The Austin Citywide Meeting in Austin, TX

It kinda was where I got a desironship. And, so Jeremy and I, we go back to day 1, sort of ground zero for me. In the program, we got all these comments. And, it was really funny because it was the last day of this particular conference. It's the press Riverside conference.

It takes place right outside Lake Whitney, Northwest of Waco. And And Charlie and I were just having a conversation about motorcycles, and he said, so I want you to have a program. Because you know, obviously, I had to get the desired Charlie and I have, we're friends, and he's like a brother. I was just telling this earlier. We gather together as recovered people.

It's a pretty big deal. So Charlie and I are kinda like brothers that way. And also, we've we've taken some, pretty exciting trips on our motorcycles together. We've been up to Sturgis, South Dakota three times, and it was always a big wild adventure, but it's really cool too because we weren't great. And going from an AA meeting to Downtown Sturgeon, South Dakota was really pretty awesome.

In fact, the 1st year that we went there, I said, I don't know where the AA place is, but we're going to go find that downtown. He said, come on, let's go. So we'll go ahead and check out the Sprouty here in Sturgis. Charlie is a good member of the Hawthorne's numbers. He started a group down in South Austin that studies a big book.

He helps other people. I've been up to the branch with Charlie. Charlie sponsors people. Charlie stays in the book. Charlie has been responsive to lots of other people staying interested in checking that book out, including me.

I always have tried to stay in the book, but when my friend and brother gets dives in their feet, I sort of dive in there with me. And I carry that book around all the time, and I really believe it in that, what that book says, all my answers were in that book. And, Charlie's gonna delight you guys with his story. So I'd like to welcome to the podium, Charlie P. This is a good looking bunch.

I don't know what kind of folks y'all drank with, but it didn't look like this. Thank you for that warm introduction there, Jim. And I want to before I forget, I want to thank Terrence for putting this thing together and I know he didn't do it by himself and, you know, it's a lot of work that goes into putting more things together. And one of the things I've learned from hanging around for a while is there's a lot of us that don't do anything to put it together. We have a lot of better ideas of how it could be done better.

I really appreciate your work and I want to thank you for having me up here tonight. We've got there was a lady that says she's had her first AA meeting And we have a big book here that Katie, we want to pass around and the women, put your name and phone number if you'd like in this book, and, and we'll be sure she gets it before she gets out of here. Everybody in this room that's alcoholic has been to their 1st AA meeting. I will warn you in advance that I'm a big guy, and I'm able to cry like a little girl in a pink skirt before this is before this is over. It doesn't mean that I'm mentally unstable.

I don't think. I just they usually insist that I'm so grateful for what this program has done for me, and that's that's what I come up here to talk about. I I'm real glad to be here tonight. I wore this coat and tie out of respect for the fellowship and the founding people. And when I'm coming up in AA, they always wore a coat and tie.

So the podium now, it feels different to me. When I put on a tie, I feel like I should say, no contest, your honor. That's a good looking bunch. You know, I look around here, and I and I see my my sponsor over there. I see my girlfriend, Katie, here.

I see a lot of people, and and you would think that that I would be grateful for the that kind of support and and having the people. All I could think about over there when I was sitting there is if there's at least 3 people in the room that give a better talk than I do. You know? So I, I'm really I'm really grateful to be out here tonight. And and, you know, this thing I don't know if and many of you know the the history, but we used to have a thing.

It's funny. I, you know, I thought of this, get together. I didn't have anything to do with putting it together, but I thought of it. I used to say that I could just release an idea into the universe, and then my higher power was so strong that that he would just produce it. You know?

All I had to do was release the idea Well, pretty good stuff. I was down in South Boston one day and I was at Living Faith, you know, and when you go to Living Faith, you'd see the Living Faith crowd. And when you go to Western Trails, you'd see the Western Trails crowd. When you go to Westlake, you know, and so on, Cedar Park, Hope Group, Northland. And I said, you know, we should have a group where everybody gets together, you know, so you could see everybody, you know, from all the groups except for those people you never see.

That's just one of those little trains of thought that comes rolling through my little Grand Central Station brain. And about 3 days later, I was at a time and somebody goes, are you going to interview meeting this weekend? I was like, wow. That was fast. Yeah.

It doesn't always happen that fast, you fact. And, of course, a lot of people put a lot of work into it in the meantime, but I just, you know, I heard about it 3 days after. I just kinda like the way Al Gore invented the Internet. You know what I mean? I didn't have a lot of activity, and I'm not gonna get any outside issues up here.

But I do think it's a great idea and we used to do it back in the '90s and get people together. And then I was lucky enough to get to speak at one of those one time too and, but then it just kind of fell off the table. And it just goes to show you that if you can be NAA and 1 or 2 people that take action and take initiative can really have a big effect on the fellowship of Alconcellus. I've seen it repeatedly in the time I've been around is that if you get an organizer in, you know, in your group, a lot of stuff comes together, you know, where you just like I remember I told them, and there was Richard Green that should come down there. You know, it's like, we're all going tubing this weekend, and we're all going to wet and wild.

And I'll I'll get to that, story. Wet and wild is a part of my story with my original sponsor. I call him my sponsor for Meredith. It's just a pleasure to move to Arkansas about 6 years ago and a sponsor Mark Houston is here tonight. I love the people in this program.

I like drugs. I like being around drugs. I love drugs when I was drinking. I like them. So I love the Fellowship Power Collection elements.

I want to get into my story. I'm Charlie Parker. I'm an alcoholic. And if I can space over until this Thursday, I'll have 22 years of sobriety. My sobriety day has been March 22 more than once.

I'll I'll get to that a little late. You know, and I got to worry about one other thing. A lot of times, my brain I'm it's we got a little ADD issue going on out there. And there's a lot of little bunny trails that run up in the parking lot. And I will say many times that I'll get to that a little later.

I'm not gonna get to it. I mean, I can just warn you in advance. What it means is this is the long time for it to be in the story. I'm probably not going to get to it later. I had some ideas about tonight's tonight's talk.

And I like I saw the schedule, but it said that the speaker talks from 7 to 8:15. And then from 8:15 to 9 is cleanup. And I have always said that I give 3 talks whenever I talk. There's the talk. I give a dandy of a talk sitting in that chair over there.

And then there's the talk that I give when I'm at the podium. And then there's the talk that I'll give on the rewrite on the drive home tonight. There's something about closing that car door that makes you a member. All the stuff that you meant to say. So what I was thinking we do is, I'll help for the first 30 minutes of the cleanup and then I'd like to get up for the last 5 minutes and say all the stuff that I forgot to say.

And, actually, though, I really I truly believe in my heart that that God is present for one of those talks at least, you know, and and, my sponsor likes to say that he gets a 15 second warning on what's gonna come out of his mouth, and I I am praying for that. I I mine's 2 or 3 seconds. I'm thinking, but let's stop here. I think, you know, our book says, there's a couple of things in the in the book that mentioned, our talk. And there's one where it says, our story disclosed in a general way what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now.

There is another one on Page 50 in this paper. All this is is this is my most prized possession. This is a large print copy of the big book that a friend of mine up in Dallas had leather bound for me. It's not outside literature, but large print now that I'm an old man. And, And I really just I love this book.

But it says on page 50 in our personal stories, you will find a wide variation in the way each seller approaches and conceives of the power, which is greater than itself. Whether we agree with the particular approach or conception seems to make little difference. Experience has taught us that these matters these are matters about which for our purpose, we need not be worried. There are questions for each individual to settle for himself. Now listen to this.

On one proposition, however, these men and women are strikingly agreed. Every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than himself. This power has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. As a celebrated American safe zone, let's look at the record. I grew up in Dallas, Texas and I was born in 1956.

I am 50 years old today. I mean, not today, but, back in November, I was 50. And, I come from a fairly normal family. You know? I mean I mean, I love Jim, you pick up you steal lines from everybody.

I heard Jim the other day say that normal is the setting on a washing machine. So I don't know how normal the family was, but it was I've heard enough footsteps over the years to know that I have there are a lot of people who had a hell of a lot worse than I have. And I grew up in Baby Boom. The street that I grew up on had 61 kids on it, on one block. The Messick had 16 of them, but it was an active block, you know, and I don't know.

You remember that when you came and where the next block was just a world away, you know, and you didn't jack with the people on the next block, you know. And and, and we had our little block, and they have their block, and they were on. So we throw rocks across the alley at it. But, anyway, that's where I grew up. And, fairly normal family.

My I did have a sister. I do have a sister. She's 5.5 years older than I am. She was a high achiever, tough act to follow. National Honor Society, 1st Chair of Flightist, drum majorette, drill team, oh, God, you name it, she joined it.

And then her little brother, the you know, and and but but the thing about it was my mother was a 1st grade school teacher and my mother taught for 42 years. And, I was well prepared for the 1st grade. You know? I mean, I I showed up I showed up looking good. There's flashcards at the house and all that stuff.

And I don't know, I grew up, they talked a lot about potential. I mean, did anybody else suffer under the burden of potential? I mean, why can't you be like Charles Moller across the street and and, you know, and all this stuff and and there was a lot of potential. And the one thing I can report to you is that 12 years of drinking and heavy usage of outside issues, will significantly lower people's expectations. By the time I got to this program, it was they were like, just get a job.

You know? God's sakes, you know, don't worry about a career or a profession or an education or, or just get your ass off the couch. I mean, I'm sitting there in the high floor of my day was on the free students that come on in. And it was always when, parents were getting ready to go to work, and, you know, here's their pride and joy, the bad boy sitting on the couch watching the 3 studios. Bye.

Hey, mom, pick up some milk, Linda. You know, So, that was a little later in the story. But, you know, I performed pretty well in elementary school. You know, I was, you know, I mean, and I was holding it. No.

I that's been holding together for a long time. You know? I, I was doing my best, you know, but I just I just had this feeling of separation, you know, that that we all have. You know, I mean, when we come into this program, one of the reasons I think we need a sponsor that's based in the book is because I got no shot of understanding what's in the book by myself. You know, it's it's it's terms I'm not familiar with.

It's words that I don't use. It's phrases of this whiz rat past me. And I completely forgot why I was saying that. But one of the things that they turn about talk about was the spiritual malady. That's what got me on.

And that term never really touched me. I mean, when I hear people say it when I came in here and if you are new and it sounds like we are speaking another language, I know exactly what that's like. You know, when they're talking about mister Bill and doctor Bob and this step and that tradition. And, you know, if you're having trouble with your 4, you need to go back to year 1 and this part you know, like, you know, like, this tradition what the hell are they talking about? And and, you know, and and we when a new guy comes in and we sit through the meeting and we say, are there any newcomers here?

And then if there are, maybe we try to scare the crap out of them with our war stories, and then pat them on the back and say, you know, you're in the right place to keep up with that. You know? And he's saying they're going, when do we get to the not drinking? I how do I not drink, you know. You know, I understand you're getting a divorce and you're losing oh, sorry.

There you go again. But, you know, I really that term spiritual malady, there's a lot of terms that just didn't test me. But that when I say spiritual malady, I I never really felt it. But when you stand at Progyny Macrox Anonymous and talk about that hole in my middle, everybody in the room knows what you're talking about. And to me, that's the spiritual malady.

That's the problem that I was suffering from beginning in elementary school. Even though I was still batting number 4 and pitching and playing right guard and, you know, high academics and all that stuff, I had that whole working. And, the first thing I ever got my hands on to try to fill that hole with was cream gravy. You know, there's just one many boos in the house, you know, and if you're in a pinch, you know, you can knock yourself out with white bread and cream cake. But, that's another outside issue.

The problem is they all start another 12 step fellowship. I mean, you know, it's gamblers anonymous, overeaters anonymous, you know, you name it. It's all stuff that I've used to try to treat that whole. But, you know, I just I guess I did okay, but then starting around junior high school, it really kinda started slipping off off a little bit. And and I don't know about it.

You know, anybody I can only talk about my story. I started drinking when I was 16. I thought that was really young, you know. I mean, now people are sobering up. It's like 8, you know.

You know, oh who's your daddy? No, I'm here for a 90 day trip, sir. And god bless him, you know. I mean, you know, I I have no no guard at the doorway. I don't you know, I've got one of my best friends, PJ, is a well, I guess he's 39 and he's 25 years sober.

So and and, you know, if you listen to his story, he didn't get here any too early. You know? He was running it pretty hard before he got here. And I really I didn't need this program till I was 17, But I was I started using it at 16. And, you know, this is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

I believe in our single list of purpose. I've I've tried real hard not to talk about outside issues. And let me just say it's a struggle, because I but what I can tell you is that everything that I abused, I abused alcoholically. Alcoholics couldn't take drugs. But he would make a really macho story to get up here and say, I drank, you know, a half a gallon of whiskey from that day when I was 16 until the day that I had quit, but that wouldn't be true.

But what I can swear to you with absolute honesty is that from that day until the day that I got that chip, I never turned down the opportunity to get loaded for any reason under any circumstances. I was an absolute demo tech. I wasn't a disco drunk. I wasn't I'm not, you know, 2 beers and no beer. I was tearing it to the ground at every opportunity.

And I and I there was a long time I didn't really understand. I remember I remember having 3 years sober, leaving my mother's back door one day, and and I remember some reason, the smell of the yard and everything just brought back the memory of what it used to be like when I would be leaving their house. I should also say that I was so mistreated as a child in my household that I I ran away from home when I was 28 years old. Yeah. I'm not putting up with it anymore.

But I remembered what it was like coming out of the back door of their house to go get voted. And and and I remember thinking I was 3 years sober. I remember thinking, why did I have to get so loaded? You know? What and I and I didn't have a clear answer.

I just I still remember though wondering. And, you know, I I know a lot more now than I knew then, but I needed to really change the way I felt desperately. And, and it got worse and it got worse, and I only knew one way to deal with it. And, you know, when you only got a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail after a while. And and so whatever it was, I drank at it.

And and then, you know, we came into that spiral of of the waking with the terror and the bewilderment and you can't face it anymore. And then, you know, what do you do in a situation like that? That's you drink. You know, I mean, that's that's the only thing I'm gonna do. So you I just drank and drank and drank and drank.

And, and but, you know, our books have the doctor's opinion. You know, the doctor was not an alcoholic. And he was a pretty stately, mild mannered New York doctor. And you can kinda tell he wasn't an alcoholic in some of the little things he says. There's one paragraph in there where he says, men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

That's a little understatement. I like banana pudding. You know, I mean, I love the effect produced by alcohol. I know I I I still remember the first time I drank it and you just go ahead. If you're if you're here and you're alcoholic, I don't have to describe to you what that first drink was like.

If you're here and you're Al Anon, well, welcome you. I'm glad you're here. I I love the Al Anon. And, back in the eighties, it used to be real popular and make jokes about Al Anon's. And I I never appreciated that.

You know, it's the only group of people that loves us, you know. If it wasn't for them, we've been in deep trouble. I've have got an Al Anon story that I hope to get to later. But I guess, the fact that it is that, everybody just kind of thought that I was getting too loaded. I had a at one point, how can I say this, I had 2 roommates?

I say I had 2 roommates. I was staying in an apartment where 2 guys were paying the rent. I just I needed that money. Thank you. I needed that money for some other stuff.

And the other side issues are quite tough. But I remember one of the guys made his living peddling outside issues. And And the other guy was my bartender. And both of them thought I was I had a shame for both guys. And that's not good.

The guy that you're spending every $10 you can get your hands on with is going, he wants me take a little glass of orange juice and a half gallon of vodka. Take a little sip and a big pull on a little sip and a big funny thing. Damn. And I was like, oh, from you? You know what?

I mean? I can take shame from my mother or my suit you know, but from my dealer, you know, it's alright. But if you are like me, you know, you want to start over a lot. And again, it's together. And this time, I'm gonna I'm gonna get it together.

And one time, I was at 3 studios that just did it, and the mail was there on the floor in my mother's house. I could still see it. And, and there was a thing that said, Credit Union reinstates student loans. And I thought, so I filled out the application, and they sent me a $25100 student loan. And, and I moved to Austin, and I moved in these apartments.

And, the, the maintenance man at these apartments, his wife had gone to treatment. And, he kept coming in the apartments talking about treatment, treatment, treatment, treatment, treatment, you know, treatment, treatment. And, I really thought we were interested in treatment, you know, hearing about any of this. But he was on what I've come to find out. It was called the marijuana maintenance program.

And he was drunk when I got here, but he carried enough message to me to get me here. And he kept talking about this treatment thing. He never mentioned detox. He never mentioned AA. He just mentioned treatment.

And he gave me some I want piece of really bad advice. He said, you know, you might wanna go pull a really good drunk before you go to treatment because they're gonna make you not wanna drink anymore. And I was like, I'm on it. And, you know, I like I mean, it's a sound theory. And, so I went out and I was pulling that really good drug because I was about to go to treatment.

And I was about to go to treatment, well, for 9 months. And, the thing about it is, I mean, I know I can't be the only one that's experienced this. You know, next week is a good time to go to trade. You know, I mean, think about it. And sometimes when it gets really bad, thank God, I'll go tomorrow, you know, or, I mean, probably tomorrow afternoon.

But but I'll go I'm gonna go tomorrow. But today was never the day. Never the day. And, tomorrow would come and it would be today, and it's like, mm-mm. Um-mm.

Maybe maybe tomorrow. And so finally, I went to this treatment center and I didn't I didn't know see, it's Alexa's story. I didn't know what treatment was. I mean, did anybody you guys wanna talk about maybe they do now, but I mean, you know, I just heard about treatment and I and I had a treatment center. And I had a picture of being somewhere between the hospital and a jail, you know.

And and I figured that you would lay up in the bed and that they would come in and treat you a little bit, you know. Come back in the afternoon, treat you a little more. And I really didn't know why it was gonna take 30 days, you know, but through a 30 day treatment center, you know what I mean? But I had room for it in my schedule. And so I I I carved out a 30 day slot, and and I went to this place.

And and I loved stolen credit cards, before I, there's a couple of I'm going to sell the pajamas, but then I got to go back a little bit. You know, before I went to this treatment center, I took one of those stolen credit cards. And the last one, funny, I would decide to quit drinking when I'm on the last stolen credit card. And I went down to the Kaiser's, it was called. I think it became Foley's later and that's Macy's.

But anyway, it was a plumbing store and I went in because, you know, in the hospital, you're gonna spend a lot of time in the bed. So I went and bought a purple pair of Christian Dior Pedunces and matching slippers and matching row. You know? And I don't think something's tacky. I mean, it was it was a more burgundy than that's what in fact, Mark Benner was writing mine to know that was Logan David Red.

But, I figured if I'm gonna be up in the bed all this time, you know, let's look good about it, you know. And, you know, I went into my mother's house there. I went in her laundry room, and I closed the the door. And, that rope is on hanging on the back of the door. I was really disappointed with how much time I got to spend in those good jobs.

You know, you know, every morning, you you know, you're up off the bed at 7 am and you couldn't get back on the bed till 10 o'clock that night. And I used to get cluster migraine headaches and I had 28 migraine headaches during the 30 days after treatment. And I'll never forget, we got to tell the story. There was a we have been talking about the big book a lot. And hopefully, I will talk a lot more about the big book, because that's that's where the answer lies.

That's where the solution is for what was killing me when I got here. But when I was saying that we hear a lot of terms that you're not familiar with when we come in here. And there was a guy right off the street. I mean, just crazy as hell. And he was sitting there.

I had a migraine headache and I'm walking around with an ice pack on my bed. It's about 2 o'clock in the morning. And in the day room, this is before the Internet. Now, Some of you may remember encyclopedias, let's all say it together. But before Google, it was a big deal to have a set of encyclopedias and they had them, Britannica and there was a little bookcase that had all of them in it and in the back was this big slot and it had a World Atlas that fit down in it.

It was really neat just up against the wall. So I'm walking around, I got a headache and here's the crazy bastard sitting at the table and I walked through and he goes, he's got the world analyst and he's flipping through the pages and he's like, man, this is far out. And I was like, well, good, dude. I'm glad you're digging it, you know. And I found out later that what had happened was he had gone into the office and he said, I can't sleep.

Do you have anything I can read? And John Bernie had said, if you want to read, why don't you read the big book? So, he was reading the biggest book we have. I always have business with this that book we're passing around is what we're talking about when we're when we mentioned the big book. Before I got into that treatment center, you know, I had during that time that I was about to go to treatment, I it really started getting sloppy, you know.

I mean, when it says when it says that we drink because we like the effect produced by alcohol, I don't think that we just tear it to the ground originally because we are self destructive or anything like that. I mean, there was a time when alcohol kicked ass. I mean, I remember just drinking it going, we are going to do this a lot. You know, I like this. And the funny thing about it is is that it has such a welcome effect on me.

The the the amount of comfort that I get from drinking a whole bunch of alcohol, regular people don't understand, you know. So without somebody explaining the disease of alcoholism to me, you know, I come in here or I'm out there especially, and people are saying, you need to not drink. Right? And I'm thinking, you need to shut up, you know, because you don't understand what it does for me. You know?

If you knew what it does for me. Yeah, okay. I mean, it'll fill that hole, and I'll pay anything for that. But and I can see why. Occasionally, I overshoot the mark a little bit, you know, and I wreck and I wreck the car or I go to jail or I lose a job or I lose a girlfriend or they take my house or something like that.

But I'll take that deal, you know, for for what it does for me. And, you know, if you understood what that drink does for me, you wouldn't say stupid shit like that to me. Like, you need to not drink, you know. And and so what that's what I show up here with is the belief that alcohol is not my problem. Alcohol is my solution.

It's the only thing I've ever that I had ever found in my life that would fill that hole that I had inside of me. And, this was the first place I've ever been where I've been around people that understood that, what it was like to be willing to cash it all in for that ease and comfort that comes from taking a few drinks. When it started getting bad, I like to I like to talk about the pawn shops. I love pawnshocks. It was such a pure equation.

You know, you just you take the shotgun in there and you hand it to them and they hand you the money. Right? And they give you a little ticket that goes in your pocket. They don't ever go, why do you need this money now? You know?

Or, you know, weren't you just in here this morning? You know? Or, you know, you've been calling a lot of stuff. You know? You know, you know, it was just it was straight up.

You know, you need money. You got stuff. You take it in, you got the money, bang, here we go. Well, 1 week part of that equation was I didn't own very much stuff. So I had to pause stuff that didn't belong to me.

That creates hard feelings and I'm proud of the family and this leads into my it leads into my own life story, because what I would do is I would pawn everything and you would have and a lot of this, you know, we have a lot of good plans, you know, like the guy with the whiskey and the milk. You know, is that Jim or Fred? That was Jim. It was damn good plan. You know, I mean, you know, and it seemed like it had well, my plan was always that I would I had 90 days to get everything out of the pawn shop.

So you were calling stuff and then you got a lot of time. And, you know, you only got to come up with 1 scam in 90 days and I am a pretty creative guy and that would get everything out. So and that worked pretty well. We rolled with that deal for a while and it worked great just like all the other plans. It worked great until it quit working.

And what happened was one time in particular, I came out of a blackout. I was blackout drinker. I was a blackout drinker several times a week. I was I went to blackout on average 3 to 5 nights a week. And, and I thought I was a pretty damn good driver because I only wrecked the car ever so often.

You know, that's the other thing that, you know, it starts looking sloppy to them. To me, you know, the judge is going, why don't you just be in here 6 months ago? And, you know, and I'm sitting on I haven't been arrested for 6 months, you know. I mean, you know, you know, it has hold us together pretty good. You hit a tree here.

You ran into somebody there, but for the most part, I was driving pretty damn good for a guy that's on a blackout most the time. But, I came out of this blackout and I'm sitting on the edge of the bed. I had $8 in my pocket. I had pulled a scam that was that netted enough money to get everything out of the pawnshop. And, I came out of this blackout and I had $8, and I still had this gangster wad of pawn tickets.

And I hadn't gotten a damn thing out of the pawnshop. And I didn't remember a thing from the previous 5 days. And, you one of the guys that I was running with went back over to some place we had visited and he got cut as soon as they opened the door. So I guess, we didn't make a good impression on our people. But I don't know what happened during that 5 days, but it wasn't going to get everything out of the pawnshop.

And so here we are in that terrible, horrible place of just, oh, no. I mean, we've all experienced those mornings. I and I didn't have anything else to do. My my dad was a good man. He was a hardworking man, you know, that none of his stuff was given to him.

He worked for it and paid for it, and, you know, he didn't do anything to deserve the kind of treatment he got from his son. Well, I have to go to my dad and say, dad, if we act now, I can get you a really good deal on all of your stuff. Were you all announcing the room? I don't mean to make light of that story. Alright.

I used to make a joke out of that to keep from getting too emotional. Because what I the reason I tell this story is because of the shame, you know, the shame that we feel before we get here. And what I would have to do was, you know, it would be it would be bad enough if it was dead, let's get in the car and go to the pawn shop and get your stuff. But we live in Dallas, and Dallas is a big town. And what we would have to do is get in the car and I'd have to say, okay.

Now we left. We have to go over on Garland Road, you know, and I got some stuff over there. And then we need to go over to Harry Hines, and then we need to go to Oak Cliff because I left a deer off in O'Clip and then he metal detectors out on Buckner Boulevard. And, you know, and and so it was it was all day in the car with me and my dad and all that checked. This is where we start talking about alcohol.

It's a little bit. This is where we start talking about powerlessness. Because when we were riding in that car, I would swear to him that I will never do this again. And if I was lying to him, I'd answer to the note, because I'm in it with every fiber of my being, that I would never do this to him again because I knew it was messed up. You know, I was plenty of psychotic sometimes, but I knew well enough to know that that was some bad the answer.

But we will go get everything out. And, you know, like most of us, if you think about think about take a second. Think about the worst day of your drinking, alright, for most of us. The worst day you ever experienced drinking. What are we doing the next day?

Drinking. That's the way it would go for me. I would, you know, I would make it for maybe a day or 2, and then I would hit his back door like a cat burger. And, you know, because I needed money, and I would grab that and I'd grab it and I'd go and and then, you know, next thing that well, the the short version of the story is, my father and I made those rounds with pawn shops, three times during that 9 months when I was getting ready to go to treatment. A lot of stuff happened during that 9 months treatment that had never happened before.

That kind of shame with my family, getting locked out of their house, getting to a point where I didn't know anybody that would loan me $5. And believe me, $5 didn't help too much. But I couldn't get, you know, I was out of resources. So that's the way that's how slick I was. That's how cool I was.

That's the way I showed up at Alcoholics and I was without any answers, not knowing how to get through one day without getting loaded And, just, you know, as well as I knew how to be. Well, I showed up for that treatment center and, you know, that that willingness the big word talks about we like to try to get with a guy when he's depressed. He may be more receptive if he's depressed. Well, you know what it is? Because you take me, a guy like me that on that day is out of answers.

I'm completely willing. I'm at a point of complete surrender. And you put me in a treatment center. But 30 days later, I put on £15. I'm picking up a 30 day shift, and you can't tell me a goddamn thing.

You know, I mean, you know, I get, you know, I got better ideas now. In fact, I could tell you how to run a treatment center better than this. I'm still, you know. Well, I guess, how we go for time? Jesus.

I'm still drunk. Well, let me speed it up a little bit. Good grief. Well, what happened was I sold it up in that treatment center, and I and I worked the steps. And I got really I did the first five steps, because we had to do the first five steps as a condition of getting out of the treatment center.

And I did the first five steps and I got really heavily involved in the fellowship of BioClock Sonoma. I love the fellowship of BioClock Anonymous. I love what we're doing here tonight. I go to a lot of conferences. Katie and I, we grew up going to stuff and you learn a lot of stuff when we mix with people and stuff that.

You know, I mean, I talked about when we all went to wet and wild. And one of my favorite stories is, you get chances to teach newcomers stuff. My first sponsor, we all went to wet and wild one day, and we're up on this tower. And there's this ride where you slide straight down and into a pool of water. And, it's like a 110 feet up in the air.

That's high speed enema right now. And the thing goes up like that in a circle and we go around and we're about to be next. You know, I mean and and the wind's blowing and, the tower is kinda moving a little bit, and this guy goes and he kinda give the floor. He kinda like going, anybody wanna go in front of me? You know, and and it's a little scary.

And, Jim looks at me and he goes, you feel that? And I went, yeah. He goes, that's fear. Identify that feeling. It's gonna come up again for you.

And, I was like, thanks, mother. You know, so, you know, you never know when we're going to get to share the message a little bit there, but I went to AA Wearmates, I went to AA Dances, I had AA coworkers. I dated AA girls. I, you know, everything was AA fellowship, and I'm not knocking the Fellowship of Aflacinabas at all. I love the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But I wasn't doing the work. And the thing I can tell you is that the Fellowship of Alcoholics and all of us will keep you sober right up to the point that you get loaded, you know, because I was not involved in the work. I stopped doing the work when I got out of that treatment center. And if you'd asked me, I would have said I was you know, 67. Looking back on it now, that makes no sense.

But, but what had happened to me and, you know, what a time ago, I will just keep talking while you are cleaning it up. I'm up here talking about my 2 favorite things, alcoholics and llamas and me. But, you know, Katie was around. Katie and I were best friends for 20 years. And a few years ago, her husband passed away and I got a divorce.