AA Speaker – Kip C. – Los Angeles, CA – 1999
Kip C. from Southern California shares his story of hitting multiple bottoms—prison, homelessness, a suicide attempt—and discovering that only complete surrender to the AA program could save his life.
Kip C. from Southern California came into AA after decades of drug smuggling, prison time, homelessness, and unbearable pain. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through a brutal journey that included losing his son to tragedy and finding the only thing that worked: total surrender to the program and a sponsor who wouldn’t let him off the hook.
Kip C. shares how childhood trauma, early drug use, and a life of crime led to multiple prison sentences, homelessness, and finally a suicide attempt that left him alive but shattered. After six years of coming to AA meetings without getting sober, he experienced a spiritual awakening on his knees in surrender, which led him to work the steps thoroughly with a demanding sponsor. The AA speaker describes how the program transformed every area of his life—relationships, career, fatherhood—and taught him that nothing matters more than staying sober one day at a time.
Episode Summary
Kip C.’s story is one of extremes—a life that began in chaos, descended into criminality, and was saved only by absolute surrender to Alcoholics Anonymous. His background shaped everything: a father whose drinking terrified the neighborhood, a mother who fought with fire, and Kip himself as a kid who felt like he didn’t belong anywhere. When a school drug education program backfired and made narcotics appealing, he dove in at twelve years old and never looked back. Alcohol and dope filled the void—they made him feel whole when everything else made him feel less than and terrified.
The streets became his classroom. By sixteen, he was in a Mexican federal prison on drug smuggling charges. By eighteen, arrested again with felonies mounting. He met a girl who bailed him out multiple times, married her at fifteen, and became a father twice—moments he describes as the most magical of his life. For five years, he played the part: a good father with money, time, and love to give his kids. Then everything fractured.
On September 6th, 1976, while drunk, he left his deaf son alone. The boy followed him out of the driveway and was hit by a truck. Kip spent nine months in the hospital watching doctors beg him to pray his son would die—the brain damage was too severe. His son lived but never mentally progressed beyond age four. Around the same time, his brother—his closest friend, his shadow—developed schizophrenia. When Kip left town for a scam, his brother called begging him not to go. Kip went anyway. When he returned after three weeks, he found his brother dead from suicide. Two people he loved most, destroyed—one by his negligence, one by his absence.
The pain became unbearable. Alcohol was the only thing that worked. It silenced the guilt, erased the images, lifted the weight. For the next several years, he lived in bushes, panhandled for wine, cycled through hospitals and jails. He’d heard about AA but rejected it—those clean-cut people, that God stuff, those steps about admitting weakness. He came to meetings for six years, drunk or sober, just to sit in the back and learn the lingo. He didn’t believe people like him got sober.
Then, on a cold morning in front of a 7-Eleven, physically addicted and terrified of withdrawal, a man from his childhood—someone he’d once despised for being “too good”—pulled up and gave him two dollars. The thought hit: maybe he should try AA. That night at a meeting, a woman with 27 years sober saw him and spoke directly to his desperation. She described walking in afraid she’d be rejected, then someone grabbing her arm and telling her, “We need you.” She put her arms around him, kissed him on the mouth, and said, “Honey, don’t go nowhere, baby. We need you desperately.” Kip broke down—nobody had ever needed him except people sick and looking for drugs.
He kept coming back. But the next three years were hell. Everything became too real without alcohol. The feelings, the guilt, the memories—they all surged back. On Christmas morning 1983, beaten by cops, naked, handcuffed in a rubber room, he decided: I’m done. People like me don’t get sober. I’m that guy in Chapter Five.
But on January 6th, something shifted. Alcohol stopped working. It no longer numbed the pain—it amplified it. The thought of living one more day without it was the most terrifying moment of his life. In desperation, he pulled a gun and shot himself through the lung. He woke in a hospital to find the old-timer Charlie Tuck—someone he’d hated—standing there with two newcomers.
That encounter broke something open in him. Charlie didn’t preach. He just looked at Kip and said: “You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you, kid?” Later, shot through the lung and thinking he was dying, Charlie came to his hospital bed. Instead of judgment, Charlie brought newcomers and said they’d been doing 12-step work long before getting sober. Charlie became his sponsor.
On Mother’s Day, on his knees in a park (Charlie told him he was already halfway to his feet), Kip prayed a simple prayer: “I don’t know who you are and I don’t think that makes any difference. But I will do whatever you put in front of me if I don’t have to drink today.”
Charlie’s direction was uncompromising: a step study, a book study, a men’s meeting. Every. Single. Day. A job. An ID in his real name. Call three alcoholics daily. Stand outside meetings and welcome the guy who looks like he rode the bus. Service work five nights a week. No exceptions. Nothing could be more important than sobriety.
Kip worked through the steps thoroughly in the first year. Things that seemed impossible began happening. The state of California, about to make him a ward and commit him to Patton State Hospital, released him. The doctors said this wasn’t the same human being. He got work as a contractor. At three years sober, he got his driver’s license back. He got his contractor’s license. A major downtown job. And the same day, a phone call: his daughter—a child born when he was in prison, now 23—found him. She brought three grandchildren. He got to make amends to her mother and tell her she’d made the right choice.
His son—the one hit by the truck—came into his life. They built a boat together. Kip watched him graduate high school at 23, something doctors said was impossible.
At ten years sober, Kip had everything: house, boat, money, family, faith. Then his other daughter was brutally attacked—raped, cut. The rage was ice-cold and murderous. He wanted to kill. But the Big Book said alcoholics can’t live in resentment; it cuts us off from the sunlight of the spirit. So Kip got on his knees and prayed for the man who hurt his daughter every single day. The insanity lifted. The ice water in his veins drained. He could be present for his daughter, for his grandchildren. And he didn’t have to drink.
Then came cancer. Surgery on his lip with only novocaine and aspirin because nothing could be put in his body that affected him from the neck up. Then his wife told him she was a lesbian and in love with someone else. Instead of destroying her, his sponsor—a priest—asked him: “Who made you God? You owe her an amends.” Kip did the work. They divorced amicably. She kept his last name. They’re still dear friends.
Then a dog attack took his arm and everything else he’d built. The last thing left was his son. In May, his son got sick. By October 4th, he died in Kip’s arms at 24. He didn’t know you could hurt that much and still stay sober. But the promises came true—he knew serenity. Real serenity: watching everything fall apart, crying and hurting, but knowing deep down that this is God’s business and God doesn’t make mistakes.
The day before his son died, the boy told him in sign language: “Daddy, you don’t have to worry about me no more. God came and talked to me last night and He told me He’s going to take care of me from now on.”
Kip got his education, went into a profession he’d always wanted. And his sponsor gave him a promise not in the book: “Someday at midnight when there’s no one to oppress but yourself, you’ll walk by a mirror and see the guy looking back that you always wanted to be when you were a nine-year-old kid.”
Notable Quotes
Alcohol worked for me right from the gate. It made me feel like a whole human being.
For some of us, it took a lot of pain to beat us down. You don’t have to lose everything in the world. You don’t have to go to prison. But for some of us, it helped.
I fell in love with what this woman had. She put her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth and said, ‘Honey, don’t go nowhere, baby. We need you desperately.’
On January 6th, alcohol stopped working. It didn’t take away the pain anymore—it amplified it. When you’ve been to AA for six years and AA don’t work for you, and alcohol stops working for you, you will know loneliness such as few people can imagine.
I got down on my knees and I said, ‘I don’t know who you are and I don’t think that makes any difference. But I will do whatever you put in front of me if I don’t have to drink today.’ And I absolutely totally surrendered with every fiber of my being to a power I didn’t even believe in.
The insanity went away. I was able to go take care of my daughter, to be a father. I was able to be a grandfather. And I didn’t have to drink.
Serenity is watching everything that you’ve worked for and watching the people that you love leave or die. Watching your life completely come apart and hurting, but at the same time knowing that this is God’s business and God don’t make mistakes.
Sponsorship
Hitting Bottom
Emotional Sobriety
Big Book Study
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Sponsorship
- Hitting Bottom
- Emotional Sobriety
- Big Book Study
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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 ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.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. >> Hi everybody.
>> I'm Sabrina. I'm an alcoholic. >> And I'd like to introduce tonight's main speaker, Kip Kipsy from Vista.
Good evening. >> My name is Kip Collins and I am an alcoholic. >> Ain't she a peach?
>> That's my darling. My sobriety dates May 12th, 1984. And my home group is uh Robert's Roost.
It's a men's meeting. meets on Thursday nights at 6:30. I want to thank Mike for asking me to come up here.
I hate to come up to Los Angeles, but uh this is what you call willing to go to any lengths. You know, I live in the country and I like it that way. Um, my father is uh Sue and Irish and my mother's Irish and Cherokee.
And uh when my daddy drank, my mama liked to fight. And basically the way it was, just in a general way, you know, we'd be waiting for the old man to come home. The later it got, the more apprehensive it got, you know, and after a while, you'd hear that truck coming up the road and you'd look out the window and if you looked at all the neighbors houses, you'd see everybody turning off their lights and getting their lawn chairs and coming outside, you know, cuz it was getting ready to happen.
There's a lot of action around my place, man. My uh my mom and dad were passionate, you know, there was fire and ice all the time. I do not blame my alcoholism on my father.
If anything in the world, my dad taught me exactly what alcohol will do to a man. He taught me what it'll do to a family, what it'll do to children, what it'll do to a marriage. Can't put it on him, man.
He was a prime example of what not to do. And uh I blame my alcoholism on the San Diego Unified School District. Um, >> they had this great idea about 19 64 that uh it was time to start educating the young people about drugs and that other stuff that we don't talk about in AA.
And so we went to this room and uh they showed us these movies and they had these people come up and talk and they told us what this stuff did to you. And when that was over with, my mouth was watering, you know. And I I asked my buddy Balto, I said, "Hey, can you get any of this stuff?" And he says, "Yeah." And he says, "Meet me after school tomorrow." So I met him after school.
I said, "You get it?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Well, what do we do?" He says, "Well, we got to stop and we got to rip off some wine." I said, "What for?" He said, "Well, I don't know, but my old man drinks cheap wine with this stuff." And uh, you know, I I knew about willing to go to any links a long time ago. So, we went in this little market. you know, we each boosted a short dog at Sweet Redport, went down this canyon and the magic began, you know.
Um, one of the first speakers I ever heard was a guy named Serenity Sam from Venice and he made a statement at a meeting that I knew it was okay for me to be here cuz he talked about something that I knew exactly what he was talking about. You know, I lived in a neighborhood. It was it was all Hispanic first generation.
Hardly anybody spoke English. My uh family, my cousins are all very dark-kinned. They have brown eyes, brown hair.
I had very white skin, white hair, blue eyes. And we went outside. The Mexicans wanted to beat our ass.
We went in the house. The Indian wanted to beat our ass, you know. I uh I thought my name was Pinchuero, you know, until I was about 12 years old, you know, but but uh Sir Randy Sammy says, you know, he says, when I was born, he says, I fell out of my mother's womb and I hit a cold concrete floor and I was crawling across hostile territory towards my grave and then I discovered alcohol.
And I knew what he was talking about because when I put that alcohol and that dope in my body for the very first time in my life, man, that's what was missing. Because everything had been just black and white and all of a sudden there was color in the world. I've been feeling less than and scared to death of this world, absolutely terrified of this world.
And that fear went away. All that stuff went away. And it was magic.
And I knew about these first three steps, you know. I knew that I was powerless over this world and it scared me to death and I knew my life was unmanageable. It was absolute mess at 12 years old.
I smoked this dope and drank this wine and I came to believe there was power greater than myself and I immediately with no reservation turned my will in life over to it and I never ever look back. You know, alcohol worked for me. It worked for me right from the gate.
I didn't get sick and throw up. Man, I don't know. Alcohol did something to me that nothing in this world has ever done for me.
It made me feel like a whole human being. My wife says my story is colorful. I don't know.
You know, I I was at a meeting with my sponsor very early and they had this lady up and she was talking and she was a real real rich lady and and she was talking about she was having a bridge party and she had had too many martinis and she knocked over her martini cart and she was so humiliated she turned herself into aa and she everything had been wonderful ever since. And I'm looking at her and I looked at my sponsor and he patted me on the shoulder. He says, "Kip it's all right." He says, "You don't have to lose everything in the world.
You don't have to go to prison. You know, you don't have to get here with half your parts missing. But for some of us, it helped, you know, and and that's my story.
It took a lot of pain to beat me down. You know, they I got kicked out of school in the um very beginning of the 8th grade for hitting a teacher. It was the second time I've done it.
And uh now the guy was a jerk, you know. I probably still do the same thing today. But um my mom found my stash and uh she was pissed off and in a moment of anger, she's told me to get the hell out of her house.
You know, I'd been waiting for someone to tell me to leave for a long time. And when she said go, I was gone before she turned around. I was gone, man.
and she gave me a ticket and I went over to Carl'sbad. I was talking to a friend of mine. I'd never been anywhere.
I'd never done anything. I was 14 years old and uh and my buddy says, "Hey, check this out." He says, "All these people, they're going up to San Francisco and all they do is listen to music and get high and make love, you know." And I like music. So, you know, I went up to the Haydashbury district and I got there in 1964 and I learned a whole new way to live.
Um, we were listening to Jefferson Airplane on the way up here and I can remember when they were playing for free in Golden Gate Park. They hadn't even cut a record yet. Most of you guys probably don't remember who they are.
You know, there's some of you out there that do. And my father had always told me that if I wanted stuff in this world, I got to work hard. I got to do this, I got to do that, you know.
And I found out at a very early age, and it ain't nothing I'm proud of. I found out if I had the bag, I could have anybody or anything I wanted. And that's the way I conducted my life for many, many, many years.
I'm I never did make a real good hippie. Um, I'll fight at the drop of a hat, you know, and someone says something, I'm ready to get it on, you know, and I'm basically just a capitalist, you know, and I started seeing all types of opportunities and everybody wanted this and I went to Mexico and started an importing business and uh, >> and at the age 16 years old, I got caught with 200 kilos in Mexico and I was sentenced to about 25 years in prison at La Mesa Federal Penitentiary. And I'll tell you right here and right now, nice things don't happen to young white guys with long blonde hair and blue eyes.
And if anything in the world that should have talked me into saying, you know what, the way you're living, you ought to be changing it. But you see, I've always had money and I had money. I've always been a talker.
And I ended up, thank God, Mexico is a civilized country, you know. You can you can bribe people, you know, and and I found the right people to do things with, you know, and I got five grand to them. And and I made some connections inside that jail that lasted me for the next 20 years.
It was actually one of the greatest moves I'd ever made, you know, but uh I got out of there, you know, and I thought, you know, maybe I ought to get it together. And then I got back across the border and I go, "Nah." you know, and and I went on, you know, I I got busted again on my 18th birthday and I was charged with 27 felonies and I was living with this young gal and and she was pregnant and we were really excited about having this baby and uh they came in and got me and I was gone. And uh I never got a letter from her and I never got a visit and she never called I never called.
No, the phone was shut off and nobody called me. I never had a visit. And after I got done with that term, I got out and I went to go look for this this lady and my child and nobody would tell me where she was.
I couldn't find her. Family wanted nothing to do with me, man. They told me her brother said they'd shoot me if I even came around again.
You know, and I went around for years with this big hole in my gut because of this child. You know, when I was a kid, what I wanted more than anything in this world, I wanted a family. I wanted to have children.
I wanted to have a wife. I wanted to have the house and the little white picket fence. I didn't know how to do it.
I wanted all that stuff I saw on television, you know, and I wanted it real bad. I just didn't know how to do it. I got out of there and and I I ran into this little girl and she was 15 years old, came from a wealthy family and and she bailed me out of jail three times in one week.
Man, the last time she did it, she woke up a judge at 3:00 in the morning to make bail for me. I mean, I and I made a vow right there that I would never let this woman out of my sight again. You know, I don't know too much about love, but I sure know about jail.
You know, there's not a lot of opportunities in there. And uh it's hard to make a buck. And I got out of there and I married that little girl, man.
She was 15 years old and just as innocent as could be. And I took that gal for a ride and her ears are still ringing. She's a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'd like to say today and um you know one day she came said we got to go to the hospital and I said for what? And she goes I'm going to have a baby. She had told mentioned that she was going to have a baby.
She was pregnant a few months before that. It didn't really dawn on me. I hadn't really thought about it, you know, and I've been real busy.
And she said, "We're going to have the baby today." and and we went to the hospital and they came out and they put this little boy in my arms and that was the most magic second most magic moment of my life. And they put that little boy in my arms and I looked at him and for the very first time in my life I fell head over heels in love with another human being. I looked at him and I made promises of what kind of father I was going to be and the things that we were going to do.
I promised to love him and protect him all the days of his life. And I meant it with every fiber in my being. And a couple years later, we went to the hospital again and she gave me a put a little girl in my arms.
And exactly the same thing happened. I fell head over heels in love with this little girl. And I promised her I protect her and I started planning her wedding.
You know, she was still in a still wet when they gave her to me. And I'm immed I'm I'm the kind of alcoholic I can be sitting in an AA meeting and some pretty gal will walk in before that meeting's over. We've gotten married, had a couple of kids, she cheated on me.
I hate her, you know. Call her a in the parking lot, you know. >> I've never met her, but things happen quick in here, you know.
>> Sound like there's some other people like that in here, huh? >> Hey, it's free. you know, and uh for the next 5 years, I was uh I was an ideal father and I I had a lot of money.
I'd made a lot of money and I had a real nice place and uh and all my time was spent with my kids. I played with my kids, you know, and about every 6 months I'd go do a scam and I'd come back and I'd play with my kids and that's what I did. And on September 6th, 1976, something happened that day that that changed my life forever.
Um, I was watching my son. My son was completely deaf. He was born that way.
And uh, and you had to watch David all the time. You couldn't let him out of your sight. Me and him were playing.
And uh, and I and I got loaded and it was real hot that day and I was real thirsty. No one else was around. I didn't think about it.
I I just got on my bike and I went up to the street to go get a six-pack and I came back down the and when I come back down the hill, the the paramedics were at my house and the police and the highway patrol and the fire department and all the neighbors and I I couldn't figure out what was going on and I waited down through that crowd and my my son had chased me out of the driveway and he had been run over by a truck. And I walked through that crowd and I saw my little boy and his head was split open and I could see his brains and uh and bones were protruding all over his body and a little piece of me died. You know, I spent the next nine months in a hospital in intensive care with him with him in a coma and every day that the doctors would tell me to pray that he dies because he has so much brain damage he'd be a vegetable.
And it was at this time I started crying out to some God I didn't know anything about God. But I started begging this God that I didn't know anything about to please give me my son back. I'll do anything in this world if you give me my son back.
And my son lived but he he never uh mentally got beyond the age of about four years old and he couldn't hear and he couldn't talk and he had a lot of lot of psychological problems and a lot of physical problems throughout the rest of his life. You know, at the same time this was going on, I have a brother, Bill, and everything that I've told you that I've done, and I can tell you that my brother, Bill, was right there with me. He was he was like my shadow.
He was the best friend I've ever had. We were only 11 months apart, and we backed each other's play, right or wrong, under any circumstances, under against any odds, no matter where we were. And we did everything we did, we did it together.
We were a team. And my brother came down with a disease called schizophrenia. and my family had him uh committed to a hospital and they called me.
He called me from that hospital after he had been there for a while and he says, "Hey, get me out of here, man." I said, "Are you okay?" He says, "Yeah, they're giving me this medicine now and I'm all right." I said, "All right, brother." And I I called my mom and and I talked her into letting me have conservatorship. I got a lawyer. I got got him out of that hospital and I I bought a mobile home and put it on a piece of property next to mine.
And me and my brother continued doing what we were doing. And uh my brother started getting sick. He started getting sicker and sicker.
And all of a sudden I had to go to to the Midwest to do a little thing. And uh I told my brother, I said, "Hey, I got to go." And he said, "Don't go, man." I said, "What are you talking about? I got to go." He says, "Something's wrong." He says, "I'm coming apart." And uh I said, "I got to go.
You know, I got to go." And he he's begging me. I had to pull his arms off of me. And you know, and I threw a handful of money in his hand.
I said, "Look, I'll be back in three days. me and you'll take care of this. It's always been me and you and it always will be, man.
Just hang tight. I'll be back in three days. And I got back to Oklahoma City and the scam I was doing went sideways and uh I ended up I was gone for 3 weeks.
When I came back looking for my brother, I walked in that place and nobody had seen him. And I went up to that mobile home and I opened the door and my brother's head rolled out. And the third day I left, he had taken that money and bought a gun and blown his head off.
And there was just a big pile of maggots laying in that doorway. And another big piece of me died. You know, two people I loved the most in this world that I'd taken responsibility for.
And I blew it, man. And I I just destroyed both of them. And I and something broke inside of me that day that was never ever to be repaired until I completely surrendered to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The only reason I tell you this story is to drive a point home. In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it states very clearly that there are those among us who got here with grave emotional and mental disorders. And I'm one of those people.
I'm one of those people. And I'll tell you this from my heart to yours that I thank God alcohol does for me what it does for me. If alcohol didn't do for me what it does for me, I would not be your speaker here tonight.
I would have joined my brother because the pain, the guilt, and those pictures in my mind were so vivid. But alcohol took it away. Alcohol took all those feelings of guilt away.
It took those images out of my head. Put a smile on my lips and a song in my heart and I could just walk through anything in this world as long as I had a little liquor in me. They talk a lot about bottoms and I don't know anything about it.
You know, I've been in this field for a long time and I see a lot of people hit bottom. Usually we bury them the next day. You know, I had my ex-mother-in-law.
She hit a bottom. She spent the last 11 years of her life in a hospital with Kacov syndrome. And that's a wet brain.
She didn't know who she was. She never got any worse. So, she hit bottom.
I had a young man had 90 days and got mad at his wife not too long ago and locked himself in a van and he drank a quart of vodka straight down and he died. He hit bottom. You ain't never going to get no worse.
But it's been my experience. As long as you can think and have anything at all, any thought process at all going on between your ears, it never stops getting bottom. Anytime you think this is it, I guarantee you you will find a basement.
The one most wonderful thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is like my wife told you, you can pick a bottom. You You can pick one. You don't have to go no farther.
It's not necessary anymore. You know, I my wife made a career move at about that time. My son was in a special hospital and she left with my coke connection, which was a real good move.
He had a lot more going on than I did. And it was just me and my little girl there. My girl, my little daughter, she was just terrified because she'd had this ideal life.
We had this beautiful home. She'd had her brother. She adored.
She had her uncle. She adored her mom and her dad, you know, and everyone was gone or dead. And her father was absolutely insane.
And he couldn't stop drinking. She was scared to death. And this guy came over to my house and he brought this bottle of stuff called Mad Dog 2020.
They have that up here. stuff's never seen a grape, man. I'll tell you.
But I drank that stuff. And uh and this lady said, "Sure, you have to get off the airplane." And I went, "What?" I sit in my living room, the last thing I remembered, you know, and I opened my eyes and I'm on this big widebody jet, you know, and it's empty and just me and my little girl sitting there. I said, "Where am I?" She goes, "You're in Fort Lauderdale." I said, "I hate four Lauderdale deal." She goes, "I don't know anything about that.
You got to get off the plane." And uh so we're getting off the plane and I'm trying to be real cool, trying to get my daughter, maybe she knows what's going on, you know. And I I did what any of you guys would have done, you know. I got off the plane, I went to a pay phone, I called a cab.
Cab came. I got on. I said, "I need to go to a hotel and stop at a liquor store on the way cuz I need to figure out what's happened here.
And I come to in this in this room and and I'm completely tied down. You know, I feel like someone's beat me with clubs. Found out later they had.
And uh I don't know where my daughter is. I don't have any recollection of what's happened. And uh I found out later that I met this couple at this hotel.
We started drinking and I went absolutely nuts, you know, and they were going to lock me up, but they said the guy's just nuts. and they put me in a nutouse and I got out of there and this family had taken my daughter, thank God. And I and I said, "Come on, baby.
We got to get out of Florida. I told you this place is bad luck." You know, and and I'll tell you that for the next 3 years, it never got any better than that. Everywhere we went, that's the same story.
I mean, there's a thousand stories just like that one. It never got any different. But every place I went to, I promised her it was going to be different.
I promised her. I said, "Baby, I love you. We're going to get it together.
We're going to get you in school. We're going to get a house. I'm going to take care of you.
I'm going to protect you." And I meant it. I meant it with everything I had. And the last place was back in Oklahoma, you know.
And I come walking in that house. We finally got a tiny little house. And I'd got her enrolled in school for the first time in two years.
And And I came home and I was drunk and I'd gotten in a fight with a guy and I got blood all over my clothes and it wasn't mine. and and I told her, I said, "We got to get out of here." She was 7 years old, but she just looked at me and she looked at me with this look I'll never forget. She just picked up her doll and her pillow and she went and stood by the door and I changed clothes and we got on a cab and we went to the bus station and I got me a bottle of wine and drank it and got on that bus and I passed out and I come to in Gallop, New Mexico and I woke up sicker than a dog and my I opened my eyes and my little girl was sitting there and she was rocking back and forth and she was crying and I said, "What's the matter?" She said, "Daddy, I am so hungry.
You haven't fed me yet." And I said, "Okay, baby. as soon as we stop, I'll get you something to eat." We pulled in at Gallup and I got off that bus and I went and got me a bottle of wine and I went and bought her a little sandwich and I got up to go pay for it and I stuck my hand in my pocket and I only had enough money for one thing or the other and I had to put her sandwich back. And I've done a lot of things in this world that I don't share from the podium, but I've never done anything in my life that haunted me more than that moment.
And again, thank God that alcohol works, you know. We got back to California. I went over to my mom's house and thank God for my mom.
She took my daughter and told me to hit the bricks, you know, and she took my little girl and uh and for the next three three years, I I was a whiner. I lived in the bushes. I lived on the side of the road.
I panhandled for wine. Uh I drank until you locked me up, until I hurt myself. I was in a hospital.
till I did something stupid and you put me in the nutouse and the minute you released me I started drinking again because alcohol worked. I could not live without alcohol. There's no way in the world I could live without alcohol.
And I've been to these ANA meetings, you know, and a lot of different institutions and jails I've been in that hospital institutional committee would come in and they would start talking this stuff and and I would very patiently try to explain to them that I wasn't an alcoholic. I was a drug addict. I just couldn't afford any al drugs right now, you know.
And uh and they said, "Well, if you ever find yourself drinking when you don't want to drink, come back. Come into Alcoholics Anonymous and we'll welcome you with open arms." And I, you know, I just kind of file that away, you know, a little ace, just someone will take me in. Okay?
You know, and I was in front of the 7-Eleven panhandling for wine. I was sicker than a dog, scared to death I was going to go into convulsion. You know, I hear a lot of people talk about fear in meetings.
I'll tell you my idea of fear. Fear is a you stand in front of a 7-Eleven. You're physically addicted to alcohol.
And I don't know if any of you know what that means, but when you're physically addicted to alcohol, you can't stop drinking. And when you stop drinking, you're going to go into convulsions. You're going to go into DTS.
You're probably going to go into a grand mall seizure. And what's going to happen? The ambulance is going to come.
They're going to put you in there. They're going to take you to a place and detox you and you can't drink when they do that and you have to come back out and you have to start the process all over again. And the thought of doing that is just a lot of work, you know, and uh and I'm getting ready I'm getting ready to go.
It's get it's like 5:45 in the morning. They're going to open up the cooler at 6:00. I got 65 cents in my hand.
Wine cost 87 cents. And no one's giving up another penny. And I'm scared to death, man.
I'm starting to shake real bad. All of a sudden, this about hit hit six o'clock and this guy pulled up and it was like, he said, "Hi, Keip. How are you?" And I I looked at him and it was a guy that I'd known was when I was a kid.
I couldn't stand people like him. He came from a nice family, you know. Um he always had nice clothes.
He got good grades. Everybody liked him. and he lived in the good part of town, you know, and he just looked at me and he smiled and he gave me $2 first thing in the morning.
Man, I don't know if there's any wineos out here, but you believe in God after that, you know? I mean, $2 is a whole court of wine. And that's going to keep me well till about 3:00, you know, and I got a little change left over.
And I went in there and I got me a quart of Tani port. And I'm walking out of there, shuffling out. I look in that window and I see this family looking at me in their car and I know they're judging me.
you know, he's got this square little wife and these square little kids and he's wearing this square suit and this short hair and clean shaven and a square four-door sedan and I couldn't imagine living like that. But I just shuffled off to my my bush and uh and the weirdest thing happened because I open that bottle and I go, "Lap, you know, the doorway, here we go." And I had this thought that maybe I ought to go to ANA. Now, where the hell did that come from?
I found out me and that guy got to be real good friends later on. And I'm not here to talk about religion. I don't believe it has any business in Alcoholics Anonymous, but that was a real good Christian family.
And as that drunk shuffled off, they got out of their car and they prayed for that poor drunk to God to intervene in his life. about the time they were praying for me, I had this thought, maybe I ought to be going to ANA, you know, and and I and I got into this meeting. I don't know how this is told to me, most of it's hearsay, this rest of this, but I do remember this.
I I got to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that night, and I walked in, came in the back door, and I looked at all these people, and they were all cleancut and smiling and laughing. And I looked around and and I I sat down next to this young gal and she scooted all the way across the room. You know, my hair came down to about here and my my beard came down past my belt.
I've been living in these clothes for almost 3 years and a lot of things lived on me besides me. And um I sat down and people are kind of looking around and I'm looking at them and they're looking at me and I'm going I wonder if they have a room for the more severe cases, you know, um don't look like drunks to me. And and then I started listening and they were talking about God and I'm like, Sabrina, man, that's the last thing I want to hear about God.
And then I saw you pass a basket and I knew you were going to start singing any minute. You know, I'm getting ready to get my hat. I'm getting the hell out of here, man.
And all of a sudden, this little girl, she's been looking at me since I walked in the room. And she kept trying to smile at me. Every time she catched my eyes, she's smiling at me.
And I thought she was one of them wetrained drunk women you hear about. And she's kind of nuts. And I got ready to leave and I started to stand up and she shot to her feet.
And this is what she said. She said, "I walked in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous 27 years ago." She goes, "I came in the back door. And I stuck my head and I looked and I looked at all you ladies and you guys were ladies and I looked at you men and you were all cleancut.
And she goes, "I turned around to leave because I knew once you saw what I was that you would turn your back on me." She goes, "I've been a prostitute since I was 14 years old. I've done everything a woman ever had to do out on the streets to survive." And I just couldn't stop drinking and they told me you could help. And I looked at these people and I knew it wouldn't work for me.
And I turned to leave and someone grabbed me by the arm and brought me into the room and got me a cup of coffee. And they told me this. They said, "Please don't go nowhere.
We need you." She proceeded to talk about the next 27 years of her sobriety. She talked about the 12 steps. She talked about her sponsor.
She talked about the traditions. She talked about her home group. She talked about her commitments in Alcoholics Anonymous.
She shared some of the joys and some of the sorrows she had walked through in sobriety. And she walked up in front of all those people that didn't want nothing to do with me. and she put her arms around me and she kissed me right on the mouth.
The bravest woman I've ever known in my life, you know, and she said this to me. She says, "Honey," she says, "don't go nowhere, baby. We need you desperately." Now, I have never shed a tear in my life.
You can't beat one out of me. But something started happening. And that gal, she wouldn't let go of me.
She just kept holding on. And all of a sudden, this thing started right in my gut. And it was just a sob.
And I started crying. And I was embarrassed. And I couldn't stop.
Nobody had ever done that to me before. Nobody had ever told me they needed me desperately except someone that was sick and needed some dope, you know, but she needed me. She didn't even know me.
And I fell in love with what this woman had. And I said, "I'm going to go to this ANA." And I started coming here. And right off the bat, every one of you lied to me, you know, because you told me that if I quit drinking alcohol, my life would get better.
Now, I have no idea what alcohol does for you people, you know. Well, alcohol is not my problem. Never has been my problem.
It never will be my problem. I have an acute allergic reaction to sobriety. You know, you know, in about 3 days, everything's so damn real.
You know, all those feelings and all this stuff and all those other stuff starts coming up. I start remembering and that guilt starts and I can't sleep. You know, I can't fall asleep.
I haven't slept without alcohol in many, many years. And I stay sober for as long as I possibly could. you know, you told me to get a sponsor.
I said, "What's a sponsor?" They explained to it. I said, "Yeah, I've been on parole half my life. I'm not about to volunteer one of these lops, you know, and they looked at those steps and I I said, "What's this?" And he he pointed out, I said, "I'm not powerless.
Just having a bad break here, you know." And uh you know, I've been seeing a psychiatrist since I was 12 years old on and off. So, what are they going to restore me to? I've never been really considered sane, you know.
saw that God stuff. Drove right by that. Didn't want nothing to do with that one, you know.
Then I saw that fourth step. I said, "What the hell is that?" He goes, "Well, you got to sit down. You got to make a list of everything you've ever done and you got to admit it to another human being." I fell out of my chair laughing.
I come from the streets and I learned a long time ago, man, you don't cop to nothing. Even if they got pictures, you know, deny everything. Demand a jury trial.
Hope for the best. You know, or ever share a weakness with another human being, they'll use it against you. Only thing you tell people is what they want to hear so you can get your hand in their pocket, you know.
And that stuff was I just Whoa. You know, I listen to you people share. I'd be so embarrassed.
And then I saw that other one. It says I said, "What's that?" He goes, "Well, you got to anyone you've wronged, you got to make it right." I went, "Yeah, I thought of some people, you know." And I went, "Gee, I'm sober now. I'm sorry that I kicked your door and stole 10 kilos of cocaine and beat you and your wife up.
That might be fine for you people that live in the suburbs and but you know the I started thinking. I went, man, you people are out of your mind. I I I wanted I wanted what you had so desperately that if it would have been a tangible thing, I would have knocked one of you in the head and taken it.
You know, I know how to get that way. And I kept coming here and I kept coming here and I came to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for six years straight non-stop. I came drunk or sober.
I have passed out in meetings. I've thrown up in your meetings. I've pissed on your floors.
I've stolen your money. Um, I was doing active 12step work long before I got sober, man. I came through Christmas morning 1983, butt naked, handcuffed in the rubber room.
My face is stuck to that mat with the blood cuz the cops have beat me so bad they broke both my cheekbones. And I'm ripping my face off this floor and I look up in the window and I see these cops looking down at me laughing, you know, and you just know Santa Claus ain't coming, you know, but you know you got your money's worth. And they let me out of there, man.
Those people knew me so well, you know, they just said, "We'll see you later, Kip. Merry Christmas." you know, and uh and I shuffled off and I ain't going to come back to this ANA. I'm I'm that person in chapter five, man.
People like me don't get sober. That might be okay for those people, but not people like me, you know. They keep telling me to do things like get an ID in my real name.
They keep telling me to do things like get a job, you know, and all this other stuff that has nothing to do with my problem, you know, and no one wants to hear about my problem. They keep wanting to tell me just keep coming back. Just go to meetings.
Just go to meetings. get involved in service, get a sponsor, do the steps. And it didn't work for me.
Of course, I didn't want to do any of that stuff. I like to go to speaker meetings, you know. I like to get to speaker meeting, sit in the back, and learn the lingo.
You know, easy does it. One day at a time, you know, have a nice day. How you feeling?
Oh, great. You know, everything's just wonderful, you know. Isn't sobriety wonderful?
you know, and and I'd sit with you people as long as I could until it'd be midnight and then it would be me because you wouldn't be here and I'd go absolutely stark raving sober. If there's anyone in this room tonight that thinks you're going to be able to stay sober on other people's sobriety, you can do that for a little while, but not for long. I made a conscious decision that morning that I wasn't going back to Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'm going to go do what I do. I drink. That's what I do.
I'm going to drink till I die. I ain't afraid of dying. You know, I should have died years ago.
And I went and I I'd been working a little bit. I had a little place to live and I got as much liquor as I could possibly carry. And I walked inside my little place and I started drinking.
And I started drinking and I drank and I drank and on January 6th I hit a spot that was the absolute most terrifying, the loneliest, the most terrifying moment of my life cuz alcohol stopped working on January 6th. I remember that day crystal clear. It didn't take away the pain no more.
It didn't take away the guilt. It didn't take away those feelings. It amplified it.
And the thought of living one more day without alcohol was working for me was the most terrifying thought I've ever had. And when you've been to AA for 6 years and AA don't work for you. And when alcohol stops working for you, let me tell you, you will know loneliness such as few people can even imagine.
You come to the jumping off spot. You wish for the end. I know what that means.
But at that time when I realized alcohol wasn't going to work no more for me. I pulled out my piece, put it up to my heart, and pulled the trigger. And I blew my left lung and two ribs out and knocked me all the way across the room.
And I'm sliding down this wall with blood flying everywhere. And the only thought I got is, "Thank God this nightmare is over with. Thank God.
Just let me out of this thing." And I come through in this hospital. You thought I died, didn't you? There was this guy, man.
I hated this son of a His name was Charlie Tuck. I'll break his anonymity cuz he's dead, you know. And uh I hated him, man, because he came up to me in a meeting one time and he got dead in my face.
This guy had been sober so long he said they only had one a when he got here, you know. He came up to me and he got dead in my face and he looked at me and he says, "You think you're pretty tough, don't you, kid?" And I looked him right in the eye, gave him my best jail house look. I said, "I'm tough enough, old man.
Don't you ever doubt that." He looked at me and he smiled. He said, "You ain't tough." He said, "You're the scariest son of a in this room." Said, "That might make you dangerous, but it don't make you tough." And he walked away laughing at me. You know, boy, I tell you what, from then on, every time I go to a meeting, I'd look in that back window to see if he was in there.
If he was in there, I wasn't going in, you know. And here I come to in this damn hospital. I'm coming out of this comment.
I can hear this guy had a deep, deep, grally voice. And I hear this voice and I open my eyes and there he's standing there with these two newcomers with his eyes about this big and he's got that big ugly blue book and I'm going like god I've died gone to hell and aa's here and Charlie's in charge of it you know and he's going to start preaching that ANA you know so I just keep my eyes shut I ain't going to give it up you know and Charlie don't say one word to me man he puts his arm around these student newcomers. And he says, "Fellas, you see this pitiful man here?" And they go, "Yeah." And they go, "This is what happens to an alcoholic who doesn't take the steps.
Come on, let's go." Yeah. He didn't know how sensitive I was, you know. I'd like to add that those two gentlemen are still sober today.
And like I said, I was doing active 12step work long before I got sober. I got out of that hospital, man. I ain't going to come back here, man.
You know, I'm just going to go drink. That's what I do. I keep hoping it'll work cuz it's insane in my head.
I'm star craving sober 24/7, you know. I can't stop the screaming in my head. I keep drinking, drugs, anything I can get in my body, you know, and it ain't working.
And on May 12th, I come to the same way I always come to. I got to get something in my body before the screaming starts. I know it's not going to work, but I got nothing left.
What are you going to do? I'm going to keep trying. And the thought I had that morning was weird.
I've been to so many of these ANA meetings. Y'all had poisoned my mind because you told me this. He said, "The ABCs right at end of every chapter five at every AA meeting." And he said that I'm powerless over alcohol.
I thought I know I'm an alcoholic, man. You know, I'm classified by the state of California. I got a card that says I'm a chronic alcoholic.
You know, I have no problem with that. But it says in there, chapter 3, about my innermost self in here where I live. Don't matter what I admit to you or what someone else calls me.
It's in here with me. And I have to understand what alcoholism exactly the way it affects me. And I started thinking about and all of a sudden I had that vision of that morning on that bus with my little girl.
My little girl who I give my life for. But you see this is the way alcohol affects me. When I put alcohol on my body from that moment on, it doesn't matter about who I love.
It doesn't matter about any of my plans, any of my dreams, any of my morals. And it sure as hell doesn't matter about any of yours. I have to do whatever alcohol tells me to do.
And alcohol tells me tells me who I can hang with. It tells me where I can live. It tells me what I got to get up.
It tells me when I got to go to bed. It tells me everything I got to do of where I can go. It runs my life from the minute my eyes open until they close at night.
And it starts all over the very next day. And I understood exactly what finally in my innermost self what alcohol does. And then I got to that next spot that no human power was going to fix me.
I kept hoping one of you gals were going to fix me. You know, some of you tried. If you're here tonight, I'd like to make amends.
Come on. You were willing. And I got to that last part.
Part I wanted nothing to do, man. That God stuff. that God stuff, man.
I tried I just get so embarrassed, man. I wouldn't even want to hold your hands. You start talking about the Lord's prayer and talking about all this stuff.
I had to leave many meetings when he got just too godly for me, you know, but I start thinking about the people who had what I wanted. And it wasn't their women. It wasn't their money.
It wasn't their stuff, man. It was a look in their eye. And the way they walked through this world one day at a time without taking a drink, they walked through life with dignity, with a smile on their lips and a song in their heart.
And all of one of these people talked about the same thing. They talked about this power that did for them what they couldn't do for themselves. I got down on my knees that morning and I said this little prayer and it ain't changed much from now to then.
And it was went like this. I said, "I don't know who you are and I don't think that makes any difference. But I will do whatever you put in front of me if I don't have to drink today.
And if you're not there, I'm screwed." And I absolutely totally surrendered with every fiber of my being to a power I didn't even believe in. And I went and got that old man, Charlie Tuck, and I asked Charlie if he would sponsor me. And he said this.
He says, "Are you done?" And I said, "I pray to God I'm done." He says, "What are you willing to do?" I said, "Whatever you tell me." He says, "Kip." He says, "I've been watching you for a long time, and people like you don't get sober. You don't get sober in AA. Something inside of you is badly broken, and I don't know what it is.
That's between you and God. But for some reason or another, God has given you a window. And I'd advise you to step through.
And this is the way it's going to have to be for you one day at a time the rest of your life. And that is that nothing, no woman, no job, no child, nothing in this world can ever be more important than you doing the things you have to do to maintain your sobriety. And that's a hell of a lot more than just going to meetings.
He said, "If you're willing to do that, I'm willing to sponsor you." And I said, "Yes, sir, I am." He said, "We took me outside and it was on Mother's Day and we got down on my knees in this park. I didn't want to get down on my knees cuz all these families were there. I was embarrassed." And he thought looked at me and he said, "You're embarrassed?" She said, "These people have been stepping over you for the last three years.
You know, you're on your knees. You're halfway to your feet, boy." You know, and uh and I got down on my knees and that old man taught me how to pray. And then what he did was this.
He advised me to get involved in a step study meeting, a book study, and a men's meeting for me to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single day of the week. He told me to get a job. He told me to get an identification in my real name, which was just terrifying.
You know, he told me to get to a meeting of alcoholics and arms every night there and get there early and shake hands with every single person that walked in the door. He told me to get a phone list and call three alcoholics every single day and not the same three. He told me to get to a meeting and always stand outside and look for the guy that's standing there all alone.
Looks like he had to walk here and we rode the bus and stick your hand out to him and welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. And he got me involved in service. And he got me involved in service to an extent where I had a commitment five nights a week.
He took me through those 12 steps very thoroughly in the first year, you know, and he got me actively involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to tell you that something happened in this guy's life. At that time, the state of California was in the process of making me a ward of the state.
I was 36 years old and it become quite evident to everybody that I could no longer manage my life and I was a threat to myself and others. And they were going to give me a card that I get to carry and anytime I screw up they're going to put me back in Patton State Hospital. And I like hospitals.
If you ever been to prison or been to a hospitals are better, you know, they care, you know, and you say, "I'm feeling a little tense today." they'll give you something, you know, and uh and it was sounding good, you know, and uh and I had to go before a board at 6 months sober and I had to take a battery of test and and they told they released me. They said that this isn't the same human being we've been treating. And things happened in my life that cannot happen.
I have an hour pitch and I'm going to have to wind up the rest of it real quick. So, don't anybody move. I'll have to start all over.
I met her in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, a lovely woman. Got sober the same day I did and we got married. Between us, we had six children and a desire to stop drinking.
And that's it. and uh and through my sponsor's guidance through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in the fellowship, things happened in my life that are absolutely impossible. I've never had a job in my life.
I smuggled dope, man. You know, I can put nine tons of dope from Zooato to Boston, Massachusetts with no problem, but I have never filled out a job application. You know, I don't know the first thing about writing a check or doing anything else.
I was a stranger in a strange world when I came to Alcoholics and Island. It was a lot more than just not drinking. I'd never been a citizen in my life.
I walked in here and they had me doing all this stuff and and he told me to get a job and I got a job and I found out that I was really good at it, you know, and I became a contractor and I made a lot of money. At three years sober, the state of California gave me my driver's license back, which was supposed to have never happened. I got my contractor's license that year.
I signed a job with a big skyscraper downtown San Diego with more money than I'd ever made in my life. And the same day I got a phone call and that little girl, she called me up and she said, "Are you Kip?" And I said, "Yeah." And she goes, "Do you know so and so?" And I said, "A long time ago." She goes, "That's my mama and you're my daddy and I've been looking for you and I want to meet you and I want you to meet your grandchildren." And this was a gal that was born when I was in prison. She was 23 years old and she came and she brought me three beautiful little grandchildren, you know, and I had a home and I had a good life to bring her to and I got to meet her mom and I got to make amends to her mom and tell her that she made the right decision that I'm glad that she left and I didn't have to drag them through the life that I went through.
I got my daughter back. I got my my son back. He came in and we got involved in Special Olympics and I watched him graduate from high school at the age of 23 and they said it was absolutely impossible.
Me and him built a boat together and we did all those things I dreamed about doing when he was born. That little girl, a man came and asked me for a hand in marriage and I was able to give her a marriage, a wedding that exactly the way I dreamed about the day she was born. I still pay for it, you know.
Uh probably always will, you know, but I walked her down the aisle and I watched her look at me exactly the way I dreamed about her looking at me. And you see, you people gave me all that. I threw that away.
You gave it all back to me. Everything that I threw away, you gave me back in spades. And at 10 years sober, I had everything it imaginable.
I had the house. I had the boat. I had just made an ungodly amount of money.
I went to Australia for 2 months and went to AA all over. And I came back and I was I was a member of a church. My family's all Pentecostal evangelists.
So I joined the Catholic church in sobriety. give them something to talk about. And um I got involved in my faith and uh I was involved in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I fulfilled every function there is to do in Alcoholics Anonymous except for delegate. Um I came back and I was just looking at my life and I'm going, "How do you get from that bamboo bush to here? It's absolutely impossible." And I'm reading in the paper and I find out where this man has broken into this girl's house and raped her and cut her to pieces.
And I looked down the name and it was my daughter. And I'll tell you this that I'm perfectly capable of first-degree murder. If you touch anything, I care about.
And I went to that hospital to go see my daughter. And uh and she didn't look human. This man had taken a knife to her.
And she cut her face to pieces in her throat. And she lost the use of her left arm and her breast and every oh everything was just cut to pieces. And what happened was, man, you see, I don't know about anger.
I know about making plans. I know about it getting real ice cold inside here where I live. And I don't talk to nobody.
And I get real quiet cuz I plan on getting away with it, you know, and and I and I can't talk about it. I can't talk about it to anybody. And I'm nuts.
Absolutely insane. And my sponsor told me that all the answers were in the book. And I'm reading this book and I'm look I'm looking for a loophole is what I'm looking for, you know, and I'm reading in there and it says this.
It says that we cannot afford the luxury dubious luxury that other people can. We cannot live in anger. We can't live in resentment because it'll cut us off from the sunlight of the spirit and the insanity will turn and we'll drink again.
It doesn't say unless someone rapes your daughter. It just says that. It says if I'm an alcoholic that I cannot live in that resentment and anger because it'll kill me.
And my sponsor told me from the gate that nothing could be more important than me being sober. Nothing could be more important than me doing the things that I have to do to maintain my sobriety. And I have to read in that book cuz I can't get rid of this resentment.
And I get down I find that that if I got a resentment I can't get away from that. I got to pray for this person every single day to have everything out of life I want. Hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life was get on my knees and pray for that man.
And I'm not going to stand up here and lie to you and tell you I forgive him. I work on that still to this day. But the insanity went away.
The insanity, that ice water in my veins went away. And I was able to go take care of my daughter to be a father. I was able to take care of my grandchildren to be a grandfather.
And I didn't have to drink. And the program of Alcoholics Anonymous worked real good. Next thing they told me that I had cancer and they're having to cut my lips off.
I like my lips, you know, right where they're at, you know. And I just talk to this doctor and he wants to do this radical surgery and he's telling me that man this is getting you I'm telling him listen I'm getting a lot of emotional pain with what's going on. I'm an alcoholic man and you can't put anything in my body that cuts me off.
Anything that affects me from the neck up you can't put in me. And they went well I don't think you can do this. And I ended up going to se several different doctors till I finally found a doctor that would do it.
And we did a surgery on my lip and they cut about half my lip off down here and did plastic surgery. And I did it with novacaane and aspirin. And I'm not recommending that to anybody, you know.
And I'm not here to tell you that I'm a tough guy because I ain't, man. I whined and sniveled for about a month, you know. But there's nothing in this world.
I know that if I put something in my body when I have emotional pain going on that there's no way I'll ever be able to stop. And nothing's more important than me being clean and sober. The next thing I got, something been going on with my wife, man.
And I I had a lovely wife. She was a great woman. and she was the very first woman I had ever really let into my life.
I had known a lot of women, but I'd never been intimate with one. I'd never shared myself. And I learned how to do that in AA.
And she came into my life and and she was my best friend, but something had been going on with her. I didn't know what it was. And and I came home and I said, "Connie, what's going on?" And she said, "We got to talk." And we sat down and she told me, she goes, "Kip," she goes, "I can't live this lie no more.
I love you very much." She goes, "But I can't live this lie anymore. I'll drink." And I said, 'What are you talking about? She goes, "Kip"?
She goes, "I'm a lesbian and I'm in love with Chrissy and I can't I can't do this no more. I don't want to hurt you, but I can't do this no more." And uh I didn't think she was going to say that. I thought maybe my socks not picking it up or something, you know.
>> And you know, I reacted the way any 9-year-old would, you know, I got mad, angry, screaming, uh, calling her very vulgar names, uh, attacking her character, her integrity. I didn't hit her. Um, and I ran to my uh my godfather in the church who happened to be a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 28 years.
His name just happened to be Father Bill Wilson. And u and I went to see him and I'm telling him, he's a Catholic priest. He's going to be on my side, you know.
And I'm running it down to him, man. I'm running it down telling him what's going on and how I have been wronged. can look at he's just looking at me going my my my so what do you think father what do you think I should do he says well obviously you owe her an amends or go maybe you weren't listening you know and he goes no he says no I heard you you sound exactly like that guy on page 61 in the big book of alcoholics anonymous he goes you know the guy that thought he could rest satisfaction out of life if he only managed well that everything he did he was always kind and generous or maybe he wasn't.
But whatever he did had a hook in it. You know, whatever he did, it was about him because you keep telling me about, oh, you were so wonderful to her. You were so wonderful to her children and you did this and did this and now she's done this.
He goes, who in the hell made you God? He says, who since when are you in charge of anyone's sexuality? You know, I'm your confessor.
You have enough problem with your own. You know, he says, you owe her an amends. just because you're married to her, that doesn't mean you own her.
And you know what it took for her to tell come and tell you this? You think about it. And so I did.
He says, "You need to go write about this and you need to go make an amends." And I went and I followed directions in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went and wrote about it. And I went and wrote about that marriage and I did an inventory on it.
And my wife had been a good wife and she kept her vows to me until she couldn't. And when she couldn't, she came and told me and and we got a very amicable divorce, you know, and she kept my last name and and she to this day we're still very dear friends. I didn't know you could do that, you know.
I didn't, you know, when a when a woman kicks you, you just kick him to the curb and go next, you know. Uh oh. Like you women don't, huh?
Yeah. Right. You you look so innocent, honey.
You know, they I got attacked by this damn dog. Almost lost my arm. And the same thing.
I was in a hospital. I couldn't work. I ended I lost everything, man.
I lost everything I'd worked for in 10 years. I lost I mean lost my business. Lost everything.
The last thing I had was my son. It was just me and him. And uh and in May, he got real sick and I had to take him to the hospital.
and he was 24 years old. And I sat with him in the hospital till October. And uh in October 4th, he he died in my arms.
And I did not know that you could hurt that much. You know, I did not know it was humanly possible to hurt that much. But it was at this time that I've it says in the in the promises, it says we will know serenity.
And I knew serenity. And I'll tell you about serenity with me. And serenity has nothing to do with a pocket full of money watching a beautiful sunset with her.
Serenity is watching everything that you've worked for and watching the people that you love leave or die. Watching your life completely come apart and crying and hurting, but at the same time in your heart of hearts knowing that this is God's business and God don't make mistakes. I mean knowing that not not a little no capital K N O W and I I had to tell him to turn the life support machine off my son and I held him until the last convulsions were over with.
And uh and I got down on my knees that day and I after I'd shaved him and got him ready for the coroner and I thanked God at the most sincere moment of my life that I thanked the God of my understanding that brought you people to me. Because you see, you enabled me to have the 10 years to be the kind of father I always dreamed about being, to have the relationship with my son that I dreamed about having. And I had that relationship with me.
He loved me with all of his heart. and I loved him. And I sat with him and the day before he died, I come walking into his room and and the nurse said, "My your son wants to talk to you real real bad." And I walked in and he told me in sign language, he says, "Daddy," he says, "you don't have to worry about me no more." I said, "What's the matter?
What do you mean?" He goes, "God came and talked to me last night and I and he told me he's going to take care of me from now on." And he was at peace with himself and and he went into a coma that night and he died the next morning. And I was at peace with it. You know, you know, I I at 10 years sober, everything that I had worked for and everything that I loved was gone.
And and it was just me and Alcoholics Anonymous. And and I started a brand new life. And what I did, I'd only been to the eighth grade.
I went to school. I got an education. Um I went into a profession that I'd always wanted to go into.
And I my wanted to jam a woman into my life real quick, you know. And I told my sponsor, I said, "I'm very lonely. I need a relationship." He says, "You're not lonely.
You're horny." There's a big difference. You know, and he said, "Uh, I want to explain something to you that no alcoholic can ever have a relationship as long as they need one." You know, when you don't need a relationship, you can have one. When you're comfort, I tell you this, you people.
I don't know a lot. I know the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, as outlined in the first 164 pages, will work for absolutely anybody, anywhere, under any circumstances. It don't matter where you've been.
It don't matter what you done or what you ain't done. If you're willing to live by these principle, things will happen in your life you will not believe. You will never have to run from anything again chemically or geographically.
It'll teach you how to live in this world one day at a time very comfortably no matter what happens. You know, I know this too. I know that no matter what I got to do to stay sober, it sure as hell is easier to stay sober than to get sober.
You know, I'll leave you with this one thing. My pro my sponsor gave me one more promise. This wasn't in the book.
He told me this. He says, "If you will live by these principles, there'll be come a time when someday when about midnight when there ain't no one to oppress, just you. And you're going to walk by a mirror and you're going to see the guy looking back that you always wanted to be when you were that 9-year-old kid.
And I ain't going to tell you I'm any big deal, you know, cuz I ain't. But I'll tell you this. as a result of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 traditions and the 12 concepts of fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, an excellent sponsor in the work that I have done and a loving God.
I am the best human being I've ever been in my life in every aspect of it, you know, and I owe that to you and I want to thank you all for letting me come here and your hospitality and uh that's it. >> 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.