The 1st North Texas Roundup in Dallas, TX

I'm Bob Bezanes, and I'm an alcoholic. Hello. Sober through the grace of God's sponsorship and A since 10th December 1967, and for that, I'm very grateful. This is very cool. It's really nice to be here.

I wanna congratulate Larry and Pat and Tom and Jim and Brooks and the people who put this together. Dallas should have a round up. It's too great a place, too good a AA. The lone star was always a great roundup, and I think that's a small lesson that we all need to learn in AA too. We always think it'll be there forever.

We think our groups will be there forever. We think you know? And if we don't take care of it, you know, it might not be there forever. So it is important what we do, and it is important that we all take responsibility and that we don't just assume that someone else is gonna be doing it. I have so many connections in this room.

It is really something. A lot of memories. I love Texas AA. David and Grace Aronofsky. You know, David got sober about 6 months ahead of me.

We were great friends. I used to come down here all the time. I gave one of the early talks in AA at the 24 hour club. You know? David was supposed to talk, and he had me talk that night, and I was sober about 5 or 6 years, and that was a big deal for me.

1975, I walked into the Hot Springs, Arkansas to give an AA talk at a conference and met Bob White. And Bob was my and Bob subsequently introduced me to Jerry Jones and Bob Weilman and different connected me to Texas. And I can remember him telling me about these guys that he sponsored, and he wanted me to meet them and how you know, I can remember when Marceline called up my wife and said, we want you to come down. Gave her a date, and Linda said, well, I think Bob's busy. And she said, well, I didn't invite Bob.

I invited you. And and she said, well, I got the kids. And she said, well, bring the kids. And, Linda said no one wanted our children. And, they were really, wonderful with couples as Texas, has some of the best family recovery and family afterwards, things that I've run into any place in the United States.

And Marceline said a very wise thing. I think if you and the kids come down, Bob will find a way to be there. At that time, I would have paid my way to any place in the world to give an AA talk, and, that was a big deal for me. I was out, you know, trying to get everybody's attention. And, and the impact of that man on my life, was extraordinary.

He was my Chamberlain, you know, as we talk about there were very few men that were as powerful as Chuck c and Bob White in a room with 30 people. They were just a strong amend because they had lived it. And Texas has a a great common sense to their AA, a great grounding to their AA, a great centering in the book and other practicality with how, like, to me, how they practice the program, and it's been an attractive thing. I was supposed to be at a wedding tonight for one of the guys I went to high school with for his daughter, and he has 36 years in AA. I called on him 36 years ago, and I wish I could be at that wedding.

But my wife's at it and my son, who has 17 years with AA. Or not I don't know. Something like that. And, so lots of memories. I, Debbie, your talker Friday night, I was an AA when she walked into Minnesota.

So I saw her very often through the first four years of her sobriety, and we were very active in service. I knew Vinoy before they added a v to our name. But I can remember being in Amarillo or Lubbock or some place that time that Jim took off. Sitting on the steps having a conversation with you, we shared. And I remember being in Bob White's house when Bob died.

So this is cool because I love Texas. I have a home I've got a home in Texas for 25 years. I've done in Lake Whitney, and I've bought that home with Jerry when Bob died. Kind of a funny time to buy it, but I figured if I didn't stay connected, I was gonna lose my contact with the people, and they're and the people here are important to me. And that's been a nice a nice part of my life.

I started drinking when I was, a freshman in high school. I was 4 foot 11, £95, mostly mouth. I was an insecure kid. I went to a military school on a college campus. We were in uniform, very strict military.

I was a problem kid through grade school. Didn't think I I wasn't a bad kid. I just couldn't sit still, and I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I was today, they'd say I was attention deficit, then they just said I was a little ass. And, you know, I just was always in trouble.

Not bad stuff, just stuff. And, I got thrown out of I was sent home. I spent 2 months in the principal's office. It just, you know, that kind of stuff. And when I went to Saint Saint Thomas, which is the military school I went to, it we drank in high school like most people drink in college.

We had fraternities. Of my 5 closest buddies, 4 are in AA and one's in Allina. Of a class of a 117, we have 12 members of Alcoholics Anonymous. We we had a lot of alcoholism. We had a lot of recovery.

I mean, that is, you know, you know, most a lot of Irish Catholics, they had kids come from all over the United States and Central America. We were the boarding school, and we had, I love that. It was a good school, and I still see I live in the same town that I was growing up in. Never let me know I could leave. I'm, it was very Catholic, large clans, you know, so families were friends of families.

They had 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 kids, you know. And so you often you know, your whole range of brothers and sisters were friends of other families of a whole range of brothers and sisters. I suspect Louisville was much like that, and that's what's cool today. I mean, they they walk out and they know you're a bazan. They don't know which one.

They don't know who you're related to, but, you know, they just know that somehow, you know, you're connected, and that's nice. So it's like a village. It kind of it kind of assists. I love drinking. I just, my heroes.

My father and his friends were my heroes. Those were the men that came back after the 2nd World War and made life look easy. You know, they were active in their communities. They were, you know, hard drinkers, hard players, hard workers. You know, they and they built communities, and they were very attractive to me.

And they cocktail parties were the order of the day. And I think we played house, you know. I mean, in in my day, if you could dress up in a suit, they'd serve you. I never reached puberty till I was 40, and I, I mean, that was one of the things I wanted. I was so small.

I remember praying that I wanted to have more hair on my body, and I wanted to be heavier. I just didn't know they would grant that about 2 weeks ago. I I was kinda hoping for it, and and, I was kinda hoping that it comes through in high school, but it never it never happened. But we drank our brains up, made false IDs, got arrested, got in car accidents, and we just had a hell of a time. And by the time I finished high school, and a couple of us almost died.

Alcohol poisoning, you know, I mean, we we did it up pretty good. We're pretty serious drinking and for high school drinking. And, I went away to school. Thought my drinking had become normal. Thought I'd get away from my own man and the police.

And, you know, I went to Notre Dame as, Tim talked about today, and I the the talks have been terrific. I enjoyed very much hearing Ken. I I'd heard that Debbie was remarried and happily remarried, which is very cool, and, better being unhappily remarried. I think none. And Vinoa, I've always loved.

Tim was the talk I came to hear this morning. I don't I don't know. You know, you go to a conference and there's 8 talks, and you just and I've listened to Tim's talk on tape, but I I I there was some very special stuff for me today. And you just connect. It it depends on where you are.

I've been in kind of a flat spot, and things haven't been going. I don't know why. You know, no particular deal. You just you know, you walk this road for 30 or 40 years. You're gonna hit some flat spots in the road, and you do your best.

I think I'm getting ready to do some more step work and kinda get out of the trench that I've been been digging. And, so when you go to a conference, there's always to me 1 or 2 talks that kinda connect you. One of them will probably be tomorrow morning with Steve, so that's cool. And, so I went away to Notre Dame, and I became the class drunk. And it was really important to me.

You know, the status in high school was whether you were a jock, good looking, and, you know, how you were with the ladies. Then all of a sudden, when everybody figured out after high school there was, you know, college, then it was kinda like, were you going to college? And most of the people in the college the high school I went to did. Now which one were you going to? That gave you some status.

So it was a big deal going to Notre Dame. I mean, I gave that away. They should donate that. You know? I donated it.

I was, a daily drinker. I was a gambler. I was a thief. I started, you know, I started stealing when I was in grade school from my own man. I was just I buy candy in prodigious amounts.

I think our physiology the physiology of alcoholics is different. I my mom and dad had 21 grandchildren. In my family, there's 2 of us that are in AA, and the other 2 boys in my immediate family. I have 2 cousins in AA. We have, like, 7 kids who are attention deficit.

I think we just have I I have 2 of my 3 kids are attention. I I just think our physiologies are different. I think our level often our level of discomfort. When I took my first drink, man, I mean, it was just you know? Mean, Tim talked about that today.

The level of comfort I experienced, I was in pain. Didn't know I was in pain. I thought, you know, that everybody went else to it. It seemed like everybody else didn't worry about the living of life than I knew about the living of life. And when I took that drink, I mean, whatever discomfort I had just disappeared.

It just disappeared. Why wouldn't you go back and do that as often as you could? I mean, it's nuts. I mean, we talk about it like it doesn't work and drugs and all this sort of thing. I think most of people that drink drug that use drugs today, they just never understood what a wonderful drug alcohol was.

I mean, for the bang for your buck, baby. I mean, it is I mean, it is just it is it is wonderful. And and but so many of the kids as my children. Linda Linda and I, I'll get into the lay. We have 3 boys.

They are 26, 34, and 37. They have 8, 15, and 19 years of sobriety. I've turned my wife in as a carrier. None of us were alcoholic when we met her. So so I was diagnosed as an alcoholic when I was 19 years old.

I was, once or twice a year, I got in kind of a death deal. I'd crack up a car, get arrested, I'd get shot at, or something happened to me. And, I mean, I was in trouble, and they were trying to get me help. And I got diagnosed when I was 19. I thought that was goofy.

I went down to school, read some books on alcohol, and I talked about alcoholism and latent homosexuality. I wanted no part about I was unwilling to face alcoholism, much less late in homosexuality. I later found out that was kind of a Freudian based idea, and my psychiatrist said he didn't follow that school. I was I got I I walked out of Notre Dame middle of my senior year. You know, Rudy went through Notre Dame.

I passed I mean, Rudy attended Notre Dame. I passed through. You know, I started out as a b student and ended up as a, you know, 2.000. I went to school one day a week, maybe. I I was supported myself with gambling.

I'm drinking every day. I go to you know, when I really I went down and talked to the priest today about the time I was leaving, and he just said, why don't you just go try? Go back to your room and just try. And I didn't know where my classes were. But think of that.

I did not know where my classes were. I mean, later, I was to find out that there is such a thing as karma, and I was gonna have these little crap heads that I was their parent of, and they were going to go to my my middle boy went to 5 colleges, and he never got the concept of attending until the 3rd college, which was which was in Texas, Saint Edwards. Before I forget, those 2 women who, had the one day, that's very cool. Congratulations. That was Shelly and, Tammy.

We have that tradition where we give books away, and usually we're not so flaky that we can't find the books. Tim Tim has been walking around with the books most of the weekend. I'm sure we will come up with them. But one of the twists I hope we do in that tradition is I hope that the person who receives that book with the 1 year will come back next year, and along with the old timer, give it to the next person who has 1 year. So you have 1 year.

And if that's true, this could be a wonderfully important day for you. This could be your sobriety day. And, it would be wonderful for all of us to think that you would come back and celebrate your birthday with us on an annual basis. So I walked out of you know, I didn't know where my classes were. I mean, that's you have to be an ass to not know I mean, you do.

I mean, yeah, that is about on the outward edge of I was due to be commissioned. I had to get a medical release, or I would have been drafted during the Vietnam deal. I got a medical release for alcoholism. I I I was you know, that's about bad. I came home.

I finished school at a local university. When I finished school, my father asked me to leave the house. He said, Bob, we love you. We just can't deal with you. You know, there's 7 kids in the family.

You're just, you know, you don't follow any rules. We're just having too many troubles. Good luck. And got a job at a liquor store, and you have to use your gifts. And so this is the last year of my drinking, and I, this is Vietnam town.

I'm trying to get into Oscar candidate school, then a guard unit opened up, and it turns out that they you know, I failed the physical. I've taken the physical 4 times, and they failed me the 4th time. So I get a job at the liquor store. I'm stealing booze. I'm working at the liquor store.

I've got fired after 3 or 4 months at the liquor store. I start working as a waiter. I'm living not quite on Skid Row, but tacky would be the word, you know, that you would I'm shacked up with waiters and waitresses and people, but, you know, doctor Seuss, that child author, those are actual photographs of people I live with during the last year of my drinking. And, my family hadn't seen me in a heck of a long time, and that was fine with me. I was pretty ashamed of how I was conducting myself and what I was doing.

I went to a party one night, and I got my face kicked in, and I got fired at the waiter. And I was tapped. I no place to go, and I went back to my dad, and I and I I asked if I could move back in the house, and he allowed me to do so on the condition that I wouldn't drink. And I I guess I lied because I couldn't couldn't stop. I tried to stop drinking, went into hallucinations.

I am 20 3 years old. I have an enlarged liver. I'm drinking, you know, about a 5th a day, most every day for the last year. Didn't know you'd get in trouble not drinking, but, you know, that was not a good idea stopping abruptly. When I moved back in the house, I really tried to change my life.

I was about I hated being the I can't tell you how many nights I cried myself to sleep listening to my parents fight or argue about what to do with me. They were at their wits' end. You know, those family meetings where the police would bring you home, or you'd be in the hospital, your brothers and sisters would be yelling, your mother would be hysterical, my father's trying to calm everybody else down. You're the subject, but not a participant in the conversation. And I I had enough of those and they'd had enough of those.

And I, I got back together with Linda. I got on the with together I have a lovely wife, Linda. She just celebrated this month. She will have 39 years in Elena. I am one of the more overmarried alcoholics.

I have a terrific wife. I have been a constant source of growth for her. I don't think she'd have half the program she has today if she wasn't married to me and the and the 3 boys. I don't know what she did to get all 4 of us. I think it must be a karmic sort of thing where she must have been a contagious prostitute in the 13th century, or that we might have to come back and spend good But she'd be here without question, and she gave me a pass to go to the lake for a couple of days.

I'm gonna go to the lake after I leave here. I got that together with Linda, and I you know, we broke up for the last for about the last year of my drink, and I got a job as executive training and manufacturing concerned, bought my first car. I thought, wow. You're finally gonna be a grown up. Only I couldn't shut my drinking down.

Now I'm in a company and I'm the company drunk. I'm in a company of engineers. I use up my sick leave in the 1st 4 months at work. I'm falling asleep at my desk. I just, you know, I am a basket case.

Linda so I'm really loaded. Just had my face kicked in as a waiter, went to her at a party where she's got another date, walked up to her, and said, I'd like us to seriously consider getting married. And, she she agreed to meet me the next day, and she agreed to that god awful plan. I have to remember that today when I'm sponsoring these guys that I you know, that Linda said you know, she was at the time working as a psychiatric nurse in a alcohol ward. So I, but I am in trouble.

I quit that job. I take a sales job. I had the sales job a couple of months. Buddy of mine gets married. I go out, I don't know, about a 4 day drunk, and I wake up a Thursday afternoon sometime on August 19 July of 1960 7.

And I don't know if I have a job, a fiance, or a place to live. I panic. All of a sudden, the recommendation that I call IA didn't seem like so nuts. I called out colleagues anonymous, and 2 men came out and talked to me. I talked to an awful lot of people trying to help me, a lot of experts, you know, a lot of church people.

They usually ask you a lot of questions, and they'll make recommendations to your family afterwards. I thought that's what this was gonna be like. I really did. And I went out and I went one guy has 6 months, one guy has 6 years. And, they sat me down in the booth.

They said, we're from AA. We had a drinking problem. We've found a solution in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we'd like to share it with you and hope it's some use to you. If it isn't, don't worry about it. For some reason, talking to new guys helps us stay sober.

So the it seemed like there wasn't any and they told me the drinking story. And within a relatively short period of time, I found myself identifying with them. And it was they changed my life. We have many traditions in Alcoholics Anonymous. One of the greatest ones is of which is that we share our experience, strength, and hope, and not our ideology or our philosophy.

We don't preach at each other. We don't teach at each other. And these two men altered my life that night in that booth. That night, I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Time. I drank twice after that night.

Once after a month of sobriety on a business trip to the West Coast, I didn't call AA, And I got drunk and got in trouble. I came home. I had almost 3 months of sobriety, and Linda and I were married, and I drank on our honeymoon, which I think subconsciously I've been planning for some time. I didn't I wasn't conscious, but I'm pretty sneaky. And we honeymooned in Acapulco, you know, where the divers dive off those cliffs.

I dove off those cliffs on my last drunk. I was in the audience watching the world's high diving contest. I thought, god, that's not so tough. I could so I drove off to public landing, climbed up about 85 or 90 feet, split my swimsuit, cut my leg. I'm stuck on this cliff.

Linda's going absolutely nuts. I mean, she is looking at this horse's ass, and she's she's trying to get the police to get me down, and they're I'm watching the waves, and I'm trying to figure out whether to jump or dive, and I finally figured, I'll screw it, and I dove. And God watched it after fools and drunk because I made it. If it would've jumped, I would've died. You have to get out 34 feet to hit the middle of the channel, and you can't jump.

You can dive that way. You can't I didn't know that. I might have known it intuitively, but I didn't know it deductively. We started going down there with the kids on vacation, and my my 10th our 10th anniversary, she gave me a picture of the cabs in La Quebrada. We were watching the divers 1 night at midnight, and she said at the bottom of the picture, it said there, but for the grace of god.

And I said, god, that's the dumbest thing I've ever done. And she said, Bob, it's not even in the top 10. I don't know how you could share a life with someone and see us so differently. So I came home, and, I was embarrassed. I didn't wanna go to the meeting.

Didn't wanna call Warren. She said, for god's sakes, call Warren. I have the same sponsor that I walked in the front door with, Warren McGinley. His name he is 52 years over. He is 87 years old.

Debbie knows him well, and Jerry knows him, and Bob knows him. He was a mailman and a very fancy man. I think today, if you got him in a room, you wouldn't think he was a big book expert. We have lots of big book experts. We got lots of guys that have memorized the first 100 64 pages, and I wouldn't go on a fishing trip with them if they paid me.

Please don't take that to be that I don't revere our book. Don't promote the study of the book. My sponsor for me was the book. He he he lived he was a, the 12 step champion of the uptown group of alcohol use animals. He must have done 30% of the 12 step work.

See Wally back there. Wally was up in our country for a while with the Yankees, and but my sponsor was a heck of a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and just the perfect man. I have I have had the privilege of doing a lot of stuff in AA. I got to be a delegate. I've done a lot of 12 step work.

I sponsored a lot of guys. And everything that I've done in Alcoholics Anonymous has just been following Warner on. He just I just copied him, and and his wife sponsored my wife. And it was like Sam and Larry. You know, how many people do you think Sam and Larry help?

I mean, it's how many people do you think David and Grace helped? It is, you know, or Jerry or John or just you know, we we we talk about principles about personalities, but I'm telling you, baby, we are a a society of personalities who practice principles. I mean, it is thank god for the personalities and the attraction the people in this room. This people is full of personalities who have affected and changed lives of other people, And it's I mean, there's a spirit. There's a life force.

It isn't, you know, it it is very cool. And, so I started going to AA in 24 by this time. I guess I was married, so my wedding our wedding anniversary is 1 week before my sobriety anniversary. So I've been married 39 years this December, and I'll be sober 39 years December 10th. And, I wouldn't be married today if Linda wasn't an island, I don't think.

My story is kinda tacky. I had problems in sobriety, and I know that most of you don't. And, but, you know, you get and, the gift for me, I liked AA for the moment I walked in. Gift. I felt at home.

I liked the people. I liked the conversation. I felt, we'd we'd joke about potential. But, I mean, that wasn't a joke for me. I was always the guy you know, mother always said, Bob, you're not very bright.

Dress well. I have, I have tried to But I was the guy. Always overdrafts. Always tried to, you know, very socially astute, and we, but it gets old. I can get in Notre Dame.

I can't finish Notre Dame. I can I can get in the Catholic church, but I can't you know, as soon as they found masturbation and booze, you know, I mean, that was I was I was in serious conflict with the church almost from the get go? And I'm in a great family, and I can't do family very well. And it seems like I can get in, but I I just don't seem to have the stability. In fact, they're extraordinary when you listen to Tim and you listen to Steve and you listen to Debbie and all the talk.

We can often do the extraordinary. We can't do the ordinary. We can't do the ordinary. I mean, did you hear Tim talk about going to work? And I'll talk a little bit about that.

Well, we can't do that. I mean, the idea of of doing the same thing tomorrow. I mean I mean, you know. I mean, but we are full of people who were near jet pilots, almost senators, you know, one broke from extraordinary heights, and we can't be potty trained. I mean, it is just it is just you know, I mean, it is phenomenal.

It really is. And that's funny, but it's not funny because it it's it's it's still bedeviling many of us in the room. Not well. Not me, but many of us in the room are struggling. So the gift I liked AA from the moment I came in.

I wasn't it was easy for me to go to AA. It was not easy for me to do the work, but I kept because I kept coming, I had a series of problems that were bedeviling me, and I thought of alcohol if I had the problem in AA, I had the answer to those problems that'd be resolved and it might take a period of time. Hell, it might take a year. And, I, had problem getting up in the morning. I later found out that it had something to do with when you went to bed.

But at the time, I was having the issue. I had I did not connect those two things. And, I had money problems. I spent 3 or $400 more a month than I made in 1967. If you do that over a long period of time, you will end up in debt.

I just wanna report that to you in case you're running that one and you don't know where it goes. You know? Linda and I started to have kids, and I had great parents, but even great parents make mistakes, and I wasn't gonna make the mistakes my parents made, and I didn't. I made all the mistakes my parents made in a bunch they never thought of. I was loud, impatient, angry, immature, and sometimes violent with my children.

Not proud or happy or pleased with that, but that's an accurate description. I come from 4 or 5 generations of alcoholism. I also come from 3 or 4 generations of rage. I have helped break the pattern of alcoholism in my family. I hope I have helped break the pattern of inappropriate anger and acting that up.

And, and I had a gambling problem. It was, more of a hobby. 4 or 5 hours a day, 4 or 5 days a week. I wouldn't have picked up a deal. It was, but I was making 7 or 8 grand a year playing backgammon, and it was like a second job.

That's what kinda gambling has always kept me afloat. And I had some work I had trouble going to work, and I had a little trouble staying at work, and I had a little trouble working at work. Other than that, I was a pretty good worker. And I had all these problems when I came in AA, and none of them made my my first inventory. No.

But isn't it true that we come in and we're not looking for those? I mean, we're I'm looking for the worst things that I had done, the things I'm most ashamed of, the things that separate me, the things that I don't want to tell anybody. Those were the things I had the most attention on. Those other things were kind of smaller items and didn't make the list. You know, you could have told me to put them on my list.

I they wouldn't have. You know, I might have put them on the list if I was told to. But, my 1st year, I didn't have a very good sense of my defects of character. I started to get a pretty good sense of them after my 1st year. And, my 1st year, I was on a honeymoon.

I loved AA and everything about it, the people in it. I let you know, I was learning about it and reading, and I would start grieving and sober. I was everywhere. And, then my 2nd year, I started to get in touch, and 1 by 1, my issues would arise. And 1 by 1, I would take them on and try to deal with them.

And I would, yeah, make a little progress, and then I'd go backwards. And then my 3rd year, they started to bother me a little bit. My 4th 5th year I'm gonna talk a little bit about problems in sobriety. It's gonna sound like my sobriety wasn't that I wasn't very happy and it wasn't okay. That's not particularly true.

You know how people get up here for their first anniversary and thank you for their lives, then they get up here for your 3rd anniversary, and they tell you how sick they were the first two years? When you're through it, when you're past it, you can go back and see it in a way you you you don't we don't see it when we're in it. We don't see it when we're in it. So, you know, 1 by 1, I take these issues on. And, you know, the early one of the most important thing that happened to me is I had a wall built around me so you couldn't see the unattractive things that went on in my life.

I behind the wall, it said, you like me, but you only like what I'll let you see about me. If you could see everything about me, you'd hate me. And who knows? I hate me. I mean, who knows more what a lousy, crummy, insufficient, rotten person I am than me.

I'm comparing my inside with your outside. That's kind of the view that we have, some of us. And I had to tear that wall down in order to really surrender and enter alcoholic sadness. Most of us come here with a profound sense of uniqueness. If the edges are not knocked off that, you will only look for the differences.

K? You will only you will defend yourself as Tim was talking about. You'll just, you know, say I not that. I didn't do that. I didn't do this.

So you'll look for the differences. But my wall started to get chinks, and then when I called Alcoholics Anonymous, I continued in this conversation with my sponsor, and I tore it all the way down on my 5th step, and I made a discovery. I'm not unique. My personality may be unique, but not my illness, not my behavior, not my experience, not my feelings. And when I discovered that, I started to have a sense of hope that what worked for you would work for me.

You know what I wanted to find in AA? I wanted to find a Bob expert. I wanted to find someone so profoundly bright, so insightful that they could look through me. I didn't find that. You know what happened to me?

Is I surrendered. I took step 1. I became an alcoholic. When I became an alcoholic, I had 30 or 40 people surrounding me who know about alcoholism and a solution to alcoholism. I had teachers and experts that I could talk to, and they served me.

Then all of a sudden, during my 3rd 4th year, I'm looking for an expert on Bob again. All of a sudden, I'm starting to have issues that I don't think someone 2 years sober should have, so I start to build my wall back up. Thank you very much for having my drinking problem, but stay out of my sex life. Stay out of my marriage. Stay out of my gambling.

Stay out of my money. Stay out of my work. Brick by brick, sober, going to 5 meetings a week, sponsoring guys, I build my wall back up. And I'm, you know so I find myself in my 6 or 7th year of AA in trouble. And pretty active guy.

And I care about how I live, and I'm trying to do a good job, and I'm in trouble. I am trying to resolve the gambling, the money spending, the, you know, all those sorts of issues, and I'm not doing very well. The new guy comes in the meeting. I get him a cup of coffee. I sit him down.

He shares that bushel basket full of manure that everybody has when they come in, and he and I say, hey, baby. I know it's bad. But as bad as it is and as hopeless as it seems, you are in the right place. If you come here and you share that bushel basket full of manure and you get a sponsor, you get into the book, and you're taking the steps, it's gonna be okay. You see that guy over there?

He's got 3 years. He's starting to hit it out of the park. His life used to be such a mess, you wouldn't believe it. I'm glad you're here. You're you're gonna be okay.

And then I get in the car at 11 o'clock at night, and I drive home and I'd say, Bob, you've been sober 8 years. When are you gonna be okay? You just bought a $400 barcode at a store to get a $600 bill at. When are you gonna stop spending money you don't have to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like? And, Cecil Corregal stole that.

I didn't know. When are you gonna stop gambling? When are you gonna learn how to work? Everybody knows how to work. When are you gonna learn how to work?

I didn't know. I didn't know. I had a problem. The problem was is I knew the answer was God. I knew the answer was to deepen the spiritual contact that I had and, you know, deepen that aspect of my program.

That's the other thing that has stayed my bacon in AA is I couldn't keep my mouth shut, so I've been sharing pieces of my life. I shared about 65% of what was going on with my sponsor, and I know in Texas, you do a 100%. I think that's, I think that's very cool. But I was only sharing about 65% of it with me. You don't see it, and you certainly don't see it as it is.

And, I knew from the old timers, whom I have always admired and hung around, that they had more depth than I had, so I had to move in that direction. And I had a resentment and hang up about the church. I'd get meetings of spirituality, and when it got too heavy, I just split. I'd go down we we had 2 meetings and often that we have the newcomer meeting downstairs. And if it got too spiritual upstairs, I just go downstairs.

And, there was a problem. I mean, I go knock on the door and God says, who's there? I said, god, it's Bob. God says, what do you want? And I said, I think you're sober, baby, and my pants are on fire.

I need help. And God's gonna say, okay. Then I'm gonna say what every person always wants to know, comes over to my house, you know, late at night and got a problem and they share the problem with me. Then they sit down and say, what do I do? So I'm gonna say to God, what do I do?

You have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what God might ask someone like me to do. Get up in the morning. Go to work. Stay at work. Work at work.

Be kind and loving and gentle to your wife and children. Get on a budget. That's a harsh word. I I I think that I think it's an Al Anon word that has leaked into Alcoholics Anonymous, and and and stop gambling. I mean, you don't you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out if you've got my list of defects of character.

And I and my mind was as soon as I cleaned my act up, then I can go to God. What's the what's the use of going to God if you can't fulfill the conditions of the relationship? So I was stuck in that place for almost 2 years. And I'm not thinking about drinking, but I am thinking about shooting myself. And I don't know how serious I was, but it I'll tell you, I was I was in a bad place.

I just felt like a loser. I and I was so tired of being a loser. I just you know, good starter, bad finisher, loser. And I, so out of desperation, I went back to the steps. We in in our area, we have 99% of our meetings are closed up discussion groups.

I never gave a talk at my a group till I was 24 years sober. We didn't have we had one meeting a month that we had a speaker at. It was always outside speakers. And, so I'm I'm into the steps. So now I go through the steps for the 3rd time formally.

Boy, step 1's easy. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm powerless and unmanageable. Just absolute no brainer. You know what would fool me? Step 2.

K. I've lost step 2. I believed that for us, I could put my hand on a lie detector and you'd say, do you believe god's gonna restore us to sanity? Yes. Needle doesn't move.

Do you believe God's gonna restore Bob to sanity? No. I'm 7 years sober. I'm on the down escalator walking up. I mean, I am just I'm losing.

It is not I got more problems now. I mean, I feel like I gotta leave AA, go to Gamblers Anonymous, Spenders Anonymous, Raging. I mean, I you know? And, everybody's you know, I'm active. I'm doing a lot of 12 step work.

Everybody's telling me what a good job I'm doing. I'm thinking, god, can't you see it? I'm dying inside. I'm going to a meeting with you 4 or 5 nights a week, and they they don't see it. And I most of the time, I don't get into it.

I'm busy enough and I'm active enough that I'm not into it, but it leaks through in the morning. It leaks through at night. It leaks through at periods where I don't have my defenses on. And so so out of desperation, you know, I had I had to regain the second step. And I started to see people with bigger problems than I had with smiles on their faces with dignity walking through the fire that I was trying to avoid and walk around.

And I came to believe that God would restore me to sanity. I took step 3 with my sponsor on in my knees in his office. I didn't want it. We didn't do that much, but I started to go to conferences. I started to hear people talk about that, and, I thought, what the hell?

I'll try it. And I try it. And then I said, my first two, four steps had been with, clergy, and this one, what I was gonna do with my sponsor. And I said, when you're when I'm done, be careful because whatever you recommend to me, I'm gonna do. I said, I feel like I'm dying of thirst lying next to a lake.