The NCWA AFG/Alateen Conference in Santa Rosa, CA

At this time, it is very truly my honor to be able to present to you Buck N from Midland, Texas. Buck has been in Al Anon for 23 years. I can't even imagine being in Al Anon for 23 years because I've been in Al Anon for 2. He says that he is fortunate. He has had more than 1 alcoholic in his family.

In fact, what he told me is that they're cheaper by the dozen. But tells me that he's a geologist. I think what he really does is drill oil wells. He may play around with a few rocks here and there as well. The name of the group that he belongs to in Midland is the 7 ten Al Anon Group.

We are very privileged to have Buck with us. He arrived last night and his luggage did not, but it caught up with him this morning. So he seems to be intact and all in one piece. And at this point, I will turn the meeting over to Buck. First things first.

How many of y'all here for your 1st conference? Raise your hand. Let's give them a hand. You're the ones we're putting this on for. You know, somewhere, probably not too far from here, somebody is drinking or shaking.

And somewhere else, somebody is bordering on convulsions. He or she doesn't know it. And somewhere else, a little boy or a little girl is suffering under the hell of an alcoholic father or mother. And they're not here. They won't be here next week.

They won't be here next month. In fact, they're members of the vast percentage of people that do not make it to this program. You and I are the fortunate ones. And if you came here this evening to be entertained, then I hope you get absent, look do nothing out of it. But if you came so that you might better qualify yourself to carry the message to those out there who still suffer, then that's good.

I'm glad you're here. Each one of the meetings should qualify us a little better to, carry the message when the occasion presents itself. Because by keeping this program by giving this program away, we keep it. My name is Buck Newsome, and I'm an alanarch. Hi.

I'm the husband, the brother, the brother-in-law, the son, the grandson, the father of the father-in-law of alcoholics. I can't say that but once. I sure as hell didn't get here by mistake. My my sponsor is Marceline White, and some of you know and know Marceline as you love her. She's speaking this weekend in Calgary, Canada, and I'm here with you people this evening.

I'm given the real reason why I'm here in the quest evidence of having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. We tried to carry this message. It also tells me in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that my real purpose is to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and to the people about me. Incidentally, in 20 year 23 years ago, there wasn't too many pieces of Al Anon literature around. So we had to use the big book, and I still do.

And, I don't apologize for it. We did the best we could. Thank you. We did the best we could with whoever had to work with at the time. Now as I stand here, my thoughts can literally fly, but I have to encode these thoughts into sounds.

And you, upon receiving these sounds, decode. If we don't have the same thought impulse on you on decoding that I have on coding, then we're no longer communicating. So communications is one of the biggest problems in the world, and it has been defined. And you won't find this in the dictionary. It was in a professional journal that I received once.

It says communications is the art of transmitting thoughts, feelings, or ideas by writing, talking, or acting in such a manner that understanding results. And that's what it's all about. You know? Acting, you know, body language. And so we we're communicating when we do things like that.

Okay. My story could be life, you know, could be real short and sweet. That is a and Eleanor and Alatine open the gates of hell for the Newsoms and let us out. And for that, I'm very grateful, but I didn't fly some 2,000 miles to talk for about 5 minutes and sit down so you can settle back and get comfortable. There's more coming.

You know, this program is also kind of not not like a restaurant where I place my orders and things are brought to me. It's more like a cafeteria. I've got to help myself. And here is the basic principle of mother nature that is output varies directly proportional to input. It's a completely impossible for me to get anything out of this program if I don't put something into it.

I used to be scared when I'd get up behind this podium, found I'm not scared anymore. I'm a little nervous, but this is transitory. I was scared and I didn't know why until I found out in my 4th step my first 4th step, somebody helped me with it and, they had some experience. And the reason I was scared was I was fearful of the possibility that I might say something up here that give you people the impression I'm not as good as I think I am. Okay.

We, when they came in, they told me to, incidentally I forgot almost forgot to tell you. The first meeting that I went to, I don't remember who talked or what they said. The only thing I remember about it was that there were about 20 women in that room and one man sitting on the back seat. I don't remember what the, who talked, anything. The only thing I remember was after the meeting was over, this guy came up to me and said, my name is Blackie Ligon.

And I said, I'm glad to see you. I thought I was only son of a bitch in Midland that had a drunk wife. But there was a and also there's a fellow there in 17 now that's been sober about 20 years, and he talks real slow, and he walked up to me one day and said and I'll try to imitate him. Say, Buck, since alcoholism is a disease, you got some damn many alcoholics in your background. Did it ever occur to you that you might be a carrier?

So I'm known as the carrier. Yeah. I met him out at the airport one morning here about a couple of years ago and he said he said, where are you going? Oh, I'm going off talking. I'll go and off talk somewhere.

I don't remember where it was. He says, go on up there and text more good folks. Anyway, before AA and Al Anon, my mother and dad divorced, and I was just a kid. Dad is an alcoholic. He's also a medical doctor at Guaranteed.

Graduated from Galveston Medical College in 1897. And my mother remarried to a West Texas rancher and I was raised on a ranch in West Texas. I'm sure you wouldn't gather this with the way I talk. I made some remark of it as well. I don't go about it as as, common as pig tracks and some lady said, nurses.

I never saw a Texan that didn't have any some of those comments to make. I believe it was you on it. Okay. Anyway, I couldn't get along with my stepdad at the ranch, so I decided I'd go to college. I went to school at Texas Tech in the Panhandle, Lubbock, Texas.

And, this is long about the time World War 2 was coming around and my I moved next door to Southern Nova and married Francis, my alcoholic, who incidentally passed away about 2 2 years ago. Not directly as a result of alcoholism, but indirectly as a result of alcoholism. This, as I said, this is about the time World War 2 is coming around, and, I volunteered to do the aviation cadets, was commissioned to pilot, and I went overseas as copilot. I flew 16 missions over to Germany on the b in the b 17 as copilot, and I flew 12 missions as first pilot. I was shot down on my 28th mission over Leipzig, Germany and Ich bin ein krigeispangenen.

I was a prisoner of war for approximately a year. I thought maybe this guy would respond over there. I took the 4th step in combat not being aware of it and its present identity, but the odds are pretty good that, I wasn't making sure because a lot of my buddies went down. I saw a lot of them killed. And, so I did take the 4th step in combat.

I wanna try to tell you what the difference is for me between the spiritual experience and the spiritual awakening. This is the only thing that's been changed in the twelve steps. It used to say having had a spiritual experience, this was changed to having had a spiritual awakening. For me, there is a difference. A spiritual experience that I wanna try to paint a verbal picture.

It's totally impossible to do it, but I won't try to paint a picture here with words so you can get an idea of what I experienced. This was on my 3rd mission over any occupied territory. I was flying as a co mission copilot. We were in the this was the lead ship, and I was flying in this ship right here. There was another ship right over here.

There was 3 ships right underneath here. That was a squadron. The 3 squadrons went together to form a group. The groups went together to form the division. The division went together to form the wing and then the air force and so forth.

Anyway, we were on the bomb run. It was over the Danish Peninsula, and, the 2 ships off with we the ship off which I was flying, remember I was a copilot. I wasn't doing the actual flying. I was looking at the ship that we were what we were flying off of. I happened to be looking at it exactly at the time it received a direct hit.

The ship exploded and into, you know, a 1000000 pieces. And portions of the debris cartwheeled in on the ship on my left my left wing, and it in turn exploded. Now this happened just just like that and it was over with. But a lot can happen emotionally and mentally to with you when something like this happens. Combat for me can be just best described as hours of boredom and damn hard work interrupted by moments of stark total terror.

And this was one of those moments of stark total terror because I knew this was the end. You know? This is what I thought. We'll equate that to all being over here in this end of the spectrum where universe where total terror exists. Okay.

Now what I'm gonna tell you hadn't happened, I think I might possibly have died of of, heart failure. The result was that I was tuned in on the most beautiful music I've ever heard. I've never heard it before and I have never heard it since. I wanted to many times, but that's my will. But this this is different than any any type of earthly music I've ever heard.

And the results of this music were that I was transported across the universe figuratively speaking to this point, a complete piece of my maker facing death. Now as far as I'm concerned, that's the ultimate of serenity, to be at peace of my maker facing death. I do not know how long this music lasted. It might have been 3 seconds. It might have been 15 seconds.

It might have been longer. All I know was that I experienced it and I was not afraid to die. I knew that everything was alright on the other side. This is a spiritual experience. It came to pass.

It did not come to stay like the spiritual awakening that's come about as the result of these steps in my life has come to stay, unlike the experience. So I'm sure that many of you have read and possibly heard statements to the effect that God is dead. I can assure you if god is dead, he died since my 3rd mission. I returned to the States in 1945. I'm a rock nut by profession.

Went to work for the Gulf Oil Corporation. I recently retired from them in 1980. Went to work for an independent, and I'm still in the profession of the oil industry. I'm I'm an I'm an Allen I'm an Al Anon nut too, But I'm not a normal nut because the world is full of normal nuts out there. I don't have this problem and some of them are dangerous.

There really are. They're dangerous. Francis and I went to the social drinking routes, you know, because I was an officer in the Air Force, and we're all living pretty high those days. And, so the the trouble with trouble is it seemed like it always starts out like fun. All my life I've been affected by my reactions to the disease of alcoholism.

I can now be at ease around my alcoholics while I'm across the room or cross section. Distance has nothing to do with it. Distance has nothing to do with it. You all heard some now on say they felt like they were in a skin case in a shell when they came in. I was more like this, you know, when you're doing some sort of work, you're in the garden or the yard, Your hands are involved and you get a blister on that as a result of friction.

Okay. If this work is to continue, this blister is going to be replaced by a layer of callousness. Okay? When the layer of callousness gets so thick, then it's not gonna hurt anymore. This is the way I felt around my heart.

I was encased in a layer of callousness. I was callous. I wouldn't have given you the time of day 24 years ago. I really wouldn't. I had no use for you.

But thank God, y'all loved me when I was unlovable. You tolerated me when I was intolerable. And you loved me when I had no right to be loved. And for that, I'm very grateful. I do not know exactly how many times Francis went to the hospital for alcoholism and or drug addiction, But I checked through the records about the time I resigned and retired from the Gulf, and 57 times was something that came up.

I don't know that this is a record, but it's a hell of a good average. I'd like to express an opinion at this point. I do not think it can ever be accomplished accomplished chemically or with a scalpel that which has to be done spiritually. I ran myself down. In 1956, I hit bottom.

We were living in Roswell, New Mexico at the time. I ran myself down trying to take care of 2 small boys, a sick wife, a job, and I became easy prey for the first bug that came along. This particular bug happened to be bug with polio. I went to the hospital with polio and I was seriously sick. I don't have any trouble with the second step where it says, can you believe that power greater than I said?

Could the source to sanity? Because while I was in the hospital, my wife took drunk and joined me. I can assure you if I could have gotten through, I'd have killed her. But I was paralyzed. I couldn't get out of the damn bed.

But I don't have any trouble with that second step. Okay. Mild insanity. I've engaged in this, possibly some of you identify. Spending money I don't have to buy things I don't need to impress people I don't like.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people are verified. 1 afternoon, this is bottom of them sandries. One afternoon, I came in from work.

I was living in Roswell at the time. I walked through the front door and Frances was drunk and not staggering drunk. She was she was drunk. She's mad at me because she's drunk and she walked up to me and she slapped me not once, but twice with open hand. Just wham wham.

Well, I'd rather somebody hit me with their clenched fist than to hit me with a slap, you know. This is total insanity for me. Well, I won't tell you what I did because I lost complete control. When I when I came I was in a blackout. When I came to, this gal was on the floor, and I was a stadler.

And I had my hands around her neck, and I was choking her to death. Now I had a few more moments, and I'd have killed her. I can't understand how people can kill in a blackout because I almost did it once. And this turn I have I have not lost my temper to that degree since then. Incidentally, Francis haven't slapped me anymore either.

Well, it became obvious to me and that that that time after I got out of the hospital, it became obvious to me that if I was gonna survive, and I'm talking about physical survival, I had to get out. So I sued her for divorce, but she calmed me out of it. And I'm grateful in retrospect that she did because I almost missed this program. Later on, I was to meet my own sister down the road in alcoholism and I would have turned my back on her. And as recent as 1968, my own son on alcoholism and drug addiction, I would have turned my back on her on him.

You see, if I'd been successful in divorcing her, all of this wouldn't wouldn't exist. I would not be here talking to you people. So it's, you know, I'm glad somebody knows something more than I do. Thank God. Francis put on the jug in 19, about 1958, 59, somewhere along there, and picked up drugs.

And it's our experience that she turned loose with the pussycat and grabbed the tiger by the tail. We moved to Fort Worth from Roswell in 1957 and then on into Midland in 1959. After AA and Al Anon in 1962, we started going to AA in February of 1962. Now we came running from the alternative. Didn't know what the hell it was, but it's bound to be worse than what we had.

So we're gonna try a lousy place like our cars and arms. And I've never heard of Al Anon. Didn't even know it existed. But it's a good thing that good motives aren't necessary. God would all be nor would all be lost if you had to have good motive.

Just have to do the things. I can act myself into good thinking. I cannot think myself into good acting. Never have been able to. Get a little more into that later on, I hope.

When they first came in, I was more like a starving man. You know, what would you think of someone if you invited him into your home to break bread whether he's suffering from bowel malnutrition and he refuses to eat until he understands all the complex processes of digestion such as gallerichids drugs and, you know, so forth and so on. You think you're nuts. You'd be right. So it is with your soul.

Don't quibble about the things you don't understand. Just partake of the bread of life and live. AA and Al Anon and Aladdin is the bread of life for the alcoholic and his family. So since it is a human being soul that only a breath of love can call it the conscious existence, and so big is a human being soul that only God can fill it. Because love is the one thing that God will serve to conquer every man.

Reason, he perish. Fear, he answers blow for blow And future, interest in each of the present pleasure. But love is the one thing against which the hardest heart will eventually melt. This is not theory. I'm sharing my experience with you.

In about 1970, we came in at 62 and Frances had 8 years of continuous uninterrupted sobriety. And then she decided she'd take a little weekend vacation from her alcohol free diet and get back into the program on Monday. She got back 4 years later. And long about that time I found out there's not too much difference between everything going my way or everything coming at me. One big difference is the direction in which my attitude is facing.

And I can say that in another way. Ships fly east and ships fly west by the self same wind that blows. It's the set of the sail and not the gale that determines the direction it goes. I want I want to, tell you a little bit about what steps mean in my life. It's a table of spiritual principles prepared before me in the presence of my enemies because my enemies are not out there.

They're not over yonder, not around that corner, and this is not a secret weapon I'm gonna put on my enemies. It's prepared before me in the presence of my enemies because my enemies are right in here. And this spiritual principle is prepared right before me into a step. Abraham Lincoln said, a man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be and converse I can be just about as miserable as I make up my mind to be. These these steps are also impersonal.

If they'll work for me, they'll work for anybody. I'm not what I ought to be. I'm not what I wanna be. I'm not what I'm going to be. But I'm the best Buck Newsome I've ever had.

And it seems like my growth has been infinitesimal. Somehow or other all you people are shaped up. I'm not perfect. I won't be for 6 or 7 months yet. This is seriously though.

This is the only way we can measure ourselves. It is measuring ourselves against the way we used to be. Because if I ever get trapped in the measuring myself against you, I'm measuring how I feel against the way you look. And I'll always end up short on the short end of the stick on that one. So I measure myself against the way I used to be, then I can see some growth.

Okay. The, first step of measure of powers over alcohol that our lives become unmanageable. You know, God is our understanding. The son of God is our understanding. He said, I'm my own self.

I can do nothing. It's the father within me that does the works. And he was followed by the apostle Paul who said, I do the things I don't wanna do, and I don't do the things I know that I should do. In this respect, my life is unmanageable. He didn't say in exactly those words what he said.

Was it good that I would? I do not. The evil that I would not, I do. There is no help in me. So if between Christ and the apostle Paul, they're powerless and their lives are unimaginable, folks, we're in pretty good company.

The second step came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could destroy us to sanity. I don't remember taking this step. This is something that happened to me. And the way it happened to me is I came. I eventually came to, you know, eventually came to believe.

I didn't get you believing. I came, eventually came to, then I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore the standard. The 3rd step in agency to turn my will and my life over with care of god is I understand thee. These are all important words without which I do not think this program would ever have gotten off the ground and that's God as I understand him, but God is you understanding him. Okay.

Made a decision. I made a decision when this lady contacted me by phone several months back to come over here and talk to you people. But nothing happened until I took action on the decision. Yesterday morning, I got up 5 o'clock my time, 3 o'clock your time, and drove out to the airport, caught a plane, flew to Denver, caught a plane, flew to San Francisco, caught a puddle jumper, and flew to this one. Okay.

That's the action taken on the decision. Nothing nothing happens until I take action on the decision that has been made. So I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to care of God as I understand him. Incidentally, God as I understand him is not dumb. I don't have to give him instructions.

I do, but I don't have to. God, as our understanding, is not God. No more than my understanding of you is not you. Never have been, never will be. God is our understanding is the same from everlasting to everlasting.

I grow in understanding. I change. God doesn't change. I've got a friend that used to be in Abilene who's a who's a Baptist minister. He's not in a Baptist minister anymore.

He's a a, counselor. And, he's also an Al Anon. He had an ability to weave beautiful words together and he said one day and explained this, he said, the guy came in our office one day and said, I came here to tell you that I don't believe in God. And John said, well, what else is new? And he said, well, they had to make his point, so he kept on driving.

And finally John says, okay, boy. Go on. Get on top of the highest hill and shout and scream at the top of your voice, there is no God. There is no God. You won't hear anything coming back with the hollow echoing of your own voice brought by an aimless drifting wandering wind.

And God won't climb down off your throne and abdicate because you don't believe in him. And you can't sit on it because your butts not bit. I know what it's not because I've done that. So so if I leave off what is not, what's left had a good chance to be in God's will. This story helped me to understand when I was first in the program, and I'll pass it on to you.

It's about a little woodpecker He was pecking away at a tree in a long clearing one day in a gathering thunderstorm, sent a bolt of lightning, splitting the tree from top to bottom without harming the little fellow. The birds came around from miles and says, how'd you do it? How'd you split the tree? In reality, all he was doing is what he was supposed to be doing, where he was supposed to be doing it, and God did the rest. Okay?

God do well for me and doing what I'm supposed to be doing where I'm supposed to be doing it, and he will do the rest. I'm doing right now what I'm supposed to be doing, and so are you. This is God's will for us. The best reason for not taking the 4th step before I took it is the 5th step. I'm not about to tell anybody, you know, the exact nature of these wrongs.

Okay. Now that I'm on the other side of it looking back, there'd be no reason for the 4th step if the 5th step did not exist because self knowledge alone won't get it. It's an integral portion of, but it will that's not the final answer. I like Clancy's comparison on this, and I'll pass it on to you. Maybe some of you haven't heard it.

He says self knowledge is just like being on the deck of the Titanic, and you already collided with the iceberg in the hole in a power 68 feet in diameter and water is gushing in for rate of 268,000 gallons per minute. Exactly 14 minutes and 28 seconds is gonna be all over. That's self knowledge. The problem is how do you get off the damn ship? The way you keep getting off the damn ship is a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th step.

The way you keep on getting on another and just like it did, there's the 10th, 11th, and the 12th step. Well, I went I took the the 4th step to the best of my ability. In fact, I've done it for a couple of years, something like that. And the way I'm gonna tell you about taking the 5th step is not the way to do it, but I'll tell you how not to do it. Then you can say, well, I know it won't work that way.

The first time I took for the 5th step, I took it with a man in our group. My attitude at that time was I didn't give a damn whether he approved or disapproved of anything for me that I was telling him. So therefore, for me, there was nothing ventured and absolutely nothing gained. Nothing gained. The second time I took the 5th step, I took it with my sponsor and I rationalized this is all in hindsight.

I rationalized it like this. Now that I've gotten all this trash out of the way on my first four step, I'll take the second one with you, Marceline. Well, I was trying to guide, trying to maneuver, trying to control her love for me, which is for free, and love for free has no desire but to fulfill itself to love for free. And, I went into a long dry spell after that, the likes of which had never been in before. It seemed as if my whole being my my struggle to get out of got out and get out of it became a harness that bound me into it.

I could not get out of it. I was guided back to my sponsor in 1968. And in the process of a conversation with Marceline, she said, Buck, I think you were cheated on your first 5th step. Well, now how dare her to say that, you know. After all, I've been in a program through that, 6 years.

I'll know something better now. I didn't like it, but I didn't like it at the time, you know. I know the end result's gonna be alright. It always has been. So I went back to Midland and, this began to eat on me.

Was living at Lake, Marceline Barber living at Lake Whitney, in, South Fort Worth there, about 60 miles. And I went back to Midland, 100 miles to west, and, this began to eat on me. And I finally told Morris Lane at a conference, which was shortly after that down at Lake Whitney. I said, Marceline, I have to talk to you. And I went up into the, we went up into the tree house, which is built up about the 2nd level, but it's outdoors and it's anything but a tree house.

It's a beautiful place. It's where you can look out across the lake. And there in this environment, I took a person that I love and I admire and I respect and think the most of and not over the worst of me. Now ego cannot stand this environment. This is a complete deflation of ego at depths just like it talks about.

And I thought our relationship at that time was gonna be severed, you know, be just like a chop on the chopping block that she'd go her way and I'd go mine. When I got through, I expected the worst. And while things said, buckle on, she would go off and purr in meditation for a while. And she said, I love you just the way you are. I went off and purr in meditation, then this this happened to me.

This it felt like there were waves, giant waves coming in and washing me clean, you know, from the inside. And, I realized what had happened. I didn't know until after I was over what had happened. This woman this woman did not have to forgive me. She had never condemned me in the first place.

Well, who in the hell had condemned me? I had condemned me. I was the judge, the jury, the prosecuting attorney. I'd already tried the case, found myself guilty, pronounced sentence, and serving time. I could have not forgiven me, which she had.

Now I wanna tell you folks, if God is dead, he died since I took the 5th step properly. Long about this time, number 1 son, who is now senior research chemist in, a Pennzoil Research in Dublin north of Houston there. And, he's now calling. He just got back in the AA about 60 about 90 days ago. Called me up and told me he'd be going back.

His wife's now calling. She got about a year's sobriety now. She got more than he does. But, this was back in 68 when he was first, experimenting with this. He was in college at TCU at the time, and his mother and I went in, to talk to him one night and sat up most of the night in the motel talking to this young man because he he was trying to bring down condemnation upon himself, and we refused to condemn him because they knew what he was doing.

He didn't, but we did. Now I'll give you an idea what he was doing. He was puffing, popping, shooting up, dropping, and drinking at the same not at the same time, but he would try them all. Mainline, the whole ball of wax, grapes, vines, and leaves, and all. He tried it.

Well, that's the left the decision up to him and says, well, you can either come home and get your job or you can drop out of school and, you know, see what happens. We dropped out of school, and, next morning, he said, I'd like to come home just be your son for a while, which he did, and go to AA. And he started going to AA then. This is before he was married. Anyway, he, started going got him a job, then, the end of semester came around.

He says, I'm going back to school, dad. I go, come on. Now we got some talking to do. Okay. So now, first of all, I want his mother wasn't setting down in the den.

I said, first of all, I wanna tell you I love you. This is the most important thing, but you're free as a bird. You're free to take pills, drink or take pills until you die, but you can't do it without knowing that I care and I stand there to help when you call. But there's one thing I will not do for you, buster. He said, what's that?

I ain't going down the drain with you. You're going by yourself. The old dad ain't gonna pick up any check or get you out of trouble. Just remember that. And he already knew that because I've already from previous experiences with that.

So he went back to school and, got in that area and was successful. Stayed busy in, in our in AA for quite a few years. I don't know how many years somebody had, but just several years. And then they got with this bunch of, you know, social drinks after work, all that sort of jazz, and, traveling on business, and, you know, so much stuff revolves around the cocktail. And, he's called me the other day and told me she said he's back in to have 90 days to ride.

I said, said, great. Hang in there, boy. But I completely turned loose on him. It's a lot easier to turn loose when they're 500 miles away than it is when they're 40 feet away. Okay.

The 6th and the 7th step came and tried to ready to have God move all these detox character. Normally, I asked him to remove our shortcomings. This this step these 2 steps can be equated to a pair of tweezers. I'm using lives to extract the splinter from my hand. Just don't give me any, immunity splinters for the rest of my life.

But if I do, I've got the tools to work with. Comfort does not motivate change. Discomfort motivates change. Okay. I don't usually respond to one of my character defects until it becomes a point of where it's hurting me so damn much I gotta do about it, do something about it.

So I've got the tools to work with. But, yeah, each time I say or I may not I say it audibly, but I'll think it in my guts or somewhere. But this time, it ain't gonna work, but it always does. Thank God. I can take actions regardless of what they have my motives are.

The results are good good as if my actions my motives have been perfect to begin with. Needless to all persons at harm became more than like a man to see them all. I don't necessarily listen to the names of some people that were already dead, and this bothered me. And told Chuck C from Laguna Beach said one day when he was out there in Midland, said Buck, you made amends to the dead when you became with him. So this really is a new heart.

The 9th step made direct amends to such people where possible to accept when they do so to injure them or others. I am trying to live an amended life as the result of these steps. I sat down years ago and those those of my boys a letter at the time. They weren't living at home. It went something like this.

Dear son, I tried, God knows to be a good daddy, but I failed many times and I hurt you. For all the times I hurt you, I wanna ask that you forgive me. Period. No buts. And I wanna tell you, folks, there's nothing in the world like hearing your own child say I love you and I forgive you, even if they got a call collect to tell you.

Number 2 son, the non alcoholic. He and I are the nonalcoholic in the family. He we used to get into arguments quite frequently. We don't much anymore. The oldest boy is 38 and the youngest one is 34.

And, this was like 10, 15 years ago, And we were in an argument. His mother had gone to an AA meeting. We were in an argument, and, it became obvious to me all of a sudden, you know, what what what this was, why he was so edgy because it surfaced like something ugly out of a, muddy water, you know, and just bobbed there. And I saw it in water, you know, all of its ugliness. And he felt obligated to love me because I was his father.

When I realized that, I said, look, son. I love you, but you don't have to love me just because I'm your father. If you do, that's great. That's springy benefit, but the have to is gone. You're free.

You don't have to love me. I wanted him to, but I didn't tell him that. Well, that's kinda stopped the argument. And a few minutes, the TV program was over and it was rather late. And he says, I'm going to bed there.

And I said, fine. Good night, sir. We got about halfway up the stairs, turned around, says, hey, pop. I said, what do you want? He said, I sure do love you.

Folks, that's for I'll live. He couldn't give me his love until he had the freedom to not give it. And this is a spiritual principle. In in giving him his freedom, I bound him closer to me than he's ever been before. And spiritual principle is often a paradox.

He ate he went on upstairs and went into his room, and I had to get up out of the den and go back into the utility room and weep tears of gratitude. Just because I gave him this total freak, he didn't have to love me. But when you do that, you know, this is a spiritual principle. It works for me. It'll work for you.

Now, god has forgiven me, and my kids have forgiven me. And I have forgiven me by the grace of God Because if I can't forgive me, this is an insidious form of spiritual pride. And I'm safe in this little cesspool I had dug for myself and filled with my own vomit because that's what self judgment is. God has forgiven me. They have forgiven me, and by the grace of god, I have forgiven me.

At this point in the program, at the bottom page 83 and the top of page 84, this is not a verbatim quote from, from the big book of alcoholics and all. It's just some promises that are given after the 9th step. Says, we're painstaking about this phase of our development before we have to go on to be knowing new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear.

We will comprehend the serenity, and we will know peace. Fear our people that are economic insecurity will leave us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises we think not for they are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, but they will always materialize if we work for them. Now that's not a verbatim quote that you load up yourself to find out what it actually says.

That's the promises after the 9 step. Continue to take personal inventory when I'm wrong, prompted an 8, the 10 step. I don't like it. Then say I have to like it. Just as I have to do it.

That's right. So I take the action regardless of what my motives are at the time. Then the end result after I take the action 99% of the time is as good as if my motives had been perfect to begin with. So I act myself back into good thinking. I can't get back the other direction.

I can't think of myself into good acting. Okay. The 11th step, seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, bring on the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry it out. My efforts at this step is kinda like trying to read the the, Al Anon book, At Night in the Dark, by lightning flash. It is as sure as hell that's brilliant when it comes, but it doesn't last very long.

Okay. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message. What message? The message of my own spiritual awakening had to come about. The result of these steps and practice these principles in all of our affairs.

The result of these steps, it's hardly likely I'm gonna have a spiritual awakening as a result of 11 preceding steps that I have not taken. I've had some luck at 12 7 Alcoholics as well as well as Al Anon, and I wanna tell you about a few of them. Running out of time here. My sister in 1962, along about the time Frances had to go to the Big Spring State Hospital, My sister in 1962 reached bottom, and, mother was living in a little house behind her. She lived down to Sonora.

She's a ranch woman living in a little house behind my sis, and she's drinking a lot. And, it was after dark, and Jim was drunk. She slapped Jim, my sister's name. She slapped mother. Mother was 80 years old at the time.