The 6th annual Fellowship in Elgin, TX

Hi, y'all. My name is Troy Nixon. I'm a recovered alcoholic. And, that brought tears to my eyes. That brought tears to my eyes, brother.

I've been sober since January 27, 1999. Thanks to all the cast that came before us, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the God that I found by working those steps and and, hanging with you people. It's a real honor to be here today. I came out to the Fellowship of the Pines golf tournament last year. At the last minute, I called called Janice and Rudy, and, I couldn't get a hold of them because they were at a AA meeting, you know, late at night, the night before.

And I finally got a hold of them and I went out and played. And and Janice was kidding me that day. She said, I'm a get you to come out and speak out there in Bastrop sometime. And, and then she called me about a month and a half ago or something. And, and I, like Carla, said yes.

I was at birthday night in April when, she and a bunch of her littermates and and a bunch of their and their grand and their great grand and we're all there, and I was thinking, man, there are a lot there are a lot of people here that she could've picked. But she was kidding me. She said, well, I've been watching you. I've been watching you. And, so it's a great honor to be here today.

It's a beautiful day. I, you know, I had a pretty normal childhood. I had loving parents. I had one brother. You know, I used to get to go my dad was a scout leader, and we went to the beach a lot.

He went fishing a lot. I got to tag along with the boy scout troop and, you know, go on these camp outs even though I was too young to, you know, be a boy scout, but got to go to some cool places. We built a teepee at our house and took that. He was the order of the arrow leader. It was just cool stuff.

I grew up in Houston. We moved to, West Texas for a little while, then went back to Houston. And, you know, I was thinking about what Carla was talking about, her first first drink. You know, mine was somewhere it was pretty early, but I remember we had a neighbor who had a, my best friend's dad had a, one of those keg refrigerators in his garage. And we'd go out there, little kids, and we'd like, you know it was probably more the novelty of the little handle and then something came out of it and it was cold more than, you know, I knew what it was.

I started drinking. I did some other things first that, are not part of this fellowship, at around 13. And then I started drinking pretty much a good bit after school when I was about 15. Drinking beer. I had a buddy and he he was 16 and he had it in his parents' car.

And we would go and get a 6 pack after school. You know, we'd ride around, drink some beers, and then we'd go home, like, 3 each. No big deal. But it started then. And, there were a lot of parties on the weekend in high school, and and I went to those.

And and I remember just getting pretty lit right from the get go, on the weekends. I, I always worked. I I made good grades in school. But around, you know, 16, 17, I I used to go spend the week the summers and a lot of other times with my grandparents down in the Rio Grande Valley, and I learned to surf down there. And I would always go, that way.

And so as I got a little older, I I was doing that stuff more and I started peeling away probably from my father and my brother a little bit. You know, they hunted and fished together and I you know, as soon as I was old enough to say I wasn't going to church, I was I was going to the beach on the weekend. Living in Houston was an hour away, and we would go and, you know, we drink down there and we do other things. And and, you know, I I I know that I started peeling away from my family a little bit, you know, 16, 17, 18. At 18, I actually got in a big fight with my father and moved out.

I finished high school at 17 and moved out and got my first apartment, you know, then it was free run. And, and I worked, and I paid my bills, and I decided to go to school. A year later, I I enrolled at the University of Houston, and I I started going to school there. And I was partying pretty good. I was doing alright in school.

Wasn't really applying myself that much, but, that was the first time I ever drank in the morning. A friend of mine had got me over at this, fraternity house. I was just sort of hanging out with these guys. I was playing some sports. I was playing lacrosse at University of Houston and, I was riding a bike a whole lot and playing a lot of tennis.

And, you know, these guys thought there there was something they could use out of that for, like, competitions. And so I didn't have to do all the the crap that I thought was involved in the fraternity. But the other bonus was they had a beer they had a Coke machine that was a beer machine that one of the alumni, you know, put in this place. And so you could go and get a 50¢ Heineken out of this thing. You get a 50¢ Saint Pauli girl.

You know? And I can remember a few times getting up in the morning and being hurting from the night before and and, going and getting those beers and drinking them before I went to class. And that was that was the first I started drinking in the morning. I started having consequences, right around that same time, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Pretty much every year, there was some sort of legal run-in from PI, taking my dad's big Bronco and and, getting busted in Bel Air, Texas.

You know, at that point, I was more scared about what he was gonna do to me for taking his his pride and joy hunting truck and, you know, high and and drunk and getting pulled over. But I had that. And then, I got my first DWI at age 21 or so. I was working I was in school. I was working a couple of jobs, I was working in a restaurant, I was working for a real estate company.

And I had a Texas real estate license. I was young, I was wearing a suit to school, suit and tie, and go to this real estate company at noon every day and working. Well, you know, I'd always heard honesty is the best policy. And so when I got this DWI on the weekend, you know, it didn't have anything to do with the job. I went and told my boss.

And he told me, you know, the good Baptist that he was god bless you if you're, you know, sorry. But these guys were really into that. They were all Baylor guys, and they had Baylor football players working there. And and he said, I don't think we can have you around here anymore. And that sort of blew that principle of, being honest right out of the water.

You know, it's like I went to this guy and set you know, approached him. And I was hours away from a Texas state broker's license, you know, at 22 years old. And so that was a that was a big blow. So I went full time into the restaurant business and just abandoned the the real estate thing. That was really hopping in Houston at that time.

And, I, you know, there was just so much part of that. That whole little period of my life was pretty much a blur. I ended up getting my degree at about age 25, and I was dating a girl whose dad, it turned out I thought he was some rancher farmer guy, but he was actually a drug dealer. And, moving lots of, drugs around and fancy cars and sorta you know, I peeled off from my family a little bit more along this time because I couldn't very well go to mom and dad and say, you know, Rachel's dad is a drug dealer. You know?

And that's why I'm driving this Mercedes. And that's why I got this gun in in the car with me all the time. And that's why I'm doing this and doing that. I got my second DWI while I was on probation for the first. And I went and spent 11 days in, Harris County Jail.

And I, somewhere right after that, I also got pulled over to Houston Intercontinental Airport for waving a gun at a guy who who spit at us. And, I got busted for that, and I somehow got out of that deal. I spun her uncle's Porsche on I10, Porsche 9:30. Load it. Load it.

And I spun that thing out and got in some trouble there. I mean, this was all, like, quick rapid fire stuff. And her dad told me when I was about 24, right before I graduated, he said, you know, Troy, I think you got a drinking problem. And and I just looked at him, like, who the hell are you to tell me that? You know, he was drinking Crown Royal and smoking weed every single day and doing piles of cocaine.

And I'm just thinking, you know, buddy, you know, I was feeling bulletproof, and I was not buying it. But he was the very first person who ever told me, Troy, you might, you know, give some serious thought to the idea that you got a drinking problem. Well, I ended up breaking up with that girl, still working in a restaurant. And I met my my future wife, around that time. And there was a lot of chaos involved in that too because this other girl was coming around and starting trouble.

But Laura and I, who became my wife and who today is my wife, and I'll get back to that. We got married. I chased her around. I thought, you know, I thought she really has it together. You know, she's gonna be good for me.

I didn't give a a a stitch of thought to the fact that I would be terrible for her. And she had no idea the extent of my drinking problem when we finally got married. I left her at the altar one time. You know, the the wreckage that I put this woman through, just today, every time I mention it, it flips me out. I'm I'm sort of glad she's not here today.

She's at home. You know, she says you go hang with your people. Yeah. But, I left her at the altar. Her whole family came down from Ohio.

Her mom had made the bridesmaids bridesmaids dresses. And I just was having second thoughts, cold feet, and I split. And I went to Mexico for a month and went surfing and and left her. Well, I came back, and we ended up getting married. It was a small service because they didn't come back that second time.

And, she was one of 11 kids. Hardworking family up in Ohio. And they, so we got married. On our, like, a a week, the new our anniversary was December 23rd, 99. On this on, December 31st of 1990, now the book talks about, he has a a a a genius for getting tied at exactly the right moment, especially when some important engagement must be kept.

New Year's Eve, our friends had opened a fancy Italian restaurant. We were going to dinner. It was a big deal. Invited some friends and it was gonna be cool. Well, I had gone with the people I worked with at this point, a landscape company.

The bosses were out of town. They had called me and said, Troy, why don't you pick up a bottle of Crown and meet us? We got this and this and this, and I met them. And, that night, on my way home to this important engagement, I almost crashed into a stopped Houston police Department Cruiser that was at the scene of an accident on the West Loop of Houston. I came zipping around there, and I was blurred, to say the least.

And the next thing I know, I'm getting jerked out of the truck and, arrested. So that was DWI number 3 in 19 in, 19 90. I got home. Laura still didn't know the extent of things. You know, we we did some other things that night.

I walked home from downtown Houston to our house and, showed up, you know, 4 or 5 in the morning. And, they let me out sometime after midnight. They were still a little lenient in those days. And I got home and and went on about business. Well, there were no more legal troubles for a little while.

There were lots of fights with us. She would, always drive me around because, we had a nice little Volvo, and and I would pass out in the car a lot of times. I'd wake up, I'd be in the car in the carport behind our house, and she'd be gone. And there's the drunk husband in in the carport. You know, I get get up and go in the house.

And once again, you know, the devastation that we put our loved ones through or the ones we say we love. Our actions don't exactly show that, I guess. So that was 1990 and and on beyond. And and, in 1990 4, her mom, her dad, and 2 of her sisters, her 2 youngest sisters were killed in a car accident, on the way home from vacation. And I was working at a job down in Clear Lake, and I I was drinking all day long.

My my boss back then used to find the little wine bottles in my truck. You know, he'd find them under the seat and stuff. And, he had had talks with me about this stuff. He would he would put a little message in the bottle. Right?

He would and I'd find it on my you know, I knew it was it was left under the seat or behind the seat, but I'd come back to my truck and it's on the seat with a message talking about miss you know, he would call me mister happy. Oh, shit. Mister happy's here, You know, that's when I was drinking, mister Happy. And I hated that. Boy, it pissed me off.

But he, he gave me warnings and whatnot. Well, I got home. I knew the parents had been killed. I knew this stuff. And, she wanted me to go to the grocery store with her one evening.

And I didn't go. You know? I couldn't be bothered. She was hurting, and I couldn't be bothered. And, she went by herself.

And there was a guy at the grocery store, apparently, who saw that she was hurting. And sent her some flowers. And, took her, you know, I gave her away, he took her away. Whatever you wanna say, she left. And my first thought was, thank God, the bitch is gone.

And now I can, you know, I can get back to business. And so I had the house, she was gone, and, you know, I had friends over and I was partying. I had a bar right out my back door, a really popular bar in Houston. I could go through the backyard, threw a little slot in the fence, under the parking garage, into the bar. There was no driving involved.

A lot of partying. So I went on and, I had a new girlfriend. I had people hanging at my house all the time. In about I got fired from that job and then I sort of got rehired. Some people went to bat for me, you know, because because, you know, like like if the book says, he has, you know, he can build up a bright future for himself.

You know, he possesses certain aptitudes. You know, the guy, you know, I had some I had some things going for me. I had some things against me, but I had some things going for me. And they went to bat for me and I got my job back. That was also the time that I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

And it was down in the in the Montrose in Houston, Texas and it was a very low bottom club with a lot of homeless guys in there. And I went into this meeting with a guy, he was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he had nothing that I wanted, to be quite honest. He was glum. He was just I it just pained me to even get in the car with him to go.

And I went and I saw a bunch more that looked just like him and I thought, you gotta be kidding. And he would take me home and I would go in the front door and I would drink as soon as he dropped me off. Off, you know. It was just like, dude, that's not for me. I'm pretty certain that, hey, that alcoholics anonymous stuff is not for me.

So shortly after that, I was with my boss and our landscape architect and some people in downtown Houston, and we had gone skating, and we were rollerblading and bicycling. And at this time, I had another friend who was giving me a lot of volume. And so I was sort of doing the what Carly and my friend talked about, except I was drinking with. And I was looped up. And we went to this friend's warehouse.

This big, 30 foot tall artist warehouse that this guy lived in. And I got the grand idea to go up the side of the building. There's some I beams inside, you know, the structure of this building. And I started climbing up one of them. And I started going across the eave and they're yelling at me.

They're like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? And I'm not listening. I'm going.

And I get across the peak, you know, I'm going back down. I'm hanging by my hands and feet and going. I had no plan on how to get down. I just went up. And so I'm going along and my feet are above my hands and I'm hanging on and I'm going and my feet came off.

You know, I vaguely remember this. My feet came off and I tried to kick them back up and catch back on and catch back on and my hands came off. And I fell and I hit, you know, a couple of they showed me later because I don't remember a thing after that. I remember falling, and I remember waking up in the hospital, and I had shattered this wrist a million pieces, dislocated this elbow, which are still not right. They're a nice little, first step reminder to me every single day.

And I woke up and I was in terrible pain. And I they they told me, Troy, you hit a chair, a big metal chair, and it broke some of the fall. But also right near there, there was about a 5 foot tall steel ship rudder sticking up like a blade. And I I got sick the first time they took me over to that building, a few months after that. I had one of those big external fixator things in my arm that just disgusted me to even look at.

You know, I had to clean it. I had people come by and and clean it. And, all my friends at that point were convinced that I was trying to kill myself because this woman had left me, and I was despondent and, you know, poor bastard, suicidal. That wasn't it at all. It was just stupid.

I was drunk and, you know, I was an idiot. So I got out the I got out of the hospital. It was right before Christmas, of 96. I think I said 97. It was actually 96, because 90 7 is when I came to Austin.

96 and, I you know, the alcoholic. I went I got home. I got dropped off. I went in the front door. You know, they're like, you need us to come in.

You need us to come in. No. No. I'm good. I don't need anything.

And I went in the front door, and I went out the back door, and I went through the backyard, and through that hole in the fence to the ginger man, and got a beer. I mean, I damn near died, but, you know, the drunk goes. I I gotta get what I need, you know. They took the morphine away, you know, after 5 days in the hospital. And so I went there, and then I walked.

I had my backpack little backpack on. Then I walked to the liquor store and got a bottle of rum, which is what I really needed. And I went around behind this you know, I'm in a high dollar part of town, and I walk around in the alley and chugging this rum to get okay to go buy some Christmas presents for my family, because Christmas is coming. That was a that was a really that was a dark time. And I, I lived with some friends for a little while.

I lost the house. I got another house. I lost it. I ended up with some friends who who loved me, who I partied with, but they said, Troy, you gotta do something. And and my buddy, Jerry, who I I love to this day, he's a normie.

He said, you gotta go. I didn't have any you know, I burned every bridge in Houston, and, my dad wouldn't have anything to do with me. And my mom and my stepdad, who I really didn't care for too much, said, why don't you come to Austin? And And I came to Austin. And about 3 days later, my mom proposed, perhaps you should go to a treatment center.

We got this place all picked out for you. And I said, can I take my bike? You know, I called the place to see what I you know, can I bring can I bring my bike? And they're like, no. Can I bring my skateboard?

No. Tennis racket? No. You know, just come on up. And I did, and I hated it.

You know? I got introduced to the big book. I'll say that. I got introduced to the big book. And I had this guy, and he was telling me, you know, I guarantee if you do what we're telling you to do, you'll never have drink again.

You'll never wanna drink again. And, and I stayed there for 30 days, and I walked out, and I drank. I walked up my parents' driveway out there in Bee Cave, and I went up to the little store and got a beer. I got a job the next week. I was drinking every every night during the day.

I'd get on my bike. I'd ride and get tequila and hide out. All my life's possessions were in a storage unit out there off BK, and 6/20. And, so I got this job with this landscape company in Austin and got I think I worked for them for 2 weeks maybe. It was coming up on Christmas.

And, I was going to Christmas. I had my I'd gone down and got my truck back from Houston. Finally got it running, picked it up, brought it back. I was driving down to see my dad, my uncle, and some folks on Christmas day. Couple liters of tequila in the truck, and, passed out.

I got lost between Austin and Houston and passed out on the side of I ten. Don't ask me why I'm on I ten going I mean, out by Columbus. I don't think that's on the way. And and I pulled into this gas station, and a lady comes up to me. The gas station is closed.

There's some other people in the in the lot though, and they said, young man, do you know your truck's on fire? It had been running shitty, but now it's it's on fire. And so I got the gifts. I got the stuff. I run to the truck.

Anybody guess what I'm going to get? Tequila. 1st. Get that out. Secure my cargo.

Then I go back and start getting presents and stuff. The truck burned up there on the spot. Gone. My stepdad came and picked me up, took me back to Austin. I hung around, you know, the next few days.

On New Year's Eve, I think no. No. It was like 20 7th 28th December of 1997. I'd gone to treatment in November of 97, the first time. December 97, the last few days of it, I got d w DWI number 4 on Burnett Road, right near where I live today.

I was on my way to an AA meeting, believe it or not, from Bee Cave. And I was in my my stepdad's little truck. And, you know, and I thought, blank those people. You know, I've been going to some meetings in Austin after treatment. I would go drunk.

I would fall out of the chair. I'd probably I I don't even wanna know what I shared in there. Because I know I opened my mouth and and people just go air at me. But I just said, screw those people. And I went and got, you know, what I knew worked, a big ass bottle of rum.

And, and then I got what didn't work was the DWI. And I was pretty certain that I was going to prison. My folks had said, we can't help you. I stayed in Del Valle for 10 days. I celebrated New Year's in there.

That was quite a quite a fun little deal. And, and then I got out. And and there was just a little glimmer of hope there. But I was drinking every day. I was drinking every day.

This lady from the treatment center was calling all the time. I ended up getting a 120 days work release, 6 year probation, interlocking my vehicle for 3 years, all this stuff. 240 hours of community service. And for a brief while, I too had been suicidal. I had thought about going down and hanging myself on the creek out of my mom's house.

Beautiful little place. You know? Selfish bastard that I was. I I would've ruined it for forever. You know?

Find her son hung by the creek. You know? I think about that sort of often today. What a what a horse's ass I was. They're just trying to help, and I'm gonna go ruin it.

She still lives there to this day. Thank God. So I went the first night I checked I was gonna go check-in the Del Valley. I I walked in I went to Northland. You know, I had a few bucks.

I had a job I was starting on Monday. A few bucks. I'm going to go check-in to jail. I'm I drink the whole day at Northland. I can't start the truck.

I'm out in the parking lot asking people to blow into this thing. Get it started because I gotta go to jail. Some guy finally does. I go to jail. As soon as I get there, they say, I don't think this is what they had me blow there.

Not good. It's the longest weekend of my life. The guy said, I don't think this is what the judge had in mind when he sent you to probation, young man. He said, I'm not sure if you are going to work. We may roll you to TDC.

That was a long weekend. But I got out, I went to work. I did the 120 days. I didn't drink. I went to a couple of meetings.

The night I got out, I thought, this time it'll be different. And I got a little half pint of tequila on the way home to my mom's house. I didn't drink it in the car. I got home, I drank, and it was good for about a week. And then it was a pint a day for about a week.

And then it was a liter a day for about a week or 2 weeks or 3 weeks. And then it was 2 liters a day until the day I quit drinking. January 26, 1999, I was working for the same little company, landscape company. I was down on Brody Lane. I drank some that morning.

I would put it in a Gatorade squeeze bottle. You know? And I had these bottles in my truck. And I was I had gone and got one at lunchtime. I was climbing on the tractor and I heard, what in the blank are you doing?

And I mean, I was lying to everybody I knew, isolating, miserable. And I pulled the phone out and I called this guy at the treatment center. Is so and so there? No. Is so and so there?

No. Is so and so there? No. I need some help. Finally, he comes scrambling on the phone and I said, bud, my parents had set it up that I could go if I would decide to.

I said, I've got to come back, something bad is getting ready to happen. And pending doom, it was on. I knew it. I just feel it. They came, got me, I went.

This time, I listened to everything they told me. I got into the big book. They told me about, you know, spirituality. They told me about mental obsession. Told me about physical allergies.

They said, Troy, can you control your drink? And I said, I've got pretty abundant experience. They said, I cannot. I put this I put that little bit in my body. Next thing I know, I'm drinking more than ever, in short order.

You know? Given sufficient reason, can you stop? If a near death thing falling out of the building wasn't enough, I I don't know. Jail? Wife leaves?

Fired? I had all that stuff. Couldn't quit. They said, well, if you, you know, do what we're telling you to do, work these steps out of this little book we're gonna give you, you can get better. And he told me he said, go talk to those young people over there.

I said, well, hell, I just got here. He said, yeah. But you know what not to do. And so I did. I went and talked to these young people.

And then they got me hooked up with this old guy who didn't have reading glass. And they said, Troy, we want you to read the big book to him. And I remember arguing with this old guy about the existence of God. I was not thoroughly convinced myself. But for some reason, in the grand you know, in this what Bill Wilson talked about is a benign conspiracy.

I I took the position of there is a god. And so I'm arguing with this guy. And and, you know, I could see and, you know, the wonder of nature and stuff. And being at the beach and seeing the porpoises. And I I always thought there was something out there.

I just didn't think it had a lot of use for me. And so, you know, it really touched me what Wayne said because I did. I grabbed this thing. When I left treatment that second time, that guy came up to me. It was a Sunday afternoon and I will never forget it.

Hopefully, as long as I live. He said, g d Troy, for good and for all this time. And, I mean, he said it was crystal clear, and some of y'all know who that was. And and and I was like, you know, for good and for all. I like that.

You know, when it hit, it stuck. And I came back, and I started going to Northland. Now here's where my stuff parts a little bit from some other people. You know, I I was not able to make a lot of meetings early on because my work took me out to Lake Buchanan. I camped on 1200 acres by myself for the 1st 5 months I was sober.

I would come to meetings on the weekend. I worked the steps on the weekend. You know, there's a guy, Johnny I, and he said he said, you know, meet me here tomorrow and bring a lunch. And I met him in the big room at Northland and worked the steps in there. And, you know, and then that the end of that day, he's like, he thanked me for being there, which, you know, I still wasn't clear on all that stuff yet.

You know, that why he's thanking me. But then he said, I'll see you here tomorrow and bring a lunch. And and we got through the work quickly. Quickly. You know, the book talks about we sought we sought a way out with the desperation of drowning man, you know.

I've been in the water a lot. I've been held under. There's no taking your time about that deal. I want out. I I need air to I need air.

I'm I'm a mammal, and I need air to live. I needed a way out from from alcoholism. I was thinking last night, and I think about it a lot. I don't know why, you know, I I don't wanna make anybody mad. But, you know, that guy, the the first guy, he told me, Troy, you see that first page where it says, the story of how many 100 of men and women have recovered from alcoholism?

He said, underline that word recover. That was like the first promise in the book to me. It's not that I'm not an alcoholic and I think my actions show that today. I don't believe that I'm I gotta do some stuff to stay recovered. But the deal is I can go hang out in Mexico like I was for the past 10 days.

Every other person there with me drank. And I don't wanna drink. In the old days, I'm leading the charge when it comes to getting alcohol. And I'm probably taking yours if you leave it sitting there like my friend talked about taking from her brother. Thing is, I don't suffer from the middle obsession to put that crap in my body today.

You know? Like it says in a doctor's opinion, I used to like the effect produced by alcohol. Even though it's injurious to me. What I found early on in sobriety is that I like the effect produced by God working in my life. You know, and I had some guys around who said, you know, and they tell everybody this.

They said, you know, AA meeting ought to be about the power of God working in your life. It ought to be a cheerleading session for the power of God working in your life. I'm a satisfied customer of Alcoholics Anonymous. I found a lot of people that, you know, like the book says, I wouldn't normally mix with. I got something right here with everyone who's doing this stuff.

Who's really doing it. Who's had a spiritual experience. You know, the same guy told me, he said, you know, I heard someone ask, what do I know if I got if I had a spiritual experience? He said, well, it's sort of like sticking your finger in a light socket. Either been shot, you know, you know you been shocked.

You know something's different. If you're obsessing about alcohol every single moment of every single day, and all of a sudden you're not, you're probably there. You're probably on the path. Welcome to you young man, Scott. It's, it's it's just the best.

You know, there was a chain of people that started with Bob and Bill and Henrietta Cyberly and Eddie. And it's still going, man. And it runs up through this one and through that one and through all of us. Wherever we fall in that chain, it's still going. And I watched a bunch of guys I went to treatment with.

And you know what? They just stopped. They got theirs. And I see people like that all the time. They got theirs.

What do I need to do? Well, you need to keep that chain going. You know? Hopefully, he's gonna be there for for Carla's son if he ever shows up or some for some of our little young, you know, that are coming out. My one of my buddies over there has 3 of them who who could be coming along.

You know, we don't have a monopoly on the sobriety stuff. My brother's an alcoholic and he's over in a Christian ministry in East Texas. And you know what I say about that? God bless him because he's not drinking a day. You know, it may it does my heart good to see him do it well today.

I don't care how you do it. All I know is the way I did it is with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the the god that I found here, the people that I found here. And I love the people here. I was down on a little dirt road last, Monday night in in on the Pacific coast of Mexico, a little town called Troncones. You know, it's a real funny little place.

They got all these cool house. There's one surf camp down there and their bumper sticker says, a quaint little drinking village with a surfing problem. Yeah. That's for normies. That's for normies.

Everybody I was with is drinking, including my wife. She's a normie. She'll have 2 beers. Big deal. She's done.

But I left everybody. I said, I gotta go down. I knew where the AA meeting was there. Only thing is, you know, the hours that they have painted real nicely on the building are their winter hours, which is 7 to 8:30 in in the evening. Well, I found out, I I got a cab.

These 2 guys, I tell them I'm looking for the the the And they said, oh, really? And then both of them reach around the front seat. They've each got a beer in their hand. They're like, yeah, we drink. I said, well, good.

Let's go. Doesn't work for you. You know, I can't be like y'all. And so we went and they took me down there. And I talked to a couple of people and found out there was no meeting that night, but I checked it out.

And then I went back a couple days later, I got another cab. Well, this guy's name was Ruiz. Ruiz had 3 friends who were members of Alcoholics Anonymous in this little village. And he took me to one of them's house and we asked his wife. The guy wasn't there, but we asked his wife, when's the meeting to you know?

And they said, Monday, 8:30. So I'm standing out there at 8:30, nobody's there, and a guy comes up to me and he says, you need a cab? I said, no, man. I'm waiting for this. And I pointed at the AA club, little cinder block building with a corrugated metal roof.

The big circle and triangle painted on the front of it. You know? And I went in and looked before, and there's a picture of Bill Wilson inside, in Spanish, of course. And, the guy said the guy said that, he is the founder of a group in Zihuatanejo, which is about 20 kilometers away. That's called the 4 and 5 4 and 5 pass.

The 4th and 5th step group. And they do retreats down there where they take drunks up onto this hill and they work the steps up there with them. Like that. And he spoke English and he took me around the store to his little house, his little court you know, it's not a courtyard, it's a dirt lot, you know. It's a dirt lot and some trees.

He's got a phone in this box on the tree, you know, that's his, like, cabby dispatch thing. And a lady walked up and and her name was Terry, and she was a little Mexican lady and she said the meeting is not here tonight. It's over in Pantla, a a few miles away. But I got to sit with this guy and talk with him and I gave him my little blue big book in English. And he said, good.

You know, because I meet some guys that speak English. He said, I got them in Spanish. I said, well, here. You know, take this. And you know what he told me?

He said, Troy, you've got a home here. I mean, shit. 1100 miles away, I got a home in that little town. Right now, I could go there again. I know where he lives.

I go tap on the door. Jose Ortiz is there. You know, carrying the message. I was telling somebody last night, you know, God showed up on that dirt road there. Outside that place.

God showed up and I wasn't even wearing a tie, you know. I wasn't in church and god showed up. And that's how it's been for me in Alcoholics Anonymous. You You know, the book says we found we found god did not make too difficult terms for those who earnestly seek him. It's been my experience, but I do continue to seek.

My My sponsor says keep Soughtin'. I think his sponsor said that to him. I'm not exactly sure where that came from, but he says keep Soughtin'. You know? And I had guys like they're like Steve and Terry that taught me stuff like, if you need 5 cups of coffee during an AA meeting, then bring 5 in with you and sit your ass down.

You know. And show up on time. And and I had other guys that said, you know, you might wanna bring a big book to an AA meeting. You just might. Because you might hear some stuff that, you know, you might wanna check out to see if it's real.

Especially when I was new. But you know what? My sponsor, 15 years, carries a big book all the time. And sometimes I look over at him in a meeting and he's got a new book. And it's all clear and he'll like do this.

And you know what he does? He starts taking note he starts making notes and stuff. Just stuff. It's just part of the experience. You know, it's an owner's manual for a good life.

We're I got some tapes. I went to this reunion thing. I've got some committed meetings I go to every week. Monday Friday, I'm at my home group. Tuesday night, I have a bunch of guys.

Some of them are here today. We have a big book study. And then we did the 12 and 12. And then we did, doctor Bob and the good old timers. And now we're back in the big book.