We Drew Straws for You and I Lost — Rotten Ron’s First Day as My Sponsor – Keith D.

Hello, everybody. I'm an alcoholic. My name's Keith.
By God's grace, Alcoholics Anonymous is full of people like you and a little effort on my own.
I haven't had to take a drink or do any dope since May the 11th, 1976, and for that I'm especially grateful.
I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be sober. I'm glad to see some of my old friends, Bob and a few of the people that we've known around here,
some of the speakers, and it's a privilege to be asked to come and participate in any program.
I'm glad Sue, my wife, gets to go with me a lot. We get to travel together, do a lot of these things,
and, you know, the book tells us that we're supposed to share what it used to be like and what happened and how little we've changed.
That's basically what it's all about. I mean, if I hadn't changed a little, well, I wouldn't have been here,
but I ain't changed a whole lot.
I got up yesterday morning at 4 o'clock and simulated work for a while,
and then, you know, messed around for a little while, not figuring on doing much until it was time to come here,
and then midnight last night while we went to LAX, Los Angeles, and got on an airplane,
flew four and a half hours for an hour's worth of vicarious pleasure,
and, you know, I ain't slept since 4 o'clock yesterday morning, I don't think.
If I did, why, I wasn't sure of it.
And that's basically, you know, how I live my life.
I really, I've always been that way.
I would be willing to travel to any length in order to be where it's happening,
and I'll sleep when I get to heaven.
I can say that positively.
But, you know, that's really it.
I mean, that's the whole deal.
I've been that way all my life.
I'm not one of those people that come to Alcoholics Anonymous sobered up and, you know, went back to school and got a PhD
and, you know, have a success story to tell you about how I started my own business and became a millionaire.
I did, sobriety has taught me one thing, a spiritual entity of this program,
is that the California lotto is going to be about $23 million today.
And I asked God if I could handle that, if I won it.
And he told me I should buy one ticket.
That's all I should buy, just one.
That if he wants me to win it, if he thinks I'm, you know, capable of handling $23 million,
why, one ticket's enough.
So I stopped by and bought five.
Just in case, you know.
One for him and four for me.
You know, let him have the quick pick.
You know, I mean, that just, hey, that ain't never going to change.
I'm always going to be like that.
I am always going to be like that.
I want the deal.
I want the deal.
I've always wanted the deal.
I want to be where the deal is.
I love the deal.
Deal me in.
I don't care if it's 50 cents or 50 million.
I want to be there.
I want to be there.
I want to be where life is in session.
And, you know, the amazing thing about that is that I guess it's just our perspective about where that is and what's happening.
Because today I really believe that I'm where it's, you know, where life is in session.
I get to travel a lot and I do a lot of things in life.
I don't miss much.
I'm out there on the streets from the time I get up in the morning until the time I shut her down at night.
I'm out there with the people that are doing things.
Not only in Alcoholics Anonymous but in life itself.
And my perspective of life today has changed as a result of my sobriety.
Physically sober.
I had to get physically sober before I could observe what was going on and how it was happening and who it was happening with.
I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and it was, you know, my whole life had become so much of a tunnel vision
that it's like looking through a straw.
That's all I could see.
Whatever was right under that one little pinpoint tip, that's all that was going on.
And as a result of staying sober and applying these principles in my life one day at a time,
well, I've developed some peripheral vision.
I've been able to see some things.
I've been able to enjoy more.
And I believe that if sobriety hadn't been that way for me, I wouldn't have stayed.
If I would have stayed.
If I would have had to live under that illusion that, you know, this one path is a rut which becomes a grave
and eventually you hang pictures on the side of it and that's it.
That's gloom and doom and, you know, fun time is over and you're never going to be able to enjoy anything again.
I would not have stayed in Alcoholics Anonymous, much less stayed sober.
I believe for me life is an experience.
An experience.
And I believe that looking back through a lot of inventory in my life that I don't regret anything I ever did.
I don't regret every drink I ever took.
Every drink I ever took, I needed it.
Every pill I ever popped.
Every needle I ever slammed.
Every joint I ever smoked.
I did everything but a pap smear, you know.
And every bit of that was necessary.
I don't regret a damn bit of it, man.
I did it with full enthusiasm.
Every time, man, I expected more than whatever it was that I was putting in me was capable of giving me.
I never asked what it was going to do to me.
I was willing to experience whatever it was that was about to happen.
I've always been that way and I am that way today.
And I think one of the greatest gifts that sobriety has given me is that the difference is that I don't really have the fear of what's going to happen.
Because I have lived a way of life.
I have lived a way of life.
And I've been, you know, I'm not afraid of going to hell.
I've been there.
I've been there.
Took up residency by God.
Had a home place.
I'm out on my green card today.
And so I'm not afraid of going to hell.
I know what it's like to live there for an indefinite period of time.
But I'll tell you something.
It isn't that I'm afraid of going back there.
It's just that life is so good today that I don't want to leave.
And sometimes that's an illusion.
And I think that's what we do on occasion when we come to Alcoholics and Honest.
Come to these conventions.
These conventions or roundups are, for me anyway, it's an opportunity to come and hear other people share their experience, strength, and hope.
It's an opportunity for me to come and meet people and mingle with people.
The book says we are people who normally wouldn't mix.
I probably wouldn't have drank with most of you people, much less sell you dope.
So I think it's a great opportunity to charge our batteries, to be able to put a little extra icing on the cake so that next Wednesday, whenever the fears and inadequacies rise up at 2 o'clock in the morning while we have something to reach back and draw from, even if it's no more than the fact that you can say, if that sucker can do it, so can I.
Most of the time.
And that's, you know, if you're looking for any more than that, don't look for something that isn't here, you know.
If you're new or relatively new, just experience.
Try to let your head and your body get in the same place.
When I first sobered up, I spent, physically, I was so bad physically that they had to put me in a shake-and-bake kind of thing.
It wasn't any country club type of atmosphere.
It was just something.
Physically, being very good to myself.
I had to just damn near kill myself.
And so they put me in this place with 39 other people like me.
And Dr. Paul O., Dr. Paul Olliger, whose story's in a big book, the doctor, alcoholic addict, or whatever it is in there, the controversial Dr. Paul O., happened to be the physician in charge of this shake-and-bake that I went to.
And he just started this thing.
So I ended up in this place with him.
And there was 39 of them.
And there was 39 of us drunks in there trying to shake it.
And we stayed there for over 30 days.
I think they were kind of studying us, you know, to see, like guinea pigs, kind of like a little more of an elevation of sponsorship.
You know, a sponsor will tell you to do something.
If it works, he'll try it.
And so the medicals arrived.
I ain't going to blow no bubbles.
It's true.
If you're new and your sponsor's telling you to do something that seems like it's absolutely impossible to do, use that and get the hell out there and do it and prove that it can be done.
And you'll help him.
And so I ended up in this detox with these 39 and 38 other people.
And actually, what it was was it was one of the first detoxes in California where they would detox people who had alcohol and drugs.
They didn't talk about it.
It was kind of a no-no.
But they put us in there with this Dr. Paul.
And so we were kicking all this stuff.
They didn't give us any, you know, narcotics to come off.
They just walked us up and down the hallway.
And for about 20 days, I'd walk up and down the hallway and laugh for three steps and cry for three steps.
Absolutely crazy.
I had two different groups of people who had a contract on my life.
So I didn't have a good resume to bring in there.
I'll guarantee you.
I had a contract on my life.
I had a contract on my life.
I had a contract on my life.
I had a contract on my life.
I had a contract on my life.
I had a contract on my life.
I had a contract on my life.
So I didn't have a good resume to bring in there.
I'll guarantee you.
And at the end of this 30-some day period of time where they put us all in a circle and chairs in this big room and they started out on my left.
And they let each one of us tell every other individual there if we choose to take their inventory.
It was very interesting.
In other words, if you had made a friendship, you could say, I think old Bill's going to make it.
I love him.
I'm glad he's sober.
And I believe when he gets out of here, he's finally found it.
And then if they didn't think you were going to make it, they had the privilege of telling you that.
And it's funny how God has a sense of humor.
They started on my left, which means I was the last one.
That could be bad.
But as it turned out, every one of those people, 38 people, said something nice or something questionable about the other 38 people.
Every one of those people said, Keith's going to drink as soon as he hits the street.
Because I had a bad attitude and a rotten disposition and a thirst, a craving, an insane craving for alcohol.
I had a bad attitude and a rotten disposition and a thirst, a craving, an insane craving for alcohol that did not let up.
It was obvious.
Everything about me said that.
When I was sitting in there trying to detox, I wanted to drink.
I wanted to drink.
I didn't want to get my wife back, my kid back, my dog back, my cat back, my job back, my money back, my dignity back.
I wanted to drink.
And that's the way I explained it.
And 38 people said, that cat's going to drink.
They were so convincing.
They were so convincing that when it got to 39, I said, I almost said, I'm going to drink.
I'm the only one out of 39 that didn't drink.
I'm the only one out of 39 that's still sober.
And over half of them are dead, and half of the half that's dead died suicide sober.
So if you're new or relatively new, you don't have to necessarily go with the vote around here.
And I am living proof you can stay sober for at least a year and a half on a resentment.
Just out of spite.
It almost killed me, but I said, I'll show you.
And that's the way I've been all my life.
Competition is my second nature.
Am I drug?
A choice in sobriety is adrenaline.
I just, and I just have that insane energy to go and do the things.
And, uh, and those are character, uh, defects that has got me in a lot of trouble prior to coming here.
And, uh, I come from a long line of alcoholics.
I don't necessarily, uh, be necessary for you to come from a lot of alcoholic, uh, heritage there, I suppose, in order to be an alcoholic.
But I do, that's my story.
I come from a lot of different drunks and most of them are dead.
My daddy's.
It's over a member of Alcoholics Anonymous today, and he and I have a good relationship.
Most of the other drunks died, drunk, uh, nobody, but my daddy and I, uh, ever found Alcoholics Anonymous and stayed sober.
And I found, uh, a, uh, about 14, 15 months before he did.
He went through a lot of detoxes and couldn't stay sober because he's smart.
No, he knew everything.
And, uh, and that intellect didn't help him stay sober.
He sobered up because I sobered up and stayed.
Sober and he'll tell you today, that's the only reason he sobered up because he was always better than me.
And, uh, that's the only thing that I got on him.
I want up to his ass and I always wanted to one up the old man, you know, I didn't know I was going to have to come to AA and sober up, stay sober over a year in order to beat him.
But he'll tell you today.
And I believe today, I really believe it because he and I are that close.
And the sense of it is that if I would drink, he'd probably go with me.
See, I mean, that, that'll never change.
That's just as true.
I know in my own heart, if he drinks, I ain't going to drink with him because he's smart and he might make it back, but I'm dumb.
And I wouldn't ever make it back.
You ever hear?
I go drink, come looking for me because I will not come back on my own.
See, and, uh, that's kind of the family I grew up with.
I was born out in Texas.
I told.
I don't think that necessarily makes you an alcoholic.
It give me certain characteristics.
I've always had the ability to recognize your character defects.
And I've always had a need to tell you about what that did.
That made drinking a contact sport.
That's what it did.
I like to, I like to get drunk and talk loud and raise hell when you can't do nothing else.
Fight.
I like to fight.
And, uh, uh, some people, it's a funny thing.
How those emotions, uh, affects them.
Differently, uh, some people, uh, fear will demobilize them and they'll hunker down the corner like an old mule and other people fear, just the fear of fear will mobilize them.
And it's like an adrenaline and, uh, and I drove fear like a fast car all my life.
Uh, it was something that I would, uh, I really wouldn't say impulsively.
I would just react.
I would react and, uh, you know, a moving target's hard to hit.
I always figured.
And so I just kept her moving, you know, and I'd punch and run.
I didn't want to stand there until I learned a long time ago.
You stand there toe to toe.
You might get whooped, you know, you hit them hard and then split and, uh, you know, our way around the corner with a two before, until they come out of the bar.
And, uh, I don't, you know, I don't know nothing about being fair.
I was born with that intuitively, you know, I had, I had a thing inside of me that it's not the size of the man in the fight.
It's the size of the fight inside the man.
And, uh.
I had that intuitively.
I had a philosophy of life from the very beginning.
I don't remember looking through the years of inventory.
I couldn't tell you.
It was almost just like second nature that if you ain't making an enemy a day, you ain't cutting it.
And I don't mean making somebody mad enough to just be kind of upset with you.
I mean, making them mad enough.
They want to think about you.
You control them for at least a month or so.
And, uh, and I lived with that philosophy.
I hung around with people that were like that.
I drank with guys that were just, you know.
Good old boys, uh, if you got in jail, they'd get you under, they couldn't get you out.
They'd get in there with you.
You can count on it, you know, and, uh, I grew up on three, two beer and white lightning, love that white lightning.
They used to get that white lightning in them cork fruit jars.
And it looked like white gasoline had things floating around inside in there, man.
It just take your breath away.
It just come right out your pores.
We used to get an old pickle crock and fill it half full of white lightning.
It's about 190 proof.
We'd put it.
Fill it and put about a third of Morgan David wine in there and, uh, uh, a quart of Everclear and, uh, you know, some Welch's grape juice and a chunk of ice.
The ice didn't last long.
We'd hang one of them old dippers in the side of that thing and have a bunch of them tin cups around there and you'd drink that stuff.
And, and, uh, I'll tell you, you drink a couple of cups of that and, uh, and, uh, you know, the men were men.
Sheep run scared.
I'll guarantee it, you know, and I grew up up there in the farming country, you know, and I mean, you know, you want to know how I'm doing.
I thought, I'll tell you, I, I won this belt buckle in a rodeo, that new pickup truck over there is mine.
And honest to God, I just helping that sheep through the fence, you know, I mean, that's just the way we were.
I mean, that's just it.
You can't.
You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.
And that's the way I was.
And, uh, I never intended to do nothing but have a good time, you know, and I did have a good time most of the time, except right in the end.
You know, it always, everything I ever did had good intention.
And, uh, I went to a little country dance one Saturday night and, and, uh, I, uh, had had a run of bad luck there for a little while and been locked up and, and, uh, had been divorced.
And, uh.
Uh, you know, I didn't have a driver's license, didn't have no money, didn't have a job.
I was, I was, I was a prime candidate for a pre Allen on, I was just perfect, just ripe, you know, like a tomato.
You can tell when they're just ripe for somebody to fix, I had nothing going for me, absolutely nothing.
And I went to this little dance and, uh, and I started to fight and because they, uh, the band quit playing.
So I started to fight and, uh.
And, uh, whenever the fight was over, why this lady was standing around her and I asked her to dance and she was handy.
So I asked her to dance and since I'm a quick study, I found out in one quick dance that, uh, you know, she had a car, she had a driver's license, she had a job, she had money in the bank.
She had a place to stay.
She was single.
And, uh, you know, I fell in love, don't take me long.
And, uh, I asked her, why don't you take me home?
And, uh, she said, why don't you take me home with you?
And she didn't have much going on.
And so she said, yeah.
And I said, I stick with me, baby, and I'll take you places you've never been before.
And I did too.
And most of them she didn't want to go, but hell, I took her anyway, you know, and, uh, that was over 32 years ago and, uh, and we're still together, you know, and, and she was sitting right there beside me on the plane all night long.
She didn't sleep much either.
When she did, I woke her up and didn't want her to miss anything.
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And, uh, we went over here to eat this morning and they, they were trying to figure out, you know, trying to forge two or three names on that ticket over there so we could get a meal.
And I just said, have her sign it.
She signs anybody's name good.
Best crime partner I ever had in my life, I guarantee you.
She didn't drink much, didn't use much, always there, ready to drive.
The only problem was she's mean.
You know?
There's people that are ornery and then there's people that are mean.
Just mean.
And I'll tell you what.
You can stand ten women up against that wall over there and I'll get the meanest one every time.
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I love them mean women.
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They're crazy.
The crazier they are, the better I like them.
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There's a couple of them in here, too.
I can feel it.
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They got up early this morning to come out here and find somebody to help.
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Jump right up out of bed and meditate, said, I know he needs me.
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Yeah.
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I'll marry you.
I didn't have no idea what the marriage vows were.
Didn't make any difference.
Wasn't going to study them.
Wasn't going to live up to them.
Didn't make any difference.
I just didn't want to move out.
Didn't have no place to go.
So we got married, and, you know, them sick women start having kids.
Oh, man.
You can't even handle what you got, and then you want to bring something else into it.
Get a kid, you've got to get a dog and a cat.
I attract them sick dogs, man.
I got this 120-pound German Shepherd dog that hated me.
Sent me to obedience class with that dog.
We both got kicked out of obedience class for being violent.
Got a cat.
We got this cat, this crazy cat.
One morning I woke up.
One Saturday morning, drunk, drunk, hungover, hungover.
And she kind of says, you've got to take that cat down to the vet.
Okay.
I figured, oh, that would be a good chance to get a drink, you know.
So I got that old cat in the pickup truck, got me a jug, and he ran under the seat, and I started drinking.
I finally got him down to the vet and went in there and gave him to the vet.
And they said, it won't take long.
Just wait.
And I went back out in the truck.
Had a few more drinks pretty soon.
They waved and come get that cat.
And I went and got that old cat, throwed him in that pickup truck.
And that cat went all over that truck, up and down, around, clawing and scratching.
They cut that sucker's balls off that morning.
They neutered him.
And he never forgot who took him down there.
Hated me from that moment on.
Every time I'd try to lay down and rest, he'd attack me.
I shot at that cat a half a dozen times in my house, tried to shoot that cat.
And that cat always, never could hit him.
And just crazy.
And everybody around there was like that.
Our house was like a combat zone.
And finally we had to move.
And in AA, they call them trips, the geographics.
But when we moved, they called it unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Time to get the hell out of Texas.
So we went.
We went to California.
And, you know, I loaded everything up, and away we went.
Got the dog and the cat and, you know, all this stuff, and away we went.
Took us 30 days to make a trip most people could do in three.
You know, it was just crazy, you know, crazy all the time.
Just fighting and raising hell.
And I'd get drunk, and we'd just have to stay put for a while, and then wake up,
and away we'd go again, rip and tear, drive for a day and a night,
and then figure out where he was going.
And we'd be going in the wrong direction, you know.
You ever do that?
You ever go someplace, and the drunk, and he just gives her hell.
Man, I don't know where we're going, but we're right on time.
Just going, man, going, driving, driving, driving.
Everybody in the car needs to go to the bathroom.
Not me, man.
I'm going to drive until I float.
And you know why drunks do that?
Because when you get there and let them go to the bathroom,
they stay in there longer, and you can drink more before they get back in the car, see.
And, oh, man, I just, just, it just,
it's insane, by the time we got to California, everybody was stark raving nuts,
and, you know, wherever I go, it'd take me, and I'm the first one to get there,
and when I got there, there I was, and I moved right into a neighborhood
with people just like me, more of them.
And I don't know how we can find that.
Alcoholics got a built-in radar, you know.
I'd tell her, we're going to leave this part of the country
and get away from all these crazy people.
We're going to change everything, give them the old story.
You know, we're going to get there and start a new life.
And all the deal, right down to the bottom line,
we're going to get a job, we're going to work hard,
we're going to take care of you, we're going to find a nice house,
we're going to put everybody in there, we're going to have a new neighborhood,
we're going to go down to church, we're going to get baptized.
I'd been baptized, sprinkled, dipped, I'd had it all before I even moved.
I was a Baptist.
Well, I was a buzzard Baptist.
Buzzard Baptist is somebody, the only time they ever went to church
because there's something dead or something to eat.
But I told her, it's going to be dead.
It's going to be dead.
It's going to be dead.
It's going to be different, man.
It's going to be different.
We're going to get there and get the deal, and it's all going to be different.
And, you know, they go right along.
They believe you, and away you go.
It took me 30 days to go someplace that would take you three,
and I'm telling her, oh, it's going to be different.
It was.
It was worse.
And I found a house to move into that a bunch of crazies lived all around the neighborhood, you know,
and we just set up a little light housekeeping there right away,
and the insanity was just worse.
It was worse because where we went, why, it was just more territory, more, you know, more room to run.
That's all.
And new friends, and there was a bunch of hippies living next door to us.
I'd never seen none of them down in Texas.
They had them California hippies, and when we moved in there, you know,
them people were taking LSD and laying in the front yard watching the sun come up and go down,
going blind, wandering around the neighborhood naked, and a weird bunch of people.
Never seen nothing like that down in Texas.
But I went over and talked to them, and there was a couple of them,
a couple of people over there in that house next door, one named Doc and the other named Professor.
And I went over and talked to them about my drinking
because I figured anybody named Doc and Professor knew everything.
And I went, you want to talk to people who have the information that you need.
You ever notice that, an alcoholic?
You've got to go talk to people who know.
And I went and kind of did a little fifth step with these guys,
and they kept eating them sugar cubes, you know, and had them lights flashing.
I was telling them about me, and they said, well, you may be part Indian.
Because your name's Drum.
Well, that makes sense.
Is it 1M or 2M?
1M, Drum.
Oh, you've got to be part Indian.
And if you're part Indian, you can't drink fire water.
You drink fire water, it'll make you crazy.
I said, oh, what'll I do?
And they said, you should smoke tie sticks.
Oh, what's that?
I said, we'll show you.
What do you do when you smoke tie sticks?
Oh, we hang around in the park and wait for the ice cream truck to come by.
I never wanted to hang around in no park and wait for the ice cream truck.
I always wanted to rob the ice cream truck, you know.
Alcoholics don't want to wait for nothing.
But I didn't for a while.
I'll file that away if I ever need it.
Later on, I did.
When I went to AA, I finally ended up in AA, and I remembered that I might be part Indian.
I told them that.
I told them that.
I told them that.
I told them that.
Sorry, my problem.
We all have all that information in case we ever need it.
In case a judge asks you what's wrong with you, I had a judge ask me, he said,
why do you act like you do?
I don't know why people ask people like us why.
If I knew why, I wouldn't be doing it.
I don't know why, that's why I do it, so then I'll know why.
And if I have to think about it very long, it won't be interesting, and I'll get bored with it,
so then it won't make any difference, and it won't be a why.
It'll be,
I'll be asking it, and when they ask it, I'll just tell them whatever they want to know,
and then it drives them crazy.
You ever notice that?
And people get crazy whenever they talk to people like us.
The little vein in their forehead just pulsates.
And it just got crazier, and this lady got crazier, and their life got crazier because that's the way it is.
And I eventually ended up in AA, but I wasn't an alcoholic.
And if you're not really an alcoholic, you're just not an alcoholic.
Yeah.
And I wasn't really an alcoholic.
Everybody said I was an alcoholic but me.
I just said I had a problem.
I didn't know what it was, but whatever it was, I was just on the verge of taking care of it,
so it wasn't a problem.
And so I went to meetings for four months.
And if you're not an alcoholic, you've got to go to meetings for a little while just to prove that you're not an alcoholic.
So I went to one meeting a week for four months to prove I wasn't an alcoholic, and I didn't drink.
Crazy all the time, but I didn't drink.
And eventually I got thirsty, and so I drank.
And I ended up staying drunk for the next four years before I finally came to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And during that period of my life where a lot of things happened, the insanity got worse,
and there was no longer any fun, the violence got worse, and a lot of pain in my family and people around me.
And I drank myself into a corner.
I drank myself into a corner to where there's absolutely no place to go.
And I believe my kind of an alcoholic has to get to that point.
As long as there was any people enabling me, I couldn't sober up.
As long as there was one man, woman, child, dog, or cat that was still enabling me,
if they'd bail me out of jail, if they'd fix me one more time, if they'd nurse me back to health,
if they'd take care of me one more time, I could not come to you and stay, much less admit that I'm an alcoholic.
I ran out of friends and enemies at the same time.
I really did.
I ran out of running room.
Didn't have no other place to go.
I'd been to Alcoholics Anonymous and didn't really think it would work, but I had no other place to go.
And I'm grateful to the people in Alcoholics Anonymous, the old-timers, the believers,
and Alcoholics Anonymous, the way Alcoholics Anonymous is described in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
A man, a little gray-headed man, made a 12-step call on me and came to my house and introduced me to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And he took me, and he could tell that I was so sick that I could not just take a cup of coffee and go to a meeting.
And he put me in this old detox with these other 38 drunks, and he told me to stay there until it was time to leave.
And my wife was just crazy, and the kid was crazy and just insane over there.
They didn't know what.
They didn't know what was going on, and neither did I.
I just, I gave up.
You know, I believe you have to get to that point.
I don't think I had a spiritual awakening necessarily at that point.
I think I just gave up.
And I'm not going to tell you.
There's an amazing thing about my kind of an alcoholic.
I don't know about you, but I can give up knowing I'd given up a long time before I gave up.
But I didn't, when that guy came to my house, I didn't meet him with open arms and say, you know, I love you.
I can't hardly wait to go to an AA meeting.
I stuck a gun right in his face and said, if you take me back to one of them nut wards,
I've been to them nut wards more times than I've been anywhere else at that period of my life.
I said, if you can take me to the nut wards, I'm going to kill you and them and everybody else.
And that little man, little Jack, he's still sober, and I talk to him once a week.
He's a beautiful little man.
He did something he's never done before or since.
He grabbed that gun out of my hand, threw it on the couch, and he said, now, if you want to commit suicide, you've got to crowd.
I'll wait.
And he said, if you want to stay sober, come go with me.
You don't ever have to take a drink again as long as you live if you don't want to.
And he said, I'll give you a better deal on that.
I'll add a little bit on that.
And I love the old-timers know how to set the hook.
And he set the hook.
He said, you don't ever have to be lonely again as long as you live if you don't want to.
God, I knew the loneliness.
Knew that loneliness.
Man, I know that loneliness.
Hate, hate that loneliness.
The wind blowing through that hole in my gut.
And I knew that loneliness.
I had no idea how I could stop drinking.
But when he said, you know, you don't ever have to be lonely again as long as you live, I bought the deal.
And I followed him like a puppy dog.
And he took me and put me in that detox, and I stayed in there over a month.
And they finally let me out.
They brought a guy in there that, you know, I don't know if you've got them hospital and institution things.
And I'm real active in H&I work.
And my wife is.
We go to prisons, both of us, and carry the message because that's really how we got ours, through a 12-step call and institution work.
And this guy, they brought these AAs over there to this old detox.
And.
There's one little guy kept coming over there all the time, just, I mean, he's just, he's just always there.
He went to meetings all the time.
His name, they call him Rotten Ron.
He's a little guy, you know.
And he went to meetings all the time.
He went to meetings in the morning, and he went to meetings at noon.
He went to meetings in the afternoon.
He went to meetings at night.
He went to the late meetings.
He went to the early meetings.
He went to meetings all the time.
And he come up to me just right before I was about ready to get out, and he said, I'm your sponsor.
I said, what's that, a friend?
And he said, no, if you want a friend, get a dog.
I had a 125-pound German Shepherd dog that hated me.
And he looked me right in the eye, and he said, you know, all them guys that come in on that panel, there's about a dozen of us come in on that panel.
He said, we drew straws for you, and I lost.
He said, I don't like you.
And I said, well, I don't like you.
He said, that is not necessary.
He said, I'm your sponsor, and I'll come and get you when it's time for you to leave.
And so they come and got me, and they took me over to this house.
Now, this house I lived in at that time, where Sue and Simone lived, my wife and daughter, there wasn't a door jam in that house that didn't, you know, hadn't been exploded.
And some of them had C-clamps, them old wood C-clamps holding it together so you could shut the door.
And there wasn't, I don't think there was a window in that house that hadn't been knocked out.
There wasn't a window in that house that didn't have a hole in it or crack in it.
Most of them had tapes across it.
The front door had old pressed wood up on it because I just go through the front door.
And the front yard didn't have no grass.
It just had a lot of dandelions, you know.
You could take, I'd take the old air compressor, fire it up, and take my air hose out there and mow the front yard.
You just blow the tops off them dandelions, you mower.
And my sponsor come and got me and took me over to the house.
I run up and knocked on the front door.
And Sue came to the front door.
And I said, I've got to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every day for the rest of my life.
What are you going to do?
She just reared back and looked at me and said, well, I've been going to Al-Anon.
And the kids have been going to Alley T.
And the dogs have been going to Alley Dog.
And the cats have been going to Alley Cat.
What are you going to do, dummy?
I didn't know what to say.
My sponsor was backing out of the driveway.
So I went in and waited long enough for him to get home.
And I called him and I said, she's going to Al-Anon.
He said, good.
Then it won't be necessary for you to tell her what's wrong with her ever again.
I immediately thought, if I don't tell her, who will?
Somebody's got to tell her what's wrong with her.
But I didn't say nothing.
And he said, don't you do anything and I'll come and get you and take you to a meeting.
And he started taking me to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He had an old van and it had no nothing in it, stripped vans.
He had some old orange crates sitting in the back of it.
And he'd pick up all us newcomers.
And he'd start taking us to meetings.
And we'd sit on them orange crates.
And he'd gas it at a light.
And we'd all us newcomers would slide to the back of the van.
Then he'd run up to the next light, hit the brake, and we'd all slide up front.
I just riddled with insanity when I was new.
I'd just hate.
You could just feel the hate coming out of me.
People would sit down next to me, you know, going to a meeting.
And he'd take us there early.
And he'd say, we go in there and sit down.
And I'd sit down.
And we'd have a cup of coffee.
And you could just feel it.
You could smell the hate coming out of me.
I mean, I knew I was an alcoholic, but I had problems when I sobered up.
I got problems.
The book says the waves of the past will roll over you when you get here.
I had mountains of stuff.
I was out there.
I had problems.
I owed lots of money to people who you can't write them a letter and say,
I'll send you $100 a month.
Every dime I owed was all due yesterday.
I had this crazy woman who was going to Al-Anon who
had released me.
And I had this kid that was running around the house like a wounded animal.
I had this sponsor that hated me.
And I was riding around in this old van with a bunch of people that were nuts,
absolutely nuts.
And they said I had to go to work and pay my debts.
And I'm trying to figure out how to do that.
And they said I had to have a spiritual experience in order to stay sober.
And I'm trying to figure out how you do that.
Guns all the time.
And I carried guns when I sobered up.
I'd have a gun in each boot and one in my belt.
Sometimes I had so many guns on me, if you'd have bumped into me, there'd have been nothing
but a mushroom cloud.
I'm grateful they had meetings where it's okay.
Now there's meetings, and then there's meetings, and then there's meetings.
And I went to men's stags.
You know, old-timers have to know how to treat certain kinds of drunks.
And that's good.
That's what you come here.
You come here to these things.
You hear the message, but you go back out into your meetings.
And there's meetings that people used to say.
One time they told this old-timer over on the spiritual side of town, said, what are
you going to do about it?
What about Keith Drunk?
He said, I'm going to leave him alone.
Said, I'm glad he's going to that meeting on the other side of town, because if he's
over there, he's leaving us alone, because I did not sober up and everything's wonderful.
I sobered up, and I'm stark raving nuts.
I wanted to drink all the time.
I would sit in the meetings, and they'd call on me a couple of times, and then they wouldn't
let me share no more.
Because all I could talk about is, I want to drink.
I want to drink.
All I think about is wanting to drink.
If you think about wanting to drink, then you talk about wanting to drink, then you
just think more about wanting to drink.
And they said, don't talk about that.
Don't say nothing.
You can come to these meetings, and you say you're an alcoholic, and anything after that,
just circumstantial evidence.
And they wouldn't let me say nothing for a year.
They wouldn't let me read.
They wouldn't let me do nothing.
And my sponsor would take me to these meetings.
I'd go to these meetings.
I finally snuck off and went to meetings up in Wyoming.
I'd go to these meetings.
I went to meetings up in Wyoming.
After I was about eight or nine months sober, I went to meetings up in Wyoming.
I got away from my sponsor for a little while trying to work, and I went to meetings up
in Wyoming at the Evanston State Wyoming Nut Board.
You can be a spiritual giant up there without even going a year.
Most of those people are on Thorazine.
They just walk around and blow little bubbles.
I'd talk to this one guy about God, and he'd blow little bubbles and kind of look at me.
And I became a spiritual giant up there.
And I couldn't hardly wait to get home and tell my wife about my spiritual experience,
you know.
She'd already had one.
Al-Anons do that, you know.
They always have the spiritual experience before the alcoholic.
She had it.
She was so happy that she had it.
She had to tell me about it, and I was so mad that she had it first.
I said, I'm supposed to have the spiritual experience first.
She said, well, I don't know when you're going to have yours.
I've had mine.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And I went back up to the nut ward and I talked to those people about that.
And after going to meetings up there a little while, I come home and I told her, get in
the bedroom.
I'm horny.
I've saved myself for you.
You know how we are when we sober up.
And she said, I've done a sex inventory in the Al-Anon meetings with my sponsor, and
I've discovered that you have made love to me in 10 years.
You've raped me on a regular basis.
That's a hell of a way to treat a spiritual giant, you know that?
he said matter of fact tonight you're sleeping on the couch so i went in and laid down on the couch
and i'm thinking about all this and about midnight them hippies next door started mowing their
backyard and she come running down the hallway said they're out there mowing their backyard i
said the hell they are running down the hallway grab my old 44 mag run out and leaned over the
fence and blowed that hippie's lawnmower all to hell his eyes that big around man no 44 flashed
and blew that lawnmower up next day or two them hippies moved out of the neighborhood
i was single-handedly cleaning up a neighborhood that had been corrupt for years
she took me in there and throwed one on me and said i just love you when you're a hero
never can figure them out
i know that sounds crazy but that's the way i was when i was new i just
just and i'd go
a long way and then i'd be like oh i'm not going to be taken care of by you
i'd go a long way and then i'd be like oh i'm not going to be taken care of by you
these men's stag meetings
because their native tongue was profanity.
I didn't come here and say,
you've got to quit cussing.
I would have imploded.
I didn't know how to express myself
unless I had this.
And I'm grateful the old-timers
that were around me knew where to take me.
They took me to meetings where that's okay.
They took me to men's stag meeting.
And I'd sit in there
and I'd just be able to run this insanity out.
And these guys,
oh, they had some sick dudes in there.
I can tell you.
After you've been sober a little while,
you can tell who's sick and who ain't.
And a couple of these guys were sick, sick.
And I'd sit in there and I'd think,
I'm going to kill that guy.
I'm going to do the world a favor.
And I'd take what he'd be sure.
And I'd take my old gun out of my boot,
an old .44,
and I'd take my bullet out
and I'd take the Pentatel pen
and I'd write his name on that bullet
while he's talking.
And I'd hold it up and I'd say,
I'm going to kill you after the meeting.
You know how owkies are.
You can't scare them.
They just keep telling that trash,
you know, and dumping it.
And then the meeting would be over
and they'd say the closing prayer
and I'd forget which one I was going to kill first.
This cop, this sober cop,
gave me an old grenade.
He said,
here, when it gets bad enough,
put this in your mouth and pull the pen.
For you, that'll be a fifth step.
They were not nice to me.
I figured next week I'm going to come back
and throw this grenade in here and kill them all.
And they'd hug me.
They'd grab me and hug me and hold on.
Oh,
I hated that.
God,
I hate that.
I hated it.
Now I just love to hug them newcomers.
You know,
they just try to get away from me.
Boy,
them guys that hold on to me
are not just trying to get away,
you know.
They told me,
you know,
I just,
you know,
they said things like,
you've got to work the steps.
I did an immoral inventory.
Got to do that first,
get it out of the way.
I mean,
that's the stupidest thing I ever heard.
That big book says,
men and women drink for the effect.
The effect is after some amount
of consumption,
you can't distinguish the difference
between true and false,
right and wrong.
That's the definition of a sociopath.
That's somebody who does not have a conscience.
And then you come here
and sober up and say,
do a moral inventory.
How can you do a moral inventory
if you don't know the difference
between right and wrong?
So you have to do
an immoral inventory first.
And the reason you have to do that
is so you can try to impress
the old timers.
You can't impress them.
You ever try that?
I'd tell them some of my
sick,
sick,
sick stuff.
And as soon as I'd give them
my best,
best shot,
they'd tell me something sicker.
I told that guy one time,
I said,
I know some of that stuff
you told me had to be a lie
because some of that stuff
you said you did,
I went home and tried to do it
and you can't do it.
Physically,
you can't do it.
I mean,
I sobered up
and I've been with this lady
all this time
and she's going down and on
and the kid's going to Alateen
and I mean,
that was not an easy thing.
The kid didn't want to go to Alateen
and I said,
you've got to go to Alateen.
I've got to go to AA,
you've got to go to Alateen.
The whole family's been
sentenced here.
And she cried
and she'd go drink that
Tabasco sauce
and mustard water
and throw up
and I'd just get an old coffee can
and say,
get in the car.
And she'd come out of
them Alamein meetings,
their Alateen meetings
and she'd say,
all they talk about in there
is sex, drugs,
and rock and roll.
And I'd laugh,
sounds like home,
don't it?
We made that kid
Sue took her
to most of the meetings
and I intimidated her.
She was young enough
to be intimidated
at the time,
12 and a half,
13 years old
and we made her go to Alateen
and I'm so grateful
we did that.
She hated us
for a year and a half
and that was okay.
She hated us anyway.
I think it's very hypocritical
just my opinion
but I don't see how anybody
could come to this program
and reap the rewards
of this way of life
and deny their children
of the same thing.
You know.
How could you
be so pompous
to come here
and find a spiritual way
of life
that turns your whole life
around and gives you
everything you ever wanted
and then say,
I can't make my kid
go to Alateen
because I've hurt him enough.
Jesus.
You know.
My daughter today
is one of the
very,
very successful
model
and she lives
in Milan, Italy.
She works
with some of the greatest
clothes designers
in the world.
She's a ramp model
and she comes out
on a ramp
and models these clothes
and she walks around
this room
in front of people
from all nations
who send buyers there
to these big Paris fashion shows
and some of those things.
You can't come out
of the disease of alcoholism
to that ramp model
without living
this way of programming.
The rejection will kill you.
It's like trying
to be a movie star.
I mean,
many times
they'd have her
and she'd go for these
trying to get a job
as a model
and she didn't have
the look that they wanted
so they'd just
get out of here
and until she could
apply the principles
in this program
in her life
could she understand
that she didn't have
to take that,
that's personal
and once she could do that
and let the program
work in her life
why she's become
a successful model.
So you see,
I don't tell you
she's a successful model
so I can tell you
that it's a success story.
I'm telling you,
I told that goddamn kid
she had to go to Alateen
and as a result of that
she became
a successful model
and a good member
of Al-Anon
see,
very active member
of Al-Anon today
and she'll tell you that
see,
and that's the way
I was when I sobered up.
I gotta go,
you gotta go
and you know,
I rained my wrath
on people around there.
I mean,
I didn't necessarily
try to sober up
everybody in the neighborhood
but in the same way
with Sue's drinking.
Sue's not an alcoholic
but she,
you know,
they told her
when I sobered up
said,
you know,
you can't make
everybody around you
not drink
and like I told you,
I wanted to drink
all the time.
All the time.
And Sue enjoyed
having a beer
with Mexican food
or you know,
a little wine with pizza
or something,
you know,
she enjoyed the taste.
She tried to drink
with me a couple of times
but she'd get sick
and all that stuff
but you know,
drinking was a part
of her life
and they told me
when I sobered up
I couldn't make her,
you know,
I couldn't deprive her of that.
I can't go turn a TV off
just because they got
a beer commercial.
I mean,
all them things
were questions
when I was new
that were driving me crazy
and here,
you know,
we'd go out to eat
and Sue'd order a drink
and I'd just,
I'd sit there
and look at it
and you know,
she might take a sip.
One of the things
and she'd have them
take it away.
One of the things
whenever I sobered up,
you know,
I mean,
they told me
certain principles.
I had to learn
what the marriage vows were.
There were certain principles,
family principles.
My sponsor told me,
he said,
you know,
you come in here
and be wonderful
in one of these meetings
for an hour and a half
or an hour
or whatever it is
around here,
that's great
but what are you doing
at home?
That's where you got sick.
That's where you got to get,
you know,
recovery
and they pounded
those kind of principles
on me
that I got to change
in that area
and that I can't run around
on my wife
and I can't,
you know,
do a lot of the things
that I used to do.
There's a lot of physical
violence in that home
and when I sobered up,
the physical violence
had to leave
just like abstinence
from alcohol.
People said,
what did you do
with that anger?
I used to run home
and we'd have
that physical fight.
Matter of fact,
Sue and I
got to the point
that we couldn't make love
unless we'd beat
the hell out of each other
previously
because you have to make,
I mean,
there are some sick
relationships like that
and that's the way ours was.
The only problem
was is that now
I'm sober
and we cannot have
this physical violence.
It's unacceptable.
If I do that,
I'm going to drink
because once I got
that kind of anger going,
I'd get so blinded
by the anger
you could stick a drink
in my hand
and I'd drink it.
I wouldn't even know
and that abstinence
from that physical violence
had to come the same
as abstinence from alcohol
and when I had
that awareness,
my sponsor explained
that to me.
You'd go home
and you'd get in that fight
and punch her
and then the gill would come
and then you'd leave
and go drink.
You can't stay sober
if you go home
from a meeting
and punch your old lady.
And I went home
and she started
getting my face
and that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I said,
get out of my face
and she took one step closer
like she always did
and I said,
get out of my face.
I'm not going to
hit you anymore.
I can't hit you
and stay sober.
You're going to have
to fix yourself.
Oh, the fight's over.
Now them games
that I used to run
out at the house
and she used to run
at the jigs up.
And I had to make
those kind of changes
in order to stay sober.
And I'm grateful
that there's people
in Alcoholics Anonymous
that taught me those things.
And I said,
what do I do with this thing?
I said, you go to meetings early,
set the chairs up,
you go, you know,
clean up the coffee pots,
you clean up the cups,
you set it out,
you go down
and you don't go
on 12-step calls.
I went on 12-step calls
and my sponsor
went on 12-step calls
all the time.
He'd take me on 12-step calls.
We'd go on these
12-step calls, you know.
And I'd go to her motel
and say,
some guy be drunk,
drunk, everybody's left
and, you know,
he lost his job
and everything else.
Need help, need help real bad.
And I'd sit there,
I was new,
I'd listen to all this stuff.
My sponsor talked to him,
person, that old drunk,
get up, look under the bed.
Then he didn't need us anymore.
I don't know what he had
and he either found his billfold
or found that bottle
of the keys to his car,
but he didn't need us anymore.
I knew that
and we'd get in the car
and leave.
And I'd think,
well, what, you know,
and he'd just take me
on these 12-step calls
all the time.
And I'm trying to work
the steps myself.
I'm trying to find out
about me.
And I owed all this money.
I had to go borrow some money
and try to pay my debts
and I tried to do
the right thing.
My wife went to Al-Anon
and she never did
deprive me of the privilege
of making my financial amends
to other people.
She has never deprived me
of that privilege,
I'll guarantee you.
It's your debt,
you make it,
you pay it.
And that's the way
they taught me.
They said,
if you borrowed $100,
that amends is not made
until you give that guy
$100.
Saying, I'm sorry,
I ain't going to cut it.
And my wife was working
and doing these things
and working a program
so that I could do those things.
And she went to a Christmas party
and she had a couple of drinks.
She'd come home,
I just went crazy.
I said, where you been?
She said, I went to a Christmas party
and had a couple of drinks.
And I said,
I can't handle that.
What are you going to do now?
She said, I'm going to go
lead an Al-Anon meeting.
Just drove me crazy.
Just went crazy.
You know,
because we'd try to change
some of those things
when I'd leave.
I'd kiss her goodbye
and when I'd come home
I'd kiss her.
And she'd have booze
on her breath.
I couldn't kiss her.
They were supposed to have
healing in that home
and she's got booze breath.
Besides that,
I went and talked to this old timer
and he said,
you can't kiss them drunk girls
the mouth and stay sober.
It'll make you thirstier.
And I told her,
I said, you know,
I'm going to kill you.
People say you can't stop
everybody around you
from drinking.
You can't get all the booze
out of the house.
I said,
I can't drink.
That's chapter three says
the greatest illusion
of every alcoholic
is you're going to return
to normal drinking.
You're going to having
a cocktail here
or going to a party there
or having a drink.
Come home,
want to kiss me on the lips
of that booze breath
and it's driving me crazy.
She went over
to her sponsor's house
and did an inventory on that.
Come home,
she said,
I did an inventory on that
and my sponsor and I
discovered a very simple thing.
Why would I want to put
something on me
that has caused me
so much pain all these years?
So as of right now,
I'm never going to drink again.
How the hell can you do that?
How can you just,
quit like that?
She said,
because I'm not an alcoholic.
She just quit.
Never had a drink since.
Been 14, 15 years.
That just drives me crazy.
How do you,
first I was crazy
because she'd go out
and have one drink.
Then I was crazy
how can you just stop like that?
And taught me a lot of things.
We had no booze in our house.
And I didn't know
what was going on.
Did the inventory,
did all that stuff.
She went and got involved
in the service.
She heard my job
and my daughter got involved
in the service
and they didn't die.
So I tried it.
And then they went
and got involved in the steps
and they didn't die.
And so I tried it.
Tell my sponsor,
my wife and daughter
just went and did their inventory.
And they feel better.
My sponsor said,
well, why don't you try it?
And so I tried it
and I felt better.
And amazing thing,
we was trucking right along there,
you know,
doing the right thing.
And I didn't know,
you know,
by the time I was three years sober,
I was stark raving insane.
Just crazy.
Because there ain't nothing worse
than having a deal
and not knowing
what to do with it.
So here I am,
I'm three years sober,
I'm just trucking along
and doing the steps,
working things,
trying to do this thing at home,
being faithful to my wife,
you know,
paying the bills,
paying my financial amends
and I'm just nuts.
I'd sit in meetings
and I'd hear people talk about
how it was wonderful
and everything's fine.
And I cleaned up my act
a little bit.
You know,
my sponsor took me down
with some guy he sponsored
and they got me
a nice set of threads,
you know,
and they got me a nice car,
a big AA car.
If you've been here
a couple of three years,
you've got to get you
a big AA car,
you know,
park it right in front
of the meeting
so the newcomers
will have hope,
you know.
They got me all fixed up.
I was ready
and I was standing
in this meeting one day
and I didn't know
what was going on.
I was just crazy
standing there
with my grenade in my hand
just trying to figure out
what I'm sticking my mouth
and blowing my head off,
you know.
I was just nuts.
And I love the old timers
that, you know,
they know the timing.
They know when you're ready,
man.
They know when you're ripe.
They know when it's time.
And I was standing
in this meeting
and I looked around
and this weirdo
was standing next to me,
the weirdest looking guy
I'd ever seen.
I said,
I've seen him in a meeting
the night before.
He was the treasurer
of the meeting
and they'd ask him
to give a treasurer's report
and he stood up
and said,
I stole the money
and I ain't paying it back.
He's standing next to me
and his hair's sticking out
everywhere.
I had one of them
little welder's caps
on with strawberries
and cherries on it,
you know,
goofy little guy.
You know,
I was kind of waiting
for some doctor,
lawyer,
parole officer,
cop or somebody
to come along
and ask me
to be their sponsor.
You know,
I was just waiting
for somebody special
and this guy
pulls up beside me
and I said,
why don't you comb your hair?
It just stuck out everywhere.
He'd give himself a permanent
and just had things
hanging out,
you know.
And his head
looked like he'd
fired up one of them
five dollar cigars
and then rammed it
into the wall
just kind of.
And he wasn't
short enough to be a man
or tall enough
to be a midget,
just weird,
you know,
just weird.
So what do you want?
And he said,
will you be my sponsor?
I said,
oh Jesus,
man,
I can't even
take care of myself.
And I went over
to my sponsor
and I told this weirdo,
I said,
here,
hold my grenade,
you know,
I'm going to go
over to my sponsor
who stood on the other
side of the room.
My sponsor
wouldn't stand next to me.
I went over there
and I said,
see that weirdo over there?
And he said,
yeah.
And I said,
well,
he just asked me
to be his sponsor.
And my sponsor says,
yeah,
I know,
I sent him over there.
I said,
you go back
and tell him
you'll be his sponsor
and do exactly
what he says.
And that didn't make sense
to me then or now,
but I didn't argue with him
and I went back
over to this weirdo
and I said,
my sponsor says
I've got to be your sponsor,
what do you want to do?
And he said,
I want to go
for a ride in your Lincoln.
I got him in the car
and we started going
to meetings
of Alcoholics Anonymous
and we'd go to them
meetings all the time
and he'd talk
that sick stuff
all the way to the meeting,
all the way home
and then right before
he'd get to the house
he'd say,
did you ever do anything
like that?
And I said,
yeah.
And I'd start telling him
some of my sick stuff
and he'd say,
man,
you're the sickest sucker
I know,
man,
we need help,
you know.
I'd say,
okay,
I'll come and get you
tomorrow night
and I'd go get him
the next night
and I'd start taking
the meetings.
An amazing thing,
you know,
I was telling that guy
to do things
that,
you know,
I knew I shouldn't
be doing
and I started applying
those things
in my own home
because I was telling
him to do it
and he started
asking me questions
out of the book
so I had to read
the book
and he started
asking me questions
that I didn't know
where the answers were
so I had to go
to my sponsor
and he'd give me
questions
and I didn't know
that my sponsor
was telling this guy
the questions.
That's why sponsors
always know the answers
because they send
that goof over here
to ask you.
You ever notice that?
They call that
the chain of sponsorship.
All that means
is that your sponsor
is telling your baby
what to ask you
so you'll have
to go to him
and ask him
the answer
to the question
which he already knew
because he sent
the question.
Drives you crazy.
I said,
how do you know
all this shit?
I thought he was smart.
He just had a list
of questions
and this guy
was just crazy
and an amazing thing.
He ended up
going up to my house
and he couldn't
read or write
and we started
working the steps
together.
That one day
and he started talking
and I started writing
and I literally
wrote his fourth step
and he verbalized
it to me
and I wrote it all down
to ask him questions
and then he asked me
that stupid thing,
you know,
did you ever do anything
like this?
And I started thinking
about a couple of things
I'd forgotten to tell
my sponsor
when I did my fifth step
and I knew God
was in the room
and he couldn't read it
so I just put
some of my stuff
in his.
That's what it's all about,
getting it out,
you know,
and we burn it
and, you know,
and that's what
the whole deal is,
one drunk talking
to another drunk.
That guy jumped up
and hugged me
and said,
I love you
and I've been doing that,
you know,
from that day to this,
this yesterday evening
while a couple of guys
I sponsor
and a couple of guys
they sponsor,
one or two of them
took Sue and I
to the airport
to come here
and there'll be
a couple of them
there to meet us
when we come home
and our whole life
is full of people
that love us
and we love them.
You can say,
you know,
that's sponsorship
or you can say
that's the program
or you can say
a lot of things
but the bottom line is
it's people that we love
and that love us
and coming from a guy
who, you know,
lived for many years
under the illusion
that the only way
I was making it
successful
was to make an enemy
a day
to a complete
180 degree turn
to the point that,
you know,
today without
even realizing
that I meet people
that love me
and I love them
every day.
Every day
I'm with people like that
and it's amazing,
you know,
the different,
the perspective
of my life
and of what I see
in life
by just changing that.
It's a change of attitude.
It's something,
if you're new
or relatively new,
it takes time
and it took me time.
It didn't really
make any difference
if all the people
I sobered up with
didn't make it.
It didn't make any difference,
you know,
if my sponsor
decided not to do it anymore
and he had to go and drink.
It didn't make any difference
if the group
that I went to,
you know,
broke up.
It didn't make any difference
if a lot of things
changed in Alcoholics Anonymous
because a lot of changes
in Alcoholics Anonymous
people,
places,
and,
and the same.
The difference is
that I've found
a program
that I've tried
to adapt my life to
and I've changed.
See,
that's the whole ball of whack.
You know,
the same man
will drink again.
That's what they told me.
And if I don't say
nothing else,
I'm going to tell you this.
The same man
or lady
will drink again.
You've got to change.
A drunk,
an alcoholic
is just a drunk
with a conscience
and you come here
and these steps
and these principles
in our life,
we start applying them.
And I can stand here
and tell you
that I love that lady more
than I've ever loved anyone
and the reason is
because we have longevity.
We've been together
for 32 years.
We've been together.
16 years of drunkenness
and 16 years of sobriety.
And there's certain values
and certain actions
that go with that.
If you come here
and apply these principles
in your life,
it's not just,
oh, I found AA
and Al-Anon
and everything's
going to be wonderful.
That's an illusion.
To come here
and find this program
and find this program
is a way of life.
And you come here
and you take the actions
as a result of the actions
after taking the actions
for some period of time,
it becomes a way of life.
And what I have
in that relationship
with the people
that I live with
and that lady is trust.
I love it
when a newcomer
comes here and says,
I'll do my fifth step
but I don't trust anyone.
That's probably
the most honest thing
they can say
because they're not trustworthy.
You can't trust anyone
if you're not trustworthy.
If you're a liar,
a liar,
cheating,
a thief,
you're never going
to be able
to trust anybody.
You see,
being a thief
is not that I'm afraid
I'm going to steal
or what I'm going to steal
is being a thief
means that I don't
trust myself.
God,
what a deception.
And I come here
and I apply these principles
in my life
and little by little
I've had to change.
And I haven't cheated
on that lady
since May the 11th,
1976.
And what we have
is trust.
What that gives us
is a bond.
If you're new
or relatively new,
I don't know about you
and you're kind of an alcoholic
but I'll tell you about mine.
I couldn't come here
and trust God
and then take that out
and apply it in my life.
I had to come here
and learn to trust you.
In learning to trust you,
I learned to trust me
and when I learned to trust me,
I took those actions
and those principles
and applied it
in my daily affairs
and developed a relationship
and a value
with the people around me
and then discovered
I trust my God
because I am taking
the actions
with the people around me
and then I recognize
that I'm taking those actions
and I have that faith
with a power greater than me.
If you're new
or relatively new,
don't look for something
that isn't here.
Come here and hang on.
Hold on to this deal.
I woke up one day
and I dawned on me.
I get up very early
every morning,
four o'clock every morning
and I hit the deck
and I hit them streets
out there
and I hold my head up
with a little dignity,
something I didn't know
anything about.
And I walk around out there
all day
and I mix with the best ones,
the tall ones,
the short ones,
the rich ones
and the poor ones
and I walk out there
on that day
and I got a job
and I show up for that job
and I got a boss
and I treat him with respect.
I got a boss
that's worked the same job
for 50 years.
Can you imagine that?
50 years.
You don't know nothing.
Dumbest guy I've ever seen.
But I learned in here
to treat you
if you say you got
30 years or 50 years,
you tell me you got
50 years of sobriety,
I'll hang around
you long enough
to validate it
and then I'll trust you
and I'll respect it
no matter what you do
in your personal life.
And I learned that in here
and that's the way
I can treat my boss.
As a result of that
there's some people
I sponsor
that have been able
to get a job
and they've been able
to go to work
and apply the same
principles in their life.
Because of that
I can make it
through a full day.
You know we say
we do it one day at a time.
Come here and you do it
one day at a time.
That's all you got to do.
But there's more to it
than that.
You'll know that
these principles
of this program
is working in your life
when you've looked
back on the day
at the end of the day
and your head's laying
on that pillow.
And you know
beyond a shadow of a doubt
you've been out there
on the streets
all day long.
You've been mixing
with the best of them.
And you ain't had to
crawl before nobody man.
You've held your own.
Admit when you's wrong
and carry the rest
on down the road
with a little self-worth.
At the end of that day
your head laying
on that pillow
you look back on that day
and you know one thing
beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You ain't seen nobody
or thought of nobody
you'd rather be
than yourself.
That's the deal.
That's what I look for
in every drink.
Be able to make it through
one day.
One day.
And hold my head up.
I didn't have to
outthink, outperform
or outmaneuver nobody man.
I just had to walk out there
on them streets
and hold my head up.
Walk with a little dignity.
Let a little sunlight
shine in somebody else's life.
Do something for somebody else.
Not have to get a stroke for it
but to know two inches
behind my belly button
I did something
to make somebody else's day
a little better.
And I can do the things
like that
one day at a time.
And I've had a lot of good days.
I've had some painful days
but I had me a lot of good days
in 16 years.
And I can stand here
and tell you
beyond a shadow of a doubt
what you give me
you can't buy.
You have to earn it.
I heard a guy say
when I was relatively new
he said I love you all
and I thought man
you don't know me.
You don't know me.
If you knew me
you couldn't say that.
I can stand here today
I've stayed here long enough
to say I love you all.
And the reason I can say that
is because not what you are
individually
but collectively
when you come to places
like that
and I'm with you
what I am
when I'm with you
is what makes me
love you.
Because on one cold day
you took a stumble bum
drunk like me
and said come in.
Come on in
you're welcome.
You're home.
Not knowing I believed.
I believed
because I saw something
I'd never seen before.
I saw the sweet smell
of success.
And it wasn't a sign
or a big deal.
It wasn't a big car
or a dollar sign.
It was a simple guy
standing there saying
look at me man.
I made it today
and I didn't have to
pick up a drink.
I didn't have to sell
my soul for a drink.
I didn't have to crawl
on my knees
to beg you to get back
in my own house.
How'd you like to have that kid?
And I said I'd give anything
and everything for that.
And he said
that's what it'll cost you.
Because it won't take much
just every damn thing
you got and then some.
But then it'll be worth it.
Because then one day
you'll be able to walk out there
and hold your head up.
And know beyond a shadow
of a doubt
you're who you always
wanted to be.
Just being yourself.
If you're new
or relatively new
you're here
you may not want what I got.
But I'll go home tonight
and pray like hell
you stay until you want
what you got.
God bless and thank you.