AA Speaker – Bud M. – Paramount, CA – 1999
AA speaker Bud M. from Paramount shares his journey from child actor to criminal life, jail, and finding sobriety through working the 12 steps and his sponsor’s guidance.
Bud M. from Paramount, California came into AA straight out of jail in 1953 after reading the Big Book during a six-month sentence. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through decades of crime, multiple arrests, the moment he read the book and thought “this describes me,” and how his sponsor Duke Carson showed him a way of life that turned everything around—his family, his career, his self-respect.
Bud M., an AA speaker from Paramount, shares his story of childhood as a child actor in Our Gang comedies, followed by years of crime, jail time, and multiple felonies before getting sober in 1953. He describes reading the Big Book in jail, finding a sponsor named Duke Carson, and working the 12 steps as the foundation for rebuilding his life and family relationships. Bud details how staying sober allowed him to become general manager of a trucking company, repair his relationships with his children, and develop lasting friendships in the fellowship.
Episode Summary
Bud M. opens with a clear definition: “I’m a person who cannot control and enjoy my liquor drinking.” What follows is a remarkable story spanning from his childhood as a freckle-faced kid in Our Gang comedies—earning good money in the 1930s while his parents became alcohol-dependent themselves—to decades of theft, armed robbery, escape from reform school, jail time, and a life spent running from the law.
The turning point wasn’t dramatic in the way outsiders might expect. Bud came into AA not because he hit some famous rock bottom, but because a judge commented, “This man seems to have quite an alcoholic problem,” and he had nothing else to lose. While serving six months in jail for robbing the Southern California Gas Company, he picked up the Big Book from a bookcase. He wasn’t looking for recovery—he was just reading everything available. But the book described him so completely—his feelings, his patterns, the person he was—that it unsettled him deeply.
When he got out, unemployable and owing roughly $10,000 in restitution, he called the AA number listed in the phone book. The voice on the other end asked, “Have you had a drink yet?” and told him to get to a meeting. At that first AA meeting, Bud observed what would become his path forward: a man with 38 days sober, and most importantly, his future sponsor Duke Carson, who spoke about sitting on the edge of the bed at 3 a.m., wondering why he drank—something Bud had done countless times but never heard anyone else describe.
Bud wanted what Duke had: respect, friendships, money in his pocket, and people who liked him. He decided to do whatever Duke had done. This sponsorship became the foundation of his recovery. Duke never made his decisions for him. Instead, Duke taught him: “If your brother were in your shoes, what would you want him to do?” And: “Never do anything you couldn’t sit down at the dinner table and tell your wife and kids about.”
Two years and five days after coming into the program, Bud got hired at a trucking company where he’d worked before—on the condition that if he drank, don’t come back. He stayed 30 years and became general manager. He went back to school to learn the business. He stopped burning bridges. His three children—who became an attorney, a director of research and technology for Time Warner, and a talented musician—grew up with a sober father who loved them. His marriage, which had been three years drinking and 43 years sober, became the bedrock of his life.
Beyond his personal recovery, Bud became part of the institutional fabric of AA in Southern California. He helped design the court card system that judges use to verify AA attendance. He was instrumental in founding Cider House and other AA meeting spaces. He worked with a retired judge who became his best friend—an unlikely friendship between a judge and a former convict.
What’s striking about Bud’s share is his honesty about the steps. He doesn’t romanticize them. The Fourth and Fifth Steps meant writing down humiliating things: stealing his kid brother’s credit card, hawking his mother’s furniture, robbing a service station. The Eighth and Ninth Steps were about facing people he’d harmed and making things right—like the 27 dollars he owed a gas station attendant. He kept his original inventory in a nickel notebook and still adds to it. The Sixth and Seventh Steps taught him to ask for help removing character defects. The Eleventh Step scared him because it sounded “churchy,” but he reframed it: prayer is “a good unselfish wish,” and that quiet voice inside him—the one he’d been ignoring his whole life—was God talking to him all along.
By the end of his talk, recorded in 1999, Bud had been sober for 46 years. He played golf, made a little money with his gambling buddies, and felt the presence of his late wife in the fellowship of people who loved him. He didn’t claim perfection. He claimed something rarer: a way of living that transformed not just his sobriety, but his character, his relationships, and his ability to look people in the eye.
Notable Quotes
I’m a person who cannot control and enjoy my liquor drinking, and it’s as simple as that.
I found out in Alcoholic Anonymous the farther down you’d gone, the higher up you were.
If you never do anything that you can’t sit down at the dinner table and tell your wife and kids about, you’ll never do anything wrong.
There isn’t anybody that I’m ashamed of today that I can’t look at. I’m not afraid to answer the phone or the doorbell because I have made amends.
Alcoholic Anonymous is the greatest thing on the face of the Earth, and no drunk should be without it.
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Sponsorship
Hitting Bottom
Step 10 – Daily Inventory
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Sponsorship
- Hitting Bottom
- Step 10 – Daily Inventory
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe we hope to always remain an adree podcast so if you’d like to help us remain self-supporting please visit our website at sober-remix than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today’s speaker well hi everybody I’m Bud McDonald I’m an alcoholic when I say I’m an alcoholic I’m saying I’m a person who cannot control and enjoy my liquor drinking and it’s as simple as that that’s what alcoholism is the inability to control enjoy your liquor drinking uh I came into Alcoholics Anonymous out of jail read the book while I was in jail why I don’t know the judge made the comment when I went to jail that time that this man seems to have quite an alcoholic problem and I thought he was crazy you know an alcoholics a bumbling on in the gutter on skidrow and I wasn’t one of those and uh I had never been arrested for plain drunk I got busted twice for drunk driving had the money in my pocket to bail out and they used to hold you that magic 5 hours and then Turn You Loose if you had the bail money and hell I’d be as drunk when I left as I was when they busted me you know but I was arrested many times for many different crimes and felonies of various sorts and did time for him I I’ve had a very interesting life and uh I look back at my life and it was interesting when I was a child I was in the movies I was in the Our Gang comedies and I was Buddy the little freckleface kid with Jackie Cooper and all those guys and uh we were spoiled rotten people just you know uh You’ have thought we were president of the United States or something they really really everybody just kissed our butt I i’ sneeze and I get my paper name in the local paper that child star ill You Know It uh this is what the that did for me and and my mother and father uh it was big money in those days it’s nothing now but in those days my dad would have been tickled to get a job for a buck a day and I’m earning 10 bucks a day in the movies you know and that’s 50 bucks a week and I was on the radio and made good money for that time my folks were able to pay the their house off my dad bought a little restaurant was bootlegging out the back door and when prohibition was repealed he bought a got a liquor license and started a bar and he and my mother became their own best customers you know and uh my dad was the kind of a drunk I always wanted to be my dad dad was a real jovial nice guy when he was when he was drinking cold so he asked him for a dime to go to the show and he’ tell you he didn’t have it if he had a couple of drinks he’d say yeah he give you a quarter you know this the kind of drunk he was my mother was just the opposite sober my mother was the sweetest kindest person in the world would you give her a couple of drinks and she could start a fight in an empty room I mean she was a violent drunk used to scare the out of my brothers and I you know and this I used to I I remember God I remember one time down San Diego or in in Tijuana they went down there because the were it was Prohibition days up here and they had the Cantinas down there and my two brothers and I they had an old 1921 Dodge that was about as tall as a goddamn street car one them great big old square boxes we went down and we kids under the threat of death I think had to stay in the car while they went into the canteen and got drunk drunk and coming home my mother was beating on my father and cursing him and all kinds of stuff you know and my brothers and I were in the backseat just frightened as little kids could be because of this action going on up there and I used to think it boy I don’t ever want to be that way and yet I wound up that way because I found booze and booze had become my best friend I was about 12 or 13 years old my parents had been divorced or separated by that time and divorced and my mother took my two brothers and I ran away from the movies and everything else and took us up to Oregon she had an aunt and uncle up there she thought would take us in and we got up there and they pointed to the Berry Fields and says go and sin no more you know and we went out and became fruit tramps picking berries here she is with three little kids three little boys and my kid brother was too small to do any good and so my older brother and I and my mom picking berries kept us alive at that time and people would say you know my mother or somebody would say that he used to be in the movies well why ain’t he in the movies now and I used to wonder you know why ain’t I what what’s wrong with me there must have been something wrong with me for I’m no longer being spoiled I’m no longer uh the center of Attraction what’s wrong with me and this is the way I felt and I was afraid I was afraid to fight I was afraid to do anything you know and we uh my older brother we came back to California and my mother recovered the house my dad took off and and luckily it was paid for so we didn’t get evicted all we had to do with sweat the taxes out on it which were minimal in those days and my uh two brothers and I we hung around with each other a little bit my older brother and I didn’t never did get along he wanted to be the boss he was the father figure because he had no longer there and he wasn’t quite 2 years older than me and I was the same size of him could kick his ass anytime I wanted to you know and then but he wanted to be the boss and we never did get along my kid brother and I got along real well but I hung around with my older brother and his crowd because I wanted to be with the older guys and we had a guy in our neighborhood named Forest Dawson an Old Forest I think he started shaving when he was seven by the time by the time he was 13 he looked like he was 35 and he could buy booze you know he could go to the had a little Winery down on Florence Avenue over there that he go down and used to take your own jug and for 39 cents they’d give you two quarts of wine you know in this half gallon jug and we get half muskil half toet and we call it toothpaste well I guess I’ll brush my teeth and that was the thing to do was be able to lift that thing up and put your finger in here and do it like that you know and so among my brother’s friends was a guy named Harold Butler this guy used to pick on me all the time used to pinch me and punch me and I was scared to death of him he was bigger and older and stronger than I was and I was his favorite object to to harass and one day I’ve had four or five slugs of this toothpaste that were this wine that we call tooth ho I brush my teeth you know I had four or five slugs of this stuff and Butler showed up and I was always afraid of him but he did something that upset me and I smacked him in the mouth and he come after after me like he was going to kill me and he could hit me and it didn’t hurt for the first time I wasn’t afraid of him and I kicked his ass and I had found what I needed that removed the fear I had of that guy and this is what booze did for me and I like the effect I got from it never did care for the taste of it I puked up as about half of everything I ever drank and because I never did like the taste but I loved the effect that I got from it and I drink booze and I would be smart good-looking ladies man you know go to the dances and I’d be cold sober night I couldn’t dance this in the Jitterbug days couple of drinks and I thought it was freddish stare man you know and this is what booze did for me but it also got me into trouble he got me kicked out of bell High School I and a couple of guys we it was just a big joke you know we locked the gardening teacher in the tool shed and set fire to it you know so they sent us thees High School never let me come back to Bell the other two guys they let him come back to Bell but they’d had enough of me at at Bell high school and uh so then I took off one summer and I and another guy and we went to Washington Oregon and Washington were hone all over the west and we wind up up broke and Tapped Out way up in Okanagan County Washington and I stole a car and this buddy of mine didn’t know how to drive but I let him drive anyway and we got got caught but in the meantime we had robbed a service station we stopped we were about out of gas we stopped and got some service gas from one of the old things they used to have pump the gas like that you know and my buddy’s out there shooting the with this guy pouring gas in the car and I went in there to steal some candy bars or something cuz we were hungry and I went behind the counter and he had a gun back there and so we held him up locked him in the toilet and we took off well we get caught they take us down to Chalan or the Chalan County Jail up at down at wachi and they send up to Okanagan for somebody to come down and get it and the deputy sheriff great big dude and the sheriff’s son came down one to drive the car we’d stolen back and the other to drive the police car so this Deputy is in the police car I’m in the car we stole they got us handcuffed and and with a belt in a loop on it the belts Buckle in the back you can’t get loose from it and I’m sitting there and this gun is right underneath me and I know it and I’m scared to tell him about it you know my buddy cops to this deuty Sher man honx his hor and pulled over he pulled me out of that car and I have never I’ve been beat up pretty good A couple of times but never like I was that time I don’t know how many my ribs he broke but I was just in terrible terrible shape when he got through with me and I go up in that Okanagan County Jail never did see a doctor about it eventually I began to heal up I guess and and uh my ribs are still all crooked here from where I had been worked over and uh I got a great love for policemen at that time you know and so I uh that was my first time of doing any time I went to reform school for that and see they’re about ready to get out of reform school I I’m complete what they call complete they started with a whole bunch of demerits and you work your way out for good Behavior you do this and that and the other thing I had been captain of the company I was in and you get like 30 extra merits a month for that you know and everything and then I was complete and I was ready if somebody would come up with the money to get me back to California I could get out of there but nobody in my family had that much money at that time for a bus ticket to Los Angeles and I decide I and another guy decideed we’ll take off and we uh but I’m in charge of the sleeping quarters of all the guys in a company and I’m the night Watchman I get to sleep during the day and I’m up supposed to be watching them and this guy and I We snuck out down the back of the place when over about a 10 foot fence and on the way down I jumped backwards and I broke my ankle and I didn’t know it but I run about five miles through the woods with that broken ankle limping and hurting like hell but I’m free I’m loose and we get out to the highway and start hitching jacking and the first car along was the sheriff of that County and we’re standing out there in the State issue you know well you NE big neon sign the clothes we were wearing right from The Joint you know so anyway they took me back and then they busted our ass there real good and when I say busted your ass take all your clothes off you got your shoes and socks on and you bend over and they bust your ass with these big belts that they use to run the machinery and the laundry you know and some of those guys man they could take a fly off here ass with that thing if they wanted to they could cut you they could do and so they made hamburger out of our butts and about 3 or 4 days later my leg is by this time swollen up like that and they finally took me to a doctor and put a cast on the goddamn thing and I eventually got out of that reform school and got back to California and I minded my own business I pulled some chicken stuff and everything else but this was in the 30s and uh the war broke out and I went to the Marine Cor and luckily for me I got an honorable discharge out of the Marine Corps but I was in trouble they took me out the briig to give me a goddamn purple heart you know you know and I told him I just give me the aspirin I already got the Purple Heart I don’t need the son of a but but anyway I come out of the Marine corn 1943 and I could have gotten a job said it was work time all the defense plants were hiring but I figured a hard ass guy like me Big Time veteran all got a gun and went into business for myself and one of my crime Partners got caught and he told him I was with him and uh Bingle we both got busted went to the Joint got out went back 6 weeks later just you know should they I still same cellmate cell same room everything you know on same job they like they they knew I was coming back you know they saved it for me and I got busted in the joint again for for bootlegging we’re making Pruno in the goddamn Powerhouse in Hip boots now if you think something’s good to drink you try some of that Pruno made in rubber hip boots Jesus Christ and anyway they ship me over to fome and I come out in 47 and I didn’t quit committing crimes and like that although I uh did didn’t get caught at anything that I did you know I was real lucky and and I I went to work I drove truck and I got some good driving jobs and I run the Alcan Highway the winter 4748 and made a lot of money there and went on one of the greatest drunks I’d ever been on in my life and I went down and bought a brand new Buick paid cash for the son of a still had about five grand and I headed for La Via 395 Reno Nevada all that between the whouses and the gambling joints when I got to La I had to refinance that car I uh had been married when I got out of the Marine Corp and my wife and I got divorced we had a little girl and uh things were just all screw I was always in trouble I always felt different didn’t know why but I liked booze booze made me feel all right and I could be a nice guy and make friends and stuff like that and borrow from them and then lose them real quick like you know and I clipped and clouded everybody I knew it seemed like and in 1952 I got busted on another beef for robbed the Southern California Gas Company in those days he used to go in and pay their money in cash you know and they they weren’t lot of checking accounts or anything like that it was like a bank and so anyway I hit this place and got about $6,300 and another great drunk and a crime partner of mine squealed on me and it’s kind of weird I was never caught in the commission of a of a felony always somebody else had been with you know and but I had done the deed and when this guy copped out on me and turned States evidence I wanted to kill him and I think if I could have gotten a hold of him right then I would but he did me the biggest favor anybody ever did me you know because I went to jail got an attorney this time instead of a PD and uh they gave me 6 months in jail and I had to make restitution of the money that I’d stolen now man that is punishment because come out of jail you’re broke unemployable unacceptable among your people and you owe all of this money and I owed that 6,300 to the Southern California Gas Company and a bunch other money and probably 10 grand all together that I owed and I wouldn’t have been too bad if IID owed it to you know five or six or seven people and could have made a deal to pay it off but I think owed 10,000 people a dollar each and they all wanted it right now and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t pay it but I had read the book The Judge made the comment that this man seems to have quite an alcoholic problem and uh where he got that was from people that I’d asked to write letters for me and asking for leniency and all this kind of you know and they’re apparently they’re idea was the Bud’s a pretty good guy except when he drinks and he drinks too much and so the judge made that comment this man seemed to have quite an alcoholic problem and that’s the first time I’d ever had that connected with me so while I’m doing this 6 months in sometime in the last week or two that I’m in in jail on that six-month deal I read the book alcoholics synonymous and I didn’t purposely read it I just had seen it in the bookcase and I’d read everything else that was in the bookcase except alcoholic synonymous they had four or five copies of the book in those bookcases and I nobody else was in the barracks and I’m in there for stealing I got stature you know in jail there’s a very definite social strata and at the top of that social strata was in jail with three-wheel car Davis the guy that swindled millions of dollars out of from people with this three-wheel car scheme and everybody would say hey that’s three-wheel C Davis he stole over a million bucks doesn’t occur to him that the in jail you know I mean such a you know such a good guy you know and and uh Lloyd samsel the yacht Bandit I was in jail with Lloyd and everybody looked at him and E Ste yacht in San Diego and sail it to Seattle and change all the numbers and everything else on by the time he got there you’d sell it and then he steal another boat in Seattle and bring it to Portland do the same thing coming back you know and he was just trading in boats back and forth stealing them all over the place hey he’s sharp but he’s jail and this is the mentality and I was a thief and I had stolen enough enough money that I had status in jail in those days especially even the junkie even the hype would throw up his pinkies and say thank God I haven’t sunk that low about the alcoholic and yet I’m reading this book and this book describes me and the feelings that I had describe the kind of a person I was and it it really bugged me I couldn’t understand it I came out of jail that day I was unemployable I had burnt the bridge behind me on every job I’d ever had never held a job a year in my life but every job I’d ever had I had burnt the bridge I couldn’t go back and say hey could I have my job back and they tell me you left my truck behind a hor house or a goddamn bar someplace or something you know and nobody wanted anything to do with me I was didn’t know what to do about work I uh my brothers wanted nothing to do with me my older brother that tried to boss me around when we were kids I’d clipped and clouded him in every direction I took his credit card and went to Florida and back on the goddamn thing stole his golf clubs and sold those he couldn’t prove it but I did when my mom wasn’t home one time I hawked all her furniture to a finance company for 600 bucks and he had to pay it off to keep me from going back to the joint and my mom losing her furniture and he tore the sheet there and it was 8 years before we ever spoke four years before and four years after I came into Alcoholic Anonymous my kid brother ID helped him he and I were in the Marine Corps together and we were tight and I helped him a little bit when he went to college and I had some bucks at that time and and helped him when he was going to college and I never let him forget it boy if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be where you are he was an Airlines Captain flew for Eastern Airlines for 38 years and U he finally gave up on me I’d call him for bail money I remember one time he brought a plane out here for I don’t know maybe Eastern who he flying for or something he took a plane for another company back to New York but anyway he goes to my mom’s place and wears bud and she’s I don’t know he’s probably hanging around one of those bars down there gaug in Atlantic and so he comes down there and he walked into the Rex bar and he has swed the bartender he said you know bud McDonald and he who’s looking for for him and he says uh I’m his brother he said well you must be the one from Florida cuz I know the one from up North and he say yeah well he says he passed out in the back Booth back here and I was he got me up and man he had money in party started you know sometime later I needed bail money again and I sent him a telegram collect send me bail money care of the Rex bar and he sent the money but the message with the telegram was what Booth are you sleeping in now you know he remembered that but he finally turned me down every friend that I’d had I’d clipped or clouded lied to lied about done something that I was ashamed of to them and I couldn’t think of anybody that I could turn to the day I got out of jail I sat down at the phone and I thought I better call somebody and let them know and I couldn’t think of anybody want to hear from me and I thought I’ll call alcoholics annonymous opened the phone book and it fell open to Alcoholics Anonymous in the Southeast llo 224 39 I don’t think I think it was just llo 2439 at that time I don’t believe they even had the five digits might have this in 1953 but it I called that number and a guy answered and I told him I just got out of jail and he said have you had a drink yet and I thought that’s got to be the dumbest thing anybody ever asked me I’m calling alcoholics synonymous and I said no he said well you better get your ass over here and I thought well it’s important they need me over there right now and so my wife and I borrowed a car of my in-laws and we went over to Huntington Park and I walk into the room and I I don’t quite know what to expect and at the hole under the ground a stranger walks in there man there somebody going to have his hand out and meet you right away and and say hi I’m so and so are you here for yourself or a loved one or whatever can we help you and these guys greeted me and introduced me around and my wife was pregnant with my youngest daughter at that time and didn’t quite know what to expect I’d never been to an AA meeting and I listen to these guys it kind of sound like can you top this you know one guy say well I did this and that and the other guy did it in spage you know he did more and the next guy did more than that you know I found out in Alcoholic Anonymous the farther down you’d gone the higher up you were you know and but they told me they had a meeting there that night and invited me to come back and I came back that night to the meeting and the guy that was leading the meeting died on the 20th of last month Jim Farwell one of the finest men I ever knew an alcoholics synonymous but I thought he was hired to be there he he couldn’t be a drunk because he talked too nice and too politely and he explained the program he made more sense than the book did and I thought he was hired to be there to teach us you know how to get along and uh but there were a couple of guys that did impress me one was a guy that said he been sober 38 days that day I thought that’s possible I’d put myself on the wagon a few times I never considered myself as having a drinking problem people were my problems and but sometimes when the fire got too hot I’d have to lay off for a while and I would put myself on the wagon for 30 days never made the 30 days I made it 21 days but I had to give myself time off for good behavior you know and my sponsor Duke Carson talked that night and I’d seen people walk up to him and shake his hand and the gals had give him a kiss on the cheek guys didn’t hug each other in those days that would be a damn good way to get knocked on your ass you know but Old Duke talked about sitting on the edge of the bed at 3 4 5:00 in the morning wondering what in the hell is the matter with you why do you do it and I had done that so many times and never heard anybody talk about about that before never knew that anyone ever did that I thought I was the only one in the world and he looked good I knew people liked him cuz I’d seen him walk up and shake his hand I knew he had money cuz in those days they didn’t have that copper streak down the middle of it and it really clanked and clanked and he had that money in his pocket I he was quarters and a half dollars jingling he was well dressed and well-liked and I was none of those things but I wanted what he had I wanted to be well-liked I wanted to be well dressed and I wanted to have money and I decided I think at that time that whatever he’d done I was going to try and do and he became my sponsor eventually and I and he showed me a way of life that’s been the greatest thing that ever happened to me he uh he was a father figure I I know a lot of people in a that get sponsors and their sponsors make all their decisions for them and everything else Duke never did that with me I’d ask Duke I’d say’ Duke I got a problem this is this I can do this this or this what should I do’ and he’ say well bu if you your brother were in your shoes what would you want him to do you know rather than tell me give me some kind of a phony answer he’d tell me how to find the answer myself he told me but if you never do anything that you can’t sit down at the dinner table and tell your wife and kids about you’ll never do anything wrong that’s some of the greatest advice I ever got in my life I can gauge anything by that if I just don’t do what I couldn’t talk to you about openly or talk to my my family and you guys are my family nowadays you know uh that’s my wife’s name up on the wall there it says Marcy Mick who she was a black belt allanon you know but she was something else but she was my support and I learned to be a better husband to her through Duke and the people in Alcoholics Anonymous I eventually got a job two years and 5 days after I came on this program I got a vacation relief part-time job driving truck for an outfit that I’d worked for before on the condition that if you drink don’t come around just call us we’ll send your check we don’t want you around if you’re drinking and I stayed on that job for 30 years wound up general manager of the company couldn’t tell you how it happened other than I didn’t drink one day at a time my uh I had uh three children by the time I came shortly after I got in my youngest daughter is 45 years old now my son is going to be 48 this month my oldest daughter is 56 years old and they’re all three just really really great kids and love their daddy they love the old man like nobody’s business my oldest daughter is an attorney and got a very lucrative practice in Reno Nevada my son is director of research and technology for Time Warner my youngest daughter works for a marketing research firm she’s a talented musician she got a write up one of the rock and roll magazines when she played with a woman’s rock and roll band that she’s one of the hottest Rock saxs players in the country this what this newspaper said about my youngest daughter and these kids love me and I know they love me and this is what is happened since I came to you people and found out what these 12 steps mean to me and how I can use and apply these 12 steps to my life it’s been such a wonderful deal to find all you people and and and think of the things I many of you know Howard Christian big Howard they call him he guys are meeting Howard and I were playing golf yesterday and we’re sitting on a bench waiting for the guys to get off the green so we can tea off and I’m just sitting there and it it yesterday was a better day than today it wasn’t quite as overcast and the sun came out yesterday matter of fact I got a little sunburn on my forehead from being out there playing golf and Howard and I are sitting there together and I says he’s 32 years over Howard did you ever imagined 32 years ago that we’d be sitting here both of us got over a hundred bucks in our pocket we got money in the bank we own our houses we own our cars we got nobody hounding us for money we’re getting along with our families did you ever imagine 32 years ago that life could be like that he says no I was suicidal 32 years ago but these are the things that have happened because I haven’t taken a drink and I got on that job and I applied myself I got hurt while I was working for that company and instead of going on workman’s comp they said go out and find us some business you know and I did and I wound up as general manager of the company I had to go back to school to learn how to do some of the things that I did in that business and I learned how to be a better employee than I ever was I learned so many things about living that are come second nature to me now that I automatically would think the wrong thing if somebody asked me or or anything that I have learned how through you people teaching me and your actions and reactions that I’ve learned in alcoholic synonymous been the greatest thing that ever happened to me I think of the people that I know in alcoholic synonymous are my dear dear friends you know Naomi and I got I don’t know how long been we’ve been friends for a long time you know Bob White 29 years I’ve known the man he’s just a real good 19 years from Dorothy I’ve known her Dawn my sweetheart there Norma I like the young gals too see but I see Iden and I see a lot of the young people come in that I admire you know and it’s a Russ sitting over there you know these are guys that have gone through Cider House and since I’ve been so sober in Alcoholic Anonymous I was sober 10 years and a probation officer from Huntington Park over at Walnut Park probation office between he and my sponsor Duke took it upon themselves to have all my felonies taken back to court the guilty pleas removed and the Not Guilty pleas entered and all my citizenship rights have been restored to all intents and purposes I am not a convicted felon because of this program and because of you people you know I didn’t know didn’t even know it was happening they did it because they weren’t sure they could get it done and this brownie got it done this is one of the benefits that you know because I would work with his babies my best friend is a judge or retired judge but he’s still working in the courts some of you know him some of you have been given the little nudge from the judge the the court card you know he and I invented that Court card one day he was here in a jury trial and he I come into His courtroom and he gives me the office come on up there and we stood there and he’s telling me about how he’s having a hell of a time trying to send letters out to AA because he never knows where these people are going to go that he sending to AA so he was going wants to give them the card to get it signed and bring it back to him and we designed the thing and I took it to a friend of mine over in hunington park and he printed the first 1,000 of those and they become County forms and City forms and all the courts all over the country that Court card was right here in the Downey courtroom is where it got started if you ever come to my house in my living room I’ve got one of the first 1,000 cards with a note on it from Judge Emerson that he gave to me in his frame there one of the first Court cards now this is because I stayed sober and alol I was best man at his wedding and that’s pretty weird that a a judge and an ex-convict can be best friends you know but these are the good things that have happened and this is the benefit of staying sober keeping my nose clean quit screwing with other people and quit fighting and arguing and and all this kind of stuff you know I found the greatest argument stopper is the word two words I’m sorry you know I I shouldn’t have said what I did or whatever it happens to be instead of I got to be right I can be wrong and I can apologize and it keeps me out of trouble with you and when it keeps me out of trouble with you it keeps me out of trouble with me and it’s all through these 12 steps the first three steps are the ABCs after the things you know that I think that this is the greatest text of a living program that anybody could ever have you know I’m not a religious man I don’t believe in religion I think that most religions are worse than the mafia you know I really do you know they threaten you with the loss your the most intangible thing you’ve got is your Immortal Soul if you do not believe as we do you’re going to burn in hell fire and I don’t even know what Hellfire is I think we make our own hell right here on Earth but I do believe that there is something and for lack of a better name it could be good it could be God it could be buddh shindu Allah you know hell man has had a Supreme Being ever since way back when and he’s also had booze ever since way back when he had booze before he had dope dope is just an added kicker you know it’s a little higher high maybe you know but the zoroastrians had booze way back then Noah when he landed on Ararat the first thing he did was planted a Vineyard so he could get some grapes to Stomp and make some wine you know it’s out there and it’s available there’s liquor stores all over the goddamn place I can drink if I want to it’s legal to sell it legal to drink it legal to buy it but I choose not to because I’ve learned these things in Alcoholic Anonymous that I am a person who cannot control and enjoy my liquor drinking and if you want what I have the peace of mind you know I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination but I bet I don’t die of starvation you know and I got friends I got people that I love and they love me I look at I look around this room and see the people I see Carl here I see Michael here I saw Michael when he came in I used to pick him up over there on Firestone have me walk across the street and I’ll pick you up on the other way because I have to swing around out of the way from my house but we got over to Cider House right Mike see and I I see that the the people here that from way back when I see Paul I remember he was about you know but he’s one of the Prides he’s one of the Prides that this has happened you know and it’s a it’s been a just a wonderful wonderful trip for me to be sober in Alcoholics synonymous and if you want what I have this enthusiasm this love for my my fellows you’re welcome to it because it’s in this program and it’s with you people and it’s here it’s in the book Alcoholics Anonymous read the book If you haven’t reread it if you have it’s in the book if you’ll read page 112 in the book alcoholic synonymous the first three words will tell you what to do and I ain’t going to tell you what it says but you get the book and read page 112 the first three words and it’ll work it’ll work you know here I can see I got one back here looking now that’s good but tell them what it says first three words on page 112 read this book but that’s right now right that’s what that’s what it’s all about and but if you want what we have this is what’s there for you you know I I I went to a meeting Friday night and it was a men’s stag meeting and God damn the sniveling that I heard that went on there would drive you crazy you know there’s one guy spent 15 minutes talking about his wife getting a goddamn restraining order against him and the dirty had no business doing that you know and I’m thinking man you know in the first place if you got a sponsor he’s the guy to tell you don’t say that in an open meeting you know your personal problems call your sponsor and talk to them that’s what it’s about you know these are the things that my sponsor Duke Carson died and Eddie Oka became my sponsor and he died and Mela became my sponsor and he died and I’m afraid to ask Carl to be my sponsor I’ve outlived all these people see but Duke was 92 years old the other guys were younger than I but they were wonderful guys those of you that knew them get a sponsor somebody that you can talk to somebody that you aren’t afraid is going to tell everybody else what you’ve told them I uh in the first place when I made my inventory and I wrote down all the that I had done and I started with now and went backwards Duke told me he said don’t go back to year one and bring it up to here you’ll never get there stug with what’s bothering you right now and what is there about yourself right now that you don’t want to tell anybody you don’t want anybody to find out and that’s what I started with I’ve still got that same nickel notebook pad I’ve heard people say You’re supposed to burn it I look at it and I add to it when I find something in there that that I’ve done that bothers me I’ll write myself a promise I’ll never mention that in Anger again and I can keep that promise to me I don’t have to make the promise to you and I write those things down in that thing and it’s it’s a real junky thing you know and after the statute limitations has run out it’s pretty easy to say man I stole a freight train you know that’s a pretty goddamn big thing to steal but to cop out that you robbed your kid’s piggy bank now that’s chicken and this was what I did these kind of things and these were the things that that bothered me and that I had to put in there and I had to bring them out and get them in the open and when I looked at them you know they’re really insignificant in a way but I had to make them right and the eighth and N steps take care of that that sixth and seventh step Duke told me the sixth and seventh step that uh they would take care of all those things in the fourth and fifth step if I would ask for the power to do the things I needed ask for the help that I needed because admitting that I had these Character defects is fine but I got to ask for the help to get rid of because I couldn’t do it by myself and whatever that God or good or Buddha or shindu or all or whatever that Supreme Being is that if I will ask for the help please help me to find out how to do this usually it happens and we are impatient we can’t wait for things to happen we got to push you know and but if we just sit back and wait they will happen the eighth and the ninth steps made me a free man maybe I could walk straight down the street look anybody in the eye there isn’t anybody that I’m ashamed today that I I can’t look at I’m not afraid to answer the phone I’m not afraid to answer the doorbell when it rings because I have made the and I’ve made things right with people that I have harmed and I looked at that list when I first made it out you know made a list of all persons be at harm became willing to make amends to them all I thought most have had coming anyway I didn’t want to make amends but I found that by making those amends I could look them in the eye I had a guy at the corner of Clarin Atlantic 27 bucks at a service station there I charged gas there and never paid him and I had that for four or five years I used to see came in town once in a while and I had to look the other way I didn’t dare look him in the eye and I got my 27 bucks together and went over and I said Walt I should have paid you this a long long time ago but I I’m going to pay you now because I’ve got your name on a list of people I’ve harmed and I’m trying to straighten all that up and he said well bud I’m glad to get it I’ve heard that you don’t drink anymore and I know that that has to be a pretty good deal and you know I could go by gas in his station again he wouldn’t give me credit but I could go by you know and so that eighth and ninth step making amends to such people wherever possible and that 10th step a lot of people say well you know hell it’s the fourth step over again no that 10th step we continue to take inventory and we find out things about ourselves we don’t like you know and when we are wrong promptly admit it I don’t like to promptly admit I’m wrong about anything at any time because as fony as I am I will figure out where I was right anyway you know but I know the sooner I can cop the easier it is for me to be rid of it so I know what that 10th step means the 11th step scared the hell out of me for a long long time real churchy sounding step you know last time I went to church some stole my hat I didn’t want to be around those kind of people you know but it says we sought through prayer and Med meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out so true prayer well prayer is nothing but a good unselfish wish that’s what a good wish for the guy next to you is what the prayer is and meditation is directed thinking to direct my thinking along a positive line don’t think the negative think the positive we tried to carry this message you know this is all I can do God I didn’t know God I always wanted God to walk up and Shake Hands say how bud I’m God you know what can you and I do to straighten this mess out but he never did but we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with this God but ever since I was a kid there’s been a little voice or a hunch or a thought or an idea or a conscience or something that when I’m doing something wrong have done something wrong I’m thinking about doing something wrong it says whoops bud you better not do it I say shut up I’m going to do it anyway God has been talking to me all my life I just never listened and so if I will listen to that voice it keeps me out of trouble with me and when I keep me out of trouble with me I can keep me out of trouble with you and so I know what that 11th step means and I know how to seek my God in the 12 step having had a spiritual awakening as the result of those steps we try to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs having had a spiritual awakening bill in the book describes being on a tall mountain with cool breezes blown through him and flashes the light and all that kind of stuff I still think he was having DTS you know yeah but I think better about things and spirituality is a higher plane of thinking a better way of thinking and so I’ve had a spiritual awakening because I think better about things I try to carry this message where I can is how Cider House got started is how the council got started all of these things because I didn’t ask for this I didn’t get up one day and say hey I’m going to join Alcoholics Anonymous I’m going to get involved in all this you know a lot of us been working a lot of us been some heartaches but I try to carry this message where I can if it’s in a school talking to the kids if it’s before a a rotary club or a Kanas or something trying to explain what alcoholism is so people can ident identify it and identify people with it I try to carry this message and when my tail gets in a crack you can bet your ass I try to practice these principles because that’s where it is and so I try to practice these principles you know many of us exclaimed what an order I can’t go through with it do not be discouraged no one Among Us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles but I can’t let that choose that to Sab my conscience I can’t say well you know nobody’s perfect you’re allowed to do this that other thing I have to know my own limitations and you’ve taught me what they are so it’s been a real good trip for me I haven’t had a drink since sometime 6 months before March 10th 1953 and I’m in pretty good shape for a 78- year old man I’ll tell you you know I played golf yesterday and today and played pretty good made a little money these guys I these guys I gamble with we play for quarters but I got some quarters in my pocket you know and so it’s it’s been a real good deal for me it’s been a real good deal for the people who love me and and the wife that I had for 46 years you know we were married 3 years with me drinking and 43 years with me sober and sometimes that 43 years of me being sober was worse than the three years of drinking CU I used to could hold that over somebody’s head but God gave me that woman for being the best friend I ever had in my life you know and I feel her close to me and it’s because of you people in this program that I’m able to have these things we had a guy at the hole in the ground for many years named Charlie faramond and old Charlie was going blind when he came to Alcoholics Anonymous he was afraid he wouldn’t understand everything he was to know about it so while he could still see to read he memorized the book alcoholic synonymous knew every word in it if any of you ever heard the who’s the our black friend from oh that’s what you but anyway he knows the book too but Charlie fman did and you asked Charlie a question about any problem you were having with living he would always refer you to the book and he’d say on page so and so it says and he would quote forba him what it said and then he’d say and this is what it means to me and it would be a way that you could find the answer to the Dilemma that you had and when Charlie died I stole the clothes into his pitch because I think it’s good and I think it’s important Charlie closed every pitch he ever gave with this little bit of wisdom that medical people say that Alcoholic Anonymous is the greatest medicine on the face of the Earth religious people say that alcoholic synonymous is the greatest religion on the face of the earth I say that alcoholic synonymous is the greatest thing on the face of the Earth and no drunk should be without it 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