I Wasn’t an Alcoholic Because I Drank Too Much — I Never Got Enough: AA Speaker – Glynn W. – Memp…
AA speaker Glynn W. from Memphis shares his story of hitting bottom with DUIs, treatment, and bouncing in and out of meetings before finding his path in recovery.
Glynn W. from Memphis delivers a raw and honest share about his journey from racing family chaos to finding recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous. In this AA speaker meeting, he walks through multiple DUIs, bouncing in and out of treatment, and the service work that ultimately helped him build a solid foundation in sobriety. His story captures the reality of early recovery struggles and what it takes to finally surrender.
This AA speaker shares his experience growing up in a racing family, developing resentments from age three, and discovering alcohol and drugs at fifteen. Glynn W. describes multiple DUIs, failed attempts at treatment, and bouncing in and out of AA meetings before finding stability through service work. He emphasizes the difference between social drinking and alcoholism, stating he wasn’t an alcoholic because he drank too much, but because he never got enough.
Episode Summary
Glynn W. opens his Memphis conference talk with humor and warmth, acknowledging longtime Memphis AA members like Kitty Lou who have been mentors in his recovery journey. His story begins at age three when he caught his “first resentment” upon learning his parents were having another baby, immediately asking if they could “take it back and get their money back” if they didn’t like the new addition.
Growing up in a racing family created both love and shame for Glynn. He loved the excitement and power of the racetrack but felt different from other families on his block who didn’t have race cars in their driveways. This early sense of being “apart from” rather than “a part of” would define much of his drinking career. When his sister arrived, he became what he calls a “bad brother,” taking most of the candy money and beating her up regularly.
At fifteen, Glynn discovered alcohol and marijuana when friends offered them to him. That first drinking experience in his father’s easy chair, listening to Led Zeppelin while chaos erupted around the house, gave him something he’d never felt before – everything was okay just the way it was. As he puts it, “for the first time in my life, everything was okay just the way it was.” The alcohol made him feel rich, good-looking, smart, and bulletproof.
This initial relief quickly turned demanding. The disease began asking for his relationships, his money, his jobs, and eventually nearly his life. His drinking pattern was clear – he wasn’t a social drinker who could nurse one drink for hours like his mother. When he got that “loosey, out of control feeling,” that’s exactly when he wanted everything he could get his hands on. This led to his famous line: “I’m not an alcoholic because I drank too much. I’m an alcoholic because I never got enough.”
Glynn’s bottom came through multiple car wrecks and blackouts. He describes coming to consciousness in a car wreck, his only car wrapped around a tree, walking home two miles with blood covering his white Miami Vice outfit. His resentment wasn’t about being drunk again or wrecking his car – it was about ruining his nice clothes. This illustrates the insanity of his disease and how distorted his thinking had become.
The turning point came with a DUI in September 1987. He rear-ended a pickup truck, causing minimal damage but getting arrested. Glynn believes his grandmother seeing the accident and trying to talk the cop out of taking him to jail was actually God working through the officer to do his job. He needed to be taken off the streets to protect others from his dangerous behavior.
Court-mandated DUI school became his introduction to recovery. The instructor, who Glynn later realized was also in recovery (“if you can spot it, you’ve got it”), suggested he might be an alcoholic and convinced him to attend an AA meeting. At that first meeting, a man told him “keep coming back” – words that stuck with him because nobody had told him to come back anywhere for about five years.
For six to eight months, Glynn bounced in and out of meetings with the pattern of “one, two, three, drink.” His sponsor suggested treatment, where Glynn initially worked his way up from receiving the “sock award” (couldn’t keep all his stuff in one sock) to becoming male representative. However, his attempt to “carry the message” to a female newcomer got him kicked out of treatment after three weeks.
Back in AA as a newcomer again, the old-timers told him he had to do something different to stay sober. This led to him finding his place among other AA speaker talks on hitting bottom and early sobriety, learning to follow suggestions rather than his own thinking.
Glynn celebrated his first year with his mother presenting his medallion, falling in love with being part of something for the first time in his life. A significant moment came at the 1988 International Conference of Young People in AA in Nashville, where holding hands with 4,000 people saying the Lord’s Prayer felt like “a spiritual lightning bolt.”
His story includes becoming a father while sober when his girlfriend became pregnant. Initially resistant, a state delegate challenged him: “Just what kind of damn message are you carrying?” This wake-up call helped him step up as a father. His son, now ten years old, has never seen his father drunk and they’ve built a relationship that includes trips to Disney World and shared adventures.
A significant relationship in sobriety that didn’t work out became one of his hardest tests. When this relationship ended after about seven years sober, Glynn found himself “laying in the living room floor balled up and curled up like a baby crying uncontrollably.” He couldn’t rely on his pride to get him through – instead, he leaned on the International Conference of Young People in AA and his relationship with his son.
Service work became crucial to his recovery. He traveled 9,000 miles on the road and 19,000 miles by air doing outreach for a young people’s conference, eventually serving on the advisory council. Through email correspondence, he helped someone in New Zealand organize their first young people’s conference, demonstrating how service work can transform both the giver and receiver.
A three-hour fifth step with Mark Perry helped him understand his character defects. Mark told him he was “so selfish and self-centered that you expect people to build space shuttles of security around you and all they may have to work with is Lincoln logs.” This inventory work helped him process his resentments and move forward.
Glynn’s spiritual experiences include moments at both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans where he felt God speaking to him about love, forgiveness, and letting go of resentments. At San Diego, he threw a resentment chip into the Pacific Ocean, symbolically releasing the anger that had been “eating his lunch day in and day out.”
Throughout his talk, Glynn emphasizes the importance of service work, particularly being a safe older male for young women entering AA. His relationship with 15-year-old Carla, whom he calls his “little sister in sobriety,” demonstrates this commitment. When she celebrated one month of sobriety, he presented her with a medallion during his talk, noting that she showed more courage getting sober at 15 than it took him to speak to hundreds of people.
The theme running through Glynn’s story is the transformation from someone who felt “apart from” to someone who became “a part of.” His journey illustrates that recovery isn’t just about stopping drinking – it’s about learning to be in relationship with others, taking responsibility, and finding ways to be of service. His humor and honesty about his defects make his message accessible while his commitment to helping others shows the program in action.
Notable Quotes
I’m not an alcoholic because I drank too much. I’m an alcoholic because I never got enough.
I felt like I was apart from life growing up all my life. But whiskey and dope took that away from me and I felt a part of life at last.
I’ve done and said things sober that I said I would never do drunk. Whiskey never was my problem. I’m an insane lunatic, stoked up, turned out alcoholic when you take the whiskey away from me.
Glenn, you’re so selfish and self-centered that you expect people to build space shuttles of security around you and all they may have to work with is Lincoln logs.
Keep coming back – I believe those are three of the most important words in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Early Sobriety
Service Work
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Full Transcript
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# Sober Sunrise Speaker Meeting Transcript
[music] [singing] 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 ad-free podcast. So if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com. Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. [music] [applause]Lord, thank you. Thank you very much, Mark. My name is Glenn Willford. I'm an alcoholic.
Haven't the speakers been great this weekend so far?
[applause]I love Jimmy on Thursday night and then Francine finally made it here. Francine's here. We can start, y'all. She just found her seat. And then Jimmy's here. Larry, well, God, well, that's bad. Larry's here. And Larry and I both know some people from Louisville together. And I have had a fantastic time listening to them. Looking forward to hearing Michael tonight and Don tomorrow. You guys have been absolutely awesome. And I'm here to lower that standard.
[laughter]You think I'm kidding? I am nervous as a longtail cat in a rocking chair contest. I really want you guys to like me. I don't know if it shows or not, but the voices did fail to make one announcement. They reminded me just a second ago, they failed to make one announcement. The host committee of this year's conference has asked if you see any questionable behavior from anyone here this weekend, please report it to a host committee member. Thank you.
That must be you.
[laughter]And before she stole my line, I was going to say, if you see any questionable behavior, let me know too, because I want to watch.
Kitty Lou's here. Kitty Lou is sitting about halfway back in the half measures section. And I'll hear about that one for years to come. She is my patron saint of Memphis AA. Whenever I'd come to Memphis when I was first getting sober, they say we hear when we hear and we see when we see. I heard one thing and I saw one thing. I heard Frog's voice and I saw Kitty Lou's eyes. I remember standing at the Cook Convention Center and this little four-foot-nothing gray-headed old lady stared a hole straight through me all the way across that room. And that was her.
I want to tell you that I love you, and I've had the honor of her speaking at probably three or four of my birthdays throughout the years. I've called her many a day, whining and complaining about you sober alcoholic women. I called her a few months ago and I said, "Well, I heard they got a really good lineup of speakers for this year's Bluff City conference. And they've even got a guy speaking from Tennessee." She said, "Would that be you?"
[laughter]I said, "Yes." She said, "It doesn't matter."
Pop my bubble just like that. I said, "What do you mean it doesn't matter?" She said, "Glenn, I want to ask you a question. How long have you been sober?"
I said, "About 14 years." She said, "How many speakers have you heard?"
I said, "I don't know, maybe a couple of thousand." She said, "How many of those speakers do you remember?"
I said, "I don't know, maybe 15 or 20 of them." She said, "See, it doesn't matter."
[laughter]God, if I ever need a dose of humility, all I've got to do is come down to Memphis and go hit up Kitty Lou at her home group or call her on the phone. I'm guaranteed to get a good shot at that. But that's all right. I got a joke on her.
I've been given permission to tell this story. I asked her the other day in the hospitality room. She can't go back on me now. Kitty Lou, y'all don't know this, but she told me I'm the only one she told. I felt real special about that. She lost one of her little dogs last year. You know, she's got a couple little dogs. She started feeling really lonely. So she went to the pet store. She was going to buy a new pet to replace it so she wouldn't feel as lonely. She looks over and sees this frog in one of those little cages. Frog looks up at her and says, "Buy me and take me home and I guarantee you won't regret it."
She looks at him and Frog says, "I promise you won't regret it." So she buys a frog, takes him, puts him in the car. On the way home, she looks over in the box, and the frog says, "Kiss me."
[laughter]"Kiss me. You won't regret it." She's a little bit reluctant. She leans over and gives a real little quick peck. All of a sudden, he transforms into this really good-looking, fine, handsome young prince. This prince leans over and kisses Kitty Lou on the cheek. You know what she turned into? First motel she could find. No kidding, y'all. Her hair just turned brown back there. Y'all look.
Mark was right. Mark and I have had the privilege of getting to know each other over the year. When I just had to get out of Jackson and stuff was going on too much up there, I'd say, "Listen, man, if you got a couch available." He said, "You know, I do." And I'd do the same thing. He'd say, "Listen, I got to get out of Memphis tonight." I said, "You know, where I live, my house is your house."
We were able to do this deal over the last year or so, however long it's been. Me and Mark did a fifth step not too long ago. I've got permission to tell this joke because I asked him. Mark was having problems. He met a nice girl, and it was stressing him out just a little bit. He came up and said, "Glenn, I found myself unable to perform."
I said, "Well, what did you do?" He said, "Well, I went to the doctor. Me and my girlfriend went to the doctor. The doctor said, 'Well, it's no problem. I'll just give you some Viagra and you guys can go on your merry way.'"
He said, "Well, you know, Viagra isn't that for an older crowd? Have you got anything different?"
The doctor scratched his head and said, "Well, we've got an experimental new procedure. What we do is we take the muscles from an elephant's trunk. We kind of work with them and we've had some success in this area."
He looked at his girlfriend. She looked at him. They said, "All right, doctor, let's do it."
So they had the operation, went through successfully. Couple months later they go back to the doctor, get the green light to try this stuff out. So they go to a nice little quaint restaurant here in Memphis. Candlelight on the table, low dim light, piano music softly playing in the background, real romantic. They're sitting there staring at each other like we do, you know, and all of a sudden this big monstrosity comes up from under Mark's side of the table, reaches up, grabs a roll, and disappears.
[laughter]Well, his girlfriend likes this. She's impressed. She said, "Honey, can you do that again?"
He said, "Baby, maybe I could, but I don't know if I could fit another roll up my ass."
[laughter]Ain't it good to laugh in sobriety, y'all? Ain't it good?
[laughter]That's right. That's right. It's good to laugh.
[applause]I want to get out of myself for just a second. Quit telling jokes for a little bit. I want to take a real quick survey of the audience. Real quick, just the guys, guys only, no girls this time. How many guys have one year of sobriety or less? Hands up real high.
If nobody's told you today that somebody loves you, somebody might.
[clears throat]All right, girls. Real quick. Just the girls this time. No guys. How many girls have one year of sobriety or less? Hands up real high.
See me after this meeting.
[laughter]That's right. We're going to get spiritual. That's right.
Yeah, they've got a new book out. It's bound to be approved. Conference-approved any minute. Says "Let Go and Let Glenn." That's right. And the next one's going to be "As Glenn Sees It."
See me after this meeting.
The host committee has been absolutely awesome. The speakers have been absolutely awesome, and I really appreciate what Francine said last night. It's truly an honor to be asked to be anywhere in Alcoholics Anonymous until right now. Right now, because the butterflies in my stomach feel more like 747s.
But anyway, I caught my first resentment when I was three years old. My mother and my father sat me down at our kitchen table and they said, "We're going to have a baby."
Now, I didn't know this, but this is what they told me later on. A typical three-year-old response is nothing we would normally expect. I asked them, "Well, if we don't like it, can we take it back and get our money back?"
I didn't know what was going to happen, but you know, that's insane to cop a resentment at three years old, but that's just who I was. I mean, that is insane. It kind of reminds me of the story where a guy goes into a bar and orders a shot of whiskey. Bartender pours in a shot and hands it to him and the guy pushes it to the side. This just drives the bartender crazy. He tries to go do his job. A little bit later, the guy calls the bartender over and says, "Listen, can I get another shot of whiskey?"
The bartender pours in the shot of whiskey, hands it to him, and he just knocks it back. Well, this just flies all over the bartender. He does not understand this at all. He tries to go do his job. A few minutes later, he cannot stand it. He goes back to the guy and says, "Listen, I want to ask you a question. You ordered two shots a while ago, but you pushed the first one aside. What's up with that?"
He said, "Well, listen. I've been going to these AA meetings. They told me whatever I do, don't take that first drink."
That's how insane I was at three years old, you know, resentful. My little sister came along. I immediately became a bad brother and I beat the hell out of her every chance I got. I didn't know anything about sibling rivalry.
We'd be at my babysitter's house and she'd give us a quarter and you'd get penny candy. Back then, you'd get one piece of candy for a penny. So we'd go to the store and they'd say, "Make sure your sister gets some candy." I'd come back with about 22 pieces of candy. She'd come back with three. And that was common for me.
One of the things I get to do as a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous came to me through help with a good friend. One of the things I need to do is try to be a good brother. I asked myself the question earlier this year, and I swear to you, as the Lord is my witness, I had never thought about this. I wonder what kind of sister my brother wanted. Whatever it was, I wasn't him. Not the funny guy that stands here before you. Not the guy that stands here right now.
I've got one thing on my mind right as I stand here right now, Lord God is my witness. I've got one thing on my mind. Do I look okay?
[laughter]That was supposed to go over better than that, y'all.
But in all honesty, I want to get out of myself real quick. I was walking around in one of the merchandise rooms that I saw and I happened to peek down and I saw something and I immediately knew what God was telling me.
One of the things that I get to do in Alcoholics Anonymous as a result of being a bad brother back then is I get to try to be a safe older male for the young girls that come into meetings in my town. Francine said, "If you got a problem with middle-aged ladies that can't control their emotions, tough." And if you've got a problem with a 36-year-old man who can't control his emotions, well, my god, we're in trouble.
There's been a young lady that has been coming to meetings not long. I call her my little sister in sobriety and she's real special to me. She's 15 years old and just this past week she celebrated one month of sobriety.
[applause]I took her home from the meeting that night and she got out of the car and I said, "I sure am proud of you." It was like somebody had handed her a million dollars. When I saw this right here, I knew what it was. I knew what my God was doing in my life. It would be my honor if this young lady would come up and pick up a one-month medallion at 15 years old. She has shown me more courage in the last month than it takes for me to stand up here 10 times.
Carla, come get this medallion.
[applause]I think it takes a whole hell of a lot of courage to try to get sober at 15 years old because at 15 years old I had my head so far up my rear all I saw was darkness. I'm proud of you. I am proud of you.
I remember my first AA birthday. My mother stood up at the podium like this in front of a packed house in my home group and my mother said, "I'm proud of you." And nobody had told me they were proud of me for about five years before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am so proud of you and I love you.
[applause]I come from a racing family. My father raced when I was a kid, and it was a source of shame and it was a source of a whole lot of love when I was growing up. It was a source of love because it was awesome to be at that racetrack and be around all those race cars and all that power. I learned through inventory that my father was one of my heroes growing up because he raced cars and I love that.
It was also a source of shame for me because we were the only family on our block that had a race car. Y'all told me I was not unique when I got here. Watch this test right here. How many of y'all come from a racing family? Grew up around it?
Me and two more. That's it. I have asked people that question from Portland to West Palm Beach, from Louisville to San Diego, and y'all, I believe, are the 16th and 17th people that have raised their hands. So I am unique.
It was a source of shame for me because nobody else on our block raced cars. We were the family working on our race car at 7:00 in the morning on Sunday morning while all the rest of y'all were still asleep. We were the family on our block when the cops were getting called down for disturbing the peace and all that kind of stuff, and my father would have to be nice and polite, which was hard for him.
I grew up knowing that I was different from people. Nobody else on our block raced. None of the other kids in my schools had fathers that raced. So I felt apart. I felt set aside. Y'all remember I copped this resentment at three years old. I felt abandoned by my mother and father. They took all that attention that they were giving to a selfish and self-centered three-year-old and they heaped it on my little sister and they stole my thunder.
At three years old, my gods left me. I learned through inventory later on that when I was a kid, I looked up out of that crib and I saw two people staring over that crib. They immediately became my gods. It's been a long time in sobriety. A long time in sobriety and a lot of tears for those two people to become human. A long time.
Today I love my father. I love my father for who he is, not who he's not. My father drank when I was young. I never knew who he was when he was drinking. I didn't know if he was going to be that 800-pound romping, stomping gorilla roaring through the house like a tornado or if he was going to be that loving father that would come in and give you a hug and kiss you and put you to bed and read you a good night's story. I didn't know who he was going to be. I don't know if he's an alcoholic to this day. But I hope he hears this tape one of these days.
I want to tell him, "Dad, I'm proud to be your son." Because I blamed him for everything. It was his fault. If he ever hears this tape, I want to say, "Dear God, Dad, I forgive you. Please forgive me for the things that I did." And I want to tell my mother, if she ever hears this tape, that dear God, I love you so much. Kayla's met my mother before, and she just wants her son to be okay. That's all. That's all.
I rocked along as a kid. I was about 15 years old. Somebody passed a bottle of whiskey my way and said, "Do you want to try this?" I said, "Well, sure." You know, I wanted to fit in. Not long after that, they passed some marijuana my way and said, "Do you want to smoke this?" I said, "Well, sure," because I wanted to fit in. That was about 15.
I was about 15 when I discovered sex. Yeah. Now, I was about 18 when I found out you could have sex with somebody.
[laughter]We came in here a little bit earlier and the Alanons had just left their whole mess all over the place. I guess they were trying to get even. You know how you can tell when an alcoholic and an Alanon are out on their second date, can't you? There's a U-Haul in the driveway. You know how an Alanon has sex with you, don't you? They just attach and let you screw yourself.
[laughter]It took her a little bit longer than it did the rest of us, but that's all right.
You know how you can tell when you're at an Alanon meeting, don't you? You spill your coffee. "Oh, I'll get up to clean it up."
But I remember what alcohol and drugs did for me in the beginning. I remember sitting in my mother and father's house, sitting in my room. My little sister's in her room yelling and screaming and crying because I don't know what I've done, but I've probably been beating the hell out of her again. My mother and father are in their room. They're yelling and screaming at each other, trying to blame one another. And that's normal in our household. Chaos is familiar to me. I come from chaos. Hell, I was born at Dysfunction Junction. I mean, that's the truth about me.
But I remember sitting there at 15 years old listening to Led Zeppelin. A couple of people identifying with that. And that's when the dam broke for me. 15 years old, sitting there in that easy chair. It's one of those old drunk chairs. You sit in it and you're sitting like this and by the end of the night you're sitting like this in it. And you just kind of become part of the upholstery.
For the first time in my life, everything was okay just the way it was. It was okay that my little sister's yelling and screaming and crying. It was okay that my mother and father are yelling and screaming and crying and blaming each other. It's okay that the dog's barking. It's okay that the cat's meowing. Whatever's going on, it's just okay inside my skin.
I came from feeling abandoned, feeling less than, feeling like I didn't fit in. Like Bill talks about on page one of his story, I felt like I was a part of life at last. I identified with that when I read it because I felt like I was apart from life growing up. That was true for me.
But whiskey and dope took that away from me and I felt a part of. I became rich. I became good-looking, I became smart, I became bulletproof, and at times I became invisible. And that was the truth for me. That's what it did for me.
It wasn't long after that that it started doing stuff to me. It started asking me to give it things. It started asking me for my relationship with my family. I said, "You can have it." It started asking me for any kind of money that I'd made, for any kind of job that I had. I said, "Take it." And it damn near asked me for my life and God worked through me and said, "Wait a minute, hang on."
I don't know about you guys, but drinking makes you think about stuff, you know. It made me think about getting a job one time. I had this little job and here's what a typical Friday for me was, working this little job. I get paid on Friday afternoon, right? I got two bills that I got to pay immediately as soon as I get off work. I got to pay the dope man. I got to pay my bar tab. Two bills, right?
I go pay those two bills. Whatever I'm left with, that's what I've got to make it through that Friday night with. A typical Friday night for me was go buy a $25 bag of marijuana, bag it up, which was a lot of dope in the early 1980s. Go buy a case of beer and be scraping it off the floorboard of the car to get nickels and dimes to put $2 worth of gas in the car. I was insane because I expected to ride around all night long on $2 worth of gas in the car.
[laughter]Yeah. That's just the truth of it. I'm not a social drinker. My mother is a social drinker and I can't stand it. I have seen her start a drink and nurse the same one for hours. That's alcohol abuse to me. I've seen her start one, finish that one, maybe start another one, and leave some in the bottle.
When I was drinking, I kind of followed my mother around if she was going somewhere and finished hers off, finished anybody else's off that I could get my hands on too. But I asked my mother one time, "What happens to you when you drink?"
She said, "Well, I kind of loosen up a little bit. I get a woozy, out of control feeling going on and I just feel kind of good."
I said, "Okay. And what then?"
She said, "I don't want anymore."
It's exactly at that point that separates the social drinker from the full-blown chronic alcoholic like me. When I get that little loose, out of control feeling, loosened up, get the body flowing and all that kind of stuff on the dance floor, all this whatever, that's exactly when I want all I can get my hands on. Every one of them. If I can go by and beg, borrow, steal, sell my soul to the devil for whatever I've got to do, that's exactly what I'm willing to do to get another one.
They told me one's too many. A thousand's not enough. If you've never heard that, I hope you can stay here long enough to identify with that because I did. I'm not an alcoholic because I drank too much. The people that told me I drank too much, I knew they didn't know. There's no way they knew. I'm not an alcoholic because I drank too much. I'm an alcoholic because I never got enough. And that's the truth about me.
I'm a blackout driver. It's more fun that way. People ask you what you did the night before. I don't know. And you love finding out later that you had fun. I mean, that's all right.
But I remember one night, I hate coming to in a car wreck. I came to in a car wreck one time. I'd wrecked the only car I had. It was dark, late one night and I remember that feeling. If I can just make it home. Y'all remember that feeling?
Well, I blacked out that night and wrecked my car. And you know, cars don't drive too well when they're wrapped around trees. I didn't know that.
So the car won't move and I just start getting aggravated. You know how you just get aggravated when you're drunk? So I start taking off walking and I realize I'm probably about two miles from home. I start taking off walking and all of a sudden I realize I've got a bad headache. I reach up, grab my hair and I don't know what I'm going to do. I look down at my hand and my hand is covered in blood. I look down at the clothes I'm wearing and my shirt is covered in blood. I've got on a pair of pants and the front of them is covered in blood.
I immediately copped a resentment. It was not a resentment that I was drunk again. It was not a resentment that I had wrecked my only car, been in another car wreck. I copped a resentment because I ruined a nice white shirt and a nice white pair of pinstripe pants because Miami Vice was hot at the time and it's what I was wearing.
Don't you hate car wrecks when you're drunk? The last time I was at the emergency room after one of those drunk car wrecks, they had tubes sticking in each arm and one up, well, you know, one going up the backside and all this kind of stuff. I didn't know if I was in the emergency room or if I was at Jiffy Lube.
[snorts]I drank, smoked dope, snorted cocaine every chance I could. Every chance I could. My mother, when she goes out and has one, maybe two, she doesn't sit and think about the next time she's going to have maybe one, possibly two. When I go have one, I think about it all day long. That's all I think about. I don't think about anything else.
Our book says we have a physical craving coupled with a mental obsession. Obsession is one of the descriptions for me. An obsession is something that will push out every other thought in your mind. And that's true for me because when I drink, that's all I think about. I don't think about nothing else. My body says, "You better go get another one." And that's the truth about me.
The truth about me is I had my last one chasing my first one. That's the truth about me.
I heard people talk about being an alcoholic. I knew I was an alcoholic. No way I was an alcoholic. My conception of an alcoholic was a three-coat-wearing, Piggly Wiggly cart pushing bum that lived under the bridge. I wasn't that. I was sleeping in my car on top of the bridge. Wasn't alcoholic. Couldn't be.
What happened for me is I got a DUI in September of 1987. You know, that may not impress some of the old-timers. Well, the truth about me is I'm guilty of a thousand DUIs and I've been caught one time. This is a disease of perception. That's the truth about me.
I have no idea how many times my God placed his hand over my car and saw fit that I made it home when the only thing I was thinking if I can just make it home one more night. Well, I got a DUI in September 1987 and I rear-ended the back of this guy's little small pickup truck and I did about $140 worth of damage to that pickup truck and I paid that guy back. I have no idea how I paid that guy back drunk, but I paid him back.
I remember when that cop put those handcuffs on my hand, I had a spiritual experience. I became a nice guy. I vaguely sense I wasn't being too smart about that. But I remember that cop telling me, "Mr. Willford, we're taking you to jail for DWI." It's DWI back then. It wasn't DUI. We're taking you to jail for DWI.
Something ran across the front of my little pea brain that said, "This is not supposed to be happening to me. Doesn't he know who I am?" I mean, my father, I grew up in a racing family. I was driving the family's race car at the racetrack at 15 years old before I ever had a driver's license. But it's hard to explain your credentials when you're in handcuffs.
I remember that happening and that cop put me in the back of that police car. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I know my God works in my life. He's given me the courage to stand up here today and to fight through my own fears, fight through all of my insecurities that say, Glenn, you don't deserve to be up there. And he's given me the courage to do that.
I know my God worked in my life drunk. And I know he works in my life sober because what happened that night from where I'm standing at this podium just about to the front of this hotel, my grandmother was sitting in a bar and she saw that DWI happen. She saw that car wreck and she sent somebody out of that bar to try to talk that cop out of taking me to jail that night.
I spent my drinking and my drugging career about three steps ahead of complete and total disaster. I'm grateful that God, that my God was working in that cop's life that night and got that guy to do his job and take me to jail because that's where I needed to be that night to protect you from me because I was a tornado roaring through your life.
I remember going to jail that night and you know he took me to jail. To illustrate even further that God was working in that cop's life, I saw that cop in a bar about a month later and he said, "Don't go down such and such road down here in Jackson because the cops have a roadblock set up."
How about that? God using a policeman to work in my life to keep me out of another scrape. Three steps ahead of complete and utter disaster.
Well, back then they made you go to DUI school or DWI school. I have a resentment over DWI school to this day. I thought they're going to teach me how to drive drunk. Well, it was an all-day class and the woman teaching the class that day was armed with the facts about herself. They made us take a little test at the end of the class, a little 20-question test. Had crazy questions on it like, "Has drinking caused you problems with your family?"
Hell no. They kicked me out a long time ago.
[laughter]"Has drinking caused you problems on the job?"
No, I can't keep a job. That don't bother me. I remember taking that test and about halfway through that test, I'm realizing I'm answering yes to almost every question on this test.
[clears throat]After the class was over that day, the instructor for the day, she gave everybody their little certificate, you know, like a DUI school certificate, something to be proud of. She asked a few of us to hang around after class was over and I was one of them. I thought I must have been one of the star students.
She called us one by one into her office. I remember when she called me in there, she said, "Glenn, from what you've shown me on this test, you might be an alcoholic."
She was armed with the facts about herself. The old-timers like Kitty Lou and Frog and the people like that and the people up in my hometown, they told me, "If you can spot it, you've got it." She had it so she could spot it. She was armed with the facts about herself.
She talked me into going. She said, "Listen, there's a 6:00 and there's an 8:00 meeting tonight over here at this group. Won't you go?"
I said, "I'll go to the 8:00 meeting." She said, "Why don't you go to the six?"
Old-timers like Charlie told me that their best thinking got them to Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember that day real well because my best thinking almost didn't get me to Alcoholics Anonymous because on that day I thought I had a choice. Well, I don't know why, but I did what the woman told me to do. I went to this six o'clock meeting.
I remember two things about that meeting. There was a little daddy-longlegs spider crawling around in that meeting. I wasn't saying stuff. I promise it was not hallucinating. My first sponsor said that spider needed a meeting that day. Leave him alone. So if you're sitting in a meeting and you see some ants or you see a spider or see a bird fly through, they need a meeting. Leave them alone.
A fella came up to me after the meeting and he stuck his hand out and he said, "Glenn, keep coming back."
I had no idea why he did that for a long time. But upon reflection and upon a lot of inventories, I know why he did that. It stuck out in my life that day because nobody had told me to come back anywhere for about five years before I staggered through these doors.
I believe the three most important words in Alcoholics Anonymous we can say are keep coming back. Because when there's no way in hell I'll ever hear "I love you" when I'm still drinking and I'm still doing drugs, there's no way I could have heard that. I heard that fella tell me keep coming back.
See what I brought to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. After inventory and inventory, I finally found out what I brought to you. It was not a pretty sight. What happened was I felt horribly guilty about the things that I had done and I felt ashamed of who I was and that's what I brought to you. And you gave me the three most important words I believe in all of Alcoholics Anonymous. You told me keep coming back and I'm so grateful for you.
That guy's still sober today because of me. You know, that's probably the meeting where he decided to stick around right there.
I bounced in and around AA meetings for I don't know, six, eight months. One, two, three, drink, one, two,