Milton M. from Vancouver, BC at Spokane, WA March 12th 1995

If you wonder what I'm doing, I'm praying right now

and I'll let you know what my prayer is.

My prayer is God. If you ain't here, we're screwed.

I'd like to thank the committee

for Take Your Chance and inviting, inviting my wife and I here to share.

And now when I say take the chance, they didn't know what I was going to say. Neither do I,

but I,

I would like to think this is a great honor to be

one of the speakers that starts off this inaugural meeting.

I was sitting here thinking a minute ago, I don't get too serious because I don't like that. And

this is called the Northwest Pockets of enthusiasm.

And my addition to

is born on the spirit within.

That's right. I believe that

as I'm enthusiastic about this program Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm absolutely through this. You know the most amazing thing I have found out in this program. If you want to know I've I've heard them. I don't want to be too different. They've all got up here so nicely and told you went their sobriety days were let you know my sobriety date is September 6th, 1967 and I'm most grateful for that.

And I know it's only by the grace of God

and slowly but total, complete surrender

that I stand here today.

I'm a I'm a dummy

because I, I also like to, I like to know that I'm, I have a genius tight mind.

I have a kind of mind, and some of you may not have it, but I have the kind of mind that makes puking makes sense.

If you think about it, it's got to make sense because you find the rationale to keep doing it. So they should remind you that me going to jail makes sense.

So that's, you know, well said. I'm kind of kicked back what I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous and not to listen to me.

Real simple stuff. Don't listen to you. If you knew, and I tell a guy who knows that you don't know what to do, I'll tell you the first thing. Quit listening to yourself

and it makes sense because I don't like to D I'm not that kind of day because I'm I'm the kind that just I just complicate everything. I I won't just let it be.

I got here in 1967, totally beat alcohol, beat me to death. Alcohol,

nothing else.

I didn't come here because with Tiddlywinks, I came here because alcohol beat me to death. I remember distinctly the thought that ran through my head, If I stay on this stage one second longer, I will die. I remember it clearly because, you know, I had a 25 in my shirt, I had a 4500 seat in my car and nobody was after me. But I also knew if I stayed on that stage one second longer, I would die. I knew that without question,

and I had to come back to Southern California, to Rubio. You'll hear her

and tell her she was married to an alcoholic and at that time Ruby thought I'd benefit in this town singing and turning on

if somebody remind me tonight today of the of the hotel. I was trying to think is the rib path.

You know, I played it and there was going to be called the Davenport. You know, I play in all those cool upholstered sewers. You know, I played those things. But you see, Ruby never knew she had married an alcoholic. Because when you're cool like I am,

and you can lie good like I can, you know, what's the point in telling her? If she knew what I was like, she'd run.

Yeah, I, you know, that's, I didn't want to tell the way I was like, she never had. She didn't have a clue,

you see. Because I'm cool.

God, I can lie, fight and lie. I'd matrix. I had such wonderful inferences going. I'm such a master of half truth, you know? You know, I see you shaking it. You know what I'm talking about.

Go ahead. You know, 'cause if you lie, you got to remember it. If you tell I have truth, somebody else will supply it. You know, that's the kind of guy he was, you know, so I couldn't tell if he'd married an alcoholic. And the day came when alcohol beat me up so badly

that I had to come home and tell her, how did you're married to an alcoholic? And I

she thought, my problems with girls.

I I like girls,

you're done. But I like, you know,

and they had a right be afraid of me.

And then he comes, I come in Alcoholics. I found out, really that they were just as afraid of me as I was. But I never knew that

you could walk up to a girl and say, Hey honey, would you like to go out with a wimp?

Because that's how I felt.

I felt like a wimp. You can't say, honey, you let's go out tonight. I'm a whim. You know she's going to say get lost. She can't walk up to another guy and say, hey, look, dude, I feel less than you.

Like, hey, you know, just can't walk into a guy and say that I feel less than you because he's going to tell you what, man. What you need to do is get your stuff together

and you never knew. That's what I've been doing, trying to do all my life was get my stuff together.

And every time I try to get my stuff together, it meant going back to jail.

It had gone back to a net war. So if you knew, if you're old, it's not about getting together. I found out

because if you're sitting here, you got it together. That's why you're here.

We've got about all that stuff that I thought was so necessary to live.

I got the Alcoholics. Not the first time in 1950. And you think you want to worry about how old I am? I'll tell you I look good.

I'm 70 years old and I want to give you some new information that black don't crack. That's why it is

if you look, I listen, I'm just me. That's all. I I'll tell you. Let me tell you something. I have the most glorious time in Alcoholics Anonymous because I don't. I don't worry too much because I found out that's a waste of time. Total waste of time for me to sit still and contemplate my novel, my neighborhood hole. And one was gonna, I know where I've been,

I know where I am and it's none of my business. Cause coming after that,

you know, some people I don't know, I'm not where I'm going. If I knew where I was going, I'd tell God to fix it.

So I don't know. I'm going to sign. It's fine, absolutely fine. And that's the most exciting thing in the world, not to know where you're going. Because you see, I love living on the edge. I love it. It's wonderful on the edge,

you know, and you sit right there, you know what's going to happen. And most time I don't know what's going to happen. It's just evolves. And I'm saying, wow, I could have died. Never known this one, you know, And it's it's the most exciting thing in the world that I can stay sober. I don't worry about much of anything.

I've learned an alcoholic synonymous. Now I've turned my will in my life over to the care of God. Needs a caretaker. Let him do his job.

I'm gonna try to do what he wants me to do. Let him do his job. He'll do it. Positive with that. He will do it because he has done it. I have. I have the track record that tells me he does it for me. If I just do what I'm supposed to do, I find out. We have a business deal, if you will.

You know, it's a 9010 deal.

I love that. Only difference is it's different than any business deal. You know, you see, because I'm the 10%, he's the 90%. And it makes it so easy to just do your little 10%, Don't drink, go to meetings and help your brother. That's what you're supposed to do. Not climb the high mountain, not become a millionaire. Do something that's simple.

Stay sober.

Be of service to God in your following. Be of service to your family. Be of service.

That's what this thing is about. That's what I found. And the more I'm of service,

the better I feel about me, the better I feel that my father takes care of me. Because the track worker tells me that in 1950 I had been arrested twenty times.

I had been a four nut ward. I had lost a wife with two children

and I stood before a jug. I heard heard Jack talk about Guadalcanal and and the chaplain was down there. Well, I told the judge I was one of those sailors that was down at Guadalcanal fighting with Colonel Carlson, second Marine Raiders. Now, I've never been there, but judges know the difference

because the judge at that point was about to sentence me to a jail for to jail for a year. And at that particular time in my life,

jail stopped looking good to me.

Now, if you're like I am, the first time I went to jail, I was very indignant.

How dare they? They arrested this black man and put him in jail when he's a newspaper reporter. You know, I had never written a story, but I was newspaper reporter.

You see, alcohol I have found changes your attitude.

Now by the 20th time I went to jail I had begun to say oh hell, who doesn't go to jail once in a while?

Altered attitude.

That's what Alcoholics Anonymous does, too. It alters your attitude about you, about your fellow man, and about God's world.

They alter your attitude, spiritual if you will, because that's what it says is in the big book of alcoholism. I'm not original.

I'd like to think I'm original, but I'm not. You know, it's in the book. That's what it says. I need to hear people right now. I'm trying to live a spiritual love. I said, what are you talking about? Spiritual life? And something spiritual happened to me and I when you've been born in heaped and steeped in religion like I was

see I temple when the Pentecostal religions where he just gave you life to Jesus all the time, you know, and they talked about, you know, I used to I didn't know what to do with that stuff. You know, they said and Jesus said this and Jesus said that and I want to know what mom and daddy said because I didn't know who he Jesus was.

And they say, well, I'm going to meet my make away beyond on the other side. Well, I could relate to that because I was having trouble right down here. You know, it's just a lot of things that make sense to me when I was a kid, you know. And so when they start talking about spiritual, when I got sober, I thought they were going to pull off some tambourine immigrants, do some holy water stuff that I know so well

because I knew all about religion and spiritual life because I had seen it lived in front of me.

I would love to hold my mother and father hostage. I love to do that because I did it for a long time. If I hadn't been raised in that church, I wouldn't have been this way.

If I hadn't, if they hadn't done this, had done that, I wouldn't have been this way.

I wouldn't have been an alcoholic. You know, I'm an alcoholic because I drank alcohol.

If you want to know how to become an alcoholic, you've got to drink alcohol. Now that may be news, but that's what it is.

Couple that with a spastic elbow and you do.

Now, I had a brother who lived in that house, and I guess reasonable contentment would not mean not me. My brother, my father said I'm going to beat you. He'd think

I'm the kid you had to be and I wanted to do it and get it over with, so I'll get back to what I needed to do. I hated it when they would say I'm going to get you

and he'd wait and I'm waiting for that thing. Don't hit do it again. Don't don't put me in this kind of suspense and you look at me, I'm going to get you. I mean, day in and day out and I'd be doing one bad thing after another. And and he promised me and I say I didn't. Why do it? Let me get on with this stuff. And if I if basically he wouldn't, he wasn't too nice about it. He used to make me take all my my clothes off and do it.

The Bible says spare the child, spare the rod and spoil the child,

and they harken their hyperdoken. That's what the preachers would do,

spare the rock. And the most, the most amazing thing was that how I grew up. And that's what I found that I passed on to my children. I passed the same stuff that my father did to me on to my children. I reacted to them the same way. I have a daughter. I may jump around tonight, but that's how it comes to me. Have a daughter. We're going to see it pretty soon in May.

This girl was supposed to be by our will. She's not supposed to be here. She was supposed to be aborted. But God so fit to bring that girl here in spite of us.

I mean in spite of us. Because I'm a destructive human being. Make no bones about that. I'm destructive sober as well as drunk. I'm almost 28 years sober and I'm still a destructive human being.

The difference is in my life today. I own it. I no longer lie about it. And in accepting me as I am because you have done that, I am enabled me to make different kinds of choices because that's all I want. I want a different choice. That's what I found out, an alcoholic moment. I don't have to react in a manner to my to life and a manner that will kill me. I make a different choice. I cannot remove one defective character because

I have no power. None. I used to hear people with Alcoholics and say, well I'm working on this defect and I'm working on that defect. Well, I tried it

and the sucker kept coming back. It had a new ribbon on it, but it was still the same one.

And finally, I had to give up

and somebody point out Milton, it says

we ask God to remove them, not Milton.

Oh yeah, That was like, where was I?

Where was I when and I read this book

and I see what's in that book and I try to live that way? Well, where was I when that happened?

Here I am trying to work on this defect. I remember distinctly. I remember what I could do when I first got sober. That was in 67. I found a quick, glaring character defect lying. God, I could lie. And I said, uh-huh, that's one thing I'd work on right away. Okay? I didn't know my life and my spiritual life had begun. I didn't know that.

I thought a lot of it comes after I do all these things, but I didn't know my spiritual life had begun when I admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic. That was a change of attitude.

That's when it began. Some people say, oh, I'm waiting for it to happen. Baby, if you're here, it has happened.

There is, you know, we walk around saying, well, well, I'm, I'm waiting for the miracle. If you're here, it's a miracle.

You know, that's that's what I found in Alcoholics. None. You look all you want to, but the fact that you're sitting in this seat or, you know, sober hand drawing, sober breath, that's a miracle

course. Look, I'm supposed to be

and I sit here and you sit here and let some mealy mouth fart like me. It's all and you say, look at me.

Well, what you don't know and what I have found out because you're willing to listen to me, I heal a little more

because the healing isn't in the talking, the healing is in the listening. So why where God make me a better listener, not a better talker, a better listener. And that's hard if you're an alcoholic because you know everything.

That's hard. The shit Listen. And I had to learn how to do that. It's not something that swept over me.

I learned that from my wife and she's an Al Anon and she she's a I was telling who Paul or somebody today you might

Marian Al Anon and the game is over.

You can't run them games anymore.

And she taught me about listening.

I remember distinctly once you taught me the lesson,

I had a knack of whenever you get me kind of pinned down and you're kind of cornering me a little bit,

I have a knack, a ball in my fist up and she would say you're going to hit me. I said, no, I'm not, I'm ready, you know, And when when they start at you, they don't start with one question. It's a barrage of questions. Just one after that. Just come on now. Just, I mean, and you can't find the answer to the first one.

That's frustrating, you know, and you're trying to answer and there's more just piling off and all the ones you want to say.

Let me ask you the first one.

And I wrote this one time, she said to me, no, I got something I want to tell you.

And she said, but you get on that side, they're not get on this side of it. She put the bed between and She said, what I want you to do is just listen to me,

don't defend it. Don't give me an no excuses and you don't have to change,

just question. I would say something that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, an Alcoholic Anonymous

to listen to my life.

And she said what she had to say. And I just won't see. I just want to fix it. I would just, you know, I want to come up with those excuses.

But I listened and I began to understand because I could listen. I was forced to listen.

She began to heal,

and that's what I began to learn how to do, to listen so that Marcella man can heal.

Because if I knew the way, if I knew what you should do, I wouldn't be hearing Alcoholics. Nonetheless,

we seem to think that a sponsor knows everything. He's a drunk.

He ain't God. He's a drunk, you know. And you know I don't. I don't sponsor people. I tell him I'll be your best friend. I ain't going to judge you. I'm not going to waste my time doing that. But I'll listen to you and I'll share my experience with you. Now you you do whatever you choose to do

because I don't know the way you should go.

I know what I've had to do and I'll support you even when you're wrong.

And that's what I find it's all about. I can let that call that loving a person without condition, unconditional love. That's what I've learned here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we talked about this daughter, Roseanne. I don't want to forget her. I'm going to let you know what I was like in sobriety. In sobriety,

the same girl who was supposedly aborted,

she got here

and I found myself chastising her just like my father did me.

She would do all things. They have a picture. Roseanne in a potty chair

asleep

while I was trying to force her to make poo poo.

And I look at that picture that this child sitting there,

and it just almost brings tears

that I was forcing this child. I was being a nasty daddy. That's what I was reading,

and I didn't know at that time that I was using some of the same stuff my father was used on me.

And through the years, little by little, oh, she's a wonderful, beautiful, dark daughter. She's now expecting her first child and she's coming to see us in May. And she's coming. So her mother and father, she lives in Chicago. She's coming to Vancouver for a grandmother's birthday party so that her mother and father can rub her belly, rub that belly of that kitchen she's carrying around with her,

you know, and I know today, without any shadow of a doubt, one more drink and I'd have missed it all.

Just one, just one more, you know,

anyway, we had this we had this growing family life. I

got here, they said 1967. We had this family. I had learned how to live. I didn't know how. I got a job and the job was beneath me. Job I never would ever take because I had problems. I had big problems. You know, one of the problems I had is I like being black and it's obvious I was black

and like, because it was something bad about it, I didn't wear a hat. I'll tell you, it was just three years ago

I started working out and Ruby's telling me now she's gonna bury me with a cap, you know? And I wouldn't wear a cap because white guys never wore caps out in the snow and all that kind of stuff. No more cats. So I didn't wear a cat

because I want to be like them.

That's pretty difficult,

but that's where I was and the other thing I would do, I didn't want to get any handkerchief head jobs. So somebody may not know the expression, but that's a black expression. Thank you very job as a Yaksa boss job Yasser. You know, you've seen the caricatures, Yasser and you know, pushing the broom. You know, just and say yes about the guy's really best in all time movie actors. One of the best.

And I didn't want anybody to think of me that way. I read newspapers out loud. I saw my diction wouldn't be flat and I would say no dis dim that and those

I said this and them and that and those. I made sure you thought of me as being a different black.

To make a Long story short, when I surrendered the program of Alcoholics nons, the first thing God did for me is put a broom in my hand.

If you can imagine, I was in show business and some people around the Hollywood area, they knew the group I was with and all that kind of bit. And Can you imagine? Here I am walking down a push the broom down Santa Monica Blvd. Mr. Showbiz.

I'll tell you about that broom, though.

Push that room down that street enabled me to go to my meetings of alcohol. It's not

pushing. A broom was not melting. I've come to know that I'm not a broom pusher.

I know how to do it. When I began to slowly understand that God has given me that just simply to get me to a meeting of Alcoholics. And that's how any and all jobs ever took on with me in my life. It's designed to get me to a meeting of alcoholism, not to get rich, but just get to a meeting of Alcoholics. Number

I got here in 1967. The first guy that was a guy named Wendell, I called him the other day

and Wendell 12th of May and Wendell said him in Milton, you can

making this progress even by a simple concept. And that concept is that if you can

understand that all you've ever learned in life, every plan, every scheme, your greatest thought you ever had,

all those things brought you to Alcoholics Anonymous and they're totally invalid, will not work for you. He said it might work for someone else,

but it will not work for you. And of course, I was indignant about that. Here I had been halfway around the world, entertaining thousands and thousands of people who just thought I was wonderful. And here's this guy telling me my genius had brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous. I always thought I was. I'm serious. I thought I was smart. You know when you get broke. I was born in New Jersey. When you get broke,

rather be broken, your genius mind says, go to New York and sell a pint of blood. That's smart

and I made it make sense. That's it. Boy, that shot,

that's the kind of hit I had, you know. But Wendell had short circuited me, and at first I was kind of indignant about it, but I thought one second more. You see, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with one thing I knew in mind. If I would be willing enough to do what these people told me, I could stay sober. I knew that going in because I had experienced Alcoholics months in 1950. I had the experience of taking a guy to the program

and you were still sober, and to me, he was Newark, NJ's worst drunk. But you see, I had to admit that I had to be willing to do what these people told me to do not believe. It didn't matter. Some people come to alcohol. It's not wanting to believe in work. You ain't got to believe it works. That's not a requirement.

So I came to Alcoholics knowledge with that thing called willingness. And I thought that second, that one second. And I said

he's right. I cannot put the word success behind my name. I could not say Milton Merle success,

but I could put back that Milton Merle's trunk.

He had me because I had to be willing. And then he said to me, Milton,

tell you something else. He said stop listening to you.

And because I'm a smarty, you know, I said, well, who I listened to? He said everybody else except you,

I said, well, what about my wife? He said. And her too.

So I came to Alcoholics noms. He gave me some instructions. Stop listening to you. And I had to stop listening to me, you know, think, think, think. I didn't even reply that. I just didn't listen to me. See, I need simple stuff. I don't need stuff I got to figure out. He said something very simple. Then he said to me, Milton,

why don't you just do what you see sober people do?

And I said, OK,

do what? So what people do? I one time, as we said, well, you know, I might become a polypirate. And he said, well, it's better to be a sober quality tired than a drunk one, you know, they use finally home raises. When I came here, they just cut the ground up for Monday to keep you from dying just slowly but surely. And you'd walk away and you'd be maybe a mile or two away and you'd feel the blood dripping in your hand. You know, you've been had. That's how they treated you.

Then he said something I would you know, you get sober and Alcoholics Anonymous

do all these things and you think you just, you know, you're just wonderful. You know, it's just so wonderful. You get sober and you're going to meeting and, and God, you think you're doing great, you know, and you're polypowered. You hear people say things in alcohol. It's Anonymous and you pick up the lingo. If you're new, there's a new lingo spoken here. It's a lingo that's not spoken in treatment centers.

When you come from a treatment center, you have to to me, you have to start off at ground level. For alcohol, it's not. You start off at ground level because there's a new language spoken here. It is not clinical

as one drunk talking to another. That's what this is about.

And when I would hear all these words and Alcoholics Anonymous and they'd hear people say wonderful things and I put it in my little, my little word, my little word register and that I got that, you know, you know, you pick up these little things. You the more you pick up, the more you feel like you're part of Alcoholics. Not you may not know how to use it, but you know you got it, You know, and and you know, I I I remember saying I didn't watch them while I would venture with window

and say something out here in Alcoholics, nonetheless,

say to Milton, is it in the book,

because I can be flower mouth. Believe me, I can be he says in the book. And when he say that I have to go back and pick up the book and try to find out if it was there or if it wasn't there. That's how he got me into the book.

I used to take the book when I first got so put it on my chest and go to sleep.

You know, I hear people in Alcoholics don't say, oh I can't sleep. I tell him read the book

when you know it before you sleep, you know, and they recorded me in by said, well, nobody ever died. No, died for lack of sleep, you know. And I tell guys read the book,

they go to sleep and then him complain, but I can't sleep. But that's how I began reading the big Book of Alcohol. It's not I began reading that big Book of alcohol. It's anonymous and underlying the things that pertain to me. That's what I did and I kept doing it and I still do it. I want to tell you something. I read that book a lot and

five years ago was down in San Diego, CA with a friend that I'm working with today

and I had never talked in my life in alcohol has not about living a spiritual life because I didn't know what it was. I really didn't know what it was. Now I hear people say I'm living a spiritual life. I didn't know what it was because I hadn't been able to refine it from Milton to put it in a place that Milton could feel that in him. And I was reading the book and on page 25, The Big Book of alcoholic Sounds. I have seen his page over and over and over again

and when God saw fit, he let my eyes see. With Alcoholics Anonymous refers to as a spiritual way of life. I used to hear people in Alcoholics none to say a. A stands for altered attitude. I never related that to being spiritual, but that's what it is. The book said so, so it takes its own time. You see when you can see,

you know, you know when you know and you can't rush this process.

You know, I'd love to I'd love to go through a one of them fix the doctors

that you sick the anally on the couch and he fixes it.

I'd love, I'd love, I'd love to go to that. But I know I would lie to him. I would take him and I'd turn him around. I challenge him like that,

so I don't want to rush the process. I'ma let it happen the way God wants it to happen because I'm God's kid and God don't want anything but the best for me. I'm sure of that.

And in our lives, in our home, in our lives, we try to live the principles of Alcoholics nonsense as well as other.

We had to tell our daughters, I had to tell we have another one. She's what's Chrissy's be 24 years old, right?

She's crazy.

She says nothing. Sing me feet planted firmly in midair.

Yeah, she's adorable. She's absolutely. She can walk in this room and you, she has such a presence about her. She could walk right up to you because she's been around a A and Al Anon. She can walk right up to you and say my name is Christy Murray and you'd love her just from the minute because she's so, she's so, she's so much effervescent about her

and she just captivates you, you know, And she saw full of BS. It's unbelievable. You know,

they should tell you quickly. My father understands me,

of course, you know, diagnosed. I'm full of BS too, and she knows it and I understand where she's coming from,

you know? And you know, we've had to let go and it's difficult to let go. We've had to tell those. I had to tell them. I thought Rubies told them over and over. I had to tell him I don't know how to be a daddy.

You know when they're 13, they're crazy anyway.

They don't fit anywhere. They just dangle. And when you're dangling, you're nothing. See, my problem is I forgot when I was 13. When I was 13, I found some Diego red wine.

It growed me up in a hurry, you know?

But they don't have any track shoes running, so they're not. I remember Roseanne, we're seeing to me her first boyfriend. And he was different.

It was, he was just the opposite his mother and father's situation, just the opposite what ours was, you know, his father was Chinese and his mother was black, you know, and it was just the opposite of what we are. And that's what they had in common. And he stand on a skateboard.

I wouldn't talk to it

all I knew. I just knew it beyond any shadow doubt. Someday she's going to get pregnant and come home and say Daddy. He did.

And my head would say, well, what the people and Alcoholics Anonymous think about us as a family. That's where what my head was. And I did this over she'd come in and I wouldn't talk to a movie was trying to be trying to get me to be friendly with the little kid. I would talk to him. She had us go to lunch and I wouldn't even I didn't act like he existed. Poor guy, you know, and they and that's all they had in common. It was a boyfriend girlfriend situation. They had something they could attend

that they had. That's all they had. Well, here I am in my head, raiding her like I would rate myself. I used me as a yardstick and one day when I just had about as much of as I can handle, when I began to realize that I had done with her

what alcohol had done with me. Whenever I drank alcohol, it predicted the conduct of my life.

When I plugged into people and I I'm a great one for walking around with them, Dove record hanging out and plug in, they predicted my life. They predicted the happiness and the sadness. I gave them power and they never asked for.

I gave them power over me, and I realized that I was given Roseanne power over my life.

So I had to sit down and get on

and I had to tell Roseanne I don't know how to be a father,

I said. Maybe if you teach me how to be your kind of father,

maybe we can make.

And that was a big breakthrough for me because she began to teach me how to be her kind of father.

And this is what most magnificent thing in the world. I remember telling her, you know, my name is Milton.

I said you can call me Milton. She said, oh, no, daddy, call me Milton. I can't do that. And about two weeks later, she walked in the house. She said hey boy

and it was OK. Let me tell you what I felt because I I'll never forget the feeling when she walked in the house and said that

my chest just just seemed to want to explode. She had found safety. She had found safety. She was safe enough.

It's a risk. And that's what the program did for us. I did the same thing with Chris and Chrissy because she's de blase kind of a kid. She told me, oh, dad, you don't need any instructions. You know how to be a daddy. I said to her, Chrissy, write it down on the beach. Wait for me, please. If you have seen it. I have. I haven't seen it yet, but that's Chrissy. But the amazing thing about it is, is that I was then able

to be able to be your friend. Not equal, but their friend.

I would take each one out to dinner, just the two of us. I wouldn't take them both together. I knew better than that.

And I began to see the difference in my two daughters. Roseanne, when she would order food, they would order food for me. They would give me what they wanted me to eat. That's how they would order it. And the bill, Roseanne's bills would always be much less than Chrissy's because Chrissy's much like me. She's flamboyant, you know, and she just orders. And it's it's at least 10 to $15.00 more when Christian and I would go to death.

But the amazing thing about it, you know, I used to, I used to lay in my bedroom, in our bedroom and Ruby be in the room with the girls and they'd be just chattering.

I'm saying like, what do you laugh about? You know, And I feel, I feel left out. I feel left out. I say, God, why can't I be that way? Why can't they? We get in the room and just just laugh. I couldn't do that. But the amazing thing about it, God found the way for me to get closer and we go out and have dinner

and then they would tell me everything I wanted to eat, any questions I had about what their life was like, what their school of life was like. And to tell them to see, I had to be willing to let them show me how because I didn't know how it worked for me that way with those those two girls I told Ruby I know to be husband. Show me how. And that's Chancey.

When you are married to a person who has a way to go, they don't mind telling you,

they will tell you in no uncertainty. And you gotta not worry about the tone of the voice because if the tone of voice, it'll get me, it'll get me if you come with it loud because it scares me.

What I've had to look is at the content is what she has said, is it right? And when it's right, I got to own it. That's the difference. I got to own it, not defendant, just own it to be able to say, you know, you're right

because otherwise before them, if you raise your voice, I got, I got to deal with your voice, not the right or the wrongness of it. And that's the way our lives begin to mesh.

Because she began to be free enough to share her feelings. And little by little, because she shared hers, I would risk sharing mine

because I knew if I shared my feelings, it might disturb something,

it might cause something or some pain somewhere. But you see, she had taught me a long time ago to be able to share and not defend.

And our lives began to get closer and closer together. I've had heart attacks. She's been there.

You see, God sent Ruby to me in Portland, OR 32 years ago.

More than that, 33 years ago. It was God's gift to me

and I've come to know an Alcoholics Anonymous God's messenger to me

because she sees me like I don't see myself sometime when you're sober and you're trying to live this program on a daily basis in every area of your life and God, you think you're going 90,000 miles now you've got it together. You know, you just a A and back just doing to say anything

and she stand on the ground saying, well, you're not so hot.

I want to know

what that not so hard is because I have a disease of perception. I see myself one way and others see me the other way, and so in my mind, you're God's messenger to me. I want to know how you see me, because I'm a guy that's full of illusions.