Audio
Transcript
Source: Sterling W – Downloaded from www.xa-speakers.org – Speaker Talk (2005) – Date Unknown.mp3 File: sterling-w-downloaded-from-wwwxa-speakersorg-speaker-talk-2005-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:58:28
============================================================
Are you all ready? I'm Stuart W.. I'm a happy alcoholic. Hi, everybody. I want to thank the committee for letting me come out here and be part of this 60th Texas State Convention. I don't know whether I'm thankful about this chairman I got here or not. It's just been a great experience so far. You all just really know how to treat us. A couple of guys picked us up, whisked us right over the room when we were ready and got a nice big care package. Everything's just been wonderful. It's a great AA experience. I've met a lot of old friends. I've met a lot of new friends. That's the way this thing's supposed to be.
I just want to thank the committee for making us so comfortable and allowing us to come out and share with you. You know, I kind of figure like, you know, I wonder sometimes why I'm invited to one of these things. And I think it's because I'm an alcoholic that's found a substitute for alcohol. And I looked a long time at a lot of things before I found that substitute here in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, you told me when I got here for that substitute to work, I had to do a lot of things. I had to get a sponsor. I had to go to meetings. I had to read the big book. I had to get to 12 Steps and put the principles I learned there to work in my life. And because I did those things, I found it got to my understanding that a day at a time has allowed me not to have a drink since September the 25th, 1973.
And for that I'm very grateful. Now, I'm going to tell you, I told you I went through a lot of things before I found the substitute here in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I'm proud to tell you tonight that since that time in September, I also haven't had to be analyzed, tranquilized, hypnotized or baptized. This thing, Alcoholics Anonymous worked well for me all the way through. And for that I'm very grateful. You know, we hear a lot today about problems other than alcohol. Well, man, I had problems other than alcohol before I ever knew alcohol existed.
You see, I'm not only an alcoholic, I'm a hillbilly. And I come from the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. I was born right in the middle of the Depression and I'm the only son of a hillbilly schoolteacher. And they named me Sterling Fletcher W. III. I don't think I had a chance from the very get-go, you know. And a lot of things happened right from my very first remembrance. I had no identity. I just didn't know who I was. Mama taught school for 40 years and the first 18 years of my life, everywhere I went I was Miss Kitty's little boy.
And when I was 19, I married this farmer's daughter from across the river and overnight I became Mack Jackson's son-in-law. And I had, you know, and I had one son and he was quite a football player. And I, he played over at Clemson and played up and signed a little bit for the pro teams. And so when I got down to South Carolina, I became Waldo's daddy. And, you know, I tell you that to let you know, I don't know how some of y'all got into AA. I know a lot of you out here from Irwin and Plano and different places just came up and knocked on the door and said, hey, I want to come in and I've been drinking a little bit and it's hot and tired and I want to work these steps and get spiritual. Well, I didn't get, I had a whole lot of help getting here, I'll tell you. I had, I had a lot of help from preachers and teachers and jailers and just a little judges, but mainly I had help from Al-Anon. In fact, I say that I came into Alcoholics Anonymous when I became powerless over Al-Anon, you know. My wife got to Al-Anon several months before I came into AA, I don't know how many months, you know. But, you know, I tell you about that identity problem because you can imagine when you allowed me to stand up here and say I'm Sterling W., I felt like I'd arrived. And, you know, do you remember the first night they ever asked you to read? I'm supposed to read how it works this night and I never been so happy. I went back to the restroom, I studied up, I didn't want to miss a word. I'm sitting there on the front row and the chairman says and to read how it works and he forgot my name and said Nancy's husband. You know, when,
[00:05:05]
when my sponsor and I went through my, went through my steps and that fifth step and we just, we just kind of figured out like I was a weird kid that grew up in a normal home and I said, I accepted that. But, you know, they study, they study us alcoholics. We're the most studied species other than white rats, I think there is. And along came this word dysfunctional family. Now that sounded a lot better to me than me being a weird kid. So I said, Jim, we ought to rethink this thing. You think I might have been raised in one of these dysfunctional families? He said, I'm sure you were. You were there, weren't you? You know. That, when I think back on it, everywhere I went got dysfunctional pretty quick, you know. Now, I, I had a trait, a good trait. I, I guess I've been lying ever since I could remember. Maybe since I started to talk, I don't know. And, and I was good at it. I'm a good liar, you know. And I was a different kind of liar. You know, I just didn't lie and leave. I'd tell you a lie and I hung around to make sure you believed it. I wasn't going to leave until I made sure you believed it. And I'd lie to you about anything. And I don't know why this was, but I did. And I, you know, I, I remember when I was just a little talk about so big, we had to learn Bible verses and recite them before every meal we ate on Sunday. And I was capable of memorizing Bible verses, but I loved to make them up. And, you know, I remember to this day, one of the ones I made up was if a man goeth on a long journey and returneth not, he stayeth a long while. Now, you know, it's, you know, it's really bad enough to be making up for scriptures, but I tell you what I dearly love were the old folks thumbing through that Bible, trying to find that verse. You know, that made me feel warm all over. I really enjoyed that. There was something happened when I was about six years old. I told you I was born in the middle of the depression. When I was about six years old, my family lost everything we had, and they had a big auction, and they sold everything we owned.
And I remember standing out there in the front yard of these big pine trees, and I had my mama's hand on one side, my daddy's hand on the other, and the auctioneer's up there, and he's even selling the bed I slept in. And I looked over, and the tears were running down my mother's face, and I couldn't understand that. And I knew that the bank had foreclosed. The man had taken everything we had. And that's, you know, up until that time, my daddy had been the most powerful person I knew, but somebody else was more powerful. Now, I didn't know who the man was, had no idea, but as a little tyke, I began to hate the man, and I said to myself, nobody, nobody will ever have that much power over me. No, I'll be independent. I will not allow anybody to be able to, and that nearly killed me until I got here to Alcoholics Anonymous, but that set a way for me to live for the rest of my life. I was just an individual. I didn't trust anybody or anything, and I was not going to allow you to do anything for me because I had to pay a price. I didn't want to be beholden to you. And now in this home, there were four of us. I had, there was a mother and a father and a sister five years older than I. Now, you know, there's only two perfect people ever walked the face of this earth, and she was one of them, and she never, she never told a lie. She never came home late. She did nothing wrong. She made straight A's all the way through school. She was valedictorian in high school, dean list in college. I didn't have a chance, and right, the very first thing that I ever remember as a child is why can't you be like Elizabeth? I didn't know why I couldn't be like Elizabeth. I just knew one thing. She'd cornered the market on being good, and if I was going to get any attention, I had to get, I had to learn to be bad to get any attention, and that's kind of how this thing started out. And everybody in this family seemed to have a plan for me. Mama wanted me to be a Methodist preacher and bless her heart till the day she died. She still had some hope, and my daddy wanted me to be a trial lawyer, and my sister just wanted me to go away, and then anybody asked me what I wanted. Now, what I wanted,
[00:10:05]
I think, is indicative of how, of what my thinking was at that time. There was one old boy there named R.L., and he lived with his daddy, and his daddy stayed drunk, and he didn't have any rules to follow. He could do anything he wanted to. He could go swimming naked anytime he wanted to, go barefoot, lay out of school. He could cuss as good as anybody I've ever heard to this very day, you know, and I really wanted, I'll tell you another thing about R.L. that really impressed me. He didn't have to take a bath unless he wanted to. No, I loved the way R.L. smelled. He had that gusto, you know, and I, everywhere I went, it seemed like to me I smelled like life, but I always soaked, because Mama's always washing all my ears and all, so that's the kind, I just wanted to be like R.L., and I realized today, see, R.L., R.L.'s daddy was a drunk, and I realized that's why his mother left home, and so one of my first prayers that I remember was that Daddy'd get drunk, and Mama'd leave home, and I'd get to live like R.L.
Well, so that's the aspirations I had as a young man. Now, drinking as a teenager was not, was not, I'm sure I tried it, but it was never, it never was important in my life, because I had such close supervision, I just couldn't, I couldn't get away with drinking much, and so the very first, see, shortly after graduating from high school, I went 15 miles away from home to being inducted into service. I enlisted in the Army, and that was, that was the first time I'd ever been that far away from home without adult supervision, and this was in September of 1946, and that night, I got drunk, and I got sick, and I just about died, I thought, you know, and to show you that there's a lot of insanity here, 26 years later, I'm still drinking too much, I'm still getting sick, and I'm still almost dying, and, you know, for a human being to go through what I went through just to be able to drink liquor, and I did not realize it then. I only found that out after I got to you, but I changed jobs. I changed everything constantly, and I realize today just to be able to drink and to drink in peace. I had a short term in service. I stay, I was supposed to stay 18 months, and after 13 months, they called me, and I'd been in trouble. I'd been drunk ever since I got there, and they called me, and they said, if you just go home, if you, if you just go home right now, it's three months early, we'll give you an honorable discharge, but if you stay here, I'm afraid we're going to have to put you in Leavenworth. That's how much trouble I got. Well, I came back to the mountains, and while I was gone, industry had moved into the mountains, and I got a job right away in a textile mill, and I married my childhood sweetheart, and this was in 48. I married my childhood sweetheart, and a year later, my son came along, and I guess in 1954, we built a, bought a parcel of land, and all the husbands, we, like everybody was doing after World War II, we all built nice little homes, and I worked hard and got a lot of promotions, and if you'd asked me, I would have absolutely been absolutely certain that drinking was no problem in my life whatsoever. I, but when I look back now, and I'm talking about a period like from, oh, 1948 to 1962. Things look normal to me. That's my perception of things, but I was in five or six automobiles that were totally lost. Sometimes I was riding, sometimes I was driving. Most of the time, I had absolutely no idea who was riding and who was driving, and one Thanksgiving day, I had three wrecks in the same day. Now, that day, I hit the same man twice, and I didn't hit him over, you know, close by the second time. I got him 15 miles away over in the afternoon, where I'd hit him that morning, and in those days, you just called your insurance and insurance agent and reported your traffic accident, so I remember reporting it, and he said, what's, how drunk are you? You've hit him, you know, he said, you, you, you hit that man again, and I, no, he said, you reported that accident this morning. I said, no, I didn't. I've hit him again. I'm not drunk, you know, well.
Now, you know, I'm not handy with tools. I've always been unfortunate. I'm not handy
[00:15:16]
with tools, and I don't have a green thumb, I'm not a gardener, and you know, so right after, and you know, it just seemed like to me I was unfortunate. Right after we got married, wherever we moved, I'd move right in amongst a bunch of handymen that could fix anything, or I'd move in, and I'd look out the window, and there'd be a sign say yard of the month, and all I ever got was like yard of wild onion of the decade, you know, or something like that. So right away when we got married, the first thing I heard was why can't you be like Herb, and why can't you be like Tom. Well, that didn't bother me. You see, I'd been to boot camp on that back there, why I couldn't be like Elizabeth.
I didn't know, but I told you we built a house there in 1954 where all the young husbands built these houses, and it's supposed to be turnkey job. Well, these handymen went to work. Some of them put in the plumbing, some of them put on the roof, some of them put in the furnish. You know how you are, and I hadn't done anything. I think that's the first time I ever remember knowing what impending doom was. She was looking at me like you better do something, you know. Well, she'd gone up to her daddy's this afternoon, and I got a brilliant thought. Now, you know, let me stop here. You know, by this time a certain thing had begun to happen in my life. Everything that I didn't want to do, any job I didn't like, I had mentally assigned a certain amount of drink to it. I just, if I didn't want to do it, I got about drunk, you know, and if I didn't do it right, I would have if I hadn't been drinking, and if I did it real good, I blamed it on the liquor. I'm the kind of painter that I get the liquor three times before I ever get to drop cloth in the paint, you know, and if I was going to, you know, if I was going to borrow money, I didn't like facing the banker. That took a fifth, and if I was going to trade cars, it was a fifth, and I didn't get along with that sister. I called her my two-pint sister if she's coming to visit, you know. Well, I never had, you know, I got to thinking about this thing, nobody on that street put a mailbox in. Well, I thought, you know, I'll do this thing right now. I don't know how much liquor I'll sign to this job, but I think right much. I went down to the plant, and it's alcoholic, I'd say. I got the head engineer, and we got a two-inch pipe, eight feet tall, two inches in diameter, and took another eight-foot pipe an inch and a half in diameter and put it down in there and spot-welded it all the way up. I came back home and dug a four-foot hole and put in steel-reinforced concrete, went down to Sears and got the biggest mailbox they had. It was that long, and I put Sterling Fletcher W. the third across. It might have been no English letters, I don't know, but I put that boy down in that concrete, and I tamped it well. Now, I'd been drinking all day, and it was hot, and you alcoholics know when you just kind of fall over and go into that peaceful slumber that only a drunk can go into, and I'm thinking, gosh, she's going to be proud of you when she gets home and sees that mailbox, and the next morning my phone rang, and it was my neighbor. He said, what's what's wrong with you yesterday?
I said, why? He said, you got that mailbox in face in your house. Now, I had about an hour to dig it up and turn it around, and you'd have thought I'd build a small swimming pool and thrown it in there, you know. Now, I was a tavern drinker. I loved the dark lights, the beautiful country music, the beautiful ladies that are there to play shuffleboard with you and to listen to your problems, you know, but I also wanted to be a good husband, and I worked hard, and I'd stop off in the tavern just to have a couple of beers before I went home, and I meant that, and, you know, I'd sit there, and I knew that I had a son at home that I loved, and I'd even, when I had the first couple of beers, I'd look forward to what we might do that afternoon, and inevitably they'd have to throw me out when they closed the place, and I don't know why I did that. I just know that she hated the drinking scene.
She hated everything about drinking. In fact, you know, you can see why this marriage. She
[00:20:00]
didn't know anything about it, and that's all I knew how to do good, and so she, we developed a thing along about this time that you call, I call it a chemical, muscular chemical reaction. I'd bend a muscle to take a chemical, and her mouth would fly open, and we, and I called that chin music, and that was the chinniest woman you ever saw in your life, I'm telling you. She'd say things like, you almost stopped and got a beer. She knew when I was even thinking about it, you know, and so you can see the marriage is not working too well when this is going to happen, so, but, and so I took a look, and at the salesman had called on me, and I, by this time, I bought a lot of chemicals, and I bought a lot of machinery, and these salesmen, well, they drank just like I did. They had one disadvantage over me. They left home on Monday, and they didn't go home till Friday. Five days, no chin music, so I gave up probably the very best job I ever had, and came to South Carolina to sell chemicals. I know the day I came down there to drink liquor, to drink liquor in peace. I went to work for a one-owner chemical company, and he was up in Rhode Island, and he said an interesting thing to me. He said, he said, you know, my company is not well known down there in the South, and said, I'm going to give you this new car and an unlimited expense account, and I want you to get the name of my company kind of spread around down there. Don't get ahead of me, and I know he meant where they had chemicals to sell, but man, I got it everywhere. I tell you, I had it on every state trooper and judge and jailer in that whole state, you know, and it was interesting. The reason I know I went down there to drink liquor, in Virginia, you could only haul a certain amount, I think, a quart per person or something in the car. I don't remember, but you could haul all you could buy in South Carolina. I put about three cases of liquor in the back of that car and started running up and down the road, calling on these textile mills, and you know, in those days, we didn't have any over-the-bar drinking, no mini-bottles, nothing. Everything was brown bag, and I'd pull in there and raise the trunk, and we'd go out there and have a couple of drinks in the parking lot or go down to the spring or down to Fishing Hole or Golf Course.
I had one old boy said, you call down here in 19 months, and we wasn't sure what you were selling. We thought you was a liquor salesman in the wrong place. Now, I was real good at what I did. I had a lot of knowledge of my chemicals, and I did work hard, but I had one thing that made me a good salesman in the industry that I called on. The textile industry, I like a lot of other industries. You know, we had the old deal. You work hard, you play hard, and I could, and I met a lot of you guys since I got here that did the same thing. As long as I kept my alcohol level at the right place, I could go a long time and not sleep. I could go two or three days and not sleep. I could play golf all day.
I could deal cards all night, take a shower, go right back out and play golf. Just what they called a man's man. They loved it. I'd hear them say things, well, I'd rather ride with W. and him drunk than I had Tom over there and him stoned cold sober. I'd just swell up and drink a fifth and take them anywhere they wanted to go. I need to tell you that when I got to you people in Alcoholics Anonymous, I weighed almost 300 pounds. It was taking its toll on me, and I don't know when I blossomed up that big. I know it had to be gradual, but I'm sure that I was full of fluid and that kind of thing. Anyway, the company wanted me to take an insurance exam, and I didn't want to take this insurance exam. I don't know why, but they just kept asking me to either get fired or take an insurance exam.
So I went in, I took an insurance exam, and the lady took my blood pressure, and she left, and I started rolling my sleeve down, and here she came around the corner with this little card. I said, what's that? She said, that's oxygen. I said, what's it for? She said, well, your blood pressure is so high you're in a stroke zone. I said, wait a minute, I just came in off the street feeling good to have an insurance exam. Now, if my blood pressure is that high, I ought to have some kind of symptoms. She said, well, usually you're dizzy. Yeah. Now, I'd been dizzy off and on for almost two years. In fact, I had this back road called a drunk alley that I'd come home at night, and no troopers were ever back there,
[00:25:06]
and I'd come in late at night, and they had three or four bridges on there, and when I'd come to one of these three bridges there, I couldn't get across it until I pulled over to the side. I could sleep a little while, and to get it down to two, and I could get across the bridge, and it got to happening so often that I couldn't believe. I mean, drinking didn't used to do that to me. You know, I didn't used to do this way, see three bridges, and so I figured if the alcohol was having some kind of reaction, maybe I was having some brain tumor problems or something like that, but I remember, that was one reason I was scared to get this insurance exam, so I remember coming home and telling Nancy, I said, hey, we got nothing to worry about. I'm in good shape, nothing wrong with me, and nothing to do with drinking, just a little blood pressure problem, you know. Well, I, but she, that's when she's, she noticed all this stuff, and she got me going to AA, and I don't remember much about when I went to the first AA meetings. I don't even know, we might have gone some to the Automobile Association. She's just, she's sicker than I was, you know, and so, but anyway, but things just got so bad one day, there's so much chin music going on around there, I couldn't stand it, and I just told her, I said, well, I just call, if we met this old guy named Squire, Squire Jones, been sober, every town's got one, he'd been sober longer than dirt, you know, and she just loves Squire, and I said, I'll just call Squire. She had the number ready, I guess it'd been in her hand all the time, you know. Well, I called Squire, and I said, I'm ready to talk, and he said, good, and he got in his car and started to cross town, I got in my car and left town, and now he came over there, and I'm sure, I cued him a long time, he kind of 12-step Nancy, he told her a lot about his life, and she had to tell him a lot about me, because he knew I was shaking, now, and I was shaking, man, I was going so wide, I could thread a sewing machine, it running wide open, you know, and the only thing that came out of this deal, he convinced her that if I'd take K-roll syrup and honey and put it in some orange juice, and if she'd give me that, I'd be all right, and that's what she perceived. Well, it started a ritual, I'd come home about half drunk, and she'd be standing there at this K-roll, and she'd shove three tablespoons full down my throat, hand me this concoction to drink, and I'd get it down, and by the time I got down there to my clothes hamper where I had my vodka here, I'd be so stuck together, I couldn't get a drink in, you know. Now, I'm going to tell you, we know that, come in here in AA, and go back out there, AA ruins your drinking. That daggone honey and orange juice don't do much for it, I can tell you that. Well, so, it just didn't, AA didn't seem to be working for us, you know, she, I guess maybe if I'd have stayed around there under that kind of thing, I'd have been, the fruit flies that had been following me, I'd have been so sweet, you know, but, so she found a, she didn't give up, she found this guy that had, he'd gone, he had the same kind of job I had, and he'd gone to Alcoholics Anonymous, and it didn't work for him either, and he'd gone to a psychiatrist and got some psychiatric treatment, and he was all rosy, and he was in good shape, and he came over and talked to me, so off we started the deal of going to the psychiatrist. Now, I, this is my opinion, this is, I have never seen, I sponsored one, but I've never seen a psychiatrist that can hold a light to an alcoholic if the alcoholic don't want to be there. I guarantee you we'll drive him crazy. If that guy, if he'd have stayed in session with me, he'd have been in the sanitarium in no time, I can tell you that. But he was smart enough, he realized he wasn't, he wasn't winning this battle, and he told her, he said, the next time he acts up, now, we're gonna do, we'll put him somewhere where I can observe him more closely.
Now, it's right interesting, we, back in the late 60s and early 70s, we didn't have detox, we didn't have, you only put a drunk two places, in the hospital for the emotionally disturbed or in jail. So, I went off to this hospital for the emotionally disturbed, and you know, it's an interesting thing, I've been over there five or six different times, and every time I went over, I was dog drunk. I've been over there in the back of a car, I've been over in the back of a pickup truck, I've been over in an ambulance, every time I went in there, I was dog drunk.
I Went Over In An Ambulance, Every Time I Went In There I Was Dog Drunk, But You Look At My Record, It Doesn't Say, It Says Schizophrenia, Paranoia, Hypertension, You Know, You Know It Doesn't Say A Thing About Drunk, And I Reckon It Was Because Of Those Prices They Were Charging Me, I Don't Know, But Anyway, Now, You Know I'm, I'm A Kind Of Drunk That You Give Me A Couple Of Shots Of Liquid Valium, And Let Me Sleep For Three Or Four Days, I Just Wake Up And I Feel Pretty Good, And I Can Only
[00:30:25]
Tell You Now How I Perceived What Was Going On Then, And My, I Just Woke Up And I'm In Occupational Therapy, Now, I'm Making, Now Here's A Man That Can't Do Anything, Can't Do Anything With His Hands, And I'm Making Ceramic Ash Trays, I'm Making Leather Watch Bands, Now I'm Talking About Quality Stuff Too, Now, And These Leather Watch Bands, I Could Make Three Leather Watch Bands In One Hour When I Was On Top Of My Game, And It Took, The Next Best One In There Took Them About Three Hours To Make One, And Boy, If They Hadn't Run Out Of Leather, I'd Still Be Over There Probably, I Can Tell You That, Now, They Had Another Thing At This Hospital, You Know, They Called Us Clients, And If You Had Gone Through A Whole Week And Hadn't Caused Any Trouble, You Got A Reward On Saturday, Well, Somebody Asked Me One Time, How Do You Cause Trouble In The Hospital, Well, I Can Tell You One Way, They Had A Sixty Foot Fountain Out In Front Of This Place, And I Put A Box Of Tide In It One Night, They Had A Snowball Bigger Than This Building Out There, You Know, But, The Group I Was In Had Been Good This Time, And So, We Gathered Up In The, What It Consisted Of, Is You All Gathered Up In The Lobby, And You Got To Go On A Field Trip, Now, There Was Nineteen Women And Me In This Group, And Most Of These Ladies Back Then Were Taking Shock Treatment, And To Say That, You Know, They Were Nervous, Let's Put It That Way, So, What This Field Trip Was Going To Consist Of, Was We Got A Peanut Butter Sandwich, And We Got To Hike Over To Kmart, Now, And He Called Me Up Front And Explained To Me That Most Of These Ladies Smoked, And They Weren't Very Handy With Matches, And So, I Had, I Got The Matches, And We Went Off, And I Remember Walking Out And Had My Little Entourage Behind Me, And I Really Thought, I Said, You Know, At Last, They've Seen My Leadership Ability, You Know, I Felt Like I Was In Officer's Candidate School, You Know, And Show You How Sick I Was, It Was About A Year Later, And I Really Realized What Had Happened, I Was Forty-Four Years Old, And I Had Worked My Way Up To The Keeper Of The Matches In The Nuthouse, You Know, Now, You Know, It's Nice, I Had To Learn To Laugh At All This Mess, Or I Couldn't Get Sober, I Couldn't Take It So Serious, And We Know That All This, But Here Is, You Alcoholics Know The Serious Thing That's Happening To Me, Is I'm Getting A Little Bit Worse, A Little Bit Sicker, And A Little Bit Sicker, Nobody's Mentioning The Twelve Steps, Nobody's Talking To Me About The Disease, And I'm Just Getting Worse, But This Day, I Came Home From The Hospital This Last Time, And Not Much Better Than I Was When I Went Over There, And She Said, Well, You Haven't Tried To Be Rehabilitated, Well, We Didn't Want To Miss Anything, So, She, We Had A Place That They Rehabilitate Alcoholics Down In The Lower Part Of The State, And It Was Run By The State, And So, Off I Went Down There, And When I Got Down There, I Got The Biggest Resentment I Ever Had In My Life, Now, I Didn't Know What A Resentment Was Then, But I Got Mad, And What Got, I Still Had A Job, But I Had No Insurance, And It Was Going To Cost Me $600 To Stay Down There 30 Days, 28 Days, Whatever It Was, Now, The Rest Of The People In There, The Whole Rest, 35 Of Us, All Of Them Were Wards Of The State, Because They Didn't Have A Job, We Had A Doctor, He Just Locked Up His Practice, Didn't Cost Him A Nickel, And I Was Mad About That Thing, You Know, Now, I Think This Is Where God Started To Work, And He Used, I'll Get Back To You, With This $600, He Was Later To Get My Attention,
[00:35:02]
Anyway, They Said To Me, If You Want To, AA Comes In Here To Talk, You Can Go Over There On Thursday Night, If You Want To, I Had Nowhere Else To Go, I Guess, And I Went Over There, Now, To Show You What, This Is My Perception Again, I Thought You All Sickest Bunch Of People That I Had Ever Seen In My Life, And I Can Tell You Why, They Were Driving 45 And 50 Miles An Hour As I Saw It To Tell Me The Troubles, And I'm So Sick It's Costing Me $600 To Try To Get Straightened Out, And What Made Me Think That You Were Telling Me Your Troubles, Is A Young Man Stood Up Here, He Didn't Look Like He Was A Day Over 25 Years Old, He Said He Couldn't Take One Drink Without Getting Drunk, I Never Felt So Sorry For Anybody, Never, Can You Imagine One Drink Drunk, You Know, And I Said Well, There's Something Wrong Here, Now, I Tell You, And I Wrote His Name Down, And I Knew When I Got Out Of There, If I Could Keep Him By, And I Bet You I Could Keep Him Going A Month Anyway, I Knew That, Well, When I Left There, They Said An Interesting Thing, They Said, We Think If You Go Back To Greenville And Just Not Drink, You'll Be Alright, So, On The Way Home, I Got To Think About That Thing, And I Said, You Know What I'm Going To Do, I'm Going To Do Just What They Tell Me To Do, I'm Going Back To Greenville, I'm Not Going To Drink, It's Not Going To Work For Me, And I'm Going To Sue Them And Get My Cotton Picking $600 Back, What I'm Going To Do, Well, I'm Living Proof Of What I Did, I Went Back To Greenville And I Didn't Drink, And I'm Living Proof, Nobody Out There Has To Try It, If You're Here New, You Don't Have To Try It, I Did Not Drink, But I Put Nothing Else In, I Didn't Put, I Had No Program, I Had No God, I Had Nothing, Just Took Liquor Away, And I Had All Those Raw Nerves, You Know, I Found Out After I Got To You All That What I Was Made Me Drink, Not What I Drank Made Me What I Was, So, I Was Right Back Where I Started From, And I Was Miserable, Had I Not Got, I Hated Everybody And Everything, Had I Not Got Drunk, I Would Have Committed Suicide, You See, I Hated You, If You Could Drink And Not Get In Trouble, Have A Good Time, I Hated You, And If You Could Not Drink And Have A Good Time, I Hated You, I Got A Glass About This Big And Filled It Full Of Ice Tea, Everywhere I Went, I Said, Look At Me, Poor Little Old Thing, I Said, I Can't Have Another Drink As Long As I Live, I Said Things Like, Let's Get Our Milk And Cookies And Go To Bed, You Know, I Thought My Manhood Was Gone, You Know, I Just, Everything I Had Ever Done, You Had To Drink A Pint Just To Shoot Marbles With The Big Boys Up In The Mountains, You Know, So, I, But I Did, I Was Miserable, And Had I, I Did Get Drunk, And Had I Not, I Would Have Committed Suicide, And This Started A Period In My Life, I Don't Know How Long I Drank What I Call Zombolically, I Was Just A Zombie, I Didn't Know Whether I Was Going Or Coming, In My Job, In My Job, We, I Usually Call And Ask People, Can I Come Over For Lunch, Maybe Once A Week, Or Once A Month, Or Twice A Month, Or Something, And I Called And I Said, Can I Come Over For Lunch Tomorrow, They Said, You Was Over Here Yesterday, The Phone Would Ring, And I Would Answer It, And They Would Say, This Is Sam, Well, I Wouldn't Know Who Sam Was, But I Would Say, How Are You Doing, Sam, He Would Say, Fine, Where Is My Sample, I Didn't Know Where His Sample Was, I Didn't Know Anything, And I, You Know, It Was Kind Of Like A Simple Way To Put It, Is I Would Come To Holding The Steering Wheel, Now, If I Look Down, And I, I Was Been Sick All Over Myself, The Only Thing I Knew, I Could Tell What I Had Been Eating, Where I Had Been The Night Before, But I Didn't Know Where Else, I Didn't Know Anything, But If I Look Down As Clean Like I Am Tonight, I Knew I Was Going Out, I Didn't Know Where I Was Supposed To Be, I Didn't Know Where I Was Supposed To Be Going, And, And So What Would I Do, I Drive Around The Corner, Check In A Kano Lodge, Just To Have A Couple Of Drinks, To Get Settled Down Enough To Find Out Where I Was Supposed To Be Going, And You Know The Deal, Over And Over And Over Again, I Came Back From Augusta, Georgia Sometime In, In September, Off Of A, That Six Months Drunk, Or Whatever It Was, That I Don't, I Don't Remember Much About, But I Think I Came Back To Die, I, I Don't Know, I Went Back To What Nancy Used To Refer To As My Rat Hole, And I Don't Know How Long I Stayed Back There, Because She Wasn't At Home, At That Time, She Never Had, She Had No Relatives, But She Always Was Off Visiting Them, She Would Get Away From Me Some Way, You Know, So She Was Having One Of These Visitations With Some Of These Relatives, I Guess, And I, But I Remember When I Came To, I've Been, If You Drunks Know That, I've Been Back There Five Or Six Days In A Drunken Lair, And The Odor And The Stench, And My Legs Were Wobbly, I Just Had To Crawl To The Bathroom, And When I Could, You Know, I Couldn't Get A Drink Down, I Put One Down Before It Would Come Up, But The One Thing That Happened Is Liquor Had Quit Working For Me, Liquor Had Quit Working For Me, And An Alcoholic Of My Type, When That Happens, It's Panic Time,
[00:40:21]
And I Just Dropped My Head Over My Hands, And I Said Something Like, My God, Nobody Knows, And She Said, Yeah, She Got Me Dressed, We Went To An AA Meeting That Night, I Don't Know, I Don't Know Much That Went On, I Just Know On The Way Home, Back Home, We Have A Chip System, And On The Way Home, She Said, You Didn't Take A Desired Chip Tonight, Now, See, She Knew All About Chips, And You Remember I Told You I Went To Some AA Meetings Way Back There, And Whoever Took Me Squire, Whoever Would Take Me, They'd Give Me A Cup Of Coffee And Some Donuts, And We'd Sit Down, And When They Gave Out The Chips, They'd Punch, I'd Jump Up And Get One, If They'd Have Hit Me Six Times, I'd Have Gone Right To The Birthday Chip, You Know, I Didn't Have Any Desire, But She Said, You Didn't Get A Chip, I Said, No, Because If I Don't Get A Drink Down Tonight, I'm Gonna Die, Let's Hurry Up And Get Home, And I Got A Drink Down Sometime That Night, I Think, I Don't Know When, But, You Know, An Interesting Thing, And This Is Only Interesting To Me, And I Consider It, It's One Of The Many, Many Miracles In My Life, I, For All Intents And Purposes, I Haven't Had A Drink Since The 23rd, But I Wait Two Days To Celebrate My Dry Date, And I, That Has To Be A God Thing, Because, And I Think God Knew That With The Kind Of A Drunk That I Am, Had I Come Around The Rooms And Get To Thinking, Maybe, Maybe I Didn't Have An Honest, Have A Real Honest Date, If I Got To Thinking That Way, I'd Lose Respect For You That I'd Fooled You, And I'd Probably Go Out And Get Drunk, But For Whatever Reason, I Do Wait Two More Days Till September The 25th To Celebrate My Dry Date, Now, I'm Here Tonight To Tell You That I Had Absolutely No Idea That It Was Possible To Have The Change In One Man's Life That Has Changed Mine Since That Day In September Of 73 To Today, I Had No Idea That I Could Be As Happy, Joyous And Free As I Am Tonight, I Had No Idea That I'd Be Standing In Texas Talking To People About Alcoholics Anonymous When, You Know, I Know That This Is A Gift, I Know That It's A Gift, And I Don't Know Why I Have The Gift, Drunks Are Gonna Die All Over Dallas Tonight, They're Gonna Die All Over Texas And South Carolina And All Over The World, And I'm One Of The Fortunate Ones That Got The Gift, And I'm Not Sure What The Gift Is, Most Of The Time I Think The Gift Was Become Willing, But I've Got The Gift, And I Don't Know Exactly Why I Have It, But I Do Feel A Tremendous Amount Of Responsibility Because I Have This Gift, I Feel Like It's My Responsibility To Be Here When A Newcomer Walks In Sick As I Was And Take Him By The Hand And Give Him The Hand Of Fellowship For A While, You Know, I Think There's Two Parts To This Program, There's A Part Of The Fellowship And Then There's A Part Of The Program, And When I First Came In, If They Had Got Me Right Into The Steps, I Think We All Get What We Need, It's Been My Experience Since I've Been Here That Whatever The Needy Alcoholic At Time He Becomes Willing, If He Shows Up At Our Door, He Seems To Get What He Needs, It's Not Always A Laid Out Formula That Everybody Gets, But They Gave Me Fellowship, They Shook My Hand And They Made Me Feel Welcome, And I Think It's My Duty To Do That, I Think It's My Duty To Get Him And Eventually Get Him Into The Book, The First 164 Pages Presented To Him, Just Like The 100 Presented It To Me, And My Sponsor Showed Me How They Presented It To Me, I Don't Think I Have The Right To Add To It Or Take Away From It, I Think It's Just The Way It Is, It Stood The Time For 70 Years, And So You Know, But I'm Also Here To Tell You That If You Here New, It Hadn't Always Been That Way, I'm Living Proof That You Don't Have To Do Everything, And Alcoholics Anonymous To Have This Thing Work, You See They Said To Have A Desire To Stop Drinking, I Didn't Have A Desire To Stop Drinking, I Had A Desire To Get Away From The State Troopers, I Had A Desire To Learn How To Drink And Not Have To Listen To Chin Music, I Figured Y'All Would Do More For Her, I Came In To Get Her Some Help Really, You know, as I, as I sat in the rooms, I, I learned so very much. I had, they said get
[00:45:02]
a sponsor. Now, to show you what's indicative of how I was feeling, we had an old man that said he'd been sober 29 years. Well, I, I met the old man. He was a CB. He'd been a boxer, a rough and tough drinker, just like I'd been. He drank a lot of, he was an old tavern drinker, and he'd been tough drinking. I knew he hadn't been sober 29 years, and if he could make you all believe that, I would, if he could make you believe that lie, I wanted what he had, because he was good, you know. Now, so I got close to this old man, and he couldn't drive at night, so I'd drive him everywhere he went, and I'd take him out of town, and when they'd give out the chips, I'd watch, and if I saw somebody get a desired chip or a 90-day chip, I'd go up and put my arm around them. I'd say, hey, man, you keep coming back. This thing really works. Between me and that speaker, we got almost 30 years on this thing. Now, the old man got on me. The way I learned to pray, I think, is a pretty, pretty sad way. You know, I came in one night, and I had a group of guys out front, and I had them all lined up, telling them some big lie, and I had a, if you're a good liar, I had them right in the palm of my hand. They're standing there with their mouth open, and I'm laying this on them, and he walks up to me and pecks me on the shoulder and said, boy, have you been praying? I said, yes, sir. He said, you're a damn liar. Now, he insulted me in front of the finest group I had listening a long time, you know, and I don't even know whether I went to the meeting or not. I jumped in the car, and I went home, and I prayed that old man to get drunk, and I'd get to give him his chip. Now, to my knowledge, that's the first prayer I ever made in AA. We had an old lady there, been sober forever, and she had answers to questions I had no idea about. She had answers to questions I wasn't even ever going to ask her, you know, but she's one of these that say, now, young man, before you drink, call my number, and I'd say, Taylor, you gave me that Tuesday. She said, you may have lost it. Take my number. Call me if you think about a drink. Well, I'd been out on the road traveling, and everything had gone wrong, and I called home, and the tin music, honey, I hung up on the tin music, and things aren't going well, and I stopped at the rest area, and I just said, well, I'll call Taylor, and I got that number out, and I called her, and I explained what was going on and where I was out there on the interstate at the rest area, and I said, I've got to travel by seven liquor stores before I can get home. There's no way I can do it, old woman. You said call you, but you want me to do it. She said, go out in the median and strip off naked and stand there until they take you to jail.
And I said, that danged old woman's crazy, and I hung up. You know, she'd insulted my intelligence, and I knew, I was so mad at her, I went right by every one of those liquor stores, you know. Well, we know, we know, you see what happened, and this is why I think it's so important to have a home group. That's the two things I did right was go to a meeting every night, and I got a home group, and I got in that home group, and I'd been there, and she'd been listening to me. You all were nice to me. You just listened to all my baloney until time came and Taylor had been listening. She knew, you see, all my life, I came in and I read your rules, wherever it was. I had enough sense to know since I was 12 years old, if you break the rules, more than likely you're going to get in trouble, but if you learn to bend them, you learn to find a way around them, you'll be all right. So what I was looking for was some kind of an excuse to lay on you some situation you didn't have covered so I could go get drunk and be different, and she'd been sitting in that home group with me, and she knew that, and she saved my life. Now, my sponsor got me by the hand, took me through the steps, and I learned a tremendous, I learned so much in the steps.
I guess the main thing, you know, I learned a lot about love and trust, but mainly I learned about me. I didn't realize that what I didn't know was about me. I didn't know what my capabilities were. I didn't know what my talents were. I didn't know what my limitations were. I
[00:50:01]
didn't know anything. I didn't know anything about me, and I think that's one reason that I probably drank. I didn't know who I was, and I had a fear probably of finding out, but the fourth and fifth step, they set me free enough to start, to make a start on putting my life back together, and I think that Dr. Silkworth said that you had to have a profound belief in a power greater than yourself to recreate your life, and I think that's what happened to me in the steps, and as I read that in that picture in that book, that got my attention. You know, it's not, this thing wasn't about just not drinking. It wasn't about just going to meetings. It wasn't about just learning to live with your human, with your neighbor. It was, if I was going to set about to recreate my life, that was a terrible, terrible, strong deal, and I had to have a God as I understood Him, so it started me thinking, and I did get through my steps, and things began to go well in my life, and you know, I'd been sober about seven or eight years, and I had held every office you could hold in the group, and I'd been DCM. I'd been state treasurer. If you looked at me, you'd think I was a poster child, but something was wrong. I knew that I didn't have deep down inside of me what some of you people had, that I could see the serenity on your face, that I just didn't have it, and I went to Jim, and I said, Jim, what do you think, what have I missed, you reckon? He said, well, I don't know what you might have missed.
He said, well, why don't you get back in the book and see if you can find out. Now, for this time, I'd been through big book studies on a regular basis. I'd been to Charlie and Joe big book studies. I'd been in the book, but it was the first time I ever got back in the book to use it as a textbook to find something in there that I could put to work in my life to fix something that I thought was wrong with me, and I found so many things in there that had a greater emphasis to me this time that I'd just kind of passed over before, but for instance, at the end of chapter four, it said God would disclose himself to us if we drew near to him, and you know, that sounded like a reasonable thing, and so I began to think, where can I be, where do I go to get close to God, and I tried a lot of things, but right here, right here in Alcoholics Anonymous is where I think I get as close to God as I'll ever be. That's just for me, and you see, every message that I've had, some messages I feel like I've had, some situations that I encountered that I think I was spiritually fit to handle, and it was God's work, and I feel good about that, and I think every message that I've ever received, I received from one of you alcoholics somewhere in one of these rooms, every message I've ever gotten from my higher power, so you see, when I come to an AA meeting, I'm just checking in to get my messages, and that, it works, works for me, it works for me, and I got proof, I can get away, if I get out on the road and I don't come back to my message center, I just get all fouled up. Now, I've had more trauma since I got sober than I ever had when I was, when I was drinking, maybe I remember it more, I don't know, but I'm the kind of drunk that absolutely couldn't, I just couldn't stand death, I didn't know what to do, it paralyzed me, I don't know whether it was fear or what, but the first thing I did was get drunk, if it was a deathly family, I got drunk, I was drunk when my mother died, I made an awful ass of myself, my daddy died, I made an ass of myself, and I just, you know, and I'd been married 35 years and 10 years to this Alan, 10 years in Al-Anon, and she died very suddenly, and three months later my sponsor died, six months later my sister died, I'd have never been able to get through any of that, if it hadn't have been for the power that I felt in the rooms, found in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and what made me think about where the power would be, is I had seen the old timers, and when they had trauma in their life, they tripled up on their Alcoholics Anonymous environment, they didn't tell me this, I noticed it, and so I tripled up on my, as I'd been shown how to do, I tripled up on my involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I contend to you today, that I still do this in every occasion, when something's, I come in here to get the power, and I have never failed to find the power to get me through anything that I need to get through, the power's in these rooms, all I have to do is ask for it, and talk to you about it, and I get the power to get through any situation.
I was very lonely after Nancy died, and because I was a regularly attending Alcoholics Anonymous, I met a real nice lady, Donna, and a lot of you know Donna, met Donna, and we were married
[00:55:05]
20 years, had a great AA marriage, and she died very suddenly two years ago, and so you see, God was good to this old drunk, I had 10 years of a happy marriage with an Al-Anon, I had 20 years of a happy marriage with an alcoholic, and I think it's all due to the fact that we always put the program and God as we understand Him first, that came first before anything else, we read and prayed together on a daily basis, and had a lot of help from you people.
I say all these things work probably a lot because of the company I keep, and I really believe that. Now, you know, just to show you there's a lot of hope, would you believe that six weeks ago I got married again, and I didn't figure you all would believe me, but I brought her. I brought her. Stand up, Judy. Judy's been sober five years, and we're embarking on this, it's almost like a new journey, and I'm sure that Alcoholics Anonymous will serve us well as it always has.
You know, I had that one son I told you about, and he has two children, and these grandchildren have never seen their granddaddy take a drink. One of them is 25, and one of them is 26. It's a boy and a girl, they're both successful, and thank goodness the disease didn't seem to get passed along to them, but they've never seen their granddaddy take a drink, and if I never get another reward out of Alcoholics Anonymous, that's enough right there to be grateful until the day I die.
And I tell you this, you know, that little girl asked me to come over and talk to her class on alcoholism, and they kind of, you know, they didn't broadcast that Pawpaw was an alcoholic, and I, you know, she heard me talk while she said, Pawpaw, I can't believe you've been in jail, you know. But she asked me to come over and speak to her school, and this made me feel real good, and I went over and I'm standing out there in the lobby of the school and waiting, and this little old gray-headed principal walked up to me and looked me right in the eye and said, Are you Allison's grandfather?
Now, do you think I'm ever going to know who I am? But, thank God I know what I am. I'm an alcoholic that's found a substitute for alcohol here in Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you all for letting me share this with you.