Row Your Boat Gently: AA Speaker – Dan P. – Fort Worth, TX
AA speaker Dan P. from Fort Worth shares how he found God through the program after years of denial, failed marriages, and a half-quart-a-day drinking habit.
Dan P. from Fort Worth, Texas came to AA in 1986 after drinking a half-quart of whiskey daily and watching his successful law practice crumble around him. In this AA speaker tape from the Glass House, he walks through his spiritual awakening in the program — from complete denial about his drinking to finding a God he could trust through the steps and fellowship.
This AA speaker meeting features Dan P. sharing his journey from successful lawyer to daily drinker consuming a half-quart of whiskey nightly. He describes his spiritual transformation through the twelve steps, learning to trust a Higher Power after years of atheism. Dan emphasizes the importance of daily practices like prayer, Big Book reading, meetings, and phone calls in maintaining his sobriety.
Episode Summary
Dan P. opens his share with characteristic honesty: he never set out to be an alcoholic and thought he was “too young and too cute” for such a fate. Having watched his mother die from alcoholism in 1975, he was determined not to follow that path. Yet there he was, getting up every morning saying “I’m not going to drink today” and drinking by 5 PM without fail.
Growing up in a normal Fort Worth family where cocktails before dinner were simply part of life, Dan’s relationship with alcohol began early. By age 14, he discovered that booze made him feel different — like he finally fit in. This pattern continued through military school, the University of Texas (where he spent more time at Joseph’s Beer Garden than in class), and eventually TCU law school.
Dan’s professional success as a lawyer masked his progression into daily drinking. Working for the Justice Department in Washington DC, he used alcohol as medicine — a couple of “shooters” each night to shut down his mind and help him sleep. When he returned to Fort Worth and opened his own practice, the drinking escalated alongside his growing success and mounting personal problems.
His first marriage fell apart when his wife experienced mental health crises, and Dan found himself angry that she “wasn’t holding up her end of the deal.” The second marriage to a 19-year-old country western singer followed the same pattern — initial happiness followed by financial problems and relationship breakdown. In both cases, Dan couldn’t express his feelings to counselors while his wives could, leading them to recovery while he remained stuck.
By 1986, Dan’s legendary Midas touch had “turned brown.” Bad business decisions mounted as he consumed a half-quart of whiskey nightly, yet still maintained he didn’t drink like his mother because he didn’t drink in the mornings — conveniently forgetting weekend mimosas and Bloody Marys. The disease’s cunning nature kept him in complete denial.
The turning point came when Dan reached out to a friend who had stopped drinking and was attending AA meetings. Despite his resistance to being “like his mother” and needing AA, Dan agreed to attend a Tuesday night meeting at the Little Westside Group. He was struck by the clear-eyed, happy people who welcomed him without judgment and offered to share their solution “for fun and for free.”
That first night, Dan hadn’t drunk before the 8 PM meeting — unusual for him by that time of day. When his new friends came in to talk after the meeting, he white-knuckled through the longest hour of his life, then immediately drank a half-quart of whiskey while reading the first half of the Big Book. He repeated this pattern the next night, drinking and reading.
On the third day, walking back to his office after another frustrating meeting where nothing went his way, Dan experienced what he describes as his spiritual awakening. A voice or thought asked him, “I thought you weren’t going to drink today.” His heart pounded, palms sweated, and he looked up skeptically saying, “Well, I guess you’re going to help me out of this.”
Remarkably, his office was out of alcohol for the first time in memory, and two emergency client calls kept him busy for an hour. By the time he finished, the urge had passed. He returned to the Little Westside Group on December 18, 1986, picked up a white chip, and hasn’t had a drink since.
The spiritual component of Dan’s recovery journey is central to his story. Having given up on God after exploring various religions and finding no connection, he initially struggled with the Higher Power concept. His sponsor Ron E. gave him practical advice that changed everything: “What’s one more ridiculous thing in your life?” when Dan protested about praying to a God he didn’t believe in. This approach to surrender in AA helped Dan begin the practice of daily prayer, even though it felt like “writing a note and tying it on a rock and throwing it over the wall.”
The breakthrough came when Dan realized he was sober at 90-120 days, and it wasn’t through his own power. Someone else had to be responsible. His AA friends helped him design a God he could believe in — all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-forgiving, with a good sense of humor. This practical approach to spirituality allowed Dan to develop the trust necessary for recovery.
Working through the steps with his sponsor provided the structure Dan needed. The fourth and fifth steps helped him realize “it’s me, not them” — that he wasn’t a victim of ungrateful kids, difficult wives, or uncooperative clients. This revelation freed him from victim mentality and gave him the power to change his own perceptions rather than trying to control others.
Similar spiritual transformations are common in AA, but each person’s path is unique. For Dan, the combination of daily practices proved essential: morning prayer, evening gratitude, Big Book reading, meetings, and calling another alcoholic. He’s maintained these five practices for 14 years and refuses to give up any of them, afraid to discover which one might be keeping him sober.
Financial disaster struck when Dan went bankrupt two years into sobriety, but this taught him that God, not he, was the source of everything good in his life. His AA network of friends helped him realize he had everything he needed for today, even when facing financial ruin. This daily perspective became a cornerstone of his recovery philosophy.
Dan’s metaphor for living encapsulates his transformed worldview: “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” He interprets this childhood song as direction for recovery living — row your own boat (not others’), go gently downstream with the flow rather than fighting upstream, maintain joy because God’s will is for him to be “happy, joyous, and free,” and remember that life is perception, which he can change.
The gratitude practice Dan learned in AA became a powerful tool for changing his perception. Despite having two college degrees, he didn’t understand gratitude until the fellowship taught him. Now, when his perception needs adjusting, a gratitude list quickly shifts his mental state and emotional condition.
Dan concludes with a parable that perfectly captures his experience of AA: the story of heaven and hell being identical rooms with abundant food, but inhabitants having arms too long to bend at the elbow. In hell, people starve because they can’t feed themselves. In heaven, the same people thrive because they feed each other. This mutual aid and service, he explains, is exactly what AA members have done for him throughout his recovery journey.
His message emphasizes that the spiritual awakening available in AA doesn’t require perfect faith or understanding — just willingness to take suggested actions. Through daily practices, step work, and fellowship, even the most skeptical newcomer can find a relationship with a Higher Power that sustains long-term sobriety.
Notable Quotes
I thought I was too young and too cute to be an alcoholic.
This is the only disease that I’m aware of that tells us that we don’t have it.
We’re incredible. We’re drowning and somebody throws us a lifeline and it lands right beside us and we say, ‘Wait a minute. Let me give this some thought.’
It doesn’t matter what you feel. It doesn’t matter what you believe. All it matters is what you do. Get down on your knees and pray to God.
Row your boat. I got to do a little action. And I got to do my boat. Not your boat. Not her boat. My boat.
Step 3 – Surrender
Spiritual Awakening
Denial
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Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
>> Hi everybody. My name's Dan Penn. I'm an alcoholic.
>> I'm grateful to be here sober tonight. Is it just a year? It seems like longer. [laughter] It's a pleasure to be back at the glass house and see some friendly faces, and a lot of faces I don't recognize. But we're the same folks.
I remember when I went to my very first meeting. I looked around and there were people with bright eyes, and they weren't drinking, they said. I wasn't sure I believed that, but what I found was that we were all alike in that we all had a problem with booze. And you guys had a solution. You were willing to share it with me for fun and for free. I'm really grateful for that.
I didn't set out to be an alcoholic. I thought I was too young and too cute to be an alcoholic. I'd watched my mom die of this disease in 1975. God, I didn't want to be like that. But there I was getting up every morning saying, "I'm not going to drink today." And by 5:00, I'd be drinking. It was awful. It was awful. So I came to you guys and the miracles started happening. Eve, I hope they're happening for you. Congratulations on that 60 days. That's a really neat deal.
I'm supposed to tell you briefly what I was like and what happened to me and what I'm like today as a result of what happened to me. I'm going to try to do that in the next little bit. Actually, I'm limited to five minutes, so I'll try to do that.
I grew up here in Fort Worth in a very normal family, I thought. There wasn't any active alcoholism going on in my house, and there was a lot of drinking. My folks had two or three drinks before dinner every night, and it just always seemed like a festive time. It seemed like part of living and a really good part of living. They had parties and there was always booze at the parties, but I never saw anybody getting drunk and disorderly. It was a normal childhood growing up. I had two brothers, one older and one younger. Life was pretty good.
I remember moving over to the west side of town. I grew up on the south side and moved here on the west side when I was about nine. I remember being ill at ease for some reason or another in this new school, in this new neighborhood. I never really got over that. I wanted to be somebody else, someplace else, doing something else with somebody else. I just didn't fit in my skin.
When I was about 14, I don't remember my first drink. But I remember that I went to a movie with some older guys, and they had some beer. I drank a little more beer than everybody else did and I threw up. I got home, went to bed, and got up the next morning and thought, "You know, this isn't bad. This booze deal. I can drink with these older guys. I just gotta do something about the puking. If I can do that, this booze deal is a pretty good deal because it made me feel different. I felt like I fit in till I puked."
That just started a pattern for me. I began drinking every time I got a chance after that, usually on the weekends. I learned how to drink and not puke. Around that time I got hooked on speed as well. We didn't call it speed in those days. It was dexedrine, and that made me a little nervous. So you had to lace it with Miltown, which was a tranquilizer. It was sort of better living through chemistry. I did that for about eight or nine years, and really had a hard time getting off the speed.
Looking back, of course, everything I tell you is stuff I've learned from doing the fourth and fifth step. The way I got off speed was I just simply increased my alcohol intake. Nothing to it. Booze was my drug of choice and remained that way for a long time. I was, I guess, a moderate to heavy drinker.
The book talks about various things, and our book—those of you who don't have a copy of this book, Alcoholics Anonymous—it's the owner's manual. I'd suggest that you get one and read it. If you're like us, you'll find yourselves in there. It contains the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and some stories about various people like us, and how they lived, what happened to them, and what they were like after.
I found myself in that book. I always wanted to be a big shot because I knew if you thought I was a big shot, then maybe I could feel better about me than I did. I always knew one day they'd write a book about me. And sure enough, they did. It's this one right here. I never thought it was going to be anonymous, but I found me in there. And if you're like me, you'll find you in there, too.
I was sent off to military school the last two years in high school. It was either that or reform school. I still don't know whether I made the right choice going out there, but I did. Every chance I could get off that campus where everything was regulated, I would find a way to find some whiskey, drink, and be with the other guys. Things were pretty good. I left there and went off. After I got out of high school, from that point on until I found you guys, I was a daily drinker. I drank every day. Not every day drunk, but I drank every day.
I went from New Mexico Military Institute, where everything was regulated, to the University of Texas, where everything was not regulated. I spent the first six months at Joseph's Beer Garden before I found out they were holding classes up at the other end of the street. [laughter] I thought if they didn't care whether or not I went to class, why should I? My father got to the point where he didn't care whether I went to class either. He said that was the end of his financial support.
So I came back here to TCU where I could get a job. I couldn't get a job in Austin those days. There were so many students and so few jobs. So I came back here, got a job, and crammed a four-year course into about six and a half years at TCU, drinking all the time, partying, and having a wonderful time. I was never a very good student. I graduated from TCU and went out to the West Coast to make my fortune. That didn't work. I came back here and went to law school.
For the first time in my life, I really got involved in something that I was good at and really liked. Law school was the thing. I was a daily drinker by that time, but because of the workload, the drinking was way down. For the first time in my life, I used booze as a medicine. I would work hard during the week and get through 9:30 or 10:00 and couldn't go to sleep. I found a couple of shooters would just smooth that right out, and I could go to sleep. It would just kind of shut the mind down a little bit. I did that on a regular basis every day. I'd get through with my work at 9 or 9:30 and have a couple of shooters and something to eat and go to bed.
I got out of law school and had a really good job offer. I went up to Washington DC and worked for the Justice Department for four years. I was drinking all the time, every day, but only after work. It just wasn't a problem. Booze wasn't a problem for me. Part of life, just part of everything that was going on.
I can also tell you, looking back, that denial was rampant even then. I had my first automobile accident drunk before I had a driver's license. I was down in Crestwood and I drove past there the other day. There was a tree in the middle of the street, and I remember going right for that tree because it looked to me like there were two of them, and I was going to go between. I ran right into one. I didn't have a driver's license. It was a neighbor's car that I was in without permission. I did a lot of that. They used to call it stealing cars. I never thought of it that way. We'd borrow a car and go joyriding and take it back, and they had no sense of humor about it at all. I got caught every time.
I got out of law school and was working for the Justice Department, had a wonderful time. By the time I got to you guys, I heard people talking about blackouts. If I could have taken a lie detector test and passed it, I would've told you I never had a blackout. But in doing that fourth step and talking to somebody in the fifth step, it occurred to me that I had my first blackout when I was 18 at the University of Texas. I went to a party and from 7:30 on I had no memory of it. But they had pictures of me the next day. They showed me crawling around on the floor on my hands and knees looking up little girls' dresses, and I didn't have any memory of that.
That happened a lot by the time I got to you guys. It didn't happen often early. Later there were a lot of blackouts. But I never thought of them as blackouts. I don't know why.
I came back to Fort Worth and opened up a practice around that time. My younger brother had left home maybe four or five years before that. My mother started drinking pretty heavily. By 1970 she had full-blown alcoholism, and it was really causing a problem in my family. By that time I'm drinking a half a quart a day, and it doesn't seem to me like I've got a problem. So I lead the family intervention on my mother. Logical choice. I thought I knew a lot about alcoholism. I didn't.
She sobered up for a couple of years. She wouldn't go to AA though because you guys just weren't her kind of folks, you know. So she wouldn't go. As a result, she started drinking again. Within four years, she was dead of this disease.
Again, I thought I knew a lot about alcoholism. I kept saying, "You know, I don't drink like she does. I can't be an alcoholic." It never even occurred to me that I was an alcoholic. All I knew was that I didn't drink like she did. And why in the hell couldn't she control her drinking? It was just a matter of willpower. You just needed to have a little willpower, and she didn't have any. I thought it was a moral failing on her part. I watched her die of this disease. It was a terrible thing.
I got married my last year in law school. We had a couple of boys. The marriage was good, and the practice was great as long as I was with the Justice Department and during the law school years. I got out and opened up a practice here. All of a sudden the competition was different for some reason or another. It seemed to me that in order to be successful at law practice, you had to make a lot of money, have a lot of toys, have the prestige and the good wishes of all of your peers. I kept fighting for that and wanting that. I got real lucky and got all I wanted of that.
What happened was that the more successful that practice got, the less successful the marriage was. We had these two little kids. My wife went crazy and went into a mental institution. She stayed there for about six months, came back out, we did some family therapy, and it got a little better. Then she went crazy again and was in there for a year that time. I was mom and dad and lawyer. I mean I had a lot of hats and I tried to wear them all.
To show you how selfish and self-centered I was, what happened for me was I couldn't feel any real compassion for her. All I felt was anger because she wasn't holding up her end of the deal and I was having to hold up both our ends of the deal. We went to some more family counseling. She could tell the counselor what was wrong with her and how she felt. I couldn't. She got better and I didn't. That simple.
We got a divorce and I left that marriage busted. But I still had a good practice, so the money started flowing again pretty quick. I started playing and had a wonderful time for a few years. I did a lot of traveling and fun stuff. I was a daily drinker, and it just never occurred to me that booze was a problem for me. I was a heavy drinker and I knew I was a heavy drinker, but I could hold my booze, you know. Besides, I was just a social drinker, right?
Somebody said, and it's true for me, "I was such a social drinker that every time somebody said, 'I'll have a drink,' I'd say, 'So shall I.'" [laughter] But it just didn't seem to be a problem.
I was 40 years old and I swore I'd never get married again. One thing I gotta say about that first marriage is that during that time I was so angry about her not holding up her end of the deal. The result of that was that there was a bond between my kids and me that even my most active alcoholism couldn't break. I'm really grateful for that. I didn't realize it then, but that was really a wonderful plus for me.
So I swore I'd never get married again. I'm single about five years, playing and having a wonderful time, doing a lot of traveling. There were a lot of relationships with women in my life. Some of them lasted a night and some of them a few nights. It didn't seem to me to be anything strange. It just seemed to be the way it was going.
I swore I'd never get married again. I'm 40 years old and I meet this 19-year-old blonde, gorgeous country western singer. I can't just live another minute without her. We get married and have a great time for a couple of years. Then I ran out of money. I had to go back to work, and our marriage fell apart.
Strange. We went to counseling, and she could tell the counselor what she was feeling and I couldn't. She got better and I didn't. You may notice a pattern here. I didn't until I got to you guys.
It was a very angry and acrimonious divorce. I left that marriage busted. But the practice was good, so I started playing and carrying on some more, having a really good time. All of a sudden though, my former Midas touch just turned brown. It was just like a 360-degree reverse. I started making some really bad business decisions and investments. Things started cratering for me.
I did what I'd always done. I'd never tried to quit drinking. I'd always had a weight problem. Once in a while I would say, "Oh, I've ballooned up too much. I need to start running and get back in shape." I couldn't do that and still drink, so I quit drinking for however long it took. A month, two months, three months, six months. It just wasn't a problem.
In 1986, things weren't going well. I decided that I needed to get my life back in order in a normal way. I was getting up every morning saying, "I'm not gonna drink today." By five o'clock, I'd be drinking, unless it was the weekend, in which case it might be a little earlier.
I remember thinking, "I didn't drink in the morning like my mother did." I remember saying that after I got to you guys, and a woman that I dated some when we were both drinking was in one of those meetings when I was whining about that. After the meeting, she said, "Well, didn't we drink some mimosas in the mornings on Saturday or Sunday, or some Bloody Marys?" I said, "Well, yeah, but I mean that was a weekend, you know. That didn't count."
It just never occurred to me that that counted as drinking in the morning or on a trip, you know. This is the only disease I'm aware of that tells us we don't have it. Cancer doesn't tell you you don't have cancer. But alcoholism tells you there's nothing wrong with you. You drink like all the rest of those guys. It was true. I did. I drank like a lot of the rest of those guys. A lot of them are in the program today.
I called a friend of mine. He said that he wasn't drinking, and two or three of the other guys said, "You know, he's really not drinking." I tried all the stuff the book talks about—beer only, wine only, drinking only in the afternoon, drinking only at night, taking a trip, not taking a trip. All that stuff. I tried all that stuff. But I was still getting up every morning and saying, "I'm not going to drink today," and by 5:00, I'd be drinking.
So I go to see this guy and we have lunch. I say, "Is it really true that you have six months out of drinking?" He said, "Yeah, yeah." I said, "Did you get any help with that?" He said, "Yeah, I'm going to AA. You want to go to a meeting?"
I thought, "Well, my God. AA. Jesus, I'm just like my mother. I'm a drunk just like my mother. Gotta go to AA." That was one of the darkest days of my life. I really didn't set out to have on my resume that I'd be an alcoholic. I really thought that it was a moral failing. I don't know where I got that idea.
But I thought, "Oh, I've got it." I had tried so hard not to have it. But for me it was like making love to a gorilla, you know. You just couldn't stop till the gorilla wanted to. He had me, you know. I just couldn't turn it loose. [laughter]
So he told me that this buddy of his and mine too was also not drinking and that they were going to go to an AA meeting that night. Why don't I go with them? I thought, "I'm really busy, but let me check my schedule. I'll get back to you."
We're incredible. We're drowning and somebody throws us a lifeline and it lands right beside us, and we say, "Wait a minute. Let me give this some thought." You know, maybe I don't really need your lifeline. Maybe I can swim this 40 miles back to shore. We're incredible.
So anyhow, the upshot of it was I went to a meeting with these guys. I went to an 8:00 meeting at the Little Side Group down here. It was a Tuesday night. All I remember about that meeting was that there were a bunch of clear-eyed people there who were happy to see me and asked me to come back and treated me like I had the same kind of problem they did. All they wanted to do was share the solution that they had with me for fun and for free.
I'd never been to a place like that. The laughter was great. It seemed like it was in the wrong places, but there was a lot of laughter. That was good for me because there wasn't anything funny going on in my life at that point.
One of the guys brought me a big book and took me home. I hadn't had a drink before they came by to pick me up at 7:30 for this 8:00 meeting. That was pretty late for me not to have a drink. But I didn't want to do anything to screw up their program, whatever it was, you know. So I didn't have a drink, and they got me back to the house about 9:30. They said, "Can we come in a minute and talk to you? Have a Coke and talk to you about some stuff?" I said, "Yeah, I guess so." Yeah, because I won't go have a drink in front of them, you know. God knows what I might do to their program.
I think the mind is just—my mind—you know, somebody said that the alcoholic's theme song ought to be "I'm Always on My Mind." I heard one guy say, "I'm not much, but I'm almost all I ever think about."
They came in and we talked for the longest hour I believe I've ever spent in my whole life. One of these guys bought me a big book, and then they left finally. I just couldn't wait to get over and pour me a big stiff drink and take it down. I sat down and drank a half a quart of whiskey and read the first half of the big book. [laughter]
I was really a smart dude. I had two college degrees and I could read this stuff, boy. I was so smart, in fact, that if I'd have been that much smarter, I'd have died drunk. Just that much smarter. Thank God.
The next morning I get up and I said, "I'm not going to drink today." I go off to work. At 5:00, I'm leaving a meeting where everything is falling apart and nothing's going the way I want it to go. I get back to my office and pour a couple of stiff shooters, go to a party and have a couple of drinks there, then go home. By this time, if I go to a party and have two or three drinks, I don't want to start slurring my words and look like my mother. So if I feel that coming on, I'm in the car and I'm going home.
So here's Mr. Social Drinker drinking a half a quart of whiskey every night by himself in his house. I don't know how that computes to you. It seemed to me to be social drinking.
I went home and drank another half a quart of whiskey and read the rest of that big book. Got up the next morning and said, "I'm not going to drink today." At five o'clock that day, I'm coming home from another meeting. Everything's going to hell in a hand basket and nobody's doing it the way I want them to. I leave that meeting and I'm walking back to my office.
At that point, I hadn't said a prayer, I bet, in 30 years, maybe 40. I had no relationship with God of any kind. I'd given up on God. I'd been through a number of Protestant religions. I'd studied some Eastern religions. I'd converted to Catholicism at one point when I was dating a Catholic girl who had what I wanted. She really did. It was incredible. You could watch her go down the aisle to the front of the church and take communion. When she stood up and turned around, she was a different person. That was very attractive to me.
I tried that. I tried as hard as I could to find what she had in Catholicism, and I couldn't find it. So I gave up on church and didn't have any kind of relationship with God at all.
I'm walking back to my office and I just can't wait to have a drink. A voice or a thought or something said to me, "I thought you weren't going to drink today." God, my heart started pounding and my palms started sweating. I looked up in the most skeptical way and said, "Well, I guess you're going to help me out of this."
I walked back to my office, and for the first time in my memory, I was out of booze at my office. I didn't have any booze in my office, and I had two emergency phone calls from clients that I had to return. It took about an hour to return these two calls. I didn't have to have a drink. I went back to a meeting that little Westside group Thursday night, December 18th, 1986, and picked up a chip.
One of these guys and I haven't had to have a drink since then or any mind-altering drugs. It's been an incredible ride. It's been an incredible ride. Thank God I didn't have to do anything to get the gifts of the program.
The first gift was that I could sit down and listen. I knew the answer to everything. But for the first time, I could sit down and listen to you guys tell me how it was with you and what you were doing to stay sober. You all taught me I didn't ever have to have that loneliness or fear, that crippling loneliness and fear again. I could just come in here and be with you and I'd be part of you, and you'd love me back to health until I could start to love myself. And you did that for me.
I started going to meetings and I just loved the meetings. I loved the laughter and I loved everything about it. I got a sponsor. I got started in the steps. I remember I was 90 days sober and this woman I'd been with for two years split. I'd sobered up, cleaned up my act. That was all she wanted out of there.
My sponsor said, "Hooray. This will give you some time to work on your program." [laughter] It's wonderful how they cuddle us, isn't it? [laughter]
You all taught me to do five things every day. You said: Pick up the phone, get down on your knees and ask God to keep you sober in the morning for that day. End the day on your knees thanking God for keeping you sober. Read something out of the big book and go to a meeting. Pick up that 10,000-pound telephone and call another alcoholic every day.
I've been doing those five things every day for 14 years, and I haven't had to have a drink. Now, I don't know which one of those things is keeping me sober, but I'm afraid to give one of them up in case that's the one. So I'm in the habit of doing those things.
They said, "And then your only job is don't pick up the first drink because it's the first drink that gets you."
I didn't have any problem with accepting that I was powerless over alcohol. What I had a problem with was that my life was unmanageable. I said, "Look, I'm a partner in an international law firm. That's a big deal. I got cars and houses and my kids are…" One of the guys who was in the meeting when I said that knew me a little bit and knew me before I got to you guys. He came up to me after the meeting. He said, "Listen, your kids really are just barely not speaking to you. Isn't that right?" I said, "Well, yeah, I just found that out."
He said, "You've had two failed marriages and you've had at least four failed law partnerships and God knows how many failed business ventures. What would you pay some son of a bitch to manage your life the way you're running it?" I thought, "Well, I guess I'd fire him." He said, "Good answer. Let's fire him."
I had to admit that my life was unmanageable by me.
And then the hard part for me was coming to believe that there was a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity. I knew I was kind of crazy, but I didn't think that there was a higher power that could help me. I believed in a God that was in charge of the tides and the seasons, maybe, and the rain. But not anybody that would have an interest in me.
The first thing they told me was that I gotta get down on my knees and pray to God. I said, "I just—that's ridiculous. I don't believe in God."
Ron Evans—Ronnie—over at Legacy told me—one of the smartest guys I know, he's an eighth-grade dropout, under-the-bridge wino. He said that he had the same problem. He told his first sponsor, "I don't believe in God. You want me to get down on my knees and pray to this guy I don't believe in? That's ridiculous."
His sponsor said to him, "What's one more ridiculous thing in your life?" [laughter]
He said it to me so I could understand it in a way I could hear it. He told me, "It doesn't matter what you feel. It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter what you think. All it matters is what you do. Get down on your knees and pray to God. Ask him to keep you sober."
So I started doing that, and I didn't know who I was praying to. Honestly, it was like writing a note, tying it on a rock, and throwing it over the wall. I didn't know if there was anybody over there reading it or not, you know.
Finally, one day I'm on my knees and I'm 90 days sober, 120 days sober. I realize that I'm sober. It wasn't me. It had to be somebody else.
They told me that this is God's job, I think—AA for alcoholics like us—he couldn't get to any other way. They said, "Okay, you don't believe in God. Can you write down the qualities that a God would have that you could believe in if you were going to believe in God?" Not that we're going to make you believe in him. You don't have to believe in him. But if you were going to, are there some characteristics that such a God might have that you could write down?
I said, "Yes." So I started writing down: he's all-powerful and all-knowing and all-loving and all-forgiving. He's a little overweight and he's trying to quit smoking and he's got a pretty good sense of humor, right? I thought I could work with a guy like that, maybe.
Sure enough, I'm 120 days sober and I'm praying to this God that you guys taught me how to design. With just that little bit of willingness to do what you guys suggested that I do—little chicken things that I knew couldn't possibly work—and I do them and they work. It happens over and over and over, and it has for me for 14 years.
So I came to believe. But trusting in this God was a hard thing until one day somebody said to me, "Penn, I saw you just walk across the street in front of a bus that wasn't stopped yet, and you relied on that bus driver whom you've never met and didn't know what the hell he might be smoking to stop that bus at the light so he wouldn't run over you. Yet you won't trust God who loves you more than anything in the world."
It finally clicked for me. Maybe I can trust God. Maybe I can trust God. He said, "You trust the guy next to you at 70 mph not to move over into your lane. Why can't you trust this guy that loves you more than anything you can possibly imagine?"
He asked me, "Penn, you've got two boys. You really love those boys, don't you?" I said, "Yeah, I really do." He said, "How much do you love them?" I said, "I can't describe to you how much I love those boys." He said, "If your God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-loving and all-forgiving, then he must love you even more than you love those boys."
I thought, "Jesus, maybe that's right. Maybe that's right." I began to trust. I began to trust that God has in store for me better stuff than I could ever imagine for myself if I just get out of the way. If I just be gentle with myself and get out of his way and let his will work in my life.
They told me I had to take the third step. Ron told me that when I asked him if I really ought to take the third step, he said, "The worst thing that can happen is it'll get it out of the hands of an idiot." [laughter]
What that does—the third step sets me free. All my job is to just do the next right thing, and I'm not responsible for the results. That's somebody else's business. All I can do is do the next right thing and let the results take care of themselves.
You taught me the process. The process is to pray about it, use the brain that God gave me to think about it, and then decide what is the next right thing to do. Then before doing it, check it out with somebody else. An alcoholic. That's the process that these steps teach us how to do. I do that today. When I don't do it, I'm usually in trouble.
One guy told me that the third step was simply the decision: "Do I like it better in here with you guys, or do I want to go back out there where I came from?" Just that simple. If I like it better in here with you guys, then all I got to do is do the rest of the steps to the best of my ability. Pick up a pencil and start writing the fourth step.
I did that. The first time I'd taken a hard look at me in my life. And thank God I did that because what I found was it's me. It's not them. I thought it was those ungrateful kids, those yo-yo wives, those clients that wouldn't do what I wanted them to do. It wasn't them. It was me. It was always me. It was always me.
And thank God to know that, because if I know that it's me, I'm not the victim anymore. If it's you, if your action causes me pain and suffering and ill will and disharmony, if your action does that to me, then I'm screwed. Nothing I can do because I can't change you. But if what happens is me, I can change me. I can change my perception of what's going on out there. I'm not a victim anymore.
So I went through four and five, and it was a wonderful thing. I went through six and seven. Four and five helped me get okay with me. Six and seven helped me get okay with God. Eight and nine help me get okay with my fellows.
The getting okay with God is really an interesting thing. I think the most powerful spiritual meeting I've ever been to was when my brother happened to be halfway around the world. I went around to see him in Sri Lanka, a little island off the coast of India. I went to a meeting there. There were a couple of Jews and some Muslims and some Buddhists and some cowists. There were some Hindu, there were some Tamils, some Singhalese, some Sikhs, a couple of Christians, and there was me. We were all talking about the same God. All of us from incredibly diverse backgrounds, we were all talking about the same God who keeps us sober. What a wonderful experience this Alcoholics Anonymous is.
I recommend to you hurry through the steps. The steps are where the payoff is. The promises that follow the ninth step have come true in my life. I've made those amends most days today. Most times, most days I don't have any resentments against anybody. What a freedom. What a freedom. Most days today, most times, most days I'm really delighted to be Dan Penn, alcoholic, right here with you guys, or wherever