Albert M. from Dallas, TX speaking in Myrtle Beach, SC

My name is Albert Myers, and I'm an alcoholic. Yeah, you're a sweet alcoholic from Dallas. By the grace of God and the fellowship of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and people like you and conferences like this and my pretty Al Anon wife. I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since September 7, 1973 and for that I'm eternally grateful. We, give our sobriety date in Texas on the premise that, if you don't give one you may not have one, And there are a lot of people here that, kind of weave in and out of Texas, so I wanted to make sure that I gave you a proper Texas introduction.

I bring you greetings from the Horizon Group in Dallas, Texas. From, Southport, Bobby and JR, we're all here tonight. I want to thank Cornel so very very much for the invitation that he has extended not only to me but to my wife and to our daughter, Roxanne, who is here tonight. And, it has meant a great deal. Bob talked, Thursday evening about the fact that the family has been a part of and and I was listening to the talk about the fellowship and and we're just so pleased to be here.

You are special people in a special place at a special conference, and it's, it's been very touching. I want to thank, the committee also, other people responsible for the the kindness and thoughtfulness that they have extended to me and to my family. Would also like to thank Marie and Hollis Lucas. We've known Marie and Hollis for a long time and and, they were kind of assigned to us as host and hostess. And I don't know how many of you know Marie and Hollis, but they've been together for a long time.

And they talk funny. I mean alcoholics talk funny but they talk in code. And, the other evening when they picked me up at the airport we put the luggage in the car and we started down the road and and Hollis was driving and I heard Marie say to Hollis, he's staying at the sands, have you any idea where that is? And Hollis says, well I'm lost at the moment but I know where I am. And Marie just said, oh okay.

And so the following day we were going to a meeting and now Marie was driving and Hollis was sitting. And we came to the split in the road and and Marie went off to the left and Hollis said, well I think you should have gone to the right. And Marie said, well I'm going this way, it's longer but it's shorter. And the thing that really frightens me is I understood that. And so I think we alcoholics, we do talk funny.

It, is so nice to see some of our friends, Dave and Jim from Ohio and some people from Toronto. And and this has been a little like old home week for Sally and myself. And we've known most of the speakers, I guess, with the exception of your speaker tomorrow morning. The other speakers have been woven in and out of our sobriety for a long time. We've known Bob and Linda and Buddy and Beverly.

We've kind of grown up together in the Fort Worth, Dallas contingency of recovery. And Dave and Polly, some people call her Patty. I'm gonna call her potty. But, we and Jim and and Krista we've known. So it's been interesting to me that over the last 14 years of all the people that are here, their recovery has been woven in and out of the of the fabric of of Sally and myself.

I want to, you know, I want to tell I guess I I hope I talk a great deal about the family tonight. And before I go much further, come next June I will have been married to the same lady for 40 years. So I would like for my bride and my Al Anon to please stand and I'd like for you to say hello to Sally. And next to her is the oldest of our 4 children and the love of my life and my only daughter, Roxanne. Roxanne?

I would just like to say before I forget that, Sally is not an Al Anon because she's married to a drunker, because she's married to an alcoholic. She's an Al Anon because she's very active in Al Anon and and she goes to a lot of Al Anon meetings and and she participates in conferences. What have I done wrong? Nothing. Okay.

We've got an announcement that Marshall Burns, his wife would stick out front this way and would he please go there? Is that mister Burner there? And sometimes I think the the Al Anon gets identified as an Al Anon because they're married to a drunk or an alcoholic and that's just not so. Because Sally brings the principles of Al Anon into our home and into the recovery process of the family and into our our love for each other and into our home. And I am forever grateful and will always be grateful to Al Anon and the Al Anon principal and the program.

So that's just the way I feel about Al Anon and family recovery. As far as I can remember I probably have always been addicted to approval. I was addicted to approval a long time before I was ever addicted to alcohol. And, when you're addicted to approval I think you're very easy to manipulate, and I think you do things that you don't want to do with people that you don't want to be with in places that you really don't want to go. And I think in time you become a second class citizen doing second class things with second class people in second class places.

And the thing that I love most about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it permits me to be a first class person doing first class things with 1st class people in 1st class places. And I love the feeling of the fellowship and the principles of the program of our colleagues anonymous. I remember that I did drink in, in high school and in college and in the service. And and, I was in, the one that that Lucas calls the big one, the w w two. That was that was my war.

And I had taken basic trainings in Great Lakes in Chicago and had been shipped to a base in California called Camp Shoemaker. I had not been there very long and we had a weekend liberty, and I remember 2 other fellas and myself were just going to hitchhike over to a small town called Hayward and party for the weekend and then hitchhike back on Sunday. And I remember we started the party on Friday night and then, Saturday, I remember part of, of Saturday and then all of a sudden it was Tuesday morning before I got back to the base. And I remember that the service frowns very much on that. They, they I think still call that absent without leave.

And I remember these shore patrolmen coming to the barracks and picking me up and putting me in the jeep and taking me over to the provost marshal and and, I was getting ready to be served the captain's mass. And one more time somebody was talking to me about my behavior. The insidious thing about the disease of alcoholism is that it doesn't seem to show. The scar tissue of life doesn't show. The scar tissue of alcoholism doesn't seem to show up in our life.

Yet it's there from a very early age and up in areas of insecurity and inadequacy, insufficient fund checks, it shows in the in the areas of DWIs, resignations, letters of reprimand, being fired. The scar tissue of alcohol is there from the very beginning, but we just don't seem to see it. I remember I had been served this captain's mask and one more time this officer and responsible person was was looking at my folder of behavior. And as we talked back and forth I remember this man finally saying to me, just by any chance do you have a problem with drinking? And I thought up here in my mind, that's not possible.

I'm 18 years old. I'm an Iowa farm boy and there's a war on and I'm away from my mother and my father and and there's 95,000 other sailors on this base. And if I could get back home and the war was over, I wouldn't feel the way I feel and I wouldn't be afraid the way I'm afraid. And I was finally discharged from the service and I went back to the University of Iowa in the fall of 1946. And I remember I had to take some entrance examinations and that feeling of inadequacy just seemed to come over me and the possible fear of failure and rejection was just always part of my life.

I listened to Bob talk the other night and just seemed like he was motivated by fear and and anxiety all the time. And that's the sensation that I had. I've never been able to describe that and a couple years ago I was listening to a couple of Valentines talk and one turned to the other one and he said, you know, I never drank in the 3rd grade but I always felt like I could have used 1. And you know, that's kind of the feeling that I had. I never drank in the 3rd grade but I always felt like I could have used 1.

And pretty much that's what alcohol did for me. When I drank it took out the anxiety and it took out the fear and it made everything kind of okay. And I remember before I had to take my entrance examine examinations going over to this tavern and drinking so I would have the courage to take the examination. In January of 1947, I walked into a small Iowa tavern and on the campus of the University of Iowa and I saw the girl that just stood up a few minutes ago. And I remember seeing her for the first time and looking at her and thinking she's just the most beautiful striking woman that I had ever seen.

And up here my alcoholic mind said, you know, that should be mine. You know how alcoholics think when they see something that should be theirs, that should be mine. And I just had one problem, I was engaged to another girl at the time. And that's not a big thing for alcoholics. When we decide to go from there to there, we just go.

I mean, that's no big problem for us. And I remember I managed to get Sally's telephone number and called and thought that we should possibly date. And and 3 weeks later, I remember I I got drunk cashed in all of my war bonds, bought a ring big enough to go over any finger, called the doorman said, Sally, would you please meet me? And she said, yes. And I remember being so drunk that I could hardly get the car parked in front of the dorm.

Sally came out, got in the front seat of the car. I put the ring on the wrong finger and said to her, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could have me for the rest of your life? And I wanna tell you she said yes. And we were engaged for 8 18 months and then we were married and, you know, all of a sudden this we were 2 frightened young kids who all of a sudden were addicted to approval. We wanted so much to be accepted in society by you.

And I remember that our our parents helped us buy a little GI house. It was, just a small house. We paid 7 or $8,000 for it. It was a 4 and a half percent interest loan as I recall, and we didn't have any money. And on the weekends we would drive around the neighborhoods that we couldn't afford.

And we would look at your houses and I remember one time we were driving through this neighborhood and we saw this red house and this brass kick plate And we thought that was so wonderful. We went home and painted our door red and put on a brass kick plate. And then a few weeks later we would drive around and we'd look at another neighborhood and we'd see some shutters that we like. And then we would go get shutters and we would come home and put shutters on our house. And then we would go look at your shrubbery.

And then we would go buy shrubbery and we would put it in front of our house. Because Sally and I knew one day you would drive by the house, you would nudge each other and say, boy, that's a good looking house. And it should be. It looks just like yours. But the trap that we were falling into was we thought if we looked good on the outside you would think we were okay on the inside.

You know, I didn't know anything about loving another person or functioning for the well-being of another person. I had to come to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous to find out that having a good relationship is not finding the right person, it's being the right person. My having a good love affair with Sally doesn't have anything to do with Sally. It has everything to do with my behavior. When my behavior is good my love affair is good.

When my behavior is funny my love affair is funny. The same thing holds true with my job. You know, my having a good job has very little to do with my job. When my work habits are good, my job is good. When my work habits are bad, my my job is bad.

And the thing that brought me to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was my behavior finally got to the place where I couldn't accept my own behavior. Sally and I started having children. You know, I'm still startled that God's most precious gift is turned over to rank amateurs. Sally and I didn't know anything about having children. We read no manual on kids.

We just thought you were supposed to have kids, and after the war you had children. I mean they talk about 1 or 2. Did we talk about 4 or 5 or 6? You know, we talked about having a lot of kids. And we started having children, you know, and I I'm a salesman.

I've always been in sales and we began to move around the country a little bit from from Iowa City to Des Moines to to St. Louis and so on. And you know, it was an interesting thing because every time I received a promotion or we had an opportunity to move, I don't remember that Sally and I ever sat down in the quietness of our kitchen and said, is this gonna be a good move for the family? Is this gonna hurt any of the children? Will somebody have to move up a grade or back a grade?

In our alcoholic home whenever we had an opportunity to move we said, Man, we've got a chance to start all over again. And this time it's going to be different. And you know Sally and I never saw the disease of alcoholism. We kept looking for that one tangible ingredient that was gonna make it different this time. We didn't have enough bedrooms or the yard should have been bigger, or if we were closer to the school, if we were next to the church.

We kept looking for that one ingredient that was gonna go into it this time to make it different and we never saw the disease of alcoholism. You're dealing with such a deceptive disease that by the time it deceives you and by the time you deny it, you can look right at it and say that's not our problem. I used to think money was my problem. My creditors never called and said, you're drinking too much. My creditors called and said, would you please make some payments?

And for the longest time I thought really money was what was my problem. I was working for a large corporation called Owens Corning Fiberglass, and I just received a nice promotion to go to New York and and, Sally and the 4 children. And I remember we all drove into New York and Sally took the kids and went up to Connecticut and found a beautiful home. It was an old old home built in 18/12 by a sea captain. And and if you had stopped me on the street and said to me, Albert, how are things going in your life?

I would have looked you right at the eye and said, just wonderful. You can't believe how good things are in my life. I work for this large corporation. I have this beautiful wife and these 4 children, this lovely home up in Connecticut. And up here in my alcoholic mind I really thought that was true because I had done all of the things that you had asked of me in society and it should have added up and I should have felt good and I didn't and Sally didn't and we were bleeding on the inside and we didn't know what was wrong with this.

I remember one Friday night that I, had commuted out to to Connecticut and I was pretty drunk when I came through the back door and and I remember Sally saying saying something about my condition. She made some comment. Whenever Sally was right about my condition and I knew it, usually I would go into my alcoholic sarcastic routine. I loved sarcasm and I loved one line sarcasm because I could defend myself with it. When Sally would begin to close in on my condition, I would just sting her with one line of sarcasm that would just tear the flesh and back her up a couple of feet, and she would always react the same way.

Sally would say, Do you mean that? And I would say, do I mean what? What you just said? What did I just say? Well, you know what you said.

No, I don't. Tell me what you think you thought you heard. And then Sally would say to me what she thought she heard and then I could really go into my alcoholic routine and I would say, Oh God, you took it all wrong. I did not use that tone of voice. And I wanna tell you if I could get her to talk long enough, invariably she would say to me, Albert, I'm really sorry for misunderstanding.

And I would say, by God, you should as hard as I work. Now the insanity of that is we didn't do that once in a while. We did that week after week, month after month, year after year. 1 night I came home and I had been traveling in Texas for 2 weeks and I had leased a car and driven up to Connecticut and when I got to the house I wasn't in very good condition and I remember Sally saying to me, Albert, I can't live like this anymore. I'd rather be dead.

And there was something different about her look and the tone of her voice, and I remember saying to her, hey, look. It's been a long tough week and why don't we sleep on it and in the morning it'll it'll seem different to all of us. And I remember on this Saturday morning in Westport Connecticut the only lady that I've ever loved in my life took a razor blade from the top of our dresser and went to the master bathroom was going to slit her wrists and make an attempt on her life. And I remember that I began to scream and said, my God Sally don't do that. Don't do that.

Does if my drinking bothers you that much, I'll stop drinking. My God, Sally, don't kill yourself. And Roxy and the 3 boys were there while we were screaming and yelling at each other. I've been privileged to work with the, the Aletheans for a small part in my recovery. And I was working with a young boy by the name of Jack and Jack was getting beat up on a regular basis.

And on Wednesday evenings I would put Jack in my car and we'd go have a hamburger and just talk. And one Wednesday evening he got in the car and I said, Jack how are things going? And he said, they sound pretty good. And I said, what do you mean they sound pretty good? He said, well, they sound pretty good.

Said the disease of alcoholism has a sound to it. I said, you're kidding. He said, no. He said, mister Myers, I can put one foot in the house and determine the condition of the home immediately by the sound. There's either too much noise or there's no noise at all, or there's yelling, or profanity, or sarcasm, or place hitting place, or furniture hitting furniture.

Depending upon the sound that I hear that's how I defend myself. If I hear the wrong sound, I go to my room and I turn the lights down and the stereo up and I try to get lost. Or, he said, I try to find a friend that I think will understand and call and visit. Or if the pain gets too much, I just back out on the street because there's less pain on the street than there is in the home. He said, mister Myers, you know, if the sound of your house is the same today as it was a year ago, chances are you're not growing.

Sally and I began to think about that and in sobriety Sally and I had to start looking at the sounds of our house that was hurting us. The profanity was hurting and that had to go. But there's very innocent sounds that caused us pain. One of them was so innocent we did it for I don't know how many. On a Friday night in sobriety I would come home and say to Sally, how would you like to go out for dinner?

Say, I just love that. And we'd get in the car and we'd start down the road and I would say to Sally, where would you like to go for dinner? And she'd say, I don't care. I say, let's go over to Vincent's and get some seafood. She says, I don't feel like seafood tonight.

I said, well let's go over to the split rail and get some barbecue. She says, I don't feel like barbecue tonight. Now I tell you, we alcoholics are sensitive and we don't like rejection. And within just a matter of minutes, I would be at her throat saying, oh, my God, you know, and then we'd be on home and on our way home and the fight would start. Now once again, we didn't do that once in a while.

We did that month after month, year after year in sobriety. And we've had to go take the sounds out of our relationship that have caused pain. There's one you hear in the fellowship all the time that heard us a lot in the beginning. It's a little phrase that you can hear at any meeting. That's your problem.

And early in sobriety, one night, Sally, at the dinner table and we were discussing him and she said to me, and that's your problem. Alcoholics are not permitted to get angry, we just kinda get even and so I just put it up there and I waited and I waited and I waited. And sure enough, you know, she finally did it. She forgot. And I said, and that's your problem.

Now I wanna tell you something, sobriety has not altered my thinking all that much. I'm still tenacious. I'm still competitive. I'm still impulsive. I'm still compulsive.

Sally hates to send me to the grocery store for a quart of milk. Not too long ago I went for a quart of milk and I came home and Sally said, how much was the milk? And I I said, $30. Because I as an alcoholic can't seem to get those empty carts up and down the aisles without putting things in there. And you don't understand but light bulbs and pant hangers and super glue are very important to me.

And it isn't that I need them, but I'm gonna need them. I wanna tell you in my 12th year of sobriety, I did some of my best alcoholic thinking. I looked at investments that I knew were good and they weren't. People around me that loved me a lot said, Albert, I don't think it's that good. You might be jeopardizing your security.

I got hooked up with personalities and sobriety that weren't too compatible. People around me said, gee, I don't think you have anything in common. And I thought, oh, if you knew how wonderful I am, you wouldn't say that to me. In AA comes of age I think it's doctor Thiebaud that says regardless of our veteran status in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous at any time the disease of alcoholism can return and normally it's in the form of halotosis. And I wanna tell you I was doing some strange things in sobriety and I had reason to be up in Prince Albert, Canada.

And I was talking to Cease, and I said, Cease, I'm doing some crazy things in sobriety. And he said, Albert talked to me a little bit about that, and we talked for a while. And all of a sudden, Cease said to me, said, Albert, it isn't that you're doing anything wrong, it's that you're not doing some things at all. I said, what does that mean, c? He said, well, you remember when we first came into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and we were all beat up?

You know, we got very serious about the program and we didn't get very serious about the personality? I said, you bet. He said, Well, in time we start to get serious about the personality and we don't get as serious about the program. He said, I'll bet you don't read your 24 hour book anymore every day. Said, I'll bet you don't read pages 8687 in the big book anymore every day.

Said I bet you don't pray the way you used to. I bet you don't meditate the way you used to. Said I'd be even willing to bet that you don't support your home group the way you used to. And I wanna tell you Cease just went down the line and kept nicking my heart one at a time, and I forgot to protect the thing that was protecting me. And thank God for the old timer that's around here that can come to a youngster like myself and say, hey.

This is where you are. You need to get back to the basics of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I am forever grateful for the people that have gone in front of me. Interesting thing about it is Sally and I knew about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Her father came into the program in 1952, and he had 25 years of continuous sobriety before he passed away some 10 or 11 years ago. We knew what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous could do.

As As a matter of fact, when I finally made it in 1973, I said to dad, I said, my God, dad, why didn't you talk to me about my drinking? I took all the things that you loved the most in your life. I took your daughter, and I took your love, and I took your money, and I took everything that I could get and not once did you ever talk to me about my drinking. And this marvelous man with just piercing blue eyes just looked at me and said so softly, you would have resented it so much coming from me that it would have ruined the opportunity for the right person to reach you. And God made us all different, so we need each other.

If he made us all the same, one of us wouldn't be necessary. And more than that, he's gifted each one of us the ability to touch one other human being that nobody else can touch. And I'm willing to bet that each one of you are here tonight in this room because I I wanna tell you Sally took her best shot for 26 years and she had some other people take their best shot, and one morning in a halfway house in Shreveport, Louisiana, a man I've never seen before in my life said, you don't have to hurt anymore if you don't wanna hurt anymore, and I haven't had a drink since. Don't you know Sally went crazy the first 24 hours trying to figure out what he must have said? I managed to get my arms around Sally that morning when she was attempting to take her life, and and I remember we drug her out into the bedroom and we took her to a psychiatrist.

We always took her to a psychiatrist. Somehow we figured out if we could get her fixed, I wouldn't drink so much. And we agreed that whatever the psychiatrist told us we would do. And I remember at the end of this period of time, the 3 of us sat down and we put together this plan and he said, now your real problem is your Iowa farm kids and you're back here in New England and you're out of your element. And if you go back to Iowa and be near family and school and church and friends and, Albert, you don't travel so much, it will be okay.

And I want to tell you we put this all down on paper just like you were building a house, and we never put the disease of alcoholism in there. Sally never called me an alcoholic. We went back to Iowa City which was my home in the right part of town, bought the right house, and I became pretty much of a periodic drunk. It isn't that I didn't drink every day, but every once in a while, and I can't tell you why, I would just get up and go to work and go to lunch and have a meeting and somebody would say, let's go to Chicago and I would say, terrific, sounds good to me. And I would go on these 2 3 4 day drunks, periodic drunks.

There used to be a fellow by the name of Bob White down in Lake Whitney in Texas that said if you go on periodic drunks like that often enough, they will show up in your living room. And he said, I'm gonna call them they because I don't know where they come from, and they show up when you need them the least. And I had been on this 4 day drunk, and sure enough, they were in the living room. And they said to me, you need to go to the alcohol and psychiatric clinic at the University of Iowa. And when alcoholics finally get cornered and the evidence becomes so tangible that you can't wiggle anymore, you begin to say funny things like, okay.

And I remember on a Monday morning at the University of Iowa psychiatric hospital that a man was talking to me about my drinking and he said, Albert, when you drink anymore, you hurt people. And I said, yes, I do. And he said, when you drink anymore, you get in all kinds of trouble. And I said that too. He said, let me tell you a little something about alcoholism.

He said, there are people that are allergic to strawberries. When they eat them, they break out in a rash. Your problem is when you get an ounce of alcohol in you, you have hives of the brain. I said, God, John, I'm allergic to alcohol. He said, that's right.

And you need to talk to a man from Alcoholics Anonymous and you need to go to an AA meeting. And I wanna tell you in 1967, a man who is now dead by the name of Gil Voss did exactly what it tells you to do in the big book of alcoholics anonymous, working with others. And he told me what had happened to him and the shame and the guilt and the degradation and and the divorces and the separations and the bankruptcies. And it was a terrible story and I kept thinking, that hasn't happened to me. That hasn't happened to me.

That hasn't happened to me. I remember I got home that evening and I told Sally, I said, my God, you should have heard that story. It was terrible. I mean, if I ever get that bad, I'll join Alcoholics Anonymous. Or if I get as bad as your father, I'll join Alcoholics Anonymous.

And within a short period of time I was on periodic drunks again and they gathered in the living room And they said this time we're gonna take your house and we're gonna sell it and we're gonna keep the equity. And we're gonna give you some basic furniture that we think you're gonna need to live with, but we suggest very strongly that we auction off the rest and we're gonna keep the equity. And the interesting thing about it is I look down and I see Sally and the daughter here now. There was Sally and myself and the 4 kids, the house is gone, the furniture is being auctioned off, and we never saw the disease of alcoholism. The kids would get to be 18 and they'd go off to college and I think isn't that wonderful, a going off to college?

Hell, they just never came back. Once they had an opportunity to get out of that alcoholic home, they left. The daughter wrote me a letter one time and I remember there was a phrase in there that says, you'll always be my father but my love for you will never be the same. And I read that over and over again thinking, my God, what have I done? I don't wanna be this way.

I don't wanna be the way I am. I mean, I'm motivated by my good intentions but you judge me on my actions. Can't you see my intentions are good? And the oldest son hit the campus in the late sixties at the University of Iowa and it was a very rebellious time and and, he managed to get into some drugs and, into a marriage and child and divorce before he was 21 and into another relationship with child and no marriage. And I remember Sally and I would sit and we would talk thinking, what in the world is going on in our family?

What is happening to us? And the middle son was kind of the quiet child that they seem to talk about in ACA. It just seemed to be one morning I came to breakfast and he was gone. And then there's John who was the youngest of the 4 and John just couldn't get out. He was just too young, couldn't buy his way out and age wouldn't do anything for him.

And I used a friend and I got a job in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Sally and John and I went to Shreveport. And if Sally were to come up here she would tell you that I drank pretty much around the clock. I would get up in the morning and try to figure out how I could exist through the day and find a place that night. And one night at a place called Shreve Square I was driving my car and I looked in the rear view mirror and those red lights were going around and and I thought, man, I'm gonna be careful because I've heard about Louisiana, Caddo Parish police deputies and they're mean. And I remember I just pulled this car over as gently as I could and I was gonna be prepared for these policemen.

And they came around to the side of the car and I rolled the window down and they said, could we have your driver's license? And I said, sure. And I just handed it to him out the window and then I made a grave tactical error. I drove off and left them standing there. The, the reputation is well founded.

They're very mean and, the second time they got the car stopped, there wasn't any dialogue. It's just the door flew open and they pulled out the body and I remember they threw me over the hood and I could feel the handcuffs going up the back and my alcoholic mind is saying, God, I hope nobody's watching this, you know, cars are going by and they take me down to the jail cell there on Texas Avenue in Shreveport and do all the things they need to do for DWIs. And finally a man said, we're gonna have to put you in the cell and I said, Terrific, what do I care? And and I remember they just kinda pushed me in there head first and as I turned around the bars were coming together and then that sound that that God created for us when we're in jail with the the clank. And for one second I just kinda saw myself in New York in the glass building overlooking Central Park and to the jail cell in Shreveport, Louisiana and I thought, man, I got a big problem.

I got a big problem. And the man said you could make make a call and that almost scared me because people that had loved me for so long said, just don't call. We don't care. And being a good salesman, I called my best customer. I mean, that's what alcoholic salesman do when they're in jail.

And Frank was not in the program and I remember he came down and Frank said to me, hey, you know, I'll get you out of jail. When we got in the front seat of his car, I said, let's go get a 6 pack and straighten this out. And Frank turned to me and said, no, Why don't you spend the night at my house and in the morning we'll try to figure out what to do with you? And the way he said that was so degrading and my insides were screaming, what do you mean try to figure out what to do with me? And I remember I was watching this large clock in his kitchen, and I didn't sleep much that night.

And it got to be exactly 6 o'clock in the morning, and I called an Episcopal priest at Holy Cross Church in Shreveport. And I said, father Paul, this is Albert, and I'm I'm in big trouble. And he said, can you get down to the church? And I said, yes. I can.

And I got down there and we began to talk and he said, Albert, I want you to go to this halfway house. It's called the Bridge House on Stoner Avenue and there's a 74 year old retired electrical contractor over there that I think you can relate to. And I thought, God, how can I relate to a 74 year old retired electrical contractor in a halfway house? I'm an executive type guy. God, you know, and I just, but you know, when you're cornered you say funny things like okay.

And, on a Friday morning at 10:30, I walked down to this halfway house and I remember I went in and I sat down at a long table about like this and they sat me at the end and there were 3 old guys there and one of them said to me, when did you have your last drink? And I began to cry and I was pounding the table and I said I had my last drink last night and I got $1200 worth of hot checks and the house is gone and the furniture is gone and 3 of the 4 kids are gone and I'm about to get fired. They wanna pick up the car and Sally wants to leave and one of the the other is the 4 teachers sounds like one of us. Said to me, would you do anything to get sober? I said, God, I'll do anything.

And this old guy said, would you go to 7 meetings in a row? Seven meetings in a row. Boy, and I turned around and I saw all of those slogans on the wall, and I said, hell, they're talking about Alcoholics Anonymous. I've seen those slogans in Sally's dad's house. And I began to get up out of this chair and this marvelous old man put his arm around me and he said, Albert, we need to go for a ride.

Said, I have a friend at Chumpert Hospital that I want you to meet and and a nurse and and a nun over there by the name of sister Germaine. And I wanna tell you, it wasn't the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that I saw that morning printed somewhere. What I had was a man with the 12 steps carved in his life, and I knew he knew he was everything that I wasn't that morning. God, he was quiet and I was noisy and he was calm and I was nervous. And I'd say, But the house is gone.

He said, I understand. Yeah, but Sally and the kids wanna leave. I it's okay. Yeah, but God, I got these hot checks. It's alright.

And no matter what I said that morning, the only thing the man ever said to me is, Hey, it's it's alright. It's okay. I understand. We got a way out. And I remember he put me in the front seat of the car and we started to drive towards this hospital and Bill said to me, said, You know, Albert, I never did quit drinking.

That's all he said. And I started thinking about that. And the priest was right. I can relate to this guy. And I love the cure.

I don't know how he's doing that, but I love the cure. And we went over to the hospital and we talked to his friend and on the way back to the halfway house he did it to me one more time. He just set the hook and he said, Albert, you know, I never did quit drinking. As a matter of fact, I may have a drink tomorrow. I said, Bill, how long have you been doing that?

He said, what's that, Albert? I said, that not quit drinking. He said, 27 years, but I may have a drink tomorrow. But he said, Albert, you need to know nobody ever took my right to drink away from me. Now, I don't know what I thought you gonna take away from me.

We alcoholics have a hold of this rock and we're going to the bottom of the lake and everybody around us is saying, let go of the rock and we're saying, hell no. It's mine. I said, but Bill you're gonna take away my freedom. Kind of pathetic glaze came over his face and he said, your freedom? He said, god let's talk a little bit about freedom.

He said, I have this fenced in yard and every morning I put the dog out there to play. And he said, it barks at the birds and it soaks up the sunshine and it's got plenty to eat. At night I come home and I pick it up and I love it and take it in the house. Now he said, I could let that dog be perfectly free and open up the back gate and it could get out maybe get run over by a truck, picked up by somebody that doesn't love it as much as I do, go without food and starve possibly. He said, it seems to me of the 2 freedoms, I'd rather be the dog on the inside of the fence.

And he said, you can be as big and as free as you want as long as you stay on the inside of the fence of the principles of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I said, Bill, I'm a salesman, Bill. They're still out there. If that dumb thing works, I'm gonna have to go out there and earn a living and somebody's gonna ask me if I wanna have a drink, and I won't know what to tell them. He said, You wanna know what to tell them if they ask you to have a drink?