From Vietnam Trauma to Spiritual Awakening: AA Speaker – Jim S. – Bagdad, KY
AA speaker Jim S. from Kentucky shares his journey from Vietnam medic to sobriety, exploring how trauma drinking evolved into recovery through step work and spiritual awakening.
Jim S. from Bagdad, Kentucky was a medic in Vietnam who drank to escape the chaos and trauma he witnessed—including carrying wounded soldiers and watching them die. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his entire path: why he drank at each stage of his life, how his first attempt at sobriety failed, and how actually working the steps and making real amends—especially the hardest ones—became the foundation of his spiritual awakening and nearly 40 years of continuous sobriety.
Jim S., an AA speaker from Kentucky, traces his drinking from age 14 through Vietnam combat service, explaining how the effect he sought changed at each life stage but always centered on managing difficult emotions and reality. After getting sober in 1982, then relapsing into heavy drinking, he found lasting recovery by truly working the steps—writing out resentments, making amends in person with a rigorous process his sponsor taught him, and discovering the spiritual dimension of the program through that work. Now facing a heart failure diagnosis, Jim shares how powerlessness, acceptance, and service continue to deepen his spiritual awakening and understanding of what it means to be of maximum service to God and others.
Episode Summary
Jim S. opens with a simple statement: he’s an alcoholic who came into the rooms of AA multiple times before staying sober. What follows is one of the most detailed, honest accounts of *why* someone drinks—not just that they do, but what effect they’re chasing at each turning point.
At 14, Jim took his first drink in a car with older boys. The effect wasn’t the alcohol itself—it was belonging. He felt connected. Through high school, he drank for fun and camaraderie with his buddies. In the Air Force, he learned the technical side of drinking, finding people who could teach him. But when he shipped to Vietnam as a medic, everything shifted. He drank a fifth of whiskey every night to forget—to stop seeing, smelling, and feeling what he was witnessing. He tells a brutal story: a double amputee grabbing his leg on a helicopter mission, screaming he wouldn’t make it home. Jim kicked him off to tend to another patient. That man died. Jim got drunk that night. It worked. The alcohol did what he couldn’t do for himself.
After the war, Jim met his wife Kathy and they married. For years, his drinking progressed silently—dishes broken, promises unmade, emotional absence, rage alternating with numbness. He managed his life with alcohol. He managed and managed until there was nothing left to manage.
Then Kathy went to Al-Anon. She worked the steps with others. She stopped chasing him, stopped managing his life. She walked around happy. She’d step over him on the floor and go about her day. Jim was terrified. He went to his first AA meeting in 1982, heard someone read “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and our wives were unmanageable,” and it clicked. But he didn’t work the steps. He read the Big Book like a cookbook without actually making the cake. He went to 90 meetings in 90 days, got tokens, and quietly drifted away. He was still smoking marijuana. He told himself he didn’t need meetings because he already knew what they’d say.
Within months, Jim was drinking again in Princeton, Indiana—a fifth a day. The effect he sought now was simple: to stop the noise in his head. He’d drink half a pint in the morning just to shave and shower. He’d shake badly. He couldn’t think straight. His only normal way to live was to maintain a certain level of alcohol in his system. Any less and he was insane.
The turning point came when Jim heard a workshop speaker named Frank from Chicago explain what makes a real alcoholic. Frank had an imaginary test tube. He filled it with resentment, fear, self-centeredness, and more—all the character defects. Then someone asked what was missing. Nobody said alcohol. Frank said, “That’s right. You don’t have alcohol in here, but you add just enough alcohol to smooth it all out, and it works. So you add a little more. A little more. And then nobody does anything with the test tube full of stuff—they just keep adding alcohol.”
That was Jim. He had resentments he’d been carrying for *years*. He was terrified of his own emotions. He was self-centered. And he’d been using alcohol to avoid all of it.
Jim found a sponsor, Gary B., who was serious about the steps. Gary told him something crucial: never say you’re sorry. Make amends by taking responsibility, being honest about the harm, listening to how it affected the other person, and asking what you need to do to make it right. Then do it.
What follows is a masterclass in real amends work. Jim shares the story of his brother—a resentment he’d carried for decades and avoided because his brother had hurt him worse. Jim had borrowed his car at 16, put a crease in the door, and lied about it. Forty years later, in recovery, he finally told his brother the truth, put money on the table, and expected it to be over. But something happened: he realized the real harm wasn’t the car door. It was that he’d taken his brother to be a fool. He’d judged him and believed he was smarter. That was the amend. He never would have seen it without the process.
Then there’s the soldier from Vietnam—the man who died. Jim couldn’t make amends in person. His sponsor told him to write a letter. Pick a name from the Vietnam Wall. Tell the soldier what you were doing then, but most importantly, tell him what you’re doing now. Jim wrote the letter. Nothing miraculous happened. A year later, a drunk veteran called the AA hotline Jim was volunteering for, looking for a bed for the night, not sobriety. Jim found him a place and sent someone to pick him up. The man called back and said one thing: “I couldn’t believe somebody cared.” Jim realized he’d written in that letter that he wanted to care again. Something shifted. The amend was done.
The most powerful moment comes when Jim traveled to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. He spent three visits there—the first time he was overcome with emotion and rage that nobody cared about those men. On the third visit, rainy and mirror-like, as that rage hit him again, a school bus pulled up. A nun and a group of eight-year-old girls, each carrying a rose. They led a prayer for all the names on the wall. The children scattered to lay their roses, some crying for men they’d never known. Jim realized again: he was wrong. People do care.
Now, 15 months ago, Jim was diagnosed with stage three heart failure. He’s faced another lesson in powerlessness—his body, his health, his ability to work. The medical team wants him to stop driving. His initial response is to plan how he’ll take control: he’ll walk out during the pacemaker recalibration. Classic Jim—planning his escape. But he sees it: he never had control over his heart to begin with.
Yet in this new phase, Jim has found unexpected grace. His home group shows up without being asked. Sponsees call him daily. A man named Sam he sponsors, who came from the streets and barely looks like he’ll make it, calls every morning: “I didn’t drink today. How about you?” Jim sits on his patio now instead of managing $20 million in projects. He has time for Step 11—prayer and meditation. New horizons are opening. His amends list is shorter because he barely leaves the house anymore.
Jim closes with the metaphor he opened with: the Big Book is a recipe. You can read it until you’re blue in the face, but if you actually want the cake, you have to do the work. You might tweak it your way—add more sugar, skip the vanilla—but it won’t taste like the real thing. If you want what Bill and Bob had, you have to follow the black ink on the white page.
This is a talk about trauma, about the long progression of a disease, about failure and return, and ultimately about the miraculous shift that happens when someone stops managing and starts surrendering—when they take the steps seriously, face the people they’ve harmed, and discover that God and other people are far more forgiving than they ever imagined.
Notable Quotes
The effect I was looking for evolved, but it was always for the effect.
You can read that recipe till you’re blue in the face, but if you actually want a piece of cake, you’re going to have to do something.
Never ever say you’re sorry. It’s about collecting, taking care of, and correcting the wrongs and taking responsibility for your actions.
That’ll get you drunk, man.” — spoken about holding a resentment for years while feeding dog food he imagined was horsemeat.
I found out that wasn’t the amend at all. The reality of the amend was I took him to be a fool. I thought I was better than he was.
It took a long time for me to have that feeling. That physical sense of warmth. I thought, ‘Wow, that one’s done.'” — about the Vietnam amend and the drunk veteran who called back.
A new understanding of powerlessness.
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Spiritual Awakening
Hitting Bottom
Acceptance
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Spiritual Awakening
- Hitting Bottom
- Acceptance
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hello everyone. >> I'm Jim Shackleford and I'm an alcoholic >> and it's wonderful to be invited here today and uh I do so much appreciate the committee asking me and Kathy to be part of your weekend.
Uh already I'm I'm very grateful for the fact that you folks are giving me a clock. I I I I think there might be a a message in Is there a history of speakers speaking over their aotted time? >> You weren't given the clock.
He just picked it up. >> Okay. >> Well, we've heard a couple of great talks already this weekend, haven't we?
>> Some fabulous talks. I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana, and we are so fortunate to have Dudley and Marge and Jill in our community. Uh, some wonderful things are happening in Indianapolis, and I'm sure there's wonderful things happening in your community, too.
I'm always amazed, maybe amazed, not the right word, I'm always overwhelmed when I see the force of God moving through people's lives. And as I continue to observe and watch that phenomena, the enrichment of my second step continues to expand. It's a powerful force.
Uh Dudley Early asked me if I was if I was a little bit nervous today. And and and actually I'm not because I have the foggiest idea what I'm going to say. When I start to orchestrate things, then I get real nervous.
But when when I don't have a particular hard theme to talk about, then it's really interesting to hear what I have to say. Actually, um, my sobriety date is October 20th, 1984. That was not the first time I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, though.
Um, one of the things I do want to talk about is is the is the progression of alcoholism. And additionally, I want to talk to you about the reason why I drank. I so much Oh, by the way, K, you had talked about that you're a crier.
I'm going to cry. I'm really going to cry. Um, and also before I go any further, I want to introduce my wife Kathy, who uh who is uh not only my wife, but uh she's my friend and lover and counselor and and teacher.
And she's been my uh my companion now for 34 years. And uh the fact that she's still sitting here is a testimony that something's happening in our lives that's beyond me because believe me, I have given her more than one reason to terminate our marriage. And what's really interesting is you know how where I first met Dudley, first time I met Dudley, he was representing my wife in in her lawsuit to divorce me.
Tell me if there's not a god in that somewhere. I love the doctor's opinion. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.
The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurous, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. Sometimes today I still have problems with differentiating the true from the false. Probably more so than I care to admit.
But boy, that that line about the reason I drank for the effect, and that's exactly what I did. The first time I took a drink, I was 14 years old, and I was with some guys that were were uh were uh 16 and 17 in that age. And I was in the backseat of the car with them.
And and God, I wanted to be part of them. And they reached around and they took the Coke out of my hand and they opened the corridor and they poured it out and they reached on the seat, pulled out some cherry vodka, poured it in there and gave it back to me. And the effect that I liked was I felt a part of I felt connected to him and I liked it.
My drinking proceeded through high school. What a surprise. And the effect that I was looking for then was fun and camaraderie.
And that was the effect I was looking for. And we would, my buddies and I, we would we would get a six or a 12-pack and get in the car on on a Friday night and or Saturday night and we would we would go to the local drive-in restaurants and drive laps around and and try to pick up girls. And of course, all we did was try.
We were never really particularly successful, but the effect I was looking for was fun and good times. And I had a lot of fun and a lot of good times. And then um in 1967 at the uh ripe age of 17, I graduated from high school.
I had been accepted to go to Purdue University, but it did not have the economic means. And trust me, I was not an excellent high school student, so there was no scholarship. And my draft number was six.
There's a man that understands what that means. And so, uh, I'm always looking for for options. You know, good managers always do.
And uh I ended up believing in an Air Force recruiter and at the age of 17 uh couple weeks after high school I went into the Air Force and uh and in the Air Force uh my drinking took on a little bit different dimension. Uh again it was for fun and good times but I sought out people who really knew how to drink and and and I began to learn the fine art of drinking. you know, you you just don't drink large sums of alcohol without some kind of background and training.
I mean, for example, I mean, you you have to know what to eat before you go out and drink. And then through trial and error, you find out what not to mix in terms of different drinks or when you get back to the barracks late at night and and and that and that room is spinning so bad. And I don't know why, but the left the ball of my left foot, if I could just get that on the floor and put not my total body weight, but just the right amount of pressure on that ball left foot, the room wouldn't spin as much.
I mean, those are techniques that you have to acquire. And uh and and I was a fairly good student at that point. And it was fun and good times.
And then and then I got orders uh I was a medic and then I got orders to Vietnam to fly Aravac and it was at that point that my drinking began to change. The effect I was looking for was a lot different but I was still drinking for the effect. There was a lot of craziness and insanity of what was going on dayto day.
And at the end of the at the end of the mission, at the end of the day back at the base, I'd get a fifth of whiskey and get drunk because I wanted to forget. I wanted to take the edge off. I couldn't deal with what what I was feeling or what I was seeing or what I was smelling.
And I and and I got drunk. And it worked. It did for me what I could not do for myself.
It worked so well that I did it every chance I could and that was the effect I was looking for. There's one particular event that happened there that that I talk about which uh which has bearing toward kind of demonstrates the change that takes place in a person's life. I was on this one particular mission and uh and there was a fellow who was uh who was a double amputee and I was walking down the very narrow aisle working on all these different casualties and this double ampute grabbed a hold of my leg and he kept screaming over the roar of the engines, man.
I'm not going to make it back to the world. I'm just not going to make it. And I kept saying I kept placating.
Yeah, you are. You got to let go of my leg. I got to go work on this other guy.
I had to go suck out a tracheotomy and and keep this guy's airway open. He got to let go of my leg and he wouldn't do it. So I kicked him off of me.
And then I came back down the aisle a little while later and he was dead. I got a fifth whiskey that night. Got good and drunk.
Took it all away. next day got out and did it again. And eventually my tour was over and I came back and uh that's when I um I uh GI Bill is a wonderful thing.
You know, you sign up for college classes, they send you a check, and then you drop half your classes. And uh and I partied a lot. And believe it or not, I had hair at that point in time.
And my primary objective was to was assimilate back in to American culture. And so my hair grew down to like yay. And I partied a lot a lot.
And Kathy and I met and uh I'm giving some cliffnotee versions. We met and uh and we fell on lost and we moved in together and and so our life began. You're not the only one with a bad memory.
I'm going to say after a period of time, we got married and uh and I don't know, you know, I'm going to now I'm going to fast forward a lot of years. Whatever happened in your house, I'll wager probably happened in our house. Few dishes got broke, few promises probably not got met.
A lot of dishonesty and certainly I was I was emotionally absent. Anytime I began to feel any kind of strong emotion about anything, I got drunk. I certainly distanced myself.
I had I had I had two emotions. I had rage and I had lust and that was it. and anything in between.
I just couldn't couldn't recognize couldn't respond to it and I was I was extremely absent from my marriage. Again, the effect I was looking for was I was managing my life with alcohol. My consumption continued to get more and more and the times that I wasn't drinking was getting less and less and then when the hit then when the the pressure was on me too much then I would I would quit.
You know how that looks, don't you? There. I proved to you two weeks I want to get a six-pack.
I'm going to buy a case. Back to the races again. The insanity in our life continued.
My Kathy Kathy went to Alanon. I really I know this is a Baptist facility, but there's no other way to say it. That really pissed me off.
It did. And I continued to drink for years. And my drinking continued to progress down and down and down.
And there was this point where something began to happen to me and it happened as a direct result of Alanog. Kathy not only started going to Alanon, but she actually got involved with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. She actually began to work the steps with others.
And the result of that was my dirty clothes laid pretty much right where I dropped them. The checkbook no longer was being juggled and balanced. Uh, I found myself a lot waking up on the floor.
I used to always wake up in a bed, but now I find myself waking up on the floor with my glasses kind of like, you know, floor burns sometimes. And the and the and the clincher was that she was walking around the house happy. She would do things like step over me and go about her business.
literally and I was scared. God, I was scared. And I went to my very first AA meeting and Ben was there.
Ben Ben was the first person I ever heard read how it works. And Ben, what he read was, "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our wives were unmanageable." People in the room laughed. I did not laugh because I related.
I I understood what he was talking about. And so that that was my And that was in 82. And I and I uh I went back for another meeting and I didn't drink that day.
And the next day I went back for another meeting and I got a big book cuz I said get a big book, you know, and I looked at that and said, "Yep, I got one of them." it kind of went up here on the shelf and uh and I did not get a sponsor and 30 days came up and I took that token and 90 days came up I took that token yada yada yada um I forgot to tell anybody I was still smoking a lot of reefer by the way I didn't ask your opinion because I didn't want I get really tired of hearing some of the things at Alcoholics Anonymous. I kept hearing the same things over and over and over and and I'm a I'm a project manager. I build I used to build federally funded projects, you know, large multi-million dollar road bridge projects.
And and I worked hard that day, you understand? and and and Joe keeps saying the same thing over and over. So, I did decided, you know, I don't need to go to the meeting tonight because I can just sit here and have this meeting like in my head because I know what they always say.
And it didn't take long before you didn't really see me very much. And guess what? I found myself in Princeton, Indiana.
Anyone here from Princeton? I know. Or someone asked earlier about Ohio.
Is anyone here from Princeton? Okay, now I'll share with you. >> I was in Princeton, Indiana, and I was and and I and I was staying at the holiday had a br I had a bridge project in southern Indiana and I and I was staying at the Holiday Inn, and I went to the Holiday Inn, and it was a horrible band.
I mean, the worst band I've ever heard in my life. So, I ordered a a a shot of whiskey and so the band would be improved, you understand? And it was controlled drinking right from the start.
went down and uh less than a week later I'm drinking over a fifth a day again and I swear to you I thought it was controlled drinking cuz I'm buying it in pints and half pints. Now I want to tell you about the effect that I was drinking for. When I resumed drinking I picked up right where I left off.
Right where I left off. >> >> In the mornings, I would I would drink a uh half pint to a pint of vodka. And I would have to do that so I could shave.
I would have to do that so I could get up and and be able to shower and get dressed and get function. And I couldn't always keep that down. So I would my I would drink I would follow it with mocks.
Great morning drink. I'm committed. You got to understand this.
I'm well. I'm I'm committed to this drinking business. And and and and then once I was able to do that, then then I could begin to think.
I could begin to put sentences together. And then I'd go to work and sometimes I'd put it a whole four and a half, five hours maybe. And then I'd leave the job site and I'd be driving down that gravel road and I reach under that pickup truck and I'd pull out pull out that pine of vodka and I'd go black with it.
Get in the motel room, close the door, take another quick shower, come out, crack that second one. And I'm drinking for the effect. And the effect is I want out.
I just want out. I want the I want I want I want the crazy thoughts to stop. And the thoughts went like this.
There were like a lot of words, but they didn't make a whole lot of sense. They just rambled through my head. I shook badly.
In order for me not to throw up the green bile with the little black seeds in it, I had to have a certain level of alcohol in me. The only normal way for me to live was for me to take another drink. And when I didn't have that, I was absolutely insane.
The that was the only way I knew how to live. That was the effect that I was looking for. All the way through the development of my alcoholism through through the advancement of it, I was drinking for effect.
The effect changed. The effect I was looking for evolved, but it was always was for the effect. I couldn't understand why why alcoholics anonymous didn't work for me the first time.
I remind I use a lot of analogies. Bear with me. You heard about the chocolate cake.
I know you people in Indianapolis have heard this from about about that about the guy who kept coming in and out of alcoholics anonymous. He kept coming and out could and he went to lots of meetings, you know, 90 meetings in 90 days. He read his big book and then he get drunk and he go come back and he go to meetings and he just he just kept going around and around and called up his sponsor.
He says, "I don't understand this. You people tell me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and and make coffee and and uh and and read the big book and I keep getting drunk. I don't get it.
Why is that?" And sponsor says, "You got a you got a a cookbook in the house?" He says, "Yeah." He says, "Go get it." So, he brings the cookbook back to the phone. He says, "Is there a recipe in there for chocolate cake?" And he goes, "Yeah." He says, "Why don't you read that to me?" And we all know sponsors are crazy, right? So, with great reluctance, he reads he reads the recipe.
Preheat the oven to 450, grease the pan, cup of flour, yada yada yada. And so, he finishes reading and then the sponsor says, "Okay, why don't you read that to me one more time?" The guy says, "Listen, I'm dying and you got me reading the chocolate cake recipe to you." He says, "Trust me. Just read it one more time." So, he did it.
I'd make the frosting. Let it cool for before you put the frosting on. And he finishes it.
And then the sponsor says, "Okay, read that to me one more time." Of course, this guy's reading it real fast now because he's he's, you know, he wants to get through it real quick. And then the sponsor said after he finished, he says, "Now cut me a piece of cake." You can read that recipe till you're blue in the face. But if you actually want a piece of cake, you're going to have to do something.
I don't know about you people, but if I like chocolate, I like chocolate cake. left to my own devices, I'll I'll read it and say, "Yeah, that's a nice recipe, but I like a lot of sugar." So, instead of putting a cup of sugar in, I'm going to put in three cups of sugar. And I'm not real keen about vanilla, so I'm not going to really put that in.
And I'll put my I'll tweak it. I'll tweak that recipe to suit my own what I think is my own needs. And I may end up with something that looks like a cake, but it's probably not going to taste like that cake.
And I was I was challenged that that that if I wanted the same cake that Bill and Bob had that I need to do what Bill and Bob did, that I need to follow the black ink on the white page. And when I see a question mark, that means I need to answer the question. And when I see hints like next we launched, that's a hint.
I went to my very first conference and there was a fellow named Franken out of Chicago and we all know the out of town speakers are so wise. No one in your home group, by the way, my home group is a dignitary sympathy group. >> >> There's no dignitaries and there's no sympathy.
It was it was a group conscience to uh to call the group that I I wanted we meet on Tuesday nights and I wanted to name the group the Monday night procrastinators meeting but that that didn't go over real well. So, it's a dignitary sympathy. I got a fabulous, but that's another story.
And now I'm having a senior moment. But I went to I went I heard Frank and and and and Frank was uh talking about what is a real alcoholic. You might have been at that conference, Dudley.
I don't And and and and Frank uh uh Frank, what is a real alcoholic? and he stood in front of all I know there must have been 600 people in that room and he stood and I'm sitting way in the back like newcomers do and uh and and he said well what we're going to do is we're going to make an alcoholic. So he had this imaginary test tube and he asked the audience he says what's it take to make to make an alcoholic and someone in the back yelled resentment.
So he reached over like this and put that in. He says what else? and someone else yelled fear and he went like that and self-centerness and the list went on and on.
There's about seven or eight things that were called out. And then he paused and said, "What's the one thing no one talked about? Nobody said alcohol." And I and I had one of those V8 moments.
You know, he went on to say, "Here we have here we have this test tube full of stuff and we shake it up and we shake it up and it's in our lives and we shake it up so much and then we don't know what to do with it." And we put a little alcohol in there to to shave it off to smooth it out to make it okay. And that works. And then except that quantity doesn't work anymore.
And then we put a little more in, a little more. And then often what happens is a spouse or an employer or a judge or somebody will will uh help you pull some of that alcohol out and we may feel better for a while. I think Jill talked about the difference between relief and a solution and pull the alcohol out and and what happens is that uh is we start sleeping better and we eat a little bit better and people pat you on the back.
You're doing so good, you look good, but we don't ever do anything with the with the test tube of stuff. And that was me. Resentment.
I don't Do you Do you people have resentments? I don't know. I want you to understand the kind of alcoholic I am.
Early in our relationship, Kathy and I went horseback riding. I don't like horses. I know I'm standing in the middle of horse country.
But the fact is I don't particularly like horses. And Kathy went to go horseback riding. So we went to the stable and uh and I asked for the oldest, slowest horse that they had.
and they gave me this old slow horse and we we leave the barn and we go about I don't know 1500 ft down out of the barn and this horse takes off at a caner I think it's called a caner and and and for the next mile my anatomy is getting crushed to the saddle and I'm livid needless to say I can't get this darn thing to stop and it comes to a creek I think I'm glad you like this Marge >> >> The horse comes to a creek and it stops and to get a drink of water and I get off this horse and and I walk around the woods looking for a big stick cuz I'm going to do this horse what it did to me. And I couldn't find one that would really do the job. And Kathy finally caught up and she saw my state of mind and didn't say a word.
And finally I said the heck with it and uh sort of and uh and I walked away. As far as I know that horse is still standing there in that creek. Now now I want to share with you what how I could just really work with that resentment for years and into sobriety whenever I would go to the grocery store to buy dog food.
>> That's right. I'd read dog food labels looking for horsemeat. I' I'd take that I'd take that I'd take that horse meat that dog food.
I'd throw it in the bowl and then when I throw that bowl down on the table in my head I'm thinking take that you son of a resentment. Um, I told that story at a at at the uh in in the lobby of the Music City Roundup down in in um >> down in Nashville and the person I was sitting in front looked at me and they didn't laugh. They looked at me and said, "That'll get you drunk." >> That'll get you drunk, man.
It did. And you know what? They were right.
I happened to be in a workshop. That's the thing we do up in Indianapolis. Real quick side note, that's where a bunch of us get together.
We make a commitment to each other that we're going to work the 12 steps of alcoholics and honest. We sit down. We read what the big book says.
And we only use the big book. We read what the big book says about the first step. We all answer the questions.
We share with each other our experience. We do the first step together. And then collectively we go on to the second step.
And and that's what we do. We do it frequently and often as a matter of fact. Anyway, so I was in this workshop and I went back and I and I and I happened to what a coincidence happened to be at Fourep and I I like PS footnote in the fourstep.
Oh, by the way, here's here's this resentment and also showed up in my fear inventory too, by the way. And and of course, I shared it when I did my fifth step, and I'm happy to report to you that I haven't had a need or a compulsion to read a dog food label since. I encourage you that when you're engaged in this process, look at the totality of of of who you are, not just your drinking.
time moves on and I and and and I want to talk a little bit about amends. Um my sponsor, a lot of you people know my sponsor, Gary B. And and uh Gary's 40 years sober now.
After I asked him to be my sponsor, he and his wife Julie, made a decision that they really wanted to finish up their amends and they sold their house to come up with the equity out of it to finish their amends. Had I known that Gary Brown was going to do something like that, I would not have asked him to be my sponsor. Can you imagine going to someone like that and trying to get a little slack cut to you on a men's?
Not going to happen. Not going to happen. He he shared with me a process on on making amends.
One of the instructions he gave me was never ever say you're sorry. He says, "Everybody on the planet knows you're a sorry son of a I don't want to hear that." He says, "It's about collecting taking care of and correcting the wrongs and taking responsibility for your actions." And he gave me he gave me a a a process and and the process was that of course make it make try to do it in person if at all possible and make that amends and and sit down and tell the person the harm that you've caused them and then after I do that then ask them the question is there anything else that I've done that I'm not aware that I' that I've harmed you and And then my job is to listen. I don't know about you, but I did some blackout drinking.
I There's harm out there that I have no idea that I caused. There's plenty that I am aware of, but there's others out there that uh and then my job is to listen. Not inject the butts, don't you understand?
But to listen. And then after that's on the table. Now, now everything's on the table.
Everything possibly know about this particular relationship is on the table. And then he told me to ask them the question, do you need to tell me how this has affected you? That's a tough question to ask.
And then my job is to listen. And then the last thing after that's done is to say, what is it I need to do to make this right? How do I square the books?
And then to take that action. I first thought amends was about, well, I I damaged I did this amount of damage to your property and I believe I owe you $500 and so I'm going to come to you and tell you how I've harmed you and then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do and then I'm going to dictate to you how I'm going to do it. Sounds an awful lot like managing my life, but that's how I I initially approached it.
I found that I got to be a lot freer as a result of this process. There's all there's all kinds of higher powers, by the way. There's there's one higher power that helped me figure out what my amends was, and he was a judge.
The judge helped me figure that out. He he he uh he told me I could pay $500 a month, which I did for 19 years. And uh I'm happy to report that that amends now is taken care of.
There's a there's an amends that I want to share with you that that involved my brother which I which was a quite an eye openener for me. My brother and I didn't particularly get along. You may find that hard to believe.
Um although we sometimes we got along. Here's a sidebar. Um my brother and I used to do a lot of drinking together.
We had a lot of fun. Uh I remember once I told Kathy I was going to uh meet him for lunch. We're going to meet him for lunch and you know get a sandwich.
and I went and met him and we had a beer and uh and then on the third or fourth beer we started talking about the virtues of Kors beer. This is a 76 I think it was. Coors beer wasn't sold at that point um east of the Mississippi.
You know the virtues of Kors beer, you know, mountain water and all that. He said, "Let's go get a Coors beer." So we got in his truck and we decided we'd go to St. Louis to get some Coors beer.
We got there and they didn't sell it there. So, we thought, well, we'll just keep driving west till we find it. And and we found it in Kansas City, Kansas.
We walked into the liquor store and they had a big display of Kors beer and said, "Yeah, you can sell it." He goes, "Yeah." He says, "How much you want?" And we said, "All of it." So, we bought $600 at Kors Beer. 24 25 hours later when I got back home, Kathy was a little upset with me. But I mean, that's the kind of things that my brother and I did when we were drinking.
But we also we also got into fights and he always won. By the way, I was in this particular workshop and I was remembering some harm that I had caused him back when I was 16 years old. And and I avoided looking at that because I knew he had caused me more harm than I had ever caused him.
You know, when he when he hits you in the face a few times, you don't you don't want to approach him. And the harm that I caused him when I was 16 was I I borrowed his car. It's a big Pontiac Grand Prix.
Beautiful machine. Borrowed it for a date and I put a big crease in the passenger door. And when I returned the car, I parked it across from his apartment so he would see the driver's door and then he would go to work and at some point in time in the future, he'd discover the crease and I just pleaded innocent.
And that's what I did. Well, as a result of this workshop, I I needed to take responsibility. And I hadn't talked to him in seven years, even though he lived here in town.
And I met him at a restaurant. They had glass all the way around. and it was a staking shake and I did that for a reason cuz I wasn't sure of his response and I proceeded to tell him the harm that I caused even I went through the process that I talked about and he said there wasn't anything else and I hadn't anything else on the paper I thought it was pretty much a done deal and I reached in my pocket and I put the money on the table show up with a lot of money and the numbers numbers seemed fair and equitable and And the big book talks about the fact that we will be amazed how within an hour relationship the things will melt and relationships begin to literally that that literally happened and I thought it was pretty well a done deal and then something amazing happened at that very moment and what was amazing was that that uh um I found out that wasn't the amend at all the reality of the amend was I took him to be a fool.
I thought I was better than he was. I thought I could get by. I thought I was smarter than he was.
And that's the harm that I caused him. It had nothing to do with his car door. Not really.
I never would have known that until I began the process of the amend. The guy that I kicked off on my leg. How do I make an amends to him?
the man who uh not the man several men in in workshop I was in at the time I had you know I hadn't told anyone about that and they they and I said man's dead how do you how do you how do you make a man and the guy said well you you need to write this guy a letter and in the letter tell him what was going on at the time what your confusion and the chaos but Most importantly in this letter, tell him what you're doing today. Tell him what you're trying to do with your life today. I just wanted to get well.
I really wasn't out seeking God. I just wanted to get well. And so that's what I I I tried to discount.
I said, "Well, how can I write him a letter? I don't know his name." And they said, "But get a photograph of the Vietnam Mall and pick a name." So that's what I did and I wrote the letter and I was waiting for something miraculous to happen and nothing happened. I just did the action.
I followed direction. It was about a year later I was on the telephone answering service and I got this call from from some veteran who was who was drunk calling from a pay phone who who wasn't looking to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He was just looking for a place to sleep that night.
And I called around and I found a a halfway house that had a bed. And uh then I called up another friend of mine. I said, "Can you pick this guy up?
He's at so and so intersection and take him over there." And they did. And then the guy called the guy who I sent on the sent on the 12step. He he came back and said he said uh I just thought you'd want to know that this guy this guy uh uh he didn't he didn't say he was going to quit drinking.
He didn't say he was going to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He just kept saying he couldn't believe that somebody cared, that he was going to sleep under sheets, under a roof, and that somebody cared. And then I thought back to that letter because that's one of the things that I wrote that I wanted to care again.
And this physical sense of warmth came over me. And it took a long time for me to have that feeling. I thought, "Wow, that one's done." Was in another workshop years later and I was with with Mike Mike L.
And Mike is also a Vietnam vet. And and we were talking toward the conclusion of that workshop that maybe someday we'll go to the wall. And I was afraid to go to the wall because I was afraid of what was going to happen, meaning my emotions.
And uh and uh he said, "Yeah, well, if we ever get a chance, we'll go do that." And of course, two weeks later, Kathy comes home from work and her employer is going to send her to Washington DC to uh to attend the conference and it's a free ride. I need, you know, and so here I am. I'm either, you know, what honesty is, say what you mean and do what you say.
So he went and what I what I was afraid was going to happen at the wall did happen. I saw that and I just I just lost it. and uh went back to the wall the next day and ended up uh there's a directory there.
Uh look up the names and the names are on the wall chronologically. So if a so if a a gunship went down, everybody on that everybody on that helicopter, their names are together and it's just chronological. And that that that particular incident that was the craz craziest for me was during the uh month of uh of uh May of 1969.
It involved Hill 937. And when I looked up that particular month there there were four panels of names for that one month. It was a really chaotic time.
So I went I I just I just felt I need to know this guy's name. So, I went I went to the panels and I read all the names because now I know that I've read his name and that just seemed like another footnote. I went back to the wall a third time and I went back.
It was a Sunday morning and and there was one other guy. It was it was rainy and cold. It was just mirror like surface, you know.
cuz it was wet. When I got at the far end and I and I'm walking down the pathway and suddenly out of this emotion of rage hit me again and I thought I thought to myself, nobody cared. Nobody cared then.
Nobody gives a damn about these guys. You know, all that luggage that goes with the Vietnam veterans. And right at that moment, I hear this commotion.
And I look over my shoulder and here comes a school bus of kids have gotten off, little girls that are about eight or nine years old and a couple of nuns. And each of these children are carrying a rose. And they come down the aisle, come down the pathway to the to the apex there, and they all gather around.
And this nun proceeds to lead these children in a prayer for all these people that are names are on the wall. and I see what's beginning to happen. And of course, I just shuffle up and I stand in behind them and I participate in the prayer.
And then at the end, these children scatter all around the memorial. Some put the rose down right away and get out of there. Some others go over and they see a name and they start to put it in front of that panel.
Then they see another name and they pick it up and they and then they and and they couldn't they couldn't make up their mind which one to give it to. And some of these children started crying. These children weren't even alive at the time.
Once again, I find out that I'm wrong. That people do care. You people are a tremendous demonstration of that in my life over and over and over again.
You you in the in the in the program it talks about our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and to the people around us engaging in this process engaging making the amends has so been terribly it's pivotal just absolutely pivotal to my life. Things have been uh changing for me a lot in the last 15 months too. Uh 15 months ago, I was diagnosed with heart failure.
Now, that's good news, bad news. And the bad news is it's progressive and I'm at stage three. The good news is I now have documented proof to the guys that I sponsor that I do have a heart.
I uh they they they they took me uh into surgery and they've done some mojo. They put this computer in my chest with three different leads that go to my heart and it monitors and does all kinds of things. And and when I when I came out of one of the one of the surgical procedures I came out and I'm coming out of the anesthesia, you know what the first thing I saw was?
There's a guy in my home group named Tom B who's got a big full beard. His face is about this far from mine and he's leaning over. when my father died 11 years ago from an abdominal aneurysm and he was uh hauled out of the living room of the house and he lived 20 odd hours.
After we came back after he passed away and we came back to the house during that 20our period my parents house was broken into. Apparently someone saw the ambulance and hauled him away and then they they knew the house was empty and they hit it and they robbed it and that was a tough day. And I called my sponsor when I got back home and and told him what back to their house and told him what had happened before the evening was out.
Two guys from my home group showed up at the house on their own. They showed up with they stopped at the hardware store, bought new locks that came into their house. to change all the locks.
When it came time for the showing and the actual funeral, Steve F at uh one of my uh one of the guys in my home group, he showed up at my parents house and sat in the car outside the house just to make sure no one's going to mess with that house again. >> I hope your home group is a little bit like mine. So here I am now with uh with this diagnosis and and u and I and I begin another journey.
You know I I for a long time I I thought how could my life be unmanageable early in sobriety? How can my life be unmanageable when when I manage you know $20 million worth of contract? Of course, I got to look at the fact, am I my job?
Am I my checkbook? All those usual things. And I thought I had come to terms with it pretty pretty closely.
But but when when uh when my defibrill went off the first time, which is a a real fun experience, um I was still trying to work. And at that point, I went from full-time to part-time work. And then uh I did that for several months and then it went off again and now I'm no longer working.
I'm on a drawing disability and uh things are continuing to progress. And so now I, you know, I had to go through this grieving process again of loss of loss of I thought I I knew my identity was not my job. But until you actually are no longer engaged in that task, it's kind of theoretical.
You know, what am I going to do? I get a phone call from a guy named Corey, guy that I'm working with who's who uh still working on Bh begging his first cake. By the way, he says, "I'm in trouble.
Will you go through the work with me?" I said, 'If you can get to my house, you can do it. We can do it. So Corey comes to my house on Thursdays.
Wasn't too long after that, I got a call from a guy named Jim. Jim's sober a number of years, but he's extremely unhappy. I said, I don't know.
If we go through the work together, maybe your life will get better. He comes to my house on Mondays. I get phone calls every day now.
I get visitors who come by my house for visitors to visit every day now and we sit on the patio and we talk about second and third step a lot. I'm happy to report since I'm no longer really in the workplace that my amends list is a lot shorter. It's amazing when I don't leave the house and it's just me and the cat, how little harm I can do.
So instead of instead of employing my time in that process, now I now have lots of opportunity for step 11 and whole new horizons are opening up to me. You know how doctors are. You were talking about what 18-year-old doctors.
Boy, do I relate to that. And of course, I'm on a I I'm in a heart failure clinic and I see these people fairly fairly frequently. And uh and and they're they're a team, you know.
I don't have a doctor. I have a team. Bear with me.
And uh and uh you know, one of them is saying things like, well, you know, with what with what's happening now, the medicines you're on and so forth, you know, my blood pressure now is like 80 over 40. The med they want to keep it real low. So, I got to be real careful when I stand up and do those kind of things cuz the world goes and uh they're saying we we really think that you ought to be considered not driving anymore.
And my initial response to these kind of things are, and it's crazy. I know it's crazy. How am I going to get back?
How am I going to how am I going to control this situation? I'll give you one of the plans that I came up with on my own. When they when they when I go into the the clinic, they they put this wand literally they put this wand over my chest and through the power of electronics, they download this computer that's implanted in me that tracks it memorizes everything that every chamber does.
And and then after they do that, then they then they then they hit a few buttons and they accelerate my heart rate real fast. And then they hit a few more buttons and they take it real slow and then they recalibrate it trying to make it to the optimum performance till the next time around. And I'm sitting here thinking, well, what's this what's what's the end going to look like?
Is it going to look like shortness of breath? And it's going to be slow suffocation. I don't do you ever do any projection?
Oh my god, this doesn't sound good at all. So, so um what here's my plan. I'm going to go in.
They're going to download the data and then they're going to during the process of recalibration, they turn it off and calibrate it and so forth. And when they turn it off, my plan is I'm going to get up out of the chair and walk out. Because I'd rather have this thing just have sudden cardiac death than to have this thing drug out.
Not real sane, is it? >> >> I thought that this thing was it really upset me because now this device is is really going to dictate and the assumption is that I had control over my heart to begin with and I don't just a new understanding of powerlessness this. So, I have these guys in my life now.
I uh there's a fell in the gentleman back here. Is it Is it David? Is that >> David?
David. >> David. I met David yesterday.
And I just love David. David came up and was sharing with us, me and Kathy, about about what he does now and what's going on in his life. And I think you said you were two years sober, as I recall.
And he showed me a photograph of what he looked like when he first came in through the doors of alcohol. Wow. What a difference.
There's a fellow there's a fellow Sam that I work with who right after all this went down on my heart and I was just so into the gym um Sam this fellow Sam came up to me and and who who uh was a street person street background and and he did not did not look very good and he asked me to sponsor him and and I didn't really want to do that you know the difference between willingness and wanting differentiating between the true and the false. Sometimes I I think that willingness is what I want to do has nothing to do with it. You know what Sam does for me?
He calls me every day. You know what Sam does? He does things like he calls up and says, "Jim, this is Sam." As if I didn't know.
I said, "Yeah, Sam." He says, "I just want you to know I didn't drink today. How about you? I said, "Yeah, I didn't drink either, Sam." I said, "Sam, how you doing on that amends list you put together?" He said, "Well, I'm happy to report that I got it that that amends list that we put together up to this point in time that we got it that I got it done.
And guess what I'm going to do now?" I said, "What's that, Sam?" He says, "Now I can go buy myself a set of dentures. It's amazing what what you people do for me. It helps me to understand my priorities.
It helps me to understand that by cleaning the wreckage away that I can in fact begin to have a an improved relationship with my wife. that I can in fact have a relationship with a power greater than myself. That I can in fact begin to truly understand when the big book says that that God doesn't make the terms too hard and that the way for me to to begin the process is is to take a look at what these spiritual terms mean to me and not enter into them from a position of prejudice.
I took that literally. I opened up a dictionary and started looking up words that I thought I knew the meaning of spiritual words like prayer, God. And I began to look at those words and see what the meanings were.
All of this, all these actions have resulted in in a cake that's currently in the oven. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens when this when this deal is done. But I encourage you to crack open the big book, take a look at the recipe, give it a shot.
Thank 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.