Joby N. from Madison, Alabama at Tuscaloosa Group August 29th 1998

I'm Doby, I'm definitely an alcoholic.

I'm looking at my watch. We should have time to dance for about 10 minutes.

I just want to say I I was talking to Cindy a little while ago while we were eating dinner and I don't know what I'm doing here. You know, I just, I stopped and I've been, I've been thinking about this on the drive down. I'm Madisons, just about 5 miles West of Huntsville,

and I was thinking on the drive down, as I've been thinking pretty much for the whole year, 52 years this group has been together.

And I can't

with sufficient words say how grateful I am for you all who have paved the road so that I could stand here tonight and share a little bit about myself. Because if you never, if you've never thought about it, but you stop and think about 52 years back, there was two drunks, maybe three. I don't know what the heritage is or what the story is, but would we, any one of us, be sitting here if that never happened?

And I think I'd like to personally give a little bit of a round of applause for those people who aren't here right now, but who made it possible for us, because I don't know where I'd be without you.

And I'd also want to say, Cindy, thank you for having me here. I really am grateful for that.

Well, you could probably tell by looking at me that I'm not really from Huntsville.

I am from Las Cruces, NM

which is a little town of about 50 thousand 50,000 people north of El Paso, TX. I moved to Huntsville back in 1990 and and have loved it ever since. And to me this is home and and I've been dying to say this because when I got here we won the national championship. So let me say A roll, tie, baby, roll. I don't care.

I don't. Yeah, we'll struggle. We'll struggle, but that's OK. We'll be back.

Umm, I'm from Las Cruces, NM and born and raised,

generations and generations, they tell me, and I don't know where it started. And I'm not going to pretend. I used to get up here and say, oh, was this, you know, But that's probably my ego.

I want to say that too. Let me put this little qualifier in there that I I'm about as big an egomaniac as you'll ever meet. I pretty much think I invented everything. I pretty much know that if you saw things the way I do, you know, you'd surely be right and you'd be your life would be in order.

Yeah. And that's why I'm standing up here. Anyway, I started drinking. Well, let me backtrack a little bit from there. When I was growing up, my family, you know, we had the big fiestas, the big pig roasts, you know, that that dig a hole. And everybody comes over and we're going to have this big birthday party on Saturday, but they start on Thursday, of course, you know, got to get going, got to get primed it up a little bit. And so they'd come by and everybody start coming,

building a fire and talking to the pig and kind of, and I was a little kid and I'd be walking around and I'd, I'd be just in awe of this big thing, this big deal that was going to happen on the weekend, you know, thinking, all right, you know, this is partying, you know, and I'd want to be like the big man over there. And, and, and of course they'd have a keg and they'd tap that beer and they'd pass it around. Somebody break a bottle out and they'd start passing that bottle around. But I noticed something that always happened. You know, there was always this real

happy, joyous kind of start

and then that bump got passed around and I always noticed that the noise level seemed to escalate a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, a little bit more higher and higher and higher. And somebody always have to have a little bit more of a point to make. It always have to make sure you understood. It's you, don't you understand?

And then the next thing I know is that, you know, somebody's laying there on the floor with a broken nose.

From what I understood, that was communication and that was partying. But I didn't know. All I knew is that I didn't want to be like that. Because you see, as they would get that uproar, as as that noise level would get up, something inside of me would start charming and it wouldn't feel right. And I would think this isn't right. And I'd be scared. And that fear would overwhelm me. And I would kind of withdraw. And I'd watch these people in it and, you know, be this big old brawl before you know it. And Saturday's party wasn't as big a party as it

supposed to be. Well,

I knew that from watching that sort of thing that I didn't want to be like that. I knew that something inside of me was not right and that if you knew that about me, what would you think? And I'm talking about I was six and seven years old. You know, I was just this little kid and I'd and I'd see people, but I feel really ashamed and didn't even know that that was the word,

didn't know what that was. And my mom and dad, and I've watched my dad go out and he'd he'd go out and drink. And, and before I go any farther, I want to say this because this is important to me. You know, the more you do these talks, you hear your tape and you say, Oh my God, you know, I sound like I'm blaming my dad. I'm not here to blame anybody for the way I am today.

It's not their fault. Nobody poured whiskey down my throat. I did it myself. But what I saw now, this is my other side, is that through my perception, what I saw was, is that I saw this violent, angry man coming home and beating up mom and tearing the household apart. And if he wasn't going to beat her, he was going to beat me. And I swore as a small child, I remember thinking to myself, I'm never going to be like that. I'm not going to be that violent, angry

person. I'm not going to be so full of that bitter anger. Well, I'd watch that go on for a little while. And something that that thing inside of me just kept growing, kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. More fear, more guilt, more, more shame. Didn't know why, but it was there. And one night my, my cousin and I, we're about 10 or 11 years old. I don't remember how old we were, but

we had gone and we had stolen a bunch of beer from my grandpa's refrigerator

and we took it out into the cotton field. And I remember, I remember it like it was yesterday, sitting again, that row of cotton, popping that top, thinking to myself,

I don't even like this taste. I remember taking sips of grandpa and my dad's beers, you know? But so I remember pinching my nose, you know, and pouring it back as fast as I could remember burning my throat when I was like, Oh my God.

But at 11 years old, I wasn't drinking for the taste of bad alcohol. I was drinking for what was going to happen and what I saw happen a lot, along with every one of my family when they had that big party. I was looking for something that was going to take me away. And it did. I remember it burned. And I looked at my cousin and his eyes were red and my eyes were red, and I could feel him burning. And I tipped it back again and I poured it all down

and and that's the way I drink. I don't ever remember drinking any alcohol to to the day I quit because I like the taste of it.

I drink it every single time for the effect it was going to give me every single time. And I drank at that time. I poured it down my throat and I poured another one down my throat and I poured another one down my throat. And at that time I used to play little pee wee football. And that was on a Friday night. And that next Saturday morning I missed my first football game.

I didn't know that I was really setting a pattern. I didn't know that what I was doing was setting up the way the rest of my life was going to go. Or not the rest of my life, but a good portion of how it was going to be.

Umm, well, Needless to say, I didn't drink every day. Pretty hard when you're 11 years old.

But what I did, what did happen was is that something inside of me was changed. Something inside of me knew that there was an answer. When I got when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, my sponsor showed me a page in the doctor's opinion. And he said, Joe, look here, said men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

To them, the sensation is so elusive that they cannot after time differentiate the truth from the false. He said when you drank that and and that altered perception changed in you, you were no longer able to differentiate true from false.

And you you took that true from false and you started making a reality out of things that weren't real. You started, you started making things mountains out of molehills over here. You started making things just unreal. And. And that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't stop my leg from shaking. And this guy telling me, you know, you got a perception problem. I'm thinking, wait, man, I can't even,

but I remember that now and that's what's important. Anyway, Long story short is that I didn't drink every day, but I, I, I knew that there was an answer. Well, I went on into went on into high school and started smoking dope somewhere in there as well. So let me say that I am one of those drug users as well. I use drugs, but I am alcoholic all the way through my bones. I know that because alcohol is what I use to get away from meat.

Any any narcotic, anything that I ever use. Maybe more aware of myself. And hell, I didn't need to be more aware of me,

you know, I was looking for the other side. I was looking for getting away.

So I, you know, we started playing around with that sort of stuff. But what I played football all through hot from that little mighty might time all the way up until I was a senior in high school and I I played football and I used to think it was because it made me the motto, man. I was a big guy on campus, man. Look at how bad I am, you know,

And it wasn't until a few years sober really, and a couple of four steps that I realized that I looked back and saw something totally different. You see, if you knew what I was really like, if you could see me down inside, if you could really, really look down into my soul, you wouldn't like me anymore. And I couldn't take that chance.

I couldn't take the chance of you not appreciating how great a person I was. See. I see

through this perception thing that I have. I see that everybody functions at a level, normal level playing field. Everybody plays right here,

but I'm down here. And if you knew I was down here, what would you think of me? So in order to see myself at this level, I had to perform at this level. So I was a football player who absolutely never left the field. I played offense, I played defense, I played punt return, kickoff return. I never left the field. I was the macho man. Know what I was? I was afraid. And so I'd go out and make an idiot of myself sometimes, you know, And I would do that because I thought

how, how, how could I get a date?

How could would she never go out with me? The only thing you know, I've got, I've got to build myself up so that she could see all the letters that I wear. I've got to make myself look so good. Because if she really knew where I came from, if she knew that I watched my dad beat my mom every night, if she knew that my dad beat me, if he wasn't beating my mom, what would she think? So I had to masquerade it. Now that was what I did with my actions. That was the the the doing thing.

But when I drank alcohol,

it instantly took me to that spot. I no longer had to work that hard, you see I And in my mind, it became me. It became what I was

lack of power. That was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live. Well, that was me. See, I had I had no power and so I had to make everything look like it on the outside. Well, I went through high school and I graduated basically because I took all my football coaches for my teachers.

I a few years or when I got sober and I went back to school, I had to take all the, you know, Math 0000 all over again. And I had to go back to the English and I had to really just literally go through school all over again because I knew nothing.

I really knew nothing like I thought I did. But you see, I could tell you I did. Well, I got out of high school and graduated and a friend of mine was going to a fraternity party

and he called me up. He said, hey man, we're going to this big rest party over on campus. And I said, Oh yeah, cool, let's go. So we went and there was this party and we walked through these gates and walked into this backyard of this brat house. And in the backyard of this frat house they had a semi truck. And this semi truck had a beer stick. It's sticking out all along the all the way down the side. It was tapped. There were 100 kegs of beer in that thing.

And I got there and I'm from southern New Mexico, and it was in the sun. It was about this time of year, and the girls were wearing such short shorts. They were wearing just, Oh my God. I looked around in there and I thought, Hallelujah, man, I have a ride.

So where have these people been all my life? I wish I would have known this all along, you know, And I just was looking around. And so I joined the fraternity that night.

I joined that fraternity and I went home. Now, I've got to backtrack a little bit here, too. Because you see, my mom was 15 years old when she had me. She had four kids by the time she was 25. And that whole time I watched my dad abuse her. She divorced my dad when my little sister was probably three or four weeks old,

maybe a little bit older, but Needless to say, very, very young. So she was a single mother raising four children,

trying to do the best she can. Obviously no education support to my dad meant once, you know, every three or four months we go to McDonald's or something.

So I went home that night from the fraternity or the next day at waking up with a hangover. I walk in with great news from my mom. Mom, guess what said, well, what? You know, like, Oh my God, where, where are we going now?

I'm going to college. I told her. And she just about fell out. She's like going to college. I said, yeah, I'm going to college. She said, well, how did that come about? And I said, well, you know, all my friends are going and and, and I know that if I'm going to make it anywhere in my life, you know, I'm going to have to go to college. And she was, well, if you'll go, I'll help you pay the tuition. We'll do whatever we can. I'll help you

now. See, I told my mom that that's what I wanted to do to get somewhere in life. Mom, I had to have an education.

I had my friends were going. But what I didn't tell her was last night I joined the frat, you know, and they have 100 kegs of beer, bitch, and they still got some, you know, I could hardly wait to get out the house that day. I didn't tell her about all the girls that were there that came from all over the country, you know, they were everywhere.

Well,

I joined the fraternity and I know, I guess it was a couple of weeks later they came to me and they said, Joe, you know,

we're going, we're going to have to talk. And I said sure, man, you know, whatever, you know. Hey, brothers, man, you know, it's us,

me and you, you know, all the way. And so they sat me down and they said, you know, Joe, we'd love you being here. You're a model, you know? Yeah. I was a John Belushi model is what I was.

And they said, you're what we want in this fraternity, but you're going to have to register for school.

It's like you can't just be in the fraternity and not be in school.

Well, yeah, you know, I'm going to. I told him I just you got it. I'm going to, you know, I'm just kind of trying to put some money to get, you know, I don't know what I'm going to take. So I ended up taking a few classes and Needless to say, the end of that semester I was on academic probation.

The next semester I was kicked out and there I was all by myself, a little bit closer to what you see me like really down here.

Well-being

the great rebounder that I am, I said, you know what, I'll make it. I know I'll make it. And at that time I was managed. I was an assistant. Well, I was like the chief person in charge of washing dishes or something like that.

But to me, I was the assistant manager. Do you know?

Well, they gave me an opportunity to really become an assistant manager, But I had to move about 350 miles away to a little town called Clovis, NM. It's over on the eastern side, right next to Texas, about 3 miles away from Texas. And I say this every time I talk, but it just, it bears saying if you've never been there, don't.

It's just, it's flat. It is just flat dust. I mean

rabbits run in front of trucks and stuff out there. You know, it is just, it's flat nothing out there.

Well, I got there and I got there and I walked into the restaurant and the manager was talking to this young lady and he was talking to her and she was starting work the next day. So I walked in. He said, oh, it's good to see you. Come on in. You know, this is so and so. And you know, he's he's starting tomorrow. And I hear that you have a lot of background in, in being a waiter, you know, so

one of the things that we'll do is we'll, if you'll help train her. So I looked at her and she looked at me and I needed somebody. I needed somebody bad. I'm now 350 miles away from all those Brat brothers and all those people I grew up with and everybody that I used to party with. I didn't know this at that time, but we talked and she smiled and I smiled back. And that night she spent the night with me

and the next day I, you know, I was her boss.

Well, Long story short is 6 months later we were married. See I don't take, I don't have relationships. I take hostages. You know, I don't just kind of just bring you in my life. I told you forever, you know, as long as you do what I want you to do now. So

in that six months time, I was transferred back to El Paso

and I got back to El Paso. Now, El Paso is only 30 miles South of my hometown,

and all my buddies are back there. Yeah, all those girls are back there. Hey, I may not be in the frat, but I know how they do it now, you know, So while I had moved back, she was following me and she was still, she was a month behind. So by the time she got down to El Paso, she was not necessary. You know, it was like, Oh my God, this is, this is a real crimp in my style.

So I would go out

as if she wasn't there. You know, it's like you're just been in, you know, you're an interference. And so I'll just go party anyway.

Well, I would go out

and I would roll in about three, 4:00 in the morning, you know, spend all our money again and she'd say, you know, who were you? Where were you? Where you been? You didn't, you weren't like this before.

And I'd get in her face and I'd say, but, you know, just leave me alone.

You know, I've got to have my space down. Why did you come down here? And I'd get in her face and then I'd make up with her, and then I'd get in her face. And then

what I didn't recognize at that time was exactly what I remembered when I was growing up. My dad rolling in about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and my mom asking him where you been, where you been? And him telling her, well, what to do, What's it to you? And the screaming and the yelling got higher and higher and higher.

And then there was a punches that came out behind that. Well, you know, I remember that, but I didn't think that that was applying to me at that time. She was more of a hindrance to me

and I don't need her in my life right now. She's just a hindrance. Well I lost my job

and and had to move back home or back up to Las Cruces and I moved in with my mom and she came with me. By that time we were married and

that really put a, really put a cramp in my freedom. I mean, now I've got my mom to deal with. I've got a wife to deal with. What in the world is going on? Well, she's my wife at that time finally said I can't, I, I don't, I can't do this anymore. And she packed up her stuff and she moved back to Clovis.

Now all of a sudden I'm sitting there thinking, Oh my God, she can't leave me. How could she leave me of all people?

I am so good for her. I mean, I am like everything this girl should ever could have ever even dreamed of having. So I packed up my stuff and I followed her over there.

I was living in the little tiny trailer at the time and she she was living with her mom now. She didn't know I was back in Clovis.

Umm, And I knew that she went back to the place that she was working at before. And so I'd go over and I'd kind of, you know, try to get back with her from about three blocks away. I'd, I'd sit there and I'd watch her. I'd watch her through my I'd watch her and I'd sit there and I'd drink and I'd watch her in that most and at the restaurant that she worked at. Then I watched her come out to her car and I'd follow her home, you know, and then she'd pull in and I'd kiss her goodnight from about three blocks away.

And then she'd go in and I'd go back to the little trader

and then just get rip worn drunk. Well, one night she took a detour and she took this detour and went over to a friend's house friend that we that I knew she had. And so I followed her over and I'm watching and there's a bunch of cars out there. So they're obviously having a party. And, and I followed. I followed her and I parked down the street and I kind of crept over there, you know, commando style.

And I'm looking through the window, through the bushes, and they're sitting there playing drinking games, you know, And there's this guy

flirting with my wife, and she's still my wife.

So I'm sitting there watching that inside of me. I'm thinking,

who do you think you are barging in on my territory like that? Who do you think you are to just come right in, you know, And so all this stuff. So I decided that it would be very, very good for me to go in there and communicate with them just the same way, just the same way my family always used to communicate. So I would go in and where I went in and I said, what the Hell's going on? And it started at that yelling level. And the yelling got louder and it got louder. And her friend ran over in front of me and said, Joe, just leave. Just leave us alone. Just leave us alone.

And I picked her up and I threw her against the wall and she fell down and her arm was broken. Her boyfriend gets up and I hit him and I dropped him to the ground. And then that guy gets up.

That guy should have never got up. I saw what he was doing to my wife, talking to her, you know, And so I hit him and then she got up and she was crying and she said, Oh my God, please, why just made me alone, Leave me alone. And she starts screaming. I'm telling you don't understand. You don't understand. I love you.

We're not. Please don't leave me, you know? And I'm screaming and yelling and she said get away, get away. And I picked her up and I threw her, and she fell down to the ground and she fell into a little ball

sitting there wadded up, crying me. What have I done to deserve this? Why what? Can't you just leave me alone? And I sat there and what I saw was my wife, but what I saw was my mom. And what I remembered was how inside of me, I said I would never be, that

I was never gonna be like that. Never. That's almost like I could not. How could anybody be like that? Now I became everything I said and swore I'd never be, never going to do that. And I walked out of there and the next morning sheriff came over to my house and he's knocking on my door. And I walked out hang really hungover. And he said

I've got 4 warrants for you boy, he said in. I'll tell you what, if you're not here when I get back, I'll lose the paperwork.

Oh, I can't.

You don't understand. I told him I've got to fix everything I did last night. You know, and I don't know if you guys are alcoholic like me, but I have this thinking problem.

I have this thing that says if I just fix things right,

if I just get everything in order, if I can just straighten all this mess out, I'll be happy and things will be all right and we'll be all good.

Is he not the victim of the delusion that he can rest happiness and satisfaction out of this world if only he manages well? Well, that was me. If I just manage, if I just. So I'm telling this, this little short fat sheriff with a cigar in his mouth staring at me, telling me you got to get out of oh, I can't do that, man. I got a lot of problems. I got to work out, you know, And he's like, you're not hearing me.

Got four assault charges on you, and if you're not out of here by the time I get back, I'm taking you to jail.

Ah, now I hear what you're saying. So I told him.

So I packed my I packed up my car and my little dog, and we headed back to Las Cruces, about 350 miles. Like I said, it's out there in the middle of the desert in between Roswell, NM where the UFOs are and I think I've seen a few of them.

And Clovis is 100 miles exactly straight Rd. flat, nothing. 50 mile marker of that road is a bar. The way the Oasis bar, boy that I could see that forever. So I pulled in there

and I drank and I drank and I drank and I drank because all I could think about all the way home or all the way back to Las Cruces was how am I going to get this squared? How am I going to get this fixed? What am I going to do? What issues with that guy and all these things, things, things going on in my head, Thinking, thinking, thinking. I mean, I love Alcoholics Anonymous with all of my heart. I am a die hard alcoholic synonymous member. There is not a piece of printed material I don't agree with

except that little think think think thing. I don't know where the hell that came from because for me that don't work well. Now I understand to think the drink through. OK I can understand that. But the think think think is not good for me. I have this like

things that go on and I can fix things, you know, And man, when I fix things it just turns into mud.

Anyway, So I got back and and I and I contacted her and

and she was going through with the divorce. I got papers

and all I could do was just about want to drink myself to death.

I got back, I got a job. I was living with my mom and went into this, you know, self-imposed depression

and just drank and drank and drank.

And one night my dog and I were sitting on the Bank of the Rio Grande and watching one of those brilliant New Mexico sunsets. And I cried out to God. And I said, God, I can't go on like this. I don't know what's going on. And, and the next morning,

I still don't know how this happened. I've tried to replay this in my head, but it's really not important. But the next morning I ended up in treatment. I ended up in a treatment center in El Paso that was was one of these resorts. You know, it was like to pass our time today, we're going to make the little belts, you know, what do you see when you do the belt? You know, Oh, I can see how much my love for her is coming out on the belt, you know

what foot. And then we go to music therapy, you know, And then I go to music therapy and they tell me, pick out a song, you know, blue eyes crying in the rain because, you know, she's sitting over there crying somewhere, you know? Oh, yeah. Deep, you know, deep Joe. And I'm like, yeah, You know, And at that time, that was the first time I had ever seen Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I went in there and they had the steps on the wall. I read them and

became the model student. Now I want to say this because it's very important to me.

I wanted to stop living the way I was living. I didn't know that that was alcoholism. I didn't know what I had grown up with was this alcoholism. I didn't know what all that stuff was defined. Now, they they laid it out there for me and being the intellect that I am,

you know, I got on, I caught on to it real quick. Powerless over alcohol, man, That's me. You know, every time I drink, I'm a I'm a lunatic. Unmanageable. I owe everybody. You know, it's at all. Yeah, man, I can't keep a job. It's this and that. Well, I am unmanageable. believe in God. I already believe in God. Insane. Well, yeah, we'll get deal with that one later. Turn it over. Yeah,

may direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so when injured them or others. The loophole, that's how I'll get her back right there.

I'll be because now I got the steps.

So when I got out of treatment, I went on this crusade of going around all of New Mexico to all my family and telling them how sorry I was. And they'd sit there. And this guy coming from, you know, well, I didn't have a sponsor. All I did was read these things and I, you know, made little belts

that that trip ended in Clovis on

September 26th,

as a matter of fact. And that was

one year and three hours later our divorce day. I mean our anniversary to the date I was divorced on my anniversary. So one hour and 3 hours later we were divorced. Now, I got there and I hadn't seen her since April and she was six months pregnant.

And I told her we went in and the judge said, you know, Sir, do you have representation? Don't need it sober. You know, I have God now

and everything is going to be great, you know, he said. Well, do you understand your relinquishing parental rights to this child

technicality? We'll be back together shortly. I know it and

signed the paperwork,

walked out, went to the truck, came back, handed her a dozen roses and said, I'm sorry for all the things I've done to you. And I know because I'm an alcoholic. We're going to get back together and things are going to be great. And she looked at me and she said, Joe, I won't use the word, she said. But she said never, ever will you see me again or this child?

Never. And I could tell she meant it.

So I got back in the truck. 50 miles down the road was the Oasis Bar.

Stopped in there, got back and thought to myself, Oh my God, I just went on this crusade, told everybody I was a drunk and an alcoholic and I'm drinking again, you know. So I put the plug in the jug and started going to meetings.

But I started going to meetings with a little bit of a different attitude. My attitude was

I'm 21 years old, 22 years old. My wife left me. Poor me, poor me. These steps, I worked them. I worked them all. You know, when I told everybody how sorry I was and it's just not working, just not working. So obviously it was a short, wasn't very long. I went and and, you know, put a little into this little myth. They say that you won't get drunk if you go to a meeting. Well I left the meeting and got drunk.

Rolled my car 5:30 that morning. So meetings don't keep you sober.

I rolled my car 5:30 that morning and

I was a mess. You know, I did. I just, I figured out what the hell I'm just going to, I'll just drink and die. Now, I believe that there are two surrenders and Alcoholics Anonymous. You see, I believe that you can surrender to recovery. And when you surrender to recovery, you turn your life and will over to the care of God as you understand it, just as the steps say. But you can also surrender to alcohol.

And I don't mean surrender to alcohol by saying by surrendering to alcohol, I'm never going to drink again. I surrender to alcohol and said alcohol, you are now my master and I'll do whatever it takes to get you. I'll do whatever it takes to to find you. Now, of course, I didn't say that in my conscious mind, but I figured what they why? Why should she's not coming back? Everything I do, I turn to mud.

Every. Everybody I touch, I hurt. I steal from my family.

You know, I grew up to be everything I said I was never going to be. And time

moved on. And I went to a bar and this little girl came up and said, hey, do you dance? Said, yeah, sure.

The short version is, is that about two years later with that little girl was the exact same scenario as what had happened with the first one. She woke up one morning and had a black eye and I'm asking her what happened to you? What happened? And she said nothing, nothing. When somebody later called me and told me how is she doing?

What do you mean? Oh man, you beat the hell, however, last night.

No way. Yeah,

and I thought, I'm not a gift. And she left six months pregnant.

I've not seen from my first wife. I've never seen my little boy. She had a little boy in December and I've never seen him to this day. Don't know where they're at. It's the only amends on my list I've not made. Second, the second relationship I was in to add a little girl.

There was a difference in this relationship though for me and the difference was is that I knew, I absolutely knew that if I kept on going the way I was going that that I would lose her completely. Now she stuck with me even through that incident and I decided that I needed to go to treatment again. First one didn't take so well so I need to go to another one. The first one was this luxury resort. Now, I had no job and I ended up in a state hospital.

And so I'm sitting in the state hospital at Fort Beard, New Mexico, Silver City, way up in the way up in the mountains, Beautiful, beautiful place. And I'm sitting there thinking, thinking, thinking again,

if I can just come up with enough money to get my license back, if I could just end get paid the rent, if I could just get all these things squared up, things will be all right. I already know what to do because I've been in a A1.

So I, I made a phone call and I called up this, this girl and I said, hey, you know, I've been thinking a little bit. She said, yeah, what's the matter? And I said, I've, I've already been in treatment and I know that I need to go to AA. And so I'm going to go to AA and, and it's not going to be that way again. And I'm never going to hurt you. I love you. And I'm crying. I'm telling her opponents is

And she said, OK, I believe you, you know, you didn't have to go in the 1st place. And I said, well, will you come pick me up? And I'd only been there about 3:00 or four days, five days, I guess. She said sure. So she was there that afternoon. But before she hung up, I said, hey, said yeah, so bring that pot with you. OK. She said, Oh yeah, no problem. So I was smoking a joint driving off from that place.

Well, she was pregnant and of course I did exactly the same thing. It was no time before I was drunk again and I went to treatment again.

I went to treatment again and this time she wasn't coming back.

She was pregnant. She was nine months pregnant at the time. August 24th, my daughter was born, as a matter of fact, just five days ago, 512 years ago, you know, almost of the day. And I was in treatment that at that time. And they called me and said it's a little girl, you know, da, da, da, da. So I left the treatment center. It was, it happened to coincide with the last day of my treatment.

So I went down and I went straight to the hospital and she said, no, you can't see her. You can't see her, I don't want you around her. And I said, look,

I've already lost a little boy and I'm not going to go through this again. Whether you're going to be a part of it or not, I'm going to stay sober because I'm going to be a father to that child.

And she saw that I really meant business and I had been in treatment now and I was sober and I wasn't going to do it again. Well, we, we started to kind of try to patch things up real slowly. It was real slow and

somewhere around October, November, couple months after treatment, she she came over and we were out and she said, you know,

you're not so bad. You know, it's you're a, when you drink alcohol, you're a lunatic

and you're a Wildman. God only is. You're like a crazy Indian manifest used to call me the crazy Indian, you know, and I'd say, yeah, I know, you know, I'm powerless over alcohol, she said. But when you smoke pot, you're not that bad.

Thanks higher power man, that's what I needed to hear now all this time.

I had been taking an abuse because I knew that if I drank again, I knew that if I drank again that it I would be in the same situation all over again.

And

about Christmas time now, what I had become was I was going to meetings