Three Descriptions of an Alcoholic and None of Them Mention How Much You Drink – David A.

And with our speaker this morning, I didn't know David very well. I knew that David was in the program and I've attended several meetings that David spoke at, but I didn' t know David that well other than what he had shared. So I had gone to people that I had observed David speaking with or sharing with, you know, like Wayne and Heather, and even got greatly off to the side compiling at least a four- or five-page report of what I could share with you in the introduction of this man. But one of the old-timers of the group said, Wilma said, just shut up, let them know that David is here, and he will tell you his story. Would you help me welcome, please, David A. from Dallas, Texas. Thank you, Bill. Hi, everybody. My name is David A., and I am an alcoholic. And only because of God's grace through the Miracle Alcoholics Anonymous am I sober this day, and for this I am so thankful. And first of all, let me thank the committee for inviting both Grace and myself to be here this weekend. And it has been a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Thank you. and allow this alcoholic the freedom to share this alcoholic with you and the freedom for you to share yourself with this alcoholic. The only thing I know about being an alcoholic is how I drank alcohol, and when I tell anyone, anyplace, anywhere that NAA or NAA, that means I fit every word, every line, every comma, every period, every paragraph, every page in the Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I know no other way to live sober, only by the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. And since April 20, 1967, I have not found any reason whatever to leave Alcoholics Anonymous, to find an easier way to life sober, a more socially acceptable way to live sober , a more fun way to living sober, nor a more exciting way to living sober. Thank God I haven't had to go to one of those action-reaction courses, Confrontation Movement, Related Disorders Institute. Wow. When I got to you people, my wife was a related disorder. Hang in there till your drawers fall off, baby. Sexual dysfunction seminars. I'll tell you, if you get as old as I am and been able to stay sober only as long as I have, only by the grace, today I do not need a sexual dysfunction seminar. I need a memory course. Now, we hear a lot of things today. You know, I'm an adult child of an alcoholic dog, cat, snake, kangaroo, gorilla, zebra, glue bottle, etc., etc. And you know, an inner child. The only human being that I've ever known that knows 100% about an inner childhood is a pregnant woman. But I'll let you know right up front I'm an adult spouse of an Al-Anon Our stories disclose in a general way What we used to be like What happened What we're like now I found myself laying in the county jail Once again Maybe not a county Maybe a state But once again In this county jail everything near and dear when I thought it had been gone and I found out something laying in that jail until God calls you home you ain't going nowhere and you hear it all the time after these meetings keep coming back well why don't we just stay and then we don't have to keep coming. Keep coming back and I'm laying there and my entire life flashed before me to where I could constantly remember it as a youngster. And I was born and raised in one of the finest families that God ever put on this earth, a mother and father who dedicated their two lives to give to the two sons that were born into that marriage, and I being the oldest, everything that was denied them when they were growing up. And if one of those sons is going to become an alcoholic, I do not know of a better deal than when you've got a mother and father that's willing to go to every and any length to keep you from hurting and to keep it from suffering and to keep me from bringing shame and disgrace on the family name and the family religion and the Family Heritage. And alcohol was always in the home that I was born and raised in. It was on the dining room table, it was on side boards, it was in the closet. My mother did not drink alcohol. My father would come home every night at 6 o'clock, right there and then you knew he wasn't an alcoholic. And he'd take his bottle out and he'd pour exactly one ounce of alcohol in a glass of whiskey, fill it up with a little water and drink it, put the cap back on the bottle and say, Mama, let's eat supper. When we were just little youngsters, my father would allow us to taste it. And he would always tell us that alcohol was good for the system, good for the appetite but drunkenness was a sin was a disgrace and I don't know my brother he was the most stupid drinker of alcohol that anyone ever been around in your life but I don' t know what it was whether I was different or whether it doesn' t make a better difference all I know is that when he gave me that teaspoon full first and then later a tablespoon and later a shot glass and then I stole everything from then on I liked what it... I liked it. I liked him. I liked his name. And little did I realize that it planted something in my head that, David, every chance you're going to get, you're gonna take a drink of alcohol to reproduce what that effect was when you were just a lunkster. And I didn't know where I was in that time, but I knew that alcohol did. And then I did something and I was injured. and I lied to my mother with a very, very serious bone ailment in those days called osteomyelitis before all the modern therapies that we have. And I was condemned to be a cripple in my life. They were going to remove my right leg and I'm laying in the hospital in a Catholic hospital with all these nuns running around looking like penguins, you know. And I wasn't the only one on the orthopedic ward that was a child. and I was their pet and I found out long ago that you could fake pain and everything else then they'd give you these elixirs for pain and it all had alcohol in it. And I left that hospital on crutches condemned to be a cripple the rest of my life and I couldn't run and play with the rest of the youngsters and so my mother and father decided that I was going to be a concert pianist and I didn't want to be an orchestra pianist and my father bought the first baby grand piano that South Dallas had ever seen And I'm sitting there with my little Buster Brown haircut on, you know, and all that. And they're out there playing and doing all those things. And God Almighty, and then I said, well, to heck with this. And I'd get into Daddy's Whiskey, and that leg looked like it was getting better. And I had a boyfriend whose father had a business down on Skid Row. And Jack said to me one day, he said, you are so miserable, why don't you come down? We'll park you on top of an apple crate. You can help count the trucks as they're being loaded and unloaded, and off I went. And I went down as I was ten-and-a-half years of age, and I went downstairs to the first skid row that I was to live in and out on, and I've lived on three of them living out on in my lifetime, one for over six years, one for four years, and one for the last 14 months was the toughest. And I'm not going to stand up here this morning and share life on a skid road with you. The skid roads that I lived on, there was no day and there was no night and there was no sun and there was no moon and there were no stars and there weren't no clouds, just no days and weeks and months and seconds and minutes and hours, just in and out of blackness and darkness. And the best way I can describe that kind of an existence is just bodies and feet. You don't care if you live, you don't care if your body is dead, you don't know if you die, you don't care if you bathe, you don't care if you don't bathe you don't care if you eat, you don't care if you don't eat, you don't care if you see your loved alcoholic cannot stay on Skid Row. An alcoholic has got to get off of Skid Row because an alcoholic will lie about that alcoholic's drinking, and that alcoholic will hide that alcoholic bottle. And I'll tell you right now, if you hide your wine bottle down on the road, you're not long for this earth, I don't mind telling you. As I said, I didn't have to be down there, and I went down the first day, and got in with 11 blacks and me, and we started drinking bay rum and wine. And that was the standard fare. And later on, as I grew older physically and get more money in my pocket. I could go from that bay rum and that wine to that good stuff and never miss a lick, and come back down from that good stuff down to Gypsy Rose and Thunderbird and never miss a licks. I don't know about anybody in AA. I don't nobody in this meeting. I do not know about any alcoholic any place anyway. I drank it because I liked what it did to me and with me and for me and when it got in and down and through me, and I like what it allowed me to do to you or against you when it got in and down and through me. And I learned a lot of things down on Skid Row, little did I ever realize the way I drank and the way that I lived would ever be worth a tinker's darn to another human being. I learned a lot of things down on skid row. Never get your back up against the wall or have a back door or window you could jump out of. If you smoke or eat anything keep both hands free so you can hit and run. And I've always been five foot six. I was born five foot seven. And I'd drink that juice and I'd be seven foot tall. I've had hundreds of fights, never one-on-one. My nose has been where my navel is. My navel's been where the right ear is. I've been all rearranged. When I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years of age, I'd run off and join Ringling Brothers and Barnum Baylor Circus. And God, what a wonderful weekend it's been to be shared with Millie. Millie came on the show after they'd run me off, and I went in the days, oh God, when the Ringling Show was the finest and largest under campus in the entire world, and he'd come to a town, and all the elephants and all them, you know, they dragged the wagons down and found with the calliope going, and good God Almighty. And I went with him, and I went because you could drink and you could fight. And I look around here, and I don't see any circus-looking drinkers. Maybe old Millie was. I don' t know. And I learned to drink the most beautiful concoction in the circus that's ever been devised by a man called Green Lizard Circus Style. A tremendous drink. The literature sold him bromide and Lucky Tiger hair tonic. And I'll tell you, I used to drink that stuff and I'd see Bambi and those animals in Technicolor long before Walt Disney put them on screen. But I'm trying to live three codes of living. I'm playing with the code of living that society was demanding that I live and that's go to school and become a useful human being and to be of service to whatever God I believed in or didn't believe in and to my fellow man. And I'd end up later on in alleys and in culverts and sleeping on steam grates and cardboard boxes, jails, goonie roosts, you name them. Then I'm trying to live the code of living my mother and father wanted me to live and they had all the money. And if you had already been in all the trouble I'd been in, was in, and getting ready to get into. It takes a lot of money to get you out so you can get back in it again. And then I'm trying to live the code of living that alcohol was demanding on my life, and you're way ahead of me. You know which one went out. You certainly did. Oh, the circus, it was wonderful in those days. Tom Mix and his trick horse Tony, they ran the Wild West show, you know, and all those things. And I drank with the most delightful drunks that I have ever drunk in my life. And it's the only ones that were shorter than me and I was taller than all of them. I drank with all the midgets. And let me tell you, that is the wildest bunch in this God's world. First of all, they are tremendous athletes. And we'd get into every kind of trouble that was imaginable that man could possibly do. And one day John Ringland North called me up before me and he said, Boy, you've got to leave. You're running my midgets! I said they're ruining me and I went back to the midgets and I said he's making me go and they all went to see him and he said if he goes we go and you can't have a good circus without wild animals, clowns and midgets and my mother and father would find me and they'd jerk me back and put me back in school but my body would be in the school chair but my mind would be way out there because I had already experienced and seen some things in life particularly down on Skid Row to where life meant nothing, cut people's throats and walk over them and that was it, and just disregard them just like human garbage. And you know, but my mind was out there. But I had to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous to find out that the reason my mind wasn't out there, the reason that I wanted to go back out there and drink because I wasn't through drinking. If you're new in Alcoholic Anonymous, or if you're still wondering around about our remarkable recovery program, and I'll tell you it is the most precious recovery program for an alcoholic that the world has seen, is seen, or ever will see. For God's sakes, fit in with our description of an alcoholic. our description of an alcoholic not the National Council not treatment modalities description not society's description but our description of an alcoholic we have three descriptions of an alchoholic thank God AA has never been the final authority because it's designed for freedom for let us our own selves determine who we are and what we are as a result of coming and believing and then come to see. Come to see it. We have three descriptions of an alcoholic. The first one, there were many women who have lost the ability to control their drinking. It doesn't say you're an alcoholic because you got drunk and wrote hot checks, you run the old lady off, shot the policeman or did this or that. No, where many women have lost the ability of controlling their drinking and that the obsession of every abnormal drinker is to somehow, someday be able to control his drinking. A normal drinker doesn't have to control it to enjoy it, but an abnormal drink has to control in order to enjoy. The second description, we agnostic, that if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount that you take. A is very gentle. it says then you are probably alcoholic. But it also says, if this be the case, then we're going to have to have this spiritual experience in order to begin to survive. And then the third description of an alcoholic is our first step. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives would come unmindful. Suffering from a two-fold illness of mind and body, a mental obsession so powerful. And Johnny last night just brought so many memories back when he talked about Papa. And Papa liked you, called you son. But you weren't having any good whether you'd look the other way. Yeah. From the old school. Papa used to talk about this two-fold illness of mind and body. The mental obsession so powerful that it was condemning me to drink against my own will and the physical nature of the illness was condemming me to die if I continued to drink. Continue to drink And I did not know this. I did not know this. I thought I was having fun. I thought I was changing this little weakling with this bad leg and this little thing that was a coward on the inside into some human being that was becoming macho. This human being. And then little did I realize what the purpose was and the reason for it until I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And somebody sat down with me, another human being, an alcoholic, a member of who could see in me what I couldn't see in myself, and began to tell me this story. But that was many, many years later. Many, many ears later. I finally graduated, and I was late there in that jail cell, and I realized that I still stayed down on Skid Row but went on to school, went to Southern Methodist University and graduated from Southern Methodists University and World War II was coming on and if you were about half hot, they'd give you deferment. They allowed me to go to professional school And at the end of the first year of my professional school, I flunked out. Still living down on Skid Row. I didn't flunk out because of my laziness. I didn'T flunkout. I couldn't stay sober. I couldn'T concentrate. And in order to survive, you have to learn how to do a lot of illegal things. And finally, I met this wonderful gal. and we started communicating and finally we decided we were going to get married and I told Grace I said well if we're going to marry we're gonna have to marry there's gonna be some conditions on this thing she said what's that I said your parents are gonna have pay half our living expenses my parents are gonna have to pay half our life and you go to work and I'll go back to school and we were married under those conditions and that's ideal for a practicing alcoholic. You don't have to do anything. Somebody feeds you, somebody clothes you, somebody bathes you, somebody gives you money, somebody bails you out all the time. And then I finally got to professor school by hook or crook and the United States Navy made a very tremendous mistake. They declared me an officer in a gentleman. And I went sighted forth into service with my wife And the first time I didn't get in too many troubles, I was on Jeep carriers. Oh, I'd miss ship a couple of times. You don't know what it is to be extremely drunk and unsteady of balance and you fall off the fan tail of a battleship. And that thing is in dry dock. And I've fallen off the New Jersey two times, once in drydock in Bremerton and once off the Inchon. And I finally come back and come back to Dallas and I opened up a dental practice And I began to make more money than there's money. And I'd put the money in my right-hand pocket, steal it with my left hand, didn't pay taxes. You know a drunk when he's moving and he's busy and he thinks he's a high roller, he ain't got time for all them things, you know. No. One of these days I'll straighten out, you knows. And beginning to get into a lot of trouble. And it was on the last Sunday in August of 1950. This Sunday in august. Fifty years ago today, I mean 1950, 44 years ago, a group of fine, sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous invited me to come to an open AA meeting at the Suburban Group in Dallas, Texas. The Wednesday before that Sunday, I stumbled into one of Dallas' more affluent barbershops. And I sat down at this manicure's table and I was reasonably more at myself that morning And that means that, you know, I could sit in a chair for about ten minutes without falling out of it. I could navigate to and from the men's room and go out and get me another bottle of whiskey. I sat down and this old husband's gal looked at me and she said, David, and right there and then I should have known something was wrong if she didn't call me doctor. She said, David, I belong to a deal called Alcoholics Anonymous and I have not had a drink of alcohol in one year. And I looked at Edith and I said, You're a liar. Nobody stays sober a year. Maybe a day, maybe two days, three days at the most, but no, not a year! Now Edith looked like a drunkard looked like, sort of a female-looking bill over here, you know. Her face wasn't real pretty, it looked like the truck had run over it and then backed over to see if she'd done a good job. Her nose had been broken so many times, just large leaned on the left side of her face. You know, and the best way to describe it is looks as a drunk. You know in our part of the country and in this part of the country if your car's caught out in a hailstorm it's pretty badly beaten up. Right when you get your insurance check some wise buzzer said I don't get it fixed. Let it sit out in the hot sun for about three or four weeks and all the dents will pop back. Her dents never popped back out but God she was a great gal. Now, when Edith was drinking, and I drunk alcohol with her, she had the reputation of being the meanest, ugliest, fightiest, nastiest woman drunk that God walked on this earth. She could out-drink any man, any place, anywhere. On the moon, off the moon. Around the moon and on the earth. She carried a big black purse. Always had two pints of whiskey in that purse. And she'd kill you if you got in that person. And here I looked up at her. And I looked up at her. I didn't realize at that time and that moment that she was planting the seed of attraction in Alcoholics Anonymous. I looked at Edith, and God, her lipstick was on her lips, not her eyebrows. And back in those days, you know, before pantyhose, of the gals used to wear holes with their seams up their back. And they used to hold them with garter belts, you know, to pull their drawers down and their socks up, you know. And I looked and hers weren't drooping. And I sniffed her and she didn't spill halfway between an Avon bottle and an Avons woman in a whiskey bottle. But more important. And I noticed that she changed. When she gave me my manicure that morning, she was buffing my nails instead of my knuckles and my ears. But I noticed a real change, and the change was in her eyes. In Alcoholics Anonymous we have two kinds of eyes. We have those sad, sad, sick eyes. And then we have those happy, dancing, laughing, sparkling, living, sober eyes. Oh yes, we've got another kind of looking eyes, those glassy eyes, you know. They don't get up behind one of these things like, I haven't had a drink of alcohol, you on and fall over. Her eyes were sparkling, and they were jumping, and they were laughing, and she looked like she was having a lot of fun living sober. And then she turned to another manicurist in the shop by the name of Moena, and he said, Moena here is my sponsor. And she had 15 months sober in this deal called Alcoholics Anonymous. And back in those days in Alcoholics Anonymous, and when I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous, any time we mentioned or talked about our sponsors, it was with reverence because we respected our sponsors. Because we literally turned our lives over to the care of their experience and not their opinions. Because we find as a result of our experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous that opinions in many, many instances have a tendency to make sick people sicker and in some instances physically kill people. All we have to share is our own experiences of what it used to be like, what happened, what we're like now. And I did not know this. And I drunk four more alcohol with Moena than I ever did with Edith. And I looked at Moena and I said, Moena, you are bigger liar than Goofy over here. I said Moena we had a drink. She said no David I've not had a drank of alcohol with you or anyone else or myself in 15 continuous months. Edith has not had a drink of alcohol in 12 continuous months. Little did I realize that those precious words that fine lady said to me that morning would stick with me for many, many years. She talked about continuous sobriety. At that time I had no reason whatsoever to know that it was one day at a time because I knew of nothing. I didn't know the nature of my problem. I thought that it was just natural for me to do what I was doing. This is what Dr. Silkworth talks about. For real, it's real. It's real, and I didn't know this. I certainly didn't. And then Moena says, David, she says, this Sunday we have an open AA meeting, and it's open so the public can come in and hear and see how an alcoholic lives the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous and how an alcoholics lives the AA way of life. Only members of Alcoholic Anonymous will participate in a meeting because it's an AA meeting. Just because it is open doesn't mean that it is for every idiot to come in and talk. That is exactly the word she said. Because they don't know nothing. We are going to share our experiences. And then the last Sunday of the month, it's tradition of the group to have a sort of little birthday party for those who have one or more years of continued sobriety. And she said, we would like for you and your wife to come to that open meeting and stay afterwards for that birthday party. And I thought that the only reason that people such as you would invite someone such as me to cometo one of your AA meetings and stay to one ofyour AA functions is that you needed to have some good-looking, outstanding, and successful professional man Come and upgrade you uglies in community. And I'm glad to come help you. So I went home, and I told my wife Grace, and God, she was thrilled because people had long since quit asking us to come around. Grace used to ask me why they weren't out after the outdoor barbecues, square dances, round dances, nightclub supper parties, swimming pool parties, card parties, domino parties. I said, it's you. It's you! I said every time we're asked to go out on Saturday night, You start on me on the Monday before and you start screaming and you start hollering, don't, you're not going to drink. You're not gonna get drunk, are you? You wake me up out of a sound sleep, 530 the next morning screaming, did you hear what I said? And you keep it up Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night. And what a tremendous price society has had to pay is paying, I guess will always pay. Those who love us, those who hate us, those who do not even care that we exist on this earth. What a tremendous price those people are paying to find out that the more you're screaming our kind about our drinking, the more we're going to drink. I said, and furthermore, when we get to where we're supposed to get to before I can even park the car, you're out of the car and you run in and you grab the host and the hostess and you chase them through the kitchen and the den and the backyard and the alley and the bushes and the garbage and the neighbor is screaming, don't you give him a drink! Woman, you're sick. That's what's wrong with you. But she said to a tearful eye, we go to the meeting. And I said yes. And so that Sunday morning I got up at 5.30 in the morning to get ready to go to an A meeting 5. 30 in the afternoon. Well now, what does a good self-respecting drinking drunk do when he gets up 5.00 on Sunday morning? Drinks alcohol. That's the way it is. Let's face it. Very simple. Golfers golf. Fishermen fish. Drunks drink. There's no missing. I started sucking on a brand new bottle of juice. You know how it is? That gets your breathing started. Then that second drink regulates your breathing. Then that third drink goes down to both heels and just sets you there. Now you're ready to do some real drinking, aren't you? And I'm drinking and I'm looking up at the birds and the bees and the trees and I hear the neighbors screaming, Johnny, get dressed. We'll be late for church. And I say, oh, those sick people. They do not know what living really is if they could just learn how to control it and enjoy it like I was doing, they would find out that right after breathing in and out, alcohol is the second greatest gift God's given mankind. Amen. Took another drink. Drank half of that fifth, put the other half of the fifth in the trunk of my car because I knew I was going to be required to have another drink of alcohol. Maybe a minute later, maybe an hour later, maybe six hours later. I didn't know the exact reason until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm one of these that firmly believes that if and when an alcoholic comes to us, then until and unless that alcoholic is willing to find out what's wrong with that alcoholic, that alcoholic will never be able to find out what can get right with that alcohol. And I went into the bay and they shaved and they put on everything nice and rich looking to impress those poor sick people at Alcoholics Anonymous. Went on a beautiful brand new tailor-made suit, white on white monogrammed shirt, monogramged handkerchief, monogrambed tie, monogrammed drawers, put on my diamond ring, my diamond watch and a trademark of every good self-respectful high-rolling drinking drunk. A brand new pair of custom-made alligator shoes. I look just like a used car salesman or a dope dealer. And at 10.30 in the morning I'm out in my long roadmaster Buick honking a horn and out comes Grace with the rollers in her hair and she has on It's That All Your Fault kimono that they just love to live in and dwell in and dying and crying to where she lost a string around the middle and it's pinned together with a big baby diaper pin and she's pulled all the threading and the padding and the fuzzing and the buttons off the front and the front's just covered with tear stains and cigarette burns. It's what us drunks and Alcoholics Anonymous lovingly call the Al-Anon Designer House Code. And meanwhile, all the neighbors had gathered out. And her side is lined up over here and my side is aligned up over there. And I can still hear the fine ladies of the neighborhood saying, Isn't it a shame that such a beautiful and fine lady and the mother of two beautiful little boys married to such a sorry, no-good drunk like him? And my bunch over here are hollering out, Let her have it, David! Let her ha... And that used to be the weekend entertainment in every neighborhood we lived in. We moved 24 times before we'd come to Alcoz, Mom. Sometimes at midnight, high noon, daybreak, head of the sheriff sometimes, with the sheriff sometime, behind the sheriff. Just kept moving. I said, let's go to the meeting. She said, doesn't get started for seven more hours, you no-good drunk. And that she turned on her heels and went back in the house and that started seven tough hours. Here it was Sunday and I'm sucking on the only bottle of juice that I got knowing I was going to have to have me a drink and when I was drinking I rolled it all the way and one of the biggest problems I had before I got sober with the exception of the last three years of my drinking is people would pull me off my drunks and I wasn't through drinking and I'd come in and I pledge and I cry and I get on my knees and I put my hand on the Bible in the Bible around the Bible on the cat's back under the belly It didn't make a difference. I'll never do it again. And I'd wait until they wrote me a check and some money and tucked it in my shirt pocket, and as soon as they turned their back, I'd run off to finish the drunk. Now, I was a stay-away-from-home kind of drunk, not on purpose. I'd get drunk, and I ended up in countries I never knew existed on this earth. I endedup in institutions I never know they ever had on this Earth. I ended with people many times I never saw before in my life, sometimes with money, sometimes without, sometimes with clothes on, sometimes the other way. I've gone one time, they tell me 11 months. I really don't know. And I come in the house wearing the same clothes I guess I'd been in for about five months and no one knew where I was. My mother, my father, my wife, my children, my enemies, my patients, my friends, no one new where I wasn't. I'm running in the House and I ask my wife this brilliant question, did anybody call? That does not make for good marriage relationships, I'll tell you. It certainly didn't. So I knew that if I drank, I'd either have to call a bootleg or a tax cap, and I knew that I'd blow the deal. Because, you see, when I got out of the service the first time in 1947, the sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous in Dallas, Texas tried to net me. They tried to met me in 48. They tried net me in 49. They tried the net me January in 1950 and they thought they set the trap on the last Sunday of August in 1950. I finally found enough just to nurse me along and keep the edge going. God, that's the hardest drinking that there is when you drink them. And I honked the horn, and out comes Grace, and off we go to the meeting. And we go in, and there must have been about 50 members of Alcoholics Anonymous and their wives and the kids and a poodle or two jumping up and down. It looked like to me they were all smoking cigarettes, and they were hugging, and they weren't kissing, and they wasn't laughing, and then they were scratching. And I stepped back and looked at those people, And I said, by gosh, if they're alcoholic and they're not drinking alcohol and they don't have to be a dope. Then I looked around and I saw them signs in an A group and I said my God, I'm in a kindergarten. And then I saw a button for the grace of God in my head because I knew at that time that I was not living according to the dictates of God's will for me. And I wanted you to firmly believe that if and when an alcoholic comes to us that even though many of us come to Alcoholics Anonymous without a full string of lights in our head, that deep down inside every one of us know this. If there is a principle that we very seldom if never hear discussed in AlcoholicsAnonymous that we're born human beings first. Not all but so many get carried away and they're brainwashed before they get to us about this syndrome, born an alcoholic. Hey, you understand? And if you're born an alcoholic, if you want to let's get the idiot out of the ditch and go about living. We get so carried away when we cross the invisible line. How can you know when you cross an invisible line when it's invisible? And they get on all these syndromes and all these other things. No, no. Hey, I didn't understand that. That's the reason why A doesn't have a definition of alcoholism. It has descriptions of an alcoholic. And it allows us the freedom to come in and begin to live under what is one of God's great kids and of this most precious program that we have. You see, every one of us are born human individuals first. Human beings. And when we're born human beings and given the most precious gift that a human being will ever have and be allowed to begin to breathe in and out. Right there and then is the creation, formation, and development of selfishness and self-centeredness. And from this selfishness and self centeredness stems all of our defects of character. Those defects that we refuse to recognize that made our lives unmanageable. Resentment, selfishness, dishonesty, and fear and not wanting to tell another human being how darn phony we are or what's really churning on with inside of us. Because, you see, Alcoholics Anonymous does something that formalized, organized religion will never have the success that it has. Medicine has not, is not, will ever be able to do it. Psychiatry has not is not will ever able to be able do it Government agencies has not-is-not will ever-be-able-to-do-it Social services has not – is not –will ever be-able to do-it Human will power has not–is- not – will ever –be- able to-do it Treatment modalities has not—is not –willever be- able-to do it Correctional facilities, has not, is not, will ever be able to do it. Horoscopes, has Not, is Not, will never be able to do It. Biorhythm charts, has Not, Is Not, Will Ever Be Able To Do It. Acupuncture, Has Not,Is Not,Will Never Be ABLE To Do It. Hypnosis, has Not,is Not,will ever be Able To Do It. Witch Doctors, has Not, Alcoholics and Honor reaches down the innermost depths of a human being. This fine, precious thing that only God gives a human, deep within us when we're born. And after we come and get physically comfortable with the agent that forces us to come to Alcoholics Anonymous, that fine precious thing that says, that fine still quiet voice, thank you little alcoholic for not drinking alcohol today. Thank you little alcoholic for finding a way to have a reasonably good night's sleep. But more important, thank you little alcoholic for finding a group of people who love you no matter what you have done, what you are doing or what you ever will do and that is where the power of our society lies. One drunk talking to another. That's what's made alcoholics anonymous. That's the reason that every self-help group in this God's world and over 150 some-odd they want what we have but they haven't gone through the frustrations, of hewing to the line, of keeping Alcoholics Anonymous directed and zeroed into one thing, the singleness of purpose. That's what's made AlcoholicsAnonymous. And God will allow us to have it as long as we remain singleness-of-purpose, and after that I don't know what God will do. in every AA group with no exception, the ones that are in constant turmoil, the ones who are always scratching for money, the always that are this or that have all hewed away from the singleness of purpose. When that drunk comes through the door that's looking to live once again under the canopy of God's love and grace And we're derelict when we get involved in everything except the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous when that alcoholic comes and sharing one-on-one and giving opinions and letting them read books that God Almighty, I read those books before I got here and I'll tell you right now, I darn near went crazy. But when I'm reading a book about it, it's the only book I ever read for serious is that book. Not the 1212. Well, the second book that I read for serious is the most second precious book I have and that's A.A. Comes of Age. Because there is where I found where the alcoholics and the frustrations and everything they did to come right back to the reason that our traditions are all about. That each group has one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers and it's its message and A.I.'s message or is it some other message. and we're derelict if we don't look at ourselves when an alcoholic comes and leaves the egg and goes back to drinking it's so easy to say well they'd rather be drunk than sober they're not ready yet I don't know about you but I've been in egg groups over half of this world and I've never been in an egg group where they got an instrument where they stick in, up, down and through an alcoholic to see if they're ready or not or see if their going to get ready no, uh-uh no, no but what do we do this for? It's for our sobriety. If we are to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, then we have to live the message, no matter what our limited experiences are. And that's all we can say. I had many, many years ago before I realized this. I certainly did. I certainly didn't. And I went in that meeting and I sat on the back row and the first one got up and God Almighty, she was a woman in the line of cheating, the most woman I'd ever been around in my life. And there she was. She was sane, sober in her right mind and she said, you haven't had a drink of alcohol in a year and I jumped up and I hollered out, you're a liar, you know. Yeah. You're a lier. And you know how a wet drunk answers you when you totally shut up. Make me. We had enough in there to make me. She got to talking about her Jesus and she got to talk about everything in this God's world and my mind closed and I said, this is a revival meeting. They've got me here to convert me. And this is what you were. I needed a drink real bad, you know. And every time I stood up to walk to my car, to go to my card to get what's left in that half fifth, it looked like 80 people stood up, turned around, looked at me and pointed through and said, shut up and sit here and this is for you. And I hated every member of Alcoholics Anonymous that was in that meeting and the horse and wagons that brought them cross country. And as soon as that meeting was over with, and I had to get sober incidentally later on to find out, no. It wasn't what that woman talked about or Christ and everything else in that meeting. They talked about God's grace and they talked about the Lord's Prayer. Remember I told you I got up at 5.30 in the morning and started drinking? Remember I said, I'm going to have a drink? Remember I sold you that when I put that fifth in the trunk of the car, I knew I was going to Have to have me a drink. I didn't find out the reason until I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I found it in the doctor's opinion that once we succumb to the desire against, it sets up this phenomenon of craving for alcohol. My God, how my body craved alcohol. And that's what it was. My body was craving that alcohol. And as soon as that meeting was over with, that birthday party, I ran through those 80 people like a tornado. Got out to the trunk of my car, opened up that, got that half-fifth, and I don't know about anybody in here in AA. I drank that half fifth out of two swallows, and that's the way I drank alcohol. Never put it in a brandy glass. Run around sniffing for five hours, burn candles and incense, and listen to Lawrence Welk. I dropped it down that hole where it do the most good. And let me tell you what happened to me. It got down there and my hair laid back down. My toes went back in those alligator shoes. I ran up the steps, got up. We got to arguing about the quality of y'all's fellowship, and he said something to me, and I hit him. And when I was drinking, I was bad to hit folks. I was too scared when I wasn't drinking. I was mad to hit folk. Didn't make them bigger than me, shorter than me. Fatter than me skinnier than me and two of these AA babies joined in. We started a fight, and as far as I was concerned, that fight was a lot better than that AA meeting. and I just whipped in the dickens out of them two little wimps and then they did an unfair thing they ran in two more sober members of the group about the size of outside linebackers on any professional football team and finally four of them picked me bodily up two on each side took me to the door kicked the door open threw me right out of that egg group as I'm flying through the air one of them said we do not need your kind here And another one said, and furthermore, you are too young to be an alcoholic. And God was I glad to hear that. And I stood on that grass that Sunday evening, drunk with my fist clenched, screaming and hollering and cursing to anybody that would listen to me. I would never come back to this Christ's soul-saving organization as long as I lived. But the next 17 years, everything that could possibly happen to a human being happened to this human being. And the only three things never did happen to me getting ready to get on a drunk, on a drink, coming off a drunk right to this very second. I never did willfully murder another human being, fall in love with another man, or die drunk. Other than that, it all happened. Of course, I guess blackouts don't count, you know. We don't want anybody leaving the Navy meeting with resentment, you know. I married this wonderful gal, and when we got married, she didn't realize she was married to a practicing alcoholic. I didn't know I was a practicing alcoholic. And when we started to build a marriage, we started building a booby trap, one that could go off any week, month, year. I recall back in the service as a Naval Den Officer and went with the Combat Marine Division, and I got into more trouble than there was trouble. Oh, my God. And I ended up in a maximum security prison. They had a code name on it, and it only had room for 138. And the word was when you got there, you never would leave. And I saw how some of them left with sheets from the top of their head down to their toes. And I was chained like an animal. Chained like a animal. Under the most horrible of living conditions. This is before the military code was changed. This is before the Supreme Court got involved with locked-up folks. Yeah. And no one knew where I was. No one. That's the period that Grace, when you hear her talk, talks about total desertion. We managed to get out of there. There were 14 of us. Twelve of us are in AA today. Two are out there drinking. We don't talk too much about it. Only among ourselves. Because if they're drinking and they should ever hear, we don't want to run anyone off. There's a tremendous line in the last line of the ninth step, one of the most powerful lines and principles in our recovery program, except when to do so would injure them or others. And A, we do not stay sober at the expense of another human being. we don't justify rationalize we just admit the truth about our own selves a powerful life powerful life I got out of that talked grace into taking me back came back full of shame and guilt branded as an undesirable being courage No human being likes to be called that deep down inside. Being with the toughest and the meanest people in the world and locked up and screaming all night long and calling for their mother. Yeah, the human being within each and every one of us. Human being. And I needed that alcohol to anesthetize, to drown all that stuff. You see, when I was drinking, I tried to drown my defects of character. But the son of a gun has learned how to swim. And they darn near killed me. They darn near kill me. I talked Grayson back and so we decided to take our little boys out to Anaheim, West Texas and raise them in a Christian environment. And I don't know how many of y'all ever lived in a town of 3,400 folks in a Christianity environment. That's where they drink wet and vote dry, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And the two most popular people at the time was The Undertaker and The Bootlegger. And I was drinking to where I got up and I weighed about 245 pounds. And my blood pressure was so high that every time my pulse would beat, my hair would stand there and pump like off it. I had a fat doctor friend live in the next town and I went to see him. He said, My God, you look sick. And he put the cuff around my arm, ran up the blood pressure and he said, My God David, it's a miracle you're alive. Your blood pressure is so high. He said the reason it's so high is because you're so fat. And the reason that you're so fat is because you eat so much. That was not true. I was bloated. And he said, You do not have any guts or willpower and I'm going to have to give you some help. And he wrote me a prescription for 60 of the most beautiful capsules I've ever seen in my life called Nemudons. He says, Take them as directed. Now, that is one word as directed a practicing alcoholic will never hear. I said, Doctor, is it hard if I drink a couple of beers while I take these things? He says, I do not believe it will hurt you. He never should have told me that. I went home, got the prescription filled, went home to lose weight and stay drunk. Well, it said I couldn't take one three times a day after meals. Well, who eats when you drink? And every good self-respectful drinking drunk knows if one's good, two's better, three's terrific. So I just took three of them, drank some whiskey, didn't feel like I was losing any weight. Come back out and took three more of them Drank some more whiskey Went to the bathroom Looked sideways in the mirror Didn't look like I was losing any weight Come back down and took a handful of them Drank more whiskey Looked like my stomach's getting bigger You know, our co-founder Bill Wrote some very powerful lines And one of them was You know When we're drinking It's time out of mind Time passes so slow In Geneva The only sad thing I've found About Alcoholics Anonymous Is time passes so fast sober. Where does it go? And finally I took all the pills and drank all the whiskey and there's a good friend of mine, he's passed on now, old Jack T out in California I like to quote him when I say this and of course I've quoted so much, it's mine really and next thing I knew I was out in my backyard and I was picking peaches off of rose bushes I don't mind telling you and being one of the two Jewish families in five counties around, they gathered everybody in to see and hear the miracle. They sat right around that town for two days talking in an unknown tongue. And they gathered everybody to see the miracle, the Jew had caught the Holy Ghost. And when I come to realize what happened, I said, my God, those pills are messing up my drinking. I'd been a psychiatrist, and all the questions he asked me, Grace used to ask me for nothing, and everybody else. Had to leave that town in disgrace and come back to Dallas with a wonderful opportunity, wonderful opportunity. But it wasn't long before I was on that last skid row emptying wine bottles and sleeping in them 55 cent a night hotel rooms, you know. I went home once the last 11 months of drinking. I walked in and Grace looked at me and she said, do you have to drink and do the things that you do? I said, Grace, why don't you find another man that will marry you? You're such a fine lady. Not only will he be a good husband to you, but a good father to those fine little boys. I cannot function as a son. I cannot fonction as a husband or a father, professional man, a human being. I'm going to die drunk. I can't stay sober. I cannot stay sober." And I walked out and grabbed my bottle and went out to proceed to kill myself, and now I've brought you up to where everything flashed back in my life, and here I am in this jail once again. And I've been in lots of jails. And being in jail is not a requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous. By this time I'd run out of everything and everybody and I got down to me and me couldn't stay sober and me Couldn't Stay Drunk and me Couldn't Kill Myself and me Wouldn't Stay Alive. And me didn't want me as me was but me was going with me every place me went. And I found out something on that jail floor that until God calls you home you're not going anywhere yeah as I said I didn't scream I didn'y holler I wasn't crying I wasn'y begging I just simply said the only thing that a human being can say when a human being gets down only to the human being I didn''t even put a condition on it I just simply said God help me and I know right this very second there's not only God for me then there is right this second because I'm still here and I have not had a drink of alcohol the minute I got me out of me and didn't say God get me out from this jam I'll never do it again I just simple said help deep down inside I don't know I wasn't hallucinating Deep down inside, something kept saying, Alcoholics Anonymous, continue sobriety, continue sobrietry, continue subriety. And I said, if I ever get out of this jail, I have to find those people in Alcoholics Anonymous. How I got by that old sheriff, I don't know. That's a story in itself. And I started looking for the members of AlcoholicsAnonymous. I found out that Edith, the gal who asked me to come to her first year birthday, she had passed away but she was continuously sober when she passed away. Her sponsor Moena had moved to West Texas and after I was sober nine months Moena moved back to Dallas and was secretary of our group and then went back to manicuring and I used to see her every Wednesday morning at 8 o'clock as my manicurist And in March of 1986, Molina passed away. And if she would have lived two more months, she would Have been 37 continuous years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. There was a man at that meeting. He was sober. He was Sober eight years. He went back to drinking. He drank eight years and May a year ago, he celebrated his 28th continuous sobriety. And he passed away this first week in December of last year. He's the only one I knew. I called him up, and I said, W.O., are you still interested in Alcoholics Anonymous? He said to me, who is it for? I said it is for me. He said, well, we have a meeting tomorrow night. Let's just go ahead and get it over with, and don't you take a drink of alcohol today and call me in the morning at 7.30. Boom, and he hung up. That's all he told me. And after 37 and a half years of giving it the best shot that a human being could, it was cold turkey. Well, it's more like frozen buzzard, I don't mind telling you. I started walking and shaking out of the rump. And when I come to the next morning, I was free of alcohol and I didn't have a belly full of tranquilizers nor a prescription for 500 more. And for that, I'm so thankful. And at 7.30, I called him up and he says, Are you drinking alcohol? I says, no sir. He said, don't you take a drink of alcohol today and call me at 3.30 this afternoon. Boom! And he hung up. That's all he told me. And I started walking in there shaking and at 3 30 I called him up. He said are you drinking alcohol? I said no sir, he said do you really want to come to an AA meeting? And I said more than anything else in this God's world. He said you're willing for me to you want me to come get you? That's the first time and being about as humble as Hitler I said, I'll get there under my own steam. And he told me where to go. And he hung up. Well, I was in a terrible predicament. The only clothes and possessions that I had on, an old pair of thermal underwear, an old pile of flannel pants, an old gray sweater with the elbows out of the elbows, no socks, but I still hadn't quite lost everything. I had my alligator shoes. and I had 30 cents and that's all that I sold at the last blood bank by the horse trough down there in Dallas and 30 cents and that is all to buy wine and when one comes to A in that shape one is not doing well I will tell you and I looked in an old dirty beer and I can't go to Alcoholics Anonymous looking like this I am a professional man and I heard Grace had thrown out all my clothes but I took a chance to call her up I said Grace he said who is it I said me she said what does me want I said grace do you happen to have one of my old suits she says yes I have one and it's to bury it that's before she even come down on then I asked her the most foolish question I've ever asked in my life besides marrying her I said do you mind if I borrow it for a little while I'm going to Amy he said another one of your lies hung up And the suit's the story itself. Now, there wasn't instant joy when I come in there to get that suit to go down. Oh, God, everything's going to be beautiful and lovely. Uh-uh, no, sirree. I walked in there, and everything I touched, I looked at, I breathed on inhale. She ran behind me and sprayed. And I got in that old suit. That's the storytelling itself. Climbed into a Mustang that the bank was looking to repossess it but couldn't recognize it looked like an accordion. but she and the young'un goodbye and off I went to the meeting and I walked in and it looked like the same people that were there 17 years earlier one of those older members came up to me he's long since gone old Ember he bent over and looked at me and he ran from ear to ear and he said we knew you'd be back now I'm going to tell you about the greatest any talk I've ever heard in my life Now, in age, we don't have a bunch of speakers. Nah, we're just a bunchof talkers. Ours is the language of the heart, and thank God it's not the language of the gutter. This man then said to me, he stuck his hand out. His was dry, mine was wet, and I had to slip away and I'd grab it again. He said, welcome, come in and sit down and have a cup of coffee and let's talk about it. We understand exactly how you feel. How do you feel? It's the first time in the last 17 years that my drinking anyone really shook my hand with sincerity. First time in a lot of 17 years that my drinkin' anyone welcomed me in with sincerity First time the last seventeen years that my drankin' any asked me to sit down and share a cup of coffee with them with sincerity wine all that other stuff And it certainly was the first time in the last 17 years of my drinking that anyone said to me, we understand exactly how you feel. And when the meeting started the first time in the last 15 years of drinking, they invited me to come in and sit. And I'm still shaking and jumping and the drunks are on either side of me and they got their hands on my knees and my shoulders and elbows and they're saying, first things first. Easy does it. This too will pass. And then when the meeting was over with and they passed the basket, it's the first time that money in a long time had been passed in front of me that I didn't reach in and take some. And dann when that was overwith and the first time in the last 17 years of my drinking, when they said the Lord's Prayer, now when I come down to all that's anonymous we did not hold hands. Everyone had that precious moment. We fail to forget it's God as they understand Him. You know, we have atheists that are sober and alcoholics and all. That's God. That's how you understand Him as they understand Him in the Bible. We have agnostics that are sober and alcoholic and all of us. That's what God is. They understand Him that we have true believers that are sovereign alcoholics anonymous. That's got as they understand Him and if you don't understand God that's how you understand Him now wiggle out of that one and I did not know the Lord's Prayer and no one called me an agnostic or an atheist or an idiot or a dummy and when that meeting was over with people human beings walked up to me and they hugged me and they kissed me and they told me they loved me for what I had been doing and what I have become and what it is and what there was right there and then and then when I got ready to leave those fine people said David, please come back we need you and you need us folks, that is Alcoholics Anonymous nothing more nothing less just God's love and grace working through the sober members of AlcoholicsAnonymous through this miraculous program and fellowship hugging and loving a stinking, dirty drunk. It wasn't a few hours that he wanted to kill himself. Couldn't face life. And here's where the hope and the spark. And I'd like to tell you just a little bit what's happened. When I got to you people Little did I realize that Grace and our two sons would ever be under one roof again because that marriage had been written off by everything and everybody had no right to be, but only because of God's grace through the miracle in my life and only because God's great through the miracles of alcoholics and Al-Anon writing Gracious Life, that beautiful and wonderful lady this past June the 10th, which is also AA's birthday. Grace and I celebrated 51 years, and that's pretty good for a drunk. Now, I'm not going to stand up here and tell you because I'm in A.A. and Gracie's in Al-Anon that our marriage is just absolutely beautiful and just absolutely perfect and that the butterflies are tranquil and the bluebirds are hugging and kissing. Heck no! We have a few short rounds every now and then. We have some long rounds every night. That's what you call clearing the air, communicating. and I go to five, six, sometimes seven meetings a week. She goes four, five, I don't know how many meetings a weeks. We don't see each other enough to have all that nitpicking, arguing, fighting, and fussing. No, AA did not save my marriage. AA has given me principles to live in a marriage or without a marriage. It's given me the principles to be the kind of son that I've always wanted to be. The kind of husband that I've wanted to be. The kindof father that I want to be, and the kind of a professional man that I have always wanted to be. But that's just nothing. To be the kindof AA member today that I wanna be, love to be—that's it. And to grow. And the only way that I can is to get me a wet rump or get one that's confused. Spend a little time. Please, if you haven't read it, read Dr. Bob's talk when he made in Cleveland shortly before his death in 1950 when he said we're all here as a result of a friendly pat on the back a word of encouragement but mainly love. Love. Our two sons are grown today. The oldest one when he was 15 years of age was going to kill me before I was done with their mother because you see their mother was their mother their mother wasn't their mother their mother's their Santa Claus their mother is their father. Their mother took them on vacations and to picnics and to the little league and to scouts. I wanted to. I wanted too. I take them to the Little League game And I'd say, well, I've got to go use the phone down here at the fast food market. And I would come back and they're playing football. I didn't want to be that way. I didn' t want to b e that way, I didn t want t o b e th at w a y. And he was going to kill me because their mother was the only link to sanity that those two boys had. And they couldn't stand to see what was happening to their mother. And they were willing to kill m e to protect that only link. And I had no communication with that youngster for many, many years. But only because of God's grace through the miracle of alcoholics and knowledge of my life and only because God's grâce through the miracles of Al-Anon and the principles, which is Al-Alan's principles or AA's principles, but it is their singleness of purpose that makes theirs. That's all. To others. Today, not only have a wonderful father and son relationship with son number one and son number two and two beautiful granddaughters and two beautiful daughter-in-laws and I darn near missed it. When I got sober, I had to go before the regulatory agency that regulates my profession to make a living. And I wasn't that smart. If it had been up to me, I'd have messed it up. My sponsor and several other members of AA. They'd been sober a long time, said, now when you go down there, they start telling me what to tell them. You go down here and you tell them the truth. You tell them what you did. Don't you make any promises. Promises will kill you, David. You tell them that you did it. I said, but they know it. Yeah, and they said, yeah, but they want to hear it from you. And I went down and told them what I did. And they said Well, he kept me down there for a week. And he said, Well, we're going to let you go back. We're goingto be watching you one day at a time. I've been back ever since. Still working very productively today with a huge gift. Only as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you've heard just the nicer parts of my story. Because some of the things I've done is none of your business. The statute of limitations don't run out on certain things. And I'm asked by many people in A, and out of A that it happened to somebody passes a tape on, I guess, or I don't know, you know. Got a lot of loose mouth folks in A. And I've been asked by so many in A how did you ever get through school? You been locked up? You been gone and all this and all that? Well, I tell them I was in my class valedictorian in high school and finished second of a class of 450 at Southern Methodist University and I'm a graduate of Baylor University College of Dentistry and they say, how'd you do it? It's real simple. You cheat. It doesn't take our kind long to find another human being who will do for us what we cannot possibly do for ourselves. And all of this is what I'm trying to tell you. You know, it's not me. It's all Alcoholics Anonymous. Because ours is not a personal success story, to quote our co-founder Bill. But one of colossal human failure converted into great strength by the alchemy of the living grace of God as it expresses the recovery program of fellowship therein. And I'd like to leave you with something, y'all have been so wonderful. There was a little youngster, he was an orphan. who was living in the orphanage and he had a terrible stuttering impediment. And the harder he tried not to stutter, the worse it got and the worse that got, the harder it tried. And he used to react and he'd cry. He didn't want to be that way and other kids used to make fun of him and they'd purposely get him to talk so he'd start stuttering and they would make jokes at him and laugh at him. and he felt so different to the point that he didn't want to live he even tried to hang himself in a china berry tree but then something happened to that little youngster all of a sudden he was walking around with a beautiful smile on his face see he had found the principle as long as he didn' t utter the first syllable there was no way in the world he would stutter. And he was a source of amazement and no one could figure him out no matter how hard the other youngsters tempted him to talk and taunt him and tease him. He had some inner power. And one Sunday morning the visiting preacher didn't come and so they didn't have anyone to read the devotional prayers and so the superintendent called for volunteers and a little stuttered Johnny held his hand up the superintendent looked at him and said Johnny are you sure you know what you're doing and Johnny just nodded and said well come on and Johnny got behind the lectern and he opened up the prayer book and he began to read as he began to read each letter was perfectly enunciated each word was perfectly pronunciated and as he began to read there came from within him through his eyes a look the kind of look that I saw in Edith's eyes in that barbershop 44 years ago. The kind of love that I had the kind look that i saw in those members' eyes when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous the same look that I'm seeing in your eyes right this very second and I know what that eye look is that God is doing for us where we could not, can't or possibly do for ourselves and as Johnny continued to read the look became more beautiful and when he finished there was a deathly silence when he said Amen and after the services were over with the superintendent ran up to little Johnny and he hugged him and he kissed him on his forehead and he says Johnny you read those prayers perfectly he didn't stutter even once and little Johnny stood on his tiptoes and looked up at the superintendent and he's beaming from ear to ear He says, Mr. Superintendent, when I read to and I talk with the God of my understanding, I do not stutter because I know he loves me so much. God bless each and every one, and thank you, and I love you so much."