>> 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. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.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. >> >> Thank you, George.

I certainly didn't know that I would have someone from my home group to introduce me. And I'm glad he was real nice because, as he said, I do have last say. I am Wallace, and I'm an alcoholic, and I have a I made a few notes here because if I don't take care of this first, I'll forget it, and quite often I fail to thank the people who done such a great service by making this place ready for a convention, and all the hard work that's gone into it.

And I certainly want to thank Anne and express my deepest appreciation to her and Lee, and to the committee for asking me to come and share because it's a real privilege for me to be anywhere in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't feel right as a kid. You can look at me and tell I'm not very big today.

I've always been tall and skinny and lanky, and I had this ill-at-ease, discontent feeling until I came into AA. And standing in a at a podium like this makes me a little bit nervous. And if you see me reaching up here doing this a little bit, I can't help it.

I'm not crying out of my mouth. And uh don't get the idea that I'm lusting after anybody because I'm drooling a little bit. That's not it at my age.

But I have some store-bought teeth and I don't have room at times to move my tongue around like I want to. So if you see My wife calls it slobbering. But anyway, I'll get on with my story.

When I I remember that when I was a small kid and we moved out from a cotton mill village to a farm at 5 years old, I'd been working on that farm with my father. Very very poor family. Sharecroppers we were.

My dad did not own the land. Other people owned the land. And they took half of what we made every year.

And at the age of nine, my father had managed to save enough money to get a small farm and we continued to raise tobacco, corn, and garden and just did our routine farm work. No tractors were involved. I had to plow mules.

I don't like mules today. I hate them. And I always will because that one mule that I had to plow when I was a kid was the longest, tallest, ugliest, meanest critter I had ever seen.

And I hated her with a passion. She used to break wind and look back at me and grin. And uh I got a tiller at home today.

I've been sick spiritually, mentally, and physically quite a bit in my life. Not today. I'm not physically sick today that I know of.

I hope I'm getting much better spiritually, and I have been better physically for many, many years. Well, when I was a small kid, Mom and Dad uh after I was about 9 years old, they started going to church. My dad had quit drinking about that time.

I had seen him drunk many, many times in my life. But, he went to church and got religion when I was about 9 years old. And I never did understand the type of religion that he got because he could go to church and be a pure saint, play that guitar and sing and shout and amen this and amen that and have my mama fix up dinners for the preaching so forth.

And then, when he got home, it seems to me like it he left his religion at church. Mom was the exact opposite. She was an absolute angel from my first memories of her to my last memories of her.

So, I had two different viewpoints of religion from my parents. Uh My brother left home when he was 21 years old and went down to South Carolina with a seventh grade education. Got into grammar school down there and then high school and went on and got his college degree and became a doctor of divinity.

And I never did like that brother from the time I was a small kid up until several years before he died. That brother would come home about once a year. And my mom would prepare the best meal she possibly could when he came.

She would always ask my brother to say grace. And I remember when I was around six years old or so, World War II was in progress. And my brother would come home and he would say grace, and we'd be sitting around a table long as this.

Everybody was sitting down but me. I was standing up. There was no room for me to sit down.

And he would start praying. And he'd pray for Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor and General MacArthur and all the boys in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Japan. Then he'd call all my mom's brothers and sisters by name, and she had 17 brothers and sisters.

And it was 12 of us, and he'd call all of us by name. And he'd pray for the land to dry up if it was too wet. And he'd pray for the Lord to send rain if it was too dry.

And I remember one occasion when he had been saying grace when I was about six or seven years old and he had gotten through all of the political figures and the boys in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. And he was down to about Aunt Lucy. Still saying grace, and I'm standing at the corner of the table next to my father.

And I look down and I see that beautiful crisp fried chicken. And I reach down and got me a chicken leg, and I start working on that jessie. And I feel stripped that thing.

That bone was slick as a pencil in just a little bit. Well, he continued to say grace. And I would had every intention to lay in that bone down real easy in the plate where nobody would notice it.

But my fingers was greasy. That bone slipped out of my hand. And it hit that dinner plate.

It sounded like a cowbell ringing. My father looked around and saw what was happening. And he grabbed me by the nape of the neck, seized the pants, out behind the smokehouse he went and he wore my fanny out good fashion.

The same way he had done many, many other times down through the years. He really and truly wore it out. I hurt for a week.

And you can bet your bottom dollar I never, ever eat another piece of chicken while my brother was saying grace. Not ever. I didn't even think about it.

Later on in life time after time after time alcoholism and insane behavior would get me in trouble. And I would go right back and repeat the same old action believing each time with all my heart that this time it's going to be different. This time I won't get in trouble.

This time I won't go to jail. This time I won't lose my job and lay out of work. But it invariably continued to happen year after year after year.

And I'm going to tell you about my first drink I'm going to tell you about my last. Because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I've been an alcoholic since I was 20 years old. And I drank in the very very beginning precisely for the reason that Dr.

Silkworth talks about in the big book. Because I like the effect produced by alcohol. And there's a chapter a paragraph on page 37 of the big book that describes my drinking in the latter stages.

And that paragraph base basically says that there were times in our life when we would deliberately go out and get drunk because of feelings of anger, frustration, and bitterness. And when we drank under those circumstances, not once did we consider what the consequences of our drinking would be. And that was what I was drinking under the last years of my drinking, trying to forget about having been such a failure, such a disaster in life.

About having failed at practically everything I had ever started, never being able to finish anything. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have been an alcoholic since I was 20. And that was not the vision that I had the Saturday night that I took my first drink of booze.

And I never will forget and and I can't understand people who don't remember their first drink of booze. But I was out at a round and square dancing Roxboro, North Carolina, where I was born and raised, even though I do live in Sanford now. But I was at Square Dance one Saturday night, I had come home from Fort Lee, Virginia, on a weekend pass.

I was 20 years old. I weighed about 135 lb, 6 ft 2, flat-top haircut about like it is right now, except it was a lot thicker. And I'm standing that Saturday night in a old garage-type building over at a corner next to a big pot-bellied heater, and it was some pot-bellied people in there, too.

I'm standing at that heater with this Army OD uniform on that fit real tight. I had some little pins up on the shoulders to make it look a little bit dressier. I also had on all of the medals I had earned that afternoon at the PX.

And I'm standing at that heater that night doing what I always did in public, a 20-year-old frightened kid right out of basic training, watching other people laugh, talk, dance, socialize, dance with the girls, just have a ball, watching people act normal. And I couldn't participate in it because I felt so inadequate, inferior, uneducated, country, backward. I couldn't participate.

I just had to watch other people have a good time. And I'm standing there at the heater minding my own business. A couple of friends were with me who were standing over to the side talking to some other people.

And I look over at the concession stand at the door. And I had never seen anything like that in all my life. I saw two huge humongous protrusions coming that door.

They were attached to a beautiful woman. And they came in the door with that night a long time before she did. She came into that dance hall, that old garage type building, and she immediately started over toward that heater where I was, and everything was just a bouncing all the way across that floor.

I recognized her even though I had never seen her before in my life. I recognized her because of some stories I'd heard in pool rooms and beer joints and service stations. I'd heard some stories that would almost curl your hair.

And she immediately headed for that heater, and she started up a conversation with me, and I was restless, ill at ease, and discontent, and quite embarrassed because my preacher brother had warned me about things like this. I remember the last time that that preacher brother, who had always given me man-to-man talks from the time I was 6 years old up until I was 14. The last time that my preacher brother had given me a man-to-man talk was when I was 14 years old.

He had me down behind the stable one Sunday morning before he was going back to South Carolina. And he always talked down to me. Seemed to me like he talked down to everybody, especially when he was praying or preaching.

And I remember that Sunday morning that he had me behind the barn, and he said, "Wallace, if you ever drank that white whiskey, if you ever run with naughty girls, or you ever play with yourself, you're going to hell. And I knew that Sunday morning that I had never been with a naughty girl. I had never drank white whiskey, but I was already in trouble.

Those thoughts crossed my mind when I was talking with that girl, and I was looking around embarrassed. My buddies were over there giggling at me. And it wasn't too long before she sort of helped out the situation a little bit.

She suggested that I escort her out to her car. You know, I thought maybe there was some wolves in the parking lot. She might need a escort.

And I'm right out of basic training with my metals on, and maybe it's my patriotic duty. I escorted her out to the car that cold November night, and we got in that old Chevrolet, which was very cold. And she managed to get that motor going.

She turned the radio on to WCKY, Cincinnati, Ohio. Then she reached way over there in front of my knees to turn that old heater button on that used to be on the right hand side of those old automobiles. And she got that going.

And while she was over there, she began to nudge up against me and trying to get me going. And I was cold in that old Chevrolet. Ill-at-ease and discontent.

And I sat down in that car. She began to nudge up against me and peck on my ear a little bit and whisper. and that country western music was going.

And I'm thoroughly convinced now that when you put a potential alcoholic in the right environment, he's going to take a drink. And I sat there in that car and I can tell you I was having some weird feelings. I thought about what my preacher brother had said, but I thought also about what I'd heard around the pool rooms and service stations and beer joints and so forth and I began to weigh the possibilities of what might happen this after this evening.

And she nudged up against me some more and saw that I was still nervous and then she reached up on the seat and came out with a pint of white moonshine whiskey, got two cups and poured out two cups and I thought, "Mhm, she's mighty thirsty." Then it was frightening when it dawned on me that she was going to ask me to take a drink and I ain't never drink no white whiskey or any kind. And she nudged up against me a little bit more and I was fighting go this way or go that way and I'd look at her and I'd look at that whiskey and I'd look at them. And when she stuck that cup of whiskey out them told me to take a drink.

And I took it, poured it down and tried to act as if that was something I'd been doing all my life. Shortly thereafter, there was a couple of more cups of whiskey. And I can tell you that when I got in that car that night I was 6-ft-2, 135, country, backward, illiterate, frightened.

But slowly in that car, over a period of 20 to 25 minutes, a transformation took place in my life that I had never experienced in all of my life. All of my hard work on the farm, all of the rigorous army basic training I'd had at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, did not bring about the feeling that came over me in that car in about 20 minutes. No longer was I afraid.

Boy, I had courage. I knew I was going to lay some on her she'd never experienced before in my life. I wasn't tongue-tied.

I became a little bit aggressive within a few minutes, and she suggested we go in a dance. We went into the dance, and that old fiddle and guitar and banjo struck up a tune, and everybody started running around that place. She grabbed me by the hand, and out on the floor we went.

And I have never danced a step in my life. I had never felt like that. And they were playing violin, cabbage down, bake them hoe cakes brown, the only song that I could sing, and so forth.

Some of you people have heard it. But anyway, we promenade and do-si-do or lemonade or whatever it was they was doing around that room, and I could do it. A little bit after that, they were doing the bunny hop, and I declare that just come natural.

I really got carried away with that. In fact, security had to calm me down that night. I got so aggressive.

And I can't tell you everything that happened that night because there's an awful lot of ladies in this house. But about 2:30 Sunday morning, all of the fireworks are over with. I'm back home upstairs in the bed I had slept in for many years.

I'm laying there in that bed and I don't want to sleep ever. I just want to think about Saturday night. Relive each glorious moment.

Thinking about the mountains I had climbed and the valleys I had crossed and how I had grown up and become a man at last. Knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that I had found the magic ingredient that made my world okay. I knew this was the solution to my problem.

And I determined in my mind that Sunday morning that come next Friday night when I get that pass, I will be buying my first pint of whiskey. And that happened. And that became a routine on weekends, buying that whiskey, going out, socializing, dancing, having a ball.

I really had a lot of good times. Lots of good times drinking. In fact, it was 6 weeks before the blackouts total start.

I came to exactly 6 weekends later one Monday morning laying on the jailhouse floor in Roxboro, North Carolina. And I remember looking up off that concrete seeing that deputy deputy sheriff. He looked to be about 9 ft tall.

He was much bigger than he is. And I'm up at him and those keys are rattling. And I'm laying on the floor with that Army OD uniform on again.

And I had never been in jail before. Never been in trouble. And I didn't know why I was in trouble.

The previous Sunday afternoon late, some friends down at the service station that we hung around a lot had come in with a fifth of vodka. And I had started drinking that vodka with those guys. Had never drunk any before.

And apparently it got to me much quicker. And I left the place on a blackout and was picked up for drunken driving. That was the first time my father had to get me out of the jail.

First time he cried about my actions. The first time I was late getting back to Fort Lee. First time I was in trouble with the military authorities.

And that became a pattern. And over the next several years I went to jail many, many times for driving on the influence, driving after license revoked, resisting arrest, striking police officers, all of this stuff. I lost driver's license from North Carolina.

And really and truly I can tell you, you do not need a driver's license to drive an automobile. They don't help a bit unless you're stopped. I lost license from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia over the next 10 years.

And I can tell you that my insanity, my drinking, my getting in trouble, my inability to stop constantly kept me in some kind of trouble off and on for the next 10 years with the exception of two five-month periods in my adult life. And back at Fort Lee, Virginia, it wasn't but just a short while that the problems really and truly began to crop up in my life. This is when I had gotten a Virginia driver's license illegally.

I was doing extra work after duty hours as a waiter at the NCO club and lost that job because I was drinking. And as a result of knowing some things on the master sergeant that run the club, he gave me another job that spring as manager of the NCO club swimming pool where I could make additional money. And with that additional money, I got what every drunk needs, another automobile and a Virginia driver's license illegally.

Short while later, I was caught in Richmond, Virginia. And this is the insanity that goes with this guy when I put alcohol into my system. On a Sunday afternoon, it was two other guys.

One of them was from Kentucky and one of them was from Tennessee and we were riding around together because we were just alike. We didn't we didn't uh buy civilian clothes or we didn't buy food because our money had to be spent on booze and beer and having a good time. And we were riding around in a Chevrolet and we went up a dirt street.

A cloud had come up that Sunday afternoon and we went up a dirt street way up on the north side of Richmond, Virginia to use the bathroom. We wanted a bathroom up there, but we got out on the side of the road and used it. And that was a a real muddy uh street.

There's some construction work was going on. We got back in the car and we went down Broad Street and we got to the corner of Broad Broad and Belvidere. There was a car in front of me at the red light.

And I stopped behind him and when he attempted to go through the light when it turned green, the car stopped and he couldn't get it started. He asked me would I give him a push and I said, "Yes, I'll be glad to." And as I began to ease up behind him on that Chevrolet and it was mud had gotten off my foot onto the clutch. And my foot slipped off the clutch pedal and I bumped his car from a few feet out.

Not hard, but enough to make it mad. And he got out and he looked in our car and saw that we was about 2/3 lit. And he called me a drunken SOB.

And you know, I sort of resented that. And then he said something real stupid. He says, "Why don't you knock it out in the middle of the street?" And he shouldn't have said that to me.

Cuz I said, "Good idea." and I backed up about 20 25 ft, put that Jefferson low gear and I tried my best to get him out in the middle of the street. And I I didn't get him all the way, but I got him partly the way. And then I backed up again and pulled around him and started on down the street and I gave him the Hawaiian salute.

I went down about a quarter of a mile or so and come back up to see how he was doing and the cops were already there and I saw his finger fly up toward me when I was going up the side of the street over there. They had me within two blocks. Drunk and driving and hit and run.

And that shows you how crazy I am when I get booze into my system. My behavior would become totally unpredictable. I never knew if I was going to get fighting look, or crying look, or stealing look, or what kind.

You something was going to happen when I put booze in my system, but I was always willing to take the chance. Well, the lawyer told me that when that case come up that if I went before that certain judge about it, I would be getting some time. So, he said, "Let's don't put it in that court.

Let's put it in high court." So, they they had it set up for high court, a jury trial. Before I could be tried on that, I got caught down in Colonial Heights again. Driving under the influence, driving after license revoked, resisting arrest, striking police officer, presenting another person's operator's license as my own, and something else.

I Seven different charges. And the company commander was really getting fed up with all of this. He was fed up with the colonel laying at the Quartermaster School complaining about my coming into the classroom where I was instructing at the time.

I'd go in with alcohol on my breath. At break time, I'd have to go out and get a drink, you know, till lunch time. And the colonel didn't like it.

He didn't think the recruits who were in the school should be should be exposed to that kind of behavior. And I wasn't very neat anymore. I didn't look at all like the guy who had been Soldier of the Month in Korea.

Didn't look that way at all. Didn't act that way at all, either. Well, when the mess sergeant started complaining, and the guys the barracks started complaining.

The company commander began to counsel with me and send me to a chaplain and that chaplain reminded me so much of my brother I couldn't listen to him. It didn't do any good. He sent me to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist, I didn't like his looks from the time I walked in the door and that didn't do any good.

And then the prosecuting attorney that was to try those charges called the company commander. Told the company commander that in the event I was found guilty of those things, I would be getting some time. And the company commander says let him take some action first.

And the company commander took my record and put it before a board of 12 officers and those 12 officers all agreed that I had become alcoholically unfit for military service. And they gave me an undesirable discharge and drove me out of the gates of Fort Lee, Virginia. And when they drove me out of the gates my girlfriend was out there to meet me.

I had already separated from wife number one and she was out there to meet me and I moved in with her in what we'd call nowadays a meaningful relationship, the significant other. In those days we'd call it shacking up. But I moved in with her and I went to court the next day and they was right, I did go to jail.

I got a 90-day jail sentence and I immediately began serving it and 57 days later Ruth came up there to get me out. She had borrowed some money. Ruth was going to take her lover home with her.

And she was up there out in the parking lot in that old dilapidated automobile. And Ruth is only 19 or 20 years older than I. And she had all of her grandchildren with her that morning.

And I walked out to the parking lot where she was. About seven of them in the back seat. And she met me when she she got out of the car and met me when she saw me coming.

And I said, "Ruth, I'll never go to another jail as long as I live." And she said, "Well, good. I've missed you. Let's drink to it." And she handed me a brand new pint, and I hadn't seen one in 57 days, and I broke the seal on it, Jesse, and I toasted that old Petersburg jail.

Took me a swig off that thing, handed it her, she spit a snuff out, and she took a swig. Next morning, she was back up there to get me out again. Her brother-in-law and sister had come down from Washington, D.C.

to help Ruth celebrate her lover getting out of jail. Mack had gotten caught for drunken driving that night, and because I was passed out in the back seat, they locked me up. I couldn't pay us out without getting in trouble.

It just seemed like there was a cloud of impending doom just hanging over me every which way I went. Well, I managed to get a job up there in Virginia. In fact, I got several jobs.

Uh the longest I kept a job was about 3 months for the next year. And I could tell you paint a water tank any way you want to, and ain't nobody going to pay out a check. And I traveled with that water tank painting crew and would come back on weekends and sometimes I'd have some money, sometimes I didn't.

And Ruth would steal from me and I'd steal from her and she called the law on me and sometime I'd call the law on her and sometimes the neighbor would call the law on both of us. And we were just having a ball. Mom and dad finally found out where I was and they asked me to come home.

And I thought that would be a tremendous idea to get out of Virginia and get back to Roxboro and get started over and I did that. I hitchhiked back to Roxboro. I moved in with mom and dad.

The extent of my worldly possessions was on my back. And I moved in with mom and dad and they said, "Absolutely no drinking." And this again is where a five-month period of dryness come about in my life. For the next five months I was working in the mill.

My cousin felt sorry for me. He's the guy that had fired me in '55 and '56. During the 18 months I'd been out of service, he felt sorry for me then and decided to give me another chance and he hired me to go to work in that same mill.

And I went to work in that mill on at night from 11:00 to 7:00 in the morning. I'd stay at my father's house, stay around his store a great deal. He was no longer farming.

He was running a store he had built. And I didn't go anyplace, didn't run with guys who drank or did anything. I just stayed around the store and the house and then they introduced me to a lady that was eight years older than I.

She was going to church with them. And I was trying to get my life straightened out and I started going to church with them, and uh after about 5 months, I was doing so well, that lady thought she had me saved. I had divorced wife number one, and that gal asked me to marry.

And you know, I looked at her, she's no Dolly Parton, but she was adequate, and she had a house, 13 acres of land, nice automobile, and looked pretty good. And I had two pair of pants and two shirts, and ain't no bad deal. We got married, and I moved in.

And 3 weeks later, we went to a dance one Saturday night, and I know that most Baptists don't like dancing. Most Baptists really and truly don't like dancing. Well, we went to that dance that Saturday night, and Sue was one of those Baptists that did like dancing.

She wasn't like the others. Some of those Baptists around home would not even have uh sex standing up because they'd be afraid somebody would think they's dancing. But Sue was different.

She enjoyed dancing. And I got up with Sue that night, and I tried to dance, and I couldn't. I absolutely had nine left feet.

I had never tried to dance sober, never felt like it, and I couldn't dance. She went to the powder room, and while she was going to the powder room, a guy that worked in the mill was me, handed me a tall glass of Old Grand-Dad. When Sue got back, I was ready to dance.

Man, we got up and cut a rug for about two numbers. When the musicians were putting them instruments up that night, they had to wake me up at back of the room where I had passed out at her table. Wife number two went out the door that night crying.

Totally embarrassed and humiliated. And I went out the door behind her vomiting and cursing. And abusing her verbally.

And that's just about the type of existence it describes it quite well that I put her through off and on periodically for the next 12 months. Many, many times during the summer of '62 I tried to stop drinking. I tried going with them to church again.

The minister and a deacon came out one night and put the oil on me and prayed for me and it didn't work. I tried building bookcases in the basement at night. Something that would keep me busy.

And I was beginning to get a whole lot of bookcases. And I found out when I had them set out in the yard that why nobody was buying them. The shelves on one end were 3 in higher than they were on the other.

And nobody wants bookcases like that. I gave up on that project. I absolutely could not quit drinking.

I stopped for a day or two, swelled up and invariably start back again. And I would tell wife number two time after time after time I'm going to drink Friday night and Saturday, Sunday I'm not going to drink. I'm going to work Monday.

Sunday morning would come and I'd be so hungover, so sick the washing machine would be running in my belly. Those snare drums would be playing in my head. That tuba sounded like it was right in the back of my neck.

And I was shaking like a sewing machine. And I would rationalize and say, "Well, it's 8:00 now. I'll take just a little small one to help me get over this.

This all I'm going to take, see, just this little small one." And you know the story. Come 11:00, 11:30 Sunday night, a taxicab is bringing more. Or I'm begging my wife to take me to get more.

Or I have already walked to the bootleg joint to get more. And I'd miss work on Monday. After Christmas of 1962, the next 3 weeks was almost complete drunkenness.

And on the third weekend of January 1963, I begin drinking on a Friday afternoon. 2:00, and it was raining. We got out.

And I had a few beers. Then I went to the bootleg joint. And I don't recall going home Friday night.

My only memory is Saturday of being in my living room with a pint of whiskey, cleaning off my shoes that I had vomited on. I'm going to town to get more booze. The rest of the day was a blackout.

Sunday was a blackout. Don't remember getting home Sunday night. Monday morning, I recall my wife shaking me very, very hard to wake me up.

And she asked me was I going to work, and I said, "Yes." And that Monday morning at 5:30, I turned to the right to get off my bed. My elbow hit something on the pillow. Under that pillow, when I raised it up, I saw two pints of white moonshine whiskey.

And I sat down beside the bed that Monday morning, and I began to drink that whiskey. And wife number two came in that room about 15 minutes later to see why I had not responded to the aroma of bacon and eggs. Then she began to say some things to me with more authority than she'd ever said before.

And this time I knew she meant it. She was telling me I was a sorry, no-good, low-down drunk. And that she wanted me out of her house, out of her heart, out of her life forever that afternoon when she got home from work.

And she proceeded to go to work. And I proceeded to drink that whiskey. And apparently late that morning I left home.

And what I'm telling you now is hearsay of what I heard on the radio later on. Or what I read in the paper. Or what other people told me.

But apparently late that morning I went to the bootleg joint, called a taxi, went to town. And later on I heard people testify at a trial that they would not serve me whiskey or beer at those joints on Court Street in Roxboro that Monday afternoon. I heard a sheriff testify that he had looked out that Monday afternoon at 4:00 I was on the street drunk.

He was coming out to arrest me, the telephone rang. He talked on the phone for about a minute. He came back to the door to see where I was.

And he didn't see me anymore. He said he figured the police had me or would have me within a few minutes. And he forgot about it.

And I wished a million times down through the years that he had arrested me that Monday afternoon because within the next couple hours this one event took place that's too painful to talk about. And I don't think step back from the podium. But I was arrested again the next morning and I was placed in jail and no bond was allowed.

That was January 21st of '63. And on February the 11th, I stood in superior court with no defense. The lawyer that was representing me told me that we just had to stand mute because we had no defense.

And they listened to the evidence and the judge told me to stand. And when a lawyer helped me to my feet and I stood in front of that judge, he says, "Young man, after listening to the evidence, I hereby sentence you to a period of natural life plus 40 years at expiration state penitentiary in Raleigh. Take him out of here, Sheriff." And it was 2 days later they handcuffed me between two other guys and carried me into the walled Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I'd never been in prison before, but when that door on my right hand side slammed shut, a total feeling of relief come over me. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was exactly where I belonged. I did not belong out here in a free society with you people.

I was too insane, too out of control. And I knew too that mom and dad would not have to worry about me anymore. They would know where I was.

I knew also that I would never have to drink again because there's not supposed to be anything to drink in a prison environment. But I quickly found out about 3 weeks later when other inmates took me into their confidence that there was things being smuggled in that would make you high. And I began to take those things.

Every dime that I could get my hands on was spent on those things and those little bottles of alcohol that was being smuggled out of the hospital. And it sort of puts a bad taste in my mouth to think about how some of those things got out of a simple prison hospital. Ooh.

And I took them. I took them. Because I was still an alcoholic and I was out of control and I was using anything that I could get to escape.

I couldn't escape that wall. That wall was 22 ft high. 22 ft in the ground, 22 ft wide at the bottom, 6 ft wide at the top.

Guards with 30-30s and shotguns were on that wall. There was 30,000 V of electricity running around that wall on a fence built at the top. I couldn't escape.

But I could escape through my mind by putting those things into my body that would make me sleep at night. And I used anything that I could get. In June of '63, I went to AA.

In June of '63, I got word from back home that a guy had broken to my wife's home, robbed her, assaulted her, kidnapped her. In June of '63, I was fired from that job that I had as a clerk in the classification section. All of that was going on, those three events.

I used that event of my wife being robbed, assaulted, and kidnapped as an excuse to go to the doctor and tell him that I needed something for my nerves. I used that as long as I could to have this little legal piece of paper in my pocket that would enable me to walk around on the yard high, nobody could lock me up because I had already been locked up two or three times, locked up while I was locked up, fired from a good job. Knew that I was already having trouble.

I certainly used it as long as I could. And that kind of behavior continued for the next 8 months. Just because I was in AA, just because my name was on the prison roster, did not make me have sobriety.

Attending the meetings at Central Prison did not give me sobriety where I sat at the back of the room and did not participate, did not have a big book, did not read the AA Grapevine or any of the literature, or do anything, just sat back there and listened. And for the next 8 months, I did that. And sometimes we walked to the water cooler, put something in my mouth, and chase it down.

It meant nothing to me. I heard people come in and share their experience and talk about love, and I knew it was love already. There was two inmates on the back row holding hands every Thursday night.

I didn't want anything to do with it. But on February 16th, 1964, I had been on call Sunday afternoon. I came to on Sunday night in Central Prison up on the fourth floor where I slept in a two-man cell.

My buddy was in the hospital. He had been in there, my cellmate, for several days with a virus. I came to that Sunday night in the cell block sometime after 8:00.

And I took a look at where I stood in life. Here I was in Central Prison with a sentence of natural life plus 40. Hopeless.

Absolutely no way will I ever get out of the way I'm conducting myself. I have no future. I couldn't tolerate the prison.

I hated the guards, the food, the inmates, the clothing. The hatred, the bitterness, everything about that environment, I hated it. And I had no decent past to think about or dwell on.

That hurt too much. Thinking about the heartbreak, and humiliation, and degradation I brought upon the name of good family. And the solution to my problem occurred in my mind.

Plunge over that railing headfirst to the concrete below and end your wretched existence. And very, very quickly I came to the conclusion that that was the right thing to do. I reached up on the pillar, took everything that I had, and chased it with water.

Knowing that the cell block door would open that night at 9:00. And I stood at that cell block door waiting when the guys downstairs watching television could come up and go in their cells. If you didn't go go in at 9:00, they had to stay on the bottom floor till 11:00.

And I stood at that door waiting just two or three minutes before nine. And this is when God in His infinite mercy gave this sick alcoholic one more shot at life. Sickness, blackout, passing out, whatever you want to call it.

It doesn't matter. I came to some 30 to 40, approximately, minutes later, I would suppose, after 9:00. And I was a row of vomit from that door, 6 ft back to the commode.

And my head was in the commode, and I was crying and choking and gasping for breath. And I cried out that night. I cried out to a God that I did not understand, but a God who understood me.

And I don't remember saying these words, but the next morning when I went out to go to work, the inmates in the cell block on the right and on the left told me that that night I had cried out loudly, "God, if you help me get back to AA, I'll try." Those inmates had no reason whatsoever to fabricate such a story as that. And I don't remember saying those things, but I certainly believe that it took place. Because the following Thursday night, when I walked in the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous at the prison, I moved from the back of the room up to the front.

Because the previous Sunday night, in that drunken stupor, and when I had come to in the morning, I had a degree of desperation I had never had. For the first time in my life, I was absolutely willing to do anything to find relief from this torment that I had been going through for year in and year out, even before ending up in prison. And I went into that AA group looking for help, and you folks, many of you know Tom I, the guy who was the alcoholic rehabilitation officer at that prison unit.

He had 7 years of sobriety in AA at the time. And he gave me a copy, the second edition of the big book, and told me what I needed to do with it. And I took that cell book, so big book back to my cell block, and I began to read it.

And when I sat on the front row of that AA meeting on Thursday night, I would listen to the speakers. I was interested in what was going on. And Tom would talk with me quite often.

And I was reading more and more. And it didn't take me but just a short while in getting into that big book to realize that this guy had been an alcoholic since he was 20 years old. And people talk about being disgusted in coming into AA.

I'll tell you, realizing that I was an alcoholic was a promotion for me. It was a promotion. And I went into that group willing to do anything to get help, and I thank God that I found that help.

And as a result of getting active in that group, and as a result of Tom working with me and counseling with me, and giving me opportunities to be of service, I stayed sober. I quit taking all that mess and work with other guys, carrying an AA Grapevine in my pocket everywhere I go because the first 2 years that I was in AA, even though I didn't take anything or drink anything, periodically the obsession would be almost overwhelming to drink. And I pull that AA Grapevine out of my pocket and read it or I'd go and talk with another inmate or I would go out behind the chapel when I was on the yard and pray.

Anything to lose that compulsion to drink. And I stayed sober. Some 2 years later I went to Tom and told him that I was having this overpowering urge and desire to drink.

And he wanted to know what step I was on. And I told him I've done 1, 2, and 3 and I've been waiting for God to zap me so that I can tiptoe through the tulips and it hasn't happened. He says it probably won't.

And he suggested that I get into step 4, step 5, pray about my character defects and shortcomings and and make amends and restitution even though I was in prison to the best of my ability. And that maybe the obsession will leave. And I began to look at names to consider for taking step 5 with after I had made my searching and fearless moral inventory.

And one Sunday night I had really worked on that inventory and I was wanting someone to take step 5 with. A Presbyterian minister came into that prison group and shared on a Sunday night. Within 10 minutes of his talk I knew that he was the man.

And some 6 weeks later they made arrangements for me to go into a little room with that minister. He had 20 years of sobriety in AA. And I shared with him the exact nature of my wrongs, and he shared with me.

And when I walked out of that room that night, I had a feeling about Alcoholics Anonymous that's still with me today. I had a feeling that if I kept on doing what I was doing, everything would be all right. I walked out of that room with a freedom and a joy that I had never had before in my life.

And that was just a very, very initial beginning. I also walked out of that room with a sponsor. The first time I'd had a sponsor in over 2 years that I had been in.

And that man was my sponsor up until 17 years ago. And I sat at his bedside in Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. And between the two of us, when Reverend John was dying of cancer, we selected who my next sponsor would be.

We both agreed that it should be Tom, because I had been unable to pick Tom while he was on while I was in prison and he was an employee. It would create a resentment between other inmates and and myself. And when I tell I tell you, when you're in prison, you don't want resentments from other inmates, especially.

So, Tom had never been my sponsor until after Reverend John died. I stayed in a total of 18 years, 1 month, 26 days, and 2 hours. I divorced wife number two while I was in prison because after many years in the L, I was being allowed the opportunity to go to AA meetings when people would sign me out and take me to meetings.

And wife number two did not like AA. She went to a few meetings. AA was a cult.

And she told me that in the event that I ever did get out, that I would be going with her to church and I would forget about that AA thing, that cult. She wanted no part of it. That we would make it all right.

And I gave that wife number two two years to get her a divorce. I says, "If you don't get her divorce, I will. You can tell them anything you want to about me.

It won't hurt because I was handcuffed and shackled between two other people when they drove me out of town. My reputation's gone in Roxbury anyway, a long time before then. Say whatever you need to get her a divorce." She didn't do it.

I divorced her while I was in prison. While I'm there at the Santa Clara Correction Center, I stayed there 3 years before they uh approved me to go on work release. I bought an acre of land, which they gave me permission to do so.

A sister moved a mobile home down from Roxbury. And I'd be going began going out on weekends, and that's where I met the lady that I'm married to now that's over at Disneyland. We had 27 years together this past May 26th.

I'm grateful for that. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream that life would be so wonderful, that it would take on new meaning and new happiness. Never did I dream that I would have the freedom that I have today to go places and do things and to be a part of a worldwide fellowship of alcoholics anonymous.

That's why when our correction gave me permission to build a home the last year that I was in prison. And when I stayed off parole stayed off I got off parole in 1986. I had a letter in the mailbox one evening.

It says, "Congratulations Mr. Brown. You have completed your obligation to the state of North Carolina.

You are a free man. Again, congratulations." And I was crying. I was crying when I handed that letter to my wife that afternoon.

And she says, "Why are you crying?" And I says, "Read it." She read it and it says, "Congratulations, you are a free man." She says, "You a free man." I said, "Yeah, but that letter's wrong. That letter's wrong. The Department of Correction is turning me loose.

I've been a free man since 1966. After I took step five, after God in his infinite mercy removed the compulsion I had to drink. I had been a free man since then.

I had walked the yards of that prison unit absolutely happy, joyous, and free because I had been released from the bondage of self and the bondage of alcoholism. I had been in prison before I ever got to prison. Today I still know what that freedom is all about.

That's why I'm going into correctional institutions four to five Wednesday nights of every month on a regular basis. Been doing it since 1981. The next week after I was released from the Sanford Correctional Center, I was invited back to that group by the officials in that and the inmates to be the outside sponsor for that group because they knew the type of person that I was.

They knew that God had brought about a miracle in my life as a result of me turning my will and life over to the care of him as I understood it. Today, I'm still enjoying that freedom, that happiness, that joy that comes from being able to walk and hold my head up with dignity and respect because I know where I was. I know what happened, and I know what I'm like today.

That mom that visited me for the first year that I was in prison would ask me sometimes, "Why are your pupils so small?" Two weeks later, she'd say, "Why are your pupils so big?" Later on, she would say, "Why are you so thick-tongued today?" That mom, some two couple of years later, a several years later, a guy signed me out from the correctional center and carried me to her bedside in Person County Memorial Hospital. She was laying there dying of cancer. I went in, she was crying.

And that mom, when I got down on my knees at her bed, took her little bony hand, I says, "Mom, why are you crying? Are you crying about me? She said, "No, Wallace.

I'm not crying about you. You're going to be all right. I believe that.

Since I'm crying about one of your brothers, he can't be here tonight. He knows I'm dying. But even though you are in prison, you know, they have let you come to see me." That night when I got ready to leave that room, she said, "Wallace, will you do me a favor?" And you know a guy in prison will promise his mother anything.

I said, "Yeah, Mom. What do you want?" She said, "Will you always stay in that AA thing?" I said, "Yeah, Mom." That was February 14th, 1971. Here it is, 2005.

Mama's baby boy, Wallace, is still in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not because I made that promise to Mama. Wallace is in Alcoholics Anonymous tonight because of some other promises.

Listen on page 83 and 84 of the big book of knowing what our new freedom and our new happiness is all about. That's why I'm here, because every one of these things listed on those pages has been a reality in my life down through the years. And when I was released from the Department of Corrections, I came out into the community bringing my program of recovery with me.

That's why I love you guys together so very much, who take the time to go into those institutions. I know of some bad things have happened, but there are many, many guys in there who would not be there if they weren't crazy and insane and under the influence at times. And I believe it's my responsibility to give them the opportunity to do something about my life because it was you people who did that for me years and years and go.

I feel responsible for doing that today. And I am committed to doing that today. And I follow that up with a plan of action week after week, year after year.

Just as it suggests in step three, when we get that call, it says next, we launch out into a vigorous program of action. I've launched out and do that vigorous program of action, which has brought about every good and worthwhile thing in my life. My decency, my respect, my home, my family, my friends, all of these things have been restored to an extent that I never, ever thought possible.

And they even even though I'm even par 72, even though I just got back from the international convention in Toronto, Canada, where I have been able to go for five times during the international, I have all intentions of being in San Antonio in 2010. Through God's grace and because this program works, I have hope, dreams, aspirations, and plans for the future because Alcoholics has worked for me down through the years and I'm fully confident that it will continue to work for me as long as I keep on running with you people, trusting God, continuing to clean house and help others. I love you.

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.

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