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Source: Ralph W – From Los Angeles, California – Date Unknown.mp3 File: ralph-w-from-los-angeles-california-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:53:54
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My name is Ralph W. and I'm an alcoholic. And I'd like to thank the committee and an introduction. Just talking a few minutes, you know, you get that vibe. I don't know if that vibe is, this dude really needs to be here, you know, or if that vibe is, you know, maybe we'll get some, I don't know, but I appreciate that intro, kind of ambiguous intro. It leaves some room for interpretation, so he's covered, you know, he's, if you guys don't like me, you can tell him, yeah, bad, you were right about that, you know.
I'd like to thank the committee and I really want to thank Wayne. You know, when you take an AA commitment and if you want to, you know, an instruction kit on how to do an AA commitment, I don't see Wayne in here, but he'd be a guy, his picture would be next to that. I think he, Pollack talked about it, Wayne got in touch with me maybe over a year ago and he's been as diligent and as consistent as anybody I've ever talked to.
You know, I really appreciate, I appreciate him coming out here and dying to get me from the airport, and I appreciate the hospitality. I like the fact that you guys, I like the way you do it down here in the area, and Polly, thank you for starting this party right. I wasn't here in time to hear the early bird speaker, but I got to hear Polly, I got to hear Paul, I got to hear all those people are good friends of mine, and now you guys have to put up with me.
You know, I'm going to jump right into it. He admonished me before, we need to clear the room, so dude, be on time. So we got a long way to go, short time to get there. I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, I'm one of six kids, I grew up in a little two-bedroom apartment, moms and pops stayed in one room, and the six boys stayed in three bunk beds in the other room, and my earliest memory of my old man was he was an alcoholic and I didn't want to be like him.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened and what we like now, and Don also said the other thing, you know, each speaker shares in his own language and from his own point of view, and I like that, because last night you heard Polly talk about being an only child, you heard Polly talk about not seeing alcohol in her family at all. Now this morning you get a whole other, I'm one of six, you know, my father was an alcoholic, now I never saw active alcoholism in my house, because my father drank away from home, and then he got put out the house when I was eight or nine years old, and my mom never touched alcohol, but I'm a product of active alcoholism, and I know that that touched me and it colored me and it probably formed the basis for a lot of the way I grew up, but you know, anyway, I grew up with six boys in the house and my old man was alcoholic and my earliest memory about him was I didn't want to be like him, now my father wasn't abusive and my father wasn't violent, my father was an absentee drunk.
Every other Friday, like clockwork, you knew he wouldn't show up with a check. He got put out the house, pops got put out the house when I was eight or nine years old and my mom proceeded to raise these six boys by herself. Don't know about you guys, and I don't know what young people these days would take from TV, you know, when we grew up, ideal family life, you could take from the TV programs of the day, and the TV programs that when I grew up that showed ideal families, father knows best, Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Ozzy and Harriet, Donna Reed, and you know that wasn't jumping off in my house.
You know, when you're grown, when you're grown, you get something that's called perspective and perspective works a little bit like this. You got a mom to raise six boys by herself. My mother was an old Southern Baptist sister, probably talked about that too, you know, we come from, my mother was from Mississippi, we all grew up in L.A. though, and old Southern Baptist sister, and my mom was on welfare when I was a kid, and she refused to settle for that, and she put herself back through high school, she put herself through college, she worked two jobs, she took in clothes that she washed and ironed for other folk, and when you're grown, you look back on your life and say, damn, I had a hell of a mom, look how she sacrificed to raise her boys, but when you're a kid, about nine or ten years old, and you're coming home from school on a Wednesday afternoon with a couple of partners, and you hit the front door, mom is in the living room with ironing board up and a rag on her head, you don't feel proud.
You feel ashamed and embarrassed, and you start bringing partners home from school, and if your name is Ralph, you start living in the prison I've lived in much of my life, prison I live in sometimes even today, and that's the prison of what I think you think about me. See, I don't know what you think about me, but I'm trapped in what I think you think about me, and I will do whatever it takes to shape and form and mold your opinion around.
[00:04:59]
I'll whine you, I'll dine you, I'll woo you, I'll con you, I'll bully you, I'll manipulate
[00:05:03]
you, I'll buy you, please like me. Now I don't particularly have to like your ass, but please like me. So I'm growing up like that, and new friends, if anybody in here is new to the room, Alcoholics Anonymous, there are a lot of common themes you'll hear from our members. One of the common themes you'll hear from most of our members when they hit a podium like this is, I never felt like I fit in, and that's not a part of my story.
I'm a little guy, I like a lot of attention, I've never been interested in fitting in, I've always wanted to stand out, and as a result of that I achieved and I accomplished some stuff in life. Now, you might think in hearing my story, dude had a good reason for being an alcoholic, because we, you know, I grew up, we didn't have a lot of money, you know, we used to go next door and use the neighbor's phone, the first car in my family was the car that I bought when I graduated from high school, you know, but I wouldn't have changed the way I grew up for anything in the world.
It's a trip, because I got a brother, and he talks a lot in the program, and he goes out and talks, and, you know, if you hear, and Ronnie's a year younger than me, he's three months older than me in recovery, and if you hear Ronnie's story and if you hear my story, you'll think these dudes came from different households, you know, same, we literally slept in the same bed, you know, a year apart, same household, same experience, different perspective on it, because Ronnie talks about wanting to be other than, different than somebody else, I couldn't have imagined being anybody other than me, and I don't want you guys to get confused with my story, I'm the kid that went to sleep on Christmas Eve with all his clothes on, because I couldn't wait for Christmas Day to come, my new moms only had $40 or $50 as a budget for these six boys, so we didn't get a lot, Chinese checkers, dominoes, you know, maybe Monopoly, I might get a glove, but on Christmas morning, you would have smells in the house, and there would be laughter, and there'd be singing, and there'd be the tree, and there'd be traditions, and there'd be family, and there'd be cooking, and the boys would get up, and we'd open our presents, and we'd make up games, and I couldn't imagine being anybody other than me, you know, I never knew a lonely moment, I got five brothers, baseball was my game, we made up the whole infield, one of my brothers played left field, you know, so I'm growing up like that, and so Ronnie's story is different, I'm growing up, I'm in the heart of Watts when I'm growing up, it's a turbulent time, it's a changing time, it's the early 60s, it's a, you know, I'm going to make something happen in my neighborhood and in my community, and I'm going to be somebody, and I couldn't imagine being anybody other than a young brother in South Central Los Angeles in the 60s, so I'm not here to report to you guys this morning that I'm an alcoholic, because I'm a product of a broken home, somebody in here grew up with both parents in the house, I'm not here to report to you tonight that I'm an alcoholic, because we grew up with no money, somebody in here grew up with a silver spoon, I'm not here to report to you guys this morning that I'm an alcoholic, because I'm a poor kid from the ghetto, look around the room, you know that ain't the reason, I'm not here to report to you guys this morning that I'm an alcoholic, because I'm a little guy, some big guys up in here, I'm not even here to report to you guys this morning that I'm an alcoholic, because I'm a man, there's plenty of women in here, I'm an alcoholic for two reasons, and two reasons only, one, when I take one, I can't tell you when I'm going to stop, two, when I sincerely don't want to put it in me again and start that cycle again, I put it in me again anyway, I'm bodily and mentally different, that's it, that's all, the rest is my story, my story goes a little bit like this, every single one of you had me in your classroom, I was usually class president or student body president, I was a straight A student, I was teacher's pet, I played ball, made all stars on the outside, I should have been okay on the inside, I've always felt like if you really knew me, you wouldn't like me, yeah I was straight A student, yeah I was teacher's pet, I would have traded it all in if I could have been cool, if I just could have been cool, because in my neighborhood, there was a whole lot more currency placed on cool than on smart, because the cats who was cool, I see some of you sitting out here right now, the ones who were cool, were the ones in the bathroom smoking cigarettes, shooting dice, taking quarters from guys like me that brought extra quarters with them, and you knew how to talk to girls, and girls were a mystery to me, I don't know why fellas, the rest of you guys seemed like you had a handle on this manhood thing, and I just didn't get the instruction, I just didn't know, 13 years old, cats would be talking about, standing around talking about throwing down with girls already, I didn't know they were lying, but I would be thinking to myself, you know, be thinking to myself, how come I don't know, you know, I don't know, so I'm going to get to, you know, somebody thinking, when are we going to talk about alcohol, stay with me, you know, and so I'm 16, because that's my story, I'm a late bloomer, in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm a late bloomer, you know, this is the first, I had to take a while before I got comfortable telling my story, because this is the first place I ever ended where folks try to out-bottom each other, right, you know, I, my first home group at home, 9604 South Figueroa, it's in the middle of the hood, Los Angeles, there
[00:10:03]
are working girls that apply in their wares on, right, right in front of the hall and the rest of that, and you know, in 9604, you show up in meetings, and cats will be in there, and they'd have hard stories and interesting stories, and I wanted a penitentiary story time without going to the pen to get it, right, you know, but my story's my story, and I'm not willing to go out and get another one, I'm a school boy, and I'm a square, and that's the way it is, so I'm 16 years old, I ain't touched nothing, now Ralph, and I get a girlfriend at 16, now Ralph with a girlfriend at 16 don't mean the same thing it means for some of you cats, Ralph with a girlfriend at 16 simply means this, I ran with a crew of dudes that went with the same group of girls, one of my boys broke up with this girl, waited a little time to pass, told my other boy I want to go with her, he went and asked her, came back and told me, she said yes, now I got a girlfriend, right, Ralph don't do girls, you know, this one actually knew, I knew she, you know, I had had other girlfriends before, but this one actually knew she was my girlfriend, right, so I don't do nothing much with her, you know, kiss every now and then, if we go to the show, maybe carry her books home from school, but this particular night I go out on a double date, me and my girl sitting in the back seat, older partner of mine, him and his girl sitting in the front seat, he's driving, right, go to drive-in movie, plastic cup of rum and coke, come to the back seat this particular night, drank that rum and coke down, went down real warm, rushed back to the top of my brain, all of a sudden Ralph's hand started doing things they had never done, mouth started saying things that it never said I had arrived, alcohol did for me what I couldn't do for myself, gave me the courage to do and to be and to say things I wouldn't do, be and say without it, and I liked it, I liked it a lot.
The big book Alcoholics Anonymous talks about me in lots of places, new friends, we have a chapter in the front of our book called The Doctor's Opinion, and there's a line in The Doctor's Opinion that jumped out at me the first time I read it, men and women like me drink essentially for the effect produced by alcohol, that's why I drink, I like what it did when it went down, I'm not overnight alcoholic, I understand we talk about this disease being progressive in nature because that's how it showed up in my experience, that first night I drank, I didn't get pissy drunk, I didn't throw up all over myself, I didn't make a fool out of myself, I got a warm tipsy feeling, I kissed and licked and sucked on my girl in some places I had never done before, you know, and that's how my drinking stayed, I would drink to go out on the weekends and go to parties, I graduated from high school in 71 and I graduated to higher education in every sense of the word in 71, I was still just drinking on the weekends, by the end of 71, I'm drinking during the day of the weekend to get ready for the party that night, by 72, I'm drinking not only on the weekends but now I'm drinking after class during the week, by the end of 72, I'm drinking and I'm smoking herb and I'm selling herb, by 1973, I'm drinking, smoking herb, selling herb, I'm doing other drugs, I'm doing it on a daily basis and you couldn't have told me it was anything wrong with the way I was living, the big book Alcoholics Anonymous talks about at a certain point in my drinking career, I won't be able to tell the truth from the false and one of the ways that meant for me was this, in the way that I'm doing it, isn't that the way everybody does it, why would you be young with a bright future, with a little bit of money, didn't chase the women and get loaded, come with the territory and those days man, if you came over my house and I couldn't offer you something to drink or something to smoke, I wasn't being a good host and if I went over your house and you didn't do the same for me, not only weren't you being a good host, I wasn't coming over your house no more, you know for what, wasn't nothing to discuss, you know, in 2014, back in the, no disrespect to our young friends, I'm not talking about new friends, young friends, I'm glad I grew up in the era I grew up, I'm glad I grew up in the time I grew up, back in the 60s and the 70s, you know, you didn't even have to know your neighbor, you just go to a party or you just go to a concert and you just pass and stuff, man, back then, you know, in 2014, you got to worry about sexually transmitted disease, you got to worry about safe sex because there's some deadly things going on like AIDS, man, back in those days it seemed like, you know, even though it was a turbulent time, in some ways it seemed like a simpler time, you go to a club, I'd have a one question interview for a girl, you get high, if not, next, I don't need to know your last name, I don't need to know your sign, I don't need to know who your mom is, let's get to the basis of this relationship, are you drinking like I'm drinking, you know, and that just was the way it was, you know, I came to the program, I'm going to go over here for a minute and then I'm going to come back, you know, hopefully I won't get stuck, I came to the program four times before I came to stay, you know, and the way I would do the program in my early efforts, and each time I would be serious about staying sober, you know, and the way I would do it in my early efforts, because I'm a good mimic and I'm a good chameleon, I go to a meeting, I listen to a speaker, share somewhat like I'm sharing this morning, I pick out what in my ears was some of the most profound things he said, go to a meeting tomorrow night, make sure the speaker's not there and not too many of you guys, repeat what he said,
[00:15:09]
There are some fine lines in the program Alcoholics Anonymous, and although they're the thinnest of lines, they make all of the difference. And one of the thin lines that makes all the difference is it's a thin line between comparing and identifying, and I would always compare and I would never identify, and I couldn't find myself in the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous, and I couldn't find myself in any of you guys' stories.
I read the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous, and I read Bill's story, and I start reading, Bill is an older W. guy, psh, we don't have that in common, you know, Bill was a Wall Street stockbroker, psh, check out the way I handle money, you know, Bill was a veteran of foreign wars, I'm a Vietnam era draft dodger, you know, read Bill's story, he's got a part in there when he says there had been no real infidelity, well, he missed me on that one too, you know, and I would always pick out all the differences, and I'd do the same thing when you guys would get up here and tell your stories, I'd listen for all the differences.
And when I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous to stay, somebody taught me how to read the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous, and they said, Ralph, the same way that you read the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous is the same way that you listen to our members share their stories. When you read the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous, and when you listen to our members share their experience, strength, and hope, ask yourself three or four questions.
Ask yourself, did I drink like he drank, did I think like he thought, did I feel like he felt, or did I do what he did? And when I read Bill's story in the light of those questions, I found my story. You know, I'm at this major university back in 71, and just like Bill, the drive for success was on. I proved to the world I was important. In his story, he went on to say drink was taking a more important and exhilarating part in his life.
I'm living in the dorm, that's all we doing. He went on to say something kind of strange. He said out of this alloy of drink and speculation, out of this combination of his thinking and his drinking, he would later forge a weapon that would turn on him like a boomerang and all but cut him to ribbons. I don't talk like that. Old folk where I come from had a shortcut version of that one. They just used to say trouble always starts out like fun.
You know, and I just couldn't imagine. When I'm up in the dorms, and I'm drinking this Red Mountain, and I'm drinking this pinata, and I'm drinking this yago, and I'm drinking this Annie's Green Springs, and I'm drinking this Boone's Farm, and then I'm graduating to the tire, you know, I'm graduating to the rum and coke and the screwdrivers and the Southern Comfort and the Corbell. And you couldn't have told me.
You couldn't have told me. Because I'm rolling with people, man. Because that's who I am. I'm the image guy. You know, I'm the image guy. I'm the what I can make you believe about me guy. I'm what you think about me guy. And I'm at this major university, man, and I'm rolling with people who we were going to be watching play on Sunday afternoons. I'm rolling with people we were going to be watching in the association during the week.
I'm rolling with cats who were going to be political leaders in my town, in my state, and in this country. I'm rolling with people who were going to be captains of industry, and I'm going to be one of them. I'm going to be one of them. So you couldn't have told me it was going to take me on that ride. Because the people I was rolling with, man, that's just. Bill talked about his heroes were big people in the Wall Street.
And my heroes, you know, political leaders and political cats and athletes, and I'm right with them. And I can't tell you what happened. Somehow I stumbled through those school years and I came out of school and I started working as a counselor for L.A. City Schools. And even though I had the kind of job that should have allowed me to acquire what normal people did, I never did that. Let me give you a snapshot of Ralph's life.
This is when alcohol was working. I'd buy a car, I'd make exactly three car payments, then come find it. Come find it. First time I had a car repossessed, I had to nerd a call LAPD. I'm nine months behind on the car note, right? Next two times I didn't even trip because I already knew. I'm the kind of brother who never had a problem balancing a bank book. Payday, I got money. Two days later, broke.
Zero. No problem balancing my bank book. You know, I stayed in the crib from 1976 to 1979 without paying rent. A couple of baffling features about the disease I suffer from, and one of them is this. I can't see my relationship with alcohol until I'm free of it. I can't see what it's doing to me when I'm in the mix. So some of the things that are crystal clear to me now looking back in the rear view mirror of experience were not at all clear to me when I was going through it.
One fact stands out real clear to me about the days I thought alcohol was working. I used to go to work for two weeks to live for two days. That's it. That's all. You know, and I can't tell you the day at a time of the hour. I can't tell you what I was doing or where I was when alcohol ceased to be a luxury for me and became a necessity. I can't tell you that it did happen. Bill's description of the invisible line.
You know what I don't like about the invisible line? It's invisible. It ain't nothing to say. If you take this next one, you're going to be, no, it ain't like that, you know. In fact, it's so cold-blooded. By the time I had realized I have a problem with this thing called alcohol and need to do something about it, check this out. It's already too late for me to do something about it.
[00:20:00]
Co-featured is disease called alcohol. Did anybody else play the regret game in Alcoholics Anonymous? The regret game in Alcoholics Anonymous goes something like this. If I only knew then what I knew now, I never would have, yeah, right. Reminds me, you know, remind me of a story I like to tell, a story about a little boy named Johnny. Johnny had a habit his father frowned on. Johnny used to like to play with himself.
Father goes off to work, comes home early one day, little Johnny's bedroom door is closed. Father opens the door without knocking. Sure enough, little Johnny's in the bedroom masturbating. Father looks at him and says, son, I thought I told you if you keep doing that, you'll go blind. Little Johnny looked at his daddy and said, well, daddy, can I just do it till I need glasses? You know, and I like that story because it reminds me of me in the life, right?
I see you going down, you going down, you going down, I'm just going to do it till I need. And then, you know, in the book talks about seeking the Lord companion. It wasn't long before I became the Lord companion. And it ain't enough time for me to tell you all the things that should have been signs along the way. I got married on a Saturday afternoon in April in 1980. I had a bachelor party the night before my wedding.
None of the guys at the bachelor party are getting married the next day. All of them have sense enough to go home 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm still at my bachelor party till 730 in the morning, right, me and my brothers. They pour me in bed at 730, give me up at 10 o'clock for my 1 o'clock wedding, I'm tore up. You know one of them where you're trying to stop the bed from rotating, you're throwing up stomach lining.
I'm one of those kind of nights, right? And so I show up at my wedding, right, I stagger and wobble up in there. And I'm supposed to say my own vows at the wedding. My then wife-to-be took one look at the condition I was in. She's like, okay, preacher, scratch the own vows, say the regular on him. And so now my lines are cut to two words. We get into the ceremony and it gets to me. I get ready to say I do.
I say, I threw up all over. Passed out. Have not taken a wedding picture to this day. Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. New friends, if you're anything like me when I first hit the rooms at Alcoholics Anonymous, although I recognize most of the words you guys used in the rooms, the way you guys used them, was not the way I used them in my everyday walk-around vocabulary. You guys were talking about this psychic change and this phenomena of craving and this allergy of the body.
And the way that you guys used them was not the way I was accustomed to. I needed some help with them. But the first time I heard pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, didn't need no help with that one. Folk like us don't need a dictionary for pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I lived pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization up close and personal. And I lived it over and over and over and over again.
See, I'm the kind of father and I'm the kind of husband. Remember sitting on my living room couch, wife coming out the bathroom real fast, pulling her pants up, going to the dining room table, picking her purse up off the table and clutching it real close to her as she went back to the bathroom. I feel this talk because nobody was in the house but me and her, but it got like that in my house. I'm the kind of father and I'm the kind of husband.
Remember coming home and sticking my key in the door. My wife and two-year-old daughter sitting here and they both crying. I look over here and homeboy sitting in my seat with a gun pointed at my stomach talking about I want my money right now. Fellas, let me holler at you for just a minute. I don't know about the rest of you guys. But I've always had a lot of fears and a lot of doubts about do I have what it takes to be a father?
Do I have what it takes to be a husband? Because if you're in the life, your track record already gives you your answer, right? Because what's the father's role and what's the husband's role? To protecting and providing is a cold-blooded feeling, fellas. Laying in bed with a woman night after night after night after night, knowing not only aren't you protecting, knowing not only aren't you providing, but you're the one bringing the wolf to the door.
See, I'm the kind of father and I'm the kind of husband. Remember sitting on my back porch, two-year-old daughter coming outside pulling in my coat. Daddy, daddy, that's my piggy bank. I remember stopping and giving her a little grin. Don't worry, baby. Daddy's going to put some dollar bills in here for this change. And I wasn't raised to be stealing from my daughter. And I wasn't raised to be stealing from my wife.
I was an alcoholic with no tools of recovery, and I did what it took to get what I needed to get. I've shared with you that my disease is progressive in nature, and in my experience, it's progressive in a couple of areas. Shared one already. It takes more than it used to take in order for me to get the same effect. But my disease is progressive in another area, my behavior. My behavior gets progressively worse.
I'm willing to do more, more readily, chase this thing.
[00:25:03]
First time I hit my wife's purse, if you would hook me up to a polygraph, I would have passed. When I said, I'm not stealing this money. I'm going to take this $40, and I'm going to replace it before she knows it's missing. And I meant it, because I don't steal. It still trips me out, you know, our history and the threads that bind us together and how fragile they are. You know, it amazes me, you know.
December of 34, a couple of gentlemen got together. I mean, a guy went in the hospital for the fourth time, same hospital. Something happened to him in the hospital this particular time. And it was so profound, it was so profound what happened, he had to call a doctor who had been attending him all this time and say, Doctor, something happened to me. Am I going crazy? Am I losing my mind? And the doctor looking at him from the outside in, so profound.
The doctor looking at him from the outside said, Dude, I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, you need to hold on to it. And Bill Wilson left Towns Hospital that fourth time, and he went about looking for people like me and you. Six months, didn't find anybody. And in that six-month period, some of his people he used to work with put together a business opportunity, and they sent him and some people down to Akron, Ohio, represent him on the deal.
And the business didn't come off too well, and he found himself in a hotel lobby, $10 in his pocket. Don't even have enough to pay for the room. And he got thirsty. And he stood in that lobby, and he could see the bar from the lobby. And a thought came. Sometimes it amazes me. You know, it just amazes me what binds us here this morning. Now, looking back, we can see the finger of God at work, but when you're in the middle of something, you just feel desperate.
Each one of us had that moment where you don't know what it's going to be, you're just feeling like it. And he's standing in that hotel lobby, and he could hear the ice clinking in the glasses. And a thought came to him, another miraculous thought. He thought because his partner, he visited him that November before he went in the hospital, told him some things. And he had another thought. I need to find a drunk not to drink.
And he said yes to the idea. Our first turning point as a group, the reason me and you sit here, he stood at a turning point. And he said yes to the idea of finding the drunk instead of taking the drink. Instructive. It's still our bedrock. It's still what we do. It's still what we do that nobody else can do. It's still what we're doing this weekend. It's still a hallmark of what it is in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The rest is detriments. One drunk sharing with another. And through a series of divine coincidences, he got put in touch with another drunk. And this drunk came to see him and said I'll give him 15 minutes. Paul talked about it last night. And that 15 minutes with Dr. Bob turned into about four and a half, five hours. And those two gentlemen said about looking for people like me and you. And in about two years, they had found about 40.
And I like to think that that New York hustler looked at that Akron physician and must have said to him, how are we going to let Ralph W. know when it's his time? And they said we'll put it in a book. And they put me in that book. Put me in that book. I said I'm going to replace this money before she knows it's missing. Spent the money, came back home looking for the purse. She had moved it. I didn't look too hard.
I couldn't believe I had hit it. Two weeks later, the same scenario presented. I'm out doing what I'm doing. Spent up all my money, came back looking for some more. And the idea of replacing the money didn't even come to mind. Describes me to a T. Alcoholic, be unable to recall with sufficient force, pain, suffering, humiliation. That idea of replacing money didn't even come to mind. Got replaced by a new thought.
I said last time I took 40 and came back looking for the purse and she had moved it. This time I'll take all the money out the purse and that that I don't spend up, I'll sneak it back in the purse. And I was off and running. Off and running to hit my wife's purse on a regular basis. I did that one Wednesday, came back one Monday. The screen door was locked. I was on the screen door. The rest of your stuff is at your mama's house.
I put out my house. I'm now my daddy. And over the course of the next year, my five brothers got put out of their respective homes. And we all ended up at my mom's house and we damn near killed her. When I got put out of my house and went to stay at my mom's house, my ex-wife thought it was something salvageable about this piece of man she married. She used to bring my daughter over on Saturdays so we could keep a father-daughter relationship.
And I wanted to be a father to my little girl with everything in me. I really, really, really did. I wanted to take my girl to Disneyland and I wanted to take her to Magic Mountain. I wanted to take her to a movie on a Saturday afternoon. I wanted to walk up the street with her little hand in my big hand and just take her to the store and buy her some ice cream. I wanted to sit her in my lap and read stories to her.
I wanted to tuck her in bed at night and get a goodnight kiss. I wanted to get the look from my little girl that I've seen men in the fellowship. the look like this is my daddy and this is my hero.
[00:30:00]
And the best I could do on those Saturday afternoons was 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Tell my mom something like, I'm going to the store to buy her some ice cream. I disappeared. I sneaked back around on Sunday night when they, when her mom was coming to pick her up. And I can still remember some of them long Sunday nights, man. I'm sticking my head around the side of my mom's house, tears flowing. And through the tears I'm thinking to myself as I see those two heads backing out the car, and the headlights backing out the driveway, I'm thinking through the tears, there go my life, backing out this driveway.
And I've heard a lot of people share they were scared of dying out there. That's not my story. I was never scared of dying. I was scared I was going to keep waking up to the same old thing, Monday the same as Tuesday, the same as Sunday, the same as Christmas, over and over and over again. And I'm so glad God don't make misery comfortable. And on October 11, 1986, I got miserable enough and I got tired enough.
I got directed to my fourth program of recovery. I went to the Harbor Life Center on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. Two days after they took me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that October of 1986 I was in a real bad place and I was in a real dark, I was in a real bad way. I was full of remorse and I was full of regret and I was full of I'll never be able to forgive myself for the things I had done and what I had become.
I didn't share with you the tip of the iceberg. Trust me. I didn't share with you when I got put out of my house and went to stay at my mom's house. Check came to one of my little brothers in the name R. W.. All of us at R. W. took that. Didn't share with you when my grandmother gave me $200 to buy a plane ticket to the family reunion. If it wasn't for my mom, my grandmother never would have saw Atlanta, Georgia.
You know, didn't share with you when my ex-wife took, when I first tried to get sober. And my ex-wife got me a job at her radio station, stole $1,600 from them, ruined her reputation in the industry. Didn't share with you a lot. Suffice it to say I had a lot on my tip when I came. And I was full of remorse and regret and full of I'll never be able to forgive myself for what I had done and what I had become.
And then they took me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Two days after I went in that program in October of 86. And a gentleman was standing up in front of the group, somewhat like I'm standing in front of you guys this morning. And he was sharing about taking from the job. And he was sharing about taking from the family. And I remember looking at him and thinking to myself, yeah, you look scandalous.
You should have been doing scandalous things. I'm different. Y'all ain't going to hear my business. And the speaker seemed like he knew I was in the room. He dropped something on me like this. He said, if you're sitting in this room right now, you are not responsible for your disease, but you are responsible for your recovery. And you have just now tapped into a source of power much greater than yourself.
And you don't have to drink and you don't have to use no matter what, provided you are willing to fulfill some conditions. And that speaker that night caught my attention. He went on to say, this is the only club you can be a member of where the worse off you are when you get here to bet off your chances of staying. And I got the message of hope at the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous they took me to.
He described to me what I suffered from. He did it in a strange way. I had never seen anything like it. He was talking about me, talking about himself. I had never seen that. He had been talking at me, around me, about me, down to me. Nobody had hit me where I live like this dude, talking about himself. Described to me what I suffered from and he did it in a strange way. You know, he said it's something physically different about me.
And it seemed like he invited me to diagnose myself. I learned some anatomical facts that you won't find in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. You'll find in the big book of my personal experience, you know. I learned some anatomical facts about a guy named Ralph, if there's anybody in here that's new. I learned that when my behind is raw, my ears open and my mouth closes. When my behind starts healing up, my ears start closing and my mouth starts running.
You know, thank God I was tenderized well enough, long enough, this last bout out there that I heard the music in Alcoholics Anonymous. And this guy was sharing something physically different. It seemed like he invited me to diagnose myself. I was taking a personal listen to the speaker. Personal in a good way, like he was talking directly to me. Ralph, don't take my word for it. How many times did you say I'm just going to spend 20? What happened?
Whole paycheck. How many times did you say I'm just going to go to happy hour? What happened? Whole paycheck. How many times did you say I'm going to stop over here at my boy's house for a minute? What happened? Whole paycheck. Ralph, did it happen once? Did it happen twice? If your name is Ralph, whole paycheck. Every two weeks from 1979 to 1985. My experience, not yours, not my sponsor's, not the oldest old timer in here.
My experience abundantly confirms for me when I take one anything. Who I have to go, who I have to see, what I have to do. No matter how great the wish or the necessity. My body takes over and I have to have another. Okay, smart guy. If it's just my body, how do you explain stone sober? My car seemed to drive to the LIQ on payday. Second part of this disease. The obsession that somehow, someday, I will be able to control and enjoy this magic potion I discovered.
Check this out. Somebody help me with that. Control and enjoy. Why am I stuck on that, Sam? Last time I was enjoying, I damn sure wasn't controlling. I can't drink because of my body. I cannot because my mind refuses to accept that fact.
[00:35:00]
I'm powerless. Third part of this disease. The spiritual malady. 12 and 12 describes it as a soul sickness. In the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, it says, Ralph, if you work on the spiritual, the mental and the physical are straightened out. That's what we do and don't get scared. If you're anything like me, you should think twice about that. Here he comes. He's getting ready to come with it. I know he is.
He just has something else in here. He's getting ready to come with the G word. I know it. You can call it higher power, creative intelligence. You can call it a whole bunch of stuff. You cannot fool me. I know you're getting ready to hit me with this God thing. I'm not feeling it. You guys don't understand me. You don't understand my condition. Your life is through. You don't understand what I suffer from.
I didn't come up in here to get preached to. I didn't come up in here for religion. You standing up there with your 27 years, that God just comes out your mouth. You don't understand me. Check this out. I did not come up in here walking toward the light. I came up in here running from the fire. If your ass is on fire, this is a good place for you, too. Thank God. I'm not this morning's speaker because I'm the one that's going to try to scare you in the recovery.
I'm not this morning's speaker because I'm the one that's carrying the message of fear. If you read between the lines of what I used to think of as my heyday, when people used to say, hey, I'm not the one that's going to try to scare you in the recovery, I'm not this morning's speaker because I'm the one that's carrying the message of fear. What I do in my heyday, when people used to see the way I was getting down, they used to be like, damn, Ralph, ain't you scared of overdose?
I'm like, scared of overdose? I'm scared of that deadly underdose. You better put some more up on it. So the message of fear is not the message that'll hold alcoholic in my variety. The big book Alcoholics Anonymous talks about a message that an interest, a guy like me, has got to have depth, and it's got to have weight. And the message this morning's speaker brings to you that's got the most depth and the most weight, you're looking at a guy who at 33 years old had given up on life.
You're looking at a guy who at 33 years old did not know where his family was living and didn't know where his little girl was going to school. You're looking at a guy who at 33 years old had not answered anybody's 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock wake-up call to go to work, and so long, I no longer thought I was employable. You're looking at a guy who came from a major university in this country, and my job at the end was taking the trash out for a 21-year-old.
I was sleeping in the back of my mother's garage, and I was eating lemons off a neighbor's lemon tree for breakfast. And the men and women in this fellowship, the men and women I crave, met me in that condition, and you loved me and you nursed me back to health. You gave me a way out upon which we all agree. You said something to me that I didn't believe at the time. I could not believe it at the time.
You said, let us love you till you can love yourself. I don't believe that one. How you going to tell me you love something like this? How you going to tell me you love something like me? I stink. If you turn your back on me, I'm liable to go up in your purse right now. How you going to tell me you love something like this? And that was before I knew what takes place and that was before I knew what happens when the guy in you reaches out to the guy in me.
That was before I knew that in Alcoholics Anonymous we specialize in loving unlovable people. And you nursed me, and you loved me back to health. You gave me a way out, and you gave me some things, man. And I'm one of the ones I am eternally grateful even to this day to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and for this life that you guys have given me. I love to talk about the AA way of life. I'm one who, you know, embraces all three sides of this deal.
And I'm not the one who's in here out of virtue, and I'm not the one who's in here because I'm the nice guy. I'm the one who's in here. I started out of desperation. I came up in here on the negative side. I call it the negative step two. I come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as I have been living it. That ain't how it played out and how it looked to me. I had come to believe that on Friday night and on Saturday night you'd find me walking the street.
I had come to believe I'd never have a key to anybody else's door. I had come to believe I'd never get the look or respect from my little girl and probably would never be welcome in her life again. I had come to believe I'd never, ever, ever be in the company of ladies. I had come to believe I'd never be in the workplace. I didn't start that way because I come from doing some things and I come from having some things and I come from accomplishing some things.
If you're an alcoholic of my variety, I lost in each and every one of them. I found you guys. If you're new in here, some indispensable items. I'm going to go off the board right now. I'm not one that shares everything. I'm a proponent of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I'm not a proponent of the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous for the sake of the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. That's not why I'm sober. Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous didn't get me sober.
It's why I'm sober. Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm sober. God's grace. God's grace.
[00:40:00]
In 1986, that October 11th, and I believe it happens for all of us, that phenomenon. When desperation meets opportunity, a sliver, a window of grace opens up, just a little window. And that October 8th, I jumped through the window because it closes real fast. The window had opened for me many times. I had sucked on a youngster's pistol and I let a day pass and the next day I said to myself, he wasn't going to really pull the trigger.
No, he was just playing. I got the ability to do that, I jumped through the window October 11th, 1986 and I signed up for the duty. And I've never regretted it a day since. Indispensable items in your arsenal, if we got anybody in here that's new. First item, get a sobriety date. If you ain't got one, you don't have one. If you walk up to anybody in here and you say, what's your sobriety date? And they say, uh, I think, you ain't got one.
I know that date like I know my name. October 11th, 1990, get a sobriety date. Then get a sponsor. I don't go through all the rituals and the rest of that. Get a sponsor. Somebody who can take you and navigate through this new language and this new way of life that I'm now entering in. I've had two. My sponsor today is Bob Zanz out of Minneapolis and that man cares about Ralph W.. Get a sponsor.
Then get a home group. Home group is something like a cheers bar, somewhere you go where everybody knows your name. Get a home group. And in addition to a sponsor, see this is the other thing, but I talk about it because it's been so indispensable to me. I'm glad Tom is here because I quote Tom a lot and he probably doesn't know it. He said something a long time ago. We were somewhere together. It may have been in a Q&A.
I don't remember what it was. But somebody talked to Tom and Tom's got over 50-some years of recovery. At the time, I think he was right around 50, maybe 51. Somebody said, Tom, what's the most important thing in your arsenal? What's the most important thing you've found in your 50 years? He said enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. All you sponsors out there, all you old-timers, God damn it, if it's supposed to be a program of attraction, make it attractive.
Make it attractive. Don't be standing up here, there ain't no easier. No, I'm doing this. If it wasn't fun, you'd have a different speaker up here. I am as on fire for Alcoholics Anonymous now at 27 years sober as I was at 27 days sober. One of the things that keeps it fresh for me, in addition to getting a sobriety date and a home group and a sponsor, get a road dog. A road dog is different than your sponsor.
You ain't going to roll with your sponsor. I sponsor a lot of guys. We ain't hanging out together. But I had my brother and my boy Strange and we were hitting meetings. See, a sponsor and a road dog are a little bit different. With your sponsor, yes, sir, I'm not looking at girls in the meeting. No, I'm not. With your dog, you're like, man, did you see her over there? Your road dog is who you talk about your sponsor to.
Oh, man, he makes me dizzy. And make this thing fun. It's our lifestyle. It's the way I'm going to be living my life. I have been on the fringes of Alcoholics Anonymous three or four times, but when I dove in here, all in, somebody said, I think Paul talked about it last night, all in, all in. When I got all in, I needed to surround myself with something. And I got all in, and remarkable things have happened in my life.
About a year into this deal, I'm one that's big on all three sides of the triangle, unity, recovery, and service. I went 18 months without a job, so I was able to really die. I fell in love with the fellowship before I fell in love with the program. And I dove into this deal, the unity deal. I was going to meetings, going to meetings, I was going to meetings. I started hearing announcements, so-and-so is sick and can't…
And we just rolled. Didn't even know them. That's how I met people, was just going to coffee and going out and doing it. So I'm going to meetings, and somewhere in the line I started hearing this deal, the big book, recovery, the big book, recovery, the big book. I heard it presented at a marathon meeting one day in a way I had never seen. And so I asked these two people, you know, would you guys take us through this big book?
So one day in November of 1987, my mom comes coming out of her bedroom. She's in recovery, me and my brother Ron. And my mom comes out of her bedroom going to church that Sunday morning, and her living room was full of drunks, full of alcoholics. And with tears in her eyes as my mom was headed for church, she said, I want to thank you guys. for Church, she said, I want to thank you guys for my life, for my sons. Because these alcoholics were sitting around her dining room table and they each had a blue book open.
[00:45:04]
And my brother and I, for the first time, we brought some people to my mom's house and about twelve of us went through the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous together as a group, line by line, page by page. And we liked it. And we went through just chapter seven. It took us a year just to go through the twelve steps together as a group. And we liked it. And we did what we do when we like something. We do it again. And some more people had heard about it and they wanted to do it. And then about five, we kept doing it. Five years we outgrew my mom's house. Tomorrow morning, the Never Too Early Big Book Workshop that started in my mother's living room, twenty-six years ago, we'll be meeting at a hall with about 250 to 300 people there every Sunday morning since 1987. When my mom turned seventy-five years old, when my mom turned seventy-five years old, we gave her a surprise birthday party. My mom is very sharp. My mom is very, you know, it's hard to get something by her.
We pulled it off. And at the end of the night, we were sitting around, you know how you sit around and you talk and, you know, you're tired and everything is done and it was successful so everybody's telling stories. And my mom was the oldest of her siblings. It was five of them. She started having babies when she was eighteen. So my mom was always caretaking. And at the end of that night of her seventy-fifth birthday party, she looked at me and said, this is the first time I've ever had a party. And as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous, my mom had a party.
I've got a nineteen-year-old daughter. She's a freshman at Boston University. One day at a time she's never seen her daddy loaded and one day at a time she never will. The two-year-old daughter who's piggybank I was going in. Sometimes I tell that story all the time and sometimes it feels like a story. Sometime it ambushes me and it catches me by surprise. I was telling that story a couple of months ago and I couldn't get through it. Because a week after I was telling that story, there was an event going on. And on January the eighteenth, that two-year-old daughter of mine, I've been sober since she was three, so she barely remembers. She doesn't even have a memory. When she hears about that, she's like, really? You know. January the eighteenth of this year, she's thirty years old right now. She's a practicing attorney in the state of California. And January of this year, January the eighteenth, she walked down the aisle. A lot of blessings in that. A young man she married came to me two Christmases ago and asked for her daddy's hand in marriage. And so we got down. So January the eighteenth, daddy's walking her down the aisle, music's playing, we're talking, she's shaking. And she's shaking and she's like, daddy, I am so happy today. And I'm like, I know it baby.
It amazes me walking down the aisle from the piggybank, right? She says, I'm so happy today. She says, I'm just sad about one thing, dad. This is my last day being Raine W., but I'll always be daddy's girl. You know, and I never thought when I signed up with you guys, I signed up to stop drinking. I never thought I'd get to look for my girls. Get it all the time. Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're sitting in here right now and you think this program is just about not drinking and just about not using, you shortchanging the program and you shortchanging yourself. What this program is really about is about obtaining and maintaining access to a source of power that does for me what I can't do for myself.
What this program is really about is about obtaining and maintaining access to a source of power that can do anything but fail. You want to put a face on Alcoholics Anonymous? You want to put a face on it? You want to see it right now? Take a look around this room. What this program is really about is about taking people like us, drunks and boosters and convicts and con artists, you know, failures as parents, failures as kids, broken down pieces of men and women who don't have dreams and goals and hopes anymore. This program takes people like us and it sticks us together in one room. I stick one hand in your hand and another hand in God's hand. We pick up our beds and we walk out of these rooms as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, employees, employers, role models in our community. This program is about growth. This program is about change. If there's going to be any change that's made in my life, it begins and it ends with me. How many people in here sponsor? Where the sponsors at? Isn't it amazing? Isn't it one of the great joys
[00:50:05]
in life to be able to see the lights come on for somebody? Angel, you know, I like when Polly talked last night and she talked about the valley she and David hit. Paul talked about it at the end of his talk. I've been in valleys in my recovery too. I learned some things. I learned you can grow in the valley. I learned some things about Alcoholics Anonymous. Three phases of my prayer life, three phases of my development in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Phase one, help me. Almost all of us got here on a variation of that prayer. Help me, God help me. Phase two, give me, grant me. Grant me peace as I go from give me, grant me to surrender. Phase three, highest phase, highest calling. I don't care if you take my money, I've lost all my money. I don't care if you take my house, I lost a house 20 years sober. I don't care if you take my money, I lost a 20 year man in front of everybody. Living out loud in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Finding out that I'm not my stuff in a real way, not in a talking way, you know. And I learned I had one thing that is the highest calling in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's what it is that each and every one of us get the opportunity to use me. Use me. To be useful. That's a hell of a thing. And I'm useful through my experiences. The thing I got on my knees, you know, I got on my knees 26 years ago for the first time and I said, God, I offer myself to you. Do something with me. Just like I am. Not wait for the change and do something. Do something with me. Still lying, still hoeing, still tripping, still all that. Do something with me. If I had walked up to any woman in here with a year of recovery, I wasn't much to look at, I wasn't a vision for you, didn't have nowhere to stay. If I had walked up to any woman in here and said, baby, I offer myself to you, you'd have been like, dude, keep it moving. But I said, God, I offer myself to you. And he did something with me. He did something with me. He did something with me.
Sometime I think about it and I think if ain't nothing else left. These two girls, I got some remarkable girls. And I get the opportunity to work with some men and women. And all of us in here know the joy of that. Know the joy of seeing the lights come on. Knowing the joy of seeing somebody come in here broken and beat down and seeing them come alive. Know the joy of being at their bedside. Know the joy of standing with them at a wedding.
Know the joy of seeing kids born. Know the joy. But there are some other lights that come on. There's some other lights that come on that we don't get to see. It's the reflected lights that come on in alcohol. It's the real lights. Because every time I go to a meeting, I hesitate. I always like to point it out because sometimes we'll miss it. Every time I go to a meeting, and we're doing it right now, I get to participate in some little boy or some little girl getting ready to have mom and come back. Every time I go to a meeting, doing it right now, get to participate in some family getting ready to have daddy come home. Every time I go to a meeting happening right now, get to participate in some employer that I don't know and could care less about, getting ready to have a hell of an employee in a workplace. Every time I go to a meeting doing it right now, get to participate in a some man or some woman getting ready to have a hell of a mate end of they life. Every time I go to a meeting, who wouldn't want to be part of a fellowship like that? I've always wanted to be somebody important, and I've always wanted to do something significant, and I can think of nothing more important and nothing more significant than being a participating member of the life-saving, life-changing experience that is Alcoholics Anonymous. Whenever anybody anywhere reaches out for help, I want to hand AA to be there, and for that I'm responsible, and I take the responsibility real serious. You'll never hear Ralph W. say, I don't know why I'm sober. I know exactly why I'm sober. I get a blessing so that I can be a blessing. Recovery for me is a gift from God. What I do with my recovery, that's my gift to God. My name is Ralph W.. I am an alcoholic.