# Bayouland Jamboree — MP3

- Archive ID: `DP-1994-HOUMA`
- Source: https://storiesofrecovery.org/downloads/BBA/DonPritts-HoumaLA~03Sep1994.mp3
- Duration: 01:09:18
- Audio SHA-256: `eafa71d8dac14157fb1f635d7968f53ba6afbc7efed0f42e50ecb3215ab3a5e9`

> Automated timestamped draft (faster-whisper base.en). Names, specialized terms, and unclear passages require human review.

## Transcript

**[00:00:09]** Goodness. I just tell them in the back there I'm used to looking at your pretty faces before I get up here so I can get tuned into you. I ain't tuned in yet. My name is Don and I'm an alcoholic. And I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing tonight. My home group is the Tuesday night Southern Pines Big Book group in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
**[00:00:39]** And this code is terribly hot. My mother and my sponsor and my wife say I have to wear it to show that I respect you. Do you understand that I respect you? Okay. I really did that so you can see these fine suspenders. Before I ever make a talk in Alcoholics Anonymous, I ask God to fill me with His Holy Spirit and let it flow through me and into the lives of others. I've got to tell you just looking at you. I am truly filled with
**[00:01:28]** the Spirit of God. So we're going to have a three-hanky talk. I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't come looking for you. I didn't know I needed you. And I would never have found you. If you hadn't had some of your emissaries out trolling for people like me. At the time you found me, I was certified by one government agency as Associate Path Type II. And another government agency was
**[00:02:08]** he said I was a psychopath. And the psychiatrist said that I was a manic depressive drug addict. And the only
**[00:02:16]** I knew for sure is I really didn't feel good. I think that as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous,
**[00:02:29]** one of the most important duties that I have, if God puts you in my life, is to help you find
**[00:02:36]** out what the hell's wrong with you. Are you an alcoholic? I can deal with that one. You can
**[00:02:47]** be an alcoholic and anything else that I can deal with your alcoholism. I am not an alcoholic
**[00:02:54]** and a drug addict, although for 14 years I did speed. And acid. That my drug of choice was
**[00:03:05]** methadrin. But I always had a choice as to whether I used that or not. And with Alcohol
**[00:03:11]** I have never had a choice and that's what makes me alcoholic. And today in Alcoholics
**[00:03:16]** Anonymous we have a lot of people coming to us, God bless them. And if we don't help
**[00:03:20]** them find out what's wrong with them, they stay fragmented. And fragmented people die. And
**[00:03:25]** we don't care what you are. If you're alcoholic, you belong here. And if you're alcoholic
**[00:03:32]** I have some really important information for you tonight. The most important thing I've
**[00:03:37]** ever heard in my life. If you're alcoholic you don't ever have to drink alcohol again,
**[00:03:42]** ever. You don't ever have to hurt like you've been hurting ever again. I could sit down now.
**[00:03:55]** I'm not going to. I'm meant to thank the committee too for the pool. I have always wanted to
**[00:04:02]** have a water walking after one of my talks. Rebstock said he'd go first. I have some concerns
**[00:04:18]** about Alcoholics Anonymous today. I've been here long enough to have some opinions and
**[00:04:23]** some concerns. One of my concerns has to do with the way we are tending to ritualize
**[00:04:30]** some of the important information in Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the promises. But I work
**[00:04:41]** in a prison system in North Carolina and quite often I hear them just read as if you showed
**[00:04:45]** up here tonight this is what's going to happen to you and that's just not true. For me the
**[00:04:51]** promises of Alcoholics Anonymous began in the first two sentences of the first forward
**[00:04:58]** to the first edition of our first book. If you're new please hear this. This isn't me. We are
**[00:05:06]** more than a hundred Alcoholics men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless
**[00:05:12]** state of mind and body. That's a promise. I am not cured of alcoholism but I stand before
**[00:05:20]** you tonight to recover to Alcoholic. I'm one of we. I no longer suffer from alcoholism.
**[00:05:25]** I still have it. But I don't suffer from it. And you don't have to either. If you're new
**[00:05:30]** here please understand you don't have to stay sick forever. Please. And then they give
**[00:05:38]** me my life work to show others precisely how we've recovered. That's our purpose. God
**[00:05:45]** that's easy. I don't even have to be smart. All I have to do is be able to remember what
**[00:05:51]** I was like. What happened to me and what I'm like today and share that with you in love
**[00:05:56]** and that's all I'm going to do tonight is just share that with you in love. Before I
**[00:06:05]** met Alcohol I desperately needed to be changed. I can remember laying in bed 13 years old
**[00:06:14]** crying wondering when my people were going to get back from Mars and pick me up. Because
**[00:06:20]** I certainly didn't feel like a human being. And I didn't think like one and I didn't feel
**[00:06:26]** like one. I didn't act like one. And I hurt. And when you hurt like that there's only one
**[00:06:38]** thing you can do. I got really pissed. I know about outrage. When you don't fit you become
**[00:06:49]** outraged. And I spend a good part of my life outraged. I learned to lie very young
**[00:06:59]** because I tended to do bizarre things. If you ever get bizarre just for the sake of
**[00:07:04]** getting bizarre. And people would ask me why did you do that? And I learned early on
**[00:07:10]** don't tell them the truth. I would tell them the truth. I'd say I don't know. And they
**[00:07:17]** would say well you must know you did it. And I began to understand that people needed some
**[00:07:22]** kind of an answer. And I have a whole trick bag full of answers if you're not through drinking
**[00:07:26]** and I'll let you have them for nothing. Things are guaranteed to get everybody off your
**[00:07:31]** back for a while. I learned early on while I was trying to figure out who was home because
**[00:07:38]** it was getting crowded here before I ever met alcohol. I was beginning to become everyone
**[00:07:43]** I'd ever met or read about. And I learned real early on while I'm trying to figure out
**[00:07:50]** who's here and you start bothering me and distracting me how to keep you back. Throw
**[00:07:57]** a mood swing. Give them a little manic depressive. Be unpredictable. You have to be careful
**[00:08:06]** and very good at it. If you're not good enough they just lock you away somewhere. And if you're
**[00:08:12]** too good they invite you to parties. And I was frightened. I've known from the time I
**[00:08:21]** was a tiniest child that in and of myself I don't have what it takes. Let there be light.
**[00:08:40]** I knew from the time I was the smallest child that if I did something right today it was
**[00:08:46]** dumb luck. And I also knew that tomorrow morning first thing you're going to ask me to do it
**[00:08:51]** all over again. And I don't know how I did it the first time. And I began to discover
**[00:08:57]** that failure is a hell of a lot easier to live with in the United States than success
**[00:09:01]** is. People really are kind. Every time I failed they would help me up. In fact the greatest
**[00:09:10]** damage I did to the people that I love the most was that I kept getting up. And off the
**[00:09:18]** line I'm really good. Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I was a sprinter in the game of
**[00:09:26]** life. Not a long distance writer but a sprinter. If you put me in a new situation, new job,
**[00:09:32]** new wife, new whatever. I learned very quickly what's expected of me and I produce it because
**[00:09:39]** I really need your acceptance. And we both think oh look isn't that nice. He's going to
**[00:09:45]** do fine this time. And then you get distracted and then I get distracted or lose interest
**[00:09:56]** and I drink and I go away. I come from a family of musicians. In fact my brother is a professor
**[00:10:05]** of music at the University of Colorado. I'm so proud of him I could bust. He was riding
**[00:10:11]** with Stan Kent when he was 19 years old. He writes a symphony every year just for the
**[00:10:17]** heck of it. He just came back from Holland where they took him because he's a synthesizer
**[00:10:23]** musician the foremost in the United States. Highly successful man. You know he lived right
**[00:10:30]** down the hall for me when we were growing up. Kind of got a clue that maybe more I grew
**[00:10:39]** up had nothing to do with why I'm an alcoholic. I came to Alcoholic Mess and I started drinking
**[00:10:51]** because where I come from in East Colfax in Denver. One of the rights of passage is that
**[00:10:57]** you get a guy from an already field to buy a bottle of whiskey. And we take it out east
**[00:11:00]** of Denver and get drunk and have fun. The big guy said get drunk and have fun like it
**[00:11:04]** was one word. Always gave him a little fun. And we did that. We got some bonded bourbon
**[00:11:13]** and one out east of Denver. I don't know whether that was 15 or 16. Whatever it was.
**[00:11:18]** I was little and I was stupid and I was ugly and I was angry and I was frightened. Big ward
**[00:11:24]** on the end of my nose. I knew that if anything happened tonight I was going to get blamed
**[00:11:30]** for it. And I had a couple of drinks and bonded bourbon. Wonderful thing happened. I can tell
**[00:11:39]** you all the stuff you know like getting taller and broader and all that. What I really remember
**[00:11:42]** about that night is that for the first time in my memory I had some plans. I had what
**[00:11:51]** Dr. Carl Jung describes in our book Alcoholics Anonymous as a spiritual awakening. Ideas
**[00:12:00]** and concepts and emotions that used to govern the lives of these men are suddenly cast
**[00:12:04]** to one side and a whole new set of conceptions begins to dominate them. That's how he describes
**[00:12:09]** a spiritual awakening and that's what I had. He promises us a new mind. The first time
**[00:12:17]** I drank bonded bourbon I got a brand new mind. I had plans. Good plans for a 17 year old kid
**[00:12:27]** real good plan. There was a guy in my class who hadn't been treating us very well and
**[00:12:31]** I was going to meet him back at the drive in later that evening and whip him. And I could
**[00:12:36]** have done it too. And there was an old girl in my class who hadn't been treating us at
**[00:12:42]** all and she and I were going to have a visit and I could have visited with her. And God
**[00:12:51]** willing will visit about visiting tonight because I think one of the most important things
**[00:12:55]** in recovery one of the greatest gifts I've been given is the ability to visit with folks.
**[00:13:07]** Well what happened to me was so good that if that's all that had happened to me I'd
**[00:13:13]** buy everybody here drink tonight. It's not a bad deal what happened to me put me in the
**[00:13:19]** heart of life. Gave me some clarity of thought. In fact it was so good I had several more
**[00:13:28]** ideas it's in my nature that if one works you take ten. Anything worth doing is worth
**[00:13:33]** abusing. So by the time I got back to the drive in with the people I was going to impress
**[00:13:40]** saw instead of me whipping the bully and visiting with a girl they all got to see my partners
**[00:13:46]** hauling me around by the elbows while I puked in the driveway. I nearly died from acute
**[00:13:51]** alcohol poisoning that night. I tried too much whiskey. And my keen alcoholic mind immediately
**[00:14:01]** zeroed in on what caused that. Bonded bourbon. And I have not to this day had any more bonded
**[00:14:08]** bourbon. I still haven't made you sick. I'm convinced if that's all there was I'd have
**[00:14:14]** had it but I had plenty of everything. I quickly learned what wouldn't do that to me. When
**[00:14:20]** I began to go through the book Alcoholics Anonymous and they described us as people
**[00:14:24]** who drank for effect. I could identify with that. If we were going to fight I drank vodka.
**[00:14:33]** Because when I drank vodka I get mean. And if you're going to fight she might as well
**[00:14:37]** be mean. If we were cruising for girls that night and it was a half way decent chance
**[00:14:45]** of meeting some I drank dark Bacardi rum. It makes me sensitive and warm. I can remember
**[00:15:02]** early in my drinking time the horror of not being able to feel anything. When there weren't
**[00:15:10]** any emotions at all. And I found that if I drank Coors beer and listened to Jim Reeves
**[00:15:18]** and Ferlin Husky singing things like four walls I could just cry like a baby. It was those
**[00:15:25]** good tears. With Red Morgan David wine I'm a poet and I paint. I'm an artist. It had
**[00:15:43]** a little speed to that and I can play the trumpet. I'm inclined to think that I was becoming
**[00:15:56]** somewhat obsessed with alcohol real early. I went to my first federal penitentiary when
**[00:16:03]** I was 19 years old. Not because I'm a big time gangster. I've been in three penitentiaries
**[00:16:10]** and I'm not a big time gangster. They don't even get to one. No. But in 19 hours of my
**[00:16:15]** first one in Japan. Because of alcohol. And I wondered at the time that happened. Why
**[00:16:24]** did I do this? What's wrong with me? This is what I had mine. I would join the Navy
**[00:16:28]** and I was going to be a career sailor. Save the world from a communist menace and become
**[00:16:33]** a hero and come back to Denver a hero. God I want it to be somebody's hero so badly. And
**[00:16:40]** here I'm in a penitentiary. And I didn't know until you found me why that happened to me.
**[00:16:46]** It's in the book Alcoholics Anonymous in a section written by our lovely Dr. Silkware.
**[00:16:53]** He describes men he'd been working with who'd been working on a business deal that would
**[00:16:57]** be subtle favorably to them and dare to before their appointment they had a drink and they
**[00:17:04]** missed their appointment and there I was. That's me. I had a drink in Long Beach, California
**[00:17:13]** on a 24 hour liberty. And 23 days later when I got back to my ship it wasn't there anymore.
**[00:17:24]** See when I drink alcohol I get lost and I can't find my way home and when you're in the Navy
**[00:17:28]** that's a felony. So at 19 years of age I'd been through my first prison experience and
**[00:17:37]** failed utterly and completely and hit absolute rock bottom. I do not believe that the bottom
**[00:17:43]** I hit December 25th in 1967 was any deeper than the one I hit when I was 19. Bottom for
**[00:17:51]** me are those moments when I wake up and know clearly what I have in mind for my life is
**[00:17:58]** not going to happen now. The dreams are dead. The plans are dead. We got to start over. I'm
**[00:18:08]** so god awful tired of starting over. My dad says one of the worst things I did to him
**[00:18:15]** is that I learned how to abandon things real early and he helped me set up another new
**[00:18:21]** place to live and a few months later the landlord had called him and say can you come
**[00:18:26]** by and get this boy's things. He's gone. Let me get on about the business of hand. See
**[00:18:35]** I'm already frustrated. I have been walking hand in hand with the power of God since December
**[00:18:41]** 26th of 1967 and that means every day I have had monumental experiences and I want to tell
**[00:18:48]** you about every one of them and you give me an hour. I'm going to take 70 minutes probably.
**[00:19:04]** I got sober because I ran out of lives not because I ran into the truth and I must tell
**[00:19:14]** you the truth. Alcoholics Anonymous did not get me sober. God gave me back my life as
**[00:19:20]** a free clear gift. December 26th 1967 and five months later brought me to you so that
**[00:19:28]** gift could take on some meaning and some dimension and some purpose because what happened to
**[00:19:35]** me that day is I hit the absolute bottom of all human pain. I had become completely useless
**[00:19:42]** and I knew it. I looked at the remaining lives of my life and there weren't many. I was on
**[00:19:50]** federal parole at the time for a little mistake I'd made in 1966. I weighed 133 pounds because
**[00:19:58]** I hadn't been able to get out of bed for some time until this young kid 16 years old that
**[00:20:02]** I'd recruited came in and gave me a shot of speed so I could get up and go steal something
**[00:20:06]** and buy some booze and go back bed. I had two little boys with me because their mother
**[00:20:12]** had abandoned ships several years before and for the last four years those kids and I had
**[00:20:17]** been running the street. We were a single parent homeless family before it even became
**[00:20:22]** fashionable. I would have told you and believed it truly that we were okay. We had a place
**[00:20:38]** to live and it was clean and we had clothes and we had food and we were intact as a family
**[00:20:47]** and somehow that day I began to see the lie in that we weren't a family. We just lived
**[00:20:53]** together because I was alone and so were those two little boys living in the same house
**[00:20:58]** and it was a pig pin and the food we got we got from aid to dependent children and the
**[00:21:04]** check hadn't gotten her yet. Food we were eating that day is what I'd been able to steal
**[00:21:08]** the day before and I began to see the lie. Now I must tell you all that I come from a
**[00:21:16]** functional home. I'm sorry but I do. It doesn't mean we didn't have problems in my family but
**[00:21:24]** my family always faced them. My folks are still alive. They still live in the same
**[00:21:28]** house. They still talk to each other. They still have spirit. My mother is 85 now. Went
**[00:21:37]** into the hospital last week for a hip replacement. She figured she's got 10 or 15 more years and
**[00:21:42]** she's tired of hobbling around. So she's got a new hip. She's up feisty and they didn't
**[00:21:50]** want her to lay down. She wants to go home. My family faced every problem that came along.
**[00:21:57]** I told you about my brother. My sister just graduated or just a while back retired from IBM.
**[00:22:04]** She was one of their top executives. She made good money and great babies and her babies
**[00:22:11]** have been making great babies. They have not been able to find good husbands to go with them.
**[00:22:16]** We just got another one about three weeks ago. But in my family the attitude when the one
**[00:22:24]** of those babies shows up is, oh look there's another new little prince baby. Let's raise
**[00:22:28]** it. That's where I come from. So I know what Christmas is supposed to look like. Where I
**[00:22:37]** grew up Christmas was a marvelous thing. They brought a real tree in from out there in a
**[00:22:41]** cold and it smelled good and they decorated with lights and tinsel and little packages begin
**[00:22:49]** appearing under it. But the most important, oh God the house smell good, cider with cinnamon in it,
**[00:22:59]** hot chocolate with marshmallows and they weren't them sissy things. These were the kind you had to
**[00:23:04]** go suck them off the top where you could get to the chocolate. But where I grew up the most
**[00:23:13]** important thing that happened Christmas was that people came by and visited with my parents,
**[00:23:18]** streams of people. I was there last Christmas. It hadn't stopped. We sat there for a couple
**[00:23:23]** hours and people came in and out and visited. Christmas of 1967 nobody came to my house.
**[00:23:31]** Even my parole officer made me come see him. He couldn't stand it. And we didn't have a tree.
**[00:23:40]** The welfare check hadn't gotten there and so we didn't have any money so we didn't have a tree.
**[00:23:46]** But it's in my nature to be restless, irritable, and discontent. So we took a walk on the 24th,
**[00:23:52]** found a dollar in a snow, went to the tree shop and found out they'll see you the biggest tree on
**[00:23:57]** the lot for a buck on the 24th. That's what we bought, the biggest tree on the lot.
**[00:24:03]** Our little ceiling was about seven feet tall and our tree was about nine feet tall so it
**[00:24:08]** killed it and I still pictured that. And we dressed it with stuff and cut up some cardboard and
**[00:24:15]** crinklesome aluminum foil and I started dying because I knew this isn't right. One of the
**[00:24:26]** things I've had to face in my sobriety is while I lost the ability to differentiate the truth
**[00:24:31]** from the false I've never lost the knowledge of right and wrong. We alcoholics don't have
**[00:24:40]** no conscience. We have too much conscience and it just eats us alive. And I knew this was wrong.
**[00:24:50]** And the little presents that were under there, I managed with my glib tongue to talk the fellow
**[00:24:56]** in the public merchandise marred on East Colfax and Denver. Talked them out of a pair of cowboy
**[00:25:01]** boots and little cowboy shirts so each of my boys would have one gift each. This was on credit.
**[00:25:08]** My kids wrapped up everything in the house that would fit in blue paper towel so that I'd have a
**[00:25:13]** good Christmas and it just fell apart. On Christmas day, I think, God, the last of the lives went.
**[00:25:26]** We went down to my folks' place to spend the day with grandma and grandpa. Never occurred to me.
**[00:25:31]** When we got there, my dad met us at the door and he said, Don, I'm sorry. Your mother said,
**[00:25:36]** I can't let you in here anymore. She can't stand watching you die. I weighed 133 pounds in my eyes
**[00:25:44]** hung out and my cheeks were sunken in and she knew I was dying. I want them to lie as when.
**[00:25:54]** I would have told you that day and met it. Just leave me alone. I'm not hurting anybody but me.
**[00:26:02]** Clearly, I could see that day who I was hurting. Everybody I ever touched got hurt,
**[00:26:06]** particularly my people, my children, my folks. It was clear. And then, dad, God bless him,
**[00:26:12]** he destroyed my last lie because he snuck us in into the basement. And I'd have told you that day
**[00:26:20]** nobody cares. Nobody loves us. And he did. And I didn't have any lies left. I went home with
**[00:26:30]** some self-pity. A lot of self-pity. And then I was able to step into the lie of truth. And the
**[00:26:39]** truth was that day there was no reason for me to be here. Absolutely useless. Everybody I could
**[00:26:46]** think of would be better off if I was gone. And nobody can live with that. And I couldn't live
**[00:26:51]** with that. And I had nothing left to surrender to. That's the point of departuring. You have to
**[00:26:56]** surrender. There's nothing to surrender to. I tried everything. I've got, I've been in and out of a
**[00:27:02]** lot of different churches. I was in Dianetics in 1953 when L. Ron Hubbard was still at the helm.
**[00:27:11]** He was my kind of people. A science fiction writer who believed his own stuff.
**[00:27:18]** They introduced us to methamphetamine hydrochloride so we could become uninhibited and talk freely.
**[00:27:25]** I laughed at it. It worked. My last psychiatrist was smoking marijuana three weeks after we started
**[00:27:36]** meeting. That was one of my trades. That was a marijuana salesman. There was nothing left to
**[00:27:49]** surrender to. So I did the only thing I could do. I quit. I knew that the kids would be better off
**[00:27:56]** without me and everybody would be better off without me. And I took a two-month supply of the
**[00:28:00]** speed I was using and put it up my arm and drank everything in a house and laid down and died.
**[00:28:06]** And I truly believe I died. I've never been the same. I've never had a drink nor desire for one.
**[00:28:12]** I've never had a pill and a desire for one. I woke up with a brand new mind and I hurt like hell.
**[00:28:21]** The police were at the door. It woke me up and I knew I wasn't dead.
**[00:28:27]** But I was in a wonderful position. I couldn't have described it to you then but I can tell you
**[00:28:31]** about it now. I was a complete failure at living and I had just become a complete failure at dying.
**[00:28:40]** I'm walking around in a body that won't die carrying with it a mind that won't work
**[00:28:45]** and I got to have an answer. I was truly willing that day as I am today to go anywhere anyone said
**[00:28:54]** and do anything anyone said if it meant I didn't have to be me anymore. I came to alcohol
**[00:29:02]** meeting to be changed and I came to you needing to be changed. And they drug me away. They had
**[00:29:09]** nine charges and the first one called for three years to life plus the five that I owned the feds
**[00:29:16]** and the other eight the D said I'll bring them one at a time if you beat this one but you're through.
**[00:29:20]** I don't care. Laid in that Denver County jail for a little over five months detoxing.
**[00:29:27]** I don't want to ever forget that. Six weeks of leg cramps and pains and headaches and
**[00:29:33]** twitches and discomfort of various kinds and I don't want to remember that to keep sober. I don't
**[00:29:39]** believe they'll keep me sober. I've got those kind of memories that come before that and they didn't
**[00:29:44]** keep me sober. What it does is make me a pretty good sponsor. You can come to me in your fifth week
**[00:29:51]** of leg cramps, twitching, throwing up itchy scalp eyes falling out and I can look you right in the
**[00:29:56]** eye and tell you from my own experience you're really not going to die yet. I know you want to
**[00:30:04]** but hang on you ain't going to die yet and if you want those smart asses I'm not that kind. I'll
**[00:30:10]** just say don't wind up me not till you've been at this six weeks. I love you enough to tell you the
**[00:30:16]** truth. You will not die from this. You will die from the medicine that will relieve this.
**[00:30:26]** Well the power of God went to work in my life before I ever heard the name. I find it interesting
**[00:30:35]** that our book doesn't say you have to believe in God but it says if you want to recover you will
**[00:30:40]** be required to believe in the power of God. However you can see this. I came to trial and the Denver
**[00:30:48]** district attorney said we've been talking with the federal judge and the federal parole officer
**[00:30:52]** and we've all kind of concluded you're really sick. No argument from me. I said we think you need help
**[00:31:04]** and the federal people have agreed that if you'll plead guilty to a little charge we have here
**[00:31:09]** to skip and we'll skip the trial we'll give you a one and a half to three-year sentence
**[00:31:14]** suspended and give you back to the federal people and they'll take you to Fort Worth, Texas
**[00:31:18]** and fix what's wrong with you. See I was an associate past, psychopath,
**[00:31:21]** a manic depressive drug addict. That's what they fixed down here. I said sure what do I sign?
**[00:31:27]** I'm not an idiot. I'm a drunk. I signed it. They kept their word, gave me one and a half to three,
**[00:31:35]** suspended it, gave me back to the federal people and five days later I was in the Colorado State Penitentiary
**[00:31:42]** by the grace of a loving God. Had I gotten to that hospital, had I been able to manage to get
**[00:31:48]** locked up in the place I want it to be, I'd have been on the street in six months.
**[00:31:54]** If you put me in a hospital with doctors and books, I'm home free. They would tell me what's wrong with
**[00:32:01]** me. They would tell me about how long it's going to take to fix that up and they would give me a
**[00:32:07]** long list of symptoms I'd have to show them to convince them I was getting better. That's my best
**[00:32:12]** game but I had met the one and only requirement for stepping on to any spiritual path and that
**[00:32:20]** includes this one. I had truly surrendered and so I was taken to the face tank of the Colorado State
**[00:32:28]** Penitentiary and I actually heard myself say Joe you can't do this to me. My last stupid statement
**[00:32:38]** and that's where you found me and you came looking for me in the form of three convicts with numbers
**[00:32:45]** on their chest. Convicts in their own environment, in their own clothes, are a little bit intimidating.
**[00:32:54]** Smiling convicts are frightening. These three monkeys were standing there smiling like they
**[00:33:00]** knew something we didn't know and if we didn't find it out quick we were probably going to die
**[00:33:06]** and the first one got up and he said my name's Doc and I'm an alcoholic and that means that I am
**[00:33:11]** powerless over alcohol and guards and drugs and all of the other circumstances in my life.
**[00:33:18]** And my life has become unmanageable and if any of you smart bastards think you can still manage
**[00:33:23]** your lives look at the reward the state just gave you for the nifty job you've been doing and the
**[00:33:31]** great miracle of my life took place. I heard him. I believe if you're here
**[00:33:42]** that we all get a little grace period when you walk in the doors you don't have to do anything
**[00:33:48]** you got a little grace period it lasts just about as long as how sick you are
**[00:33:53]** and when it's over you better have something going and all I had to do all I had to do was listen
**[00:34:02]** and I think God has a marvelous sense of humor. He has made me a listener and you ask me to talk
**[00:34:10]** all the time and I think that's funny but I was listening that day they gave us the truth these
**[00:34:20]** people didn't care whether our feelings got hurt or not because they knew our lives were on the line
**[00:34:27]** one of them said you know your very best thinking got you to the penitentiary you're not doing too
**[00:34:31]** good are you well there's where I was and I promise you I've been doing my best and that's where I was
**[00:34:40]** but then he did what happens here in Alcoholics Anonymous
**[00:34:45]** he said but we can show you a new way of thinking the people they have taught me something very
**[00:34:51]** important truth without love is cruelty and confrontation without a real answer is brutality
**[00:35:01]** but if you love me and you have a real answer have at me and they did we had to go through a 12
**[00:35:16]** step study school before we could become part of the main A group it met on Friday night and they
**[00:35:22]** let real people in from the outside to our meeting I really wanted to go to that because
**[00:35:28]** see I wasn't afraid of the penitentiary you learned to live there like anywhere else
**[00:35:32]** what had me frightened at that time was that I knew then sometime between the next year and a half
**[00:35:37]** in six or seven years they're gonna put me back on the streets of Denver and I don't have a clue
**[00:35:42]** as to how to live out there I've already proven that I need to learn something else and I knew
**[00:35:48]** that the convicts that I was hanging out with whatever else they said they didn't know how to live
**[00:35:51]** for either they'd already proven that too so I really needed who had never been to a penitentiary
**[00:35:59]** they would command and tell us how to live and we couldn't go for five weeks every Saturday
**[00:36:05]** afternoon every Sunday afternoon we gave up our yard privileges our visitors and our movies
**[00:36:10]** and went up for three three and a half hours to the school where they hand carried us through
**[00:36:14]** the book Alcoholics Anonymous first thing they said when we showed up was you know guys for the
**[00:36:22]** next five weeks have nothing to say if you knew anything at all you wouldn't be here
**[00:36:29]** and new people have to talk to you know we got to do that in the dishroom we all work in the dishroom
**[00:36:36]** and we babble at each other and they talk with us outside the meeting but during the meeting time
**[00:36:41]** we listen they told me what was wrong with me I have a disease it has recognizable describable
**[00:36:48]** symptoms I'm allergic to alcohol now if I were allergic to tomatoes night tomatoes I'd break
**[00:36:57]** out with an itch my allergies alcohol if I drank alcohol I'd break out with an itch for
**[00:37:03]** other drink alcohol it's clear what's wrong that's why I went to the penitentiary I had a
**[00:37:09]** drink in Long Beach and 23 days later I stopped drinking and because the madness was gone on that
**[00:37:14]** first during that 22 days I could not stop I could not go back to that ship I had a different mind
**[00:37:21]** day 23 I turned myself in it was over there's no treatment for that
**[00:37:29]** my favorite word today in the big book came out the other night in the workshop Bobby
**[00:37:34]** he's doomed I'm an alcoholic I'm doomed there's nothing you can do for the physical disease that
**[00:37:44]** I've got it's going on in me right now if I take a drink of alcohol tonight I'm convinced I might
**[00:37:50]** never have quit and I'm watching people with 15 20 25 years of sobriety die these days because
**[00:37:57]** they're taking a drink and they don't get back it's like they had never quit I don't want to be one
**[00:38:02]** of them but as long as I don't drink alcohol that never happens to me I don't go crazy
**[00:38:12]** I don't do crazy stuff that I do on alcohol I still do crazy stuff because why not I like going to
**[00:38:20]** parties now so what's really wrong with me well the main problem of the alcoholic centers in the
**[00:38:32]** mind and my sponsors made it very clear you can't use the problem to solve the problem
**[00:38:43]** I'm warped up here I can't use my mind to solve my mental problem there's too many pieces missing
**[00:38:51]** my neighbor has one of them I know that well you know I until I moved to North Carolina we've
**[00:38:58]** lived in the same house for 17 years and when that happens you either start talking with your
**[00:39:03]** neighbors or they start talking about you and I want to be a good citizen I really do so I've
**[00:39:10]** learned to visit the first thing required about visiting is that you learn to small talk I'm an
**[00:39:17]** alcoholic I don't have a clue as to how to small talk life is earnest and real and filled with
**[00:39:23]** passion we have to get down to the nitty gritty now but I've learned I'm hell I'm up to five six
**[00:39:30]** minutes now then we're going to talk about alcoholism and God may because I don't know about anything
**[00:39:37]** else one day he and I were visiting and he ran me out of small talk and I started sharing with him
**[00:39:44]** not like I would you I'd scare him to death if I told him what I'd tell you but I shared a
**[00:39:49]** little about alcoholism with him and he was interested he owns a bar turns out he and I have a common
**[00:39:54]** experience I shared how I drank and then he said you know I did that one night I drank too much
**[00:40:02]** whiskey and I got drunk and I fell down and I threw up I haven't done that since strange man
**[00:40:15]** well he's got his little piece in his mind so he can remember how badly he felt and it attaches
**[00:40:20]** to a piece in his mind that says well then don't do that again I can remember how badly I felt and
**[00:40:27]** how badly I felt and how badly I felt because it doesn't attach to anything in my mind oh early on
**[00:40:34]** I did it was bonded bourbon we got sick because it was bad chili you know I'm absolutely convinced
**[00:40:48]** that there have been times in the past and will be times in the future when everything I know about
**[00:40:53]** alcoholism about alcoholics anonymous and about God in my head won't be there I need protective
**[00:41:03]** from those strange mental blank spots you can either come warped or won't come at all
**[00:41:08]** so I can't learn enough about a if you came to study it good luck I am convinced by the way
**[00:41:16]** that those of us who have been sober for a while are in far greater danger from the truth than we
**[00:41:21]** are from the lives had an experience a while back that brought that home to me it would be really
**[00:41:28]** hard for you to come up with enough lies to convince me today that it's all right for me to take a
**[00:41:33]** drink but one night about three years or so ago I was on an airplane headed back from one of these
**[00:41:40]** deals and because I fly so much united airlines every now and then gives me a little certificate
**[00:41:45]** that if it's available I can move into first class I wouldn't pay for it but it's better than
**[00:41:50]** coach and it was a night flight it was nice the lights were on I had the reading light on my book
**[00:41:57]** and first class is kind of nice you know they they laid real tableclaws out there on the train you
**[00:42:04]** get real silverware no plastic it's real food no plastic and I'm reading and they're serving the
**[00:42:12]** belt fella next to me and this lady poured into his glass the prettiest deepest maroon stuff I've
**[00:42:20]** ever seen and the light hit it just right and I caught it with my eye and I looked and my mind
**[00:42:26]** said that really looks good and that was the truth it did I don't think about cracking that really
**[00:42:33]** looked good and then my mind said I bet that would really taste good too that was the truth
**[00:42:43]** it really would that's why she gave it to him then my mind said I bet that'll make his whole dinner
**[00:42:50]** taste better of course it would and suddenly a prayer began within me I did not start to pray
**[00:42:59]** a prayer began within me and I've learned when that happens to pay close attention I'm in far
**[00:43:06]** deeper trouble than I thought I was and I paid attention to the prayer and I realized that my
**[00:43:13]** next thought would have been maybe I ought to have one of those I am four thoughts away from a drink
**[00:43:22]** in fit spiritual condition but by the grace of God and because I trust in that I'm safe and protected
**[00:43:33]** if I will pay attention and listen that's why I become a listener you see God never yells at me
**[00:43:40]** it's always a very very quiet voice and I must have a quiet mind or all messes
**[00:43:46]** well you know what happened I went back to my book then I looked over one more time at that
**[00:43:52]** good looking red stuff and then I joined in the prayer and the deal was over and I was
**[00:44:00]** convinced in the beginning that's what I must have I am totally absolutely utterly powerless over alcohol
**[00:44:07]** and there's nothing I can learn that will ever ever change that thank God the battle's over
**[00:44:13]** I have to fight anymore goodness but I came to be changed not sobered up took me while to
**[00:44:24]** understand I needed a sobriety but my sponsors had been changed all three of them and I knew
**[00:44:30]** they had I pay attention I'm a spiritual skeptic I was a cynic back then but a spiritual skeptic what
**[00:44:41]** I mean new people is I'll believe absolutely anything you tell me and then I'll go check it
**[00:44:46]** in the big book and if I can't figure that it fits there I'm not going to do it good luck
**[00:44:52]** and I watched these three guys one of my sponsors had killed a couple people in a shootout one morning
**[00:44:57]** in a drunken rage and as he told me the story it was clear to me this man could not do that
**[00:45:05]** he couldn't he's talking about somebody else and I asked him about it he said that's right
**[00:45:12]** I've been changed and God changed me and the other one was a stick-up man who couldn't do that I'd
**[00:45:18]** listen to the story and I knew he couldn't do that either same story how changed and God changed me
**[00:45:25]** an old Phil Gutierrez God I love Phil Phil came to us from Guam bad looking Ruby knows there's
**[00:45:33]** a certain Oriental face that you just look at you know that's a pirate and Phil was one of them
**[00:45:39]** and when he smiled he was really menacing when Phil drank well last time he drank he'd thrown
**[00:45:47]** some people out of a three-story window he was a very violent individual
**[00:45:52]** Phil's the one that taught me to touch in a penitentiary where that's kind of risky
**[00:45:59]** but Phil knew something about us no one ever questioned Phil's touching if you get close to me you're
**[00:46:04]** going to get touched because I've learned something here that we're all puppies we're healers that's
**[00:46:22]** who we are we're not doctors we're not smart we're not therapists we're healers and since I've
**[00:46:29]** come to know that I want to be a good one because people come into our lives and their lives are on
**[00:46:35]** the line and we have said to them you come to us you'll be all right we better not be lying
**[00:46:43]** and so wanting to be a good healer I've looked around my world at the healers my wife is a healer
**[00:46:51]** she's a nurse on an infant research unit one of the important things about helping someone heal is
**[00:47:16]** that you'd be able to tell them what's wrong with them that it's going to be all right she works
**[00:47:21]** with babies and they don't understand English so I watch what she does with her she picks them up
**[00:47:28]** and starts patting on them and then understanding English or not she says you're going to be all
**[00:47:34]** right you're in the right place you're gonna be fine and she walks around with them and I get
**[00:47:41]** to thinking well let's see how what do we do when people come to us I don't know about you but I find
**[00:47:47]** very few alcoholics that can understand English and they come to us and we just get all over them
**[00:47:57]** we shake their hands and put our hands on them and we say things like oh you're gonna be all right
**[00:48:02]** you're in the right place you're gonna be fine so that's what I start doing I got thinking one
**[00:48:10]** time about the great healer he'd walk along the roads of his country and he'd come on someone who
**[00:48:17]** was sitting there blind and crippled and covered with sores and alone and he knew something that you
**[00:48:29]** and I know that person thought that they were alone because they were blind and crippled and had
**[00:48:35]** sores he knew that they had sores and were crippled and blind because they thought they were alone
**[00:48:42]** and he just reached out and touched him you know what happens when you touch someone whether they
**[00:48:47]** like it or not they can't be alone there's somebody else in the room and he'd say to them
**[00:48:53]** hey is anybody home he said huh but they didn't know anybody was there
**[00:49:01]** and if they'd acknowledge that he'd qualify him a little bit he'd say something like this
**[00:49:07]** you don't have to do this anymore you don't have to stay sick not anymore
**[00:49:14]** let me see if they'd say was that right you see that's right would you like to get up he'd say
**[00:49:21]** and if they'd say yes he'd give them the magic words oh okay get up kind of get up what do we do
**[00:49:32]** they come to us and we say you don't have to do this anymore now they could believe him because
**[00:49:39]** he spoke with such conviction that you could hear it in their voices I am an alcoholic and if
**[00:49:46]** you're new here I want you to know something if you're an alcoholic you don't ever have to drink
**[00:49:51]** again ever and I believe that because I don't need to do these people and then we say to them
**[00:50:09]** do you want to quit the book I read says I'm supposed to ask that question pretty specifically
**[00:50:16]** and if they say no I'm supposed to say well good luck and go find another one but if they say yes
**[00:50:23]** I'm gonna say to them oh okay don't drink oh magic words Carl asked me on the way down
**[00:50:36]** what is the secret of sobriety don't drink alcohol that's who we are we're the heaters
**[00:50:48]** isn't it wonderful to be a healer my god I get to spend I spent my early two years my first two years
**[00:50:54]** cataloging all the growth and changes in me they were so exciting
**[00:50:58]** I was coming back to life any new child will begin to become self-centered about oh see me
**[00:51:07]** in these past few years my great joy is to watch the moon of ticks that god sends me
**[00:51:13]** as they begin to heal well they showed me how to do inventory after they showed me how to
**[00:51:21]** get my mind straight I've had a series of spiritual awakenings here and if you're new
**[00:51:29]** that's an easy thing to grasp a spiritual awakening from alcoholic is anytime any alcoholic anywhere
**[00:51:35]** understands any part of the truth that's a spiritual awakening
**[00:51:43]** I came to believe in this power by watching it walk around and I wanted what they had
**[00:51:50]** and I was told about that third step prayer offer myself to God and I went back to myself and
**[00:51:56]** had the worst experience of my entire life because I said the prayer waited for the flash
**[00:52:04]** of light waited for the cell door to spring open for them to call me and send me home
**[00:52:10]** and absolutely nothing happened and I'm alcoholic if that ceiling caves into the pool
**[00:52:17]** I'll keep talking and you'll keep listening that ain't gonna bother us that's a lightweight crisis
**[00:52:22]** I can handle that but nothing happened and I can't handle that so I did what I'd been taught I went
**[00:52:28]** back and bitched at my sponsor I went back to Bruce with the alcoholic war cry ringing from my lips
**[00:52:37]** I'm gonna give it to you so that anytime you hear yourself say this you'll know it's time to call
**[00:52:42]** your sponsor where's mine where's mine now I've told you that if your alcoholic your mind is
**[00:52:56]** already figured away around that so let me give you the backup that's not enough
**[00:53:05]** want more that can't be mine it's not big enough that can't be mine it's the wrong color
**[00:53:13]** I'm gonna recognize it the hell of it is that half the time when I'm screaming out where's mine
**[00:53:18]** I'm sitting in the middle of it so I went and complained and my sponsor destroyed all of my
**[00:53:28]** concepts of God he did not give me new ones he destroyed my old ones they all had to do with Santa
**[00:53:33]** Claus what's he going to do for me I'm here today because I learned to say what can I do for you
**[00:53:46]** I still want mine but I have learned by watching you that the best way to get mine is to help
**[00:53:53]** you get yours first mine just seems to come along with it I didn't know that then though
**[00:54:00]** we found one last reservation in my sick mind I was truly convinced at that time if I gave my
**[00:54:06]** life over the care of God entirely but he'd put me on the corner of Colfax in Broadway in Denver
**[00:54:11]** handing out watchtower magazines and asking strangers have you been saved brother
**[00:54:18]** from my plush apartment in the car our state penitentiary I just couldn't see me doing that
**[00:54:23]** and my sponsor said sponsor words if you're new here listen for these you're in trouble
**[00:54:35]** he said let's talk about that now that does not mean let us talk about that he said down to you
**[00:54:44]** suppose that the guy that's handing out watchtower is today at Colfax in Broadway had breakfast where
**[00:54:49]** he wanted to and I said probably and he said you didn't do you suppose that that guy that's making
**[00:54:56]** a fool himself down there today he's wearing clothes that he picked out to do it in I said
**[00:55:00]** probably and he said you're not do you suppose when he's all through humiliating himself that he gets
**[00:55:07]** to go home I didn't we are promised a new mind and by loving sponsorship I was hand carried into
**[00:55:21]** mine and the foundation was set for me anything at all that God may have in mind for me is better
**[00:55:30]** than anything at all that I will ever have in mind for me period and then my last bit of noble ego
**[00:55:37]** showed up when I told him okay I'm wanting to go down and hand out watchtower he smiled he said
**[00:55:44]** oh well God there I got a guy downer doing that he's need you somewhere else and the hand carried
**[00:55:52]** me through the inventory the house cleaning process I know this is just an observation of mine but
**[00:55:58]** let me suggest as you approach this part of the of our recovery process people get frightened in
**[00:56:07]** spiritual terms the word amen is a closure it means we have finished with this part there is no amen
**[00:56:13]** at the end of the third step prayer do you ever notice that but there is one at the end of the
**[00:56:17]** seventh step prayer which looks to me like the third step prayer with teeth in it and I have
**[00:56:25]** concluded and practiced with the people I sponsor that everything from the word God at the beginning
**[00:56:30]** of the third step prayer to the amen at the end of the seventh step is all part of the same prayer
**[00:56:36]** prayer becomes activity in action at this point and all through there I'm given a whole series of
**[00:56:42]** other prayers to use so that I can get the metal change I need to become willing to go straighten
**[00:56:48]** up my past I got free locked up for the night in the Colorado State Penitentiary my sponsors
**[00:57:00]** had told me that what he wanted me to do was to make a list of all the people I had ever harmed
**[00:57:06]** and we started with the people on my inventory including the federal agents that nearly killed my
**[00:57:10]** son in a narcotics raid so I harmed that man I put him in a position where he almost killed a
**[00:57:18]** four-year-old kid that's great harm to his spirit I still don't like what he did but I brought him
**[00:57:27]** there what the hell he said Don we know what you did to these people but you are so insensitive
**[00:57:35]** you have no idea what it did to them so make a list of all these people then take them one
**[00:57:40]** of the time and close your eyes and see if you can feel a willingness in your heart to look each
**[00:57:45]** one right in the eye and say to them I have been wrong and I've harmed you would you please tell
**[00:57:51]** me what I have to do so we can get these books to balance and as I went over that list that night
**[00:57:58]** I had the experience I've looked for my whole life I was lifted from my chair and set free
**[00:58:08]** but I've been free ever since and I stay free because if I have caused anyone here any harm whatsoever
**[00:58:16]** you come see me we'll get the books to balance now what you have to do after you say that is
**[00:58:23]** shut up and listen while I tell you what you have to do and that made it possible for me to go to my
**[00:58:29]** mother that was a problem to me how can you apologize to the mother that you put in a position on
**[00:58:34]** Christmas day to say you and your kids can't come to my house there's no way but I can ask what
**[00:58:41]** you'll have to do and I found a way to ask her months after I got out she let me come by very
**[00:58:46]** reluctantly and I'm very careful with people and I asked her and I shut up and listened and she said
**[00:58:52]** honey all I've ever wondered for you is that you will be happy for the past 24 some years I've
**[00:58:59]** been going by my mom's house on a regular basis happy and it worked oh we have a wonderful time
**[00:59:11]** wonderful time she said it was six years before she believed anything I said
**[00:59:16]** well I have no right to think she would ever believe me again ever I just go by don't have time to
**[00:59:25]** tell you about the two dollar bills I've stopped telling it and they're still coming catch me
**[00:59:31]** afterwards you want to know about the two dollar bills because I got a couple other things that
**[00:59:35]** have happened when I'm running out of time the business of my father when I went to my dad to
**[00:59:40]** make a man's I had the list and I started out like I've been taught who I am what I am my life's
**[00:59:47]** at stake here's what I did I lied to you stolen from you cheated you and he saw the list and he
**[00:59:53]** said stop please I know all that all you can do by going into the details is hurt me all over
**[01:00:00]** again you know I'm gonna have to start from here and so we did and I had one of those serendipitous
**[01:00:09]** about a month and a half ago see there are a lot of things I didn't get from my dad but I needed
**[01:00:14]** when I was five and six it's not uncommon the hell did they know they're just people
**[01:00:21]** and the things I didn't get from my dad I'm never gonna get because I can't get them from him
**[01:00:27]** and God has spilled all those holes and I don't need that anymore it's wonderful it means he and
**[01:00:31]** I have a good relationship because I don't need that anymore and my wife had come down to visit me I'm
**[01:00:36]** down in North Carolina because one of God's messengers came by and asked me to come and when they show up
**[01:00:41]** I go one of the things I've learned to do in Alcoholics Anonymous is listen for my messengers
**[01:00:49]** and when they come I pay attention but my family is still in Colorado and I miss them
**[01:00:55]** but it right now this is the way it's to be but any moment why should come down to visit me
**[01:01:01]** she gets horny without me she can't help it don't you tell her I said dad
**[01:01:11]** and I had called my dad and we were visiting because I do that regular they're in their 80s
**[01:01:18]** and you know each day's a gamble see you call him and he and I were visiting and
**[01:01:25]** he gave me this wonderful gift he said Jack he just came by yesterday and she was telling
**[01:01:33]** us how proud she is of you down there and then he said you know Don I'm proud of you too
**[01:01:48]** it's extra good because you don't need it and I think you did it to get back at me because I got
**[01:01:55]** him about five months ago I have three heroes left on this planet I'm working for one of them
**[01:02:04]** my dad's a second and I won't tell you who the third one is my dad's never been a demonstrative man
**[01:02:11]** he came out of a generation where you had to plant close to the chest but he has this long
**[01:02:18]** office that he works in it's just wide enough for one person got some benches in his law
**[01:02:22]** and I kind of backed him into that one day where he couldn't get out he can't move that fast anymore
**[01:02:29]** and I put my arms around him and I said pop I'm gonna tell you something
**[01:02:33]** I have three heroes left and you're one of them that's so he'll double cried the damage I did to
**[01:02:49]** my brother took a long time to heal see I damaged our name my brother and I ran the same circles
**[01:02:59]** he played in the bands and I sold the band players in marijuana I did dirt to our name
**[01:03:07]** and I hurt our parents and he hated me for that and over the years he's been very very reticent
**[01:03:16]** very standoffish I was 21 years sober when he invited me to his birthday party and it was guarded
**[01:03:24]** 22 years sober he had my wife an hour for dinner and after dinner he said I don't know if you and
**[01:03:30]** I'll ever be friends but this was nice tonight we can do this again and I've done nothing over
**[01:03:36]** the years except just stay busy making my life my life not trying to do anything but when I was home
**[01:03:46]** I got just about three months ago I was in visiting with the folks that's what I do you know
**[01:03:52]** I visit and my brother came in I was sitting with my foot crossed over my leg and he sat down
**[01:03:59]** across with me giving me this funny look and he kicked me on the bottom of the shoe and he said
**[01:04:05]** I'm really glad to see you the next time you're in town why don't you and I go up to the cabin
**[01:04:12]** and go fishing just the two others we got a little cabin up in our country well you can believe
**[01:04:17]** next time I was in town we did we stomped through beaver ponds never caught a fish got all muddy and
**[01:04:23]** cold went back to the cabin visited played cribbage that poor baby she cribbage is an
**[01:04:30]** institution game I walked in three out of four games and then he gave me a precious precious gift
**[01:04:42]** he gave me his inner core my brother said to me don I'm 58 years old now and I believe I have
**[01:04:51]** made a decent contribution to life that's what this is about all I do is get busy with God's kids
**[01:05:07]** and I get these things back since I have been sober for 26 years I have walked with a sense of the
**[01:05:16]** presence of God and I don't always get to feel it because I abused my feelings and I don't always
**[01:05:22]** get that but I've had this constant sense of his presence about a month and a half ago I've been
**[01:05:28]** I've been doing some extensive step work if you go house cleaning to continue growing
**[01:05:35]** and I woke up one morning and it wasn't there it was six o'clock in the morning it wasn't there
**[01:05:42]** I can't say I was frightened it was just awful so I began to pray immediately which of course made
**[01:05:48]** a lie I would not be in there and my prayer was simple I said please let me know that you're
**[01:05:56]** present I need to be closer to you and I need to know you better and my phone rang six o'clock
**[01:06:03]** in the morning there's old Billy he said I was seven years sober down and I drank again
**[01:06:12]** and I have a friend up here 12 years sober that drank again and I do these little big book
**[01:06:17]** workshops where we sit down and over a period of time we just read everything in the big book and
**[01:06:22]** do what it says together and I'd done that for some kids in his group and they are on fire
**[01:06:28]** and they're just 12 step in the hill out of North Carolina and he wanted to know if I would
**[01:06:33]** gather with him and his friend at his beach house over the weekend and show them what they were
**[01:06:38]** missing and I of course and I hung up and started addressing the phone rang and if somebody else
**[01:06:45]** asking for help when I started to get dressed in the phone rang and the phone kept ringing
**[01:06:49]** all the way till I got out the door and when I got to work it was ringing and about 10 o'clock
**[01:06:53]** the message was clear to me God was saying to me directly if you would know me better get to
**[01:07:00]** know my children better do you want to be closer to me be closer to my kids that's why I'm here with
**[01:07:14]** you I want to visit oh I have so much I want to share with you almost two years ago I once again
**[01:07:34]** had to face my own mortality it came real close this time it was a bit she's still uncomfortable
**[01:07:42]** but I'm all right but I got to take a look at the fact I'm not going to be here that much longer
**[01:07:50]** so I want everything to be current and I've gone back and checked my life and except for the
**[01:07:58]** I still haven't paid my rent this month you know those kind of things I can stand before you tonight
**[01:08:05]** with the greatest news of all the greatest promise that I could offer you I will never have to stand
**[01:08:12]** at a gravesite ever and say I wish I'd have told this person this I'll never have to do that
**[01:08:23]** as far as I know I'm current with y'all
**[01:08:26]** I'm current with everybody if nothing else ever happens that's good that's good and I wish
**[01:08:37]** in my heart of hearts that I can truly thank God for that but the whole idea of God is just too big
**[01:08:45]** for me and it's getting bigger so you know what he's done in his mercy he's giving me you
**[01:08:54]** because I can look you right in the eye and I can say to you thank you for your lives in mind