The Young Men and Women in Iraq Who Needed AA – Steve B.

All right, that's the kickoff. Good evening. My name is Steve Burnett and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Steve! I know. I can't get it either. I'm slow. So my home group is the Tuesday Night Step Study in Carmel, California. And I've been sober since the 15th of March of 1982. And it's certainly my great privilege to be allowed to stand here this evening. It's always a privilege to sit in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous Sober. I'd like to thank John and Cindy for the invitation to come here. I have thought, I said, how am I going to start this? And I'll just tell you about my day. It will give you a great indication of the way I think and do things, and I think that will settle it for you real quick. I have this keen alcoholic mind, and my daughter has been visiting me all week in Monterey, and her and her husband and little baby were going to fly out this morning, I was flying out this morning, so our airport was about an hour and a half away. And I thought last night, I said, maybe we ought to just drive up to San Jose and be close to the hotel. And then I thought, why don't I just leave the car and call a cab in the morning? That all sounded really good. So at 3.30, I got up. The cab was supposed to be there at 5, and it wasn't there at five. And my daughter came. I said,"Dad, do you think we oughta go?" I said:"Nah, give it five minutes." And five minutes went by, then ten minutes went back. So I finally called the cab company. He says, he'll be right there. A quarter after 5, no cab. Now her flight leaves at 630. Mine leaves at620. So we throw everything, including the baby, into the car, race to the airport. No tearful goodbye. Just get them out and hugs and kisses. Long-term parking at San Jose is a long way away too. It takes about 30 minutes to get back to the Airport. So it's now quarter to six. I have my packet, my pad, whatever you call that thing. Boarding pass ID. I go to the gate. They say we can't take that here sir. You need to go to another gate. So I got my bag and went to another gateway. It's five till six. And we don't take that here, sir. Go to the gate with the long winding line of people going, geez, not today. Not me. Please don't. Surprisingly enough, the line went very quickly and I got in line last call for, so I got on the line and I'm going up there and I give the lady my boarding pass. She said, sir, this flight is going to Las Vegas. The flight you want, do you see the door closing over here? Yeah. So that's who your speaker is tonight. I'm shocked. I'm anywhere all the time. And what a great blessing this is for me. I'm very touched. My best friends in the world are here, Steve and Mike and Karen. They've shown me great kindness during the years. And I always – I'm a better man when I'm around them. And so it's – I'M glad they're here and Kelly. And then Sharon, she was kind enough to speak at the Canyon Conference last year, and I was making arrangements, Sheila and I, for her to come out there. I just didn't quite make it to that canyon. I detoured and went to Iraq for a few months, so I wasn't able to attend your talk. But I was very glad to hear that you're here in Edith on Sunday. So it's a great weekend. You'll have to work really hard not to have a good time. But if you're like me, at some of the conferences I've attended, I've worked really hard at not having a good times. So for those of you that are doing that, have a good time. Oh, good, water. I'm a pauser. I just tell you that right up front. It makes me, I'll just be talking along and then I'll stop. And it makes me nervous and I found that it makes you nervous. I don't know why. For a while there, I thought, you know, the thought was, well, the poor guy's lost his place. But then it dawned on me maybe they think I'm lying. so he's lying again if I pause I used to say I'd sit down I've never sat down but we won't be here long I'll say hopefully what's supposed to be said and get out of here oh good a pause already I grew up in a military family my dad was an army guy My mom was an Army guy. I'll tell you this story. I'm an Army guy. I've been and I fought Cubans in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, the real combat zone that turned out to be. You know, I've been in Hawaii and done things there that were absolutely unbelievably disgusting. And I've fallen out of the sky in helicopters in Honduras and got up in RPG attacks in Baghdad. but they all pale in comparison to the nervousness that I feel when I'm asked to stand in front of a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't understand that. How can I take some machine gun bullets with a smile and come up here and just, oh my God. But then my good friend Mike Erickson reminded me, it's only your ego. I said, oh jeez, thanks Mike. but I'm an army guy my parents were both in the army when they got married and they had me and my dad stayed in the Army for a lot of years and when he retired you know, for a few years when I first got sober in AA if you'd ask me what the problem was with me one of the big problems was my parents and the funny thing is that I just have really kind parents my dad went to work and he's probably the most principled man I know my mother's just a fine woman But I couldn't see that as a kid. I was so self-obsessed by the time I was eight, I could not, there was no room in my world for anybody else. I always wanted to be with a different group of people doing a different type of thing than I was doing and I was never going to make it unless I could be with you. And the funny thing is, I've missed out with friendships and good times all my life because I can be in a room with 50 people and 49 can say, you're a good guy. one person can say you're an idiot and that guy who calls me an idiot has all my attention and that's just the way I do things by the time I was in high school I was so bizarre that my parents took me to a psych oh really, I was, trust me if you haven't seen it spend some time with me this weekend I'll prove it to you several times people tell me the only time I open my mouth is to exchange feet so I I've always liked that joke for some reason I am I used to stand under dip signs okay you're with me alright I knew you thank you for being here but I was by the time I was in high school my parents took me to see a psychologist because I was doing what they call self-mutilation now I just we called it cutting on ourselves back in the 60s you know you take needles and put them up underneath your skin and you know do a little shaving off of a little I needed this or that. So it really concerned my mom and dad. But the psychologist looked at me and he says, you know, we're not going to put you in some type of mental ward, but to try and keep you alive, I need to see you two times a week and we're going to do group therapy on you on Saturdays. So I was in a psychologist's office three times a year just to stay alive. I'd never taken a drink of alcohol in my life. I thought this way before I started drinking. I did that for four years. When I graduated from high school, I went to college and I was working at a bank. And just to give you an idea of how I did things, I was a coin vault operator and I'd put money in this machine and it would roll it into the rolls. And occasionally it spit out a few extra coins. And I'd look around and say, doesn't seem like these belong to anybody so it must be my tip for the day. Well, I tipped myself to the tune of about $500 and that's a lot of change over a year. So I got a little nervous, and I thought, you know, I really need to try and figure out a way to pay the money back. If I can, the big book talks about the way we think, and I just like to read because I thought this way before I ever took a drink. But in Chapter 3, just to give you an idea of how I came up with the idea that I'm about to explain to you, the big books says I have a delusion, lurking notions, peculiar mental twist. I really like that. I had the notion. Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind. Vague sense. Foolish idea. Plain insanity. Lack of proportion. Then the big four. Curious mental phenomena are sound reasoning, insanely trivial excuse, sound reasoning failed, and insane idea. Insanely insufficient. Queer ideas are fun. Strangely insane. Subtly insane. No thought of consequences. Alcoholic mind, strange mental blank spots, some trivial reasons, alcoholic mentality. I did that and I had never had a drink because the idea I came up with is that I'm going to take this big crimp machine and I'm gonna beat myself over the back of the head until I've got a big hole back there. I'm just gonna stand up at the top of this vault that I worked in and fall against the wall and lay there until somebody finds me and they'll think that somebody came in, knocked me out, and stole the money. Well, I laid there and I laid there and nobody came. So I had another bright idea. So I staggered out into the front and someone said, oh my God, what happened? I said, I don't know. They took me to the hospital. The FBI came and investigated me and they said, you know, I passed the FBI test, the lie detector test. I lied my way through it completely. I lied to my psychologist. And I beat the FBI and stole the money. Now, I thought about that every day until I went back to make amends several years ago. And the funny thing is, it's amazing, when they opened my records to see why I was discharged, there was not one word about that incident in there at all. Not one word. Well, I started drinking shortly thereafter. In Oklahoma, if you were 18 years old and a female, you could buy alcohol. If you were 21, you had to be 21 in order to buy alcohol, but you'd go to Vietnam. I always thought that was injustice, so to prove the injustice, we asked her to go get us some alcohol. I think we got a bottle of Ariba wine. It was 1970. I thought that sounded exotic somehow. Some lime-flavored vodka. I drank that once. some other things and then they got a bottle of Everclear within a week my nickname at college was Everclear and I was sneaking bottles of Evercleare out of the dorm room at 3 o'clock in the morning because I didn't want anybody to know how much Evercleire I was drinking Friday nights was the big show in my room people would wait until about 11.30 come down and watch me drink it straight and fly across the room I weighed about 130 pounds and that was, I got attention that way. I got noticed. But also, I started getting well. My psychologist would look at me and say, man, you're doing a whole lot better. I said, I know. I'm really feeling good too. Man. He says, what are you doing? I guess I'm, I don't know, I guess this is finally working after three and a half years. So finally, you know, I was discharged from therapy. I had one of my peculiar mental twists. Vietnam ended, and Uncle Sam said, we need you. And I think I was making 200 bucks a month. And my sponsor, he talks about his alcoholic apartment, and mine resembled it. The only difference is between my apartment and his, the crunchy rug, the slippery floors that you skated on. So we kept a can of Wolf Brand chili on our stove with a spoon in it. And the first requirement was never look in the can until you've turned on the fire and stirred several times. And the big decision of the day was do you eat the Wolf Brand Chili or do you drink beer? I wasn't doing very well, had a little cash flow problem, and decided that it was about time for me to join the Army. My dad thought that was an excellent idea. And it was a good idea for about four hours until I got the basic training. And then it turned into a really bad idea. I just couldn't believe it. I said, these guys really take this stuff serious. Man, I wanted you to get up at 4. I was going to bed at 4, you know. They had these hats and they'd scream and yell and turn on the lights. I said hey dude, chill out. He said hey, dude, come here. So I started a short timers calendar in the Army like five days into that deal. Well, I knew exactly how many days and hours I have to spend. And it only took me 21 more years to get out of that cellar. The bad thing about the Army is they catch you on a good day. You'll say, sure. Oh, no, did I do that again? But, you know, I'm a good soldier because I will do anything to get your approval. And so I'm perfect for the Army. You go do this, yes, and whoa, that's a good solider because he does everything. I'll humiliate myself to any expense to get your kind consideration. So I was doing the Army, and I was driving back and forth. I lived in Oklahoma. I was hanging out at Oklahoma City, and met a girl up there. She hung out at this little place called the Brass Keg, and her nickname was Miss Keg. You know? I took a shine to her, and she took a shrine to me. In 1976 or 1977, we had a pretty torrid summer, at least for a shy guy like me who didn't date much. And I can remember I have a tendency to fall in love when I know I'm going to move a long way away. So I knew I was going to moved to Germany, so it seemed opportune to fall into love at the time. And she promised, oh my God, I love you and I love your. And I said here's my car, here's TV, here is my money. That's all I had, a car, TV, and money. So I left her everything I owned, and I went to Germany. I didn't hear from her at all. And I said, what's that about? So I called my best friend and said, go get my stuff, and he did. I was on leave about nine months later and came home, and she was at the airport there to meet me. She said, I heard you were coming home. I said wow, this is great. And she had her wrist bandaged up. She'd had a little suicide thing going on that last couple of weeks. But we went out drinking one night at this some country in Western Place. And my best friends were there, and they had waited for me to come home because they were going to go get married. And I can remember I had a beer in my hand. I looked at her. I said, you want to get married? And she looked at me. She said, just a minute. Her and her mom went and had a conference in the bathroom. Came back about three minutes later and said, sure. And I said... Oh, really? Okay. So a week later, we got married. and that's that's the end of the first side of the story because i tell you during those days i didn't i was okay i mean i drank badly and i did things that were so bizarre that no one would understand it except you all but um something changed when i got married and i turned into something that i can't describe to you tonight except that i was a violent abusive whore of a man. I don't know what it was about that ring and our behavior, but we had a violent fight every day. Now my wife was like 80 pounds and she regularly beat the crap out of me. So that was a real downer part of that relationship. I was really, let's You get one good one in, but it's really tough when you're a sergeant in the Army. You know, and you go in beat up at work every day. What happened to you? A little lady kicked my butt last night. I'm just so proud. So yeah, it was... And you know, it, it wasn't a big deal. It was just, it-it was just bizarre. We drank in Germany badly. You know, Germany is not a – I mean, things happen quick there. And we came home. She had had a little girl that I adopted, and then we had a Little Daughter. And I came down on orders very quickly to go back to Germany. And we decided that probably it would be best if I went there on my own. And I can remember just before I left, we had gotten to a point over five years of marriage that we were extremely drunk one night in a hotel room that my mother had gotten for us for the farewell goodbye thing. And she was in the bathroom throwing up blood and I was laying in the bed grateful. I was happy she, yeah, you throw it up because we had gotten to the point to where we had, there was, it was unrecognizable as a family and I was un recognizable as a father and a husband. And I didn't know what you called that. I just know that we thought that if we were apart for two years that would probably be a good thing. So I went to Germany in the fall of 1981 and was glad to do it. She stayed at home with her two daughters And I get phone calls regularly from family members saying, man, you really need to come home because things aren't right here. I said, well – and then like ten minutes later the phone would ring and it'd be her. She said, did you just get a phone call from so-and-so? I said how do you know that? She says, well, I know they're lying. I said absolutely, honey, and hang up the phone. Now during those days, the amazing thing is that if you had asked me what's wrong with our family, I would have told you it was her drinking. And if you had asked me in the winter of 1982 when I got home if I had a drinking problem, I would have said absolutely not. Nothing wrong with my drinking. I was drunk every day. I was on a nuclear weapons site. This ought to comfort you. Just to let you know who had their finger on the button back in the 1980s. Again, I was having this cash flow problem going on, So I would crawl through the snow, and only an alcoholic would think that he's not leaving a trail. Crawl over this fence with guys with guns looking for people who are crawling over the fence. Crawl into our little warehouse and open up our cans of C-rations, stick them in a bag, then drag the bag back to my room. And, of course, they'd always split open and leave cans of C-rations right back to my window. I'd have to get up early in the morning and go get the bag. And, you know, that was a very busy time for me. But I wasn't drinking. What's that about? So I finally got a phone call on 1982, January 8th, that I needed to come home. And so I tried to sneak home from Germany, got caught in San Antonio. You know, Leslie asked me, she called and said, why are you coming home? I said, well, I hear things aren't very good, and I'm just coming home. And put enough money in the bank for me to get a ticket. And I got back in Lawton, Oklahoma that night about 10 o'clock. And I talk about this sometimes, but it's just there was a picture of that night in my mind I've never been able to erase. It just burned in there. And it was just, it was a cold night, and my wife was there, and she had her two daughters there. And she's told me that they worked very hard to try and put themselves together to look nice for Daddy when he got home. But it's just a gray picture. And if I had to think about it, it'sjust gray death because there was no one alive in our family. You know, we hear a lot about, at least I hear a law now called synonymous that you might go out and die if you keep drinking or if you don't follow these principles. But I think there's something before you get to physical death, and that's a spiritual death, you know, because there's nothing worse than watching a spirit die in AA. It's just one of the saddest things. Or when you look into the eyes of people who aren't on the deal and you just know inside they've just got nothing but a dead spirit. And that's how I – that's the best way I can think of to describe that night. I gave my wife some choices, and I said, listen, the problem is you go anywhere, go do anything. I'm taking the girls. Divorce me and go do whatever you want to. I'm taken to girls, or you better go get help. So she went to a treatment facility in Wichita Falls, Texas. And I went to the treatment family deal as the abused family member. And I can remember sitting in my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was on a Tuesday night at the South Town Group. And I was sitting over in the corner and some guy walked up to me and said, do you belong to her? And I said, yes, I do. He says, you don't belong here. He says you belong back there. I said what's back there? And he said Al-Anon. I said well I don't know we don't go back. there. Okay. So I went back there. And so that's, you know, the Al-Anons were really very nice to me because they all sit there and nod when I talk because I'd say funny little things like, I'm staying sober in Al-Anon. They'd all nod and grin. We know where you're going next, son. He won't be here long. When my wife got out of treatment, this was the 14th of March in 1982, I do what I do best, and that is I don't respect anything that's yours. If you invite me into your home, back in those days, what I'd do is I'd go through any cabinet, any medicine deal that I can, and just rummage through your stuff. I have no respect for your privacy. And I rummaged through my brother-in-law's medicine cabinet the day after we got out of treatment and found some speed and took it, And I did not know that that would be the last time that I would drink or take any weird stuff. I went to a meeting with my wife that following Monday. They started talking about Alcoholics Anonymous, and I can remember sitting there in the meeting. I said, you know, I'm just as alcoholic as anybody sitting here. And the following Tuesday, I went and sat down in a closed meeting of AA and squeaked out the hardest words I've ever had to say in my life because I did not want to be an alcoholic. But I said my name's Steve, and I'm an alcoholic. They didn't do, hi, Steve, but I wish they would. That's pretty good. Takes a lot to pick up. And so that's how I got here. And, you know, how do you summarize 22 years in just a few minutes? I think what I'd like to do is just tell you a couple stories about the kind of Alcoholics Anonymous that I walked into in 1982. One of the first meetings I went to, a guy by the name of Ray Moore used to come to that meeting. When Ray would walk into the room, half of the room would get up and leave because Ray was one of the most abusive men you would ever meet in your life. And Ray would come in and just start cussing, and he was drunk, and He would carry on. He'd run half the meeting off. And people were grateful when Ray would go on a good drunk because he wouldn't bother at the AA meetings. And I'd always sit there and scratch my head. I mean, I didn't know enough to get up or leave, so my sponsor said, sit in the chair and stay there, and that's what I did. Well, Ray took off for about nine months, and we didn't see from him. He finally came back to a meeting, and when he did, he was just a changed kind of guy. You know, I mean, he wasn't abusive anymore. He didn't cuss. He didnít come to the meetings drunk. He had a sponsor, and he really became the kind of guys that would start at the hang around. About six months after that, he came down with cancer, and we just watched Ray die over the next nine months. But this is the kindof guy that they would wheel him into the meeting, and he would just sit there, and whenever Ray Moore would talk, everybody would shut up and listen. When they found out that Ray Moore was going to come to the meeting, people would now come to the meeting. Oh, Ray's going to be there? Well, I'm going to show up at the meeting I remember we were sitting there on a Saturday morning one night and Ray's sitting there and a guy that was drunk was sitting next to him and right in the middle of the Saturday morning meeting this guy just stood up and screamed, it hurts and he sat down and it was quiet that morning as it is right now and I remember Ray Moore took that little fray arm of his and put it around that guy's shoulder and just wheeled him out, and they went back into the back room and talked. When Ray couldn't come to meetings anymore, he was confined to his bed. We did a 24-hour vigil at his house on two-hour sets because Ray became a very... He was just the kind of guy that you just never knew what he was going to talk about. Very deep meditator and just the kindness, kindest man in the world. And that was the Alcoholics Anonymous that I was introduced to. The AA that takes a man that was absolutely run people out of the room to making the man just, you know, someone that I remember today just like – just some of my most fond memories. A guy by the name of Jim Shaw had moved to Oklahoma in those days, and Jim took offense to the way the Oklahoma structure was run. I know you'll find that hard to believe, but Jim had an opinion about the way The Conference Committee ran things. And so he sent out tapes and letters to all the groups. And in 1984, the Oklahoma State meeting was about Jim Shaw and these letters and tapes, and it was along with elections. And there was like 900 alcoholics squeezed into this, the biggest state meeting ever in the history of Oklahoma. And there were more Al-Anons there that year than any other year because the alcoholics were going to fight. They were coming to watch the fight. I don't think they got any business done that day. They were all up with their ears next to the curtains. What is it? It was just, and Jim stood up with his booming voice, and he started giving his spiel about what he thought they should do, and the state chair stood up, and they started screaming back and forth at each other. I'm going, oh my God, you know, AA business meeting 101, wow. And finally this guy said, you Know, Jim, that's it. Let's take a 15-minute break. This is way out of control. So we took a 15‑minute break, Everybody went to their neutral corners, and we were taking it. Who do you think is going to win? I don't know, man. Wow. Man, I was two years sober. I was just amazed. I said, wow, my sponsor never told me about this stuff. I didn't know this stuff happened. But they came back together. Now remember, there's a point to this story, and the point is that the state chair got up and said, Jim, he says, I want you to know I disagree with everything you're saying. Don't agree with it at all. But my conduct here today has been atrocious, and I apologize. Jim Shaw stood up. He says, absolutely. He says I know better than to act this way in Alcoholics Anonymous and I apologize. And it was a powerful, powerful moment. Powerful moment. Of course they didn't vote for Jim's deal but Jim Shaw changed Oklahoma State way anyway. It's been changed now for years and they still hate him there. But I tell you those stories because I was still in the Army, and I moved a lot. And I have never – at the time in Norman, Oklahoma, there was a group called the Big Book Group, and it was a great group, and that's kind of how I got introduced to this. And I don't get to experience this very often. You know, some of us have to travel great distances sometimes just to get, as my sponsor tells me, to get fed back up. So I just, you know, I got introduced to it early, and I've never doubted that this, what we stand for and what we do and the principles that we live by are very important. But I struggled with it. When I left Lawton to, you Know, I Got Shipped to Hawaii in my fourth year of sobriety. Nobody feels sorry for you when you go to Hawaii. Nobody. If you're going to Hawaii, go love it. But I went there, and I just got unconnected. I traveled all over the Pacific. I got to go to AA meetings in Thailand and Guam and Korea, Japan. Wake Island has an AA meeting. It's amazing. But those years were just years of travel and coming back and trying to be reconnected to what we do here. Left Hawaii and came back to the United States. And the next few years were just nothing more than alcoholism and my kids. And some of you know I've got three daughters. My youngest daughter was born when my wife and I were nine months sober. We figure my wife got pregnant the day she got sober. And now I'm a real champ. But, you know, we spent the next two years. I know. Somebody finds it funny. They said, don't be serious. Okay. So, you know, I spent the next few years just watching my daughters grow up and sent one to treatment in 1992, sent another one to treatment in 1996. My youngest one liked to do knife stuff. I got a call one night from my wife, says, you need to come home. I said, why? She says, because your 13-year-old has a knife to my throat. And I said, okay, I'm on my way home. And when I first got sober, I had the same sponsor for the first 10 years of my sobriety. And we had problems in our 10th year because he wanted me to be his best friend and I wanted a sponsor. And we couldn't come to grips with that. So I struggled with sponsorship during those days. But the guy that was sponsoring me at that time, he was the first person I called, he beat me to my home. And the night that I needed Alcoholics Anonymous and a sponsor, he was there. And he was my sponsor until he quit doing Alcoholics Anonymous. He started doing something else. And that's when I got my current sponsor, Dave Brady. He's been my sponsor for the last several years. Steve, Mike, and I were all sponsored by the same guy. And, um, he is very demanding of us. He sets very high standards. And the reason that's important for me, in the year 2000, I really thought all this stuff that I'd gone through. I'd retired from the Army. I'd owned my own businesses. We'd watched these girls go in and out of insanity with these crazy boys that they wanted to date, guys with no jobs. I've never understood why my daughters wanted to dating men that had no car and no job. I just never grasped it, you know? And they just didn't want to date them. They got pregnant and then married them too, and that was just – the way it is these days, if you heard me a couple years ago, we've added one more. It's we get pregnant, we get married, we Get Divorced. But some of us get pregnant and get married and get pregnant again and then get divorced. So I only have four grandkids and one married daughter and two getting divorced. And I haven't talked to one of my daughters in seven months, and she's deep, deep, deep into some addiction. And my middle daughter is really struggling with just trying to stay sober. And my youngest daughter, she's just a – we're not really sure. She hasn't gone to treatment yet, so I don't know what to call her. So I guess once she gets the – most people put money away for their grandchildren for college educations. Mine's for treatment centers. But in 2000, you know, I stood outside my home. My oldest daughter had just gotten married. My youngest daughter was married with a little baby. And my middle daughter had Just gotten married and had a little Baby. My youngest Daughter was just starting her senior year of School. And, you Know, I thought life was really good. You know, 18 years sober. I said, you Now, it's all been worth it. My wife and I worked together. We had a good job. And things were well. Within two months, my wife had left. my daughter had moved I'd lost my home I lost my health and I was in pretty desperate shape it was very interesting trying to work with my wife at the same job while we were going through a divorce we were divorced in like six weeks it was just a whirlwind but the point is that I called my sponsor I said I called him all the time the poor guy he just I know he'd look at his cell phone and go oh geez because you know I was just I was dying I was just dying. And he says, Steve, I want you to remember one thing. No matter what, you must conduct yourself in such a manner that a year from now, you will not have to go around Lawton, Oklahoma and make a bunch of amends. And I tell you, that was a lifesaver for me. The other one was Steve Clover. Steve is a salesman in Oklahoma, and he makes his own routes. And during those days, he would always make room for an extra visit to Lawton. And he sat many, many days with me having coffee. And I could not pray. I couldn't say a prayer. It was driving me crazy. I said, Steve, man, I can't pray. And I remember the day he reached across and he said, listen, my friend, I'll say your prayers for you until you call me and tell me that you're saying your prayers again. And there was nothing he couldn't ask me to do that I wouldn't do for him. Mike and Karen would invite me into their home, and I was out there. He would sit up nights and just... I knew he was tired and had to go to bed, but he would situp nights with me and just talk to me. And so those are the kind of guys that Alcoholics Anonymous has placed in my life. And I know I'm standing here today sober because of men like that. I quit my job, went back to school. The GI Bill decided, or I decided I could make it, so me and my daughter live in a little apartment I went back to school. I got a degree. Really interesting things. I really like this. Most good ideas are simple. I don't advocate changing words in the big book, but I've changed that one to read most God ideas are simply. It's kind of a little rule I play by. If things are simple, then it's probably a God idea. I did call my sponsor one day. I told him I had, I said, Dave, I've got a great idea. Not a good idea. A great idea, he said. It's a bad idea. Don't do it. I said you haven't even heard it he says trust me it's a bad idea of course that didn't stop me from explaining it to him so I was explaining it to him and about half way through I said man that's a really bad idea but I got a job I wasn't looking for I got called one day from somebody who said you're hired I said really I didn't know I applied so I got a government job working in the army I moved to a town I didn't plan to move to. I got a call one afternoon from a girl who said, send me $200 immediately and I'll rent you this apartment. I said, who are you and what apartment? She says, don't worry about it. I need $200 in five minutes. So I sent her $200 and I got the cutest little cottage apartment. And I know if you've ever heard of Killeen, Texas, you know, try and put cute and Killeens together and you're really struggling. But it was – I started – I left my kids, and I just started this new deal. Last summer or last April, I got called and asked if I would like to go to Iraq, and they said I'd like to. And I think I'm going to close my talk with just a couple stories about what I saw Alcoholics Anonymous do while I was there. On a Sunday night, I got alerted on a Monday. By Sunday, I was at Fort Bliss, Texas and went through this processing. And I remember I went and saw the chaplain first thing. And I said, before I accepted to go to Iraq, I called my sponsor. I said Dave, I just got asked if I want to go Iraq. He said Iraq? I said do you want to? I said yeah, I think so. He said oh, okay. Go then. Set a good example. So I went to the chaplain's office. I said, hey, I'm looking to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous tonight. I know we're locked down, but if there's a chance that I can go, I'd like to. And I went off. About 20 minutes later, the first sergeant shows up at my door, beating on the door and says, are you the guy looking to going to an AA meeting tonight? I says, well, yes, First Sergeant. Is there a problem with that? He says, no. He says I've been in AA 10 years. I was looking for somebody to go into a meeting with. So why don't you come along and go with me? Absolutely. How cool is that? And I was worried. When I first got to Kuwait, the home group that I belonged to in Killeen, there was one guy that had gone from my home group to Kuweit before me. And he started the first AA meeting at Camp Arifjan there. So I was the second member of our home group To go and be a part of that meeting. And we met two nights, two days a week, 12 o'clock. Good. Only an alcoholic could think of hot tent, nowhere, 130 degrees, let's have the meetings at noon. In a tent. Okay, that's, they were interesting meetings at times. But I went to two meetings with him. I remember last year when Sharon was talking to us, I was up in Baghdad looking for a meeting of alcoholics and nuns. Could not find any. By the time I left Iraq in November, there was a meeting at every major supply point up and down the road that ran from Kuwait to Mosul. I was allowed to just get on the back of transporters and just travel with these young men and women. And when I would come back to Kuwait and go to the meetings, our group – people were rotating in and out, and our group was starting to shrink. And you would think that in a no-drinking country that there wouldn't be any alcohol problem, but they were shipping it in by the caseloads. And people were drinking Iraqi whiskey, and the soldiers were dying because it had – it was poorly made, and they would drink it so fast it would kill them. kill him. And so it was a real alcohol problem there. So we were trying to make sure people knew that there were meetings about Alcoholics Anonymous. And my job was to go and put flyers out. So I was out on a Wednesday night putting up flyers. It was like 930, quarter to 10. I had one flyer left. I was at the PX. When I walked into the Px, there was a big bulletin board. It had one spot open on it for one flyER. And I looked at that, and there were a lot of people. And I said, not tonight, man. I've had enough of putting up flyers. And I walked away. I got about halfway back to my tent and just got turned around. I went back. I stuck the flyer up there and went back to MyTent and said, okay, I did it. Thursday, I'm at the meeting. I walk in. There's a gentleman sitting there. His name's Bob, I believe. And he, no, it was David. And he's sitting there and we start the meeting and we're talking And would you like to share? He says, yes. He says I really want to thank the guy that put the flyer up in the PX last night. Now PX closes at 10. At quarter to 10 he had decided to run over and get a tube of toothpaste because he was ready to go back to Baghdad. He had come back from Baghdad for a day, was sober ten months in a group outside of San Jose, and had been looking for an AA meeting since he got there. And he just happened to go and get that tube of toothpaste. And when he walked in, he said, I remember there was a blank spot on the bulletin board, and when I came out, there was a flyer there for Alcoholics Anonymous. And he started meetings at the Baghdad International Airport with books and tapes that were sent by Mike Erickson. You know, or I think Bill Wilson said it's seconds and inches. And I was really glad I went back and put that dang flyer up. two more stories you all are so kind thank you just before I left a guy had come to our group his name was Dave also he had moved to another base camp about 90 miles away and he said listen there's a meeting in Kuwait city I know exactly where it's at we worked to get the passes so we could get down there And the Friday before I left, we all went to the meeting in Kuwait City who was celebrating their 20th anniversary a week later. It was a great meeting. There were people there from England and South Africa and Australia and Kuwait. And that's very dangerous for the Kuwaitis because they're in a non-drinking country, and they can be put away for a long time. So it's really chancy for them to come to a closed AA meeting. But Dave was standing there. He said, man, you'll never believe what happened to me today. I said, well, don't tell me. He says, I got a call on my cell phone. He said, this guy said, are you Dave? He said yeah. He says man, am I glad to talk to you because I'm looking for an AA meeting. He says yeah man, I've got it here. He says let me tell you how I found you. He said when I left I couldn't get the international directory so he said I got frustrated with looking for the meeting so I called my sponsor in Ireland. He said my sponsor didn't know what to do so he called the general service office who said listen we got the name of a contact in Kuwait named Joe. So I called Joe, and Joe gave me your number. And I'm talking to you. He said, great, man, we'll go to a meeting. He says, where are you at? And he says, oh, man. I'm on Camp Doha, Warehouse 25. And David said, well, so am I. He said really? He says what end of the warehouse? These warehouses are like 300 yards long. He says well, what end is the warehouse. He says I'm in the north end. He says so am i. They stood up from behind their desk, and they were looking at each other. Two prayer rug stories, and I'm done. My first roommate when I got to Fort Bliss was an Egyptian. And the day that I went in, we shook hands very briefly, and Adley walked out. And I was looking around the place. These were embalmed out, or not bombed out, but these barracks were falling down. So I found a trash bag and was picking stuff up and hung it up and Adler came in he started looking around I said what's the matter he says have you seen my prayer rug I said your prayer rug I said well no now I'm getting nervous he looks over to where I've hung up the trash bag he says my prayer mug he was using the trash bag as his prayer rug I said oh my god I went and got another trash bag and he did what he does but it's very interesting to see a Christian and a Muslim get on their knees together he prayed I thought I prayed a lot he prayed five times a day on his knees but we would sit together in the evenings and he would tell me stories about his life and then before we would say goodnight you know, we'd both get on our knees and both would say a prayer to a God that we both believed in as I was, just before I left I was walking I exercised in Kuwait in the afternoons and I was walkin' out by an area that was, they were doin' some construction and I saw a guy open up his trunk one day and he pulled an American flag out he folded it up and put it on the ground he got down and he said his prayers on it I'm a real military guy And so I stopped. I said, I don't think I'll say something. So I waited for him to get down. He was putting the flag back. And I went up and said, sir, I just got to know, why are you praying on an American flag? He says, oh, he said, the most important thing I do during the day is say my prayers. And the most importante thing I have and own is my prayer rug. He says I'm allowed to pray a free man today because of the United States. And since I cannot go to the United States and thank you personally, I say my prayers on your flag. All right. Great answer. But it started getting me thinking, you know, I'm allowed to stand here today because of the giants that came before me. And I have no way of going out and thanking all the men and women who have allowed me the privilege of sobriety. So it's my prayer and hope that somehow in the way I conduct myself and the deportment that I show, that my thanks is evident. Thank you very much for allowing me to be here.