25th Brazos Riverside Conference

My best friend, my mentor, my prayer partner, my little brother, Keith L. Damn you, Mike. My name is Keith Lewis, and I'm a profoundly grateful alcoholic. Happy. Whew.

I'm a member of the Midtown Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. We meet on Mondays Thursdays at 7 o'clock in Wilmington, North Carolina. If you're ever there, please come and visit. I really wanna thank my dear friend, and older brother, Mike. Maybe he'll let me use his car.

And, and I wanna thank my lovely wife, Julia, who who is at home. She she isn't well, but I know exactly what she's doing right now. At this moment, she's in our prayer room praying for me because every hour that I speak, wherever I am, she prays. And, she told me to tell Mike that she had prayed for him this morning, and I told her if anybody needed it, it was Mike. And and I wanna thank, Charles and Betty for asking me.

I've looked forward to coming here more than than you know and and, Paul and Anne. And and I also wanna thank them for, a little thing they did not too long ago. When they discovered it, my friend Mike was winning over cancer. They got in a car and drove from Texas to Maryland to wish him well. And that would only happen in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I wanna thank, all the red shirts for everything they did this this weekend, and, I really appreciate it. You know, nothing shows Alcoholics Anonymous like selfless service. And I was up early in the morning, and we get up about 4 o'clock. And I I walked down here to get a cup of coffee, and they're already up and getting ready. And, or maybe they didn't go to bed.

I don't know. And, Mike and Joanne for picking us up. It was just wonderful. They they're terrific. Mike let me drive his PT Cruiser around the block.

And, and by the time I got back, I was talking like Jim Cagney. And and I wanna I wanna thank Leslie and, and Octavia, Jack. God, what a wonderful message that was today. I wanna thank my brother, Mike, and and, Charles' brother, Mike, for the wonderful job he did. And and I look forward to hearing Susan and, father Peter.

And I wanna thank, father Peter for having mass today and that that beautiful message he delivered. And the theme of this, this conference is is that it's in the giving of the love, and and you've done that here as well as any place I've ever been. I've been doing this for a pretty long time. I know I don't look that old, but but I've been doing it a long time, and and I've never felt better than I felt here. There's something very sacred and holy about this place, and and that's something for a Catholic to say about a Baptist retreat center.

And there really is. And I know what it is. It's the love that's that's here and and was brought here. And and what's extraordinary about that for me isn't that it's here that I recognize it. What's extraordinary is that I'm actually able to receive a little bit of it.

And, I never had the humility to receive love. I was a kid who was born in a small town in Ohio. I was Irish. I was, the eldest son, the second child in a family of 11 children. I won't tell you what church we went to.

It has something to do with bingo, but I won't say much else. And and, you know, I would have told you that, that we were poor, and, I would have been dead wrong. It's true. We didn't have any excess material goods, but, but we were anything but poor. You know, I had a mother who, every day I let her, would hug me and kiss me and tell me she loved me.

And and I had a father who, every day I let him, would spend time with me. And there was something about me, and and I don't understand it. To this day, I don't understand And it's not important to understand it. It's just important to know that it's true. And and the thing about me was that that, I was isolated.

I was a secretive kid, and there was absolutely no reason in the world for me to be isolated, but I was. And and what being isolated meant to me was I couldn't experience a tremendous amount of love and caring that existed in that house. And I had a mother, like I say, and she, you know, she had never finished high school. And she was an illegitimate child and and began singing in bars at age 12 to make money and had an alcoholic mother. And, extraordinary woman in in every way.

And, every night, every it was funny. Every dinner, we would have to have grammar lessons before we could eat. 1st, we'd we'd say we'd bless the food. We'd say our grace. And then we would have to listen to a grammar lesson or a word.

We had to learn a word a week, and we had to learn a definition. We had to use it during the course of the week. And, that's what this uneducated woman did for us. And, you know, some years later, she was going in for heart surgery, and they'd already given her that joy juice. And we're all up in Pittsburgh, and, they were ready to wheel her in and she said, wait.

Wait just a moment. And they stopped and the surgeon and everybody was there. And she got up on one elbow and she said, look at me, boys. Look at me. And we said, yes, mother.

She said, never never never end a sentence with a preposition. Okay, mom. Sergeant looked at me and he said, I never heard anybody say that before. And just an extraordinary human being. And and and, you know, I couldn't experience it.

And and it it's the saddest thing because it was there. And for some reason, it wasn't there for me. We have a friend, Mike sponsored him, and he was a dear friend of mine. His name was Bob Brown. And, if Bob had been here, he would've won the golf tournament.

He's an incredible golfer. And, he's gone now, but, Bob used to say the problem with alcoholics is they're never loved the way they think they need to be loved, and that was certainly true for me. And I was always and I challenged everybody in my life to love me. And, god, they love me, and I couldn't experience it. And I was a kid who, for whatever reason, was totally alone and isolated.

And I was a kid who had something lived under his bed. And, and I you know, at night, I'd put my little ear against the mattress, and I'd hear it moving around down there. And I knew what it was there for. Just waiting for me to dangle my little legs over the side of the bed, and that was history. And I knew that.

You know? And I also knew I couldn't talk to anybody about it. I expected one day they'd all be at breakfast and they'd say, where's Keith? Oh, no. The thing under the bed got him.

And and I just knew that. You know? And I was a kid who who and and my mouth I had a horrible speech impediment, but my mouth was always getting me into trouble. This morning, I got I got up about 4:30 or something. I was sitting out on the out on the, little balcony balcony, and and I was saying my rosary this morning.

And and and I was watching. There was a skunk running around out in the field. And, and I was remember I was in the 2nd grade. And and I never meant to say these things. It it just came out.

And, you know, the nun was talking to us and she said, you know, our friend, this skunk, has almost no natural enemies. And I said, he doesn't have any friends either. And, I don't know where that came from. It just came out. You know?

So I had to write brother skunk 500 times, you know. And and I remember watching mom, make sandwiches in the morning. It was like she looked like a dealer from Vegas. She'd deal out their bread and deal out their bologna. And, you know, a large family, every kid always wants something different.

And, and so my brother Henry came home one day, and, and he said, mommy, said I told you I only wanted one sandwich, and you gave me 2 sandwiches. Well, what she had done was she cut the sandwich in half. And, now Henry's not the sharpest tool in a box. But, so, so she said, Keith, you know, I'm the eldest brother in an Irish family. So, of course, it falls to me to train and teach.

And she said, Keith, would you please to your brother Henry? I don't have time. I said, yes, Bob. I'll take care of it. Don't worry.

So the next morning, I fixed Henry's lunch, and I took a half a sandwich and cut it in half. It was an experiment. And, he brought a quarter of a sandwich home really hungry, and that's the way it was in our house. And you know what was crazy? I didn't realize it, but I I yearned.

You know, Bill says there's and Aquinas said it too, that there's something inside of every man and woman that yearns for god. And and I yearn for god, and and I yearn for my father's approval, and I yearned for him to tell me he loved me. And and I never heard it. I'd have to be blind not to see it, but I never heard it. And and I grew up one of those guys who hadn't gotten it right with dad.

And I'm convinced. It's just my my theory. And I got my sponsor a degree with me, and, he's smart, Tom I. And and, you know, if a guy doesn't get it right with his dad, he just doesn't get it right. Doesn't get it right with his god.

He doesn't get it right with his wife. He doesn't get it right with anybody. And, and I couldn't get it right with my dad. And it was all because I couldn't hear what he was saying to me. I was a kid who who tried to be good and I wasn't very good at it, so I decided I'd be bad.

So so I I became what they call mischievous. And I went to a a little Central Catholic High School and the school board was made up of all the pastors of the parishes. And, and I got a call one time and, is my senior close? And, and he said, Keith? And he used to call me a little potato.

I served mass for him. He said, little potato? I said, yes, my senior. He said, are you alright? And I said, well, yes.

I am. And he said, oh, he said, I'm so glad. He said, I was at a school board meeting. Your name never came up. I thought perhaps you were ill.

And, you know, and it was you know, it's just you know, and, like, I get into trouble. I, you know, I'd have to serve detention. And when you serve detention in my high school, you know, you you had to serve with Sister Victoria. Sister Victoria was the nun who ran the library. Now this tiny little library, some old dusty books, you know, and she'd walk around like it was a library of Congress.

She'd think she was doing God's will the way she acted. And, and she would say odd things like every boy is a prince and every girl is a princess because we have a father who's a king. We'd look at each other and call each other prince Keith and princess Mary and things. And, and when you served attention, you had to go be with sister Victoria, and you had to make rosary beads. Those are things that Catholics prey on.

And they give you wire and and beads and pliers and all all this stuff. And you had to make rosary beads. And, I spent a lot of time with sister Victoria. And, she used to put me behind a magazine rack because she said I was a prince, but I was contagious. So I'd I'd sit back there and make rosary beads, and, and mine were different.

You know, your standard rosary bead has 10 beads on each deck. And, and and I made them with 11 beads on each jacket. And, and they'd take these rosaries, and they'd send them around the world to admissions and things like that. And, you know, and, you know, after 4 years, there are 100 of mutant rosary beads out there. And and it was, you know, and she never caught on.

And, you know, you you can't leave without them knowing. It would be like wasting 4 years of your life. And, so, I, I went to tell her what I had done. And, I said, you know what I've been doing over the last 4 years, sister? She said, yes.

I do, you sly little prince. She said, you've been putting extra beads in all the rosaries, and I know why. And I remember thinking, I hope she tells me because I have the foggiest notion of why, Judy. And and she said, people all over the world are praying extra prayers, and God's gonna give you all the credit. Don't you just hate people like that?

Then she did something that terrified me, and, she took both of my hands in her hands and she looked deep into my eyes. You know, she is a spiritual person. You know, she was an eye person. I was a shoe guy. I looked at shoes, but she looked at eyes.

And, and she looked deep into my eyes, and she said, you're a very special child of God. And one day, you're gonna go around the world and tell his children how very much he loves them. And so in honor of sister Victoria, if you don't know it, god really does love you. Okay, sister? Okay.

Got that over with. You know, I graduated from high school, much to everyone's surprise. And, actually, I I was a merit scholar with deplorable conduct grade. That that's what I was. And and, and I I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life.

It seemed to me everybody in the world knew what they were gonna do but me. So I knew I had to leave, because if I left, they would think I was doing what it was I was gonna do. And, and the only way you left back then was you went to college, and it wasn't in the cards because I had a sister in college already. And my brother, Denny, was a year younger, and Denny had a Matty card. And, it was very clear he had to go to college.

And old dad was working as hard as he could already, raising 11 of his own kids. And then he raised kids who had no place else to go. Never owned an automobile or anything. I remember one time I said to him, dad, why can't we have a car like other people? And he said, well, he said, which one of your brothers and sisters do you wanna trade in?

And I said, well, this is a union area. I guess we ought to go buy seniority, dad. And, he never got it. But, but I I took my very first inventory. I I stood in front of the mirror, and I took my shirt off, and I flexed my muscles, and I turned sideways and stuck my chest out.

And I was 5 feet 1 inches tall, and I weighed a 113 pounds. And whatever else I was, I was a born killer. So so I went over to Wheeling, West Virginia and joined the Marine Corps. And, the problem with that was I had failed to share that with my parents. And, I wasn't yet 18, so so they, had to sign for me.

And, and I the recruiter showed up with the papers. My mother almost died. Poor thing. And I remember she cried all night. She kept saying, Scott, they'll kill him.

And my dad kept saying, don't worry, Pat. They won't take him. So alright. With that vote of confidence, the next morning, we got on a got a taxi cab and went over to cross the river to Wheeling and and got on a bus and went to Pittsburgh. And it was the 2nd longest trip I'd ever been on.

It was 60 miles. And, once I had gone to Cleveland, but the game was rained out. And, and I knew nothing about anything. I was just a terrified, frightened little kid who didn't know he could ask. And, the only thing I knew about the Marine Corps is he took a certain number of young men down to South Carolina and drowned them in a swamp.

That's the only thing I knew. And and, and I knew I couldn't ask. And that's what was crazy about this whole thing. I just knew that I couldn't ask. And and it was a bad year and it took you if you had a pulse.

So that afternoon, I I was sworn into the Marine Corps. And, there were 3 guys from Pittsburgh, and and we had about 8 or 10 hours before the train left. And they said, hey, kid. We're gonna go over and have a sandwich and a few beers. And I said, that's just what I was thinking.

I was a I was a guy who guessed and stuff. I I had no earthly idea what was going on. And so what I did was I'd watch you, and I'd do it so quickly after you did it. It would look like we were doing it together. And and so I followed him over to this bar, and, and it's the second time I drank.

The first time I drank, I it's important to talk about your first drink, I think, because, you know, if if if you you don't drink, it's hard to get into Alcoholics Anonymous. Jack can attest to that. And, first time I drank, I was 5. And, I was at home. I didn't go out a lot when I was 5.

And, and my brother, Danny, and my dad and I were at home, and we're sitting around the table playing cootie or some game. And mom was either into bingo or having a baby or something. And and I guess dad just thought it'd be fun, you know, and it was really awkward all around our house because both of my parents had parents who were alcoholic. And, and but dad just took 3 beers out of the refrigerator and gave one to me and one to dumb Denny, and he took one. And, and I drank it.

Nothing happened to me. Nothing. I was perfectly fine. Denny, on the other hand, was having a spiritual awakening, and, he was rolling around under the table singing Mary Had A Little Lamb and Little Lamb and other drinking songs. And, and dad panicked and he wrestled them to the ground and he took his clothes off and put his jammies on.

He took them up and put them in his little crib, and I'll never forget this. You know? Then he's singing and carrying on having the best time, and and he stood up in his little crib and he urinated on the floor. And I remember thinking, you know, there's a kid who's powerless over alcohol and his wife had to become a manager. And you know what?

It's the saddest thing. Danny just never made it. Now we're not proud of this, but, the truth is the truth. Danny did some strange things. He grew up reminds me a lot of Jack, actually.

But but he he grew up and well, Danny went to one college. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It gets worse. He had one major.

He graduated in 4 years. I never heard of such a thing, graduating in 4 years, Joe. He went to 1 graduate school, graduated 1st in his class, and he's offered, like, 8 jobs. He took 1. About 6 years ago, he he, retired as a senior vice president of large international corporation.

The strangest thing of all is he married one woman. Now here's the guy who had to roll the palm of his hands when he was 4 years old. He let it slip through his fingers. I had to work at this thing. I was 21 years old before I urinated on a bedroom floor for the 4th time.

But the second time I drank was that night in that bar in Pittsburgh. And and anybody who's alcoholic knows what happened to me. Somewhere between the second and third drink, my life changed. And it changed in a way was to dictate the terms of my life for as long as I lived. And, all those things that happened to us happened.

You know, I became brilliant, magnificent. You know, this place I remember was filled with a bunch of men when I went in and I was intimidated and fearful, you know. And all the men had real women with them, you know, how they are, you know. And, you know, real women hang around with real men and guys like me used to get what was left. And, and and the bartender came over and he said, what do you want?

And my first thought was, oh my god. A quiz. That's just it's the way I felt about life. I thought when you least expected it, there was somebody who's gonna say, take out a blank sheet of paper. They're gonna ask a bunch of questions, and, I studied all the time.

I just never studied to write stuff. And so, I didn't know how to answer that question. So I did what I always did. I watched the other people, and I did what they did. And then they came back, asked the same question.

And I watched them, and they said the same thing, so I did too. They came back the 3rd time. I ordered first. I'd become a leader. And it was magnificent.

I stood up. I I I didn't mean to stand up. I couldn't help it. And the floor was 6 feet 4 inches below me, and my right shoulder was out, my left shoulder, and the muscles are rippling through my body. And my mind, it had been filled with terror and fear.

Boom. It was crystal clear. And I remember thinking, it's so simple. Why didn't I see it before? And for the first time in my life, I saw the big picture.

I understood what it was all about. It was amazing. I knew about God. I knew about women. I knew about everything.

And I looked around the room, and my heart broke because the room was filled with a bunch of pathetic, sniveling little men. You know? And all of them had women with them are looking at me with their hungry eyes. You know how they do it. And, you know, my sponsor said to me, you know, you could've quit drinking then.

I said, Tom, who would've wanted to? That's the first time in my life I felt that good. And and and, you know, and I drank till till the till we had to go catch the train, and then I I went to the train. I think I went to the train because I woke up on the train. And I think that's logical.

And, and I was lying on the floor of the Pullman coach that the Marine Corps had provided for me, and someone had wet the floor I was lying on. And whoever it was, they had wet me too. And, so I got up and changed clothes and got off the train. And the guy said, what took you so long? And I didn't share.

And, and they said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to get something to drink. And, we're in Washington DC, and I found a bar and drank breakfast. Got back on the train, and I drank till we got to South Carolina. And I fell off the train.

And, I don't know what happened. They moved to bottom step or something, but I fell across the next set of railroad tracks, and a very rude man, Ed Sintagridis, was there. And he was shouting obscenities of myself and the other young men who went down there to die for their country. And and and I got up and I brushed myself off, and I tried to explain to this cretin that he'd get along a lot better if he treat us with a little respect, and he never seemed to grasp exactly what it was I was trying to get across now. And, you know, they say you learn from every experience.

And what I learned from that experience is you can do a lot of push ups drunk. That's what I learned from that experience. And I don't mean to be a delicate, but you can do you can throw up while you're doing push ups in case you're interested. And, and, the next the next day, with a very large head, they put us on a bus and took us across the bridge to Parris Island, and I was welcomed to the Marine Corps. And I must tell you, I loved I loved it from the first day.

I the craziness and the screaming and the carrying on wasn't all that different from my house. And, and I mean it. I loved it. I fell right into it. And and, and I made up my mind I was gonna spend the rest of my life in the marine corps if they'd have me.

And, and I won the dress blues award and outstanding man's award off of Paris Island. And every promotion I ever got was a meritorious promotion. I was the youngest NC on the Marine Corps one time, and and and I worked hard. And I received an appointment to Quantico at OCS, and I would have been the youngest commissioned officer in the Marine Corps. I would have been commissioned before the guys I went to high school with completed college.

The only problem was I was an alcoholic. And what being an alcoholic, I think, means to me is that, you you know, there's an enthusiasm about us that's unbelievable. And if you don't believe that, just look around. And, we're terribly enthusiastic about life. And then gradually and not so gradually, I began to violate every principle associated with that life.

Alcoholism is a is an illness in me that made me violate everything that meant anything. And, you know, shortly before I was to go to Officers Canada School, we're in Santo Domingo in 1965, and I led a patrol of men into town in a blackout. We took fire and returned fire. By the grace of God, nobody was hit. But I woke up the next morning, and I wasn't supposed to have taken a patrol out that night.

I did it every other night. So I began the night I didn't go out, I began drinking as soon as 5 o'clock or so. The night I went out, we'd come back, then I began drinking. And I woke up. I was fully clothed.

I had my 45 automatic in my holster. There were 3 rounds missing. It was around the chamber and the handle was back. I almost never slept like that. And, and they were waking me up to to so I could go over and report on the patrol the night before.

And I didn't even know I've been on a patrol the night before. And it terrified me, and I turned down the commission and got out. And then I blamed them for what happened to me. And that's the story of my life. I drifted from pillar to post.

I ended up living in a Jesuit theologian at Georgetown or at, Woodstock College in Woodstock, Maryland. And I went to work there for a man who was a geneticist and began drinking alone there. And, and my alcoholism just continued to progress, and I ended up directing genetics laboratories, as supervisor at Georgetown University. And, and I captured some poor woman and married her, and we had our first daughter, Kelly. She's gorgeous.

She's the love of my life, Kelly. And and then we had our second daughter, and and she was, 3 months premature. And and her father was passed out on the living room floor watching a test pattern in his underwear when she decided it was time to join us. And her mother couldn't wake me up, and she finally threw water on me and still couldn't wake me up. And in a panic, she got our neighbors who came over.

So when I opened my eyes, I was lying on the floor in my underwear soaking wet from the water my wife had poured on me trying to wake me up, and I was outraged. I knew that if this kid would have come on time, I'd have been alright. If they'd have waited till I was alright, she'd have carried her for 3 years. But, I got up and I put her in a car and sped across Washington DC and took her to the hospital that I worked in and demanded they take care of her. And I was a drunk in embarrassment.

And, and this little thing was born and she weighed less than £2. And I couldn't handle it. I could so relate. I couldn't handle it. I just went home.

And my wife called me and said, please come back. Our baby's gonna die. Please come back. And I was in a rage, and I got in a car and drove back across Washington. And and I went in and and, the chief resident is a woman named Mary Kate Davitt.

And, I had been she she and I were to, classmates in high school back in Ohio, and here she is, the chief resident on the neonatal nursery. And and she pulled me aside and she said, Keith, we have an experimental machine. She said, we just got it a few days ago. We put it together yesterday. We'd like to put your little girl on it.

We don't think it'll make a difference. We think that she'll be retarded if she lives, but we don't think she'll live. I had to be honest with you, but we'd like to put her on the machine. And I said, have you talked to her mother? And she said, we can't.

And I looked, and my wife was walking back and forth in a state of shock with a 1,000 yard stare. And I said, do whatever you think you have to do. And she explained to me how important it is that these kids be touched and that they be loved, And I was terrified to go in there. I'd I'd long since figured out that if God decided figured I wanted something, he took it away because everything that was important to me was disappearing from my life. And I went in and and when I had to, I didn't do it because I was a father, and I didn't I did it so I wouldn't look bad in front of the people with whom I worked.

And we had an office across from the neonatal nursery, and I would sit in there at night with the light out. And I'd watch my wife pace back and forth. And 72 hours is particularly critical for these kids, and I watched my wife go in and baptize our infant child because they didn't think she lived through the night. And I knew what to do because I watched my father. My father was the greatest father and the greatest husband I ever saw in my life.

He'd have gone in, and he'd have put his arm around his wife, and he'd say, Pat, with God, we can do anything. I knew all the words. I knew all the actions. I just couldn't do it. There was nothing left inside of me.

And I ran down to the chapel, you know, Georgetown's a Catholic University, and I ran down to the chapel, and I hadn't been in the chapel in a long time. I'd long since given up on God. And I went in in front of the tabernacle, which was my favorite place as a kid. I'd I'd never go by the Saint Mary's that I didn't go in and spend time in front of the tabernacle. Even on a ballgame, I'd run by and say, Jesus, I'm gonna go down and play.

You come if you want to. And and, it was my place, and and I hadn't been there in a long time. And I went in and I got on my knees and I wept and I begged god to let my little girl live. And I said to him, if you'll let her live, I'll do anything. If you let her live, I won't drink.

And I was drunk in 12 hours. I never wanna forget that I drank when I thought drinking would kill my baby. You know, I love Blaise Pasquale, the French philosopher and theologian. He said, god created man under in in his own image, and, unfortunately, man returned the favor. And I had created a a god who would kill a little girl because her dad was sick, and that's not the god I know today.

And, she lived. It was an amazing thing. And, she went on to graduate with honors from Auburn University, and she's got 2 beautiful little girls of her own now. And, I was speaking down in the Panhandle of Florida a couple years ago, and and I called her and said, how you doing, baby? And she was crying.

And she said, daddy, she said, I have kidney stones and I'm I'm having contractions. And the baby might come early, and I'm afraid if she comes early, she'll be just like me. And I said, if she's just like you, you'll be the luckiest parent in the world. And I borrowed a car from an AA friend and drove about 4 hours up to her and, was able to sit with her and talk to her and pray with her and turn around and ride back in just in time to speak. And, my heart was full.

You know, you can't live like that and and and be married. And and one day, my wife finally said, I I can't live like this anymore. She said, I can't. I'm afraid you're gonna burn the house down with the kids in it and all that. And I knew she was right.

And and I packed 2 suitcases and I left. And there's a tremendous amount of relief in that. I I, you know, I think with our spirit and with our heart goes our courage. And and and I was a complete coward by this. I wish there were another word, but I just can't think of one.

I was a coward. Life had whipped me. I was overcome, and and I went to where I needed to go. And I went to Skid Row section of Washington DC, and I was living in the basement of a house. And and, I won't go into the details, but May 13, 1973, I went in to what passed for a bathroom to end my life.

You know, a lot of people think that suicide's a big deal. You know, it's not for an alcoholic. For an alcoholic, it's just the next deal. And, you know, it's like like I spent 12 years trying to go back to that night in Pittsburgh. I just wanted to get back to Pittsburgh.

And, you know, one day, I I I went in the NCO club and I ordered a double scotch, and they and they said, corporal, that'll be 70¢ in your career. And I thought that's about right, and I paid it. Anything to get back to Pittsburgh. And then, you know, one day I went for a bottle with gin or something, and they said, it'd be $7.75 and, your wife and your 2 daughters. And I thought that's about right.

Whatever it takes to get to Pittsburgh. And then one day, I went to buy something, god knows what, and it was probably 79¢ and, your life, and I thought that's about right. And and I went in and an extraordinary thing happened to me. I, I looked in the mirror and I said, you're 29 years old. At least it'll be over.

And I had a bunch of pills in there. I never took them. I know some of you think it's the saddest story you ever heard, but I I just never I thought if God made anything better and boozy, kept it for himself. And, and I was just not interested in anything else. And, and, and a woman spoke to me.

Now you you gotta know I'm not happy with women, and at this stage of my life. And a woman spoke to me and told me it was just starting. It was like a bolt of lightning. I'll never forget it. All of a sudden, my mind was crystal clear, and I remembered it.

My estranged wife had given me some phone numbers and said I can't help you. Maybe these people can. And I ran out and I pulled a drawer out and it fell all over the floor, and I was crawling on my hands and knees sobbing like an idiot. And I found the phone number I called it. And it was to a treatment center.

And I know there are people who say bad things about treatment centers, which strike me as odd because we don't have opinions in Alcoholics Anonymous. But, but, I called and I talked to an alcoholic. I talked to someone who knew how to talk to someone like me, and and she called me down and and, got my number and called me back. And I know now because she knew how suicidal I was and and she, she, told me that, that I could come out there in 3 days and that I need help stopping. And, you know, the only time I'd ever stopped was one day I came out of a blackout and had blacked my wife's eye in a blackout.

I just loathed myself and I tried not to drink for a while and I didn't drink for a while. And it was so bad that she asked me to drink again. That's how bad it was. And and I said to her, no. I can stop on my own.

I had no idea what I was saying. And, and, I hung up the phone and I looked and it was almost a full bottle of scotch on a draining board. And I didn't know AA existed. I didn't. And but I I knew what the problem was.

I knew that that I would drink the stuff that was in that bottle. I knew I had no say over it. And I went over and began to pour it out and I knew I would, and I knew I was powerless over alcohol. And I stood back, and in a panic, I threw the bottle and it hit the sink and it burst. And, you know, if the bottle had bounced, I don't think I'd be here.

And, then I proceeded to spend the next 3 days not drinking. And and I heard those things. I heard Beethoven's 5th Symphony for 18 hours. It was coming out of, the radiator in my car, the parking meter. I had to go borrow $300 to get into this place.

And, and I'm listening to Beethoven's 5th Symphony and there's stuff crawling on the seat of my car. Oh, it's amazing stuff. And and, somehow, I knew when the 3 days was up and I put stuff in this car and I took off. It was a 30 mile drive, and it took me 6 hours to get there. And I would drive about a mile and the terror would set in and I began to shake and I began to cry and I I ended up wetting my pants.

Some change in my pants beside my car on route 29 outside of Washington DC, and my phi theta kappa key fell out of my pocket. And, and I thought they were wrong. I mean, I was a kid with a potential. And I was a member of the World Congress of Genetics, and I was published and all this stuff. And here I am changing my pants beside my car outside of Washington DC, and and I got to that place.

And I got there just in time to learn 2 things. Number 1, woman told me I wasn't bad. I was just sick. Now later, my sponsor was to say she was wrong. I was sick and bad.

And the next thing that I learned was I was to get on a bus and go to a place called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I knew nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew it was an organization that used to exist, but I thought that once we gotten so scientific, we no longer needed that. I mean, I thought AA went out when God did. And, and, but I got on the bus because I was desperate, and I rode along, and I and I went to the Alcoholics Anonymous. And, a man greeted me at the door.

He was an eye guy too. And he said a strange thing to me. He said, son, if you keep coming here, you never have to drink again. And I wanted to say to him, buddy, you don't know me. I'm a guy who drinks when he thinks drinking will kill his little girl.

But, you know, he did know me. He knew me better than I knew me. And more importantly, he knew what was wrong with me, and he knew what would fix me. And I began, I think, what has to be the most exciting journey in the world. And, you know, for the gentleman who has 13 days, god bless you.

I'm so glad you're here. And for the gentleman who got the book, fasten your seat belt. If you'll stay with this gang of lunatics, I promise you more excitement than you ever knew in your drinking days. Ever knew. And, it's incredible what happens in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And, you know, I hit the road run. And I I, I knew I didn't even know for sure I was an alcoholic for quite a while. But I knew that whatever I was, the only place I seemed to have any hope was in meetings at Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'd be crazy all day, and I just keep watching my watch. And and I leave leave leave the hospital, and and I drive up to make sure I knew where the meeting was.

And I'd look at a calendar to make sure I knew what day it was, and and I was still confused. And and some days, I'd say to myself, if you go home, will you come back? And if the answer was yes, I'd sit there from 5:30 to 8:30 when the meeting began. And and and I just I just fell in love with you folks. You know, I was out of that treatment center and and I went to a meeting and I bumped into a man named Dick L.

And Dick greeted me at the door, and he said to me, is this your first time in our meeting? And I said, yes. It is. And he said, well, you're most welcome. And he asked me my name, and he asked me where I worked, and he asked me the names of my children and, you know, a bunch of questions.