad check? I mean, gosh, if you had any money, you wouldn't have wrote a bad cheque in the book. And they send you them dumb letters that say final notice. They're lying. They're lies. If you don't pay them, they'll send you another one. So I get this people on the phone and this guy says, can I help you and I said I'd like to talk to somebody about drinking which was true and he said well we're having a meeting are you able to come now and I says well can you come if you've been drinking and he says yeah most people have and he gave me the address so I hung up the phone and I went in and I poured me a big glass of Mad Dog Doocy Doocy because I was in my ethnic period at this time And my wife said, what are you doing now? And I said, the man said for me to have a drink and come on down there. You see, you have to understand that when you're dealing with alcoholics, they have the ability to hear anything they want to hear regardless of what's been said. And so I had a big glass of Mad Dog Doocy Doocy and I set out to Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I got there, it was gone. and that didn't surprise me a lot because it wasn't unusual for me to call people and tell them I was coming, they'd be gone when I got there it happened a lot I had the wrong address there's an East Irving Boulevard and a West Irving Boulevard, and I went to West and the group was at East and I wound up at a real estate sales meeting and they looked like alcoholics I asked them if they were alcoholics broke up a sales meeting and I figure about now I've made enough effort for one day so I head back home and when I got back home everything I owned was on the front porch and that wasn't any great big deal either because it all fit in one pillowcase and I knocked on the door and my wife said what do you want and I said I need to use your phone again and she said why and I say well I got down there they were gone i need to call them back i got got the address mixed up and so she let me use her phone again and i called and i know by now they'll be gone i can confess she'll feel better we can get on with our lives got a people again same people and i said listen uh i'd like for y'all to come over here and talk to me about my drinking in a couple of days. And they said, if you're in trouble, we can come right now. And I said, oh no, I mean, you know, I don't want to put you out. I said you guys got to work tomorrow. I mean you know. And they say, no, we could come right away. We can come now. Well, I'm trapped. I said come on. Gave them the address. went in and told my wife to get the children and get in the back of the house because some big stuff's fixing to happen here. And there was, I went in and got me another glass of Mad Dog Doocy Doocy as soon as I got her out of the room and I knew what was going to happen. See, they were going to come over to my house they were coming in there and they were gonna tell me I couldn't drink and I was gonna whip their butt. That's the way it always went, you know. And they'll come in, they'll tell me I can't drink, and they'll insult me in my own house, and I'll whip both of them. They didn't do that. Two guys show up. One guy works for Lone Star Gas Company. The other guy drives a garbage truck, and he had come from work. And he smelled better then than I did. And they came in, and они сказали самые глупые вещи. One of them said, take it easy. Well, you couldn't take it much easier than I was taking it. One of them said, you just need to let go of everything and let God have control of it. And I said, God? You know what I mean? Let go of what? You know, I don't have a hold of anything. If I did, God wouldn't want me. And they just kept saying dumb stuff. And finally one of them says, Do you think you could go one day without a drink? And I say, well, of course. And then the other one got real nasty. and he said well when did you and I said well I don't keep records of that sort of thing you know as I stand here tonight and I've thought about it for years and years and years and I just cannot come up with an answer for you of how long it had been since I had gone a 24 hour period without a drink and so I said to these two men look I've been lying to you I'm not going without a drink as soon as you guys leave I've got some wine I'm gonna have another drink they wouldn't leave and finally one of them said would you would you be willing to try to go one day without a drinking I said I will tomorrow it's already too late today and he said well would you just try to go the rest of today and i said yes and they went home carrying my mad dog dissy doosy with them as i stood on the porch with tears in my eyes waving goodbye and i darn sure wasn't waving at them They had come into my home and took my best friend, and they left. They tried to get me to go with them, and I told them I couldn't. I had to go to work the next morning, and I don't know why I told him that. I hadn't been to work in months. They said, well, if you get to work and you get in trouble, call us. Or better still, there's a lady in our group who works in your office. And I said, y'all are crazy as a bed bug. They don't hire drunks where I work. I got up the next morning and for some reason I went to work. I got out without a drink for the first time and I don't know when and I went back to work and I didn't know why I went and I wasn't happy to see me. I really wasn't able to do anything and when I got there everything kind of fell apart and I got real sick, and I don't have to go into all that with you other than just say to you I just got real thick. And I remember they said this lady, and they said her name, and her name was Mary S., and so I'm running up and down the halls looking for somebody named Mary S. I went upstairs to the personnel office. They had two Mary S.'s, and one of them worked upstairs. The other one was on the switchboard down in the lobby, and I went upstairs to the first one, and I handed her this guy's card, and she looked at it with a sugar head and handed it back. And I ran downstairs to the switch board, and I handed the card to the lady, and she looked around to the woman with her, and she said, would you take over for me? I don't know when I'll be back. And then I saw my first miracle in AA. I didn't know it, but I worked for the government at that time, and this was a government office building, and she took me into the coffee shop of a government office building at 8.30 in the morning and there was nobody in there. Now that's a miracle. Got to be a God deal. Don't believe that's ever happened before or since. And she sat me down and she went over and made a phone call and she said, I'm sending you to the Irving Group of Alcoholics Anonymous and I said, I can't go. And she said, yeah, you can go. And I said I'll never make it. And she says, are you too sick to drive? I said no, but right down there at the corner there's a liquor store and that will be as far as I go. And she say, don't go that way. I said how will I get to Irving? And she said go this other way. She said two blocks down that street right there you'll hit Irving Boulevard and it's stone dry. You cannot buy anything because there's nothing there. And I was really angry because I thought if she really wanted to help me, she'd take me. But she didn't. She walked out to the car with me. I got in the car and I drank. I was so mad, I went. And i got out there and I pulled up in front of this little storefront building and the ugliest guy I ever saw in my life was standing on the sidewalk. And he stuck his hand out and he said, My name's DJ and son, you're in the right place. And I thought, God, this is the right person. And he said Would you like a cup of coffee? And I said Yes sir. And he says Well come on in. And he took off. I didn't go in. I stood on the side walk and looked in the door. There was nothing there but just a carpet and about a hundred chairs. And he came back and he handed me this cup of coffee and he said, drink this. And I did and I puked on the floor right through that door. And I knew my A.A. days was over because when you puke on the flow they make you leave. They always do. But he didn't. He just got me by the arm and he says, come on son. and he takes me in and we go over in the corner and there's a couch and he sets me down on the couch and he goes off and he comes back with a mop and a bucket and a glass he put the bucket between my feet and handed me the glass and I said what's that and he said just drink it well when he said drink I thought well now we're going to get down to this at least it wasn't coffee I drank it and puked in that bucket he went over and cleaned up the first puke i apologize for saying puke but i don't know how to describe what i did any other way i mean folks i ain't never burped up chucked threw up or vomited in my life i puke he cleans up the carpet he goes off he comes back with another glass said drink this I drank it I puked in that bucket and a little while you know a funny thing happened those two guys that were at my house the night before showed up and about ten minutes after them Mary S. shows up she followed me wanted to see if I'd go and then she was such a caretaker she didn't trust it so she followed and they sat there all day watching me drink that stuff and puking that bucket while they told funny stories about people who drink stuff and puke in buckets. And somewhere during the day, sometime during the day I just asked them if I could please just pour it in the bucket because I was really getting sore. and they said to me you're drinking honey orange juice and raw egg and the the honey is to give you some sugar and the orange juice is to give you some vitamins and the raw egg is to give you some protein and that's going to keep you from going into DTs and they got my attention because I knew about DTs my wife's a registered nurse I knew about DTS I don't know much about DTs, but I know about them. I had a country and western band that played in my bathroom. And my wife worked 3 to 11, and I played lead guitar and sang. I guess one of the biggest surprises I've had in AA was after I sobered up and found out I couldn't play the guitar. But I used to cook for my band and I didn't know how to cook anything but grits. And I only knew how to cook them a box at the time. And so if you cook a whole box of grits, it takes a big salad bowl to hold them, right? And if you've got a whole salad bowl full of hot grits it takes an entire pound of margarine to go in now if you got a salad bowl full of hot grits and melted margarine you cannot eat them with clothes on i mean you just can't do that you know and so i would get naked and i would sit up in the middle of the bed with this big salad bowl full of Hot Grits and Melted Margarine and the band would stand around and we'd eat grits insane Now, I've got to tell you about my band. My band was chicken. They were gutless, a bunch of wussies because they were scared to death of my wife. And when she came home at 1130, she'd say, it's time for your band to go home and they would run. I don't even know how they got out. They just disappeared. So I knew about DTs. The only other thing that I know about DTs is plain tap water will not flush green men out of your air conditioner ducts. It just won't. Them little suckers will just swim right through them grills. And so they said if I drank this, I wouldn't go into DTs. And then they took me that night to my first AA meeting. and the Irving group on Wednesday night the Al-Anon's on me AA's turned the whole thing the whole building over to the Al Anons so they took me to Grand Prairie Texas to my first AA meeting and we pulled up in front of this building and it was a church and I said there ain't no way, no how, I'm going in there oh they said we don't meet in the church we meet in their fellowship hall I said I ain't going in none of them buildings and I attended my first AA meeting sitting in a metal folding chair alongside Highway 80 and downtown Grand Prairie listening through the window because I would not go inside see God didn't know where I was and I didn't want nobody to tell me and oh that first meeting was a wonder oh I heard some great stuff A guy got up and he said, I fell off a truck ramp And landed on my head and broke my leg I've been sure Another guy gets up and says When I came to AA six months ago I was barefooted, didn't even have a shirt Now this guy's got on a western cut suit He's got lizard boots I mean, you know This guy's class And he's telling me six months Ago he's barefoot And then this lady got up to speak. Her husband was in the penitentiary, and her daughter was on the way to the reformatory. It had a brain tumor, and she was going into the hospital the next day for a hemorrhoid ectomy. And I could identify with her. now I said that's the lady I need to talk to right there because I know what she needs and I want to help her fortunately we didn't meet that night we didn' t meet until years later she is still sober by the way we go back to the Irving group and when I got back to the Irvin group I got the terrible shock the Al-Anons had invaded my house and they had my wife sitting in the middle of the Irving group and they have her surrounded like a wagon train. And I went in there like John Wayne and I rescued her and I got her out of there and we went out on the sidewalk and I said, what is going on here? And she said to me the most chilling words I had ever heard they told me I'm not responsible for your drinking. And I said well who is? I mean there wasn't but two of us there and God knows I ain't responsible I've been told by everybody in the world I'm not responsible and I said let's go home and she said I'm fixing to I'm going and I say well let's go and she says you don't understand I'm doing this I'm just going home and I said well I'm going with you and she said no you're not you don't live there I said but I'm in AA she said well good and I said but I've already been to a meeting look I've got a little book 24 hour book the guy gave me I said I got a book and she said read it and got in the car and drove off and there I stood she got up to the corner and she stopped and I thought she's coming back she turned around and she came back and she pulled up in the parking lot and she threw that pillowcase out in the middle of the parking lots and drove off again well they let me stay in the back of the place there that night and I'm not going to bore you with all this they took me to rehab Rehab in Dallas in 1971 was a burnout building down in the market. It cost $5 a week. The first night, I slept in the shower. No bed, no blanket or anything, just on the shower floor. I puked, they turned the shower on. That happened two or three times during the night. And I said, when did I get a bed? And they said, When you go two nights without puking. I said well there's nothing to that, I can do that easy, it took me three nights. At the end of that week, they called me into the office and they said, well, you owe us five more dollars if you're going to stay another week. And I said, well, I don't have any money. I called my wife and I said I've got to have some money. And she said, I Don't Have Any. I said Well, Don't Look Like This Marriage Is Going To Work Out. I'd like for us to settle up our community property. And she said, well, I think we've got about $1.80 in the bank. And if you'll come out here, I'll give you a handpump. So I go back in there and I tell the guy, I don't have any money. I didn't have anybody to call. My wife wouldn't come get me. She wouldn't give me any money, and I really felt sorry for myself. I was angry. I didn't have a desire to stop drinking. I just wanted to get even. And I left the rehab center in downtown Dallas and Southside, and I walked down to Irving Boulevard, which is where all the joints are about downtown, and I walk by all those slop joints and beer joints, and I stopped and looked at every one of them as I went by, and people were just doing this way, move on. I walked from the rehab center to Irving, it was the first of August in Dallas, it's about 11 miles. I crossed the Trinity River Bridge and I could see Irving Boulevard, I mean the group building and so I went to the building and they gave me a cup of coffee. a guy went across the street to 7-Eleven and he bought me a hot dog and I said you just don't know how bad things are in my life and he said this is the day they're going to change and he did not tell me they were going to get better and they didn't they got better and then they got worse and then it got real and then got better and then he got worse and that's how I got the Alcoholics Anonymous I became a member of the Irving group because I didn't have anywhere else to go if there had been one place I could have gone if I could've borrowed one dime if I Could've Conned one human being, if I would've told anybody in the world this story that day and got them to believe it I'd still be out there believing and so God let me stay over in his backyard and I went to them dumb old meetings every night the reason I went there they usually had some cake or some cookies and some coffee and I was in those dumb old meetings sitting there waiting for my turn to speak I'd sit there and I'd think about what I was going to say and when my turn came I'd say what I wanted to say, and I'd spend the rest of the hour thinking about what I had said. And I don't know what you're laughing about. You've all done the same thing. The only problem with that is if you don't get anything out of the program but what you bring to it, you're in pretty big trouble because you ain't got nothing. You wouldn't have been here in the first place. And I went to them dumb old discussion meetings, andI'd sit there, andi'd wait for my turn. One day, I had a spiritual awakening. I looked up on the wall and it said admitted we were admitted we were powerless over alcohol in our lives had become unmanageable and I thought hallelujah and I bummed a ride downtown and I went to Sheriff Bill Decker's office he was the sheriff of Dallas County and I said Sheriff Decker and he said yes Ray because we were on a first name basis laughter I said I have joined Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm powerless over alcohol, my life has become unmanageable. And he said, well, I'm glad to hear that, but your court date is still September the 12th. So I went over to see the district attorney, Henry Wade, and I said, Mr. Wade, and he said yes, Ray. I said I've joined Alcoholics Anonymous and I am powerless over alcoholic and my life is becoming unmanagable. He said, Well, that's great, Ray, but you're still going to the joint if you don't make them checks good. I went out to see my boss, and I got a terrible shock out there because there was another guy sitting at my desk. Found out he'd been there three months. And I said to Dr. Alexander, I said, Dr. Alexandra, I have joined Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable. And he said, Ray, I'm so glad to hear that. Friday's still your last day. See, I was on probation, and my probation was up. I never went to work during the probation, so. I went to see Faye. She worked at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and was right across the street from the health department where I worked. And I went over to see her and I said, Honey, I'm really active now in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm probably sober alcohol in my life has become unmanageable. And she said, Well, I am glad to hear that, Ray, but you still don't live with us anymore. And I said to her, I went back to the group and I says this doesn't work. this just doesn't work but you know a funny thing happened about two days after that i got a call from the assistant district attorney and uh mr wade and sheriff decker had gotten together and they had decided to dead file my case for 90 days just to see what happened to me so i didn't have to go to court dr alexander called me and he said we're going to extend your suspension and probation for another 90 days. It's up to you. Face it, you still can't come home." But I thought what the heck two out of three was a bad thing at that stage. And so I kept going in dumb old discussion meetings waiting for my turn to speak except on Saturday night. Saturday night in Irving they have the beginner's group. I love the beginner group. The beginner's group, you know, they always have an old timer that leads it so the bull doesn't get so deep he smothers him up. We had this irascible old poot his name was Curly. Old, old. He was gosh he was nearly as old as I am now. And he had these irritating habits. he'd say it'll pass that's what my mother used to say when she'd give me prunes but on Saturday night at the beginners meeting the beginners meeting would go something like this the first guy would say I used to drink shoe polish next guy said that ain't nothing I used to drink kerosene lit next guy says I got drunk one time in Nashville and woke up in Memphis next guy said that ainít nothing I once got drunk in Hong Kong and wokeup in Montreal, Canada in my car next guy said I've been married four times next one said that ain't nothing I've never been married I've only been married three times since lunch twice to my sister and that was a beginner's meeting you know and I'm sitting there waiting for my turn. And old Curly stopped the meeting. Now, Curly had this irritating habit of asking the group questions and looking straight at me. And I'd answer. And he stopped the meet-in and he said, I'd like to ask all you folks and he's looking right straight at mean I'd love to ask you a question. have you ever been so drunk you didn't remember what you did and I said well of course and he said I'd like to ask everybody another question but he's still looking right at me he said did you ever wake up in the bed with a 95 year old woman with sores all over her body and I said no He said, how do you know? That remark, that remark by that little old man put me right square into the program of alcohol synopsis it took me from an outsider observing all these things you did to the inside and put me about square in the middle see something happened that night I got up and I walked out of that meeting and I and I walked to my sponsors house he lived about 12 blocks from the club and I walked I have to tell you about my sponsor he came up to me one night and he said my name is Al and I'm your sponsor and I said I haven't chosen a sponsor yet and he said yes you have and I mean and I thought you got to choose your own sponsor. He said you do, you did and I'm him. And he looked at me kind of with the only sympathy he ever showed and the whole time I knew. But he kind of looked at it with pity and he said you don't understand do you? And I said no sir I don't. He said, we drew straws and I lost. In September of 1971, there was a meeting of the steering committee of the Irving Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the meeting was about whether or not they were going to let me continue to come to the meetings because i was so disruptive see i found out very early that the that the eardrum and the jawbone don't work at the same time and so if you talk you don't have to listen and i was disruptive and i was discourteous and i wasn't clean my sanitary habits weren't the best uh i i didn't really know where to bathe it didn't matter because then bathe anyway i'd quit bathing a long time before that and and i never had trouble getting a seat when i first came into the program because when i sat down somebody moved you know it was and uh but they actually had this meeting and and and the decision was that if they made me stop coming to meetings i probably would die but if i were going to be allowed to continue to come somebody had to take charge of me and they really did draw straws in our loss and it was the best thing that god ever did in my life I walked to Al's house that night and I knocked on the door and I'm standing on the front porch and tears running down my face he said what's the matter now and I said a terrible thing has happened and he said I just found out I don't know what I've done and he says Ray none of us do and I say the hell with the rest of you I'm talking about me this ain't a y'all deal anymore this is me and he said no it's we and he looked at me and he just might be that you're ready to take certain steps and he got in there by the arm and he brought me into his house and we sat down and we began a program that has helped me to stay sober for the past 27 and a half years Al taught me by example Al taught me that there are three meanings to AA, that there's Alcoholics Anonymous, there's Absolute Abstinence but the most vital and important meaning of aa is admitted and accepted that we really are powerless over alcohol al taught me that the best the two tools that every alcoholic lives by are called rationalization and justification and as long as we can rationalize away what we've done and justify what we're about to do we'll continue to do it one sunday morning we're sitting in arlington texas waiting for the meeting to start we were early phone rang and the guy answered the phone and he motioned for us to listen and there's a lady on the phone and she said i'm drunk and the guys said well i'm sorry to hear that and and she says well it's not my fault well you know we all know that she said it's the peanut butter And he said, you got drunk on peanut butter? And she said, no, we don't have any peanut butter. And my husband came home and threw a fit because we didn't have any peanut better. And I left and went to the 7-Eleven and bought two six-packs and drank all 12 of them. And the man said, wouldn't it have been simpler just to have bought a jar of peanut butter and she said to heck with him. I don't care if he never gets any more peanut butter. And I understood for the first time rationalization and justification. How long do you suppose that poor lady had to wait for him to throw a fit so she could stomp out of the house and go get drunk? How many times, brothers and sisters, have we deliberately started a fight so we could slam the door and go getting drunk and come back and say, well, if you didn't do what you do, I wouldn't have to do what I do. I don't know about you, but I was good at it. We had a game that we played at our house called Niggie Sob and Gunny Sacky. Niggi Sob is N-I-G-Y-Y S-O-B, and it stands for Now I Got You, You Sweet Old Boy. And the way you play that is, you know, you come home late, and she says, You're late? Well, you knew that. and then you say so what and then she says niggie sob now i got you you sweet old boy you just jumped into my trap and then u reach back and get your gunny sack in which you have kept everything that has ever happened since you even heard about her and you dump it on her and then she goes to the closet and she gets her gunny sack and she comes back and dumps it on you and then you can go get drunk for a month because she niggie-sogged you. We got to step two and I didn't have any problems with step two. A lot of people argue about insanity. I was so thrilled to find out I was insane. When I got here and you said that I suffer from the insanity of alcoholism, that I suffer from a disease. I thought I was just sorry as the devil. You know, that's what I've been told. My father told me that. The judge that ordered me out of the county where I grew up told me that the guy that drove me to the state line told me that, you know, I joined the Navy, had been in the Navy six weeks. So, I mean, so some chief petty officer said, son, you're just sorry. And so I was told that so often that I decided that that's what i was i'd be about as sorry as i could i'd be a good sorry and that's what i brought to you on july the 20th of 1971 a sorry mess and you said i was insane you know i can remember saying to my wife honey don't let the neighbors know that i've been drinking but she'd say well how must i explain you being naked out in the yard and i'd say tell him i'm sick we've all got our psychiatrist stories and i got one too my wife took me to the psychiatrist in white settlement texas and i'll never forget the experience he looked over his glasses at me and he said son and i said yes sir he said i'm gonna give you some pills and i said, you are. He said, uh-huh, I love pills. I want y'all to know that I love pills. Now, I'm not an ando, and I'm just an alcoholic that would take anything to get his hands on, you know. Anything make me feel single, C-double, I was farted. You know, I did not get it. Somebody asked me one time, what's your drug of choice? I said, what you got? I was a social drinker anytime you had whiskey you know i mean i just you know always out of pure anything and so this guy said i'm gonna give you some pills man that got my attention i love red pills green pills white pills long pills short pills round pills square back when i was drinking i come to your house first place i hid was your bathroom you know and i didn't have no kidney problem i want to see your medicine cabinet yeah i've had enough mind all i wouldn't have a cramp probably it'd be 100 years old. I never will forget the time I found the little plastic thing with the dates on it, you know? I took the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. I have a friend who's a Jesuit priest up in Canada, and he said, did it ever occur to you that you might be responsible for getting some girl pregnant you never even met? I love these pills, and so he said I'm going to give you some pills. I said, what do they do, Doc? He said, they make you deathly sick if you drink. I said I already get deathly sick when I drink. He said you know you're going to get deathily sick and you drink anyway and I said yes sir and he said I don't understand and I say me either. But he wasn't dumb. I got deathly sickness. I'm gonna shorten this up a little bit because I've gotten long-winded tonight but I just have to take a little time and tell you what it's been like since. We worked those 12 steps. We worked them over and over again. Al showed me how they work. But I have to tell you the benefits of this program. If I just come and tell ya about being drunk and being crazy and being insane and talk to ya about my sponsor, it wouldn't do any good. I have ta tell ya what it has done. I have a grandson. I have three grandsons and a granddaughter now, but in 1980, I told my wife, I said, I want to go back to school. I want to get my doctorate in psychology. She said, why don't you? And I said well, I'll be 50 years old before I graduate. And she said, in four years, you're going to be 50 either way. so I went back to school I enrolled in a doctoral program and I graduated May the 15th summa cum laude with a PhD in psychology and the 15 of October that same year my daughter gave birth to the most perfect little redheaded boy you've ever seen unless it's the one she gave birth to three years later or their little granddaughter three years after that but that little boy was about two and two and a half years old and he'd never spent the night away from his grandma from his parents and and we were attending a school in dallas and my daughter said would you like to take him and keep him at the motel overnight and i said you let me do that and she said yes and so i ran down to walmart and got 40 worth of little red trucks so we got the little boy in the motel room and the little boy throws the trucks down and he comes and he climbs up in my lap and he puts his arm around my neck and he said Pawpaw, I love you and I couldn't help it, I cried because not because the little boy said he loved me but because I had been trusted by my daughter who used to be so afraid of her father that she would lock herself in the bathroom and sleep in the bathtub at night. And I knew that she, not only had I been forgiven, but I had been restored to the place where I would choose to be. Three years later, she had another little boy and then three years after that, I'm on the way to Oklahoma to speak and I get a call on my cell phone and my son-in-law says, Kitty's in the hospital and I said, I'll come home and he said, no, she's doing fine. She said she knew you would say that but you go on and do what you do, and she'll be okay. As soon as the meeting was over, I called home, and my wife was so excited, and She said, We have a granddaughter. And I said, That's great. And I say, Kitty, okay? Yeah. Baby, okay. Yeah. Well, aren't you going to ask me what the baby's name is? And I says, Oh, yeah. What's the baby'S name? And she said, Jacqueline Ray. And I left Oklahoma right then, and I drove all night, and I got to Irving. I went straight to the hospital at 6 o'clock in the morning. I woke her up, and I said, I hugged her, and I says, I want to ask you a question. She said, well, why didn't you name either one of the boys after me? And she said, Daddy, it just had to be for a little girl. Jackie's mine. She belongs to me. She'd come live with me. you know if they'd let her she'd come live with me so so many good things have happened to us as a result of this program but but i have to tell you about two more and then i'll shut it two years ago in august my 40 year old son and his wife had never had children the doctors had said they could not have any children they had tried to adopt and And you know how that, it just gets real confusing. A friend, a young man that I used to sponsor had moved to California and he called me two years ago and he said, my sister's sponsoring a girl who is eight months pregnant and the welfare has said that she cannot keep the baby. They already have her other two children and they're not going to let this child go into that home. She's looking for someone to adopt it. and do you think your son would be interested? I called my son, and the next morning we were sitting in a lawyer's office in Dallas, and then they flew out to California, and they got a lawyer out there. And about three weeks or half weeks after that, he called me and he said, Dad, we just got the call. We're leaving right now. Go to the bank and put some money in my account. and so they flew out to San Diego and they went up to Escondido and they stood in the delivery room as this little boy was born and it was handed right to them in the deliver room he weighed 11 and a half pounds and he's just he's a peach I mean he's great he's not just great he looks like us but my son told me My son's six foot five. He looks like Grizzly Adams, the big guy with the big beard. And I'd never seen him cry, but when he came home with that baby, he cried for a week every time he picked the baby up. Me and him would walk through the house crying, you know. And he said, Daddy, don't you ever go to another one of them conferences. You don't thank them people for my baby. Everything good in our life has come from you. I have to say that sincerely. everything, you know I go to church I work in church but I go AA to get sane enough to go to church I had a young preacher come up to me not too long ago and he asked me that question I've been waiting for for years what is your philosophy of religion oh I couldn't I said God will give you what you want when you need it just as soon as you're capable of taking care of it. I don't believe in religion. Religion is man trying to impress God with how good they are. The spirituality that I learned in this program is man being humble enough to let God show you how good he is. Three years ago, I'm driving down South Padre Island Drive in Corpus Christi. and I see a sign that says, Guitar Lessons. I pulled in. I pulled into the place and I went in and the guy's my age, he's 62 years old. I said, can you teach me how to play the guitar? He said, if you do what I tell you. He said, you're going to have to learn one day at a time. And you're going to do the deal every day. And you won't have no days off. There won't be no time off. You'll have to do it exactly like you do your AA program. And I said, who are you? And he said, I heard you speak at the Coastal Bend Jam to Rita. And he looked me right in the eye and he said I'm going to tell you the honest truth. If you do what I tell you to do two years from today you can play the guitar well it's been three years i have my own band we play predominantly at nursing homes my wife says it's because they're in wheelchairs and on walkers and can't get away from us my first time to play at the nursing home I was kind of nervous and I had about 50 people there and I said y'all have to be kind of patient with me this is my first game this is the first time to play in public and a little lady in a wheelchair right down the front said help I said well I don't think I'm going to be that bad she said help get me out of here get me Out Here and so that was the way I was initiated when I sobered up I made some promises to my wife I didn't promise her I'd never drink again I didn'y promise her I wouldn't sometime be a horses behind because sometimes I am I promised her that I would do my best for the rest of our lives to try to be what she thought she got when she married me. We've been married 44 years. I also promised her that I wouldn't ride motorcycles anymore. Two years ago, we were sitting having dinner and I said, do you think it's been long enough that I could have a motorcycle? And she said, yes I do. See I had both my knees replaced I have artificial knees and so I'm not supposed to walk a lot so I got me a Harley. So I have my own motorcycle club It's called Club de Motocicletas de Viejo de Aboverde, which translated means Old Geezer's Motorcycle Club. And that doesn't mean anything except to say that one day at a time, God has restored my life. One day at the time, I have a wife that I'm content to grow old with. We're going to retire May the 30th and I'm going to play guitar and ride my Harley and I don't know what else. I'm no expert in this problem. I don' t have anything much expert to give you. We don' ve experts here. Sober is as high as you get. But I do know one thing. Actually, I know two things. I know which drink makes me drunk and that's the first one. and number two I know who with God's help has the choice of whether or not I take it and that's me thank you and God bless you