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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 869 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: bob-m-recovery-in-the-rockies-testimony-ca-1993-archive-869.mp3 Duration: 01:02:54
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He said, however long I want, I had. Y'all are in big trouble. I have to start. If you start with. Can you hear me in the back? We're cool, Sam. Hi, I'm Bob. I'm an addict. Hi, Morgan. Just to get. And this is this is a meeting to try to put God colored glasses and everything we've done. So if you start, bear with me with a tiny little prayer that I want to start with to get my head together. OK. Lord, I ain't what I could be.
Lord, I ain't what I should be. Thank you, Lord, because I ain't what I used to be. Thank you. What I used to be is pretty simple and it's pretty simple for all of us. And this is not going to be a super drug talk. And this is going to be a talk. About me, my opinions and not those of cocaine anonymous, necessarily. And I guess also before I start, please, please, Kelly, by 115, we've got to be gone or we'll miss our plane.
And I want to thank you for showing up and picking us up at the airport and starting the whole weekend out with hugs. It was wonderful. Beautiful lady. There's so many people to thank this. Wandi G. Incredible. I love you. Thank you for being here. Having a chance to hear you again. You know, you just sweet how God, wasn't he wonderful, man? Just building it up and it's so neat to be a part of something where we're all on the same line, you know, and it just feels so good to have that, you know, to be able to do that, to have the workshop, to get to know you guys.
It was great. So it's been a wonderful weekend for me. And maybe we can top it off with at least knowing why the hell we're all here. Jim, you know, where do you where do you stop? Rico, let's go to the store. All you all have been great. It's been a wonderful, wonderful. But we started Thursday. We came Thursday night for a great day of being up in the mountains. And it's just been great. So we're so grateful and joy and I are both glad to be here.
Want to be here. Want to be here again. We'll get back. Get back up here. And with her, you know, somebody mentioned to me that they appreciated what I said about joy. And just to let you know how good things can be now. Now, my sobriety date is July 25th, 1971. So that was 22 years sober. And I got my shirt and shit. It's great. And and something that we don't really want other people to remember is a long time ago.
OK, and three months after that, I got married and in November we'll celebrate 22 years of marriage. And one of the most interesting things, I think, about all of that and all that's happened is that just last week, I was and I said this in the workshop, but if it's worth hearing, just last week, I was home and I'm not home a whole lot. I'm on the road a lot. And I had gotten up before joy, which is not normal.
Joy usually gets up before. Does this get any higher? This doesn't get any higher. Just I do. OK. And I had gotten up early and went to pick some coffee and was sitting at the table and looking out the window, trying to enjoy things. And I heard a crack in the floor upstairs and joy had gotten up. Now, this is 22 years later, I was so excited. That she woke up and that I get to see her. You know, I don't know who can appreciate that, but it was just a wonderful pleasure.
Oh, how cool. Thank you. It was just so wonderful. It's going, oh, God, joy's up and I already made coffee for her and I'll see her in a minute. And I just wanted to see her face come down the steps. And I shared this with her and we talked. I said, you ever feel that way? She goes, yeah, when I hear the Kriya, I know what you mean. So it doesn't mean that, you know, program works everywhere and you do have to take it home.
Like like last night we were we were listening to and it does have to be brought home. And and it can be. And all of that is possible. I mean, if there's anything that puts it all together to me, it's bad. It's like, my God, life is that good. Things are that wonderful that I was that excited that she was just coming down. It's twenty two years in, you know, and still that excited. So I just want to thank her just right off the top and say that I love you.
Of course, my mother thinks that that's why I'm so good.
[00:05:00]
You know how that goes. But we know she doesn't. I take it now. She really does. That's my mother believes that if joy left me, I'd get loaded. Little does she know how many times I came close to it because of her. She only understood. The none of us have. It's really funny. I don't think any of us really are unique at all. And stories are pretty much the same. I had the serious Roman Catholic rearing, you know, 12 years of Roman Catholic schools.
We have many Catholics here. Few Mormons are the same. You know, it's all the same. The Catholics, you know, my dad was an Irish Catholic cop and to call him a drunk would be redundant. Of course, he was a goddamn drunk. What else is an Irish Catholic cop but a drunk? And so my early days, you know, it was I grew up with the genes. I mean, that was there, you know, and and, you know, I've got the whole family.
And my mother, on the day of my birth, told my father that I didn't have a chance of making it. He said, my God, his grandmothers are drunks. His grandfathers are drunks. His father's a drunk. His uncle carries a purse. This kid doesn't have a chance. And she was right. And and of course, then being able to watch if anybody ever saw the movie Prince of the City. It's a movie about New York cops and and how they own their break.
They'll have barbecue in the backyard and they're sitting there with their white shoes and their I mean, their black shoes and their white socks. All the guys sitting around still have their guns talking about the collars they made for the past week. That was my family. That's what went down. You can't hear the thank you. They would sit around and talk about what arrest they made for the past week and drinking, eating barbecue.
When they get drunk, the wives would take their guns away from them. They would shoot themselves in the ass. And so I grew up first with all the genes. And then I saw how you acted, how you handled your problem. We all have the same bullshit in it. You know, if there's anything that I know and spending all this time with all of you, it's that we have we deal with physically deal with our fear and our tensions, the stress of life, responsibility.
Physically, we deal with it pretty much in the same way. You know, it's really you can really spot us and we got all this shit going on. And then if we're real lucky, we got a dad like me and he showed me how to deal with it. You get loaded. That's how you deal with it. So I knew that when I get older. Oh, that's what you do with all that stuff. When you come home and say, well, it's been tough. I need a drink. Oh, that's what you do. That's what grownups do.
Well, why wait to be a grownup? So by the time I was 12, you know, I managed to get my hands on some of that beautiful pure liquid vodka. And I had a half of a half a pint and suddenly parts of my body grew by inches. It was the the pimples left my face. I could dance. I could talk to chicks. I could fight. I could fuck. I could do all the things I could. Couldn't do sober. It was magic, man. It's still magic. You know, there's just two kind of drugs, good ones and great ones.
You know, it was never the dope, man. It was me. But it made us click. I just clicked. Suddenly I was home. Suddenly all the shit that I thought was not going to let me be who I wanted to be disappeared. You know, the magic reached my life and it was incredible. And naturally, I got drunk the very next night and got busted my second night. You know, it was like somebody grabbed me, said, you don't have a chemical problem, son.
You've got some bad luck. Your problem is I get busted. And of course, now I'm grounded and the family doesn't understand. But I already knew that I could let them say anything they wanted because they had lost by now. They put me in my bedroom. I went out the window and got drunk the third night. I knew by then it was over. It didn't matter what they had to say anymore. And when they say, young man, if you think you're coming in this house any hour you want, you sadly, as long as you live under this roof.
And I knew it was bullshit. I knew they were sitting watching TV telling me this. I was getting ready to go out and I knew I was going to get picked up and it wouldn't be long. And I was going to find that magic. I think if that had continued, I wouldn't be here today. I would have carried out a road that train to the wheels fell off and I ended up in a coffin a long time ago. Just dealing with the magic. But as we know, things do happen.
You know, we're a strange group. Those of us that love coke, you know, the rush freaks that we are.
[00:10:03]
You know, the understanding of what that is. I was in Dallas, Texas at a. Thank you. Yeah, I was in Dallas, Texas, and my daughter wanted to go to one of the swim gym. Million slides, jump around. Well, I went I wasn't going to like do that, but I'd sit and watch. So I went over with it for a while. And it's a neat place. It's between Fort Worth and Dallas. I forget what it's called. One of them. There you go.
Six legs over Texas, Lyon, Dion. And and the text is great. You know, the men are men and the sheep are scared to death. You know, it's. And so I'm sitting and watching and there's this kid there. We were in the goddamn water. This kid came down the slide. I'm just I'm really not paying too much time, but I saw him because he was pushing people like maybe eleven, nine, ten. You know, and he's pushing people out of the way, jumping up on the side and getting back on to the ladder to go back up.
He'd go down, he'd stand there in line, go back down the slide, jump out of the water, wasn't playing, wasn't having no fun at all. Just pushing that side and getting back up there and getting on that ladder. And there he is standing on that ladder, just like us, you know, bathing suits right above you. God knows what's dripping out of him some day. You know, you're hot, you're waiting. He ain't having any fun. He wants the rush, man. That's all he cares about.
He wasn't out there to play. He went out there to do nothing. But go down, get that rush, get back out of the water, get back on that slide, go back down again. Yeah, I just want to take over and see his parents and say, can I give you a card? Can I? Can we talk? You know, do you know what you got here? That was us. What have we done ever since? You know, we just chase that bag, man. Going after the magic. Give me that rush, you know.
And I'm sure as most of you, too, you know, it ended up in some real strange places. So finally, after quite a few arrests, now, again, I was lucky. See, my whole record ended up pretty weird. I had 17 arrests and only three convictions. But remember, my dad was the Irish Catholic cop. So the first seven, he got me out of it because he figured that was love. You know, didn't want to let me downtown there and have to marry Bubba in the penitentiary.
So so he figured it would be better if he got me out of there. And the but they did know that I needed help, right? Well, what help was available then? We're talking nineteen fifty eight, nine round there. There wasn't anything. So they put me in the Spring Grove Mental Institution in Baltimore, Maryland. What a wonderful place. Beautiful rolling hills. It was gorgeous. You know, of course, inside, all they did was find some title to put on you, like paranoid, schizophrenic and how easy we are.
That's us. Do you ever hear voices talking? Fuck yeah. You know, the walls breathe. Do you ever see it? Do I see anything? I mean, this poor sumbitch is writing like, oh, I got me a case history. I'm going to write a book, got me a bestseller. I got me one now. You know, he's right. So they put me in Thorazine and six months later, they cut you loose with a prescription for Thorazine, you know, tell you you're OK.
And at least for six months, I wouldn't see on nobody's color TVs, you know, that kind of thing. That's all they knew how to do. But while I was there, an interesting thing that I've watched the phenomenon in our program. You know, we are such escape artists. I love us. I love the whole thing. It's like. I had a neat little ranch for a while that was great, and we would treat teenagers, I work with adolescents and I just because I have one.
How told me that yesterday, I found out I was still an adolescent. And if I'd have to go away and come and do one of these things and get a chance to go, I'd come back. And, you know, there'd always be some new little girl that came in the ranch while I was gone. And I'm in group with where they're listening to her. And she's there for two days, three days. She's going, oh, I just love the program. It's so wonderful. And God's so great.
And I'm going, OK, who's she fucking? You know, nobody's this good in three goddamn days. You know, but what do we know, man? If I can just get in a relationship, I ain't got to deal with shit. See, there's any relationship. We got it made in a relationship. We don't worry. We don't think of us. We don't even think how we got there. We sit in that room going, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves, you know, I wonder what I should put on for him today, or her today, you know, that's, you can, you can just walk right through treatment, man, all you have to do is be in love, you know, it's like you have four flat tires in one day and go, oh, God, another flat tire, but she loves
[00:15:01]
me, you know, it don't matter, and so, you know, I saw this, and of course I hit the mental institution and, and they had a little dance for all of us, but those are good, where you're slobbering on each other and I fell in love and I found the love of my life in the mental institution. Now, a new song had come out called Wild Thing, at the time it was brand new, and she was my wild thing. She was.
I didn't notice the sores on her legs, man. I didn't notice that she, I didn't know at this time she had been there for twenty-eight fucking months already. All I knew was, I was in love and what we do to our families is absolutely incredible. I've got this super, they think, straight together group, my sister, myself, my mother, my dad, the cop, she marries a goddamn CIA agent. This is the biggest geek you have ever seen.
National Security Agency. Now that's, what does he, this guy, he's so quiet, I get a little idea what he does. I haven't known, so they've been married longer than I have, I don't know what the fuck he does. I got to say, Vic, what do you do, man? I work for the government, Bob. I go, oh, you fucking, he, so, I mean, these two were both virgins when they got married. You got the picture, man? He's probably a fucking assassin somewhere.
He's the type, well, I'm locked up on my birthday. How many times can you think how many times you've been locked up on your birthday? What's the fucking deal? Why are we always in jail, in joints, on our birthdays? I don't get it, but it seems we are, isn't that weird, Wanda? I don't understand it, but there I am and they're going to come and mama, being the black belt Al-Anon that she is, is going to see to it that I get a birthday party.
So she has them all come and she bakes a cake, none of the deal, and little presents, makes my brother-in-law and sister bring little presents. They're going to, well, remember the rolling hills of this place, but they're outside and they got like picnic benches where you can like pretend you're like real people when your family come to visit, you know, and they'll bring you out slobbering and sit you down next to them.
Well, we've all been there, I know, man, I know. So, but by this time, being in love, as I was, they had some great bushes out there that hid the barbed wire fence around the institution. So Thing and I were out at the bushes checking out the barbed wire, spending a little, you know, good time together, one-on-one kind of time. And finally I hear them yelling, me hand, me hand, come, you know, your family's here, save us some cake and shit, you know, everybody else.
So I said, come on. So I grabbed Thing and we were running down and my family is lined up like the goddamn American Gothic, you know, the picture with the pitchfork and that family, they're standing with presents in their hand. Here I come with Wild Thing, through Thunderwoods, okay, and I get there and they're like looking and I go, Mom, Dad, quick, Betty, I want you to meet Wild Thing, Wild Thing, dance for him, darling.
I go, Wild Thing, and she goes. My father leans over to my mother and says, Bobby's going to be here a long time. So I only, wouldn't you like to have been in the car riding home? What the fuck did they say to each other, going home? I mean, you know, his hair was combed, you know, what did I say, you know, is my part straight, honey? I'm wondering, am I right? I noticed my bang was getting a little long.
And you know, what can they say to themselves, they got, you know, there's nothing. So what we do to our families, what we do to those we love is absolutely incredible, you know, and the stories are just like you're stealing from, you know, my mom has never been robbed. She was showing joy all the locks on the front and back doors of our house. I'm the only one that ever robbed our house, nobody else ever did.
I did it all, the worst and quickly, and I'm telling these parts because I believe that after what was said last night and after Wanda talking about her husband and life and what
[00:20:00]
we're doing, you know, we're getting on with life. We're here with a little bit of time sober saying, guys, it's all out there, man. You know, that's what this is all, it's all out there. You know how ahead of the game we are, man. We don't ever have to do that shit again. Nobody in here's got to pick up again. Some of you will. Some of you will. Somehow remember that you have three choices out there and the secret that Dr. Bob talks about that we carry with us.
You'll go out and remember what's out there. Jails, institutions, death. See, now that's supposed to keep you here, asshole. But somehow we even get around that now. I'm not sure how we do that before we go out, except that we just don't think about it. So I'm here to say, think about it. Here I was 17. I'm doing it already. I've been to jails. I've been to institutions. How the fuck did I last this long?
I didn't get sober. I was 28 years old. I had 10 more years out there climbing that goddamn ladder, jumping down into that water just for that rush. 10 more years after this. Now somebody should have taught me something then. They took me to an AA meeting, you know, slobbering, shuffling, doing the Thorazine shuffle down the hall. They took me and I sat there and I looked around at the meeting and I saw a bunch of people who were so goddamn anal retentive you needed a crane to pull a pin out of their asshole.
I'm going, yeah, this is what I want. Yeah, boy, this fucking exciting. You know, I think I'll hang around here. Boy, I want to be just like these motherfuckers. I mean, I ran away from that goddamn meeting, you know, so, so nothing was happening. The only other piece, what we do in family is one time when I got, when I got out of this institution, now it was time really to bury him and I told my dad, I just needed 50 bucks to get some new kicks because I had to get some work and I was going to clean my act up.
I was going to be okay. Dad, at least had some street smarts being a cop, you know, says, you must be crazy. I'm going to give you money so you can go out and get high. How many times? We're not. Look, we have a whole day of shopping and some things to pick up. You sit here and you think about your future. We'll talk tonight. I sat for 10 or 15 minutes and thought, well, I got to get high if, if I'm going to think about my future.
So I called up a fence and I had him come over with a moving van and I sold everything, the rugs, refrigerator, air conditioners. I didn't sell their bread. I, I bet I broke their bed getting it apart. It was an antique and it fell apart, so I left it there. I even sold their cigarettes, didn't sell my cigarettes, but I sold their cigarettes and stayed there and waited for them to come home. What are they going to do?
Dad walks in, packages in hand, opens the front door and the house is bare. The whole house was bare, except me sitting on the floor, twisted, you know? And what's he going to do? Call the police? Which one put me back in the mental institution? It just came out, right? I wanted to get back there because thing was waiting for me there. I'm, I'm making plans to bust the bitch out. You know, I hope she's in a meeting somewhere in the East coast talking about the trick that used to buy her cigarettes named Bob.
I really hope, you know, I hope she's in these rooms, man. I really do. So all dad could do, all dad could do is get on the floor and start crying. And I said, why don't you get up off the floor and stop acting like a goddamn fool and call the insurance company? Which he did. He told me one more time, Hey man, we're all used car salesmen, you know what I mean? It's like, don't matter. Don't matter.
Just really, you know, renewed my fucking faith in mankind, you know, and told them they had been robbed. Didn't tell them their son did it. So actually I helped them out. They did get all new furniture. Now I put this all in. I had a book that did real good. And I put this in the book and my mom really has trouble, doesn't she, doing with that story, man. She really, why did you put that in there?
Well, mine's who we are, you know, she'd tell people, Bobby's out of town. You know, that's what you, Bobby's out of town. And then there'd be an article in the paper the next day with some dope being found in my picture. And, you know, oh, well, he was out of town. It's not free, you know, but she dug it.
[00:25:00]
She never went to meetings. She never did a thing, never has. She just would sit around and get all those neat strokes. She got plenty of payoffs from neighbors and family, let her cry on her shoulder and complained about Bobby. So she'd been fine. Now she's great. Dad stayed sober long enough to see me sober. And to watch a big, big deal, Bob M. Day in Houston, Texas, so, you know, from the mayor and, and I, and it was a wonderful time.
So he got, I think as much as we can expect, I got to make the kind of amends that I needed to make. Dad's going to be dad no matter what. One of the most wonderful things that happened is that Leon Jaworski, who was the Watergate prosecutor and Nuremberg trials, you know, the workarounds prosecutor, wrote a poem for me and Joy about working with kids and recited it there. And my dad sat there in tears with his chest out and, you know, and I figured this, you know, if you're going to do amends, you know, what better to say, your boy's okay.
Isn't that all we want? You know, any of you that are parents, your boy's okay. That's all you want to know, they're okay. The so I believe I've, I've straightened out most of that with mom. I don't like my family. I don't like them. I love them. I'm so glad they're in East Coast. Just when I get this close, I get a little nervous, you know, I leave them alone. I treat them good. I love them to death.
I will be there for them if they ever need me. And I believe the relationships are good. And that's what I had to find out. I had to find out just how close I want a positive relationship with my family members today. I had to find out how close I could be. San Diego is about as close as I can be. And they're in Baltimore, Maryland. So it's coast to coast. I've stayed on the same continent, you know, but that's where the relationship, anything closer they can get to me sooner and more often.
This is nice. I like Christmas cards and I go for weddings and funerals, etc. If mom needs anything, I get it to her. I call. I'm out of the guilt stage. She knows we're not going to return Christmas cards and Valentine's Day cards and Washington's birthday card. We get to stake new cards for everything. They come to mail and they may as well have guilt written across the front of the envelope, you know, because I don't send them.
When we go visit, we give her all the cards we bought, don't we, Joy? You know, we buy them, birthday cards and shit. We just don't get around to mailing them. So when we visit, we take her whole box. Oh, here's your cards, mom. Now she just, she accepts them, you know, gets to read them all at once. That's the same thing they did with me when I went off to federal penitentiary. They dropped me off.
Federal marshals take the cuffs off and I went. And dad said this time, dad said, oh, pawn tickets, any pawn tickets? Oh yeah, dad. Here's pawn tickets, dad. And that's just how it is. It's just, I had them so trained in such a place, it wasn't even a deal. It was like they had done this so many times. Every time I'd go away, I'd give them the pawn ticket. You know, every time I'd go, I'd just sober up, I'd give them the pawn ticket, 31 times.
I can remember that somebody entered my life with the help of God, as I understand her today. And 31 times that God came in and attempted to use people to find a way to let me know there was another way. It took the 31st time. That's just to help any of you guys that love the 12 step. You don't give up, you know. But through all this, there were family members and friends they would send to see me.
There were even some girlfriends and people that tried to help me, even other dope fiends that saw that it, you know, at 16, me sticking iron in my wing was not a good idea. And they even thought I was crazy. They didn't know it was already over because me and Wandi know the real deal. The real deal is action starts with AC, Robitussin AC, that is. That's the real deal, Robitussin AC. You know, this is something I just was able to share about two years ago that I have to admit.
I love shitting dope and I love cocaine, but I tell you what that shit brought me, Wandi. Robitussin AC did it to me. I love Robitussin. I still think about that shit. What a high, man. Unbelievable, you know. And, you know, you don't want to stand up here. You want to be cool. I can't be cool anymore. Robitussin was probably my drug of choice. And you know, and I talk about, yeah, man, I've done time.
Do you know where the fuck I did my federal time? Now, then it was tough. They still had the, you know, we still had the guns and they were still going, Lexington. The next thing I know, I'm watching the news a couple of years ago and the bitch from New York, what's her name, Helmsley, yeah, they put her in Lexington.
[00:30:02]
And they're all going, oh, Bob, you were in the fourth joint, huh, ooh, you know, Lexington, ooh, bad boy. So I can't even like brag on it. Yeah, good time, hard time. You know, now, well, at the time they were trying, I was under the NARA Act. Now, some of you old timers might, that was a Narcotic Act, Narcotic Rehabilitation Act, 1966, by Ted Kennedy, who really tried to say addicts have a problem. You know, addicts, addicts are sick people, and if they don't, haven't been convicted of a crime of violence, you can get some help. And they threw our asses in Lexington. All us winders who used to run down to Lexington for a 30-day thing, now they threw our butts in there to do time. So it was all dope fiends. I should learn something there. Everybody in there shot more dope, had more women on the street, killed more people than everybody else. You know, our egos were so out of shape, you know, I should have learned then. And what we would really do, you know, this is the insanity.
We'd walk through, you know, when we were free enough to walk through the grills and walk the corridors. Anytime you walked past somebody, you'd slap hands, you'd say, there ain't no hope, and they'd say, without that dope. How fucking pathetic. There ain't no hope without that dope. And that's what we'd say. So, but you know, would I snap? No! You know, I thought I was hip, slick, and cool. The times that got me to Lexington, you've heard them. You know what happened from there. You know, I loved the dope. Cocaine, we called it Cocaine Girl in East Coast. And cocaine was better than monster. Did a lot of monster in Philadelphia. That was speed. And, you know, I love this. I got these three sumbitches here that know what I'm talking about. And I didn't have to explain myself. And we'd sit up the square in Philadelphia, yeah, how many times. And everything, all it did was one fall after another. You know, one asshole pig after another. That's how I saw it. You know, one more bullshit thing after another. Until finally, after Lexington, now it's like they really, now they may as well have painted a number on the top of my bald head. Because now, they got my ass. It's over. I ain't going nowhere. I can't see nobody. That the police don't know exactly what I'm doing. They put me on methadone. I tried it at PGH in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That didn't work. But they gave me a methadone down in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins Hospital. And at this time, they didn't do what they do now. Then they gave us blocking doses. Sixty to ninety milligrams. And they'd load our ass up. And all we could do was watch the soap operas during the day and roll out of the chair. All right. And go get your orange juice, man. I mean, that's all there was. But all, see, but the whole time, what the white folks said was, well, at least she's not stealing our cold TV. That's how they thought. Somehow they were controlling us. You know, well, they were. The chemical was a chemical straightjacket. Methadone's no fun, you know. But what they didn't get was, like, we're not that dumb. We still knew that you could still do coke, and you could still drink, and you could still do down. It's just heroin, you know, would do anything that it would fuck with. You know, heroin, you'd have to almost shoot it up in friends. I know with the three of them, friends of ours did. They'd keep shooting heroin, shooting it until they died, because you go into respiratory arrest before you got off. But you could do cocaine. In fact, that was kind of neat. Coke with that methadone. Pretty cool. And a little valley high wine, and you were just fine. And life was good one more time. And but I knew, and I knew the end was coming. There was no getting well. I got drunk on the plane coming back from Lexington. I scored dope the minute I hit town. You know, just to let you know how inflation hit that, they sold number five capitals. Is that the size of Nemetol, yellow jackets? A dollar. And you got off. You didn't, that didn't bring you to your knees, but on a buck, a dollar cap, you could actually get high. Inflation's a motherfucker, ain't it? So. So, of course, I got high as soon as I got out and went down here from there, and then somebody disappeared from from the hospital and they had murder charges on me again. So I left town and ended up in a kind of fun. Just go show what an M.O. does to you. You know, the chick had just disappeared for a while. Nothing happened, but she was gone for more than five days and they knew me and took her out. You know, it's like, wow, I didn't do nothing, man. I'm just getting my method. I'm going home, you know, and they're ready to bust my ass for murder. They don't even have a body, but they know that I did it. So I just left town and I hit, I hit Texas, Houston, Texas. And the most
[00:35:09]
incredible things began happening. I end up doing time. If I really talked about God and my first understanding of God is that God is a black man. There were two of the major incidents. I bet you are glad to hear that. The two major incidents in my life. Let's say this. God, God used these black people in my life in a real big way. I'm sitting in Harris County Jail. Where else would I be when I hit town? I got to find out what the fuck the jails are like. You know, I go to Houston and I was sitting in Harris County Jail and telling this dude in the tank with me, just how bad people were treating me and how bad life was. And I was really a nice kid who just needed a fucking break, you know?
And this old black dude says, you know what you need? I said, what do I need? He said, you need alcohol phenomenon. I said, well, you need to suck my dick. So what do you think of that? Why I did it, I don't know. I left there for 30 days and walked from downtown Houston, Texas, about how many miles to Palm Ridge Hill? Ten, eight, six. God, I can't do the walk in the snow. Four, four miles. I got to be honest, my lady's here. I walked four miles to an AA meeting. I have no idea why I listened to him. And I go in the meeting and they're in there talking about honesty. What a fucking joke.
You know, so I sit down and I'm listening. Now, remember, after being in the joint, I wasn't bad enough to get high for 30 days. I mean, you got to be bad to hold on to dope when you're doing time. Well, I was jail wise and I knew how to take care of me, but I didn't have the money. So I had gotten sober. So my head was at least starting to fire on eight cylinders, man. It's been 30 days. And I didn't get drunk. I didn't have any money on me walking to the meeting. So I was sober. And they're talking, and I'm saying, and finally, you know, they look, somebody said something. I went, I said, what is it? Is there something you'd like to say? Do you have a burning desire? You know, I'm like, hello, you know. And I'm like, you know, you're talking honesty. This is a bunch of bullshit. What do you mean honesty? I had 17 arrests, three convictions. I need a job. I go get a job. Have you ever been arrested or convicted? Oh, yeah. I had 17 arrests, three convictions. I did state and federal time.
You know, by this time, the secretary's got her purse on her lap and they're saying, oh, don't call us. We'll call you. You know, what do you mean honesty? I can't be honest and get it. You people are full of shit. Well, there was a guy sitting in there that was later to become my sponsor that just thought that that that was interesting. And all he had to say was, that's honest. And I went, you know, still not, I wasn't going to okie doke these motherfuckers, man. You know, all I wanted was, I saw this cute little guy over in the corner and I figured I could go home with him. And I did. That's what I was doing there, getting a place to stay. Ended up throwing Ralph out of his own apartment, bringing some chicks in there and making him pay for it. He's going to meetings, crying, telling people about me and throwing him out of his apartment.
You know, so I didn't serve Ralph then, but I just took his place, you know. And the the weirdest thing that you people did to me then was I ended up showing up and this little girl, just a feisty little thing, came up to my face and said, look, man, you want to do what you want to do. Go ahead and do it. Don't fuck with us. Don't mess with the people that are here trying to get sober. You know, we're not tricks. We're just trying to let you know that we care about you.
Cool. Again, I walk away, but something again, something starts happening and I start going back there to some meetings and I end up getting a job across the street from the church. I don't even know what I'm doing. I get the guy's place back and I move in with my great aunt who lived near there and I'm walking to meetings. Now I'm walking about a mile by street story, maybe a mile from Gertrude's, two blocks from Gertrude's. Two miles I'm walking to meetings. I'm walking to meetings. I get a job at Rice University digging ditches.
And I'm working there and I, I would go over to the church at a cafeteria and I'd go over there and I'd eat lunch and really thought I was cool and macho. I mean, now that I was out of that, you know, wanting to wear dresses and shit, I thought it was really cool that I got to have these big gloves, man, and these boots and I'd be all muddy and felt really like macho. We dig ditches and I'd go over and eat lunch. And this guy who sat in these meetings happened to be an Episcopal priest who ran the church there. And he'd come over and sit down and talk to me. You know, he'd eat half my goddamn food and he'd talk to me. I figured, well, being, you know, me being Catholic, he's Episcopal, but I figured you got to pay him something, right?
[00:40:10]
And one day I'm sitting there eating and the phone rings in the cafeteria and they look around and they go, is Bob M. here? Phone call for Bob. I ain't going to answer. It's got to be a fucking indictment. Who's going to call me? I'm like, whoa, you know, I'm just going to eat. And it says, Father Charlie for Bob M.. Oh, Charlie. So I go over to the phone and I go, yeah. He says, Bobby? It's Charlie. I'm sorry I didn't make our appointment today. I'm going, appointment? What the fuck is it?
Yeah, Charlie. But I just called to tell you that I love you. If I don't know what reaches who, I don't know what happened around here. That man said I fell apart. I sat down. I couldn't eat. I went back to work. And all I could wait for was lunch the next day and maybe see Charlie and just to hear him say it again. I just wanted to hear somebody. For some reason, I believe this man loved me. I don't know why. You know, I don't. To this day, I don't know. He's still my sponsor. I don't understand it. But I would go back like a puppy dog. I just want to hear him say it one more time.
And he ended up giving me a job as a janitor. And then I worked it and he said, yeah, you know, some of these kids around here and they're hanging out. Well, that's like a good idea. I didn't want to do janitorial work anyway. So I talked to one of the kids and have the other ones like clean the toilets and shit for me. So I had a nice thing going. It was a sweet, sweet deal. And suddenly there are a whole bunch of kids hanging out. All I had was a few, what, 40 days of sobriety, maybe. And that's all I had to give them. You know, then they started going to meetings where I was going to meetings.
Well, by this time, there were about 35 or 40 kids hanging out in the basement of Palmer Church, listening to this old hippie tell funny stories. And all I knew how to do was end them up saying, I don't do that anymore. That's all I really knew. It was still all a con. Still the straight con. All I got to do is not get high, play the game. You know, these folks are giving me shit. I'd learn how to play it from young.
There's still no trust and belief in me. I'm running on Charlie's love, period, man. It's still a con. Some time goes by and this guy calls me up that I'd met at a meeting, another guy named Charlie, Charlie H. And he was in a trailer camp somewhere with apple wine and Valium. And he wanted me to come get him. So I go down and get him. I end up fighting with this other old drunk that's in there. And I get him out of there and I get him in a halfway house and spend the whole day with Charlie.
And I finish the day and I go back to the church. Anybody that deals with churches at all knows the person that runs the church, Father Charlie don't run the church, his secretary runs it. Secretaries run churches, man. You know, if you ever had to get meetings for the program, you know who you go to. Find that one in charge, man, the secretary. So I'd always go to her and tell her, yes, just another life saved today, another 12 step call I did. And she'd say, oh, Bobby, you're wonderful. You're wonderful. So I'm looking for her. I'm looking around for her and I can't find her. And shit, you know, everybody's gone. Day's over. So I get in my car. By this time I did have a car. And by this time I was married. Time had gone by. Like I said, we had a pretty big group of teenagers we were working with.
What happened is we had to start having our own meetings because they all went to meetings with me. You know what happened then? Now we're talking 1971, Houston, Texas, alcohol phenomenon. All these kids came in and they say, it's nice to see young people. How are you doing today? We're just fucking fine. How the fuck are you? Get the fuck out of here. You don't talk that way. You don't talk that way.
So the next week when the kids all came to the meeting, there weren't any other people there but the kids. This was our meeting. Nobody wanted to be nearest, man. Nobody wanted to be around. They were crazy, you know. They ain't going to sit still in the meeting. How many times is a 16-year-old girl going to get up and wave her ass to go get coffee in the middle of the meeting? Thirty, forty times, maybe?
You know? And that's what they're supposed to do. You don't believe it? Check out the newcomers in the meeting. So they ended up just giving us the meeting and we started having meetings. And Joy decided it was time the parents get together, which I thought was the worst idea in the world. As far as I was concerned at that time, they were the sick son-of-a-bitches that caused the problem to begin with.
Because I still hadn't straightened out shit with my own family, you know, and I didn't want to be near any of them. Just let me have your kids and I'll show them what the 12 steps are and by God we'll make
[00:45:02]
it. Well, the other piece to all of this, so I get in my car this day. and it was a great car, we didn't have windshield wipers, it was top in Houston, Texas. You got to stick your head out the window, it rains every goddamn day in Houston, Texas. And I'm sitting in the car and the radio came on and the engine came on and there was a song about a guy that went to a place, Boystown, and he was carrying his brother and he said, how'd you carry that kid this far? And he said, he ain't heavy father, he's my brother.
And I sat in the parking lot for about an hour and just cried. I didn't understand except that I had spent one whole day with Charlie H. getting him into a halfway house and I felt better than I'd ever felt in my whole life. I didn't understand any of it, but I knew as I started to drive off, if I started the car back up, that it was the best high I'd ever had, the greatest feeling I'd had to finally like who I was for the first time that I can remember. Now the really beauty part of that is like, man, how do I keep getting this?
That's been the easiest part. All I've had to do is chase it just like I chased a bat. All I had to do is put other people's needs in front of mine ever since then and I've had it. You know, people in here worried about, I think maybe I'm manic depressive. I, you know, I just can't, these highs and lows. I am. What I did was I found out a way to always stay manic. All I got to do is put other people's needs in front of mine, you know, and I stay happy and in love with me and I stay high. I love who I am. I love what I do. I don't even have to work.
God's will is not a problem to me. All I have to do is answer the fucking phone when it rains and say yes. That's all I do all day, every day. Pick up the phone and say, okay. It's either meet somebody, come here. When William calls, come here. That's all I got to do. It didn't come that simple. I remember going to church with Charlie and going in. Now, we were working six and a half days a week with kids.
You know, now it's just Sunday morning or five and a half days. Now, Sunday morning, I'm going to take the family to church. We're going to go. Jesus, we get there and the parents, now this is a wall-to-wall meet church. Palmer Church is like, this is where the mayor went and Dr. Dubecky who did all the heart things. Big time church. Well, they'd all stand in line after church for me to talk to them.
They wouldn't come to those meetings I was having, you understand. Not those people, but they wanted to talk about them. My family would be there waiting. Well, finally it would be like two or three o'clock in the afternoon. They'd say, Bob, we want to go home. So, I'd have to send them home and get somebody to take them. The last parent I talked to, I'd get them to take me home. Finally, I went to Father Charlie and said, look, this is bullshit.
This is bullshit. I do this all the rest of the week. I come here. I just want to enjoy being at church. This is my spot. And he goes, that's really interesting. I know it's interesting. You know, I realize. He said, no, what's interesting is there was a pool running around here wearing a little white coat as a janitor saying he cared about people. Now they believe him, and he's pissed off. Charlie would do that. I'd come in and be really pissed.
He'd go, you know, I really think it's great that, you know, that God's using you this way. I mean, after all, if Christ could find a use for a jackass, I figure they could find use for your ugly ass too. I didn't get much else than that from Charlie, except when I'd call him up and say, the problems are physical, emotional. The answers are spiritual. Hit your fucking knees. Boom. And he'd hang his phone up.
I could never tell him what they were doing to me, whoever they were. And I was right. He'd just say, the problems are emotional. The answers are spiritual. Hit your fucking knees. Boom. If you're not hitting your knees, I mentioned this the other night. If you're not hitting your knees, just try something real simple. When you go to bed tonight, throw your shoes underneath your bed, way back under your bed.
Tomorrow morning, when you're down there looking for him, just be grateful you're sober another day, and just say something for whatever it is you think God might be. Now, I'm not talking about that dude that sits up above the last cloud that you hide from by jerking off in the closet. I'm talking about what you're discovering this power really might be. Through all of this, nothing was making any sense except Charlie.
I'm going to meetings. I'm trying to make it work. But you know what's happening. Now, last night, Harold really hit on it, and it affected quite a few of us that were there, that something happens, man. What's really going on with us? You know, if you do think about, when he said, think about what it was like for you, and if you think about what it was like for you right before you got here. You know, all this shit's rolling along smooth, right?
I'm doing okay, huh? Got a family? It ain't happened yet. It ain't fucking happening. Oh, I'm digging, doing the 12th step, but where the hell did I go with the rest of them?
[00:50:01]
Yeah, I'm getting high on the 12th step, yeah. But what really goes down? I mean, that empty thing that Harold was talking about. The feelings inside you. You know, nothing was really changing. Oh, I was filling a piece of it up, man. Oh, yeah. But you know what, man? See, there's a difference. There's a difference, because what's sitting there is this hole in the middle of my fucking stomach, and every goddamn meeting I went through, that wind would still blow through that motherfucker, and all I wanted to do was get high.
That's the only thing that ever filled that hole. It's the only thing. But I was fighting. I was fighting. You know, finally, a bunch of young people forced me to go to a convention, and I went on my own. I went with joy. We went to a grown-up convention. Teenagers were my life, but I'd go to this grown-up convention. They were having young people, the beginning of young people. I can't tell you. It's very difficult to lay out what happens at these conventions, but this happened to be one where they really did some heavy meetings, and the God meeting wasn't this.
The God meeting was we shared what our God was to us. I listened to you people tell me what had happened to you and the changes, and I saw all the miracles in your eyes and your faces, and you had years behind you, and you had good memories. As one man stood there and talked, something began to happen. You know, I saw myself as this little kid whose dad had been dead since he was five, and suddenly I had some kind of bad dream, and that's what all this seemed to be, man.
That whole trip from age 12 seemed to be this bad fucking dream, and I woke up in the middle of the night with this bad dream, and there's dad standing there. You know? I'm saying, you're not here. This isn't real. He's saying, yeah, it's real. I'm here. You know, I noticed when I came through the garage that your bicycle was broken, and I fixed it for you. You know, and I stopped and I bought some fishing rods, and I figured this weekend you and I can go fishing, and you know that little asshole down the street who's always picking on you?
That boy's not beating the shit out of you. You know? And I just sat there on the bed, and he came over and helped me, and I've just kind of been there ever since. I don't know what happened that day, man. All I know is that it just seemed like through you, God just reached down and touched your hand. There's been no fear like the fear I had before then again in my life. And I get fear, and I know fear.
Of course you know I know fear. When I get afraid, it's real easy. I have a telltale sign. My ass tingles. My whole ass tingles. Is that the weirdest thing you've ever heard? Anybody do that in here? Anybody have that happen? You lying motherfuckers. I know it's an honest program. Some people say, See? Look, right here. See what I mean? Some people say their head tingles. Some say, you know, different things.
My butt tingles, you know? I mean, I really get anal, man. And it's like, God, I'm not too afraid, and I'll go, whoops, yeah, I'm afraid. I'll know, it just starts tingling, just because I don't have to think about shit. It'll just go, brr, does its number. You know, and the kind of fear that came to me, I don't have anymore. Does it mean that everything is gone exactly how I wanted it to go? Fuck no.
People just won't perform the way I want them to. You know? But hopefully through all this, I'll perform the way I want me to. Two years ago, when I got married, my wife, Joy, had a seven-year-old son. And so I married both of them. 22 years ago. And two years ago, he was married. He finally sobered up. He left home when he was 18. Finally sobered up and moved to Philadelphia. Living down Juniper Street.
And got him a sponsor. Started going to some meetings. Married three years. No kids. And two years ago, his wife walked in and found him with a needle in his arm, dead. Innocent. So no, things haven't gone the way I wanted them to go. There has to be a power greater than I am. That's got some understanding possible.
[00:55:01]
I've helped teenagers all my sober life. And the programs I started, there are 60,000 families that got help without paying one penny for it. My son had a couple of months sober. Got the job he always wanted in the fire department. His wife got a raise. They were going to have a child. And suddenly success was upon him. You know, I mean, failure kills us, man. There's a room for successful failure.
He just wanted to go get high one more time. Did the same man he barely used to do. I can't promise you that all good things are going to happen, but I tell you what I can promise you. That you will have peace of mind. Joy and I walked up. We saw a show the other night and brought it back. And we're doing great now. I mean, it's been a couple of years and we're getting ourselves together. But that TV show.
Renee was on Missing Persons, man. And that mama had to go down and identify her son in the morning. That's what she did to me. That's what we had to do. We had to fly to Philadelphia. And go down there. The good part of all of this is that the last time I talked to Greg, we went up, man. We killed the fatty calf. I mean, you talk about the prodigal son. We spent, oh shit, a month. We just traveled and we took him to New York and we stayed right down in Chinatown Square, man.
And went to plays and walked the city. And stayed in Philly with him and bought him what they needed. And the last time I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. And we laughed. And the last time, there was nothing unsaid. You want to know what a forgiving God can do for you? Nothing was unsaid between us. We had straightened out everything. We loved him. We loved his wife. Relationships were like this.
You know? So we didn't go to Philadelphia carrying a bunch of shit. Guilt of what we could have done and might have done. We had a program. Say, we're performing with Annette, folks. And it ain't Annette Funicello. This ain't the fucking Mickey Mouse Club. I mean, you're performing with Annette. You know, we can go out and do things. We can make things happen. We got Annette on this. You can try whatever you want to try.
You can achieve what you want to achieve. You can get those books published too. You can do that. But you can try it all. Be afraid you're working with Annette, man. We went up there and a bunch of people that I had worked with showed up, rented a suite and kept us laughing for two days. I used to work with a lot of rock and roll folks. So they just ended their concerts and came up and sat in a room and they just made us laugh for two days.
Somebody else went down to Pat's and bought, I don't know, 30, 40 cheesesteaks and brought them up. We all just gouged ourselves and ate as much as we could and laughed and carried on. A couple of them sang at his funeral. The songs he's called, I'm not very good at saying goodbye. Well, I've learned today I don't have to say goodbye. That's what I've learned. And I've learned today that what really matters is microphone.
And that somehow, if you are capable of staying sober, there is a state of grace, man. There is a place that you live that you can rest assured that the very best possible way these bad situations can come down, that's how they're going to come down, the very best possible way. That you'll be given the opportunity to make every promise come true that the big book has to offer. I've now had the opportunity to stand here and tell you, and I have experienced that, that it has worked.
That they do come true. Because understand, what did I go home with? Be me. We're coming home from Philadelphia. This has not been a fun fucking time. But guess what? We liked who we were. We liked what we did. We liked what we said. We liked how we treated him. We liked the friends we had. I slept. Well, we cried for a year or so, but I slept. The rest was a whole bunch of self-centered, it's what I wanted. I'm never going to get to tell him to get his little bastard grandkids out of my living room and stop messing it up. I won't have that.
And I want that. And I'm pissed off at his performance. But I think he knows that. But I'm not pissed off at my performance.
[01:00:05]
So when it all comes down to it. one of those promises come right home. Every one of them comes true. All of it works. Whatever you want to choose. That was cute last night, pal. Whatever you want to choose to call God, it doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter. But what you can rest assured is that there is a power greater than you are. If you want to find it sitting here in this room, I'm okay with that. That's where it is for me. You know, I don't have a celestial microphone.
God doesn't talk directly to me. That would be real nice. Shit, I'd have found that out the streets of Philadelphia, wouldn't I? Stop, stop shooting that dope. And I'd have gone, whoa, nobody ever explained it like that. You got it. What do I do? Nah, shit didn't happen. Dog won't hunt long. You can't just stay out there and expect God to just do that shit to you. Okay? But you know what? I know that you love me more than I love me and some of you I've met today. How do I know that? Because there's not one person in this room that I could talk into letting me stick another needle in my arm. Except me. I could talk you into it. See, so you love me more than I love me. All I got to do is listen to you, so suppose I took all that love y'all have, okay, and I stick it into a jar.
The way you love me and love each other. And that jar can talk. Isn't that jar going to tell me some shit? If I say, look, I'm leaving here, but I don't really have time. I'm not going to pay my bill. I'm going to hurry home. Do you think that jar is going to say, that's cool, Bob? Nah, I don't believe so. I don't think your love is going to say that coming out of that jar. See, we'd love to say, we don't know what God's will is. Bullshit. You know more than you want to know, man. You know, all you got to do, picture yourself standing up here over any situation that comes down and tell this fucking group of people, Hey, listen, it's really okay that I drive home at 90 miles an hour and see what they tell you. See, you know more than you think you know. Our ability to obey unenforceable laws is a motherfucker.
So how do I get to a place that all these laws that are unenforceable in my life to allow me to be responsible? I take that jar with me. See, now I fill it up with your love too. I see a Mason jar, whatever the hell you want to see, I don't give a shit. And that jar, all I got to do is ask the jar. When I don't get the question from the jar, I call my sponsor. He tells me the problem, the most of the interspiritual.
It's your fucking knees. I love you.