The Bagdad Retreat in Bagdad, KY

And we're not gonna break the chain on how somebody found a relationship with God. Hello, everyone. Hello. I'm Jim Shackleford, and I'm an alcoholic. It's wonderful to be invited here today, and, I do so much appreciate the committee asking me and Kathy to be part of your weekend.

Already, I'm I'm very grateful for the fact that you folks are giving me a clock. I I think there might be a, a message. And is there a history of speakers speaking over their allotted time? You weren't giving the clock. He just picked it up.

Okay. Well, we've heard a couple of great talks already this weekend, haven't we? Some fabulous talks. I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana, and we're so fortunate to have Dudley and Marge and Jill in our community. Some wonderful things are happening in Indianapolis, and I'm sure there's wonderful things happening in your community too.

I'm always amazed, Maybe amazed is not the right word. I'm always overwhelmed when I see the force of God moving through people's lives. And as I continue to observe and watch that phenomena, the enrichment of my second step continues to expand. It's a powerful force. Dudley early asked me if I was if I was a little bit nervous today, and and and, actually, I'm not because I have the foggiest idea what I'm gonna say.

When I start to orchestrate things, then I get real nervous. But when when I don't have a particular hard theme to talk about, then it's really interesting to hear what I had to say, actually. My sobriety date is October 20, 1984. That was not the first time I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. So, one of the things I do wanna talk about is is the is the progression of alcoholism.

And, additionally, I wanna talk to you about the reason why I drank. I so much oh, by the way, can't you talk about that you're a crier? I'm gonna cry. I'm really gonna cry. Also, before I go any further, I wanna introduce my wife, Kathy, who, who is, not only my wife, but, she's my friend and lover and counselor and and teacher.

And, she's been my, my companion now for 34 years. And, the fact that she's still sitting here is a testimony that something's happening in our lives. It's beyond me. Because believe me, I have given her more than one reason to terminate our marriage. And what's really interesting is, you know, how where I first met Dudley?

First time I met Dudley, he was representing my wife in in her lawsuit to divorce me. Tell me if there's not a god in that somewhere. Amazing, isn't it? I love the doctor's opinion. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

The sensation of saw Lucy that while they admitted his injuries, they cannot, after a time, differentiate the truth from the false. Sometimes today, I still have problems with differentiating the true from the false, probably more so than I care to admit. But, boy, that that line about the reason I drank for the effect, and that's exactly what I did. The first time I took a drink, I was 14 years old, and I was with some guys that were were, were, 1617 at that age. And I was in the back seat of the car with them and and kinda wanted to be part of them.

And they reached around and they took the Coke out of my hand and they opened the corridor and they poured it out and they reached on the seat, pull out some cherry vodka, poured it in there, and gave it back to me. And the effect that I liked was I felt a part of. I felt connected to him, and I liked it. By drinking proceeded through high school. What a surprise.

And the effect that I was looking for then was fun and camaraderie, and that was the effect I was looking for. And we would my buddies and I, we would we would get a 6 or a 12 pack and get in the car on on a Friday night and or Saturday night, and we would we would go to the local drive in restaurants and drive laps around and and try to pick up girls. And, of course, all we did was try. We were never really particularly successful. But the effect I was looking for was fun and good times, and I had a lot of fun and a lot of good times.

And then, in 1967, At the, ripe age of 17, I graduated from high school. I've been accepted to go to Purdue University, but it did not have the economic means and trust me, I was not an excellent high school student, so there was no scholarship. And my draft number was 6. There's a man that understands what that means. And so, I'm always looking for for options.

You know, good managers always do. And, and ended up believing in an Air Force recruiter and and at the age of 17, couple weeks after high school, I went in the Air Force. And, and in the air force, my drinking took on a little bit different dimension. Again, it was for fun and good times, but I saw that people who really knew how to drink. And and and I began to, learn the fine art of drinking.

You know, you you just don't drink large sums of alcohol without some kind of background in training. I mean, Jimmy, For example, I mean, you you you have to know what to eat before you go out and drink. And then through trial and error, you find out what not to mix to in terms of different drinks. Or when you get back to the barracks late at night and and and that and that room is spinning so bad, and I don't know why with the left, the ball of my left foot, if I could just get that on the floor and put not my total body weight, but just the right amount of pressure on that left ball left, the room wouldn't spin as much. I mean, those are techniques that you have to acquire.

And, and and I was a fairly good student at that point. And it was fun and good times. And then and then I got orders, I was a medic, and then I got orders to Vietnam to fly air vac. It was at that point that my drinking began to change. The effect I was looking for was a lot different, but I was still drinking for the effect.

There was a lot of craziness and insanity of what was going on day to day. And at the end of the at the end of the mission, at the end of the day, back at the base, I'd get a 5th of whiskey and get drunk. Because I wanted to forget. I want to take the edge off. I couldn't deal with what what I was feeling or what I was seeing or what I was smelling, and I and and and I got drunk, and it worked.

It did for me what I could not do for myself. It worked so well that I did it every chance I could, and that was the effect I was looking for. There's one particular event that happened there that that I talk about, which, which has bearing towards kinda demonstrates the change that takes place in a person's life. I was on this one particular mission and, and there was a fellow who was, who was a double amputee. And I was walking down the very narrow aisle working on all these different casualties, and this double amputee grabbed a hold of my leg.

And he kept screaming over the roar of the engines, man, I'm not gonna make it back to the world. I'm just not gonna make it. And I kept saying I kept placating. Yeah. You are.

You gotta let go of my life. I gotta go work on this other guy. I had to go suck out a tracheotomy and and keep this guy's airway opening, but you gotta let go of my leg, and he wouldn't do it. So I kicked him off of me, and then I came back down the aisle a little while later, and and he was dead. I got a 5th whiskey that night, got a good and dropped.

Took it all away. Next day, I got up and did it again. And, eventually, my tour is over, and I came back. And, that's when I, I, Jet Bill is a wonderful thing. You know, you you sign up for college classes, they send you a check, and then you drop half your classes.

And, and I partied a lot. And believe it or not, I had hair at that point in time, and my primary objective was to assimilate back into American culture. And so my hair grew down to, like, yay. And I partied a lot. A lot.

And Kathy and I met, and, I'll give you some cliff note versions. We met, and, and we fell on lost, and we moved in together. And and so our life began. You're not the only one with a bad memory. I'm gonna say after a period of time, we got married.

And, and I don't know. You know, I'm gonna now I'm gonna fast forward a lot of years. Whatever happened in your house, I'll wager probably happened in our house. Few dishes got broke, few promises probably not got met. A lot of dishonesty and certainly I wasn't I was emotionally absent.

Anytime I began to feel any kind of strong emotion about anything, I got drunk. I certainly distanced myself. I had I had I had 2 emotions. I had rage and I had lust, and that was it. And anything in between, I just couldn't couldn't recognize, did not respond to it, and I was I was extremely absent from my marriage.

Again, the effect I was looking for was I was managing my life with alcohol. My consumption continue to get more and more, and the times that I wasn't drinking was getting less and less. And then when the hit then when the the pressure was on me too much, then I would I would quit. You know how that looks, don't you? There, I proved to you, 2 weeks.

I wanna get a 6 pack. I'm gonna buy a case back to the races again. The insanity of our life continued. My Kathy Kathy went to Al Anon. I really I know this is a Baptist facility, but there's no other way to say it.

That really pissed me off. You did. And I continue to drink for years. And my drinking continue to progress down and down and down. And there was this point where something began to happen to me, and it happened as a direct result of Al Anon.

Kathy not only started going to Al Anon, but she actually got involved with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. She actually began to work the steps with others, and the result of that was my dirty clothes laid pretty much right where I dropped them. The checkbook no longer was being juggled and balanced. I found myself a lot waking up on the floor. I used to always wake up at a bed, but now I find myself waking up on the floor with my glasses kinda like, you know, floor burns sometimes inside of it.

And the and the and the clincher was that she was walking around the house happy. She would do things like step over me and go about her business, literally. And I was scared. God, I was scared. And I went to my very first AA meeting, and Ben was there.

Ben Ben Ben was the first person I ever heard read how it works. And then what he read was, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and our wives were unmanageable. People in the room laughed. I did not laugh because I related. I I understood what he was talking about.

And so, yeah, that was my and that was in 82. And I and I, and I went back for another meeting. I didn't drink that day. And the next day, I went back for another meeting, and I got a big book because I said get a big book. You know?

And I looked at that and said, yep. I got one of them. They kinda went up here in the shell. And, and I did not get a sponsor. And, 30 days came up, and I took that token.

And, 90 days came up, I took that token, yadayada yada. I forgot to tell him when I was still smoking a lot of reefer, by the way. I didn't ask your opinion because I didn't want it. I get really tired of hearing some of the things in Alcoholics Anonymous. I kept hearing the same things over and over and over.

And and and I'm I'm a project manager. I build used to build federally funded projects, you know, large multimillion dollar road bridge projects, And and I worked hard that day. You understand? And and and Joe keeps saying the same thing over and over, so I decided, I don't need to go to the meeting tonight because I can just sit here and have this meeting, like, in my head because I know what they always say. And it didn't take long for you didn't really see me very much.

And guess what? I found myself in Princeton, Indiana. Anyone here from Princeton? I know or someone asked earlier about Ohio. Is anyone here from Princeton?

Okay. Now I'll share with you. I was in Princeton, Indiana and I was and and I and I was staying at the Holiday. I had a I had a bridge project in Southern Indiana, and I and I was staying at the Holiday Inn, and I went to the Holiday Inn, and it was a horrible band. I mean, the worst band I've ever heard in my life.

So I ordered a a a shot of whiskey and so the band would be improved. Do you understand? And it was controlled drinking right from the start. What now? And, less than a week later, I'm drinking over a 5th a day again.

And I swear to you, I thought it was controlled drinking because I'm buying in pints and half pints. Now I wanna tell you about the effect that I was drinking for. When I resumed drinking, I picked up right where I left off. Right where I left off. In the mornings, I would I would drink a half pint to a pint of vodka, and I would have to do that so I could shave.

I would have to do that so I could get up and and be able to shower and get dressed and get function. And I couldn't always keep that down. So I would my I would drink I would follow-up with Maalox. Great morning drink. I'm committed.

You gotta understand this. I'm well, I'm I'm committed to this drinking business. And and and and then once I was able to do that, then then I could begin to think. I could begin to put sentences together. And then I go to work and sometimes I put it a whole 4 and a half, 5 hours maybe.

And then I'd leave the job site, and I'd be driving down that gravel road, and I reach out of that pickup truck, and I'd pull out pull out that pint of vodka, and I go, like, get one. Get in the motel room, close the door, take another quick shower, come out, crack that second one. And I'm drinking for the effect, and the effect is I want out. I just want out. I want it I want it I want the crazy thoughts to stop.

And the thoughts went like this. They were like a lot of words, but then didn't make a whole lot of sense. They just rambled through my head. I shook badly. In order for me not to throw up the green bile with the little black seeds in it, I had to have a certain level of alcohol in.

It. The only normal way for me to live was for me to take another drink. And when I didn't have that, I was absolutely insane. If that was the only way I knew how to live, that was the effect that I was looking for. All the way through the development of my alcoholism to to the advancement of it.

I was drinking for effect, the effect changed. The effect I was looking for evolved, but it was always was for the effects. I couldn't understand why why alcohol anonymous didn't work for me the first time. I remind I use a lot of analogies. Bear with me.

You hear about the chocolate cake? I know you people in Indianapolis have heard this from you guys. About about the about the guy who kept coming in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. He kept coming and out. He could and he he went to lots of meetings, you know, 90 meetings in 90 days.

He read his big book and then he get drunk. And he go come back, he go to meetings, and he just he just kept going around and around and called up the sponsor. He says, I don't understand this. You people tell me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and and make coffee and and, and and read the big books, and I keep getting drunk. I don't get it.

Why is that? Their sponsor says you got a you got a a cookbook in the house. He says, yeah. He says, go get it. So he brings a cookbook back to the phone.

He says, is there a recipe in there for chocolate cake? And he goes, yeah. He says, why don't you read that to me? And we all know sponsors are crazy. Right?

So with a great reluctance, he reads he reads the recipe, preheat the oven to 450, grease the pan, cup of flour, yada yada yada. And so he finishes reading and then the sponsor says, okay. Why don't you read that to me one more time? The guy says, listen. I'm dying.

You got me reading the chocolate cake recipe to you? He says, trust me. Just read it one more time. So he did it. I'd make the frosting.

Let it cool for before you put the frosting on. He finishes it and then sponsor says, okay, read that to me one more time. Of course, this guy's reading it real fast now because he's he's, you know, he wants to get through it real quick. And then the sponsor said after he finished, he says, now cut me a piece of cake. You can read that recipe till you're blue in the face.

But if you actually want a piece of cake, you're gonna have to do some. I know you people, but but I like chocolate and I like chocolate cake. Left to my own devices, I'll I'll read it and say, yeah, that's a nice recipe, but I like a lot of sugar. So instead of putting a cup of sugar in, I'm gonna put in 3 cups of sugar. And I'm not real keen about vanilla, so I'm not gonna really put that in.

And I'll put my I'll tweak it. I'll tweak that recipe to suit my own what I think is my own needs. And I may end up with something that looks like a cake, but it's probably not gonna taste like that cake. And I was I was challenged that that that if I wanted the same cake that Bill and Bob had, that I need to do what Bill and Bob did. That I need to follow the black ink on the white page, and when I see a question mark, that means I need to answer the question.

And when I see hints like next we launched, that's a hint. I went to my very first conference, and there was a fellow named Frank Ann out of Chicago, and we all know the out of town speakers are so wise. No one in your home group. By the way, my home group is a dignitary sympathy group. There's no dignitaries and there's no sympathy.

It was it was a group conscience to, to call the group that I I want it. We need on Tuesday nights, and I wanted to name the group the Monday night procrastinators meeting. But that that didn't go over real well. So so it's a dignitary sympathy. I got a fetish, but that's another story.

And now I'm having a senior moment. But I went to I went, I heard Frank, and and and and Frank was talking about what is a real alcoholic. You had a dinner at that conference, doesn't it? And and and and Frank Frank talked about what is a real alcoholic? And he stood in front of all I don't know.

There must have been 600 people in that room. And he stood up and I'm sitting away in the back like newcomers do. And, and and he said, well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna make an alcoholic. So he had this imaginary test tube, and he asked the audience, he says, what's it take to make a to make an alcoholic? There's someone in the back yelled resentment.

So he reached over like this and put that in. He says, what else? And someone else yelled fear. He went like that. Self centeredness.

The list went on and on. There's about 7 or 8 things that were called out. And then he paused and said, what's the one thing no one talked about? Nobody said alcohol. And I and I had one of those VA moments.

You know? He went on to say, here we have here we have this test tube full of stuff, and we shake it up and we shake it up and it's in our lives and we shake it up up so much, and then we don't know what to do with it. And we put a little alcohol in there just to to shave it off, to smooth it out, to make it okay. And that works and then except that quantity doesn't work anymore, then we put a little more in, a little more. And then, often, what happens is a spouse or an employer or a judge or somebody will will, help you pull some of that alcohol out, and we may feel better for a while.

I think Jill talked about the difference between relief and a solution. And pull the alcohol out, and and what happens is that, is we start sleeping better, we heal a little bit better, people patch you on the back, you're doing so good. You look good, but we don't ever do anything with the with the test tube of stuff. And that was me. Resentment.

I don't do you do you people have resentments? I don't know. I want you to understand the kind of alcoholic I am. Early in our relationship, Kath and I went horseback riding. I don't like horses.

I know I'm standing in the middle of horse country, but but the fact is I don't really like horses. And Cathy went to go horseback riding, so we went to the stable and, and, I asked for the oldest, slowest horse that they had and they gave me this old slow horse and we we leave the barn, we go about, I don't know, 50, 100 feet down out of the barn. And this horse tips off at a canter. I think it's called a canter. And and and for the next mile, my anatomy is getting crushed in the saddle.

And I'm livid, needless to say. I can't get this darn thing to stop. And it comes to a creek. I think I'm glad you like this, Marge. The horse comes to a creek and it stops and to get a drink of water, and I get off this horse.

And and I walk around the woods looking for a big stick because I'm gonna do this horse what it did to me. And I couldn't find one that would really do the job, and Kathy finally caught up, and she saw my state of mind and didn't say a word. And finally, I said, the heck was it? And, sorta. And, and I walked away.

As far as I know, the horse is still standing there in that creek. Now now I wanna share with you what how I could just really work with that resentment. For years and into sobriety. Whenever I would go to the grocery store to buy dog food, That's right. I'd read dog food labels looking for horse meat.

I'd I'd take that I'd take that I'd take that horseman out, the dog food, and throw it in the bowl. And then when I throw that bowl down on the table, in my head, I'm thinking, take that, you son of a bitch. That's a resentment. I told that story at the in in the lobby of the Music City Roundup down in in, in Nashville. And the person I was sitting around looked at me, and they didn't laugh.

They looked at me and said, that'll get you drunk. Uh-huh. That'll get you drunk. Man, it do. You know what?

They were right. I have to be in a workshop. That's the thing we do up in Indianapolis. Real quick side note, that's where a bunch of us get together. We make a commitment to each other that we're gonna work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

We sit down, we read what the big book says. We only use the big book. We read what the big book says about the first step. We all answer the questions. We share with each other our experience.

We do the first step together and then collectively we go on to the second step. And and that's what we do. We do it frequently and often as a matter of fact. Anyway, so I was in this workshop and I went back and I and I and I happened to on a coincidence, happened to be a 4 step. And I I like PS, footnote in the 4 step.

Oh, by the way, here's here's this resentment. It also showed up in my fear inventory too, by the way. And and, of course, I shared it when I did my 5th step, and I'm happy to report to you that I haven't had a need or a compulsion to read a dog food label since. I encourage you that when you're engaged in this process, look at the totality of of of who you are, not just your drinking. Time moves on and I and and and I wanna talk a little bit about amends.

My sponsor a lot of you people know my sponsor, Gary b. And and, Gary's 40 years sober now. After I asked him to be my sponsor, he and his wife, Julie, made a decision that they really want to finish up their amends, and they sold their house to come up with the equity out of it to finish their amends. Had I known that Gary Brown was gonna do something like that, I would not have asked him to be my sponsor. Can you imagine going to someone like that and trying to get a little slack cut to you on a man's?

Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. He he shared with me a a process on on making amends. One of the instructions he gave me was never ever say you're sorry. He says everybody on the planet knows you're a sorry son of a.

I don't wanna hear that. This is about collecting, taking care of it, and correcting the the wrongs and taking responsibility for your actions. And he gave me he gave me a a a process and and the process was that, of course, make it make try to do it in person if it all possible and make that amends and and sit down and tell the person the harm that you've caused them. And then after I do that, then ask them the question, is there anything else that I've done that I'm not aware that I've that I've harmed you? And then my job is to listen.

I don't know about you, but I did some blackout drinking. I there's harm out there that I had no idea that I caused. There's plenty that I am aware of, but there's others out there that, and then my job is to listen, not inject the out butts. Don't you understand? But to listen.

And then after that, on the table now now everything's on the table. Everything pass I can possibly know about this particular relationship is on the table. And then he told me to ask them the question, do you need to tell me how this has affected you? That's a tough question to ask, and then my job is to listen. And then the last thing after that's done is to say, what is it I need to do to make this right?

How do I square the books? And then to take that action. I first thought of men's was about, well, I I damaged. I did this amount of damage to your property, and I believe I owe you $500. And so I'm gonna come to you and tell you how I've harmed you, and then I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do, and then I'm gonna dictate to you how I'm gonna do it.

Sounds an awful lot like managing my life, but that's how I I initially approached it. I found that I got to be a lot freer as a result of this process. There's all there's all kinds of higher powers that by the way, there's there's one higher power that helped me figure out what my amends was, and he was a judge. Judge helped me figure that out. He he he, he told me I could pay $500 a month, which I did for 19 years.

And, I'm happy to report that that amends now is taken care of. There's a there's an amends that I wanna share with you that that involved my brother, which I which was a quite an eye opener for me. My brother and I didn't particularly get along. You You may find that hard to believe. Although we do sometimes we got along.

Here's a sidebar. My brother and I used to do a lot of drinking together. We had a lot of fun. I remember once I told Cathy I was gonna go, meet him for lunch. We're gonna meet him for lunch and, you know, get a sandwich.

And I went and met him, and we had a beer. And, and then on the 3rd or 4th beer, we started talking about the virtues of Coors beer. This is a 76, I think it was. Coors beer wasn't sold at that point, east of the Mississippi. You know, the virtues of Coors beer, you know, mountain water and all that.

He said, let's go get a Coors beer. So we got in his truck, and we decided we go to Saint Louis to get some Coors beer. We got there, and they didn't sell it there. So we thought, well, we'll just keep driving west till we find it. And and we found it in Kansas City, Kansas.

We walked into the liquor store, and they had a big display of Coors beer. Yeah. You sell. He goes, yeah. He says, how much you want?

And he said, all of it. So we bought $600 of Coors beer. 24/25 hours later, when I got back home, Kathy was a little upset with me. But, I mean, that's kind of things that my brother and I did when we were drinking, but we also we also got into fights, and he always won, by the way. I was in this particular workshop, and I was remembering some harm that I caused him back when I was 16 years old.

And and I avoided looking at that because I knew he had caused me more harm than I had ever caused him. You know, when he when he hit you in the face a few times, you don't you don't wanna approach him. And the harm that I caused him when I was 16 was I I borrowed his car. It's a big Pontiac Grand Prix. Beautiful machine.

Borrowed it for a date, and I put a big crease in the passenger door. And when I returned the car, I parked it across from his apartment so he would see the driver's door, and then he'd go to work. And at some point in time in the future, he discovered the crease, and I just plead innocent. And that's what I did. Well, as a result of this workshop, I I needed to take responsibility, and I hadn't talked to him in 7 years even though he lived here in town.

And I met him at a restaurant. They had glass all the way around. It was a steak and shake. I did that for a reason because I wasn't sure of his response. And I proceeded to tell him the harm that I caused even I went through the process that I talked about.

And he and he said there wasn't anything else. And I hadn't anything else on paper. I thought it was pretty much a done deal. And I reached in my pocket and I put the money on the table. I showed up with a lot of money and the numbers numbers seem fair and equitable.

And the big book talks about the fact that we will be amazed how within an hour relationship things will melt and relationships begin to literally that that literally happened. And I thought it was pretty well a done deal, and it's something amazing happened at that very moment. And what was amazing was that that, I found out that wasn't the amend at all. The reality of the amend was I took him to be a fool. I thought I was better than he was.

I thought I could get by. I thought I was smarter than he was. And that's the harm that I caused him. It had nothing to do with his car door. Not really.

I never would have known that until I began the process of the amend. The guy that I kicked off on my leg, how do I make an amends to him? The man who, not the man, several men in in the workshop I was in at the time, I had you know, I hadn't told anyone about that. And they they and I said, the man's dead. How do you how do you how do you make amends?

And the guy said, well, you you need to write this guy a letter. And in the letter, tell him what was going on at the time, what your confusion and the chaos. But most importantly, in this letter, tell him what you're doing today. Tell him what you're trying to do with your life today. I just wanted to get well.

I really wasn't out seeking God. I just wanted to get well. And so that's what I I I I tried to discount. I said, well, how can I write him a letter? I don't know his name.

They said, but get a photograph of the Vietnam War and pick a name. So that's what I did. And I wrote the letter, and I was waiting for something miraculous to happen and nothing happened. I just did the action. I followed direction.

It was about a year later, I was on the telephone answering service, and I got this call from from some veteran who was who was drunk calling from a pay phone who who wasn't looking to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He was just looking for a place to sleep that night. And I called around and I found a a halfway house that had a bed, and, then I called up with another friend of mine. I said, can you pick this guy up? He said so and so intersection and take him over there, and they did.

And then the guy called the guy who I sent on sent on the 12 step, he he came back and said he said, I just thought you wanna know that this guy this guy, he didn't he didn't say he was gonna quit drinking. He didn't say he was gonna join Alcoholics Anonymous. He just kept saying he couldn't believe that somebody cared. That he was gonna sleep under sheets, through a roof, and that somebody cared. And then I thought back to that letter because that's one of the things that I wrote.

And I wanted to care again. And this physical sense of warmth came over me. And it took a long time for me to have that feeling. I thought, wow. That one's done.

I was in another workshop years later, and I was with with Mike, Michael, and and Mike is also a Vietnam vet and and we were talking toward the conclusion of that workshop that maybe someday we'll go to the wall, and I was afraid to go to the wall because I was afraid of what was gonna happen, meaning my emotions. And, and, so, yeah. Well, if we ever get a chance, we're gonna do that. And, of course, 2 weeks later, Kathy comes home from work and her employers are gonna send her to Washington DC to, to attend the conference, and it's a free ride. And I need you know?

And so here I am. I'm either, you know, honestly, you say what you mean and do what you say. So we went. And what I what I was afraid it was gonna happen at the wall did happen. I saw that.

I just I just lost it. It. And, I went back to the wall the next day and ended up, there's a directory there. Look up the names, and the names are on the wall chronologically. So if a so if a, gunship went down, everybody on that everybody on that helicopter, their names are together, and it's just chronological.

And that that that particular incident, was the craziest craziest for me was during the month of, of, May of 19 69 involved, hail 937. And when I looked up that particular month, there there were 4 panels of names for that one month. It was a really chaotic time. So I went I I just I just felt I need to know this guy's name. So I went I went to the panels and I read all the names because now I know that I've read his name.

And that just seemed like another footnote. I went back to the wall a third time. And I went back, it was a Sunday morning, and and there was one other guy who was it was rainy and cold. It was just mirror like surface, you know, because it was wet. When I got the far end and I and I'm walking down the pathway and suddenly, out of this emotion of rage hit me again.

And I thought I thought to myself, nobody cared. Nobody cared then. Nobody gives a damn about these guys. You know, all that luggage that goes with the Vietnam veterans. And right at that moment, I hear this commotion.

I look over my shoulder and here comes a school bus of kids who gotten off, little girls that are about 8 or 9 years old and a couple of nuns. And each of these children are carrying a rose and they come down the aisle, they come down the pathway to the to the to the apex there, and they all gather rent, and this nun proceeds to lead these children in a prayer for all these people that are names are on the wall. And I see what's beginning to happen. And, of course, I just shuffle up and I stand in behind them and I participate in the prayer. And then at the end, these children scatter all around the memorial.

Some put the rose down right away and get out of there. Some others go over and they see a name, and they start start to put it in front of that panel. Then they see another name when they pick it up and they and then they and they and they couldn't they couldn't make up their mind which one to give it to. Some of these children started crying. These children weren't even alive at the time.

Once again, I find out that I'm wrong, that people do care. You people are a tremendous demonstration of that in my life over and over and over again. You you in the in the in the program, it talks about our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to god and to the people around us. And, engaging in this process, engaging making the amends. So I've been terribly it's pivotal, just absolutely pivotal to my life.

Things have been changing for me a lot in the last 15 months too. 15 months ago, I was diagnosed with heart failure. Now that's good news, bad news. The bad news is it's progressive and I'm at stage 3. The good news is I now have documented proof to the guys that I sponsor that I do have a heart.

I, they they they they took me, into surgery and they've done some mojo. They put this computer in my chest with 3 different leads that go to my heart, and it monitors and does all kinds of things. And and when I when I came out of 1 of the 1 of the surgical procedures, I came out, and I'm coming out of the anesthesia. And you know what the first thing I saw was? There's a guy in my home group named Tom b who's got a big full beard.

His face is about this far from mine, and he's leaning over. When my father died 11 years ago from an abdominal aneurysm and he was, all out of the living room of the house, He lived 20 odd hours. After we came back after he passed away and we came back to the house during that 20 hour period, my parents' house was broken into. Apparently, someone saw the ambulance and hauled him away, and then they they knew the house was empty and they hit it. They robbed it.

And that was a tough day. And I called my sponsor when I got back home and and told him what back to their house and told him what had happened. Before the evening was out, 2 guys from my home group showed up at the house on their own. They showed up with they stopped at the hardware store, bought new locks, they came into the house, they changed all the locks. When it came time for the showing and the actual funeral, Steve f at, one of my, one of the guys in my home group, he showed up at my parents' house and sat in the car outside the house just to make sure no one's gonna mess with that house again.

I hope your home group is a little bit like mine. So here I am now with, with this diagnosis and and and I and I began another journey. And I I for a long time, I I thought how can my life be unmanageable early in sobriety? How can my life be unmanageable when when I manage, you know, $20,000,000 worth of contract? Of course, I got to look at the fact am on my job, am on my checkbook, all those usual things, and I thought I had come to terms with it pretty pretty closely, but but when when, when my defibrillator went off the first time, which is a a real fun experience, I was still trying to work, and at that point, I went from full time to part time work.