Don P. from Pine Bluffs, NC speaking in Aurora, CO

I'll take 2. My name is Don. I'm an alcoholic. And I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing this morning. My home group is, an AA group.

The long form of the 3rd tradition says that any 2 or more alcoholics gathered for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, so we do. We meet in the basement of the Community Corrections Center at 6 o'clock every Friday morning. We have very little deadweight at our meeting. I am deeply touched this morning and it's going to take me a minute. Because when I came here there was no one left on the planet that could or would talk to me except a prison guard.

And I have long standing relationships with people here. Alcoholics Anonymous for you new people is a large large family. But remember, as in any family, there's immediate family and there's kissing cousins. And that's why we have so many different groups. And every one of them is important, but find who your real family is, then hang out with the kissing cousins.

About 5 years ago, I had occasion to oh, where I come from you need to know this, I have been continuously sober since December 26, 1967. And and I'm saying that to impress you. Not with me. Please don't be impressed with me. I'm just no drunk.

Please, you need people to be impressed with the fact that if you're alcoholic, you don't ever have to drink again. Relapse is not part of recovery. Okay? It will happen, but you don't have to. But about 5 years ago, I had occasion in the middle of a rather serious illness for whatever the reasons, and I won't bore you with them, to have to leave home and group and support and go from Colorado to North Carolina, where they don't even speak English.

I got down there and they weren't doing an a ride either. Starting a whole new job in a whole new area while I was sick. And, eventually I got out of my own head and became part of what was going on down there, which was good stuff. I'm a step worker. I'd gone through the necessary things to find out why I was being threatened by what was going on there, and what was turning me into a jerk.

I was when I get frightened, I become a big book Nazi. K. That's my defense. Yeah. You too.

I know. Got it all straightened out. I began sponsoring some people. The way I sponsor is simple. If I'm going to sponsor you, you have to show up at my house at inconvenient times.

And I will read the book Alcoholics Anonymous to you because that's what was done for me out loud because I know you don't know how to read. And you and I together will do everything that it says for as long as you can stand it and I will continue on because I can stand it all. And then you and I will begin to make prison meetings and detox meetings and all kinds of things. Because I know something. The minute you find God, you gotta go tell somebody about it.

You have to. You don't have any choice. And I want to show you where we're supposed to go. Anyway, I was sponsoring people. I had a little big book workshop going before the regular meeting.

I was part of things. Work was going well and I was dying spiritually and I didn't understand it. And I remember talking to one of the fellows one morning and I said, I don't get this. I've become a good demonstration for God. What's wrong?

And I've been taught to listen to myself and I heard what I said. I had become a good demonstration from God and that's what was wrong. This isn't about me demonstrating for God what I can do. It's about God demonstrating through me what He can do. Got that straight and I'm okay now.

I hope you don't have to leave home in order to get that simple message. I woke up one morning. I've been living with a consciousness of the presence of God for 30 years. I can't tell you much about it except that where I am, God is and I know that. There's no question about it.

Whether I feel good or bad or don't feel at all, it doesn't matter. That's just a fact. And one morning at 6 o'clock in the morning in North Carolina, I woke up and it wasn't there. And it didn't frighten me, and I don't know why it didn't frighten me, but it didn't. But I have some habits that I've developed here.

I instantly began to pray. It's a good habit to get. And the prayer was simple. I I need to know you're here. I need to get closer to you.

I need to know you better. And my phone rang 6 in the morning. And it was Billy. And Billy said, I was 7 years sober last week and I drank. And Allan was 12 years sober and he drank.

And we got another fellow in our group that's getting ready to drink. And some of the guys tell us that every now and then, you all get together with people and you all go through the big book together over a weekend and somehow they quit drinking. Would you do that with us? And I've got another habit. I said, sure.

And then my I went back to praying, I need to know you're here, I need to be closer to you, I need to know you're better, and the phone rang. And I had a hard time getting dressed that morning because the phone kept ringing until I finally got the message. Okay. If you would know me better, get to know my children better. If you'd be close to me, be with my children.

So you all are a gift to me this morning. I've spent 5 minutes trying to tell you how much I love you because you are a gift to me. From the moment that God awakened in me and I awakened to that fact, I've had to tell people about it and you've given me an opportunity to do that this morning. Without you, it would curdle and I'd really be ugly. Do you ever see a spiritual person that doesn't tell anybody about it?

They get really ugly. I'm an alcoholic that did not know I was alcoholic. When I came to you and I didn't come looking for you, why would I? I didn't know I was alcoholic. You came and found me, and at the time you found me, I had been certified by one government agency as a sociopath type 2.

I don't know what that is, but it's not good. A federal parole officer had me labeled as a psychopath and the doctors had me down as a manic depressive drug addict. And all I know is that I was really tired. So your coming to find me was really important to me. I would not have looked for you Ever.

So I'm one of those alcoholic members of Alcoholics Anonymous that goes trolling for drunks. And the best place to find them, of course, is the AA meetings. They're full of people who don't know they're alcoholic. They've been told that. They'll say that, but they don't know what the hell that means.

And so they wonder, well, am I or am I not? And if an alcoholic wonders, am I or am I not? They're bound to take the test someday to find out. Bound to. And, they may die.

So let me tell you briefly about my alcoholism. I was my first federal penitentiary when I was 19 years old because of alcoholism. Because I am an alcoholic. Not because I was a big time gangster. I've been in 3 penitentiaries and I'm not a big time gangster.

The big time gangsters don't even go once. When I begin to drink alcohol, I can't stop. I can't stop. I get lost and I can't find my way home. And when you're in the navy, that's a felony.

They they would I had I had run away from home when I was 17 because Denver was too small for me. I'd been kicked out because we missed a lot of school. We'd started drinking and kept missing school. Joined the Navy to save America from the communist menace and, come home a hero. Oh, God.

I wanted to be somebody's hero. You guys know what I'm talking about. There's a picture that goes with hero. I would come back after fighting the foreign wars in my little blue uniform, my little white hat cock just a little bit off to the right, so it made this eye squinch in Bogart style. And I've sort of eased down the street.

Slight limp as represented by this purple medal here. That's the one I got for throwing myself on the hand grenade to save my platoon. And I'd go by the guys and I could hear them say it, There he is. That's him. He's my friend.

He lets me talk to him even. And I'd go by that little group of girls and there's a sound that I just yearn for. Hey. Come on. At 17, that's not a bad dream at all.

And at 19, I was in a federal penitentiary in Tokyo, Japan because I took a drink of alcohol in Long Beach, California on a 24 hour liberty, And 22 days later, I was still on that drunk in Pershing Square in Los Angeles and could not go back to that ship for any reason whatsoever. I wasn't through. And on day 23, my madness was gone, and I turned myself in and went back. That's alcoholism. I found that in the doctor's opinion in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

He talks about men who had worked on a business deal that will be settled favorably to them on a certain date. They took a drink a day or 2 before they missed their appointment. And I began to catch that's what it is. I don't believe for one minute that I ever intended to do all the things that I did while I was drinking. One of the things that used to drive me crazy is that I did things that were out of character.

See, I'm truly a decent human being. That's all I've ever wanted to be, was a Boy Scout. I'm the kind of Boy Scout who's a little warped, however. You know, I'll try to help you across the street before I ask you whether you want to go or not. It's not in my nature to pay the price, I just want the results.

I come from a family of musicians. In fact, my brother is one of the foremost synthesizer musicians in the world. And I say that because I watch what they do with him. They just took him to Russia the last 2 years to teach for a month in Moscow and then the Scandinavian countries. He was writing music with Stan Kenton when he was 19 years old.

Booker for the army band at 21. He grew up right down the hall from me, next room over. Apparently, it wasn't all that terrible treatment I got as a child. Okay. My sister, Lord love her, she retired from IBM as one of their executives.

She's now selling real estate just to keep busy. She made big money, great babies. Her babies have been busy making babies. They do that. I was at a family function a while back and here's all these little people who look a lot like me, but I didn't do it.

We're having difficulty finding husbands for these babies because you young guys are nuts. But in my family, the attitude when a baby shows up is, isn't that nice? There's another little prince, baby. Let's raise it. Say, I come from a functional home.

I apologize. Doesn't mean we didn't have difficulty in my home. The human condition brings with it a very low tolerance for any kind of pain, whether it be heat, psychic, emotional, and, pain causes people to have difficulty. One of the things in in getting straight with my dad that has struck me See, my dad and grandpa back in the late twenties early thirties were the head of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan. They had some really funky ideas.

Then my dad awakened spiritually and those ideas changed. And he took his robes off. And I got thinking one day how terrible it would have been, and I did this for years, had I left the robes on him after he had taken them off. That's part of what making amends does, getting straight with these things. Because I carry those robes my whole life.

Something happens to me when I'm 6 and I'm so bloody important to this universe that at 46, I'm still gnawing on that 6 year old thing and it's now completely out of proportion. I said hi to you and you were busy and didn't say hi back. 40 years later, I was mistreated. Don't tell me you don't have that happen once in a while. I didn't fit in that family.

And I've always found that interesting because today as I look back over, if I got to make a list of the the qualities of the family that I wish I'd have been raised in, hell, that's the one I was raised in. My parents give you an idea of the kind of love we had. My dad had gangrene in one leg and I mean he was he was ready to go. It was long overdue. But they had their 66 wedding anniversary on Saturday and he stuck around for the party and then Tuesday went into his coma and then left us on Thursday.

And I didn't fit. That's I call that commitment. I, spent a lot of time wondering when my people were gonna get back from outer space and pick me up. Yeah. Well, I didn't think like you thought and I didn't feel like you felt.

I'm inappropriate is what I grew up feeling. You know, when when you laugh at funerals and cry at hockey games, people look at you funny. Well, then I discovered you and you're as goofy as I am, so I'm fine here. I brought all this to alcohol. I was a mess before I ever got to alcohol.

I cannot blame alcoholism on me being a mess. It just made it okay. Used to hear this stuff I I had a mean sponsor, they told me the truth. I was telling him one time about something I had done because I've been drinking. He says, oh, baloney, that's cleaned up.

Says you didn't do that because you were drinking, you were drinking because you were too much of a coward to do it sober. And he was right. Absolutely dead on right. So somewhere 15, 16 years of age, I didn't fit front hall or back hall. I was hanging out with 6 guys who didn't belong anywhere either.

We were just running amok and angry at everybody. You know, when you don't fit, there's only one proper emotional response, rage. Yeah. When you don't belong anywhere, it pisses you off. K?

And that's a very appropriate response. So we'd run around cussing everybody else. If I can't be you, I'm gonna be better than you or you're gonna be less than me, 1 or the other, whichever works best. Best. I will continue to separate myself from you.

We got a guy from our Air Force base to buy us a bottle of whiskey, bonded bourbon. We're going to go out east of Denver and drink it and get drunk and have fun. We didn't know what that meant, but the big guys said that was the deal. So we did that. And I had the experience that night that's found in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, what Carl Jung describes as a spiritual experience.

Ideas and emotions that rule the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and an entirely new set of conceptions and motives begins to dominate them. I was transformed. I just didn't feel better. I was different. I went into the evening angry and frightened and stupid and short and ugly and angry.

And a couple drinks of bonded bourbon. I've got plans now. I love it when you laugh. It tells me I'm in the right place. Look at the nonalcoholics around you.

They're sitting there saying, What did you say? See, there was this bully in my class that had been treating me rather poorly. And at that point, I thought I was a coward, so I just let him do it. Now all of a sudden, I'm gonna meet him back at the drive in. I'm gonna whip him in front of everybody.

No small plans here. And I could have done it. There's no question. And there was a little girl in my class who hadn't been treating me at all. And we were gonna have a visit.

And I could have done that too. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. If one works, take 10. That's not a slogan that's in my genes. I don't even think it.

It just happens. God can use that, you know. He does. There's times you use that to get me out of bed to go do some kind of service for him, but I really didn't want to go. So he tickled my ego a little bit.

My ego gets me here. God shows up after I'm here. Okay. He's with me all the time, but I sometimes have to be goosed. I want to give you a number of gifts, I hope, along the way this morning and not just chatter at you.

I want to give you one of the prayers that has helped me to understand some things. See, at my very best, there's self interest. I can't help it. I believe the spiritual life actually is one of enlightened self interest. I finally have discovered that the best way for me to get mine is to make sure you get yours.

Let's just enlighten self interest. Now there's more to it than that, but that's a good place to start. So there's mornings I wake up and I know God's got work for me to do and I don't want to do it. I want to stay in bed. I'm just a little kid.

I'm tired. I don't want to do this today. You've been pushing me for 10 years way beyond my capacity. Give me a break. I don't want to do this.

And I can talk with him like that, you know. And then I've learned to say, I really don't want to do this. I really truly don't. But because of what you have done for me, I'll go do this one for you. And it changes me.

So if you get in the mind, try it. It may or may not work, it's worked for me. Well, I don't think I ever got back to whip the guy. What happened is that I drank too much that night and nearly died of acute alcohol poisoning. And what the folks in the drive in saw instead of me whipping the bully and visiting with the girl was my partners hauling me around by the elbows while I puked in the driveway.

And now you know how I drank. Always too much. Always past what reasonable people would drink. It's crude but everybody here will understand it. My wife, if she ever drank and vomited, would never ever drink again.

It is in my genes. It's in my blood. There have been times when I would drink and it was time to quit because my body was saying one more and we'll die on you. And so I would stick my finger down my throat to make room because I wasn't through drinking. That's going past the effect produced by alcohol.

That's alcoholism. The Chinese described it perfectly. Man takes a drink. Drink takes a drink. Drink takes the man.

And alcoholism is a drink taking the drink and I don't have any power or choice over that. And I've got it. And if you've got it, let me give you some good news. You're doomed. There's no treatment for that.

To this day, we can put on a man on the moon, but we haven't come up with anything that will make it possible for me to put alcohol in my body and not have my body say, more. Now. The thing I wanted more than anything in my life was to be a good father and a good husband, and I couldn't pull it off. I made babies. Well, that's easy.

It wasn't until I finished the sex inventory that I understood it was lucky because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Come on, guys. I'll own up to it. I learned about women from men who don't know anything at all about women. And I'm expected to have a good relationship?

Come on. I finally got smart. I started learning about women from a woman, and I've been married to her for 22 years now. We haven't had a fight yet. I promise you we haven't.

She's right most of the time anyway. She thinks I'm the cutest thing she's ever seen. I agree. I tried so hard to be straight, to provide for my family, to be a good father. I really tried.

Until I got sober, I was a quick study and off the line I'm really good. I can fail and get up and in a matter of weeks, you forget the failure because I'm really doing good. I was a sprinter in the game of life. And we'd be fine. And I think the greatest damage I did to the people that loved me the most, my family, was that I kept getting up.

And they'd get new hope again. The boy looks like he's gonna make it this time. And then they'd get distracted, and I'd get distracted, and I'd fall on my butt again. And then I'd get up. And the day finally came, thank God, I couldn't get up anymore.

I get frustrated up here, I must tell you. I've been living with a sense that where I am, God is for so long that I have 24 hours of things to tell you about and I get an hour. What I want to tell you about is what's happened to me since I died. Christmas week in 1967 was the end of the road for me. I just couldn't bounce anymore and I did not get sober because of the truth.

I'm here because I finally ran out of lies. Okay? For those of you who need to go that far. I was on federal parole on aid to dependent children. I was now also injecting speed.

I'm not a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic who, along the way, has had a lot of experience with drugs. But it's something I don't talk about much from here. If you want to talk about that, I'll be glad to somewhere else. I couldn't get out of bed without a shot of speed to get me up so I could go steal something, so we could put together enough money to get enough booze so I could come back and go back to sleep, Get some groceries along the way.

And this was my life. £133. But I'd have told you the boys and I are okay. The family's intact. What do you mean?

There's something wrong. No. It was not an intact family. It was 2 little boys living with a madman. Coming from a functional home, I know what Christmas is supposed to look like.

It always looked like that where I grew up. Big tree they bring in from the outside. Smells like spruce. We have spruce in my country. Decorate it.

Do you ever sew popcorn together and make long strings of it and put it on the tree and there's lights and it's warm and the house smells good? There's apple cider with cinnamon in it and hot chocolate with marshmallows. Real marshmallows, not these sissy things. People would come by and visit with my folks. People loved my folks.

My dad was a character. He was an unmeasured genius that tried and couldn't find a test to measure him. And he found ways to make himself just one of the guys which made him a character. And people loved him. And they loved my mother.

And they'd come by and visit. Hell, in my home Christmas week in 1967, nobody came by except the 16 year old kid that I turned on and I was using as a runner because I couldn't do it anymore. Even my pro officer wouldn't come by. He made me go see him. But we're alright.

On 24th, we, took a walk because dad was restless, irritable, and discontent. That's not a description. That's a living lifestyle. So we walked a lot. And in that walk, I found a dollar in the snow and we went to the Christmas tree place to see what we get for a dollar because we didn't have a tree.

The welfare check hadn't gotten there. And this very kind man gave us the biggest tree on the lot for a dollar. And I'm an alcoholic. I took the biggest one. And I love I'll keep the image fresh in my mind.

We had a 7 foot ceiling and a 9 foot tree in it, decorated with junk and stuff. I'd managed to a man at a place called the Public Merchandise Mart, another kind man. You want to remember, at this time, I hated everybody. This very kind man gave me a little pair of cowboy boots and a little shirt, so each of my boys would have a Christmas present on credit. I didn't have any money.

And the boys had wrapped up everything that would fit in blue paper towel and put it under the tree for me. And I began to break. Christmas day, we went to my folks. It would never occur to me not to go to my folks' place on Christmas. And my dad met us at the door and said, Don, I'm sorry, but your mother said I can't let you in here anymore.

She can't stand watching you die. And the lie went. The lie was simple. Leave me alone. I'm not hurting anybody but me.

And suddenly that's a lie. I could see what I'd done to the people that I loved and the people around me and to my kids. And then my dad broke my last lie because he snuck us into the basement. And I would have told you that morning, nobody cares about us. Nobody loves us.

And he did. He made a lie out of that. So I went home after that short visit filled with self pity. What's left? Then we passed the self pity into the truth.

And the truth was at that particular moment, there was no reason for me to be here. There truly wasn't. I had become absolutely completely useless. I believe the bottom of all human pain is the moment when you know I am useless. That's it.

All we promise you here, after you're sober is that you can find a useful way of life. And if you can be useful, you can live. Let me tell you something that's frightening me these days. I'm watching people with 30 and 35 and 40 years of sobriety blowing their brains out. Drinking is no longer an option for them.

But they stop being useful and they end up having to die. That's awful. So let me let me make a request because you're being kind to me. You keep me busy. Please keep those of us who've been around here for a while busy.

Because if I ever get useless again, I'll die again. And I don't want to give it up. You know how to how to keep us busy? Invite us someplace. Cater to our little egos.

We tell you new people we need you. We do. We need you to tell us we need you old timers. What do you think about this, Don? Oh, God.

I love that question. Oh yeah. The power of God went to my work in my life that day. I believe it's all about power. Lack of power is my dilemma.

Well, I have found power. And I am a power seeker and always have been and always will be. It's about power. I woke up the next morning. What I did that night because I couldn't continue to live is that I took a 2 month supply of the garbage I was using and shot it up my arm and drank everything in the house.

And I laid down and I died. And I truly believe I died because I've not had a drink or a pill or a fix or even thought of 1 from that time on. But I didn't feel good when I woke up in the morning. I wasn't supposed to. And the police were at the door and I knew I wasn't dead.

We talked to you about spiritual experiences, you new people. We make them sound like they're fun. Don't you believe it? Getting born is never fun. The first thing that happens every time I awaken spiritually, and there's more than one by the way, is I think, oops, I've lost my mind.

And the reason I think that is because I have. Whatever I was using before that is now gone. And I got a new one, I don't know what to do with it. So I pray and I talk to people who've been on the path ahead of me, and I'm real picky about who I talk with. Okay?

You gotta understand, I love Alcoholics Anonymous, but Alcoholics Anonymous did not get me sober. I was 5 and a half months sober before you found me. I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous because this is where God brought me and you have shown me how to make my life mean something. I sit I sit around in your meetings and you tell me over and over again, I don't know how to run my life. Why would I give you mine?

Together something good happens and I'm not putting down meetings. But I've seen meetings kill people. If meetings actually did the job, then everybody who went to a meeting would never drink again, would they? Without meetings we will all drink. Please don't misunderstand me.

But there's more to it than not drinking. I would never promise anyone just sobriety except on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd day when that really all accounts. Because I'm an alcoholic and sobriety is in a completely impossible state of being for me. It hurts too much. Meaningful sobriety, that's different.

But just sobriety, the reason I drink is because I can't stand just sobriety. I had a psychiatrist one time who wanted want me to get in touch with my feelings. Please. The problem is when I'm sober, I'm in touch with all of them all at once. And I don't know whether I'm afraid or happy or turned on.

Hell, I don't know. All I know is I can't stand this. Anyway, God went to work. And I say that because I watch for power. I was on federal parole when when this all happened and I owed the federal government 5 years.

The little indiscretion I committed in 1966. And, the state had, yeah, 9 charges. 1 of them called for 3 years to life in the penitentiary, and the DA promised me to bring the rest of them 1 at a time, but I was through. And I really didn't care. What happened to me Christmas night in 1967 is I finally surrendered totally.

When I woke up, I was in a wonderful state. Didn't feel good. But I'm in a body that won't die, yet, Carrying with it a mind that won't work, ever. Okay? I was willing to go anywhere anyone said and do anything anyone said if it meant I didn't have to be me anymore.

And that was just the state of being. I couldn't have put that into words. I detoxed in the Denver County Jail. Good place to do it. Don't ever forget it.

6 weeks of leg cramps and headaches. It just I mean, it was horrible. It's not the worst I've ever done, though. I don't believe it'll keep me sober, but it's made me a better sponsor. So you can come to me at 5 weeks of leg cramps and headaches and say I'm dying, But I can look you in the eye and say, not yet.

You got a week to go. By being willing to go wherever I was sent, a remarkable thing took place because they called me in on the day of my trial in a little room with my lawyer and the district attorney. And they said, look, we've been talking to the federal people and they knew me pretty well. And we've all concluded you're really sick. I agreed.

No question about that. I've known that for years too. And we worked out a deal. The federal people have agreed if you'll plead guilty to a little reduced charge we have here for you, we'll give you a year and a half to 3, suspend it, give you back to the feds, and they'll take you to Fort Worth, Texas to the hospital and fix you. I signed right there.

I'm not an idiot. Federal hospital in Texas beats the penitentiary. Now if you know about power, you know what should have happened next. Don should have gone from Denver to Fort Worth, Texas. The power of the state and the power of the federal government both went to work.

5 days after that, I'm in the fish tank in the Colorado State Penitentiary. I actually heard myself say, You can't do this to me. I didn't have a firm grasp of reality yet. And you came looking for me. I didn't come looking for you, you came after me.

You sent 3 of you, and you weren't angelically looking people. You was ugly. Bad numbers on their chest. They had a you know, convicts in in a penitentiary in their own clothes are a little intimidating. Smiling convicts are downright frightening.

These guys had that grin that if you want to be a good sponsor, cultivate it. It says, I know something you don't know. And if you don't get it now, you might not live through the day. They were dead serious. They called us down.

They said, you people will come down, you will listen. And I went down, didn't have anything else to do, and I listened. First time in my life I listened. If you're new here, please. It's all you have to do here.

Listen. This whole thing is about clearing away the things that keep me from listening to the voice of God. I've become a listener. He talks through you most of the time because he knows if it comes from out here, I'm liable to do weird things with it. I will interpret this.

I need to learn to listen. And the guy got up and he said my name's Doc and I'm an alcoholic. And that means that I'm powerless over alcohol and guards and drugs and all of the other circumstances in my life. And my life has become unmanageable. And if any of you smart bastards think you can still manage your lives, look at the reward the state just gave you for the nifty job you're gonna do.

And I heard him. Your very best thinking got you the penitential. You're not doing too good, are you? I heard him. Now those would be cruel words if it weren't that they had an answer to follow it up with.

Your best thinking got you here. You're not doing too well, are you? But we can show you a new way of thinking. We can show you how to learn to live a way of life that will make sense to you, to anybody. I am pleased to tell you that today my life doesn't make sense to a lot of people.

I much don't give a damn. It makes sense to me and her. It makes sense to my daughters. Apparently, my boss likes me. I've resigned twice this year and he won't let me go.

I think that's funny. Every time I resign I get a better job. I hope you didn't hear this tape. See, I work in corrections now. Go figure.

We were not allowed to go to Alcoholics Anonymous right off the bat. They had a real meeting on Friday night where real people came in from the outside, and we would do an hour and they would do an hour. We weren't allowed to go to that. You had to qualify for that. We had to spend 5 weekends giving up our yard privileges and our movies and go through a 12 step study school.

Okay. My friend Jim and I went over. The first thing they said is, You knew guys for 5 weeks have nothing to say. If you knew anything at all, you wouldn't be here. And they took the book Alcoholics Anonymous and they read it out loud to us.

And then they shared their experience of it and showed us the directions on what to do. And in 5 weeks, we had completed what's in this book. There's no definitive deal. It's not a race for anything. And I had a series of awakenings.

I found out about alcoholism. You taught me about that. The physical allergy that I have and the strange mental obsession that I have. My main problem centers in my mind. Why in the world would I use this to solve this?

You can't solve the problem with the problem. You gotta solve the problem with the answer. And the answer is the consciousness of the presence of God, however you can see that to be. And I had to get rid of all my conceptions of God first. I had created God in my own image and it was not, it was not cool.

Well, most of us do. My sponsor destroyed all my conceptions of God one after. I didn't have anything left. And I screamed at him, you're asking me to turn my life over the care of nothing. And he said, why not?

Nothing can run up better than you've been doing He always seemed to have an answer. He also knew something about us. He knew I had a lingering reservation that had to do entirely with How do I look? Okay? Hey, you know where most of us fall flat on our butts?

I'm more interested in how I look or how you think I look than how I'm doing. And he knew that. We found it. I I was truly concerned even at that time that if I gave my life over entirely to the care of God, He had work for me to do, and I knew what it was and I didn't want the job. He'd put me on the corner of Colfax and Broadway handing out Watchtower magazines asking strangers, Have you been saved brother?

And my image of that at the time was the old boy that I saw doing it. Wore a brown suit, brown hat, brown shoes. He was making a fool of himself out there and I didn't want to do that. I had this palatial apartment in cell B 49, right at the Colorado State Penitentiary. And he did a sponsor thing.

He said, Oh, well let's talk about that. If you're new here, let me tell you something. That does not mean let us talk about that. You have nothing to say. Truth without love is cruelty.

Confrontation without a real answer is brutality. But he loved me and he had a real answer and he didn't hesitate for a second. He said, Don, do you suppose that that guy down there at Colfax and Broadway handing out watchtowers this morning had breakfast where he wanted to? I said, probably. And he said, well, you didn't.

Do you suppose that man is humiliating himself? He's wearing clothes he picked out to do it in. I said, Yeah, probably. He said, You're not. Do you suppose when he's all through making a fool of himself that he gets to go home?

And man, he had me because I didn't. We are promised a new mind here And one of the legacies that Anne Smith left us is that please don't wake somebody else up and then walk away from them. Walk with them for a while. You don't wake a baby up and dump them. Okay?

And that's what He was doing. He was walking with me through His own experience. He brought me into my new mind and helped lay the foundation for it. It's simple. It's in the third step prayer under different words.

Anything at all that God has in mind for me is better than anything at all that I will ever have in mind for me. Period. Party's over. And I truly live that way and have been for 30 years. I'm not perfect at it.

There's nothing more fun than getting a little rebellious spiritually. And I began to wake up to some things and one of the things that I need you to know most of you already know it but you don't know it. I wasted a lot of years thinking that I was a human being trying to have a spiritual experience and I had bunches of them. The truth is I'm a spiritual being having a human experience. And what that does is make me fully available to the human experience.

Don't get a hold of that unless you're ready for all the joy and all the pain and all the flat times you can stand because you're going to have them all. Okay. I was telling Jackie the other day this this is probably the most interesting planet I've ever lived on. And I've given thought to coming back. Maybe only this time rich so I could travel and see it.

And she laughed at me and says, hell, you're doing that now on other people's money. I began to awaken a series of little things. Said the 3rd step parent had a terrible experience. Now I went back to my cell and said the prayer, I really meant it. And I said it and waited for my flash of light and nothing happened.

And I'm back to my sponsor and complained. That's what I was taught to do. If you do what your sponsor tells you to do and you don't get the results you think you ought to get, go bitch at them. Where's mine, Bruce? He said, you dummy.

That's a step up. Well, in the morning I'm 38, 980 4 because my behavior has even taken my name from me. Now I'm a dummy. He really loved me. I said, You dummy, you ought to be grateful you didn't have a flash of light.

It didn't really kill you all you year long. And we discussed flash of light in a bad, he's right. He said, God knows that you can't stand one more big shock in the shape you're in anyway. And he spent some time describing to me how it had been for him gently, and that's how it's been for me. If you come to me, we'll do a lot of technical stuff, but I'll spend most of my time telling you how gentle God has been with me.