9th Young People's Roundup in Las Vegas, NV

We had a water over that table. Turn that light on. Well you can't see here, you're there all right. It's good too. It's cold out on the golf course day, it's going to be warm next week.

Just wanted to let you know how you and your high fire getting along. Whoever was doing it was mixed up, got him on next week instead of this week. I'd like to thank Larry and Bob and Karen and for inviting me in the committee and Jim for taking care of me there on the golf course, Connie to keep me in order today and keep the other 2 guys from not telling what they were thinking. Jim Williams that I played with said that he wasn't coming tonight after the golf game. I understood that for God's sakes.

I tried to go with him. And Chris, wherever you are that picked me up, Chris has a sign there that has that triangle on it. But I wasn't too sure that it was our I thought it might be some other cult so I didn't know it was mine or not. So I let him walk around for about 30 minutes to make sure it was me. He couldn't find anybody so I thought, well, I'll go with him.

What's that? I'm paranoid. I like it. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to give it up.

I didn't think I was going to play well today and I was right. I just like to be right. That's all. I'm schizophrenic and psychiatrists like it so I'm gonna keep that. I'm manic depressive and I love that.

Lot of people can't do that without anything happening, but we can and I like it. Who in hell wants to feel good all day for God's sake? And night 2, I wouldn't even think about it. How are you gonna ever get any better if you don't feel bad? Bad?

I like to wake up at 3 in the morning, ask God to help me be sure and be when I go back to sleep I'll be dead at 7. And you have to get up and come out of it, Start feeling good again. Well, I'm Jim Williams, now an alcoholic. I'm really, I don't look like an alcoholic. I'm not supposed to be an alcoholic.

My folks did not say look, we're gonna make you an alcoholic. My folks said we're gonna make you a southern southern baptist. Now y'all probably don't know what they are, but they're the real ones, you know. You know, we're the ones that pray for the Catholics. Well we're afraid they're not gonna make it and they drink, you know.

Presbyterian, of course hell they just knew it was gonna happen and Episcopalians they just got tired of being Catholics. Methodists, of course, they just didn't like water. I think I like to be a Lutheran. They believe in doing everything just a little bit. Out in Texas, you got 254 counties and 250 of them are dry which means we don't sell it, we don't believe in it, we don't believe in anything.

Anything feels good, watch it. We would not have believed in having children. We couldn't dance because you get close to women. And if we'd had this envelope deal, we never would have had children the way to do it. We just don't blame in doing it.

And if you do do it, we talk about you. And we'll kick you out if you get bad. They raised me on this baddest bench and had a guy stand up just like me said, if you think it you might as well done it. Hell I knew I must have figured it. Even though I didn't know what it was I know I must be thinking it.

They point your finger at you. We'll sing this last stanza for that one right back there. They point right at you. No. It's not like a.

They said well, so Bob landed this last night. He lives, we'll get him. This bunch, they just hone in on you. They know what the deal is happening. You're gonna start they start to see the gleaming.

Yeah. They know next you're gonna think it, then you're gonna do it. And they they can't stand to see anybody do it. So one day after school, when I got to be about 13 which will happen to you if you do what I was doing one day at a time. I got in this car with this girl and got those funny feelings.

Now I told So I met him before the service, they said what you need to do is get saved. I said what from? Haven't done nothing. And I said I said what? They said when they make the call this morning, come down the aisle.

So when they pointed at me, I came down the aisle and I was scared. My throat hurt and it's kinda like a except don't give out any chips. They hug you and kiss you and tell you how great you are. And you know you're not, but hell I like it. And they put you in the tank and the hand just leaks.

You choke a little, but you come out alright. Went to school the next day and saw that girl. Came right back. I said, well, I guess we'll have to do it again. It didn't take.

They said no, you just don't do it. Well, they didn't know. I didn't know how to don't do anything. I didn't know. I didn't know how to don't do anything.

I didn't know if they just say don't do that. They didn't do it anymore. I said well how do you don't do it? Don't think about it. I said I wonder why I didn't think about that.

I thought well it's 2 o'clock now, dude I'll just go ahead and think about it today, then tomorrow when I get up, hell I won't even think about it anymore. Got up next day and thought about it more than ever thought about it before in the life. I had no idea that I'm the kind of guy when I start not to do something. I'm gonna do it all the time. When I start not to think about it, that's all I'm gonna think about.

I used to try to wake up real quick before I thought about it. Finally got out of high school. Had to go to summer school, get out of high school. I don't think I was telling them I was just busy. You know, we're tied up a lot.

You know, a guy said, I passed you in the car yesterday and you didn't even speak to me. I said, I was having a meeting. He said it wasn't anybody there, but you and I said right. They don't realize that we have group meetings just by ourselves. I heard about this town, it was 30 miles away.

It was wild and wicked. So I've got my buddy and I said, next Saturday we're going to go over at this town and we're going to go and find out what to do in these beer joints. And I'd heard about them and that's why I knew you could do it during the week. So we slipped over there on Saturday afternoon and walked in that beer joint and my lord, there was that deacon with a warm girl in one hand and a cold beer in the other. I said my god let's get out of here, he'll tell Jesus on us We didn't even get to do it.

You know if you get caught before you do it, you ought to forget it. This guy said, well, he can't tell anybody but I knew he had a better shot with Jesus than I did. You know, I thought deacons were just sad. You know, I like the girl he's with on Saturday night a lot better than what he's with on Sunday morning. And I'd see him on Sunday mornings and I just thought deacons were sad.

Now I know he was just tired. I drank 2 beers, didn't taste good, didn't feel good, and I was glad to get out there. Next day, I got up. I want to go to church first time in my life because I thought maybe I have noticed maybe you get old enough. You don't have to go.

There he was. Sad like he always was. Then I had the my first spiritual awakening. Maybe you can do it a little bit and just don't tell anybody. God, I couldn't wait to get to my buddy.

I said next Saturday, we're gonna go back big town, had 2 joints, went to the other joint, didn't see a deacon I knew, didn't see anybody I knew, walked in there and learned how to do everything but commit adultery. I'd have done that but didn't know much about it. And you know how we are. If we drink 1 beer and forget it, think about it all day long. Then if we do, we don't know whether it is or not.

I didn't know I was getting ready to live a life of I don't know. I learned how to drink. Didn't even know I knew how to drink. You just drink one beer right after the other. Good feeling is good, scared, feel it all.

Learned how to dance. Southern Baptist is not allowed to dance. Fell down the dance floor. Broke my nose. Did it 5 times after learning how to do it.

Blacked out just like I supposed to, wake up the next morning, threw up just like I've been doing it for years. This guy called and said, how do you feel? I said, my god. I feel horrible. He said, oh, but you had a great time.

I said, oh, well. Then I knew how to get have a good time. Just go out and get drunk, blackout, wake up, just one throw up, then you know you had a good time. Did not know you drank it any other way. I thought that people who didn't drink like I drank, didn't drink.

I just saw them put I even see them put bourbon in milk. I've never done it. Never I never I don't I don't even recommend it. The milk moved when they put it in. Some of them put fruit in it.

That's where you get to get all the acid from. I didn't make those mistakes. So finally I'm over there 1 afternoon and I'm by myself putting off getting drunk and I walked by this post office and there's sign out there said we need you and I walked in there and they did. This guy said have you ever been to California? I said no.

I've been 30 miles away from home. We're going tomorrow. I said, let me sign that deal. Then I went home to see my folks to tell them about the news and my folks were already saying things like, Jimmy wants to do this. No.

I didn't either. I didn't wanna do it at all. Jimmy doesn't ever do that. Yeah. I did.

Oh, he's done it once. Get ready to do it again. They already knew what I wanted to do and it was never never what I wanted to do. And I was already not fitting in everywhere. I tried to fit in with a group.

I'd go places with the kids just so I could fit in with them and they never liked me enough and I couldn't get it up. I just they just didn't like me enough. I just couldn't fit in. Couldn't get in. I went back the next day to this thing where I'd signed up and already told my folks, my folks are already looking at me funny when I tell them things.

I told them they just look at me a blank wall and I'm going and I went over there and they went. I should have known then they live one day at a time. And when I got down and sat, there's a funny bunch. They got up in the middle of the night, made their bed real quick. Somebody's coming, never did.

Then we'd go eat even if you hadn't been drunk, makes you sick eating that time in the morning, not even daylight yet. Then they always walked in groups scared, I guess. And whoever it was running our outfit decided we ought to go on a surprise anybody to know where we were going so they couldn't tell us and they thought it would be great if we didn't know where we were going. Some kind of game. And we were in the air force, so whoever it was decided we ought to go to China and we went to China by boat.

I think what they did, they flew the navy over and the marines ran the boat. There's a lot of Chinese over there. They have a few trees and a couple of hills and some rice, but they mainly just have Chinese. There's no smog or anything involved and they just like to make Chinese. They're not interested in getting into anything else and they're good at it and they like it and they lose some but they're making submitted and hell it doesn't make it in there.

Well, after you've been over about 3 weeks, you've seen all the Chinese you'll ever need to see. So I told them I was ready to come home and we stayed 2 years and we came back by boat. Then my folks went over I'm going to school and said my god I couldn't get out of school and went to school, failed in high school, had to go summer school. I hate school. Not going to school.

If you don't have that piece of paper, you won't even be able to apply for a job, let alone get one. You will have to have that piece of paper. I proved my folks wrong. I gutted that thing straight through three and a half years and I didn't learn one single thing. I made sure upfront before I took the course that I was gonna pass it and that it wouldn't benefit a human being whatsoever.

You know what I like about you and I? We'll go to any length even if it destroys us just to be right. A lot of people won't do that. A lot of people say, well I could be wrong about that. Not you and I.

The only time we'll ever use that statement is when we're damn sure we're right. Then we might say well I could be wrong about that. Well I got out of school, I was very I didn't mind working part time Then when you get out of school they want you to work full time and on Mondays. Nobody should work on Mondays. That was my flu day on Mondays.

And I was having some minor difficulties with women. If you put 10 pretty girls up there, I'll get the sick one every time. I don't know where I learned how to do that. I see some guys, they just go with any girl. You can't go with it.

Just any girl. You got to make sure you got a pretty girl. It's somebody you can take home and show to your folks and be in love with. You just can't go with any girl for God's sake. 1 girl, 1 week, 1 girl next week.

Nothing wrong with being the way I was is when you walk around with no girl and then love. It's awkward to do it. Take me about 2 months to find that precious sick little thing. Then in about 2 more months, we'd be so much in love, I'd almost have to quit work. Then they just deteriorate from there on out.

When I got into a, I said, this this is the most fantastic place I've ever been. It's the first time I've ever been where they had the sick women group. And I like both kinds. I like the ones that got sick doing it and the ones that got sick watching him do it. I don't know why that god seemed to have assigned us to make sure that all businesses operated according to our will.

But it seemed like it was necessary for me to make sure everybody did right. That's hard doing your work and getting everything straightened out and keeping it going. Some of the places that fired me are still operating doing it wrong. Finally got out of a job and I couldn't get one. And the way I'd look for jobs, I'd get up every morning and I throw up and spray.

Then I go fill out one of those forms that ask you personal questions like, where have you worked the last 10 years? It's not their business. They won't know where you live. How are you gonna remember all those addresses? Then the other blanks, you've got to say, wonder what they'd like for me to say.

You don't know them too well, you know. And then you just fail in the interview and go get drunk and I did that. I saved this one place after about 6 or 7 days. I saved this one place that I knew they had an opening and I knew the guy was there and I knew I'd get the job. And I walked in there and that guy saw me and said, oh my God, you don't want this job.

I said, yeah. I want that job. I got to have a job. I saved this place. I really wanted this job.

You don't want this job. Also knew there's something about me he wanted to tell me, but he didn't know how to do it. And I also knew that he's gonna like it better when I left. So I went out and got drunk, wake up next morning. I said, you know, I've been doing this for about 10 days.

I think I'll just take the day off. So I went out the golf course and ate no egg, no piece of toast, went around the beer joint where my last spiritual adviser worked. And he said, my god, man. You look horrible. I said, yeah.

I think I'm coming down with something. He said, my god. The way you're shaking, drink this beer. I said, oh, my god. I'm Baptist.

We never drink before noon. That's 10:30. It's only 9 o'clock. He said, drink the beer. I drank half that beer and sprayed the golf course with it.

I don't mind spraying if I don't lose my concentration. Start thinking about women or something against your nose and burns. Then you got to drink the rest of day just to kill the pain. And I knew how to meditate before I got here. I never meditate that deeply anymore.

It's just when it's me, God, and the commode. And you say, oh God, and it's stringy and you don't know where the end is and you can't breathe because you get it all back. So you don't know whether you're staying or going. You know, they always notice even in the hot summertime when you meditate like that, it's tiring and you'd lean over there and that bowl was always just as cool. I told this guy, I said, I think I better go home and lie down.

I didn't get to use the vibrators in these motels till 2 years after I was sober because I could just vibrate all by myself. And I left to live with me. I get up I get up in the morning. I was supposed to call all the hospitals. I'd get in the car and I'd go.

I said, God, I hate to hit that old big hospital. Hard time to find a parking place and then you gotta take that kit, go through the lobby and down to the wind down the basement, go see that purchasing agent. You know him. Hell, he's not gonna buy anything anyway. So you don't even need to stop.

Just drive right on by. Wait till 10:30, go to beer joint, had another bad day again today. So I went home and I got in the living room and I decided that what I I do is commit suicide. Then those guys that didn't hire me would worry about it for the rest of their days. I was living in Houston and I said they'll see in the Houston Chronicle, Jim Williams commit suicide.

They'll never get over it. I didn't know how to do it. Now I see it on television all the time now, suicide, call that number. They probably have pamphlets and everything about a group suicide. They lack the courage to commit suicide, come meet with us.

I didn't like guns. This was even before overdose was popular. You know we believed in the old turkey days. It's cold turkey. All three suicides, I was sound in mind and body.

I just failed. That's all. And overdose, of course, you're just gonna remember the pump. I didn't like guns in the morning because I don't like noise in the morning and they splatter all over everything. Razor blades were popular then, but they didn't tell you what to do.

They didn't tell you what kind of blade. Didn't tell you where is your wrist, how how long is your wrist, which wrist, where do you cut your how deep do you cut it? No, no, and I had nobody to call. I knew you couldn't do it in the living room, you get blood all over the carpet and I'm always thinking of others. So I went in the bathroom, got my razor blade.

I had sense enough even though I've never done it before that if you just cut the left wrist, left side died, right side be alive. What if you backed out half dead half life? I knew I need to cut both wrists so I could die and bleed evenly. And I'm just sitting there on the throne listening to the drip and the phone rang and it was the police. And they said, where were you last time?

I said, I was right here. They said, oh, no. You wasn't. I said, how do you know? We is there.

Then I didn't wanna talk to them anymore. I'd already learned don't ever talk to anybody no more about where you've been than you do. I said, well, what do you want me to do? He said, well, you can either come down here. We'll come back out there and get you.

I said, I'll be right there. He said, if I were you, I'll pick up an attorney on the way. And I said, that'll take me an extra 30 minutes, but wait for me. I'm coming. God, I love to live with me.

I can live a week and a half a day. I've had a hell of a day. Been out to golf course, ate breakfast, threw up, had a big meeting and now I came in and committed suicide. Now I've got to call an emergency meeting and it's only 11 o'clock. So I decided I didn't either one of those options that guy gave me.

I thought well what I'll do is Houston hadn't been too good to me, lady, I think I'll just leave town. So I had some little quilts and pillows and dirty clothes and clean clothes. I just threw them all. I had just room for me in the car, had one piece of furniture, an old lamp and a lampshade. I guess I was gonna carry the light if I could find the plug.

Got the card, mailed the key to the folks that owned the place and ended up a 100 and had $36 which was plenty to start a new career before inflation started. Waked up the next barn about a 180 miles away with $7. I said, I wonder how my folks are getting along. It's amazing. Sometimes it's just get a burning desire to hear from your folks.

So I call them collect so they know it was me. My folks says, what are you doing? Where are you? I said, I'm in Brownwood. They said, what are you doing?

I said, I'll just out riding around. They said, why don't you come by and have a cup of coffee? I said, oh, believe it will. I never short changed my folks. They're not gonna get their money back so I always give my very finest story.

In fact, I've got to listen to it and it was so horrible, hell, I cried Willow. I thought, my god. If I had known that, I'd left Houston 3 years earlier. Finally, John says, well, old Jimmy's honest. Let him have a 100.

With a 107, you can almost go into business. I knew I just had to sweat that down out so I sweated out, got up the next morning, turned around and I said, Annalise, there's one little thing I left out last night. While I was going through all that hell in Houston, I was drinking some. But I decided after last night I shall never drink again as long as I live. You'll never have to worry about my being under financed, and you won't have to worry about me anymore.

Well, I got in the car and I know where to go. And I've got a $107 so when I take a little vacation? And I knew a guy that was in the Rio Grande Valley that I'd gotten a job down there, helped him get a job about 5 or 6 years before that. So I thought I'd go down and see him. Just only a little old.

I found out it was a 10 hour drive. You know where it is. You all got some just right down there south, they got a little creek. They changed countries to get down there. Almost the end.

It is the end. If you really want to find your bottom, it's a good place right down there. So I drove right out of Fort Worth, stopped at the first filling station, said how far is the Waco? They said 79 miles. They happen to sell beer.

I said let me have 3. So I end up at the Rio Grande Valley and I moved into this beautiful hotel where I had to park across street and for 3 solid weeks I went down there where he worked every day trying to get a job and every morning I never took my clothes in. I'd come down the elevator, go over and get my shorts, socks, shirt, go up, take a shower, come back, did that for 3 solid weeks. They finally hired me. Now they didn't hire me because they wanted to, they hire you because nobody goes down there applying for jobs.

They just go down there to play at snow dodge. So they hired me and for some reason when I'd go to work at a place if there was a guy in my place early morning, I was an early morning man, well then I'd have to move him over, get him fired and move into his place and I did that there. And I was there just a few months and I could just get drunk and not drunk drunk till I could get up and learn everything about the business. And this manager came over one afternoon when I was just too tired to go get drunk. I was going to rest about 30 minutes and he came over and knocked on the door and said, you've been here almost 8 months.

I think we need to get better acquainted. I said, yeah. You wanna have a beer? I said, oh I guess 1. He was a drunk just like me.

He and I lasted there 8 years and he screwed up, got fired. Then they fired me and the other drunk. I'm still trying to get married and I figured out that what I've been doing all my life is wrong. I've been the kind of guy that just tries to go with 1 woman. Then when they go to pot, there I am in love with no woman.

So what I need is a number 1 and a spare. My days are just like this. I worked Monday through Saturday noon, jumped in the car, ran to the golf course, had a heavy lunch like a 6 pack of the cheese cracker, got drunk, blacked out in bed by 6:30 quarter 7th up with dry mouth and all at a quarter 11:11 o'clock and go down to my joint, finish it, and they'd close at 1 o'clock. Then we drive over to Matamoros and finish the evening. Then some mornings around daylight we'd have at the Texas bar and throw it up or sometimes we just skip it and drink beer and tape it off into Monday and sometimes you made it and sometimes you missed it.

This particular weekend, I decided to trade off with a guy so I'm up and drinking on Friday night after 9 o'clock which is late for me during the week and I'm blacking out. And you know how we are sometimes we're just so honest some people can't handle it. So, evidently, I had never mentioned to her about number 2. So I just mentioned that I thought maybe I'd drop by and see her on the way home, but I wanted to go to bathroom first and she follows me in there. And you should you know how to put in carpets in bathrooms now?

Because people are insisting on having meetings in bathrooms. You should not have meetings in bathroom. You need to meet out where you got couches and carpet beds. Don't meet in the bathroom. It's hard surface places in the bathroom.

She followed me in there to discuss it. Now I don't remember what happened, of course. The next morning, I'm living in an old faded green trailer behind the motel. I had the rock yards a long time before they started putting them in. We just come up there and I'd say, you'll never make it.

I've already learned to wake up in total fright in my own bed and I'm laying there asleep and something goes. Jumped up there, looked down, still have my clothes on. I said, oh my god. I bet I was going somewhere early this morning. Looked down that old white shirt, had blood on it.

Blood makes me sick, you know. And I'm in total fright. I know it's the police. I feel like, oh, got knots on the head. Uh-oh.

Had a car wreck. I wrecked my car. That's police that wrecked my car. They're coming after me right now. You can't get out of those trailers.

There's little windows about like that. They keep beating on the door. So I opened the door and there stands that 240 pound 6 foot 4 baptist preacher saying, come and go along with me. I said, preacher, I'm sorry. I can't make it.

I know I look like I'm ready. I don't know where the meeting is, but I can't make it. I just can't make it. I may look like I'm ready, but I cannot go. He said, get in the car.

My head's killing me and I'm in total fright. And I look at my car and it looks like it's okay. Park funny, but it looks like it's okay. So I get in the car and I said, preacher, I'm gonna have to have a beer. I cannot make it.

I'm not I'm not breathing. I can't I'm not breathing. You know what? Baptist preachers do not give a damn whether you're breathing or not. I said I'm not gonna make it.

Wherever it is, where the meeting is, I am not going to make it. He said there'll be no drinking before the meeting. We drove up in front of her house and I assume it's gonna be there. Heads killing me, got knots on it, low blood still coming. And we walked in and she did look like she might have fallen in a bush or something.

And I said, well, I've got to go to the bathroom and I went in that bath room and looked in that mirror and I'm gonna tell you something she won. I probably will never know what happened, but what I think really happened That I probably lost my equilibrium and fell in that bathtub and she stepped on me. 2 weeks later, we got married. We got married to First Baptist Church so it worked. We got married at 10 o'clock in the morning so there'd be no drinking before the funeral ceremony.

I was up on Friday night again and I told her that it wasn't necessary since she had been married before and I was pure, that it wasn't necessary for us to invite a lot of people but she could have a few close Well, I'm blacking out at 11 o'clock on Friday night, so I get on the phone and call till 3 in the morning. And I get to the church and my beer distributor friend comes out and said, I'm gonna tell you something. You called me at a quarter of 3 this morning. I just want to tell you we didn't come here to see you get married. We came here because we don't believe it and the longest bet in your marriage is 3 weeks, but I showed them.

I hung it in there for 8 years, but my life changed. I had no idea how nice it was to get up and throw up in peace. I was always gonna quit smoking because it made me gag good morning. So I grabbed those cigarettes and grabbed that coffee and go in that bathroom and locked that door and she'd tell me what I was through that door. Then I'd have to get upset, go make the living, get drunk, come on tell her what she was.

We did that one day at a time. Finally, I went back to that preacher and I said, preacher, this thing is not working. He said, you know what's wrong with you? You're missing the beauty of life. I said, yeah.

Did you know the fruit trees were in bloom? I said, no. He said, what you need to do is go home and get your wife and get in the car and drive up the valley, smell the aroma, and look at the blossoms. I said, yeah. So I got in the car.

What I won't do is I said, get the car. She said, what for? I said, we're gonna go look at the blossoms. She said, the blossoms? I said, yeah.

We're missing the whole damn thing. We get in the car and I go by and get a 6 pack, drive up to Valley, see a sign that says 14 miles to Mount of Marsh, turn left, went to Mount of Marsh, switched tequila, blacked out, missed the whole damn thing. Lost that job, couldn't get one, went crazy, tried to find one for about 2 months and a guy who managed a drug company that I've been drunk with many, many times hired me. Took him about 6 weeks to send me to Fort Stockton, Texas. Now that's West, West Texas.

We got a little freeze out there about that high. You can see California on a clear day. 536 people live there and 36 of them were making a living. I joined the 500. I'm supposed to stand in a drugstore and help put a pad on my arm and write stuff like reamycin and you can't even spin it alone keeping those lines.

And I'm moving. I'm just moving. And that pharmacist says, my god, man. You look like you're gonna fly apart. I said, any minute.

He said, well, take some of these. This was for Valium. I understand Valium, both eyes crossed and you walk straight. This was just Librium which is absolutely nothing. It's just little green and little bitty green and black or 2 tone green.

All it is, just nothing in it. I took a couple of them and I waited 15 or 20 seconds and nothing happened. Nothing burned or moved or did anything so I took 3 more and then my knee just went. I said, god, I know how to weave. Now I've got to learn new stents.

I guess it can't do it anymore. It used to tickle me when the guy would say, pharmacy say, I'm low as short 10 milligrams. 25 be okay. I'll be fine. Fine.

Same size. You know, alcoholics don't go over the milligram. We go over the size. Take 10 of one size, take 10 of same side. Finally ended up a guy recommending me for a job back in Houston.

They hadn't seen me in 10, 12 years and I got that job and I got back to Houston and moved into these apartments and old what's her name and I had developed such a nice sweet hate for one another that we were relatively safe because the one that died first won. But we felt like it was better and safer and best for all concerned if we had separate bedroom just in case so we could sleep a little more comfortably. So we set up battle and none of my customers saw me drunk for the 1st 9 months and then the day before Christmas Eve of 1965, I played golf with these customers and their in laws and out laws and went over to their house and blacked out. There's nothing new. I'm a blackout driver.

Never had a wreck blacked out, lots of wrecks drunk, never blacked out. Not a good drunk driver, great blackout driver, and drank the blackout, went home blacked out and I left their house blacked out and went from one side of Houston to the other. It's nothing new for me. I'm a black eyed driver, drilling that way for years and wake up the next morning in total fright just like I was supposed to, looked out to see if my car was back. I didn't quit asking it how it got back.

Walk around with no new dents, no blood and then I'd pick up the phone and call back and say, I sure am sorry about last night. I wasn't sorry about last night. I want them to tell me what I did and they never tell you. And they don't have to make amends so we'll never know. They just say, Jim, it was okay, you just got drunk.

Drunk was getting to be a bad word for me. Things like we can't have him invite him anymore. We can't be around him anymore because I can't stand him when he's drinking. So I was getting the message. I'm not an alcoholic.

I guess, heard on radio. I picked up the phone over what's her name and gone next door that's getting ready to have a Christmas Eve party, and I looked up under alcoholics anonymous and called in a group. Called that girl, I guess she's shack like she's glad I called. I should've known then I had the wrong number. She said somebody will be right out.

Well, I waited an hour. Nobody showed up. It's 10:15, looked at the ice box. Had 3 beers. I said, I'll just call them back.

Tell them I don't need them. About that time this phone rang, guy said, I'll be right there. Before I could tell him I didn't need him, hell, he hung up. I said, well, I'll just get rid of him because it's I've got some beer and it's Christmas Eve. No.

He's talking to those people now. And he came by himself because he and his wife were managing these apartments when I moved in and they used to watch me going back and forth from 711 and saying, if he lives, we'll get him. And I looked out there and he looked like one of those deacons with a book under his arm and sour looking and I said, oh hell, we're gonna read that book and pray. I've not only been baptized, I've been rededicated 10 times. I'll just get rid of him.

He came in, we didn't read the book, we didn't pray. I don't know what he said and I don't know what I said. But that time, I'll watch her name. He came back in. He said, do you wanna go with me?

Well, I didn't, but it's better to stay with her. So I got in the car. We hit that old 610 loop in Houston that I knew then. I'd gone off with a wrong I'd gone off with a perfect stranger. I know better than that.

He's not my kind of guy. I should've taken my car, and I said, well, I'll give him the test. I said, I'll buy a beer. I don't want a beer. I knew it.

Damn it. So I waited about 20 more seconds because I wanna tell you something. I got bad drunk last night, and I wanna tell you something. If I don't have a beer and have one right now, I'll quit breathing. I have got to have it.

I gotta have a beer right now. Besides that, it's 11:20. He said, can you wait till we get to the club? Oh, yeah. I can do that.

I can handle fright if I got a little light. And we drove we drove over kind of a bad neighborhood, drove up from this old rickety looking house. I said, this it? He said, yeah. I thought, well, when I get some money, I'll help these folks.

We walked in there and some of those deacons were sitting over there talking about women in the stock market. We found out later on they didn't know anything about either one And they had no bar back there in the back of the bar. It didn't look a hell lot better than I did. There's a program of attraction. You know?

Walked back up there and that little deacon says, mix him up a little milk and honey. I said, my God. What do you put in it? I never drank anything like that in my life. He said, well, you see, you're nervous.

I said, hell, that's what I've been trying to tell you. And he said, and besides all that, you're used to sugar in your system from know, if you throw up right, you don't have indigestion. Know, if you throw up right, you don't have indigestion. I drank it, drank about half of it and and it curdled and came right back up. He said don't worry about it, we have plenty.

Oh, hell. I wanna put on a show for these guys. And one of the smart ones said, walk all you want to. I didn't wanna walk at all. Now I was walking up down.

He said, you got a new animal in here today watching you laughing, talking. Just watching you walking up down and drinking a sweet, sweet, sick, sick. Oh, almost tasted sick. I hadn't had a piece of chocolate fine 10 years. Finally, about 4 o'clock, guys said, well, I guess we're gonna go home.

I said, yeah. I said, let me out about 2 blocks in the park. But I was going to slip in and get my car because I knew I was going to have to get some bourbon because beer would not cut that sweet taste. He said, don't drink anything. I'm gonna pick you up in an hour and a half.

I said, what for? We're going to a meeting. I said, where? Right back where we came from. I said, my god, we was there all day.