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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Tom I Source Review 11043 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: tom-i-2010-06-14-tom-i-story-mt-vernon-group-42-anniv-dunwoody-ga-aa-2010-archive-11043.mp3 Duration: 01:03:44
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Thanks very much, folks. Tom is an alcoholic, and I'm a member of the Primary Purpose Group in Southern Pines, North Carolina, and he's as old as me. Now, you can't afford to sacrifice a year of recovery, and so that's why I had to add that to my 53. I don't have any more of them yet. Bill is Bill R. If you said Bill R., nobody would know who you're talking about. Yeah, the root man. He's my old friend, and we're kind of aging together. He's outpacing me a little bit, but it's funny how people's memories, some people lose them, and some people just get sharper and sharper.
And Bill's one of them. I'll tell you, he can cite chapter and verse of everything he's ever heard. And his memories are so good, he remembers stuff that never even happened. When we first came in, he had about three days on me until recovery, and as his memory improved, it just grew and grew, and now he's about 10 years ahead of me. And it never lets me forget it. But I am delighted to be here, delighted to be at a meeting where we're honoring a home group. And thanks, Jim, for the visit with those good old days, eh? Good old days. I appreciate that.
I love to have a meeting about a group because there's a little book, a paperback book in AA called Home Group Heartbeat of AA, and I truly believe that, that the home group is a powerful, powerful thing. So, what about me? I don't plan to talk, but I just kind of put it together while I was sitting here trying to get a drink of water. Matt finally broke down and brought me one. I wish you could have seen Matt reading behind the podium. One of the few people I've ever seen that dances while he reads. He's all over the place down here and still got through, and he manages to live with water, too.
So, I want to just kind of weave around a little bit my story around groups because they've been extremely important in my life in our college and all this. I've never been without a home group since the day I started, never. And if I lose one, have to move, you can hurry up and believe that I'm getting another one ready right now. And so, I'm a great believer in home groups. I think they're vitally important.
We had a gal, our mother group down around Southern Pines where I'm from. It's like it happens a lot of times with groups. Leadership doesn't stay vital and involved. It just sort of got drifted, got to drifting around and was losing its vitality. And a gal from that group called me and asked me if I would speak at their 44th anniversary. Well, I swear to God, I was so thrilled. I said, man, I'd love to speak at that 44th anniversary. So, I went over there and I thought the whole talk was going to be about commending them for holding the 44th anniversary because they hadn't had one for a lot of years.
And so, I was praising them, I mean to the heavens. And after the meeting, she came over to me rather sheepishly and she said, I really appreciate all that praise you were giving us. She said, but it's an honest program, I've got to tell you the truth. And we didn't even know we had an anniversary until the general service office wrote us a letter telling us we were 44 years old. And unfortunately, that's all too typical, that a lot of times groups will just fall into assuming it's always been this way and always will be.
And what I found, if I take care of my group, it takes care of me. And so, I've always been somebody very, very strongly involved with home groups. I'm not going to put the whole time on groups, but it's going to be in the neighborhood anyway. If you look at the definition of group in our material, it could not possibly be any more loose and generous. It could not possibly be. What it says, I think I can say it, somebody correct me if I'm wrong here now, or if you just think I am.
A group is two or more alcoholics gathered together for the purpose of recovery. They call themselves an A group, provided they have no other affiliation. That's about as easy as it gets.
[00:04:59]
I could go out here to the parking lot, Bill and I, we could go out there and form a group in the parking lot.
[00:05:05]
And we could set our real mission to be eliminating lasagna. We probably wouldn't last long, but if we could do that, we'd be free to do it. I wouldn't want to shut this down, that lasagna was primo. I want to find a chef, I'm going to kiss that sucker. Yeah, that's first class. So, it's loose. And I know everybody here, if we all said what our definition of group was, it would all be different. I make a real distinction between just one-dimensional meetings.
Meaning groups that deal with practically nothing but recovery. And certainly recovery is important, without that there ain't nothing else. And so that's vital. But recovery is where we start, it's not where we finish. And it's integral and it's the foundation of everything we do. But there are some groups that do nothing else. That every meeting is about me and my recovery, and never beyond that. So I characterize those as meetings, where they have no real structure, no real organization, no real leadership, no representation.
Really no connection to alcoholics and non-alcoholics, just a group of free-floating alcoholics. And they're free to do that. I mean, you have that definition, COVID protects that guy. And they're free to do that. And very frankly, more do that than do what we've been doing here. Far more do that. And when you look across the country, what you'll find is a fellowship characterized by one-dimensional meetings that tend to operate at the level of comfort and convenience.
And there's going to be one agenda, and that's going to be me and my recovery. And so it is something that's very, very powerful and popular in alcoholics and non-alcoholics. Now let me tell you about why that's important to me. Just as one guy. I walked into my first meeting of AA at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on the 2nd of February in 1957. And I had no earthly idea of where I was going. I knew nothing about AA, and as Bill could tell you, and he'll remember it, he even knew the people who were there.
He can tell you that that meeting, where I was going, that meeting was a group. And I had no clue what it would be. I thought it was going to be some kind of a religious, hard-charging thing with deep dunking and band playing and all that stuff. I just couldn't imagine it being anything else. I got introduced to Bible Belt religion, and it was powerful, but it didn't take with me. And it didn't make me feel good and joyful.
It made me scared and confused, and so I backed away from that stuff and never really went back. So when I was thinking about walking into a meeting where sort of frantic religion was going to be the theme song, I was not real comfortable to be there. My fears were realized somewhat. The first thing we did, they did, I didn't. First thing they did when I walked in the room was open the meeting with prayer.
Same one we used here, hadn't changed a lick. And while they were praying, I'm saying to myself, yep, just what I thought. Just what I thought. And then they started the meeting, they got up and they read everything but the phone book. I mean, they read a bunch of stuff. And it sounded like scripture. It sounded just like what you do in a church. And so I had a real problem differentiating what's the thing.
I am tremendously grateful. I'll just throw this in, no extra charge. I am tremendously grateful for one little set of words in Alcoholics Anonymous that make the difference with a guy like me and my God, how many more. And those three little words are God as we understood him. Thank God for that. Because if it wasn't for that, I would have never come to my second meeting. I would not. And so that's the reason it was written, was just so aggravated cases like me could find sanctuary in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And so I'm very grateful for that. The group that I walked into, and I've never had a drink since. And there was no healing on that day. I truly did feel totally out of place. I was the youngest guy in the group, by far. Most of them in the group had drunk more years than I was years old.
[00:10:01]
And were quick to tell you. And sometimes, we don't particularly lie. But sometimes, you know, a story will get dug. And you just kind of got to round it out a little bit. You know, it just makes you flow well. And so, now that's not lying. I mean, that's just sort of, you're just sort of using, adding to the English, I guess would be one way to say it. And, but what it produced, I sit there and listen to people.
Say, man, I was drunk 24 hours a day, around the clock for 30 years. Never drew a sober breath. Oh, my God. My serious drinking lasted a total of eight years. You imagine how much I identified with somebody who was drunk around the clock for 30 years? Well, married the same woman five times in one month. And, you know, folks just trying to make a point in their way, you know. But I couldn't a bit more identify with that than I could identify with a raccoon.
I mean, it just wasn't there. And so, I was extremely out of place at AA. I'll tell you what kept me here was, now some of you all know that my invitation was, I was introduced to AA in finishing school. Now that's an example of how you can make it sound better than it really was. It was in a maximum custody penitentiary. Thank God it was a finishing school for me. And the president didn't do anything, but Alcoholics Anonymous, in the version that I was introduced to, truly did.
And I found a new way of life. And I'm so grateful. That recovery group will always be my home group. I just don't want to be a regular member. And so, I'll go visit them once in a while. And everybody there that I knew is gone. Most of them are dead. I'm about the last dude standing, I think. But they don't have to be the same people to look the same. And so, going back is always a kind of special thing.
And so, I'll go back every once in a while just to sort of touch base with the beginning and to maybe share something with somebody else. So, it'll always be important to me. It wasn't important to me until I started to understand what it was. And it took me a while to understand it. A group will tend to be kind of purposeful. You know, like the St. Edward's. I guarantee you, in a group, what will happen when a newcomer comes in, like if you just go to a casual meeting, you know, somebody may grab the guy or gal.
They may not. But in a group, if somebody comes, a group will tend to sort of sense who walked in. They may not notice it, but they'll kind of sense when somebody walks in and kind of evaluate whether they need a friendly pat on the back or they need to be just sort of grabbed and drug in or whatever, you know. Buy them a cup of free coffee or do something. You've got to do different stuff with different folks.
But a group will do that. They don't tend to do that. It'll be more of a sort of a loose-knit gathering. In a group, there's a sensitivity. Nobody trains it. It just happens. And thank God I went into a group that was like that. We had 300 members in that group. The finishing school I was in at the time I was there was the largest walled institution in the entire world of any kind. And I'm just one more lost fish in the sea.
And now we didn't have 300 green berets in there. We didn't have 300 hard-hitting leaders and all that. We had 300 people in various stages of repair. Just like we are here tonight. Now we're all looking good. But I guarantee you there are people here in the starting blocks. And then you've got guys like me, this old, may not even make it through the meeting. You know, that's… Now Roop's going to live forever.
But he's just that kind of guy. But a group, that group like any other, had a solid core of people who really take it serious, who really take care of business, who really make sure stuff gets done. Nobody announces it. Nobody trains it. It's just something that evolves as a group develops and people will take roles. And so that's what happened. While nobody ever asked me anything, I was a kind of a, I guarantee anybody that spot me, I was a pretty doggone lost soul and was about as isolated as a human could be, drunk
[00:15:01]
or sober. Now drunk I didn't act like it, you know, I was the party guy, I was the town clown, I was the guy who started something then but I didn't do it because I felt like it, it's because booze let me do it. And so when I'm sober, you know, I'm a guy that's very, very protective of letting people get too close. For many years I wouldn't let people give me anything, I might take it away from them, but I wouldn't let anybody give me anything because if they gave me something, guess what, they came with it.
And so I wouldn't do that. And so I was that kind of a guy that would stand off and shouldn't. I don't know if, nobody ever told me why they just sort of zeroed in on me as one they were going to invest a little extra effort in, but they did. And they just sort of, nobody said we're going to make an AA member out of you, they just basically said, hey, we've got to move this podium. How about helping us with this thing?
It's amazing. how much sense of belonging you can get from a simple little act like that, to just sort of join in and feel like you're part of the team, and first thing you know, you start feeling like you're there, you start feeling the energy, you start feeling that sense of connection and belonging, and that happened to me, those guys just started saying, hey Tom, come on, go with us, and I'd say, where are you going, and they'd say, don't worry about it, just come on, well, you're in a maximum custody penitentiary, and people would say, just come on, do what we do, you want to think that over a little bit before you make a rash move, but they introduced me, nobody ever called it service, I mean, I'd never heard the word, you know, in terms of a deliberate action, but nobody ever said that was getting involved in service, they'd just say, help us pick up this table, and help us go with us somewhere, and we went over, that group, and I was part of it, even though I didn't know what I was doing, we started a group, a meeting, not a group, we started a meeting in the mental health section of that institution, and I mean, these were pretty, pretty badly damaged cases, it was an interesting meeting, there was a big crowd in there, sometimes we'd have ten meetings going on at the same time, not on the same subject, it just would, and I don't know if any of them ever got sober, but this old boy did, this old boy did, and so that's how I got introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's part of the vitality of a group, what it does in terms of helping to get folks into that program of action, you know, I thought if anybody, if I see people get up and read like you guys did here tonight, I thought, my God, I couldn't do that, I thought if I ever got put in a position I was going to have to do that, I would pass out, and volunteer, I guarantee you, I wouldn't have volunteered as of today, you know, I just learned better than that in the Army, so I wouldn't volunteer, I was scared slam to death, and when I got up to read, I was one scared dude, a scared dude, but each time I stepped up, I'd step out of the fear a little bit more, a little bit more, and the first thing you know, I'm starting to be functioning like one of the guys, and so I got led into it, and that's the value of a group, where there's a forum, and in that deal, we had, we probably had 25 or 30 really strong members that were real leaders, and some of the finest AA meetings I've ever been to in my life, was when that bunch would get together, find us a corner somewhere, and sit down and share like men seldom do, powerful stuff, powerful stuff, and so that was where I cut my teeth, I cut it in a home group, and I understood the vitality of a home group, and started my journey in recovery, our group met at a meeting every week, one week was a step meeting, we took over the entire school, and what we'd do is break down into classrooms, and every classroom would have a different step, and so we'd just break up, pay your money, take your choice, and go in and do whatever step you're working on, and then the other Saturday, we would have an open speaker meeting, and unlike today, back then, nobody took, like now, like I sponsor a prison, and those guys don't have to worry about a program, we get them involved in it, but they don't have to worry about it, we're going to take care of it anyway, they don't have to worry about a speaker, because we're going to have a speaker, and we're going to deliver it, I'm not sure that's a good plan, because I learned a great deal in reaching out and trying to find people and taking active roles in service, I'm giving serious thoughts, I got talking about this a little bit while back, I'm giving serious thoughts to re-energizing that process with the group I sponsor, because my God, they can lick a stamp as well as I could, it just costs more, and we'll have them pay that,
[00:20:11]
so great, great experience of sitting in with that group, I became one of the leaders in that group, certainly didn't run for the job, but it just happens as you get involved and you start to get called on for stuff, and I became one of the leaders, we had a little deal in that institution where it wasn't a newcomer group like we know it now, but it was a group where some of the older men would just take some of the newer guys and explain to them what AA was, and what's anonymity, what's the sponsor, what's the home group, just that kind of fundamental language of AA, and I remember one thing, now this is 53 years ago, and I remember it as clearly as if it was this morning, we had a session and I was one of the new guys, and they had steps, they weren't quite as slick and modern as this, but they had some steps on some form up on the wall, and the guy that was doing the presentation about it was talking about it, he said there are 200 words in those steps, I never have counted them, I don't know, I may not have an aversion to counting them, but I just take God's word, and never have bothered to count them all these years, but he said there are 200 words, and if you'll take the actions that are laid out in those steps as honestly as you possibly can, when you get through you'll be a new guy, and it doesn't even matter what your motives are, and I thought come on man, come on, I know better than that, but you know the guy was absolutely right, he was absolutely right, today there's a notion now that we used to do a better job of taking people through the steps back then, you hurry up and believe that's a rumor, Bill and I have talked about that, that is simply not so, nobody that I knew was methodically doing steps with anybody, sponsor, group, nothing, and basically folks just kind of fumbled their way through, and that's exactly what I did, I fumbled through, and when I got through that process called recovery through the steps, I was a different guy, but I was the same guy, I'm still 6 feet tall and ugly, but I was still the same dude that I was, except I was totally different in my makeup, I was a free man, I was a free man as a result of those 200 words, and I didn't go anywhere, I'm still confined like a wild animal, but that freedom is not so much physical, it's a thing of, I tell you the tightest prison I was ever in in my entire life was a prison called alcoholism, it's the tightest prison I've ever known, and so I was free, I was a free man in every sense of the word except physical, tremendous thing, I was able to engage in life, it was a terrible society, but I was able to live in what was a jungle like atmosphere with fear and anger and apprehension, that in every second of every day, and this program made it possible for me to rise above that and live with dignity and honor and purpose and integrity for the first time in my entire life, I mean ever, I became a good citizen, all as a result of a group is my point, why groups are so important and why doing things like an anniversary to pull it together and seal this thing and say let's share and celebrate what we've done here for 42 years, and that was what happened, and I had a new life and I didn't know anybody was watching, well you were 6,300 people, it's kind of hard to keep an eye on all of them, but one day I got a call from the probe commission, probe board, well I didn't get a call, unless they yelled out a window, I didn't have to get a call on, but somebody said report somewhere, that's the call, and so I went, and so I go and I didn't just fall off the truck, I knew what was over there, it was a probe commission, and so I walked in and puzzled, I had a 15 year sentence, I had a sentence of 515 years for involuntary manslaughter as a result of a drunken irresponsible accident in which two people died, and that's what I was there for, and so with a 15 year sentence in the state of Michigan, that meant that you had to serve one-fourth of the minimum, which was just a little less than 40 months, but that would be the outcome of that thing, and I was nowhere near eligible, I had to have at least four years before I would be eligible, and so I went into the room kind of puzzled about the whole thing, the chairman of the probe commission said, Tom you're probably wondering why we've sent for you, and I said yes sir, I do, and he said I'd never heard of this, neither had most other people, there might have been a few old goats that had heard of it,
[00:25:28]
but he said once every approximately 10,000 cases, we pull somebody in that we think is an extraordinary example of recovery, or restoration, or rehabilitation, I don't remember the exact word, but they all meant the same thing to me, and he said we decided to talk with you, and I said well I appreciate that, that's quite an honor, and he said but I'll tell you up front, we're not going to parole you, because the crime is too severe, and the time served is too short, and I told him very sincerely that I agree 100%, and I did agree 100%, a crime like mine is what they call a casual offense, it doesn't mean it's minor, obviously you can't get more serious than causing two human beings to lose their life, and so you can't get any more serious than that, but a casual offense means it was not deliberate, it was not intended, it was not predatory type of thing, and I could understand that, and he said we won't parole you now, but you can be sure that if you maintain what you're doing now, you'll go out of here on your first eligibility, which meant that I would have about a year left, and he was right, that's what happened, and the point of that, I'm going to talk about that for a week, but the point of that is that you're a powerful group of Alcoholics Anonymous, really transformed me and made me have a tremendously rewarding, satisfying, developmental experience in the most bizarre circumstances you could imagine, what we're in here is not some chat room, this is not some little place where we come together and commiserate and fellowship, this is a powerful program that can genuinely transform a human life, and I don't have a cold, I've got bronchus, but that was absolute proof to me, and so I made my arrangements when I knew the time was coming, made arrangements to get ready to go out, what time did I start, anybody know?
I can always tell when you're quitting anyway, I do a lot of working with groups, and you can tell when a group is rude listening, they don't do anything, we're pretty polite people, we don't normally get rude or anything like that, but you can tell if you're watching a group and you get to a point where that's all you need to do, because it's like a film drops over folks eyes, and they just sort of sit there with a glazed look, they don't do anything, but you can keep talking if you want to, but you're done, and so that's what I try to look for, and so here I've got my deal, and I've made my contacts, and I've had arrangements made in North Carolina, hit the street, and I want to share with you about this thing of how do you get stuff started like this.
Now I was a good solid member of Alcoholics Anonymous when I left that institution, I was a solid member in every sense of the word, I was working with others, I was a leader in the group, I wasn't a rookie, I was a well-seasoned guy, and good that I was, because when I got out, I had made arrangements, and I called the guy when I got off the bus, I called the guy that I made contact with, and he was expecting me to call, and we chatted just a minute, and he said, let's go to a meeting tonight, and I said, you got it, you got it, let's do it, and we went, I went into my first meeting, and then the next couple days later I went to what was to become a home group.
Now, that first one was in a different town. In my town, AA was history. It was something that had existed, but when I got there it didn't exist anymore, not to any extent. The old man who answered the phone was the only sign of life in that town. And I tell you, some people's memories get better as they get older, some don't.
[00:30:15]
Now, this guy remembered to wait at a meeting, but he didn't quite remember what to do when he got there. And so I got this old boy, he's a good-hearted guy. God knows he was a wonderful man and loved him dearly. But if I'm looking for scintillating leadership and who to go to when you're troubled about something, you better find me. a little bit, and I thought, good God, I'm not gonna put up with this rinky-dink stuff, I'm going where the action is, I'm going downtown, and, uh, then a troubling thought occurred to me, when do you become responsible, when do you step up to the plate, now I'm just walked out of a maximum custody penitentiary, that does not prepare you to take a leadership role in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I had also just walked out of an excellent group of Alcoholics Anonymous, that does prepare you for leadership, cuz I did exactly what it says at the, at the end of the, at the end of the text part of the book, you know, when you go to a place and, and you create the fellowship you crave, and, uh, so my marching orders were pretty clear, you know, that took around somebody that needs to do something, and I was somebody, so I said, I'll stay here, we'll, uh, we'll, we'll, the same thing that happened to every AA group that ever started in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, when this program first came and we started to break loose and getting on extensively around the world, you know, what happened was very simple stuff, and, and, and I wound up being one of, one of the people, it's just a little different setting and a little bit different time, but everywhere that AA started it was because one somebody, at least one somebody, and it was usually just one somebody, would hear the message, would get the information, and they wouldn't say it in these words, but they would basically say, I'll plant the flag here. And it stood the long vigil till somebody else came up. Now, I know about that, I know about that, because that's exactly what it did. Now, the old man came as much as he could, but if you want to find a growing spiritual experience, go to AA meetings by yourself. Good meetings, man, I never, I never went to a bad meeting when I was alone. They were always interesting, and, and, uh, business meetings were a snap. Man, we could solve it in minutes. And so that, that's what I did. I stopped. I said, well, somebody's got to do something, and I'm somebody. So we went to work. I won't, I won't, I won't regale you with all of the stuff, but I just, I won't even explain it, but I'll just tell you this one time. I, I know, I didn't know what a public meeting was, that, but I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? I mean, you want people from the general public to have a meeting. What about, about Alcoholics Anonymous? So I'd heard of that, and I thought, well, that's not rocket science. So I did one. You notice I'm using the word I. I said, I'll do one. And so I started getting the word out in that community. We're going to build Alcoholics Anonymous in that town. And we filled the sanctuary of the biggest, biggest, uh, sanctuary in the biggest church in that town. And, uh, I brought in a speaker from another state. You can go tell how it happened in his state. Had it, now I'm just out of prison. Man, I couldn't have ridden a bus to the county line. I mean, I was flat broke, but I was bold. I'll tell you that. And so we had a catered dinner. Well, I mean, simple logic will tell you that anybody knows what food costs and anybody could tell if you count the crowd and see how many people they are and then look at the spread of food. Anybody could calculate about how much that costs and therefore how much is my proportion of share. That's simple. It is simple, but it doesn't work. I'm sitting there and I'm watching. We, we didn't send out a collection baskets like this. We sent out buckets. I mean, big old buckets and, uh, I'm in the hole and I'm just out of the joint. I got no money. I'd gotten this stuff on my word. They just didn't
[00:35:06]
know me, but he did it on my word and they had my signature. And so I'm watching those buckets go up and down the hall. When he came in, I've got close to 700 people in a room eating hearty. We got $47 and God knows. I thought, man, I'm going back to jail for doing God's work. I couldn't have paid that in a year with everything I've done. I mean, I had, and, uh, stuff happens here. The word got out, you know, in the surrounding area, I'd met people by the end word got out and said, well, the old boy is pretty dumb, but he means well. And so the A's did just like we were talking about. When A's, they see what the purpose is, we create, we donate like nobody I've ever seen. So they heard that this Hidoku young fella is in deep trouble and they threw together. Yeah. And then we paid that. We paid that thing off. I don't know what I put in, but it taught me something.
You know, the groups are tremendously important and I've never done another I thing since it taught me a great, great lesson. So yeah, just that goes on forever. You know, we introduced CPC in that place, Cooperative Professional Community. That's where per 12 step calls come from. And, uh, I didn't really have it in mind. I wasn't that good a thinker, but I'll just tell you one other story and then we'll move on a little bit. But the, uh, I would, now I was it. I was 12 step in people, but there was nobody else to do it. So, I mean, I've done pizza day last year. I had three, 12 step calls in the entire year, all three from ministries, by the way. And, uh, at three, I've had that many at one time.
I mean, all at the same time. And, uh, so my life was just filled with that thing. One night I had a 12 step call and he was the first guy I'd had that was sort of a high roller type of fellow. You know, I'd usually had real dark wallopers and cotton pickers and stuff, but this was a high roller. And, and usually people call because they won't help or else they want to drink one or the other. And he, he was the latter. His wife wouldn't let him get out of, out of, out of captivity. So, uh, she called and I, I went and I've messed with it about three o'clock in the morning. And then I've, I've got, I've got a sort of a guideline. I follow that. I won't let a guy drink till I'm satisfied.
I can't help it. That's, and then if I'm satisfied, I can't help it. And I'll shoot. Yeah, we'll go for it. And that's what happened that night. I messed with it about three o'clock. And then I said, where's your favorite bootlegger told me. And I thought I knew them all, but he, he, he told me when I didn't know. And so we drove in there and, uh, went in and looked like an opium den in Calcutta or something. I was drunk from sprawled all over the place.
Got a bottle of some that ain't never gotten close to anything that was legal. And, uh, they took that at about the time he got the whiskey police cars came from everywhere. I mean, nobody rated bootleg joints there. I mean, that was major industry in that County, but that night they made an exception here. And he came, it looked like a goon squad coming in and those folks come storming in the door and they're starting to drag these drunks all over. Now here's me looking like a young Ivy league students, standing over against the wall at one cop kept looking at me and finally he couldn't stand it. The word he came over and he said, Mr. Why are you doing here? And I said, you wouldn't believe it.
And he said, well, try me. And I did. And so I told him what I was doing. He said, you're right. That is hard to believe. And so, but he believed it. He gave me the drunk. He gave me that rock gut whiskey. And from then on gave me hell. Uh, that, that, that, I think he put my name on the jail house wall. You know, if you need help or you got somebody acting up, call this guy, he'll fix it. And then CPC was born in living. We had more people referred to a that we could have with the, with the set of footballs, but, but that was the birth of a day. And then it just started to grow. And when I left that town, two years later, we had 60 members in that group. But that's how it got going. And what a powerful, powerful experience. It'll always be valuable to me. What I've done everywhere I've gone, I've moved, I've moved the wild amount, but I've moved a fair number of times in my career.
And quite frankly, there hasn't been a town that I've moved to where I found a group that would be in tune with what I look for in AA. I am a three legacy guy. I'm not interested in a one dimensional group. And so when I get a group into a group, that's just this
[00:40:02]
casual conversation and the bulldog bit me or whatever, I'm not going to hang around long. And what I've had to do by my own value system, what I've had to do is start a new group everywhere I've been. And if you can't find what you're looking for, build it for God's sakes. Yeah. And that's exactly what, what I'm doing. Some people say it takes a resentment, a coffee pot. I think all that, all that does is creates another mess. And so yeah, what is the purpose anyway? But that's, that's been my deal. And you can see why home groups are extremely important to me, not just the place that I belong, but a group that's got the legacies in action, a group I belong into today, primary purpose groups, Southern Pines, every service that's delivered in Alcoholics Anonymous, every single service exists in my home group, staffed and delivered, not just a conversation piece. Treatment, we have an organized set of people who work with treatment. They keep that relationship going. CPC, PI, strange thing in our group. We've had, we've been there 14 years. We've had five, I think it's five chairs of CPC and PI. All five have been medical doctors.
It's not on the job description, but it's just something, once we do something, we tend to do it over and over and over. So we, it's what we get. He's turned about up, he's probably recruiting another doctor. And, but, but that's what it's been. And so when I get a group, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for one that represents what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. If you want to see an outline of what a group like this looks like, the third legacy manual in the late eighties has a, has a picture of exactly what I'm describing.
And I think it's 87, 88, nine, something like that, but in the third legacy manual. So anyway, that's what's going on. And so if you see what's happening in this, all the time this is going on, I'm growing, you know, I'm growing and I'm becoming a free man and I'm becoming a guy with a useful purpose and, and, and, and lots of wonderful stuff happened. I was a bad drunk. Yeah. I would, I was somebody that I honest to God, never believed I would ever stop drinking and never really tried very hard. And, and, and certainly back then as Bill can tell you, there were no resources available. We, there were no detoxes by that name. We had jails, which functioned as detoxes and functioned quite effectively that a lot cheaper too. But they were not, not places where somebody's going to be looking after the problem. So those things didn't exist. And, uh, go in AA, we had to do it. I'd say one other thing about that, that whole, that whole thing of this active work with alcoholics.
If I had to contrast back then and now, what, what I would say is, is the greatest loss in Alcoholics Anonymous was when, when you do a 12 step call, just like I did dragging that fellow out of that, out of that opium den or wherever I got them from. When you do that with an alcoholic, there is a loyalty built that is second to none. And the person you drag out will not hesitate for one second to do the same for somebody else. Back then characteristic of the fellowship was that every single person who came in did so because of the actions of another alcoholic, every single one. And so what you see, you think about that in terms of, of, of, of how that builds the closeness and the tightness and the effectiveness of the work. And today, you know, very frankly, 12 step work is almost a lost art. It's almost a lost art. There are pockets of it around the country, but for the most part, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's become almost an unknown thing. And, and the, to give you, I'm just reading something in Language of the Heart, which is a really good book. And Bill was writing in that book and he was sort of talking about the future, what's our future hold. And he's talking about whether we will take the legacy that we're given and then make it stronger, whether we'll keep it going and assure that the next group of alcoholics come in and get what, what, what the group were given that, that in his era. And then he answered that by saying, of course, we won't get complacent. In so many words, of course, we won't get complacent. We'll never get to the point where we will Refuse to reach out or ignore people who are seeking help in our college synonymous.
Good morning, Bill. Good morning, Bill. Because if you take a look, you'll find a very disturbing comparison to what he said, that he said we would never sit back and let that happen. I'll tell you in one little snippet what that looks like today.
[00:45:03]
I was speaking to a group in North Carolina and a drunk woman came in. looking at her, I was like the psychiatrist in the burlesque show, you know, I'm watching the audience, you know, and so I see the woman coming in, but I'm watching the group. And I think a drunk woman particularly, drunk women are going to make some noise. I mean, they're going to make something happen. I don't know what it is, but they're just geared that way. And so she came in and she was singing pretty badly, too. I mean, it was not good at all. And so she's singing. And what was fascinating was to watch a group because everybody started turning around and they're looking at their neighbor, you know, that nonverbal communication. What do you do? Call 9-1-1, get the police, call a rescue squad. You know, you would have got the same reaction in the garden club of that town. Would have been no different. I guarantee you it would have been no different. This is where we've evolved to. And after a little bit, the oldest member in the group, I started saying an old gal, but she's not, I know her and she may hear about me being in Atlanta. There's a fine young lady who happened to be the oldest member in that group. And she just quietly got up and walked back into the galley, going in the kitchen. She had to be drunk for a woman to go in the kitchen to have fun. And so she goes back in the kitchen, puts her arm around the gal, took her to another room. Well, that's what you do if you know that's what you do. If you don't, you sit back, panic, you say, somebody do something. And so, yeah, we have moved quite, quite distinctly in the way Bill was hoping we would. So anyway, that's a huge amount of my story of what is it that brings me back. You know, I've been I've been rewarded in Alcoholics Anonymous. Honest to God, I have been rewarded beyond my wildest dreams. And that's a fact. I truly have. And I'm nobody special. I'm a hardworking drunk.
I'm a hardworking drunk. I'm an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't used to be. I am an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous in every aspect of the program. I've got a major league commitment to correction because that's where my life came alive. Of course I would. And so I said, sure, I do. It's probably the most most toughly disciplined commitment that I have. And so I do that weekly. And but I'm involved in all other aspects of it.
I do a lot of this and I don't do it because I want to hear my own voice. I do it because I'm not going to say no to a request for service if I can possibly say yes. And so if somebody called me, my answer is yes, if I possibly can. And I can't justify doing anything else. And I don't want to justify doing anything else. I have to explain to my wife fairly frequently, but she's growing understanding. So anyway, that's been a tremendous life for me. And, you know, when I got out of prison, I went to work in a cotton mill and never did like that. I grew up in it and that's why I didn't like it. But I went to work there sweeping the floor at night on the third shift. And I was probably the most high morale sweeper you've ever seen. Man, I was good. I made the floor shine. And it was dangerous. Man, I get that broom and go down that thing. People go jumping on the machines, get out of the way. But I'm coming through. I'll do something. And I did it. I kept that job. Lousy job.
But I kept it because I knew a guy like me, if he got in the fast lane too quick, look out. I know me. And so I stayed on a grungy job for two years and wouldn't even consider leaving it. And then some amazing stuff happened. I want to just tell you a few of these because if there's anybody here that questions the hope that exists here, I want to bash that notion the best I possibly can. Now, I didn't tell you my drunk a lot tonight. I didn't go into that. You just assume that I was a bad drunk, went to jail more times than I could count. I like to think I went the exact right number of times because it's worked so far. And otherwise, that's who I am. I was a guy that was through with living. I was so deeply ashamed and grief stricken by what I've done with my life that I never thought I would ever have life again and didn't really care. I just wanted to disappear. And that's who walked into Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I indicated to you, as I grew in that group, so did I grow in my own recovery and my function as a human being. And I want to tell you a
[00:50:01]
couple of things that are hard to believe, but you can believe it. When I finished three and a half years in there, say 42 months, they did what they said they would. And pro meal condition, I come to North Carolina. And so I did. My family got me a job in that meal sweeping that floor. And I was grateful for that. Personnel director who hired me and spent a little time with me, wound up in Alcoholics Anonymous. So it worked out pretty well. You know, he was a good guy. And so I did that. And then I was I got active in prison the second week I was out. You know, it was a little simpler then than now. And the guys said, go with me. I would have been out two weeks. I said, man, I'm not going to prison. He let me out. And they said, come on. So I did and started doing that. Two months after I was out, I was named outside sponsor. Now, that wouldn't be any honorary tribute to most people. It was to me. I could not have been more affirmed if I'd been elected governor. Got tremendously be trusted to be a servant, a leader in something like I had just been subject of. And here I'm able to go in a leadership role to try to make a difference. What a marvelous, marvelous thing. About the same time, a pro guy came to me one day. And many of you got a lot of old friends here. Many of you are familiar with this. But it's it to me, it's it's a it's a it's a powerful message. When I had left for obvious reasons on the parole papers that said this man's could never operate a motor vehicle for obvious reason. And I accepted that as a fact of life. I never did anything or even suggested to anybody that that I needed to be able to drive. Never even thought of it. I knew it was done. And, yeah, members or my family drove me everywhere I went. And my pro guy came to me. I've just been out a couple of months and he came to me one day and said, Tom, you're reluctant to say anything. And I said, yes, sir. And it bothered me because I thought he was going to tell me to slow down. And I knew I wouldn't. You know, my recovery was more important than the restrictions of parole. And I would not have backed down.
And that's not belligerent. It's just recognizing the rules are a challenge to me. I have never been amenable to rules. Even if I write them, I don't like them. And I want to break it the next day and usually do so. I really wouldn't do much. And so I that day was my deal. And so he said, you're real active. And he said, wouldn't it help you if you drive? And I said, yes, sir. But I can't. As if he didn't know me, my God, he's in charge of my case in my life. And he said, let me take a look at it. And a little later, just a few days later, a couple of weeks, maybe he called me, asked me to meet him uptown at Sears store, which happened to be where the license examiner was. I always like to tell this because I know that there are people and maybe in this room, but in most rooms, we're wondering if there's another shot at life. We're wondering if they ever get restored. We're wondering if they ever get over the hurdle to stand in the way of full function. And so I want to tell this for that reason, that to give some hope, because that's that's who it was.
And you could have had a worse case. And what I'm telling you is absolutely true. I mean, I did absolutely nothing to even suggest interest in that. But my pro guy told me that I went up to that Sears store for where the license age was, went up, a guy introduced me to a fellow that happened to be the license examiner. That's where they did it was in Sears. And they chatted for just a minute. Then guy turned to me that I didn't know. And he said, Mr.
Logan, pro guy says you might be interested in having your license back. And I said, well, yes, it would be. It would be good. And I can't explain it. I can't even try to explain it because I know it's not legal. It's not me. They may come take my license. I don't know. But the guy didn't ask me a single question other than that. You want your license back? And I said, yes, sir. And the guy handed me the driver's license.
I mean, just handed it to me. No test of any sort whatsoever. None. And did he pay for it? And that's not legal. That's not the way it works. But many of you heard me say it a thousand times. And I say it because I believe it. It's not because I want to do something that I don't care how much ambition and drive I've got. That won't be enough. What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that when God has work for me to do, when God has work for me to do, the walls come down and I don't care what they are, whether it's regulations, law, whatever, the walls come down. And and that's what happened there. And given that
[00:55:05]
liberty to DCM five months after I was out. And two years after I was out one day, I was sitting home and got a phone call from the state prison headquarters. And the guy on the phone was a fellow who'd come by that unit where I sponsored a group one time and had stuck his head door and just said, I talked to ministry about nothing, just hello. And it was him on the phone. And he said, Mr. Ivester, he's always here. So they call me that. He said, we're expanding the rehabilitation program in our prison system. We were wondering if you would consider accepting the position. And for obvious, it's not too obvious if you didn't know it, but very obvious to me, that was the most unusual question. And I said, my God, man, I'd rather do that than anything I could possibly imagine. To myself, I said, ain't no way. Ain't no way. Bless your heart. Thank you. Yeah. But I knew because at that time, there had never in the history of this planet, never been an ex con hired in a position in a correctional system. And I knew that. And I knew they were going to start with me.
But if they're going to do it, who are they going to start with? You got to start with somebody. And so I said, I'd love to do that. But but to myself, there ain't no way. But sure enough, it did. I'm just barely two years out of the penitentiary. I'm in North Carolina. I'm not in San Francisco. I'm in North Carolina. Redneck, highly conservative North Carolina. And if there's any place on the planet I would be least likely to vote as the likely place to do something bold is that North Carolina wouldn't be the spot. I promise you that.
But I'm proud of my state. I'm proud of my state because they did. And sure enough, I was employed in 1961. It's the first ex con in history working in a prison system. I won't elaborate on it, but as you can well imagine, that's a that's a peculiar place for a guy just out of a prison a short while to find himself, because it's an awkward thing here. I'm moving in as an official in an environment in which I was a subject not too long ago.
And I had to do some quick thinking. I'll tell you this. A tradition was the greatest tool I had, the greatest tool. Far better. I finished my college education in correctional administration. But that was the least important vehicle that I had. But a tradition is what helped me learn how to work in unity and shared purpose with other people. Help me. How do you put dampers on on how I conduct myself? And so I went to work and I made up my mind right off the bat. I was not going to be a hoodlum hero, going to have all the guys hooting about the ex con is going to change the world. I could have been in every tabloid on earth if I if I wanted to do it or been willing to do it. But I didn't want to do that. I want to be of service. And so I had to very quickly make a make a decision that if I'm going to take money, I'm a professional. I don't care if you pay me two dollars, if I take the money, I am a professional. I am no longer doing service. And I was aware that, you know, I was not unfamiliar with tradition. And so I may amazing thing I'll never understand in a 39 year career. I never had one single person from day one to the last day even asked me about my history. I mean, nobody never had a supervisor say, well, you realize this is going to be delicate for a guy with your history. Nobody. They treated me like a professional and that's the way I acted. And so I went to work. And very frankly, I went to the top of the system. I went as far up as you can go without being politically appointed. You know, it's not only a deal with supervision and direction and warden and unbelievable stuff. At one point I was I had a region in which I oversaw a number of institutions.
Now, if you don't feel think that's a heady trip for a guy that was looking through the Bars not too long ago, I mean that didn't happen overnight, but that's just what happened. And I'll tell you this, believe it or not, hard to believe, I never applied for one single job, none, none, not even the first one, never applied. I was recruited for every job that I got, and I don't think I was Mr. Wonderful, but
[01:00:04]
I wasn't bad, I mean I was a pretty good worker, because what I did, and I think if there's any personal attributes that had to do with that, that I was a good, I was a darn good employee. Yet for some reason, nobody trained this to me, but I gave my very best to every job that I had, my very best. And it was not because of ambition, it's because of how I do my work tells you who I am. If what I do is sloppy stuff and just goof off and stuff like that, that's who I am.
and so I gave it my best shot, and there's a hunger, certainly then and I think now, there's a hunger for people who will really work in behalf of an institution and put it ahead of their own narrow wishes, and so I had an absolutely magnificent career, I put in 39 years, and then one day somebody told me I'd make almost as much money retired as I would working, I said man that's not a bad deal, shoot I'm going to go play, and I went to, I retired, and I tell you Alcoholics Anonymous is anonymous, but we have the best grapevine in the world, I mean word gets around, and the word got out that the old guy's going to hang it up in corrections, and a little delegation came from AA in North Carolina, and they said, met with me and said Tom we need some leadership in AA, because we've got a lot of problems in a lot of places, we had about 90 prisons in, and they said we've got a lot of problems, we need some leadership, and we want to get you if you will to come in as chair of AA service in corrections, well you know I'm a human being, my God guys give me a break, and then I thought there's no way I could say no to that, there's no way, if there's anybody on this planet that understands the dilemma of the man or woman, boy or girl in the prison, it's me, I understand that, and if there's anybody in my state that had access to the system, it was me, because I'd hired half of them by then, and so I couldn't say no, and so I took that, it was effective the day I retired, so I didn't have much of a long retirement, my wife was thrilled the next day when I told her about it, I thought I'd lost my mind, and so anyway it's been a heck of a trip, a heck of a trip, I hope that we kept the focus of, you know I wasn't a world beater who was just waiting to be discovered, I'm a guy who is a product of what we're celebrating here tonight, I learned how to lead in our colleagues in office, I learned how to communicate, I learned how to make decisions, I learned how to operate by principles that served me well, in every aspect of my life, so I'm not talking about some superhero that exceeded out here and would have done it without A, if it hadn't been for A, I'd have probably been in one of those boxes, instead of running them, and so I tell that just, I hope that you hear it in that perspective, that this is not some heroic guy who's just won an academy award or something, that I'm a guy who's given his best in this program, and it's given back more than I could possibly imagine, and I am deeply grateful for that, so if you're somebody who's wavering a little in that hope department, man just give it your best shot, give it your best shot, practice these principles, and you're going to have a hard time failing, thanks a million.