I’ll Whisper Your Name in God’s Ear – AA Speaker – Keith L.
AA speaker Keith L. shares his 50+ year recovery journey, from hitting bottom in 1973 to discovering deep friendships and spiritual grace through the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Keith L. came to AA in May 1973 after years of self-destruction—a military officer, a father, a man whose disease had erased every principle he’d been taught. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his bottom, his unlikely prayer partnership that lasted 30 years, and what it means to finally understand that sobriety isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about becoming part of something larger than yourself.
Keith L., an AA speaker with over 50 years of sobriety, shares his complete recovery story from hitting bottom in 1973 through a life transformed by sponsorship, deep friendships, and spiritual faith. He discusses how he discovered that powerlessness over alcohol is absolute, yet how the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous restored his ability to love, serve others, and maintain an unshakeable connection to God. The talk emphasizes the importance of peer relationships in recovery, the role of a sponsor and prayer partner in carrying the message, and how true sobriety means becoming a doer within the program rather than solving problems on one’s own.
Episode Summary
Keith L. carries a message of 50 years of continuous sobriety, but more importantly, a message about what that sobriety has given him—a sense of belonging he never had before. His story is bookended by loss and grace: as he speaks, his long-time prayer partner and friend is in hospice, and Keith has chosen to dedicate this entire talk to him.
Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Ohio, Keith was surrounded by love and spiritual instruction, yet remained utterly isolated by his self-centeredness. He describes himself as a “spiritually ill” person who couldn’t see the goodness around him, even as his parents, nuns, and priests were forming him. A nun named Sister Victoria told young Keith something that terrified and shaped him: “You’re a very special child of God, and one day he’s going to use you to go around the world and tell his children how very much he loves them.” He didn’t understand it then. He wouldn’t understand it for decades.
After joining the Marine Corps at 17, Keith found his first taste of relief in alcohol. Between drinks two and three at a Pittsburgh bar before shipping out, something shifted. The paralyzing fear left him. He felt capable, alive, important. He became a leader—and his disease became his master. For years, he excelled in the Marine Corps, rising through the ranks with meritorious promotions and volunteering for combat. But gradually, the marriage to military life fell apart as it always did. He’d find something, fall in love with the way of life, violate every principle associated with it, then blame it and leave. Alcohol accelerated his moral collapse.
His marriage produced two daughters. He was present for the first—sober enough to witness her birth in the afternoon. For the second, born three months premature, he was passed out on the living room floor. His wife called him at the hospital in tears: their daughter weighed less than two pounds and might not live. He arrived angry and stormed out. In the neonatal nursery, a woman he’d known from high school—now the chief resident—told him they had an experimental machine. His daughter had almost no chance either way, but they wanted to try.
For three days, Keith sat in a dark office across from the nursery, watching his wife walk the halls, watching his tiny daughter fight for every breath. He knew what his father would have done: put his arm around his wife and say, “Pat, with God, we can do anything.” But Keith had nothing inside. He was hollow. Alcohol had washed away every principle he’d been taught. That night, he knelt in the chapel before the tabernacle—a place he’d loved as a child—and begged God to save her life. “If you save her life, I’ll never drink again,” he promised. He was drunk in 12 hours.
This is where Keith plants the flag: “Am I powerless over alcohol? You bet I am.”
Years of drinking continued. His wife eventually asked him to leave. On May 13, 1973, at 29 years old, living in a basement in Washington DC, Keith decided to take his own life. He had a medicine cabinet full of drugs and alcohol. He screamed. And in that moment, through the fog, he heard a voice as clear as anything he’d ever heard: “You’re 29. It’s just starting.”
His estranged wife had given him a phone number. A treatment center. He called. They could take him in three days. When asked if he needed help stopping drinking, he said no—but he walked to his sink, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and hurled it as hard as he could. It shattered. “If that bottle had bounced, you’d have a different speaker this morning.”
What he discovered in those first three weeks at the treatment center changed everything. He found people who got it. He wanted to be like them. He fell in love with AA not because he understood it, but because he surrendered to it. A man at a meeting asked him to be his prayer partner. Keith—still religiously anti-religious, waiting to be offended—said he wasn’t much into prayer. His future sponsor and brother said, “That’s okay. I’ll pray. You partner.”
That relationship lasted 30 years. It was peer friendship—not sponsee and sponsor, but equals, brothers. Mike taught Keith what it meant to receive. Mike had been born in August 1943, the month after his mother lost a stillborn son. She’d promised young Mike that God would give him a little brother. Keith was born August 22, 1943. Mike believed Keith was his brother from God. Decades later, on his deathbed, Mike told Keith, “The moment I see him, I’ll whisper your name in God’s ear.”
Keith’s recovery work included the steps, but his real transformation came through action and service. He worked in a Jesuit college under a brilliant priest who taught him not just theology and genetics, but how to order a meal. He learned that he’s a doer—not a creative genius, but someone who, when told “go do that,” goes and does it. His sponsors have always been people who could give him direction, and he’s thrived under it.
But the deepest work came through his family. After years of struggle, he began to understand what amends really meant. It wasn’t about grand gestures. When he stopped arguing with his father, stopped trying to prove anything, and simply honored the man who’d handled life ten times better than he ever could, something broke open. His father told him a story from when Keith was 12, working his first job at a bowling alley. His dad had taken him to lunch and explained how to do a good day’s work for a good day’s pay. He’d watched Keith get on the bus without looking back. For years, Keith had never let his father do anything for him—and that was the amends. He owed his father the chance to be a father.
When he finally asked to borrow $1,000, his father loaned it without hesitation. They became close. Keith had discussions with his father in sobriety that could never have happened while drinking. On one of his last visits, his father held up an old photograph of an Ohio state championship baseball team. He’d been all-state all four years. He’d had three professional contract offers. Keith asked why he’d never said anything. His father said: “You and Denny tried so hard to be good ball players. I didn’t want to say anything that might discourage you.” And Keith realized he’d been going to meetings for 28 years trying to learn to think like that. To his father, it was natural.
Before Keith left that visit, he asked his father if there was anything they needed to say. His father said no—they’d said it all. But then he added: “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for so many people, especially people in our family.”
Months later, Keith knelt beside his father’s bed as he died. He held his hand and whispered in his ear that it was okay to go. When they said Amen to the Lord’s Prayer, his father squeezed his hand and went into eternity.
Keith also carries a story about his brother Terry, who struggled with alcoholism and died of cancer. Years of trying to make amends, Terry disappearing whenever Keith came home. Finally, at their parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, Terry was there—drunk. Keith sat him down and made amends the best way he could. Months later, in a hospital bed, Terry asked his older brother two questions: “Do you really believe there’s a God?” and “Do you think he could care about a guy like me?” Keith got to be his big brother. He reminded Terry of the rosary and the scapular they’d prayed as kids. Before leaving, he asked to hug Terry. For a few seconds chronologically, Keith held his brother. But in God’s time, which is always now, Keith hugs him forever.
Terry lived six more months. He stopped drinking. He made amends. When they found him, he was sitting in a chair with his feet up on a stool, praying the rosary God had given him.
The last major thread of Keith’s talk is about what sobriety actually is. He argues against problem-solving meetings, against the idea that recovery means fixing yourself first so you can help others. He sponsors a man who believed exactly that—”just let me solve my problems and then I’ll carry the message.” Keith told him: “When you get your problems all figured out, come sponsor me. I haven’t done that yet.” Instead, Keith invited his sponsee to work with others. And something happened. The man came on fire. He discovered what Keith has always known: “We don’t know what we know till somebody else needs it. We don’t know what we have till we see someone who doesn’t have it.”
This is what Alcoholics Anonymous gave Keith L.—not sobriety from alcohol, though he has that. It gave him a way to live where he’s not the center, where his job is to carry a message to people still suffering, where deep friendships and spiritual partnerships replace the isolation that defined his drinking life. Fifty years later, with his prayer partner in hospice, Keith still believes that everything lines up exactly as it should.
Notable Quotes
If I take one drink, I’ll die. And knowing I’ll die will never keep me from drinking. The only thing that keeps me from drinking is the maintenance of spiritual condition and sharing what I have.
I came into Alcoholics Anonymous looking for a savior. Until Mike came into my life, I never had a peer. I never had an equal. When he asked me to be his prayer partner, what he was really saying to me was, ‘Join the rest of us. Become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.’
Not what we give but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
You’re a very special child of God, and one day he’s going to use you to go around the world and tell his children how very much he loves them.
If you ask for God’s will, you can’t whine about the instrument.
We don’t know what we know till somebody else needs it. We don’t know what we have till we see someone who doesn’t have it.
I hugged my brother for a few seconds chronologically, but I hugged him forever in God’s time.
The moment I see him, I’ll whisper your name in God’s ear.
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Sponsorship
- Spiritual Awakening
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Family & Relationships
- Acceptance
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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-rise.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, Mag.
My name is Keith Lewis. I'm an alcoholic. And in the spirit of the wonderful recovery that comes out of Texas, uh, by the grace of God and a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and a succession of three pretty tough sponsors, I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since May the 13th, 1973.
And for that, I am very grateful. I just love West Texas. I love coming here.
I love the kind of sobriety you have here. And I really want to thank Bill and the rest of the committee for inviting me. It's such a privilege to uh to be here and to carry the message uh uh as halting as it is of uh my recovery in this marvelous organization called Alcoholics Anonymous.
Uh I um left the um bed of one of my best friends uh yesterday morning. Uh and alcoholics anonymous um has uh given me everything. Uh when I came to AA, I was the most isolated, self-absorbed, self-centered human being uh I have ever known.
Uh it was always about me and uh and it was my pain and it was so intense it's all I could think about. And uh I was sober pretty close to a year and uh ended up carrying the message um as part of our um public awareness program in the Washington DC area. We we would go to churches and talk about Alcoholics Anonymous.
And uh and I I ended up going there with a very funny man who had everybody laughing and it was a Baptist church and that's no mean feat to um get everybody laughing. And uh and uh when it was all over we went for a cup of coffee and uh his name was Mike Wei and uh and uh and he said to me over this cup of coffee he said uh would you be my prayer partner? Well, you have to know I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, one of those religiously anti-religious types, you know, the kind, you know, sitting around just waiting to be offended and uh and you know, it doesn't take long in a um and uh and and and I said to him, I said, "I'm not much into prayer." And he said, "Well, that's okay." He said, "I'll pray.
You partner." And uh and that began a relationship that uh this lasted now it'll be 30 years next month. And uh uh and he's he introduced me uh down in Brussis River uh two years ago. And uh he I I continue to discover things about myself and about my friends in Alcoholics Anonymous.
and he introduced me and um and he told a story I had never heard after all these many many thousands of hours we spent together. He said when he was 8 years old, his mother went to the hospital and promised to bring him back a little brother. And uh and unfortunately the baby was still born and uh she came back and he said, "Where's my little brother?" And she said, "Uh he went home to see God, but uh God will God always pays things back and God will give you a little brother." And uh and his little brother uh was still born in August of 1943.
and I was born August 22nd of 1943. And he told that story and uh and he said, "So God gave me a little brother and uh I couldn't talk." Uh and uh Mike is very near the end. He's in hospice.
And uh it's just a privilege to have had friendships like that. This guy who came in and didn't want anybody and didn't need anybody. And now I'm the human being that's totally dependent upon God and the people around me.
I generate nothing. Uh an old friend of mine, Buck Doyle, who's been gone for some time now from Washington DC said to me one time. He said uh he said, "You're a college boy.
You're pretty bright boy." He said, "The book said, "God has all power. How much do you have?" And I said, "None." He said, "You're a genius, kid. You're a genius.
So, I want to dedicate uh as I've dedicated my life to Alcoholics Anonymous, I want to dedicate this talk to my my big brother Mike Weey uh who uh may or may not be there when I get back. Uh what I have had this last week is a privilege of spending hours with him every day and we've truly become prayer partners and and we read scripture together, we go to church together, we've done everything and uh it's been my privilege to hold his hand and uh we pray our daily rosary together and uh and there's a grace emanates from that man. He's he's always been someone who's totally dedicated to service and to doing things for others.
And uh I would love to spend whatever time I have left emanating him. You know, I was born in a small town in Ohio. I always like to say if we have anybody from California, I always like to remind them that that's where AA started.
And um just kidding, Donna. And Don is our speaker tomorrow. It carries a wonderful message.
And um but um but I'm the eldest son in the second child in a family of 11 children. I'm Irish. I won't tell you what church we went to.
But >> >> uh had I had something to do with bingo, but I'm not going to say anymore. Okay. And uh and uh and I would have told you that I grew up in poverty.
And you know, nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. You know, I had a mother who every day uh uh I let her would hug me and kiss me and tell me she loved me.
And I had a father who every day I let him would spend time with me. And uh but I was born selfish and self-centered looking out for number one. And uh and I miss so much.
Thank God I have memory and I can go back and replay it. Nothing's lost forever. I can go back and replay those marvelous times and we had some odd things.
Uh we did some odd things as a family. Uh every night we prayed a family rosary together. Um before dinner every night my mother who never finished high school would give us a grammar lesson.
And uh remember uh some years back shortly before she passed away she went in for surgery and we were all in Pittsburgh at the hospital and we're all standing around and they had given her the the joy juice before they took her into surgery. So she was somewhere out there and they're they're willing her into surgery and she said stop and she she got up on one elbow somehow and she said, "Boys, look at me." She always said that when she really meant it, you know. And she said, "Never, never, never end a sentence with a preposition." And the doctor said, "I never heard anybody say that before going into surgery, you know." So I I I just I lived in a home that u it was chaotic.
Of course, when you have that many little people running around, it's going to it's got to be chaotic. Uh but it was marvelous. But I could never see it.
Um I had this this this spiritual illness that that caused this blindness that uh meant that I couldn't see the magnificent things around me, the love but which I was surrounded. My mother would uh every night uh our house was sort of the house that all the kids went to if things weren't good at home. And uh if if dad was drunk, the kids would come running into our house.
And uh and my mother would line us up when it was time to take baths and showers. And the girls would use the bathroom upstairs and and the boys would go through the shower down in the basement. And she had bins and we throw our dirty clothes in and she'd wash clothes that night.
So when the kids got up, they'd have their clean clothes to put on the next day. And then we'd all be in bed. It'd be two or three of us in a bed, you know, and uh and she'd come from room to room and read us a story and pray with us.
And uh she loved to read particularly poetry. And and one of her favorite poems was uh Thomas Lol was a vision of Sir Longfold. And that was a marvelous uh story, but we never heard the end of it because she could never get past one particular phrase.
Uh it was about a knight who had it all. He had the best castle and everything and and he was going to go in search of the Holy Grail and um he was a very proud man and he had the best armor and the most magnificent horse and uh and he left his castle um and there was a beggar there and asked him for some help and he tossed him a gold coin because he was important and he had to be on his way and uh things didn't go well for him and 20 years later he came back totally defeated, old and sick and broken. and uh on a very rickety horse and uh and there was a beggar with leprosy standing outside the gate and he got off his horse and he used his wooden cup and he dipped water out of the stream and gave it to him and he shared his bread with him and he cut his cloak in half and put him around him and uh and uh and a beggar turned into Christ and u and there's a line that says not what we give but what we share the gift without the give her his bear.
And my mother could never get past that. She'd break into tears and we'd all break into laughter. And uh yeah, tell us one about the night, mom.
Huh? You know, and I was also a kid with a horrible speech impediment. Uh no one could understand anything I said except people who love me the most.
And we didn't have things like speech therapists and things. I guess they had them, but we sure didn't have them in Martinsbury, Ohio. I can tell you that.
So, uh, so I had a very, there was a very kind nun who was my first grade teacher and, uh, and she would spend time with me and had me do these exercises. I'd wrap my tongue around a pencil and try to say words and and finally she took me over to the public library and and and she uh told the library I was with her and and uh we told her we wanted records of someone who spoke very good English. Now, they were they had u uh red records and uh you could get great people's speeches and things and uh and so this lady said, "Well, there's a man named Winston Churchill who does a reasonable job with English." And uh so I got three big records of Winston Churchill's uh and and I go home and I play a sentence and I pick up the arm of the I'd like to say stereo, but then it was a Victrola.
And um I'd pick up the arm and I'd repeat it and then I'd play it again and then I'd repeat it and uh and I was the only kid in the Ohio Valley with a British accent and and I I guess I have to tell you about my first drink. I think it's important to talk about drinking. Um uh you know there if you haven't had your first drink, it's hard to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And um there's some people I have my doubts about, but that's another story. But um I had my first drink when I was five. And uh I didn't go I wasn't I was at home.
I didn't go out a lot when I was five. And uh and my mother was away. She was either at the bingo or having a baby or something.
And and uh dad was watching us. And um and I was with my brother Dum Denny. He's a year younger.
And um and uh uh and I guess dad thought it would be funny. We rarely had alcohol around the house cuz my parents had par both had parents who would qualify to be here I think. And uh and so there was rarely alcohol around our house but there were some beers in the refrigerator and I guess dad thought it would be cute.
So he we all had a beer and uh nothing happened to me. Denny on the other hand was having a spiritual awakening and uh and I remember he slid out of his chair and he's rolling around under the table and he was singing Mary had a little lamb and other drinking songs and uh and and I my father panicked and he wrestled him into his jammies and uh took him up and put him in bed and uh and I went up and got ready for bed and Denny was singing and carrying on. He was standing up in his little bed singing and everything and I'll never forget this.
Uh Denny urinated on her bedroom floor and I remember watching him thinking, you know, there's a kid who's powerless over alcohol and whose life has become unmanageable. And you know, um it's a sad story, but Denny just never made it. You know, there some people who have great potential and they never develop.
And uh there might even be one or two people in this room like that, but um uh he just never made it. It's a saddest story. He grew up and did the oddest things.
Uh then he went to one university. It gets worse. He had one major, you know, he graduated in four years.
I never heard of such thing graduating in four years. Yeah. And and and he he was offered like eight jobs and he took one.
And you know um uh and about eight years ago now he retired as a senior vice president in a large international corporation and the strangest thing of all was he married one woman. Now here's a guy had the world in the palm of his hands when he was four years old and he just let it slip through his fingers and I had to work at this thing. I was um I was 21 years old before I urinated on a bedroom floor for the first time.
So, you know, I I I I guess at a time like this, as I think about my brother Michael and and and things, I guess I think about the people who have been in my life and and and you know, um Don's talk uh this morning and u and Sherry last night and about the how we God does line it up and how he puts the people in our lives and and and you know, and without a doubt that's true for me there There was a a woman who uh was a nun who uh was our librarian at the little high school I went to in Bolero, Ohio. And her name was Sister Victoria. And Sister Victoria is one of these really strange birds.
She had a concept of life that was absolutely foreign to me. She had no idea how bad things were. Uh she would run around saying things like, uh, "Every boy is a prince and every girl's a princess because we have a father who's a king." And of course we'd laugh at her behind her back and things and uh and she was our librarian and and when you served detention, which I did a fair amount, uh you did it in a library and um I I was um I they termed me Miss Chieus.
Um uh I think if we'd have had any money, I think I'd have been diagnosed as an acting out adolescent. We were poor, so I was just a punk. And um and and and what we did when we served attention was we made rosary beads.
You know, those are things that Catholics pray on. And so they give you wire and pliers and beads and and all this stuff and you sit back there and make rosary beads and then they'd send them to the missions. My rosary beads were unique.
Um uh I spent a lot of time in Sister Victoria's library and um and she used to put me behind a magazine wrap. She said I was a prince, but I was contagious. and um and I provoked other students and um so I'd sit back there and make these rosary beads and I got quite good at it and uh my rosary beads were different.
Uh they're supposed to have 10 beads in every decade. Mine had 11. And um and you know in four years I had hundreds of mutant rosary beads all over the world.
And uh and you know I was supposed to I it's time to graduate much to everyone's surprise. And uh and uh I had to tell her what I'd been doing. You know, you can't do that and not let them know because it would be as though you wasted four years your life.
And uh so I went to her and I said, "Sister Victoria, do you know what I've been doing the last four years?" And she said, "Yes, you sly little prince." She said, "You've been making rosary beads with extra beads in all the decades. And I know why you've been doing it." And I remember thinking, I hope she tells me because I have the foggiest notion of why I do this. And she said, "People all over the world are praying extra prayers and God's going to give you all the credit.
Don't you just hate people like that?" And uh I I I had the privilege of speaking at the uh Kentucky State Convention uh year before last or last year, I'm sorry. and uh and a lady came up to me and said, "I've been saving this for you." And she handed me an obituary of Sister Victoria Sheay who died at 101 years of age. >> And um and uh she was everything in my life because she was the first person who confronted me with the reality that uh God had a job for me.
And uh that day that we talked about the rosary bead, she took both her hands and my hands and she looked me in the eye. She's uh she was an eye person. A lot of those around AA and Allenon, but I was a shoe person.
I like to look at shoes and uh but she looked me in the eye and she said uh you're a very special child of God and one day he's going to use you to go around the world and tell his children how very much he loves them. And I was terrified. I was terrified.
and uh she scared me to death and she showed me that on her bead she had put a medal medal of St. Jude who is a patron saint of difficult cases and um and uh and she said I've been praying uh my beads and every for the last four years and every time I get to this to this meal I say a prayer for you and uh and I don't know why she picked me out but she did and I'm so profoundly grateful. I don't know why people pick me out, but they do.
And they've always been there. Mike asking me to be his prayer partner. I mean, it's just amazing things.
There things that just can't happen. Our friend Happy Herald from Washington DC who stopped me walking by his table going out maybe to die, but people have always been there. And uh I am profoundly grateful.
Um, I uh uh joined the Marine Corps cuz um I didn't know what else to do. Uh actually I took an inventory and I was 5' 1 in tall and I weighed 113 pounds and whatever else I was I was a born killer. That was clear to anybody.
And um so I joined the Marine Corps and um I had no no earthly idea. I I didn't know anything about anything and I didn't think you could ask. I thought I was supposed to know.
So, uh, I just acted like I knew what was going on. And and what I did was I'd watch other people and I did what they did so quickly. It looked like we were doing it together.
And, um, and I I went over and to Wheeling, West Virginia, and went and saw the Marine recruiter and signed up. And, uh, and I forgot to tell my parents. I meant to, it just slipped my mind.
And, uh, didn't seem important at the time. And, uh, so the recruiter showed up at my house because my parents had to sign. I wasn't yet 18 years of age.
And my poor mother almost died. She just came apart. And uh my dad said to me, "You sure you want to do this, son?" I said, "Dad, I've been thinking about this a long time." You know, an hour and a half I thought about it.
And um so they signed and uh and my mother cried all night. I'll never forget. I could hear her in the next room and she kept saying, "Scott, they'll kill them.
They'll kill them." And my dad kept saying, "Don't worry, Pat. They won't take them." So um with that vote of confidence the next morning we we didn't have a family car so we took a taxi cab over across the river to Wheeling West Virginia and I got on a Greyhound bus and went to Pittsburgh which was 60 mi away and it was the second longest journey I'd ever been on and um and there were three guys from Pittsburgh who also joined that day and uh but they knew what was going on and uh and we were sworn in and we had about 12 hours for the train left and uh and so I went uh they said, "Kid, we're going to go over and have a sandwich and a couple beers." And I said, "That's just what I was thinking." And um and so I went with them and went into a bar and that of course is where my life changed. Um somewhere between the second and third drink, uh my life changed.
And it changed in a way that was to dictate the terms of my life. uh all that fear left me. Uh that sense that I didn't belong was gone.
Everybody who's alcoholic knows that feeling. An incredible shift. It's a monumental dynamic shift.
You heard it described beautifully last night at the meeting. And I knew that I was okay. And I not only I was okay, that I had a lot to give.
And I was running around that bar in Pittsburgh explaining life to people. Uh, I was uh, you know, explaining to about men and women, about God, about the Marine Corps. The only thing I knew about the Marine Corps is they took a certain number of men down to South Carolina and drowned them in a swamp every once in a while.
That's all I knew. And but I was just explaining it to him anyway. I made it up as I went.
And u, and so and then we went and got on a train. Now, that's an assumption. I I assume I got on a train because I woke up on the train.
And um I was lying on the floor of the Pullman coach that the Marine Corps had been kind enough to provide me with. And uh someone had wet the floor I was lying on. And whoever it was, they had wet me too.
And um so I got up and changed clothes and got off the train and we're in Washington DC. And uh the guy said to me, um, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to go find something to drink. I'd become a leader." And they followed me over.
We found a bar that served booze early in the morning and uh we drank till the train left and then I drank on the train till I got to South Carolina and I fell off the train in a place called Yamisy. If you hadn't been there, I wouldn't bother. But um uh somebody moved the bottom step.
I don't know what happened, but I fell across the next set of railroad tracks and it was a very rude man they had sent to greet us. And um he was hurling obscenities at myself and the other young men who went down there to die for their country. And uh and I got up and I brushed myself off and I tried to explain to this cretton that he would do a lot better if he treat us with some respect.
And he never seemed to grasp what it was I was trying to get across to him. He uh uh they say you can learn from everything. And what I learned from that is you can do a lot of push-ups drunk.
That's what I learned from that joke. In case you're interested, you can do push-ups and throw up at the same time. And uh and and the next morning they uh put us on a bus and they took us across a bridge to a place called Paris Island.
And and I have to tell you this, there was any doubt about my sanity before this. This will wrap it up. Uh I loved it.
I loved everything about it. I'm not kidding you. Um, and I often wondered why.
I mean, I took to it like a Dr. Water. I I won Dress Blues Award, Outstanding Man's Award.
I mean, I just cleaned up on Paris Island. I grew about 3 in and gained 30 pounds. And I mean, I just took off and uh and I decided I'd spend the rest of my life in the Marine Corps if they'd have me.
And um it was magnificent. And um and I I I think I discovered after I got into Alcoholics Anonymous why that was. So, you know, I didn't realize this, but uh my whole life I'd been a guy who'd been looking for someone to give directions to.
And I think that's why I took off in Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh because I I had always been looking for directions. And I didn't realize that.
I didn't know that. I always thought I wanted to do it my way, but what I was was too afraid to ask. And the Marine Corps has a real clear sense of what it is they want you to do.
And they're not a bit shy about sharing it with you. So, uh, and I've I've discovered that I'm a doer. That's what I I am.
I'm a doer. And, uh, and I'm not some creative genius or anything. What I am is a doer.
And if somebody says, "Go do that," I go and do it. And I've had sponsors who say, "Go do that." And I go and do it. The Marine Corps is real big on go do that.
And I went and did it. And you know, I I spent four years and um every promotion I got was a meritorious promotion. I came in first, second, and third in every school I went to.
I volunteered for every combat assignment there was. I was in Cuba during the missile crisis, Santa Domingo, Creek, all over the place. And uh every time something was happening, I wanted to go there.
I volunteered for Vietnam in 1963, but I was still a teenager. And uh they said, "We can't afford to get teenagers killed over there." They changed our minds a few years later, but uh but uh but I just always wanted to be where the action was. And I just loved the Marine Corps.
And what I've discovered about my disease, this thing called alcoholism, is that what I'll do is fall in love with a way of life. I'm, you know, we're an enthusiastic lot of people. And then gradually, or not so gradually, I'll violate every principle associated with being a uh whatever that is.
And then I'll leave whatever it is, and I'll blame them for what happened to me. And that's what happened to me in the Marine Corps. I ended up leading a patrol in combat in a blackout.
And took fire and returned fire, I'm told. And um nobody was hurt, fortunately. But uh but it terrified me.
And so I got out and I blamed the Marine Corps for what had happened to me. And then I went on and I went to work in a steel mill and a few months later I left that and ended up uh working at a Jesuit theologious uh college um and um uh but he was at uh he was finishing up his studies uh for the priesthood and uh uh he was a geneticist. PhD geneticist and a PhD ethesian.
I'm just a genius, PhD theologian, genius of a man, a Jesuit. And uh basically took me under his wing and taught me so much. He not only taught me genetics and chemistry and things like that.
He taught me how to order a meal. I had no idea what came first. I didn't know that you start on the outside with the utensils and worked in.
I didn't know any of those things. Uh you don't learn that stuff when you grow up in poverty. And uh he's a kind, wonderful man and uh he was a man I worked for when I hit bottom and uh got help.
And had I worked for anybody else, I know I'd have been gone, long gone. Um you know, I um I met and uh to the best of my ability fell in love with a woman and uh we were married and we had a beautiful little girl named Kelly who had a good sense to be born in the afternoon and her her dad was sober. Uh and then we uh uh 9 months later to the day 9 months later our second daughter was born and she didn't have the good sense to uh to be born in the afternoon and matter of fact she was 3 months premature when she was born and uh her father was passed out on a living room floor in his underwear watching the test pattern on TV which was one of my favorite occupations and uh and it and this little thing decided it was time to be born.
And um and her mother was in a panic, as you might imagine. And she was trying to wake me up and she threw water on me and everything. And finally, she called the neighbors who came over to help wake me up.
And I I was mortified and angry and in a rage. and I put her in a car and I sped across Washington DC with the blinkers going as dramatic as I could make it and charged into the hospital where I worked at Georgetown University and uh demanded they take care of my wife which was a joke cuz a drunken saut who brought her there cared only about himself and uh and that little thing was born and she weighed less than two pounds and um and uh I did what I knew how to do. I left and I went home and I went to bed and uh my wife called me in tears and said, "Please come back.
Our baby's going to die. I need you. I need you here." And I was so angry.
I couldn't believe it. What I understand now is is u there was nothing left inside of me. Alcohol had washed away all the decency I'd been taught by those wonderful parents and those wonderful priests and nuns and the wonderful people that surrounded me my entire life.
and alcohol dissolved all the decency inside of me and I knew nothing about how to deal with life and and I stormed into the hospital and the chief resident woman named Mary Kate Dabbitt and uh and I knew Mary Kate as Mary Kate Witty because Mary Kate was the validictorian of my high school class and here she is not in Ohio you know but in Georgetown University the chief resident at a neonatal nursery where my my new baby was struggling for life. And she said, "Keith," she called me aside and she said, "Uh, we have an experimental machine." She said, "It just came in a few days ago and we got together with the engineers and we put it together yesterday and we'd like to put your baby on it." She said, "No, I don't think it'll make any difference." She said, "I don't think she'll live in either case, but we would like to try." And I said, "What her mother say?" And she said, "Look." and her mother's walking up and down the hall with a thousandy yard stairs essentially in a state of shock. And I said, "Well, do whatever you think you need to do." And uh so they put her on the machine and the next three days taught me everything I needed to know about myself.
Uh we had an office across from the neonatal nursery. I I was a supervisor of the genetics laboratories there then. And um and uh we had a an office that we used because we did so much work in the nurseries.
And uh I sat in that office at night with the lights out and the door slightly a jar watching this little thing struggle for every breath and watching my wife walk up and down the uh hallway and periodically go in and reach inside and touch her little girl and so and so and so and I knew what to do. See my father was the greatest father who ever lived and I know what he'd have done. Scott Lewis would have gone in and he put his arm around his wife and he just said, "Pat, with God, we can do anything." So, it isn't that I didn't know.
It's just that I didn't have anything inside of me. I was totally without anything inside of me. And uh and I watched my wife go in and baptize a little angel because I didn't think she lived through the night.
And uh and I ran down to a chapel. I had been in a chapel in a long time because I had figured God out. If there was a God, God waited to find out what you really wanted, then he took it from you as some sort of a cruel joke.
And uh that's how sick and cynical I had become. That's how I know alcoholism is a spiritual illness. But I went into this chapel and I got on my knees before the tabernacle, a place that I spent a lot of time as a kid because I love the concept of God being present to me and listening to me and because I knew he no matter how bad I talked, he could understand me.
And uh I begged God to ch save my little girl's life. And I begged him. And I said, "If you'll do anything, I'll I'll do anything if you'll save her life.
If you save her life, I'll never drink again." And I was drunk in 12 hours. And I never want to forget that I drank when I thought drinking will kill my little girl. Am I powerless over alcohol?
You bet I am. And uh you know I uh later took a degree in philosophy and theology and uh and I studied a philosopher a Frenchman a mathematician named Bla1 Pascal and Bla1 Pascal said God created man in his own image and unfortunately man returned a favor and I had returned I had created a god who would kill a little girl cuz her dad was sick and that's not the god I serve today. And uh she didn't die, she lived.
And and uh we were told she'd be and and you know she's an honor graduate from Auburn University. I like to kid her and say I think you can be and be an honor graduate from Auburn University. >> >> She's this marvelous young lady who uh who's married to a wonderful young man and he's a dentist and she's a teacher and uh they have two beautiful little daughters and you know when her second daughter was she was carrying her second daughter I was speaking down in the Florida panhandle and uh and uh I called her to see how she was doing and they live in Alabama in Fair Hope and I called her to see how she was doing and she was crying and she said, "Daddy, She said, "I have uh kidney stones and it's causing contractions and and they think the baby might come early and I'm afraid she'll be like me." I was able to say to her, "If she'll be like you, you're the luckiest parent in the world." And uh an AA member loaned me her car and I drove four hours and I got to hold my little girl and we prayed and we talked and uh and then I drove back just in time to speak.
The committee was a little nervous. Um I um and her second little daughter was born and she's absolutely perfect just wonderful just like her mother. Um it's clear that um that you can't live like this for long and one day my wife asked me to leave and and I remember I was hurt and I was also greatly relieved and I went to where I needed to go which was the Skidro section of Washington DC and I was living in the basement of a house and one day May the 13th 1973 I got up for what I got up and went into what passed for a bathroom and I had a medicine cabinet full of drugs.
Um, I uh I know this will break some of your hearts, but uh I could get all the drugs I wanted and I never took them. Um, I know it's the saddest story you ever heard, but uh I thought if God made anything better than alcohol, he kept it for himself. And um and but I decided I'd take everything.
And um and uh I screamed out loud. And I understand now that that prayers come in all forms. And God hears desperate people.
Whatever they say, he hears it as a prayer. I'm convinced of that. And uh I said, "I'm 20 29 years old.
At least it'll be over." And a woman spoke to me and it was as clear as anything I'd ever heard in my life. And it broke through the fog and this voice said, "You're 29. It's just starting." And I was almost shocked awake.
And I remembered that my uh estranged wife had given me a phone number and said, "I can't help you. Maybe these people can." And I had no idea who they were. And I went out and I pulled a drawer out and it fell on the floor and I'm crawling around on my knees sobbing like an idiot, terrified, and find this number.
And I called it happened to be a little treatment center that was started by my friend Ernie the attorney. And um and he did it because he loved alcoholics. And uh and I had the privilege of going up and doing a retreat for them a couple years ago.
And uh there was a lady on the other end of the phone named Dorothy who had a British accent. And uh I don't know why I always felt comforted by British accents. Maybe it's because I the red record.
But uh you know we had to run them out of here a couple times. And um but uh uh she knew how to talk to me and uh and I uh they told me that they could take me in 3 days. And she said, "Do you need help stopping drinking?" And I said, "No." And I turned around after I hung up the phone and I looked, there was nearly a full bottle of scotch on my draining board.
And uh and I ran over and I grabbed it and I began to pour it out. And I knew I wouldn't. But I knew if I took one drink, I'd die.
And knowing I would die would never keep me from drinking. And I stepped back and I hurled the bottle as hard as I could and it shattered in the sink. And if the bottle had bounced, you'd have a different speaker this morning.
And um And what I um what I did was uh uh I discovered the most important lesson that I've ever discovered except that God loves me. And that is that if I take one drink, I'll die. And knowing I'll die will never keep me from drinking.
This morning I ran back to return a call that my wife had told me about last night from a young lady and she was telling me she's sober a year and a half and she said, "Uh, I I go to church and I go to AA, but I feel like I'm being called to church, so I thought I'd leave AA." And I was able to say to her, I'd say, you know, I go to church. I'm very active in my church. And I said, but you know, uh, my church doesn't treat alcoholism.
I said, AA treats alcoholism. And I said, uh, I do get to 12step some people in my church, but, um, AA is where I get to carry the message. And I said, you're going to do what you're going to do.
I just finished listening to an Allenon talk, so I had to, you know, I knew couldn't tell her what to do. Right, Don? And uh, yeah.
And um, but I just said to her, I said, I'll pray for you. And I said, u, I'd be glad to talk to you anytime you want to call and talk to me about it. I said, 'But I don't think it's an accident that God puts us in Alcoholics Anonymous and gives us a year and a half sobriety because I remember a year and a half is a very dangerous time.
You know, it's a I was going to leave and go and become magnificent and uh be the greatest researcher who ever lived and all the rest of it and uh and something intervened again that saved my life. A woman intervened to save my life. Uh woman who had had the same experience and drank it a year and a half and was able to share it with me and it terrified me.
And from that day till this, I've never been tempted to leave Alcoholics Anonymous. But at any rate, um, I just fell in love with this place. Uh, and it took me about three weeks.
We came back from a meeting one night to that treatment center and I said to my said to my roommate, I said, "I love those people." I said, "I want to be just like them." And he said, "My god, they brainwashed you." I said, "Thank goodness because if anybody's brain needs washing, it's mine." and uh you know but but I discovered that if I take one drink I'll die and knowing I'll die will never keep me from drinking. The only thing that keeps me from drinking is is the maintenance of spiritual condition and sharing what I have. I sponsor a fellow who's sober coming up on five years now and he's been really struggling.
and I've been sponsoring him about nine months now and he's really been struggling and uh and he's one of these people who's absolutely convinced if he can just figure out and solve his problems that he'll be okay and the minute he gets his problems figured out and solved then he can help somebody else. And um I told him I said when you get your problems all figured out come and sponsor me because I haven't done that yet. Uh what I do is you get old enough you forget your problems.
But um but what's happened of course is that uh I got him interested and involved with working in other people and and I told him I said you know we don't know what we know till somebody else needs it. And uh we don't know what we have till we see someone who doesn't have it. And he's he's come on fire.
He's just he's just taken off. He's on fire. And uh you know I always thought that uh that uh sobriety was about solving problems.
I go to meetings where they'll actually start the meeting. Anybody here have a problem? You know and I like to put my hand up and they go oh no.
And I said I got alcoholism. I said anybody know what to do with alcoholism? And uh you know you know it makes me crazy.
I mean it's like uh you know problem solving meetings. And we had her problem. Yes.
Mother had a square nipple. And you know, you know, 50 untrained psychiatrists take a shot at it. And uh and uh and you know, and people will say, "Well, but I go to meetings and I share.
I feel better." I said, "Of course you feel better. Your ego's just been stroked. Of course you feel better.
You've had people pay attention to you. Of course you feel better." said, "If you didn't feel better after people paid attention to you, you wouldn't be an alcoholic." You know, I was lucky. You know, I I I came out of treatment and and and I I end up going to a meeting and I thought, now treatment is a wonderful thing.
I love it. I mean, I think treatment's delivered more people to us than about anything else in the last 20 years anyway. But uh you know but fortunately when I came in uh they didn't the people in AA thought you talked about principles and things like that and uh and solutions and uh and I thought you talked about feelings and um so I was at this meeting and everybody had a time to share and it got to me and I shared my feelings and a great hush came over the crowd and then they went on with the meeting and um I came back a week later guy met me at the door he said uh uh It's Keith, isn't it?
And I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "We're glad to see you back." He said, "You know," he said, he said, "We had a a business meeting uh last week and the vote was 12 to nothing that nobody cares how you feel." He said, "We're interested in what you do." He said, "This is a program of action." And you know, it's true. My friend Bob, Father Bob B, always says that faith is in your feet. And if your feet are taking you where you're supposed to be, you're going to you're going to get well.
and uh and you know, of course we have problems and we sit down and discuss them with our sponsors and things like that, but uh but you know, solving problems isn't what I don't think is what the program's about. I think it's about cleaning up the past like we heard about this morning. So, well, and it's about then carrying the message that they're still suffering alcoholic.
Um and I'll tell you, the last 30 years and eight months have just been magnificent. Now, there have been some difficult times. The last few years have been some of the most difficult times I've had, but but it's been the most magnificent because I always look for what's inside of it.
And it's always that it's truly a silver lining. That's what life I've come to really believe that that's what life's about. People are put into my life.
My friend Dick A from Atlanta, who's a new delegate from uh Georgia, has put into my life. Just an absolutely magnificent, wonderful man who's taught me a lot about faith. Uh but person after person after person.
And he said to me last week, he we talked daily and he always asked about Mike and and he said, "I know I could never replace Mike in your life, but I'm awfully glad to be in your life while you're going through this with Mike." And um you know, um I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I had always been looking for a savior. I'd always been looking for someone who was going to come along with a silver bullet and my life was going to be okay. So, I learned early on to do two things.
To idolize my sponsor in the old-timers and then to help new people. But, you know, until Mike came into my life, I never had a peer. I never had an equal.
I remained totally and utterly isolated. When this man sat across the table from me with that impish grin and asked me to be his prayer partner, what he was really saying to me was, "Join the rest of us. Become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous." Not a guy who goes there, seeks advice, helps the less fortunate, then goes home and lives with himself.
I think our my friendships in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's so much of the strength of my life and I've got a lot of friends in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, um I wanted to talk I know this weekend there's been a lot of talk about death and uh and the reason it is is because that's part of life. That's what reality is.
And you know um some years ago my mother uh God rest her soul was uh was on her deathbed and I'll never forget how she did it. My sisters who are just magnificent people had put pictures of all the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren on her wall. They pinned them up and uh and she'd wake up from time to time and she'd look at them and smile.
And I would uh I'd sit with her at night and I'd pray the rosary aloud. She loved prayer. And uh she'd wake up from time to time and pray with me and then go back to sleep.
And uh and uh my brother Larry who's also in a fellowship uh was sitting with me and we were and uh my niece came in and and she said, "Oh, you have to come to the meeting. You have to come to the meeting." She said, "Uh my sponsor speaking tonight." And I said, "I'd love to hear your sponsor speak, but I thought I'd spend the evening with mom." And I thought my mother was asleep and I heard voice look at me. And somehow she had propped herself up on one elbow and she pointed at us the way she did when she really meant it.
She said, "You must promise me you'll always go to Alcoholics Anonymous because those were the people who brought my boys home to me, you know, and I got to watch my mother pass away." And, you know, the day after the funeral, my father had a stroke and uh and they took him to the hospital and uh my father's just a magnificent man and the greatest man I've ever known. And uh the doctor said to him, he said, "Mr. Lewis," he said, "I'm afraid we're on the horns of a dilemma here." He said, he said, "You had a stroke because you needed corateed artery surgery." And he said, "We can't give it to you because you need heart surgery." And my father said, "Well, why don't you do both of them?" And they said, "Mr.
Lewis, you're 83 years old." He said, "Well, I got to be this way for a reason. I'm tough." And so he did them both. And he lived another six years.
And um and you know I I I I believe I always tell the guys I sponsor and Mac and I talked about this yesterday that if you don't if a guy doesn't get it right with dad, we don't get it right with anybody. It's absolutely essential for a man to get it right with dad. And um and some women have told me it's true for them, too.
And I've never been a woman and never even played one on TV, so I have no idea what but uh but but I know it's true for men. And you know, it took me the longest time to get it right with dad. And um and I kept trying.
I kept trying. I kept trying. And and uh I had my parents had never been on a vacation.
Uh they never of course, you know, you don't raise 11 children, send them all to college and go on a lot of vacations, their own cars or things. And that's when my father retired. I had a beach house in North Carolina.
And I asked and my mother down and they had never seen the ocean. And they just fell in love with it. And I asked them to keep an eye on my beach house for me and they they lived in it for six years and my mother always said we had our honeymoon and we had all our vacations all at one time in your beach house.
And uh and uh and I would stop by and see dad. I was an officer with a hospital corporation. I was traveling a lot and and uh I went by one time and dad was sitting there and uh and I still hadn't made amends to him.
But what I had done was what the big big book told me to do. I'd begun to honor him. I no longer argued with him.
I no longer disagreed with him. I figured, here's a man who handled life 10 times better than I ever did, and I'm going to teach him something. Probably not.
So, I just loved him exactly the way he was. And and he told me this story. He said, "Remember the first day you went to work?" And I said, "Yeah, Dad, I worked in the bowling alley down in Bridgeport." He said, "But remember I took you to lunch?" And I said, "I don't remember that, Dad." He said, "Yeah." He said, "I took you to Louis hot dog stand." And uh he said, "You remember what you had?" And I said, "Well, I'll go out on a limb here, Dad.
Did I have a hot dog? And he said, "Of course you did. You're loan." He said, "But you remember what you drank." And I said, "Oh, probably orange pop.
I always drank orange pop." He said, "Not that day." He said, "That day you drank root beer." He said, "I drank root beer, and I think you thought men who work drank root beer." And he said, "I explained to you how to do a good day's work for a good day's pay." My father was explaining to his little 12-year-old boy how to grow up and how to be a man. He said, "I walked you down to the bus stop and I said, 'You want me to come with you the first day, son?" And you said, "No thanks, Dad. I'll do it myself." And he said, "I watched the bus till it was out of sight." He said, "You never look back." And he said, "From then on, you never let me do anything for you." He said, "You bought all your own clothes.
You put yourself through high school." He said, "You're the only kid I have who didn't let me help him through college." And I finally came to understand why I owed my father an amends. I owed him an amends because I never let him do what he did best, which was to be my father. And you know, a week later, I stopped back and I said, "Dad, could I borrow $1,000?" You know, he loaned me $1,000 and I put it in a bank and a month later I paid him back and from then on we were like that.
You know, I went up shortly before my father passed away a couple months, and I went up and spent a week with him, and we had all those discussions that could never have happened if I were drinking. And when I left, I said, and he taught me, he continued to teach me till the day he died, he he pulled out this old photograph, and it was a dog ear, an old photograph of a baseball team, and it said Ohio champions. And I said, "Dad, I heard you were a pretty good ball player." He said, "I was okay." And I said, "I heard you were a veteran." Okay.
I said, "I heard you were all state." He said, "Well, yeah." And I said, "Your senior year?" He said, "Well, all four years." And I said, "I heard you had a professional contract offer." He said, "Well, I had three." And I said, "Why didn't you take them?" And he said, "Well," he said, "I had a good job in a factory." And he said, "Mom and dad were both sick and they needed me." Then I said to him, "Why didn't you ever tell me how good you were?" And he said, well, he said, "You know, you and Denny tried so hard to be good ball players. I didn't want to say anything that might discourage you. And I said, "Dad, I've been going to meetings for 28 years to try to learn to think like that." And to him, it was natural.
And you know, before I left, uh, I went over and I held his hand and said, "Dad, is there anything we need to say to one another?" And he said, "No, son." He said, he said, "We've said it all." He said, "You know, I love you and I know you love me." And I gave my father a kiss and I was leaving the room. He said, ' There is one thing. I said, 'What's that, Dad?
He said, 'I want to thank you. I want to thank you for everything you've done for so many people, especially with people in our family. And it blew me away.
And I realized that I didn't get anybody in my family sober. Alanon taught me I can't do that. But what I was was the first one to find it.
And my family is absolutely littered with members of AA and Alanon. And uh and what has happened is our family, which used to be constant strife and arguing is now it's a every time we're together, it's a love in. And I wait with great expectation for our next family reunion.
And uh and dad said I started all that. Julie and I, my lovely wife, and I went back u couple months later. It was in December, two two December ago, and dad was at the very end.
And I had the privilege of kneeling beside his bed as we all stood around it and I held his hand. I whispered in his ear that it was okay to go to be with mom and my brother Terry who'd also passed. And uh we prayed to Hail Mary, which was his favorite prayer.
Then we prayed the Lord's Prayer. And when we said amen, my father squeezed my hand and went into eternity. And I left that room and I said to my wife, my lovely wife Julia, I said, "I'm not supposed to live like this." I said, "I'm supposed to be down the street trying to drink up enough courage to come here.
I'm not supposed to live like this." But of course I am. Cuz I'm a prince. I'm the child of the father.
Of course, I'm supposed to live like this. This is what he always wanted for me. This was his plan for me.
I took a detour. I caught something called alcoholism when others became less important and he became non-existent and I became the god of my life. And for years in this program, I struggled and struggled and struggled with I still struggle with it.
I was offered a wonderful job. We've had some interesting times, my wife and I, the last few years when things are just about at the end, something shows up and some money appears and things like that, but u it's been a a real struggle and uh but we've grown closer and more in love with one another as a result of it. And um learned to rely more on God.
And I was offered a magnificent job and in effect I had it and a man who was bitter for a number of reasons. I he wasn't bitter because of me. I I didn't go to work with him and uh he wanted me to and uh and he caught up and just absolutely slandered me and and uh the job disappeared and it would have been wonderful.
My wife could have retired and we could have lived in a nice sunny place and all kinds of nice things and uh but you know I had no bitterness and uh and um and my wife and I prayed a novena for this man. A novena is Latin for nine days. And you pray for nine days.
And we prayed in novena for this man and whatever is bothering him and hurting him and whatever pain he has in his life that that God will relieve it and he'll find a solution for it. And and my sponsor Tom said to me, "You're not upset, are you?" I said, "No." I said, "You know, if you ask for God's will, you can't whine about the instrument." And uh and that's just the way this thing works. And you've taught me that.
You've taught me everything that I know. And you know, without you, I'd be absolutely nothing. You know, um I I wanted to uh talk one more thing.
Uh you know, the the day after I was sober 20 years, my brother Terry died of alcoholism. And uh but Terry died the way I wanted to die. You know, 6 months before he was diagnosed with cancer.
And I've been trying to make amends to Terry for years. And I just whenever I'd come home, he'd leave town. He'd disappear.
I guess it'd be hard to have a sober brother if you're drunk. And uh and finally my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, he had to come to that and he was drunk and I was able to sit him down and make amends to him the best way I could. And uh and uh and then a few months later he ended ended up in the hospital with cancer and and I drove up and I went to see him and uh we had a discussion.
I'll never forget as long as I live. Uh he uh we sat down and I I sat down and he was laying in bed and Terry was the brightest, toughest kid in the family and uh he was a boxer and I mean he was really and he's a mathematical genius. has never been a problem for me.
And uh and uh but uh Terry had this illness and for some reason a miracle didn't happen for him and uh and we're sitting there and I didn't know what to say to him and he clearly didn't know what to say to me and finally he just looked at me and he looked me in the eye and he said, "Keith," he said, "Do you really believe there's a God?" And I got to be his big brother. And I said, 'You know, I know that more than I know anything in the world. And then he looked down and he didn't look me in the eye and he said, "Do you think he could care about a guy like me?" And I said, "You know, Terry, the God I know and serve could not love you." And then uh he asked me about some things we grew up with some rosary and I happened to have an extra one with me and uh and gave it to him and reminded him of how to use it and scapular and things like that.
Things that just meant so much to us as kids and mean a lot to me today. And um uh and uh and then I asked him for something. I said uh before I go could I hug you?
and he looked at me and he got out of bed and he was shaky and this one solid powerful man uh weighed about 100 pounds and uh and I put my arms around him. He could only hug me for a second or two and uh cuz you know how hard it is to be close when you're spiritually ill. And uh and then I I was leaving.
He said, "You know, I think I can be like you." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I don't think I have to drink anymore." And I said, you know, I believe that's true. And you know, he didn't. And he lived for six months.
And uh he died the way I want to die. He died in a clean place, surrounded by people who loved him. He made amends to the best of his ability to everybody in his life.
And when they found him the morning he died, he was sitting up in a chair with his feet up on a stool and had been praying the rosary God gave him. You know, I thought about that hug and uh you know, I was a guy who always thought I'd wasted so much time. And I thought about that hug.
And you know, I remember something that I learned in theology that uh there are two kinds of time. There's something called Kronos, which is linear. It's chronological time, and it's what I'm out of now.
And uh then there's something called chyros, which is God's time, which is always now. You know, I only hug my dear brother Terry for a few seconds chronologically, but I hugged him forever in God's time. I talked to my brother Michael in hospice before I left hit the plane and I said, "Will we always be prayer partners?" He said, "And brothers forever." And he made a promise to me which will sustain me for another 50 years if God lets me live that long.
He said, 'The moment I see him, I'll whisper your name in God's ear. I'm not supposed to live like this. Of course I am because I'm one of you and this is how you taught me to live.
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