My name is Don, I'm an alcoholic. Can you hear that back there? Not that good. That's alright. We were a little bit late because I made a mistake of mentioning that I like bridges and Harlan took us on a tour of every bridge you got. I'm always sometime always odd at the responsibility of what you asked me to do tonight. So with your help and God's help we'll take a little journey tonight.

I'm going to throw my life in the hopes that the one person I flew all the way down here to talk to can hear what's being said tonight. That's true. If I had to talk to all of you, it scared me to death. I am definitely an alcoholic and spent most of my life not knowing that, and so as a result of course a drank a lot. I also spent 13 or 14 years doing a variety of other chemicals, but I'm an alcoholic.

penitentiaries. And I only say that out front so that as you hear me talk about

that you know that's where I came from. Please don't think that I'm a big time

gangster. Big time gangsters don't go to penitentiary three times. Alcoholics

anonymous has helped to put the pieces together for me so that I could

understand and answer the question that I screamed out all my life. What's wrong

with me? I spent most of my days wondering what's wrong with me because a

casual observation in my life kept telling me that I never seemed to get

around to doing the things that I wanted to do and I kept doing the things that I

didn't want to do and it confused me a little bit. My favorite word in the big

book is baffled. I identified with that right off. Baffled that's when you do

everything right and it doesn't work anyway. You take what everybody says we'll

make it work and you do that. It doesn't work. All I ever wanted to be was a boy

scout. I was a tenor foot three times. Never got past that. Discovered in my

review of my life that one of the problems was that I'm the kind of boy

scout that helped little old ladies across the street never asking if they

wanted to go. I grew up restless, irritable, and discontented and when I saw

that in my big book I identified with that. That's me. Out of place, out of time,

and out of my mind. I have a dear friend in California who won't want to talk one

time with the words that blazed at me. I'm grateful to you and to God almighty that

I'm here tonight fully clothed and in my right mind. I'm finally in the right mind.

Alcohol made me feel better. It turned me from a kid who was three feet tall with

a big ward on the end of his nose into an incredible human being. The very first

time I used a bunch of us went out east to Denver with a bottle of whiskey. I became

six feet tall. My voice dropped. Oh yeah. I began to plot and scheme. There was a guy

back at Bill Boncid's drive-in that I was going to whip and there was a girl

back there that I had no intentions of whipping. Up to that point he had

intimidated me and she'd scared me to death. But I didn't know the nature of my

disease so I did what I do. If two of these will make me feel less good I'd

better have some more. One works you take ten and I damn near died. I threw up some

much last night that the mere smell of whiskey for four years made me gag. But

within a day or two I found out what didn't make me gag. I used to say I don't

know about you but I know about you and I became willing to pay any price I had

to pay for a few minutes each day of being okay to be me and you being okay

to be you. And if it was only a minute or two it was still some period of time.

It was alright to be on this damn planet and not feel like I was a misfit. I was in

my first penitentiary when I was 19 years old. I said direct result alcoholism and

didn't know that. It wasn't until I got to you that you told me what was wrong

with me and tied that long string of time up for me and answered why did I

end up in that penitentiary. Because I had gone off and joined the Navy to become

a hero. Heroes were loved and respected and why did I need some of that. I quit

school my senior year in high school to become a hero and save America from the

red menace single-handedly. And within two years I was in a penitentiary. One of

the symptoms of my disease is that when I start drinking I get lost I can't find

my way home and there's a law against getting lost federal law if you're in

the Navy. And I was they kept giving me these little silly 24-hour liberties

really expected me to get back on time. And I expected me to get back on time I

loved the Navy. One of the reasons I was baffled is because I loved what I did.

I'm really a sailor at heart. I can eat in a gale it didn't make me sick. I love

the sea. One of my favorite things to this day is standing on the bridge of a ship

at night and watching the phosphorescence of the waves as they break out in my

seas. The incredible scope of that has always caught my mind. I like the cam

rattery and hanging around with those guys, the big guys. I was a radar man and

radioman and my mind was challenged and we were at war and we were here. They

ever liked everything about it but I couldn't get back to that damn ship on

time. And you explained that to me. I have a disease it seems called alcoholism.

One of the major symptoms of my disease is real simple. I have an

allergy to alcohol. If I had an allergy to tomatoes and I ate tomatoes I'd break

out with an itch. The symptom of my allergy is that when I take a drink of

alcohol into my system I break out with a scream and meme-y itch for another drink

alcohol. And it isn't that I didn't love my job or my family or myself even but

that craving stronger than anything I can bring to bear on. It changes me and

takes me out of my right mind and I become obsessed, physically obsessed and

mentally obsessed with having another drink alcohol. And for me any other kind

of chemically you won't talk about, it changes your mind. I didn't know that.

I just go ashore and expect to be home in 24 hours and it was sometimes weeks

before I got back. And the last time they'd moved my home all the way to Japan

and they were mad and hell at me. And I was 19 and back in Denver full of hate

and fear. And the fear had changed the terror because the reason I drank, which

again I found in my book, was for the effect produced by the alcohol. You see

it made it possible for me to feel things I couldn't feel any other way. And it made

it possible for me to not have to feel other things that I couldn't cope

with. And I came home at 19, a failure and I drank my rum because up till then

rum had made me into a great lover. And all it did was make me sick. And I drank

my vodka so I could be tough. And all it did was make me drunk and fall down. One

of my favorite drinks from the very beginning was good red wine because with

good red wine I'm a poet. And my very favorite of all was Coors beer. I could

drink Coors beer and listen to Ferlin Husky sing four walls and cry. Just feel

it down in here because I couldn't feel it without it. And I stopped working. So

for the next number of years there was a combination of things. They took me

to a doctor because I was living in a chicken coop. That was cool when I grew

up. You converted chicken coop and your number one on the block. But I was sick

and they knew it. They took me to a doctor and the doctor gave me methamphetamine

hydrochloride as a therapy tool so I could talk freely. That's methadryl. I could

become uninhibited and talk freely. And I'm here to tell you it works. It does

exactly that. I became totally uninhibited and I haven't been able to shut up

since. And it made it possible for me to drink successfully again. Successful

drinking for me has all successful. The illusion that somehow I was in

control. Now I still fell down but with whiskey and speed it was a controlled

fall. And I did that for years. I did a number of things for years that I won't be

labored you with as I got sicker. My life was dedicated and devoted to some

how or another finding it. The answer the magic answer would make me okay. And I

found it over and over and over. It had last for a week two weeks and then I

had to go looking again. I found it in Peyote. I ate Peyote with the Indians one

time in a marvel of ceremony and I had a genuine vision. To this day I don't

doubt that. I saw a great huge bird flying with no head. And I knew that that

was me. No direction. And for four months I stayed straight and sober and clean. I

had to live in the north woods of California in a tree. Literally those red

woods are big enough to sleep in. At the end of four months I made a mistake of

going into San Francisco and it was all over. I have a body that can't take

alcohol without needing more alcohol. That's simple. My early sponsors God

blessing made me so aware that I came to believe it and I got comfortable. They

said you know that's completely academic. If you never take drink alcohol that'll

never happen. That will never happen as long as I don't drink alcohol. So why did

I keep drinking? Because the second part of my disease is also very simple.

And thank God for sponsors who helped me to understand there's a peace missing

here. I have a mind that at certain times is absolutely incapable of remembering

anything out of the past that might stop me from taking another drink. It simply is

in it's not there. 99 days out of 100 I can think of drink all the way through on

a hundredth day I don't think. There's only one thing in Alcoholics Anonymous I

change if I had to power. I take that silly sign off the wall it says think

think think because there's times I can't and there's times that there is no human

power on this earth can take for me with enough intensity to keep me from taking

the drink that I have to have my mind tells me to have to have. I understand

powerlessness. If there's going to be one second in my life that I'm in that kind

of danger then I want to do something different. Well I haven't had a drink

for a while because you also told me that there is something we'll take care of

me. See I'm a power seeker. I have always been a power seeker and I'm still a power

seeker. I found power one time in a 49 Mercury convertible with leopard skin

seat covered. That's right. In my town that was it and I got one. It lasted two days

the two blondes I put in the back broke the top and I didn't want it anymore. He had

one. I found power in books. I could read a book and be whoever was in the book and

it was great power in that as long as you and I didn't spend any great amount of

time together. Well that was terrifying. It was power and money. I found power in

sex. There's much power there. It scared me to death and I gave it up. Power and

jobs. Through the process that you taught me about I discovered that most of my life

I've been a sprinter. Not a long distance runner. That's part of the problem. If you

put me in any new position I'm incredible. I have such a desperate need to succeed

that I learned very quickly. I do all the right things. Everybody relaxes. One of the

horrible things that I did to my family is that we kept putting me in new

positions and I kept performing and everybody say bye God he's gonna make it

this time and I believe that too and then everybody'd relax and I'd get

distracted and drunk and be gone and come home sorry and we'll try again. I was

this better not a long distance runner. You can't feel good about yourself when

you do that over and over and over and you know inside there's no choice in the

better. Alcoholics Anonymous has never taught me anything new. They have

awakened the truth that I've always known. That's all. I have a very special feeling

for the people of Arkansas. I really love you. Some of your people have done for me

things that no one else has. So I don't want to talk about pain anymore. I want

to share it with you the great joy that I have found in Alcoholics Anonymous from

day one. I hope I've told you enough about my pain to know that it was no

different near. But let me tell you about my last week before I died. There's so

much pain there that it didn't even painful anymore. I'm so grateful for my

last week of life that I can barely contain myself because that's the week

I got to see me for exactly who I was and there were no more excuses and no more

dreams and no more kidding anybody. I saw me for who I was and I couldn't stand

being that one more day. I have added dimension to the word creep. My two

little boys and I were living in a $40 a month basement apartment on welfare

because it couldn't work and I was on federal parole and the lady who

rented us the apartment and lived upstairs raised or she had cats. She didn't

raise them. She had cats. Have you ever been around anybody who had cats? Got them

money. And her place was cleaner than mine. That's the week I saw that. It's

Christmas week of 1967. I've never had heroin because of my keen alcohol. When I

was in junior high school they showed us a movie about junkies. Junkies are

heroin addicts and what they pictured there was beyond anything I could

conceive for me and I swore I'll never be that. So I never had heroin. I shot

everything else I can get into a deal. As long as it wasn't heroin my mind says

you're not a junkie. Christmas week of 1967 I woke up after one of those trips

I used to take and that's my partner Bill and said my God Bill weren't a

junkie pad and he reminded me it was my house and I saw that. If you've been on

a road and I'm sure some of you have you know that the mess of America is true

there is money in the streets of America. All you gotta do is walk around with your

head flat down all the time and you'll find it. You won't get rich but there's

money there. And we headed for my folks place so the kids could see grandma and

grandpa and found a dollar in the snow. Now if you're not through yet I'm going

to share a couple little survival techniques with you in case you got some

idea of drinking again. On Christmas Day any tree lot in the country about four

o'clock in the afternoon will sell you any tree they got for dollar. That's where

we got our tree and I'm an alcoholic it couldn't be one table size it was big

and it didn't fit the room so it went over this way. And I kind of saw that and

it sort of struck me as a little bit pitiful for a 34 year old man with

children to have to buy his Christmas tree with the dollar he found in the

snow. We got to my folks place my dad met us at the door and he said I'm sorry

your mother said I can't let you in today because she can't stand watching you

die anymore. And for the first time I saw what my what I had done to my mother

I was six years sober when I realized that wasn't the first time we'd been told

that but that's the first time I saw that. Another piece of me died then he snuck

us in anyway and I saw what I'd done to my dad because he jeopardized the

happiness of his home that day to show us that he loved us and I'm the main act

that used to scream out nobody cares and I saw that I was a liar somebody did care

and I saw what I'd done to my kids that's a shitty deal to pull on your

grant on your kids when I can't go to grandma and grandpa's for Christmas and I

got to look at that the end result of that day was marvelous because I finally

saw that all of my dreams were dead and my people's dreams were dead and my kids

dreams were dead and there was nothing about me that I could find redeeming if

you will and that's the most joyous thing in the world for an alcoholic I think if

you're not there talk with me I'll get you there quick God willing because at

that point I quit quitting is a sick way of surrendering I quit said I can't do

this anymore I would rather be dead than live like this one more second and I've

got to tell you about the power of God as I understand him because I took a two

months supply of his oxen a two month supply of speed if you will I shot it

tomorrow there's nothing there to get us all moving quick out of this room it

should have killed me and I drank everything I could find in the house and I

laid down to die knowing my children would be alright we've been over that

ground before when I woke up in the padded cell they just put them in a foster

home I knew they'd be alright and I got to tell you it was a disappointment in the

morning when there was a knock on the door and the police came in because I was

supposed to be dead after the initial shock I relaxed you're not through

drinking yet you know what I'm talking about I was going to the county jail and

that's an awful good place for an alcoholic to rest if you haven't been there yet

let me tell you how to survive county jail real simple I lied to you for 10

minutes you lied to me for 10 minutes and we both go take a nap that's it I was

good at that and they took me away now I had set myself up for that arrest earlier

in the week I didn't have the honesty necessary to even go to the parole

officer and say help but I set myself up with a little old charge it would have

gotten me a six month rest at the summer camp and I didn't why they came

they were talking about nine charges one of which carried three years to life

they were mad that Denver DA told me you're sick and you're through and if you

beat me on this first charge I'm gonna bring the others one at a time and tie

you up in the county jail till you're an old man but you're through and during

that five months a healing began to take place inside of me and I can still

remember walking the chairs of the county jail you know what you do you

light each other talk about what you're gonna do when you get out all the big

timers it can't come up with a hundred dollar bond talking about what we're

gonna do when we get out gonna get a case of course announce the grass announce

the speed and go to mountains and get high that's what we're gonna do and I

can still remember my mouth saying that in here it didn't feel right I didn't

want to do that anymore and I did not know that I couldn't stop or that I could

stop well they offered me a little deal and I'm telling you about this

because it's the power of God as I understand him everybody thought I was a

drug addict and the federal parole officer who'd been working with me and the

state man got together with a judge and offered me this deal if I would plead

guilty to a reduced charge they'd suspend the sentence turn me over to the feds and

send me to Fort Worth to cure my drug addiction that's not a bad deal for a

guy who's looking at life two things happened to me and I'm convinced

that one of them is because God had already begun to operate in my life first

of all I was wanting to go anywhere and do anything that anybody said so I didn't

have to be who I was anymore but I'd had five months for my alcoholic ego to

heal to and the little boy inside of me said oh okay we're gonna go down there

where there's doctors and books we'll be on a street in six months if you put me

in where there's doctors and books I'll be out in six months wherever that is

because I know how to play that game God bless them they tell you what's wrong

with you how long it's gonna take to fix it and all the symptoms and signs

along the way and you come out cured I played that game I knew that game I took

their deal five days later I was in the Colorado State Penitentiary hollering out

wait a minute this isn't the summer camp I signed up for because God and his

mercy knew that I'd be dead today had I gone there because I'm an

alcoholic and I was taken to the place where I heard the message that I needed

to hear so I could be here tonight I had marvelous sponsors first thing I heard

out a this guy got up with it they sent three guys over with numbers on their

chest this guy says my name's doc and I'm an alcoholic and that means that I'm

powerless over alcohol and drugs and all the other circumstances of my life and

my life's become unmanageable and if any you smart bastards think you can

still manage your lives look at the reward the state just gave you for the

neat job you've been doing and then he gave me the message the message of

alcoholics anonymous if you are an alcoholic you don't ever have to drink

again ever you never have to experience that pain ever again I didn't

know that everything in my life said yes I do and he said no you don't and he

said it was sub conviction I heard him I didn't know how but I knew he was

telling me the truth and they invited us to go to the 12 step study school the

tradition say the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking

but that wasn't so where I came in they had a big meeting on Friday night where

they let real people in from the outside you didn't get to go to that meeting

until you'd completed the 12 step study school every Saturday afternoon and

every Sunday afternoon we went to school and I went the very first thing they

said was you knew guys for the next five weeks you have nothing to say if you knew

anything at all you wouldn't be here and they began to share with us in a way

that I think is unique to alcoholics anonymous one of my early sponsors was

doing a natural life because when he was 17 he went downtown in Denver and in a

shootout on the street killed some people I'd never done that so I couldn't

identify with that but he talked about that day he woke up that morning with the

feeling inside that nobody cared whether he lived or died and it upset him that

does and he did what he always did to kill the pain he started drinking only

this day it didn't kill the pain it got him involved in the pain and he got

some anger he decided if if nobody cares I'm just gonna go tape mine I have

wake in many a morning knowing that nobody on this planet cared whether I

lived or died and when the medicine doesn't work I got into the rage and did

my own thing so I could hear what he said but more importantly I could see what he

was the man I was talking to was incapable of killing anybody I knew that one of

the things this book tells me is that I'm not to fool myself about my values any

morning it tells me I already have the truth within me and I could recognize the

truth of this man and I asked him about that he said that's right I have been

changed and that's why I'm here tonight because Bruce had been changed and all I

wanted was to be changed I didn't come here to get sober I came here to be changed

he took me to the book and it talked about an entire psychic change I could

be reborn I could start over put an incredible idea for somebody sick as I

was because when you started talking me about sanity and insanity I had a little

fear at that time I was certified by the state as a psychopathic now I don't know

a whole lot about either one of them but I know this they're both untreatable they

don't even bother to treat them one doesn't have a conscience the other one

doesn't just didn't give it him and I was both he said no no what's wrong with

me is that I have alcoholic insanity he said you can demonstrate psychopath back

me into that corner and I'll show you psychopath follow you come with me at once

if I'm in the midst of my sickness and I need something I take it and if it's

yours that's too damn bad if you get me angry enough I'll try to destroy your

mind in the midst of my sickness and not even care but what I suffer from is

alcoholic insanity he said so we're gonna take all the big stuff off of me I'm

no big timer at anything alcoholic and sanity is defined in the big books

simply even my sick mind could grasp it's in the story of the young car salesman

who one day a little angry because he couldn't he was working for the place

that he used to own and he went into a bar to have lunch and find a customer and

a midst of lunch to occur to him that he'd been sober for a while he just had a

meal and he could have an ounce of whiskey if he put it in his milk and he

didn't end up in another sanitarium and then it defines it whatever the

precise definition of the word maybe we call that plain insanity lack of

proportion and the ability to think straight I can grasp that if one works

take ten two jobs two wives did that sober and I can't think straight my mind is

missing a piece that will keep me from thinking straight to the end of anything

particularly in relation to alcohol it will fool me it will deceive me it will

tell me it's all right it will tell me I deserve it it will tell me I need it or

most horribly of all it won't tell me anything so I can't think straight what

a relief that is to know because we can treat that kind of insanity and he told

me the most important word for me in the second step was the word restore and I

began to learn about God's mercy you see the great fear for me was that I would

have to spend the rest of my life on a psychiatrist couch trying to unravel what

I had just failed to unravel in 34 years he said no no he suggested that if I

were to set aside all of my old ideas the way he put it was that I was to

forget anything I thought I knew about anything particularly about God because

if anything had worked I wouldn't be where I was to set that aside and got in his

mercy would restore me to the time when I wasn't insane you said you haven't

always been a Raven maniac it was a time you were saying we don't know where it

was and we're not gonna fool around trying to find it will assume it happened

about three seconds after you were born so just forget everything we'll start

over and that wasn't hard to do it was pretty well mush up here by God's grace I

set aside everything I thought I knew about anything and to this day that keeps

me out of trouble I've learned something if I'm willing to fight you over my

opinion it's my opinion I never have to fight for the truth because the truth

just is so if I'm up in arms to protect my opinion I'm full of garbage well he

and a couple other guys had something I want I'm very practical person Bruce

definitely had something I wanted they used to lock me away when I wasn't

working and he'd come by and talk to me and it occurred to me one day that he

gets in and out of his cell anytime he wants I've been in two other pennant

entries and I've learned really the best job there for me is tear quirk the

turquirk cell is tripped all the time because he has to run in for everybody

else because I don't like being locked up this time I didn't get to be

tear quirk Bruce kept coming by and I wanted what he had so I decided to do

what he did now please understand also that I did everything in this program for

the wrong reason the first time my motives were not pure and clean if we

have anybody here tonight and I'm sure we do that's worried about whether you're

gonna work these steps right the first time let me set your mind at ease you

won't you can't you can't work them wrong either we're seeking God and in the

seeking we're protected if we genuinely seeking well they said I had to turn my

well my life over to God to get what they had we did I went to myself and I

turned my well my life over to God and I sat back and waited for my flash of

light and it didn't come my nature is such that I can handle anything at all

that goes boom anything that was the worst experience of my whole life I said

that prayer and waited for the boom and absolutely nothing happened nothing and

that freaked me out now my sponsors had taught me by then if you do something

that your sponsor suggests that you do and you don't get the results you think

you ought to get don't get you at them and I did and as a response to me was a

non-be grateful that you didn't have a flash of life didn't it kill you all

your life I've had some beauties and God bless him he did what a people do

better than anybody on this planet each of us this time is a lot of a certain

amount of time and that's it we don't know what it's gonna come to an end we

know it is he took some of his very precious lifetime and took me aside for

a couple hours and shared with me his life what he had found and how he

found it he talked about a kind of God that I really wanted to get to know he

said God knows you probably can't stand more one big shock in you probably come

to use you came to me slowly gently as I'm able to comprehend him and until I

could feel him I was to trust him with my very life all the things I want to

do in the next few weeks putting trust to a test because that's my nature to

and I asked him in all earnestness how can I make it real Bruce got to be real

and he said well God will reveal himself to you as you reveal yourself to

you and he sent me off to do an inventory and two hours later when I

finished it came back to it and the same loving human being who just

taking so much time with me looked me in the eye and said that's garbage you

wrote that to impress me get away from me and I was baffled again I ran off and

found a guy that listened and I had a marvelous awakening this fella spent two

hours justifying my behavior to me telling me it wasn't all that bad because

all I done was written down some of the bizarre stuff like that and in the

midst of that somehow it occurred to me that that didn't what was supposed to be

going on that once again I picked somebody out of my life who would tell me

what I needed to justify my behavior I've been doing that all my life and if I

didn't stop that I was dead I didn't know how to stop doing that so I took

another review to find out if I want what you have more than I want life itself

it's that serious to me I'd rather be dead than be without what I've been given

this program and I sincerely turned my life and my will over the care of God

and did my level best to find the things in me that were blocking me from him

because that's all inventory is it's an effort to discover and get rid of the

things that are blocking me from God and get rid of the thing that was the key

I don't have to keep this crap anymore I get rid of it and I hadn't

experienced with resentment that I love but in 1966 federal agents broke into my

house it came unannounced knock down the front door on the back door and one of

them came through the side wind and before I know it was happening they had me on

the floor mistreating me and my four-year-old son let out a shriek in this big

cop turn and put a gun to his head and I went from resentment to hate in a

flash of light and I nursed that heat from months and months and months and I

plotted how I was going to get him and find out who he was or he lived I won't

tell you what I was going to do to him because some of you may not be through

and nobody deserves I was not even gonna die well he went on that list it says

all I had to do was make a list of people I was mad at and I sure as hell

mad at him and I said I was put down the reasons I was mad at him I had 22

reasons now that is an egotistical one small bus 22 reasons you know I was to

put down the things that were being affected in my life because of that

well everything and I tried earnestly to take the right attitude that the book

suggests but he like myself was perhaps spiritually sick and I could

agree with that I hate it anyway and I made a mistake and start doing what it

said before I knew what it said it said setting aside the wrong the others

have done we resolutely look for our own mistakes and it burst on me that I'd

sent him an engraved invitation to my house I've been bringing dope out of

Mexico and not paying the tax on it and I don't like this this symptoms the way

they affect me but God bless him I can't hate him anymore I brought him to my

house and I had another one of those bursts of truth my troubles really truly

are and always have been of my own making I got mistreated by a lot of people but

you know what I used to jump up in your face and say hey mistreat me when you

quit hanging around with creeps they quit creeping on you in the midst of this

marvelous process I learned fear lives here I felt it here so I thought that's

where it lives lives here the kind of fear that comes on me when I finally got

the job I've been wanting but at it for just two weeks now and the alarm clock

didn't go off this morning I woke up 10 minutes late and I'm laying there in bed

thinking oh God I'm gonna get caught in the traffic I'm gonna be 20 minutes late

to work I'm gonna walk in he's gonna say where the hell have you been I'm not

gonna like that I'm gonna say none of your damn business and he's gonna say it

is too I pay your salary and I'm gonna say no you know what I quit so I don't

even go to work I go drink instead I kind of fear that comes on me when I'm

walking home in my own neighborhood on a nice summer night feeling at peace with

the world and some peeking these dogs six blocks away go and my head turns that

into a bullmastic in the next bush who's been sent to eat me and so I go six

blocks out of the way to get home and feel real bad about being a coward the

kind of fear that just rolls on and on and on but all the things that are gonna

happen any second now and I learned some more about mercy think about it there's

a lot of sick people in this world we don't have a lock on sickness there's some

just regular crazy people out there and folks filled with pain and fear and I

have to spend most of their lives learning how to cope with that my

sponsor made me look up words the word cope means to fight the good fight my

coper broke I can't cope too tired to fight it says that if I will put down

those fears those nameless fears if I'll put names on them and simply recognize

I have them because I know the truth I don't have the resources to deal with

them that's why I'm afraid if I'll accept to know that truth God will do a

marvelous thing for me all I have to do is ask you to remove that fear from man

to direct my attention to what he wants me to be and I immediately commenced out

grow fear which means he must want me fearless and grown up I've tested that

for 16 years and it's worked every single time for 16 years I'm not ready to

believe that I get frightened that's a very scary world out there they're going

up next to one another and I have to get out in the middle of every day but I'm

not afraid of myself anymore my greatest fear of all was of this thing right

here there's a maniac lives in there I thought he was 16 feet tall weighed seven

tons when I lived with him took another look at him the other day he's got that

big and he wants his pants and we love him we love him God bless him but he

don't run the show anymore he hadn't got a lick of sense anything goes including

my life so he doesn't run the show anymore I took a fist step I finally

finished all that with the young fellow who'd been in the program the same

length of time I had because you told me I was to find somebody that wouldn't be

harmed by what I had to say and he was salooning nothing I could say with

bothering and I had another God experience I spent most of my life until

that moment alone and I'm talking with Jim that afternoon and he kept quiet he

let me talk until I'd run dry and then he'd say a couple things and get me

started again and somewhere that afternoon I stopped being alone because

suddenly there were two people in the room you see up until that moment whenever

that happened there was me and whoever I needed you to be I'd never granted

anyone the dignity of their own separate existence for me you were always who I

needed you to be or thought you were I was afraid you might be and in this

process there was me and there was Jim and he was a separate individual who

loved me enough to sit still and listen to the stupid things I was telling you

they'll not be affected by it you can imagine Jim and I got very close Jim was

in that penitentiary he was the first one that was convicted of vehicular homicide

in Colorado in a blackout he killed some million a car and they sent him away for

three to five years and when I thought about Jim's pain mind became very small

I knew what I'd done and he's in the penitentiary and has no idea in his mind

why is there you in a criminal and I learned a little about compassion and I

wondered forever what happens to Jim because they sent me home early before he

got up and I'd always wondered and when I got out one of the first jobs they

gave me was driving a little truck and I loved it but for one part the other

guys got to go home at four o'clock and I'd come in they'd make me take the

packages to the bus station and the stand sit and line out there and you never

knew when you were gonna get home and I didn't kind of like that one afternoon

while I'm waiting in line the door opened and a prison guard came in with Jim

they were putting him on the bus to send him back to Florida and the odds of us

ever meeting are infinitesimal for five minutes our paths crossed and Jim knows

I'm okay and I know he's okay and will never meet again that's the kind of

mercy I get from God he keeps my mind clear for me of those kinds of things

when it came time for me to ask God to remove these things and I just went back

to myself for an hour and went over them I had another one of those damn double

experiences I wasn't a spreader anymore for the first time in my life I'd

finished something to the very best of my ability I was done couldn't have done it

any better at the same time I knew it was a shabby little old thing the state my

mind was in it was a shabby little thing but it was done and I had a lifetime of

work ahead of me and I knew it but I thank God from the bottom of my heart and I

asked him in the midst of taking away the things that he wanted to take away to

please don't let anything I haven't found yet catch me before I find it okay and I

found some more the other day all the stuff I find today in my continuing

inventory is shabby got the big stuff like stealing and hitting people and all

that that's done how do you deal with yelling at a ten-year-old kid I yelled at

my daughter just broke my heart broke my heart as it felt so good I wanted to

keep it up I still have an alcoholic mind Christmas time is a trip for me

because for reasons I don't understand they've given me back credit cards that's

the kind of criminal I was by the way they never caught me for my real criminal

activity I was too good at it I like to write things out mostly other people's

checks and credit cards and every Christmas since I've been sober we go into

shop and I don't touch those credit cards but I stand back and watch what goes on

and every Christmas since I've been sober doing that my head has presented me

with a scheme it would clean 500 to $5,000 at every store I've been in I just

have to say thank you God because we don't do that anymore but it's still

there if y'all don't mind I'm gonna take an extra few minutes over my a lot of

time to share with you the most important thing in my life I understand

why for me just going to church wouldn't work didn't all that differ they talk

about the same thing but I knew God had forgive me but that wasn't enough my

nature is that I got to pay for my ticket and he understands that and he

gave us a way to pay our ticket when I reached this point I went into my

evangelistic stage yes see if I'm sponsoring you and about the eight

step you don't run off and try to save the world we go back and start all over

we miss they wouldn't let you in so I can make amends to you and they wouldn't let

me out to make amends to you so I had to learn how to do a couple things I had

to learn first of all to live with what I had done until I could reach the

people I'd done it to without guilt and shame and pain and that's easy because

the secret to freedom is in the eight step our marvelous program we talk about an

action program and I agree but the secret to our program is in the stillness of

doing nothing but praying and listening my sponsor gave me the key he said I

want you to go up and make a list of all the people you've ever harmed you start

with the list of people who hurt you from that inventory then you put down

everybody else you ever met because if you met them somehow you screwed them we're

not gonna fool around with who did who didn't and then he said I want you to

close your eyes at each one and picture them standing dead in front of you and

see if you can look him in the eye and feel the willingness to say to them I've

caused your great harm I know what I did to you but I don't know what that did

to you so what you please tell me what I have to do so that we can get the

books to balance Bill Wilson tells us all at one point and another thing he wrote

someone mentioned to him that they didn't have his light experience he says

yes you have every one of you some of them just came more slowly well I had

Bill's experience I was lifted that night from where I was I was lifted and set

free because it finally came through to me there is no one on this planet that

I won't look right in the eye and say to you if I have caused you harm you tell

me what I have to do so we can get square very high risk because I know

some lunatics but I got free now they kept me locked up for another eight

months because they didn't know I was free but you know what happened they

started let me in and out of myself anytime I wanted I find out how come

Bruce got to do that they know that 70% of the people in penitentiaries are there

because alcohol and they also know a has a solution so the ones that were sober got

to go around 12 step the ones who weren't yet that's all it was 12 step

worth I got in and out of myself and got to travel around you know every sale in

that penitentiary looked the same no difference and I began to see the eyes

of the people behind them no difference I had to write letters to some people God

my sponsors were mean they said some of them you can write to and clean up some

of them you have to wait till you get out and I looked the list open I figured

who I could write to and I could wait and he'd check it for me and the ones I

wanted to write to he said I think you better go talk to that one the ones I was

quite wanting to go talk to he'd say hell you can handle that but the tough

ones and the ones that concerned me most were my mother my dad my kids how do

you make a man's to the mother who on Christmas Day was forced to say to you

you can't come in with the kids you don't go home and say geez mom I'm sorry I

didn't mean to do that the principal that he gave me told me what do you do

after you say if I harm you what you tell me what I have to do you shut up

that's what you do well I tell you and after I've been out of while she allowed

me to come see her and not in those words but I said that to her and she said to

me honey all I ever wanted for you was for you to be happy so on a regular basis

I go buy my mother's house happy it was six years before she believed I was

gonna stay sober she told me that but we have a marvelous thing it's been

healed it's been healed there's no way I can ever make direct

immense for all the ratty little things I pulled on my dad one of my favorites was

when we finally got broke I'd go sweep the walk for two bucks or do this or that

for a few dollars so what I do is go back and I'm fixer up for nothing and clean

us know for nothing but mainly what I do with my dad is have fun he is a

kick in the head he really is they've never been able to measure his IQ he lives

in a 48 room house full of stuff and it's a reflection of his head I tried to

deal with that when I was younger and I can't I quit trying to be him and became

me and he and I have fun we really have fun he's gonna die soon when I know

that and that's okay because he and I got back together and we have fulfilled

the dreams we had for each other he's really my dad and I'm really his kid and

now we have fun there is nothing I can do for the children that I damaged I cannot

change one single thing that I did to those little boys they went to jail

they went to foster homes they were damaged what I have been able to do because of

you is to give them an environment where they can heal too and they taught me a

very important lesson once we lived at Buena Vista I worked at the reformatory

of all places helping guys who are coming out stay out and once a week I

had to go into Denver and one day it occurred to me that maybe the boys

didn't like that I've got a history of leaving and not getting back for weeks so

I asked him if they minded that I went over and they said no dad we don't as

long as you tell us when you're coming back that's all they wanted to know they

don't need any more big surprises I've been living in the same house for seven

years and every now and then I get restless and you know what I found I talked

to one of my straight neighbors because they know how to stay places and I'm not

involved with the lady and two kids who don't want to go every time I feel like

going he taught me how to build a bookcase and it worked I changed my environment

I was in a different room and it worked whatever that madness in me went away so

every time I get restless now I moved the furniture in my room I've got a wife

who puts it there and that's where it stays until it grows roots and she can

whip me so I don't mess with it but I got me a little room and I moved

the stuff on the walls and moved the furniture and do this and that whenever

I get restless I have a home you taught me about family you are my family

families are those folks that know you that are actively concerned with your

welfare that's who family is actively concerned who love you enough to tell

you you're headed down the wrong path there's a gorilla down there that's gonna

beat the hell out of you and then love you enough to let you go if that's what

you have to do and they'll be waiting for you when you come back for the bandages

family are those folks who nourish you and cherish you and listen to you when

you're so happy the world will lock you up oh yeah and who will listen to you

when you're just feeling so bad you can't hardly stand it and tell you to just

be still you're gonna be all right we say yeah I understand I know about that

you're my family I'm closer to everyone in this room than I am my own blood

brother I really am you taught me to pray dear God thank you I came to you

willing to die rather than live one more day and you've given me an urgent urge to

live just as long as he wants me to I'm willing to become an old man in fact

I'm looking forward to I'm practicing I bought a chair the other day that I can

sit in for a whole hour at a time and do nothing and I figured by the time I'm

an old man I ought to be able to do that eight nine hours a day I'm married a

sane lady seven years ago sane I didn't even know any sane women I never picked

one I went out looking for the sequence she's the same as disgusting and our

marriage works because we never try to fix each other never you taught me

that you didn't fix me you said we there is no human power that can help you

none you introduced me to God Almighty he fixed me you taught me to pray not the

prayer that says get me out of this my daily prayer is please fill me with

your love and let it flow through me and into the lives of others I found that

prayer is consistent with everything in my big book so I use it my life has

purpose and meaning it's not a waste anymore do you know that in all of

eternity as far as I can tell there's only been one model made like this one

one and one made like you there's only one of you ever my self-esteem is no

longer based on what I do my self-esteem is based on the fact that I am one of

God's precious children and he loves me like none of you've ever been born

then he loves you the same way I'm no longer better than you nor worse than you

we're just all square and suddenly the Lord's prayer takes on meaning for me

we're all children of a common father who was every one of us just as if the

rest of them hadn't been born and it has very important work for us to do very

important my God thank God for AA when I reach this point I'm helpless and

hopeless once again I cannot stay home and say thanks boss I'm keeping this to

me I can't do it it'll strangle me it'll turn me into a sour greedy old man I have

to get out in the world and interfering people's lives I need a cause I'm one of

those many acts that came out of Berkeley California in the 60s screaming

whether there's dope there's hope burned down City Hall well he's given me a cause

and he's given you a cause I read about it in a book called Alcoholics

Anonymous I was told that if I'd take all that garbage that was my life and

willingly and openly let God use that in a sharing way with new people who knew

only garbage that that would become my finest and only real resource I could

take that out into the world where people are dying and going insane and

because of my sharing of that they don't have to die and go insane by God

that's a cause every one of us has that opportunity to let God use us for that

I like that God that makes me feel important not in an ego sense I'm incapable

of talking to a new drunk wet drunk scare me they only do three things

consistently they hit you they throw up on you or they wet their pants and I

can't deal with any of those three but I willingly throw myself into the

breach on a daily basis because of what we've been given if I'm willing to give

that to them they can quit doing that I owe something to this fellowship that I

can never repay Charlie talked about this morning God I got a chance to see

the big book think about that here's these these two nuts that have been

right around talking to all these other nuts on a planet with what three

four hundred million people and our count knows is one night and they said

my God there's 40 of them stands over we better write a book about that out of

four hundred million forty people are sober and it rates a book yeah and once

they finally quit fighting over what went into the book and got it solid it's

been in the hands of millions of alcoholics ever since and I don't know one

yet who hasn't said that it read better if it said it this way and we haven't

been able to change a word that's got to be a very precious book well I've

learned something that book will not keep me sober without it I'm dead that book

will not keep me sober and the reason I know that is I know some people read the

book went drink I go to a lot of meetings because I believe we need

fellowship I also believe I'm supposed to carry this message to alcoholics and they

seem to show up at a meetings and that's where I get what I need so I go to a

lot of meetings but I don't believe that alcoholics anonymous meetings will

keep me sober without him I'm dead but a meeting is gonna keep me sober and the

reason I know that is that I know a lot of people who go to a meetings and go out

and drink I only know one way to sponsor you show up at my house and we walk

through the big book word for word and do every single thing it says in here we

work the steps without the steps I'm dead steps won't keep me so the reason I

know that is I've watched people work the steps and go out and drink again but

the combination of all those things with my trust and willingness that God's

gonna meet me because of my walking that path all those things lead me to God

and God keeps me sober so I do them all I wasn't doing anything else if there

was a better way to stay sober I'd be there tonight not here I don't know a

better way I'm gonna close with two little guests for you my ten-year-old

stepdaughter her father's a Denver policeman juvenile detective and for

reasons that I don't understand he tells her about his work so when I'm not home

she is not comfortable now I work for a living I got I had to find that I don't

are these things and when I go out in the evening she'll come to me and she'll

say where are you going and I can hear it in her voice and if I say to her honey

I'm going to an a meeting I watch her relax because she knows I'll be home and

because I've told her it's so she also knows that while I'm with you she's safe

because God protects my house when I'm with you and all that are in it we had a

hell of a day one time when we came home found our house had been

burglarized and she said oh my god what am I gonna tell the kids at school I told

them God watches our house I said he does honey we weren't here when they were

this year that's the most precious gift I've been given to know that my daughter

is safe for them here that she knows she's safe for them here and that I'll be

home I didn't used to get home now let me give you my favorite gift it's little

old story it came to me because we can't wait to save this whole hour and

whatever I told you this at the beginning because this is a for me it seems as

fella saw the statue of David by Michelangelo for the very first time I

was just awestruck I don't know if you've seen it but it breathes and he went to

Michelangelo and he said my god how did you do that Michelangelo was supposed

to have said well I took this block of stone and I carefully chipped away

everything that didn't look like David and that's what I got left okay that's

how I see you with God as the sculptor and the book and the steps and the

meetings and all of the things that we do with and for and by each other as the

chisel and me is a very willing block of stone one day at a time we're chipping

away everything that doesn't look like done and so far this is what we got