The 47th Alabama Northwest Florida Area Al-Anon Convention in Pensacola Beach, FL

this is the open speaker meeting when I picked Joe up at the airport and isn't telling him that we haven't had any rain in about three to four weeks and I hope I didn't

kind of get things a little started there evidently now we're gonna have it for about three or four days

I'd like to

introduced Joe McCoy from Tulsa Oklahoma

the man whose spread the message of recovery in this country and also in other countries the big book studies and when we're driving out to the beach he I and he was going to ask me have you been any big book study listed out couple you know a few and then then I realized kind of like who he was and how many you know and it is like O. okay he was more interested in listening to my version and then made his joke

please me to read you hear

thank you

my friend of the current commanders host I mean he's been really good to me did you ever speak to get two hundred dollars for walking around money

thank

we appreciate that

the kind of guy he is

we've had a really good time together I initially had rained my sense of what I pray about that

same to work a little bit

actually I'm trying to figure out where I am here what's the restroom there awhile ago and

this lady tapped me on the shoulder and she's are you this morning speaker and I said yes ma'am and she said you ever get nervous at the same time so no not really she's about you in the ladies restroom

I guess I'll get settled down here in a minute

I really have planned on doing a little bit alliance

but there's a lady come in just a bit ago and I am from Tulsa Oklahoma there she is right there we've got so we're about the same time and we went to a lot of meetings together in the same area so she knows me so I can't lie

much

but I'm trying to get settled down here just a minute I

I kind of think that alcoholism is a belief system in a way

as communism a belief system

yeah is capitalism a bill a belief system Catholicism is that a belief system which seems like when you put the word ism ism behind a word it becomes a belief

and alcoholics and being an alcoholic alcoholism is a belief system to me and what did I get my belief system I got it way back when I was real young in my case I don't know about anybody else as well by the way I want to say a merry thank you for inviting me here and I've really enjoyed just because they've been tremendous I I've I've needed to listen a lot and I have everything in a is a paradox in living back with what I think it is

and as anybody will call the spot just so they could listen

so I I needed a lesson today and this week and I've heard some really good a good Allen on the wealthy on on speakers are just tremendous and I thought once sometime while they were talking to so I wonder if it was really other people's fault

you know we could do anything about that could weigh it was really their fault now no one saying that other people can't make you drank

and I can't make you sober but they sure make you thirsty as heck

and I my sponsor name was Franklin Williams and one of my spies there now blessed heart but he always thought Thomas and Joe you want to say something before you start talking

and I will try to do that

and was in my early days I go to meetings with even after which it would come back to my house and these are you know the only way you could say less his talk longer

finally my like that

and then he taught me a lot of things like that way and by the way just proved you we had a a big book trivia questionnaire thing the other day in case you ever asks what is the shortest paragraph and all of the big book

it works dash it really that's that's the shortest paragraph and all of that but so keep that in mind if you're ever involved in one of those requests

Enova

my belief system or I got things from from may

you know and when I did my inventory I try to do what the

but the big book suggested suggested that I just find the facts in place of facts and engage in a process to accept the facts and I think that's what we do in a a woman do our inventory and I need help from other people to help me do that thank god I had a sponsor who

it was quite aware that he had me see things about me that I couldn't see

he also said that when the spiritual malady is overcome with right now mentally and physically the spiritual malady has to do with how I am on the inside as well as my relationship with god and that's another reason to do the inventory

and remember Dr young the toll road on

that ideas emotions and attitudes would become the guiding force a lot of these people are certainly cast to one side and a whole new set of conceptions of motors began to dominate them a belief system if you will

and I go back into my life and that's all I can do is go back to war I

kitchen again when I was a young fellow and on page eighteen this little one paragraph tells my whole story and I could tell my whole story is on every page of this book today but it says there are no less of this sort and we've come to believe it an illness involves those amounts in the windows even sickness can

if a person has cancer all sharper him or no one is saying we're hurt but not so with alcoholic illness for with it does an allocation of all things worthwhile in life it involves all whose lives Texas sufferers it brings misunderstanding fierce resentment financial insecurity discussed in France employees what prize a blameless children said wives and parents and anyone can crystallised and it's been said so many times in so many ways today this weekend the family illness

and if you live in one of us very long you won't be affected by in some manner

and some of us and in my case I look back in my life and my my dad had an obsession to drink

the procession is an idea that overpowers all other ideas in a stronger than willpower that's when we'll go bill out of more

but I didn't know that then but my dad was obsess to take a drink

and now my mother had the session say they didn't write

and it seems like every time my dad took it right my mother had a personality change

right

and

we left the farm out there and and a Sallisaw Oklahoma went out to California wouldn't fit in real good after that time later only fit in just real good

and I wouldn't fit in real good out there so we came back to Tulsa in the late late thirties early forties and ended up in west Tulsa

and here's my dad with a wife and five kids and come off the farm he wasn't prepared for the big city he had to be full of fear

he got a job I mean I would be for a fee of that today my wife and five kids and I quipped not equipped to feed him and take care of it scare the heck out of me

and they got a job as a nice man

and then those days you carried ice on your back one house to another who would have did most of them having a refrigeration

back breaking work

six days a week less than minimum wage

and we live in a in a two room house over in west Tulsa with a bathroom was outside and everything was outside up to room as you look down to the floors and she the check in front of me to

and they say a floor pretty poor area

my dad would get paid on

Saturday may go by the bootlegger in those days to pick up a part of that right got whiskey we call it quite a lot and then and he bring it to the house and have a drink and I believe my dad deserve good right after six days of back breaking work he deserved it right and he should have it right if we wanted to

but my mother saw that dollar going

alcohol but it couldn't be these five kids and she was afraid to and she raise hell with him about a drink and I grew up in this and I was affected by the emotionally as a young child

and because I don't know this until after I get and a a look back at it

and I was affected by it and we know that alcoholism is a progressive illness it gets worse it never gets any better and slower over ten appear to time it got worse in my life my dad continued to drunken rant Carter and my mother he fussed and fought a lot things are being thrown around eyes were pulled out and threatened with a gun to refuse to point at each other and that was it was awful and I grew up in this it was affected body emotionally

my dad's Rankin got to be real bad after a while in the and now I'm about eight years old seven eight years old

and from time to time he would tell us kids he's the boss I will take your mom out this weekend I'm going to kill

and they leave on Friday and we don't and I'm at home and I'm wondering I said may as you don't do that this time I wonder if he's going to do that this time is a and I'm awake and scared to death

finally comes and I'm relieved well my mother I guess she finally got tired of that deland she she finally got up the courage to leave and how they got up the courage to leave I don't know you know I was back in the days when you don't you just stay in a matter of what happens

well she eventually what took us kids and ran away from home and she called the police and they put us up in a shelter in the

they rested Hammond and eventually they sent him to he should say hospital in Manila which are local not house and then having treatment facilities in those days they put him in the Crimean sideboard and that's what they do with alcoholics of our type back in forty nine fifty and fifty one and he was just say they're really got well

think about that

my dad was there from three of four three years seven months and thirteen days and he was an alcoholic and a grimly insane ward

if he was ever introduced out because anonymous I don't know anything about it

later on he was to get out of there and out of state relations moved to California

and we were left to get bigger but during those three years and seven months and thirteen days are some of the most formidable ideas in my life the ideas emotions and attitudes which we come the belief system in my life hi quiet along in there I remember my mother's got five kids and she's busy as she can be so let them get better

when you get right is that she got big we got bigger

and that was all she could do to get that that

wash and iron and cook and clean and you know

so

I'd go back and forth my brother my brother and I would hitchhike up to the NATO type my dad a couple dollars a carton of cigarettes from time to time and we go back into the Kremlin same ward and I would say things back in the other nobody but nobody supposed to say man and diapers and things like that

hands tied behind her back and sticks in her mouth and it was awful it was awful and I'm just seven eight nine years ago

and we're going home when I got a bunch of ideas emotions and attitudes which become the guiding force in my life and one that was this one day it just came to me I wouldn't talk this it just came to me and I said if god could blame it on somebody right near that bit if god is going to do this to me and us and the hell with god and I'll never go to that thing church again if I ever get big enough they can't catch me I'm not going either and I got big enough they couldn't catch me and I didn't know either

and another thought came to me one day coming home from up there

what if it feels like this to let people I work with lemon peel hurts too bad and so I began to push people out of my life

and another thought came to me was this if anything good is going to happen in my life is going to happen because I all alone without any help made it that way so I did need god nothing or nobody and I live my life that way now those are not very good coping skills

I didn't know that

I thought they were very brave skills on my part

until after I got into a a come to find out the most fearful skills I can ever have and today I see people walking around in the in the world and I see him pushing and shoving and talking ugly and this and that I know exactly what's wrong with

the death just like ours

and so I grew up in this and in my area of town there was two people two kinds of people

there was people that run people home school and those people who got run home school

and I became one of those who run people home school because I was scared see if you have got to run and if they could stop

and I will run so that's why I grew up and if you are threatened me if I perceived a threat from you

it was not good for you

and they put you in jail for that kind of attitude by the way the things that I did

they did that and I one time I was in Arizona I'm just

thirteen fourteen fourteen years old

and I'm at a bar made from my age bracket I've been drinking awhile

and I got into a bar fight with this guy in the

we'll go through all the gory details but they gave me seven to fifteen for aggravated assault and that guy had a died you have a different speaker here today is to tell you about that but thank god he did so just aggravated assault and that was a type of guy that I was I got out of there and eventually went into the army and the only way on the bus I would volunteer drafted ages seventeen you can't do that but I did

and went on down that bus and and met a guy there named George gives you that that blesses I'll give them a short little black guy there

if you if you knew George eleven because he loved everybody and he come walking down the aisle that bus that day and he was wearing a straw hat that was planned on the top in the diamond stick pan is cool that

I had almost been striped suit black pinstripe suit carrying a cane wearing spats

well he was a tall so dandy

and the state was full of the bus was full except for the seat next to me

and I said you set out here if you want to S. one Bourbon force met

later on we

he was to come back into my life so we went in army together and drank and all that stuff and I came out and I said now I'm going to try to build my life and I'm working hard and I met this lady you have to have two children and we dated and drinking and all that we got drunk and one morning we woke up voiceover I mean we were married

never to get sober we got married

and I don't know what happened but she was a lovely lady she was really a nice lately and and all she wanted was a home in a

raises two kids and that she really did Love Me but you know there was something going on with the man I didn't understand hi could not go home

I want to go down to bars though jazz places uptown that bill talks about antiseptic in Chadderton thousands chattered talk about millions and we don't have a damn dime but we talked a lot about

and I like that at one time in my life I would like to be a one time in my life I was quite capable of making a lot of money and I made a lot of money for a lot of people believe me and I'm quite capable of losing a lot of money to buy away which I did that

but I like that life and and my friends and I will go down and we talk about things in business and so on so forth and we spent a half a pint the next thing I know which was split up tight and it gets later and later and I go home and they should stand matter than they ask and some morning sometimes I come home and she's almost out in the yard

we all know what I mean by stuff

dirty T. shirts very short shorts that needed ironing they never saw anything clean

I'd like to know why

but she did them and put up a file for divorce put a restraining order on me and told me not to ever come back and she did it four times

make me so mad

I don't know no wonder she did that because a lot of times when I leave

and I just would just leave and then I just didn't come back

and when I did come back it was just like I've been going to half an hour

and one time I was sent out to bar the zebra lounge

wonderful place

I almost fell it now

and I got to thinking

we all know we the drinker thank but don't get too it makes that

and I assume rose hadn't seen me in about

three months

thank god the home visit

we all know what I mean by visit anybody

okay thank god the home visit

and so I went over to my home to visit and I knocked on the door and what she did was she kind of freaked out and I just broke into what I did

and got in there and they're seven old boy

about one size in my recliner

watching my TV in my house and I'm making payments on what you gonna do

but I did I jumped on a little boy and he like to beat me to death and almost

put me out in the yard told me not to come back

I would have known that a long time

so I start thinking real good now

and I think well

I'm gonna drink so given okay I know I'm going to drink

now I'm if I'm a woman and drinks know that I don't have to have a woman would have wanted drinks because the women that don't rank remain an ugly

tell your staff out

and so I met

my second wife Phyllis my current what color my current wife

she come man and she was introduced to may and I looked at her and she said Joe you know you look like my third husband

I said my god I mean you had she said to

well I like that

and we started dating and

we drank a lot together and it's also at that time you beer bar you drink beer till they close at midnight did you want to

a nightclub you drank a wee hours a morning I went to the restaurant had breakfast and you went to work and rarely did you sleep much I could do that in those days

and I liked her I mean west way with that's why we dated after a while we got married and I didn't know this but I knew about me I had a list of things about this long but I would not let her do it

like the other one there and she had a list of things about this long

has she wouldn't let me do that that other one the end of hers and we got married and would rank anyone forcing a list on each other

who

we couldn't bring together we can go anywhere to go that fast and fight and so we kind of made a deal we were split up Tulsa

forty First Street you know what that is and and north and east and west with mine forty First Street south east and west with her

and I wouldn't bother she don't bother me okay

and I'm on my side of town one night some months later but by keystone lake and I bought me a little mobile home up there put it on the lake lovely place and I think there was anything about it

one morning this is not

and I kind of go over the door and open which is broken what she did

embarrass me in front of my girlfriend

terrible

the next morning I got up almost as laid out in the yard I

stole my car went to the bank and made off what little money we had

file for divorce again

she did that three times

well she only did twice baffled follow through divorce owner wants them which she didn't know about that one

but

put a restraining order on me and told me not to ever come back and after all I've done for a treat me like that

and well my I know I need to know I got to go here

I didn't intend to stay sick this long

by the way when you see a speaker look at his watch you know what that means nothing

it is give you a sense of I'm gonna quit producing

but I'm you know I'm not that that mobile home got full racks I'm talking about

mmhm one jump right I was saying about like this one not on my bed

and I kicked the far that guy I mean I mean I took me forever to get him off the bed

and the next morning I woke up and I was wringing wet all over for sweat my closer ring in where

combine those rats all so I decide to sell it placing it out of there so I moved back to Tulsa

oh by the way if you're ever in a meeting and you see people come in they're seeing things if you're not saying

go along with

because they're seeing him again to you

so I moved back to that little

back to the apartment at the fifty first in Lewiston and I'll continue to drag down my last day of drinking

was a typical day of my life at least a typical Saturday morning I've been out most of the night Friday night Drake and I got up woke up Saturday morning had three or four drinks for five cigarettes and went back to sleep

asked out again what it did but I didn't know that then I just went back to sleep

and woke up again about two or three o'clock in the afternoon and had two three saying ration for five drinks and went back to sleep and then about five o'clock in the evening I did the same thing and but this time I'm

by name white crosses by the five her bag and eat them like popcorn

that's the end of my drug story

and

when you do that and rank you get busy

and I had a nice one bedroom apartment back there in the new bedroom new real mattresses new lamps knew everything about a new bus too busy to get light bulbs and sheets and stuff like that

so I slept on the couch

and then that's the way I did I got that one goal that metal bars and I would circle around to and say their little while and end up in a place called the misty dawn over in west Tulsa

movement beautiful place

and then there's some people who own that bar who we have been having fights with for years

and these guys have been in jail for killing people I'm a really and it was a kind of bar over there that if you walked in the one the bartenders we say you have a gun so no I don't he said will here take this one

really I mean you have to think I'm not getting

if you need one in there

many how the these guys were out to get me

and I'm in their bar and a couple of my friends had to pull their guns to get me out of there two weeks later I'm back over there

now I know what kind of insanity that is but I'm back over there and I'm set on the Marshall mid ranking all day and that evening in about midnight

and I'm sitting there and I had a real sick feeling in my stomach it would have thrown up sick it was a a feeling like I'm just phoned everything in musical drop out

and I don't know what that feeling was and I got up off a bar stool and I went and got my car and lay down for awhile and went back about four o'clock in the morning back that'll apartment I've been living in shacks Sunday morning and laid down on the couch I know why I laid on the couch now I too scared to go back there I stayed up on a couch we turn the light on television and radio but I didn't know that there

and then try to sleep the next morning I kind of came to a woke up in centenary living my life and thinking about a thousand things my mind raced uncontrollably you know what I mean so what bill said

and run this stuff all my life through my head trying to find an answer for war I how I ended up for I was I never intended to be war I was

I don't know of anybody in a a who's ever said golly at fourteen I can't wait till I drank it and run it and tear it all up and lose it all end up in a way that was not part of my plan

and I'm thinking

what happened what what what's going on and it came to me that I'm gonna have to quit drinking

if if I'm ever gonna get my life straightened out get back with my wife and my daughter and get my life I would have to quit drinking and I knew by this time that I couldn't quit drinking

that's the main reason I quit drinking because I couldn't quit drinking

I understand

and somehow deep down within me there was a thought came out where this came from but I didn't pray for

god would have to be involved in this the I just knew that

and I did two things that morning that I have done in many many years and the first thing I did was I got on my knees beside that catch

and I said god if you'll help me

to find a way to stay sober I'll do what I can for you for this day for

I don't know where they came from have been used to since I was seven years old I'm not in charge hardly occasionally from time to time

and after a couple hours look like god we're going to help me

so I call my friend George little rock friend joy we met in the army and I've seen him for five years prior to this he told me he was going to a and I remember I feel real sorry for George

so I called your message George are you still going today and he said he was I did another thing that I don't do

I said George I need help

I ask another human being for hell I don't do that

you say you got to be pretty badly mangled emotionally

if

as to the that last night have to concede to your innermost self that your alcoholic that'll mean I just agree with that idea what that means is I have fought one hell of a fight and I lost totally whipped totally beat up in every area of my life I ask god write open another human being George came to my house

and he stayed with me for the next three days

this is the best of Alcoholics Anonymous has to offer and I didn't know that and he stayed with me and he's wiping sweat off my brow and

step off on my lips and

and help make it sober three days

finally on the third day he took me my very first day meeting

that was on November third nineteen seventy three set me down around the tables about because anonymous my solution if you will Hey you know what went on in my head

I said to myself what a nice guy like me doing in a place like

with people like you

therein lies the problem

Sunday morning I was hopeless and helpless as I have ever been

Tuesday three days not reckon that'll pride and ego and I don't may god no no nobody begin to come back the thing that damn near killed me three days not reckon begin to come back and that's really what we're talking about an hour because anonymous mobility system began to come back

thank god for sponsorship

George helped me tremendously because on page twenty it talks about here a

how many times people said I'd take it or leave it alone why can't he that paragraph and it says on the back of the M. is a world of misunderstanding and ignorance

page seven they said they don't plan to keep a man everlasting ignorance is content proud investigation

hi submit to you that I was ignorant

eight right and I really believe in our because anonymous you gotta become ignorant

so you can start to learn

my whole belief system that collapsed everything that I helped value didn't work and my sponsor Georgian other sponsor Franklin after George it had some problems

help me to find a different way to think into different way to feel about things thank god they did that I was uninformed I don't like to say it much anymore but I was uninformed about so many things I don't know anything about god I got down close and almost I had this spiritual knowledge of a seven year old boy a nine year old boy told you about that had this coping skills of eight or nine year old boy when I was about twelve years old I got to thinking about sex a lot

almost any brain damage

or maybe it is

and I went to my mom and I said mom I've been thinking about sex and she couldn't talk about any of the and scared her show my god then it shows

she said the only reason you're supposed to have sex just to have children

figure that out well see

had five children six five times one of one of my dad was in another house I

and she says a dirty filter run thing to think about any other save it for the one you love

so I I'm somehow I didn't believe that

I went to the only source of information was available to me and west Tulsa Oklahoma in front of the Jenkins cafe twenty first in Quanah there was a bunch of wires intelligent experienced men and women have about fourteen or fifteen and sixteen years old and they knew where everything there was to know about it and more than happy to share it with me

and these guys told me that they were going out with some times for five different women at night they said and did all the things that I was fantasizing about they said

and I was sober now because when I was about four years so I figured out they were lying to me

well let's hope they were

I never could live up to that

how many of you kind of got your sexual knowledge someone like I

wow you guys are you have sex education school I guess

calling a recess and home but

that's where I got my information so you see I didn't know nothing I didn't know nothing the things that I learned alone on the street for people to know me better about an idea I didn't know nothing when I got here thank god people help me with that and one of my biggest problem was after a while

Franklin said you you having trouble is god and our show so I'm having a terrible time with god I'm having a terrible I mean I wish ask god for help then I'm sober now and I'm again have a terrible time with god

and he asked me to to read on page twenty five

give me some information

he's almost none of us like to self searching the living our pride the conflation shortcoming was the process requires for successful confirmation when we saw that reworking of may come to believe in the hope mission fertility alive and we've been living

when therefore we were approached by those to whom the problem has been solved there was nothing left for us but to pick up a sample kit or spiritual tools lanes are free we have found much of heaven have been rocketed into the fourth dimension resistance I wish we had not even rain

you know I like that idea about being rocketed somewhere don't you

I am interested

is it a great factor justice and nothing less than we've had deepened effective spiritual experiences and I don't know what a spiritual experience was at a lot of people in this early writings of this but they didn't know either hello aspects there refers to fully explain on appendix two was named the first book

and they began to talk about square foot expansion spiritual await news I got me some old ideas conjured up in my mind when I was young time to time they catch me take me to church

and my aunt much she was much of a lady on the call right much

and she got into the spirit is saying one night next thing I know she speaking on this train line was I never heard of before jumping up and down roll around in the sawdust and stuff and squealing hollered and she was having a spiritual experience

and I thought that's what I was going to have to have

and I was dreading it I mean really

thank god for people

like me they wrote that information back here

home home page five sixty nine

on page twenty seven is set for further applications the pipes five sixty nine and page forty seven Mrs please save

this information hospital experience for further application because they want they want me to understand what they meant by those terms

if if the one that I meant that I understood is a whole lot different than what they say

and they read wrote down here the term spiritual experiences spiritual awakenings are used many times basically it means to change change change

personality changes

attacker up he will serve people means to change transformation to transform something means to change alteration made to change the whole key words to change and I wonder change I really did want to change and I like that idea guys come to these meetings and I stand in the back room and I looked down at my feet I was ashamed of what I've become I want to be different

and topic males may rose we all got our heroes and they and I think we need to hide it

epidemic some heroes I try to emulate salmon be like them something I could do I could be like me because I don't like me and if you knew me you would like me either

so I try to be like you

and we're talking earlier about love our heroes who don't

I thought I needed a missile today I miss

but after a while I began to realize it's time to change or talking about is not to change

to be something else

the type of change are talking about is to change from what I had become

to that which god intends for me to be that's the type of change that I'm looking for an Alcoholics Anonymous she said this morning I am what I am I am not happy with me today

you know because I know who I am who I am what I am my name is Joe and I'm an alcoholic and a child of god that's who I am

I am a bit with his image within me

C. I know that

but she said that's what the information that I needed to know in order to get ready to

to make this decision they're going to ask me about a little bit later

and later on page forty six Franklin was saying to me

show me

the bottom of page last paragraph

he said my showreel if we discover we did not need to consider another's conception god own conception however inadequate was sufficient to make the approach of tech to contact with him

and my understanding god was very limited it was out of a seven year old boy

and he said no one should do some tonight don't you go home and take your pencil piece of paper and write down if you could make the odds if you could what would you want to convey

so I wrote down some things that I would like god to be realizing that I could make up if I could

but what I wanted to be and I wrote those now and I presented them he said that's a good you can start there see I didn't know you could do that