AA Speaker – Johnny T. – New Orleans, LA – 2016
AA speaker Johnny T. shares his journey from destroying his family through alcoholism to rebuilding relationships through the steps and sponsorship work in recovery.
Johnny T. from Gainesville, Florida got sober on February 14th, 2003 after years of escalating drinking that cost him his family, nearly his father’s life, and landed him in treatment. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through how working the steps, finding a true sponsor in Big Daddy Tom K., and carrying the message to others transformed him from a fraud going through the motions into someone genuinely connected to his Higher Power and fully restored to his family.
Johnny T. shares his story of hitting bottom when his drinking drove his father to a suicide attempt and landed him in treatment, where a man named Don helped him surrender to God for the first time. He describes how early sobriety went wrong when he chased meetings instead of working the steps, became a fraud in the fellowship, until he heard the message that “meeting makers don’t make it—the steps you take” do, which led him to find a real sponsor and begin authentic step work and service. After rebuilding his family through making amends and practicing the principles, Johnny became a sponsor himself and discovered the true joy of carrying the message to suffering alcoholics.
Episode Summary
Johnny T. is an AA speaker whose story reads like a cautionary tale about the cunning nature of alcoholism and the necessity of genuine spiritual work in recovery. Growing up in rural North Florida in a lumber mill family, Johnny describes a childhood that wasn’t traumatic—he had good people around him, a close-knit community, and stability. Yet he drank from the first time he felt the buzz at age twelve, and he drank for the effect. What started as weekend parties escalated through his twenties and into his thirties. He had the picture-perfect life: a beautiful wife of 35 years, two kids, a successful lumber business, nice motorcycles, a fishing boat, show cattle, a newly built home. None of it filled the hole.
Johnny’s drinking progressed from weekends to Thursday-Monday binges to a constant seven-day-a-week buzz. The party became his priority—above his wife, above his kids. His daughter came home from school asking why other kids said her dad was drunk. His son retreated to his room, not knowing which version of his father would walk through the door. His wife balanced a checkbook that should have been growing but was evaporating into alcohol. His father, a quiet man in their small community, couldn’t even sit at the local restaurant without strangers asking him why his son was drinking himself to death.
The bottom came on Valentine’s Day 2003. Johnny’s father, pushed to the breaking point by watching his son destroy himself and his family, met him on the driveway with a shotgun. He loaded it, put it under his chin, and told Johnny he couldn’t watch him kill himself anymore. His father’s suicide threat—what Johnny had driven him to—shattered something in him. His sister and wife had already arranged a bed at a treatment center in Gainesville. Johnny went, convinced he’d lost everything: his business, his marriage, his kids. Worst of all, in his own words, he’d have to quit drinking. Even then, his regret was about losing the bottle, not about what he’d done to his family.
At the treatment center, Johnny planned to use his rough sawmill language to get kicked out and return home to say he’d tried. It almost worked—he alienated patients, talked down to people. Then a man named Don, a fellow patient and truck driver, called him on it. After days of tension, Don asked for five minutes of Johnny’s time. He got on his knees, Don read something from the Bible, and Don said words Johnny had never heard: “Johnny Tatum, for the first time in your life, admit you’re hopeless, drunk, and without God’s help you cannot get out of here sober.” For the first time, Johnny said it: “God, I am a drunk and I cannot stay sober without you.” Don disappeared from the treatment center two days later—Johnny never saw him again—but something had shifted. Johnny was willing. Not a white-light experience, but willingness. A bridging the gap volunteer came to the center, shook his hand, gave him a meeting location. Johnny went.
He got a sponsor, worked steps four through nine quickly, and made significant amends—especially to his father, his brother, and his business partner. For a moment, recovery was working. Then Johnny fell into what he calls the “meeting makers make it” trap. He’d been told that if he just showed up to meetings, sobriety would follow. So he showed up. Every day. Drove an hour to Jacksonville or Gainesville, sat in meetings, drove home. He and his crew made fun of guys who carried the Big Book, called them “Nazis,” said they’d die miserable. One by one, they did relapse. Johnny didn’t drink, but he stopped applying the steps to his life. He still had the “treatment center God”—a transactional relationship, not a spiritual one.
At six months sober, his wife moved him out of their home to a KOA campground. Untreated emotional sobriety in a man still running on drunken behavior—ego, self-centeredness, control—had done what twenty years of drinking hadn’t: cost him his family. Living in that camper, miserable and isolated, Johnny became a fraud. He’d sit at gratitude meetings (which he hated because he had no gratitude) and raise his hand with carefully crafted stories—images of deer in fields that didn’t exist because he lived in a campground. He’d hear something clever at a Jacksonville meeting, drive to Gainesville the next night, and repeat it as his own wisdom. He hated everybody and told himself he was helping people. He was a liar, and he knew it.
The turning point came when Johnny’s GSR position forced him to attend district meetings. There, he met a different side of AA—committees focused on carrying the message through prisons, treatment centers, and literature. The DCM was the man who’d brought the message to the treatment center where Johnny got sober. They seemed genuinely happy. At a roundup in another state, Johnny heard something revolutionary: “Meeting makers don’t make it. It’s the steps you take.” And from a speaker he remembers vividly, he heard about two groups in AA—those carrying the message through step work and service, connected to God, and those staying sober on meetings alone, unconnected spiritually. Both competing for the newcomer. Johnny realized he was the second group. He felt like a fool and felt relief at the same time.
He got step study CDs—Joe & Charlie and Bob Olsen recordings. These made the steps seem mechanical, workable. Bob Olsen talked about strength, not weakness. Johnny felt something shift. He called his wife from a neighboring town where she was shopping for furniture and said, “I’ve been a damn fool.” He moved back home.
Within a month, Johnny got his first sponsee. Where the Big Book said write it down, they wrote. Where it said make a decision, they decided. Where it said pray, they prayed. The man stayed sober. Then another. Then another. The little meeting grew from six people to thirty. Johnny was sponsoring twenty of them. He became zealous—what he calls “Big Book step Nazi crazy”—but unlike his earlier character defects, this time he actually believed in something. He wanted to tell everyone about the solution.
Then he asked Big Daddy Tom K. to be his sponsor. Big Daddy let Johnny be “crazy” while he was coming to believe. He didn’t rule Johnny’s life; he became an example. Big Daddy taught Johnny about the three legacies: unity (the fellowship and meetings treating the physical side), recovery (the steps treating the mental side), and service (an awakened spirit serving others). “Apply the steps,” Big Daddy said. “Anyone can work them, but unless you apply them to your life, you’re just spitting in the wind.”
Johnny talks about moving past his fanaticism into authentic practice. He started a new meeting in his hometown when his group became too rigid. It’s still running. He became a real sponsor, not to build his self-esteem but to carry a message. His daughter got her master’s degree, became a speech pathologist, got married, and asked her father and brother to walk her down the aisle. His son asked his father to be his best man. He got to watch his daughter win homecoming queen and see her looking for her mom and dad—and finding them both there. He got to take his son drag racing and hear him say, “Daddy, this is the best day of my life,” something Johnny had destroyed years earlier.
Johnny closes with a meditation on relationship with God—the difference between calling Him a title and knowing Him personally the way his wife knows him after 35 years. He talks about the small acts of service: the man who showed up at a treatment center and changed his life forever. He challenges the room: are you bringing what you’ve got? Are you developing that personal relationship with your Higher Power? Are you willing to be a foot soldier in God’s army, or are you sitting on your butt?
Notable Quotes
I drank for the buzz, man. It’s time we get honest about this stuff.
You think you’re powerless over alcohol? Try being the wife of an alcoholic who’s drinking himself to death right in front of your eyes.
I was trying to stay sober on drunken behavior and I was more worried about impressing people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous than I was about impressing God.
Meeting makers don’t make it. It’s not the meetings you make, it’s the steps you take.
I am a perfect witness that we got a message that’s better than the messenger.
Are you bringing what you got? Are you trusting your creator? Are you letting go of your hand so you can grab his?
Step Work
Making Amends
Steps 8 & 9
Family & Relationships
Hitting Bottom
Relapse & Coming Back
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Sponsorship
- Step Work
- Making Amends
- Steps 8 & 9
- Family & Relationships
- Hitting Bottom
- Relapse & Coming Back
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Now, it doesn't seem like we're from the same country when we talk, okay?
When he comes up here and he gives his spiel and you hear me give my spiel, it's like we're from two different planets, but uh Johnny's been sober, as I just found out, since 2003 and never has gone back, which a pretty good thing. So, with that, I'm going to give you Johnny Tatum. Here you go, young lady.
>> How y'all doing? >> I'm an alcoholic. My name is Johnny Tatum.
>> My home group is the Ludy Primary Purpose Group, downtown Lauy, Florida. Now, all y'all know where that's at. We got a red light.
We're proud of that red light. We stopped and looked at it when they put it in. We got one meeting a week.
You can't miss it. Can't miss it. My soriety date is February 14th, 2003.
I have a sponsor, or like we'd like to say, I have a spiritual adviser. His name is Big Daddy Tom K. Big Daddy Tom K got sober in Port Smith, Ohio.
His spiritual advisor was an old guy named Red. Red run a sawmill. Red's spiritual advisor was a guy named Chuck H.
Chuck H spiritual adviser was a guy named Don. Don spiritual advisor was a guy named Dr. Bob.
And that's the that's the way I was taught down that way. I got sober in Gainesville, Florida. Home of the Fighting Gators.
See, I got booed just like you. All right. All right.
Man, it's great to be here. What a wonderful event. And I walked around and talked to people and the people were so friendly.
And ain't it so dog gone nice to speak somewhere where I don't need an interpreter. I was speaking in a northern city and uh I'd say something and they'd say, "Say that again." And I looked at the old boy that was with me and I said, "They don't speak English." He said, "No, Johnny, not the same English you speak." But it's hey, and I'm telling you, everybody is so friendly and so nice. And I'm going to tell you right now, to put something on like this is a lot of work and a lot of effort.
So, let's really be grateful and thankful for these people who are out here. They were out here early in the morning. They've been planting this Vermont.
They've been taking care of this and taking care of that. The real great, let me tell you, folks like us, we get we get to stand up here for an hour and talk to you. But the real heroes of Alcoholics Anonymous generally never take the stage.
They're the ones out there who do the dog on work quietly, silently, and just just keep on doing it. And they're my heroes. They're the ones that really really make anything possible for any one of us.
And it was a great team that did this. Now, I don't know what Billy did to get stuck with me. I guess he made somebody mad and they assigned him to me.
Well, it's worked out so far. So far. And been able to meet some of our speakers tomorrow night and Sunday.
And I'm tell you, they're wonderful, wonderful men of recovery. You've got to be here. You've got to be here.
I mean, leave now and come back tomorrow, okay? and come back Sunday cuz these men are are giants of recovery. Giants.
And my beautiful wife of 33 years, hold your hand up, girl. There she is. Now you hold that hand up that's got that wedding ring on it cuz I want every one of you jokers out here to know she You see this ring I got on right here?
That means I belong to her. Okay? And none of you jokers out here get any idea about anything else.
Especially you, Chuck. I see you. I'm watching you right there.
All right. 33 years. Only thing I know, she was the prettiest girl who would pay me any attention.
And you I ain't leaving. If she leaves, I'm going with her. All right.
My son, he decided not to chase cows around the pasture. And he come over here with us. He'd been in never been to New Orleans.
and his and his uh wife. And so it's it's nice. It's been nice to drive out here and nice to meet these people.
And how wonderful is it? And got the Eureka Spring Bunch over there. Beautiful event.
If you've never been there, springtime in the Ozarks, just a wonderful town, wonderful place. Everybody but Chuck is just wonderful there. And I want to thank everybody for letting me be here.
Well, wait a minute. Y'all wait till I'm through before y'all thank anybody. It might not be that dagum good.
All right. I was uh I'm a native Floridaian. My family has been in the state of Florida since 1830s.
All right. The part of Florida I live in, North Florida, we got one high school. Okay.
Everybody knows everybody. I think the population of the whole county is like 24,000 people. The county beside us got about 16,000 people in it.
You know, it's just it's an agricultural area. It's in the pine belt. I run a sawmill.
My family's been in the lumber business many generations. My granddaddy ran a sawmill and he worked with his granddaddy at a sawmill who worked with his granddaddy at a sawmill. It's not that we're such great sawmillers and we're really dumb.
We figured out this one thing and we're sticking with it. Okay. But, you know, working at a sawmill is all we've ever done.
And so when I came in here and I was told that Alcoholics Anonymous deals with alcohol, I was okay with that. I'm okay with our traditions. I love our traditions.
A lot of people want to change that. Think we need to be a little bit more inclusive. Uh-uh.
Uh-uh. There's one thing that needed changing in here. It wasn't our traditions.
It was me. All right. And I learned that early on.
I grew up in that town, you know, and family business, sawmill. And sawmill work comes first. When I come home from school, I was expected to throw my books down and go to the sawmill.
If I had time to do lessons afterwards, well, that was okay. But you was going to work first. And you didn't want the old man to come looking for you cuz you didn't come to the meal quick enough after school.
Now, I'm not telling you I was in love with that. I'm just telling you that's the way it was. Okay?
That's why I kind of get tickled about this suggestion part of the program. It's only a suggestion. Well, when I was 16, I got my driver's license, had me an F-150 pickup truck with a step side on it, and I headed to town.
My daddy looked at me and said, "Boy, I suggest your butt be in here by 12." Well, for the first few months, I followed his suggestions. Then came one night, I decided not to follow his suggestion. And when I came in, y'all, it was not a pretty sight.
See, when they say it's a suggestion, what we mean, you don't have to follow it if you're willing to pay the price. Now, I paid a heck of a price that night. My old man's tough old man.
I came in on time next week. So, when I know what they talked about suggestions, how they meant it, not no soft way, a life or death way. A life or death way.
And I grew up in, you know, it's a great community where I live at y'all. It's just a wonderful place. Uh wonderful people like a lot like in here.
Uh just you couldn't ask for a better neighborhood. Well, there was no neighborhood. I never had a neighbor.
Uh my I had some cousins that live close to me. My grandma and them, they live close to me and everything like that. But it was a wonderful place to grow up.
And you know, it's just it was just a good childhood. I'm not one of these going to sit up here and tell you, "Oh, I had it so bad and everything like that and I felt so different." Heck, I' I've been a father of two kids. What kid doesn't feel different?
We alcoholics want to capture it like we're the only ones who felt different growing up. It just ain't true, y'all. All of us go through this uncomfortable spot of life.
We're not the only ones who do it. Okay? So, I can't blame my drinking on that.
It's something everybody goes through. It was at that sawmill I had my first buzz. I don't know if it was my first drink or not.
I can't really remember, but I remember it was my first buzz. My cousin Jimmy came over from Palacaas, a neighboring town about 60 miles away. And uh his father also was in the sawmill business and they would come over on weekends and my dad and his dad would exchange parts and talk sawmill and everything.
And Jimmy looked at me one day, looked at me and my brother said, "You want to drink some beer?" And I said, "Sure, but I ain't got none." He had a plan. On the north side of the sawmill, there was a couple houses, two or three houses that some of the Millh hands lived in. And this was the plan.
He says, "Johnny, me and your brother's going to walk to the front door and knock on the door. You look through the back door and when the guy walks through the front, you slip in the back and steal the beer." Baby, it went off like clockwork. I remember to this day, Sam walking through the front, I slipped in the back.
I sold a six-ack of Tallboy Budweisers. Behind the sawdust pile we went. And my cousin looked at me and my brother and said, "For this to work, you got to just down these two beers real quick, Johnny.
Just turn them up and just down them." So, I remember it to this day behind that sawdust pile with my cousin and my brother and I turned them two tall boy Budweisers up and I just downed them. Woo! Now, I can't really tell y'all why I drank like that that first time.
Maybe it was curiosity, peer pressure, wanting to fit in. I don't know why I did it that first time, but I can daggam sure tell y'all why I did it the second time. I love the effect of the first time, and that's why I drank.
I drank for the buzz, man. It's time we get honest about this stuff. I love to party.
All right. And that's how I got started drinking. And most every one of y'all did, too.
It was about the dogone party. And the buzz gave me anything that made me feel single or C double I would take. And you know, growing up in a rural community, agricultural community like that, it's hard when you're young to get anything to drink.
You got to have a plan. And I was always knowing I was kind of connected. You know what I'm talking about?
They was always making all kinds of old home brew around me in them woods. They was making elderberry wine. Y'all ever drank elderberry wine?
All right. She has, too. Elderberry wine is like MD 2020 on steroids.
All right. And it's hard to tell your daddy you ain't been drinking elderberry wine when your lips is purple, your hands is purple, your tongue's purple. And it's it has a distinct odor all of its own.
They were making strawberry wine. They grow a lot of strawberries around where I'm from. Strawberry wine.
A lot of sugar cane whiskey. I don't know if y'all ever drank sugarcane whiskey. It tastes just like corn whiskey.
You drank it, huh? Tastes just like corn whiskey until you pull that bottle away and woo baby dah. You can taste the sugar cane.
All right. A lot of sugar cane grown down where I'm from in Florida way. So, I had a plan and we was always riding those flatwoods around Bradford County.
You know, boys out riding trucks and I learned if I would aggravate them young older boys enough, they'd give me a beer to shut me up. Well, naturally, I became a very aggravated young. Okay?
And you know what? Those guys were not trying to hurt me or harm me in any way. Matter of fact, as I look back in my life, I was training them how to accept my drinking.
Now, if you look back in your own life, didn't you train people to accept what you were doing? It got to the point the time I was 12 or 13, I walked to the cooler and got what I wanted. It was perfectly normal behavior.
Perfectly normal behavior. Well, I never got in a lot of trouble drinking. Never gotten a lot of Well, when I was 19, I got a DWI possession concealed weapon and loses speed charge.
I'd bought this Trans Am and I thought I was Bert Reynolds. I still got that Trans Am. And I was driving a little fast and I passed the county cop and they radioed ahead and they took me to jail.
And I really weren't that upset about it. I kind of deserved it. You know what I mean?
I wasn't mad. Heck, I was I was guilty. I remember laying in that jail that night and I made a vow.
I would never drink and drive again. I was done. Never.
A week later, I was drunk. Got in another wreck. So, at an early age, forever was one week.
All right. We all had our forever limits. Not a week.
Uh, I quit college and uh, uh, at 19 and I bought into the family business. You know, I always knew I was going to sawmill. That's all we I've ever done.
That's all I've ever done is work at a sawmill and chase cows around a pasture. So, I knew that's what I was going to be doing. And, uh, uh, at 21 I got married.
I mar I married that little girl from Keystone. She's still back there. Yeah.
And the only thing I could see wrong with her is she was Baptist. You know, Baptists don't drink. They don't dance either.
Well, they can dance now if you keep one foot on the ground. All right. She's non-alcoholic boy.
She didn't know what she was getting into. All right. Now, when I was uh 26, I had my uh I had my first kid, a little girl.
A little girl. A little sixb 9 ounce girl. And I'm telling you, I love that little girl and I love being a dad.
I did. I mean, she came out smiling and she was the most beautiful. I couldn't I can't tell you what it's like.
Some of us are experiencing it right now. And and and then when I was 28, I had my son Jack. Now, there's a dog on lie going around Bradford County that I named him after Bottle Jack Daniels.
That's a dog on lie. All right. Jack means son of John.
Okay. And and I love being Jack's dad. And I love being married.
And and but my drinking's getting a little worse and a little worse and a little worse. Some of us are a fast sinking ship. Some of us are a slow sinking ship.
But what got us all in here is the ship was sunk. No matter what age it was. And it happened, baby.
All right. Well, I uh I was 29 years old, 28 years old. Built my own home.
I was doing fairly decent in the lumber business. We had about 10 employees. I was making a living at the sawmill.
I run a Yates American A20 planer mill. Y'all know what that is. I can tell everybody's on on board with me.
Yeah. Uh so I'm I'm the guy who makes the lumber smooth. Okay, if you wonder why it's smooth, this guy's like me.
Okay, and I uh I built my own home and and and I ha I had this this little boy and this little girl and this beautiful wife and a good job. By all means, I got the perfect little redneck family. All right?
And I do I'm going to tell y'all right now. I have lived in two houses. My mama and daddy's house and my house.
Okay? I get mail at the same mailbox I've been for 54 years. Okay?
I still got the first new bicycle I bought, the first new car I bought, and the first Harley-Davidson I ever bought. I still got it. And I still got the first girl I was ever married to, too.
Y'all gone. Right. Y'all tell I'm a little touchy about that subject, can't you?
But you know, through all of that, my drinking was increasing. It was increasing. When I graduated high school in 1979, and when I graduated Bradford County High School, reading and writing was not a requirement.
If you show up, they'll graduate you. Matter of fact, a lot of us graduated in what we called a replacement. If if you worked on the farm or worked in the log woods or did like that, they would give you a diploma.
It's the same thing as attending school. And I was able to graduate pretty good like that and and and entered into the business. And and was a lot wasn't expected of you in Bradford County, but one dogone thing to work.
I was raised in one of these communities that judged you by one way. It wasn't what your last name. It wasn't your religion, your race, your color, your creed.
They judged you one way. Would you work? And if you didn't work, they called you a s.
And when I first came in Alcoholics Anonymous and I opened that big book and read Bill's story where he said he was to join this endless possession of sotss that had gone before him, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I'd heard that word. I knew what it meant.
And I was afraid I was one of them. No, when I was uh right after I graduated, I bought my first Harley-Davidson. And I tell you, I love riding them Harley-Davidsons.
And I got to studying them Harley-Davidson. so much. I would spend hours just studying this one.
I've owned I think we counted 22 different Harley-Davidsons I've bought or built through my lifetime. And I would study on this and go to places and look and I would use and I knew so much about it. And I would use that to go to places like mo motorcycle shows and I'd look and I'd say that ain't the original part on that.
That don't fit on there. And I would use that knowledge to rip you to shreds. I'd build my self-esteem at your expense.
That's the way I was. That's the way I was. And then, you know, I kind of got burned out on the motorcycle stuff.
And I decided what I needed was a boat. I know that sounds silly. A redneck idiot like me on a dog on boat.
All right. And you can't buy any boat. You got to go get you a dog on good boat.
So, I bought me this Egg Harbor Sport Fisherman. I don't know if y'all know what that is, but it's a beautiful classic. It's like owning a 57 Chevy.
And I put it at the uh at the marina in St. Augustine. I live about an hour and a half from St.
Augustine. And I'm telling you boys, I look good on that boat. Let me give y'all my boat look.
And you know, when you show up with that boat and and and a beautiful wife and two nice kids, the marina is glad to see you. They come on in and sit down here and they tie you up at the best slip and and but after a while, they get tired of this stuff cuz they look following you down the dock. It looks like a freak show.
I got a bunch of old rednecks, a bunch of old drunks, and a bunch of old bikers following me down there. And they see the all night party going on on at my boat. And my wife and my children are exposed to this.
So next thing you know, they want to move you out of there. Move you to the slip down here and move you down there to the point that you come so resentful at them, you leave the marina. And I tell you, I did the same dog on thing with them boats I did with them motorcycles.
I got to studying them boats and studying those boats and studying those boats where I could see a boat coming from a long way. And I could even name the classics like the Ricky Scarbor and John Morgans, Andy Morgansson's, and stuff like that. And I would use that knowledge to tear your butt apart to build my self-esteem at your expense drinking Jack Daniels all at the same time.
Big shot, wasn't I? I got burned out on boat and decided what I need is go back to my roots, start showing cows. So we bought some cows.
We couldn't show any cows. We started showing on American Brahma Association circuit and show uh probably about seven or eight shows a week. We show Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Gainesville, uh Tampa, CMI, Orlando.
And this it's strict big competition in the cow business showing on the Brahma circuit. Can't just show any cows. You got to send back to Texas, get the best cows, and bring them to your cows and build this up.
And and you know what? You pull up there to them cow shows. It's a family event.
You got a new four-wheel drive and a new trailer and your beautiful wife and two beautiful kids and greatl looking animals and they proud for you to be at that cow show. They'll tie you up front till they see the all night party going on back at your at your stalls and it makes them disgusted for your see their kids and your wife all exposed to the stuff that you're bringing around and then they then they turn against you and you turn against them. You know, I did the same thing with those cows.
I studied them and studied them and studied them till when the cow walked in the arena, I could tell you the bloodline of the cow and the bloodline of the cowboy showing it. Once again, building my self-esteem at your expense. Not even knowing.
I'm just think I'm just telling you the truth. Doesn't straighten any out. I'm I'm offering knowledge you need.
My drinking increases. Drinking more and more and more and more. You know what used to be a weekend drunk now starts on Thursday and ends on Monday.
Then what used to be Thursday and Monday now goes seven days a week. If you ain't slobbering drunk, you got a buzz. The buzz becomes part of life.
The party. the party. It's all about the party.
You know, I tell you how much I love my children, but the truth is, I'm ashamed to say this, the party came first. I tell you how much I love my wife, but the truth is the party came first. I had a motto, the road goes on forever and the party never ends.
Well, baby, the road doesn't go on forever and the party does end. But I couldn't see it from where I was. When I was about 30 years old, some storms hit the state of Florida.
And the lumber business was good up to that point. But when them storms hit the state of Florida, the lumber business went out of sight. I mean, just went out of sight.
We went from 10 employees to 20 employees to 40 employees to 60 employees. bought up several thousand acres of land, bought a golf course. I What the heck does a bunch of dog on rednecks eat with a golf course?
We don't want all the land, just what connected ours was our motto. All right. And and and something showed up so big, you know.
I went from pushing them old raggedy old pan heads and shovel heads around to buying new motorcycles and I took my wife from a Chevrolet to a Cadillac. Went from smoking old homegrown and drinking beer. Now, I told y'all I was from agriculture community, okay?
Smoking old homegrown and drinking old Milwaukee. Matter of fact, we called it cold Milwaukee because they forgot to put the C on the can cuz you couldn't drink it if it wasn't cold. All right.
To drinking Jack Daniels, Dagum right. >> I had arrived. I understood what Bill said in his story.
I had arrived. Too many times I hear people say, "I can't relate to that story." You reading a different story than I am? Because I understand it perfectly.
I had arrived. Now, where I arrived at was a little bit different than where he arrived at. I wasn't chasing golfers around the uh around the golf course.
I was chasing cows. Okay. But it's just a little different thing, but the same meaning.
My drinking increased. It got worse. You know, it's kind of funny how these defects of character come out in us.
And one of them that showed up and be big time was big shotism. Big shotism. When you know you don't deserve it, you know what it leads to?
More drinking more than anyone. The alcoholic is the actor. He leads to double life.
He wants to enjoy a certain reputation but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it. We've read that in the big book, too, haven't we? Yeah, and that was me.
I wanted to enjoy this reputation that I knew I did not deserve, but I wanted to deserve it so badly. I wanted to Well, I ain't going to stay drunk too long, y'all. Let me get to the dog on end of this.
I started drinking and drugging so bad that this is the way my family life was. That little girl that I told you I love so much. that little girl that was just the the the center of my life.
She came home one day. Our little school went from kindergarten to 8th grade. And she came home to me one day.
She said looked at me and said, "Daddy, the kids at school said you're drunk." And and the other mothers don't want their daughters playing with mine. She's suffering to affect my drinking. That boy I love so much stays in his room and won't come out because he don't know what kind of dad is going to be.
my do, my wife, a beautiful wife that I love so much, she's trying to balance a checkbook that by all means should be going up, but I'm drinking it away faster than it can come in. And she's stressed out. She don't know if I'm coming home, when I'm coming home, if the next phone call she gets is me wrapped around some dagum telephone pole on a motorcycle, who's coming with me, what I'm going to be like when I get there.
And this becomes a normal way of life. My poor mother, she doesn't know what to do. My father, my father, we got one restaurant in my little town.
One dog gone restaurant. He should be able to go down to that restaurant and enjoy a breakfast with the other men. But he can't even go down there now because of what I'm doing.
He goes down there. What he hears is this. Hey Tom, that's his name.
You know where your son was last night? Tom, your son's going to hell. Tom, your son's going to jail and he has to endure this day after day after day.
I want to tell you something. I go to meetings of alcoholics anonymous all over. And I hear people get up there and start telling this sad daggum story about how bad they had it.
Let me tell you something. You do not know what being powerless over alcohol is. Unless you're a loved one of an alcoholic.
I had a whiskey bottle to suck on when I walked in. I'd suck on that whiskey bottle, run my mouth, and go in there and pass out. My wife didn't have anything.
My sponsor, Big Daddy, he says, "We don't hurt the ones we love. We hurt the ones who love us." And that's the way it is. That's the way it is.
You think you're powerless over alcohol, try being the wife of the alcoholic who's drinking himself to death right in front of your eyes. You think you're powerless over alcohol? Try being the son or daughter of the alcoholic who's drinking theirel death right in front of their eyes.
Try being the parent of that child who's drinking himself to death right in front of your eyes. You'll understand powerlessness then. And that's what I was doing to my family.
I was killing my wife, my kids, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and I wanted them to accept it. And I learned to use I was raised at a sawmill, y'all. I know how to use that sawmill language to get what I want.
And if they said anything about it, I know how to raise my voice to get on them, to shut them up. Well, they come a point that you can't shut people up. February 14th, 2003, I had done drained myself into the point that I was having visual and audible hallucinations.
They took me to a psychiatrist. He gave me some pills that some anti-csychotic drugs said, "The good news is I didn't I quit hearing voices. The bad news is I started mixing them with alcohol and my health started failing." Valentine's Day 2014 2013 2003.
I don't even know where I'm at right now, y'all. Damn it. I'm in New Orleans.
All right. I'm okay. Valentine's Day 2003.
I'd left the work early. I made up some kind of lie as I always did. Like I was going to go get some flowers for my wife.
No, I was going to get some whiskey. I came down my driveway. My driveway is a long driveway.
And my father was coming from the other end. and I didn't want to see him cuz I'm already lit up. He gets out of the truck and he's got a shotgun and I figure he's going to shoot me.
He loads the gun and he pokes it underneath his chin and he puts his finger on the trigger and I said, "What are you doing? What are you doing?" He says, "Watching you kill yourself is killing me and I can't take it anymore and I want you to see what it's like to see somebody die." I fell on my knees and open arms. I said, "Shoot me.
I can't do this anymore either." I remember sitting there and my sister came down the driveway blowing her horn and I remember my wife running out of the house to stop the situation. This is what I did to my father, the man who loved me. I drove him to the point of murder suicide because he couldn't take it anymore.
There's something y'all need to know. He got blamed for my drinking. My other relatives would come to him and say, "Why are you letting this happen?" Like he had some kind of control.
Y'all don't understand it till you've been a loved one of a drunk. So before you start talking about how bad you had it, you better start thinking about how bad the ones around you had it. My sister and my wife had called Gainesville.
I live an hour away from Gainesville, Florida. And they had a room at a treatment center over there and they took me over there. I think this is the worst day of my life.
February 14th, 2003. So I start, they take me over there and they put me in there and I don't want to be there. I figure I've lost my part of my business.
I figure my wife's going to leave me. I figure my kids are not going to talk to me anymore. Worst worst than anything, I'm gonna have to quit drinking.
the gigs up. Isn't it terrible that what I'm regretting most is stopping drinking with everything there is to lose? That's how selfish I was.
They put me in that treatment center and I had a plan, boys. I figured I get kicked out of there and I can go back home, say, "Look, I tried it. I did my best." And everything like that.
And so this was my plan. I was going to use that old sawmill language on those people to the point that they ran me out of there. All right?
And it worked on the patients. I talked to them like they was dogs, okay? And I'd walk to one side room and they'd walk to the other dog on side room.
I treated them like they were dogs. Let me tell you something. I learned the English language at a sawmill.
All right? And that's a heck of a place to learn it. And it worked.
But it didn't work on the nurses and the doctors. They were kind of used to language like that. I was in there about a week and I had just about made everybody in there mad at me.
And a guy named Don, a black guy named Don came in there and he walked in there as a new guy, this new meat. This is my ticket out of here. And I talked to Don like he was a dog.
Don talked to me back like I was a dog. Come to find out, Don was a truck driver. He knew the language better than I did.
He called me names I ain't never been called before. Well, I went out of my way and he went his way. And later on that evening, Don came to me.
and he said, "You are the most miserable so I ever seen." I said some nice words to Don. He said, "Will you give me five minutes of your time?" I said, "Sure." And I don't know why I did this, y'all. I went in Don's room.
He said, "Get on your knees." And I got on my knees. And Don read something out of the Bible. And I don't know what it was.
I don't know what it was. And he grabbed my hands and he said, "Johnny Tatum, for the first time in your life, you admit you're hopeless, drunk, and without God's help, you cannot get out of here sober." And for the first time in my life, one week in that treatment center, I said, "God, I am a drunk and I cannot stay sober without you." And they took Don out of there two days later and I've never seen him since. I don't know where he come from, where he went.
I don't know what happened, but something happened. I got the one thing I needed. I became I didn't have no white light experience.
It gives me chills to think about it when I talk about it. But I was overcome with something. The willingness to do what I was supposed to do to stay sober.
I filled out a card from Bridging the Gap. Now, I want to tell you something. I the only meeting AA meeting I've ever been to was in that treatment center.
I filled out that card. Some people from a meeting in Bradford County came and saw me. Those guys who carried that message into that treatment center doing that 12step work, that bridging the gap work saved my life.
Cuz when I got out of there, I'd have probably never went to the meeting. I'd have had some kind of excuse. But they showed up at that treatment center.
They shook my hand. They said, "This is where the meeting was." And I recognized one of them. I recognized one of them.
So I got out of that treatment center. I went to that meeting. I got a sponsor.
I started working the steps. And within all two or three months, I'd went through steps four through through nine. And I'm telling you, step five was a big experience to me.
But I'm going to tell you right now, step nine was bigger. Going to those people in that small community and going down and making those amend. I sat my father, my brother, and my uncle who I'm in partners with in the lumber business.
I sat them down in the office. And I looked at them. I said, "Look, I've been I've been stealing from the company.
I've been trading lumber for liquor. I've been showing up drunk." They said, "We know, but hearing you say it does something for us." They come up with a sum of money they wanted and I paid them back. I paid them back and and I and I started this journey and boys, I stopped.
I stopped. You know, because I heard this stuff, meeting makers make it. All you have to do is go to meetings to stay sober.
>> Meeting makers make it. That's I was working all day long at the sawmill, go home, take a shower, and would drive an hour to Jacksonville or to Gainesville to a meeting and then drive home. And I got miserable and I got worse.
I didn't know about step 10, 11, 12. I didn't know anything about that. The sponsor I had at the time didn't teach me.
Just show up the meetings and you'll stay sober is all I was told. And I fell in with this bunch of guys, the media makers make it bunch. And and we would even make fun of guys who toed the big book around.
This right here. We'd call them Nazis and we'd say they were miserable and they were going to die and all kinds of stuff. And I thought I was being honest.
I thought I was telling the truth because they were saying it. Now they were dropping like flies. This one was gone.
And this one was gone. And this one was gone. my whole life where it started improving when I first got sober and was doing that step work but now stopped.
See, I still had this treatment center God. I hadn't grown spiritually. I thought service work was making coffee.
And if I made coffee, you dag sure knew I made it. I'd make the coffee and when you walked in the room, I'd say, "Hey buddy, I made that coffee just for you." Yeah, baby D. And they I was so selfish in my dog on I fired my wife from every position she had held.
My wife had held my family together when I was on this 20-year drunk. She'd held the finances together. She'd held the children together.
She'd held the home together. And I fired her from all of that. started telling this spiritual woman what God she should serve to the point that she couldn't take it anymore.
And at 6 months sober, she moved me out of my home into the KOA campground. Y'all don't understand. Six months of untreated alcoholism going to a meeting a day had did what 20 years of drunkenness didn't.
It cost me my family. I was miserable and I hated you and I hated you and I hated you and I hated but I tell you how much I loved you. I was a fraud.
I was trying to stay sober on drunken behavior and I was more worried about impressing people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous than I was about impressing God. I was so stupid. I'd sit in that camper, miserable, hate everybody.
I would I lived I was living there, still in Bradford County, and I would drive to Jacksonville, which was an hour away, right? And I'd hear something real smooth, something real clever. Somebody would say something real sharp.
The next night, I would drive to Gainesville, which is another, and sit my and position myself at a meeting, you know what I mean? And I would raise my hand and I would repeat what I'd heard in Jacksonville. I would repeat it in Gainesville like I'd made it up.
I was a fraud and a liar. And I thought that was normal. And I get more miserable.
I'm I hate to tell the story. I was sitting at a grat I hated gratitude meetings because I had none. But I was sitting at one one time and I raised my hand.
They said, "Yes, Johnny." I said, I was woke up this morning and I looked across that field over there and there was two buck deer standing in that field. One was me and one was God. And I knew he had me.
They said, "Oo, that's good." It's a dog gone lie. I'm living at the KOA campground. There ain't no field.
If they' have been through deer out there, I'd have shot them. And this becomes a normal way of life. Fake it till you make it.
Let me ask you something. How do you fake something you ain't got a dog on clue what it is? How do you fake something you don't know what it is?
Oh, we got these other and let me tell you, we got some beautiful sayings in Alcoholics Anonymous, but in the hands of an idiot like me, they are dangerous. Take what you want and leave the rest. Well, I'll take step one and part of step 12 and I'll leave the rest.
All right. Find somebody you can relate to. I live in a small town.
I run an examerican 820 planer mill for 111. How many people would we got in here to do that? See, I was a fool.
I thought y'all meant find somebody on a social level you can relate to. I didn't know you meant on an alcohol level. I didn't know that.
Let me tell you something about the first person I related to. First person I related to. They had me in that treatment center and this guy come in there wearing cowboy boots.
He started talking about hail and he started talking about jail and I wanted this guy to sponsor me. All right. He got away from me before I could talk to him.
Right. But they let us start going to uh out of out of treatment center meetings. Right.
And I went across town a week later and he was there. I want to talk to him after the meeting. But he told a whole different story, whole different town he got sober in.
Kind of th me for a second. The following week, we went across the other part of town and he was there again and he had changed his story altogether. The guy was an habitual liar.
I related to the sickest person in the dogone room. If you are a brand new guy in here and you relate to somebody, for God's sake, don't ask them to sponsor you. It got folks and I laugh about it now, but it was not beautiful.
It was it was ugly. I I hated everybody and I was just a fraud. And you know what it's like being a fraud in Alcoholics Anonymous and knowing you're a fraud.
I wasn't drinking. But all this spiritual stuff y'all were talking about, I didn't experience it. All of this stuff y'all were doing, I wasn't doing it.
I thought hate and gossip and putting people down was a normal way of life in AA. And come uh uh New Year's Eve, I've been separated from her from two or three months and I was I'm telling you, I was miserable. I had enough.
if this is what Alcoholics Anonymous was. I I don't I wasn't contemplating getting drunk. I'd had enough of AA because I remember sitting at the Triangle Club in Gainesville and it was New Year's Eve and I was like this guy back here.
I was standing up against the back wall and they were all dancing and I hated everybody in there and I decided I was going to leave. I was going to try something else. I don't know.
I'm out of here. And I don't know if she got drunk that night, but I did show up to the meeting a week two days later. at a little meeting I was going to and our GSR had gotten drunk and they looked at me and they said, "Johnny, don't you got a car?" There wasn't but six of us.
Said, "Johnny, don't you got a car?" And I said, "Yeah." I said, "Guess, congratulations. You're our GSR." Oh, you don't understand. This was a position in I jumped on it.
Still the fraud and the liar. Trying to build my self-esteem at other people's expense. Still trying to impress people in AA instead trying to impress God.
Let me tell you something right now. If you become the most important person in Alcoholics Anonymous, you become the head drunk. What kind of dad title is that?
I'm the head drunk. But me and my insanity, I showed up at that district meeting and I ran into a whole different side of Alcoholics Anonymous. Y'all, I had never seen I had never seen this.
I hadn't seen it. There were committees that were literature committees, treatment center committees, grapevine committees, corrections committees, archives committees, and the DCM. I looked up there, the DCM was the guy who who had who had brought the message, who had did the uh bridging the gap.
The DCM was the bridging the gap guy. And these guys were worried about getting the message out, getting the books to the treatment centers, getting the books through the prison, who was going to cover this, who was doing this. And I hadn't seen this.
I hadn't seen this part of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they seemed genuinely happy and they were they were smiling and laughing. And I got to tell y'all the story.
I I've been so I've been in their GSR for probably two months. And I love that DCM. Oh, Marty Marty C.
And a guy came in. He was mad about something and he was in it was in the new business part. And he was just giving Marty heck.
And poor Marty sitting up there. He don't know what to do. He's like, and this guy's n the guy said, "This ain't nothing but a bunch of good old boyism." Well, this is in Gainesville, a very progressive community.
Okay. And we just happen to be part of this district. Oh, he done stumbled now.
I raised my hand and Marty in his desperation cuz Yes, Johnny. I said, "Marty, being a resident expert on good old boyism, I'd have to tell our distinguished gentlemen it ain't happening here." Everybody started laughing. Marty laughed.
The guy got madder. The guy got madder. He starts ranting and raving.
He says, "This is nothing but a bunch of inbredadism." I I raised my hand. Marty says, "Yes, Johnny." I said, "Ben, expert on inbredism." The guy got mad and stormed out of the meeting. Afterwards, Marty says, "Johnny, I don't know what what I would have done.
what I'd have done. But you know what? What I discovered in there was a real bond with these guys.
Was a real bond. They invited me to go to this roundup. Now, I don't know why they called it a roundup.
There weren't no cows there. So, I show up. I've been GSR about about a month or so.
So, I show up to this roundup in another state and and baby, something happened cuz these guys up there, they weren't they were saying something I've never heard. One of them had the audacity to say that meeting makers don't make it. It's not the meetings you make, it's the steps you take.
How dare he say that? How dare he say it? Meeting makers make it.
Meeting makers make it. That ain't what he said. Then one of them got up there, one of the great gentlemen of our society, and and I can't tell you word for word for what he said, but this is what I heard.
He said, "In Alcoholics Anonymous, there's two groups of people over here. Here we have a group of people who are carrying the message. They're doing the 12 step.
They're practicing the traditions and the concepts. They're the ones going through the prisons. They're the ones going through the treatment centers.
They're the one doing the work. They're the ones working the steps. Then over here, we have a group of gentlemen that for some reason another they don't have to do that.
I'm not saying that they're not alcoholic, but for some reason their life does not depend upon a spiritual connection with God. They can they can stay sober strictly on meetings. And both groups are in competition for one person, the newcomer.
And I sat there and I shook my head and I said, "My God, my God, what have I done?" I I felt like a fool. I felt relief that somebody had told me the truth. And I felt like a fool at the same time because I seen what path I had followed.
I walked up to the taper and let me tell you something about these tapers. They do wonderful work because I got most of my information from a taper in a county where they ain't hardly no meetings. I walked up to the guy and I asked him, I said, "I want some step study CDs." And he gave me a Joe and Charlie six-pack and he gave me a Bob Olsen six-pack.
And I went out in my car during all of that and listen and I'd listen to Joe and Charlie. See, I'd be an anti- bigbook up to that time. And they made that book seem simple.
Look y'all, I have a mechanical background being raised at that sawmill. And the way they laid it out, man, this is this is a mechanical thing. How I can do this and and and Bob Olsen.
I had been told and told and told and told that we're powerless and we're weak as a lamb and all of this. And I was having a hard time with that in Alcoholics Anonymous cuz I'm going to tell you something. This has been my experience about alcoholics.
Alcoholics are some of the toughest, meanest jokers they are. I take a group of guys in here and walk through any neighborhood. We're not weak.
We may be blocked, but we ain't weak. And he was the first one that talked of strength. I said, "I can do this." And I kind of had a second spiritual awakening there.
And and and it changed for me. And hearing this these two things, it was it was different. And I was driving home and I called my wife and and I asked her, we were so separated.
I said, "Can we talk?" She says, "I'm at Sofa World." You can tell how worried she was about me. She was at Sofa World. So, I went to Orange Park, a neighboring town, and I walked in Sofa World and I told her, "I've been a daggum fool." And I and I was an idiot, and I I'd do anything, and I've been wrong.
We bought that sofa. That was one hell of a couch, y'all. I moved back home and within a month of that, I got my first guy sponsored.
I was about a year sober by then. And where it said write something down, we wrote something down. Where it said made a decision, we made a decision.
Where it said pray it, pray. And he's still sober. Then I got the next guy.
Then I got the next guy. Then I got the next guy. Caught fire.
I started loving what I was doing. I actually found the joy of alcoholic synonymous. The joy of sobriety was actually carrying the message to that suffering alcoholic.
Never felt anything like this before. Never felt anything like this before. So I I now I can't get enough.
I can't do it enough. I start sponsoring this guy. This guy.
That little meeting went from six people to 30 people. and I'm sponsoring 20 of them. All right.
I came from a very prominent uh uh family in the county and they knew I wasn't Catholic. They knew I was hanging out that Catholic church up there in that neighboring town two or three nights a week. So So now they start bringing them to the sawmill.
All right. They start dragging drunks to the sawmill. I'd get a call from the secretary and Johnny.
Um would you come up here to the office? I could tell by the way they talked they got a little drunk up there. You know what I mean?
And and and so and then you know what? I kind of go crazy, y'all. I'm going tell you right now.
I went big book step Nazi crazy. All right. I became a fanatic.
And and and you know what? It wasn't like when I was showing cows and motorcycles and boats. It wasn't to build my self-esteem at your expense.
I believed in this for the first time in my life. I had something I believed in. I hadn't learned to articulate it the way I should or to say it the way I should or to talk to you so you wouldn't be offended in the way I was saying it.
But I was actually sold out. I'd come to believe. I'd come to believe.
And I want to tell anybody and everybody I could about it. It's kind of like this. If you had a friend who had a terrible illness, he was dying of this illness.
And you and you watched him suffer for years from this illness and you went on a trip and you found out there was a cure for it. Somebody said, "Oh, I know how to fix that." You'd bust your butt getting back to your friend to say, "Hey, I found the solution. Shouldn't we go about the same zeal and enthusiasm with the solution we'd found in here?" And that's the way I found about it.
But I wasn't really saying it correctly. None. But the the funny part about it, God was continually sending me guys that that was working with.
This guy was getting sober and this guy was getting sober and this guy was getting sober and we were a bunch of fanatics and we were having a heck of a time and and we were going to change that meeting we were going to in that neighbor town. We going to do no more open disgusted meetings and no more speaking meetings. We were only going to do big book studies and I found out about bleeding deacons and one of them was my sponsor and he fired me.
the sponsor I had at two almost three years over fired me, showed me the door. So, we went to my hometown, Lai, Florida, and we started our own meeting. And we were scared to death.
What if this meeting doesn't make it? What if we flop? What if we have to crawl back?
What if it doesn't work? Oh my god, what are we? But you know what?
It's still going. Still going. 10 years later, that meeting is still going.
We're reaching out and touching people. reaching out and touching people. I I'd heard this gentleman who had moved here talk Tom Kay and I wanted him to sponsor me, but I was afraid he'd tell me tell me no.
So, I got this guy I was sponsoring to go ask him if he'd sponsor me. And he he said yes. And I'm crazy.
And Big Daddy, you know, he's he's I asked him. I said, "Why'd you let me be crazy for so dog going along, Big Daddy?" He said, "All of us are at one point." said, "You was just coming to believe, baby. I wasn't going to stop you.
You'd figure it out." See, he didn't try to rule my life. He became an example in my life. An example.
Wow. Wonderful example. He was the first one I ever heard talk about the three legacies.
I never heard it until I was three years sober and he started sponsoring me. He said, "Johnny, well, you're sick physically, you're sick mentally, and you're sick spiritually." I said, 'Yes, sir, I understand that. He said, 'We have a solution for all three parts.' I said, "We do." He said, "Johnny, see that triangle?
Which side is longer?" I said, "They're all three equal sides." He says, "We take the body into the unity part of this." Said, "When one alcoholic talks to another alcoholic, they can stay sober together. It helps him. He said, "Johnny, there's a difference between going to meetings and being a member of a group." Said, "You can go to meetings and be anonymous." Said, "But when you're a regular member of a regular group and you're showing up to that group, every time the door opens, those guys get to know you and you get to know those guys." And it treats the physical part of this.
But we got to do more. We take the mental part of this into the recovery side of the triangle and we apply these steps. He said, "Notice I said apply." Said anybody can work the steps, but unless you genuinely apply them to your life, you're just spitting in the wind.
Spitting in the wind. And I' and I'd experienced the difference. I had worked the steps, but I'd quit applying them to my life.
Now I was trying to apply those principles to my life. I understood what he was talking about. He said, "Then Johnny, we take that awakened spirit into service." He said, "There's a difference between doing service work and being a service to your fellow man." And I understood what he's talking about because, you know, I made that coffee and everything and I was a fraud and a fake trying to impress you with my coffee making.
And there's a difference between doing that and actually trying to carry and love and carry a message when people don't want to carry it. Let me tell you something. You know who my heroes are?
The guys that go into the jail week after week. The guys that goes into the treatment center week after week. The guy who's got this doing all the step work he can week after week.
The guy who's there at that meeting when it first open and there till it closes. He's the one that takes down the window shades when all y'all are outside smoking cigarettes. He's the one that cleans up when all y'all outside smoking cigarettes.
Now, there is the one that you can call and you know exactly what they're going to say. Those are my heroes. And he taught me that.
I never knew about the three legacies. I never heard it with a group I'd running with. He says, "Johnny, there's three equal sides to that.
You make sure you apply equal tension to all three sides." Now, y'all, any story that doesn't talk about the family, it's a short story. All right? And I don't want bore y'all much longer.
That little girl, that little girl that I'd hurt so bad, she went on and she got her master's degree. She's a speech pathologist. Yeah.
Yeah. She got married la last October. She wanted me and her brother to walk her down the aisle and we did.
And her mother waited for her as her maid of honor. >> Yeah. try to suck that out of a whiskey bottle.
My boy got married two years ago this coming Tuesday. He started naming off who he was going to have in his wedding. I said, "Well, who's going to be your best man?" He looked at me and said, "You are." You can't suck that out of a beer can.
How do I go from destroying a family to get to being part of my family? You know, in our little community, homecoming is the biggest thing there is. You know, homecoming football game.
And my little girl when she was in high school, she was one of five girls who got to run for homecoming queen. And they were sitting down and they brought them out there. They call it tornado world.
So, I'm part of this. I'm sitting with my mother, my aunts, my grandmother. We're all there watching it.
And they announce the winner and she wins. She's homecoming queen. And I get to watch her little eyes.
She's looking for a mom and she's looking for a dad. And I get to be part of that. I made my mens.
I'm practicing these principles. I get to be a part of it. I can't get that nowhere else.
Jack, when he was 17, he want we lived near the drag strip about an hour from the drag strip and he wanted to start drag racing. So I had this old Impal S. I've always been a horsepower guy, y'all.
I love horsepower. I had this old Impala SS and I put a little nitrous kit on it. We take it down to the drag strip and he's drag racing.
All right. He's drag racing. I I'm probably running down the drag faster than he's drag racing.
On the way home, he looked at me. He said, "Daddy, this is the best day of my life. I've destroyed that boy's life." And now through you people, these steps and carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, I get to be with him on the best day of his life.
suck that out of a Jack Daniels bottle. You can't. You know, Alcoholics Anonymous made real changes in real lives.
And in real lives, it made real changes was in my life and my family's life. I want to close, y'all. Before I close, I'd like to tell y'all a little story.
My grandma used to tell me a story about this old guy named David. He was a shepherd. And his daddy looked at him and said, "David, I want you to go down there and I want you to take some bread and cheese to your brothers cuz I ain't heard from them.
They're in the army and I ain't heard from them in a couple weeks." So David goes down there and his brothers are hiding in this hole, right? And there's this big guy on the hill talking bad about them and talking bad about God. Now David's sold out on God.
All right. David looks at his brothers in the hole and said, "Get out." I know I'm paraphrasing this y'all. They say, "Shut up, David.
Get down here. David said, "I'll fight him. I'll fight him." The old king said, "Well, here's my sword and here's my shield and here's my helmet." You know what David said?
I'll go with what I got. You know, you're in here and you you say to yourself, you want to start sponsoring people, but you're afraid you'll say the wrong thing. God saying, "No, baby.
I got your back. Bring what you got." All right. You want to get involved in this service commitment going to the jails or going to the treatment center, but you're afraid to God saying, "No, baby.
Bring what you got. I got your back." All right. You want to get involved with this, you want to help this person, you want to call this person, but what do you say?
God said, "Baby, bring what you got. I got you back." Let me tell you something. I am a perfect witness that we got a message that's better than the messenger.
I'm an idiot from Bradford County. Y'all, we think plastic surgery is when you cut your wife's credit card up. Are you bringing what you got?
That one man who took the time out to go to that treatment center for the bridging the gap changed my life. Changed my life. He directed me to a I can't tell you your little commitment changes lives.
Or are you sitting on your butt? And I ain't here to spit in your coffee. But I will tell you the dagam truth cuz I get to leave and go home.
Y'all don't get to see me anymore. I'm out of here. Y'all blame him.
My uh uh there was this little boy. He was with his mama. They went to a store, old country store.
They went to check out and there was this barrel of candy there and the man behind the counter looked at the boy and said, "Son, get you a handful of that candy." Boy said, "Uh-uh." Mama looked at the boy and said, "It's all right. Get you a handful of that candy, son." He said, "Uhuh." He looked at the man said, "I want you, too. The man reached down there and got a handful of candy and put it in a sack and gave it to the boy.
Asia's walking away, the boy's mother looked at the little boy, said, "Why wouldn't you get that candy?" And the boy looked at the mom and said, "Mama, did you see the size of that man's hands? That is good. That's our relationship with God." Let me tell you something right now.
There are some people that call me Mr. Tatum that know me through business. Okay?
We have a business relationship. They know me a little bit. And there's some people that call me Johnny T.
We have a little bit better relationship. All right. There's two out there that call me dad.
Yeah. Yeah. There's one girl out there that calls me John.
I've been with that girl all all told 35 years. I know her favorite color. She knows mine.
I can read the expressions on her face. Our relationship is that close. What kind of relationship with your creator do you have?
What kind of relationship with your creator do you have? Is it a casual relationship, God, higher power, or is it more personal? Don't ever be ashamed at loving your higher power.
Don't ever be ashamed being a foot soldier in God's little army. Because I'm telling you, in my state right now, there's a lot of hurting going on in the state of Florida. A lot of hurting going on in the state of Florida right now.
But isn't it something to be in a room of people who promote healing, who save the hopeless, who extend a hand to the dying. You think you're powerless bull bull crap. You have the one thing that that suffering man and that suffering woman needs worse than anything in this world and that is a lifesaving message.
Are you bringing what you got? Are you trusting your creator? Are you letting go in your hand so you can grab his?
Are you developing that one-on-one personal relationship with that higher power? Or are you like I was the fraud? I'm ashamed to admit what I was when I came in here.
But I recognize the difference. I love y'all and thank y'all for letting me be here. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.