White-Knuckle Sobriety as the Most Insane Period of an Alcoholic’s Life – Jack Q.

Good afternoon. My name is Jack, and I am an alcoholic. I see Gary got sober in 75, but he had the most sobriety up here. He's already left. Joe, you got sober in 77, and you're going to leave, right? You don't have anything to say that you'd want to hear anyway. Could I see a show of hands of the folks who are here with less than six months in Alcoholics Anonymous since your last drink? Okay, great. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming. I sincerely appreciate your being here, and I hope that we're able to do something in the next three or four hours that will be of benefit. Fred. I said that we were going to have two breaks, but he already used up the first ten-minute break getting me up here. So I'm not sure what's going to happen. If you have to get up, go out, smoke a cigarette, go to the restroom, or you're just tired of hearing me, please get up, leave, take a break, come back. I will try. The tapers have got me under orders, and you know how they are. I do want to get my free set of tapes. I'm going to put my watch on. I'm going to put my watch up here, not because I pay any attention to it or I can actually see it because the lights are really bright, but I just think putting it up here gives hope to the newcomer. I think it's real important that I say that I am not a spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous, nor am I an expert on Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm merely somebody who's been invited here to share my experience, strength, and hope. And I thought originally I'd been invited here to share my experience, strength, and hope. I've been invited to talk about my favorite topic, which of course is me. But I didn't saw on the program I'm supposed to talk about the steps, and I'll try to mention them in the course of the time we're together. I get done. If you would, I'm going to need an extra set of this lead to take back to my guy, Chuck, who I talked to earlier this morning on the phone. He actually remembered that I was in the program. He's in Nebraska, and I thought that was progress. He's got a week yesterday, and so we're hopeful. Chuck had 23 years of not drinking, and he went back out April a year ago. Not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but he picked up a drink April of 2005, and he hasn't been able to stop since. And so he's trying Alcoholics Anonymous, and we know. I know that Alcoholics Anonymous works if I stay here and I don't quit. And so I hope Chuck stays here and doesn't quit. I'm really happy that Fred indicated that there were 1,600 people registered for this event, because I think it's important that Chuck know how many people have come here to hear what I say. And please, make noise at any time, because I want him to know that the ballroom's full. It's unclear to me what Chuck's going to do with this set of tapes, and he doesn't really pay much attention to me when he's sitting right across the table from me. But I'm anxious. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. I also talked to my mom before I came down here from the room this afternoon. My mom is 91 years old, and she was married to my alcoholic father for 30 years. And she's always amazed that I'm invited to do this stuff, because she is absolutely sure that I am not. I'm not an alcoholic. And she told me this afternoon, she says, Son, you know, I know that you are not an alcoholic. I'd like to, I want to listen to my mom. I think it's about time I started listening to my mom. It could be that I have overreacted to this whole thing. You know, usually on these events, I am told that the Cornhusker asked an alcoholic to speak at this function. And so my wife, or my wife, my mom is really, she's, she's mystified as to why I'd be asked to come. And quite frankly, there is some confusion within my own self, because I have found out in Alcoholics Anonymous, there are certain things that have a lot of cachet in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't have, I don't have this stuff. And I don't know, I don't know. I've never been to prison. I've never been to jail. Never been arrested. Never got a drunk driving, or DUI, or DWI. If I don't screw this thing up, come Sunday, my wife and I are going to be married 40 years. And I know, I know Peg and Dick celebrated a 40-year anniversary just last week. And I think that's a real clear indication that you really don't have to get divorced to be in Alcoholics Anonymous. You can, you can be married and be in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I have only been married once. Now, I do have to acknowledge that we were separated three times. When I was drinking, and separated three times when I wasn't drinking. And so my wife's been married for 40 years. And I've had momentary lapses, about which I will discuss in a little bit. But I've never lost a job because of drinking. I don't have any children born out of wedlock. I don't even have a good tattoo. So you're probably wondering how I got invited to be here also. And we're going to try to clear that up as we move through the afternoon. Fred said that if you've got a cell phone, you know, put it on silent. And I know alcoholics don't like being told what to do. And we generally just do the opposite. So if you've got a cell phone, by all means, please turn it on. Or, put it on vibrate, and that way you can enjoy your incoming call and you won't disturb the rest of us. When I was 14 years old, my mom and my sister, were out for the evening, and I was home with my father. And we were having a period of intense fellowship, in which he was attempting to get me to do something that I didn't want to do. And finally, I think out of a sense of desperation and frustration, he said, well look son, he says, if you'll do this thing that I'm asking you to do, I'll do anything that you want me to do. And I said, I'll make that deal. He says, well what is it you want me to do, son? And I said, I want you to quit drinking. And he said, well, your mother's been after me to quit drinking. I know it's been, you know, the subject of a lot of discussion. And things aren't going real well down at the store, a store that he had worked some 20 years to establish, a men's store. He said, and probably if I wasn't drinking so much, that would help. Can I help you, sir? There's a red Jeep Liberty that has to be moved outside. The park right up there, if you'll move the red Jeep Liberty. That's okay. My name's Jack, I'm an alcoholic. That was your other 10 minute break, just went out the door. Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah, my dad's going to quit drinking. And he said he'd do it. He said he'd do it. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was. Because this was an answer to prayer. And, you know, when my mom and my sister got home that night, I met them at the front door, and I said, our problems are over. Dad and I have had a talk. He has agreed to quit drinking. And joy reigned supreme in our house that night. I knew there was a God. I mean, I had always been raised that there was a God. I prayed to God that my dad would stop drinking. But this was tangible evidence of the existence of God. And the next day, my dad got drunk. And that's the day I closed the door on God. Because I didn't want to have anything to do with a God who would play fast and loose with the prayers of a 14 year old boy. It was clear to me that for some reason, whatever it was, I was not worthy. And certainly my prayers were not worthy. And it was clear to me that if I was going to ever be anything or do anything in this life, then I was going to have to do it on my own. All by myself. And so I set out to become the self-sufficient person that I had to be in order to survive. I don't know about you, but it just seemed to me as a 14, 15 year old kid, I just didn't feel like I fit in. It just seemed that everybody else seemed to have the instructions for how to live life. And I must have been at the restroom when they handed them out because I missed it. And so I would watch everybody real closely. And I would try to do what they did and act like they acted so that I would appear to know what I was doing. But inside I was very, very unsure of myself. Very insecure. Certainly could attend a middle school or high school dance, but no dancing. And no talking to girls. And just hanging out along the gym wall. But somewhere in that 15 year, maybe I got introduced to beverage alcohol. And I think it probably did for me what it did for you. Indeed, it was the elixir of life. I mean, it really did remove those inhibitions. It allowed me to stand taller. It allowed me to have confidence. It allowed me to talk to girls, to dance. It led me to believe that I could sing. I remember hearing a lady say one time from the podium that when she drank alcohol her pimples fell off and her boobs got big. And I had the pimple experience. I didn't have the boob part of it. But you know what I mean. I was sorry my dad couldn't drink. I mean, it was too bad that he was having a hard time with it. But I'm the last man standing. I'm the guy that's buying the beer. I'm the guy that's driving everybody else home. I'm the guy who's having a great time. And, you know, to the extent that maybe I would share the beer with you if we had a 12-pack, you could have two. And that was all right with me. Because I liked the effect produced by alcohol. Big Book says that. Larry said it last night. My experience confirms it. I liked the experience. I liked the effect. I just did. So I chased that effect for a long time. I'd like to tell you that it didn't cause me any trouble when I was in high school. But I do have to share with you that I was five years in high school. A series of bad breaks and misunderstandings, I think. But I'd like to say it was because I wanted to have a solid academic foundation before I moved on to college. But in point of fact, as I look back, I know drinking had everything to do with that, being five years in high school. I went to the community college in our town out of high school. And it was during that period of time, during the summer between one of the first and second year, I guess, of that community college thing, that my good friend Bill and I had decided that we were going to take a road trip. We were going to go to California. And I had quit my job at the drugstore where I was working. And I had a whole pocket full of money. And we'd gotten 12 cases of beer and put them in the back of my car. And we each had an overnight bag. And we were set to go to California. We had everything you needed for a trip to California. And the night before we were to leave, his dad said he couldn't go. And so here I am. I got a car that's packed and ready to go, pocket full of money, and 12 cases of beer. And what's a guy to do? And as some of you may know, on the state of Maryland, right on the edge of the state of Maryland, we have a little strip of land that borders the Atlantic Ocean. And we have a town down there that's cleverly called Ocean City. And so that's what I did. I went to Ocean City. And I lived in Ocean City for a month, pretty much as a bum. I mean, I didn't have a job. I stayed in the basement of hotels where guys that I knew were working as bellhops and busboys. And I ate leftover restaurant food where people who were waiters and waitresses would put it aside. You know, get a half a lobster tail or an uneaten crab cake at the end of the day. That was good. You know, and I drank my beer that I brought with me. And then I had that money to buy stuff. So I was doing okay. And I was in Ocean City long enough to see that working in Ocean City was very attractive. And I wanted to do that. But I'm a keen observer of my surroundings. And it became evident to me that if you worked in Ocean City and you drank like I drank and you acted like I acted, it didn't make any difference. If you were a bellhop or a beach boy or a lifeguard or a waiter or a waitress, it really didn't make any difference. If you drank like I drank and acted like I acted, there was a high likelihood you were going to get arrested. And I certainly didn't want that to happen to me. But I did notice that there was one group of people working in Ocean City who were not getting arrested. And these were the members of the Ocean City Police Department. So... The following year I became an Ocean City policeman. And they gave me a boardwalk beat. They put me on Ninth Street where the beach club was located. It was a very popular night spot. I'd been working maybe five, six days when it became evident that I really possessed a unique law enforcement talent. I can spot an underage drinker from 100 yards. And when you spot an underage drinker and you approach him and you ask him what's in the cooler, they always tell you, nothing. And I, well, you know, what do you got there? And they go, well, they got Cokes and a tune of fish. Well, let's open it up. Let's see what you got. And they open up the lid of the cooler and there's the Coca-Cola all nicely laid out across the top of the cooler. And there's a little thing of tuna fish and maybe a loaf of bread. But you know and I know that when I reach way down into the bottom of that cooler, up comes the Budweiser. And the whole tone of the conversation is, the whole conversation is now changed. Because your life has just changed dramatically. I understand that you thought that you were going to be going to college, but you're not. You're going to jail. Underage possession of alcohol in Ocean City, very serious offense. You're going to jail. Military, you're looking to go into the Army? I think not. You're going to jail. Army's not going to want to have a thing to do with you. Sorry about that. No college. No Army. I'm calling your mom and dad at 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm going to tell them that you are locked up in the Ocean City jail and they've got to come down here to get you. Do you have an alternative you'd like to propose? Well, what did you have in mind? Confiscate the beer. Huh. Well, that's worthy of discussion, but if I take the beer, I'm going to have to take the cooler. And if I take the cooler, I'm going to have to take the Coca-Cola. I'm going to have to take the Coca-Cola and the tuna fish. You're okay with that? Okay. I'm going to write your name right here in our official police log and don't you ever commit this offense here in Ocean City again. You promise me about that? Okay, you can go leave the cooler. Now, if you're walking a beat on the boardwalk, you can't be dragging a cooler full of beer around behind you. So I had to work out an arrangement with my lieutenant and my sergeant that they would come and get the coolers as I collected them, and I would give them the whiskey and the wine at the end of the shift. I wasn't drinking whiskey or wine in those days, so it's a very fair thing. I had a great summer. I didn't buy anything to drink all summer. I drank every day. If you had come to Ocean City and you were a friend of mine and you needed a cooler, that's no problem. And if you were merely an acquaintance of mine and you wanted to rent a cooler, well, I had a no-return policy. You didn't have to bring it back. Just give me the money. It's yours. You know, very reasonably priced coolers. And I didn't get arrested that summer, and that's my definition of a good summer. So I went back for a second summer. And, well, the second summer they gave me a squad car. One of those Crown Victorias. Yeah, you can do a lot of damage with a squad car, let me tell you. One thing, you can get three bodies or six coolers in the trunk of that thing. So I didn't really have to have my lieutenant and sergeant follow me around and helping me out. But they still had a keen interest in what I was doing. And whenever I went silent on the radio, they knew that I was into action. And at the end of the night, I'd meet them at the end of the shift. I'd meet them and I'd give them the whiskey and the wine and I'd take the coolers. And didn't buy anything to drink that summer. Drank every day. Didn't get arrested. This was working out good. So I went back for a third summer. Now, here's something that happened. During that third summer. Again, I'm driving a squad car. The event that I'm going to tell you about absolutely changed the course of my life. Now, I don't know if you say it changed it 80 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees. I don't know. I'm pretty sure it didn't change it 360 degrees. But it certainly changed the course of my life. Driving on the beach highway about 3 o'clock in the morning. Stopped a car for drunk driving. Got the driver out of the car. He was drunk. I'm writing him up. And he says to me, he says, You don't know who I am, do you? I said, No, I don't. He said, Well, I am the state's attorney for Worcester County. The county you're standing in right now. Well, I'm a college kid. And I haven't got the slightest idea what a state's attorney is. So I said, Well, good for you. Sign the ticket. And so he signed the ticket. And there was a sober guy there. He looked sober to me. So I let him drive the car away. And I went about my business. And 8 o'clock that morning, my shift ended. And I pulled into the parking lot of the Ocean City Police Department. And there standing in the parking lot was the chief of police. And he says, he says, Quarterman, he says, bring that uniform citation book with you and come up to my office. I said, Okay. I'll be right up, chief. This was great. These were the first words the chief had spoken to me all summer. I was about to get recognition for a job well done. Long overdue recognition, I might add. So I went up to the chief's office. And I walked into his office. And as I did so, right inside the door, seated on the couch, was the guy that I gave the ticket to at 3 o'clock in the morning. The chief says, Give me that ticket book. So I hand him the ticket book. He flips the ticket book open to the ticket. He hands it to the guy on the couch. The guy on the couch whips out a pen and writes across the face of that ticket, Case dismissed. It was at that moment that I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. And I did. And if I could become one of those state's attorneys, it was definitely going to come in handy. Because if you drank and drove like I drank and drove, the power to dismiss traffic tickets with the stroke of a pen was going to come in mighty handy. So I went to law school. And law school interfered with my drinking some. I'll admit that. Because they had really smart people in law school. And I wasn't one of them. But I got out of law school. And I got admitted to the bar in Maryland. And I'd gotten married during that time. And my wife and I, we went back to Hagerstown where I'd been born and raised. And I don't think I'd been back there six weeks. And I discovered there was a vacancy for an assistant state's attorney in our community. I marched right over to the courthouse and went right up to the state's attorney's office and said, Well, here I am. Answer to your prayers. When do I start? Now, what I'm about to tell you is what I think I heard them say. And some of you may, in the course of your time here in Alcoholics Anonymous, become aware that sometimes I hear things that aren't said. I mean, people say stuff and I don't hear what they said. I hear something completely different. In fact, I see things that aren't so. My sister has pointed that out to me a number of times. She's not an alcoholic. And she's pointed out to me that things that I told her happened in our house never happened. I just thought they happened. So this is what I think I heard them say. Okay? What? Are you some kind of an idiot? You just got out of law school. You've never been in a courtroom. You've never picked a jury. You've never cross-examined a witness. You've never argued a case. Get out of the office. That's what I thought I heard them say. Upon reflection, I really believe that they probably didn't. I really believe that they probably said, the position has been filled. But I heard what I heard. And I left there very upset. Offended. Now that I've been an Alcoholics Anonymous, I know that I left with a resentment. And you know an alcoholic with a resentment can do a lot. And I guess that probably here in your community, you elect your district attorneys or your state's attorneys like we do back home. And I found a lawyer who wanted to be state's attorney. I ran his campaign for state's attorney. He got elected state's attorney. And he may be deputy state's attorney. And when I got into that state's attorney's office, it became clear to me that we didn't have any badges. And there's no point in being a state's attorney if you don't have a badge. So I designed a very fine badge. And when you get a badge, you get a badge case. And when you get a badge case, they've got a little glassine place there where you put your driver's license. And so when they pull you over and ask to see your license and registration, and you show them your badge case, they don't ask to see that driver's license. They really want to know what kind of badge is that. Oh, deputy state's attorney, Washington County. Oh, how about that? Oh, no, officer. No, that's fine. I was just, no, I'm just, I'm only a couple miles to my house. No, I certainly, look, I'm not upset about you stopping me. No, you had every reason to stop me. Oh, well, certainly, certainly. Yeah, I'll take it easy. And I very much appreciate your professional courtesy. Thank you so much. Yes, you have a nice night too, officer. Now, some of you may be getting a little insight into why I have no arrests in my background. But things are going to get a little better. My boss, the state's attorney, was going to get appointed circuit court judge. And if he got appointed circuit court judge, that meant I was going to get to be state's attorney. I don't know how it is here in Nebraska, but sometimes back home in Maryland, the state senator sticks his nose in where it doesn't belong and he screws everything up. And that's what happened in this instance. And somebody else got appointed circuit court judge. And I was very upset. I mean, not so much that my friend didn't get to be circuit court judge. That was too bad. But the really, the real thing was I didn't get to be state's attorney. And I was, I was angered by that. In fact, I got a resentment over it. And so one night while enjoying a couple of adult beverages with a few like-minded people, we determined that somebody ought to do something to that state senator. Somebody ought to run for the senate. Somebody ought to try to beat that guy. So I ran for the state senate. Now, I didn't know the state senator was going to run off with the secretary of the appropriations committee and abandon his wife and children and move to Florida. But he did. And I got elected state senator. I don't know how it is here in Nebraska, but when you get elected state senator in Maryland, they give you a license plate and it says, state senator. Now this is an aid to efficient law enforcement. Because when they come up behind you in the interstate, come in old timer, come on in. When you, when you get on that interstate and they come up behind you and they got those lights going on, and they get close enough to see that license plate, they turn those overheads off. They pull up alongside of you. They turn on that interior dome light. And they toot the horn. Beep, beep. Hi, senator. Hi, trooper. Hold it down, senator. Okay, trooper. And that way you don't have the state police tied up alongside of the highway with members of the legislature when they could be out arresting real criminals. So that guy who got appointed circuit court judge, he didn't like the job, so he quit. And so I'm the state senator. So I went to the governor and I said, I'd like you to appoint my friend the state's attorney. I'd like you to appoint him circuit court judge. And the governor said, no, I'm not going to do that. I said, why not? I'm the state senator. He said, well, he said, that last time that we had this problem up in Washington County, there was a lot of adverse publicity and I'm not going to appoint that guy. He said, however, if you'd like to be circuit court judge, I'll appoint you. Well, we only have two circuit court judges in our community, at least at that time. It's a 15-year term, and so it doesn't come around very often. So I became a circuit court judge. Frightening, isn't it? Now keep in mind, I'm drinking alcoholically all through this. All through this. And here's an example of a night of social drinking for the judge. The state's attorney. The state's attorney and the public offenders were going to put on a continuing legal education program on the prosecution and defense of drunk driving. And Sergeant Long was there with his breathalyzer, and they needed a volunteer to drink the beer and blow into the breathalyzer. Somebody who was fair, impartial, and unbiased, neutral person. So I volunteered. And they brought out, they had the breathalyzer set up right here, like over here where Joe is, and they brought out a thing. And they had six cans of beer in it, all iced down. And I said to the guy that brought it out of the kitchen, I said, what's that? And he said, that's the beer for tonight's program. And I said, you do realize that this is a two-hour program, and you only brought out six beers. Oh, he said, we've got plenty in the back. And I said, well, you better bring it out, because I'm not drinking any warm beer. And so they brought out six more, all iced down. So basically the thing began is they, you know, I drank a beer, and they talked. And then 15 minutes into the deal, then I blow into the breathalyzer. And then I just start off with a .04, and bump it on up to a .07, and then a .11, and then a .14 and .18 and a .23 and a .26 and a .29 and .31 and .33. .33. .33. And it was at that point they called upon me to put on my part of the program, which I'm told was quite good under the circumstances. And when the program was over, I said to the guy who was the chairman, I said, who's going to take me home? And he said, what do you mean? I said, I just blew a .33 in Sergeant Long's breathalyzer. I can't drive my car home. Not with him here. He says, boy, we never thought about that. And I said, I'll tell you what. I said, why don't you guys, I'm going to go into the hotel bar, and I'll have a couple drinks in there. And when Sergeant Long's gone, you let me know. And so they did. You know, and Sergeant Long left, and I left the hotel, drove downtown, stopped into the Broad Axe, which was my favorite place, and had a couple drinks in there. Then I went over to the cellar door and had a couple drinks over there. And then I went home, and that was an evening of social drinking for the judge. And that. That was just an average day, just, you know. That was pretty much the way it was every day, if you take the breathalyzer out of it. And so I went. I was going out with a lawyer, a friend of mine, for the stated purpose of having dinner. But we really knew that we were going out to get snot-flying drunk. That's why we were going to go get drunk. You know, sometimes. Sometimes you just go out to get drunk. I understand that sometimes we can get drunk when we don't mean to. And sometimes, as Larry said last night, sometimes we just allow ourselves to be over-served. And that happens. But that was no. This was clearly our intent to get really drunk. And we did. And we ended up at the Venice Lounge at the end of the evening. And we were just going to have a nightcap. And I, you know, I loved drinking. I loved everything about drinking. I liked top shelf, bottom shelf, imported, domestic. I prefer wine with a twist-off cap because I don't like drinking the pieces of cork. But if that has to be, that's the way it is. But if you came up to me and you shoved a paper bag. And you said, Jack, take a pull on this. I would not hesitate for a moment. I would certainly not ask you what it is. Because it had to be good. You wouldn't have offered it to me. Good stuff. Little old-fashioned glasses, you know. Those tall, frosted Tom Collins glasses. The kind of, whoops, the fluted martini glasses. Man, I loved the gin martini. I really did. But I do have to tell you, I had a bad gin experience one time. And even today, it's hard for me to go into a pine forest. But my drink, my favorite drink, my all-time favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite drink was Jack Daniel's Black Label and crushed ice with a twist of lemon. That was to die for. That was wonderful, wonderful. So, on this night. April 7th, 1982, at the Venice Lounge, I am embarrassed to tell you. Had I known that this was going to be my last drink, I want to assure you that I would have ordered Jack Daniel's Black Label on the rocks with a twist. But I didn't know it was going to be my last drink. And so, I had Tia Maria. I don't know, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. How do you think I feel standing up here? In my defense. I think it's important you know that my drink came out of a tainted bottle. And the reason I know it was tainted, because driving home that night, I got sick to my stomach. Now, I understand getting sick to your stomach is part of drinking. I understand that. I mean, if we were down at the Broad Axe and we were shooting pool or playing shuffleboard. And it got to be like 11 or 12 o'clock at night. And I was feeling full. Well, I go out behind a dumpster, I throw up, I go back in. And I go, oh, my God. I'm going to continue to drink. That's part of drinking. I understand that. I understand the part about Saturday morning. You know, Friday night, big night on Friday night, Saturday morning. I'm there worshiping at that porcelain altar that many of us have in our homes. And I understand that Saturday morning throw up is part of the price for Friday night drinking. By the way, have any of you encountered anything, anything that measures up to the cool feel of porcelain? I want a fever. I want to growl on a Saturday morning. Oh, man. I, oh, well, I got sick this last year at Christmas. I haven't been sick for 24 years. And, man, all of that came rushing back. Just, I mean, it's just amazing stuff. So I got sick on the way home and had to be a tainted bottle. My wife's a school teacher, teaches elementary school. I don't know how it is here in Nebraska. But back in Maryland Elementary School, those little kids, they're all disease ridden. They got germs all over them. And if you're an elementary school teacher, these kids, they give you the germs. Then the teacher brings the germs home. And then I get up the next morning. I got flu. Bye, Joe. I get up. I got flu. And so here I am. I've got the flu. But I go to work. I go to work. And the next day is Good Friday. So courthouse is closed. So I don't have to go to work. But I've got this upset stomach thing that comes with the flu. You know how that is. And I'm not feeling really good. And on Saturday morning, I start developing that lower tract of stress that frequently comes with flu. And if you've got lower tract of stress combined with that upset stomach thing, that will really hone your decision making down to a fine edge. And my wife tells me I made the wrong decision at some point during that Saturday. I either sat when I should have kneeled. Or kneeled when I should have sat. And if she were here, you could talk to her about that. But she's not. So I'm going to go on. And then Easter Sunday, I was still pretty sick. And by Monday, I was real dehydrated because of all that kneeling and sitting that I'd been doing. So they put me in the hospital. And that night, my abdomen became distended. And they did an emergency laparotomy on me. And they found that my abdomen was full of gangrene, peritonitis. And while they were trying, they had to clean that up. See, my liver was enlarged and out of whack. And my pancreas was digesting itself. My kidneys quit. My kidney function quit completely. And my respiratory system quit. So things were not looking good for the home team. And I was in intensive care in Hagerstown for three weeks. And they got me off the respirator. But they couldn't get my kidneys started. And my pancreas continued to digest itself. And my liver was still out of rack. And so they told my wife that they were going to send me down to Johns Hopkins. They told her that they really couldn't do anything more for me in Hagerstown. And that they thought I was going to die. But if there was anything that could be done, maybe Hopkins could do it. And so they sent me to Hopkins. And I was very encouraged because I had known people who had gone to Johns Hopkins. And they'd come home. And I knew other people who had gone to the Washington County Hospital. And they'd died. So I was encouraged. So I went to Hopkins. I was pretty optimistic. And for the next two weeks, they did everything but hang me by my thumbs. And so May the 14th was my belly button birthday. And on May the 13th, these learned doctors came into my room. And before they could really get a word out of their mouths, I just told them I can't take this anymore. I just can't take it anymore. And you've just got to give me a day of rest. Just allow me to have a day of rest. And they said, well, Judge, we don't know what else to do for you. That's why we came in here. We told you there's nothing else we can think of to do for you. And so, yeah, you can have a day of rest tomorrow. So I turned 40 in the Johns Hopkins Hospital. And two weeks after that, May the 28th, I was discharged from that hospital. My kidney function returned. My pancreas stopped digesting itself. My liver was getting back within normal limits. But they weren't able to diagnose me. My illness. And they presented me to the internal medicine department. And they couldn't get a majority vote. And when you're in a hospital for seven weeks like that, they like to talk to you before they send you home. They want to give you some do's and don'ts. But if you've got an undiagnosed illness, they don't know what to tell you. So what they told me was, don't get it again, Judge, because it's likely to kill you. I'll do the best I can. And as I was getting ready to leave the office, they said, wait a minute, Judge. We've got one other question for you. And I said, what's that? And they said, do you drink? Where'd that come from? Do I drink? Yeah, I'm a lawyer. Well, I used to be a lawyer. I mean, now I'm a judge. But when I was a lawyer, I had to drink with clients. And I had to drink with other lawyers. And I had to drink with judges. And now that I'm a judge, I drink with other lawyers. And I drink with other judges. It's a professional obligation that I drink. Yeah, sure, I drink. Why? How much do you drink? Well, not too much. Why do you ask? And he said, well, we'd like you to stop drinking for a while because alcohol just does a number on your kidneys and your kidney function is looking good now. And it does a number on your liver. And your liver is just getting back to normal. And it does a number on your pancreas. And we don't know what's going to happen if your pancreas starts digesting itself again. So we'd just like you to not drink for a while. How long? A year. A year? A year? A year? Well, I haven't had a drink since April the 7th. So this is May 28th. I guess I could do that. All right. No, judge, you don't understand. This is Memorial Day weekend. We want you to not drink for a year from June the 1st. Now, I know there are people in this room right now who already can see the injustice that these physicians were trying to perpetuate upon me because I don't drink. I don't drink. I don't drink. I don't drink. I don't drink. I was getting no credit for my seven weeks of continuous sobriety. Well, I want you to know that I fought for those seven weeks, and we ended up with a compromise. Now, keep in mind, here's this knuckle-headed judges and two world-renowned physicians arguing about this seven-week period. And we arrived at a compromise. And the compromise was I wouldn't drink until April 7th of the next week. And then, if I thought the pain, suffering, and misery that I had just undergone had anything to do with drinking, then I would not drink for the next seven weeks until June the 1st. And then after that, I was free to drink if I wanted to. And I walked out of that hospital on May the 28th, 1982, into the most insane period of my life. An alcoholic. An alcoholic. Undiagnosed alcoholic. Not drinking. And not changing. It's a horrible, horrible way for people like us to live. It's an impossible way for us to live. We can't live that way. We can't. We can live for a while. We can live for a while. Certainly, the big book talks about there was a guy that lasted 25 years that way, not drinking. And then when he retired, he said, bring out my slippers and my bottle. And he was hospitalized. He was hospitalized in six months and dead in four years. My life became insane. Absolutely insane. It was terrible. Terrible. The people that suffered the most, of course, were my wife and our three children. But everybody I came in contact with suffered. I was dying of untreated alcoholism, and I didn't know it. I didn't know it. There were two guys in Hagerstown, Bob and Ken, who ultimately became my sponsors. Bob, oh, is that that liver transplant coming in? Good luck with that. Bob and Ken, Bob ran the treatment program at our hospital, and Ken was a lawyer that I had hired out of college, partially because he was a good lawyer, but also because he drank like I drank. And he and I tried cases and drank together for a number of years. And then when I became a judge and Ken didn't have my leadership, his drinking got out of hand and he became alcoholic. And it ended up... He ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous of all places. And Bob was also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. They're watching me die of untreated alcoholism. They know what I'm dying from. I haven't got a clue. I don't even know that I'm dying because, you see, I'm not drinking. I'm fine. You hear me? I'm fine. Leave me the hell alone. Mind your own damn business, will you? Okay? Leave me alone. Maybe I'm a little prickly, okay? Maybe I'm a little on edge, a little pissed off, up in a spring-loaded position, but leave me alone. It's fine. Everything's fine. You know what I mean? Fine. And Bob, I want to leave you back up and tell you that my dad, my dad, on July the 3rd, 1968, walked by a Methodist church in downtown Hagerstown and the minister put on the message board outside, don't, buy a fifth on the third for the fourth. My dad went to Alcoholics Anonymous that night and he never drank again. And when he died, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Alcoholics Anonymous and for nothing else for my dad's sobriety. He died with 15 years of continuous sobriety. And I carry his 15-year chip with my chip, and in hopes that in some small way I can repay to Alcoholics Anonymous the tremendous debt I owe for my dad's life as well as for the life that I've been given. My dad lost that marriage to my mom, a marriage of 30 years. He lost the respect of his son. He lost the respect of his daughter, my sister. When his daughter got married, my sister got married, she didn't even invite our dad to the wedding because she was afraid, he would show up drunk. And I gave her away when she got married and my dad showed up and he was drunk. And, you know, he lost that business he'd worked so hard to build from scratch. He lost everything materially that was meaningful in his life. He went through bankruptcy and he lost his self-respect. He lost his integrity. He lost his moral compass. And, uh, uh, Alcoholics Anonymous gave all that back to him. Gave him back the stuff that you can't buy. Gave him back his dignity. Gave him back his integrity. You know, he became a man of his word. And, uh, that's a tremendous, tremendous gift and you can't buy that anywhere. That's priceless stuff. And it's given away freely here to those of us who come and stay and don't quit. And so, Bob knew that my dad had died with 15 years in Alcoholics Anonymous and, and he came to me one day and he said, Jack, we have this book in Alcoholics Anonymous. We call it the big book. And, uh, it's all about, uh, your dad's disease. Maybe, would you have any interest in reading this book to find out about your dad's illness? Clever guy, that Bob. I think you know and I know that if he had said, Jack, I got a book here I'd like you to read so that you can find out what's wrong with you, I wouldn't have read that book because there's nothing wrong with me. I'm definitely not alcoholic. I mean, clearly not alcoholic. Alcoholics drink. We know that. Anybody who can go without drinking for any appreciable period of time is not alcoholic by definition. We all know that. At least I knew that. But, I read the book and, uh, and I'm not surprised. My dad's in there. You know, he's in there. The thing that surprised me in, in the big book there's a place where it says at an early age many of us close the door on God. I told you about that little situation when I was 14. And there it is. It's written in the book that at an early age many of us close the door on God. And I thought I was the only one. I thought, I thought I'm the only person that had that experience. How could they put that in a book that was written and published before I was born? And then there's a place in there in Bill's story where it talks about Bill goes into the room, goes into the bar, and he's not going to have anything to drink, but then whiskey rising to his head. He's pounding on the bar saying, how could this happen to me again? And may as well stay here and just get good and loaded. Something to that effect. And how many times did I go into the broad acts when I was drinking and I would tell them, I'm not drinking tonight, not drinking tonight. Just, uh, just give me a ginger ale. Well, if you want to buy me a beer, I don't want to be rude. And I am an elected public official and you are a voter. And I don't want to be offensive to you. I mean, I may need your vote in 15 years when I run for reelection. So sure. Okay. I'll, I'll have one with you. And, uh, well, if you want to buy me one too. Okay. Okay. And then, uh, next thing you know, I'm sitting at the bar and I promised the wife I'd be home by six, no later than seven. And here it is nine o'clock at night. May as well stay here until they close because I can't go home now. You know, if, if I have any dinner, it's cold and the kids have been fed and she's putting them to bed and there's no point in going home and having a big row. So I'll just stay here. How many times I do that? You know, I'd like to say it happened to me once maybe, or twice. Uh, but you know, when I look back on my drinking, it happened four or five days a week, weekend and week out, month in and month out for years, years. And I never saw it. Never saw it. Until I read that big book until I read that big book. So, okay. Maybe I, I am ready to concede. All right. I I'll own up to Ken and Bob that there is a possibility, a slight possibility that I may have a very, very mild case of alcoholism caught it just in time, under control. No problem here. But Bob and Ken offered to come to my office, to my judges chambers every Friday afternoon with their big books and a brown bag lunch to read with me and to talk with me about what we had read in the big book. Now I had my big book, of course, my own copy and we would read and they would talk to me and explain to me the importance of what we'd read. And then I would explain to them why my case was different. Because you see, I did, I may have been five years in high school, but I got out of undergraduate school in four years and I graduated law school with honors. And I think it's important you understand that I am a very smart guy. And Ken said, Jack, they got degrees on rectal thermometers and you know what we do with them. I thought that was a little harsh. Maybe not the way you want to speak to a circuit court judge, but, it was December 22nd, 1989. It was a Friday. We couldn't have our big book study in my chambers because it was a Friday before Christmas and the courthouse was closed. So Bob and Ken and I, we all went out for lunch together and after the lunch, we went our separate ways. Now I did tell you that my wife and I had been separated three times when I was drinking. We were also separated three times not drinking. And at this particular period of time we were separated. And I had an apartment. And I had a girlfriend. And I had a backup girlfriend. And I had a girlfriend for special occasions. And they all objected to my wife. And my wife, not surprisingly, objected to them. But I was handling it. It was manageable. I had it all under control. Not drinking, managing well. And of course if you're looking for delusional thinking, that's a real good example of delusional thinking. I went to my apartment and there propped against the door was a package. The mailman had walked it up two flights of steps. It was a Hickory Farms package, the kind of thing you get a cheese log or a sausage at Christmas time. That's the only time I've ever seen them. But it seemed to me that somebody had sent the judge a sausage. And this was a really good thing. This is a good thing. I think I'll go in here. I'll have a little snack. And I'll get messages off my answering machine. And so I'm taking messages away. Messages off my answering machine. And I'm trying to figure out how to open this package. And I see where it's sealed with a piece of scotch tape. And I get the keys out of my pocket. And I slip the tape on this box. And I'm taking the messages off the answering machine. And I lift the lid of this box. And I got blown back against the wall. And ten days before that, a federal judge had been killed in Birmingham, Alabama, by a package bomb that had been sent to his home. And five days before that, a lawyer in Savannah, Georgia had been killed by a package bomb that had been sent to his office. And I could smell the gunpowder. And I knew I'd opened a bomb. And there was a fire. And I tried to put the fire out. And I couldn't. I went out in the hallway and pulled an alarm. And my neighbor came, said he had a fire extinguisher. And I went back to my apartment. And I went to the phone to dial 911. And when I went to push the buttons on the phone, I became aware that part of my right hand had been blown. And I was blown away. And so 911 answered. They said police, fire, or rescue. I said I'd like to have one of each. And they said they'd send them. And when I hung the phone up, I felt like somebody was pulling my pants down off my hips. And I looked down at the floor. And I was standing in a puddle of blood. And it was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so I stood there. And I knew I was in serious trouble. My neighbor asked if there was anything he could do to help me. And I asked him to get me a towel. And he did. And I opened my trousers. And I didn't have the courage to try to visualize the wound. I just put the towel where I thought the wound was and put my back against the wall and slid down on the floor. And it was pretty clear to me that I was going to die on that floor that afternoon. And I was never going to see our children again. I was never going to see my wife again. And I was terribly afraid. And I was powerless. And during that time that Ken and Bob had been coming to my office reading that big book, they had tried to encourage me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I told them that I could not go to Alcoholics Anonymous in Hagerstown. Because you see, under my leadership as a circuit court judge, this organization was having a tremendous membership spike under my leadership. Because I knew what to do with alcoholics. My father was an alcoholic. People like you come into my courtroom. I send you to Alcoholics Anonymous. You may not like it, but you're gone. And so I'm not going to go to meetings with those people. But I did go up to Chambersburg to some meetings and over to Frederick to some meetings and down to Martinsburg, West Virginia to some meetings. And all of that time there was only one thing that I had learned about Alcoholics Anonymous and those meetings. And that was a serenity prayer. And so I began to pray the serenity prayer. And I asked God to grant me the serenity to accept this thing, which I couldn't change. And the courage to change what I could and the wisdom to know the difference. And I prayed that prayer and I prayed that prayer and I prayed that prayer and I prayed that prayer and I can't tell you whether it was the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh time through that prayer, but God came and it was answered. And I experienced a sense of peace and well-being, the likes of which I have never experienced before nor since. And I didn't know if I was going to die. I didn't know if I was going to die on that floor or if I was going to live. But what I knew with certainty was that if I died on that floor that afternoon, it would be all right. It's going to be all right, Jack. And the police fire and rescue people came bursting into my apartment and my ear drums had been blown out and I really couldn't hear what they were saying. But I stopped praying to try to communicate with them and this tremendous wave of fear swept upon me. And so I told those guys, you do whatever you have to do and I'm going back to praying. And so I went back to the serenity prayer. And as soon as I did, the serenity returned. And they cut all my clothes off of me with the exception of my red and green Christmas socks. And they took me down two flights of stairs and they stuffed me into an ambulance. And we have a little TV station there and they were Johnny on the spot and they took pictures of me going into the ambulance with my red and green Christmas socks. My red and green Christmas socks went around the world on CNN that night. And I went to the hospital. And they couldn't find my wife and they couldn't find my girlfriend as they prepared me for surgery. But they did find my sponsor, Ken. And Ken came to the hospital and they let him come back to where I was being prepared for surgery. And Ken held my hand and he prayed for me and he prayed with me. And they took me up to surgery. And I don't know how shrapnel knows how to stop passing through flesh. But I can tell you that they removed a piece of shrapnel, not resting against, but in close proximity to my femoral artery. And I think we all know that had my femoral artery been nicked, you'd have a different speaker here this afternoon. And they took me up to a recovery room. And I think it was on the second day of my recovery, I came to and seated at the foot of my bed was my sponsor. Bob. And Bob had a little grin on his face. I said, Bob, I said, I noticed that you're grinning. What are you grinning about? He said, oh, Jack, he said, I don't know. He said, I just think it must be wonderful. Isn't that wonderful, Bob? I'm not following you. Now, I need to interject here. It's really good to have a sponsor. Because sponsors have a different take on things. They see things differently. And Bob said, I just think it must be wonderful, Jack, to know that you cannot be harmed. I said, harm, Bob? Somebody just tried to kill me. He said, I understand, Jack. He said, I understand that package you opened had four pipe bombs in it. He said, you know, one pipe bomb is more than adequate to kill a human being. Two pipe bombs is a little redundant. Three pipe bombs, that is really round the bend. Four pipe bombs, Jack? You have really made somebody very angry. He said, man has done his very best to kill you. And the only explanation of your survival is the grace of God. It's good to have a sponsor. I wouldn't have come up with that in a million years. He says, God has work for you, Jack. I said, really, Bob? What kind of work does God have for me? Oh, he says, I don't know, Jack. He said, I wouldn't presume to know God's will for you. He says, but what I do know is that God wants you to be a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that means you're going to have to do a few things. You're going to have to pray that third step prayer with either Ken or I. You're going to have to do that fourth step inventory. You're going to have to do that fifth step with me or with Ken. You're going to have to do the sixth step and pray that seventh step prayer. Make that eight step list. Do those nine step amends so that you can live in 10, 11, and 12 and you can be of maximum service to God and to your fellow man. Good to have a sponsor. I wouldn't have come up with that one. I don't either. So I got released from the Washington County Hospital on Christmas Day, 1989. It was absolutely the best Christmas I'd ever had in my entire life. I can report to you here this afternoon that every Christmas since that time has exceeded the one before it. Christmas of 1990, my wife and I reconciled, and we remain together to this date. And I think I can say without fear of being contradicted that my life together with her life together is better than it's ever been before in our relationship with our three children. My children is better today than it has ever been before, and that's got nothing to do with me, but it's got everything to do with the grace of God and the power of this program. So I got out of that hospital, and I got to do something about this program of recovery that's in the big book called Alcoholics Anonymous. And of course you know that Bob and Ken and I have been reading that book, and we've been discussing it. And so we're going to take a 10-minute break, and then we're going to come back, and we're going to talk about not discussing anything. We're going to talk about action. Please stand in recess for 10 minutes.