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const vttText = “WEBVTTnn1n00:00:05.729 –> 00:00:06.740nMy name is Jay Plumbec.nn2n00:00:06.740 –> 00:00:07.639nI’m an alcoholic.nn3n00:00:07.639 –> 00:00:09.529nHi, Jay.nn4n00:00:09.529 –> 00:00:10.060nHi, everybody.nn5n00:00:10.060 –> 00:00:13.279nI’m really glad I’m here tonight.nn6n00:00:13.279 –> 00:00:16.660nReally glad to be here.nn7n00:00:16.660 –> 00:00:26.530nI, I remember getting a call from Tammy, and, uh, Tammy and I had a number of conversations over the past months, and, uh, I was so, so looking forward to meeting her.nn8n00:00:26.530 –> 00:00:32.600nAnd then I got a call this past week from, from Liz, and she said that, uh, there’d been a tragedy in Tammy’s family.nn9n00:00:32.600 –> 00:00:38.399nAnd for those of you who don’t know it, you know, if we could maybe have a moment of silence for Tammy and her family.nn10n00:00:38.399 –> 00:00:42.659nThere’s four members of this committee that aren’t here tonight because their father died.nn11n00:00:42.659 –> 00:00:44.659nFather, father-in-law died.nn12n00:00:44.659 –> 00:00:50.119nAnd also for Glenn, the treasurer of the committee, his dad died last night.nn13n00:00:50.119 –> 00:00:51.880nSo if we just take a moment.nn14n00:00:51.880 –> 00:01:01.679nAnd I’m sorry they’re not here, but I’m glad you’re here.nn15n00:01:01.679 –> 00:01:07.900nAnd I’m glad that before this meeting started, I went downstairs and had a cigarette.nn16n00:01:07.900 –> 00:01:17.900nNo, I’m glad I went down there because when I went down there, I realized whynn17n00:01:17.900 –> 00:01:18.420nI’m here.nn18n00:01:18.420 –> 00:01:20.560nI didn’t come here to talk.nn19n00:01:20.560 –> 00:01:24.840nI came here to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that’s what I am.nn20n00:01:24.840 –> 00:01:29.219nAnd I went downstairs, and there was a guy there, and it was a new guy there, and I didn’t know he was a new guy.nn21n00:01:29.219 –> 00:01:30.900nHe was just a guy there with a can of beer.nn22n00:01:30.900 –> 00:01:35.400nAnd, and he said, “I don’t know if I should go up or not go up.” And I said, “Yeah, come up.nn23n00:01:35.400 –> 00:01:50.920nYeah, come up.” He said, “I don’t want to drink.” I said, “Well, come on up.” He said, “What do I do with this beer?” I said, “Hell, drink it.” Younn24n00:01:50.920 –> 00:01:52.959ntalk to a new person, you tell them to throw it out.nn25n00:01:52.959 –> 00:01:53.680nYou’re crazy.nn26n00:01:53.680 –> 00:01:54.599nTell them to drink it.nn27n00:01:54.599 –> 00:01:55.260nBy God.nn28n00:01:55.260 –> 00:01:58.680nBut he’s up here tonight, and I ain’t gonna tell you who he is.nn29n00:01:58.680 –> 00:02:02.340nBut if you’re shaking hands with people after this meeting, you’ll find him yourself.nn30n00:02:02.340 –> 00:02:09.620nHe’ll be the guy with the hand like I had when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous.nn31n00:02:09.620 –> 00:02:14.659nThat hand is cold and scared and doesn’t know if it belongs because that was my hand when I got here.nn32n00:02:14.659 –> 00:02:16.439nYou see, I didn’t know what I was when I got here.nn33n00:02:16.439 –> 00:02:17.780nI didn’t know if I was an alcoholic.nn34n00:02:17.780 –> 00:02:18.819nI didn’t think I was.nn35n00:02:18.819 –> 00:02:20.800nI didn’t know what an alcoholic was.nn36n00:02:20.800 –> 00:02:23.419nI was just a guy that thought he might have a problem drinking.nn37n00:02:23.419 –> 00:02:30.620nYou know, I mean, hell, I had stuff going on with me long before I ever took a drink that’s a part of alcoholism, but it didn’t make me an alcoholic.nn38n00:02:30.620 –> 00:02:32.099nJust made me screwed up as hell.nn39n00:02:32.099 –> 00:02:34.199nI didn’t get along.nn40n00:02:34.199 –> 00:02:34.560nI’ve heard…nn41n00:02:34.560 –> 00:02:38.340nYou know, all the speakers I’ve heard have told great stories, and I identify with every one of them.nn42n00:02:38.340 –> 00:02:43.219nWith Jess Uppy last night, with the gals today, and again, I mean, every speaker I’ve identified with.nn43n00:02:43.219 –> 00:02:45.280nYou know, I enjoy the Al-Anon talks.nn44n00:02:45.280 –> 00:02:47.080nI’ve enjoyed it all, and I identify.nn45n00:02:47.080 –> 00:02:51.239nBut before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn’t identify with a damn thing.nn46n00:02:51.239 –> 00:02:53.039nI just thought I was normal.nn47n00:02:53.039 –> 00:02:55.020nLet me tell you what normal was.nn48n00:02:55.020 –> 00:02:58.439nNormal meant I was mad as hell, and I didn’t know I was mad.nn49n00:02:58.439 –> 00:02:59.240nI was normal.nn50n00:02:59.240 –> 00:03:03.719nI didn’t know I was mad till I was sober a year and a half, taking an inventory.nn51n00:03:03.719 –> 00:03:07.580nI– Well, the way that happened, I was at my home group.nn52n00:03:07.580 –> 00:03:08.780nIt was in West Resparron.nn53n00:03:08.780 –> 00:03:11.500nIt’s a Big Book group in West Palm Beach, Florida.nn54n00:03:11.500 –> 00:03:13.319nAnd I was at that group, and I, uh…nn55n00:03:13.319 –> 00:03:22.060nIt was a book study group, and, and much like was said last night, what I do is go across town to hear wise comments, and then I come back to my group and parrot them as though they were mine.nn56n00:03:22.060 –> 00:03:28.520nAnd I was at that group sort of saying what I heard the night before about something I’d never done but sounded good.nn57n00:03:28.520 –> 00:03:32.340nAnd after the meeting, a guy took me aside, and he put his arm around my shoulder.nn58n00:03:32.340 –> 00:03:33.360nHis name was John.nn59n00:03:33.360 –> 00:03:40.400nAnd he said, “Jay, I love you, but you’re a phony, and you’re about to get drunk.” And God, I hated him.nn60n00:03:40.400 –> 00:03:45.680nAnd he took me home with him that night, and he sat me down on the stoop of his trailer.nn61n00:03:45.680 –> 00:03:48.699nI’m sorry, his manufactured home.nn62n00:03:48.699 –> 00:03:58.819nBack when I had a four thousand square foot house on the sixteenthnn63n00:03:58.819 –> 00:04:00.199nfairway, they were trailers.nn64n00:04:00.199 –> 00:04:03.020nI live in one now, and they’re manufactured homes.nn65n00:04:03.020 –> 00:04:04.659nIt’s all perspective.nn66n00:04:04.659 –> 00:04:08.759nBut he lived in Loxahatchee, Florida.nn67n00:04:08.759 –> 00:04:12.599nHe sat me down on the stoop of that thing, and he began to talk to me about Alcoholics Anonymous.nn68n00:04:12.599 –> 00:04:17.040nNow, mind you, I’d been active in Alcoholics Anonymous since March the eighth of nineteen seventy-four.nn69n00:04:17.040 –> 00:04:18.240nThat’s my sobriety date.nn70n00:04:18.240 –> 00:04:22.779nI’ve been sober from then till now through the grace of God and the help of you people.nn71n00:04:22.779 –> 00:04:31.399nBut my program of Alcoholics Anonymous for that period of time of a year and a half consisted of activity.nn72n00:04:31.399 –> 00:04:32.839nI was active in my home group.nn73n00:04:32.839 –> 00:04:34.259nI did everything in that home group.nn74n00:04:34.259 –> 00:04:37.360nI made coffee, lousy coffee, but I made it.nn75n00:04:37.360 –> 00:04:38.860nI cleaned the ashtrays.nn76n00:04:38.860 –> 00:04:41.920nWe had ceramic cups, and you had to wash them, and that would be my job.nn77n00:04:41.920 –> 00:04:43.100nI set up the meeting.nn78n00:04:43.100 –> 00:04:43.860nI tore it down.nn79n00:04:43.860 –> 00:04:45.139nThey let me chair some meetings.nn80n00:04:45.139 –> 00:04:47.658nI was everything in that group except treasurer.nn81n00:04:47.658 –> 00:04:54.480nThat’s almost twenty-eight years, I still ain’t been treasurer.nn82n00:04:54.480 –> 00:04:59.339nMaybe there’s a message there.nn83n00:04:59.339 –> 00:04:59.990nI’m not sure.nn84n00:04:59.990 –> 00:05:03.720nBut, but anyhow, I was sort of a poster child in Alcoholics Anonymous.nn85n00:05:03.720 –> 00:05:05.839nEverything but the steps working in my life.nn86n00:05:05.839 –> 00:05:10.319nAnd this guy explained to me for the very first time the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous.nn87n00:05:10.319 –> 00:05:18.160nYou see, when I got here, I knew my drinking was different, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that I had that thing that made me different than social drinkers.nn88n00:05:18.160 –> 00:05:21.519nI had that phenomena of craving that would occur when I took a drink.nn89n00:05:21.519 –> 00:05:26.139nIt meant that when I would never have e– have enough, but I’d always have too much.nn90n00:05:26.139 –> 00:05:27.199nIt just was crazy.nn91n00:05:27.199 –> 00:05:28.800nI never understood that.nn92n00:05:28.800 –> 00:05:31.379nBut I understood that and accepted that when I got here.nn93n00:05:31.379 –> 00:05:38.100nBut what I did– I thought that was the first step, and based on that information, I immediately leapt into the re-remaining steps.nn94n00:05:38.100 –> 00:05:41.759nWith half a foundation, the dwelling doesn’t last long.nn95n00:05:41.759 –> 00:05:43.939nI had nothing to build anything on.nn96n00:05:43.939 –> 00:05:47.759nSo there I was trying to do it, and John explained to me what the first step really was.nn97n00:05:47.759 –> 00:05:49.579nHe talked to me about unmanageability.nn98n00:05:49.579 –> 00:05:52.579nLet me tell you how my life was a year and a half sober.nn99n00:05:52.579 –> 00:05:54.579nMy home life was terrible.nn100n00:05:54.579 –> 00:05:58.319nIt was so bad that I was an active member of Sex Without Partners.nn101n00:05:58.319 –> 00:06:08.451nThat might not have got here to the Mojave Desert and I, you know, but, uh, it was a self-help group in South Florida that was real active.nn102n00:06:08.451 –> 00:06:12.831nSo my wife and I didn’t get along.nn103n00:06:12.831 –> 00:06:15.012nEmployment-wise, I was in trouble.nn104n00:06:15.012 –> 00:06:16.432nHell, I had the law after me.nn105n00:06:16.432 –> 00:06:18.492nUh, they wanted to put me in jail.nn106n00:06:18.492 –> 00:06:19.672nYou see, I’d been overseas.nn107n00:06:19.672 –> 00:06:21.351nI’d been in a country called Sri Lanka.nn108n00:06:21.351 –> 00:06:22.351nI went to sea for a living.nn109n00:06:22.351 –> 00:06:29.151nI went over there, and I was at, at an AA meeting, and I met some guys that had the same lack of principles that I had, and we formed a business.nn110n00:06:29.151 –> 00:06:30.752nIt was an import-export business.nn111n00:06:30.752 –> 00:06:32.322nAnd not drugs or anything.nn112n00:06:32.322 –> 00:06:40.971nIt was semi-precious gemstones, and we were importing them to the United States and exporting them from there, and we were doing this without the benefit of customs or a license or anything.nn113n00:06:40.971 –> 00:06:42.331nSo they called it smuggling.nn114n00:06:42.331 –> 00:06:51.971nNow- I personally think it was a matter of semantics, but- I was on the verge of going to jail.nn115n00:06:51.971 –> 00:06:53.372nI was in all kinds of trouble.nn116n00:06:53.372 –> 00:06:56.911nFinancially, I was on the verge of a personal bankruptcy.nn117n00:06:56.911 –> 00:07:06.911nEvery area of my life was a total disaster, and when John pointed it out to me for the very first time in my life, I accepted unmanageability and I acceptednn118n00:07:06.911 –> 00:07:07.612nstep one.nn119n00:07:07.612 –> 00:07:09.471nAnd John said, “Why don’t we make it simple?nn120n00:07:09.471 –> 00:07:13.012nLet’s just call step one I can’t.” And I did that.nn121n00:07:13.012 –> 00:07:18.351nAnd then he talked to me about step two, came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.nn122n00:07:18.351 –> 00:07:20.872nAnd he talked to me about sanity.nn123n00:07:20.872 –> 00:07:27.232nHe said sanity would not mean that I’d stop doing bizarre things, and I’m glad he said that ’cause I do bizarre things today.nn124n00:07:27.232 –> 00:07:31.552nYou know, I could be walking by that, one of those tables downstairs and put money I shouldn’t on it.nn125n00:07:31.552 –> 00:07:34.732nThat’s crazy, but that ain’t the craziness he’s talking about.nn126n00:07:34.732 –> 00:07:38.531nHe was talking about that strange insanity that precedes the first drink.nn127n00:07:38.531 –> 00:07:42.451nThat thing that goes on up here that says, “This time I can take a drink and it’ll be different.nn128n00:07:42.451 –> 00:07:48.932nThis time I can take it and I can control it.” That’s the insanity John was talking to me about and that the step talked to me about.nn129n00:07:48.932 –> 00:07:59.072nAnd he says step two simply was that I would believe that a Power greater than I could restore me to that state of mind, sanity, where taking a drink would not be an acceptablenn130n00:07:59.072 –> 00:07:59.851nalternative.nn131n00:07:59.851 –> 00:08:02.331nHe says, simply put, He can.nn132n00:08:02.331 –> 00:08:08.971nSo step one, I can’t, and step two, He can, and with those two facts, we decided to make a decision.nn133n00:08:08.971 –> 00:08:13.391nWe got on our knees and we prayed the third step prayer, and I didn’t memorize it.nn134n00:08:13.391 –> 00:08:17.572nI haven’t memorized it from that day to this day, and yet I pray it on a daily basis.nn135n00:08:17.572 –> 00:08:24.612nNot taking the third step on a daily basis, but reaffirming that decision we made that day on his trail- in the soup of his trailer.nn136n00:08:24.612 –> 00:08:33.692nAs we prayed that prayer, we got off our knees, and he handed me a tablet, a little legal tablet, and he had three columns on one side, and the backside of each page was blank.nn137n00:08:33.692 –> 00:08:39.631nAnd he said, “Up in the upper left-hand corner, write the word down, I resent.” Well, I didn’t have a very good vocabulary then.nn138n00:08:39.631 –> 00:08:42.511nI said, “John, I don’t resent anybody.” I didn’t know what the heck it meant.nn139n00:08:42.511 –> 00:08:45.392nHe said, “Well, why don’t you put down I hate?” Well, I could do that.nn140n00:08:45.392 –> 00:08:46.630nHell, I hated everybody.nn141n00:08:46.630 –> 00:08:53.331nI- And you know, if you haven’t taken an inventory, don’t be nervous about it, you know?nn142n00:08:53.331 –> 00:08:55.471nTaking an inventory is what we do all the time.nn143n00:08:55.471 –> 00:09:00.131nWe write, talk about them, and that’s all the beginning of the inventory is, talking about them.nn144n00:09:00.131 –> 00:09:01.572nIt ain’t about principle.nn145n00:09:01.572 –> 00:09:03.331nYou write down who you hate and why you hate them.nn146n00:09:03.331 –> 00:09:04.491nBy God, that simple.nn147n00:09:04.491 –> 00:09:07.121nHe told me who to put down first.nn148n00:09:07.121 –> 00:09:11.292nHe said, “Put down Siraj.” Siraj was an Indian that was living in my house.nn149n00:09:11.292 –> 00:09:12.572nHe, he wasn’t an American Indian.nn150n00:09:12.572 –> 00:09:13.812nHe was from Ceylon.nn151n00:09:13.812 –> 00:09:19.451nHe was a guy that I’d had to bring over here on a visa, and I had to keep him in my house, and it was to watch out for their money.nn152n00:09:19.451 –> 00:09:21.091nSo I put him down.nn153n00:09:21.091 –> 00:09:25.711nI put down I hated him, and as I put it down, I felt good about it ’cause I really did hate him.nn154n00:09:25.711 –> 00:09:29.652nI hated him ’cause he slept in a bed, and my little boy was sleeping on the floor.nn155n00:09:29.652 –> 00:09:33.692nI hated him because he ate raw meat, and we were eating rice and beans.nn156n00:09:33.692 –> 00:09:35.731nI hated him ’cause he wore a dress.nn157n00:09:35.731 –> 00:09:37.631nThey didn’t call it a dress.nn158n00:09:37.631 –> 00:09:38.971nThey called it a sari or something.nn159n00:09:38.971 –> 00:09:39.792nIt was a dress.nn160n00:09:39.792 –> 00:09:41.552nI hated him, I’ll tell you that.nn161n00:09:41.552 –> 00:09:51.631nAnd when I put down I hated him, I felt good about putting it down because it was inside of me, and he had me go back through my life and put down who I hated and why I hated them, and I found that anger ran all the waynn162n00:09:51.631 –> 00:09:53.552nback through my life to my childhood.nn163n00:09:53.552 –> 00:09:58.032nI hated my mom and dad because they didn’t give me what I wanted when I wanted it.nn164n00:09:58.032 –> 00:10:02.991nNobody did for me how I wanted, when I wanted, and that ran all the way back there.nn165n00:10:02.991 –> 00:10:07.692nSo I had anger as far back as I could remember, yet that anger did not make me an alcoholic.nn166n00:10:07.692 –> 00:10:09.892nIt just made me mad as hell.nn167n00:10:09.892 –> 00:10:12.032nI was a liar as far back as I can remember.nn168n00:10:12.032 –> 00:10:13.412nYou know, I don’t know about you.nn169n00:10:13.412 –> 00:10:15.591nI guess there’s people in AA that ain’t liars.nn170n00:10:15.591 –> 00:10:20.240nI ain’t met them yet, but I guess there might be, but- I like lying.nn171n00:10:20.240 –> 00:10:22.951nI thought lying was sort of a gift from God.nn172n00:10:22.951 –> 00:10:27.871nI mean- If you wanted me to be smart, I’d tell you how smart I was.nn173n00:10:27.871 –> 00:10:36.432nIf you wanted me to be whatever you wanted me to be, I could tell you I was, and the deal was that when I told you that, I believed it, and if you didn’t believe it, I got mad at you.nn174n00:10:36.432 –> 00:10:46.491nWhen you can believe a lie that you tell, like I was able to do, I set myself up for the biggest lie I ever told myself, thenn175n00:10:46.491 –> 00:10:55.231nlie that almost killed me, the lie that this time I’d be able to take a drink and it’d be different, but I had that ability to lie long before I took a drink.nn176n00:10:55.231 –> 00:10:57.892nI was a thief as far back as I can remember.nn177n00:10:57.892 –> 00:10:59.772nNow, I didn’t think I was a thief.nn178n00:10:59.772 –> 00:11:02.611nI guess I sort of pictured myself as a short, fat Robin Hood.nn179n00:11:02.611 –> 00:11:04.432nI don’t know .nn180n00:11:04.432 –> 00:11:06.471nWell, I might take something from Bill.nn181n00:11:06.471 –> 00:11:07.711nNo thinking about Bill.nn182n00:11:07.711 –> 00:11:08.711nI’d give it to Jerry.nn183n00:11:08.711 –> 00:11:10.912nI didn’t do it because I, to, to do it.nn184n00:11:10.912 –> 00:11:14.292nI’d just do it ’cause I figured if I gave it to Jerry, he’d want me around him.nn185n00:11:14.292 –> 00:11:24.331nIf I was talking to a social worker or counselor or something, they’d tell me I was trying to buy somebody’s affection or buy their attention, and I guess I was, but I didn’t know thatnn186n00:11:24.331 –> 00:11:26.371nI was, and nobody taught me that.nn187n00:11:26.371 –> 00:11:31.971nIt just came natural, and I think that’s a part of alcoholism, yet it did not make me an alcoholic.nn188n00:11:31.971 –> 00:11:33.412nIt just made me screwed up.nn189n00:11:33.412 –> 00:11:39.652nYou know, I was born in an upper middle class family in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and I was given a lot of things as a kid.nn190n00:11:39.652 –> 00:11:41.511nI was g- given a lot of material things.nn191n00:11:41.511 –> 00:11:43.951nI don’t remember the specifics of it.nn192n00:11:43.951 –> 00:11:51.331nI just know that I was, and I’m sure that I was given emotional love and, and affection from my parents, but I don’t remember it.nn193n00:11:51.331 –> 00:11:58.631nI have three sisters, one a year older, one a year younger, another one five years younger than that, and a kid brother that was born when I was 18.nn194n00:11:58.631 –> 00:12:08.652nAnd I’ve seen my siblings get a lot of emotional attention from my parents, and I’m sure that I was afforded the same things, and yet there was something inside of me that kept me from evernn195n00:12:08.652 –> 00:12:15.991nfeeling it and has kept me from ever remembering it, and I think that’s a part of alcoholism, yet it doesn’t make me alcoholic.nn196n00:12:15.991 –> 00:12:21.111nIt just adds up to that de– adds into that thing of me being screwed up and not fitting in.nn197n00:12:21.111 –> 00:12:25.121nI went off to the first grade and things didn’t get any better.nn198n00:12:25.121 –> 00:12:26.581nI remember the first grade.nn199n00:12:26.581 –> 00:12:27.662nI don’t know if you remember yours.nn200n00:12:27.662 –> 00:12:28.361nI remember mine.nn201n00:12:28.361 –> 00:12:29.760nI went to a parochial school.nn202n00:12:29.760 –> 00:12:32.861nThat means Catholic up there, and they had nuns.nn203n00:12:32.861 –> 00:12:35.961nAnd I’ll never forget Sister Lucy, my first grade teacher.nn204n00:12:35.961 –> 00:12:38.261nShe was sort of early S&M, as I remember.nn205n00:12:38.261 –> 00:12:41.861nShe– You got to picture her.nn206n00:12:41.861 –> 00:12:45.402nBack then, they wore what they called habits.nn207n00:12:45.402 –> 00:12:55.721nShe had on this black stuff that went down, it went all the way down, and a white thing up here, and a thing over her head, and she had leather and chains that hung down, and she made noise when she walked, and she scarednn208n00:12:55.721 –> 00:12:56.022nme.nn209n00:12:56.022 –> 00:13:04.701nAnd I remember halfway through the first grade, they called my parents in for a parent-teacher conference, and I thought I’d done something wrong because I was always doing something wrong.nn210n00:13:04.701 –> 00:13:10.642nAnd they called them in and they were going to talk to them, and I stood outside the door and I eavesdropped, and I heard what they told them.nn211n00:13:10.642 –> 00:13:16.162nThis nun told my parents that it appeared as though I was a very gifted child, and that I could go anywhere or do anything.nn212n00:13:16.162 –> 00:13:21.302nAnd as soon as I heard her tell them how smart I was, my education stopped.nn213n00:13:21.302 –> 00:13:25.881nBecause I thought if I was that smart, how could anyone teach me anything?nn214n00:13:25.881 –> 00:13:27.761nAnd I began to get in trouble.nn215n00:13:27.761 –> 00:13:32.361nAnd I got in trouble from then until I got to you and a short while afterwards.nn216n00:13:32.361 –> 00:13:38.282nI got in trouble in school, and by the second and third grade, I’m being hauled up in front of the class and called a class clown.nn217n00:13:38.282 –> 00:13:40.101nAnd I didn’t want it to be that way.nn218n00:13:40.101 –> 00:13:44.442nI wanted to fit in, and I wanted to be like the other kids, and I couldn’t be like them, and it kept getting worse.nn219n00:13:44.442 –> 00:13:48.621nAnd I didn’t like what was at home, and I got mad about that, and I, I started running away.nn220n00:13:48.621 –> 00:13:55.131nAnd I, I was about nine years old or nine and a half, and I wound up in front of a juvenile referee, and he sent me to an orphanage.nn221n00:13:55.131 –> 00:13:58.241nNow, how can you send a kid with parents to an orphanage?nn222n00:13:58.241 –> 00:14:00.042nAnd well, they labeled me incorrigible.nn223n00:14:00.042 –> 00:14:02.782nNow, I didn’t know what that meant, but it’s a big word that means punk.nn224n00:14:02.782 –> 00:14:07.942nI was just a little punk they sent off to this place where there wasn’t a single orphan in that whole orphanage.nn225n00:14:07.942 –> 00:14:10.121nThey were just all guys like me.nn226n00:14:10.121 –> 00:14:14.182nAnd all they really wanted to do was make me fit to be in society, and I didn’t know that.nn227n00:14:14.182 –> 00:14:15.782nI thought they were punishing me.nn228n00:14:15.782 –> 00:14:17.261nI didn’t know they were trying to help me.nn229n00:14:17.261 –> 00:14:25.581nAnd that was going to be a story for a long, long time because I got out of there after a while and went back in front of another referee for the same behaviors.nn230n00:14:25.581 –> 00:14:31.160nAnd to make a long story short, I stayed locked up off and on from then until I was seventeen and a half years old.nn231n00:14:31.160 –> 00:14:36.461nAnd I never stayed out on the streets for more than a few months at a time, and I’d be back in front of another judge.nn232n00:14:36.461 –> 00:14:38.542nAnd I didn’t want it to be that way.nn233n00:14:38.542 –> 00:14:42.221nI wanted to be able to love my parents, and I wanted them to be able to love me.nn234n00:14:42.221 –> 00:14:48.261nI wanted to have the things in my life that I saw other kids have, and I didn’t know that there was something wrong inside of me.nn235n00:14:48.261 –> 00:14:50.062nAnd that was not alcoholism.nn236n00:14:50.062 –> 00:14:52.001nThat was just me being a screwed up kid.nn237n00:14:52.001 –> 00:14:55.422nBut at thirteen years old, I decided to do something different.nn238n00:14:55.422 –> 00:14:56.902nI decided to take a drink.nn239n00:14:56.902 –> 00:14:58.741nI don’t know why I decided.nn240n00:14:58.741 –> 00:14:59.881nI just decided to.nn241n00:14:59.881 –> 00:15:04.481nAnd I’m sure that before I was thirteen, I had alcohol in me many, many times.nn242n00:15:04.481 –> 00:15:06.481nI’m sure of it because of how I lived.nn243n00:15:06.481 –> 00:15:10.042nIn that family, they had get-togethers three or four times a year.nn244n00:15:10.042 –> 00:15:12.081nAlcohol was a part of the household.nn245n00:15:12.081 –> 00:15:14.062nMy dad was a daily drinker.nn246n00:15:14.062 –> 00:15:16.221nHe drank a lot, morning, noon, and night.nn247n00:15:16.221 –> 00:15:20.761nI never saw him drunk, never saw him slur his words, but he was always drinking.nn248n00:15:20.761 –> 00:15:23.741nMy mother would drink a couple of drinks every night.nn249n00:15:23.741 –> 00:15:25.322nNever saw her drunk.nn250n00:15:25.322 –> 00:15:28.042nWe were allowed drinks periodically.nn251n00:15:28.042 –> 00:15:29.782nKids, sips of whatever they had.nn252n00:15:29.782 –> 00:15:32.381nThey’d have these get-togethers three or four times a year.nn253n00:15:32.381 –> 00:15:36.861nWhenever they’d have all this crowd over, the family and in-laws and all that, everybody would drink.nn254n00:15:36.861 –> 00:15:39.682nAnd once in a while, someone would get drunk, but most times they just drank.nn255n00:15:39.682 –> 00:15:44.822nIt was just what they did, and, and they allowed us kids to have a little of whatever they had, wine or mixed drink or beer.nn256n00:15:44.822 –> 00:15:50.981nSo I’m sure I had alcohol in me many, many times, and yet I remember none of the specifics of it.nn257n00:15:50.981 –> 00:15:59.162nAgain, I’m sure if I was talking to a counselor or someone, they’d explain to me that that was my social drinking because that’s how social drinkers drink.nn258n00:15:59.162 –> 00:16:03.721nI was married to a social drinker for thirty-four years, and I studied her.nn259n00:16:03.721 –> 00:16:05.461nYou know, they’re always studying us.nn260n00:16:05.461 –> 00:16:06.432nI studied them.nn261n00:16:06.432 –> 00:16:10.121nAnd social drinkers drink the way I drank as a kid.nn262n00:16:10.121 –> 00:16:12.881nIf you ask a social drinker, when was the last time you had a drink?nn263n00:16:12.881 –> 00:16:13.782nThey can’t tell you.nn264n00:16:13.782 –> 00:16:15.162nAsk them what it was.nn265n00:16:15.162 –> 00:16:15.981nThey don’t know.nn266n00:16:15.981 –> 00:16:20.581nSee, it did nothing to me or for me, so I remember nothing at all about it.nn267n00:16:20.581 –> 00:16:22.601nBut at thirteen, I decided to drink.nn268n00:16:22.601 –> 00:16:24.162nI didn’t look old enough to drink.nn269n00:16:24.162 –> 00:16:25.562nYou had to be twenty-one in Ohio.nn270n00:16:25.562 –> 00:16:28.322nHell, I didn’t pass for thirteen, for God’s sakes.nn271n00:16:28.322 –> 00:16:31.022nI hadn’t cultivated my first zit yet, you know?nn272n00:16:31.022 –> 00:16:37.221nSo I stole an eyebrow pencil from my mother’s purse along with some money, and I give myself a beard and a mustache.nn273n00:16:37.221 –> 00:16:45.881nNow- It looked nowhere near as nice as Jerry’s, but it was the best I could do with the tools at hand.nn274n00:16:45.881 –> 00:16:50.522nYou know, I can only imagine what I looked like as I headed down to the lower end of Twenty-fifth Street.nn275n00:16:50.522 –> 00:16:53.142nWas this– There’s a skid row in Cleveland, you know?nn276n00:16:53.142 –> 00:16:57.221nAnd here this punk is going down there with ten thousand blackheads dotted on, you know?nn277n00:16:57.221 –> 00:16:59.741nSort of like a liquid five o’clock shadow.nn278n00:16:59.741 –> 00:17:03.861nGod, what would I look like if it rained?nn279n00:17:03.861 –> 00:17:04.142nI don’t know.nn280n00:17:04.142 –> 00:17:05.122nI can remember doing it.nn281n00:17:05.122 –> 00:17:05.422nI don’t know.nn282n00:17:05.422 –> 00:17:07.961nI’d give a thousand dollars for a picture of that.nn283n00:17:07.961 –> 00:17:16.061nBut anyway, I got down there on the lower end of Twenty-fifth Street with this other guy, and if you’ve ever been on a skid row and drank there, you know you don’t have to be a certain age or a certain nothing.nn284n00:17:16.061 –> 00:17:19.402nYou go to enough of them gin mills and order what you want, and eventually you get it.nn285n00:17:19.402 –> 00:17:22.241nAnd we went to enough of them, eventually we got what we ordered.nn286n00:17:22.241 –> 00:17:26.382nWe ordered two bottles of mixed screwdrivers and two bottles of Thunderbird wine.nn287n00:17:26.382 –> 00:17:30.021nI can only imagine why.nn288n00:17:30.021 –> 00:17:32.041nScrewdrivers, I’m pretty sure why.nn289n00:17:32.041 –> 00:17:33.801nIt’s because of the sexy sound to it.nn290n00:17:33.801 –> 00:17:33.981nYou know?nn291n00:17:33.981 –> 00:17:34.842nIt sort of promised…nn292n00:17:34.842 –> 00:17:37.102nI didn’t know what it promised, but it sounded good, you know?nn293n00:17:37.102 –> 00:17:40.692nSo we ordered that, and then the Thunderbird because of what I’d heard about it.nn294n00:17:40.692 –> 00:17:43.922nHell, I’d heard about Thunderbird the places I’d been, you know?nn295n00:17:43.922 –> 00:17:46.942nAnd, and, and there used to be a billboard at Scranton and Twenty-fifth.nn296n00:17:46.942 –> 00:17:48.481nIf I close my eyes, I can picture it.nn297n00:17:48.481 –> 00:17:55.281nIt was huge, and it was beautiful, and it had this bottle on it, and it had this bird soaring, and it just looked free, and it was the words I’d learned, you know?nn298n00:17:55.281 –> 00:17:56.082nWhat’s the word?nn299n00:17:56.082 –> 00:17:56.942nThunderbird.nn300n00:17:56.942 –> 00:17:59.041nBy God, it promised excitement.nn301n00:17:59.041 –> 00:18:03.981nYou try and do that with Mogen David, you ain’t going to get fired up.nn302n00:18:03.981 –> 00:18:08.701nAnd the price was right.nn303n00:18:08.701 –> 00:18:09.721nIt was cheap as hell.nn304n00:18:09.721 –> 00:18:10.321nYou know what I mean?nn305n00:18:10.321 –> 00:18:12.541nI’ve observed.nn306n00:18:12.541 –> 00:18:14.182nYou know, I’ve studied since I’ve been sober.nn307n00:18:14.182 –> 00:18:16.342nThey always put Thunderbird down on the bottom shelf.nn308n00:18:16.342 –> 00:18:17.662nHell, they want you to steal it.nn309n00:18:17.662 –> 00:18:27.690nWe left that bar, we went, went, wentnn310n00:18:27.690 –> 00:18:29.890nbehind some bushes, and we started to drink.nn311n00:18:29.890 –> 00:18:31.269nI don’t know what it tasted like.nn312n00:18:31.269 –> 00:18:32.410nCan’t remember it.nn313n00:18:32.410 –> 00:18:36.750nAll I remember is what happened shortly after we started to drink, whichever one we started with.nn314n00:18:36.750 –> 00:18:41.210nFor the first time in my life, that whole deal inside of me went away, and I was okay.nn315n00:18:41.210 –> 00:18:46.930nI had never felt okay in my life, and I felt okay, and I didn’t even know that I felt okay.nn316n00:18:46.930 –> 00:18:57.289nIt’s only in looking back that I recognize what it did to me and did for me because I pursued the recapturing of that night at every opportunitynn317n00:18:57.289 –> 00:18:59.710nfor the next 17 and a half years.nn318n00:18:59.710 –> 00:19:07.930nEvery chance I got, I tried to put that in me to get me to where I was that night, and yet I never got it back that way again.nn319n00:19:07.930 –> 00:19:12.650nI remember starting to feel it and then it’d be gone, and I’d wake up in trouble.nn320n00:19:12.650 –> 00:19:18.430nYou know, I woke up that next morning in a way that I was gonna wake up in over and over again till I got to you people.nn321n00:19:18.430 –> 00:19:21.009nI woke up with a mess, and it was mine.nn322n00:19:21.009 –> 00:19:24.930nI woke up with a new fear about me, and I say a new fear.nn323n00:19:24.930 –> 00:19:26.269nI’d been afraid all my life.nn324n00:19:26.269 –> 00:19:27.529nI was afraid of heights.nn325n00:19:27.529 –> 00:19:28.990nI was afraid of you not loving me.nn326n00:19:28.990 –> 00:19:31.309nI was afraid of me not being able to love you.nn327n00:19:31.309 –> 00:19:33.630nI was afraid of getting out of jail or going back to jail.nn328n00:19:33.630 –> 00:19:36.269nI was always afraid, and I was afraid of everything.nn329n00:19:36.269 –> 00:19:40.329nBut that night, that morning, I woke up with a new fear, and I didn’t know it was a new fear.nn330n00:19:40.329 –> 00:19:41.890nI didn’t know I woke up with a new fear.nn331n00:19:41.890 –> 00:19:45.589nI didn’t know that till I was taking that inventory I started off telling you about.nn332n00:19:45.589 –> 00:19:50.089nYou know, when I had them people down who I hated and why I hated them all the way back to my childhood?nn333n00:19:50.089 –> 00:19:52.029nJohn did a dirty thing to me then.nn334n00:19:52.029 –> 00:19:53.700nHe said, “Now,” he said, “we go to the next column.nn335n00:19:53.700 –> 00:19:57.789nPut down how it affected you.” And I tell you, I used that first guy, Siraj.nn336n00:19:57.789 –> 00:19:59.509nTold you what he’d done to me.nn337n00:19:59.509 –> 00:20:01.670nWell, you know, got my money.nn338n00:20:01.670 –> 00:20:02.809nI– God, I hated him.nn339n00:20:02.809 –> 00:20:10.410nThen John said, “How did it affect you?” And I put down how it affected my self-esteem because I knew I wasn’t doing what a father and a husband should do.nn340n00:20:10.410 –> 00:20:14.569nIt affected m- every area of my life, and underneath it was fear.nn341n00:20:14.569 –> 00:20:22.430nAnd I went back through that whole list, and on every resentment, I put down how it affected me, and then John had me go back to the list another time.nn342n00:20:22.430 –> 00:20:24.849nHe said, “Now we’re gonna look at it from a different angle.nn343n00:20:24.849 –> 00:20:34.898nWe’re gonna put out of our mind the wrongs others have, others have done.” He said, “Other people have hurt you, and they’ve done things to you, but we’re gonna put that out of our minds, and we’re gonna look where you werenn344n00:20:34.898 –> 00:20:37.410nwrong.” I said, “John, I ain’t wrong.nn345n00:20:37.410 –> 00:20:39.390nI haven’t done anything to this guy.nn346n00:20:39.390 –> 00:20:42.819nHell, I brought him here.” And it– John said, “Why don’t you pray about it?nn347n00:20:42.819 –> 00:20:46.970nMaybe you said something, or maybe you could have said something different.” And I prayed about it.nn348n00:20:46.970 –> 00:20:48.150nLet me tell you what I found.nn349n00:20:48.150 –> 00:20:58.289nI found that I’d brought a man out of his home and brought him over to this country on a visa, and when I decided to work the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, I pullednn350n00:20:58.289 –> 00:20:58.890nthe visa.nn351n00:20:58.890 –> 00:21:05.990nHe’d never see his family again if he went back to, you know, if he ever went back home, he was going to jail for a long, long time.nn352n00:21:05.990 –> 00:21:08.250nBecause of my behavior being-nn353n00:21:08.442 –> 00:21:12.502nMy greed, I robbed him of the opportunity to be with his family.nn354n00:21:12.502 –> 00:21:14.182nForget what he had done.nn355n00:21:14.182 –> 00:21:15.002nWhat had I done?nn356n00:21:15.002 –> 00:21:17.342nI tried to get their money.nn357n00:21:17.342 –> 00:21:19.232nForget the fact that my money was gone.nn358n00:21:19.232 –> 00:21:21.202nI was going f- after their money.nn359n00:21:21.202 –> 00:21:22.242nI was a marine engineer.nn360n00:21:22.242 –> 00:21:24.322nI didn’t know anything about gemstones.nn361n00:21:24.322 –> 00:21:28.202nOnce I saw my part in the wrong, my anger for him left.nn362n00:21:28.202 –> 00:21:35.162nNot only did it leave, but on, on that paper written down were my actions of what I had done wrong.nn363n00:21:35.162 –> 00:21:39.182nThere was the plan for what I was gonna have to do to amend that relationship later.nn364n00:21:39.182 –> 00:21:48.602nAnd I don’t know about anybody else, I can only tell you about me, but there was not a single resentment on that list where I was not able to find my part in the wrong.nn365n00:21:48.602 –> 00:21:54.842nAnd in finding my part in the wrong, I was given freedom from that bondage of hate.nn366n00:21:54.842 –> 00:22:01.841nAnd I also had clean-cut directions for how I was gonna have to make amends when I got to steps eight and nine.nn367n00:22:01.841 –> 00:22:07.562nWhen I got through with that part of the inventory, John had me write down my fears, and I put them down.nn368n00:22:07.562 –> 00:22:09.022nI was afraid of heights.nn369n00:22:09.022 –> 00:22:11.562nI was afraid of all the things I had told you.nn370n00:22:11.562 –> 00:22:13.182nHell, I was afraid she was leaving.nn371n00:22:13.182 –> 00:22:15.602nI was afraid she wasn’t leaving.nn372n00:22:15.602 –> 00:22:19.002nIt was the same she, it was a different time of day.nn373n00:22:19.002 –> 00:22:25.901nThat’s all it, but- John said fears didn’t have to make sense to anybody else if I felt them, put them down, and I put them down.nn374n00:22:25.901 –> 00:22:35.262nAnd when I got them all down, John said, “Now we’ll ask God to remove them.” And we got on our knees and I asked God to take my fears, and I got off my knees and I was still afraid, and I told John that.nn375n00:22:35.262 –> 00:22:43.042nAnd he opened up the book to Bill’s story, and Bill wrote in there about the fear of impending calamity, and John explained what that meant.nn376n00:22:43.042 –> 00:22:47.142nBill wrote in a very Gothic style, and I didn’t understand sometimes what he said.nn377n00:22:47.142 –> 00:22:52.962nHe said, “That’s the fear that something bad’s gonna happen and you can’t stop it.” Hell, I knew that fear.nn378n00:22:52.962 –> 00:22:57.842nThat was the fear that if an envelope came and there was no return address, I was afraid to open it.nn379n00:22:57.842 –> 00:23:00.562nIf there was a knock on the door, I didn’t want to answer it.nn380n00:23:00.562 –> 00:23:01.822nI knew that fear.nn381n00:23:01.822 –> 00:23:05.362nIf you haven’t seen that fear lately, make a 12-step call.nn382n00:23:05.362 –> 00:23:09.782nYou go to some poor guy’s house or gal’s house, they got no lights on.nn383n00:23:09.782 –> 00:23:12.662nThere’s no gas for the car, no food in the refrigerator.nn384n00:23:12.662 –> 00:23:15.582nBut by God, there’s caller ID on the cell phone.nn385n00:23:15.582 –> 00:23:25.582nJohn had me get on my knees and I prayed again, and I asked God to takenn386n00:23:25.582 –> 00:23:29.502naway that awful fear, and that fear was lifted from me right then.nn387n00:23:29.502 –> 00:23:33.602nAnd I’d like to be able to tell you that it’s never returned, but that’d be a lie.nn388n00:23:33.602 –> 00:23:43.602nBecause periodically, out of nowhere, all of a sudden I’ll start feeling that fear of impending calamity, and I know that it’s time to look at my life and see what I’m doing that I shouldn’t benn389n00:23:43.602 –> 00:23:50.522ndoing or what I’m not doing, or what I am doing that I should stop doing or what I’m not doing that I should be doing.nn390n00:23:50.522 –> 00:23:55.842nAnd once I see that and change my actions and ask God to take it, the fear is gone again.nn391n00:23:55.842 –> 00:23:58.962nSo it’s sort of a wake-up call for me in how I can live my life.nn392n00:23:58.962 –> 00:24:03.702nBefore I forget the rest of the inventory, I better tell you there’s a third part to it.nn393n00:24:03.702 –> 00:24:10.822nAnd third part of the inventory, you know, amazingly, the book spends more time on it than it does on fear and resentment, and that’s sex.nn394n00:24:10.822 –> 00:24:14.401nAnd if you ain’t looked at it the way it is in the book, you’re missing a bet.nn395n00:24:14.401 –> 00:24:17.962nI hear a lot of things in Alcoholics Anonymous, a lot of opinions, you know.nn396n00:24:17.962 –> 00:24:24.762nI ain’t paying attention to opinions, and I don’t mean to offend anybody, but if it isn’t in the book, I’m not gonna apply it to my life.nn397n00:24:24.762 –> 00:24:26.942nAnd Bill talks about it with sex.nn398n00:24:26.942 –> 00:24:30.842nHe says, “Now, about sex.” And in there he says, “We all have problems there.nn399n00:24:30.842 –> 00:24:34.422nWe’d hardly be human if we didn’t.” I sort of like that word all.nn400n00:24:34.422 –> 00:24:37.202nIt shuffs off the loopholes for guys like me.nn401n00:24:37.202 –> 00:24:38.942nIt says, what do we do about them?nn402n00:24:38.942 –> 00:24:43.402nWrite down what you were, and then talk with someone if you th- if, if you can.nn403n00:24:43.402 –> 00:24:44.162nTalk with someone.nn404n00:24:44.162 –> 00:24:47.162nWe avoid hysterical advice, but talk with someone.nn405n00:24:47.162 –> 00:24:50.362nAnd then finally, put down on paper how you want to be.nn406n00:24:50.362 –> 00:24:52.742nPut down what your conduct’s supposed to be.nn407n00:24:52.742 –> 00:24:54.422nIt’s between you and God.nn408n00:24:54.422 –> 00:24:56.742nBetween you and God.nn409n00:24:56.742 –> 00:25:00.962nAnd I put down for the very first time in my life a standard.nn410n00:25:00.962 –> 00:25:06.242nI had never had a standard before, and the standard wasn’t much, and I’m not gonna share it with you tonight.nn411n00:25:06.242 –> 00:25:11.382nBut it was a standard and it was a beginning, and from that beginning, I was able to begin to grow.nn412n00:25:11.382 –> 00:25:17.962nYou gotta start somewhere, and I was able to start somewhere, and from there I got to where I am now.nn413n00:25:17.962 –> 00:25:19.482nIs there more work to do?nn414n00:25:19.482 –> 00:25:20.422nSure there is.nn415n00:25:20.422 –> 00:25:21.402nSure there is.nn416n00:25:21.402 –> 00:25:27.282nIf I continue to want to grow in what Bill calls the sunlight of the spirit, but you gotta have somewhere to grow from to grow.nn417n00:25:27.282 –> 00:25:30.922nSo don’t forget that part of the inventory when you get ready to take it.nn418n00:25:30.922 –> 00:25:40.142nBut anyhow, there I was at 13 years old coming off that drunk, and there was a third thing wrong, and that was the fact that I didn’t know what happened the night before after I started to drink.nn419n00:25:40.142 –> 00:25:44.042nNow, if you would’ve told me, “Jay, you had a blackout,” I’d have said, “You’re crazy.nn420n00:25:44.042 –> 00:25:44.922nI didn’t have a blackout.nn421n00:25:44.922 –> 00:25:49.412nI just don’t remember.” I didn’t know that blackouts and not remembering were the same thing.nn422n00:25:49.412 –> 00:25:56.902nI also didn’t know– See, since I’ve been sober, I’ve studied AA and studied alcoholics.nn423n00:25:56.902 –> 00:25:59.582nThere’s a lot of alcoholics that have never had blackouts.nn424n00:25:59.582 –> 00:26:02.282nSo you don’t have to have blackouts to be an alcoholic.nn425n00:26:02.282 –> 00:26:10.382nBut on the other side of that coin, I have never met an individual yet who’s had a blackout related to drinking that was not an alcoholic.nn426n00:26:10.382 –> 00:26:16.162nBut if you’d have told me at 13 that I had these symptoms of alcoholism, I’d have said, “You’re crazy.nn427n00:26:16.162 –> 00:26:19.751nI’m not.” I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have never admit I had any kind of problem.nn428n00:26:19.751 –> 00:26:22.022nI’d have said, “If they’d give me a chance, I’d be all right.nn429n00:26:22.022 –> 00:26:23.362nIf you’d get off my back.nn430n00:26:23.362 –> 00:26:26.462nIf you’d give me a break.” It was always something like that.nn431n00:26:26.462 –> 00:26:27.422nIt was never me.nn432n00:26:27.422 –> 00:26:35.502nIf someone said, “Why don’t you talk to me about what’s going on?” I knew that I couldn’t, ’cause there was something going on inside of my head that said, “You wouldn’t understand.nn433n00:26:35.502 –> 00:26:40.842nYou wouldn’t understand, and I just knew you wouldn’t understand.” I also lived my life that way.nn434n00:26:40.842 –> 00:26:48.462nYou know, I went back to another reformator- uh, reformatory shortly after that drunk and stayed there till I was a little over 17 and I ran away from there.nn435n00:26:48.462 –> 00:26:53.882nAnd they went to my parents’ house looking for me, and by the time they got to my parents’ house, I got signed into the Navy.nn436n00:26:53.882 –> 00:26:59.302nAnd I wrote my parents that I was in the Navy and told them that I was gonna be the son they always wanted and they’d be proud of me.nn437n00:26:59.302 –> 00:27:01.742nAnd, you know, I found out later what my parents did.nn438n00:27:01.742 –> 00:27:05.672nThey went to the juvenile authorities and petitioned them to allow me to stay in the service.nn439n00:27:05.672 –> 00:27:09.662nThe law wanted me back, and they got a lawyer to help them to let me stay in the service.nn440n00:27:09.662 –> 00:27:19.698nAnd the, the, the law agreed because they’d have had to turn me loose at 18 anyhow, and they figured if I was in a semi-controlled environment, I’d be all right My parents came up to watch me graduate from bootnn441n00:27:19.698 –> 00:27:20.038ncamp.nn442n00:27:20.038 –> 00:27:21.838nIt was a big deal for them.nn443n00:27:21.838 –> 00:27:26.278nI’d never done anything they could be proud of, and they came up to Great Lakes Naval Training Center to watch me graduate.nn444n00:27:26.278 –> 00:27:31.338nAnd they– we graduated from this boot camp, and they took me into Chicago on a 12-hour pass.nn445n00:27:31.338 –> 00:27:34.018nI remember going into a restaurant with my mom and dad.nn446n00:27:34.018 –> 00:27:42.118nSat down at a restaurant, and my dad looked over at me and he said, “Son, you son, I know you’re not old enough to, to drink, but if you’re old enough to be in the service, I’ll buy you a drink if you want one.nn447n00:27:42.118 –> 00:27:45.518nWhat’ll you have?” And I got that warm feeling inside.nn448n00:27:45.518 –> 00:27:46.918nMy dad was a drinker.nn449n00:27:46.918 –> 00:27:50.118nNow we were gonna be drinking buddies, and this is what I always wanted.nn450n00:27:50.118 –> 00:27:51.848nHe never played catch like you just hoped.nn451n00:27:51.848 –> 00:28:01.918nHe said, “We never had any of that stuff as a kid, but now we’re gonna be drinking buddies.” I said, “I’ll have a beer.” And my dad or-ordered me a beer, and he ordered himself a cup of coffee andnn452n00:28:01.918 –> 00:28:03.158nmy mother a Coca-Cola.nn453n00:28:03.158 –> 00:28:05.478nI looked over at him and said, “What’s the matter?nn454n00:28:05.478 –> 00:28:07.998nAren’t you drinking?” See, he always drank.nn455n00:28:07.998 –> 00:28:08.878nWhy wouldn’t he drink?nn456n00:28:08.878 –> 00:28:13.758nMy mother looked at me, and she had that funny look in her eyes some of these women get at times.nn457n00:28:13.758 –> 00:28:15.958nShe said, “Your dad doesn’t drink anymore.nn458n00:28:15.958 –> 00:28:23.858nHe’s a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.” “And he’s been sober for three months.” Let me tell you how my daddy got sober.nn459n00:28:23.858 –> 00:28:26.758nHe got sober at a place called Rosary Hall in Cleveland, Ohio.nn460n00:28:26.758 –> 00:28:30.118nThere was a little old nun run that place at the time called Sister Ignatia.nn461n00:28:30.118 –> 00:28:32.978nHer name’s in a lot of our literature, and her book, book is out on her.nn462n00:28:32.978 –> 00:28:36.118nAnd she was there, and she had run that place, and my dad was there.nn463n00:28:36.118 –> 00:28:39.518nAnd then all it was was a three to five-day detox, and it wasn’t with…nn464n00:28:39.518 –> 00:28:40.878nThey just detoxed him with liquor.nn465n00:28:40.878 –> 00:28:43.038nThey just sort of tapered him off and put him out.nn466n00:28:43.038 –> 00:28:49.198nAnd you were only checked in there by your sponsor, and the only people that saw you there were the other men that your sponsor put on a list for you.nn467n00:28:49.198 –> 00:28:51.498nAnd when you left, your sponsor’s the one that picked you up.nn468n00:28:51.498 –> 00:29:01.888nAnd the guy who was my dad’s sponsor had taken him there, and five days later, he was– He’d been in, in, in convulsions in a hallway for five days, and when he came out of convulsions, Sister Ignatia dischargednn469n00:29:01.888 –> 00:29:02.038nhim.nn470n00:29:02.038 –> 00:29:12.038nAnd she gave him a little thing that she gave everybody when they left, and she told my father, said, “Jim, if you go with your sponsor to Alcoholics Anonymous and do what those people tell you to do, you’ll never havenn471n00:29:12.038 –> 00:29:19.518nto come off another drunk.” And my daddy never drank again from that day and through the day of his death, which was in, in 1981.nn472n00:29:19.518 –> 00:29:21.908nHe’d maintained continuous sobriety.nn473n00:29:21.908 –> 00:29:29.538nAnd yet, if you’d have said to me, “Your dad was,” my dad was showing me unconditional love offering to buy me a drink, I would not have seen it that way.nn474n00:29:29.538 –> 00:29:31.118nI’ll tell you how I saw it.nn475n00:29:31.118 –> 00:29:37.978nI saw it by the fact that he didn’t drink when I, when he ordered me a drink, that he didn’t want to be my friend and that he didn’t like me.nn476n00:29:37.978 –> 00:29:48.078nWhen you talk to me about the fact that alcohol is but a symptom, that selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of my disease, I can see it now when I look back at hownn477n00:29:48.078 –> 00:29:49.418nI lived and what I thought.nn478n00:29:49.418 –> 00:29:51.018nBut then I didn’t see that.nn479n00:29:51.018 –> 00:29:54.658nThen I th-thought the reason he wasn’t drinking, ’cause he didn’t like me.nn480n00:29:54.658 –> 00:30:02.118nAnd I looked at my watch and wondered, “How soon can I get away from these people, meet my friends, and drink?” And I got away from them, and I drank.nn481n00:30:02.118 –> 00:30:06.078nAnd I woke up the next morning the same way I woke up the last time I drank.nn482n00:30:06.078 –> 00:30:08.998nMy career in the Navy takes very little time to talk about.nn483n00:30:08.998 –> 00:30:19.338nA little less than six months after I went in, I woke up in a room maybe a third the size of this room or a fourth the size of this room, and it was the nut ward of the naval hospital in Pensacola, Florida.nn484n00:30:19.338 –> 00:30:23.558nThe last thing I remember was getting off this aircraft carrier I was on to go ashore.nn485n00:30:23.558 –> 00:30:30.598nIt was a training carrier that went in and out of that port, and I got off there to go ashore, and, and I don’t remember anything after that.nn486n00:30:30.598 –> 00:30:36.038nAnd I woke up in this nut ward, and they called me before a board of officers in a couple of days, and they, they gave me a paper to sign.nn487n00:30:36.038 –> 00:30:43.558nThey said if I’d sign this paper, they’d give me an honorable discharge, and if I didn’t sign it, they’d court-martial me and give me a dishonorable discharge.nn488n00:30:43.558 –> 00:30:44.678nEasy decision to make.nn489n00:30:44.678 –> 00:30:46.358nHell, I signed the paper.nn490n00:30:46.358 –> 00:30:47.798nAnd then they told me what it was.nn491n00:30:47.798 –> 00:30:52.677nThey said it was a guarantee that I’d never attempt to re-enlist in any of the armed forces as long as I lived.nn492n00:30:52.677 –> 00:30:59.178nThat was 40, couple years ago, or 41 and a half years ago, and I’ve lived up to my word.nn493n00:30:59.178 –> 00:31:00.178nI ain’t been back.nn494n00:31:00.178 –> 00:31:03.638nThat’s one promise I kept.nn495n00:31:03.638 –> 00:31:07.698nBut they told me that I was a lousy sailor, and I didn’t conform to service life.nn496n00:31:07.698 –> 00:31:08.918nAnd hell, I knew I didn’t.nn497n00:31:08.918 –> 00:31:10.778nYou know, I never did like authority real good.nn498n00:31:10.778 –> 00:31:13.878nI still ain’t wild about it, and don’t know many alcoholics that are.nn499n00:31:13.878 –> 00:31:17.818nThat’s why so many of us are self-employed, unemployed, or otherwise employed, you know.nn500n00:31:17.818 –> 00:31:21.098nAuthority has never been a strong suit for a lot of us.nn501n00:31:21.098 –> 00:31:24.858nBut anyhow, they said I didn’t conform to service life, and I, and I didn’t.nn502n00:31:24.858 –> 00:31:28.778nAnd they told me that I had what they would term to be acute alcoholism.nn503n00:31:28.778 –> 00:31:32.478nAnd they said by acute alcoholism, we mean when you drink, you get in trouble.nn504n00:31:32.478 –> 00:31:36.727nWell, I knew that when I drank, I got in trouble, but I didn’t know that drinking got me in trouble.nn505n00:31:36.727 –> 00:31:38.258nI thought they got me in trouble.nn506n00:31:38.258 –> 00:31:43.037nIf they wouldn’t pick on me, if they wouldn’t talk about me, if they’d give me a break, I’d be all right.nn507n00:31:43.037 –> 00:31:45.078nIf you’d leave me alone, I’d be all right.nn508n00:31:45.078 –> 00:31:46.378nIt was always they, them, or that.nn509n00:31:46.378 –> 00:31:47.218nIt was never me.nn510n00:31:47.218 –> 00:31:53.938nAnd they told me that if I stopped, then I could have a good life ahead of me, but that if I continued, it wouldn’t be long and I’d be chronic.nn511n00:31:53.938 –> 00:31:56.398nI’m not even 18 years old, and they’re telling me this.nn512n00:31:56.398 –> 00:31:59.198nBut I knew better, and I said, “Let me give you them papers.nn513n00:31:59.198 –> 00:32:01.037nLet me be on my way,” and I was on my way.nn514n00:32:01.037 –> 00:32:04.298nI went back to my parents’ house for what was gonna be the last time there.nn515n00:32:04.298 –> 00:32:11.778nI went back up to Ohio, and I, I saw them while I was gonna figure out what to do, and I turned 18 the day I got there, and I, I never had a driver’s license before.nn516n00:32:11.778 –> 00:32:15.338nI had a little bit of money in my pocket, so I got a driver’s license and I got a car.nn517n00:32:15.338 –> 00:32:16.858nIt was an old Studebaker.nn518n00:32:16.858 –> 00:32:18.018nA lot of you don’t even know what they are.nn519n00:32:18.018 –> 00:32:19.558nThey’re old and ugly, I’ll tell you that.nn520n00:32:19.558 –> 00:32:27.938nBut I got this old rusted-up Studebaker on my 18th birthday, and I went out to celebrate my birthday, and I woke up the next morning the same way I woke up the last time that I drank.nn521n00:32:27.938 –> 00:32:34.198nBut the situation was a little bit different because I didn’t recognize the room I was in, and it was a jail.nn522n00:32:34.198 –> 00:32:37.718nIt was a jail in the town where my– in the suburb where my parents lived.nn523n00:32:37.718 –> 00:32:41.498nMy mother was a clerk of courts in that town, so they didn’t keep me in jail.nn524n00:32:41.498 –> 00:32:49.938nThey turned me loose on a, just a, a personal recognizance bond, and, and I went over to my mother’s house, and I remember walking in stinking and dirty and sick.nn525n00:32:49.938 –> 00:32:53.158nAnd as I walked in that house, my sister was there, about one year younger than me.nn526n00:32:53.158 –> 00:32:56.978nShe’d just joined a convent, and she was there with my mother, and my mother was crying.nn527n00:32:56.978 –> 00:33:01.088nAnd I looked at my sister and I, and my mother and I said, “What’s the matter?nn528n00:33:01.088 –> 00:33:04.378nWhy are you crying?” I’m thinking to myself, I just got out of jail.nn529n00:33:04.378 –> 00:33:05.378nWhy is she crying?nn530n00:33:05.378 –> 00:33:09.718nMy mother told me why.nn531n00:33:09.718 –> 00:33:15.378nShe said that my dad had been, since he’d been sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, God had blessed them and that she was pregnant.nn532n00:33:15.378 –> 00:33:25.398nShe was pregnant with, uh, and, uh, she said that she was praying that the child inside of her would either self-abort or be born a girl because she did not want anothernn533n00:33:25.398 –> 00:33:26.118nboy like me.nn534n00:33:26.118 –> 00:33:34.648nHow many times have I said, “The only person I’m hurting is me.nn535n00:33:34.648 –> 00:33:36.788nI’m not hurting anyone but me”?nn536n00:33:36.788 –> 00:33:42.768nBut when I look back at my life, I see that I have affected everybody with whom I have come in contact with.nn537n00:33:42.768 –> 00:33:44.248nEverybody.nn538n00:33:44.248 –> 00:33:45.568nDid I want to do that?nn539n00:33:45.568 –> 00:33:46.028nNo.nn540n00:33:46.028 –> 00:33:48.028nCould I stop from doing that?nn541n00:33:48.028 –> 00:33:49.528nThat also is a no.nn542n00:33:49.528 –> 00:33:53.368nSo my driving career didn’t last very long either.nn543n00:33:53.368 –> 00:33:55.288nI got my license on my 18th birthday.nn544n00:33:55.288 –> 00:33:56.928nI lost it on my 18th birthday.nn545n00:33:56.928 –> 00:34:01.328nI got it back after I was sober almost three years.nn546n00:34:01.328 –> 00:34:03.468nNow, that didn’t stop me from driving.nn547n00:34:03.468 –> 00:34:06.148nHell, I’ve had licenses from almost every state in the Union.nn548n00:34:06.148 –> 00:34:07.828nI’d get a license, they’d come and get it.nn549n00:34:07.828 –> 00:34:09.808nThat was before the age of computers, you know?nn550n00:34:09.808 –> 00:34:13.168nYou just get a license, and you just drive on it till they get it and take it.nn551n00:34:13.168 –> 00:34:16.048nAnd I got them in California and Wash- I got…nn552n00:34:16.048 –> 00:34:20.828nOne time, I was driving an ambulance in West Palm Beach, Florida, and they arrested me for drunk driving.nn553n00:34:20.828 –> 00:34:22.648nIt was always a lot of tickets involved.nn554n00:34:22.648 –> 00:34:28.548nIt just seemed there was a lot of k- things going against me, and nothing worked out, and I didn’t want it to be that way.nn555n00:34:28.548 –> 00:34:31.767nBut there I was, 18, I, B- you know, already in trouble.nn556n00:34:31.767 –> 00:34:35.328nAnd, and they told me I was a lousy sailor, so I did what a lot of you might have done.nn557n00:34:35.328 –> 00:34:40.028nHell, I joined the Merchant Marine, and I was to go to sea for the next very many years.nn558n00:34:40.028 –> 00:34:41.928nI got on my very first ship, and I loved it.nn559n00:34:41.928 –> 00:34:48.988nWe went over to Japan, and I remember going to Japan, being around these guys, and these were real men, and they were real seamen, and I loved being with them.nn560n00:34:48.988 –> 00:34:56.287nAnd I went ashore in Japan, and they came and got me three days later, brought me back to the ship, and they logged me, and that’s a disciplinary action on a merchant ship.nn561n00:34:56.287 –> 00:34:58.528nLogging you mean they put you in a logbook, and it means…nn562n00:34:58.528 –> 00:35:00.208nThen the captain said I was fired.nn563n00:35:00.208 –> 00:35:01.328nIt wasn’t a big deal.nn564n00:35:01.328 –> 00:35:02.008nThey can fire you.nn565n00:35:02.008 –> 00:35:02.428nWhat are they going to do?nn566n00:35:02.428 –> 00:35:03.188nSend you home?nn567n00:35:03.188 –> 00:35:04.368nYou know, you gonna walk?nn568n00:35:04.368 –> 00:35:04.868nYou know?nn569n00:35:04.868 –> 00:35:06.148nDidn’t mean anything.nn570n00:35:06.148 –> 00:35:12.368nIt, the guys on the ship said everybody quits after the voyage anyhow, and we all either get fired or quit, so who cared?nn571n00:35:12.368 –> 00:35:15.068nWe had about 300 ships under union agreement.nn572n00:35:15.068 –> 00:35:16.868nNormal voyage, three or four months.nn573n00:35:16.868 –> 00:35:17.768nI did the math.nn574n00:35:17.768 –> 00:35:19.488n1,200 working months.nn575n00:35:19.488 –> 00:35:22.048nYeah, I’d never live long enough to run out of ships.nn576n00:35:22.048 –> 00:35:27.348nSo my employment would be secure.nn577n00:35:27.348 –> 00:35:28.998nAnd you made a lot of money.nn578n00:35:28.998 –> 00:35:32.498nYou didn’t get a lot of money an hour, but you worked a lot of hours, and they didn’t give it to you.nn579n00:35:32.498 –> 00:35:35.408nYou didn’t get it till the end of the three or four months.nn580n00:35:35.408 –> 00:35:39.588nYou got 10% of your wages when you were on the ship, the rest of it in $100 bills when you got off.nn581n00:35:39.588 –> 00:35:40.848nI liked that.nn582n00:35:40.848 –> 00:35:42.988nI’d get off the ship with a pocket full of $100 bills.nn583n00:35:42.988 –> 00:35:45.688nI could buy me some nice clothes, go down on Skid Row, and I’d drink.nn584n00:35:45.688 –> 00:35:48.688nWhen I’d run out of money, I’d ship out again.nn585n00:35:48.688 –> 00:35:52.908nAnd I wanted things to get better, and things kept getting worse, and I began going up the ladder in the Merchant Marine.nn586n00:35:52.908 –> 00:35:58.828nI got a license in the Merchant Marine in 1966, ’65, and I thought things would get better, and they kept getting worse.nn587n00:35:58.828 –> 00:36:00.368nAnd then I made a study.nn588n00:36:00.368 –> 00:36:05.388nI said, “Well, if I get married, things will get better.” Everybody knows that married people don’t have the problems I had.nn589n00:36:05.388 –> 00:36:07.428nSo, well, I knew that.nn590n00:36:07.428 –> 00:36:08.928nYou, evidently, you knew it, too.nn591n00:36:08.928 –> 00:36:12.368nI was sitting in a bar one day shopping for a wife, and she walked in.nn592n00:36:12.368 –> 00:36:17.468nSat- She sat down right next to me.nn593n00:36:17.468 –> 00:36:18.848nI looked over at her.nn594n00:36:18.848 –> 00:36:20.428nShe was a little bitty old redhead.nn595n00:36:20.428 –> 00:36:22.608nShe was the first woman I ever met smaller than me.nn596n00:36:22.608 –> 00:36:25.948nAnd when I looked at her, God, she looked madder than I felt.nn597n00:36:25.948 –> 00:36:30.208nI said, “Can I buy you a drink?” She said, “No, I don’t drink.” Well, that was true love.nn598n00:36:30.208 –> 00:36:31.568nI couldn’t afford another drinker.nn599n00:36:31.568 –> 00:36:32.308nI knew that.nn600n00:36:32.308 –> 00:36:42.768nSo I bought her a Coca-Cola, and I began to lie, and she began to listen, and I smeared them $100nn601n00:36:42.768 –> 00:36:43.788nbills out on the bar.nn602n00:36:43.788 –> 00:36:45.448nI found out why she was mad.nn603n00:36:45.448 –> 00:36:48.128nShe was mad because she’d been abused very badly by her husband.nn604n00:36:48.128 –> 00:36:49.967nShe had two children, and he had deserted them.nn605n00:36:49.967 –> 00:36:57.088nShe had a baby just a few months old and another boy that was four years old, and, and this, this man had just, he treated her terribly and deserted her.nn606n00:36:57.088 –> 00:36:59.028nShe hated men, and she hated life.nn607n00:36:59.028 –> 00:37:00.048nWell, that was a challenge.nn608n00:37:00.048 –> 00:37:01.467nI began to court her.nn609n00:37:01.467 –> 00:37:03.928nAfter a lengthy courtship, I proposed to her.nn610n00:37:03.928 –> 00:37:07.168nWere she here for you to talk to, she’d tell you it was 10 minutes.nn611n00:37:07.168 –> 00:37:08.608nI think it was longer.nn612n00:37:08.608 –> 00:37:09.948nI think I waited 20.nn613n00:37:09.948 –> 00:37:11.688nWell, you know.nn614n00:37:11.688 –> 00:37:15.988nYou who are alcoholic or married does know we take our time with major decisions.nn615n00:37:15.988 –> 00:37:17.128nWe don’t rush into them.nn616n00:37:17.128 –> 00:37:19.907nSo 20 minutes sounded reasonable.nn617n00:37:19.907 –> 00:37:30.468nBut anyhow, she explained she wasn’t divorced, so to make a long story short, on October 14th, 1965,nn618n00:37:30.468 –> 00:37:34.438nm- uh, her divorce became final, and on October 15th, we were married.nn619n00:37:34.438 –> 00:37:36.408nAnd the marriage wasn’t much.nn620n00:37:36.408 –> 00:37:39.368nWe got married at the Candlelight Flower Shop in West Palm Beach, Florida.nn621n00:37:39.368 –> 00:37:40.338nHad two witnesses.nn622n00:37:40.338 –> 00:37:43.228nThey were going to marry us for, like, 25 or $30.nn623n00:37:43.228 –> 00:37:48.848nThey were going to play the organ and sing, you know, the Here Comes the Bride and give her a cour- I got them down to a lot less than that.nn624n00:37:48.848 –> 00:37:50.108nThey hummed Here Comes the Bride.nn625n00:37:50.108 –> 00:37:53.148nShe got one rose with the flower falling off.nn626n00:37:53.148 –> 00:37:56.088nMarriage was not a joke.nn627n00:37:56.088 –> 00:37:59.128nYou know, I’m putting it in a humorous way, but it wasn’t a joke.nn628n00:37:59.128 –> 00:38:01.008nDivorce was not common in my family.nn629n00:38:01.008 –> 00:38:03.328nI don’t have any uncles or aunts that were divorced.nn630n00:38:03.328 –> 00:38:04.608nI mean, it just wasn’t common.nn631n00:38:04.608 –> 00:38:06.028nI thought you got married, you got married.nn632n00:38:06.028 –> 00:38:07.428nYou stayed married.nn633n00:38:07.428 –> 00:38:13.168nI thought about this woman and how I wanted to marry her and be a husband to her and be faithful and be committed and do what a husband’s supposed to do.nn634n00:38:13.168 –> 00:38:15.308nI thought about the kids coming into the marriage.nn635n00:38:15.308 –> 00:38:21.028nLittle Kim, this little baby, I’m holding her in my arms, and I can picture going through life being her daddy.nn636n00:38:21.028 –> 00:38:30.148nLittle Ricky hanging onto my leg, crying, saying, “Please be my daddy.” I’d never had a daddy growing up, and God, I was going to be these kids’ daddy.nn637n00:38:30.148 –> 00:38:36.308nAnd if you’d have told me that alcoholism was going to keep me from it, I’d have said you’re crazy.nn638n00:38:36.308 –> 00:38:39.568nI thought because I wanted to do it, I was able to do it.nn639n00:38:39.568 –> 00:38:45.568nI didn’t know that lack of power was my problem and that wanting and power were two different things.nn640n00:38:45.568 –> 00:38:47.048nJust didn’t know it.nn641n00:38:47.048 –> 00:38:52.908nAnd we got married, went over to her aunt’s house, and at that particular time, I was on an enforced period of sobriety.nn642n00:38:52.908 –> 00:39:00.648nShe thought I drank too much, so for a period of time during my alcoholism, I could go periods of time without drinking, a month or a week when necessary.nn643n00:39:00.648 –> 00:39:01.628nI just didn’t drink.nn644n00:39:01.628 –> 00:39:04.288nWhenever I took a drink, I never knew what was going to happen.nn645n00:39:04.288 –> 00:39:06.387nThat’s the deal about alcoholism.nn646n00:39:06.387 –> 00:39:10.648nI thought that alcoholics had to drink every day all the time, and that wasn’t it.nn647n00:39:10.648 –> 00:39:20.708nYou explained to me when I got here that what it was was an allergy of the body along with an obsession of the mind, and the allergy never came into play until I consumed the beveragenn648n00:39:20.708 –> 00:39:21.368nalcohol.nn649n00:39:21.368 –> 00:39:23.908nIf I didn’t put it in me, I didn’t go into play.nn650n00:39:23.908 –> 00:39:32.256nAll I knew is there were a period of time of periodic In my life when I just didn’t drink, and I didn’t drink for that short period of time when we got married.nn651n00:39:32.256 –> 00:39:35.315nWent over to her aunt’s house, uh, for this little reception they gave us.nn652n00:39:35.315 –> 00:39:40.176nWe give you toasters and this kind of stuff, and I remember walking in there, and hell, I’m an experienced wedding goer.nn653n00:39:40.176 –> 00:39:46.776nYou know, when I was on a ship, I’d buy those nice clothes, and I could go to weddings in Chicago or Cleveland or wherever I happened to be getting off a ship.nn654n00:39:46.776 –> 00:39:50.536nAnd as long as I had a suit on and didn’t throw up or throw a punch, I could drink.nn655n00:39:50.536 –> 00:39:51.936nThey didn’t know who you were with.nn656n00:39:51.936 –> 00:39:55.756nThey were big Italian weddings and Polish weddings and anyone can get…nn657n00:39:55.756 –> 00:39:59.756nIf you’re still drinking and got nice clothes, it’s always a shot, you know.nn658n00:39:59.756 –> 00:40:03.676nBut I’m at my own wedding, and there’s no one to drink because they don’t drink.nn659n00:40:03.676 –> 00:40:07.316nI went in, they gave me a glass of punch, and I took a drink of it.nn660n00:40:07.316 –> 00:40:12.496nAnd all it was was punch, and I got mad, and I grabbed my new wife.nn661n00:40:12.496 –> 00:40:19.456nThe same woman I’m gonna be a good husband to, and dragged her out of there, and I got– stopped at a liquor store, and I got a bottle, and I began to drink.nn662n00:40:19.456 –> 00:40:28.936nAnd since she didn’t drink and I had no one to drink with, I picked up a guy on the side of the road, just a bum, and we drove towards Miami, he and I drinking across my new wife.nn663n00:40:28.936 –> 00:40:33.336nAnd I woke up the next morning the same way I woke up the last time that I drank.nn664n00:40:33.336 –> 00:40:39.256nThe same fear and the same not remembering what happened the night before once I’d started.nn665n00:40:39.256 –> 00:40:42.886nAnd now things were a little different because there was this woman laying in the bed, and she was crying.nn666n00:40:42.886 –> 00:40:46.076nAnd I don’t mean tears that just come down and mess up the mascara.nn667n00:40:46.076 –> 00:40:52.076nI’m talking about that deep down sobbing that when you hear it, you hurt as badly as the person doing it.nn668n00:40:52.076 –> 00:40:54.436nAnd God, I wanted to stop it.nn669n00:40:54.436 –> 00:40:58.896nAnd I looked at her, and I said, “What’s wrong?” I knew what was wrong.nn670n00:40:58.896 –> 00:41:01.596nI knew what was wrong, and she told me.nn671n00:41:01.596 –> 00:41:06.776nShe said, “I’ve lived this way before, and I’ll not live this way again.” And then I took that vow.nn672n00:41:06.776 –> 00:41:11.016nI swore that if she’d give me just one more chance, I’d never do that again.nn673n00:41:11.016 –> 00:41:21.036nAnd she gave me one more chance, and she gave me one more chance, and she kept on giving me one more chance fornn674n00:41:21.036 –> 00:41:23.016nthe next over eight and a half years.nn675n00:41:23.016 –> 00:41:28.456nAnd things only got worse because my alcoholism kept progressing.nn676n00:41:28.456 –> 00:41:34.236nIn 1968, a child was born to this marriage, and I know that he’s mine.nn677n00:41:34.236 –> 00:41:41.676nHe looks just like me, but I remember nothing at all about his first few years of his life because then alcohol was taking a greater toll on me.nn678n00:41:41.676 –> 00:41:46.016nI kept going to sea, and I’d be gone for three months, four months, six months one time a year.nn679n00:41:46.016 –> 00:41:50.816nAnd every time I’d get off a ship, and I’d go back, she’d have gotten the letters that I’d write every day.nn680n00:41:50.816 –> 00:41:54.916nThose letters where I tell her how things were gonna be different, and I was gonna be better, and I wouldn’t do what I did again.nn681n00:41:54.916 –> 00:42:02.716nAnd she’d believe them, and I’d believe them, but when I’d get there, she’d see me, and she’d get– it’d be gone because I’d be drunk, and I didn’t want it to be that way.nn682n00:42:02.716 –> 00:42:07.196nIn 1973, I was blackballed out of the Merchant Marine for chronic alcoholism.nn683n00:42:07.196 –> 00:42:08.876nThat wasn’t the label they put on it.nn684n00:42:08.876 –> 00:42:12.496nThey said I was a performer, and performer just means you don’t perform.nn685n00:42:12.496 –> 00:42:13.376nI never showed up.nn686n00:42:13.376 –> 00:42:16.075nBy then I had– I was pretty– had had a pretty responsible position.nn687n00:42:16.075 –> 00:42:16.426nI couldn’t go do-nn688n00:42:16.685 –> 00:42:17.805nSee, they took my papers.nn689n00:42:17.805 –> 00:42:19.465nThe union wouldn’t ship me.nn690n00:42:19.465 –> 00:42:29.365nMarch the 7th, 1974, I found myself knocking on a man’s back door 1,200 miles away from where we lived.nn691n00:42:29.365 –> 00:42:39.415nAnd when he answered the door, the first words out of my mouth were, “I think I have a problem drinking.” And I remember he laughed, and he invited me into his house, took me back to hisnn692n00:42:39.415 –> 00:42:45.965nstudy, and sat me down on a coach, reached into his desk, and gave me a copy of this book, Alcoholics Anonymous.nn693n00:42:45.965 –> 00:42:50.025nHe had me open it up, and on the flyleaf there was some words written in ink.nn694n00:42:50.025 –> 00:43:00.205nIt said, “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, God will help.” And it was signed, “Love, Dad.” Mynn695n00:43:00.205 –> 00:43:09.285ndad had listened to you people, and you people had told him, “Leave me alone.” He didn’t talk to him about interfering in my life or intervening.nn696n00:43:09.285 –> 00:43:13.465nYou said, “Leave me alone.” You said, “He’s never listened to you.nn697n00:43:13.465 –> 00:43:15.025nWhy will he listen to you now?nn698n00:43:15.025 –> 00:43:25.045nIf you say nothing, he might have somewhere to go when he has nowhere else to go.” And I am so grateful that you told him that, and so grateful thatnn699n00:43:25.045 –> 00:43:26.105nhe listened to you.nn700n00:43:26.105 –> 00:43:29.405n’Cause when I had nowhere else to go, I had somewhere to go.nn701n00:43:29.405 –> 00:43:34.065nAnd then my father did not give me the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.nn702n00:43:34.065 –> 00:43:37.005nRather, he offered to take me to the message.nn703n00:43:37.005 –> 00:43:38.605nHe said, “Come with me.nn704n00:43:38.605 –> 00:43:44.045nWe’ll go to a meeting tonight.” And I said, “No, I won’t go because I’m drunk.” And I was drunk.nn705n00:43:44.045 –> 00:43:47.745nHe still tried to get me to go, but I wouldn’t go.nn706n00:43:47.745 –> 00:43:50.325nMuch like my new friend tonight, I wouldn’t go.nn707n00:43:50.325 –> 00:44:00.645nSo he told me, he said, “Well, tomorrow morning,” he said, “when you wake up, if you wake up, and if you’d rather be sober than be drunk, meet me, and we’ll go to a meeting at 7 o’clocknn708n00:44:00.645 –> 00:44:05.725nto- tomorrow night.” And he put down two numbers on a piece of paper, told me to put it in my billfold.nn709n00:44:05.725 –> 00:44:12.725nHe said, “And if you call one of these numbers before you take a drink.” And I went out that night, I have no idea where I went.nn710n00:44:12.725 –> 00:44:13.745nAll I know is I drank.nn711n00:44:13.745 –> 00:44:15.325n’Cause that’s all I did by then is drink.nn712n00:44:15.325 –> 00:44:17.205nI was either coming off a drunk, getting on a drunk.nn713n00:44:17.205 –> 00:44:20.225nIt was drink, it was just all the time, and things were just like a haze.nn714n00:44:20.225 –> 00:44:28.305nAnd I woke up the next morning in a way, that, that same way that I told you I woke up, in the same mess, the same fear, the same not knowing what happened the night before.nn715n00:44:28.305 –> 00:44:31.585nBut I remembered being at my dad’s house, so I remembered those numbers.nn716n00:44:31.585 –> 00:44:38.105nAnd there was something different that morning, something that had never been in my life, and that was the fact that I wanted a drink.nn717n00:44:38.105 –> 00:44:39.345nI needed a drink.nn718n00:44:39.345 –> 00:44:47.925nBut as badly as I wanted it and needed it, I didn’t want to drink just a little bit more, and I believe that to be the grace of God.nn719n00:44:47.925 –> 00:44:51.445nGrace coming from a word that means gift.nn720n00:44:51.445 –> 00:45:01.685nAnd I believe God’s gift to me that morning, His unasked for gift, because I had not said, “God, help me,” His unasked for gift was that desirenn721n00:45:01.685 –> 00:45:04.925nnot to drink that was stronger than the desire to drink.nn722n00:45:04.925 –> 00:45:09.925nThat’s the same gift that I and every other alcoholic sitting in this room tonight has.nn723n00:45:09.925 –> 00:45:17.125nIt was given to me with a responsibility, a responsibility that I do everything I can to keep it, or I would lose it.nn724n00:45:17.125 –> 00:45:19.265nThat morning I couldn’t do much.nn725n00:45:19.265 –> 00:45:20.205nI just didn’t drink.nn726n00:45:20.205 –> 00:45:23.985nThey told her to give me honey and orange juice, that it’d help my nerves.nn727n00:45:23.985 –> 00:45:25.585nWell, we didn’t get along good.nn728n00:45:25.585 –> 00:45:27.465nShe got Karo syrup and orange juice.nn729n00:45:27.465 –> 00:45:32.425nNow, I, I’m gonna tell you, in March in Ohio, in Cleveland, Ohio, in March, it’s cold.nn730n00:45:32.425 –> 00:45:36.185nIf you mix Karo syrup and orange juice, it’s like froze road tar.nn731n00:45:36.185 –> 00:45:38.725nIt’ll make your throat bleed, I’ll tell you that.nn732n00:45:38.725 –> 00:45:42.285nAnd I don’t know if it helped me or not, but I didn’t have to drink.nn733n00:45:42.285 –> 00:45:45.425nAnd she took me to the hospital, and they gave me a shot.nn734n00:45:45.425 –> 00:45:48.305nNow, back then, they didn’t give the shots they give today.nn735n00:45:48.305 –> 00:45:51.725nWhat they gave you was vitamin B12, and it was in the left cheek.nn736n00:45:51.725 –> 00:45:53.045nI remember the exact spot.nn737n00:45:53.045 –> 00:45:54.065nI can still feel it.nn738n00:45:54.065 –> 00:45:57.725nThey use a needle about that long, and it’s square, if I remember right.nn739n00:45:57.725 –> 00:46:02.965nAnd they whacked you with that, and they said it’d help your nerves.nn740n00:46:02.965 –> 00:46:05.245nI don’t know if it did or not, but I didn’t have to drink.nn741n00:46:05.245 –> 00:46:07.915nAnd I was to get them every day for the two weeks I was in Cleveland.nn742n00:46:07.915 –> 00:46:15.125nAnd then they told her, they said, “Every time he gets a little, opens his mouth, if he’s irritable, give him hard candy.” She got sour balls.nn743n00:46:15.125 –> 00:46:19.725nYou’re working with a new person, get sweet candy.nn744n00:46:19.725 –> 00:46:21.005nYou know, do something nice.nn745n00:46:21.005 –> 00:46:26.165nBut my mouth was puckered for six months, for God’s sakes.nn746n00:46:26.165 –> 00:46:32.705nAnd I met my dad that night, and we went to a meeting.nn747n00:46:32.705 –> 00:46:37.485nAnd he carried me to a meeting, and it was a meeting much like this with people much like you, but it’s smaller.nn748n00:46:37.485 –> 00:46:43.365nAs we come in the back door, there was an old boy standing there with jeans on and a baseball cap, and he had his hand out and grabbed mine.nn749n00:46:43.365 –> 00:46:48.945nMy father said, “That’s Jimmy, and he’s your sponsor.” My father took off, and I got this bozo hanging onto my hand.nn750n00:46:48.945 –> 00:46:55.825nAnd I pray that I never forget that hand.nn751n00:46:55.825 –> 00:47:00.805nBecause he gave me Alcoholics Anonymous.nn752n00:47:00.805 –> 00:47:04.585nHis hand was firm, and it was warm, and it was dry.nn753n00:47:04.585 –> 00:47:09.985nI told you earlier how my hand felt: wet and cold and scared.nn754n00:47:09.985 –> 00:47:18.065nAnd as he shook my hand, he said, “My name’s Jimmy, and I’m glad to meet you.” And I just knew that he was.nn755n00:47:18.065 –> 00:47:21.625nAnd then he did something nobody else had ever done before.nn756n00:47:21.625 –> 00:47:30.925nWhen they fired me off ships, when judges sentenced me to jail, when all the things, when she was leaving, when all that, they all talked about me, and Jimmy didn’t do that.nn757n00:47:30.925 –> 00:47:34.265nJimmy, he began to talk to me about himself.nn758n00:47:34.265 –> 00:47:35.375nAnd we shouldn’t have got along.nn759n00:47:35.375 –> 00:47:37.245nHe’s a hillbilly from West Virginia.nn760n00:47:37.245 –> 00:47:38.465nHe worked in an auto factory.nn761n00:47:38.465 –> 00:47:42.125nWe had nothing in common, politics, re- nothing.nn762n00:47:42.125 –> 00:47:51.305nBut as he talked to me about alcoholism, talked to me about what happened when he drank, where it took him, what it did, how he tried to change, how it got, I knew that he’d lived like I lived and thought like I thought.nn763n00:47:51.305 –> 00:47:54.045nHe told me what happened in his life, and God, I knew it was like me.nn764n00:47:54.045 –> 00:47:55.905nAnd I just felt something different.nn765n00:47:55.905 –> 00:47:59.205nAnd then he quit talking, and some guy told his story like I’m telling mine.nn766n00:47:59.205 –> 00:48:00.185nI don’t know what the guy said.nn767n00:48:00.185 –> 00:48:01.615nIt wasn’t no seminar or no that.nn768n00:48:01.615 –> 00:48:02.625nIt was just his story.nn769n00:48:02.625 –> 00:48:03.925nI remember laughing.nn770n00:48:03.925 –> 00:48:06.985nI do remember laughing, and that’s all I remember from that night.nn771n00:48:06.985 –> 00:48:08.605nAnd laughing is great.nn772n00:48:08.605 –> 00:48:09.765nI’ve heard laughter tonight.nn773n00:48:09.765 –> 00:48:11.245nIt’s the greatest thing in the world.nn774n00:48:11.245 –> 00:48:15.645nYou know, runners go out and kill themselves for miles to be able to feel what we feel by laughing?nn775n00:48:15.645 –> 00:48:18.005nLet them endorphins go, man.nn776n00:48:18.005 –> 00:48:18.605nIt’s great.nn777n00:48:18.605 –> 00:48:20.225nAnd laughing is good.nn778n00:48:20.225 –> 00:48:21.805nWhen you laugh, you can’t talk.nn779n00:48:21.805 –> 00:48:25.773nBetter than that, you can’t think.nn780n00:48:25.773 –> 00:48:27.913nSo laugh.nn781n00:48:27.913 –> 00:48:29.873nSo anyway, I remember laughing that night.nn782n00:48:29.873 –> 00:48:32.323nAnd after the meeting, he introduced me to other guys.nn783n00:48:32.323 –> 00:48:34.873nAnd he knew all these guys that say, “Keep coming, kid.nn784n00:48:34.873 –> 00:48:35.563nYou’ll be all right.nn785n00:48:35.563 –> 00:48:36.433nKeep coming, kid.nn786n00:48:36.433 –> 00:48:38.753nYou’ll be all…” I remember a guy he introduced me to.nn787n00:48:38.753 –> 00:48:40.853nThere was this old fool there, his name was Frank.nn788n00:48:40.853 –> 00:48:42.953nFrank was sober 26 years.nn789n00:48:42.953 –> 00:48:44.873nGod, I couldn’t believe that long.nn790n00:48:44.873 –> 00:48:46.753nHe was over 50 years old.nn791n00:48:46.753 –> 00:48:47.993nI mean, he was old.nn792n00:48:47.993 –> 00:48:49.873nBald-headed.nn793n00:48:49.873 –> 00:48:52.013nHe shook my hand.nn794n00:48:52.013 –> 00:48:53.913nHe said, “Keep coming, kid.nn795n00:48:53.913 –> 00:48:54.913nIt’s good to see you.nn796n00:48:54.913 –> 00:48:59.973nYou’ll be all right.” And he said, “By the way, this is Joe or Tom,” or whatever this guy with him is.nn797n00:48:59.973 –> 00:49:01.053nHe said, “And he’s new.nn798n00:49:01.053 –> 00:49:03.593nHe’s got two weeks.” I couldn’t believe it.nn799n00:49:03.593 –> 00:49:04.333nTwo weeks?nn800n00:49:04.333 –> 00:49:06.293nHow do you stay sober two weeks?nn801n00:49:06.293 –> 00:49:09.013n26 years, I forget that.nn802n00:49:09.013 –> 00:49:09.563nTwo weeks?nn803n00:49:09.563 –> 00:49:09.933nMan.nn804n00:49:09.933 –> 00:49:12.253nLet me tell you about Frank.nn805n00:49:12.253 –> 00:49:15.253nI go back to Cleveland periodically.nn806n00:49:15.253 –> 00:49:16.333nI still have family there.nn807n00:49:16.333 –> 00:49:21.513nI saw him a year or two ago at a meeting, because I still would go to some of the same meetings up there when I get up there.nn808n00:49:21.513 –> 00:49:24.593nAnd Frank was there, and Frank’s sober 50-some years now.nn809n00:49:24.593 –> 00:49:29.193nAnd Frank’s still old, and he’s still bald, and he’s still got that gravelly voice.nn810n00:49:29.193 –> 00:49:32.913nAnd he shook my hand and he said, “Good to see you again, kid.nn811n00:49:32.913 –> 00:49:33.533nKeep coming.nn812n00:49:33.533 –> 00:49:38.333nYou’ll be all right.” “By the way, this is Bob or Joe,” whoever, some guy.nn813n00:49:38.333 –> 00:49:39.773nHe said, “I’m sponsoring him.nn814n00:49:39.773 –> 00:49:43.373nHe’s got three weeks or something.” I looked at him with amazement.nn815n00:49:43.373 –> 00:49:58.033nI said, “You’re still sponsoring guys?” He said, “Ah, hell.” He said, “I don’t want to, but I need drivers.” Ifnn816n00:49:58.033 –> 00:50:01.953nyou ain’t got heroes in Alcoholics Anonymous, you ain’t going to enough meetings, I’ll tell you that.nn817n00:50:01.953 –> 00:50:08.433nI got heroes, and heroes are guys that do stuff like that, that are doing the thing that fire me up to do the thing that fires me up.nn818n00:50:08.433 –> 00:50:10.773nEh?nn819n00:50:10.773 –> 00:50:13.573nWhat a great meeting that was that night.nn820n00:50:13.573 –> 00:50:14.813nNow Jimmy told me the miracle.nn821n00:50:14.813 –> 00:50:25.053nHe said, “Jay,” he said, “How do you feel?” And I told him I was sick and I was scared, and he said, uh, he said, “I understand.” And you know, for the very first time in my life, I knew that somebody else understood.nn822n00:50:25.053 –> 00:50:27.393nI never felt that before, and I felt that then.nn823n00:50:27.393 –> 00:50:28.523nHe understood.nn824n00:50:28.523 –> 00:50:30.523nAnd he said, “I’m going to make you a promise.nn825n00:50:30.523 –> 00:50:35.193nIf you do three things on a daily basis, I will guarantee you you’ll never have to come off another drunk.nn826n00:50:35.193 –> 00:50:36.593nWill you do them?” I said, “Sure.nn827n00:50:36.593 –> 00:50:37.063nWhat do you want?nn828n00:50:37.063 –> 00:50:45.813nI’ll do anything.” He said, “Number one, in the morning when you get up, say, ‘God, help me not take a drink today.’ And then number two, if you can, go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.nn829n00:50:45.813 –> 00:50:56.013nAnd then number three, when you go to bed at night, say, ‘Thank you, God, for this day of sobriety.'” He said, “Will you do it?” And I said, “Jimmy, I can go to meetings, but I can’tnn830n00:50:56.013 –> 00:51:02.813npray, because I don’t believe in God.” And I told him about the God of my childhood and how it was gone and how there was nothing.nn831n00:51:02.813 –> 00:51:04.733nAnd I remember he laughed.nn832n00:51:04.733 –> 00:51:07.073nAnd he said, “Hell, you don’t have to believe.nn833n00:51:07.073 –> 00:51:12.233nJust say the words.” You see, that’s what the book says.nn834n00:51:12.233 –> 00:51:14.313nThe book doesn’t say you have to believe.nn835n00:51:14.313 –> 00:51:19.473nThe book says if you believe or are even willing to believe, you’re on your way.nn836n00:51:19.473 –> 00:51:22.433nAnd all Jimmy was doing was establishing willingness.nn837n00:51:22.433 –> 00:51:24.673nAnd I could say the words.nn838n00:51:24.673 –> 00:51:32.513nI remember the next day, and don’t worry, I’m not going to take you through that 27 years, 10 months of sobriety a day at a time.nn839n00:51:32.513 –> 00:51:34.113nBut I’m going to tell you a little bit about it.nn840n00:51:34.113 –> 00:51:37.493nI remember my second day in Alcoholics Anonymous.nn841n00:51:37.493 –> 00:51:42.613nI remember Jimmy picking me up, and Jimmy didn’t say, “Jay, do you want to go to a meeting tonight?” He just picked me up.nn842n00:51:42.613 –> 00:51:43.863nAnd that’s the way it was back then.nn843n00:51:43.863 –> 00:51:44.993nThey just picked you up.nn844n00:51:44.993 –> 00:51:47.553nBy the time you knew you had a choice, you were screwed.nn845n00:51:47.553 –> 00:51:48.613nYou knew you were going.nn846n00:51:48.613 –> 00:51:50.373nYou were attracted to it.nn847n00:51:50.373 –> 00:51:59.693nSo he carried me to the meeting and in there, and on the way to the meeting, he said, “Jay, have you had a drink since last night?” That was the dumbest damn question I’ve ever been asked in my sobriety.nn848n00:51:59.693 –> 00:52:01.133nHow could I have had a drink?nn849n00:52:01.133 –> 00:52:03.393nHe didn’t drop me off till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.nn850n00:52:03.393 –> 00:52:03.723nI don’t know when.nn851n00:52:03.723 –> 00:52:04.313nIt was late.nn852n00:52:04.313 –> 00:52:12.543nHe called me at 6:00 so I could get that shot, called me at 8:00 to make sure I got home, called me at noon, called me at 3:00, picked me up at 7:00.nn853n00:52:12.543 –> 00:52:14.193nI couldn’t have drank if I wanted to.nn854n00:52:14.193 –> 00:52:17.383nNow, I thought about it all day, but I didn’t do it.nn855n00:52:17.383 –> 00:52:18.733nBut I didn’t tell him that.nn856n00:52:18.733 –> 00:52:19.773nI said, “No, of course not.nn857n00:52:19.773 –> 00:52:29.813nI haven’t had a drink.” He said, “Man, that’s fantastic.” He said, “You realize you have just stayed sober the absolute longest period of time you ever got to stay sober?nn858n00:52:29.813 –> 00:52:33.753nYou got it made.” I thought this guy was out of his skull.nn859n00:52:33.753 –> 00:52:35.573nHe said, “Yeah, man.nn860n00:52:35.573 –> 00:52:36.273nThat’s one day.nn861n00:52:36.273 –> 00:52:37.113nThat’s all we got.nn862n00:52:37.113 –> 00:52:37.653nYou did it.nn863n00:52:37.653 –> 00:52:41.513nNow do it tomorrow.” Made sense.nn864n00:52:41.513 –> 00:52:42.853nMade sense.nn865n00:52:42.853 –> 00:52:44.113nOne day is all I got.nn866n00:52:44.113 –> 00:52:45.652nI don’t care what happens today.nn867n00:52:45.652 –> 00:52:47.873nIf I don’t drink today, today’s what I got.nn868n00:52:47.873 –> 00:52:49.053nForget about tomorrow.nn869n00:52:49.053 –> 00:52:50.733nAnd that’s what it has to be.nn870n00:52:50.733 –> 00:52:53.933nI’m so glad he didn’t say 90 and 30 or whatever the hell it is.nn871n00:52:53.933 –> 00:52:55.533nWhat would I have done on 83?nn872n00:52:55.533 –> 00:52:56.763n90, 90.nn873n00:52:56.763 –> 00:52:57.473nI don’t know.nn874n00:52:57.473 –> 00:52:58.852nI got today.nn875n00:52:58.852 –> 00:53:00.852nToday.nn876n00:53:00.852 –> 00:53:02.953nI keep it now, today.nn877n00:53:02.953 –> 00:53:04.333nToday is what I got to do.nn878n00:53:04.333 –> 00:53:06.333nToday’s all I got.nn879n00:53:06.333 –> 00:53:08.413nToday.nn880n00:53:08.413 –> 00:53:10.013nMade it simple.nn881n00:53:10.013 –> 00:53:11.513nTwo weeks sober.nn882n00:53:11.513 –> 00:53:13.533nRemember, two weeks sober, day at a time.nn883n00:53:13.533 –> 00:53:15.293nGoing back from an AA meeting.nn884n00:53:15.293 –> 00:53:16.413nHe’s taking me home.nn885n00:53:16.413 –> 00:53:21.293nIt was just before I went back to Florida, and he looked over at me and he said, “Jay,” he said, uh, uh, we were talking.nn886n00:53:21.293 –> 00:53:22.693nI said, “I don’t believe in this God stuff.nn887n00:53:22.693 –> 00:53:29.413nI still don’t believe and I don’t buy into it.” And I remember he said, “Well, tonight was the first time you’ve done anything in AA other than eat the cake and drink the coffee.nn888n00:53:29.413 –> 00:53:39.393nWhat was it?” I said, “I read the traditions.” He said, “Before you read them, what did you say?” I said, I said, “I’m Jay and I’m an alcoholic.” He said, “What does that mean?” By then I accepted what you had told me.nn889n00:53:39.393 –> 00:53:42.313nI understood what it said on page 21.nn890n00:53:42.313 –> 00:53:47.053nPage 21 has the clearest definition of alcoholism I’ve ever seen anywhere in anything.nn891n00:53:47.053 –> 00:53:51.973nIt says, “What about the real alcoholic?” I like that word real alcoholic.nn892n00:53:51.973 –> 00:53:53.813nIt gives substance to it, huh?nn893n00:53:53.813 –> 00:54:03.933nHe or she may or may not be a daily drinker, may or may not be a heavy drinker, but at some stage of his drinking career begins to lose control once he startsnn894n00:54:03.933 –> 00:54:04.413nto drink.nn895n00:54:04.413 –> 00:54:05.513nThat fit me.nn896n00:54:05.513 –> 00:54:07.033nIt fit me at 13.nn897n00:54:07.033 –> 00:54:08.123nIt fit me at 30.nn898n00:54:08.123 –> 00:54:10.773nThe only thing that changed was the progression.nn899n00:54:10.773 –> 00:54:13.323nHe said, “Hell, I knew you were.nn900n00:54:13.323 –> 00:54:23.333nI just wanted to make sure you knew you were.” He said, “Have you been doing what I told you to do every morning and every night?” I said, “Yes, I have.” I said, “But I don’t believe it and I feel like a hypocrite when I say it becausenn901n00:54:23.333 –> 00:54:25.073nI don’t believe it.” He said, “That’s all right.nn902n00:54:25.073 –> 00:54:30.292nYou’ve been doing it.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “How long you been doing it?” Well, today I don’t remember exactly how long it was.nn903n00:54:30.292 –> 00:54:32.033nI didn’t know I’d be telling you about it tonight.nn904n00:54:32.033 –> 00:54:33.893nBut it was 13 days or four…nn905n00:54:33.893 –> 00:54:35.792nIt was a long time, I’ll tell you that.nn906n00:54:35.792 –> 00:54:38.353nAnd I told him, 13 days or whatever.nn907n00:54:38.353 –> 00:54:42.893nHe said, no, he said, he asked me a question that changed the course of my life.nn908n00:54:42.893 –> 00:54:53.023nHe said, “When was the last time that you’ve been this long, a day at a time, without taking a drink?” And all I can share with you,nn909n00:54:53.023 –> 00:54:54.983nwith you is what I felt right then.nn910n00:54:54.983 –> 00:55:00.503nI felt the awareness come over me of a power that today I call God.nn911n00:55:00.503 –> 00:55:09.123nI knew there was a power that had allowed me that period of sobriety a day at a time because you see, unlike many people, I wanted to drink all the time.nn912n00:55:09.123 –> 00:55:12.043nAll I thought about was drinking, except during a meeting.nn913n00:55:12.043 –> 00:55:12.773nI’d think about it.nn914n00:55:12.773 –> 00:55:13.513nI could taste it.nn915n00:55:13.513 –> 00:55:15.963nI wanted it, but I didn’t have to drink.nn916n00:55:15.963 –> 00:55:20.223nAnd I knew there was a power greater than I that had kept me from having to take a drink.nn917n00:55:20.223 –> 00:55:29.763nFrom that moment to this moment has been a journey that I can only describe to you as being fantastic.nn918n00:55:29.763 –> 00:55:31.543nI didn’t jump into the steps right away.nn919n00:55:31.543 –> 00:55:36.063nI tried them, but based on the poor foundation I had, didn’t go far.nn920n00:55:36.063 –> 00:55:41.643nOnce I started with John on the stoop of his trailer, three days later, I was making amends.nn921n00:55:41.643 –> 00:55:46.443nThree days from one day to eight and nine.nn922n00:55:46.443 –> 00:55:47.683nHow?nn923n00:55:47.683 –> 00:55:48.703nIt was real simple.nn924n00:55:48.703 –> 00:55:49.683nI followed the direction.nn925n00:55:49.683 –> 00:55:51.543nDesperation is a fuel for action.nn926n00:55:51.543 –> 00:55:53.623nIf you’re desperate, you take action.nn927n00:55:53.623 –> 00:55:54.143nYou doubt it?nn928n00:55:54.143 –> 00:55:55.203nTalk to me after the meeting.nn929n00:55:55.203 –> 00:55:55.943nI’ll tell you about it.nn930n00:55:55.943 –> 00:55:56.513nIt works.nn931n00:55:56.513 –> 00:55:58.123nBut here’s what happened.nn932n00:55:58.123 –> 00:56:07.023nI remembered w- w– That weekend, I called my mom for the very first time because I saw in that inventory what I had done to them, and I’d been a lousy son.nn933n00:56:07.023 –> 00:56:10.843nAnd I called my mom, and I hadn’t talked to her for a long, long time.nn934n00:56:10.843 –> 00:56:12.743nAnd I said, “Hi, Mom.nn935n00:56:12.743 –> 00:56:22.543nThis is Jay.” She said, “I know.” I said, “Sorry, I haven’t been in touch, but I’ve been busy.” I said, “I gotta go,” and I hung up.nn936n00:56:22.543 –> 00:56:25.243nAnd that began a routine.nn937n00:56:25.243 –> 00:56:28.983nI began to call her every Sunday from then until the day she died.nn938n00:56:28.983 –> 00:56:36.363nAnd the Sundays that I’d be back at sea and gone, I’d write her a letter, and I began to establish a relationship and a communication with her.nn939n00:56:36.363 –> 00:56:41.103nThis woman that prayed that the child would not be a boy that she was carrying was born a boy.nn940n00:56:41.103 –> 00:56:44.783nThe relationship I built with her was beyond belief.nn941n00:56:44.783 –> 00:56:48.423nMy mom died in nineteen ninety-nine in February.nn942n00:56:48.423 –> 00:56:51.163nShe died of diabetes.nn943n00:56:51.163 –> 00:56:56.243nShe’d had a lot of operations in the, in the two years before she died, like eighteen operations in twenty months.nn944n00:56:56.243 –> 00:56:59.003nThere was nothing left of her but stumps where her legs used to be.nn945n00:56:59.003 –> 00:57:05.463nI remember going– getting– going up there to see her and then going back home, and then they called me up to see her one more time.nn946n00:57:05.463 –> 00:57:15.503nMy mom had said she wanted to see me, and I flew back up there to see her, and I remember walking in a hospital room, and she was laying in a bed that’s just wasted, nothing there, and there were nurses there and doctors there, my sisters there, my brothernn947n00:57:15.503 –> 00:57:15.723nthere.nn948n00:57:15.723 –> 00:57:20.343nAnd as I walked in, she lit up as though you’d thrown a thousand-watt light bulb on.nn949n00:57:20.343 –> 00:57:23.803nAnd the nurse looked over and said, “You must be Jay.nn950n00:57:23.803 –> 00:57:32.283nShe’s been telling us about you.” And my mom said, “Yeah, this is my son Jay, and he’s the best son a mom could ever ask for.nn951n00:57:32.283 –> 00:57:42.623nAnd do you know that he’s a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he’ll be sober twenty-five years this March?” Younn952n00:57:42.623 –> 00:57:43.463ngave me that.nn953n00:57:43.463 –> 00:57:48.323nYou gave me that ability to make that amend, to build that relationship.nn954n00:57:48.323 –> 00:57:52.663nMy dad, my dad and I never got warm and close.nn955n00:57:52.663 –> 00:57:54.883nMy dad just wasn’t that way.nn956n00:57:54.883 –> 00:57:56.383nHe was just– We– He just wasn’t.nn957n00:57:56.383 –> 00:57:59.423nAnd I never knew if I made amends to him or didn’t make amends to him.nn958n00:57:59.423 –> 00:58:01.223nI tried to do, take the actions.nn959n00:58:01.223 –> 00:58:01.963nI just didn’t know.nn960n00:58:01.963 –> 00:58:07.963nAnd my dad had cancer, and he died a horrid death, and it took a long time, and he put him– took himself away from us kids.nn961n00:58:07.963 –> 00:58:13.083nWouldn’t let us see him for the last three months of his life because he didn’t want us to see how badly he was going downhill.nn962n00:58:13.083 –> 00:58:15.583nAnd I’d call my mom, and she’d tell me how he was doing.nn963n00:58:15.583 –> 00:58:18.703nAnd, and it, it would just– I’d go to my sponsor.nn964n00:58:18.703 –> 00:58:19.902nI’d say, “Brian, what can I do?nn965n00:58:19.902 –> 00:58:24.623nWhat can I do?” And my Bri-my– Brian would say, “Do what a loving son is supposed to do.” Brian was my sponsor then.nn966n00:58:24.623 –> 00:58:33.902nHe’d say, “Do what a loving son’s supposed to do.” And I said, “What’s that?” And he said, “If you’re a loving son, you’ll know.” And what I was supposed to do was allow my, my dad to die with dignity.nn967n00:58:33.902 –> 00:58:36.583nSee, I never had sponsors that told me what to do.nn968n00:58:36.583 –> 00:58:39.203nThey made me responsible for my own decisions.nn969n00:58:39.203 –> 00:58:45.323nThey allowed me to make the decisions to be responsible for, and I’m glad of that.nn970n00:58:45.323 –> 00:58:48.603nAnd I allowed my dad to die with dignity.nn971n00:58:48.603 –> 00:58:55.543nAnd I remember on my eighth AA birthday that year, I got a card in the mail, or seventh AA birthday, I got a card in the mail, and I couldn’t read the card.nn972n00:58:55.543 –> 00:58:56.723nIt was just scribbles on it.nn973n00:58:56.723 –> 00:59:00.663nAnd a letter fell out explaining the card, and it was from my dad.nn974n00:59:00.663 –> 00:59:01.863nUh, the letter was from my mom.nn975n00:59:01.863 –> 00:59:03.103nThe card was from my dad.nn976n00:59:03.103 –> 00:59:05.783nMy mom told me what it was about.nn977n00:59:05.783 –> 00:59:12.142nShe said, “Your father wanted to communicate with you on your birthday because it was so important to him.” And she said, “He just couldn’t write it down.nn978n00:59:12.142 –> 00:59:21.003nWe tried to kind of– couldn’t do it.” She said, “But I want you to know what he was trying to say.” It said, “Dear Son, congratulations on your AA birthday.nn979n00:59:21.003 –> 00:59:23.703nWhat a glorious and wonderful day.nn980n00:59:23.703 –> 00:59:32.043nAnd how can we ever be grateful enough to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and for all that it’s given us?nn981n00:59:32.043 –> 00:59:42.043nFor it’s given us a loving God who’s returned a lost son and rediscovered a lost father.” You know,nn982n00:59:42.043 –> 00:59:44.203nI asked myself that many, many times.nn983n00:59:44.203 –> 00:59:50.223nHow can I be grateful enough to this deal we call Alcoholics Anonymous and for all that it’s given us?nn984n00:59:50.223 –> 00:59:54.803nMy wife and I had a fantastic marriage.nn985n00:59:54.803 –> 01:00:01.583nNineteen ninety-four, uh, she, uh, had a stroke, and they found a disease inside of her.nn986n01:00:01.583 –> 01:00:09.403nThey said that she could live a day, a week, or a number of years, and she was to last for six years.nn987n01:00:09.403 –> 01:00:15.963nShe lived until July twelfth of the year two thousand, and it was a long and terrible journey for her that six years.nn988n01:00:15.963 –> 01:00:25.963nBut because of what you had showed me how to do, I was able to be the loving and committed husband I’d always wanted to be, and I was able to take carenn989n01:00:25.963 –> 01:00:34.183nof her, and we didn’t have to have nurses in, and we had no hospice called in till twelve hours before her death, and she was allowed to die with dignity.nn990n01:00:34.183 –> 01:00:44.223nAnd the very lar-last words out of her mouth to my ear were, “I love you.” And my last words to her were, “I love you.” And she hadnn991n01:00:44.223 –> 01:00:49.523ntold me she didn’t wanna be alone, and I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.nn992n01:00:49.523 –> 01:00:57.191nBut you told me that if I do what I’m supposed to do, God will put in my path what’s supposed to be there.nn993n01:00:57.191 –> 01:01:07.191nAnd about seven months ago, I was in a store shopping, and I met, I met Elaine, and we began to date, and I toldnn994n01:01:07.191 –> 01:01:11.931nher I didn’t want to be committed, and she said she didn’t want to be committed, and on January fifth, we got married.nn995n01:01:11.931 –> 01:01:19.691nAnd this is Elaine sitting over here, standing over here.nn996n01:01:19.691 –> 01:01:29.911nAnd isnn997n01:01:29.911 –> 01:01:31.151nMatt over there?nn998n01:01:31.151 –> 01:01:31.731nNo.nn999n01:01:31.731 –> 01:01:38.491nAnd I’m honored to have Elaine in my life, and you have taught me how to be a good husband.nn1000n01:01:38.491 –> 01:01:41.210nYeah, I like to think I’m unselfish.nn1001n01:01:41.210 –> 01:01:47.311nYou know, I was telling someone before the meeting, I said, “Boy, you know, you get so unselfish sober a while.” I realize how selfish I am.nn1002n01:01:47.311 –> 01:01:50.151nYou know, I, I, I have– I don’t know if you have a chair.nn1003n01:01:50.151 –> 01:01:51.851nI have certain places I sit.nn1004n01:01:51.851 –> 01:01:54.731nShe sat in my chair, for God’s sakes.nn1005n01:01:54.731 –> 01:02:04.771nI have a new marriage, and I have se- a set of principles that I can work in it and makenn1006n01:02:04.771 –> 01:02:06.071nthe relationship right.nn1007n01:02:06.071 –> 01:02:08.511nYou have given me those tools.nn1008n01:02:08.511 –> 01:02:10.691nDo I love my wife?nn1009n01:02:10.691 –> 01:02:11.291nYou betcha.nn1010n01:02:11.291 –> 01:02:13.331nDo I love my wife, Elaine?nn1011n01:02:13.331 –> 01:02:14.451nYou betcha.nn1012n01:02:14.451 –> 01:02:21.411nAnd I can be just exactly what I’m supposed to be, because you’ve given me a way to do it.nn1013n01:02:21.411 –> 01:02:27.291nAnd let me tell you, that deal I told you about, how can I be grateful enough to this program of Alcoholics Anonymous?nn1014n01:02:27.291 –> 01:02:29.270nThought about it, and I’ll tell you how.nn1015n01:02:29.270 –> 01:02:37.011nI believe that God gave these principles to some guys, and they put them down in a book that we call Alcoholics Anonymous.nn1016n01:02:37.011 –> 01:02:44.311nAnd they gave those principles in this book to other people who gave it to you, who gave it to me.nn1017n01:02:44.311 –> 01:02:54.531nEach of us in that chain charged with the same responsibility, that we do nothing to weaken it, nothing to lessen it,nn1018n01:02:54.531 –> 01:03:04.991nnothing to change it, but to leave it just exactly the way it was when it was given to us, so that there is a place for a drunk to go that’s got absolutelynn1019n01:03:04.991 –> 01:03:06.411nnowhere else to go.nn1020n01:03:06.411 –> 01:03:16.631nI will never be able to truly show you the gratitude I have for the gift you’ve given menn1021n01:03:16.631 –> 01:03:19.251nand my God and Alcoholics Anonymous.nn1022n01:03:19.251 –> 01:03:21.371nThank you so much for letting me be with you.nn”;

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