NCCAA Spring Conference in Fresno, CA

Evening, I had the pleasure of meeting our speaker and I asked him just how should I introduce you? And he told me, he says, well, John, he says, he might just say that just another recovering drunk. And so with that, this is the time that all of us have been waiting for. I'd like to introduce to you Dave See of Raleigh, North Carolina. Dave?

Thank you, John. But before I forget it, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me out here this weekend, for the hospitality that's been extended to me and for the good weekend that I've had so far and it's just good to be here and it's good to meet some old friends and it's good to make new friends, I hope. It's good to be here. Every time, by the way, I like your idea of passing that hat before the speaker gets up here. It makes you wonder though, and maybe we ought to do that in my part of the country.

We've got some that we should have took their head up before they got there. I'll tell you that, And by the way, if any of you hockey fans are here in the wrong building, you're probably the right place. As I stand here tonight, I'm I'm I'm all reminded of a story that I've told many times, and this is no reflection on the committee of what's been going on up here tonight. But it can't it it makes me feel good to stand up and be the only speaker because you get involved in so many of these things that, you know, you get ready to go and like a bow and all and you get all propped up to get up here and then something delays you and then you finally get up in there, you are all those eyeballs and and it reminds me of a story that was told many years ago back in my part of the country. It seems that they had one of these conventions many years ago and they had one of these long winded speakers and he got up there and he started talking.

In the first hour, he devoted to the twelve steps. The second hour he got into tray of additions, and then the 3rd hour he got into 3 leggings. And gradually, people began to leave and they will leave, I found it out one night and, lo and behold, everybody left but one man he kept sitting on the front row And naturally, the speaker began to get concerned, so he wound up his talk, ran down from the podium, grabbed the man by the hand, says, I wanna ask you one question. Everybody left but you, why did you stay? And he says, hell, I'm the next speaker.

Well, it can kinda feel like, you know what I'm talking about now. I'm an alcoholic. My name is Dave C. Hi, everybody. I'm a member of the big book group in Raleigh, North Carolina, which I think is the finest group in the world.

And if you don't think the same of your group, then I suggest maybe you need to find another group. By god's grace and because this program works for me and through the help of some understanding sponsors that led me with a kind but firm hand and through the love of a loving wife that I found as a result of this program and through the help of many people just like you, I haven't found it necessary to take a drink or any tablet since the day I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that day was September 12, 1957. I don't give my sobriety today to impress you. Sometimes, it impresses me. I give it for 2 reasons and two reasons only.

The first reason is this, I I got sober up in Roanoke, Virginia. I come into Alcoholics Anonymous in the old central group in Roanoke, Virginia. The second meeting I ever went to was one of these discussion meetings. They had 13 or 14 wicker chairs sitting on a circle. I was no different from anybody else that goes to their first meeting, particular the discussion meeting.

I began to wonder what I was gonna say when it got to me. And it finally got to me and the man who was to become my first sponsor spoke up and told me what to say. He said, give your name and your sobriety date. That's all you're qualified to do. As a matter of fact, after the meeting, he explained to me that that's all I was gonna be qualified to do for the next year was to give my name and somebody back to date.

The second reason is this, in that old central group, they had a saying that if you got behind the podium in that group and if you didn't give your sobriety date, you usually didn't have one. So I've been given that ever since. I've received many benefits from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous just like so many of you. A lot of these benefits I call marginal benefits such as some peace of mind, a little serenity, some security, and a lot of happiness, but anytime I speak of marginal benefits, I have to think of certain basics. The basic benefits that I received from this program beyond my sobriety, naturally, the sobriety came first.

The basic benefit that this alcoholic received is my sanity my sanity. And today, as the same alcoholic, I find now that I don't have to run anymore. I don't have to lie anymore. I don't have to cheat or steal anymore, and most important of all, I do not have to sober up anymore. Now that's what this deal is about as far as I'm concerned.

I do not have to sober up anymore, and I didn't know that when I arrived at Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know it. I took my first drink when I was 16 years of age and for the life of me, I can't understand why because I knew what booze could could do to a grown man. I've seen what happened to my father as a kid when I was growing up. Because of my father's drinking, it led to divorce in my home when I was 12 years of age, and my good mother was able to clothe me and feed me and give me an education.

My father was one of these men that, you know, he was a good man as long as he didn't drink. Now my father was an alcoholic. I didn't know this until I got into alcoholics anonymous. As a matter of fact, I didn't know anything about alcoholism until I got into AA. And so I didn't stand a chance from knowing anything about my disease until I got here.

Although there were a lot of opportunities, I didn't know anything about alcoholism until I got into AA. And as a young kid growing up, our mama promised my mother that I'd never drink. I'd never be like my father. And sure enough, I went off to college and this is when the fellows came back from World War 2. A lot older than I knew how to drink.

I adjusted to this environment and became one of them and I guess I wanted to do what the big boys were doing and wasn't long before I was drinking with them. Had a lot of problem with it in the beginning, a lot of gagging exercises, getting it down. You know, we work at it rather hard. I used, you know, I used to hear them talk about the pleasure that comes from drinking and I didn't quite understand what they were talking about because I was going through those gagging exercises and then it was kind of smooth sailing. And one night I asked one of them, I said, when does the pleasure come that you speak of?

And I've never forgotten what he said. Days, he says, if you remember, there's a little pause in between from the time you take the drink and when you throw up, that's when the pleasure comes. I went on through college and, I had a good time drinking in school. Had a good time. Didn't get any serious trouble.

I didn't know what a hangover was because I was, young, athletic, and drinking good and enjoying life. And and came to senior, I studied engineering, but I began to do some peculiar things along about my senior year. I I was there on a partial basketball scholarship and when I got ready to graduate it from college, I was off the job coaching high school basketball down in my home state and in Northeastern North Carolina. And I my home state and in Northeastern North Carolina. And I don't know I don't know.

It's it's it's hindsight. I look back now and and and I was looking for glory, I think, and then my alcoholism and glory seemed to go hand in hand and and I decided to coach high school basketball. And I went into this profession and I had a lot of success in it in the beginning until the bottle got the best on me. And I fell upstairs in the coaching profession. In the beginning, when I went to my first job, you know, I took the outlook that well, here I am in this community.

I set a good example for the young people. I do not drink except on the weekends And this was the outlook I had my 1st year. The 2nd year, I began to find myself meeting some of my former college mate at various cities throughout the state for a weekend party, you know, parties parties and there were balls. And then a little bit later on after I got a little bit further up the ladder, I began to find myself having a place to go every night to drink usually with some other school board members. I've often looked back at this situation.

To my recollection, I never had anything to do with any of those school board members that didn't drink. So I had a place to go every night to drink. And my along about my 4th or 5th year, I've forgotten which, but I got to the morning drink. I finally got to the point that I had drink or be on an influence of alcohol in order to perform, to go to school and do what I was supposed to do because I had to teach a few classes. People begin to see this in the community.

Everybody except me and I don't remember the first time I've called in about my drinking. I denied it. I resented it and got mad about it. And I began to put up that fight that we put up, began to deny it and do all the things that we have to do to prove that we're not drinking and look for a skate hatch and what I did outside of what I do is get married, you know, divert their attention. And, we do strange things and this is one of the strange things that I decided I'd get married.

And so I met a young lady, we called her for 2 weeks and we got married. Now when you do this in the school system, you do get attention. I don't know if you'd divert the attention, but you get attention. And, to give an example how this marriage began, we had a I don't know if you've ever heard of 1, but we had a group honeymoon. We carried 3 other couples with us and this is the way my marriage began and I can remember when we came back or we got I got married on the first time on July 4th.

Now nothing but an alcoholic would do this. You get married on July 4th. And from the time we got back from this group honeymoon, she began to speak to me about my drink and I remember promising that I wouldn't drink anymore when school started. It was the first time that I realized that not that I had a problem, it it was the first time I began to see that I was having, you know, I I couldn't stop drinking. Not the fact that I had a problem.

My good mother, I had one of these mothers and still do, They love me to death. I was the only boy. I had 2 sisters. My mother raised me and gave me about everything I needed going up. My mother loved me so much that I just about died from it.

And it was long about this time that my mother decided she'd try to help me. And, in just a few short months, I was, sent to some of the best drying out places up and down the East Coast. The good family doctor made arrangements for you to go to these places for my nerves. I was having a lot of nervous breakdowns. Nobody ever mentioned alcoholism, alcohol, or my nerves were in bad shape and so they'd send me these places.

And I've come back usually in worse shape than when I went. I had a brief period of sobriety, not sobriety. I didn't know what sobriety was then. I just didn't drink for a while. I managed to get through that year and the next year, I was fired on the kind of my drinking in the community.

Beginning to get into a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble. I developed another disease that's associated with alcoholism. I began to write checks. You know, I didn't have well, for a long time, they honored them through my mother and then she got callous and they began to come to see me about these things and I can remember.

This is the truth. The only way I can illustrate it, I can remember at the school when it was a little consolidated school and I can remember when the county sheriff used to come to the schoolhouse to see me about some of these bad checks and he'd call me outside to his car, and at that time, it seemed to me that all those police or sheriffs drove these old black tunnels, had that radio world that just kept waving, Just waving, you know, a sign of authority as a radio world, I think. And as I began to walk out to the car, the kids and the teachers would begin to look through the window at me and they'd begin to talk, I know, and and the thoughts were going through my mind like this. They don't know it, but I'm undercover agent for the sheriff's department. You know, begin to think a little, dream a little.

I don't know about you, but I know about me. It seems to me that I know all my drinking, I always wanted to be somewhere else most of the time. I always wanted to be with somebody else most of the time and always wanted to be doing other than what I was doing most of the time. Never said it's fine. Well, it got to the point that just asked me to leave school.

I had to resign and then I was offered a job in a nuts. A A little bit later on at the rock bottom of schools back in my native state of North Carolina, you know, if you keep moving east, you finally get out to the Atlantic Ocean and that's what happened to me in the long run. I finally got out to the Great Atlantic through my drinking and it didn't take long. Thank God. But I went to this school.

There was a rock bottom of schools and, of course, I was there for other reasons that it wasn't long before I was in trouble at this school to the same problems. It was this wife decided she had had left enough and she left. I got to the point that the only way I can describe my drinking, I had to get up 4 or 5 o'clock o'clock in the morning and at that time, I had it to drink a pint of booze to stop shaking, so I could shave, get my clothes on, get to the schoolhouse. I had to drive 12 miles and begin to perform and I knew what was gonna happen at 12. The shakes would come back again, have some hit in the gym or in the automobile, take a few shots, stop shakes, play for 3 o'clock, get in the automobile, go to beer joints, drink beer, and then go by the store and get enough booze to go on and get stoned to beers.

And this went on for 6 and a half months. Until one day, the principal stopped me in the hall and says, you no longer need it to give us the keys. Didn't call me in his office, just stopped me in the hall and says, you're through. We don't need you anymore. Unbelievable.

I didn't cry and that's unusual at that time. And I've often looked back at this point in my life and and I really believe that I had crossed this this land that this invisible land that we speak of at that time. I've gotten to the point that I take one drink and I could no longer guarantee you my behavior, and to me, that's what an alcoholic is. One drink and I can no longer guarantee you my behavior. I had experienced blackouts before, but never know prolonged blackout and I don't know where I left school that day and I don't know where I went for a period of 2 and a half weeks, but about 2 and a half weeks later, I woke up in jail for the first time in my life where I was living, the city I was living, And when I came to, a man began to talk to me through a cell door.

It was a county health doctor. And I never forgotten his words. He said, John says, your mother has come down here come down here and straighten out all this mess, and it was another mess, a big mess, paid me out again, tremendous summer money, and we're gonna send you to a place where they can cure you. Now, I didn't know what he meant when he said that. I knew I was physically run down because I long I hadn't eaten in a long long time just drinking.

And so they did send me a place for the cure and I think I was about 27 years of age then. In my home state, the state insane asylum is called Dix Hill. Dix Hill, and I've often said I too found my thrill on Dix Hill. That's that's where I went for the cure. 27 years of age, I didn't know what it was all about and I got to this place and the first few days, they kept me in a building, the main administration building in a locked ward.

There were some strange acting people and, I adjusted to this environment also. The only thing I remember about those people was that they chased squirrels and so I became a squirrel chaser too. I chased squirrels. You will ingest to your environment, in most cases And, this is the point I want to make right now. I really can truly believe, there is a different environment when you drink, and I hasten to say that there's some environments in sobriety too which I was later to be confronted with, But, after 3 days, they put me in a building called the old Edgston building where all the men alcoholics were and they carried me down to the place they called Skid Row, which was down in the basement and, took my clothes away from me and put me in that padded cell and they let me have my running fits and days later, when I got through having my running fits, they gave my clothes back to me and then I was allowed to do the only thing I could do for the next 30 some odd days and that was walk up and down a corridor day in and day out wondering what in the world I was doing there.

I couldn't understand what I was doing there because I began to look around and there was nobody near my age. The men were a lot older than I. And one night observing these men playing poker, they were using matchsticks for chips and they begin to discuss the reason they were there. And I heard one man say, I'm here because my wife put me here. And, you know, I begin to think about mother.

I'm here because my mother put me here and really, she did the only thing she could do at that time. And then I heard this face, this face. I don't know whether the man is living, dead or n a a or what now. I know he's not in Dixiel anymore, but I heard this face and this man says, I'm here because I'm an alcoholic. I'm here because I'm an alcoholic.

My god, when I heard the word, I resisted the word for the very word itself because the first thing that popped in my mind was my daddy. My daddy. And I began to play a game that just about destroyed me until I got the out well, even after I got into alcoholics and almonds. That's, this game of playing I compared my drinking with my father's drinking. And as the truth was known today, my father died many years ago.

Alcoholic death. My father never got kicked out of the profession he was in on the cameras drinking. My father never had to go to jail and be put behind bars for a period of time on the count he was drinking, but I did. My father lost a family and my father never had to be put in an insane asylum on account he was drinking, but I did. And I began to play this game for many years.

The day came that I had to leave Dix Hill. I didn't have anywhere to go but back to my mother. There's a man 27 years of age with a college education, had some success in his life and you go back home and you know how it is. You don't go home except on special holidays and people begin to look at you when you get on the streets and, around the drugstore and, I wonder why you're home and you don't tell them you just come and dig zeal. I had another nervous breakdown and, but people in my small community where I was raised began to know that I was having a lot of nervous breakdowns and they knew my situation better than I did and and I stayed at home a few days and was around the people there and the some fellows that had been in school with me and I often said that I I don't know a great deal about drugs or pills.

I know a great deal about tablets though. My family physician, because of my nerves, when I come out of Dixiel, decided he would give me some tablets to take and I took these tablets as he told me to take them and, of course, you know, I just multiplied the dosage and I took those tablets diligently. I did exactly as he told me to do and I didn't have to drink as long as I put these things down my throat. I began to take them like popcorn, you know, and, I was as like old boy at home says, you know, I was loose as a goose most of the time just floating around and and I've been on these things about 9 weeks until one night they passed about the crowd I was in. I had I had been with this crowd and hadn't been drinking.

I wouldn't take a drink, but these tablets were doing it for me and, I took a drink that night with these fellows and, the compulsion was there again as I know it today and needless to say, in just a few days, I went back to the place that said I'll never go again as long as I live, Dix Hill. I went back to Dix Hill in 5 times in 6 months on account of one fact. I'd become an alcoholic. I can no longer guarantee you my behavior when I took a drink and everybody knew it except me. The last time I went back to Dix Hill, I woke up in the nut part of the bug house and started the drawing out part and there is a distinct difference in case you're interested.

And this was the time I found out about being on a straight jack and tied down to the bed. This was the time I found out about how you do it better electrically. I found out about that too. And I remember a lot of it. And I began to accept my faith.

I began to adjust to this environment and the people that I was associated with in this locked world. There's a strange word in alcoholics anonymous we hear time and time and time again. It's worth coincidence. And I don't know about you, but I can stand here before you tonight and I happen to know tonight for me, for this alcoholic, this power that we speak of began to work in my life a long time before I ever got the alcoholic's enormous. I believe I believe it began to work that day because some by some strange coincidence, I was put back in the old Edgston building with the rest of the many alcoholics out there, being taken off that nut ward.

For no reasons, it's ever been explained to me and I sure as hell didn't ask no questions when they moved me. And I've been there so much that more or less made me an honorary attendant. I was allowed to work in the kitchen and go get the mail and do those things and so one day, 3 other fellows and myself decided we'd leave. Now, like I've always said, I don't wanna sound dramatic, but we escaped And, at that time, you ran like hell and was like cops and robbers and, I I mean, all points of both unless you came out of the nut house over there and we were just drunks. That's all we were.

Crazy drunks, but we were drunks and, sure enough, we got in downtown Raleigh and, we were drunk that night and in a process about 3 days being kicked out of 3 hotels and then through a friend of the family, which I knew in Raleigh, through my mother's contact, I was able to get ahold of some money and get drunk for several days and then through this same friend who put me on a bus and sent me home. I got back to my hometown and my mother was in a hospital up in Richmond, Virginia with a nervous breakdown, And I broke into her home, stayed there for a period of about 2 weeks until I brought her home and found me upstairs in my little baby bed, drinking, having a good time, and and they called me downstairs and rolled me downstairs and they got together and when I say they, I mean my 2 sisters, my mother, my close friend in the family has been like a father to me and they begin to talk and you know who they are. They are those people that get in the next room, crack the door and they begin to talk about how much they love you or what they got to do with you.

And they they made a decision and the decision was, which pleased me to no end and they called me in the den there and gave me a lot of money and told me to leave that part of the country, that I was killing my mother and not to come back and you know how the practicing alcoholic is when he gets that green on his hip. You know, these problems that we have begin to leave us and I could begin to see, well, they are doing the right thing and, it was enough money, to come to the West Coast and live comfortably for a period of time. But I'm an alcoholic. I go full miles to a neighboring town and pull into a broken down hotel and stays for a period of months until the money ran out and then I reverted back to the same thing I'd always done before when the money ran out, write a few checks. Four miles from home, so I went over there one day to get money.

I bought an outboard motor. I didn't have a boat, but I bought a motor And, you know, write a big check, get the get that changed, pick up the motor later, and they, called my mother a few days later and to tell her that my motor was ready and needless to say, John Law was there in that old hotel the same in that afternoon. They carried me back to my hometown, put me in jail again in that local 3 blocks from my mother's home. And each day, the son came up. Everybody came in that night, a lot of them had except me, and I began to wonder what they had me charged with and, one night I got to raise them out of hell down there, but I want to see my attorney and the jailer just out of desperation finally came in and says, who is your attorney?

And I told him who it was. He said, talk to him all you want to. He's in the next cell block. Sure enough, he was. He was in the next cell block.

Now now this power of this program has worked for that man too. That man is now a number of alcoholics anonymous. He's one of our state legislators in my state, but he was my cellmate at one time. Then one morning, I had to go upstairs and to stand trial on a court of law for something I didn't know I've done on a previous drunk. Now you have to understand this scene too because, my sister was a city clerk and when they called my name, she didn't seem to know who I was.

Didn't faze her one bit. The city solicitor was my mother's next door neighbor and I thought sure old Nick would know who I was and didn't faze him one bit. They didn't know who the hell I was and, they got through and sent me back down in the cell and then the next day, they carried me to another courthouse and, the next morning, I was trying for something I didn't know I'd done on a previous job. To make a long story short, as I began to tell you in the beginning, I just kept in the east and further before I finally got out there to the Great Atlantic and I don't know if you know anything about the geography of my part of the country, but there's a place called the Great Dismal Swamp. And I was put on a chain gang.

On account of one fact, I was an alcoholic, although I didn't know it. Take one drink and I can no longer guarantee my behavior. This is the only thing that I don't understand about the disease even today. Even after sobriety and the people that have been around in a a, a, and that's the inability of the alcoholic to see himself as he really is in his worst moments, and I was the same way. Just about died from it.

Oh, there were times when I used to, you know, take a glancing look at myself. Usually, when I was down and out and I had to bargain with somebody to get something and I began to say, well, maybe it's the beer, maybe it's the wine, just a glance and look, but invariably, strange as it may seem invariably, as I began to get my health back from this bow invariably, as I get my health back, the lie in me will revolve again and I've become that same person I've always been. You see, I could honestly deceive myself and this is a sickness at its worst. I did not understand the change. I've often been ashamed of what I had to do and where I went, but if it took this and I did I do think it took this for me to eventually get the alcoholic phenomena and I want you to understand something.

You don't have to do the things that I did to do something about your drinking, but I did. I I was one of these people that just had to be beat down to my knees to see myself, and this was just the beginning. And lo and behold, the day came that I had to leave this place. I didn't want to leave because of the shame. And I went back, nobody in my family to have anything to do with me anymore.

I was an outcast, but I went back to my hometown. They carried me back to my hometown, let me out on the streets, and again I went back to my mother and this time, I don't know why, I went to the back door instead of the front door. I guess I thought I was second place and she came to the door and began to talk to me. She knew I was coming back to town. And that afternoon, they got together again.

My brother-in-law decided he'd come over this time. And hell, if the truth was known, he should have been, well, we won't talk about that. But you know, I heard my mother tell him, say that's my son. He stays here tonight whether you like it or not. Now this was at this time in my life and my drinking, Again, I don't know what surprised to us.

I I made a vow that what I would do, I just wouldn't drink anymore on account of my mother. After 88, I decided I I just wouldn't drink anymore for her. I'd do it for her, and I was able to do this for a period of about 7, 8 months. Finally, we suggested one day maybe I should go to work. Been a long time since I've worked any.

I didn't think I could get a job teaching the state of North Carolina, so through an agency up in another state, Virginia, I was interviewed for 5 different jobs in 5 different cities in 5 different states. And one afternoon, we wound up and run up with Jenny. My mother's with me. She carried me on this trip, talked to these people, and, this man began to talk to him and I liked him and he seemed to like me. He got on the telephone and he found out about my drinking oil in a period of about 5 minutes by talking to some people down in my home state.

I've never forgotten what he said. He said, Dave, he says, we understand you have a problem with drinking at one time, but that you're cured now. And I said, yes, sir. I am. He says, well, we want you to go to work for us.

And I left Ronald Virginia that Thursday afternoon, go back to my hometown down in northeastern North Carolina. My mother financed this whole expedition. I was to go back on the following Saturday. Expedition. I was to go back on the following Saturday.

A wardrobe, money in my pocket, a place to stay when I got there, and, took the old Greyhound bus and had to change buses up in Virginia. And while I had a little layover, I decided, you know, I'd have one drink, but but I bought 2 pints. You have one drink but you buy 2 pints, and this was the beginning of my last drunk, really the only drunk that I like to talk about because I I really believe that if I forget my last one, I might have another one coming. This is the only drunk that I really like to talk about is my last one. I wanna never forget it as long as I live.

I wanna never forget the horror, the hurt, and the loneliness that I experienced on my last drunk. And what happened to me was this, I was able to last on the job. I I went back to the drinking. Naturally, by the time I got to Longrock, I was in full bloom. And the 5th day, I got back to the morning drink.

In 2 weeks, I'd lost a job. I was able to work 1 week. They hired me back twice. They did everything they could do to help me. In the middle of this drunk, my mother got in touch with me on the telephone.

Greatest gift she's ever given me since the day I was born. That's when she kicked me out of her life, and I knew she meant and I knew she meant it. And days later, I was out of the big hotel doing the best I could on the streets. The best I could. 2 weeks later or about 2 weeks later on a Sunday morning, September 11th, I was in a back alley in downtown Roanoke on what they call skid row, trying to get a drunkard liquor down, and the thought occurred to me that I was gonna die in that back alley.

I'd finally gotten to the point that I heard enough to do something about it. I began to search for the truth for the first time in my life. I thought I was gonna die in that back alley, and I didn't wanna die in that back alley. And it all occurred to me by some strange power that my God, I'm dying from what I'm doing. And when the thought came, the other thought came of what do I do?

I'm a leper. I'm the only person on God's green earth like this. In spite of where I've been and the people I've known, I I thought I was a leper and I tried out for some help. The only man, coincidence maybe, the only man that really knew me in that city, the superintendent of the city schools found me that morning in that back alley and I didn't take the drink. He wanted to help me and didn't know how to help me.

He knew a man that knew a man in Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous and he got in touch with that man and he told him what to do and that superintendent of schools carried me to a place in downtown Roanoke that Sunday afternoon called the Easy Does It Club and carried me up those staff steps and he got some fellows to help turn me up the steps. I wasn't drunk. I'd gotten to the point of my last drunk that I couldn't blackout in. I couldn't find that oblivion anymore like a sponge and I hurt. I hurt all over.

My hair hurt, my toenails hurt, You know, sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired and tired of the high cost of low living and that's what it is. And they cutting up those steps and fellows and this man and I don't know why it is, we say to go and look them over when they come in, but, by by God, you look me over. And while you were looking me over, some of you got over in the side there and began to chatter. There was an old gentleman standing in the right hand corner. Never got behind a podium.

I don't mention this man. His name was John Tullock. Old man John, we called him, and that man called me over. He was kind of feeble and he put his arm around my shoulder and he said, son, said, all you've got to do is listen to these people and do what they tell you to do and you never have to be alone again. Now, what old man John was telling me then as I know it today, there was the first few lines of chapter 5, rather have we seen a person fail who is still a follower of path.

That's what he was telling me, And I don't know when he said I didn't have to be alone anymore. It it meant a lot to me because it it just told me that I didn't have to go back out that door anymore, and I didn't know these people if I could do what they tell me to do. And I thank God for the fact that I shut the door behind me when I came in the Alcoholics Anonymous and I haven't had to go out there anymore. Maybe that's what kept me sober my first hour. Maybe the 1st year was to know that I didn't have to be alone anymore as long as I stayed around you.

The old man John, very unique. He's the man that rang my bell. This old man coming to age when he was 76 years of age and he died at 82 with 6 continuous years of sobriety, I helped burn and this is the man that gave me that gift. And after you got through looking me over, you begin to talk to me a little and I begin to shake a little, and I said something about a drink and they said, no, we don't do it that way. Said, if you get too bad, we're gonna get a doctor for you, and then I said something about some tablets and I thought I'd started a revolution and, no no no tablets.

And said, drink some of that coffee. Drink some of that coffee. Now I don't know who made the coffee here this weekend, but I've always contended and I still contend that that there are hell of a lot of people in the alcoholics and almost making coffee that ain't got no business doing it. And this was one of those days. He said, drink the coffee And my God, I thought it was a requirement.

And, you know, it was that hand stuff. It was a solid just to drink the coffee. And so I drank that damn coffee and drank it and drank it and they came into my first meeting that night and I don't know what went on. I I remember some of the people. I don't know.

I'm not nothing about speaker, but most important of all, I remember after the meeting. I'll know never want to forget it. Strangers, complete strangers are walking up to me and saying, we love you and we understand you're gonna be alright. We love you and we understand you're gonna be alright and if nobody told you that when you walked into the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, as far as I've concerned, you've got shortchanged. We love you and you're gonna be alright.

And that night, it was true to me I didn't have to be alone anymore. 3 men got me a room in the YMCA and they stayed with me all night long talking to me, telling him about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and my God, they gave me some hope. They took turns. They didn't nurse me. They promised me they'd get me a doctor if I got too bad and I was hurting.

I was shaking and they took turns sitting on top of them and talking to me. Yeah. You know what I mean. And lo and behold, the sun finally came up and I remember old Claude. Claude's dead now and the first time I ever heard it, he said, Dave says, maybe you can make it today.

He said, that's all we do in Alcoholics Anonymous, just one day at the time. And that was the first time I ever heard it was from this man. My God, you know, maybe it was a coincidence, but, you know, I began to have some hope that maybe I could make it a date but, you know, back in the deep recesses of my mind, I knew one thing, they had to be with me. They had to be with me for me to make it. I knew that and thank God, they stayed with me.

Now, a little later on that morning, they carried me back down to the old Easy Desert Club and I began to meet a man that morning who was appointed my first sponsor. He began to talk to me and asked me some questions, asked me a lot of questions, and all the answers I gave to him were negative, you know, do you have a job? No. Do you have a family? No.