Why He Stopped Comparing and Started Identifying – Dave H.

Mr. Dave H. from Joplin. You know you're in trouble when she was more impressed with the Southern University baseball team than the guy she was going to introduce. I always take this off, it's not because I'm going to watch it, it just makes Harlan feel a little better. My name is Dave Holm. I'm an alcoholic. Real grateful to be here today. And she found out more about me in a minute last night than she did the 45 minutes we had breakfast this morning, I'll guarantee you. But she found more honest about me this morning with my wife there. You know, it's kind of hard to lie when they're there. And some of you know what I'm talking about when I say that. But before I forget, I want to thank Jack, who I've not met yet, for calling me and inviting me to be here this weekend. I understand you get real nervous. You better get real nervous when you find out the guy invited me is not here today. And I pray for Jack. I understand he had some surgery and he's going to try to make it tonight. But I want thanks Joe and the rest of the committee for your hospitality. The beautiful fruit basket that was in my room, I don't eat fruit. I'm a meat and tater man, but it's pretty good to throw at your wife when you want to get her attention. So there's been plenty of that going on this weekend. It's kind of hard to follow a jet fighter pilot. But, you know, I identify. You know, when we were talking about that 360, I did that one night off the top of a bar stool when my wife came to get me. So, and that's about, he lost me after that, you know, until they started talking that drunk talk. And, yeah, I talked that real well. I come to you this morning unscarred by education. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that now because you've already figured that out. And my home group is the newcomer group in Joplin, Missouri. I haven't found necessary to take a drink since June 13th, 1984. And there's not anybody ever knew me who's not grateful for that. It's really a privilege and an honor to be asked to do anything in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, this committee's done all the work. Now we get to play, and that's what we do here is we just come here and we gather as a fellowship and we enjoy the time we're here together and we take what we learn and go home and put it to use. You know it's real easy for me to stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous just when I go outside the doors of AlcoholicsAnonymous out there where we live. The other 24 hours that I have to live with me and you know what this program has taught me It's, you know, the practice of these principles on a daily basis is what I have here. It's a daily reprieve, and that's all I have. And it continues what I do in this program. And what you're going to hear today is a lot of what I've done in Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, we do a lot OF stupid things when we're out there drinking alcohol. But I carried some of those character defects right inside the program of AlcoholicsAnonymous. And a lot Of the things I've DONE here I'm not proud of, but it's my story. and I'm here to share that. I came from a good home, you know, there was no alcoholism in my family. My dad, he worked real hard, and I have an older sister and a younger brother, and they don't drink very seldom. My sister's one of those two drinks, and now I'm starting to fill it and quit. And my brother, when he drinks, he likes to get drunk because he thinks that's what they make alcohol for. But when he gets drunk, then he gets sick, and he don't want to drink for two or three months. And, you know, I never did understand that kind of drinking. And, uh, you know, when I got drunk and got sick, I wanted to get drunk again, get over being sick. And, uh, they never understood that. Uh, I was raised in that home and I never felt a part of because I, you know, I just felt that I was different than what I came to find out in the program about folks. And I don't know if the reason I felt that way is because I was different. You know, I wasn't doing the things they was doing and I didn't feel the way they felt. And, uh, and I had nothing to do with them. Nothing. Absolutely nothing to do with them. I felt that way because of the things I was doing. When I was growing up, I started running with the kids. We liked to find things before they were officially lost. We would just do anything we could to just run the streets, and we called it fun. Compared to what we did then and what they're doing today, it was fun. We didn't have no drive-by shootings today. You know, the other day I was talking to a guy. He said he was standing at a pay phone and he said he heard this noise going off and he looked all around and these guys drove by and were shooting paint guns at him. And I thought, man, I've never tried that. That sounds like fun to me. I could do that kind of drive-by shooting. And, you know, that's the kind of things we was doing growing up. I got to high school, no fault of my own, you just keep going to school one day at a time And I think Bud said it, you know, it's real interesting to follow someone like Bud. You come up here and he stands up here for five minutes, gets everybody pissed off, and then gives you the mic. But it wasn't smart guys I was running with. You know, we were just, we was a little terrorist, you Know, and we just terrorized the neighborhood. And, yeah, we got to be 15 years old, and that's what you'll do if you don't die. As you live one day at a time, you'll grow up to be 15. We started borrowing the guy's car, a friend of mine's dad's car that left town every weekend, and we'd go over to Kansas and we discovered alcohol. And, you know, I'm not a social drinker. You know, the first time I drank alcohol, I got drunk, I blacked out, and I passed out. And the last time I drink alcohol,I got drunk ,I blacked and I pass out. And I'd like to tell you that's what happened from the time I started drinking till the time i got the Alcoholics Anonymous. The truth is, when you live in blackouts, you don't know what happened a lot of that time. And I don't like the way they described it to me. You know, I think they exaggerated some. I don' t remember doing some of the things that they said I did, and it was awful embarrassing when they were talking about them. So, you know,I don' T repeat a lot o fthe stories. Well, I want to tell you, I got out of high school and got that diploma. They'll give you a diploma in Missouri if you can do a D-minus, and that's what I did. I got through high school on D-minuses, and you don't learn a lot that way, but you get a diploma, and that's all I needed. My dad told me before I left home I had to have a diploma. He didn't tell me I had an education, so I got the diploma and left home. I got out there and started drinking like we drank. I'd get drunk, and I'd wreck cars, andI'd go to jail, and l didn't like jail. A lot of people, I guess, like jail, they go to jail for a long time. And, you know, I talked to a guy one time. He'd been in jail 27 times. I thought, man, I'd like to went to that jail. You didn't want to go to jail. I went to 27 times, but it wasn't my deal. So, you now, I made a promise to myself that if I was going to drink alcohol, I was gonna drink Alcoholics Successful and stay out of jail. And I did when I come through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. My best friend was a prosecuting attorney. And if you have best friends who are prosecuting attorneys, you don't have to go into jail a lot. You get real paranoid, but you don' t go to jel a lot, But I got married when I was 19 years old because my friends were getting married and they were settling down and they wasn't wrecking cars and they weren't getting in trouble. So I got marry and Aaron Judson, you know, bad mistake, should have never gotten married. I'm supposed to go to work, supposed to come home, supposed come home with a paycheck. Rules that was never explained to me when I got marriage. And I can't tell you a lot about that marriage. I just, you know, I left my hometown about six months after we got married because not only do I have my folks talking to me about my drinking, you know. I've got a wife talking to my about my drink and I got in-laws talking to me about drinking. And I don't like to talk about drinking, I like to drink. And I just never thought it was amusing to sit around and talk about drinking. You know, let's either do it or let's don't do it. And they would say no, do it at times. And I was wanting to do it so, you now, I got out of there and we moved Kansas City and I went to start a career in the grocery business and you know that's what you do when you're uneducated you know you got to go to work and you don't get a position you get a job and I've never liked to work but I started working because I was told to go to work and I get a growth to get a paycheck and I was supposed to bring it home but I usually stopped somewhere and forget take check home and she didn't understand that and we had a little girl in that marriage and I don't remember a lot and I do remember one day I was coming to in the back bedroom of a mobile home we was living in. And I woke up or came to that morning, I was full of fear. And I'm sure you understand that. I'm sure some of you have been there. And I didn't know what I did the night before but I knew it wasn't good. And I tried to listen because I heard them talking out there and I heard a lady tell my wife I said, if you love that baby, you know, you'll leave. You'll take that baby and leave before he really hurts someone. And I couldn't figure out what I did, but when I got enough nerve to get up to go out there, it came to me the night before in a drunken rage. I threw a brick through a storm door and missed that baby by inches. And I didn't feel good that morning. I didn'T feel good. And I'll tell you why I didn' t feel good . . . I didn''t feel good because I wasn' t raised to do those things. I had never seen that. I had NEVER had to watch that. That's not the way my folks raised me. And I didn't feel good about that. And I made a promise that morning that I had every intention in the world to keep. And I promised her that if I couldn't cut down on my drinking, I would quit drinking because I didn' t want to put her and that baby through that. But see, I'm an alcoholic and I don' t know how to quit drinking. You know, I can quit. You know Scott was eight weeks. God, can you imagine going without alcohol? Man, your fingernails had to be that long. to go without a drink for eight weeks. You know, I could do eight days maybe, and that's just how much heat was on. But I would get so miserable, I'd make them miserable, and they'd say, Go drink. And that's all I was waiting for is that, Go Drink. And I'd go drink. And that marriage ended, and it wasn't long after that marriage landed, you know, I got married again, and I married a high school sweetheart. And I had dated this girl in high school, and, you know her, she came from an alcoholic family, And I say that because her dad committed suicide through this disease, and it wasn't pretty. It was pretty ugly to watch. But her dad was, when I was young and we was dating, he was always my hero. He was the guy that comes sliding in the driveway sideways, and he'd jump out of that car, and whoever was in that car with him would wait until he'd go in the house, and he would go in there and start a fight, and they'd all leave. And then when they'd alleave, him, that person who was in their car, would go into the house. And, man, what a life. What a life! You know, this is the best of two worlds. Instantly he became my hero. And, you know, I watched that guy drink and then he became a real violent drunk. And,you know,I swore I would never be like that. I wouldnever be likethat because I didn't want to be likethat. We got married and,youknow,I thought,youknow, I took one of them spot check inventories that's talked about in the 12 by 12,youknow. She had a little girl and I had a littlegirl. So I thought, well, it's taken care of. We don't need no little girls. And about three months later, she gets pregnant. We have a little girl. Now we've got her little girl, my little girl and our little girl and just a lot of little girls running around there. And, you know, they think it's a good idea. I go to work on a regular basis and bring home paychecks. And, yeah, I don't do those two things well. I can do one or the other but not both. You know, if I go work, then I think that money ought to be drink and money and that's what I do. And I start calling my father to wire me money the day after I get paid. And, you know, the non-alcoholics, they ask the weirdest questions. My dad used to say, you now, son, how did you lose your car? I said, that thing weighs 3,000 pounds, boy. How do you lose a car? I said dad, if I knew where I lost it or how I lost that car, it wasn't a loss but it was pretty obvious and it's not the answer he wanted. You know, that can almost get you killed. And he would say, you know, son, you got paid last night. You know, where's your money? Well, it's obvious it's not here, Dad, because it was here that my wife would have it. You know I just need money. They never understood. I never knew what they wanted me to say. You know. I used to tell my dad the truth and it was the God's truth and he never knew that. I'd say I don't know. And I didn't have a clue. I didn' t have a clue why I was living the life I was livin'. All I knew is when I did not drink alcohol, I was irritable, restless, and discontent. I couldn't stand to live with me. When them women said, we cannot live with you no longer, I understood that. I knew exactly what they would say because I could never live with Me. I could ever get up and look in the mirror and be okay. I would get up there and I'd look in that mirror and I would say, why? Why do you live this way? What's wrong with you? Why can't you be like your dad? Why can't you just go to work, come home, be happy with what you've got? Why can'T you be like your sister? She's a good person. She loves her family. She takes care of her kids. Her kids don't have to see what my kids see. I think, why can'Tyou be like you old brother, you know? That kid got caught with alcohol when he was 13 years old. He went to jail. Dad went and got him. He said, I'll promise you, Dad, I'll never touch another drop of alcohol until I'm 21, and he didn't. He didn't! I said, what's wrong with you, boy? How can you do those things? I mean, I told Dad a lot of things in my life, but I never kept those promises I'd made. I made him promise after promise after promised. And I couldn't understand why I could not feel like those people. Why I couldn'T be like them. And I'd be so irritable, restless. I didn't like the fact that I was writing bad checks. I didn' t like the fact that l had bill collectors looking for me. And l thought, man, the only thing that would take those feelings away was alcohol. Once l started drinking, l didn' d have to feel that way anymore. lt was okay. lt was okay. So l made another error in judgment. l'd been married about three years and my drinking progressed and we had them little girls. And that first little girl was living with my first wife. We had the two little girls in our house. And, yeah, I went home one day and I'd been drinking and my wife started on me like she did so many times before. And I sat her down and I said, you know, what you need to do is you just need to have a few drinks. You know? If I had to sit around and watch you drink all the time, I'd be irritated too. what you need to do is you just need to have a few drinks. I said, if you just drink a little bit you won't worry about how much I'm drinking. You won't count how much I'm drinkin'. You know, you'll just have a Few Drinks and you'll be okay. What I didn't know was is when she started drinkin' she was gonna drink like I'd drink. Now believe me I was used to comin' out of the blackout and lookin' around and seein' what I'd tore up and who I'd beat up. But now I'm coming out of the blackout, and the house is tore up, and she's beating me up. It was an order. I can't go through with it. And I can tell you how many times that happened. And we sit here and we laugh about that this morning, but there were little girls that watched that going on in that household. When they would get up the next morning and see that house tore up and one of us beat up. I can remember going home from work and hearing them little girls saying, Daddy's home, and they'd run to that bedroom and they would shut that door. And I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, I have to drink. I haveと take those feelings away. So I would go get me a drink and once I had two or three drinks, they knew it was safe to come out for a while. And they would come out and they never knew how long they were going to be able to stay out before they had to go back. And that's the way it was. I'm not proud of those things, but that's the way it was when I drank alcohol. I didn't go out and rob no banks. I didn' t kill nobody that I know of. I didn''t do all those things when I drink alcohol. I just drank alcohol, and when I drunk alcohol, I drank alcoholic because I didn ''t like the way I was feeling. In November, well, in 1982, my dad, I hated my dad. I hated that man with a passion. And I hated him because I felt like I could never be what he wanted me to be. And I hate God because all he wanted to talk about was God. And I used to think if there was a God, you know, I wouldn't be living this way. The last nine months of my dad's life, my dad was paralyzed with cancer from the waist down. And I didn't go see my dad much because all my dad wanted to talk about was my drinking and God. And I would say, And I used to go and see him, and he would sit there or lay there flat in that bed. And he would tell me about God, and I would sit here and thank God. If there's a God, if there's no God, why is it that I'm living the life I'm living and you're living the wife you're living? Yeah, you've been a good man. I know you've tried hard your whole life. Why would a God do this to someone? I can understand maybe what God's after me. But if there really is a God why are you living the life you're And so I didn't go stay much. My dad died, you know, and I got to be with my dad the last 48 of hours of his life because my sister come and got me and took me. And she said we're going to go stay with Dad until he dies. And my dad's last words to me was one more promise. Promise me you'll quit drinking and promise me you will take care of your mom. And I made that promise because that man was dying. And I left that hospital and went straight to the liquor store because I knew one more time I had told that man something I could never live. And I drank. In November 1983, my ex-wife at that time, we had been divorced for about six months, but it got to the point, you know, some of you will identify with this, you know you can't live together but you can live apart. You know, two sickies just can't do it. And I was back in one time, and she went to Alcoholics Anonymous to get me sober. And as you can see this morning, it worked. Not that quick, but it worked! The sad thing about that is she's not here today. When she comes to Alcoholic Anonymous today, she stays sober. But she don't find it necessary to come here on a regular basis, and most of us know what happens to people that don't come here on a regular basis. They continue to drink again. And, you know, I pray on a daily basis that maybe she can get back and give me what, get so freely what she gave to me. And I'll be ever grateful for that woman for bringing me here. But I came in on the, I didn't quit drinking there, you now. She brought home a big book about college. She brought him a lot of literature. And, as I said, I'm on the score of education. There's no pictures and all that stuff. And so, you know, I knew it wasn't for me. I'd pick up that book and there wasn't any pictures, so I laid it back down. And, you Know, that literature, you Now, I would think, You Know, this is good for her. And I thought that because she wasn't beating me up no more, You know. And, But I'm not so sure I need this deal yet. But on November or January 2nd, 1984, You Now, I came in from a New Year's Eve drunk. And that's how I drank. You Know. When I'd go out on a New Years Eve drunk, I'd get home about two days later, and I came in. And when I came back, she met me at the door. And she said, you can either go to Alcox or go to AA, or you can go. And I didn't know a lot what she was talking about, you know? I just knew that morning I was sick and tired of being sick and tiring, and she could have said, You can go to Amway or go. And we'd been in Amway that night because I didn' t care. I was just sick and tired of being stick and tired. I have a friend that talks about, you know, when the gig was up. And I really believe that I knew, I knew that day the gig Was Up. I knew That no longer I had a fight. And I was willing to go anywhere. And I went to the first AA meeting I'd ever went to in my life that night. And knew instantly I wasn't alcoholic. And if you're here this morning and you are comparing instead of identifying, you're not through yet. I can promise you that because that's what I did to that first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had no intentions of identifying with those people I went in and compared. All those people had been to treatment for alcoholism, and I had never been to treat them. I'm not a product this morning of any treatment center out there. I'm a product of the alcoholic synonymous, the old-timers who come and take you to meetings and let you sit there and shake and hope you don't die. That's the way it was when I got here. But I went to that meeting. They talked a lot about treatment. They talked about God. They were in the basement of a church. They said some real smart stuff. There was a bunch of them. They were all old people. Harlan's age or older, somewhere in there. you know. Yeah, I really liked Scott last night. Scott taught me, I never knew you could abuse your sponsor from the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thanks, Scott, I appreciate that. But a bunch of old geezers sitting around there and they was talking about God and talking about not drinking, you know, and they said, we need you. And I turned around and looked because I wanted to make sure they were talking to me. And I looked over and there was about 14 stairs and I looked back over and I said, I bet you do. I bet I'm going to have to carry every one of you out of here tonight probably. So they said, You keep coming back. They told me some smart stuff like I probably had some brain damage and that wasn't no big news because I had report cards from the Carthage school system that showed I had brain damage long before I took a drink of alcohol. So needless to say, I didn't identify very much of that meeting that day, but I had nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to going. And I came back to two or three, four or five, I don't know. I came Back to some more meetings. And the only thing I realized is they said if you don't drink, you won't get drunk, and I bought that. And I walked out of a meeting one night, and I turned to my ex-wife and I said, we don't need to go to those meetings no more. I got this deal. somewhere down the line they're going to want money and we don't got it so I says, we just won't drink one day at a time we won't get drunk we don' t need to go to meetings to do that we can do it by ourselves and she did and I didn't and I don't know how long I lasted and finally I was back out one more dime and when I went out this time I got arrested one night and I went to jail and this officer wrote up a bunch of tickets and I dont know what I'd done but evidently he didn't like it because he wrote for about an hour. He handed me all these tickets and told me to sign them. Well, you don't hand anything to a drunk and tell him to sign it. He tears it up and gives it back to you, and you get pissed off, and the fight's on. But one more time, I had people who knew me that could keep me out of trouble. I'd called my prosecuting buddy, and he wasn't in town that week. I thought I was in big trouble, but this jailer had called someone to come get me and took me home. And I started drinking alone, and I'm not a loner. You know, when I drink, I like to be outwardly actionated. I like the neons and the nylons, you know. I'm Not Sitting Home Drinking By Myself, but that's what I'm doing now. I go to work each day, I get up, I go home, andI drink. And I drink until I black out, until I'll pass out. And I look at them four walls, and l know this is it. I know this isn't, because there's nothing else. There's nothing else. I'm too paranoid to go out there. My prosecuting buddy got me out of trouble. He went to the chief of police and told him, you know, if you arrest him one more time, I won't prosecute him. So he didn't lie that night when he said he was living in his car. He was living on his own. He was just living in His car, you know? I mean, when they ask you for an address, you tell them an address. If you're living in your car, you're leaving in your Car. And that's where I was living at that time. And, you know, it gave me a free ride one more time. You know, I got brave enough to go out once in a while. I would go down the main street of a town of 5,000. I'd throw my beer cans out at the cops or whiskey bottles or whatever just letting them know it was me and knowing that they couldn't really do anything about it because he was going to keep me out of trouble. But what happens when you do that, you get real paranoid because these stories come back to you about you're not going to live on the river. You're going to lives under the river, you now. And so I got where I wouldn't go out at night because I thought the cops was after me. When I got sober and came to Alcoholics Anonymous, there's a little old gal named Millie in Joplin. And Millie said, Dave, paranoia is when you think you're out to get you. Believe me, those people was out to gets you. So, you know, I'm sitting there just drinking and doing my deal. And, you Know, I get up and I go to work each morning. Some days you get up, and the car's there, and some days it's not, you Now, and if it's not there, you walk to work. And if you're still not through, you know, and you have a job, make sure you live close to that job. Because some days you'll drive and some days You'll walk. And if You've got to walk, You know, You don't have far to walk. So I lived close to work, and I'd walk to work. One morning on June the 13th of 1984, you Know, I went to the Elks Club because that's where I went when I didn't work. I was a bartender there, andI went down to theElks Club, and we had a swimming pool out there. we took care of. I started drinking that morning or early afternoon and sometime that evening I blacked out and later on I passed out and I woke up the next morning one more time without my car. And, you know, Scott talked about pukers. Pukers, I love to puke. It's dry heaves that damn near killed me. When there's nothing else to pupe and you're still there and there's no feeling like it. If you've not had that, you know, I feel for you. You'll have a spiritual awakening, I'll guarantee you. Because you don't know where you're coming or going and your eyeballs you think are going to pop out and there you are and there's nothing else to do but stay. And man, you do some deep meditation that day. And I did that that day and I got up and I walked to work because my car wasn't there that day and I'm a high bought them drunk. And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had a job, I had a car, and I had place to live. And I had had a car because my dad had died in 1982 and my mother didn't drive. She gave me that car. And i had a place to live because my sister was paying rent on an apartment for me so I didn't have to live in my car and on the streets. And I had a job because I worked for my brother-in-law and my sister wouldn't let him fire me. High bottom drunk. She said, we're paying these rents now. Imagine what we'll have to give him drinking money if he don't work. I went to work that day and I worked in a grocery store and I went back in the cooler and I got me one more drink because I had to drink to get rid of the shakes so I could do any work. And I went out there and tried to work and a man came in and he's seeing me. He started talking to me. Started talking to me about him. And he talked to me about a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, and he wanted to know if I'd ever been. And I said, yeah, I've been there. I've been there, you know, and it's a good program for people who don't want to drink. But I'm not an alcoholic. My problems are far, far deeper from alcoholism. And I said somebody has a few problems now, but they'll go away and I don't want to not drink forever. And this guy just told me about his life and about what happened. He didn't have to do this one day at a time and by one day of the time, he had had a year sober and alcoholics anonymous and how much better his life was. And he left. And when he left, he didn't tell me I need to go today or I ought to go day or he'd take me day. He left. And some time went by and another guy come in and he told me the same story. He told me about his life and what happened in his life. And he hadn't had to take a drink in six months because he went to AA on a regular basis and how much better his life had got. And this guy laughed. And he never told me that I needed to go to AA or I ought to go there or he would take me to AA. He just laughed. You know, I'll always be grateful for those guys because, you know, I've never sat in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with either one of them guys. I don't know whether they're sober or drunk today. I have no idea. I have never seen them again. And I say I've Never Seen Them Again, that's not quite true. I did see them for maybe two or three times after that because they were salesmen and they came in that store on a regular basis. And right after that, one of whom had moved to Dallas and the other one, he lived in northern Missouri. and I've just never run across them again. But I didn't tell them, and I had no intentions of going to Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I didn' t intend to leave that job that day and go to a meeting with A&A, you know, because I knew it wasn' t for me. I knew, you Know, Scott talked about, you Now, the simple-minded people. You Know, that' s who I thought it was for, those simple... you know, yeah, you get drunk and have a wreck or something. You know, you run to A, straighten your eyes out. No, my problem is I'm underfinanced. That's my problem. You know? I'm just underfinensed. If I could just get my finances in order, I'd be all right. I've got bill collectors looking for me. I've Got ex-wives looking for me wanting child support. I've GOT bad checks all over town. You know that's my crop. If I can just get that in order. or alcohol wouldn't be the problem, you know. I'll be all right. But I left that job that day at 4 o'clock, and I walked to town, got in my car, and I went to the post office, and that's somewhere you never went if you lived the life I lived because you're not getting no love letters. Mom's not writing to you to see how you're doing. You know, there's a whole bunch of threat mail there, and it's what we're going to do if you don't do, and, you know, I'm used to that. And went down there and ran into a Catholic priest. It was ironic, you don't get to hear an ex-Catholic priest tomorrow morning. That's his story. But this guy, I didn't like him the first time I met him and I liked him even less this time. And he just took one look at me. He just took on look at my face and looked at me and said, You ready to come back, boy? And I don't know any more today than I knew that day, but I said yes. I said yeah. And I didn't know that I was never going to have to take a drink of alcohol again from that day to this. I didn' t know that because I didn''t want to come back here. I knew that I would never stay here, that this wasn't it for me. But I said, yes. And he told me, he said, you go home today and you don't drink tonight And tomorrow night, I'll pick you up and take you to a meeting. And I went home that day, and I didn't drink. I shook a lot, but I didn' t drink. And I didn'd drink the next day, and he'd come by the next night, and I went to a Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's basically what I'm here to talk about today. Because when I came back, it was the last place on earth I wanted to be. But yet, it was only people on the face of the earth who wanted to have anything to do with me. And I'll always be grateful for that. It seems like the more you don't want to be here, the more they love you, you know? And they tell you all kinds of stuff. You know, I went back to that group and I don't knock Alcoholics Anonymous, but those people in that group, they didn't believe in sponsorship. They didn't Believe in Big Books of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's some still people in that group that's running that group that's been sober a lot of years that's never done a four-step. And I'm glad that works for them. I really am. But I couldn't relate to anything they said. They kept saying, if you don't drink, you'll feel better. And yeah, I felt better, but not the way they was talking about. And they told me my life was going to get better. My life didn't get better, I continued to write bad checks. I didn't pay them bills, I didn'y try to pay that child support. Yeah, I just didn't drink. You know, if your don't drank for about 90 days, that ex-wife will come back and start talking to you, you know. About that time she decided to move back to Southwest Missouri, so I thought I needed a change in life. You know, I've been in the grocery business for about 17 years working in a grocery store, so I went to work in a dynamite factory. Don't do that. Don't doing that. You don't want to work there sober. If you work in an dynamite factor, you need to drink. You'll go to work some days and you'll realize you're the only sober one in that building. Now that's insanity. Best job I ever had. It was the best job I've ever had, paid a lot of money, worked a lot hours. You know, I got down there and decided when I got done there, you know, I'd move in with Mom. You know I didn't think she'd done a very good job raising me the first time so I thought I'd give her a second shot at it. So I moved in with Mother and went to work in a dynamite factory and I thought, well, I don't need AA. Just a bunch of old guys sitting in basements of churches reading out of a blue book, talking about God, talking about not drinking. Not my kind of life. I can stay sober, but I don' t need to go to AA. Stayed sober two weeks and I'm nuts. Nuts. So I went to a meeting. Give me a little blue card, a meeting schedule killing a bunch of old men in the basement of a church, reading out of a blue book, talking about God and not drinking one time at a time. Again, I said, yeah, it's just not going to work. I made it two more weeks and I'm climbing off the walls. So I got that card out and I said here's an open meeting. I'll go over here to this open meeting I know what open meetings are. They're meetings like this. You've got a guy up there talking for an hour. You don't know what he says. He don't knows what he said. He bores you half to death. You think he's never going to sit down and shut up. but nobody bothers you, so I'll go over there. So I went over to that meeting and walked in, and it was a round table in the hospital cafeteria. And there were seven people sitting there. And I got there at five minutes until, you know, just like I'm playing, five minutes till, five minutes when the meeting's over, get out of there, so you don't want to talk to them. So I get there at 5 minutes till. There were seven People at that table. Three of them jump up and run over to the door to meet me. One of them was an old man named Dan. and the other one was a little lady named Millie. And the other one was a guy named Robbie. Two of those guys are dead today. Millie is still a big part of my surprise. But Dan, they welcomed me and told me he was glad I was there. Got me a cup of coffee and we sat down. I don't know why Dan told me some things he did but the first thing he told me, he said, boy, I'm going to tell you this. He says, I'd rather you hate my guts than tell you the truth He says, well, I tell you to be your friend. And boy, I found the meaning out of that real quick. He didn't care about hurting your feelings at all. He didn'T read in there that alcoholics are sensitive people. Pretty obvious he has not been in a big book. And he didn'T care. When he said he didn't carry, he didn' t care. They had a group conscience one night. You know how that is? It's the three people who've got the most sobriety do the talking, you do the listening, and no one else votes what they say goes. Well, Dan and I, well, I had less than a year, but Dan had a month more than I had, so Dan got to be treasurer of the group. I didn't smoke. Seven people. I'm the eighth one. I'mtheonewhatdon'tsmoke, so I get the ashtrays. My first resentment in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll guarantee you. But what I had to do is I hadto get there 30 minutes early to put the ashtrays out for those who smoke. Then you have to stay late to clean the ashrays out of those for those that smoke, so they'll have clean ashray next time they want to smoke. Dan got drunk. Dan got Drunk. I'm so grateful I didn't get to pick my jobs from now close to now. Twelfth group. My group we give chips out every meeting. This group if you had a chip coming you had to stay sober till birthday night because they don't you could get that white chip anytime you want it but if you wanted 30 days 60 days 90 days six months any other chip you had stayed sober to birthday night a bunch of candies coming in alcoholics anonymous today because we're just giving chips well you got to give them a chip now because you know they might get drunk before they get their you know birthday night all means we don't want them have to wait another 10 days for a chip, so. Birthday night rolled around. Six months. Old man called me up to a podium like this. He reached under the podium and he had the half a cake. And he said, boy, I'm going to tell you something. He says, usually we give whole cakes here, but he said you're not going to make it and I don't want to miss it, so here, give me a half a case. Second resentment in alcoholics dynamics. it. You know, you couldn't have paid me enough to drink the next six months. Don't make that old man eat them words. Now, I stayed sober a year in Alcoholics Anonymous. Didn't have a sponsor. Once you don't need a sponsor, you can do this deal on your own. If you're new, hear this. You don't know what you're going to do if you stay sober by yourself without getting a sponsor and working any steps in Alcoholic Anonymous for a year. If you're anything like me, you're gonna load a shotgun three times and put it through your head and want to die. Because you're not going to change that. You're not going to quit writing bad checks. You aren't going to pay bill collectors. You ain't going be a father to those kids. You are not going pay that child support. You just got to not drink and you're going to be miserable and there's a lot of people around you who are going to miserable. Because I'm the type of guy when I'm mad and angry, I'm going to make damn sure you are. And that's what happens. If I'm going to AA, I'm not drinking and I'm real miserable. And when I got that year cake, if they suggested I have a sponsor, I got a sponsor and we worked the steps to the best of my ability. I went out there and I tried to make some amends. I went to that first XY. I told her I was alcoholic and I wasn't going to tell you what she said. I tried To clean my language up today. You know, when I came up here this morning, And I asked God, and I said, let me use foul language. And you know, if you catch me using foul language today, it's because God didn't listen. But I went to ask my wife, and when I told her, I said... You know, I've done you some wrongs. And she said, yeah, you have. And I said my sponsor told me I need to come and ask you what I need to do to make all them wrongs right. And she looked at me right now and said, die. I'm living proof half-majors will value something. But one more time, I knew those steps didn't work. You know, and I got involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. That sponsor ended up doing some things that he shouldn't do while sober because he got where he didn't drink, but he didn' t go to meetings and he ended up in penitentiary. And I got another sponsor and this sponsor believed in service work and he got me real involved in service work and I thought that's where it was at. I'm three years sober and I'm sitting at his kitchen table one day and we're talking about my financial situation and we hear something and we' re talking about my financially situation and he's telling me everything I need to do we go to the door and they're repossessing his vehicle. Now you guys laugh, but I went back to that table and continued to listen. So that's the way it was. That's the Way It Was. I'd done a lot of things I wasn't proud of. I was three years sober. I was dating a girl half my age. And I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous and I looked cool. I looked real cool. But I'd go home at night and I lay on my head on that pillow and I couldn't sleep because I knew I wasn't cool. I knew I wasn'T cool. I had a daughter her age and I knew what I was doing wasn't right. And I couldn'T sleep. And we was laid off from work, had a little time off and we was running around in alcoholic synonymous. I was going to lots of meetings and boy, I'll tell you what, if you go to lots the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and you don't drink, you know, you'll be all right. But if you don' t work the steps, if you do' n't get in the program of Alcoholic Anonymous, you're going to be nuts because what you hear in Alcoholics Today, Alcoholics Anonymous tell you in a lot of meetings I go to has absolutely nothing to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll guarantee you that. And there's a big difference between meetings and fellowship and the program that Scott talked about. The program of Alcoholic Anonymous is outlined in the big book of Alcoholice Anonymous And unless you work and rework those steps, there's nothing going to change in your life. And that's what was happening to me. As I was going to meetings and I was not drinking and my life was just getting more crazier than it had ever been in my life. And we went to a convention in Tyler, Texas. And it was the year they had the ice storm. And we drove across the ice to go there because they told us we couldn't make it so we left a day early. And we went. And as the guy got up there, I'd heard this guy a thousand times. He had a tape of his, and I'd listen to this tape over and over again. And the only thing I could think is I thought this was the most arrogant guy I'd ever heard in alcoholics anonymous. I could never hear what he was trying to say. And what I was doing was comparing. And that night he got up here and spoke, and he wasn't even supposed to speak. He was supposed to chair a meeting because the speaker couldn't make it in because of the ice storm. He spoke. He told my story. And I hooked up with this guy. And he got me in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous and my life changed. I went home and I ended that relationship about six months later. He told me, he said, I want you to make a decision on that relationship. He said, I either want you to go home and end it now or he said I want you to give it the best six months you ever gave anything in your life. Well, you know, I'm sick. I'm not stupid. I'm no going to give up a good thing now. But, you Know, I'll give it six months. But in six months, I ended that relationship because I knew it was a sick relationship. A lot of things happened in my life. You know, he became my sponsor. And, you Now, I got real involved in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and quit messing around with the fellowship so much. I got to make amends to a lot of people I'd harmed. I got the love my kids, be a part of their lives. I had a... That youngest daughter, you know, she's always been close to me through it all. She just always felt, you now, that she needed to be close to her dad. And that oldest daughter, she was just the joy of my life from day one. And our relationship had never been close, but it got closer than it had ever been. I got to see her walk across the stage to get her diploma one night, and I almost missed that. I almost miss that because of my fear and my ego. I got up one morning. I was living in Tyler, Texas, and I just got a new job, and I'm always the type of person that if you go to work for someone, you ought to give them everything you've got. And I didn't feel like I deserved to ask off to go to my daughter's graduation because I hadn't been on the job very long. And I got up. I was living with my sponsor and his wife at that time, and I got out that morning and got ready to go to work, and he could tell I was down. He called me in his office and asked me what was going on, and I told him. He said, I want you to go in there and pack you some clothes. And he said, you go by and tell your employer you're going to Missouri for your daughter's graduation. And he says, if that employer fires you, you'll find another job. But that girl only graduates once. Jobs will come and go. And I went and got in my car, and I drove six hours to get there and I made it. And when I did, that little girl came across that stage and she had tears in her eyes because I was there. I'm grateful. I'm thankful for strong sponsorship. For people telling me what I need to do. This guy... You know, I went to Tyler, Texas to make a fortune. You know I had got laid off that dynamite factory and they told me it was going to be a while before we got back to work and said you know why don't you go find something else and we'll get ready to call you back. Well so I moved to Tyler Texas with my sponsor and his wife. They was moving down there and yeah I thought he's got enough pull. He can get me a good job here. Everything is going to Be all right. My life is going To get better than it's ever been and I got to Tyler, Texas, and he opened the treatment center and we started a meeting over there. And it had become one of the largest meetings in Tyler, Texas at that time. And we got to work with a lot of new drunks. And, you know, life was great. I met a young man who didn't come through the treatment center. He came there one night to a meeting and he told me that he needed a sponsor. And this kid had been through seven treatment centers. He'd been through Hazelton, his folks was millionaires, and they'd send him to some of the finest places in the country. His dad at that time was paying for this little digit on his card. He had to blow in it to start it to make sure he wasn't drinking. And, you know, he'd come and ask me to be his sponsor, and I told him I can only teach you what's been taught to me. And I started sponsoring this kid, and in October, this kid's going to have 10 years of sober and alcoholics anonymous. He is now the CEO of his dad's company, and I went there to get rich. Another young lady comes through that treatment center, you know, Tammy. Tammy had been in eight or nine universities and dropped out because of drinking and drugging. And Tammy was a program of attraction. and she had half her head shaved, and it was dyed, and she wore a t-shirt with no brawls. I wanted to know why none of the women wanted nothing to do with her. And I sponsored Tammy on a little ego trip because I wanted to think I could do something that I shouldn't be doing. And I did. And sometimes the ego works in your favor. And what happened is because I wanted to prove this field of work. You know, my wife and I a couple years ago got to go to Tyler, Texas and watch Tammy walk across the stage and pick up a diploma. She became a young lady. She's got married and she's had a baby and she sponsored a lot of women in AA and now she's chose to go church more than AA and that's her life, you know. But I went there to get rich, not to carry a message, just to get richer. And I don't tell you those stories to brag. I tell you Those Stories because I don' t know what God's got in store for me each day. I don''t know what's happening. I went back in 1990. My wife likes me to tell this one, so I'm going to tell her this one. I went into business for myself in Tyler, Texas. I started a yard business in Tyler, Texas in January. Yeah. I went broke in the yard business in Tyler Texas in February. In May, that dynamite factory called me to come back to work and I was real grateful. But I was going home and I Was going back to Missouri and my mom had been real sick that year. She had a few heart attacks, me in and out of the hospital. You know, when I called my mom and told her I was coming home, I told her, you know, send me a couple of newspapers because I had to find a place to live. My mom said, I want you to live with me. I didn't want to do that. I've been on my own now and I've become self-supporting through my own contributions and I wanted to live on myown and I went and talked to my sponsor and said my mom wants me to come and live with her because of her health. And he reminded me about that little promise I'd made my dad in 1982 about, you know, you'll quit drinking and you'll take care of your mother. He said, You've lived half of that promise. Why don't you go take care Of the other half? So I got to go home and take care OF my mother the last six months of her life. And it was a great feeling. A great feeling there was no guilt. No guilt there. You know, when my mom died, I was all right because my mom became my best friend. You know? She loved it. My mom never went to Al-Anon. She just loved what Alcoholics Anonymous had done for her son. She loved him. I was sitting there right after she died about two months later, and I called my sponsor. And you know, I'd not been in a relationship in a long time. You know, I was in and out of those early in sobriety. So I realized, you know, maybe I need to learn to live with me before I try to screw up somebody else's life. And yeah, that's pretty much what I did. I called my sponsor, and he said, well, maybe you ought to find someone to start dating. I said, how do you date? I don't know how to take hoppies, but I've never dated. Well, I don' t know howto date. I called this lady up and I said you know you want to go to Springfield they're having a speaker meeting up there so she called three or four other people so when I found out she invited three or other people I just took off went to Tyler for the weekend called her and told her I wasn't going to make it go on to Springville have a good time because I didn't I I just didn't know how to do anything like that so I next time I asked her out I said no I want to go on dates like it's just me and you. It's not me, you, and three or four other people. I mean, at this time, I was driving a two-seat Triumph. How are you going to haul a car though? You know, so she agreed to go, and we had knew each other for a few years, and, you know, we tried to date, but we don't know how to date. You know? We started dating in January, we got married in May. And I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Marjorie. Not only do I not know how to date, I don't know how to be married. We got married and we decided we would communicate and when we communicate the people three blocks down the road here's communicating and because people said you need to communicate so we communicated the only way we knew how and i'm going nuts and john i've got so much ego i said you know i'll drink you know proven fact if i drink she'll leave nobody's ever stayed with me when i'm drinking all drank and chilled yeah I'm not going to get divorced so I I got too much ego I've sat there on that side and I've judged those people that came in alcoholics and got married and got divorced knew it and it wouldn't work you know I know Joe he can't have a relationship and I knew what would happen if I got divorced. You know, people would be out there judging me and I didn't want that to happen so I'll just drink and she'll leave. So I started calling my sponsor telling him about going to drink and he thought maybe I ought to get a divorce instead of drink and he's screaming divorce and I'm screaming drink and you know, it's really a sick deal And what happened is my sponsor loved me so much that he didn't know what to tell me. He had absolutely no idea, but he didn' t want me to drink. And one day when we was on the phone arguing, he told me, he said, maybe you better find another sponsor. And it devastated me. Just really devastated me because here I am in a sick relationship. We've got some financial problems, you know. and now I've lost my sponsor. And this is the guy that saved my life. Literally saved my Life. And now I'm angry and I really don't know what to do. And thank God for the old timers of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank God. Because I went to a couple that's been in AlcoholicsAnonymous for a lot of years. and they've been married for a lot of years and they argue and fight as much today as the day they got married. And their names are Don and Norma and I asked them how to be married. How do you be married? I don't know how to being married. And they spent time with me. They spent time telling me how to get married and I'm so grateful for that. So grateful for them. because, see I would have lost my best friend. I'm married to my best friend today. I married to be my best friend because of the people of Alcoholics Anonymous. The ones that care enough to tell you what you need to hear. Not the ones that tell you what you want to hear and I don't criticize my sponsor for what he did because I know today he did the only thing he knows do and what happened is he and I became closer. We became closer See, I owed him some financial amends and I thought we would have never paid those financial amens because he didn't want the money He wanted my friendship more than he ever wanted anything But what I had to do is I had go to that man and pay him the money I owed And when I went and paid the man the money he called me because he wanted to spend the weekend with me And that's how this deal works You know, I I can't stand here this morning and tell you all the things that's happened in my life since I got here because there's just so many of them. Those little girls, they grew up to be big girls. The oldest one, her and I had a relationship that was unbelievable. I got to walk her down the aisle when she got married. You know, she gave me a beautiful granddaughter. And everything was going great. She went through a divorce a couple of years ago, and when she went through that divorce, you know, I wanted to take responsibility for that because I figured if she hadn't had to watch that, she wouldn't have to live that. And I realized that wasn't my responsibility, that's her life. And what happened is that first ex-wife I've tried over the years to make a lot of amends to that woman, but she'll never accept my amends. I know that today. And a year ago, she broke that relationship up with my daughter and I. And I wish that I could tell you today that that don't hurt. But the truth is, that hurts. That really hurts. Because we have a five-year-old granddaughter or six-year old granddaughter that we ain't seen over a year. And we had this little girl about every week. And that hurts, but I know it's alright. See, because I don't know what God's plan is. It's just I have to live it. I have a limit today. The youngest daughter, a few years ago, she came to me and, you know, her mother had called me and told her she was living the life that she didn't agree with. And I called my daughter and she came and talked to me, and we talked about it, and I didn't disagree with it either. And I really wanted to disown that daughter. I really didn't want to own that daughter anymore. I wanted to just put her out of my life. And I went and talked with my sponsor at that time. And my sponsor had pointed out that all the years that I was drinking and I was an alcoholic and I would embarrass her and make her feel ashamed, she never disowned me. And what that done is that made my relationship with that girl that much closer. Today we have a good relationship. Her life's her life and my life is my life. She comes to my home all the time. She's my baby. We just had her 24th birthday a month ago. And she's a part of our life. My wife's got a couple of kids. She's got her son that, you know, it's amazing how guys work. You know, he chose not to be a partof our life and he has two grandsons and he didn't want to be apart of our lives for a long time and we don't know why. You know we took him to one meeting, an AA meeting and he got well and said he would do this on his own and didn't wanna be apartof our lives. But he had them two little grandsons, and about the time my daughter pulled out of our life, this boy called us and said he wanted to be a part of our lives, and he didn't want us missing them boys growing up. So God gave us two boys for one girl. That's how it works here, is God never takes you, don't give back. And I know that little girl will be back. I know she'll be back in God's time, not mine. But we got them two little boys, and then she's got a daughter who, I don't know where this kid comes from. She went to college, got her degree, went to work, then decided she'd get married, and now decided to have a kid. Yeah, my proposal was your what? Well, I didn't know how you do those kind of things, and I know her mother didn't teach her those things. but uh we our life's good today it's good i have a friend used to be my sponsor over in dallas texas and uh you know we a few years ago he bought into a business with a gal that his fiancee and uh when he did he got real busy, and we didn't get to spend much time together. So I called him and told him I needed to get a sponsor closer, and I did. We've continued to be friends and call each other on a regular basis. He bought into this business three years ago. He tried to get me to go work for him, and when you get a position, call me because I don't want to work. And in November, he called me and said, you know, I got the closest thing you're ever going to get from me is the position. And he said, I'd like for you to come to Dallas and talk to me. And so I went to Dallas in January and talked to him about this job he's got. And it sounded good. It sounded fun because he employs a lot of drunks. And He said, y'all come down and work with us for a week and see whether you like doing this. And if you like doing this, you know, maybe we can get something going for you up in Missouri. So I went to Dallas for a week and took a friend of mine. And we went to Dallas and we worked this for a week and we had a blast, really enjoyed it. And we sit down and we talked and I went home and my wife said, what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to quit my job and go to work for John. She said, really? And she says, what did John offer you? And I said, he offered me an opportunity. And she looked at me and she said, that's nice, but we have bills. She said, did he offer you any money? I said no, he didn't offer him any money. He just offered me a job. He offered me as an opportunity and she said, you're going to quit your job and go to work for John for an opportunity? And I say, yeah. I won't repeat what she said. But there's some of you here that know my wife. My wife, she likes to worry a lot. So I just let her worry a little bit. I worry a whole lot, you know. And I've never worried because, you Know, when you've lived in your car and lived in the gutters, you don't have a lot of worry. You don't Have to worry about lights or food or anything like that. You just live one day at a time. And so when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, I really relate it to the one day At a time, I just go do it whether it's right or wrong because, you know, I know there's a program here to work that's going to make it all right. And so I don't worry, and she don't like that. She likes to worry, so I said, well, let's do it this way. I'm going to go work for John, and you worry about it, and we'll make it alright because I don' t know what God's got in store for me tomorrow, you kno? Everything I have today is just stuff. It's just stuff that God has given me on loan. I've got some things I never dreamed I could have. I own a house today. I drive a brand new automobile today. I have season tickets to a football team that don't know how to win today, yeah? I just say that because I know you all are close to the Cowboys. You're going to tell me that anyway. Yeah, I had things I never thought I could have today, and they're just here on loan. They're just there one day at a time, as long as I keep doing what I'm doing today. And I'm going to close, and I'm gonna close by saying this. I think it's real important that the new people hear this. We don't say it enough in the meetings I go to. The reason we're here today, the reason we'RE here today is not because of a treatment center movement. The reason WE'RE here Today is not Because the government put a bunch of finances in alcoholism. The reason WERE here today is because there was a stockbroker in New York went to Akron. And think about it for a minute. He didn't go to Akroon to start AA. He went to Akrooom to get rich. He was going to put a deal together that was going make him and Lois a bunch of money. I mean, can you imagine the conversation he would have had with God when he got down there and said, Okay, God, now what? You know, I come down here and put this deal together and fell through, and God says, Bill, I sent you there to start AAA. Hey, what do you think Bill would have said? What would you have said?" What would you have said? I know what I'd say. Well, I'm going to go down to the bar and drink a little bit and find some drinks. You know, ease the pain. Bill went and found another drink to talk to him because he knew that that's what he had to do. I'll tell you some things he didn't do. You didn't go to a meeting. You haven't had no meetings. And yet we tell newcomers all the time, well, go to your meetings. Oh, going to meetings is fine. Why don't you tell them, write a four-step? Oh, you'll hurt their feelings. That's why you're going to tell them that. No. He didn't tell him to write a gratitude list. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not A. There's nothing wrong with it. He didn't tell him, just go back up to the room and get on his knees and pray and just turn it over to God. And there's nothing wrong without it. I'm not knocking on something, but that's not a A. He said, go find you another drunk. One-on-one, I don't know about the meetings you go to, but I'll do one-on-one any day as go to a meeting a lot of times because that's the language of the heart. That's one drunk talking to another drunk and if that drunks only got 24 hours, 48 hours he'll know where to take you. He'll know what and we don't tell people. You know when I went to Tyler Texas I didn't go down there to help Bill and Tammy get sober. I went down there to get rich. I didn't know there was going to be two drunks wanting a message. So the next time you're sitting around, and you're feeling sorry for yourself, and things are not going well for you, think, just remember this, God too has a plan for you. Thank you very much.