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Source: Kent C – From Sandusky, Ohio – Date Unknown.mp3 File: kent-c-from-sandusky-ohio-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:12:46
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My grandmother always said, things go better when you pray first. Let's do that. I'm gonna say a short prayer and then if you would join me in the serenity prayer. Dear God, use me tonight as an instrument that I will speak through me so whatever results that you desire here tonight will be accomplished in all things. Thy will, not mine, be done. And God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. My favorite story in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in the back of the book was a guy that lived over in Akron, Ohio. His name was Bill Dotson. He was AA number three. And at the end of Bill Dotson's story, he says this and this is me. I came to AA solely for the purpose of sobriety, but it is through AA that I have found God. And he said, I think that's the most wonderful thing that a person can do. And that's the reason that Kent prays before he tells you who he is from behind this podium. It is to keep me grounded and centered in the truth. If I had the power to quit drinking on my own, I'd have never come to AA. Why should I? I didn't come here because I was bored. I didn't come here because I was lonely. I didn't come here looking for no job. I didn't come here looking for no relationship. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I had a problem I couldn't even describe to you. I couldn't even vocalize to you. You guys gave words to what was going on inside me. And not only did you do that, we call that the language of the heart, you also had a solution. And you were living proof that if I applied that solution, if I did what you did, and let's face it, you know, I knew from the time I came to you that I got what you got. I always say, we tell stories in here Stephen King couldn't make up, right? We recognize each other. I used to sit in AA meetings ago. Yeah, right? Because I did that, right? So I knew from the power of your example and your presence here, which is, I look at the old-timers sitting down here. This is why we need them here. This is why we need them here, to share those things. Man, I knew, I was listening to these guys, I'm like, and look at them. Not only are they sober as long or longer than I've been alive, but they're happy and they're living useful lives. The power of example is huge here. And see, that's the reason I pray before I introduce me from behind the podium, left to my own devices I would have surely destroyed myself years ago. That prayer reminds me of two things that I believe are vital and crucial to me staying here. First and foremost, the reason I'm here tonight is to do God's will, not mine. And it also serves to remind me that he is in charge here tonight, and as always, thank God I am not. Good evening, my name is Kent C., I'm an alcoholic.
My parents raised me right. If my mother was here, she'd jump up and say, you ain't turn out right. But anyway, my parents raised me right. I want to demonstrate that. I want to thank Jimmy and the committee for asking me to come and share with you. Anytime that I am asked to participate in the Life-Giving, Life-Changing, Life-Saving Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I say thank you. Because what that really means is while I'm up here talking to you, I won't be thinking about me. And so if selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of the problem, it don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that unselfishness is the root of the solution. Anytime somebody asks me to give something in here, I say thank you. And so to this committee and to Jimmy, I say thank you for your kindness, for your hospitality. I want to thank Tony for picking us up. I mean Tony and Darlene sitting down here. There's a lot of people in this room that I'm family with. There's people in this room that I sponsor, who sponsor people, who sponsor people, who sponsor people that are in this room. I've been coming out here. My sponsor was the late Bill Finley. Bill used to come out here and talk. I used to come out here with Bill. People ask me when I go places, you know, what's home for you? And home for me is between Toledo and Youngstown. That's home. This is where I've grown up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I call this the fertile crescent of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, and I'm not knocking AA nowhere else. AA is AA. Same book, same step, same tradition, same concepts. I just like how we do it here. I just like it. And I want to say it's good to be
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home. It's good to be with my people, you know. So, you know, I just want to say
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thank you to our new friends that are here tonight. A special welcome. Just the biggest step you're going to take from the cradle to the grave. No? Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. Come in. Sit down with us. Stay with us. I had that conversation with somebody earlier. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had never been here before. I didn't know anybody that had been here before, but there was something here, right? See, when I was new, I didn't know exactly how to vocalize what made me want to keep coming back here. There was something that kept pulling me back here, and I couldn't tell you what it was. And I know today that it is the fellowship of the spirit. There is something in here that if I will come here consistently and persistently and try and place some things in my life in action, I'm going to get some results. I'm going to get the results that you did. So if you're new in here, like I remember what it's like to be new. When I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous, like I said, I had never been here before. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous not knowing what an alcoholic was. I came here not understanding what the 12 Steps was. I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know what a home group was. I didn't know what a sponsor was. I didn't know a big book from a Rand McNally Atlas when I walked into AA. You know, and nobody sprinkled pixie dust over my head, and all of a sudden it's like, oh yes, I understand. No, I didn't know, right? So I come in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm sitting in these meetings, and I bought a skill set in here. And it's a skill set of a guy that lives in the street. My skill set is real simple. It's watching and listening, right? That's how you stay alive in the street. That's the only thing I knew how to do when I came here.
So I came here, and I started watching and listening. And you know, when I saw some things when I got here that were very apparent to me. There were two very distinct groups of people that I saw in Alcoholics Anonymous. People who were staying sober continuously one day at a time, and who seemed to be happy and doing pretty well, and people who were not, right? And I was in the Eerie Easy Desert Club in Sandusky, Ohio, down in that old basement, and I saw those two groups of people. And for those of you who've been in and out, listen, I'm not casting no shade. Some of our best members did not get this the first time.
What I'm doing is what I was asked to do when they told me to come down, and that's sharing my experience. I'm going to share my experience with you. I saw people who was in and out, in and out, in and out. I noticed that every time they came back in from being out, they looked worse than the last time they came back in from being out. I also noticed that some people weren't fortunate enough to get back here. But those who did get back here, you know, my friend Al McCauley, and some of y'all remember Al, best friend I've had in AA. And Al used to say, you see nobody coming in here passing out $50 bills and driving a new BMW, and talking about how good it was out there, right? They came in here restless, irritable, and discontented. They talked of terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. We'll call them group one. Then there's another group. They're called group two. They on display at any AA meeting that you go to. They greeting people at the door. They set up the tables and chairs. They put out the literature. They make the coffee. They talk about God, big books, steps, spirituality, helping others, and enjoying life sober. We will call them group two.
Now my story will prove I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it sure looked to me like group two got a heck of a better deal than group one, right? So let's keep this simple if you knew in here. What are the people in group two doing the people in group one are not doing, right? Well, the people in group two had some things in common that the people in group one did not. People in group two had something called a sponsor. You know, they told me when I came here, if you ain't got a sponsor, you ain't planning on staying, right? Now I didn't know what a sponsor was in AA. I played softball for Cronin's Tavern.
They was our sponsor. And I got free booze and clothes out of that deal, so I thought, well, maybe this AA ain't so bad. What am I gonna get, right? And y'all told me what a sponsor was. You told me a sponsor is somebody who has working knowledge and experience with the 12 steps, as outlined by the founders in the big book, who is willing to take the time to walk with me, right, page by page through that process, but more importantly, is a living demonstration of those steps in their life, who can show me what my life can be like if they do, if I do what they do. Notice I said working knowledge and experience, not book knowledge and experience. I came here with a college education. Lack of reading is not my dilemma. My problem, and if you new here, maybe you'll understand this, my problem is that I cannot live comfortably in my own skin sober. That's my problem. My problem wasn't being drunk. My problem, I got sober a million times before AA. Everybody in this room did. You cannot
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stay drunk 24 hours a day and stay alive. The human body won't tolerate it. You'll die of alcohol poisoning. So we get sober continuously, don't we, right? But why can't I stay sober? It's particularly when the time comes, let's say when circumstances were such that it would be advantageous for me not to drink, all right? I'm looking at five years in the joint for a dirty urine. I would say that circumstances warranted it would be better for me to stay sober than to be drunk, right? And the first time I go to report at adult probation, I'm drunk. And I didn't do that because I'd rather be drunk than sober. I didn't do that because I'd rather be in prison than be free. I did it because I was powerless over alcohol and until I get some power it ain't gonna stop, no matter how much the greater necessity or the wish. I have sponsorship in AA today. I'm sponsored by Bob D. in Las Vegas and Ken B. in Parma. A lot of y'all know Kenny. And I was raised in AA, as I said earlier, by the late Bill Finley. And what I would tell you about the sponsorship that I have had, it's been more sponsorship by example than it has been by word. I've never talked to any of those three men where they asked me, what are you doing tonight? What they did is they told me what they were doing tonight and they said, if you want what we got, then you do what we do. Finley told me something and it tickled me at first. He told me, I'm going to train your feet to move against your head. I said to him, you don't know the head you're messing with here tonight, right? I come home on Sunday night. I done been somewhere. I've been at a convention somewhere. I've been to 15 meetings in three days. Monday I'll go to work. I'll come home Monday night. First thing my head will say, you just went to 15 meetings in three days. You don't need to go to no meeting tonight. Why don't you set up here and watch the ball game? And as I'm saying that, I got my keys and I'm walking out the door and I'm shaking my fist at Finley because he trained my feet to move against my head. I've learned to take contrary action to what my thinking. Our book says that the problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than in his body. And if that's the case, the answer centers in my feet. It ain't about what I know in here. This is not a talking program. This is not a program of knowledge and intellect. This is a program of action. When I talk to my, when my sponsees call me, my first question is, what are you doing? It is never, what are you thinking? Because quite frankly, I don't care what you think. I could care less. What I care about is, what are you doing? Because I've been here long enough to know that it is the action that will change you.
This is not about acquisition. You don't acquire anything to stay sober. What the steps do is get rid of things that aren't us, that block us off from God. This is not about acquisition. This is about self-reduction and God-increase. The more meat has gone, the more God is freed. In the 12th step, it said, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. An awakening is an ongoing process. When you wake up in the morning, do you snap to full 100% attention? No.
You gradually wake up. Your eyes open up. Things are a little fuzzy. You're a little disoriented, right? You stagger around the house for a little bit. Get your coffee, right? Gradually, you awaken. And that is what happens in our lives here. We continue to awaken, all right? I'll say this about sponsorship, and then I'm going to move on. If you're new in here, having a sponsor is a great thing. It is.
But being sponsorable is even better. People ask me all the time, Ken, how many people do you sponsor? My answer is the same. Oh, about half of them. That's pretty much the way it is, isn't it, right? It's crazy, right? Sponsorship is like everything else in here. The results that you glean from it will come in direct proportions to the actions that you take with it. It's just that simple. If you ain't got a sponsor, you could get one here tonight. There's a lot of people in here tonight. I could do this sometime when I'm at a thing like this. But everybody that's in here tonight who would be willing to sponsor a new person in AA, please raise your hand. Thank you very much. For those of you who don't have a sponsor, I just hooked you up. No one ever needs to leave an AA meeting without the benefit of sponsorship. And listen, I remember what it's like to be new. When I came in here, I don't know you. I don't know if you've got 10 years or 10 minutes. So if you're new in here tonight and you're like me and you need help but you don't know who to ask, the help that you need just identified itself. What you do with that information Just Identified Itself.
What you do with that information is up to you.
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People always laugh when I do that. And I was down in Mexico speaking at a thing. And I had this interpreter. And in the thank you line, this young girl came up to me speaking rapidly in Spanish. I don't speak rapid Spanish. I don't even speak slow Spanish. And she's pointing at this older lady. And the interpreter said, Kent, she's telling you that she just asked that lady to be her sponsor. See, I don't know.
That might be the only reason that I was in Mexico. I haven't the faintest idea. But no one ever need leave an AA meeting without the benefit of sponsorship. Another thing that the people in group two had, they had something called a home group. I have a home group today. It's the Venice Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Sandusky, Ohio. We've been around for a long time. AA started in Sandusky in 1938 in Oxford Group days.
So AA been in my town for a long, long time, just like it have been out here. My group ain't the best group in the world. It ain't the worst group in the world. It's just an AA group. One of the first things my sponsor told me when I came into AA is it's OK to stop competing now. This constant better than or less than, and that's the way I lived my life before I came here. Any time I live better than or less than, here's the bottom line, I'm never a part of.
Tradition one, our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. There's a little guy at home, Mark. He said, ain't it great to just be a member of the herd? I ain't the best or worst alcoholic ever to come to AA. I'm just an alcoholic. My home group ain't the best group in the world. It ain't the worst group in the world. I'm going to tell you what it is. It's an AA group.
We have a primary purpose. It's to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. I think we do a pretty good job of that, and we have a lot of fun in the process. I'm the cleanup guy at the Venice Group. And I cleaned up there last night. And that's what I like to call the total package in Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're new, stay with me for a minute. Sponsorship, big book of steps, home group, and a service commitment in that group.
In my experience, which is the only thing I'm allowed to share from behind the podium, I have yet to meet an alcoholic of our type. And if you don't know what alcoholic of our type is, read the book. I've yet to meet an alcoholic of our type who's come in here, applied those things to their life a day at a time to the best of their ability, which is all that's required. If you're new here, and you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to be perfect, because I know new people do that, I'm going to take you off the hook.
God does not require more of me this day that I'm capable of. Just that I do the best that I can this day. I've never seen one of us pick up a drink doing that. I have never seen it work. It's not work. And I've been here for a while. On the flip side of the coin, I have yet to see an alcoholic of our type come in here, not do those things, and stay sane, sober, or happy for any appreciable length of time, the simplicity of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Those who do get, and those who don't, don't. And it's just that simple. Like Bill used to say, I never sat in a bar room, watched some guy across the bar room drinking, and thought I was going to get drunk watching him drink. That's just as ridiculous as me coming in here watching you get a sponsor, work the steps, get active in a group, and help other people, and think that somehow, magically, it's going to rub off on me.
Those who do get, those who don't, don't. Listen, Alcoholics Anonymous today, I believe the dissemination of information here is at an all time high. The availability of help and resources here is at an all time high. We got more meetings, more workshops, more opportunities today in Alcoholics Anonymous to learn and grow than we have in the history of this fellowship. But our rate of recovery is not the highest it's ever been, is it?
So you need to take a look at that, right? Listen, we got meetings, we got conferences and conventions, we got workshops, we got service opportunities, we got all this stuff. In and of themselves, they all have a purpose, and that is to facilitate the living of the 12 steps in my life. In and of themselves, they are not a substitute for the steps. And as soon as I understood that, AA started to make sense to me.
Let me tell you something. I came in here and people said, don't drink, and come to these meetings, and you'll be all right. And listen, when I came here, I didn't want to do what y'all said, I was scared of y'all. So I went to three meetings a day, four, five, six, on the weekends, I went to almost 300 meetings in my first three months of AA, and you can go where I live, and they'll tell you that I did that.
I'm going to tell you what I look like, two months sober, no sponsor, no steps, no home group. I'm at work at Ford Motor Company with a tea bar in my hand. And I'm going to kill a guy, and I'm meant to do it. And I would have done it if somebody hadn't come from behind me and took it out of my hand. That's what Kent looks like, two months sober, no alcohol,
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no sponsor, no steps, no home group. That's what I look like. Not drinking and coming to meetings. Hey, listen, if that worked for you, if that float your boat, float it all the way down the river. I'm not judging. But if you got what I got, when I stop drinking and I don't have a sufficient substitute, I don't get better, I get worse. I get worse. I identified myself as an alcoholic. I didn't know what that was when I got here, either.
Y'all remember Otis on the Andy Griffith Show? Otis was an alcoholic, wasn't he? Rank of clothes, cheap pint on him, in and out of jail. I watched every episode of the Andy Griffith Show. I don't remember Otis working no place. The true story I tell, you've heard me tell it before, but I was in London, England, speaking at a convention. And I said, y'all remember Otis on the Andy Griffith Show? And 2,000 people went, no.
Not a highlight of my life in AA. Y'all know what I'm talking about, that guy under the bridge, long trench coat, stocking cap on, drinking wild Irish rose, mad dog, Thunderbird out of brown paper sack, sleeping under a cardboard box. Yes, that certainly must be an alcoholic. That's my definition when I got to you, because that's the only thing that had not yet happened to me. And if I didn't have a family that I had that insisted for many years on breaking every fall I had, that's exactly where I would have been.
I can tell you this. I got off work at 8 o'clock in the morning at Ford Motor Company, and I went to Wine O's Alley in downtown Sandusky, and I put $0.50 on a wine. And I sat there with them old men all day drinking that cheap wine. Only difference between me and them old guys is that when it got dark, there was somebody to let me in the house, and there was nobody left to do it for them. That's the only difference between me and them old men.
When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, if you knew in here, when I come in here, my disease is active. Did anybody just walk into a meeting and recover? Man, I came in here exactly as I was. My disease is active. And my disease does not like y'all at first look. I thought y'all was the nosiest people I ever met in my life. All them old men over in Sandusky, they'd be like asking these ridiculous questions like, who's your sponsor?
What's your home group? Here's the one I really hated. What step are you on? So my mind starts looking for differences. My mind is not trying to relate and identify, it's trying to disqualify. Anybody know what I'm talking about? So I'm sitting in a meeting, and I heard all these people, they were homeless. So I said in the meeting, it was poor Clinton Neuners. And I poked my chest out, and I said, well, I don't know if I really belong here or not.
You know, I ain't never been homeless. If you're new here, don't ever say that in a meeting. There was a man in that meeting, God rest his soul, his name was Jim Redman. He died 53 years sober. He was a great member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here's the thing that really upset me about this whole incident. It was not his turn to share. He was sitting way in the back. I made that statement, Jim Redman said, really?
He said, I got some bad news for you, hot shot. He said, if you're grown, and you're living in your mom and daddy's house, and you ain't paying no rent, you're homeless. Boy, I hated these guys at AA. You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free, right? I hope I didn't step on no toes in here with that tonight. What is this thing called? Alcoholism. Mental obsession, a thought so strong it'll override anything I can raise as a defense against it.
I tried common sense, willpower. Read Bill's story, Bill's story. When Bill's story became Kent's story, I was on my way in Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead of looking and saying, who is this guy who lived in New York in the 30s, he was a stockbroker, we got nothing in common. I started to read Bill's story from the inside and not up here. Common sense, willpower, self-knowledge, fear, all the things Bill tried to say.
So did I try those things? I tried every single one of them. I used to wake up in the morning and mentally make a list of all the reasons I ain't drinking today. I'm a jackpot guy, right? I wake up in the morning, and it's like, if I drink today, I'm going to lose my job, get kicked out of school, get kicked off the team, get kicked out the house, girlfriend going to leave me, dirty urine, I'm going to prison.
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I could die. All these things true in my life at one time or another. And if you drink like I drink, usually four or five of them going on simultaneously. So I would take a look at this stuff, and I would make a decision. And it's the easiest kind of decision you could make. Based on these facts, I ain't drinking. And I meant it as much as I mean it right now. Anybody here know what I'm talking about?
And then I get out of the bed. And about 30 seconds later, out of nowhere, another thought comes floating in my head. And it usually goes something like this. Follow me if you're new. It's Friday. It's Friday, and you know I have worked all week, which for me is three days. You know, none of this is really my fault. This is the United States of America. I'm grown. I ain't hurt no, but who going to tell me I can't have a drink?
By God, I deserve a beer. Anybody following me? Now, if you're new, please stay with me. Step one here, we're going to talk about powerlessness. When that thought comes to me, here's the crazy thing. Our book says that the first thought is called sound reasoning. And it will sound reasoning, right? Drink trouble, right? We get it. That's sound reasoning, right? But it says that parallel to this sound reasoning ran some insanely, circle the word insanely in your book, trivial excuse to take a drink.
It's Friday. And check this out. Remember the story about the guy in the big book when it said there had been no fight? When the thought came, it ain't like there's a debate that goes on, right? It's like, it's Friday. Then it doesn't go, well, wait a minute now. You just said, uh-uh. I want you to understand the power of obsession. There ain't no debate. By God, it's Friday. And by Monday, I'm on the carpet again.
I'm back in the courtroom. I'm standing in front of mom and dad, some coach, some authority figure, some doctor, some lawyer. And they're all asking that same question. How could you? How could you? Did you think we were playing? Explain yourself. It was Friday? That don't even make sense to me now. That's nuts. The insidious insanity of alcoholism. I knew I was in the right place tonight. They didn't laugh at that over at the Kiwanis Club.
I got a strange relationship with alcohol. He's like, alcohol for me is an answer. Anybody know what I'm talking about? He had a problem. The whole world was screaming at me. Stop drinking. Look at what you're doing. You're killing your family. You're ruining your life. Started with me early. I was in chemistry class. Chemistry teacher decided to teach us the evils of alcoholism, so he's going to conduct an experiment.
He's got a glass of water, a glass of whiskey, and two worms. So he says, I'm going to show you guys a little experiment here about how bad alcohol is. So he takes the first worm out. He drops it in the water. The worm's swimming around. He's fine. Happy, healthy worm in the water. Takes the second worm out. He drops it in a glass of whiskey. The worm starts to convulse. And then, boom. Sinks to the bottom, dead as a doornail.
So he says, OK, what do we derive from this experiment class? My hand goes up and says, if you drink whiskey, you'll never have worms. Does anybody get this? Did anybody think? I had my first assessment four hours later. There's something wrong with it. My relationship with alcohol, my god, it's an answer for me. Physical allergy, the phenomenon of craving. My non-alcoholic next door neighbor, we're cutting our grass, he gets off his lawnmower, it's 90 degrees, he pops the top on a cold one, he sucks it down, it quenches his thirst, nobody in here is going to believe it, but I've seen this with my own two eyes.
With a full cooler of beer. But I've seen this with my own two eyes, with a full cooler of beer sitting on his deck, that man actually got back on his lawnmower, and finished cutting his grass, and I'm 10 or 12 years sober at the time, I'm over here going, hmm, hmm, hmm, you got beer, what's the matter with you, you got beer, quench your thirst, difference between me and my neighbor, I get off of my lawnmower, I pop the top on a cold one, I suck her down, it don't quench my thirst,
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what it does to me, if you knew, come on, is it makes me thirstier, and grass cutting is over at the C. house, my lawnmower would be in that same spot two weeks from now when I get out of the county, the neighbors, the Kesslers live next door, he'd be, look Mabel, there he goes again, right, spiritual malady, soul sickness, my disease is rooted in selfishness and self-centeredness, I'm a guy who made a conscious decision to call his own shots in life, it wasn't that I didn't know that there was a God, none of that mattered to me, I found an answer when I was 14 years old, for what I thought were the problems that I had, I was full of restlessness, irritability, discontentedness, and fear, and I found out at the age of 14, if I pour booze on that state of unrest, it seems to produce in me what Silkworth called a sense of ease and comfort, right, now, the book says that when the spiritual malady is overcome, the problem is straightened out mentally and physically, if you look at the steps, the 12th one says I haven't had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, right, so what is my problem really, what is really my problem, is my problem drinking, right, well, drinking is a problem for me when I do it, but I would challenge that no, drinking is not, I couldn't understand for a long time, the book said that liquor was but a symptom of a much larger problem, because when does my problem occur, does my problem occur when I'm drinking, no, I suffer consequences of the result of my drinking, but my problem doesn't occur when I'm drinking, when I drink, I get this, my problem is unbearable, untenable, and uncomfortable sobriety, my problem is that I cannot have ease and comfort and peace of mind sober, and I found out at age 14, if I pour booze on that restless, irritable, and discontentedness, that it produces in me what Silkworth said, this sense of ease, comfort, and well-being, with me, I ain't a guy, when I drink, I don't, I don't become a part of the crowd, I'm one of them drunks that when I drink, I own the crowd, y'all know what I'm talking about, don't you, right, so alcohol is always an answer, I always look at it as an answer for me, and that's alcoholism, and if you got it, and I don't know if you do, but I certainly do, and I don't treat it, death, imprisonment, or commitment are guaranteed to me, and all you got to do is stay here and watch what happens to the people who don't, if you're new, you'll see it every day, I was born in the city of Sandusky, I was the second of three boys, I was raised in a Christian home, I just find a mom and dad that has ever graced this earth, I'm the son of Pete and Evelyn C., my mom and dad were, my mom and dad were the best, my mother worked for Chrysler Corporation, my father worked for General Motors, I'm retired from Ford, and uh, I say we had a lot of craziness in the house, we had really nice cars, anyway, my mother was the president of Ohio Baptist Women's Convention, she was a very well-known person in those circles, all these big, famous people that you see in religion and civil rights in the south, them people have been in my house, my mother was the highest ranking woman in Chrysler Corporation in the 1960s and 1970s, when I retired from Ford, I worked in Dearborn, and they called us the best and the brightest, and I never worked with anybody as smart as my mother, my mother was a power, God rest her soul, she walked in here right now, this place is twice as bright, she literally glowed with it, she's the smartest human being that I've ever known, my mother went from kindergarten to a master's degree at Bowling Green State University and never got a B, smartest human being I've ever known, that was my mom, my dad was a decorated veteran of the Korean War, my father was in the woods in Korea, my father was a man's man, my father coached Little League football, and baseball in our town, not a week goes by in the city of Sandusky that someone doesn't say to me, someone outside my family, that my mom and dad made an impact on their lives, that's the kind of mom and dad that I had, we went on vacations, everything that we needed we got, and pretty much everything we wanted, if there was something we wanted that they said no to, there was another person who lived in our house named our grandmother, and the word no was not in her vocabulary, this is how her grandmother was in the house, this is how we were raised, we went on vacations every year, ten speeds, many bikes,
[00:35:00]
motorcycles, when I went off to college I peeled a sticker out of the window of a brand new car and drove off, that's the kind of mom and daddy I had, I had an older brother and I had a younger brother, life was good, life was good, we wasn't sent to church, we were taken to church, you know everything that the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous contained I was taught as a child, in our house they told us honesty was the best policy, a real man is always honest with himself and other people, in my house, maybe in yours, we got automatic whoopings when we got caught lying, did that happen in anybody else's house in here, that's step one, the principle of step one is honesty, I learned it at the end of a hickory stick, I'm seven years old, my mother called me in the living room and she said, Kenny, I'm concerned about you, she said, contrary to what you seem to believe, the sun don't rise when you wake up and set when you go to bed, it ain't about you, she said, take a look out the window and tell me what you see, sky, grass, cars, dogs, cats, people, she said, you think they just popped up out of nowhere, she said, there's a power that's greater than you that created all this and all you need to do is be willing to believe that, step two, she then told us that if we would make a decision to put our lives in the hands of the power that created all this, in our house they called that power God, she said, you'll always have what you need, no matter what happens outside or around you, she was telling us that the answer is inside, not outside, step three, in our house they told us, anytime you got a problem, no matter how bad you think it is, come talk to us about it, the problem is shared, the problem is solved, you're only as sick as your secrets, no man is a island, anybody ever heard that before, welcome to steps four and five, my mother used to say the biggest room in a human being's life is the room for improvement, there are no perfect people, if you can make B's, you can make A's and if you'll ask the power that created all of this to help you grow in any productive area of your life, the power will always help you because that's what the power does, step six and seven, in our house they told us, anytime you're hurt, harm or wrong, somebody else go make right the wrong you're doing, your money, pay it, your time, give it, if you don't know what to do, you ask, how may I straighten this out, clean up your mess, that's what responsible people do, steps eight and nine, my mother used to say, you can never go forward in life if you don't know where you are today and what you need to work on to get wherever it is you want to go, right, Socrates said, the uninventory life is not worth living, right, welcome to step 10, our grandmother told us the secret to having a good day was simple, she said, when you wake up in the morning, hit your knees, say one word, please, as you go through the day and you don't know what to do, ask God for help and at night before you get back into bed, hit your knees again and say two words, thank you, conscious contact with God all the live long day, how can I best serve thee, thy will not mind be done, many times each day, welcome to step 11 and in our house, they told us the greatest thing we could do with our lives was not acquire money or material things, it was to be of service to others, they told us to follow the golden rule, talk to folk the way you want to be talked to, treat folk the way you want to be treated, offer to share with others what you have before you have your own, respect your elders, be of service to your fellow man, step 12, when I got on the bus to go to kindergarten, I was already armed with a set of principles spiritual in nature that I recognized immediately when I came in here as the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, for those of you who are new, I want to share something with you, spiritually principled living did not start in Akron in 1935, those principles are ancient and there's a lot of people out in the world who live like that every single day and check this out, they don't expect a pat on the back for it either, I watched a guy across the street shovel snow for the elderly people next door, he didn't come over my house and say, hey, did you see me over there shoveling the snow, alcoholics are not just the only place in the world, I got a 50 year old man at my dining room table and this is what I tell him, listen buddy, I want you to do something for somebody tomorrow and if you tell anybody, it doesn't count, it's the only place in the world you got to do that, right, I lived in a house full of people who live like this every day, the world is full of them, the world is full of them, but I got to have a pat on, I was seven months sober, I went to see my grandmother, you know what I told her, I said, mama, guess what, she said, what, I said, I paid my bills seven months in a row, she looked at me and said, I paid mine 72 years in a row, get out of my house, absolutely, absolutely, the unquenchable ego of the alcoholic, absolutely unbelievable, I want a pat on the back, check this out, for doing what I should have been doing all along, I don't deserve a pat on the back, I need to be grateful that I live long enough to have this opportunity, but the people in here know, I don't pat backs, I just love you, I just love you,
[00:40:15]
as a kid, I was shy, insecure and afraid, I put it real quick, afraid of my own shadow, afraid of girls, constantly focused on what other people think of me and by saying the right things, am I doing the right things, I am beginning to look for outside solutions, for this seeming restlessness inside of me, I can't describe it to you, I know today it's called fear, but I was never comfortable, so I began to look outside for something to address the inside, reading books, daydreaming, watching television, I become a character in a book or a movie, I'm somebody else, someplace else doing something else, I'm beginning to see different avenues of escape from the reality of my life, it's an uncomfortable and untenable place, and I don't like it, and so I start looking for somewhere else to go, my first real drink of choice is my older brother, come from a football family, my family played football, some families do art, some families do music, my family do football, we do it on Saturdays and Sundays, we do it in front of a lot of people, my father played at West Virginia State, my uncle Bo played at Penn State, I had two cousins that played in the National Football League for over 10 years, that is what my family does, we play football, my brother was going to Ohio State, my brother was a 6 foot 2, 215 pound running back when he was 16 years old, he was a runner up in the hurdles in the state of Ohio, some years 1972, my brother was a beast, he's one of them gifted people, I'll tell you a little story, a true story that kind of illustrates the difference between me and him and really why I had the problems that I had, my brother wanted to play the guitar, I wanted to play the piano, they sent us to a place called Lombardi's Music to take music lessons, my brother would go, the Lombardi's had a bar band that traveled around the area, they had a studio in the back of this music store, my brother used to go in the back with them and just jam with them, with the family band, I'm in here with Pam Lombardi doing this, right, so my mother comes to pick us up, my brother comes out of the studio, we get in the car, my mother looks at him and says, if you're good enough to be back there with them, why am I paying money for you to take lessons from them, she said, I want you to play for me when we go home, my mother took a 45 for the youngsters in here, that was called a record, and it was a record by B.B. King, it was called The Thrill Is Gone, and my mother put The Thrill Is Gone on and my brother leaned over and he plugged that guitar into that amp, he had a Gibson guitar, it was a really nice guitar, and my brother closed his eyes and sweat started to roll off his face and my brother started to play The Thrill Is Gone, about halfway through it, my mother took the needle off of it and my brother played the rest of it, and you would not have known that B.B. King wasn't in that room, and when he stopped, he got sweat rolling off his face, he got this big smile on his face, and my mother looked at him and said, oh my god, see, my brother was free, my brother wasn't sitting there thinking, I can't show no expression or emotion around anybody, I can't have anybody think of me like, you know, I can't, my brother was free, let me tell you something about my brother, my brother didn't care what you thought of him, my brother was the nicest guy in the world, if you came at him sideways, though, he'd handle his business, but my brother was the nicest guy in the world, my brother didn't care what you thought, my brother was free, he was free of spirit, he was free of spirit, I'm over there looking at this beautiful Baldwin piano and thinking to myself, you know, one of these days I'm going to play that thing, does anybody in here understand what I'm saying, I'm already bound up in here, man, we talk about the bondage of self in here, I'm already living my life in my head, if you knew, just follow me, I'm living my life in my head already, I'm not living, I'm not free.
September of 1972, we used to scrimmage the Mastland Tigers every year, and late in the scrimmage, make a long story short, my brother suffers a head injury, he is taken to Mastland City Hospital, he lapses into a coma Saturday night, nine hours of brain surgery on Monday, he died Wednesday, September the 5th, 1972, I remember like it was yesterday, it's not what made me alcoholic, stop any car out on the street, you'll get a similar story, what did it do to me, looking back at it now, the best I can describe it to you is it seemed to intensify the feelings of difference and separation that I already felt, I was already shy and insecure and afraid, now, everywhere I go, there's an elephant in the room, I'm the guy whose brother died, it's 1972, it's not 2018, they didn't send counselors to the school to help us deal with that, we had coaches quit, we had guys quit playing football, it changed football, St. Dustin was one of the top five high school programs in the country, it changed it forever, and no one knew what to, so now, you know, I don't want to talk, this almost killed my mom and daddy.
You know, I don't want to talk, this almost killed my mom and daddy, and I'm not even going to tell you what it did to my grandparents, so I got nobody to talk to this about, right, and I started hanging out with guys my own age, because I ain't got my brother, I hid behind my brother, that's how I lived my life, I followed him everywhere he went, and now I'm hanging around guys my own age, I'm 13, I've known these guys all my life, topics of conversation among our crew in 72 at the age of 13,
[00:45:21]
drinking beer, smoking weed, climbing in and out of girls' bedroom windows in the middle of the night, and I was batting zero, zero, zero, I had a mother that didn't play none of that, I went to school, church, ball practice in the house, that's what my life looked like, right, but do you tell anybody that you don't know what they're talking about, no, you remember them dogs they used to put in the back window of the car with the hair that go like this, that was me, oh yeah, ain't that fun, I'm 13 years old, I'm telling people, I've been places I ain't been, I know people I don't know, and I've done things I haven't done, anybody in here like me, because it's all about how I see me is based on what I think you think of me, I don't know what you think of me, but it's what I think you think of me, that's how screwed up I am at the age of 13, I'm a basket case, my mother used to talk to me a lot after my brother died, she said, oh Kenny, God's been so good to you, you're going to have a wonderful life and help other people, she used to look at my mother like she had three heads, I told her, I said, you know what, I don't know where you get this stuff at, but I don't want to serve God, you or nobody else, you want to know what I want out of life, I want mine, I want to get it my way, I'm going to need you to leave me alone while I'm doing it, and when I'm done, you're going to say, by God, he did it his way, and that's me at the age of 13, my mother used to get that look on her face, you know that look mothers get on their face when they realize one of their kids is crazy, my mother used to get that look on her face, and she'd say, you know, you don't get it, we didn't raise you that way, I used to point at her and say, no, you're the one who don't get it, if you don't think my way is going to work, just get out of the way and watch, that's me at the age of 13, one of the gifts God did give me and I give God credit for today was I did well in school, now I give God credit for that because I didn't work at it, I didn't study, school comes easy for me, that's a gift, the truth of the matter is, I can absorb huge amounts of information in short amounts of time and I know how to take a test, I found out when I got to college that that don't fly, but anyway, in high school it worked really well, I'm in the 10th grade, I'm taking senior classes, I'm sitting in study hall one day and I have a visit from the enemy, my first sponsor, Bill, was riding in the van one day and I looked at Bill and I said, Bill, I have a question, he goes, now what?
I said, you know that invisible line they talk about in AA? He said, yes. I said, well, if it's invisible, how does anybody ever know they crossed it? He started to get red, it just started moving up. He looked at me and said, I'm going to tell you something, I don't want you ever to forget this. He said, son, any time you're in a room alone, all your enemies are there. And he's referring to my thinking.
So I'm sitting in study hall, here's the thought that comes to me, these people breaking their neck trying to get B's and C's taking general math and science, I'm in the 10th grade, I'm taking calculus, physics, fourth year Latin, fourth year English, I'm sleeping in class and getting straight A's. You know, it just might be entirely possible that I know everything. I had no evidence to support that thought as being true. I accepted that as a fact. I left the room and took action on it. I went home and told that to my mother and them. Well, I thought they ought to know. We changed things around the house a little bit.
You know, I was scared of my daddy. My daddy played football when they didn't have face masks. My father made a move like this, like he was coming up off that couch, and I decided not to stay and wait to see what he wanted. I broke for that screen door as fast as I could, and I got out of it and I closed it and I turned around and he was right there. And he pointed his finger at me, he said, boy, I'm going to tell you something. He said, you have a hard life, Kenny. He said, don't nobody know everything. And I stood there and I looked my father in his eye and I laughed in his face.
You know, to the day my father died, I never asked him what he intended to do that day. He must have been thinking to himself, look what we got in the house, I'm going to kill it. I don't know. But I laughed in his face. That was a significant day in my life, because on that day I closed the door. Our book says, honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness are the three essentials of recovery, and that they are indispensable, meaning I can't recover without them.
I believe that they're the three essentials of living a good life, whether you're an alcoholic or not. A closed mind cannot learn, it cannot grow. Read the chapter, We Agnostics. Read the chapter, We Agnostics. So, that's where I'm at. I'm restless, I'm irritable, I'm discontented, and according to my mother, meat is a rattlesnake, I have yet to take a drink of alcohol. I tell people I was the perfectly tilled soil for the disease of alcoholism. All I had to do was water it and see what happened, and one day I did. I got in a car with a guy whose life I lived in my head.
Snazzy car, pocket full of money, ran around with the kind of girls I ran away from. I got in the car with Johnny. Johnny said, hey, C., you want to get something to drink?
[00:50:03]
Now, I have been given the warnings. I'm sure a lot of you in here were given the warnings. Alcoholism does not run in my family. It gallops, and I have been told we do not do alcohol well. Both sides of my family are rife with this disease. It's killed a lot of us, but if Johnny had said to me that day, let's go rob the carry-out, I guarantee you I would have done it because I'm all outside. There's nothing inside.
Everything that I feel is important and that is how I feel about me is based on what I think you think of me. We bought 10 quarts of Slit-Small Liquor Bull. I always say to the newcomers in here, the quart preceded the 40 ounce. It was 32 ounces of beer. We got Slit-Small Liquor Bull for one reason. It was on sale. Dropped the convertible top on that beautiful Pontiac, cranked up the Parliament Funkadelic, and we rolled through the streets of Sandusky, and we drank that beer, and my life changed.
I've heard people describe it. Let me tell you, this is as simple as I can say it. We started drinking, and I went from shy, insecure, and afraid to bold, confident, suave, debonair, absolutely fearless, don't care what you think, don't care what your mama think in about 20 minutes. We went behind the Derrick Apartments where the thugs hung out. I haven't said five words in public in the last three years. We pulled up, convertible top is down, music's blasting, people surrounded the car.
I looked at Johnny. I said, turn that music down because there's a few things I want to tell a few people out here this afternoon that I've been wanting to tell them for quite some time. I'm going to get something on my chest this afternoon. I went around that circle of hoodlums, told each and every one of them what I thought of them and what they needed to do, in my opinion, to improve themselves.
The guys around the car are leaning in the car, and they're hugging me, and they say, look, I told you C., all right, he's loosened up, he's drinking, he's one of us. Bam, I connected the dot. When I drink, I change, and so do you. The way I see me and the way I see you changes, and I understood that immediately. Alcohol equals success, buddy, and you better believe I got it. I now have the acceptance of the people whose acceptance I want the most, not mom and dad.
That was them drive-by shooters behind the Derrick apartments. Alcohol equals success, and you better believe I got it. We left there, went over to the home of some of them girls he run around with I run away from. Never been over there in my life. I walked into that house like I had just paid off the mortgage. I sat down at the dining room table. I made eyeball to eyeball with the finest girl to graduate from Sandusky High School in its 179-year history, in my opinion.
I looked at her. She looked at me, and I said, come here, and she got up and started walking toward me. I had never even said hello to this girl. Now, any sane person would have probably thought, gee, Ken, if you weren't so shy and scared, look what you could have done just by speaking up. No, here's what I thought. If you had been drinking before now, look, is anybody following this? Look what you could have done. Look what you've been missing, and I can remember thinking that as clearly as I see you now.
Alcohol equals success, and you better believe I got it. I connected the dot. Now, this is an honest program. I'm going to be honest with you all here tonight. When she got over there to me, I'd have had a faintest idea what to do with her. I don't think that far ahead when I'm drinking, but I watch a lot of TV. On TV, they go like this, so I did, and she sat down in my lap, and my life changed again.
And the upshoot to this whole little story is on that day, alcohol, dude, the life I lived in my head became real. Did anybody in here get that? Boom, and I knew what made it happen. Connect the dot. Drinking. Now, what happens the rest of that day is the rest of my drinking history, and we can move on. Drink trouble. What happened? I went in a blackout. I have no idea what went on the next four or five hours. According to eyewitnesses at the house, I came in, I threw up a trail through the house, through the living room, through the kitchen, through the family room.
I went in the bathroom. I had everything but the toilet. The next thing I remember is my mom. You know how they do. Come out here and clean up this mess you know you've been drinking. It smells like a brewery out here. I staggered into the hallway in what later years would be my drinking uniform, my underwear. I got a hangover you can take out and look at, Father Pete used to say. I went in the bathroom, locked the door. She's still screaming in the hallway. I looked at bloodshot eyes in the mirror, and this is what I said, and y'all know, don't you?
[00:55:01]
Man, oh man, I cannot wait to do that again. Grounded for life is what was being discussed in the living room. So I had a meeting with myself in the bathroom. I love to have a meeting with myself. I have a meeting with myself. I can solve most anything that's going on. If you're new, please get a sponsor. Anyway, I had a meeting with myself, and this is what I came up with. Okay, Kent, you got drunk yet? You got sick yet? And you got grounded for life.
Now the reason you got grounded for life, Kent, is not because you got drunk. The reason you got grounded for life is because you got sick. So what you got to do is learn how to drink without getting sick. Not drinking was never an option. Alcohol's an answer for me, and buddy, I was gone. And I won't get into a lot of the detail. We'll move on. They gave me a driver's license and a car. That was a big mistake.
Sixteen years old, I got a one o'clock curfew. I was allowed to go to the Masonic Temple and the Union Hall. Those were where we had our dances. I had to be home at one o'clock. I put on a three-piece suit and a tie, drove an hour west to Toledo, Ohio in a snowstorm, and I went to the All Beautiful Shea Nightclub, because I had a driver's license in my pocket that said I was 22 years old. I was 16.
Now they said it was the All Beautiful Shea Nightclub on the radio. That ain't what it was when I got there. But I didn't really care. At one o'clock in the morning, I'm supposed to be home. I was drinking a gin and juice and slow-dragging with a woman older than my mother. That's a true story. 4.15 a.m., I'm coming down Wilbert Street, and I got a plan on what window I'm going to climb in. Y'all know what I'm talking about. And I came around the corner. I bet you've seen this before.
The whole house lit up like Christmas. Well, there'll be no sneaking in tonight. I go through the front door. There sits Mom. Tears running down her face. My mother looked at me, and she said, I'm going to tell you something, buddy. She said, as your parents, we owe you a roof over your head, food to eat, clothes on your back, and an education, and we've done that. She said, but Kenny, I got something you can't have, and that's my peace of mind.
She said, you're going to the penitentiary or the cemetery, and I got news for you, buddy. I ain't going with you. She said, I'm done. I'm giving you to God. Go do whatever you want. I'm done. And this is what I said to my mom. I broke you. I broke you, and I want you to know something, Mama. I'm a little bit disappointed. You're such a spiritual giant. Because it wasn't even that hard. And I walked away laughing.
This is what I said to my mother when I was 16 years old. The next 16 years are car crashes. I went to college for five years. It takes five when you do it the way I do. Car crashes. I died in 1984. I didn't stay dead, obviously. I died in 1984, and I woke up in the cardiac unit, crying, praying. My mother telling the doctor, I already lost one son. I can't lose another. You have to understand. Here was my thought when I laid there.
What the hell are these people so upset about? I'm the one who's dying. You have to understand something. I am completely and totally incapable of seeing you. I'm so full of me, I can't even see you. To me, the only use for human beings in my life is they're a means to an end. I need something from you. I need money from you. I need acceptance from you. I need love from you. Every human being on this earth for me was just a means to an end for me.
Does anybody get that? That's how I live my life. I spent 48 hours in the cardiac unit. My heart beat stabilized. A miracle, they said. They rolled me down the hallway. They put me in a regular room. I'm in a regular room. Now, when I'm in the cardiac unit, God, I'll never drink again. You guys know how that works, right? They put me in a regular room. I'm in there for two hours. Here's the thought that came to me.
Whew, that was close. But I'm alright now. This calls for a celebration. And two hours out of the cardiac unit, I'm drunk. And I didn't do that because I'd rather be dead than alive. I did it because I'm powerless over alcohol. The last three years of my drinking, no baths, no showers, I got a liver that's distended about seven inches. I was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol seven times in the state of Ohio.
Those are convictions. I've been convicted of that. I've been convicted of that. I've been convicted of that. I've been convicted of that.
[01:00:00]
interest in the AA is honesty, not the penitentiary. There's a lot of people who come here, you can get off the elevator at any floor, there's a lot of people who come here who haven't lost all that stuff, ain't been in all that trouble, and you don't have to. The entrance to Alcoholics Anonymous is honesty. I quit caring. No day, no night, no right, no wrong, no good, no evil, no God, no devil, three most prominent words in my vocabulary, I don't care. And I would tell people, you know, like I don't want to hurt you, just get away from me. Just leave me alone. I was banned for life from my mother and father's house. I lived in a place that didn't even have a front door. That's hell in the wintertime. Drug Task Force knocked it down, I figured they'd be back so I never put it back up. And my mother comes by there one day with my first cousin and stands in the doorway and I got no front door in this wintertime and there's beer cans three feet deep in there and there's her college-educated son face down on the couch and my mother stood in the door and cried and I didn't notice until long after my mother was dead. My cousin told me, she said, I never wouldn't tell you that. My mother just stood in the doorway and looked at me and cried, but you got to understand something, I ain't hurting nobody. Damn it, it's my life.
I came out of the pump lounge, I had a moment of clarity, a moment of sanity. There was a guy in Cleveland, six-pack Charlie, used to say that's the moment when God paralyzes the liar in you long enough for you to see the truth. It was just another day in the neighborhood for the kid. Everything in my life is hanging by a string and I had this moment of clarity. This is what I saw. If you don't stop drinking, you're going to die and you better get some help because you can't do it by yourself and you better do it now because you're running out of time out of nowhere. I didn't know what to do so I went home and I called my best drinking buddy from college who's a doctor today. His house is ten times the size of this country club. He's a very powerful man and I owed him a bunch of money I hadn't paid him any of it and his wife answered the phone and she said, Richard is Kent. That's exactly how she said it. And Rich got on the phone and I said, Rich, it's your boy, man, I need some help. He said to me, man, I've been waiting for this call for seven, eight years, pack a bag, stay by the phone, I got you. And he is not a member of this fellowship. When I get a call from the intergroup office and I got one last week, I told the guy on the other end, pack a bag, stay by the phone, I got you. And for that, I am responsible. He was going to put me in treatment in Zinnia, Ohio, he was living in Centerville at the time. The next morning, I'm in a car, my brother and his wife in the front seat, I'm in the back seat with a case of Genesee beer. Now I didn't know too much about this treatment thing but I had figured out on my own they wasn't serving no liquor down there. So I get in the back, I get a couple of these cold genies in me and I have a visit from the enemy. You know the thought, this is the thought that came to me on my way to treatment. You know I just may have overreacted here. It ain't that bad. I'll start my comeback tomorrow. It's the same old thing. Now I told my brother to turn around and what I didn't know is my father told my brother, I give you $100, you don't bring that tramp back here. It's a true story. So I told my brother to turn around, he said, do you have $200? I said, I ain't got $2. He said, then you go into treatment.
Got to Richard's house, he bought me a quart of Miller's, he drove me from Centerville to Xenia. We put in the parking lot of the hospital. I had about this much left in that quart of Miller's. He put his car in park, he looked at me, started smiling. He said, go ahead dog, finish that and don't ask me how I know it, man. He said, that's the last drink you're ever going to take. That was May 17th, 1992. I have not had another drop of alcohol or anything stronger than aspirin since that day because they ain't works and they had nothing to do with me. It's God, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, the steps, the traditions, and the concepts, the three legacies in my life. That's the only reason that I'm standing here today. I spent 35 days in a 28-day treatment program. That'll tell you how treatment went. 28 days, they cut my insurance off, they called the Ford plant. They said, we don't think Kent's ready to leave the hospital. You know, they sit up at the plant, we don't either. And I stayed another week. And I came home and I played a game, it's called don't drink, go to the meeting, don't do nothing else. I put my arm through a window, I cut an artery in my arm, I bleed all over the floor. Doctor comes out and says, come on back Mr. C., we'll treat you now. I sit there bleeding to death, look at the doctor and say, no thank you, I'll just sit here. And I bleed to death in
[01:05:01]
the emergency room. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the emergency room. I've been sitting in these meetings long enough now, I've watched people die before my very eyes who attend these meetings on a daily basis of untreated alcoholism. The treatment for the disease I suffer from is a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, period. There's a lot of things that facilitate that here. I said it earlier, meetings, conferences, conventions, workshops, service opportunities. But they're not a substitute for the steps. They are enhancements of, to help me better facilitate those steps in my life. And I went to almost 300 meetings in three months and I ended up in the parking lot of Daly's Pub vibrating, thinking what am I, some kind of freak, I'm going to drink again and I go to three meetings a day. Thank God I went to three meetings a day, it wasn't wasted. Because here's what came into my mind.
You go to three meetings a day, you hear it every day. Get a sponsor, get a home group, work the steps, help other people, get active. And instead of going into Daly's Pub, I turned the key in that car and I drove myself to an AA meeting and I went looking for Bill Finley, either him or Kenny Bambalicki, I wanted to ask one of them. I walked into Compass Group and Lorraine 30 minutes later and the two of them were sitting together and I asked them to help me. Bill looked at me and he said, we take you through the steps the way it is in the book, the way we were taken through it. And he told me, bury yourself knee deep. He said, no, not knee deep, shoulder deep in this thing called AA, so you can't teeter and fall. I've been shoulder deep in AA from that day to this. And they took me through the steps of this program as I try to live them in my life today. And no one here does that perfectly. I made amends to my mom before she died. She died, I was two years sober. I moved back in that house because I didn't have a safe place to live. My mother saw me go to all those meetings. My mother saw me bring my first sponsees to her dining room table and then open a big book and talk about God. My mama seen me put on a shirt and a tie and go speak at AA meetings when I didn't even have a suit. And when it got close to the end, Bill said, okay, I want you to go make your do right now. I think she's seen enough. And I went there with a big speech planned out. I sat down and I looked at my mom. They got her off the morphine. She had tears running down her face. I had tears running down mine. And the only thing that came out of my mouth was, mama, I'm sorry.
Now, I have said I'm sorry to my mother a million times. My mother always used to say, we know you are. But this time, mama, it didn't come from my head. It came from my heart. And my mother beamed at me and she said, I forgive you. What comes from the heart reaches the heart. See, my spirit was awake. My state of being had changed. It came from there. It didn't come from here to try to use her again. She told me, promise me you'll stay with those people in AA. They were the answer to our prayers. They were able to do for you what we could not. I promised her that I would and I have. My father died. I was 18 years sober. My dad was a good guy. My dad saw me get married in AA, saw the birth of my daughters.
My daughters are now 22 and 17. Man, time passes fast. Those people in here remember when my babies was little. And my dad was a great guy. I was the last guy to see my father alive. Nothing left on the table between me and the old man. Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous. I got divorced 20 years sober. I moved to Las Vegas. I think if you get divorced 20 years sober, you ought to move to Las Vegas. And I had a great time there. Let me tell you something. When I got to Las Vegas, the second day I was there, I had a detox commitment.
I became the treasurer of one of the biggest AA groups in the country. And we rocked and rolled in Vegas. The only reason I came back here, to be honest with you, is because I was too far away from my children. They weren't ready for me to be gone that far away yet. My baby is a junior in high school now. My oldest daughter is now married and is a junior at the University of Cincinnati. And at my oldest daughter's wedding, they were surrounded by their friends. There wasn't a cigarette smoked. There wasn't a curse word spoken.
There wasn't a drop of alcohol. I saw a group of people that my daughters have surrounded themselves with in their life. And they were all happy, joyous, and free. And I sat there and I cried. And I said, I hope my momma can see this. That's the kind of kids I got. My youngest daughter just got a Division I offer. She's an athlete like my brother was. She just got her first D1 offer a couple of days ago. She's a junior. And I said, how does that make you feel, Jordan? And she said, Daddy, it made me feel good, but I just want to concentrate on school and this year's season. When I got my first D1 offer, I wore sunglasses to school the next day. They had to take them off, make me take them off. And those are the kind of children that I have. My sponsor says to me, where did you go wrong? And my life is good. I got a lot of unanswered questions in my life like everybody else, but I got a power in my life that has proven to me that all I got to do, if you new in here and you got problems at night, I got a message for you. Just keep moving your feet. God work in his time. God don't wear no watch like you do. But I'm going to tell you something.
[01:10:01]
This is my experience. I have not had an unmet need here. Any need that I have had since I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous was met when the time was right. When God knew it was time, he did it. I have not had an unmet need in here. And I enjoy my life. I want to spend the rest of my life helping people. That's it. I'm at that age now. I done did the money, the cars, the big house. I done did all that. My deal today is how may I assist you? Bill Finley told me there will come a day in your life when all you want to say to people when you meet them is how may I assist you? What I say to you here tonight is how may I assist you? That's it. And I've stopped. I want to say this real quick. My position is neutral. No, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. I sit in AA meetings. I hear people knocking churches and church people and all kinds of stuff in meetings. If you got somebody who comes in here that's a church member and that's alcoholic, you just ran them out the door. When do we start doing that stuff? We need to stop knocking other 12-step fellowships in here and telling people who need them that there's no recovery there. We need to stop doing that in here. I'm sorry, but we do. I don't know where this stuff came from. But I live in a, my position is neutrality. I got no opinion on nothing.
How may I assist you? I got one charge today. That's to love God and love you. I have no other purpose on this earth. Love God and love people. And I teach that to the people that I sponsor. If I said anything that helped anybody tonight, thank God. Do not thank me. If I didn't say nothing to help you tonight, guess what? There's some more meetings tomorrow. God does not make too hard terms with those who seek him. God could and would, if he were sought, abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him until you've seen the fellows clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. And you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then.
Goodbye, Youngstown.