Wisdom as a Byproduct of Action – Don H.

Hi everybody, I'm an alcoholic and my name's Donald Henderson because it says so right here. It's nice to be here. I'm glad I was chosen to come up and share on Friday morning because I couldn't handle last night. My God, there was a lot of people here. I was listening to Joe share last night and I was trying to get a feel of where he was going with everything, you know, and I so closely identify with what was going on in his life. I'm not one of those kind of guys who can stand up here and tell you a whole bunch of a drunk-a-log. I really honestly don't have much of a drink-a log. I was passed out most of the time, so I don't remember a lot of it. I do like to talk about recovery, though. So I guess what I should do today is try to share with you in a general way what it used to be like, what happened, and the way it is now. My sponsor told me a long time ago that when all else fails, follow directions. Now, I often hear people, when they speak from a podium, talk about remembering their first drunk or remembering their first drink. I'm from a very large family down in southern Anne Arundel County. I had six brothers and a sister, and what we used to do in my family was our we had a right big yard you know was out in the farm community and everything and all the aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces and everything used to come over to my father's house to party on the weekends and uh drinking in our home was something that just constantly went on everybody drank in the family you know and on saturdays everybody would gather around the house and uh we'd be sitting out around the picnic table frying hamburgers and drinking beer, and everybody would be carrying on. And one of the little children, you know, one of the little babies like my little brother or my sister would start carrying on and crying, and my father would go over and fill his bottle up with beer, put the nipple back on his stick in his mouth. So I assume that's probably how I had my first drink. I don't know. I can remember that in the family as I started to get a little older, my father, you could set your watch by him at five o'clock in the evening he would come home and he would pull into the driveway and he was stick his arm out the window and give me two dollars and his stainless steel pitcher now my job was at the age of nine and ten and eleven was to run down to the bar get his picture filled up with the draft beer and getting three packs of camels I'll never forget that as long as I lived. And I would go down in that kettle that sat right on the dinner table, and any of the children who would like to have a glass of beer could go ahead and help themselves. And that's the way we lived. I remember experimenting with that, pouring myself a glass of that beer, because my brothers were drinking it and everything, you know, so I wanted to drink it too. And, uh, I remember tasting it, and it was terrible stuff. And didn't like it. So I didn't drink it, I drank milk. And then I see I can get through my drunk-along real quick you know because there's a few little highlights and nothing much happens you know. I can remember being 14 years old and getting together with the boys and we're just at that time in our lives where we're starting to feel our oats a little bit you know we're a little wild we're little crazy and uh there was an old farmhouse down the road from my mother's place and the little old lady that had lived there had died like a year before and uh the house was just sitting there so eight nine of us boys we'd get someone down there one day and uh we decided we're going to go inside and see what we can find and and it's called breaking and entering you know and and we broke into the place and got to going through everything and looking at the old furniture and winds our way down in the basement we get down the basement of that house and we found 150 gallons of homemade wine. You know, now we're 14-15 years old you know and gee this is a tremendous discovery the old ones you know the gallon jugs with the cork stuck in the top of them you know and some of them was a dark blue and some one with a cherry red and all that kind of stuff and we all run home got our wagons and we start unloading this wine out of there, you know, and that gets it all out of the basement, gets it in the wagons, and we hauled it back in the woods. Now, the plan was that when we went back into the woods to play soldier, we was going to drink like the real soldiers, you know. And I got back there that day, and I had seen it on TV, Beverly Hillbillies or something, I don't know, where they throw the jug up on their shoulder, you know, when they start increasing. I poured it all down me and everything, you know. But I drank an awful lot of it, and it wasn't like that beer. This stuff was wonderful i mean it was sweet oh god i loved it you know and i and i drank it and i drink it and i drank and i couldn't feel anything strange happening to me until i passed out you know and and i didn't know i was drunk or none of that kind of stuff and and i was one of those uh poor souls who was a roman catholic on top of it and i was an altar boy and i was supposed to serve mass the next day and and I remember getting sick on the altar and passing out and taking a pledge at 14. You know, I'll never drink that stuff again as long as I live, you know. But I can remember when I was 15. And when I grew up, it was back in the early 50s, we had two types of people. We had people that we referred to as squares and we had drapes. And the crowd that I hung with, we was drapes now we used to wear them real pointy shoes and set pants with the saddle stitch down the side of them and you know and we comb our hair back in a big DA back here and we'd wear undershirts with a pack of cigarettes rolled up on the top here you know didn't matter if you smoked or not you still rode the cigarettes up here on your sleeve you know and we'd go out and one of the older guys would have a car and we would hunt around town and see if we could find ourselves a wino and we could always find one who would buy us 12 beers. We'd pitch in our money and you could buy a six-pack then for 98 cents and we get two six-packs and throw them in the back of the car and then there would be a big argument about who was going to ride shotgun, you know, the window next to the driver. And we'd travel into the big city and that was Glen Burnie for us, you know. And we'd ride around Glen Burny and you've got your cigarettes piled up here and you get your can of Budweiser in your hand and you stick your arm out the side and you pop the muscle up real big and you whistle at the girls and you say, hey honey, and all that stuff. You didn't know what the hell you was going do if one of them ever answered you, you know. But I used to like to get by that window not so bad. I enjoyed whistling at the girls' and all don't get me wrong there was nothing wrong with me but but I didn't like that beer and I used to like you know I'd get over there I could hang my arm out and sort of like spill it out you know as we're going down the road that way I wouldn't have to drink it because I just didn't like the taste of it. I didn't like it. I worked hard to become an alcoholic. It wasn't easy for me. There was a lot of things I had to overcome. You know, I was in that place where I needed to fit in and I needed to be part of. I come from a large family and I always felt, and I guess anybody who is an alcoholic can identify with, I always thought like I was the black sheep of the family. All my brothers and sisters would talk about strange things that I didn't understand, like love. And I had absolutely not the slightest idea what it was all about. I knew all about what it was that I wanted. And I remember being extremely sensitive. I heard someone talk about alcoholics being so sensitive, and my feelings got hurt real easy. But I needed to be part of, and I needed to fit in. Nothing much else exciting happens in my drunk along i went on through school and left there and joined the navy had a few little things going on in there but nothing real exciting you know nothing that i'd even want to i couldn't sit in the back seat of a car and share war stories with anybody that's for sure you know i just i just would feel out of it i can remember turning 22 years old and marrying my high school sweetheart girl i had dated she was 14 years old when we started dating you know and uh when I was 22 we got married and I got me a nice job and I was making pretty good money and uh about a year or so later the baby started coming along and uh things looked good I bought me a night home down in Rivera Beach nice community where I was born and raised at things looked great but I had gotten into a pattern with getting with the boys on payday you know and we would stop on the way home from work on Friday on pay day I wasn't aware that banks cash checks I thought that you had to go to the bar room to cash your check and and and I would slide on into the barroom and and i would get a beer or two or three or four you know. And I was also the kind of drinker that after even after all those years of practice that I could just drink so much. You know, I'd drink five or six bottles of beer and I would get to about here and that would be it. I mean, it wasn't no sense doing anything to me because I just wasn't going to drink no more because I couldn't physically drink anymore. I can remember a beautiful point in my life. To me, it was a fantastic experience. I was 24 years old and it was Saturday afternoon. It was hot and it Was in July. Funny the things you remember. but i'd left with a couple of the guys and we had went over to the bar to drink a few beers and i'd sat there that afternoon and i had drank four or five beers i don't know what it was and i got to about here and i thought well no sense me hanging around yeah i gotta get going you know and and i went out to go get in my car and i walked outside and that heat hit me in the face coming out of that air conditioning bar and i threw up and all four or cinco of those beers just came up. And the first thing that popped in my head was, you better go back in and drink some more, you know? And I went back in, and I started drinking, and I drank, and drank, drank. And I closed that bar up that night and I got a six-pack and I went home. And, I went in all excited. My wife was in bed. I went in and I shook her and I said, hon, guess what? I can drink just like a million now. I was proud of that. 24 years old, 24 years old. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. Five years. I was sitting in my first alcohol synonymous meeting you know and how that had occurred was this is strange you people you hear an awful lot about coincidences and Joe talked about a few of these coincidences last night you know and how things happen to us and uh and in hindsight i didn't realize this until a number of years in sobriety when i looked back and was able to see what was going on i had became a weekend warrior i was i was getting drunk a lot on the weekends and i was enjoying it and i was having fun and i liked the action in the bar rooms and uh i was one of those kind of guys who got tail lights in his eyes you know i i would walk into a bar room and and order a drink but and i'd lay my dollar bill down on that bar and i wanted something to happen i wanted some action and if i went in and laid my dollar down and you just brought me a drink and i drank it i was getting the heck out of your bar because when i wanted some action i wanted something to happened and that's why i was out there and i would get traveling around all the bars and and i can remember being 29 years old and i was setting up the gay white way funny thing about the guy was to revisit that it comes later in my story you know but uh i was sitting in the gay right way and just as you walk into the gay right way on the left hand side there's a telephone on the wall and i walked all the way down the end of that bar and i sat there and i drank and i drink and i was getting pretty drunk and i'm getting feeling sorry for myself it was a friday night again and here it was i hadn't gone home from work and i know the wife was home waiting for me and uh matter of fact my mother and father-in-law were supposed to come over for dinner that day and i was really feeling bad about what i had done and i didn't know what was going on and here i was drinking and got a crying jag on and i walked down to that telephone now how this happened i haven't got the slightest idea and I called Alcoholics Anonymous. I had never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous before. Maybe, it must have been back there somewhere and I call and I got a gruff old guy on the telephone and he didn't want to hear me cry and he went like bull crap and he says where are you from and I told him and he said there's a meeting up at your home parish He says St. James Francis Sunday at 730 you be there somebody will meet you at the door and i said okay this is like about 11 o'clock at night so i figured that i was in good hands so i went back and finished off my drinking you know and and i closed the bar up at night at two o'clock and i'd walk going home you know i'd get on home and put in front of house go in the house the wife is standing there looking at me and she said donald i think that you've got a problem with alcohol and i called Alcoholics Anonymous tonight and there's a meeting up at St. James Francis Sunday and I want you to go. Swear to God that's exactly the way it happened. This next part is really interesting because there's somebody who was very important in my life, who plays a very important part in my sobriety who doesn't even know it but whenever I have an opportunity to share I always tell the story about this guy and he has not the slightest idea of who I'm talking about now, but he's in this audience tonight. My wife and I went up to that meeting, 730. A guy named Dick met me at the door, took me over, got me a donut and coffee and sat me and my wife down around the table. And there was a little old man sitting up in front of the room. Old man. I mean, this is the way it looked to me. This was an old guy, man. He had a little gold tee and he looked red-faced didn't he? I mean, he looked bad. I mean he looked bad. He looked like 40 miles of bad road, well I tell you, you know, and he started talking about, and this may be an exaggeration, and I'm sure he can correct me later but it's too late. I've been telling the story for 17 years now, you know. But he talked about the 17 times they'd been institutionalized, the eight and nine automobiles had wrecked, the two and three families had been through, you know. And I'm sitting there looking at this guy thinking my God, thank God people like him have got a place to go. I could not identify with all those horror stories. I had a beautiful home in a nice community. I had an amazing family. I had fantastic job. I was making big bucks. I had two new automobiles sitting outside. Two healthy, beautiful kids, well-dressed, clean clothes, food on a table. 1969. he's telling all this story and everything and I you know I just sort of let went along with everybody and I smiled and I shook the hands and my wife said to me after well what do you think it sounds pretty good right nice I'll probably come back up here next Sunday you know you do that when your wife's mad at you you know did you do anything when your wife's mad at ya so I went on my merry way and I I didn't stop drinking I I did what Joe said was I tried to control my drinking. I don't think I really tried to control it, I just sort of planned it. You know well I knew when I could get away with it and when I couldn't get away with it you know and that's when I drank when I thought I could away with that I drank but after a while I just wound up back in the jackpot. I would wind up in terrible situations and I'm sure some of you people have been there where I would walk in the bar with all the best intentions in the world. I know the wife's waiting dinner but I also know that if I can just drink one or two nice cold beers, I'm going to be okay, be a little shorty on the side, you know, give it that zing and get her going and then I'll go on home and I'll walk in The Bar Room and I order myself a beer. I'm all by myself. I'm sitting there and I get my beer and I start drinking and old Pete walks in and Pete says, Christ, I haven't seen you in a long time. Won't you have a beer with me? And Pete buys me a beer. I ain't cheap. I can't leave her until I buy Pete one. And then Dick walks in and buys Pete and Don one. Then Pete buys Dick and Don ones, and then Don's got to buy Pete and Dick one, you know? And that's what happened to me all the time. I didn't mean to do those things. I mean, I just couldn't be ignorant and walk out on this guy. You know, I couldn't understand my wife couldn't understand that you know and before you know it's one two o'clock in the morning i'm coming home with the pizza pies the peace offering you want to hear one this isn't can you top this i was sitting in the bar room one night and i was all drunked up and i did it again you know half my money's gone and i do it again and i knew i did het again i wasn't that drunk that I didn't know that I was in trouble and I was scared to go home. The biggest gorilla in the world could have walked in that bar and I went nose-to-nose with him. Didn't care, but I was scared to go home. My home. And I couldn't do anything. But I'm sitting there in a bar and I'm about half shot to the wind you know and I don't know what I'm talking to this guy and they would think like that and she says you know what Jesus I got a couple horses for sale I can let you have one cheap I bought a darn horse i mean i buy it he let me use trailer to go get it one o'clock in the morning and we go pick the horse up come back to my house and i'm thinking boy this will do it she can't be mad now because i bought the kid the horse and i walk in the house with the horse insane you know i mean it's like it's laughable and it's funny but my god the payment was involved and all this kind of stuff. This took place between 1969 and 1972. Between 1969, everything that I heard of in that first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous happened to Don Henderson. In recent years, we've had a little controversy down in the Baltimore area with the squeegee kids. Late in 1969, I was the fellow who started that movement. I was one of Baltimore's first squeegee kits. I used to live in a doorway. The home was gone, the wife was gone, and the family was gone. The jobs were gone, the cars were gone. I'm living in a door way and I'm a wino. And the cars would come up on the corner of, I think it was Fayette Street and Green, I can't even remember what it was but I was living in the doorway there. And I would run out in the street when they'd stop at the red light and I'd spit on your windshield and take an old dirty rag or something and wipe your windshield off to get a nickel or dime or cooler so I could go down and get me some meds all day, you know, get my bottle going. I had a very wonderful, loving maiden aunt who loved me as if I were one of her own children and she was fairly well-to-do and she introduced me to the psychiatrist and the psychologist and I started making the rounds with those people because they were trying to find out what was wrong with me. and I would spend hours with these people, and she was to spend thousands and thousands of dollars. I had one psychiatrist who gave me an open prescription for Valium because I suffered from this nervous condition. And it was a wonderful situation because I think that my aunt had such influence over this man with her money that that all i need you i don't care where i was was to get on the telephone and call that doctor and tell him that doctor you know i really feel bad i think i'm going i don't know i'm just off point i don' t know what to do i'm so scared and everything like he said where are you and i'd say i'm such in such a place he said there's a reeds drug store down on such and such a corner i'm gonna call the prescription and you get right down there right away. And I would shuffle them down to Reed's and I'd say, I'm Don Henderson, do you have anything here? A big bottle of pills with 25 or 30 pills in it, ten milligrams apiece. And i would eat some pills until I could get some money together to get another drink. March the 18th of 1972 I was laying in my doorway like I normally would. I was telling a couple at breakfast, if you can remember back or if you get the newspapers and read about March the 17th St. Patrick's Day 1972 it was cold. I mean it was colder then than it is now and And somewhere during that night, someone had stole my shoes, which wasn't anything new. I had stolen them from somebody to begin with. You know, it wasn't a big deal, but it was cold. And I woke up that morning and I was sick like I was prone to be when I came to in the mornings. And any good wino knows that when you've got that much wine left in your jug and you don't know if you're going to be able to hustle up enough money to get any more, that the first thing you do is sneak over behind Lexington Market where they've got them big produce stands where a guy leaves that garden hose out all night and you fill yourself up with water and you keep throwing up until you can hold some water down then you can go ahead and finish your wine. I had five or six pills left in my pocket and I remember laying in the doorway and I had drank more wine and I was eating the pills and I don't know what happened And I know this, that my mind at that moment was as crystal clear as mine is right now today. Like this moment. And I couldn't get in and I couldn' t get out. And I don' t know if it was anything like a moment of truth. I don't know what was going on, but I know that I was stark wave in terror. And I never want to forget this. And I remember cursing God that morning what kind of a god could it be that exists in this universe who would allow a piece of human trash like me a person that does nothing but use and abuse and hurt people allow me to live and take beautiful beautiful people out of it you know poor little children just dying and nothing made sense and i had been down to the grace and hope mission a couple times and I had been saved a couple times, and a lot of things had happened. And when I was a young man, I had two years of minor seminary. I was studying to be a priest. And I had certain belief structures at that time that had just gone out of the window, you know, and I found it extremely difficult to believe in God. I had being introduced to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1969, and let me tell you what it is that I learned about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous between 1969 and 1972. I said in a meeting one day, and a man said, you suffer from a disease and not a discretion. That's the only thing that I ever learned. And I used that to my advantage. Every time that I would go out and get drunk and get in trouble, when you know I've got a disease, I just had a relapse, and I coughed out. and I sat in those meetings and I heard those people talk about God and I wanted nothing to do with it I went to Alcoholics Anonymous as a matter of convenience just to get a hot cup of coffee a couple donuts the weather off my back for a little while and it was easy to put the bite on people all you had to do was sound a little sincere and I sure as hell could do that all you have to do was look at me and your heart would just open up because I was so pitiful, you know. I was 112 pounds, and I got big ears anyway, you know, and Christ, they stuck out like sailboats, you know, in my eyes all thumped back, you know. I looked terrible there. I was a hippie. I had hair down to my shoulders. I had wine sewers all over my face, and I'm laying in this doorway, and I'm cursing God. I had got up earlier that day, and I'd walked down to the, I think it was called Turk House. turk house was about three doors down from my doorway going south if you went north it was a bar two doors away called the phase three that's where i got my line you know i couldn't go in i've seen the doorway and him and money they're hitting the water you know and i remember walking down to the to the turkhouse that morning and rapping on the door because i knew them there they helped drugs and they said get away from here go and get the hell away from there completely aware, and there was no place to go. There was nothing to do. And I screamed out, Dear God, you know, God damn you, God. And just about then, an old guy come walking down the street, wasn't an old man, he was younger than me. A guy that I had met in Alcoholics Anonymous for, a guy who I had called, and he had come to my rescue many, many times, had called my wife and patched things up and all that kind of stuff. His name was Chuck. Chuck came down and looked at me, and he said the magic words. Darn, you want to try it again? Chuck, I'll do anything. You know, Chuck put me in his car, and I threw up in his cart. Took me down to his house down in Severin, Maryland, beautiful home down there, and his wife fixed me a little something to eat, which I couldn't eat, but put me into the basement and put the AA tapes on. Had a tape of Bill Burke I'll have to forget that, you know. I met Bill after that and put this tape on and started planning and he started carrying me to AAMU. He went over to the telephone and he said, when's the last time you've been home? Diane, do you know where you're at now? I don't know. It's been a few months, I guess. I don' t remember, you kno. So he calls my wife up. Diane, I don''t want you to worry. Got Donald over here and he's doing fine and she says, you got him? this is the other side of the conversation he told me and he said yes he's right here well you keep him because we don't want to you know and that's the way it was and that' s the way i started going to alcohol hearts anonymous meetings and not a darn thing in aa had changed same people stand up in front of the room saying the same old fried bull crap don't take a drink can't get drunk no that tracy you know now i go through all these kinds of things but you see here i was i was the scared little 14 year old boy again i needed desperately to fit in and belong and be part of something because there was absolutely nothing else in my life and nothing else inside of my heart i had no place else to go nothing to do and they made me do a greeter you're going to be doing great i came into aa in the under 35 group over in germany a bunch of young guys i was the oldest guy in the group i was 32 years old when i came in march the 18th 1972 and they put me on the door and i'm sitting at these meetings and i'M HEARING THESE THINGS AND THE NEW PEOPLE ARE COMING IN AND I'M REACHING out my hand and saying, shaking her hand and saying, man, isn't this a fantastic way to live? Ain't this AA wonderful? And I'd get this smile on my face. I bought these in AA. I had a few, but they were spaced. And I got these more in AA, you know. And I smiled anyway. I wasn't ashamed. I was going to put bite on you. And I tell them how wonderful AA was. And I sit there And I honestly, this is the gospel on its truth, I felt halfway decent there. I really did. It was sort of like being back home with Mom and Dad and they were taken care of. I was sort OF surrounded. I wouldn't have identified it as such then, but I think it was the love that these guys had because they really cared. And I would sit there and we'd be there and would talk and the meeting would be over and we would discuss this we'd discuss that and then we'd leave the church and we'd sit out on a front lawn and we would sit up there at 12 1 2 o'clock in the morning i had no place to go i was totally unemployable you know and i was glad to be with them and then after a while everybody would start parting company and they'd be leaving and and i'd be left all by myself and and immediately the thought would come back into my mind i wonder if your brother still got that gun remember the one you gave him a couple years ago so you wouldn't hurt yourself i wonder if he's still got it and if he does have it will he give it to me because i might just as well blow my brains out because this program is not going to work for me and nothing else in this world has ever worked for me and i might just as end it all i feel so phony this is just another one of those big lies another one of those things that you talk yourself into i was sober six months in the program of alcoholics and i was how i made it that long i don't know i guess it had something to do with i didn't take a drink and uh my sponsor came up to me one day and he said donnie says uh i'm getting a group of young guys together we're going down to samarna delaware to give a talk and we'd like you to come and share and well you can tell about my ego anyway you know you know gee god almighty if i could hear your cold source i'd let you all run up here and touch the handle of my pants that's the way i feel sometimes i feel this power you know and and i love that effort my god i'm going to talk they finally recognize the genius and they want me to share my superior knowledge with them you know i remember driving down to simona delaware that night there's a lot of people in here who know my sponsoring and and And I'm not going to say his name because he told me not to ever tell anybody that he sponsored me. Then came my turn. Introduced me, and I walked up in front of the microphone and lit a podium like this. But like I said, about 20 people in the room, and then I started cheering. And as I started to cheer, I started to cry, which is a no-no. I spoke for 20 minutes, and I cried for 20 moments. I went back to my seat. Can't tell you what I said. sat down. The next guy got up and he spoke for 20 minutes, and I cried while he spoke. They put me back in the Volkswagen, they drove me all the way back to Baltimore, and i cried all the back to baltimore. And those guys paid absolutely no attention to me. And they're talking and going on, you know, like that. And then dropped me off in front of their house, you know, and walking in the house and I'm crying. And I, you know, I have never in my life seen any blinding flashes of light or seen any kind of a revelation until well i'll share one with you later but just happened one time but at that time nothing happened to me except it was like a little teeny thing deep down it wasn't even a voice it was a feeling like you ain't had a drink for six months maybe this thing will work maybe you better ask them what it is that they're doing you know i went back to my home group that night, I've got this guy in the back of the room, one of those sober members of AA, you know, the ones with the twinkly eyes and they're jumping around and you know he's not ball cracking. And I went back to him and I said, Dick, what the heck are you doing? What are you doing that makes you feel the way you're feeling? I think this thing might work for me. What should I do? He says, Don, he says, I'm trying to apply the 12 steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life and that floored me. That totally couldn't be that simple. There has to be some... I have said at meetings, and I must have read those 12 steps a thousand times, I thought you were supposed to do them. I didn't know I was supposed to it. I didn't do anything about that. Now the importance of what I like to share is that I know that there are people sitting out in the audience today who are just like me I looked at the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous and most certainly I could I could admit that I was powerless over alcohol I was powerless there were a whole lot of things in my life it was easy to admit that you could it might be unmanageability was evident in my life and to come to believe that a power greater myself could restore me to sanity that didn't take much either my sponsor simply said the healthy thinking, Don. Think of it as healthy thinking. And then to try to go and make a decision to turn my life over to care of God, I knew I couldn't do it. I had been trying to do it for a long time now. These aren't articles of faith. These are just things that were and I couldn'T deny them anymore. I guess you'd call them convictions. So immediately that night, that Tuesday night, I began to apply the first three steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life. And my life got a thousand percent better. A thousand percent better. I can remember being sober one year and the wife saying, you can come back in the big bed now. Years ago. I can remember people in AlcoholicsAnonymous saying, hey Don, they have a little cookout over my house Sunday. Why don't you and your wife come. I'd love to have you. Now, they're important things to me. Don't get me wrong, it's been a long time since I've been asked to go anywhere with anybody, even in Alcoholics Anonymous for a long, long time. And nice things started to happen in my life. I got totally immersed in my home group. I Got Real Active. I put my name on the 12-step list, and I started working with new people and took jobs in my group and making coffee and all kinds of things, and it was fantastic. One-two-three, one-two three, one two three, I looked at the four steps. Fearless, searching, moral inventory, that left it out right away. I couldn't do it because it would be fearless, you know, and I justified that for a long time. My sponsor who's very active in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and who is a great believer in the steps. And he also believes in the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous would say to me, don't you think it's about time you worked that fourth step? I said, I did. He said, what do you mean you did? I don't remember you called. Look, you know that I'm a Roman Catholic. I went to a little priest on the other side of town who I've got a lot of confidence in, and I did my fifth step with him. Now, I don't know if he believed it or not, but he did say that he didn't believe it. But I convinced myself of it, that it wasn't necessary for me to do those things. And after about three years of sobriety, I started to have a few people who would come up. You know, it's not hard. It's not difficult. It is not hard to stand in front of your home group or in standing in front of a group of people and talk about spiritual principles that you hear other people talk about. And you can even, if you're a phony like me, say a lot of things with a lot of conviction. It sounds like conviction. Talk from the heart, not from the head, you know. I always talk from the hood. I just phonied up the heart a little bit so that he would believe me, you know, and even every once in a while I would shed a few little tears you know just to help you out to let you understand that i was spiritually superior than most people and after three years of sobriety and i'm going around i'm being mr aa and i'M riding my white horse and I'm saving souls and i'm carrying drunks to meetings and iM taking drugs to institutions and i'm doing all kinds of things like that the action you know and i' m making coffee actions the magic word they said and i'm into action man and i mean i'm doing it you know people started asking me to sponsor them and i started sponsoring them and you know if you if you talk this stuff long enough and you talk about beating on a table and saying the 12 steps is the answer but darn people that you're sponsoring start doing them i don't know how that works but they do you know and then one night a guy called jugs at dawn i said yeah i got my fourth step down I'd like to take my first step. Can you come over? And you ain't did it. And you say, uh-oh. Sure, I'll be right over. Don't worry about it. No big deal. And I'd go over and I'd sit and I would listen to their first step and I was prompt and warned because the directions in the big book says immediately go to the 6th to review, go to their 6th, do 7, 8, make that list of people do eight and nine you know and i would tell them all those things four years 11 months 23 days of sobriety i'm down in virginia beach at the oceanfront conference and a lot of things have been going wrong in my life for a long long time and i'm not talking about the external things the things came back i told you i got me new teeth i got new eyeballs you know i got glasses in here and i started putting the body back together and i decided to buy myself some nice clothes. I had some bucks in my pocket. I was back to work. The family was back together. My wife was active in Al-Anon. We were doing a lot of social things within Alcoholics Anonymous, and I started to gain the respect of my family, my brothers, my sisters, my mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles. Everybody was saying, look at that, Donald. My uncle called me up and said, Don, I want you to come over and speak in front of my Blue Scout troop about alcoholism. Would you do that? She went, I'm doing all these kinds of things, and I'm going to hospitals and high schools, and I'm doing all that stuff. One-two-three, one-two three, one two three. Four years, eleven months, twenty three days. And I knew, and I knew. It wasn't the things that happened in my past that hung me up. none of that hung me up I had heard enough of it in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I had shared enough of at one-on-one in the backseat of automobiles and this is by no means a formal fifth and fifth fourth and fifth step but what I mean to say that I had an opportunity to look at these things and it didn't hang me up but I was such a phony in the Program of Alcoholics anonymous and I was a cheat and such a liar and such a user and abuser of the responsibility that was given to me that I begin to think about why don't I go talk to my brother and see if he's got that gun that I gave him a couple years ago. Because this program of Alcoholics Anonymous is no different than any other thing that I've involved myself in my life. I do nothing but use and abuse it, and I'm no good to anybody on the face of this earth. Because I am the same man, andI will drink again. and I know that I'm going to drink again because I'm going to drink tonight to hell with it funny thing about that convention one of the speakers couldn't make it and they asked another guy to come up and speak in his place and this guy got up on the podium and he started talking and he started sharing some of the things that was in my heart he was telling my story and I heard bits and pieces of my story all the time but he was talking about a guy being sober five years in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, who refused to do it. And he touched me. And I don't know where the courage came from, but I went up to him after the meeting and I asked him, Phil, would you talk to me? And he took me up on the roof, up on an orange roof in that hotel that we were staying in. We sat up until 5 o'clock in the morning. And we got it straightened out. I say things like, Phil I feel so phony. He says, Don, and the reason you feel phony is because you're phony. It's okay. You feel what you feel because that's what it is. What you're about here in Alcoholics Anonymous is change, and Joe talked about it so beautifully last night, and he really got me on fire because I am one of those table pounders in the program of AlcoholicsAnonymous who goes around beating on the table, talking about the 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous. The difference between Joe and I is Joe will allow you some room, and I won't give you none, damn it. Absolutely none. If I'm working with you, you're going to do them. And I don't care if you understand them or if you don't understand them because you are playing with your life. And I was playing with my life, and I know the agony and the pain, and I don' t care what it was that you saw that looked so nice. And if you were my neighbor, you would look over the fence and you'd say, That Don's got it going, man, I tell ya. Nice wife, kids nice, everything is going so super. and I was dying on the inside. I was putting up that phone in front. I was able to do the fourth and fifth step, and I Was able to continue on and do the six and seven, and then my life really took off, pal, let me tell you. It got fantastically beautiful. I put the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life to the best of my ability. That wasn't the end of the story. I mean, I haven't lived happily ever after. This is an ongoing thing in AlcoholicsAnonymous and the program of AA is a process that I continually go through. And I've heard a lot of things in AA. But I have a responsibility as the person who is up here sharing with you today to tell you the truth as I see it. And you're going to hear many different views of the truth because each person has to share it the way he feels it in his own heart. And my responsibility is to tell me the truth and I don't mean to be any kind of a teacher or arrogant or anything like that. And if you feel that, that's okay because I know where I'm at and that's fine too. But if you want to recover in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, you must apply the 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous in your life. It is an absolute must. I have gone to meetings where I've heard people say, and I have absolutely no argument with them, but I couldn't do it. I had just never been that darn smart. Darn, you worked the first nine steps, you set them on the side, and you maintain your sobriety with 10 or 11 and 12 in the maintenance steps. And that's a fantastically beautiful idea. But do you think for one moment that my concept or my vision of the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous hasn't changed in the past 17 years? It most certainly has. When I sat down that first time to write that fourth and fifth step down, there was a big lump of fear inside of me, pal. Even though I had worked the third step to the best of my ability, to prepare myself for doing it, there was still that big lump of fear. I literally on a yearly basis make it a point to walk through specifically step by step by step by steps. And anybody that I work with in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is going to do the same thing. Whether they're fooling themselves or not makes no difference to me. They're going to deal with it. is a byproduct of action. All that you know about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous don't mean nothing. It's what you do. And everything that I knew, and I studied the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous for four years, 11 months, and 23 days, so I could impress you with my knowledge. I wanted to be known as Don the Big Book Man like Stan Ray used to be over in the Washington area. And nothing would happen, and I'd darn near die. When I was sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years—I want to tell you this experience because it's important, and I've just recently begun to share this with people. I was over seven years in AA, and my wife had been sick with cancer for a lot of years, We've been through a lot of situations, you know, lots of surgeries and chemotherapies and everything. But in 1979, we went through the final thing. She had a tumor removed from the side of her brain, and it left her totally comatose. She couldn't flutter an eye, move a finger. It was everything that she could do just to breathe. Her breathing was extremely labored. and uh the doctor told us you know that she probably wouldn't live another 30 days and it was going to be over soon and her and i had prepared for that there this is all okay don't get me wrong this isn't in one of those tear-jerking stories it's it's far beyond that it's a very spiritual experience for me i was sitting next to her bed one night and i was reading to her as normally what i would do for a little while in the evenings you know and I'm sitting there reading a book and she reached out and grabbed my arm here's where the blinding flashes of light come in whether you want to buy it or not and I turned and I looked at her and her eyes were open and she was just her eyes are beautiful and they were crystal clear and she said Don I have to go home now and she died and it was beautiful I felt the very presence of God and it was a beautiful, beautiful experience now in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous they make a statement and I can't quote it verbatim but I'm going to get close there comes a time in every alcoholics life where he has no mental defense against the first drink i went through that trauma and and i suffered all the things that that loss gives everybody you know the little craziness you go through when you when you lose a loved one and things like that and it's tough enough and i signed up for classes out at sinai hospital to help me get through it and i had two teenage childrens and and and I did a lot of wrong things you know which which equal guilt for a while but that's all okay now my my 17 year old son uh wound up getting arrested for for manslaughter my 13 year old daughter ran away from home uh three months later my brother died and and and i'm looking around saying my god you know i'm sober now hey seven years what happened in here you know and all these things are happening we got through that thing you know and i didn't take a drink didn't think about taking a drink But there came a time with 11 years of sobriety when I had absolutely no mental defense against the first drink of alcohol. And you know where I went. I found myself with 11-years of sobrietty sitting down the gay right way on a bar stool with a ginger ale in front of me, with a cherry in it and a straw. I'm swiveling around, and I'm looking around at all the crazy sickness that's going on around me. And I'm thinking to myself, my God, what is the use? You might just as well take a drink and get it over with. Oh, hell, you know. And they're telling you, think a drink all the way through. Think it through, and then you'll see it. And I was in the newspaper business at that time, and I was seeing the headlines, and they're taking pictures of me when i'm falling out of this automobile in a wreck on henover street bridge and this crazy woman's laying on top of one of these prostitutes or something with me you know i'm doing all all the things that you're not supposed to do and i said who cares i don't care i can't do it anymore my sponsor used to say don the biggest crosses for the biggest horses and i just wanted to cry i thought you'd know i just want to be a little teeny pony doing them little miniature jobs, none of these big crosses. Why is this happening to me? And I got up and I got out of the bar. I don't know how. Sober blackout they call it. Got in my car, drove 22 miles to my house, walked in my house. It was a house. It most certainly wasn't a home, and it hadn't been a home for a lot of years. And I walked in and I walked into my bedroom and I fell to my knees at the foot of my bed and I started to cry, and I said, Dear God. And that peace and that serenity that I experienced seven years ago the moment my wife died came again. It came again, and I've been pretty good since then. It's just sort of not even walking around in fear or waiting for the next you to fall. It's been pretty great. It's pretty good sense. But I have some convictions in my life today rather than opinions. My number one conviction is that I know the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works, and I know that God is. I know it's a great thing to do. I know what God is for me. I've been in the program with AlcoholicsAnonymous for 17 years, and I'm going to close right about here. And what I'm gonna share with you is something that saved my entire life. When I was a brand new man in AlcoholicsAnalymous, I went over to Spring Grove State Hospital, and I was sitting out in the front row out there, and there was a little old man standing up on the podium and anytime anyone's standing at the podium and they're talking they always look like they're looking right at you and pointing their finger right at You. And this guy's pointing at me I don't know if he was pointing it seemed like it his finger was about that big around. And he said if you don't believe make believe. If you don' t believe make believe If you suffer from what I suffer from and you are in Alcoholics Anonymous and you're not drinking and you live in a delusion that your problem is alcohol, you will probably go to your grave and never know what the hell is wrong with you. Many years ago when I came into AlcoholicsAnonymous and I'm saying, you guys don't understand. What do you mean don't drink? Don't you understand that for me to just breathe, I have to drink? You can't tell me that alcohol is the problem. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells me that the alcohol is not the problem Read it, it's in there. When I stopped drinking, Joe said it so beautifully last night, when I stopped drinkin', I had to do somethin' else. We have a program of recovery in AlcoholicsAnonymous and it's called the 12 Steps of AA. wisdom being a prime product of action you will never understand it until you do and even then it ain't going to be too clear we have a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that gives us the solution to all our problems of everything that ever happened to us and there's a chapter in there called chapter 5 and it says how it works and for 17 years I've been reading that book and I ain't figured it out yet and I'm going to have to keep coming back and I want to thank you all for having me and have a real nice weekend. Thank you much. Once again, my name is Marty and I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank Don very much for a terrific message. I hope you all had a nice meeting. I think you came here to help yourself. I'm sure you did but you damn sure helped me an awful lot. We have an awfully, awfully nice way of closing