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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. First time I heard Dave um our speaker this evening was at Cop State a couple three, four, five years ago. I can't remember exactly what year it was.

And I remember listening to him and I remember thinking we got to get him for our speaker. And so I think we got him the next year as a speaker at the St. Cloud Rondo.

He's so impressed with me. We asked him back this year. And um um we went and picked him up last night at the airport and uh one of the one of my most favorite jobs on a roundup committee is hosting a speaker because you get to spend a lot of time with him and and chair all day last night, all day today.

And and we've become friends over these last couple three four years. And and I'm just thrilled that he said he'd come back and and speak, you know, at our bone spring celebration again. And there's a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, um, AA speaker speak and introducers introduce.

So, I'm going to introduce JP to you. >> I don't care if it works or not. I'm not going to get that thing stuck in my eyes.

>> My name's Jay Plumbck. I'm an alcoholic. Is it working?

>> Yeah. >> Thank you, Mary Cla. That was one heck of a talk you made.

And I don't know about anybody out there, but standing up here is really it's it's scary. I don't care how long you're sober. I don't care if you're male or female AA or Allan.

I don't care who or what you are. It's scary unless you're an egoomaniac. Most of us a are but ain't.

But the deal is I got bad vision. So I don't know how many's out there. You know, I had to had laser surgery, but I just try to remember.

You can't see. It's okay. One time they said pretend they're all naked.

Well, for me that don't work. But thank you for sharing. Good message.

When I said I'm Jay and I'm an alcoholic, I really said all I have to say because today I do know who I am and what I am and I'm comfortable with that. But you gave me that comfort. Like most people, I get behind a podium.

There are a lot of things I'd rather be doing right now. This is bike week in Myrtle Beach. I ride a Harley.

I live down there. There's 600,000 bikes. I could be just lost in that crowd, you know, trying to get killed.

But well, we don't wear helmets. But uh I'm honored and privileged to be here. Privileged.

I met a lady here uh that I met a number of years ago when I talked up here and she's been sober from then till now and she said she was eight days sober. I remembered meeting her she was eight days sober you know not because she met me but I mean the deal she's was 8 days sober and now a number of years of sobriety continuous sobriety again proved to me that alcoholics anonymous works I remember meeting Susie when I talked up at St. Cloud and you know I couldn't remember I remember who was on the program I remember a little didn't remember where I was didn't remember it was St.

thought or whatever. But I remember there was a girl there who'd been having trouble and we'd talked and we'd gone out to eat a whole bunch of us from the committee and and uh I I remembered that and remembered telling her get a sponsor before you leave. Get a sponsor.

She got one. Never used her from then on. Nobody's seen her.

But the deal was I'm think God has blessed me today. Today I'm not thinking about do I have any money? Do I have any this?

Is my health all right? Is this going to work out? I'm really more and more God's allowed me to be able to try and think of somebody else.

That ain't natural for a guy like me. You see, I'm a normal person. I never planned on being an alcoholic.

Just planned on being normal all my life. That's what I was normal. Hell, I didn't know I was mad till I was sober a year and a half.

Well, really, I mean, I came from a normal family. My daddy was a news commentator for CBS. He had a coast to coast radio hookup.

He was known all over the Midwest. really well known in the northern Ohio area and over toward Chicago and but anyhow his picture was on buses not milk cartons but buses you know and on bills made a lot of money. I never saw the results of any of that money but he made a lot of money and he was important and let everybody know it.

My daddy was also an alcoholic. I didn't know that. I thought he was normal.

He always drank. Never saw him not drinking. He drank from the first remembrance until he just drank.

I see him in the morning uh drinking. If he got up at 4:30 to go to work, he had vodka in his hand. When he came home at 2:30, he was drinking vodka.

We went to church, he had vodka. He just always drank. Never saw him drunk.

He just always drank. I thought it was normal. It was normal drinking to me.

And I was a normal kid. I was sober a year and a half sitting in the meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous. And you have to picture this.

I was 3 almost 33 years old. Been sober, a year and a half, active. I was really a poster child in Alcoholics Anonymous.

What I was you could have seen a picture of me. Well, I've done everything in that group, you I joined that group was in the West Esona group in West Palm Beach, Florida. My first job was greeter.

I got to say hello to people when they come in. Then I graduated. Got to wash ashtrays.

That's the next level of responsibility. All the groups had ashtrays, glass ones. And you washed them.

We have ceramic cups, not just styrofoam that ruins the environment. But like I care, but I got to wash coffee cups after the aster. Well, I mixed the coffee cups and ashtrays together cuz I didn't really like the group.

They didn't know it. You take your shots when you can. You know how it is.

I got to make coffee. Not very good, but I got to make it and got to chair me. I've done everything in that group except treasure.

I never have been treasurer. I'm sober since March the 8th of 1974. And through God's grace and miraculous program, I've had to drink from then till now.

But I've never been treasurer. I'm always hoping my group will hear that one day and maybe the state treasure be nice. They had a lot of money, but I guess well, no.

Anyhow, I've done everything in AA except work the steps. And I was sitting there at that group. It was a big book group.

We studied the book and talked about it. And I can't remember what part we were on that night, but I repeated something as as though it were original and coming from me, but it wasn't mine. It was something I'd heard across town day or two before as I was taxing up what I was going to say at that meeting.

But I espoused his wisdom and I at the group. And that night after the meeting, a man took me aside. His name was John.

And John put his arm around me and he told me that he loved me. And he told me that I was a phony and that I was about to get drunk. And I hated John.

And he took me home with him that night, sat me down on the stoop of his trailer, pardon me, his mobile home manufactured. I had a 4,000 square foot on a house on a golf course. And at that time there were trailers.

Today I live in one. their manufactured home. Something about perspective, you know.

But he sat me down on the stupid thing and he began to talk to me about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thought I had worked the steps in my life cuz I'd use the book as a guide and I'd work the steps. And I knew what he said in that book.

The book says long before it gets to chapter 5, there's a paragraph in there that the delusion that I am like or everybody like normal people when it comes to drinking must be smashed. And then it states this is the first step in recovery. And I took that to heart and said that was the first step.

I knew that my drinking was different than other people. I knew that I had I accepted what the doctor said in the doctor's opinion. I had that obsession of the mind, that thing that went on inside of me that said, "This time I can take a drink and I'll be all right.

This time I'll take a drink and I won't go to jail or I won't hurt her or I won't do that or I won't go there." But I take that drink and I do that cuz my mind would tell me that it'd be all right. And I believe I take that drink and that second thing would happen. That only happens to alcoholics.

It does not happen to normal drink with that allergy kicked in. That phenomena, you know, that thing that we can't understand what it is, but it kicked in and I wouldn't know how much I drank and that been going on. I knew that was there.

So, I accepted that I had this thing called alcoholism. And I thought the first step was admitting that I wasn't like normal people when it came to drinking, that I had this phenomena of craving, this obsession of the mind. That wasn't the first step.

John explained to me that that was only the first half of the first step. And John talked to me that night about unmanageability. And he had me look at my life.

And let me tell you how my life was. A year and a half sober without alcohol, active in aa. It was a disaster.

My wife and I had a terrible relationship. We'd been married for over over 10 years at that time. And our marriage had nothing in it.

Absolutely nothing. It was so bad that I was the most active member of Sex Without Partners in South Florida. I don't know if that's reached up here yet.

It's a self-help group down there. Not bad. My kids and I didn't get along.

I was unemployed again. You know, I couldn't work on a ship because I was in trouble with the law. The law wanted me.

You see, I'd gone into business. I had my own business. A lot of thought it's like to be in business for themselves, and I was one of them.

I've been on a merchant ship and been over a country called Sri Lanka or Salon uh island country off the coast of India and I'd gone into business with some other AA members that were in that group and they had the same lack of principles working in their life that I had working in mine and we went into the import export business. We were exporting semi-precious gemstones out of salon and importing them into the United States. Now we done all that without the benefit of licenses or customs or laws.

So the government called it smuggling and debating that. He called it business. Again, perspective.

I was in trouble with the law and they were after us. I had a guy living in my house and I hazed him. I my everything in life was was going wrong and John was right.

I was on the verge of drinking. And I accepted for the first time in my life unmanageability. And John took it a step further.

He said, "Look back through your your life and see how it was." And my whole life was that story. It was unmanageability all through my life because I would my mind would say you can take care of this. You can straighten this out.

You can fix this. You can make this. And yet when I tried to do it, it didn't.

He said step one simply is I can't. And it made it simple for me. And that night I took step one sitting on his stupid trailer with him and said I can't.

And he said now let's look at step two. And step two come to believe that part greater than myself could restore me to sanity. He made me accept sanity for what the book talks about.

He didn't talk about the fact that I wasn't do crazy stuff. Hell, I still do bizarre things. I probably do them all my life.

But he said, "We're going to talk about that strange insanity that precedes the first drink that manifests itself in that thought that goes on in my mind that says, "This time I can take a drink and it'll be all right. This time I can take a drink and I'll control it. This time I can take a drink and I won't go there, do that or hurt them." He said, "That's the insanity Bill talks about." And that's what Bill stresses in the book in three or four or five different places.

And when he talks about sanity, he says at the end of the promises that are read of so many meetings at the end of the promises says if tempted by alcohol we react as if from a hot flame for sanity has returned. So John says simply meant sanity for me was that I would believe that there was a power greater than I that could restore me to that state of mind where taking a drink would not be an acceptable alternative. Simply put it be he can.

So I had two things I was looking at. I can and he can. And at that point we looked at step three.

You see everything was out of the way by then. Mary Cla talked about desperation. I believe there are levels of desperation in my life.

And as I reach these levels of desperation that are directly parallel to those plateaus of recovery. As I reach him, I have to do something. That first level came after the level of desperation that brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous.

That level that said I knew I knew what John said was right. I was going to get drunk. And I accepted then that God could restore me to that state of being where taking a drink would not be accept an acceptable alternative.

And we got on our knees and we prayed that third-step prayer. And I remember John getting on his knees and he said, "I'm going to get on my knees and you don't have to." And you know, I believed him. I didn't believe he was telling me to get down on my knees.

It was my choice. But I felt comfortable getting on my knees and praying that prayer. He opened the book up and we read the prayer out of the book.

There's a funny thing about that third step prayer, there's no amen at the end of it. The amen does not come until the end of step seven. John told me that from that third step prayer, the actions through step seven were a continuence of that prayer.

You know, I prayed that prayer on a daily basis from then until now. Not that I'm taking the third step every day, but it's a reaffirmation of the decision I made with John that night. A decision that I do what I was supposed to do to turn my will and life over the care of God.

For me, there was absolutely no physical work in steps one, two, and three. It was just getting to those points where I could accept what they were saying. I can, he can, and I'll let him.

When I got off my knees, John handed me a yellow legal tablet. And there were three columns on one side in the back side of every page blank. And as he handed it to me with a pencil, he said, "Write down in the top leftand corner, I resent." And I said, "John, I don't resent anybody." And I didn't.

I don't resent anyone. He said, "Write down I hate." Well, I have to do that. Hell, I hated everybody.

Let me tell you what, I'm an offer with that. I wrote down I hate so hard I broke the pencil that come up. You see, hate is a funny thing.

Maybe you ain't felt it. Although by the last I think some of you have, hate was a warm feeling I could wear to bed. I could think about what I was going to do to you for what you did to me.

I could do to you for what you did to me or did to them. And as I think about what I do to you, I just get warm all over. It was a great feeling.

It was just fantastic. And when I wrote down I hate it, felt good. He said who to put down first.

He didn't tell me to look at my mom and dad. He said put down Siraj. You see, had he told me to go to my childhood, I couldn't have.

But he told me to start today and work backwards cuz that's what the book said. I put it down. I hate Siraj.

And when I wrote it down, I knew I did. I did hate it. The son of a was sleeping in the bed with my little boy sleeping on the floor.

He was an Indian living in my house. I hated him. I hated him cuz he got all my money.

All the money I saved and put together and gone into business with. He had it all. Or they did.

Them Indians did. I was in business with God. Yes.

I hated him. I hated him because he wore a dress. Didn't call it a dress.

Called it a sorry. You put a man in a dress, it's a skirt. It's it's a dress.

I wrote it down. John said it wasn't important if it made sense or if it was real, but if I felt it, write it down. Who you hate and why you hate them.

And he said, "Go back through your life." You know, I found that I had hate and anger run a ramp in my life all the way back to my childhood. As far back as I could remember, I wasn't getting what I wanted from where I wanted or from who was supposed to give it to me. Nobody treated me right.

Not my parents, not anyone. And it was their fault. And I wrote it down.

Anyone who hasn't taken an inventory, don't be afraid of it. We've been doing it all our lives. When we're sitting in the bars, we ain't talking about ourselves.

We're talking about them. That's what the inventory is. Talk about them.

Get it down there. Of course, it's sneaky about it. You got to do something else a little different.

I'll tell you about that in a minute. There I was back in my childhood hating everybody because I didn't get what I wanted. I remember things going on in my childhood.

My sisters, they got a lot of love. I have one a year older, one a year younger, one 5 years younger. A kid brother born when I was 18.

I saw my siblings get emotional and physical love from my parents. You know, I never felt that I got I never felt that I belonged. I think that's a part of alcoholism.

Yet, it didn't make me an alcoholic. It just made me a mad young kid. And as I got older, I was madder.

I was a liar as far back as I can remember. I never took a course on lying. It came natural and I think it's a part of alcoholism, but it didn't make me an alcoholic.

It made me a liar. And I like lying. It was sort of like a gift from God.

Whatever you wanted me to be, I could tell you I was. And the deal with the way I lied is that I believed it. Whether it was in a job situation, a relationship, uh whatever it was, I would tell you what I wanted to and I believed it.

And the difference between my lies and the lies that you told me when you lied. I knew you were lying. But I didn't know I was.

And if you didn't believe that I was li that I was telling the truth, I would fight you over it. That's how fiercely I believe the lies that I believed. So I was a liar and I was angry and I was a thief.

And I didn't picture myself as a thief. I guess I was thought I was a short fat Robin Hood. I don't know.

I I might take something from Tom. I turn around, I give it to Mary Cla. And I wouldn't do it so she'd like me.

I do it so she'd want me around and accept me. And if you told me that I took something that he'd earned money and worked hard to get, I'd have said, "You're crazy." Cuz that never entered entered my mind. The book doesn't talk about that.

And specifically, it says something like selfish selfcenterness is the root of our our our problem. It doesn't say lying and stealing. But if I look at the root cause of it, what's the root cause of it?

Self-centerness. It was all about me and I didn't know it was about me. I thought it was about you.

So I was a liar and I was a thief and I didn't like anybody. And I hadn't even started. Hell, that's before school started.

I went off to the first grade. And up there in Ohio, I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, a suburb. I went to a parochial school that means Catholic.

And I had a nun. This nun, her name was Sister Lucy. And I closed my eyes.

I could picture her. She was like the first vision of SNM. You got to picture her.

I picture her a lot bigger than me. She had a black gown on. Went from her head down to her toes.

She had heels on her boots. She had chains and leather hanging down her side. She made noise when she walked.

I was scared to death. I was 6 years old in the first grade and scared of her and didn't like her. Halfway through the first grade, they called my parents in.

They we've been doing tests and all that stuff they do in the first grade and they called my parents in and I was standing outside listening to that conversation cuz I knew I was in trouble cuz I was always in trouble and I didn't know why but I was going to hear about it. So, I'm listening to her and she told my parents something that destroyed me. She told my parents that it appeared as I was an exceptionally gifted child.

And because of my intelligence and abilities, I'd be able to learn anything and do anything I chose to do. And my ability to learn stopped right then and I started getting in trouble. By the second grade, I'm hauled in front of the class, the class clown.

You see, as soon as I heard I was smart, nobody was smart enough to teach me anything. And I was getting in trouble cuz I couldn't listen to anyone. That was going to be the story of my life for a good number of years.

When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, that's just what I thought. I knew everything. How could you teach me anything?

So, by the second grade, I'm hauled in front of the class. By the third grade, more and more trouble. By the fourth grade, I'm running away from home because I wanted to be away from that.

If I could just go somewhere else, I'd be all right. If we could just go there, it'd be all right. It'd be different.

Get away from these people that are hurting me and torturing me. I knew and I couldn't talk to them about it. They'd be talking to other people even as a kid.

They'd say, "Go talk to this person or that psychiatrist or that social worker." They didn't have labels like ADD. They just crazy as hell. And I go and talk to them.

They didn't give me no medication. They beat hell out me times. And and this and then then I'm wound up in front of a juvenile referee.

And a juvenile referee before he sentenced me that very first time he labeled me. He told me I was encouraable. I didn't know what that meant.

It's a multi-el word means punk. I was just a punk. He sent me off to an orphan.

I wasn't an orphan. Why would you send me to an orphanage? But he sent me to an orphanage.

There were no other orphans in there. I wasn't one either. They were just punks like me.

And the deal was it wasn't punishment. I thought it was punishment. Their whole focus was to help put some discipline in my life and help me become a productive human being.

I didn't know that. I thought they were punishing me for my behaviors or for what they, you know, what was going on. And they say things to me that were crazy.

They say what's wrong. I couldn't tell them what's wrong. I knew they wouldn't understand.

You know, people that say just tell me what's going on. And I couldn't do it. You were talking about walls in front of I know what they are.

You can't talk to people if you just know intuitively they don't understand. So I couldn't talk to anybody. Make a long story short, I sustained in institutions off and on from then until I was 17 and 1/2 years or seven a little over 17 years old.

And I always wanted it to be different. From that orphanage I got out of it and back on the street and then into a reformatory and got out of that. And at 13 1/2 years old I made a decision to drink.

Now mind you up till 13 or so I hadn't had any alcohol that I remember. I'm sure that I have but I don't remember it. That was social drinking.

We don't remember anything about it. Didn't do nothing for me or to me. Hell, I was married to a social drinker for 35 years.

If you'd asked her at any point in her life, when did you have your last drink? She wouldn't know. If you asked her what it was, and she wouldn't know.

Didn't do nothing to her for her. That was mele 13. But I remember situations.

Mom and dad drank all the time. They'd have at dinner, we had a little wine or a little beer occasionally. They'd have family get togethers three, four times a year, kegs of beer and wine and mixed drinks.

and the the kids, all those kids get a little bit of what the grown-ups had. There was no significance to any of that. It was just a part of that social environment.

Didn't mean nothing to me. Then 13, I decided to drink. I don't know why it just was there.

I decided to. So, I knew I wasn't old enough. Hell, I didn't look 13.

You got to be 21 in Ohio. So, I stole an eyebrow pencil from my mother. I sort of get myself a beard and a mustache.

It was not bad, really. It dotted it right on. looked like a 13-year-old with 15 million blackheads, I guess.

Thought it gave me maturity. Glad it didn't rain. Headed down, got some money out of a purse, too, and headed down to the lower end of 25th Street.

That is a skid row in Cleveland, Ohio. I knew that's where you went to drink. You get something to drink there.

And you don't have to be in that certain age or certain nothing on a skid row. You go enough of them honky drunks, they give you what you want. And we went into enough finally got what we wanted.

Me and this other guy have got two bottles of mixed screwdrivers and two bottles of Thunderbird wine. I clearly remember ordering and I can only guess that the reason for the screwdrivers. I didn't know what it was.

Didn't know what was in it but the name promised something. I wasn't sure but at 13 it had some kind of well I'm not sure but it sounded good anyhow. And then the Thunderbird.

I know why I ordered that. Hell I knew about it. They had a billboard on Scranton in 25th.

It was the most beautiful billboard you ever seen in your life. It was huge. is bigger than that wall.

Well, higher than that wall and long as three or four panels and had this huge bottle of Thunderbird with this bird just soaring. God, it looked beautiful. And I see that every day I go by that.

And I love that billboard. It was what I'd learned in the place I'd been locked up. They told me, what's the word?

Thunderbird. By God, it promised something was going to happen. You know, I'll defy any one of you to go home and do that in front of a mirror with a musketel or some ain't going to happen.

But Thunderbird has some action to it. things were going to happen, you know, just promised it and it was the price. It was always affordable, you know, through all my drink and I found Thunderbird to very be a very affordable drink.

It was the cheapest stuff you could get really. Uh if you go in a store and find it now, they have it on the lowest shelf. They want you to steal it.

Leave the good stuff. The good stuff they're walking, but we got that stuff and went out behind some bushes. We started drinking.

Don't know what one we started with. I don't know what it tasted like, but I know what happened after we started with it. For the first time in my life, everything became okay.

For the first time in my life, the mysteries of life were solved, and I was at peace within myself. It was a fantastic feeling. And I didn't even know that it happened.

But I pursued the recapturing of it at every opportunity for the next 17 plus years. And I never got it back that way again. It's only in retrospect and looking back, I could see what it did to me because I wanted it back so badly.

I could never get it back that way again. And I don't know what happened that night, but I woke up the next morning in a way that I was going to wake up in over and over again until I got to you 17 years later. I woke up in a mess and it was mine.

I woke up with a new fear about me. I didn't just wake up and say there's a new fear going on there, but I was taking that inventory I was telling you about earlier. Had them people down who I hated and why I hated them.

John done something different than he said. Now go to each one of them and write down how it affected you. And we use the plan out of the big book and I put down that guy Shira used him for an example.

It affected my self-esteem because I knew I wasn't doing a good job as a husband or a father. It affected my security. Hell, I was broke.

It affected my sex life. There was none. And I put that down.

He said, "Go through the list." And I did with everybody on that list. Put down how it affected me all the way back to my childhood. Now he said, "We're going to look at it from a different angle.

We're going to put out of our mind the wrongs others have done, real or imagined, and we're going to look where you were wrong and you'll write that down. And I looked at that situation with srise and said, "What could I have done wrong?" And I really couldn't see where I did anything wrong. And I went to John with said, "John, I've done nothing wrong with this guy.

Can I go on and do the rest of the list?" He said, "No." He said, "We go from this one and work back." He said, "Ask God for help." And I asked God to help me to look at it and see if there's something I could have said different or done different. going to tell you what I found when I went over there. I was a marine engineer.

I worked on ships. I was an officer on a merchant ship. I was in an AA meeting and I found guys with no principles.

Like I said, they were looking to make a fast buck and they wanted to do some dishonest stuff and so did I cuz I wanted to get rich quick. And I had absolutely no knowledge of gems or gemology or marketing them. And I went into business with them.

My point in going into business with them was cuz they had a lot of money in Germany and I could help get that money and I'd be able to steal it. My whole purpose was to get something for nothing out of somebody else. And when I looked at my part in the wrong and what it had done to him, I saw what I was looking for.

I brought him out of his country cuz he was there on a visa staying in my house and the only way he was there was on a visa. And as soon as I decided to get spiritual and work the steps, I pulled the visa and when the law got him, he was going back and he'd never get out of jail again. And if he stayed here, which he wound up doing, he would never see his family again.

I had robbed him of that. Forget his actions. what had I done?

>> And I wrote it down. And as I wrote it down, a miracle happened. My hate for him left.

And in black and white in front of me was what I was going to have to do to amend that situation. And at a later point in the steps, I was able to do that. And I was able to find that in each and every resentment.

I was able to find my part in the wrong and in writing it down know what I had to do right. It wasn't important we'll say with my parents the fact that maybe they didn't do what I thought they should have done or maybe what the law thought they should have done in some cases that had no bearing on it. When I wrote down why I hated them then I had to write down my partner wrong.

I wasn't a very good son. I'd stolen from them. I lied to them.

I'd done a lot of things that were hurtful to him. When I got to that part of the amends, it was not going to be that I was going to tell them I had done those things. John said, "If you boil that down, the exact nature of that wrong was you were a lousy child." What's the opposite of a lousy child?

Be a good child. So my job for that amend was I was going to have to be a good son and do the actions necessary, not say things that would solve my soul, the style of my soul, but things that would repair the relationship. And that's what I'd have to do with that sad.

But anyway, I got through that part of the inventory and John had me write down my fears and I put them down and my fears went nuts. I don't know if yours were. I had one fear down there.

I was afraid she was leaving and I had another one down a few lines afraid she wasn't leaving. Oh, no. I didn't have a girlfriend and a wife.

I just had a wife who was the same woman different times a day. >> You see, fears don't have to make sense to nobody. They had to just be the fears I felt.

I put them all down. And I simple fears and complicated. I just wrote them all down.

When I got all done, I I John and I got on our knees cuz that's what the book said to do. And asked God to take them. We got on our knees and asked God to remove the fears.

And I got off my knees still afraid. And I told John that. I said, "What's wrong?

I'm still afraid." He said, "What are you afraid of?" For me, it was being honest, telling him I was afraid cuz I couldn't tell people I was afraid. And I told him that. He said, "What are you afraid of?" I said, "I don't know." And he just sort of chuckled.

He opened up the book. What a fantastic wealth of knowledge hidden in that book. In Bill's story, Bill talks about the fear of impending calamity.

And John took those words that Bill wrote in that sort of Gothic pros and and he said, "That's the fear that something bad's going to happen and you can't stop it. It shows itself when there's a knock on a door and you don't want to answer it." When phone rings and you don't want to pick it up and an envelope comes and there's no return address. He I knew that fear.

God, I knew that fear. He said, "It's an evil and corroding threat. Our lives are shot through with it." That's how Bill writes about it.

I looked at my life and saw how that fear had grown in me. That fear of impending calamity had grown in me from my early teen years until it almost killed me by the time I got here. And we got back on our knees and I said, "God, please take it." And that fear was lifted.

It hasn't stayed away from them till now. You see, periodically it comes back. There'll be a night I'm not sleeping.

There'll be a night that I just can't go to sleep or a time going down the road, it'll just sort of come over me and it just attack me. And I thank God for that. It's a gift when I get that fear because it means there's something I'm not doing that I should be doing or something I am doing that I shouldn't be doing.

And I have to look at my life right then and see what it is and then try and give it to God and ask him to take it. And I have a simple prayer that I pray many, many times in many, many situations. It's simply, God, you take it.

I can't handle it. God, you take it. I can't handle it.

And no matter what crisis is going on, when I pray that prayer over and over again, all of a sudden, I'm waking up. I fell asleep, but I'm waking up or whatever is going on has stopped. It's just gone.

My way of giving it to God is with that prayer. I don't know if it'll work for you or not, but what the hell, try it. Anyhow, I got through with that part of the inventory.

John said, "Now we'll go to sex. Got to talk about sex." All right. I said, "All right." Wrote down how it was, what it was.

He said, "Okay." He said, "Now," he said, "You ask God for direction." He said, "People don't give you advice. Avoid advice." The book said, "Hypherical advice. Avoid the ones that like no flavor.

Avoid the ones that want all pepper fair." He said, "You got to come up with a standard that's going to be good for you and God." And I wrote a standard down. I was going to be the most faithful husband in the world. And I wrote all this stuff down.

I give it to John. And he laughed at me. He said, "You just wrote down a standard you thought I want you to live by." And the truth was I did because I was putting John in that position that he would be my judge.

John said, "God alone is our judge." He said, "Now write down a standard that God wants you to have that you will be able to live up to." And for the first time in my life, I wrote down a standard. Wasn't very much, but then again, it was everything because I had a standard. And I had never had a standard that was attainable before.

I wrote a standard down and I was able to live up to it and I was able to improve on that standard once I laid a standard down. So when you're looking at that fifth that fourth step, all three parts of it, work with someone who's worked the steps the way it's laid out in the book. Avoid I'm not telling you what to do, but I tell you what I did and what I tell people that work me.

If I tell you something ain't in the book, don't do it. You know, I heard that stuff when I got an AA. He said, "Don't get involved for a year." I went to my sponsor, "Can I throw the out?" He said, "Are you crazy?" He said, "Where'd you get that?" He said, "That's in He said, "It ain't in the book." I said, "I heard it in a meeting." He said, "You hear anything in a meeting?" I said, "Oh, that just applies to single people." He said, "Read the book.

Read the book." I sponsor a lot of guys. I don't tell them what to do. Hell, I ain't their judge.

I ain't going to tell him what to do. I don't want that responsibility. I had a guy come to me the other day said, "I'm leaving her." He called me 4 hours later and he was thinking what to do.

It was the same thing I had for fears. I understood it. I couldn't tell him to go or to stay.

It ain't my business. My business I tell them don't drink and go to meetings. That's my business.

I can tell you how not to drink and go to a meeting. I stay out of finance. Stay out of marital stuff.

Stay out of I don't know nothing about it. Guys come say I want to talk about relationships. I said, "Well, who's that with?

your boss or your coworker. Hell, they ain't want to talk about relation. Want to talk about getting Never mind.

Every interaction I have is a relationship. You know, I got to work on all of them. Ain't one more important than another.

And I'm in God's time. Am I going to make mistakes? You're dog on right I am.

And what does it say to do when I'm having trouble in any area? What does it tell me the book tell me to do? Does it say peel another layer off the onion?

Go see a psychotherapist. Hell no. It says work with a drunk.

Work with a drunk. When all else fails, work with a drug. Mary Cler was saying, they said, "Now," I said, "What you do?

Work with someone else who needs help. Get my head out of me and into you." Any I'm getting a little ahead of myself. There I was 13.

You're coming off that drunk. I went back to reform on an indeed sentence, stayed there until I was a little over 17 years old, ran away from there, not because I was rehabilitated, but because I get out of there. And I went down on a skid row and got signed into the Navy by someone I'd never met before.

He pretended to be my father. And I went away to boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center just outside of uh Chicago between Chicago and Milwaukee. And and I remember when I got there, I wrote my parents a letter and told them what I was doing.

They were going to be proud of me. You know, I was going to fight for our country. This is in in 1959.

I things were going to be different. Things were going to be wonderful for 1960, 59 to 60. And things were going to be alltogether different.

And they wrote me back and they told me they were proud of me and they were going to come watch me graduate from boot camp. That ain't a big deal, but it was a big deal to them. And they came up, they rode a Greyhound bus to Chicago, and they they came up to that little train up to where boot camp was and they saw that ceremony and they took me into Chicago on a 12-hour pass.

I remember walking into a bar and restaurant with my father and mother. And God, it felt good. And I was I was going to have this relationship that I'd always wanted with mom and dad.

I was going to be that son that they wanted. That stuff they wrote in the letter meant something. What I wrote to them meant something.

And we walked into that place and my dad sat down and my dad looked at me and he said, "Son, you're not legally old enough to be in the to drink, but you're old enough to be in the service. Would you like something to drink?" My dad was a drinker. And I felt good.

We're going to be drinking, buddy. I looked at him and said, "Yeah, I'll have a beer." And he ordered me one. I remember I got that beer and I took a drink of it and looked at him cuz he ordered himself a cup of coffee and my mother Coca-Cola.

And I said, "What's the matter? Aren't you drinking?" I never knew him not to drink. And my mother looked at me and she had that twinkle in her eyes.

Some of these women get at times from the guy said, "No, your daddy doesn't drink anymore." He's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He's been sober for 3 months. >> Let tell you about my dad.

My dad drank himself out of the radio profession. First job he got after he got sober was weighing garbage at a city garbage dump. He drank himself into into out of everything.

And a guy took him by the hand and carried him to a place called Rosary Hall. And back then, Rosary Hall was run by a none called Cygn Nation. And Cricg Nation, when they check them in, they'd stay 3 to 5 days simply to detox them.

And they detox them by tapering them off liquor. They give them alahhide and they put take them off, taper them off, and then they put them back out on the street into the care of their sponsor. You only got one shot there.

And my dad laid five days in strapped in convulsions. And they thought he would die. And on the fifth day, he came out of convulsions.

He was discharged into the care of his sponsor. And Sister Ignatia gave the old thing, little sacred heart thing that she gave when they left. and said, "Jim, if you go with your sponsor to Alcoholics Anonymous and do what those men and women tell you to do, you will never have to come off another drunk." My daddy went with his sponsor to Alcoholics Anonymous and did what you told him to do.

And he didn't take a drink from then to the day of his death, March 25th, 1981, stayed sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. And there he was, three months sober. And I can only imagine how he felt because I know how I felt at three months sober.

I know he must have wanted to drink. He must still needed to drink. Three months sober, I knew less what I wanted to do.

When I got a point many years later, he put aside all that. It was unconditional love for him to offer offer offer me a drink. But I didn't see that.

You know what I thought? I looked at my watch and thought to myself, how soon can I be away from these people, meet my friends, and drink? You told me later that selfish, self-centerness is the root of my problem.

All I have to do is look at my history to see it. And I got away from these people and met my friends and I drank. And I woke up the same way I woke up the last time I drank.

Same mess, same fear, same not knowing what went on. But I had a new set of situations. I was in the service and it was a alltogether new set of disciplines.

And I went off on a on a ship, CVS Antidum. It's a aircraft car in the Gulf of Mexico, a training ship. I was on that ship and I remember one night I woke up or one morning I woke up and I wasn't on the ship.

I was in a room maybe a third this size and they had windows with big thick screens. It was a nut of the naval hospital in Pensacola, Florida. And they called me before board officers and they gave me a paper and they said if I signed it they would give me an honorable discharge.

If I didn't sign it they court marshal me. No question there. I just signed the paper.

They said what it was is a guarantee that I'd never attempt to reinlist in any of the armed forces as long as I live. I remember the wording of it real clearly. That was 40ome years ago.

And I'll tell you what, I ain't never been back. Don't think I'm going back. But they went on to say that I had what they would to be acute alcoholism.

They said by acute alcoholism mean when you drink you get in trouble. Well hell I know I got in trouble when I drank but they didn't understand why and I couldn't tell them. See I got in trouble when I drank.

Not because of drinking but because of you. If you wouldn't talk talk about me. If you wouldn't pick on me.

If you would leave me alone. If you'd give me a break. It was always you them or that.

And if that had changed I'd be all right. They gave me that paper and I got they told me if I quit then I could have a good life. But if I continued it wouldn't be long and I'd be chronic.

This is just before my 18th birthday. I'm on the camera. Hell, I ain't even shaved yet.

They give me that paper and my final money and I got out of there and I went back to Ohio to see my family to let them know the wonderful son had returned. I always had this dream driving in in a big Cadillac or something. Hell, I hitchhike back up there.

I went out and bought a car that day. It turned I I turned 18 the day I got up there and I bought a car. It was a Studebaker.

Some of y'all don't know what they are. They're a good lucky car. They look like they're coming and going at the same time.

It was six shift. I had never driven. I got a driver's license.

All you had to do was go in there and get a license. I got a license, got a car. I did not bother with things like insurance, registration or stuff like that.

I got the necessities and I went out to celebrate my 18th birthday and I went to a bar and I started to celebrate and I woke up the next morning the way I woke up the last time I drank. But again, it was a different environment. This time I was in a jail.

There were bars on me >> and they came and let me out of jail that morning. on my own recogn because I was a good citizen but my mother happened to be turkey porch in that community and I remember going over to her house and as I walked in my sister was there she's a year younger than I am she was sitting there she had just joined the earthly conduct she was in a vicet and she was sitting there and my mom was crying and she was trying to console her and I looked at my mother and said what's wrong why is she upset I'm thinking to myself why is she crying I should be crying I'm the one that stinks and just got out of jail I'm the one that's sick I should be crying my mother looked at me and I never forget what she said. She said, "You know, your father's been sober." And I call it synonymous.

At that time, it was a number of months. And she said, "We've been blessed. My mother was in her late 40s." She said, "I'm pregnant.

I'm going to have a child. And I'm praying that this child inside of me will be born dead rather than a boy like you." I hated her. I hated her with a hate so deep.

How could she say that to me after all I've done? because that's how I pictured it. She tortured me all my life and then say that to me, I'll never talk to that again.

And I left. They told me I was a lousy sailor, so I joined the merchant marine. I got on my first ship and I went over to Japan.

I went ashore. They came and got me 3 days later out of the Japanese jail. I' I'd fallen in love when I went to see.

I really had. I was with these men that knew how to drink and live and enjoy life. And they were teaching me things that were important about that.

And I went ashore and I take a drink and I came and got they took me back. They put me in the log book. That means you're fired.

They put me in the official ships log. And I was worried about that. And these guys explained to me cuz they were experienced.

This is an old trader. They're experienced. They said we had about 300 ships under union agreement.

Each ship was a separate entity, separate corporation. And by union rules, they could if they fired you from one, they couldn't refuse you on another. Well, 300 ships, normal voyage, 3 to 6 months.

I did the math. I'd be an old man before I'd run out of ships to work on. So my career would be good.

And if it was, I made a lot of money. And I didn't pay you very much back yet, but they didn't give it to you. You didn't get off, get it till you got off.

So I'd be on there three months, four months, 6 months, one time a year, and they give you all these $100 bills when you get off. And that fit me just right. I put it in my pocket, go on a buy a nice suit, go down on a skid roll, and I drink.

When I run out of money, I go back to back to see, sign into the hall, and go back to see. I take other jobs in between, keep going to see it. And life kept getting worse and I wanted it to get better.

I began going up the ladder in the merchant marine, didn't and got a license in the merchant marine cuz I wouldn't drink for periods of time, but when I take a drink, I had no control. And as I went up the ladder, things kept getting worse and I kept feeling worse. And I made a study.

I said, "Well, if I got married and had kids, things would be better. Families don't have the troubles I'm having. I'll just get married and have kids." So, I was sitting in a bar one day shopping for a wife.

And she walked in. She's a little bitty old redhead. Some of y'all met her.

Her name was Von. She was with me when I talked to Gopher State and that was the last place she ever went to with me. But she was with me at Gopher Gopher State and uh she sat down next to me at that bar and looked over at me with I brought love and it turned out it was disgust because I I said, "Well, can I buy you a drink?" And she said, "I don't drink." Well, that was true love.

Hell, I couldn't afford a drinker. I knew that. She bought her Coca-Cola.

I had me another whatever I was drinking. And hauled out all them $100 bills, smeared them out on the bar. And I started lying and she started listening.

I found out why she's mad. She was mad because she had bruises on her neck and a black eye and swoll up. She was married and had a child four years old, four and a half years old, another one that was a year old.

And uh she had a husband that had abused her badly for a number of years, beating her badly. And she hated men. She hated life.

She hated anything to do with alcohol. Now that's a challenge for a drunk. As I lied, she listened.

I proposed to her. If she were here to talk to you, she'd tell you it was about 10 minutes. I think it was a little longer.

Alcoholics take a long time with important decisions. I think 20 minutes sounds far. That's just perspective.

She told me I was crazy. She said, "I she said I'm not even divorced. You're crazy." Make a long story short, that was in 1964.

On October 14th, 1965, uh, she was divorced. And October 15th, 1965, we got married. And I'll tell you about that marriage.

Got married at Candlelight Flower Shop in West Palm Beach, Florida. Had a little chapel there. And I negotiated around town to get married cuz, you know, get the right pricing cuz I didn't have much money left.

I've been off a ship for a while. And I'd been on an enforced period of abstinence. She had told me she wasn't going to marry me if I drank.

So, I just didn't drink for a while. For a period of my drinking career, I didn't drink for periods. I would just not drink for a month or 6 weeks or two months to to accomplish what I had to accomplish.

But when I picked up a drink, I never had control. So as my drinking progressed, those periods got shorter. Anyhow, I hadn't been drinking and then I shopped and this woman married us.

She was adjusted a piece or a notary public and uh they hummed here comes the bride and they gave her a couple of wheels and flowers. It I stayed in a light fame, but it wasn't it was it couldn't afford a lot right then. I thought about marriage and I wanted to be this this champion to this woman.

I wanted to be her knight. I wanted to give her all that her other husband hadn't given her. I wanted to give her security and faithfulness.

I wanted to be a daddy to these kids, a daddy that I hadn't had when I was a child. I remember holding Kim in my arms and just picturing going through life with this daughter of mine. I hadn't made her, but I was she was mine.

I was going to take care of her and protect her. Little Ricky was holding on to my leg. I never forget.

He's holding on to my leg, looking up at me, crying, saying, "Please be my daddy." I know. You know how much I wanted to be his daddy. I'd do anything to be his daddy.

Holding bong, God, I wanted to be your husband. I love that woman. And I thought because I wanted to do it, I could do it.

I didn't know that wanting to wasn't power. It was just a desire. I didn't have the power.

I was powerless, but I wanted to. We got married and they went over to her aunt's house and they had a little reception. I remember walking in and they gave me a glass was a glass of punch.

I took one drink and spit it out. I hate punch. The only way punch fit punch is fit to drink is full of vodka.

I just don't like it. But you celebrate weddings by drinking. I've been to one enough weddings.

Didn't know who got married. I just go to them. But you see, I find news clubs or you know BFW, that's where the weddings are.

Put a suit on. Go to German or Italian. They don't know who the hell you are.

Go in there and pretend you're with the bride of the groom. You can drink all night till you throw a punk punch or puke then you're out of there. I've been to weddings and knew there were times of celebration and drinking and we weren't drinking at ours and I was mad.

So I grabbed this new wife, same wife that said I'm going to be a good husband to grabbed her and left the reception. Stopped at the liquor store and bought a bought a bottle and I began to drink. She wouldn't drink with me.

So I picked the guy up on the side of the road just a bum. And he sat on one side of her and I sat on the other. We passed the bottle back and forth and I woke up the next morning the same way I've been waking up when I drank.

But it was a little different once again. Now, she was laying next to me and she was crying. And there's not an alcoholic nor a spouse or friend of an alcoholic who has not either done this crying or heard this crying.

That deep heart-wrenching sobbing that comes from deep inside. And as you hear it, as I heard it, my chest was exploding, was wanting to stop it, wanting to stop that pain. I looked over at her and said, "What's wrong?" Hell, I knew what was wrong.

Never forget what she said. She said, "I've lived this way before and I will not live this way again." And I took that vow and said, 'I'm sorry. God, I meant it.

Said, 'I'll never behave that way again. Please give me one more chance. And she did.

I told you that was in 1965 on October 16th. My surprise is March the 8th, 1974. It would take me nine years to tell you the hell that went on for that next period of time.

It got worse and worse and worse. A child was born to our union in 1968. Jay, what a blessing.

What a great kid. He's mine. He looks just like me.

At same stage of life, even we look identical. I remember nothing about his birth. Remember very little about his first few years of his life because I stayed drunk.

And I didn't want it to be that way. And the rules that I've been able to implement in my drink for periods of time no longer worked. And I couldn't stop.

And I began to get more and more trouble. And I'd stay away longer and longer. I can only guess at how the marriage stayed together.

I would write letters every day. They'd be long letters. They'd be full of love and full of promises and depth.

And they were not shams. They were real. They weren't fairy tales.

And I meant every word that I penned and she'd get them in batches when I'd be able to mail them off and I know she'd read them because they'd be there at home when I got there and by the time the shift got back in whatever period of time it was, she'd be picking me up at an airport and I'd be coming down the deal because back then I come right where the gates are. I'd be coming off the plane and she'd be there with all three of them kids and that smile on her face, sparkle in her eyes until I got close enough where she could smell me. and she'd smelled me and see that I was drunk and the hope went out of her eyes like you threw ice water on her and it got worse.

We were losing everything. And in 1974, on March the 7th of 1974, I found myself knocking on a man's back door 1,200 miles away from where we lived. When he answered the door, the first words out of my mouth were, "I think I have a problem drinking." I have no idea where that came from.

I had never said that to anyone. When doctors said I was dying, when employers said they were they blackled me out of the nursery marine for chronic alcoholism and I said it wasn't drinking that caused the problem. I never admitted it.

Everyone always would say for the first time in my life I said I think I have a problem drinking. And this man laughed and it wasn't a cruel laugh. It was a laugh.

Just a heart laugh. And he said come on in. And he took me into his house and took me back to his study.

sat me down on the couch, reached into his desk and gave me a copy of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, "Open it up." And I did. And there were words written on the fly leaf and ink.

It said, "If you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, God will help." And it was signed, "Love, Dad." And that book had laid in his desk for a period of time before I got there. You see, he'd gone to meetings, I heard later, he'd go to meetings and tell you about me. He'd tell you how his son was killing himself, destroying his family, ruining the career.

is he told you the gory deals details of all what was going on. You did not tell him to intervene or interfere. You said leave him alone.

Thank God he didn't wind up with one of these people that says interfere. You said leave him alone because if you say anything, he'll ignore it. He's ignored everything else you've ever told him.

Thank God he listened and he never said anything to me. There'll be pamphlets laying around for different periods, but he never said anything to me. And then that night he did not give me the message.

rather he said, "Come with me and we'll go to a meeting." And I wouldn't go because I was drunk. And I told him that. He said, "I'll take anyone to their first meeting drunk.

Come on." But I wouldn't go. So he wrote two numbers down on a piece of paper. Put he said, "Put them in your bill fold." He said, "Tomorrow morning," he said, "when you wake up, if you wake up and if you would rather be sober than be drunk, call one of these numbers before you take a drink and then meet me at 7:00 and we'll go to a meeting." And I put those numbers in my pocket.

And I went out that night and I drank. And I've carried numbers in my pocket from then until now. Now, I carried them in the cell phone, but they're always there.

I got numbers, I'll tell you that. But I went out that night and I drank. And I don't know where I went or what I drank or what I did, but I know I woke up the next morning like I was always waking up by then.

You see, the last few years of my drinking are all in and out of fog. I wasn't drunk every single day, but I was drinking or thinking of drinking or coming off a drunk and wanting to drink every single day. That last few years, there were no periods of sobriety that I know of.

None. And that morning, I woke up and I physically needed a drink. craved it and it was right next to me because I never went to bed without a drink next to me because I had to have it.

And I woke up that morning and as badly as I wanted it, I didn't want it just a little bit more. And we see the slogans around our meeting rooms, you know, and the one that has so much importance to me. They're all important, but one that really strikes me is that one butt for the grace of God.

And I think of that word grace. You know, grace comes from a Latin word that means God's un asked for gift. I hadn't prayed to God.

I had not said, "God, help me." I told a man, "I think I have a problem drinking. That's as close as I can ever get to God going through a human being." Humans are not gods, but they're the his intermediary. And I said, "I think I have a problem." And God gave me that gift.

That gift that he's given every alcoholic in this room, no matter how long or short you're sober. And it was a gift given to me with with a responsibility. A responsibility that I do all that I can to keep it or I'll lose it.

I had to stand that spark of a desire in an all-consuming flame for sobriety. That first day, I couldn't do much. Hell, I just didn't drink.

She took me to a hospital. And that wasn't a hospital where they give you fancy stuff like they do now. They use vitamin B12 back then.

You got a series of shots of it. They said it helped with your nerves. I don't know if it did or not, but I didn't drink.

I can remember them needles though. Left cheek. There's a spot there that twinges when I think about it.

And she got me there and they gave me that shot. And then they told her, "Give them honey and orange juice. That'll do the same thing that alcohol does in his system.

It'll help him and give him vitamins. So, we didn't get along. She got kro syrup and orange juice.

Now, I know it don't get as cold up uh you know in Cleveland as it does up here in March, but picture March, you know, about 25° and you put chunks of Kro syrup and orange juice. It's like road tart. It's froze.

It cuts through a throat when you swallow it. They said, "Drink it." And I drank it. I don't know if it helped me or not, but it mostly cuz I didn't have to drink.

And then they told her, they said, "Whenever he gets a little mousy, a little ory, give him candy. Candy will smooth that out." She got the biggest sack of star balls you ever seen. I'm not sure when I think about it.

Just a hint, if you're working with a newcomer, get chocolate. Turtles are nice. Good turtles.

Something nice. You know what I mean? Love and tolerance.

That's what we not. And I met my dad that night and we went to a meeting and it was a meeting much like this. Smaller, but just like this with men and women there.

We we we met in the bank, I think it was there, or a hospital. I came over. We got to the back door and there was a guy standing there with a baseball cap on.

It was sort of a snowy night and he had a Levi jacket on, a baseball cap on and just looked like someone off the street and and the guy stuck his hand out and grabbed mine and my father said, "That's Jimmy and he's your sponsor." My father went in and I got this yo-yo hanging on to my hand. I pray God I never forget it. Jimmy gave me alcohol synonyms.

He said to me, he said, "My name's Jimmy and I'm glad to meet you." And I just knew that he was. And I'll tell you what his hand felt like. His hand was firm and it was warm and it was dry.

It was the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I know what mine felt like. And I felt some of my hand that tonight.

It was wet and it was cold. It was scary. I didn't want to be there.

Didn't know what I was or what I wasn't. But I felt the warmth of his handshake. And then he began to do something nobody else had ever done.

began to talk to me about him. Not about me. Talk to me about him.

Talk to me about how he drank. Boy, he came from West Virginia. He worked in a coal mine.

Then he worked in Ohio in a automobile plant. We had nothing in common. Not work, not politics, not religion, nothing.

But as he talked to me about how he drank and where it took him, what happened with his family, I knew that he'd experienced what I'd experienced and thought like I thought and felt like I felt. And then he told me something I didn't hardly believe. He hadn't had a drink in two years.

And then the meeting started and some guy told a story much like I was telling mine. I don't know what the guy said. All I remember is laughing.

That's all I remember. That meaning I can remember it now. And I've since learned laughter is the healthiest thing I can do.

I can inventory my ass off and be miserable. And if I laugh, I'm okay. I mean, laughter is.

You can't think when you're laughing. Try and think and laugh. You can't do it.

You can't be mad and laugh. And there's something about it. There's a thing that goes on when we laugh.

They say endorphins get loose. I don't know what the hell they are. I ain't educated.

But, you know, people run for miles to get them loose. All you got to do is laugh. I mean, it's a great thing.

People take a chemical to make all you got to do is laugh and they're happening. So I believe laughter is healthy and it was healthy that night. I didn't I didn't drink.

And then they told me after the meeting he introduced me to guys. They're all shaking my hand saying, "Keep coming kid. You'll be all right.

Keep coming kid. You'll be all right." And he introduced me as one old guy there. His name was Frank.

Frank Turk. Frank Turk was sober longer than God. God.

He was sober about 27 years, 26 years. He was an old man. He was 50ome years old.

He was bald. He had a grally voice. He said to me, "Keep coming, kid.

You'll be all right." He said, "By the way, this is Joe." In this grabling voice, this, you know, he said he's sober 3 days or 3 weeks, whatever. Real short period of time. I looked at him.

This is the guy I wanted. It's a 26, 27 years of lie. How do you stay sober 3 days or a week?

How do you do that? I fascinated. Let me tell you about Frank.

You know, I got heroes now anonymous. A hell of a lot of them. You know, uh, we were talking about them this week, Tom and Susie and I, and Scott, but my heroes are people in AA.

They're not person. They're people. And this Frank's a hero.

I've seen him over the years. I go over to visit family in Ohio. And I was up there a couple years ago and I'd go to a meeting on the near east side.

And there's Frank. He's still old and he's still bald and he's still got that grally voice. He shrunk a little bit though.

He ain't as tall as he was. Christ, he's in his 80s. But, but I remember I went up to him and I said, "Frank, you remember me?" He said, "Hell yeah, kid.

I remember." He said, "Keep coming. You're going to be all right." He said, "By the way, this is Rob or Joe or whatever." He said, "I'm sponsoring them. You've got 10 days." I look at Frank amazed.

I said, "Frank, you're still sponsoring guys 50 some years over." Ah, hell Kitty says, "I don't want to. I need drivers. I can't drive no more.

if you want what we have in any life together. >> Jimmy talked to me that night and he told me, he said, "Jay, how do you feel?" And I told him, I told him I was sick and I was scared. He said, and I I was as honest as I could and was more honest than I'd ever been.

He didn't make me tell him I was an alcoholic. I just said I was sick and I was scared. He said, "I will promise you something.

If you will do three things on a daily basis, I will guarantee you'll never have to come off another drunk. Will you do them? I said, "Yeah, what are they?" I'd have done anything.

He said, "In the morning when you get up, say, "God, help me not drink today." If you can go to a meeting of alcoholics anonymous, he said, "Now you're a seaman. You'll probably go back to see times you can't go. Maybe a week, a month, whatever.

You won't be able to go. But if you can go and when you go to bed at night every night, say, "Thank you God for a sober day." He said, "Well, you do it." I said, "Jimmy, I can do the business of meetings, but I can't pray." I know I'd lost whatever faith I had as a kid. Whatever thoughts were in me about God were gone.

There might have been a God, but there was nothing I could pray to. I had traded off all of that inside of me. I was dead spiritually.

And I told him, "I can't pray." And I remember he laughed again. That laughter of alcoholics anonymous. And he said, "Hell kid, you don't have to pray.

Just say the words. >> You don't even have to mean them. Just say them.

Will you do it?" And I said, "Yeah, I would." And I've done that on a daily basis from then until now. the second day in alcoholic synonymous. And don't get nervous.

I ain't taking you through 31 years. A day at a time. There's couple points that are real important.

Unless you want me to stop. On the second day, we're on our way to a meeting. And back then, they didn't say, "What are you doing tomorrow night?" He just said, "I'm picking you up.

We're going to a meeting. I'll pick you up at 7 7:00." I didn't know I had a choice till I was sober two weeks. Wasn't like I had a pressing social calendar or anything either.

Anyhow, he's taking me to a meeting that night. We're on our way to meet and he said, "G, you had a drink since last night, and I looked at him like he was nuts. How the hell could I have had a drink?" I'm thinking to myself, I didn't tell him that.

But you didn't drop me off till 2 or 2:30 in the morning. Called me at 6:00. I get that damn shot.

Called me when I got back from the hospital, called me at noon, called me at 4:00, picked me up at 7:00. Wouldn't know. And every time I went, there was someone I'd seen.

But, you know, I didn't say that, though. I said, "No, of course not." And he looked at me and he said, "That's fantastic." He said, 'You know, you just stayed sober the absolute longest period of time you'll ever have to stay sober. I thought he was out of his mind.

He lost it. He said, "No." I said, "One day." He said, "That's all we got. One day." He didn't tell me 90 and 30 or whatever the hell they say in these places.

He said, "One day. That's all I got today is one day." Yeah, I got a lot of time between my me and my last drink, but I'm just as close to my next one as anyone here. And the deal is that I got one day today.

Today. And I got that and all I have to do is concentrate on today. And with that statement, he took away every excuse I have to drink today cuz I had yesterday to prove that it will work today.

Anyhow, about two weeks into this program, I was getting ready to go back to Florida and we're on our way back to a meeting and or way back from a meeting and I looked over at Jimmy and said, "Jimmy, I still don't believe in this God stuff." And again, he sort of laughed and he said, "Jay," he said, "Tonight was the first night you've done anything in AA except drink the coffee and stick crumbs at people when you ate the donuts." What was it? I said, "Well, I read the traditions." He said, "Before you read them, what did you say?" I said, "I'm Jay and I'm an alcoholic." And he asked me what I thought an alcoholic to be. And at that point, I accepted what you told me in the book, what the doctor says about the phenomenon of craving, obsession, the mind.

I knew I had that allergy. I knew I had that allergy. I knew I was different.

I accepted. And I was telling him that with a lot of conviction and he sort of laughed and he said, "I know you are." He said, "I want to make sure you knew you were." He said, "A lot of times guys your age that are young," he said, "When you get sober, you start forgetting real quick." He said, "Never forget the day you came off your last run." And I haven't from that day to this forgotten that. But anyhow, he said, "How long has it been since you had your last drink?" And I told him, I knew that it minute how long been 13 days, whatever.

And I told him, he said, "Man, that's great." He said, "You've been doing what I told you every morning and every night?" I said, "Yeah, I have." And you haven't had a drink in what it was, 13 days, a day at a time. I said, "Yes, that's fantastic." He says, "By the way, when was the last time you've been this long without a drink? A day at a time." And I can only share you with this with you.

A feeling came over me. An awareness came over me that I knew there was a power. There was a power that was personal to me that today I call God.

That power had shown itself by allowing me not to drink when I wanted to drink for that unbelievably long period of time or 12, 13, 14 days when I wanted to drink every minute of the day. I thought about I'd say thank you God for a sober day thinking in my head I wish I'd have been drunk. I'd say God help me not drink saying I'm going to drink today.

But I would say the words and I hadn't had to drink. And I knew in that moment when he brought that to my attention that there was a power that power was personal to me and that allowed me not to drink. And all I'd had to do was be willing to say words I didn't believe to someone I didn't believe in or about.

From the time of being willing that very first day to the awareness that I saw in that night to this moment has been a miracle that would literally take 31 years to describe. God has become the allimportant influence in my life and my life changed. I told you what happened a year and a half.

So I went back to sea. I worked on ships. I went into business.

I went broke. All the stuff happens once I started working the steps. Things started happening.

I took my inventory on Wednesday. On Thursday, I took a fifth step, went back home and worked six and seven. On Friday, I was making amends and things started happening.

I called my mother on Saturday. I hadn't talked to her in a long, long time. I said, "Mom, this is Jay." She said, "I know who you are." I said, "I've been meaning to call you." Yeah.

I told you that amend was going to be that I'd be a loving son. I couldn't be a loving son because I hated her. He said, "Act as if." I said, "I've been meaning to call you, but I got to run now.

I'll call later." And I began to call my mother every Saturday or Sunday from then until the day she died. And I managed to build a relationship with my mother. And I learned to love my mother.

And I learned to like my mother. I learned to make small talk with her about crafts and about stuff that I don't care nothing about because I wanted to build a relationship as a loving son. My mom died in 1999.

She died in February. She died of diabetes. They had done a series of operations over the four years before she died where they cut her off an inch at a time.

There wasn't nothing left but stumps when she died. And and she knew I'd been up to see her many times and and I got a call from her. He said, "Would you come up one more time?" My sister goes and said, "Mom wants to see you." And I flew back up to see her again.

But then I was living in South Carolina. I pulled up to see her and and uh as I walked into the hospital room, anyone's been in a room where someone was dying, you know, they got that terrible music playing real creepy and the nurse and doctors harping around. I walked in there and and that room lit up like you put a search light in there, mom smiling at me.

And the nurse looked over at her, said, "Rita, that was mom's name." Said, "Rita, this must be your son Jay you're telling us about." And my mom said, "Yeah, that's my son Jay." And you know, he's the best son a mother could ever have. And he gives me so much love. And you gave me that.

You didn't let me tell her I was sorry. You didn't let me tell her about the things I'd done. She knew what I'd done.

You told me to be a loving son. That's how you amend it. That's repairing it.

My wife and I were fantastic wife. God, she's wonderful. Those kids are great.

You know, they're great. I don't even This daughter, she's suffering in her own private hell. I don't know where she is.

She knows I love her, but she's just going through stuff that we don't know what's going on. Just the oldest son, he's fantastic. Doing great.

Works on to boats, has a family. The littlest guy, little Jay, he's in charge of he works for Adidas for some big company lives in Mexico. All of them give me grandkids.

I mean, just great. Everything's wonderful. My wife was fantastic.

We had the same crap in our marriage. Every marriage has good days and bad days. Depends on the day.

It was a good marriage, normal, healthy. In 1994, I had a business going in Myrtle Beach. She lives in North Carolina in that big beautiful house with all the stuff.

We had no insurance and I get a phone call in August 1994 to get up there. She's in the hospital. I get up there, she had a massive stroke, followed by a major heart attack.

They found that she had a disease inside of her that was devastating. It wasn't cancer. It was a advanced athoscerosis.

She was 90 years underneath her skin. They said that she was going to die at some time in the future. might be a day, might be they didn't know how long and they said our life would go downhill.

As I held, I just didn't know what was going to happen. We were very successful at that time and everything we had went. Every material thing we had went from then until July 12th of 2000.

My wife was an active member of Alan. By the time she by the time she had the stroke, we had I had gone to the goal that I wanted to attain in our marriage. I was a good husband.

I was a faithful husband. I gave her security and I was able to care for her. From 94 to 2000 was a tough time for her.

It was a wonderful time for us. I got to be a loving husband. She had 11 more strokes, two major heart attacks, breast cancer.

She died of renal failure in my arms. The last conference she came to was a gopher state in 2000. Had to wheel her in and out with a wheelchair.

just wanted we wanted to be together but she would have let me not go cuz I committed to going before she went downhill so fast at the end. My wife loved Alcoholics Anonymous and loved Alan. She was active in two years before she died.

She started an Alan group 80 miles from home. There's another woman to drive her up here every Tuesday but they helped this meeting start. Said they do it for a year and then they were on their own.

They all knew she loved what the programs do for us. We'd pray every day. She'd ask God to help her with this fear that was in her.

She didn't want to die. She knew it was coming. She's afraid of it and she was just scared.

She would talk about it. She'd pray about it. And I'd break something for her to eat.

She'd try and eat and we'd pray together. You know, we'd had to thank God for what we had. And we enjoyed life as best we could.

Our son was going to get married and death was coming and we thought it'd be a little longer. And any I had to call hospice in on July 11th. And and when I called hospice in because I just couldn't I couldn't get anything to ease her anymore.

And they came in on July 11th about noon and I was moving stuff out of the bedroom into the office so the people wouldn't take souvenirs and thought there might be a couple weeks left. And anyhow, uh, I remember as I got everything, all the jewelry and stuff, putting it away, just, you just putting it up and there's a little box on the dresser and I remember shaking it and I it was money in it. I heard money, you know, paper in it.

I figured there's a raffle, you know, and we all raffle once in a while, I guess. And I just thought, well, she got a little money hidden on finally I said, "Well, I'm open to see what's in there." And there's a little padlock on. I sat on the bed and I start prizing the padlock off and just one piece of paper in there.

And I and I said it's so weird looking at it because I'd never looked in her purse or wallet in all of our marriage. She'd never looked in mine. We'd had that kind of relationship.

Drunk or so was just just how it was. We respected each other's privacy. And I looked at that paper.

I'd always wondered, my wife didn't go to church. I tried going a number of times to a number of churches in sobriety to improve my relationship with God. I never really knew how she was with her God.

And I was hoping that it was right. She taught me so much about God and about love. I read that paper, took out that B box with a God box and there was one prayer in there said, "Dear God, please take away this awful fear and help me to accept your plan for me." It was how she signed it that really let me know where she was with her God.

She signed it with all my love bomb. I pray to my God daily, many times during the day. I don't answer.

I don't end my prayer saying with all my love, Jay. I think of how unselfish she was in her relationship with her God. And I knew that she'd be fine.

I went over to her and held her, put my arms around her, and I told her that I loved her and I wish I'd been a better husband. And she looked up at me and said, "I thank God that he gave you to me as a husband." And she died and I miss her. I got a phone call that the next morning from Sterling, a very close friend of mine in AA.

He told me, he said, "Jay," he said, "She's gone and you're not." Our son was getting married in Mexico and I went down there and was able to be his dad and mom at that wedding. I came back home and we had the funeral and I couldn't get in the room for all yay and mounds that were there. Do I miss her?

Sure, I do. But I've gone on a year, a year and a half after she dead. Too quickly it was for me.

I married again and it was a mistake. It was disaster for both of us. I didn't even like the woman I married.

I don't know why the hell I married her. It was sort of like golf. I play golf and it was like God gave me a mulligan and I hit it into the swamp.

I don't It's not her fault, you know. It's not her fault. She's fine.

If it was me, you know, it's me, my partner. That marriage is done. Be finished up in another month or so.

You know, the divorce. It's fine. Life is fantastic.

You know why? Because I'm sober and allowed to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm allowed to share with you my shortcut.

I'm not here to take a fifth step. I'm here to tell you what I was like, what happened to what I'm like now. Two stories, not finished.

My dad and I, no relationship with him. He was unemotional guy. He was not a close man.

I wanted to make amends to him. I'd ask my sponsor. My dad was dying in the late '7s, early 80s.

He had cancer. He wouldn't let any of his kids near him. And I'd asked my sponsor, "What can I do about my dad?" My sponsor would say, "Do what a loving son does." And I said, "What's that?" And he said, "If you're a loving son, you'll know." I'm blessed.

I never had sponsors tell me what to do. They said things like, "You make the decision because if you burn your ass, you sit on the blister." I sort of like that. Unless some other bones will make a decision, I ain't got to be responsible.

So, I done what I was supposed to do. I was a loving son. I allowed my dad to die with dignity.

And I never knew how we stood, but I got a card in the mail on my eighth day on my seventh day birthday. And this card came and I opened it up and I couldn't read it with scribbles. All I could see is love dad.

And a letter fell out, three-page letter from my mom. She said, "It's important you know what your dad was trying to say. He loved you and he wanted you to know how important it was on your a birthday and he took himself off off medication.

He tried to write a letter to you and his hand wouldn't work with his mind." And my father was an intellectual snob who was a very literate man and he couldn't make it come out. And she said, "You you tell me and I'll write it and you copy." And he tried to do it. He couldn't do it.

At that point, he looked up. He said, "Reed, I'm a sick man. I know I'm going to die soon." At that moment, he accepted his coming death.

But my mom said it's important you know what the words were that he wrote. And it said, "Dear son," shedding in quotes. "Dear son, congratulations on your AA birthday." What a glorious and wonderful day.

And how can we ever be grateful enough to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for all that it's given us. It's given us a loving God who's returned lost son and rediscovered lost father. And I hang on to that a lot of times when I'm going through different things in life.

How can I be grateful enough to this deal we call alcoholics anonymous. Made some commitments to that. One is I realized what it is.

God gave a set of principles to some men and women and put it down in a book who gave it to you who gave it to me. All of us charged with the same responsibility that we do nothing to change it, nothing to alter it, nothing to tweak it, make it better, but to leave it just the way it was when we got it. Alcohol is anonymous.

So, if there's a place for a person like you or me to go to find a God to give us everything, thank you so much for the God you need. 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.