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Thank you. I'm Palmer Grace from Miami, Florida. And I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. More grateful at times than this, but I'm grateful. My home group is the Kendall Steppin' Up group in Miami, Florida. I came into this magnificent fellowship on March 5th of 1990, and I'm so grateful for that time. My open AA committed meeting is the Sunday night Pass It On group. And I do go to an open AA meeting once a week and have for years. And I'm grateful for sponsorship that has directed me to do that. I want to thank Menoi and the committee for asking me to speak. I tell you what, when I came to Canyon 15 years ago, I did not see this coming. I want to thank Greg. He's been a wonderful host, and I appreciate that. When Mary Jo sent us off looking for Cabin 19 yesterday, we took off and did some four-wheeling down there in my little Nissan and, you know, through the river and almost got stuck down there. And we finally figured out that there was no Cabin 19. And, you know, it's great having Greg there in Al-Anon, because I could go send him to ask where I was, you know, and have to admit that I was lost. And I don't know what Mary Jo, I don't know what she was thinking, sending a bunch of Al-Anon men down to the women's side of the, you know, all those women out at the Hog Center, and she's sending us Al-Anon men down there.

That's dangerous, dangerous drama. I'd also like to thank Robbie. Robbie came up from Miami, Florida with me to help support me and be here, and this is his first Canyon. Robbie, thank you for coming. I don't know how I got to Al-Anon. You know, I grew up in a home that… I grew up in a home I was loved. You know, I had one of those dysfunctional homes, too. And then, you know, my folks, my sisters loved me, and, you know, they paved the way for me. They were, they were, you know, they were kind, considerate. They were family, and they hugged on me, loved on me, and I was always less than. I was no good. You know, I grew up… My parents were both physicists, you know, and my sister was extremely bright, and I came up, and they were saying, why can't you be like her? You know? Why can't you be like her? And, you know, they didn't ever say that, but that's what I heard. I always felt less than. I felt alone, lonely, less than. I heard a guy speaking at Mountain High a couple of years ago, and he said, I missed the town meeting when they passed out instructions on how to live. I don't know. I just missed them. You know? I didn't know how to live. You guys are so smooth. You know how to do that. Your outside facade is so good, and you know what you're doing. You can sit and be friendly and talk to other people, and I'm sitting there. I don't know how to talk. I don't have to do anything, and there's just a wall built up between me and you. My parents, they bought alcohol by the case, but it would last for years and years. You know? I don't know how that happens anymore, but, you know, it just lasted, and there was no alcoholism in my family. The only time I saw abusive alcohol was in eighth grade when me and a bunch of buddies were downstairs in the basement, and we had malt liquor like Charlie's got on, and, you know, we just all got smashed and drunk, and, you know, we had a grand time. I loved it. The only problem is that I didn't like being sick, the throwing up, the hangover in the morning, and, you know, a lot of my that you can work through that and go beyond that. I couldn't do that, you know? But I liked you guys. You know, of those guys, I think probably three of them are either one of them is dead from alcoholism, a couple of them are alcoholics, and, you know, I love being around them. I just, magic happens, and, you know, alcoholics are exciting. I absolutely love alcoholics, and I attract them, you know? I just attract them. I do.

I was walking down the bottom when this guy came out, an old man, and he said, you know,

[00:05:01]

I've got a still up in the mountains, and I need somebody to run this for me. Would you run it? I'll give it to you. All you have to do is give me all I can drink. You know, I probably wouldn't have been a very profitable operation at that. Did we just lose the microphone? Good? Okay. You know, I don't know why, I don't know why, but he came out searching me out. I just love alcoholics, you know, and it's great.

When I graduated from high school, I left. You know, I just, that being alone always, I started looking for things. I moved from New Mexico to Portland, Oregon, and I fell in with a crowd that, you know, did a lot of drinking, and it was the 70s. We did a lot of inhaling and other substances, and, you know, I was one of them, and I lasted in college. We, you know, I lasted for two years, and then I left. You know, I just, college wasn't it. I just didn't have it. I didn't like it. I wanted to get out. There was the world out there. There was exciting stuff, and besides that, she had gone down to, you know, I don't know, a random ski, you know? She'd gone down to Haight-Ashbury, so I left and went to Haight-Ashbury, and proceeded to, you know, Haight-Ashbury. I lived there for a while, and I was a flower-toner, and, you know, but something was not right in Haight-Ashbury. I don't know what it was, you know, and I, well, I had a list of reasons at the time. This is not right. This is not right, but I was just, again, uncomfortable, alone, and something was missing, and so I had to go on, and I moved into a commune down in New Mexico, and I was, so I moved into this commune, and, you know, it was great, and again, you know, it was great. The people were fun. We were having a ball, you know.

There were a bunch of drunks that I could hang out with from the ghost town that we lived in, and so I'd hang out with them, and still, you know, feeling alone and lonesome, and I remember one time in the commune, you know, everybody was talking about love and how important that was, and so, you know, in a moment of weakness or honesty, I said, I don't feel loved. I don't know what it is. I feel alone and lonesome, and I'm not loved, and all these people, about 20 of them, picked me up, literally, and I was laid out, and they were rocking me. I don't know why, you know, they thought this would make me feel loved.

All that energy, I felt alone, lonely, less than, apart from, and not a part of. I don't know where that feeling came from, you know. I hear people say, you know, I've got issues, you know, and I don't know where it came from. I just, I just was, that's the way I was. It didn't come from my home. I was loved. It's just, there was something broken inside of me, and I didn't know what it was. Shortly thereafter, I left the commune. It wasn't working. You know, something, there's got to be something out there, and my mom was sick with, dying of cancer, and I, you know, I was self-centered, selfish. All I could think about was me, and I decided I need to go. So, I went by the hospital, and I said, I'm gone. I'm out of here. I've got to go to Virginia Beach. If I can go, I was going to go study under Edgar Cayce Foundation, and, you know, that would fix me. You know, there was something there that would fix me, and I left it. You know, I got out to Virginia Beach, and I was there studying, and mostly living on the beach, smoking dope, but, you know, I mean, but that was studying, you know, and the police came looking for me. Not a good thing when you're living in the commune, or, you know, with a bunch of hippies, and then, you know, we, but they came looking for me and said, you know, call home. So, I called home, and Mom had died, you know, and I was off alone. I mean, I was off being self-centered. So, I went back to New Mexico, and started, you know, I don't know. I just, I got an apartment. I was playing guitar in a coffee house, you know, every night for change, and being a street potter, and trying to put the house together, and I was out on the mason one night, and I just, I just was praying, and, you know, one of the last times I prayed, you know, I was thinking, God, I don't understand. Why, why am I so empty?

What is it that's going to fill me up? And I decided, I was reading this book that, you know, it talked about the Indians going up and doing a vigil, and I thought, you know, that's what I need to do. I'm going to get up and put all my stuff in storage, and I'm going to go up into the mountains, and live in the mountains for a while, and it seemed like the thing to do, because the Indians got filled doing this. I wouldn't, you know, maybe I can do that. I didn't know what a vigil was, but, you know, it sounded like

[00:10:00]

a good idea. Always looking, something out there, somewhere that's going to fill this hole in my gut, you know, that the cold wind blows. You know, I just tried everything. You know, sometimes I think that, you know, I wish the alcohol would work for me, but it didn't fill that hole. You know, it didn't fill it. So, I was playing my last gig in the coffee house one night before I put my guitar in storage, and I looked up, and I was playing a song, and she walked in the door. There's a few alums in here. You know who she is, you know. She walked in, and she got my attention, and I took a break, and I sat down and talked with her, and I don't know what it was. Something about her got my attention. The best way I can describe it that I know, Clancy talked one time, and I heard him, he talked about he wrote an advertisement for some vodka or other, maybe Absolute Vodka, I don't remember. He said it goes boom. They didn't understand what he was talking about.

I understand what he was talking about. You know, she went boom with me. We began a little courtship, five minutes, and we moved in together that night, and we're together for a lot of years, you know. Five minutes is a long courtship, I think, you know. That's right. Everything you need to know in five minutes. So, we moved in together. You know, God's got such a humor. Here, I'm on the end of a mesa, praying for wisdom, and he sends me an alcoholic.

And I commenced a search for wisdom that I just couldn't imagine. I had no vision of what was in store for me. You know, I'm sure there was not what Mom had in mind for me in my life. So, we moved off to the side of Mount Hood. I had a home there. We cut the lodge fold and set up my teepee on the side of Mount Hood. We started living in my teepee. Magical place to live. And for the first time in my life, I was healthy, whole. You know, when I was with her, I was funny. My abs were flatter, you know. The muscle man kind of came from the play last night. And, you know, it was okay. I was okay. That hole in my gut had closed up and I was okay. For about three months. And then it started opening up again.

And it was, of course, the place was not working. You know, there was a, we decided we were going to move over to take down the teepee and put it in the Volkswagen and drive across to eastern Oregon, just on the east side of the Cascades. And we found this little shack there and moved in there and just were living there. You know, we had no running water. We lived, pumped water out of the irrigation ditch, treated it. No electricity. We had candles and kerosene lamps. And it was great. And we got an outhouse, you know. I mean, I really enjoyed it. It was a great house. A mansion, you know. And my sister-in-law came up and dropped her kids on our doorstep. And she proceeded to go downtown and get a job in a bar as a barmaid and started drinking herself into oblivion. And I had my first brush with alcoholism. I didn't understand alcoholism. I didn't understand how she could do the things that she did. I had no clue that she was suffering from a disease called alcoholism. She wound up on the street with her wrist slit and her babies crying around her and the disease of alcoholism staring me in the face, staring her in the face. I didn't know what happened. We patched her back together and put her in a detox in Bend, Oregon. And I started hanging out with Bobbie Jo a lot. And she became a mentor toward me because she sobered up. My wife and I decided that we were going to take her children away because that would help her to stay sober. You know, I had no clue why we thought that the state would give us her children. You know, I mean, here we're living in a shack with no running water. We didn't have electricity. We had an outhouse, no job, broke, just a couple of hippies. But we thought, well, this is going to help her. You know, my wife was angry at her sister, angry. And so I got my first taste of vengeance, you know. That's one of the Al-Anon characteristics, some characteristics of character flaws. And I fell right into it, you know. But we patched Bobbie Jo back together. And I started sitting with her a lot, reading the big book with her.

I started relating it to my spiritual search and I could see the power of the book and

[00:15:13]

the power of that spiritual message in there, but it was for her, I didn't have a problem, she was an alcoholic and I could see that, nobody mentioned Al-Anon, it existed, this was in 72, 73, Al-Anon was in existence, but nobody told me about it, I wouldn't have gone if they did tell me because I really didn't have a problem at that time, she did, but I found that the one thing I took out of that which was haunting to me in later years was that if you find the right lover you can sober them up, you know we tried to take her kids and she got scared and sobered up, and somehow or other I clicked in my mind that we had done that through our actions, absolutely false, but that's what I thought, well Oregon quit working, you know she wasn't working so well either for me, the holes came back, and to tell you the truth frankly I wasn't working for her very well either, you know when, as Al-Anons are going down hill, we're not a lot of fun to live with, except for Vinon, tell you that, so anyway we decided that the thing that would fix us was to move down to northwest Arkansas, we lived on a farm and we moved down and we actually stopped in eastern Oklahoma and I bought a place over in eastern Oklahoma, 160 acre farm and way back in the mountains and this is where a guy was running a still back in eastern Oklahoma, and we proceeded to go down hill from the disease of alcoholism, I didn't recognize it, I didn't know what was going on, my second brush with alcoholism came with my father-in-law, he tapered on to this drunk and you know was one step away from the gutter in a flop house in Poto, Oklahoma, and I went down and found him in this flop house because he needed, he said you know Palmer you've got to take me to detox, so I went and got him and we left, he was going to take me to Wachowska, Oklahoma, and he said Palmer buy me a beer, I've got to have a beer, I said are you out of your mind, I'm taking you to detox, I don't want to buy you a beer, and you know he started coming in and I mean you know slobbering and everything else, but I understood that DTs were coming in and he was seeing things and he absolutely had to have a beer to get him between Poto and Wachowska, and I didn't quite know how to drive, so I bought him a beer and took him to Wachowska detox, again I didn't understand this abuse of alcoholism that I was seeing and this brush with that confusing and bewildering, I didn't understand his behavior, this was a man who weeks before had been you know breaking horses and here he was in a flophouse in just pitiful shape, I didn't understand it.

The alcoholic home, alcoholism is a family disease and it affects not only the drinkers but it affects us who live with the disease, and I'm not saying that the alcoholic affects us, I don't believe that it is you, I believe it is the disease of alcoholism because I suffer from that disease too. I came ready for it, when I came into the relationship I was already primed and ready and I already had the isms that responded to the disease of alcoholism just as you responded to the drink and I really believe that, I see that today.

I started doing absolutely crazy things you know and she was drinking and drugging more, I was drinking and drugging more, I tried to drink with her, I tried to not drink with her, I tried to buy it for her, I tried to not buy it for her, I went down to my buddy and got moonshine, maybe that would work for her and that didn't work for her so we went back to beer and I drive into town and it was like an hour drive down some really rough roads to buy a case of beer and bring it back so that she would be happy and you know I was trying everything that I could to make her happy and I came later to find as I was working the steps that it wasn't such a noble thing that I was doing to make her happy, I was trying to make her happy with every part of my being because if I could just make her okay, I would be okay again and she would say it wasn't to me and that hole would close up and life would be okay again and it wasn't nothing.

Nothing that I was doing was working and she told me one time, she said, Connor you know the reason that I'm unhappy is because you're working all the time and you're off on this job. If you would just quit the job and come home, I will be happy. Of course, if that will make you happy, I quit the job and I came home and it was broke

[00:20:03]

and she was unhappy because it was broke. That was me. I became a really good detective. The chapter to Wives describes my home. I mean it's just the insanity of the disease of alcoholism in my home is described and I hated that chapter when I came in. That chapter is sexist and I came out and I said, by God, don't they understand that there are women alcoholics and that some people live with them and man I hate that chapter and it was written in 1939 and it's antiquated and that's not why I hated it.

I didn't see that then. The reason I hated it is because it described my life and alcoholism tears a home apart. She was going out and the way she would get alcohol or drugs, whatever it was, there were affairs that happened and I'd go and I'd get sympathy. I don't know what it was but people would ask me how are you and I'd say I'm okay. I would play on that sympathy and I'd go out and have retaliatory affairs too.

It's like the disease took us down very fast and I remember it was a very slow ride because I'm convinced that had we gone just immediately down, I don't know. I don't know what I would have done. By the time we were one notch further down in this pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, I would think, well, this isn't so bad. I can put up with this and then we'd go one more increment down and just a little bit and we'd say, yeah, we can do this.

Yeah, I can handle this and pretty soon we were off in the pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization. I got real curious what she was doing. I had to know what she was doing, who she was doing with and I started being this detective and one time I went up and she was going to work this concert. Dave and Alan Coe was playing at this Turkey Creek Saloon outside of Red Oak, Oklahoma. They were so far back in the mountains they didn't even have electricity but they had generators to run the bar.

You know, you can't let them go off. I went up there. Actually, I loved that saloon. I was up there all the time, but this particular time I started on a security. Now, the problem is that I'm like Charlie. I'm a wimp, you know. And, you know, there's a lot of outlaws that come to that concert, you know, and I can just see, you know, I'll go up there. Excuse me, sir, would you please put that gun away?

But I would put myself in there because I could keep an eye out on her and make sure she was doing okay, you know. And one time I instructed to tell a story, you know, and she was up at the lake at this party and she's taking the truck. And, you know, I had to go up and see. I just had this bad idea. I was sitting at home and all of a sudden I had to go. I had no defense against that first prank, I guess.

I had a vehicle. So what do you do? Well, I hopped on my tractor. And I went up over this mountain and down this hairpin turn road using the engine to brake and it was loud and reverberating over this valley and they heard me coming for miles. And here I thought I was being sneaky, you know. So I did this drive-by sighting and I got up to the lake and there was nobody there, you know. And I thought, oh, okay, good, they went home, you know.

You know, you can't outfox them. You know, I thought I was being so sly and sneaky coming in on my tractor with no muffler. Absolute insanity. Absolutely insane behavior. And, you know, I decided what I needed to do was I needed to go back to school. You know, I'm a high school educationer. I was going to go to school and get my teaching certificate and I could stay home and take care of them and everything.

And I was so obsessed by this time with her and what she was doing and how she was doing it and could I fix her that I would drive from, I'm older than the University of Oklahoma, and I'd drive from Oklahoma down to Wilberton where the farm was. It's about a three-hour drive. And I'd go into this Al-Anon Brown house with my obsession. I would drive for an hour and I'd look up and how did I get here?

I had no memory of the drive for this last hour. And I'd be in McAllister. Where was the drive? Where was the drive? I don't know. And it was just insanity. And brutal, vicious fights, verbal fights in the house. You know, and I absolutely loved my best sponsor. I heard her one time and she said, her sponsor said,

[00:25:00]

why don't you keep your mouth shut? That never occurred to me. You know, I'd come walking in the house and when I'd come home and I was so sure that she was going to pick a fight that I'd walk in, you know, believe her and say, what are you going to pick a fight about today? You know, here I'm picking a fight. It never occurred to me to keep my mouth shut and say, oh, or you may be right. All the kids, I don't know, they were waiting on me.

You know, I didn't know that. So I just got crazier and crazier. And everything that I tried to make her okay was not working. I was out of options. Just out of options. I didn't know what to do. I didn't recognize the fact that she was alcoholic because she drank differently than the other people. And I was bewildered. I didn't understand. My mother-in-law came by one time and she pulled me aside and she said, hi, is she drinking a lot?

Is she drugging a lot? And of course, you know, we don't admit that. What would they think? No, Mom, she's not drinking. It was so important for me to look good to the neighbors. And I had to look good because something about being a man in an alcoholic relationship, I had to make her okay and our home okay. This was insanity in itself because everybody knew what was going on in our house. You can't live in a little community like that without everybody knowing exactly what you're doing, when you're doing it, and everything else.

They knew. We were going to go out to do some friends one night. And once we moved, they invited us over. We had one pair of friends left. They were leaving fast, too. We isolated. But they made a last-ditch effort, invited us over. And I said, okay, sure, we'll go. And at the last moment, my wife said, you know, I don't want to go tonight. I don't feel good. I want you to go. I said, sure, I'll go.

So I went down, and I had no memory of what the movie was because I was obsessed with her again. And I came home, and she cracked the door open and had a wiper sticking out. And she said, get out. Don't you ever come back. And if you take one step closer, I'll shoot you. I was terrified. You know, she meant it. She meant it. I know she did. But something had switched. That's the disease of alcoholism.

I didn't understand it. Something had switched because she was going, well, why don't you go, honey? I don't feel good. And the next moment, there was a rifle sitting out the door. And so I picked up and laughed, absolutely. And I went off to Arkansas, and then she contacted me with her attorney. And they were suing for divorce. And I said, what's going on here? I didn't go to much of watching movies.

Alcoholism was going on in my home. I didn't understand that. And so I came back in, and I hired a lawyer. And her lawyer called my lawyer and said, I want your client to come down to the office, and we're going to talk. And I went down to the office, and my wife was there. And she said, Paul, I need to talk to you. And I was scared again. I mean, God, this woman pulled a gun on me just a week and a half ago.

And she said, Paula, I don't know what was wrong with me. But please, I love you. Come home. I need you. Yeah, I mean, that's like a moonlight phenomenon. I need you, you know? I fired my lawyer on the spot and moved home. I had an abnormal reaction to the alcoholism. It never occurred to me, you know. Paula, what are you doing? I said, I'm home. She needed me. Things did not get any better, I tell you.

The funny thing about this story was that, you know, my need to be okay with the neighbors. I had to take the gun back. She was going to have to barter for my neighbor, my good friend. And I had to return this rifle to him and tell Jack at the same time that, you know, Jack, she just, you know, what she suffered from was PMS that night, Jack. And it was, you know, I mean, my God, I couldn't say it was alcoholism.

So I tried to put it off on PMS. And that didn't work, but I thought it did. The need to be okay with the neighbors. You know, at this point in time, we tried counseling. We tried self-help books. We tried, when I was a counselor and for weeks and everything, you know, they were together saying it was all my fault and I believed it was my fault. I believed that somehow what I was doing, I wasn't smart enough.

What I was doing, I wasn't smart enough, I wasn't handsome enough, I wasn't something enough, or I was too much something, I was making her drink.

[00:30:02]

And at the same time, when we were talking to this counselor, you know, we were just looking at me. We didn't say anything about alcohol and drugs in the home. I mean, my God, why would we want to admit that was in the house? You know, you don't want to admit that. You just decide counseling doesn't work. It certainly doesn't work if you don't tell them what's going on at home, you know. It's not going to work.

I finally came out to the point where I was just out of options. I didn't know. And my mother-in-law again pulled me aside, and she told me a story that I want to share with you because it was just what clicked for me. She said, Colin, there was a lady living with a guy who was just always drinking, just a bad alcoholic. And she was trying everything she could think of to make him stop. And she finally asked the guy, she said, what can I do to make you stop drinking?

And he said, you know, I believe that if you drank, I mean, if you would go out and dig up a dozen worms and farm, if I could eat those worms, I'll stop drinking. And so she went out and lovingly dug worms, big choice, fat worms, and brought them in and breaded them and lovingly fried them and brought them in and put them on a plate and gave it to him. He looked at her and said, you eat half and then I'll stop drinking.

So she lovingly cut him in half and ate her half and handed him the other half and he pleaded to go get a bottle of bourbon and get drunk. And she said, why? Why? I don't understand. I got the worms out, I dug them, and I ate them, and I've done everything you've asked, and you're getting drunk. Why? He said, you ate the wrong half. Everything that I tried, I ate the wrong half. I could not make anything happen.

I didn't understand that I was powerless over alcohol. I just gave up. I didn't understand. And my mother-in-law and my sister from Oregon, the one that I read the big book, they kept telling me, Palmer, you've got to call Al-Anon. You've got to call Al-Anon. Palmer, call Al-Anon. And finally, one Thursday night after this brutal, wicked fight over the phone, while she was in the farm in Wilmington and I was studying at the University of Oklahoma, and we had this wicked fight, I didn't know what else to do.

I picked up the phone, and I called the Phoenix group. I couldn't find Al-Anon. I called AA. And thank God for the Phoenix group and groups like that. And he picked up the phone, and he handed the phone to somebody in Al-Anon, and she said, Palmer, come on in. I think we can help you. So I left and went home that weekend because their meetings were Monday and Wednesday, and so I couldn't come Sunday.

So Monday, I had hope. I had hope. They said they could help me. They could help fix her. And so I had this sense of hope. Monday, March 5th of 1990, I walked into a gray house, the Phoenix group in Norman, Oklahoma, and I was blubbering and crying, and it was all about she. You know, she's this, and they just called me to sit down and bring me a cup of coffee. Some of you were there that night. Some of the people that I just dearly loved in this assembly today were there when I first walked into my first meeting.

I didn't feel a lot, but I heard that it's okay to love an alcoholic. One of the things that I heard was that I didn't cause her drinking, that she suffered from a disease called alcoholism, and I didn't know that. I do not know that. And he took me very slowly into an understanding that I didn't cause her to drink. Not my fault. That I couldn't cure her. I love the ABCs. You know, I'm the B part. That probably no human power could have eluded them of alcoholism.

I can't do that. I can't cure her. I heard those three things that first night. I heard it's okay to love an alcoholic, but the thing that I heard most was that I don't understand the theme. I just walked in, and I knew I was home. I knew that I was safe, and I knew that I was home. I'm following you. I was still upset. I was still fearful. I was still all of the stuff. I had all of the isms, but I could see that you guys had a solution that I wanted.

I mean, you guys were laughing about it. Talking about alcoholism. Let's keep it up. That's the key, because everybody in there was a woman. I didn't know it would mean Al-Anon.

[00:35:03]

I didn't know. I started feeling different then because I thought, you know, you guys don't understand because now it's different for a man. My case is different. You know, that terminal uniqueness. One of the old timers pulled me aside one night. She said, Potter, I want you to listen for similarities. Stop listening for differences. Thank God for that because I started hearing that every woman in there was telling my story.

It was the same thing. It was like the chapter of the wife. That's my story. It doesn't matter what the pronouns are, whether it's him or her or anything else. It's my story. I just fell into Al-Anon. I mean, my God. I went for seven, eight meetings a week. You know, I continued in school, and I continued, and I did meetings, and I just grabbed ahold of everything I was worth and started going to big book studies.

I loved this one open big book study on Sunday night, and I went there faithfully with a triangle group and just learning that book. I loved the big book. I just loved that book. And I started getting some sense of peace a little bit. Now, she, on the other hand, didn't like that. They don't like it when we get into Al-Anon. You know, it's threatening. They're sure that we're talking about them, I guess.

I don't know. I don't know. But she didn't like it. She tried every way she could to dislodge me from Al-Anon, and I just hung on for all it was because I could see. I just understood this was my solution, and this was my last chance. And I didn't get a lot better because I think I had just submitted, not surrendered. I went home finally one time down to the farm in June, and we had another wicked fight, and she was standing over me with her butcher knife, and I was laying down on the couch.

And she said, Paul, you're going to have to go to sleep, and when you do, you're a dead man. And I reached such a state of despair that I didn't care. I just rolled over and went to sleep. You know, the big book talks about the four horsemen, bewilderment, terror, frustration. That's four of them. Yes, thank you. Those four horsemen visit us in Al-Anon too, the family members. You know, I understand that the alcoholic can wake up from a blackout in that pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization, and we understand that.

But the four horsemen also visit the family member. You know, I was in despair. And I woke up in the morning and I understood that finally that I had committed suicide. You know, she was the instrument. It had not been successful, obviously. But I had gotten to the point where I didn't care anymore, and it was at that point that I finally surrendered. I finally said, I am powerless. I just, I give up.

And I left. I packed up. I left the farm. I left my son. And I got in my truck and I left for Norman, Oklahoma. And I didn't want to spend two years. I just knew that I could no longer stay in that home. I just could not stay. God's magic is just amazing. I pulled into a house in Norman, Oklahoma, and a friend of mine said, did you know the university called yesterday looking for you? I said, well, why would they call you?

They don't know that I know you. And they said, well, let's call them. We need to call the college education back. And I called them and I said, you know, you need to be doing your student teaching this semester, this coming fall. And you have no paperwork set up. Where are you going to teach? And I said, I'm teaching in Wilberton, Oklahoma. I've already got my pedigree done, and I've got it set up.

I'm teaching down there. And they said, no, you're not. You've got to do a lot of work to teach that part of the university, and it's not in your file. And I said, yeah, it is. It's in my file. Look in my file. And they said, we don't have a file on it. It's gone. It just disappeared. Nobody ever figured out what happened to it. But I had done all the work. And they said, but, you know, we just got the name of a guy at Norman High School who will take you as a student teacher.

Why don't you teach in Norman, Oklahoma? That's got to work in my life, because I didn't have a home anymore. Why would I want to teach in Wilberton, Oklahoma by far? So I had to move into Norman, Oklahoma, and I could do my student teaching and go to meetings. I went to 10, 15 meetings a week. Just every time I wasn't at school, I was in a meeting. And it was just amazing and wonderful.

[00:40:02]

I am so grateful for the old-timers in that meeting. They just took me in and hugged me and loved me. And, you know, that's an amazing thing. That's an amazing, powerful love, both in AA and in Alamo, because when I walked in, I didn't look very good. You know, they say that I looked a lot like Charlie Manson, and I think I did. There was no light in my eyes, you know, scruffy long hair and a beard.

Mary Jo says that every year I stayed in, my beard and hair got a little bit shorter. But what you guys did for me was you just kept loving me. You grabbed me at the door and hugged me and said, keep coming back. And you fanned that flame just a little bit at a time. And at the end that it was dead, it started flaming up and becoming a flame, and I became something that I had something to give back.

And you took me and you said, I want you to do a service. And, you know, I watched ashtrays at the famous group for, you know, quite some time. And when I came through town one time, and, you know, you don't argue, but when she got this look in her eye and said, pardon me, you're a greed. You know, she saw something in me. I was alone. I was still alone and lonesome, and there was a wall between me and you, and I was scared.

And she said, come 30 minutes early and stick your hand out and greet people. And so I, yes ma'am, you know, you don't argue with her. So I came and I showed up 30 minutes early, and I started shaking your hand. Something magical happened to me in that, because as I was shaking your hand saying I'm glad you're here looking at your shoes, I was starting to feel glad you were here. And I had a part in the group, and I became a part of the group.

And as the weeks progressed of me shaking your hand, my eyesight went from your feet up to your face, and pretty soon the feeling arrived that I really was grateful that you were here. Why? Why not? Because you saved my life. Why wouldn't I be grateful that you're here? Gratitude is such a powerful tool. When I first came in and I was homeless, I had a truck and a spare pair of jeans and my guitar and little axe.

My first sponsor, and I got a sponsor because everybody was saying, you got a sponsor yet? You got a sponsor yet? And so finally I asked the guy in a moment of weakness to be my sponsor. And the first thing he said was, you know, I want you to do a gratitude list. And I said, what do you mean? He said, I want you to write down one thing for which you're grateful. And I thought and thought and thought that night, and I couldn't figure anything grateful.

Finally I wrote it down. I'm grateful that I only have to write one damn thing on my gratitude list. And I included the accident. And I took it back to him thinking, well, that's the end of that. You know, I don't have to write a gratitude list anymore. And he said, Paul, that's great. Now I want you to write two things. The magic, again, happened for me because I found out that as I proceeded to start writing things about which I'm grateful, I started to feel some sense of gratitude.

And that is an incredible lesson for me. I found out that all of the insane things that my sponsor has told me to do over the years, I trust the process and I use it. Sometimes I moan and whine and gripe about it, but I will do the things because usually when I take the action, the feelings follow. And that's an amazing lesson. I heard somebody from the podium one time say that you just can't think you're in a good, and you act you're in a good thinking.

And so the program for me has been a series of actions. And when my sponsor says do this thing, although I may not always do it willingly, I do it. And just amazing results have followed. So I continued in the program. I got to the fourth step, and I looked and I realized that, you know, I kept bringing it back. What's your part in this? What's your part in this? And I started to see that, indeed, you know, when I said that alcoholics aren't, I'm a pre-alcoholic, they're not a lot of fun to live with.

You know, I had a lot of part in the alcoholism in our home. You know, they said that we can't, you know, can't prod it, can't cure it, can't control it. But, you know, my sponsor says, well, you could damage something, make them thirsty. And I said, maybe thirsty. And I had to, I took that to the eighth and ninth step. And I realized, although I was never going to make amends to her, that I had a lot of amends to make.

And, you know, I couldn't imagine making amends to my first wife. I just couldn't imagine it. And that's my first one. I just couldn't imagine it. My father had me praying that she'd be happy, joyous, and free. And I thought, you know, you ought to stand. He said, I don't care. I want you to pray every night for a month that she'd be happy, joyous, and free. And I did that. And some of that terror, and some of that anger, and some of that resentment started to diminish.

[00:45:00]

But it didn't finish the process. I mean, I had to actually go ahead and face-to-face make amends. I love that process. You know, I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a process. It's a process. It's a process. It's a process. It's a process. It's a process. And I continued to send it, and send it, and send it. And that was part of my amends to make to her. And I'm going to jump ahead here, because as I continued to make amends, finally I met her in Florida, you know, after I'd moved down there.

And I continued face-to-face amends. And one of the most amazing parts of the program for me is that three weeks ago, I was in a hospital with my son, and my ex-wife, and my wife, for the birth of my first grandchild. And you know, it's the magic of the program, putting our lives back to good, putting the family back to good to the point where we could all be in the same room and bless the arrival of this child.

What an amazing gift from just doing the next step. Just doing the next step. I'd been in the program for about three years. My sponsor had left. You know, I don't know where he went. He just, you know, he kind of graduated and left. And I was a three-year wonder. I decided, you know, I can sponsor myself. I know all about this program. And I had planned that, and I'm the worst sponsor in the world.

So I came out sponsoring myself. And during that time, I met this earth gal. She was an earth gal. You know, she wasn't one of us. And she didn't drink. She didn't need a program. And we started dating. And we had a good courtship. You know, we didn't move in together. And we got married. And I noticed on the honeymoon, she was drinking a lot. And we got home from the honeymoon. And she started drinking more and more.

I don't understand it. You know, I was sitting out here at the canyon. And I was in the golf cart riding with Pat Clayton. And we're stopping. And, you know, I said, Pat, I don't understand it. You know, I think I may have been an alcoholic. And, you know, Pat got this loving look on her face. And, you know, I just love Pat Clayton. And she said, Hon, sometimes their hands just fit the holes in our head.

And I understood. You know, yeah, I'm a carrier, but I infected her with alcohol. But I had indeed made her an alcoholic. And it is amazing to me the difference, however, between my first and second experience. You know, my current wife wants me to emphasize the fact that there's wife number one and wife number two, that she's not the one with a gun. She's never owned a gun at all. So she wants me to say that for her.

She's in the big loop. You know, she's one of the women that goes downhill fast. In a couple of very short years, she was drinking alcohol, blackout drinking. And a very sick woman. I came home one afternoon, and she was passed out, O.D. on drug and alcohol mixture. And we called the ambulance and took her to the hospital. And she was in the hospital. And I called you. And my sponsor was up there. You guys were out there with me, locking me and holding me.

And what a remarkable thing. The difference in living with the family disease and alcoholism being in the program versus not in the program. I'm so grateful for that. Because, you know, you helped me walk through that in a way that I couldn't have imagined before. It promises us in our opening that we can be happy where the alcoholic is still drinking alcohol. And that's true. I was happy. I was surrounded by you who loved me.

[00:50:03]

And thank you for being there. Thank you for being there. You know, they had her on a, they pumped her stomach. And I thought, you know, this will sober her up. It did for a short period of time. Well, actually, I think that's the time she put a year together before she was again drinking. And amazing that the pathway down, you know, the disease continues while she was not drinking. Because the next time she started drinking, in about two weeks, she was again in the hospital.

And on a breathing machine this time. I didn't know she was going to live or die. And one of you was there with us, bringing me coffee and taking care of her. And, you know, I'm so grateful for him being there as one of the nurses. And, you know, she had crossed the line where she had lost the power to drink or not. You know, she didn't want to drink and she was drinking. She'd find herself struck by how did I get here.

And I could see that happening. And I just kept on going. This doesn't mean that I wasn't affected. I was certainly affected. There were a lot of days when I called my sponsor and I'm, man, I'm angry and she's drunk again. And I've been inventorying on why she's drinking it. But I had you and I could walk through it. I had graduated with my bachelor's from OU. And I guess I have to share this because they offered me a fellowship to go back to graduate school.

And I was thinking, man, I'm in my late thirties, you know. I don't want to go to graduate school. I'm six years and I graduated. I want to be old. I heard Clint Hodges speak. And he had an offer to go to law school. And he went to his sponsor and said, you know how old I'll be in five years when I finish law school? And his sponsor laughed and said, how long will you be in five years if you don't go to law school?

And when Clint shared that, it was like, oh, I couldn't do that. Sure. And thank God for that because, you know what, I was given the opportunity to go to school one day at a time and go to meetings one day at a time and just live and breathe and eat in the program and study with you, study the big books, study the online literature and just be in meetings and just grow and recover. And I'm so grateful for that time.

They kicked me out of the University of Oklahoma with a PhD. I don't understand that, you know. You don't get from benign overview and despair and bewilderment to walking away with a PhD without a miraculous invention. And I thank you for that because you were the ones who gave that to me. I called my sponsor and, you know, I called him up and I remember I was whining, you don't want me to write a whole book and, you know, quality whining is what I said.

And Steve said, have you gotten the first page yet, Tom? Well, no. I said, why don't you try the first page? You know, I'm amazed at the principles of the program. When I will apply them to my life, every aspect of my life, I just, things happen. You know, I went one day at a time. I took one exam at a time. I took one, you know, one paper at a time. No, one page at a time. And walked out with a PhD.

And I got a job offer from a university. I'm on the faculty of a university in Florida. How did that happen? How did you see that coming? One of my good friends in the program says, who the fuck is it? You know, she watched me progress from the Tommy Manson kind of guy to what you see today. Who the fuck is it? It was such an amazing opportunity. I want to share one thing. You know, I had a men's clinic.

And I shared the miracle. I mean, it was a miracle, magical, that I was able to be in a hospital. And my grandson was born. My granddaughter was born, you know, three weeks ago. But I had left my mom dying in the hospital of cancer. You know, I've been selfless, self-centered. My disease is that I'm selfish and self-centered. That's really my problem. And I carried that guilt around. And, of course, what we do is we write it on the list and we go and make a mansion.

And my foster told me, you know, I need to go away. And I, too, went down to the gravesite and started cleaning up the gravesite, sitting with my mom, talking and reading the letter to her.

[00:55:03]

And making a mansion, the best I knew how. Once again, taking the action. I had no belief that it would work, none at all. I walked down to the canyon. I was walking through the canyon in Los Alamos, New Mexico. And my mom's oldest friend, dearest friend, saw me. And she said, Paul, what were you doing today? And I said, oh, just hanging out. She said, no, really, what were you doing? And I said, well, I don't know.

She said, Paul, what were you doing? Her question was bizarre in itself, but she was so intense, she was so driving, she was drilling again and again. And I finally said, well, Becky, I left my mom. I abandoned her in the hospital at the bottom of the canyon. And I needed to make a mansion. And I described a little bit about what making a mansion was. And she just laughed. She said, Paul, I talked to your mom after you left.

And she was overjoyed that you had left She did not want you to see her going down and dying. I mean, that's miraculous again, that I would meet her oldest friend after making these amends. God set this up. I am not embarrassed that God set this up, because I was immediately released from jail. I was accused at a meeting not long ago of being part of the God Squad. I said, oh, yeah? What's that? And she said, you don't have an hour to talk about God.

You know, that's a remarkable statement for me. Because I came into the program, and I didn't believe in God. And my sponsors had told me to pray. And I got to the third step. I almost left the program. I almost left it. You know, it talks in chapter of the agnostic about that dilemma of, would you rather be doomed to an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis? And I did that debate, you know?

Doomed. What a word. Doomed to an alcoholic death, you know? And I understand that, because here the bitch of life owes me. And here I'm debating, you know, do I want to go back there? Or do I really want to live on a spiritual basis? Do I want to believe in God? Do I want to get down on my knees and say the third step prayer? And I'm doing the debate. That's insanity, what I was doing. And it took me a little bit further in the chapter when it says, do you believe or are you willing to believe in a power greater than yourself?

And I had to say that, you know, I'm willing. Because I looked at him and I said, you guys are laughing. You have something that I want desperately, and it all comes from taking the third step. So I was willing. And from that loose spot of willingness, I go to where I'm accused of being part of the God squad. You know, I have developed a relationship that I just can't describe with God today. Going from being willing to, and, of course, you know, you come in here to find God doesn't mean I want to.

So you are God. You are my higher power. The power in that room of wise people who are helping me with my higher power, and you serve very well until I've got a relationship with a different God. And, you know, thank God for that. I don't know what I would do today without that. You know, you gave me instructions to hit my knees every day and say prayers. And I said, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.

And he said, okay, I want you to put your shoes under your bed, and when you get down in the morning to get your shoes out from under your bed, hit your knees and say, God, thank you. And that's the only way I could hit my knees and say a prayer was getting my shoes out. You know, I hit my knees every day today. But I had to start small steps. I had to be willing to do the small things that you taught me.

Thank you for that. You know, I am so grateful that I came into a program where the Alcoholics Anonymous blessed Al-Anon and said, you're the family. You understand. Please, come on in. Thank you for that. Thank you for answering the phone. Because I don't know what I would have done had somebody from Phoenix did not pick up the phone, not been there that day, and handed the phone to Al-Anon and said, come on in.

Every time I had come down to Canaan, you guys have hugged me and blessed me and been kind to me. I am so grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. And there's nothing that AA cannot come after me that I am not glad to do for you for giving me my life. You know, I don't know how to pay you back for what you have given to me.

[01:00:18]

I absolutely love the Dr. Kenyon conference. I mean, I love this conference. I've been coming here for years. I love sponsorship. It's so apparent here in this room, in this tent. You know, I come down to the Kenyon, and I work with my sponsor, and I see my sponsor working with his sponsor, and I see Genora working with her sponsor. And, you know, together, those have over 100 years of program experience that they're passing down to me and that I can pass on in turn to the guys I sponsor.

And we don't see that everywhere in the country. You know, we don't see that strong sponsorship everywhere. I don't see it in Florida a lot. And so I'm grateful. Every time I come back to Kenyon, man, I get charged up with enthusiasm, and I can take that enthusiasm back to my group, and they can laugh at me because I'm so enthusiastic and everything. But thank you so much for that wisdom and seeing the sponsorship.

That's important here. Classy says that every pocket of enthusiasm that he sees around the country, there is strong sponsorship. And that's why I think that we have, I think that he's right, I think that's why we have a pocket of enthusiasm in this Kenyon today is because of strong sponsorship, taking direction, because God knows we don't know how to run our own life. I cannot do this alone. I need your help.

Absolutely, I need your help, because my better ideas just suck. You know, I don't have the wisdom to say anything. My wife has got it now. She picked up a six-year survival tip. We were speaking at a couple at a conference not long ago, and I heard her, and it was just so amazing. Years ago, Thanksgiving dinner, we had the kids down, and we were going to have Thanksgiving dinner, and she got struck in the rock that day and burned Thanksgiving dinner.

I was furious. I didn't talk to her about it. I called my sponsor, because that's what I'm going to do. And I was just furious. She had burned Thanksgiving dinner. And I went ahead and put Thanksgiving together and did something. I don't remember what. I don't know what it was. It was better than one step up from heated money and jelly sandwiches, but we had a Thanksgiving dinner. And my wife was sharing about one of the things that hit her bottom.

And she said, I was in the hospital twice drinking, and that wasn't good. You know, that's none of them sober up. She said, but what really bothered me was one Thanksgiving, I burned Thanksgiving dinner. I passed out and burned dinner for my family. And that was the beginning of her bomb. You know, I don't see things very clearly. I didn't have no clue that that would be her bottom. But that was enough.

You know, things that I think are good for me or bad for me, things that I think are horrible for me, turned out to be the best thing that I could imagine. My wife's got six years of sobriety now. And she's a neat member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I have duty thanks for that, too, because when she was finally ready to come to AA, I was able to bring her, take her by the hand and bring her and set her hand in one of y'all.

She's sitting over here tonight. And grandma took her and started guiding her in the steps. And you guys took her. Because I can't. You know, probably no human power could affect her alcoholism. I certainly couldn't. But, you know, we laugh about it now because every once in a while she's sitting with one of her gals and, you know, we hear Sheila talking to her or we hear Ruth talking to her. You know, she's banging on the big hook and telling these gals to do this.

And, you know, I thank you for that. That's a miracle. It's truly a miracle. Well, I thank you more because I'm there alive and well and active in the program of Al-Anon because of the miracle that you've given me. And I just thank you for that miracle. I want to close with a we talk a lot about there but for the grace of God. I hear that all the time. There but for the grace of God. And I was at a funeral for the father of a very good friend of mine in Lawton, Oklahoma, several years ago.

And the minister was talking about grace. And I realized when I put it together. They went for the grace of God. Do I have grace of God? No. I didn't know what grace was. So I had to go look it up. And then I got Wes's dictionary and I looked it up. It says unmerited divine assistance given to man for his regeneration or sanctification.

[01:05:03]

What's that? So I had to go look up sanctification. I don't know what sanctification is. I followed that and it says to be set free. That's what we have here today is unmerited. I didn't do anything to earn being here. And we see people who are not here this year. They were here last year. I didn't do anything to still have my place here. It's just a gift from God for me to be set free. And that's exactly what you've done for me is to set me free from the fame and disease of alcoholism.

And I thank you so much for that gift. Thank you. Thank you. What is it? It is a wonderful present. Now we'll close with the Lord's Prayer.