Keith D. from Yorba Linda, CA at Laughlin, NV May 22nd 1999

Hello everybody, I'm an alcoholic. My name is Keith by God's great Alcoholics Anonymous. Rooms full of people like you and a little Everett. On my own I haven't had to take a drink or do any dope since May the 11th, 1976, and for that I'm especially grateful. You bet

grateful to be here I want to thank the committee for inviting me to participate. It's a privilege to be able to participate in our colleagues anonymous and well thank my Home group for coming supporting my sobriety and

I'm fortunate I'm so we're a little over 23 years and the people that saw me come in are still in my life. The little guy that 12 stepped me a little, Jack Callahan, is still alive. He lives in Fullerton, CA and I call him every Tuesday and he always tells me the same thing. He reminds me of how cool I was when he came to my house.

10th, 1976

He also asked me where I'm going to talk and I tell him and like last Tuesday he told me to be sure and tell you folks that I wouldn't have anything to say if it weren't for him. So

I'm grateful for that.

My first sponsors in the room, Rotten Ron, infamous Rotten Ron sitting over here with my group and, and you know, he saw me at my best when I knew everything. You know how much you have to know before you know you don't know anything? Well, I ask your sponsor, they'll tell you and,

and I'm grateful Ron's still around. And you know, I'm grateful for the old timers. It's been a good weekend. It's been a fantastic bunch of speakers. I know them and I've been on programs before with them and, and it's good and

I'm grateful to be sober and to be a part of this. I have some friends here in the room that you know, that I get to see at various places like this. It means something to me that have some longevity. I'm talking about some longevity, some friendships, good, bad or indifferent, It's, it's good to be together and I'm grateful for those things just to be sober. The world is a safer place because I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Everybody that knows me is glad I'm in a meeting about colleagues Anonymous, and I'm glad I'm in a meeting about Colleagues Anonymous

because when I'm in a meeting about colleagues on us, my wants and my needs are exactly the same. I want to be here and I need to be here.

My wife would have liked to have come with me this weekend. She had to stay home. She's a president of World Service or something like that. And so she had to stay home and take command of the World Service for Al Anon and keep them all shaped up. And other than that, why she would have been here to support me.

We've been together 39 years. We fit, you know,

and but she's grateful I'm sober and that I'm doing something now. Colleagues anonymous and

if you're neurologically no. If you're sitting here today and you know,

get your body in your butt and your mind in the same place for a few minutes here and I'll cheerlead with you. I don't know if I was born in alcoholic or not, but when I had my first drink and alcoholic was born and I had my first drink at a very early age. And I remember it because it did for me just exactly what alcohol is supposed to do for you.

It made me so I didn't care. And I had all those feelings that Alcoholics had. We talked about it all the time, and I didn't like them. I didn't understand them. I didn't know what they were. I come from a family of Alcoholics. It isn't necessary to come from a family of Alcoholics to end up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm at least a fifth generation alcoholic. And that's as far as I wanted to check. I didn't feel like there's any need to go any farther than that.

I grew up with selfish, self-centered, self seeking, neurotic, insane people and I got out of there alive and

and I don't hold it against them at all. I don't hold any kind of a,

you know, grudge or never have really. You know, I mean a matter of fact,

36 years old, I ended up in a meeting of our colleagues, anonymous, full of selfish, self-centered, self seeking, neurotic insane people. And you said welcome to your home, you know, and

some of the some of the tools that I learned to survive in my own family have been very essential in meet surviving right here in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I don't, I don't hold anything against them. I was born in Texas. And that doesn't necessarily make you an alcoholic. It's a disease of its own. And

but so that you'll know the difference between a Texas tail and a fairy tale, a fairy tale starts out Once Upon a time, and a Texas tale starts out. You're probably not going to believe this shit, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

My my dad's a lawyer and I've never resented that. I kept him on retainer for years and

he's also a drunk. He's sober now and but he was a drunken lawyer and had a lot of guilt and that was good. I,

we ended up in drunk tank together. I said, how you going to represent me? You know you're in here in jail with me, you know,

he said. I will both be in court at the same time.

He don't

I know the judge, right? Yeah, my daddy's 84 years old and he's I got 14 months of seniority on him in A and I don't ever let him forget it. I always wanted to one of my old man. I know I was going to have to go to A and A to do it, but you know, good. We're we're good friends. My dad and I were, you know, family recovery is my story and

Alcoholics wants to put a family back together

and I didn't. Our good friend, he called me the other day and he played about eighteen holes of golf and made love to a 69 year old woman twice. And this year, he made love to the woman before he played golf. You know,

I'm my father's son. I want to be just like him, you know, I mean, I

but he's cool and he still lives back in Texas, Oklahoma, Panhandle and, and I get to see him frequently and it's good, you know. Yeah, my wife and I, like I say, we've been together 39 years and it went through a lot of the disease together. We have a daughter that's a 36 years old and she just gave us a granddaughter a couple of three months ago and she lives in Milan, Italy. She's lived over there for 15 years,

very active member in the Alabama program and she has 23 years in the program. My wife has 23 years in the program without any symbiicals or leave of absence or, you know, regular continuous active programming.

I'm grateful for that because that's what I brought to our colleagues. Anonymous. I bought a family to Alcoholics Anonymous. Sick disease of alcoholism run rampant through my life and, and I've been that way for a long time. When I drank, I I just got in a lot of trouble. You know, there's basically three kinds of people in the world. There's people who wait for things to happen. There's people who watch things happen and then there's people that make things happen. And I'm just one of those guys that make stuff happen and wherever I go while I get in trouble. I'm also

with a hyperactive child at an early age.

Michael was a doctor and they diagnosed me as hyperactive. So they gave me amphetamines to slow me down. And to this day, I don't know why you'd give somebody has an abundance of energy speed. But hey, you know, I didn't argue. It's like going 190 mile an hour if your feet nails the floor, you know, I loved it. I had an acquired taste immediately and and enhanced my drinking and

and consequently why that just kept me going a little bit more. By the time I was 1617, eighteen years old. I've been married and divorced a couple of times and I'm not stupid. I mean, I may be sick, but I'm not stupid.

One of those ladies I married, their dad was one of the 10 richest men in the state of Texas. You know, I I noticed that and, and

after nine months of that marriage, my father-in-law called me in and said, you know, I got a lot of money. And I said, yeah, I noticed that. And he said, well, I didn't get this kind of money by making bad investments and you're a bad investment. And so they ignored me and

whatever that means.

And you know, I was doing a little free enterprise down in Texas. I was transporting a little bit of non habit forming marijuana. I wasn't smoking the stuff, I was selling it. And there's a difference, you know, And

if I'm smoking, I have to go to anti. But selling it, you can come to a, you know.

Anyway, I got in a little trouble down Fort Worth, TX, gotten busted and gotten some,

the heat was on, had to do a little time and I got out and you know, called up my two very best friends, Oily and Goose, and I said, you know, meet, meet me at the train station, Amarillo, TX. I'll be there in a little bit and give me 100 bucks a suit. And I got a jug of whiskey and got on train and hit it for Amarillo and I drank that whiskey and rolled into Amarillo and they were sitting there. No, should we pick up the battery? Battery has gone down because they've been there a day and 1/2

listen to the radio and

I had some Benzedrine and some moonshine and I crawled off that train and took a handful of beanies standing out there on that depot and chase it down with some white lightning. Man, it just blew me back against the wall. God, that's the best stuff I ever had in my life. You know, I mean nothing that even happened yet, you know, I mean, but it's just anticipation. Just loved it and and I crawled that pickup truck and I started telling oily and Goose, you know, that I need to quit hanging around with them guys.

I get in trouble when I hang around with them guys and I need to stay with them sick women, you know, like 10 women against the wall over there. And I'll get the sickest one out of the bunch every time. And,

you know, I got to stay on them honky tonks and, you know, sell them fast cars. And they agreed with me, you know. Yeah, right, right, right. You know, Saturday night, about midnight, we rolled into Little Country Dance down there on Wolf Creek. And it was a intermission. A band took a break and there was a stage up there and they were gone. And everybody was going outside either to fiddle, whittle or diddle. I don't know what the hell. But then O'Hare legged boys were leaning up against the wall over there. And I rolled the Coke bottle up and bumped the stage and said let them in. A sucker in the house bring it back

home and a couple of drunks charged me and I hit the first one and then ducked into the woman's restroom. Because if you hang around a fight like that too long, get your helmet bradded. So

as I went into the woman's restroom, there's a lady standing there and I said, tell me when the fights over. And pretty soon she stuck her head in that bathroom, said you can come out now. Cowboy and I come out in the band's playing. She's handy and I'm quick study and I said, want to dance and sure, you know, and then dance. I said, where you been? I haven't seen you around. She said where you been? I haven't seen you around.

Well, I just got out of Pentantry. So I just got on an unwed mother's home and I said, hell, baby, we deserve each other, you know, You know, sick attract sick. And,

you know, she had a car, driver's license, money in the bank, a job, all those things. I mean, everything that meet my requirements. I didn't have any of that, you know, and

so we set up a little light housekeeping and we dated for two weeks and they nicknamed his hatchet and Hammer. I found out two weeks. It wasn't even two weeks, man. Within a week going there, I knew she finished the fight I started. You know, I mean, it was just just violent, too violent, physically violent people. And I'm not going to debate with anybody with a verbal abuse is worse than physical abuse because I was talking to you when I was kicking your ass. I give it my best shot,

but I'm a she'd hammer me ever which way I could look, You know? She wasn't afraid of nothing. And

I knew it was love because there was just so much pain in it. It couldn't have been anything else, you know? There's got to be love, you know?

Yeah. And went together two years and. And she said she was pregnant and I don't remember that. I must have been crossing over the invisible line when that happened. So,

yeah, I had to push the car around the block. If you don't miscarry, John Mary, you're healthy. You know, I mean, I didn't, I mean,

what do you want me to do? Take a course? I don't know, you know, and she was healthy and we got married and, and got a little girl and, and, you know, she got a job and had a job and, and, you know, I'm a thief. I don't like to work. I like to steal. I have very little guilt

except right when I get caught, you know, then you have a little Guild immediately, but it's short lived because you got to figure out what to do to get out of trouble. You know, it's time to feel guilty and

and

you know, I was just doing whatever I could do and surviving and it was just insane and

decided to move to California. Friend of mine named Lion Shorty told me I could get a job on a ranch 40 miles West of Long Beach and I didn't have enough to know that was ocean, you know, I mean, oh ye of little faith, what the hell, you know. So we loaded up everything, took off for California, her and the kid and the dog and the cat and all station wagon trailer with stuff behind, you know, and we took off. I stopped and got a baggie full of pills on the way out there. You know, it took us a month to go from Oklahoma City to

Los Angeles. Most people can do it in three days. You know, it's just

insane and the old dog is standing behind me and drill all over the back of my neck, you know and chase trucks down the side of the inside that station wagon. The seats were down and he banged his head on the back window fall on the cat that have a dog and cat fight the kids start bond, she start bitching. I'd start drinking. We did that one day at a time for 30 days.

I didn't live a whole lot different when I drank than I do now. I just live like there was no tomorrow, you know, and

California and I found a drunken uncle, He got me a house right next door. A bunch of motorcycle gang lived on one side of me and a, you know, a bunch of hippies lived on the other side of me. And we moved right in there, you know, and we're comfortable there. I'd never seen no hippies before. They were dropping that LSD and laying in front yard naked watching the sun come up and go down. You know, I never done nothing like that, but you know what I mean. What the heck? And, and so I went over and they gave me some acid and I went to see 2001 and, you know, and

I never questioned it, you know, it's just,

and it just got sicker and sicker and sicker. And I'd take off and go do my thing. And I'd travel in the round of work in the oil fields. And so I'd take off and go to Alaska and I'd go to Louisiana. And then I come back through, you know, I'd be gone a month or so. And I come home and I bring all these guys with me. You know, they don't want to go home fight with their wife, so they come over and watch me fight with mine, you know, and

they stand behind me and say get her,

It's your old Bros, you know, stand by, get her, get a step to the head of the line, hogs. She's got a butcher knife up here. You know,

I passed out on my wife one time, 15 minutes into a 2 hour conversation. They don't like that. And he stabbed me all over my back with that butcher knife and I came to it. God, something wrong with my back. She said, oh, let me see, now they got to act like they don't know.

Peel my whole shirt off my back.

So you broke out of acne in the back. You've been drinking that raw whiskey, said I'll get the rubbing alcohol and rub you down. You know, sympathies have been trying to baptize me for years and get me close to Jesus. But that alcohol bath got me closer than anything I've ever had, I guess,

you know, and I'd end up I ended up in front of a judge and the judge talking to me about me and he had the right guy, you know, just

nuts. And, you know, somewhere in the course of that deal, why I somebody come through the halls of the courtroom there and handing out pamphlets to Alcoholics and honest. So I took one, you know, stuck in my pocket just in case. I didn't know what it was. I didn't include what a was, you know, I've been doing B&B myself, you know, and

stuck in my pocket. I went from that judge and he had my file there and a lot of lot of physical violence in there and a bunch of stuff. And I've been arrested about 50 times for selling batterian resistant arrest. And it wasn't that I wasn't a fighter, just a No Fear is a strange emotion, you know, and the people that get afraid, they either hunker down or they accelerate. And I drove fear like a fast car. So I just, you know, would go zinging into those situations. And

so, you know, the judge sent me to three to five years and I whipped that pamphlet out.

I'm going to A, you know, and oh, OK, well, you know, so they took me in the backroom with my parole officer and lawyer and people and

sends me to go to some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And I didn't know what the heck it was. So, you know, I have nothing to fear. I'll go, you know. And so this guy come and got me and took me home. And my wife had been to see a lawyer and a lawyer suggested I go to a A. So I let her think of her idea. She said you need to go to A good. All right, well, we'll go, you know. And they, they already told me about a meeting that was close to my house along about 8:00. She'd asked me what time the meeting started and I said, I think it's at 8:30 until we're ten or something. I don't know. And I'm laying on the couch.

She come over and stuck that but you're not from my face and said get up. And you know, I got up and we went out and got in the old Pinto station wagon and she took me over at this church. Had it hurt? And the kid and the dog and the cat. Everybody know Pinto, you know, when they mustard brown Pinto station wagons, you know, went down the road crooked, you know, and I remember pulling in front of that Amy a big a sign over there. And I remember thinking, well, I've sunk to the bottom now.

Yeah, Boy, you talk about low bottom snobbery. You know, I'm

I'm sitting out there in a pint old station wagon, one of them on mustard brown. They only made them one year, you know, had a hell of a deal on them. And then holding the muffler pulled up in front of there, you know, and I'm afraid somebody is going to see me. I mean, my house is paying in four different colors. There's a Corvair and etc parked in the front yard. They had a door jam in my house that ain't exploded wide open, you know, and and motorcycle stuck in front of the house and I'm pulling up in front of an A a meeting and I don't want anybody to know I'm going for help. You know, I got everything under control because I'm just

solving all my problems

and my wife, since my approach avoidance, stuck that knife in my face and said what time is the meeting going? I said ten. I think she said I'm going to tell you some ace. If your ass comes out of that door 4:10, I'm going to gut you.

I went in that meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I said in there and I looked around, you know, I counted all the squares and seeing the holes and ceiling, the hairs in the ears and the hairs in your back of your head, I thought, man, when I get old, I'm gonna have hairs growing out of my ears, you know, and

all the light bulbs that was out. I didn't identify. I wouldn't drank with anybody in that room, much less sell them dope, you know. And I just, you know, I sit in there and looked out the door and she was parked right outside the door, you know. So I stayed in that room. I went to one meeting a week and I went home late on the couch. And then the next, you know, Monday came along. Why she'd come over there and I get up and I go get the old pin on. We'd go over there at that meeting and I'd lay in there, look around and, you know, I didn't hear nothing. I didn't ask anybody anything, you know?

I'm sure that, you know, people looked at me and knew that I wasn't anywhere near ready and and I'm sure they didn't want to mess with her, you know, and you know the sad part about there was an Al Anon meeting right next door. But there was nothing wrong with her. You know, I mean, she and,

you know, I, I went to one meeting a week for four months and didn't do anything, you know, just didn't drink and use anything. And I was the most miserable time of my life that I remember them to, including that time my wife said it's the best we've had in years. But I mean, I didn't, I don't know. But a amazing thing about, you know, if you don't drink, what, you know, attitudes and views will change with times and places. And so, you know, there I am. And I got that trust back. I beat the deal down at the courthouse

and, you know,

got the trust back in the house and

she asked me if I want to take the car and go to the meeting. I went over the meeting, you know, and resigned from Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and got struck drunk immediately. That's what happened to me. I got struck drunk immediately and my life changed too, I can assure you. Never gets better. It always gets worse. I remember 1 old fool over there one night said we won't guarantee you after the night you've had your last drink, but we'll guarantee you'll never enjoy another one. God, I hated him.

God, through the parking lot, drunk, looking for him, trying to run over him, you know.

Found out later he was slippery. He never went back that meeting either. He's probably out there drunk. I probably drank with him. Didn't even know it, you know,

But for the next four years of my life, I was in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, more out than in and I went to meetings about colleagues and I was drunk. Went to meetings, Dr. colleagues and I was sober. Went to meetings of Alcoholics, non sober, got up at the coffee break, went and got drunk, came back, sit down. Hell

came out of a blackout one time in an AA meeting. That's scary. Not sure who took it, you know, afraid to leave, no telling what will fall you out. And, you know, look at one of them alchathon things one time got drunk and sober 4 * 1 day in a you know,

I never really disturbed anything. I just get drunk, you know, and said in there, you know, and it's I don't know if they call that controlled drinking, but it's miserable drinking, you know, and, and

you know, you just kind of get to some point where you give up. I could remember, you know, sitting in those meetings, Alcoholics and others and think about the first time I got in trouble. It cost me 100 bucks to get out of trouble. And I think, well, you know, the next time I got in trouble, it cost me 200 and then it cost me 500. And then it cost me 1000 and then it cost me 5000 to get out of that one. And the last four years of my drink. And I sit in those meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous in and out of trouble, in and out of trouble. And, you know, the book says waves of the past will follow us in here. And I had to meet some

follow me and I had some trouble. And, you know, my whole family's like that. My daughter lived in the back of that house like a wounded animal with hair in her face. And she ran around, made weird noises and kept all of, you know, the things that meant something to her in the old brown paper bag. And, you know, I remember standing in my kitchen, take a drink out of a bottle, look down the hallway. Some 9 year old girl stands at the end of that hallway. She got her chin on her chest and her hair is in her face. And she didn't run down the hallway and say Daddy come play with me.

She just looked at me and I looked back at her and the

I took another drink. Not because I was ashamed of what I saw. Hell, I was way past shame. There's a place you can go in this disease. It'll take you way past shame. There's a Gray zone where you can go live that's even beyond hate. Because I had that phenomenon craving, it was absolutely necessary for me to take a drink. The only thing my daughter wanted to know which direction I was going, so she'd go the other way.

I know what it's like standing in my bathroom and I'm putting that stuff in me. I turn around and I look in the mirror and reflection in that mirror

10 year old girl looking at me through the hole in the door in the bathroom where I probably stuck my foot sometime.

Her eyes meet mine and I know beyond a shadow of a death of what I'm putting in me has got me. I don't have it. I no longer have a choice. I knew that it didn't take it with a conscious thought. I also knew that no prayer that I could utter was going to stop it. I knew no hope. I knew no faith. Absolutely total hopelessness, insanity, the insanity of knowing that no matter what you know, I believe the definition of an alcoholic is a drunk with a conscience. I would sober up and I would look at me. Even when I

drunk I'd look at me and I know be on a shadow of a doubt. I don't want to be this way. I don't act this way. Something inside of me knew the difference between right and wrong, but then I put some more kind of chemical in me and then that it would work and I would no longer know the difference between right and wrong.

My daughter looked at me in that mirror and I

look at myself and she didn't say, daddy, what are you doing? Come play with me, please don't beat me. And mommy, she didn't say any of those things. She look at me and all she wanted to know is which direction I was going so she'd go the other way.

I know what it's like to crawl out of the back of that house on my hands and my knees. I got to have a drink. Everything about me screaming, I need a drink, don't you understand? I need a drink. That's the only conscious thought I had. Way beyond prayer, way beyond any logic or moral code, way beyond anything that I've been to Alcoholics Anonymous or baptized or any of those things. I crawl down the hallway because there's something screaming inside of me, screaming louder than anything that's ever screamed before. I got to have a drink. I need to fix. I got to have something

just over and over and over. I know the crawling. I got talking to myself. I got to have it. I got to have it. I got to get something like, where is it? I got to get it. And I crawl on my daughter's bedroom and I reach my hand underneath her bed and I pull her ragged and Piggy Bank out and I bust that Piggy Bank and a big time slick like me. I'm on my hands and my knees and I'm stealing my daughter's money. And the alcoholic ego,

we've talked about it a lot here this weekend, the alcoholic ego. I'm on my hands and my knees and I'm separating the pennies, nickel Dimes in the quarters because I ain't taking no pennies down to the liquor store. The connection sounds. I'm going to be showing Silver when I go.

I don't know about you, but when I'm doing stuff like that, I got eyes in the back of my head and

on my hands and my knees,

a glance over my shoulder and a little 10 1/2 eleven year old girls hiding in the closet behind me. And

she didn't go to school that day because she had a black eye on a busted lip. And I was pretty sure I had something to do with that. And just easier to stay in that closet that day than to go to school. Because you see, if she goes to school looking like that, they come and get daddy and take him away. Her mommy.

And that ain't bad. That gives her a rest. But then I get out and I come home, and then there's hell to pay. Because you see, when you catch me doing those kind of pitiful, incomprehensible, demoralizing things absolutely necessary for me to inflict some kind of a painful memory in your mind that overshadows what you saw me doing, you can bet your sweet Biffy you just don't know when it's coming. Being the very best father I could be that day, I give that kid a break. I let her shoot out behind me without inflicting any more pain in her life.

That steals people's souls.

Being the very best father. We talk about jealousy and envy when we're drinking like that, and then how it affects us when we're sober.

I wanted my daughter to love me more than anything in the world. I've been a lot of places, joined a lot of clubs and gangs and crap like that. But the thing that tore my ass off was the way I was treating my family when I knew it was wrong. I love those people. They're part of me, they're my family, they're part of my blood. We can't deny those things and the alcoholic knows that kind of pain when they're doing those kind of things.

Coming out of a 10 day running drunk come home and lay down on the couch and passed out at a nine shot 22 pistol laying on my chest. And

my daughter when I came to laying across the room 6 feet away from me laying on her back, hair in her face, he's dirty. The only friend she had was a little Cocker spaniel dog she drug in off the street and that dogs lick her in the face. And I came to and looked out of one eye and I saw that dog licking that kid in the face. That dog was loving my daughter better than I could. And the jealousy and the rage and the envy inside of me made it absolutely necessary for me to shoot that dog nine times. The last time I shot that dog was in the eye 6 inches from my daughter's head and her mother was standing 6 feet away. And nobody

pride

and let it cry because you show any kind of emotion. You're next

talking about alcoholism, terror, bewilderment,

bewilderment

and terror. You see I'm dying

and you loved me.

Stand in front of a judge in little town over Beatty, Nevada. Judge is talking to me about me and he's got the right guy and I've taken a guys life in a bar fight because been on a 10 day run and drunk over there and I got in a fight and I

hit a guy and killed him and he said

went down as a justifiable homicide. self-defense inside of me. I knew it wasn't,

I knew it wasn't, and I knew the wrong guy died and stand in front of that judge that day. There's something screaming two inches behind my belly button. The wrong man died. Don't you understand? You got to do something about me. You got to take this thing. You got to stop this thing. Except that isn't what showed on the outside because the alcoholic ego is standing. I got that smirky smile on my face because my Bros are sitting over here on the other side and I got to show I'm not going to cut above.

And I stood in there. I didn't. What bewildered that judge was that I stood there and he was talking to me about me and he had the right guy. And I showed no visible sign of guilt and remorse.

State of Texas said I was a sociopath in a strange in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it says men and women drink for the effect. The effect is after some amount of consumption, We can't distinguish the difference between true and false, right and wrong. That's a definition of a sociopath. And standing in that courtroom over there in Nevada had a belly full of Reds and red mountain wine doesn't show any of those kind of emotions. That isn't no big deal.

I know what it's like to shoot up out of my own bed 1:00 in the morning

laying next to a lady I love more than anything on the face of the earth. And I look at her and she's got a black eye on a busted lip and I'm pretty sure I got something to do with that. And I run down screaming inside of my head down a hallway. World 10 year old girl lays in her bed and I put my ear down next to her mouth. I listen to see if she's breathing, if it's just a matter of time till I kill her. I got her, don't you understand?

Because they love me.

Because they love me and I hate me. I loathe me.

I ain't living and I can't dying. Everything about me is dying. You either attract all the things you love the most or you attract all the things you fear the most, one or the other. There is no middle of the road. And now you either attract all the things you love the most, or you attract all the things you fear the most. And everything around me that was precious to me was going away. You know you can take everything away from a human being and they'll still be a human being with exception of one thing.

Once you lose your dignity, you've got nothing left to lose.

You have nothing left to lose. And I sold my soul for a drink, alcohol. I literally sold my soul

and I live that way. Not a day or week or a month. I live that way for the last four years of my life. I ended up in a motel room or an old barracks room over in Taft, CA. You get a room over there for about 50 bucks a year

and owed about $250,000 to people that you can't write them a letter and say I'll send you a hundred a month.

And I was just crazy and I was hiding out and I was loaded and I couldn't get sober. And I, you know, whatever I put in, it didn't seem to do what it used to do. And yet I couldn't stop it because it was a phenomenon of craving inside of me that made it absolutely necessary for me to put something else in me. I went in there sometime in January of 1976 and about May the 6th, 1976, I crawled out of there one more time and I went back home because I'm the kind of alcoholic that goes back home

and went back home and my wife and my daughter left because they had enough.

My wife stood in there and said, I

I don't hate you anymore, but I don't love you either. I can't stay here with you. And

she left.

I crawled around on that floor and their tongue chewing, babbling, drunk down an old linoleum floor lift dragon drunk big time, slick lift drag and drunk gurgling, crawling up and down the floor in there for a couple of three days. And finally I called Alcoholics novice one more time. That's the worst thing about you get drunk you and you don't die. You got to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and

12 step call was made on man to God by the name of Jack Callahan. Came over at my house and did a 12 step calling me little Jack. God, I love him. And came over there. I didn't meet him with a bunch of love and tenderness. I stuck a gun in his face and said, if you take me back to the nutward, I just won't kill you right now. And he did something he's never done before since. He jerked the gun out of my hand, shoved me down on the couch and said, you know, if you want to do something about it, well, I'll stay.

And I was sweetly reasonable for a moment there.

Wife and daughter were hiding in the other room. And he went and told them, you know, he was going to help me. He'd seen me around before. And he said he was going to take me and put me in a detox. I'm a product of detox. I got nothing bad to say about detox because I'd never been detoxed. I've been trying to go to Alcoholics Anonymous for four years and I never did have any length of sobriety really much at that four months at one time. And the other thing is I was going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'd hear all your good stories. You'd hear all those good things that people talk about here this weekend. And I get

jazzed, excited, and I'd go home and I'd walk in the house and I'd say, man up into a everything's good, you know, we're going to do the deal and all, you know? And and she said I need some money. And I'd write her a hot check and then a check at bounce. Then we'd have a fight and then I'd get dropped

that go back to name me not going there. And I'd sit and lust over the women and I'd go home. My wife was all beat up and haggled and you know, and I said, get in the bedroom, I'm horny. And she said, now you raped me long enough, you know, you're sleeping on the couch, you know. And I would have a fight and I'd leave and go get a hooker and go get loaded and I'd go to back to a meeting of Alcoholics now and I'd be in a meeting of Alcoholics nonsense and hear them talk about all these good things. You know, I'm not going to fight. I'm not going to cease fighting everything and everybody, you know, and all that stuff. And I'd go home,

I come in there, she wants some money, she wants this, she want me to do that. And she'd get in my face with that finger and the fight would be on a pan the way we go, and I'd be drunk again

because nothing was changing at my house. I could go to a meeting of Alcoholics on spot. I was going home to a drunken environment.

There was nothing change in there.

I went to that detox and I said in a detox long enough to know that, you know, something's got to change and there's some absolutes. They're just as absolute for me today as they were then. I'm absolute for me. I don't know what yours are, but I haven't hit anybody over 23 years. The violence had to stop. Book says We seek fighting everything and everybody. Never hit anybody. I've cheated on my wife, nor has she cheated on me

#23 years. Wasn't because I didn't want it, wasn't because it didn't need to. It's because I owe her an amendment.

See, See. And what that puts in a relationship, something I knew nothing about. It's called trust. Trust.

The curse of a thief is that he can't trust himself.