The Wall Between Me and the World – Tom B.

I don't know if I'm dressed or not my name is Tom Brady jr. and I'm an alcoholic and by the grace of God which has come to me quite specifically through the 12 steps of this program. I haven't had the compulsion to drink since July 20, 1965, and for this I am very, very grateful. I'm grateful, I suppose, in a large way for the humor that I found in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I find the true humor is sometimes better than the stories that we hear. There's a fellow in the program in Charlotte that I'm sponsoring now, and we took a trip to Atlanta couple of months ago and being raised a hardshell Baptist I haven't gotten used to the braless look and we were standing in the Atlanta Airport Doug and I and this gal came by and she was the bra less look if I ever saw it she walked by and I'm not gonna lie to you we walked watched her just as far as we could see her. Now I turned around and I looked at Doug and Doug looked at me he says, you know Tom that gal reminds me of Alcoholics Anonymous and I said, why? He said, she's self-supporting through her own contributions. She said, and also being a baptist uh i'm fond of uh biblical preacher type humor and we have a guy up in north carolina bryant b who's always telling me these little tidbits and he said preacher was preaching one day and he says brothers we just haven't gone far enough on this matter of spiritual healing he said i want you to know if you look in the good book you'll find an answer to every sickness problem in the world. There's a cure for it in the book. And he said, just to prove it for you, for the next month I'm going to preach on spiritual healing. I'm gonna put a box at the back of the room back there and you drop your sickness into it. And said, I'll just pull them out at random and we'll find the answer. We'll find a cure and an answer in the good book. And the first Sunday, he went back and he opened the box. He brought a little slip of paper up to the pulpit and he open it up. He said, hmm, constipation. He flipped open his Bible and he said, here it is, brother. He says, it says it right here. It says Moses took two tablets and went off into the wilderness. You know, there was a time when I couldn't laugh. And I suspect that for you, there was an era when you couldn't smile. There was a period of time when you couldn't even laugh. And I can laugh today because of one thing and it's in this book. There is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. the power I lacked the power for everything that had to do with living and laughter to me is a great part of living lack of power was my problem I'd like to say something about logic as I start here because I, like all other alcoholics was a great believer in logic and every time I make a talk now I'm reminded that we speak in Alcoholics Anonymous not in the language of the mind not from the intellect we're not bookish and we're told that we speak in the Language of the Heart the language that no logic can reach I was a great believer in logic, I still like logic but you know there is a power that's greater than logic in this universe and we're living proof of it each of us because if you're an alcoholic and you're here tonight and you are sober that is not logical think about it there is one who has all power that one is God I'm hoping I can get open and loose and honest up here tonight I'll try my best and I'm going to need your help this bit about a speaker getting up and doing the job is only a half truth I don't know any speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous who can do the job if the people that are looking at him are not supporting him and they support him from the heart from that depth that passes logic I don't remember in looking back on my life an inventory, and I believe in inventory. I don' t remember scarcely a time when I wasn' t afraid. I remember reading a book in psychology a couple of years ago, and the guy listed 206 different kinds of phobias, and that's Greek for fear. And I finished reading 206 kinds. I said, uh-uh, buddy. There's 207. You forgot one. And this is the fear in which I live from my earliest days on this earth, this fear that we know as alcoholics, this fear of impending disaster. Something's got to happen. I find myself now sometimes, you know, I'm a gutter person. I'm kind of spastic, and I find ourselves even when I'm in the bathroom, them, you know, sitting there saying, I got, I got, thinking up things that I have got to do. And I can laugh at that now, and there was a time when I couldn't laugh at it. But from my very earliest days, I remember this fear, this nameless, gnawing, empty fear from my earliest days. I was afraid in particular of people. Now, I was a scrawny kid. I had white hair. I didn't know what my name was for a long time because all of my uncles and my aunts and everybody called me Pudding Head and Cotton Top and a lot of things like this. And I didn'T know my name was Tommy for a Long Time. My father's got a bad habit of a bad Habit. I love him for it. He called me everything but my name. He has these little pet names that he calls me. And for the longest time I was known as Drip and my father was known as Droopy. We had this thing. know, and I've got it with my kids now. You know, I've got a little girl, she'll be two next month, a little boy before next month and a little girl that's 11. And the oldest is named Crystal but I call her Cooch. And Jason is a little boy and I don't know why but I called him Kenny Tuna. And if I called them Jason he don't knew who I'm talking to. And Frances for some reason, the littlest one, I call her nudic, and I don't think she knows what her real name is. But I was a scrawny, skinny kid. I can look back at pictures of myself, and never was a picture taken of me. I didn't have one eye shut and one foot across the other and my knees together. And I had freckles all over, from head to toe. I was the frecklest boy you ever saw. And I was a little sensitive about those freckles. And i was skinny. I looked kind of like a pair of handlebars when I turned sideways. My shoulder blade stuck out so far and it was awfully painful for me. So I did what I've heard so many alcoholics say that they did. Some of them don't say it yet, but they'll get around to it. I became a perfectionist. The only way I could keep people from hurting me was to gain people's approval, and I went to work on it. Now, I told you I was a Baptist. I was in the Baptist church every time the door opened, and I mean that quite literally, Bob, every timethe door opened. My mother is today the hostess of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. That's her work. My father is just a deacon emeritus, was made deacon emeritus a couple of years ago after 40 years on the Baptist Board of Deacons, singing in the church every Sunday, teaching two Sunday school classes. Tom Brady is a guy everybody could depend on, and Junior was a guy everybody couldn't depend on. Quite unlike his father. And they have an organization in the Baptist Church for boys called the Royal Ambassadors. The Royal Ambcessors for Christ. And I remember some of the motto, So live pure, right wrong, follow the Christ, the King, elsewhere foreborn. I remember that part of it. Now, I had developed this thing called perfection, and I'm going to talk a lot about that tonight. Perfection to me means being on top. Perfection, to me, means going into every situation with the idea that I will do it better than anyone else ever did it, and I'll do it quicker than anyone ever did, and I will end up on top place. Second place? No, never. Always on top, And I went into the Royal Ambassadors with a vengeance. It wasn't very long. The highest rank in the Royal ambassadors is ambassador plenipotentiary. And man, when you get plenhipotentiaries rise, they give you a shield and a sword and a crown. And that most important of all things to me as an alcoholic that they gave me was the spotlight. I could recite more memory verses than you've ever heard in your entire life and probably more than you ever want to hear in your entire life. And I mean on the spot, all you had to do was call out chapter and verse and I'd pop it out there. Real fast. Didn't know what I was talking about. And I did all the things that a little boy was supposed to do in school. I made straight A's. I was always the teacher's pet. I made it my business to be the teacher'S pet. I found out what the teacher liked, and I did it. And you better believe I did it better than anybody else ever did it Spelling B's? That was nothing You know, since I got an A, I can't spell I won every spelling contest I was a little boy soprano in the Christmas pageant I played baseball, played football played all the sports coming up through grammar school and I made always those straight A's I was the one that everyone pointed to and said, look at him, the other mothers and fathers. Why don't you make the grades that Tommy makes? Why don'T you do what Tommy does? Why can'T you sing like Tommy can? Getting that approval, getting that pat on the back so you couldn't hurt me. And you know, this went on until I was 15 years old. I never made below an A in school until I took my first drink. now along with this fear and along with this reaching out for approval so that I would not be hurt along with his mastery of everything and always ending up on top another thing started to grow and this is the horrible part for me as an alcoholic the wall started to go I started to build a wall not only did I have to have your approval but I had to have it when and where I wanted it. And I built this wall between you and me for further protection against you. And I only came out from behind that wall when I needed to use you for something. I manipulated people. I used people. And I lost in the process the most precious gift that God gives anyone, the capacity and the tendency to love. You can't love from behind a wall. And I lost it through my fear. But I was the perfect boy. Old Ambassador Plenty Potentiary. I took my first drink. i remember the place i remember the time i remember how i got it and i remember the brand a bunch of us were on a singing trip high school singing trip up in greensboro north carolina we were up on the 14th floor of a hotel in greensborough north carolina has very silly liquor laws any of you ever been there know it and we sent out by cab to get a pint of cream of Kentucky and we paid $7.50 for it and one of the older heads in the crowd I think he was a very seasoned veteran at the drinking business he was 17 told me how to drink this stuff he says you take a glass full of it and you turn it down and then you take a glassful of water and you just keep on doing it until you feel good well I want you to know everybody else got sick like Jim did on that cabbage you know and passed out and did all kinds of things you know what I did I called that same cab driver I gave him another seven dollars and a half sent him back for another pint of cream in Kentucky I don't remember the first thing about that night but I didn't puke and I didn' t pass out but i was out of it the blackout started with me immediately in my drinking and it went on from there the grades disappeared it got to the point in high school that anything that happened in hugh morrison high school in raleigh north carolina tom did it they called me down there first every time i quit playing sports only thing i wanted to do sports to go sit in the grandstand and drink liquor while everybody else played. Getting sicker. I didn't want to do anything I'd done before, and I didnít. Matter of fact, the only way I graduated from high school was to accept a whipping when I was 18 years old, because I was standing in the bathroom smoking a cigarette when the principal walked in, and Iím cupped it in my hand and put it in my overcoat pocket. And he came in and he looked at me, and he always was a smart ass. He said, Tom, you smoking? I said, no, sir. He said, well, why don't you take your hands out of your pocket? And I did. That damn cigarette burnt through my pocket and hit the floor. And he'd been looking for that. Don't tell me that. Oh, you'll never get out of high school now. You'll never graduate. But he wanted to get rid of me so bad he just had me whipped and graduated me. Now, my relationships with people were almost nonexistent. With my mother, with my father, with my sister, with the people in school. I never could go with a girl unless only I were going with the girl. Some of you will know what I mean, almost all of you. I had to have control. I had to be the only one. Now, when I got tired of using the girl, I turned her loose, but God help her if she turned me loose before I was tired of usin' her. See, the control game, you gotta be in control, and I was one that had to use people as I wanted to use people. And I didn't even know I was doin' it. I always went steady with girls. I was afraid of girls. After the freckles went, the pimples came. I had the worst complexion you've ever seen in your life and I still had shoulder blades that stuck out six inches. And that's painful, especially when you're going after the women. But I managed to make out okay. I was afraid of them. I I was deathly afraid of them. And I started in a period of my life in which certain sex problems started taking a big part of my time. And it took a big part of the time for the next 15 years that I drank. And I can't leave it out of my story because it's so important to me to remember this. This is part of perfection. Sexual fantasy is part of perfection because in sexual fantasy I could have any woman I wanted at any time and she couldn't hurt me and she wouldn't leave me and I didn't have to be afraid. But down here in real life where people live, this was impossible and I preferred fantasy. I made a remark one time that I lived in Fantasyland a long time before Walt Disney invented the place, and I did, a long Time. And being raised a Babish you can imagine what this did to me. Guilt? You just don't know. Or maybe you do. I decided I would go to school. And let me give you an example of my perfectionism, though, before I stop. Just how I was able to do the things, most things better than anybody else. And if I couldn't do them better than anyone else, I'd sneak away so nobody would know that I couldn t do them any better than everybody else. But, you know, I grabbed hold of a bull fiddle, Bill, when I was in high school, 17 years old, over the Christmas holidays. And the band director said, if you'll put me a new G string on that bass fiddle I'll let you have it for two weeks and you can learn how to play it. And I did! I practiced bass fiddle until my mom and daddy were just about vibrated out of the house. Night and day I went at that thing. But do you know something? At the end of two weeks I was playing bass with a college dance band. That's where I mean by my perfection. I could do it. I could go to college and I tell my students, I teach at a college now, when I tell them how many colleges I have been to, they think I'm some kind of smart cookie. But I entered and left a lot of colleges under the gun. And I started into this college, and that lasted about three months. And I decided I'd go to the Air Force, and I'd already started getting locked up at age 17 pretty often. And I used my father and mother in my normal fashion when I'd get locked up in the Wake County Jail. I'd call them for bail money. And another pattern started in my alcoholic life, which was to hold for the next 15 years. I was a periodic drinker. It was as regular as a calendar. when i needed people when i was in trouble when i was sick i was very contrite i was full of promises i was so afraid and i was unable to protect myself when i got sick and getting over a drunk and i needed these people and i used them but you know then something would happen i'd get well i'd start feeling good physically and the ego would come back and I'd take over control again, I agree with Tom Powers the two worst enemies of the alcoholic are health and success. Because when I'd get back on top I'd do it all over again and then I'd need you again and I would use you again and then go back up again and all over it was just a cycle and a very vicious one. I decided to go into the Air Force and my father was never so glad to hear anything in all his life. I never will forget, the bus was late getting there when I was supposed to leave for the Air Force and he was getting in cold sweats wondering if it was going to get there. And when I got there while he was saying goodbye I had him shaking my hand with one hand pushing my butt up the steps with the other. It was like my father said to me and he's told me since, I loved you son. I loved your son. I loved her so much but didn't know you and I couldn't reach you. And I was afraid of you. And I went into the Air Force. Now, in the Air Forces, they didn't have the royal ambassadors. But they had radio school. You know, when I went in to basic training, it wasn't very long before I was the flight chief. And that was a guy who didn't need to pull any KP, no guard duty, no floor cleaning. He just told everybody else what to do. Have you got that? And I wasn't the flight chef. When I left basic training, the staff sergeant who was my drill instructor was busted to private for bringing tequila into the barracks to give to a certain basic trainee. Guess who it was? And I went on down to radio school when everybody else in radio school was copying 10 words a minute, I was copying 35 Morse code. And they grabbed me up in the security service, made a top-secret intercept radio operator out of me and sent me to Japan. I was still drinking along, but I was managing to kind of keep it in the background. I got in Japan. I could no longer do this. I went wild. And in the end, they pulled my top-security clearance and they put me in the stockade for 30 days. I talked to my commanding officer at the end of 12 days, talked my way out of the stockage by promising I'd never do it again. And typical alcoholic, I jumped the fence and I was in town drunk that night. I got a general discharge from the service. And I decided I'd make a real good student and I started back to college and my studying interfered with my drinking and I dropped out of the college. And then I'd sponge off my mother and daddy again because I needed them again, you see. I was sick. Then I go to another college, and then I started the rounds of the jails really in earnest. It seemed I couldn't drink one tall can of slits without ending up in the Wake County Jail somehow. Now one of my worst problems as an alcoholic then and today, one of my worst character defects is that I forget. I forget, but I'll tell you one place I'll never forget, and that's the bullpen at the Wake County Jail, because I never woke up in the bull pen with any cigarettes, and I never knew why I was locked up. Never once was I locked up when I was not in a blackout, and I remember the jailer would come by, and I didn't know what I'd done, and I started to say something, and he'd shake his head, and I just knew I'd killed somebody, and wasn't sure I hadn't. And I get on the telephone, and called Daddy to come get me again out of the Wake County Jail. And about that time, they'd come in with a breakfast. And a breakfast at the Wake County Jails is the thing that I shall never forget. They'd come in and they'd come in with a tin plate, and on that tin plate in Greece was a big pile of yellow powdered eggs, Bill. And a couple of weenies split down the middle and fried. That was supposed to be your sausage. and over beside that were the grits. The grits had been sitting on that plate so long you'd stick your fork in it'd come up like an ice cream cone. The whole pile. Now this sounds silly to some people when I tell them today God helped me to never forget the grots in the Wake County Jail. I don't want no more of them grots. In between drunks, you know what I'd do? I set a world record for bathing. When I was coming off a drunk, I would shower, I'd take tub baths, I scrubbed, I did everything in the world I could possibly do to kind of wash off this thing, to get rid of it. And then, like some other people I know, I'd start hitting the aisle at the Baptist church looking for magic. Looking to walk down that aisle and rededicate myself and getting that magic tap on my head from the great magician, getting fixed and not having to do anything about it. And you know I found no magic there, no magic. One thing I've learned in AA, whatever God is, he's not a magician. He does not tap me on the head with a wand and say, You fixed, old boy. You don't have to do anything. Just sit on your laurels. I learned it, and I learned it the hard way, and I don't want to forget it. I ended up in religious homes for alcoholics. I ended up in alcoholic rehabilitation centers. I ended up in jails. I ended up in the psychiatric ward. I've had over 450 stitches taken in my face alone as a result of wrecks I've been in. As a result, I've lost all the strength I've ever had when I was drunk. I have scars all over the outside of my body as a resultado of driving drunk. By age 23, I had done all these things and I made my first contact with Alcoholics Anonymous. Having always been an intellectual having always mastered everything very quickly having always stayed away from other people while doing it being a past master at memorization I walked into the AA group and I glanced up at the 12 steps and I found the book and I memorized those steps and I could spout them out and I memorized parts of the book and I could give you paragraph, sentence, and page number where you could find anything. Head knowledge. Head knowledge, I could give it to you, but I couldn't do it. From age 23 to age 30 in Alcoholics Anonymous I could not stay sober even 90 days. I'd get sick and I'd come back. And we'd get white chips in North Carolina and I would pick up another white chip. You know, I did that so many times, like to broke the group on white chips. And I couldn't understand it. You see, here I am sitting in a meeting and all the fellas around the group, you know, every Tuesday night at a discussion meeting, they'd say the same thing. I can tell you where they're sitting next Tuesday night in Burlington, North Carolina, every damn one of them. And I'll tell you what they're going to say when it goes around the room, see? and you know they were staying sober saying the same thing and here was the intellect and i knew it all you see and i couldn't stay sober to save my life and i hated those people i hated them for that you know i ended up in a psychiatric ward one time and i can understand how people get what they call uh institutionalized i like the psychiatric ward i committed myself now i used to say that with some pride even in a talks that i committed myself to the psychiatric ward what it was was my daddy said you go to psycho ward or get the hell out of my house so i went to psycho war i had my psychiatrist convinced that my complexion was the cause of my drinking. That poor man, he didn't have a chance. And you know, just before I went into psychiatric ward, I'd had a wreck, and I knocked out this tooth up here. And the next morning, while I was shakily taking one of my wash-it-all-off baths, I fell over in the bathtub and knocked out his tooth down here. And I checked into the psychiatric ward, you see, with two front teeth knocked out. Now, I want you to know it's hard as hell to be a perfectionist with two teeth knocked out. Because every time you smile, you've got to cover your mouth. So then I convinced him that it was my teeth, you know, that were my real problem. The dentist didn't buy it. Psychiatrist did. That tells you something about psychiatrists, too. Beautiful people. and you know up there you had all the attention you wanted when you looked a little nervous they'd give you a pill you know and I looked nervous a lot and the doctor gave me a pad and a pencil to put beside my bed up there he didn't want me to write down my dreams and I was having some dreams I don't want you to know and I didn't write them down I'd make up some I believe to this day if I'd written down my real dreams I'd have blown his mind for it. That was some good ones. And he let me in the medical library for about a week and I had diseases he ain't ever heard of. The man did everything for me, a kind, good, honest man. I want you to know that, a kind good honest man he didn't have a chance. All that I really remember doing in the psycho ward, aside from a few silly games, was playing ping pong with a schizophrenic Cherokee Indian. For 12 hours a day, me and this schizo Cherokee Indian play ping pong. I want you to know why I kept playing it. You know, I have to end up on top. I ain't never beat that damn Indian yet. I had to keep playing it. And you know, they gave me all these tests, Rorschach test, Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory and all these good things, you know? Trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I knew what was wrong with me i really did i really did and they came in one day and they had a box about this big and and inside that box when they opened it up was every kind of paper doll you ever saw in your life and they pulled out a frame and they laid it down on the table and they said tom we want you to take these paper dolls and put them in this frame and when you get them in there just like you want then tell us a story about them now i had the fleeting thought this is a hell of a thing for an intellectual to be doing. I put the paper dolls in there, and you know the embarrassing part about it to this day is I enjoyed that more than anything I ever did in my life. And I want to tell you why too, and this comes through inventory, because when I put those paper dolls where I wanted them, they stayed put. No talking back, no argument. And to come right down to the nitty-gritty of it, this was the time when I really was God. I had the power. I got kicked out of the psychiatric ward. They just couldn't handle me anymore. That poor doctor. You know, that's one man I still owe amends to that I haven't been able to find. And it may be if he ever sees me coming to make amends, he ain't going to let me find i caused that man much heartache ain't no long about this time i went to a religious home for alcoholics and i started reading about the apostle paul in the jb phillips version of the new testament and having been a good baptist and very religiously brought up i knew this was the answer and again i memorized i could quote paul i could unquote anybody i couldn't do nothing i got out of this religious home for alcoholics and i was dead serious about this i rededicated again to the church and i went to work in a mission of the church in the poorest part of the city where the kids literally didn't have clothes to go and i sang and i preached and i met my wife that's the best part of whole thing and we got married. She tells me now that she saw much good in me and she was going to bring it out. I was doing all these things in the insane hope, and it was insane, that by doing enough good things I could undo all the bad that I had done. Not clean up, but undo. It didn't work. I was in a couple of more colleges. I was back in the religious home for alcoholics, and I finally got into a college by admitting I was an alcoholic and the president of the college. And by the way, I called the president to get into college, not the registrar. Always at the top. And he let me in if I'd go to AA. Sure, I'll go to EA. And this was my real intelligentsia time. I was loaded for bear. You know, I'd sit home and I'd meditate, and I was convinced if I'd meditate long enough that bolt of lightning was going to come. That magic wand in a new form and tap me on the head and fix me. And I've sat in my den in my insanity so many times reading The Imitation of Christ or some of the other great books hoping against hope that God was going see me there and come to me and do it my way. And I go to AA meetings at this time and I'd been reading Martin Buber or Paul Tillich or one of the great philosophers and I was loaded and I wasn't going to turn these clod drunks on to something. And they'd sit in there on Tuesday night and they'd say the same thing. And here I am and all of you have done this if you've ever been to a discussion meeting you've got some of the heaviest stuff in the world to lay on the people and they ain't getting through you fast enough and you're wringing your hands waiting to throw it on them and that's the way I'd be and they come to me last. It was like the meeting was over when they called on me, and it was. And I throw this heavy learning on them, see? Paul Tillich said so-and-so, and Martin Buber said so and so, and they didn't give a damn what Paul Tillick and Martin Luber said. They just kept on staying sober. This one old geezer up in Bronson next Tuesday night, Bill C., he'll sit up there in the same chair, second one from the wall, second row. I'll bet you on this, I'll lay odds. And he'll sit there and he'll rattle his change. And then he'll pull his nose and then he'd run his hand back through his hair. And then here rattle has changed and pull his nose and run his hands back through her hair and you say the same thing he said to tonight nine years ago and the man been sober twenty three years And I couldn't get a three-month chip. Now, I had it, see? And I just couldn't understand this deal. And I wanted one of those red chips. That's for 90 days sobriety. Oh, I wanted them red chips because they would make me somebody. And I was awful tired of being nobody. I wanted ones so bad that when they'd finish the meeting and go across the hall to the kitchen to drink their coffee, I have gone up to the chip box and stolen a red chip. I drank on. I drank off. In the deepest form of insanity that I believe is possible for any man, I drank all. The deepest form of insanity to me is the denial of God. And by trying to take his place, by denying his power, by trying to assume it, I denied him. It's no secret that the Master advised us to deny ourselves. And there was no hope for me. Our first child was born. I did not care. I could not care The wall was too high. My arms wouldn't even reach over it anymore. When I came out, I got hurt. In 1965, I arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the meantime, this old fellow I'm talking about rattling his change all the time had told me a big truth one night when I called him up drunk, and I never shall forget this either. Tom Brady, don't you ever call me again when you're drinking. I don't care if you ever get sober. If you want this thing, you know where we meet. And don't call me to come get you. One of the most loving things that has ever been done for me in my life And my father, at the time that I called him from the Wake County Jail, said, No, son, you can stay. I'm not bailing you out. Thank God for these people and their real love. And when I went to AA in Charlotte, I was afoot, having lost my driver's license three times for drunken driving, never supposed to drive in the state of North Carolina again. I hooked it. let me tell you something I want to tell you this I had no idea that I was going to stay sober none and neither did my wife she had seen me time after time after time go to AA try it as long as things were hurting and then seen me get well again and do it again. Time after time after time she had seen this. But something had happened. I guess I had come without knowing it to that place called bottom. That place where I could no longer con me. That place where the fantasies no longer worked. That place where the rationalizations just didn't click anymore. That dark and horrible place that we refer to as bottom. But I believe deep in my heart it's also one of the most beautiful spots in any alcoholic's life. Certainly it was in mine. Because it's the end of the beginning. It's that place where I had to get honest or die. And I started staying sober. I got me a sponsor. I went to this man and I asked him to sponsor me because I liked the way he walked. I like the way he walked, I like people in this program who don't have to say anything thing because they've lived it to such a degree that they are the program. Like a friend of mine said to me, Tom, it's easy to talk the talk, but it's hard to walk the walk. Walking is what it's all about. Living this program is what its all about and I went to this man and I sat down with him and I said, Harry, will you sponsor me? And he pointed his finger at me. People had a bad habit of pointing their fingers at me and he pointed His finger at Me and He said, I've heard about you. I have heard about you, and I thought that's good until I heard what he had heard. He said, they say you're crazy. But he said, I'll sponsor you on one condition. You do it my way. When I think back today how close I came from walking out of that room when he said i had to do it his way it scares me to death but i didn't walk out and we did it hisway want to know what his way is there it is right there i'd read it i'd memorized it one of my favorite tricks when i was coming off a drunk was sitting and listening to a special song by the four freshmen crying getting drunker and reading the big book i've got whiskey glass circles on the front of this book yeah I was crazy and for months and months and months Harry told me what to do and I asked him a million times Harry why do I have to do that and he said a million time Tom don't ask me why you just do it he took me on twelve step calls I'm telling you and it wasn't me who went to do the preaching on 12-step calls either. He was one of those who said, you shut up and you listen and I'll tell you when to talk. And it wasn't very often either. And then there came a time and only sponsors know this time. Only God really knows it and he lets the sponsor know when he let me say something on a 12-stepped call. And I began to feel a wonderful thing that God knows I hadn't felt in a long time. I was giving something away. And it seemed like the wall came down a little bit. At least I could see over the top. And I began to love this man. I began to love him very much and I didn't even know it. He kept asking me when I was going to get to my inventory. And then he had to hold me by the seat of my pants to keep me from doing it too quick. It's going to end up on top of that damn inventory. And I got me a pencil and some paper, and I got to doing that thing, and I get to writing, and there were some things I was never going to tell anybody about me. They were too dirty and too awful. And I get this thing ready, and I call Harry, and I made an appointment with him to go over and take the inventory the night before I was physically sick. I did not want to go, but I knew this man and every excuse I thought up I knew he had an answer for it and I had to take that fifth step. And I walked into his den and I sat down in what I call today the torture chair and that's a blessed place. I want you to know it. And i sat back in that chair and I got started. I told him some of the rottenest things I could tell him and he laughed at me and I began to feel a little loose and I ended up telling him everything that I had written down all the things I hadn't written down some things I haven't even thought of and I walked out of that house and the book says this is where the spiritual experience begins and you know I was still expecting that bolt of lightning and I didn't get it and I'm glad because I felt so clean and a beautiful thing started happening to me. I could look people in the eye for the first time in 15 years I could love people in their eyes. This program works. It works. Everything I ever did in my life I did for possession. I did it for use. My use. I even did this with God. I sought God. I sought him terribly hard. I came out of many a blackout, sitting on the front pew of a church, crying and praying. But I sought God to get him for myself. And the difference I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous is now I'm seeking God to give me to him. And that's a difference. And I believe with all my heart that we are children of the same Father. That beneath my individuality and your individuality lies a unity. And you can call this unity what you want to, a spark or God within, but it explains a lot of things to me. Because if I am you and you are me, whatever I do to you, I do for you. Whatever I do I do, I say I do. Whatever I say to you I do and whatever I say for you, I do it for me. and then I can understand things like I can only keep it if I give it away. I can't only be understood if I understand. I can not only forgive or be forgiven if I forgive. It explains a lot of things to me. An awful lot. God was in. I buy this. I believe it. One of my professors at college this summer gave me a little card and on this little card it said love you because I am you love you because I am you for so many years I thought I was so worthless I hated my guts and in the words of the carpenter I learned that God cared about me that I was of value to God I used to hate worse than anything else in the Baptist church the rinky dink Baptist hymns there wasn't always an old bass alto soprano lady that sang in our church and I never will forget her name was Miss Gertrude. And I guess she was one reason I hated them so bad, the worst singer I ever heard in my life. You know, my first few months in Alcoholics Anonymous some strange things started happening to me. I was sitting up Blue Ridge one time about my second retreat and I was standing on the back row and there was this lady up front making the prettiest talk you ever heard in your life and I didn't hear her. I was sitting on the back row patting my foot, singing Love Lifted Me. And I got up to state convention that year and I was standing on the black row again and another lady, Coral Louise, was up front talking. I never will forget it. And I had an urge and I had to hold myself in the chair. I wanted to stand up on that chair and say, I'm free! Thank God I'm freer! And I am, see? And I started looking again and listening again these songs like amazing grace. God is beautiful. And I remember the words of the Master when I think of myself as worthless. Consider the lilies of the field. They don't toil, they don't spin, they don' t do anything and God takes care of them. And two spares or five spares are sold for two pennies and not one of them falls to the ground that your Heavenly Father doesn' t know it. and then comes to my mind a song which has meant more to me than any other song in my entire life and it goes this way why should I feel discouraged why should the shadows come why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home when God is my portion my constant friend is he His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. Let not your heart be troubled, his tender voice I hear, And resting on his goodness I lose my doubts and fears. Though by the road he leadeth but one step, I may see eyes on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I am free, for his eye is on the Sparrow, and I knew he watches. For so many years in my life I looked for the big things, for the BIG things, and today I find most meaning in the small things. I do silly things. People think they're silly. I think they're important. I like to roll in the grass in the backyard with my little boy. How long has it been since you rolled in the ground? Me and him were out there one day not long ago, and we were rolling in circles. And I got tired before he did. He's still got a lot more energy. And I stopped there, and I took a little stick, and I stuck it up in the brown, and I put it on top of the stick. And Jason, he's still rolling in circle around me. And he's watching what I'm doing. I took another leaf and put it on top of the stick. He's still rolling in circles, the circle getting smaller. Finally, he stopped and he picked him up a leaf and he put it onto the stick and I picked up another and I put it ontop of the sticks and he said, Daddy, let's make a tree. Now we made a tree and it was right and it wasn't a tree but it was God's will and there was no other place for me at that time. I went in the house, and I guess I was stepping high off the ground because Donna looked at me kind of funny. She said, What have you been doing? I said, Me and Jason just made a tree. She said Joyce Kilmer said only God could make a tree I said she'll have to rewrite the damn thing. You've got two of the most beautiful AA children you've ever seen. Fantastic and full of love, and i watch them because that's what I want to be like. I came here with what they've got and I gave it away. I hid it behind my wall and I built the wall so high I lost it. But through this blessed fellowship I am again able to do what they're able to quite naturally. I'm able to love. I do have faith. I do have hope it's coming back as I become more like a child and children are very involved with small things I was thinking today I am a twice born man my life was not given to me just once it was given to be to me twice I am a child of an all-powerful and all-loving God who through his grace has given me the greatest gift that any man can ever have and the name of that gift is freedom what more can I ask for what more thank God for the freedom from the bondage of self. God bless you.