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Source: DICOBE-00022 – Sonny C – NEVADA STATE PRISON – 1985-06-29.mp3 File: dicobe-00022-sonny-c-nevada-state-prison-1985-06-29.mp3 Duration: 01:27:44
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I'd like to take this quick opportunity to thank all you people for coming out here. I know I speak for everybody in the group when we say that we really, really appreciate it, and the effects of your coming out here today will strengthen us for a long time to come. To qualify real quickly, I've drank alcoholically for 22 years. It cost me everything. Beginning when I started drinking in the Marine Corps, it cost me an honorable discharge.
I got a bad conduct discharge because of drinking and a robbery that I committed overseas while on a spree. This is my third time incarcerated. I feel today that I hit bottom before I came back to this penitentiary. In May of last year, I quit a good job because I could not deal with the stress of working where I was working. I had a supervisor who, to be real frank with you, one day I was going to kill him.
On the way to find a five-pound sledgehammer that I was going to bash him in the head with, a girl that I worked with, she came out of the ladies' restroom. I guess I had a look that terrified her. She stopped me and she said, what in the world are you going to do, Dan? I said, get out of my way. She wouldn't let go of my arm. I walked out of the plant that day and I never went back. I told my parole officer why I quit.
He said, if that's really what's going on inside of you, you have my permission to quit. I also told him that I was going to start drinking because I couldn't deal with this anger I had. He said, you've got to do whatever you've got to do and I've got to do whatever I've got to do. If you get in trouble, I'm going to send you back to penitentiary. I had enough money to stay in a room downtown for about three weeks.
I'm not much of a gambler, so I managed to hold on to a little over $500 for three weeks and just drink. I ended up in a box that a freezer was in at one time. I dragged this box to St. Vincent's and I parked it behind St. Vincent's. I met some people there that I could identify with. These were people that had tried AA many times and failed. There were a lot of them there that never wanted to quit drinking.
They were people that drank like me. They were people that had attitudes like me. So I proceeded to learn how to survive in the alleys and streets of Las Vegas. Being a survivor, I survived pretty well. I had the nicest box in the back of St. Vincent's. I had some curtains that I stole. I hung down over the front to keep the sun out. Later in the day, that sun whips right in there on you. If you're trying to beat a hangover, that sun and flies and everything gets you.
More fortunate than a lot of them guys, I still had a little physical stamina and strength and maybe a little stronger will to survive a little better. Rather than pick up cans or panhandle, I'd go down to Bonanza Street and work off that labor pool corner. I'd go out two or three days a week. This kept me functioning. I'd lay there in my box at night with a couple of my wine old buddies and we'd drink beer.
I had a peace and a serenity, but it was sick, but I had it anyway. I had taken that first step, as I often remember what Doc Stewart used to say all the time. I took that first step. I surrendered to alcohol. I'd really never done that in my life. I'd lay there in that box and I'd drink that beer or drink that wine or whatever I had. I was at peace because I knew for the first time in my life that I was really hopeless.
I knew I was hopeless. There's a certain peace that comes with hopelessness and the acceptance of it.
[00:04:59]
One night, the God of my understanding awakened me from a sleep with a scream that I hear every time I'm quiet.
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There was a man, you see, that was 26 years old. We used to drink wine together in the back of St. Vincent's and we'd shower together in the morning. He'd even go to work with me sometimes. He'd go out with somebody and I'd go out with somebody. One night, he wasn't around and we wondered where Jack was. At 9.30 p.m., there's an Amtrak that comes through that yard. Jack had fallen asleep beside the tracks.
We heard a scream and that was Jack. The train had ran over his legs. I don't know if there was anybody that saw him laying there or not. I didn't. The train ran over his legs and the engineer called for the chopper of life or he would have bled to death. He did not die and I don't know where he is today because I was violated shortly after that. But I know one thing and that is that I will forever be grateful to Jack because that could have been me.
We pay a price to be here. Some of us have to sink lower than others. But however many days I'm sober when I die, I'll never forget Jack. You see, he paid a price for me to stand here and be sober today. Clean and sober because I'm a drug addict also. This disease is insidious, it's powerful, and it has one purpose and that's to kill all of us. If it doesn't kill us, it's to give us a shameful death.
I know today I don't have to live in shame and I do not have to die of alcoholism because I found a God in this program that will help me and he will help you if we all keep coming back. I thank you very much. Thank you, Dan. I guess now I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Cal. My name is Cal Calhoun and I'm an alcoholic. I'm very grateful to be here today. I want to thank all the people for showing up from the outside and the people from the inside for trying to get it together to the best of their ability here for the first time.
The first time is always the hardest. The first speaker I'd like to introduce from a lady I met three or four years ago, I guess. I remember talking to her on the phone and she says, what are you doing tomorrow? It was New Year's Eve. I was talking to her on the phone and she says, what are you doing tomorrow morning? I said, tomorrow morning is New Year's Day. And I said, well, I'm not doing anything tomorrow morning.
In fact, I'm staying home on New Year's Eve. I stay home where it's quiet. I don't go out there where all the drunks are. It's dangerous, you know. Really, I even stayed home on my drinking days, you know, on New Year's Eve. And she says, well, I've got a panel at the Thatcherby tomorrow. You want to go with me? And I knew it was 115 miles where I live and she lives another 40 miles further. And I said, yeah, I'll take a ride up to Thatcherby with you.
She says, okay, I'll meet you at Sitton's Restaurant at 6 o'clock in the morning. I said, 6 o'clock in the morning? Yeah, she said, the meeting's at 10 o'clock. So the first one I'd like to introduce you to is Chris. Hi, everybody. My name is Chris and I am an alcoholic and an addict. And boy, boy, boy, this is neat, huh? It really feels good to be here. In fact, for me, it's very, very good that I'm anyplace on the face of the earth today.
And I never attend a meeting and I'm never around any AA people unless I can get grateful that I am alive. I know that when I share, I'm supposed to share a little bit about how it was.
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And I don't like to go too much into drunk logs in the past, but I will qualify. And I know you all know how to get drunk and I know you all know how to use drugs. And I know you all know how to go to prison, especially the ones that are in here. But that happens to be the story of my life. I was 17 years old when I hit a place much like this. And I was 51 years old before I had to stop going to places just like this.
And in the interim, I had to do 28 years and then some extra time in insane asylums. And I don't even hardly count that because most of the time I don't remember. They gave me that funny drug called Thorazine a lot and I don't remember much. And I spent a lot of time and a lot of years out there and I never knew what was wrong with me. And at the very end, like so many of us, like Danny said, I'd given up.
I just knew it was absolutely hopeless. And I was ready to go back to prison and stay there the rest of my life. In fact, I wanted to go back. I didn't want to live. But I'm chicken shit and I didn't want to kill myself. And it seemed like I could never get a hold of enough drugs to pop. Somebody was always saving my damn life anyhow. And I never asked him to. I didn't want him to. And that's the way I felt.
Today I know it was God. And he was always with me, but I didn't know it then. So the last time I had to go, the last time I had to go out there on those streets and do the things I used to do and land up in jail and thought I was on my way to prison, they did the damnedest thing to me. You can't believe it. You might even think tonight when you get in your bunk, that broad's lying. But there's some people in this room today that happen to know.
This is what happened to me. I'm on my way back to federal prison and they kick me out of jail. Now I've been kicked out of some good places. And I didn't want to be kicked out of jail. I was ready for that band to take me back to their country club and sit around and let them wash my sheets and tell me when to do this and when to do that, get in my pill line, get my pills, get out there and hustle, see what guard I can score from here, stay loaded and let them take care of me.
And I was ready for that. But see, my God wasn't ready for that. I didn't even know he existed. What happened was they kicked me out. They said they had insufficient evidence to convict me. I said, bullshit, I was going to plead guilty. Who needs to convict? Then I told them, you can't turn me loose. I'm a parole violator. I got six months left on parole. Did you call my parole officer? I'm a federal parole violator.
You have to send me back to the federal prison. They said, we contacted your federal parole officer. He don't want you either. And as interim of all of this, I got kicked out of the streets and I ended up in a town called Long Beach, California. And I'd been there once before, and that's when I'd been out of federal prison for a short time on a work release. And of course I was violated and sent back for being loaded in the halfway house and drinking in the halfway house.
They said they sent me back for my health, and I said, bullshit, it's just because you don't like me. You're against me. You hate me. You're picking on me. If you'd just leave me alone, I'd be okay. Let me sit up here in this room and drink. Leave me alone! That's all I wanted the whole world to do, and everybody in it, was leave me alone with my bottles and my pills and my needles. Anything I could get, because I was a garbage pail, from nutmeg to morning glory seeds.
And some of you in here know what I'm talking about, and some of you out there don't. And that's okay. I know what I'm talking about. And I'm here tonight, sharing with you a little bit of my hope for my future. See, I got to Alcoholics Anonymous by crawling into Long Beach and calling a lady. Not because I was an alcoholic, and not because I was an addict, and not because you could help me. Because I'd already ran into her nine months previous.
But I'd walked the yard with her years before. 1950s, down in CIW. And she'd turned Miss Little Goody two shoes. And she was one of them federal correctional counselors at that halfway house I was at. And she was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And she was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she had 14 years, and, uh, she used to tell me that there was a way for me, but see, I didn't contact her for that reason, I contacted her because she was an ex-con, and I thought, she'll at least give me some clothes, and a place to sleep, and some food so I can get out there and get it on one more goddamn time.
[00:15:24]
I don't know where the wisdom came that she had, but she didn't do that. But she guided the way, although she made me walk the steps, into a hospital called Long Beach General Hospital. Thank God the people at Alcoholics Anonymous seem to have wisdom about what us drunks need sometimes, because they didn't even make me sign papers to say I'd stay there, because I guess she told them that if I did that, they did that, I'd run, and they didn't even make me say I was an alcoholic.
They made a deal with me. I understand deals well. I always was making deals. And the deal was, uh, if I'd go to the meetings, and go to these lectures, and go to these damn classes, they'd give me a bed, some food, and they had a bulk rehab, and I could get some clothes. So a day at a time, I stayed there, and I heard something. I heard it for me. For the first time in many, many years, a man sat down at the table across from me, and his name was Dr. Bill, and I did not know he was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I did not know that he was an addict.
I only thought he was a doctor. And he looked me straight in the eyes, and he said, Chris, you're not a bad girl. You're a sick girl. You're not a bad girl trying to get good. You're a sick girl, and I know a way you can get well, a day at a time. We have a maintenance program for you, and I say, oh, in my head goes, you know, whoopee, maintenance program, another one of those. And I, you know, the fact that you've tried methadone and all these other don'ts along the street from, you know, you wonder what miracle drug they're coming up with now.
Wasn't the way it was with me. He told me that the maintenance program he had for me was that one day at a time, one hour at a time, right now even, I didn't take any mind-changing chemical of any kind. I abstained from instead of get with. He said it's a little bit like somebody with diabetes. They can function well in life if they take their insulin every day. You can function well in life if you don't take nothing every day. Somehow it kind of worked, you know. I started to listen, and I thought, well, maybe.
And they kicked me out of that hospital before I was ready, and they made me go. Seems like you have, even in Alcoholics Anonymous, they're always pushing me here and pushing me there and sending me here and sending me there, but you see, they couldn't do that to me if I hadn't gotten willing. And somewhere along the line, I became willing to listen to these people and think maybe they knew a little bit more than I did because I could see them, and then I would run into people.
The first one I related to in an AA meeting was a guy that had been a dump truck driver in Tehachapi. And now, I didn't identify with his drinking. I didn't identify with his drugs or nothing else. I was a dump truck driver in CIW. I identified. Drugs still around. That gave me a little hope. If that dump truck driver can do it, I can. I'm a truck driver too. And that was the first one I identified with. Then I went to a place called the Donna Hotel down in Long Beach, and oh boy, cockroaches was bigger than any joint I was ever in in the South. Only thing is they didn't fly.
And there was some people around there. Oh my God. I wondered where they came from. But what had happened was this. They were a bunch of drunks and ex-felons that had finally found something that they were willing to try, and they were kind of sticking together and kind of feeding and taking care of each other. And I met a guy who later became my sponsor and who later this evening you're going to hear from by the name of Sonny. And I identified with him. I don't know why, and I hated him. I hated his guts. He used to do the terriblest things to me. He used to offer me money to go get drunk. He did.
[00:20:05]
He used to say, if you don't get off your pity pot and stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself, here, I'll even go rent the motel room for you. Buy you your first bottle. And I was doing that, and I'd get mad. Where did people around this program get the wisdom of how to work with us when we're wet and half wet and crazy and insane? I don't know. But he knew how to handle me. I couldn't let these people touch me. I was scared. I wouldn't let them hug me. I couldn't understand that. But I can understand that. And then he used to say crazy things like, 90 days, 90 meetings, 90 days, 90 meetings. And it's like he kept track of me. See? He followed… I felt that way anyway.
And if I was going to meetings or not. And I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what he wanted. I wasn't sure. I didn't know whether he wanted my gorgeous body or what it was. It was just all this shit going on. And anyway, on my 64th day of sobriety, and I'd been out of the hospital about 20-something days, I missed a meeting. And I… It was true then, and it's true tonight. And I hope it's always true in my life that I never forget the 64th day of my sobriety and what happened to me. It's very important. I missed a meeting. Now I have a perfect excuse. I'm good at making excuses. I always have a reason why I don't do things that I'm supposed to do.
And I'll give them to you. And if you accept them, I'll use them. That's just the way I am. And I went to the… didn't go. And the next night I went clear over to the other side of Long Beach where… at the Bruins Den. Big old speakers meeting. And I didn't think he'd be there. Because I didn't want to run into him. Because I knew he was going to jump at me immediately. When I walked through that door, guess who was holding court? Sonny. And he did. He hollered at me in front of all those people. And he embarrassed me. Now I'd been hollered at before, and I'd been called bad names before, but never in front of a bunch of people I was trying to impress.
But you see, I'm an alcoholic, and my head got thinking real fast. And I had an answer for him. And I said, but… see, I was half scared of him too, but I wouldn't let him know. And I said, but… but Sonny, it was raining outside. And I didn't have an umbrella. And I didn't have a raincoat. And my head's telling me this. My head's telling me a big story. A big old story. And I believed it. My head told me that he was going to buy me a raincoat. And that he was going to buy me an umbrella. Because he wanted me to get sober and clean.
Now I don't know where he got the wisdom to do what he did. I don't even know where he got smart enough, because he ain't very smart. But he leaned back in that chair, and he gut laughed me. He gut laughed me from about two inches behind his belly button, and he said, bitch, when did you need a raincoat or an umbrella to get a fix when you needed it? And I said, what? The sucker was dead right. Dead right. I didn't need nothing. I could get to Gardena without a car. You know, it didn't matter if I had a holy robe on or any robe on.
If I heard there was something to drink or something to get moated or something to get the hell out of me, wherever it was, I was going and nothing was going to stop me. And he told me that sobriety for me had to be the same way. That it had to come first in my life. And that I had to be willing to walk through anything that came along to get it, or I couldn't have it. He told me it had to come before mothers, fathers, relationships, friends. It had to be first and most important. And I had to be willing to go to any length. Somehow I heard it. It's true today. I have to be willing to go to any length.
I became involved in Alcoholics Anonymous a little at a time. I'd been around a year when they decided that it was time for me to go back to do some H&I work. And I said, bullshit, not me. I ain't going back to prison. I found a way to stay out.
[00:25:05]
And I was politely reminded that I could go back and wear blue and brown one more time if I forgot where I came from. It was as deadly to me as forgetting my last drunk is. He said, you can't forget your last drunk. If you do, you ain't had it yet, Chris. You can't forget where you came from. If not, you can go back. So today, my life is something else. One thing, I've been on the same job for over four years. I'd never worked before. I'd never even had the same telephone number that long, let alone the same address ever in my life. I'd had a few jobs, but it was usually working in a bar.
Something like that. It was never anything that meant anything. I had no longevity, no statewardness. Today, I know how to fix a car. I take it to a garage. I don't park it and take somebody else's. It's responsibility. I don't like it, but I'm learning. And I'm doing it. I know I'm not perfect today, and I'm not striving for perfection, but God's working on me, trying to make me better, and I hope that people like you will be patient with me.
My sons have come back into my life, and I found out in this program in my fourth step. What I used to think was that the people in the society and my ex-husband and my mother and all these people took my sons away from me. I found out I gave up my boys and that I could have always had them back at any time. But you see, drugs came first. Chris came first. Feeling good inside this miserable skin, trying to get out of it, not facing, was more important to me than my sons. They were tiny children from seven to newborn when I left them, and they're close to 40 today.
And they've come back into my life, and they brought me 12 beautiful grandchildren. You know? And sometimes they bring them and leave them with Grandma. So watch what you pray for. You might get it. You know? God works funny. He really does. He does answer those prayers if you're sincere and if you're willing to do the footwork. My life is good. I don't have a lot of material things. I found out I don't need them. It hasn't stopped me from wanting them, but I know how to go about getting them in the right way, a day at a time. But it's given me one of the greatest things that I thought I'd never have.
For years, I searched in books. I searched intellectually. I went to psychiatrists. I analyzed this. I analyzed that. I searched in drugs. I looked inside of every drug that came along. I went into meditation. I did everything to try to change that great big hole in my gut. And I could never find anything to put in there to make it go away. I'm here tonight to tell you that most of the time, that hole is very, very, very small. Sometimes it's not even there. But I am an alcoholic, and I do have that head of mine. And sometimes it goes whoop! And it's big again.
But I've learned, and I've been willing to learn, that if I don't drink and I don't use any mind-changing chemical today, that this too shall pass. And through pain, I learn. I'm stubborn. Look at all the pain I had to go through to get here. What makes me think that I'm all of a sudden going to have everything rosy-dosey? I don't learn easy. I've made a 180-degree turn in my life. This is true. But I've still got a head. And I have a tendency to want to control everything and everybody. And that's hard to turn over to anybody.
But today, I try to turn it over to a higher power that I found in rooms just like this. Now, my God, I'm going to tell you a little bit about him because he's very… Now my God I'm going to tell you a little bit about him because he's very important to me My God is a kind of a God that works through people
[00:30:06]
He works through you for me You see I often wondered what God has to work with and I came to the conclusion for me That God works through people and he works through the fellowship He works through other people too, but I mean other people have it not just the fellowship. He's not exclusive to us, you know but he's out there and he works through people and when he sends these people to help me and to show me and to Guide my way and to ask me to do this and to help me in order to make my life better today I call him Eskimos he's sending me But he's not he doesn't send me the right Eskimos half the time But you see the trouble of it is I look back on it and he knows which Eskimo I need He don't send the one I want, you know with a brand new Cadillac and a purse House in the mountain and I can sit back and he can set me a white pillow on the floor and I can sit there And be Queen, you know No, who does he send me some son of a bitch like this?
Or that one right over there And then he sends me you and I need you I Need each and every one of you in my life every day I Need this program I Love this program Someday I may be able to tell you that I am a grateful alcoholic But tonight I can only tell you that I am grateful that I know what the hell is wrong with me And I'm grateful for the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous that it was here for me and I'm grateful for the people that come along My life's really great I Feel good and It's Sunday Saturday tomorrow's Sunday And I'm going to live it leave here and I'm going to think about you and about this place and about the fellowship And about how great it was to be asked to come over here All the way back to California When I get there I'll be able to get down on my knees Because I can do that today and thank God for you and thank God for my life You About nine years ago Approximately I went on my regular Thursday third third Friday of the night of the month panel to Dashby prison and I remember one of the panel of people that I took with me that night was a ex-armed robber named guy that it did time in a couple of prisons in California and I remember this Shaggy looking guy who was sitting in the back of the room and he had hair down to here big beard Fu Manchu mustache and a band around his head like I think Smokey wears all the time. Oh Smokey took it in But he's got one of these he's sitting back in a room looking like this, you know And I seen this guy and I've seen him at a couple other times at meetings, you know But later on after meeting I saw him up here talking to this guy, you know, and I asked him I said, what did that guy have to say to you? Oh, we did time in a couple of joints together I said, oh, is that right?
You know him and a few months later and another guy that done time this guy's up talking to him, you know Well later on the guy got out and thank God he's still here and tonight our speaker is Sonny Hello everybody, my name is Sonny and I am an alcoholic and an addict and It is really a trip to be here Fuckin penitentiary in Nebraska, Nevada Thanks You know when I got involved in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was in the penitentiary I Always said man if I ever get out of this son of a bitch. I'll never come back and I Just got out of the hospital The other day this last Monday and when I went to see my doctor the other day before I came over here to make sure
[00:35:06]
Everything was alright, and he said where in the hell are you going? I said, I'm going to Nevada to Las Vegas He said what are you going over there for? I? Said I'm going over there because I've been asked to speak in a goddamn penitentiary And he just started laughing He doesn't understand And I want to tell you the reason that I'm here today The reason I'm here today ain't to save nobody's ass ain't got nothing to do it. I didn't come over here to preach to you Cuz I don't give a goddamn if you ever get sober I Don't care if you ever get out of the goddamn penitentiary That's your business Hey, I'm here because I want to stay out That's the only reason I'm here They told me in a program of Alcoholics Anonymous if you want to keep it you got to give it away Cal called me and asked me if I would be willing to come over here and share my experience strength and hope with you and That's what I'm doing. That's all You know and if you're in this room and there's from this penitentiary and you're in here for any other reason And you're in here for any other reason than to hear the bullshit that's been said up here tonight I relate to you I Went to the meetings in the penitentiary and the only fucking reason I was there was to check the broads out The only reason I Didn't come there to hear that bullshit. I knew how to drink. I knew how to get loaded. I Knew everything them assholes knew and probably more And I used to sit in the back of the room Strike that pose and get cool Seen the reason that I sat in the back of the room because I knew if somebody peeped in the windows like they've been doing all afternoon And saw me sitting in here Then all those years of that reputation and all of that name and all that shit that I'd spent so many years Building up would be all over the yard. He's that piece in there We're all them punks man and all X them sissies and them snitches and shit See, so I said way in the back of the room and that way if anybody say anything I tell him I was in there checking everybody out And if I'd have been any cooler sitting in the back of the room that night, I'd have probably fucking froze to death And that was in 1969 I just got through doing 11 years in Folsom And I came into that meeting and the reason I came into that meeting Was because the dude in the bunk next to me in the dorm Told me there was broads coming in There was broads coming in to the penitentiary You know and I knew he was going over there to that winos meeting to get them cookies and that coffee Is that you've been in a joint for a long time man?
You know the wheels run off them cars and then mules quit running and then people quit coming and the letters don't fall out of The sky anymore and nobody wants to talk to you have anything And you don't have that money and your hustle ain't that good on the yard And so you go to get that free coffee and them cookies See, any link that just gets up And so when he told him I never had no problem with cookies and coffee I had you know my footlocker was full of that shit But then he told me there was broads coming And I don't give a fuck how you shook that locker it wasn't me But then he told me there was broads coming And I don't give a fuck how you shook that locker it wasn't no broad falling out of that locker It didn't make no difference They was contraband There was a whole lot of people running around that yard that thought they were But they weren't the real thing They weren't the real thing And I wanted to see what that real thing looked like You see it'd been a long time since anybody had been coming to visit me And it'd been a long time since anybody besides my attorney had wrote me a letter It'd been a long time since anybody gave a fuck about me And so I went in to them meeting To check the broads out And I got hooked I got hooked And so if that's what you're here for tonight Keep coming back Keep coming back and checking them out You know Keep coming back and checking them out Cause sooner or later They're going to get a moment of clarity
[00:40:01]
Something's going to happen in your goddamn head That it's going to open up And you're going to hear something that's going to stick Cause that's what happened to me You're going to hear something that's going to stick You know It's a trip I had to go take a leak And so I went out there to go to the bathroom When I walked in the bathroom And this dude over here And I'm not trying to pull your covers Don't get upset or nothing But he was in there and he got his hair right Put his glasses on his hip just right And all that shit And man it took me right back It took me right back And when I come back in here And I was standing over here Checking about the tapes He had the chair turned around And was talking to the women Get down Get on with it man Get on with it Cause that might be what saves your ass See that might be what will save your ass From having to stand on that fucking outside Looking in these windows At least you're in here And you're going to hear something See You're going to hear something Because I spent my whole goddamn life In these places Always on the outside Looking in And never Never could get inside Never could get inside Because I was always too scared And I want to tell you what motivated me All my life Fear Fear motivated me more More than anything in the goddamn world Fear caused me to spend 25 years Of my life In penitentiaries Fear caused me to spend 25 years Of my life in penitentiaries And two and a half of that Was spent on death row And I used to walk around These yards In these penitentiaries that I'd done time in And I've been in some of the good ones Folsom, Quentin, Soledad, Leavenworth You know, I've been in some of those places You know, and a few other And I've walked around With the baddest son of a bitches That's ever walked a yard But there was always something Inside of me, man That I was scared to death That somebody else was going to find out about And that was fear Don't call me chicken shit I'll cut your goddamn head off And kick it down the street Don't call me dummy I'm scared Don't pull my covers Don't fool with me Don't get in my space Because my goddamn fear Of what Sonny really was Was so strong That I was very violent Because that was the only way I knew how to handle it The only way And the only relief That I ever had At any given moment in my life From the time that I was 8 years old Until I was 39 years old Was alcohol and drugs That was the only relief I ever had It gave me that instant That short duration Of where I could Deal with it Where I could feel Like I was somebody I'm one of those people That is firmly convinced That I was born an alcoholic I'm the only alcoholic In my family The only alcoholic in my family But I'm firmly believed That I was born an alcoholic Because I can remember Before I took that first drink I had all those feelings All those feelings Of different, separate Apart from And never felt like I belonged Never I always had fear Always had fear And half the time didn't know What the hell I was scared of But it always motivated me Always And when I was 9 years old They took me to Juvenile Hall Juvenile Courts in California Declared me incorrigible And took me away from my parents And they put me in Juvenile Hall And I remember that one night Sitting on the edge of that bed Crying And it was on a Sunday And my mother and dad Was supposed to have come And visited me on that Sunday And they didn't show up And I'm a 9 year old kid Nine-year-old kids react like nine-year-old kids when things don't work out the way they think it will.
[00:45:02]
When I was nine years old, I thought my parents could fix and do anything in the world for me. I found out for the first time that night they couldn't do nothing. And I sat on the edge of that bed, and I cried. And I'm nine years old, and I don't know where I'm going. I'm totally lost, and I'm lonesome. And once again, I don't feel like I belong. I'm separate, different, and apart from. And there was four boys in that juvenile hall that come down there and whooped my ass.
They saw me crying, and they whooped my ass, and they took advantage of me. They took advantage of me that night. They took advantage of this nine-year-old kid sitting on the edge of a bed, crying because his parents didn't show up. And I cried all that night, and I laid there, my face in a pillow, and I didn't know what to do or how to feel. I didn't know nothing. I'm nine years old, and I don't know nothing.
I don't have any idea what's going on in life. All I remember is that when I took that first drink, man, it done something for me. It felt warm and fuzzy, and it hit the bottom of my belly and exploded, and made me feel good for the first goddamn time. I smoked a marijuana cigarette, and it put a smile on my face. It made me feel like I was somebody. It took me away out of that dark goddamn corner and put me out in the middle of the room with everybody else and made me feel like I was a part of it.
I never knew that that night, at nine years old, I was going to be sitting on that bed and the things was going to happen to me that happened to me that night. Very early the next morning, another boy walked over, and he sat down on the edge of my bed, and he told me, he said, Sonny, you're going to have to make up your mind what you're going to do. Now, I want you to understand that the boy that's telling me this kind of shit is only 12 years old.
We're in juvenile hall. We're little kids. And he told me, he says, What are you going to do? And my lips was busted, my nose was broken, my eyes was swollen up, and I had been beat worse than I'd ever been beat in my life. You know, I don't know. Nine-year-old kids don't get beat like that. Nine-year-old kids aren't, I don't know of nine-year-old kids to be abused like that. You know. Today I know different.
And I told him, I don't know what to do. And he said, You better do something. And so I got up off the bed, and I was walking down the bathroom because I was going to go down there, and I was going to put water on my face, and I was going to wash my face. And I was hoping, you know how you hope that it's just going to leave, things are going to go away, or something's going to happen that's going to make it different.
I don't know, because, see, at nine years old, you're really not in touch with a whole lot of feelings. I wasn't. And as I was walking down that corridor, going to that bathroom, I looked over there, and there was a door open, and there was one of them mop buckets with one of them mop ringer handles on it. And I got that mop ringer handle off of there, and I had a solution. And that was to be my solution for many, many, many years of my life.
I walked back up through that dorm, and I went to them four boys that had abused me that night. And I damn near killed them. I damn near killed them. And I found out then that, man, when I acted like that, people left me alone. They left me the fuck alone. And that's the way my life was to go from then until later on. And I want to tell you that when you live in a world of violence, it's a very goddamn lonesome world.
And it caused me to continue to grow up in the system in California. It kept me locked up. It kept me in them penitentiaries. It kept me strapped down in them goddamn psych wards. It kept me, I went for a year with that electric shock treatment, and the only thing it did was burn my toenails and make some of my hair come out. And when they used to come and get me out of S-Wing up there in Vacaville and take me down there for my treatment, man, I used to fight them that first time.
I fought them, and they'd come in there with that mattress in front of them and force me out of that room. And then they'd take me down there and strap me down, and they'd stick that shit to me. And I'd lay there and vibrate for a while. And they'd pick me up, and they'd take me back and throw me back in that cell again. And this went on and went on. And about the fifth time they come to get me, I was waiting at the door.
I couldn't wait any longer. I said, come on, let's go. Let's go. Because I learned how to survive that too. All my life I spent learning how to survive. How to survive the treatment that I got when I was nine years old. How to survive the streets. How to survive people. How to survive this. How to survive that. But I never, ever learned how to live. Never learned how to live.
[00:50:00]
And there was a time that I had been in San Quentin. I had just finished doing six years in Quentin on a robbery beef. And they let me out, and I came out. And when I came out, I came out to a club that I rode with motorcycles with. And I come out there, and they picked me up, and we rode off into the sunset and all that shit. And three days later, I'm in the Los Angeles County Jail, and I'm charged with 187 PC.
I'd gotten loaded that weekend, partied that weekend, and I'd went into a blackout, which was normal for me, because every time I drank and used, I went into a blackout. And it was during that blackout that I killed a guy in a bar. And they charged me with first-degree murder, convicted me of first-degree murder, and gave me the death sentence and sent me to San Quentin. And I'm still a very young man.
And I'm sitting on the edge of another goddamn bunk in death row in San Quentin, and I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking, why? Why in the hell did all this happen to me? Because when I took that first drink, I never expected nothing like this. When I smoked that first joint, took them pills, none of this shit ever happened, and I never expected all this stuff to happen. And one more time, it was people.
If the guy that had fooled with me that night in that bar had left me alone, minded his own business, he'd be alive, I'd be on the streets, and everything would be all right. I didn't have a problem with drugs or alcohol. My problem was with people, places, and things. Besides, I never knew you had a problem, and the only time I ever seen anybody that had a problem with alcohol or drugs was those people that couldn't get it.
And that wasn't one of my long suits. I was always able to get it. Even when I was going to trial over that murder case, man, I stayed loaded all the time. My attorney would come in and hug me and kiss me and get past me two or three balloons, and I would go in there, and I would pray to God that I could barf them up the same day, and if I didn't get them all barfed up that same day, I'd have to sit there for three goddamn days and hope they didn't explode in my belly.
And then I'd have to pass them, and then I'd have to dig through all that human shit and get them balloons out and clean them off and open them up and take them drugs out. See, I understand what it is to be a drug addict. I also understand what it is to be an alcoholic, see, because both of them done the same goddamn thing for me. What they done for me was they took the edge off. They took the edge off.
There was magic in the drugs, and there was magic in the booze, and they took the edge off, and they allowed me to be. They allowed me to be. I've sat in an awful lot of meetings of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. Awful lot. And I've heard people stand up at the podium and say my drug of choice was, or my favorite drink was, and I used to sit there and think, I never had a drug of choice. Shit, man, I didn't know you could have that.
You had a choice with that stuff? I used whatever worked. And I heard people talking about fine wines. I didn't know there was fine wines. I didn't know about no fine wines. Didn't give a shit about no fine wines. All I want to know is, well, can you get the top off easy? And does it do the job when it gets down to the bottom? But that's all. And as a result, I wound up drinking a lot of that Red Mountain Burgundy, and that Thunderbird wine, you know, and some of that toque.
You know, if I wanted to get there in a hurry, I drank that toque. Always loved to have a short dog of toque. And the only thing that I ever found better than toque was in 1973, they let me out of the penitentiary for a short time, and I walked into a liquor store one day, and I saw this rack of booze there. And it said, MD 2020. And I said, what the shit is this? And I asked the guy behind the counter, I said, what is this stuff?
And he said, do you like to get there in a hurry? I said, yeah. I want to get downtown and get the lights turned on right now. He said, get some of that. So I bought two bottles of it. Now I understand. There is nothing like Mad Dog 2020. I just don't understand what 2020 is. Because, boy, when you drink that shit, you can't see nothing. And I mean, it will take you downtown and turn the lights on.
[00:55:03]
It'll do it quick. I used to buy a bottle, and I would take the top off and throw it away. And there would be guys with me, and they'd tell me, God damn, what did you throw that top away for, son? I said, I don't plan on saving none. I got it to drink, man. They'd say, shit, what are you talking about? Why did I throw the top away? And I didn't even like to share. I only shared when they got me in a corner, and I couldn't get any other way around it.
I had to share it with somebody. I loved to sit there and drink my own bottle. Drugs and alcohol took me to places that I never expected to go. When I first came into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I came to this program totally and completely surrendered the last time. Totally and completely surrendered without reservation. And the reason was because I didn't have anything in my life that was working.
Told you they let me out in 73. In 69, I started going to the meetings in Tehachapi, okay? And I found out that I could get out of the penitentiary if I went to AA. And so I went. There was a black dude who'd come down from Quentin. Him and I had been on our death row together, and I hadn't seen him in a number of years. And he comes strolling off that bus into Tehachapi, and I told him, hey man, what are you doing down here?
What happened? He said, I got off the road just like you. I said, how long ago did you get off? He said, nine years. Nine years ago, I got off the road. And he said, I started going to AA up there at Quentin. I said, AA? He says, yeah. I said, I go to AA here, man. They got some fine broads that come in there. And he said, sonny, you better quit all that bullshit. He said, I'm getting ready to go home.
I said, wait a minute. How are you going home? He said, I've been going to AA. I've been real active in the program there, and they told me that my attitude has changed and my whole outlook on life, and they're going to take a chance on me, and they're going to put me out on the streets. I said, I'll be a son of a bitch. What did you do? He said, I got active. I got it. I went and got some of my running partners on the yard.
We went to one of their business meetings. I got myself elected secretary. I got them some jobs. And I got active in AA. The only way I knew how to do it. And in 1973, they told me, sonny, your attitude has changed so much, we're going to give you another shot at it. We're going to put you out. We're going to let you go out there for a while and see how you act with the program of alcoholics and I.
I walked out of that boardroom and I said, shit, I got them one more time. Looky here. And they thought they was going to keep me forever. Shit. I walked out to the entrance building. The club came to pick me up one more time. I got on that motorcycle. I'd done a handful of them whites. Smoked a joint. Popped a can of beer, and I put that patch on my back. I had busted every goddamn stipulation in my parole agreement before I ever got out of the goddamn joint.
Everything they told me not to do, I had done before I got off the reservation. And when I went by Tower 3 in Tehachapi, I had that broad on the back of it, the joint hanging out the corner of my mouth, and I had it turned on and the front wheel was off the ground, and I was cool. And I was off and running one more time. One more time. I didn't give a shit about no AA. I didn't use you people. You people didn't know what the hell you was doing.
And I could have saved myself a whole lot of agony. A whole lot of agony. I didn't believe nothing you people had said. And I had to go back out there and find out that it really, really didn't work. My biggest fear when committing suicide would be that it wouldn't work. I'd screw around and become a paraplegic or something. I'd become a vegetable. It would never work. Damn near, that's what I damn near became.
I came back to California. They extradited me back to California because I was on one of those life paroles. Took me back into the penitentiary and sent me down. Took me back into the penitentiary and sent me down in that little room and they began to talk those things about me and told me, Sonny, if you ever get out of the penitentiary again, it'll be a miracle. Because animals like you don't belong out there.
[01:00:01]
You don't belong out there amongst that society. You don't belong amongst them people. Because you're a goddamn animal and that's all you'll ever be. And there is nothing that will ever, ever change you. You're hopeless and you're helpless. And I heard that gentleman get up here tonight and talk about that peace that he found in being total helpless. I never found that. I never found that total peace and hopelessness and stuff.
I found a lot of loneliness and a lot of anguish and a lot of anger and a lot of hostility and a lot of not knowing what was going on with me, but I never, never found any peace. I never had peace in my life until the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they were still talking to me and they said something about, we're going to set your next review date at 1990. And I got tired of listening to them and I just, I had got to that point in my life with drinking and using drugs that I wanted to die more than I wanted to live.
I didn't want to feel the feelings that I was feeling anymore, man. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was sick and tired of walking these goddamn yards. I was sick and tired of when you walk out of that cell, picking up that mask and putting it on your face and walking out there one more day on that yard to survive and coming back in and taking it off and hanging it on the wall and sitting there on the goddamn bed and saying, Jesus Christ, is this all there is to it?
Is this all there is to it? And looking through them calendars and knowing, man, that I got another five. I got another six years. I got another seven years. I got the rest of my goddamn life to live like this. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired of walking into a chapel. When I heard that this meeting was being held in a chapel tonight, it blew my mind. It blew my mind. Because I spent an awful lot of years in Folsom Penitentiary and they didn't hold nothing in the goddamn chapel up there except killings.
That's all. They used to run them Catholic priests out of there by the droves because the Catholic priest's offices is where they used to stab everybody. Nobody went to church in there. And many, many, many goddamn days and many, many goddamn nights I sat on my bunk and thought, Jesus Christ, what's wrong? Why? Why? When will it all end? When will it all end? When will it all end? And I know that that's the cry of every alcoholic and it's the cry of every goddamn addict, man.
It's when will the pressure come up? When can I get rid of this pressure? When I began to realize that I was using and drinking because I had to. I had to to get well. I knew there was something wrong with me. But see, I always thought that I was goddamned insane. I never knew the real problem with me until I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and they opened the doors in this book and the people began to share with me and I found out, man, what's wrong with me is I'm an alcoholic and an addict.
That's what's wrong with me. I'm an alcoholic and an addict and I got a book that can help me. I got some goddamn relief. And I saw hope. That day that there was never ever to be any hope left in my goddamn life and I was walking around the track out there at RC West and they announced over the PA system there's an AA meeting in the visiting room and for you people that want to go, go. I walked in there and this little fat, bald-headed guy from Long Beach named Bill Honeycutt walked up to me and he put his arms around me and he told me, welcome home.
He said, welcome back, sonny. I'm not glad to see you back in the penitentiary but I'm sure glad to see you back in a meeting. And I looked at that little asshole and I thought, man, what's he talking about? Took me a long time to understand. Took me a long time to understand that what he was talking about was that care and that love that's in the program of Alcoholic Son. An old man cared about me and he loved me and I don't know why he ever did because I never loved me and I never ever cared about me.
And he told me, if you'll sit down, shut up and listen now, you'll learn something and you'll never ever have to live this way again. And I want to tell you here before I finish what I've got to say tonight, that if you'll sit down, shut up and listen, keep coming to these meetings no matter what the jazz is on the yard,
[01:05:02]
you get something, some kind of direction in your life and you talk to God in the morning and you talk to him at night and the day comes that you can get out of this goddamn place and you can walk out there amongst these people and you can tie into these people and you stick close to these people and you stay with these people, you'll never ever have to come back here again. I'll guarantee it. It's been that way for me and coming Monday will be nine years.
Monday will be nine years. Applause And that's a miracle for me. I have never ever put nine years together except in the penitentiary. And I want to share one more thing with you before I get into the recovery end of my story. Is that today, or Monday, Monday I will have spent the longest period in my life drug and alcohol free. The longest period from birth in my life I will have spent drug and alcohol free because I started drinking and using when I was eight years old and I'll be nine years clean and sober Monday.
That's a miracle. That's a miracle. And it's because of God that's in my life today. It's because of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's because of these 12 steps and it's because of that big book. And it's because of the fellowship of the people in this goddamn program that I'm able to stand here today and tell you that I love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the people in this program.
And I love each and every one of you that's in this goddamn penitentiary here tonight. I do. I love you in the sense that I don't ever want to have to see you spend the rest of your fucking life here. It ain't necessary. It ain't necessary. It ain't ever necessary to walk these goddamn yards. No home. There's a program here that these people come up here on a regular basis I understand and bring you the message and they try to teach it to you and by God if you'll grab it and you'll listen and you'll do what they tell you to do you too can stand in one of these fucking podiums and tell people about how well your life is today.
And I want to tell you that when I walked out of the penitentiary in 1977 on July the 1st of 1977 I stood in a penitentiary like this up there at Tehachapi and I go up every year and I take my cake and I turn up next weekend and take a cake and I stood up there amongst a bunch of convicts and a bunch of people from the outside and they had one of them big old cakes and they had one little old chicken shit candle on it and one of them big sheet cakes one little old candle and it was burning and they were singing happy birthday to me.
And this big old tough rough asshole was crying. You know I'm the guy that done a lot of things in my life and I'm the guy that a lot of people had a lot of fear of I'm the guy who had caused a lot of things to happen because of my ignorance and my short sightedness. And I'm the guy that stood up there and a bunch of old convicts and people that were alcoholics from the streets sang happy birthday and tears run down my cheeks.
And I realized for the first time in my life you know I could have cried. It was all right for me to cry because there wasn't nobody there that was going to take advantage of me. Nobody was going to abuse me anymore. My life, all that shit had come to an end. That was on July the 1st, 1977. Six days later I was released from the state penitentiary. I came out of the atrophy on 7-7-77. For those of you sitting in numerology that will play with your head for a while.
I don't do worthy shit over here at the casino. The day I walked out of that penitentiary I was scared to death. Scared to death. Because I didn't know where I was going to go. But for a year in that penitentiary I had found a freedom on the inside of me like no freedom I had ever experienced in my life. And I didn't care anymore. The feeling that was going on inside of me told me it don't make no difference if it don't get any better than this.
If they never open the goddamn gates and let me out it's okay, I'm overpaid. I feel good about me. I feel good about me. For the first time in my life I felt like I knew who I was.
[01:10:04]
And I don't know about anybody else in this room but man, God, what a relief. Jesus, what a relief. I didn't have to drink anymore to be somebody. I didn't have to use anymore to go anywhere or be anything. For the first time in my life I knew who I was and it was okay. And then they turned me loose. And the club didn't come to get me anymore. I sat there and there was a guy that came up across the parking lot from Bakersfield.
He came up there and picked me up and his name was Carl Dake and he was a clean and sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he took me out to the streets and he took me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and he introduced me to my family. He introduced me to a family that's been my family for almost nine years. They have not only been my family, they've been my best friend. They have taught me every single thing I know.
I came from a penitentiary. I came to you from a place where I had never been out amongst people before. I came from a cage as an animal. I came to the streets. The people in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous took me in hand and taught me everything I know today. I am, I'm standing here tonight, what Alcoholics Anonymous has made me. When I tell you you made me everything I am, I mean you made me everything I am.
Because when I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, there was a lady that told me, Sonny, I want to take you out to dinner. And I said, fine. And we went out to dinner. And we sat down and it was down in Huntington Beach and it was, you know, a real nice restaurant. We were sitting there and the windows were there and the ocean was out there and it was just beautiful. And I sat there and I looked at that table and I saw all that setting there and all that silverware and all that stuff.
And I got scared. I got scared. And I got mad. And I jumped up and I ran out. And I was standing there and I was beating the fender of a car and I was angry. I was pissed off. And I wanted to hurt somebody and I wanted to hurt somebody bad. And some guy came out and he walked over and he said, Aren't you Sonny? And I said, yeah. He said, My name's so and so from Alcoholics Anonymous and I've seen you around some meetings.
He said, What's wrong? He said, I saw you jump up and run out of that restaurant. What's wrong? I said, I'm scared. He said, What are you scared of? I said, I don't know nothing about all that silverware. Yeah. And he said, Why? What's wrong with the silverware? I said, Man, I've never ate with anything but a tablespoon all my life. And I don't want nobody to think that I don't know nothing. And I'm scared.
And he told me, he said, Sonny, if you'll come back in this restaurant with me, my wife and I will come over and we'll all sit down at that table and I'll show you to eat with them rest of all that stuff. I'll show you what it's all for. And he says, Then you'll probably realize that you don't need all that shit anyway. You can steal yourself. And these are the things that's happened. These are the things that I've been taught in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
They taught me about clothes. Bill Honeycutt told me, he said, Sonny, you're going to have to get a haircut or you're going to get drunk. And I told him, What the hell has my hair got to do with me getting drunk? He said, Believe me, man. I'm telling you, if you don't get a haircut, you're going to get drunk. I want to tell you that I have never, ever been in a woman's beauty shop to have my hair cut.
People that come from where I come from don't go there. Not unless you're limp wristed. And he took me to a woman's hair shop to get my first haircut. And I walked in there and I sat down in that chair and boy, I didn't want to be there. Jesus, I didn't want to be there. But I didn't want to get drunk. And I was scared I was going to get drunk. And that girl came over and I took one look at her and I knew why she wanted to cut my hair.
My hair was long and beautiful. Boy, she had that short hair. Almost looked like a boy's haircut. I said, That bitch wants to get even. I said, that bitch wants to get even, so she cut my hair, and then he told me, he said, well, while you're in that chair, you better get the beard cut off, and I told him, now what the hell's the beard got to do with it, he said, just believe me, if you don't get
[01:15:02]
the beard cut off, you're gonna get drunk. I don't want to go back to the penitentiary, I don't want to go back through the feelings that I've been feeling all my goddamn life, I don't want to drink again, so I let her cut my beard off, and for a number of years, I always wondered why in the hell I had to have my hair and my beard cut off, and one day it dawned on me, I'm a slow learner, it never had a goddamn thing to do with me getting drunk, absolutely nothing.
What it had to do with was my personality. When I had the beard and the hair gone, there was just me, that's all that was left. I couldn't hide behind that shit, I had to accept who I was and what I was, and it took a long time to understand that. God's put an awful lot of people in my life, awful lot, I never knew a damn thing about clothes, all I ever wore was Towncraft t-shirts, Levi's, motorcycle jackets and boots, that's all I ever wore, that's all I ever knew anything about.
I didn't know nothing about no underwear, didn't wear it, didn't fool with it, didn't even wear it in the penitentiary, and I came to this program, and I have a guy that, people, women started teaching me how to dress, and I'll be forever grateful for the women, they taught me a lot of things in this program, an awful lot of things, but they began to teach me how to dress, and then here about eight months ago, nine months ago, I got me a new baby, a guy that I sponsored, and he's a clothing manufacturer, and the first thing he told me after I told him what I expected from him was that he told me, who in the fuck has been dressing you? I want to tell you, I got some pretty nice rags now, and I buy wholesale, people in this program has taught me everything, the women in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, after I found out that women were women, and not broads, began to teach me that I could be friends, today I'm friends with an awful lot of women in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, they have taught me what it is to be a man, really, women taught me what it is to be a man, and I still got back pockets on my pants, I don't swish, I don't do none of that shit, but they have taught me that it's okay for a man to go once a week, and have his fingernails done, and I do that, and I love it, I used to think, man, you got to be shitting me, until I went in there, and I let that woman do them things to my finger, and if you haven't tried it, don't laugh about it, check it out, check it out, and one day, I would go to the North Hollywood group quite a bit, and one day I'd been over, and I got my fingernails done, and I was in a hurry, I was doing a lot of things, and I come running up there, and there's a lot of them hard-asses that sit out on the benches outside, and I come running by there, and this one guy who was an attorney jumped up, and says, Sonny, hey, how you doing, he wanted to shake my hand, I said, I ain't got time, I just got my fingers done, they're not dry yet, and that whole goddamn bench fell on the ground laughing, by the time I got to the door, it dawned on me what I just got to do, Sonny, today, I go and I have my hair done, you know what's left of it, I enjoy those things, today, I take time for Sonny, I take time for Sonny,
[01:20:14]
the men in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me the program, and they have taught me, and taught me, and taught me, I am so grateful for the old-timers, because the old-timers were the ones that got a hold of me in the very beginning, with them bullshit filters in their ears, and they didn't listen to my whining and my sniveling, my sponsor has 37 years in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that man still goes to step-study, to book-study, and he's at a meeting every night of the week, every night of the week he's at a meeting, and he's actively involved in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, he's a six-foot-four Jew, and there's a lot of people come up to me and said, Sonny, what the hell did you go ask that man to be your sponsor for, he ain't never been to the penitentiary, he has no idea about where you came from, and he's been my sponsor for the last six years, and I look at him and I tell him, yeah, he ain't been where I've been, I don't need nobody that's been where I've been, I know what that's about, that man's been sober for over 30 years, that's what I need to know about, how did he do that, how did he do that, and he said, well, he's a Jew, I said, so what, he's a sober Jew, how much time you got, and you really, to get the full effect of that, you have to understand, because I have swastikas in my teeth, and I have swastikas tattooed all over my body, it has nothing to do with Jews, it meant that I had a lot of cell time to do in the penitentiary, and those were the only son-of-a-bitch things I knew how to draw.
Today, I'm in love, today I'm in love, probably for the first time in my life I'm in love, and I'm in love with life, because I'm learning how to live, I'm learning how to live. A friend of mine, I helped with her program, came up here with me to Las Vegas for the weekend, and we went over today to that thing where that big huge goddamn slide is, it's about 7 foot and wild they call it, and she rode that thing three times, and I thought she got more heart than I got, and we just had a ball.
And today I realize there's a little boy inside of me, there's a little boy inside of me, and I like to let him out and play once in a while, because he never got a chance to play when he was that age, and today he'll get a chance to play. I've got an awful lot of steel in my body today, they keep coming up with parts to keep me put together so that I can keep on doing whatever I've got to do, and there's those times that I feel like, God man, I'd like to chuck it all, I'd really like to chuck it all, but then something happens, a phone rings or somebody comes by and sees me and tells me, Sonny, I've got this problem and can you help me with it.
The day after I came out of the hospital, this last Tuesday, I was sitting at this one place, this one clubhouse, and I was sitting there and I was really feeling down and dumps, I had those after-surgery depressions, you know, had major surgery, I'd had a total elbow replacement. And I was sitting there and I was in that depression real heavy, and I was fighting it and fighting it and trying to come up out of it and I couldn't, and this little girl walked over and she sat down next to me on the bench and she said, Sonny, she said, I really need to talk to you, and I said, what do you need to talk to me about, and she said, I need to know how you handle physical pain and stay clean and sober.
God keeps putting those people in my life. You can't be depressed, you can't feel ungrateful when you get out of yourself and give up yourself to another human being.
[01:25:01]
I'm glad I'm here. I'm truly glad that I'm here at this penitentiary. And, you know, I sat here and Chris, I told Chris when we first got started, I said, this is going to be a hell of a meeting right here. There's something in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it don't make a goddamn where it's at, man. There's a healing process going on in that meeting. And I don't know about you people, but boy, I felt God ever since I walked in this place.
And I've never been in a chapel that I felt God, but I feel him here tonight. And I am so grateful for that. I am so grateful for the life that I have today. I'm so grateful for the friends that I have and the people that are in my life. I will. It's good to see Chris again. And when I first met Chris, it was because the way I talked to Chris was because that was the way people talked to me. I have always dealt with people the way other people dealt with me, because it worked for me.
And I don't have no secrets. All I know is it worked for me, and goddamn if it worked for me, it'll work for you. And it don't make no difference if you're a man or a woman. What has happened over the years is that I've kind of slowed down a little bit, tempered down a little, sometimes. I want to tell you that if you don't ever drink again, use again, or run, no matter what comes down in your life from this day forward, you'll never have to go back where you've been.
And for those of you guys that are here in this joint, if you'll stick with this program, and you'll work this program on a daily basis the best you can on this goddamn yard, and you'll get out of this penitentiary and you'll get out there and get around these people, and you get serious about this program, I'll guarantee you, you'll never have to come back here again. I want to thank you for having me up here. I really do. It's been the best thing that's happened to me today. I feel healed. This morning I woke up and I had pain in my arm, and right now I don't feel any pain at all. I know that God has blessed me today one more time. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.