Mac C. from Winnepeg, Canada at Blackstone, VA October 1979

I'm Mack Teeter and I'm an alcoholic

and I want to at the outset,

thank the board for inviting me here, allowing me to come and spend the weekend with you people and bring my wife. And we've had a a great time, had an excellent host guide in hell.

And up till now it's been great.

Now I have to say, my dude,

I would like to thank those speakers who came before me.

They've made my job very difficult. But

did a great job for you people and a great job for me sitting out there listening to them.

I've been asked not to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway because

I want to thank you people in this area.

We're sending to the board of trustees our friend David.

Dave was on the board when I arrived and took me under his wing and was a great friend and did much for me

and he made a great contribution to Alcoholics Anonymous and is still doing so. And I think you people have a right to know that

and we think a great deal of day.

And Dave, I know you don't like that, but accept the things you can't change.

I don't usually talk much about my the drinking part of my story, but I

I want you to know that I'm not here because it spent too much time in Sunday school.

I started drinking when I was 15 years of age

and I too can remember the first drink I took.

I too can remember the feeling that it gave me and what it did for me.

Alcohol

for many years didn't owe me anything. It did exactly for me what was supposed to do.

It made me equal.

It made me able to do things that I was too shy to do.

It made me comfortable

and for a long time it worked for me

but has happened to all of us. It turns it stopped doing what it was supposed to do and turned against me.

And I can recall I

graduated from high school and shortly after that went into the Armed Services and went overseas.

And I'm proud of the record I have in the Armed Services.

I was a good soldier. I liked it

and I like the war.

And as strange as it may seem, I was unhappy when the war ended

because I had become a commissioned officer in the Royal Canadian Artillery

and had a good record with the fighting troops.

And although there were many moments I didn't enjoy, I enjoyed what it did for me.

It allowed me to be somebody and I knew when that war was over that I was going to go back home and I was going to be a nothing again.

Consequently, it took me a long time to get home.

When I got home, my luggage had been there for many weeks and they had a sign on the front of the house. Welcome home, son. And it looked like it'd been there for two years.

I just kept missing the boat.

I was in London and every time I missed a draft for Canada

tell me to go and leave again and I'd go and leave and be a little late getting back and miss another drive

and I didn't think I was ever going to get home and it really didn't matter.

I was a very young man

and yet I stood in front of my commanding officer after the war was over and heard him say to me, you will be court martialed and I don't know what you will use for your defense. And the charge was drunk on duty.

Now I had done nothing serious. I had been drunk, but an officer supposed to be on duty 24 hours a day and I had been drinking very heavily. And he told me if you drink as much in the next 8 years as as you have in the last eight days, you'll be no good to anybody, including yourself.

And I thought, what a stuffy old guy.

But when he talked about court martial, I knew he meant business.

And I could see a dishonorable discharge. I could see my gratuities going down the drain, all my benefits. I I could see the feel the shame that it would bring on my family. And I said to him, is it OK if I sit down? And he said, sure, go ahead. And I sat down and he said to me, I don't know what you will use for your defense. And I said to him, I do. I'm going to feed chronic alcoholism

and I said I drank with the doctor.

He will be a witness and he would have been too. We had a medical officer we call More and a dental officer we called Dole

and Moe and Doe and I did a lot of drinking together,

he said. That might work.

And then he got kindly and he said, supposing I don't court martial you, what do you think I should do for you or do with you?

I can still hear him. When I said to him, I think maybe it's a put me on the wagon for a couple of weeks

and he screamed at me a couple of weeks

at the top of his voice. He said you will be on the wagon indefinitely. You are not allowed to go into any place that sells liquor

in a no other mess but your own, and you're not allowed to drink in your mess.

Well, I walked out of there thinking I got out of that deal pretty good.

At that time. We didn't have any of the normal mix. We didn't have Cokes or 7UP or anything. We had some kind of a Raspberry drink that they made in Holland and that's all we had per mix. Well, you couldn't tell what was in that

and I never missed a drink.

I went right back in there and

spoke to the bartender. I told him what to do and he would hand me a glass of Raspberry juice laced with cognac. I kept right on go.

I remember when we left Holland, another chap and I, we went into the bar and we took all the parts, bottles of everything and emptied them into a gallon jug,

a big crock, and we took that with it. We drank that on the way home

down to the along the train. We're moving towards the coast

and I know that there was something wrong with me then.

I wasn't home very long until my grandfather took very sick and all of our relatives were called home. And I can remember in May of that year, sitting on the front steps of my grandmother's house,

an uncle of mine who was a psychiatrist told me about Alcoholics Anonymous.

This was in May of 1946

and he told me about this fellowship that had started and the idea of 1 drunk helping another

and how great this was

and he of course it had experience with patience. I found out later he was the man that brought the first big book into the city of Winnipeg

and had been the person responsible for a there.

Well, I know Brian was

a very sincere guy and I listened to the story and I thought it sounded pretty good and I was glad he liked it.

Many years later, I went to visit him and I said to him, do you remember the conversation we had sitting on the front steps at home? And he said, yes, I do.

I said, did you have anything in mind for me? And he said I certainly did. But you see, I didn't register then. It didn't make any sense.

Was ten years later before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was to drink another 10 years.

In that 10 years, I married the girl that I had gone to high school with one year,

who lived next door to my grandmother

and who I loved all those years,

and we had started going together when I came home from overseas and 1947 we were married. I've been married to that Lady for 32 years and she stuck with me so I didn't do everything wrong.

She doesn't come with me very often, but

when she does I feel a little strange talking with her in the audience.

But she's been pretty well behaved this weekend. And Helen, the doctor coaching her,

I'd like her to stand up so you can see who she is.

You'll have something to say about that, I think.

Well,

as we progress,

in the later years of my drinking,

I used to sit in the bed parlor, and in those days that's all we had. Beer parlor. She wanted hard liquor. You went to liquor store and bought it.

That wasn't allowed to be served. And I drank beer when there was nothing better to drink.

And I drank with a young fellow named Chief of Cortical.

Peace, of course, opens a very low bottom. Sloppy drunk.

Then he got sober.

I like to say we sent them ahead to find out what this is all about.

He was a very slow learner. Took him four years before he come back to tell us.

But Cecil did run in a little difficulty with a guy in a card game, and he wound up in the hospital and got sobered,

and he used to come and visit me and tell me how good things were for him,

and I resented him a great deal. I couldn't see why everybody was so good to him and no good drunk and so hard on me, the number one citizen in the town.

I was having trouble with employment.

I was having trouble with employers.

I just had trouble holding a job

last weekend or two weekends ago. I was in Oregon and the chap came to meet me

at the airport in a beautiful new Cadillac.

And later on, I found out he just completed building a beautiful new home

and on the way to the airport when we're leaving, I said, then what business are you in?

He said I work for the post office

and I thought back to those last years of my drinking

when I was a death salesman in the in the world and unemployed. Nobody recognized my talents. My mother-in-law came to visit me, came to visit us,

and during our visit she suggested that maybe I should try and get a job in the post office.

And she wounded me terribly

to think that that was all she thought of me, that I was only good for delivering mail. And I thought about a couple of weeks ago in Oregon, because I don't have a Cadillac and I don't have a brand new home, but that postman does. That mother-in-law might have been right all the time.

A day came when I

at quit drinking, at quit drinking many times. But this day it was a particularly bad weekend. I got home on Saturday. I remember and I remember that Norma had not bought any groceries because she didn't have any money and

things just went good. And I remember lying awake that night,

determined that I would now

just not drink until I got everything straightened around. I didn't promise myself I would never drink again.

I promised myself that I would stop till I got things straightened out. I can remember the next morning

in as bad a shape I was. I remember the resolve I had and I knew what I was going to do and I got out on the street early and I made a couple of sales calls and

I had a good enough job, although I hadn't produced very much and I didn't know it, but I was on my way out of that job too at the time.

I made a couple of quick calls, and then all of a sudden

I thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't be too hasty about this thing. Maybe I shouldn't just cut it off all at once. Maybe I should have a few just to keep going. And I remember walking into that beer parlor and having a beer. I remember the place being packed with people.

I didn't find out till later that I was the only person in there

but it was full of people and they were all screaming at me and all talking and I I stood up and shouted at them to quit yelling at me. They shut up and sit down leave me alone. When I started doing that, I guess the guy behind the bar got a little nervous and asked me to leave and I left.

I went, bought 3 bottles of rye whiskey and checked in the hotel.

I can remember twice that afternoon. I can remember crying and sobbing and feeling so sorry for myself and wondering where it was all going to end and what was I going to do? And and then I got an idea that I'd phone Cecil

an iPhone Cecil. And he was, he was busy. He couldn't come to the phone

so I asked for his boss, who happened to be a good friend of mine.

And I could remember being at a party one night when, due to a series of circumstances, I said I had no friends. And I can remember Alec turning to me and saying, Mark, you got one friend, 'cause I'm your friend.

And I said to Alec on the phone, are you still my friend? And he said, I sure am. I said, come and see me. I'm in desperate trouble.

He had just left a group of people and they were planning a farewell party for me from my wife and I because I was supposed to move out of that city.

So Alec came and he took one look at me and got on the phone and got ahold of cease and said stop. Whatever you're doing, it doesn't matter. Get over here.

Chiefs came over and apparently phoned. Norman said he had me and what should he do with me And she said bring him home.

I don't remember much about that.

I remember going back to the hotel a couple days later to pick up my rubbers

and the guy behind the desk said you were. You and Chief were on quite a party a few days ago

and he said you weren't in too bad shape, but peace was sure in bad shape.

I think he had us mixed up.

Cease has been troubled for four years. Then,

well, they took me home and

that whole deal started. She stayed with me for a long time.

And when he went, somebody else came. I remember they were coming and going and I remember Elmer coming. I remember Elmer coming and I was trying to eat some poached eggs and I was sitting in the living room and I wasn't dressed. It was in my pajamas and house coat. And I remember this guy coming in and sitting there and making such great statements. And he looked at me and said, are you feeling a little strict?

And I thought, man, this guy is really something.

And somehow they told me that I should make a list of all the debts I had. I don't know how that got started because that was bad business,

but I they know I had financial difficulty and I remember thinking I if I write all this down, Normal will walk right out the door.

I remember writing down all my debts and showing them to her and she looked at it and said that's quite a bit of money wheels.

And

it was then. It's not too much in today's terms, but it was a lot of money then

and I had collection agencies phoning me, and

I still don't like collection agencies.

If there's one little bit of resentment left in me, it has to be for them.

You know, they phone you early in the morning, collect long distance from some other city and you haven't got a job and you haven't got any money and you get nothing but creditors and, and they're going to make trouble for you and they phone you at your expense. I can remember saying if you don't get off the telephone, they'll come and take it out.

So I didn't arrive here because things were good.

And after I got here,

our home was sold so that we could pay off some financial obligations and make another start and we move to another city. And

my sister and my uncle came up and and they took our two children to stay with my sister.

We had a little girl, little boy,

and I remember the day they drove away.

I know they would never come back. I can remember the desolation I felt in this total defeat

because there was number way that I could have any hope.

But Norma said, And we moved to another city and we got a

what we used to call a suite, an apartment. It was a room in a basement of an old house

and it had kind of a little division, so you really could call it 2 rooms.

It was air conditioned. You could look right out past the gas pipe and see the sun.

I remember we had torrential rain and

the basement product and all everything we had and that was floating around the water.

I was at traveling salesman. I used to go away on the road on Mondays. Norma lived there. She got a job

I hadn't. He hadn't worked in the time she was pregnant with her daughter until after I got into Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was the sole breadwinner in the family

and there was much bread. A lot of times.

She went back to work and we started to pay our desktop

and I tried to put deals together with people so that we'd get our children back. I tried to plan to rent AA home and get a couple people to live in one room and a couple another, and between a bunch of us we could get enough rent that we'd have a home, we'd get our children back. And it never worked out that way.

I went to meetings and I stayed sober.

I'm one of those fortunate people. I never had to take another drink from the time Cecil came to see me in that old hotel

one day. One Saturday afternoon, the phone rang

and a voice said, I understand you're looking for a house. And I said how much the rent,

he said doesn't make any difference. I said it makes a great deal of difference. How much is the rent?

At that time I was paying $46 a month for everything.

And he said, well come and see the place and see if you like it and then we'll talk about the rents and I guess we're nothing else to do. Anyway, we went over and had a look at it and

we sat down after we looked at it and I know there was no way we could afford this place. Just no way.

And he said to me, I'll tell you what you do you. I've got 2A boy and a girl. The girl was working and the boy still in high school. And he said, we, we have this house and we had it rented to two people and they moved out and left us with it. And if you'll supply the groceries, we'll supply the house.

And I can remember saying to Mike, would you put that in writing?

See, there had to be something wrong with this deal. It was still got a deal

and then he said how long have you been sober? And I told him and he said I've been sober two years.

He belongs to an alcohol synonymous group out in the country.

The next day we moved in

and a few months later our children get back

and we started from there. I remember my mother-in-law came up to business and she offered to buy and put the down payment on a home and we accepted that offer and

I was an Alcoholic Anonymous. A little over two years. We had our own home

in 1958

and we didn't have any relatives around us. Our relatives all lived in Manitoba and at that time we were in Saskatchewan

and we had a host full of drunks. Most the time

it was great. In those days, people would just drop in and, you know, if I went out to cut the lawn, I could be guaranteed I wouldn't have to do much because somebody interrupt me and would have to have a cup of coffee and talk.

And I remember our kids. You know, if you weren't Alcoholics Anonymous, you're nothing.

They wouldn't sit around, listen, but it was somebody they that sit around and they got to know everybody. And we had great times. Our group used to have Christmas parties. We'd have parties for the kids with the picnics in the summer, and

there was a real closeness, I think, that we don't have today, at least not where I live.

And it was great and things went good. I didn't lose a job. I've never had to look for a job since it came here

and the day came

we know making a living was not a problem with the question what I wanted to do. And

at that time, I moved into the business I'm in now and broadcast

and we move the city of Regina.

Few years later we moved to where we are now in Winnipeg.

I'm planning with this because I want you to know that you don't start at the top.

You don't stand at the top. But if you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous and do things you're supposed to do, things will happen

beyond your control, beyond your dreams.

There was nothing that I did that made it happen. It just happened.

There might be people sitting here tonight that

wondering, wondering if they really belong with his outfit. You might be new and you might be wondering if you're really alcoholic or not.

I don't think you're unique.

Most of us who are here wondered if we were bad enough to join Alcoholics Anonymous.

I certainly knew I wasn't.

I just came here to get things straightened out,

and I can remember

the doubts I had for so long. I was an Alcoholic Anonymous about six months before I really realized that I was an alcoholic.

Of course, I didn't know what an alcoholic was when I came here.

I too came from a good Christian home. I like what Joe Lee says about that, He said. Good Christian homes are just a breeding ground for Alcoholics.

Everybody says they came from good question home.

Well,

when I was a little boy, I lived with my grandmother a great deal. I can remember being sick. I used to have a lot of earaches and I had tonsil trouble and adenoid problems and I could stay home from school. I wasn't sick in a sense that I couldn't eat anything They but I could stand bad and they'd bring my meals up to me and mother me and read to me all day and it was just great.

Later on in life, I used to,

I think to myself when things were up, if I could only be sick again, if I could be sick and if somebody look after me,

how nice that would be. And then I came in the door of Alcoholics Anonymous

and the first thing they told me was I was sick.

You told me you're a sick man.

Did that ever sound good?

And for a long time, I wanted to stay sick. I wanted to dwell in the illness

and I'm afraid a lot of people and Alcoholics Anonymous want to dwell in the illness.

It takes courage to get well,

but you know,

we are living in a world that is in the epidemic stages of alcoholism,

not just in North America. Everywhere you look

there will be more people die in North America from alcoholism in the next 12 months and from any other single illness.

We got some strange things going on

in our country. We have 4 to 500 programs dealing with alcoholism.

A few years ago we gave a professor in university $150,000 to investigate these programs. I think he took off. We've never heard anymore.

I formed them to see if I could help him just for a piece of the action, but he said he would send me a report and I haven't got one.

And we have an Alcoholics Anonymous,

a means of recovery from alcoholism.

We were not given a legacy of sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous

behind me is a sign as our Insignia that says recovery. It does not say sobriety on the bottom of that triangle.

And so I believe that we can recover from alcoholism

because our book tells us that

now. I know what people mean when they say they're recovering, and I know that we will never be well. Nobody hurt me as much as I hurt myself.

So when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I found out I had a an incurable, hopeless illness.

I had an illness that was a killing illness and that it was incurable. I could not be cured, but I could recover through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I did not have to stay sick.

And for those of you who would care to disagree with that, be my guest.

I give you the right to your opinion only ask you to give me the right to mind and I reserve the right to change mine anytime I want to.

But you see, the book always gives us a note to

because it says those who do not recover,

our men and women who cannot give themselves completely do this simple program.

So take your pick.

Personally, I like to say I've recovered.

I haven't had a drink for over 23 years. I don't think I'm going to get any dryer.

I try to practice this program the best of my ability, and if I'm miserable, I don't think I can blame it on alcoholism.

If I'm doing something wrong, I can no longer say, well, don't criticize me, I'm a poor sick alcoholic.

If I'm a bum, I'm just a bum.

So we have to sooner or later accept the responsibility of being well

and we have to give up all our alibi

and stand up on our two feet and say I just like been well. There is nothing wrong with being a well human being

and I am a well human being and I like to stand up here and tell you that and I I enjoy it. I'd like been well. I don't want to be sick again.

And that all came about through this program of Alcoholics Anonymous because I accepted, first of all, the fact of my illness,

and I accepted that I was everything that an alcoholic could be.

You know, I used to say to myself, I never went to jail.

Well, when you start to think about it, going to jail wasn't a good thing to do if you wanted to drink.

And you don't find a lot of smart people in jail, you go check them out. They get some pretty dumb things to get there.

I never spent much time in a hospital.

I lied about that. Part of the reason I was late getting home from overseas is I was in the hospital, I was in there. That direct result of drinking,

trying to get well enough to come home.

And, you know,

when Cease came to see me, he brought a list of 20 questions and asked me to answer these questions so I can qualify myself.

And one of those questions said, did you seek lower companions when you drank? And I know he knew I drank with him

and I also knew he hadn't got a real good one yet. He had been four years stumbling around and

so I had to, I had to say I was one, but I didn't really believe it until I got around here for a while and I had to learn to accept my illness and I had to learn to accept my alcoholism.

That just doesn't happen automatically.

You see, I never became an alcoholic until I joined Alcoholic Anonymous

the day before. If you had asked me if I was an alcoholic, I'd have told you no, I'm a social drinker.

Now we hear some genius in New York is going to make social drinkers out of Alcoholics.

I want to know that social drinking damn near killed me and I became an alcoholic and haven't had a drink since.

And if you don't believe me, go check all the bars. Go in there and say everybody it's an alcoholic stand up.

You won't find any Alcoholics drinking.

They're all social drinkers. Alcoholics are sitting in places like this in an absolute abnormal state of sobriety.

It is not easy to accept the illness, alcoholism. It's not easy to say to yourself, I am one of those, regardless of what those happen to be.

It's not easy to say I'm the same kind of a person that would wind up in jail, but for the grace of God, I didn't go to jail.

It is not easy to accept the fact that I am the kind of a person that would be in a mental institution

but for the grace of God. I didn't go to a mental institution.

Learning to accept the fatality of alcoholism is not an easy thing, and if you're having trouble with it, that's just because it's a trouble thing. It's hard to recognize and accept.

Nobody wants to be an alcoholic.

We denied our alcoholism until we couldn't deny it anymore with no place else to go.

And I have spent many times working with Alcoholics who have gone back drinking.

I have one of those fortunate people that belong to a group of slippers.

The group I belong to is called the Golden Slippers.

The

and it was started because I got a phone call one night from a guy who actually was from a girl that I sponsored and she told me that her father would like to talk to me but he always thought I was too busy and didn't want to bother me. And she asked me if I would call him and I did. I called old Ross and we went and had coffee together and he told me that if I would just work with him the way I worked with other people, he could stay sober. But nobody was paying any attention to him.

And, you know, that happened

to get a guy that comes to a group and he's drunk one week and sober the next one. Pretty soon, it doesn't matter what he says. You know, he's going to get drunk again anyway. And maybe if you're asking people to say something as an afterthought, you'll say, well, Ross, what do you got to say tonight before he says that? Everybody has dismissed everything he's going to say anyway. We're getting to close the meeting. And that happens at Alcoholics Anonymous.

They're in a way all righty never stop drinking. But the next night I got a phone call from Cliff, and Cliff was an interesting drunk.

He had been around for a long time and Cliff always committed suicide when he was drinking

and he did it with a shotgun. An automatic Browning

and Cope would be sitting there killing himself with a shotgun and you never were quite sure

where it was pointing. And the first thing I had to do is they Cliff give me the shotgun

and then he had pumped the shells out of it and standing up in the corner and take old Cliff the hospital and the next day check himself out and go back to his trailer with his shotgun.

Well, clip on me, he said. Mac, I hate to bother you, but I phoned everybody else I know and nobody will come to see me and I really need help,

so I'd phone all Ross, I said. Ross, come on, we're going 12 step. Carl won't see Cliff,

and I didn't know for some time, but oh, Ross ranks up a Cliff sticker that night.

At least you guys were drinking. I was sober

and they arranged with me to have an early breakfast the next morning

and I was perfectly sane. I went right along with it at my expense.

We had breakfast and they told me about how they were special and nobody paid any attention to them. They wanted some special treatment. I remember went for a long walk and Cliff kept saying can't we go back now because he had some booze stashed in his car.

But we decided to have a special meeting. And then they said, Oh well, if we have a meeting, everybody will come and pretty soon they'll be paying attention to us again.

And I said, well, have the meeting when it's inconvenient for people to call.

Well, that goes to meeting Sunday morning. Ever since we meet at 8:30 Sunday morning

and that's not bad. That's a compromise. They wanted to start at 7:00.

Well, Cliff, he came to Blue Ridge with me

and he's never had a drink since he left Blu-ray.

He's got two or three years sobriety and all. Ross, he's got about six months left

and they're the most firmer looking guys ever saw.

Ross was our secondary when we formed the group and he was still drinking the best secondary we ever had.

Then he got sober. He wasn't worth a damn after that.

We just made him a good historian because he kept those records so neat in the early days and nobody's done that since. I remember his wife's phone me up and said what are you doing letting Ross handle the money? I said, well, if he's drinking, I can't think of anybody it needs money. Worse, neither.

And if he standard, we'll get it back sometime.

I don't know whether I ever spent it or not, but we've always never had a money problem.

And that growth is 50-60 people meeting their Sunday morning now. And we're spent a lot of money on birth decades.

So you see, I know what it is to work with people that flip, and I know what it is to get fired through sobriety.

I know what it's like to sit there and say they know where to go.

I know that I have gone on 12 step calls and I've gone to a great deal of trouble to help a total stranger and turn down a guy that was in my own booth

said you know where to go.

Well, I don't do that anymore.

And please don't do that. You know, just because the guy gets drunk, all he's doing, doing what he's supposed to do.

Alcoholics are not supposed to be sober,

and when life gets too much for an alcoholic and he hasn't got anything else going for him, he's going to get drunk because he's got no place else to go.

And it doesn't say that we should carry the message to somebody that's brand new and never heard it before.

And so we got a group of golden slippers we put on a little shindig in January up there. That's another thing you should not ever do is put on a conference in Canada in January because it snows and it's 50 below.

We've had some of your people up there and they had a good time and we get 11 to 1300 people show up there in January. Just have a have a weekend and it's something else. And that's all run by the Golden Slippers. I can remember 20 people saying look at the guy that's handling the money. He just got out of a drunk tank two weeks ago, and he's the treasurer of this thing,

and they do a good job

accepting illness. Alcoholism is a difficult thing. We can rationalize. We can do things with our mind. You see, every day I am told in that book to ask God to direct my thinking. And I do that because I don't trust my own thinking. An alcoholic is a person who has a mind and a body that is different from normal, and it will always be that way.

We can see things different than most people, we can rationalize, we can excuse ourselves, and we can make sense out of things that are totally insensible.

I sponsored a little girl that had a bad habit of setting fires

and I remember I said to her one day what is the worst thing he ever did? And she said I set fire to an apartment block

and I said why did you do that? She said I don't really know.

And then I said, but I bet it made sense to you at the time. And she said, yes, I know it did. I had a legitimate reason to do that.

Her boyfriend got her mad one day and he was working in a new pizza parlor and she was down there. Set 2 fires in that place.

She's sober today. She hasn't SNET fires for a long time.

But you see, an alcoholic can think things and make sense out of us. It makes sense to you when you walk in the front door and your wife is mad and you say what the hell you mad at? I told you last Tuesday is gonna be late.

That makes sense.

It makes sense to sit in a in a bar and say let's have one more.

It makes sense to go to abide at one drink and stay two weeks. That makes sense when you're doing it.

An alcoholic can make sense out of things that are not sensible.

And my mind is still our way and I don't trust my thinking.

I ask God to direct my painting.

That's why I have to do that every morning.

Another thing I like to know, I'd like you to know an alcoholic means it when he makes promises,

but something happened

and I know this has happened to people that I've been sponsoring.