Fellowship by the Sea in Myrtle Beach, SC

Big round of applause for Jay from Greenville.

Thank you, Lou. An introduction like that reminds me of this sign I saw and it was outside of church and it said annual Strawberry festival. But due to the recession, we'll be serving prunes. And so I I'm an alcoholic. My name is Jay Kimball.

Hey everybody, I've been sober by the grace of a loving God, extremely strong sponsorship, and because I'm an active member of a Home group since October the 12th of 2003 that home groups the traditional group. We meet on Tuesday and Friday nights at 8:00 in Greenville, SC and if you're ever up there, we'd love to have you come visit with us.

I want to thank Jay and the committee for inviting Kimberly and I down. And this is a convention that that we come to regularly and you guys do a tremendous job and, and everything's just been fantastic. And I'm looking forward to a

a real good weekend. So we appreciate you having us.

You know, when I first started to come around Alcoholics Anonymous, I used to hang around at a lot of open discussion meetings. I don't do that much anymore, but, but I used to and, and there was a lot of, there was a, there was a group of old guys and they'd sit in the back and they'd say stick around kids, you'll get your life back.

And man, I never liked that. I just didn't, I didn't want my life back. And thanks to good sponsorship, the doctor's opinion talks about the, the message it must hold Us Alcoholics has to have depth and weight. It talks about if I'll ground my ideals in a power greater than myself, I'll recreate my life. And that's something completely different than getting my life back.

You know, Page 29 of the Big Book talks about clear cut direction

and the first direction it gives right after that is what I think I'm supposed to do tonight. And basically what it says that I'm supposed to tell you in my own words and from my own point of view how I form my relationship with God. And I'm going to try to do that. I'm going to tell you a little story that might explain my relationship with God before I got here. It's about this guy and he was in the parking lot and he just, he was couldn't find a parking space. He was late, had to be in court. And he just stopped the car and he looked up and he said, God,

I got to get in this courthouse. If you'll just help me, I'll go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, Anonymous. And I'll, I'll be nice to that wife and I'll get a get a job and I'll do right.

And when he opened his eyes, there was a parking space and he said, never mind. I found one. And,

and you know, and that's, that's the kind of way, that's the kind of the way I was before I got here. I, I grew up in a home with good parents. They never missed a PTA meeting. They never missed a baseball practice. They provided for me really well. But you know, I guess the two most important things that happened to me when I was a kid happened when I was about 7 years old. And the first thing that happened was I had a younger brother that was born and, and I, I just, you know, I never was one of these kids who felt like the

was taken from the younger child. You know, we were just, we remained close and we've always remained close. And, but it was about that time too, that my parents set me down. And I know that they did it in a loving and caring way because that's the kind of parents they were. But they told me that my father loved me and my mother so much when he met her that he adopted me.

And, umm, you know, an interesting thing I have an interesting thing that happens to me. Maybe it happens to you. I don't always hear what people tell me and what I heard. Was there something wrong with you? And now I don't know how much of that I processed at 7 years old, but I knew I immediately felt different. And I immediately began to be filled with this hate and this rage that I didn't know where it came from. And, you know, it wasn't long after that that I started to realize that there were some things different about my house. And,

and it was what it was. It was my father's drinking. And and I'm going to talk to you some tonight about my relationship with my father. It's important for me to tell you that I do that with his permission. It's a little more important for me to tell you that tonight since he's sitting out in the crowd somewhere. But

I,

but you know, I,

I was filled with all that hate and that anger and I didn't know where it came from. And I began to lie and I began to, to find things that the neighborhood kids

lost before they lost them. And you know, I just, I just, was a, I was just a rotten kid. And, and I used, I used the situations at my house to make people feel sorry for me. And I manipulated situations and I manipulated people and I did all this

in an effort to make myself feel better. I one of the things I, I swore though, is I swore that I was never going to drink because I hated my father. I hated the way he was. I hated the things that happened in my home. I hated to have to hold that seven-year. I hated to have to hold that 6 year old little boy in between my legs at night when things were breaking and they were screaming and say it's OK,

I'm not going to let him hurt you. I just hated that and I swore I was never going to do that to anybody.

And but you know, when I got to be about 15 years old, all my buddies were starting to drink. Now

I'm a follower. It's important for me to tell you that I watch what you do. And I did it so fast. Look like we're doing at the same time. And so, so one of the things that I did,

my buddies were drinking and we decided one day that we were, we went across the tracks to the wrong side of town, so to speak. And we're hanging around this gas station and we were trying to get folks to buy some wine. And we're having a hard time. I wasn't bald back then. I was about 15 years old. And

but by this time I've learned to manipulate anything. I mean, I could manipulate any situation. And there's this old guy walking around in an army coat with a gas can and he's trying to get people to fill that gas can up. Nobody will do it. So I study this situation and the guys name was high test and he, he huffed gasoline fumes out of that gas can. And, and they knew him around there and just wanted to run him off. And so I said, hey man, I'll fill the gas can up. They'll think I'm a kid cutting grass locally around here. You get some wine and I'll meet you out back.

I was to find out at 15 years old the kind of places alcohol was going to take me for the next 15 years. By 5 O clock that afternoon, I was behind that gas station huffing gasoline fumes with that guy drinking wine and never got much better than that. I, I never was much of a student, but I, I drunk, I drank that wine and took a couple poles off that gas can and I breezed right through high school. Four years, 3 summer schools.

I,

you know, I got in a lot of trouble where alcohol was concerned right off the bat. I, I lost my drivers license not long after I got it for underage possession alcohol and ended up in a, ended up in some kind of outpatient counseling for alcoholism. And I know that sometime in high school I attended my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, and I don't remember anything about any of the a a meetings I went to there other than one day I was sitting in there and Mr. Black came walking in and Mr. Black was my shop teacher and his eyes got about as big as my eyes.

I don't know if I ever went back to another meeting. But somehow I managed to finish high school and get the opportunity to go to Lewisburg, North Carolina, to a little junior college down there on a baseball with an opportunity to play baseball. And, you know, I got down there to Lewisburg and it was a little Methodist college. And it was, you know, there was like a Walmart and a Hardee's. And

man, I, I had grown up in Northern Virginia right outside of Washington, DC. So I was like used to the city. And here I am, Walmart and a Hardee's Methodist. You know, I just was.

And, you know, I drank up that opportunity to play baseball in less than three months. I never saw the baseball field, not during the day anyway. It the baseball field set way down at the end of campus. We used to go, we used to go down there in the dugout at night and drink. That's the only time I ever saw it. And I said some things to the Dean one night that you shouldn't say to the Dean of the Methodist school and

and you know, that was it. And, and back home I went. Now this is

this is kind of a recurring theme in my story. I went back home to mom and good alcoholic. I've met a lot of us that do that and I did and I went back home. But but when I went back home, things were different that that younger brother that I had see all through school. I had been Mr. potential if you just apply yourself, if you would just work a little bit harder. You know, I had coaches say that and teachers and but I didn't care about any of that stuff. I didn't care about working harder. And,

you know, I should have this counselor. Her name was Miss Roach. And she would always ask me, why do you do the things that you do? And, you know, I would give her the typical alcoholic answer. I guess I don't know, you know, But what I wanted to tell her was if you knew the way I felt when I wasn't drinking, you'd never asked me that again. I just hated the way I felt and, and I hated who I was becoming and I hated the things I was doing, but I didn't know not how to do them. I, I got back home and gosh,

and I guess I've had her been fired from more jobs than most people ever even apply for. You know, I'd work somewhere for a couple weeks and get a paycheck and it wouldn't like that. And I'd quit. And but that younger brother I had was, he was the student body president. He was the male athlete of the year. He was MVP of the baseball team. He was all the things that I wanted to be, that they said I could be, that alcohol kept me from being.

And you know, that's a tough position to be in. You know, I would look at him and I would, I would think to myself,

why can't I be like that? And, and I would just drown it in more alcohol. And you know,

I was a blackout drinker and I would black out and there would be this moment where I could

hear and see, but like I couldn't walk and I couldn't talk. Like I just couldn't move. We were just give you an example. We were at a party one night out in the country and we were coming home

and there was a deer on the side of the road. And we decided that it looked like it just been hit. So we were going to just have some venison pick it up, take it home. So we picked the deer up, we put it in the back of the truck and we get back into town and you got to kind of picture this. Officer Wolverton's house is on this corner, and my house is on this corner, and there's an interest to the City Park in between those two houses.

And we get that deer in the light and nobody was going to be eating any meat off of that deer, if you know what I mean. It was in bad shape. And so we just threw it in the bushes. We pulled up in the park and just threw it in the bushes.

Now Officer Wolverton must have been looking out the window because we didn't get two or three blocks down the road and we were surrounded by the police. They had their guns drawn

and I'm laying in the back of this truck and then I can't move and I can't talk, but I can feel them hitting my ankles with that big old flashlight. And I've known Officer Wolverton my whole life. I'm the kind of kid who got in a lot of trouble in the neighborhood. So when we weren't strangers and he I can I remember this like it was it was yesterday, he said to my buddy Bobby, he said,

you guys call yourself this boys friends. He can have alcohol poisoning. And without missing a beat, Bobby said he doesn't have alcohol poisoning. He's like that all the time. And

you know, and I just did like, I just did things like that. And you know, I never, I never had been much of A

much of A ladies man. And so I didn't have that, that deal kind of tying me down. And you know, some of you older guys like Skip may remember a time when you could do cool stuff in America, like join the circus or ride the rails. It's like the Great American adventure back then. And my Great American adventure involved a 74 Volkswagen pop top van and a summer on the road with the Grateful Dead.

And I saw a lot of stuff on the road with the Grateful Dead. I'm not so sure it was all really there,

but

I packed everything I owned in that, in that 74 Volkswagen van. And, and we hit the road and

we were on our way to New York City. We were coming from Columbia, SC. We'd taken a detour. The dead wasn't playing that night or something. We stopped at Farm Aid and his Farm Aid was in Columbia, SC and we were selling grilled cheeses in the parking lot of Williams Brice Stadium. And, you know, we left Columbia, headed for New York City, and we got as far as Dunn, NC,

which is a little town outside of Fayetteville. And we stopped at a Stucky's in a Hardee's in the same building. Now, I'm from the suburbs of Washington, DC. I've never seen anything like that. I was amazed and

I it was just the strangest thing to me, But we were pumping gas in that van and the engine in those things is in the back and it caught on fire. And when the fire hit the gas we just put in it, it blew up, it exploded, it burnt to the ground.

Um, the only things left were some, some balloons and you could figure out what those were for and, and a in a, in a Bob Dylan CD. And I think I still have that Bob Dylan CD, but, but here I am on the side of the road. I'm 20 years old. Everything I'd accumulated in my life was in that van. I had on a pair of cut off shorts and a Jerry Garcia T-shirt and no shoes. And, you know, I called my mom and I said you're going to have to send me some money to come back home.

And, and she did,

um, you know, and I went back home and, and nothing got better. You know, dad had gone to treatment when I was in the eighth grade and,

and he'd gotten sober and by the time I got back home, he was drinking again. And it got bad. And sometimes it would get violent and, and sometimes it wouldn't. And it was about this time that I met a young lady and she was going to fix me. She was responsible and she but the deal was she was moving to West Palm Beach, FL. Now, my parents afford me every opportunity in the world to succeed. And I found an art school down in Fort Lauderdale, FL, that accepted me. I can't draw,

I can't, I can't color, I can't paint. I, you know, I got a three-year old. I, I just, it's just not artistically talented. I don't,

I don't know how I got into that school, but nevertheless I did. And you know, I hold, I hold to the fact that alcoholism is a family disease and, and I can probably give you some examples of that. And the first one is that my parents loaded up everything and they took me down to Fort Lauderdale and they went to that school and they paid the bills at the school. And then we went over to the apartment complex and they paid the bills at the apartment complex.

And then they went to the bank and they gave me a check and account and a checkbook

and they both hugged me and they both said, son, we love you and we know you're going to do good.

And we left and we left that school and they left and I never went back.

Yeah, I rode that as long as you can ride it. They started calling 6-6 or seven months later looking for report cards. And I, you know, I didn't have any of that stuff. But what had happened to me while I was in Florida was

the things that I did, the things that I saw in that house. That's what I'd never do. I began to do those things to that young lady. And I can remember waking up and my roommates there, and there's a hole in the wall and there's broken glass and he's looking at me,

but I don't remember. I don't remember anything. But he's got that look. And he says what's wrong with you?

You spit in her face last night

and I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me,

but I know I can't stop.

I hope I never have to feel what it feels like to try to apologize for something you don't remember doing ever again.

I,

you know, somehow I convinced her to come back to Virginia with me and we went back to my parents house and I, you know, we rocked along doing that for a while and I wouldn't I wouldn't work. I would just lay around drunk on in, you know, in my room and

just cause problems and and get in trouble with the law and just just despicable, despicable things that I would do when I was drinking. And, you know, sometimes I might be the life of the party and then

and then I might spit in your face, you know, those, those kind of things. And, and I left, I left one New Year's Eve and I just left her. And, and that's what I do, just kind of like the tornado, you know, I had to mess it up. And then I leave. And it's your problem. You can fix it because I don't care. Because when I'm gone, it's not my problem anymore. And, you know, and she left and and she was gone. And

I started to spend a lot of time in Southeast Washington, DC.

And it was on one of those days that I let a guy stick a needle in my arm. And

I'm not here tonight to tell you that story. There's a reason that I even bring it up. But from that day, it wasn't three months that I was living on Skid Row, Southeast Washington, DC on 3rd St. in an abandoned house. And if you've ever lived on the streets, I don't, I don't really need to go into the details of that. I just did all the things that you do when you live on the streets. And the main thing I did is I became a criminal. I learned how to become a criminal. Criminal. Here's the here's the young boy with all the potential

who's, you know, was the Episcopal acolyte and whose parents provided him all these opportunities to succeed. And I'm on the streets digging in trash cans and

just doing whatever it is I have to do to survive. And then and and my mother would come down there at night sometimes looking for a little boy and sometimes she would find me and sometimes she wouldn't. And, you know, I had a friend of mine who had grew up down the street, 5 houses down the street from me, and

he moved out to Steamboat Springs, Co and he was out there coaching high school basketball. And he found out about my situation. He called my mom. My parents were getting ready to move back to Greenville, SC. My dad had just retired from his job and my brother was going off to Virginia Tech University. So, you know, it sounded like a good idea to me. I don't know if any of you ever been to Steamboat Springs, Co. I've never been there, but I saw some pictures and I was, you know, living on Skid Row. Steamboat Springs a heck of a lot prettier in Skid Row

and, but I had to get detoxed and that was a tough deal and I got detoxed and alcoholism, the family disease kicked in again. This time they bought me a brand new car. They gave me another checkbook and they sent me to they sent me to Steamboat Springs, Co and. And they didn't have any of that poison out there, at least not that I could find. I looked but but they had vodka and I tried to drink all of it. I,

I've left a bar one night in that brand new car and

I heard a loud crash and I felt something hit me in the face. And when I realized it was the airbag, I wrestled it down and the car was still running. And there's like two cops in Steamboat. I mean, there's like 600 people in that town or something when it's not ski season. So the car was running. I did probably what you would have done. If the car is running, nobody's around. I drove home and you know, it wasn't long after that there was blue lights and sirens and all this commotion and I was just drunk enough and dumb enough to walk out there and see what was going on.

And, and you know, the next thing you know, I'm handcuffed. And, uh,

you know, I was at a wedding not long ago in DC and the guy who, who put my shoes on me that night while I was handcuffed was telling Kimberly the story. And I, you know, he, he put, he put my shoes on me while I was handcuffed, my roommate and they took me to jail. And, you know, three or four days went by and mom wouldn't answer my phone calls. And mom and dad had, were, were going through a divorce and, and dad was drinking again. And I thought, well, if I can get my drunk dad on the phone, he'll understand. He'll send some money out here, Get Me Out of jail. And, and finally I,

I got him on the phone and he sent the money and I got out and my roommate came and picked me up and he threw the newspaper on my lap. And the front page of the Steamboat Springs Inquirer, whatever it was called, said oil trail leads police to drunk driver I. I had busted that oil pan in that accident. They'd followed it into this apartment complex. And I guess if I'd have stayed in the house, I wouldn't have got caught. But

if you're the high school basketball coach and your and your roommates, the oil trail guy, that doesn't workout too well in a small town like that. So,

you know, Needless to say, he asked me to leave and, and I did. I went back to Greenville, SC. My parents were there and, and like I said, they were going through a divorce and, and I didn't want to be a part of that. I didn't, I've been to Greenville before because my whole family was from there. But you know, I kind of fancied myself a city boy. And man, they like NASCAR and fishing and

hunting and I didn't like any of that stuff. I liked Skid Row and liquor and winos. And, you know, so I had a, I had AI had a friend of mine call me and he said his, his, his mother was a secretary where my father had worked in DC growing up. He called me and he said, hey, man, I'm down here at Coastal Carolina University. And my parents,

my parents have bought this condo down here in Surfside. And he said I got an extra room. Why don't you just come down? They, they pay the bills. I we won't even tell them you're living here.

And Mance, I said, Bruce, I'll be there in two days, but you're going to have to come get me because I don't have a driver's license. And he came to Greenville and picked me up and I came down here to Myrtle Beach. And I got a job up at Broadway, at the beach, at Joe's Crab Shack, bartending and got a doctor down in Georgetown because I had bad back problems from that accident. And

you know, I can remember I was at work one night and I was in his car

with no driver's license. And he called me and I've been, I've been working, I don't know, three or four hours. And he called and he said, I meant to tell you, man, please don't drink and drive in that car, that car still in my momma's name. And I said, man, how long have we known each other? I wouldn't do that. Now I've been behind that bar for four hours. Ain't no telling how drunk I was already. But that's the last thing I remember till the next morning when I woke up in Horry County Regional Medical Center with three broken ribs and a fractured bone in my face and a blood alcohol level of .29 at 7:30 in the morning.

And I don't have any idea where I was going or where I was coming from.

And they took me to that car to get my golf clubs out. And it was the first time in my life I'd ever been scared of what alcohol could do to me. That car looked like one of those cars they said outside of a high school at prime time to keep kids from drinking and driving. And I was scared till I got to the pharmacy and filled that prescription they gave me and went to the to the liquor, you know, to the beer aisle and got some beer. And

interesting thing happened. I call my mom.

She'd been on me about getting a job. And I said, mom, I need $500. And she said, well, I'm not going to be able to help you this time, son. That had never happened in 24 years. Never. I never had to ask more than once. Usually. I said, look, you've been on me about getting this job. I got this job, this nice restaurant. I got to have black pants and black shoes and a white shirt and I need $500. I got to have two outfits. I'm not going to be able to help you this time, son. Well, I can probably get by on 250.

Well, son, I I'm taking care of myself now. I'm a member Al Anon. You're going to have to take care of yourself.

Now,

I don't know who those Al Anon's are, but I'm going to Greenville find out. I can tell you that. And

the, the solicitor in Myrtle Beach, he had the idea that I was going to spend 30 days in jail,

our 30 days in this treatment center that mom had picked out. You know, Al Anon's are funny that way. She'd had it all lined up. All I had to be detoxed though. So we, they come get me, her and my aunt. I had this aunt who was like a mother to me and they come pick me up and they run me back up the road to Greenville to detox. And here we go off and I'm asking where is this treatment center? Well, it's in Mayberry, North Carolina. Mayberry, North Carolina. That's like the Andy Griffith show, right? Like, that's how that's not even a real place.

And I can assure you that it is. They got Floyd Barber Shop and all that stuff up there. But,

you know, we get in the car and we're headed to to Mayberry Mount Airy. And

they had, my dad had always told me I needed to be in some kind of sales. And I did the best selling job I'd ever done in my life up until that point between Greenville, SC and Charlotte, NC. By the time I got to Charlotte, I had a bus ticket and was dropped off at the Greyhound bus station. See, going to treatment scared me to death. I got on that Greyhound bus and I went back to Washington, DC to Skid Row because that didn't scare me.

And that court date got a little bit closer though in jail scared me. And

I don't know why I had hope I had the treatment centers phone number, but I did. And I called down there and I got a lady named Carol on the phone. And I had always been able to manipulate women. And I got Carol on the phone and by the time I hung up, I was crying and begging, please can I come back, you know, please can I come and, and they let me come and, you know, I got there and walking up to the porch, if any of y'all ever been there, I'm walking up to the porch and there's this little old man sitting on the porch

and he's got this box and he sounds like Darth Vader

scared me to death. I was scared and I stayed scared of that guy for a week or so, man. But that that old man taught me a lot about love and he taught me as much as I'd let him teach me about the disease, alcoholism. And you know, I was in that treatment center. It seems like I was there about 7 days

and I was in one of those meetings and, and they read how it works and they got to that line where they say we beg you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.

And I disqualified myself from Alcoholics Anonymous because I was scared to death. And but I needed a letter for this judge down here. And so I, you know, I did what they asked me to do and I got the letter. And but you know, Mr. B did a great thing for me. He sent me back to Greenville, SC, to what still today, my Home group, to another old man who'd been sober longer. And I've been alive.

And the old man was waiting on me when I got to the door. And he put his arm around me, said I've been waiting on you.

And he walked me up to the front row of our Home group. And he sat me down and he said, this is where you sit. You keep your mouth shut.

And, you know, I spent the next four years doing everything he told me not to do except sit on the front row. He would say, leave that girl alone, Jay, she's trying to get sober. And I'd go sit right next to her, say, hey, how are you, you know, or whatever. And, you know, and I came to the meetings drunk and

I was just, it was just terrible. I just, you know, I ended up, I ended up living in this little apartment

list of rooms.

What it was the bed folded up into the wall. And but you know, there was a church next door and those Al Anon's met in that church, they met on Friday night. And it was, it was a Friday night and I'd had just enough, It was one of those been awake three or four day Friday nights, you know, been up all week. But I had just enough courage to finally go over there and tell them,

'cause I know what they did is on Fridays, they shut over there and they told my mom,

don't give him any more money.

Don't let that boy come home. Don't answer the phone if the police are looking for him, just call it, tell him where he is. I know. I knew that's what they did. And, and I wasn't, I was just tired of it. And I was going to over there to tell him. And, and I, I jumped the fence and I stormed in the back doors of that church and the room was full. And there was a guy at the podium dressed like I am tonight. And it was Monday night. And that's when the a, a speaker meeting was on Mondays. And

I don't know if you ever been drunk in the back of an AA speaker meeting and they all turn around you like a deer and headlights back there. And,

and, and I've been a nuisance around Greenville a A for a while. So I knew a lot of people and I tapped this guy that I knew named Richard on the shoulder. When, when you're in that situation, you got to ask for help, at least to get out of it, whether you want it or not. I said, Richard, man, I need some help. I can't stop drinking. And he came outside and he said, well, why don't I go in here and get Bob and we'll come over and flush that garbage down the toilet, pour all that vodka out and we'll take you to detox.

And I thought, man, here we go. Another drastic proposal from Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, everything y'all wanted me to do

seems so outrageous. And I looked at my watch and it was about 8:15 and I said, Richard, you probably need to be in that meeting. I said, so why don't you go back in there and you'd come over at 9 and I'll just have all that stuff going. Won't throw anything away. Well, they never came. And but, you know, page 30 of this book talks about pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization,

and I'm going to give you my definition of that.

It's 2:00 in the morning.

I've been awake for God knows how long. I got a big jug of grape Kool-aid and a big bottle of Gilby's vodka

and I got to get a drink down. But when I chug it down, it hits my stomach and I throw it up

and I chug it again and it hits my stomach and I throw it up.

And I take one of those needles I was telling you about and I start filling up with that vodka

and start shooting at my veins

and I can't stop. I cannot stop.

I don't want to be the way I am, but I don't know how to stop.

And umm,

you know, I can remember live in that apartment and my mom would drive by there and I spent a lot of time peeking out the windows and, and I would see her, I would see her drive by, but but she would never stop.

You know, she told me later that she was scared to knock on the door because she's scared I was going to be dead

and umm, you know, I live my life like that. I

I I got into some trouble, something about stealing a lady's person.

I got caught and I went to jail and I ended up in jail. And, you know, I called my mom and, you know, by this time active al Anon, every time I called her for something, she had some treatment center picked out, like already lined up all the information, all the ducks in a row. I'll come help you, But that's the only help you're getting from me. And I wasn't going back to treatment. I'd already been to Hope Valley and Mr. B taught me everything I need to know. I need to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous. I got a sponsor.

I got a seat on the front row over there. Probably still, I don't need to go to treatment again. I need to go back to a a I surely don't need to go to treatment for six months in the middle of nowhere in Georgia. And she would just hang up. When you're ready to go, call me back, you know, and

it took, it took 10 days and I just couldn't take it anymore. And I said, come Get Me Out of this jail. I'll go anywhere you want me to go. And you know, they wouldn't even Take Me Home. I mean, they wouldn't, the bus station trip taught them something. I think they they wouldn't even, they just picked me up. Pepperoni pizza in the car. Change of clothes,

Georgia.

We turned onto what is what has got to be the longest dirt Rd. in the southeast down in Lewisville, Georgia. And we get out to this place and I call it a, a boot camp. It's it's called the Bridges of Hope. But you can't speak unless you're spoken to. You got to carry your big book with you everywhere you go. You got to sit with your back straight up and your feet flat on the floor. And if little Johnny's got 20 days and you got 18 days, little Johnny can tell you whatever he wants and you got to do it.

It's most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

They line all the new guys up along the wall under 30 days. When you eat and you sit, all the guys who got more than 30 days are eating and all the new guys are along the wall and you got to sit there with your big book reading it. They'd they'd go, hey boy, you know something like 19 year old little kid calling you that. Hey boy, what? What are the 1st 3 words on page 112? And you think you're going to do something fantastic and you flip over there and read this book.

Those are the 1st 3 words they should shut up. That's right, shut up. Read

Man, I did, and I was facing a lot of time in prison. I'd been on probation when I got in all that trouble. And

so I'll shut up and read rather than go to prison. I mean, I did that. I did that for for six months every day I did that. I was drunk in three days when I left and and I was homeless and I was living in this car that I had I, that I had borrowed the money from a guy in a, A to get the car and, and not paid him back. And I had stolen a license plate off a car, off of a truck from one of my grandfather's trucks. And I was living in this car and

it's winter time and it's cold and my grandparents business was here and their house was right next door. And I would, I would park that car in the morning, like 6:30 in the morning out in front of my grandparents house because I knew at 6:30 in the morning, my grandmother would be in the kitchen, she'd be making breakfast, she'd be reading the upper room

and she'd lookout that window. She'd see her favorite grandson out in that car

and she'd come out there and I'd say, what's wrong with your daughter, grandmother? She won't let me come home

now. I know you raised her better than that. Can't you call her? I mean, it's cold out there. I don't have anywhere to go.

Yeah. Who does that?

I did that.

That's what alcohol does to me.

And you know, I did that for I don't know how long. One morning I couldn't take it anymore. And I called the guy named Arch and I said Arch, I don't know what to do. And he said, well, I do said, why don't I come get you and we'll take you to an, A, a meeting. And

arch came and picked me up and he took me to the meeting and, and you know, you guys did the same thing you'd always done. She just hugged me and you welcome me back. And you said it was going to be OK. And I man, I started doing good. My, you know, my family let me let me, they let me come to work for that company and

I got my own little place. And I was, you know, 90 days sober and I'm on the front row at my Home group and she walks in

and she, I know she's looking at me. I can, I could like feel her eyes in the back of my head. But I know what they're going to say. I know what they're going to say. So I don't even say anything. I just walk outside. There's this little bench outside our Home group and I go sit on that bench. And I think the daily reflection that morning been about God's will or something. And I said, I'm not going to talk to her, but if she comes over here, it must be God's will.

And, and, and she did. She came over and and we started to talk and she said, hi, my name is Kimberly. And I said hi, my name is Jay. And she said, you have beautiful eyes.

And I told you I don't always hear what people tell me. What I heard was, can I have your phone number? So I wrote it down and I gave it to her,