Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- North Texas Roundup — Dallas
- Speaker
- Joe L
- Date
- 2015-08-16
Transcript
Source: Joe L – North Texas Roundup – Dallas – 2015-08-16.mp3 File: joe-l-north-texas-roundup-dallas-2015-08-16.mp3 Duration: 00:50:34
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I am Joe Lenahan, and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is October 7th, 1972, and I was grateful as I know how to be for that. Gosh, what a—I've heard Bob I don't know how many different times, but last night was the finest AA talk as I've ever heard. Powerful, powerful message. Covered all the bases. You know, the new guy, the guy that's been here a short term, guy that's been here 30 years, all those feelings and emotions that we can all identify with.
So that Al-Anon talk, I tell you, I don't like Al-Anon talks. I mean, that's probably the one resentment I'll never get over. I asked my mother for a hundred. She said, Al-Anon says I can't give that to you, you know. I needed that money, you know. You know what happens to us. We buried a guy yesterday afternoon that I'd sponsored for 13 years. Had heart surgery and just never did come quite out of it.
And they had one of those slide shows, those pictures, and it showed Randy's entire life. And the first picture is a little boy, you know, that just can't even stand. He's smiling. He's got that spark in his eye. And then he's a toddler, you know, and he's all about it, you know, and it just goes right on. And about 12, 13, 14 years old, you know, that smile began to dissipate, and those eyes dimmed a bit.
And as it just went on, you could just see it. And then the final picture was a picture of Randy when Randy was about two years sober. And he looked just like he did when he was 18 months old. That fire was in his eyes. That smile was on his face. Powerful stuff, you know, powerful stuff. Randy was a guy that stayed out there a little too long. He, between drugs and alcohol, is severely damaged. I was thinking on the way down here, you know, it's going to take me an hour to tell my story here this morning.
Randy could tell his story in about 30 seconds, and that's normally what he did. He said, I drank and I couldn't quit. I tried AA and it didn't work. I prayed one night and I haven't drank since. I've been working with this guy for eight years, you know. It says that we're supposed to tell in a general way what we were like, what happened, and what we're like now, and I think the most difficult thing for me to talk about is what happened because I really don't know.
I know what I was like, you know. It's public record in a lot of cases. There's this new little deal kind of moving around a little bit, and they've asked AA members to participate in my part of the country. I am from Ada, Oklahoma, and there's a deal called Parents Helping Parents, and it's really not a step program or anything like that. What it is is just people, parents of kids who have alcohol and drug problems, and it's a place for them to come and they get information, and then they can find Al-Anon or whatever, you know, fits them.
And so I was going down there to do a little AA thing for them, a public information type thing, and— And I just dawned on me way down there, I've been dealing with alcoholism for 68 years in some form or another. I was born in an alcoholic home, and when I say that, you know, we get a picture of what that might look like. Well, it didn't look like what the stereotype. I never saw any drinking. There was never any yelling.
There was never any fighting. But what was in that room, you couldn't see, touch, or feel, and it was insecurity and fear. You know, most of that came from my mother and not the alcoholic. And she's trying to keep everything together and keep the lights going and the bills paid and wondering if he's coming home and who he's with and, you know, is he going to have a job and all that stuff. And it just filtered down. Our book says somewhere that living with the alcoholic makes the family neurotic. And trust me, there was three idiots came out of that, you know.
My sisters found their own little niche, and I found alcohol, you know. So that's what happened. You know, we've all had difficulties in life, but it all gets down to one little thing. It's that thing.
[00:04:59]
I think if you had to summarize alcoholism in one word, you'd have to say it's
[00:05:02]
fear. At least in my case, it's fear. And anyway, I was a guy that started out and, gosh, I had a lot of dreams. I had a lot of things I wanted to do. I was thinking of that as I was watching Randy's pictures yesterday. I was excited about life. I, you know, had friends and loved to play and carry on. And, you know, I can remember. I think I was about five years old, and I was in Sunday school. And I can remember singing Jesus Loves Me at the very top of my voice. I mean, I was shouting it out.
And I was as free and as full of the spirit as anybody could ever possibly be. I hear people all the time say they were born alcoholic. I wonder about that, if it is truly a spiritual malady, because I think when we come into this world, who would not say that a little infant child is not a spiritual being? But as time goes on, what happened to me is I started picking up man's ways. You know, the pursuit of money, property, prestige, romance.
That's what'll make me happy. That's what they told me. And that's what I started moving for. You know, by the time I'm in school, I begin to kind of, you know, I pick up a few things. You know, the little guy at the grocery store said, he called me Jughead. And I said, Well, why would you call me Jughead? I was just a little old kid. He said, Well, your ears stick out, and he said, You just look like a jug that somebody grabbed hold of.
And, you know, I'm so young, I'm not sure that's a good thing. I pondered that, and as time went on, I kept thinking about those ears and handles, and, you know, the more you think about it, the bigger they get. Obviously, I've been thinking about them for 68 years, you know. You think about them long enough, pretty soon the wind starts catching them, you know, and everybody's looking and everybody knows, you know.
I'm the kind of kid that, you know, in junior high school, I look in the mirror, you know, I'm trying to comb my hair, and I got a little zit. Oh man, they're gonna see that. And so I start messing with it, and by the time I'm done with it, I look like I got a black eye. So I go to school, and to not be real obvious, I walk like this. That draws some attention, you know what I mean? You know, by the time I'm 15 years old, the idea I had of myself: I was little, I was ugly, I was dumb, I was poor.
I hated every aspect of my life. Life was tough. Some older guys asked me if I wanted to go out and drink something, and I said, Sure. Went out on Old Country Road, and they gave me a can of this stuff, and I took a big drink off of it, and I thought it was a joke. That was the nastiest tasting stuff I'd ever had in my mouth. And they're laughing and cutting up and what have you, and they said, What do you think? And I said, Oh, it's good. It's good.
I've heard Clancy describe that when he talked about being on that ship and taking that big drink, and gosh, man, I was there. You know, I can remember that like it was yesterday. Most folks don't remember that stuff, but I remember that. You know, I didn't drink very much, but something special happened to me. And the first thing that I realized was that all that feeling of being an outsider, not quite fitting in and not being a part of, you know, just started dissipating and going away, and I just kind of stepped up.
These guys could see that I'm really getting off on this stuff, so they just take me downtown and turn me loose like a monkey. And I'd run down through the Sonic drive-in and I'd try to fight every guy in there. I mean, come on, bring it, you know? And I had about 15 years of lust built up, and it all come out. I didn't have any problem telling those girls that night what I'm interested in, you know.
You know, I can remember they took me to a little filling station. I got rid of some of that beer, and when I got through there, I turned around and there was a full-length mirror on the wall, and I'll never forget it. I looked in there and I saw something entirely different. Those monstrous ears had kind of shrunk and pulled down next to me. I weighed about 105 pounds, you know, and I kind of pulled it up like this, you know. That evening seemed to last for 30 days.
It just went on and on and on. And for the next 12 years, every time I picked up a drink, that's what I
[00:10:02]
looked for. And that time got shorter and shorter and shorter. That euphoric feeling, that feeling, that sense of ease and comfort the book describes, shorter and shorter and shorter. But when offered a drink, you know, I didn't think about going to jail or losing a job or divorce or whatever I might get into. I thought about that little old, that night, that special night when it seemed like everything was all right.
That's what I looked for. Gosh, I had a lot of fun drinking. I mean, if you didn't have any fun drinking, you drank the wrong stuff, you know. I had a— all my friends had brand new cars, and I had a 1952 Plymouth four-door. Ugly. It only had half a windshield. It only had three fenders. And whenever we went somewhere as a group, everybody, all my buddies, wanted to go in that car. They loved to drive it.
I mean, they had automatics, and some of them even had air conditioning. It was amazing. And they wanted to drive my car. And so we'd take off and go. That passenger side, there was no windshield there, so we stole some goggles out of the shop class. Whoever rode shotgun got to wear goggles, you know. Yes, God. Woo! Everybody wanted to wear the goggles, you know. This old car would draw moisture when it rained, so anytime it rained, it was pretty iffy if it'd start. So I had a remedy for that.
I carried newspapers and a lighter, and I'd light the newspaper up, and I'd light that newspaper, and I'd hold it down by the distributor. Now, sometimes it caught on fire. We'd put that out, but almost invariably, that heat would draw the moisture out of the distributor and it'd start and run. And it was really impressed dates when you're, you know, at the movies. Hold on, light this thing up. They always felt safe because it didn't have a rear seat.
I took the seat out of it so we could hire firewood, you know, and we got into the firewood business, and we sold more firewood than we could cut, so we started stealing it. That's another story. Anyway, we had a great time. Had a great time, you know, and for the most part, it wasn't really hurting anybody else, you know. Some things rocked along, but for the most part, it was just kids having fun. I remember early on, you know, these guys took me out, and then I went back to school, and I told my guys, you know, Hey, we got to go to the river and do some drinking.
And so we all got together and we pooled our money. We came up with about $20. A friend of ours' mother worked in a beer joint, and I asked him if she could get us something to drink for the weekend. And so we gave him $20, and he comes back with a case of Metz beer. Has anybody in here ever drank any Metz beer? Not one? It's terrible. That's God working in your life right there. But it got the job done. You know, it was so bad I had it sent off and had it analyzed.
I'll never forget the letter I got back. It said, Dear Mr. Lenahan, we believe your horse has diabetes. You know, as we go along, the book says that our problems pile up on us and become astonishingly difficult to solve. And that's life was going on, you know. And I was having trouble in school. I was having trouble going to school. I wasn't having so much trouble at school. I was having trouble going. And so finally they released me, and that was fine.
And I went on to pursue a career in automotive business, and I started out driving a parts truck. And I left my little girlfriend back at high school, and she was a— A junior, and so anyway, we were going to get married Christmas her senior year, and we had to speed that up because she got pregnant, and we got married in September of her senior year, just started school. And, you know, when Thomas talking, you know, it always brings back the memories.
Mama's talking, you know, it always brings back the memories. We had this little, I had a little girl, and this little girl was very, very
[00:15:05]
premature. She weighed just under two pounds, and she only lived 18 hours. And I can remember standing there and watching that little old tiny thing just struggle and fight and try to stay with us. And after 18 hours, we lost her. And, you know, I can remember I was angry, but I didn't know what I was angry at. I was, I don't know that I blamed God or anybody in particular. It was just, it was an excuse for self-pity.
It was an excuse for more drinking. And sadly, you know, I used that little girl's life and her death for an excuse for more drinking. This girl and I had what I believe was an alcoholic marriage. We'd bust up and then we'd go back together, and then we'd bust up and go back together. And, you know, she'd move in with her mother and dad, you know, and after two or three weeks I'd give up and I'd go move in with them too. And after four years, we was able to get a divorce, and God, it came at a great time. My girlfriend was pregnant. So I get out of this marriage and get in another one, you know, and I don't like the responsibility of being the breadwinner and, you know, it interfered with my drinking and what have you. And before I could get away from her, she got pregnant again, and I thought, man, I've got to get away from this gal.
She's, you know, she's bad, so. We got a divorce, and that came at a great time because my girlfriend was pregnant. I can speed this up considerably. I had three sons in ten months and two days, and I had four sons in thirty bucks. Now, that doesn't make me alcoholic, but I think Jerry Springer would like to hear that story. I might even slip in there on cheaters too, you know. In May 1968, for some reason or another, I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And what I found there was what the book describes as a glum lot. There were four terribly old men there. And get this, there was A.C., S.D., W.D., and Mac. They were—I don't know what was wrong with them. They talked in tongues. They said the weird stuff, and they said that they had stopped drinking forever. Well, I thought at their age, hell, they'd thought long, you know. If you're 23 years old, that's a long time.
You know, what happened to me was those four guys, unbeknownst to me, you know, spoon-fed me Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't even aware of it. I wasn't even conscious. I was there. God described me pretty good at one time. He said, Joe still likes cheese. He just wants out of the trap, you know, and that's why I went to Alcoholics Anonymous. In and out, in and out. I was a guy that decided that I was going to control and enjoy my drinking.
Now let me describe some evenings when I did that. One night I went out to drink a couple of beers, and I ended up getting in a fight. And somehow or another, the guy I got in a fight with ended up in the trunk of my car. Now I'm a blackout drinker, and I'd kind of come to and think, What am I going to do with him? I mean, he wasn't worth anything. Nobody loved him, you know. And then I'd black out and lose him again, you know. And the best I could come up with about two o'clock in the morning, I took him over to my sister's house.
Now this wasn't unusual for me to end up at my sister's house in a bad condition. One time I came home, I had three ducks. But anyway, I went in there. I got my sister up and my brother-in-law and their three kids, and I said, You won't even believe what I got tonight. And we go out to the car, and all three of them, those little kids standing
[00:20:02]
there, you know. I got the key out. I opened that trunk, and that trunk flew up, and that guy looked out. That's 43 years ago. My sister and I have not been right since. Kind of scared me. I slammed that thing back down, you know. We, I turned him loose, let him go, and we went in the house, and I drank a couple more beers, and we laughed about, you know, the evening's events and what have you. And the next morning early, the doorbell rang, and in my fog I got out and I looked out, and there's cops for as far as you can see.
I was wondering what they were up to, you know, I mean, who they're looking for, you know. And they arrested me and actually convicted me of kidnapping. So now I got big problems, you know. I was just kind of a drunk, you know, a public drunk at that, you know, but now I'm a real gangster, you know, I'm kidnapping people. And I got a three-year deferred sentence out of that deal. Before I could live that three years down, I got busted on a first-degree rape charge.
I went out one night to control and enjoy my drinking, and I got home that night, I presume I must have passed out. I was laying in the kitchen floor, and the first thing I remember is they kicked my door in, and a couple of them landed on me like I was a threat to them, and handcuffed me, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. And it wasn't probably for a couple of hours after I was locked up that they told me that I'd been charged with rape.
And to this very moment, I don't know whether you're looking at a guilty man or not. The, you know, that I had an attorney, and the first thing—what's the first thing an attorney asks you? What happened? I don't know. I don't know. And, you know, I threw a chain of events. I remember I was locked up for the entire summer. This is 1970, 1971. And I was locked up for the whole summer, and I remember visitation day, and I was looking out that little glass window, and I see my mom come in, and I thought, you know, I knew she'd come. You know, youngest, I'm her favorite, you know, and what have you. And then I see my wife come in, and I thought, well, I'm surprised she came, but, you know, I'm pleased that she came under the circumstances.
And I looked out there and I see another wife come in, and I thought, well, it's not good. And I looked right up next to that glass, and way back over here I can see my girlfriend over here, and her husband standing behind her. My mom comes up to the window and she shouts in that little horn thing, Honey, I know there's been a terrible mistake, and I'll have you out of here as soon as possible. And I said, For God's sakes, don't do it today, you know.
Leave me in here, you know, at least for the day. You know, I go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I swear, I'm sitting in there, I'll never drink again, and within 24 hours of being released out of that deal, I'm drunk again. And it just—it's just ongoing. Bob described it so perfect last night. You know, I swear I'd never do it again, and in a matter of hours, I'm doing it again. They asked me when I got to AA, are you a daily drinker or a binge drinker? And I said, I'm a daily binge drinker, you know.
If I'm not throwing up and on my hands and knees, I'm drinking. That's just, that's what it'd come down to. And, you know, I lived in my car. Any of you ever lived in your car? We're special, you know what I mean? God Almighty. I was living in a 1960 Ford Falcon. Perfect. It was absolutely perfect. Had vinyl seats, had a hole in the floorboard about that big around. The pedals, even the throttle hung out over this hole.
But if you're drinking, you know, you can just drop them cans and bottles and it'll
[00:25:02]
hit the highway, the way they'll go out the back. You can pass out, you know, and just fall over and wet your pants and just run right off that vinyl seat, right off that hole. I won a couple of pool games and I put a little bit of money together and I put some gas in it. I had it stationed behind the beer joint. I mean, that was my home. And I put a little gas in it and decided I'd kind of go out cruising, and I'm out cruising and I drop a cigarette between my legs.
Well, most people stop when that happens, you know. I just keep going, you know. About the second time I looked up, I'm in this big ditch like this. But my thinking is there's less traffic in this ditch. Anyway, I hit something and that thing starts flipping and turning over and rolling over and all that spare tires and clothes and all that stuff flying around that car. It ends up upside down on its top, right next to a guy's porch.
And here's where the keen alcoholic mind slips in. I had these happen to me periodically, but I'm sitting on the headliner, and it just came very clear to me, in order to get out, I've got to roll the window up to get out. Where's that come from, you know? So I roll the window up to get out, and I slipped out of there, and I look up and there's this great big fat man. Look at that. The wheels are still turning on this thing, smoke and fires coming out of it and stuff. And I look up and I see this huge man, and he asked me the dumbest question. He says, You having trouble?
Don't they ask us dumb things? I got real problems now. I don't have any transportation, nor do I have a home, you know. I remember one time I was going to a job application and they asked me for an address, and I put my tag number down. I moved into this vacant house and set up housekeeping, but then all I have is a little paper sack full of dirty clothes. In a U-Haul quilt, and that's all I owned.
And my brother-in-law came by to see me one day there, and he said, I'll find you a place to live if you'd consider going back to Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I agreed to those terms, and I moved in with his mother. Now, I'd known her my whole life, I thought, but my idea was just another woman to take care of me, you know, do the laundry, fix me something to eat, I can lay back and watch TV, you know.
And so she did all those things, but the next morning she said, Joe, you need a job. And I said, Job? Wait a minute. You know, it's not as bad as you think. And she sent me over to this guy. She'd prearranged this interview, and I'll never forget this interview. This guy says it was an apartment complex, and he said, I need a maintenance man. He said, Can you paint? I said, No, no, I'm not any good at all at painting.
I don't like painting, you know. And he said, Well, can you clean an apartment up so somebody could move into it? I said, No, I don't know nothing about cleaning. I'm not good at cleaning at all. He said, Well, can you mow grass? And I said, You know, I can't get them things started. I'm not very good at that. He says, You know, I believe you're the man I'm looking for. So I'm going to AA, and I'm mowing grass, and I'm cleaning apartments, and I'm painting, and then he—this guy kind of liked me.
He said, Joe, are you married? Well, I couldn't remember. I absolutely— I said, No. And he said, Well, good. He said, I've got the assistant manager here at the apartments is a— Attractive gal, he said, You might like her. She's recovering from some surgery, and she'll be up here in a couple days. I'll introduce you. So I said, All right. So two or three days pass, you know, and he calls me in the office, and walk in there, this very attractive blonde lady, you know, and he introduces us, you know, and we, you know, just kind of look at each other like…
And we're, you know, just kind of looking at each other like you do, you know, and, you know, thinking again, you know.
[00:30:05]
And she—he gets up and leaves the room. We start visiting, you know, and I said, Well, what kind of surgery did you have? And she said, Oh, I just had some surgery. You know how we are, you know, when I want to know something, I'm going to stay after it until I get it, you know. And I said, What? What kind of surgery? And she said, Just some surgery. Trust me, you know. I said, Come on, give it up.
What is it? You know, she said—I said, She said, I had a hysterectomy. Well, I've been listening down there at AA, and I thought, By God, this is God's will for me right here, you know. So anyway, I move—she invites me over for dinner, and I don't leave, basically. And I had to capture her. She was very wealthy. She had a car and a TV. I mean, I hadn't run one like that for a long time, and I'm going to grab her. But I'm going to AA, and I'd come home at night, and I'd tell her all about what happened at AA and all the spiritual discoveries that I was making, and then we'd do what new couples do, and, you know, it was paradise, you know. And suddenly, on a Monday morning, I'd heard about something I'd never really known very much about.
It's called social drinking. I heard about that at Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thought, you know, if this God that I've certainly got in contact with is all that powerful, surely He could help me moderate or, you know, slow down on my drinking. So on Monday morning, the thought came, I need to go down to the Redbud store. That's where social drinking happens, you know. And I sat out there on the curb and drank a can of beer, and I went back to work. I thought, well, that's it.
Tuesday I went back and I had about three beers, and I went back to work. Wednesday I had several, and I went back to work. And my plan was just going on. It was right on. Thursday I overdid it. And that was early spring 1972. And of course that relationship, like so many others, vanished. And I went after it as hard as anybody I've ever witnessed until October the 7th, 1972. Of course I lost that job, and I ended up going to work as a laborer on a construction job in the southern part of the state.
And somehow or another, I got the news that this gal's favorite uncle had passed away. Now I don't know about you, but when I'm drinking and I get news like that, whatever my first thought is, that's what I'm going to do. And I just knew when I got that news that she'd want me to take her to that funeral. So I got me a good load on and headed north to Edmond, and I got there just about the time the family had all gathered up, and I walked into her home to take her to a funeral in a pair of cut-off Levi's and a T-shirt. And I hadn't bathed or shaved in two or three days.
And when I walked up to her, she was in this big chair, and when I walked up to her, if you're an alcoholic, you'll know what I'm talking about, and she looked up at me, and there was something in that stare. That has every emotion known to man in it. And I'd seen that thing so many times. I'd seen that in my mother's eyes. I'd seen that in my two sisters, in my wives, and all kinds of people who loved and cared about me. I'd seen that stare.
There's just, you know, they just don't understand. They're angry. They're, you know. She never said a word to me. She didn't have to. And I turned and I walked away, and I walked across her front yard. And I had a thought, which was not an original thought, but it seemed to be entirely different. The thought was, Today's the day for you to stop drinking. And right behind that came a cloud of fear that, you know, I've stood in front of judges twice on capital offenses.
I know what it is to be drove up and up against it. But no fear could match that. The next thought I had was an original thought from me. And the thought was, There's absolutely no way in the world that you can stop. You just can't. And that cloud of fear that came with that made my knees buckle. And I went to a friend's house and started through what I hoped to be my last sobering up. I'd had DTs on two or three different occasions.
One time I went into DTs at the probation and parole office. That's always fun, you know. He'd tell me to sit down.
[00:35:00]
I'd sit down. I'd jump up, and he'd say, Sit down. I'd get down. You know, he'd, Sit down, you know, and I'd sit down. I mean, it's like I had a spring in my butt, you know. I couldn't sit down. And finally the— He says, What is wrong with you? And I said, I'm an alcoholic. And he said, Well, now we're getting somewhere, you know. I tried to explain to him about my kids and who I was married to and who I… and he'd give up.
He'd say, I don't want to hear anymore. Stop. You've lost me. I don't want anymore, you know. That old man saved me, kept me from going to penitentiary on two different occasions. But anyway, I made it through that first night and the next day, and I was feeling a little bit better. And Sunday morning early, I called this gal, and I'm going to make one more run at her. And I said, She loved movies.
And I said, Well, how'd you like to go to the movies today? She kind of paused. She said, Well, I think I'd love to go to the movies. And I said, Well, come pick me up and I'll take you to the movies. And she had a movie picked out, and it was in downtown Oklahoma City, the old Will Rogers Theater. And I hate movies. I still do. I don't care anything about them. But I'm willing to do this. And so we went, came in the back of the theater, well, in the back row and sat down. Now this movie was like your first AA meeting.
It was about 36 hours long. And about halfway through this movie, I start getting hot and start sweating, and my armpits are just ringing wet, and I'm wet clear to my waist, and my hair is dripping, and I know what's coming, you know. And then I get cold and I start shaking. And this is an old theater, with old arms on it, and I'm virtually having to hold myself in that chair. And it's rattling and banging and squeaking, and people are looking around, you know.
I'm cool even in DTs. I start looking around. Goodness. Finally this thing's over. I grab her. We run out in the foyer, and who do we run into but a man that had made about three or four 12-step calls on me, ran smack dab into him. What's the chances of that? Of all the theaters in Oklahoma City, being in that one that afternoon. He says, Joe, how you doing? You know, Fine, you know. He said, What'd you do about your drinking?
I said, Well, I quit. He said, When? I said, Friday. And, you know, Bill and his wife took Shirley out of their home. And Dorothy took Shirley into that kitchen and started talking to her about the Al-Anon family group. And Bill sat me down in the front room and started talking to me about—tell me his story, basically. Fed me a little bit of soup, and then he started mixing up some stuff and had me drink that. And, you know, it's all started right there. There's four old men were still there. They hadn't had a newcomer in a long time.
And so they all came, or at least one of them showed up every evening at 7:15. And they were always so—they were weird, you know. I'd open the door and said, Hey, we're going to Kingfisher to a meeting tonight. I said, Really? You know. The next day, we're going to Guthrie to a meeting tonight, you know, and we're going to the Kelly Club, and they were all excited. Oh, you know. But, you know, out of those four guys, there was one guy in particular, and he was real loud, and he was big, and he kind of—have you ever been to church when you got a good hangover going, you know, and there's three or four hundred people in the congregation, that preacher's bringing it down, and he's just—he got you. You just want to slide down in the chair.
Well, every time this guy shared, that's what I felt like, you know, and like I thought my mother was snitching me off, and he's just trying to run it by me, you know. And one night, I didn't like him. I just avoided him. And one night after a meeting, for some—I don't know why—but I walked up to him and I said, AC, I said, do you really think I'm an alcoholic? He said, Joe, he said, here at Alcoholics Anonymous, we allow every man the dignity to figure that out for themselves.
He says, We're going to make an exception with you.
[00:40:07]
We're going to call you alcoholic till we figure out what is wrong with you. The next thing that I did was beyond me. And why I did it, maybe the most important question I ever asked another human being. I said, Would you help me? Will you be my sponsor? Boy, I didn't know I was making a pact with the devil. He said he'd like to talk to me about it, invited me down to his office. The next day I went down there.
He laid it out what it is to be sponsored. And I agreed to those terms. And so I was unemployable at the time, so on a daily basis, I went to this veterinarian clinic and sat back there with them barking dogs and them whining cats and, you know, just all that stuff going on in my head. And anyway, I hadn't been going down there very long, and we sat down in his office one day, and he turned around and he had figured out something about me that only a handful of people on the planet knew, is that I was illiterate.
And he turned around there and he said, Joey, he said, you can't read, can you? And I'm 27 years old, and I was an expert at moving around and avoiding that. Everything inside of me says, just tell one more lie, just step aside, just do the— just avoid the question. And for some reason, I can remember it like it was yesterday. My head dropped, and I said, No, Doc, I can't read. And he said, Well, boy, you're going to have to learn to read.
And right there, he said that with such conviction, I thought, Well, if he believes I can, maybe I can. And so I went down to that veterinarian clinic, and one day at a time, and we read Popular Mechanics, Field & Stream, and the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Hadn't been doing that very long, and, you know, maybe two or three months, and he asked me to read How It Works at speaker meeting one night.
I said, You want me to read it? He said, Yeah. This is an accomplished man. This guy, anything that he'd ever taken on, he'd made it happen. And I think that was one of his proudest moments, is for me to stand up there in front of that 15, 20 people and read How It Works. Now, that speaker only had talked about 15 minutes that night. This guy walked me through the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and the steps.
You know, he told me that if you read the steps off the wall, it's something entirely different than if you take the action written in the book. And he wasn't a Big Book guy or anything like that. He was a guy that read the book, did what it said to do, and he had—the result was evident. And so that basically, that's how he brought me through. Amazing things, absolutely amazing things happened. You know, I married that gal that was rich, and I got sober October the 7th. I married her on November the 18th.
I went down the aisle like this. I'm still staggering. I'm going to get married. But I, you know, that thing lasted 10 years, and it was over. And man, I really got down on myself. You know, I can't live with them drunk, can't live with them sober. Had to move back in with my sister, and you know how humiliating that is, 10 years sober, got sponsories and stuff. And, you know, the third night I was there without any sleep, I got out of that bed and I got on my knees and I said, God, I'm now willing that you have all of me. And something happened.
Something happened. I got up the next day. I had my own business. What was left of it, I was just barely hanging on. But I went to work that next day. I stayed there all day, and I started participating in my recovery. You know, things were locked wrong about a year into this, after this divorce. An old customer that I'd made amends to over a little thing I'd had with her daughter told me that Cheryl's husband had passed away in Sherman, Texas.
And anyway, they were separated, and we started dating, and, you know, it was just an amazing thing. It was just an amazing thing. We got the opportunity to move her back to Oklahoma.
[00:45:00]
We're dating, and we're trying to do it right. And she called me at work one day, and she said, I want you to pick me up tonight. I want you to be alone. I was bad about taking newcomers on dates, and I'm a romantic kind of a guy, you know. She said, I want you to be alone. I want to talk to you. It's something I need to talk to you about. And I figured she was going back to Texas or something. And we sat down and had dinner, and she said, I'm going to tell you something. I have no idea what your reaction to this will be, but I feel like before we can go any further, you have to know.
And she had three children, and she said, My oldest boy, Eric, is your son. That unbeknownst to everybody, when she left Edmond with another guy, she was pregnant with my son. So I got the opportunity to raise a son I didn't know I had. And he's absolutely my son. We don't need any DNA. At this very moment, he's locked up. You know, he's a liar, a cheat, a thief, a womanizer. He's all those things. He's my son.
And he has a sponsor, and has been alcohol- and drug-free for almost three years now, and going to get discharged latter part of October. That boy brought me my first grandchild. Now, people used to say, You want to see a picture of my grandkids? I said, Hell no. Yeah, I'd like to see those grandkids, you know. Well, I'm the worst. When that grandbaby came and, you know, things changed for me. And it was my first, absolute first experience with unconditional love. At three years old, little girl and I are watching cartoons, laying in bed watching cartoons.
She's laying right here. And she looks up to me and she says, You know, Papa, you're my best friend. I don't deserve that. And she's 19 years old now. It's amazing. I've got 11 grandkids. I got to get a 90-day note to get through Christmas. Cheryl and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage the first day of March, and so that's an amazing thing. That's a tribute to her, trust me. But, you know, a very important conversation—I'm going to lay this out and I'm going to quit—a very important conversation that she and I had when we were dating.
I said, Look, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. That will never change, and my involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous will never change. Whether I marry you or somebody else or stay single. So if you understand that, that if you're involved in Al-Anon, you'll be a little more included. But if you're not, then there'll be an awful lot of things that you'll be excluded from. But if you're willing, you know, to take me on those terms, you know, that was kind of the way I proposed to her.
And she said she agreed to those terms, and she has never backed up from that in almost 30 years. Amazing woman. And I love her from the bottom of my heart. She and I have—I've not always been true, and I've not always been committed to marriage. And I got hooked up with a new sponsor here a few years back, 12, 14 years back, and talked to him about those problems. And, you know, I have been committed to that marriage for a good long time.
And it's just like the book says, you know, I've experienced an intimacy that I never knew existed. She's been all in since day one, and when I got in, it was something special. Everything I have that's near and dear to me, everything that could possibly be in the future, you know, I'll have to owe to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I remember being arrogant and asking those four old men what I owe you, and
[00:50:02]
I didn't have two nickels to rub together. And they asked me for a lifetime of service, and that's what I've tried to do. The rewards from that, the rewards, the side benefits of that, I've experienced an unbelievable life. And I finally found it. I've got a sense of purpose, and I found a direction through Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you.