The 31st Louisiana Al-anon Convention in Lafayette, LA

The Wildcats for the Cardinals. He said neither. He went to school at Indiana,

so that's why I probably has a good time when it's basketball season there.

Al McLaughlin,

AJ McLaughlin, I'm sorry, Al sticking in my mind, grew up in

dummy. He spent some time in Houston back in the 50s and 60s, which was kind of surprised me. It must been when he was a real young man,

but he comes to us well recommended. I think we're going to enjoy his presentation. And without further ado, AJ is going to get up and give us a nice story.

Hi everybody. My name is AJ McLaughlin, and I'm a grateful, very grateful member of the Fellowship of Al Anon, my home. Hi again. You don't mind if I take my jacket off? Thank you. I would have taken it off anyway.

I want to thank the committee, Kathy and Adele and Donna. Donna met me at the airport today and she was holding up but one day at a time, so we recognized each other immediately. Everybody's been really, really, really nice, which I expected in Louisiana.

Yeah, I really love the way you all talk.

I'm serious. I really do. I think it's beautiful, all right? You know, it's just great,

y'all.

I had too much to eat tonight at dinner. We went to this really nice restaurant and it had all kinds of Cajun food. And I really look forward to gumbo and I have lots of gumbo and French bread and it was great. And I made a deal with some of the people there that if I went to sleep, they'd wake me up and if they went to sleep, I'd wake them up. So if we have any screams during this while that's that's the reason for it.

I'm really glad to be here. I'm glad to be anywhere where there's an Al Anon meeting.

I went to my first Al Anon meeting in August of 1985 that was 61 years old.

I was angry, bitter and scared and bewildered and confused.

And even worse than all that, I didn't care anymore.

I don't want ever be there again, and I know that I don't have to. I learned an al Anon. I don't have to be there again. Never, and I will not.

And I'm grateful for more things from the Al Anon program and the people than I have time to tell you. But I think the thing I'm most grateful for is that I am not the same person that I was when I went to that first Al Anon meeting. I'm not the same person by far

now. I still get angry and I still get bewildered. I still get scared,

I'll still get resentful occasionally, I'll still even try to control occasionally.

Y'all recognize that I'm sure. But you know it's different. It's not like it was, and I know what to do when that happens.

Our program suggests that

we tell what our life was like and what happened and what it's like today. And I will try to do that as honestly as I can. I was telling some of the people earlier today that that I had a chance last Sunday night to talk at my Home group. This has been my Home group for 18 1/2 years. And so when I talk to my Home group, believe me, I am honest. They know me from way back. And so, you know, it's good to do that occasionally to talk at your Home group because, you know, it gives you, you need to think a little bit.

My father died when I was six years old. I had a younger brother and a younger sister,

and this was in the middle of the Great Depression. You know, I always say this and I always say this. Why did they call it great?

You know, it damn sure wasn't great and my memory of it anyway. But anyway, it was in the middle of the Great Depression.

My dad died. We went to live with my grandmother and grandfather in a neighborhood that was poor.

We were all poor. But you know, I, I remember my childhood as being a pretty good childhood. Everybody in the neighborhood was the same. And, you know, my brother and I particularly played on the streets and, and we learned some St. smarts, which is, it's, that's okay. The rest of your life. There's nothing wrong with that. But I do remember having a fairly decent childhood as far as, as playing pleasures and everything like that. And we were never hungry and we used clothes that other people wore, but that was OK.

When I went to high school, I went to an all boys high school in downtown Louisville. And

in that school I met young men from other parts of town and they live differently than we did. And they had nicer homes and they had cars and I became friends with a lot of them and and they went to their homes and visited and everything. And I bring that up in my island on top because at that period of my life, when I was in high school, I made-up my mind that when I became older, I was going to do whatever I had to do to live like they did instead of the way we did.

And because of that resolution, I became a workaholic

and I married an alcoholic. And that is not a good combination. Believe me, it really is not a good combination.

I went in the Army when I was 18 years old. I was in the Army during World War 2 for approximately 4 1/2 years when I came out. Pardon me.

I decided I was going to go to college

primarily due to the fact that the GI Bill was available, but also because I knew if I wanted to be a success, that was what I was going to have to do. And going to college was not part of my family's culture. And I remember talking to some of my cousins and some of my aunts and uncles and telling them I was going to college and they looked at me like I was going to Mars or something, You know, I mean that that was that was our family. But I did, I went to college and, and, and I was in such a hurry to

get to where I could be a success that I finished College in three years. And I do not recommend that to any young people who are here. It's a whole lot more fun going to college into his work and believe me, whole lot more fun. So I went to work as soon as I got out and, and had two or three jobs before I found one that I really liked. And it was at that, about that time when I met the, the, the young woman that I, that I was going to marry, that I ended up married.

My family was I, I was a Roman Catholic family.

We celebrated the first communities and confirmations and birthdays and holidays and Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And my family was a beer drinking family. But I don't remember drinking being a problem. I found out later when I was little older the two of my mother's brothers died from alcoholism, so it obviously was a problem.

My wife was from a large Roman Catholic family who celebrated the same way we did, except that their drink of choice was bourbon. My wife's grandfather owned 2 distilleries in Kentucky and I remember when when I was courting my wife, we were going to have a party at her house and her dad said to me there's some whiskey under the bar. So I went down and opened the bar and there was 12 cases of whiskey out of the bar. My God,

So she had had access to whiskey right from the beginning, early part of her life.

In our courtship, we talked about wanting to have a large family.

You need to be very careful when you talk about wanting to have a large family because God listens.

And we got married and nine months later we had a baby. And three months after that, the company I worked for, I transferred us to Houston, TX. And in the next nine years we had six more children. So we had seven children in 10 years, and that's a lot.

I think like most young married couples, my wife and I really enjoyed life early on. We really did. My workaholic wasn't in total function then and her drinking wasn't total functioning. And so we really enjoyed life. We had a really good life in Louisville and also in Houston the first few years we moved down there. But

as we started having these babies on a fairly regular basis, my wife began to have more problems. And this is where it really gets difficult for me because she tried to tell me

that she was having problems, that she needed more in her life than just changing diapers and cooking and cleaning and doing laundry and all the stuff that she had to do to take care of kids. And you know, and I really hate to say this, but I did not listen to her. I truly did not listen to her. By this time, I was a full blown workaholic. I thought it was necessary for me to be a success. And I was spending a lot of hours opening up a new plant,

not listening to her and to her needs.

Actually, I was a pretty good father at that particular point in time. I really helped with the kids and everything else, but I was not a good husband.

Probably seven or eight years after we moved to Houston, my wife started drinking on a fairly heavy basis in a daily drinking. And

this gradually built up as it does. And to my knowledge, she never drank outside the home. But the inside drinking became more and more prevalent and caused more and more problems. She smoked and she sometimes

go to sleep with lit cigarettes up and we had all the kids in the house and everything. It's a very scary thing. And after we lived in Houston for 14 years, my company offered me an opportunity to move back to Louisville with a promotion. And of course, that's what I was looking for so I could be a success. And, and, you know, and I kind of thought that if we move back to Louisville, her family's there and my family's there and things are going to get better, you know, and you all know what happens. You know, when we go, we go, we take ourselves with us. And so we move back to Houston and

back to Little and then get any better. Of course they didn't get any better. We didn't know what to do to get them better. Now this was in somewhere in the mid 60s in the 1970, my wife went into a mental hospital for the first time in the diagnosis was

no, I can't think of the word it's, but depression, depression. That's it was depression.

There was some talk while she was in there. She was in there for three or four weeks about the possibility of alcohol being a problem. And the her doctor and and the counselor suggested that she might want to go to some a a meetings. And after she got out, pardon me, she went to two or three a a meetings. And for her reasons, and I don't know what they were, she decided that that wasn't necessary and and she never went anymore. She did continue to drink

over the next

few years. She was back in the same hospital three or four times for depression. She had shock treatments and, and all the stuff that goes along with it

and it never helped.

We live together, but we, we lived in the same house, but we didn't live together. You know, our, our relationship was deteriorating all the time. And, and

in 1985, she told me that she needed to go into treatment and, and you know about, I told you how I was when I went to the first Alabama meeting. And I said, you know, do whatever the hell you're going to do, just do it. You know, so she went into the hospital

and this was a four week program and she they kept her for a week before she even started in a program because her physical health had deteriorated so much. And when she was ready to start into the program, I went in to see her and she handed me these papers and she said these are are yours. They're for the family program. And I said, what family program? And she said, well, you know, there's a family program for you here. And I said, I don't need those. You know, that's the way I felt. I didn't need. If she gets straightened out, everything would be OK. And, you know, that's truly the way I felt.

That's upset, but that's the way I felt. And then she said to me, our doctor thinks that it would be good if you did this. And I really respected her doctor. And I said, OK, I, I, I will do it. And then this family program at this particular point in time was a very, very good family program. It was like two or three full days a week, two or three evenings, all day Saturday with recreation and everything involved. And if you went to certain meetings, you could join her for dinner and this type of thing. And and so

I went to the first family session was on a Tuesday. It was an all day session. And the, the woman who was the, the the counselor was just an absolute wonderful human being. And, and that she recognized there was like 10 or 12 of us that were in there for the first time. And she recognized all of us as as really being hurt and everything, but she knew that I was really messed up. I mean, she could tell that right away. And in the course of the days of events, she said, there's a newcomer Al Anon meeting tonight. And I suggested all of you go. And when we finished up for the day and I was walking out of the room, she said, would you come over

here a minute? And I said sure. And I went over and she said, I want to make sure you go that meeting tonight.

You know, things are funny in life. You know, they really are. And I thought, well, what the hell is the matter with her, You know? I mean, but, you know, I said, OK, I'll go. All you, Alan ONS will recognize this. You know, this was in the basement of the treatment center. So I go downstairs and I walk up to the door and I look in and there's nobody in there but women.

And I said to myself, I don't think I belong in there.

You know, they're not really going to recognize how I feel and they're not going to be able to help me. And I almost turned around and then, you know, I think God just grabbed me by the neck, said get your butt in there.

And so I walked in and you'll recognize this. I counted them. There's 23 women.

That's practice.

So I sit down on their tables like refractory tables, you know, and everything. And I have no idea what the program was. It was it was a four week deal and they talked about the the steps one week and the whatever, you know, and this one I don't remember at all what it was. The only thing I remember was about halfway through the woman who was chairing. And incidentally, I'm celebrating my 19th birthday next week or two weeks. I still see this woman at Al Anon meetings and I kiss her every time I see her. She

she said we're going to stop here a minute and ask if anybody has anything to say. And so I put my hand up and I said, yes, I do. I said, my wife is a patient upstairs and she tells me that she's an alcoholic and she says that it's my fault.

And I think she's right. And that's that's the way I felt. And across from me there was a lady and she said, you know, she said, I don't know you. I've never seen you before. I don't know what kind of a father you are. If you're a father, what kind of a husband you are. If you're a husband. I don't know anything about you. But let me tell you something,

if your wife is an alcoholic, you are not responsible.

And if you'd like to stay after the meeting, we'll talk about that a little bit. And I said yes, I would, I'd appreciate that. When that meeting was over, four or five women sat at that table with me and talked to me for 25 or 30 minutes and they told me about Al Anon.

I always choke up here. When I left that meeting, I had a little bit of hope, and when I went in that meeting, I didn't have any hope at all. Not a bit. But I,

my wife told me that she was going to 95 meetings in 90 days. And I said sure, of course you are, you know? And she lied. She went to more than 95 meetings in 90 days. Yeah,

she took to a a just. She loved it. She absolutely loved it. She found a woman's group for her Home group. She made friends. She got a sponsor right away. She got better physically and mentally and spiritually and emotionally. I mean, you could just see her blossom and I was still nuts.

All I could think about was what am I going to do to keep her from drinking again? She wasn't even thinking about drinking again, you know, But that's all I could think. I'm serious. You know, she would go to the grocery, not timer. Now, how long you're supposed to stay at the grocery, I don't know, but but I would time her. I mean, that's how crazy I was. I got to tell you folks, in the first year and a half I was in Alabama, the only thing I did right was go to a lot of meetings. And I went to a lot of meetings. And you know what, if you go to a lot of meetings, we'll get you.

They will get you. About a year and a half after I started, it begin to seep into me. I begin to truly understand that Al Anon was for me. He didn't have anything to do with my wife or whether she drank. It didn't have anything to do with my kids or whether they were crazy or what they were doing didn't have anything to do with my friends. It had only to do with me. And what kind of a human being did I want to be? What kind of a life did I want to live? That's all it had to do with. And you know, when I

that I started getting better, I really, really started getting better. Now during this period of time, my wife and I gone to a couple's meeting. We had to learn how to talk to each other again. You all will recognize that some of you will at least this couples meeting really helped. We became very close to these people in this couples meeting. And there was probably 10 or 12 couples. And after about a year and a half or something, somehow or other in discussing this meeting one night that got around to the to the question of sponsors and,

and somebody said to me, who is your sponsor?

And I said, I don't have a sponsor,

you know, these people were friends. I mean, they really were friends. And so they felt free to tell me what they thought about that, you know, and about. And so I said to myself, I guess I better get a sponsor, you know, And so and so I did, you know, I mean, that's the way things work for me or initially. And then

so I thought about this guy and he was younger than me. Course, everybody almost was younger than me. But anyway, he, he had a really good program. He truly had a good program. And so I said to him, you know, would you be my sponsor? And he looked at me and he said,

I guess I can try.

Well, I thought, well, he's damn sure is enthusiastic. And then, you know, here I'm offering him an opportunity to be my sponsors then. So then he says to me, we will talk on the phone frequently. And I said to him, I don't like to talk on the phone.

And he said to me, neither do I.

And then he said something like this. And these may not be the exact words, and I am pretty damn sure I'm not going to enjoy talking to you.

So we got off to a good start to tell that. So he says the first thing that we're going to do, we're going to work on the steps. And I said, oh man, I'm a total agreement with that. I've been hearing about these steps and I know that's the way to go. And I said, well, we'll start on #3

He said, how come? I said, well, I've already gone through the first two. He said, oh, how, how did you do that? And I said, well, the first one says, your power's over alcohol, and I'm not, so we're going to #2

And it says that you're about in Santa Dean. I said, we all know who's insane in my family. So we go to #3 And he says, I don't think so. I think we're going to start on #1 And you got a lot of work to do. And I want to tell you, you know, that helped to save my life.

All my adult life, I had a problem with control or attempt to control. I always had to straighten that out. You know, I tried to control. I very rarely ever controlled anything. But I kept trying. I really pushed my wife, my kids, work, every place else, you know, never truly understanding what was happening. So my sponsor said to me, anytime you chair a discussion meeting

about the first step, unless somebody has some real problems,

literature about the first step,

you think about the first step. Every day you meditate on the first step.

And so I did,

and I begin to understand that it wasn't powerless over alcohol was powerless over everything,

all places, things and everything. And, you know, that was difficult for me. And I remember reading one time it said that I didn't have a right to tell my adult kids how to live their life. You know, that really surprised me. I'm how they going to live without me telling them how to do it, you know, But gradually it begins seeping through to me what that step really said and what I had to really do to

fit that into my life. And so I finally reached the point where I could accept that I was powerless over people, places and things, and that

I didn't have a right to do a lot of the things that I thought I had a right to do. And then, you know, kind of a funny thing that wasn't really funny. I didn't like that.

Do you know what the definition of insanity is in the big book? I said, no, what is it? He said, What's doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results? And I said, why are you saying this? He said, well, I'm thinking about your golf games.

Do you know Neil now he was being funny, but he wasn't being funny. And, you know, and those are the kind of things that with the kind of mind that I had at that time, that's what I needed to hear. That was something very practical that helped me accept and understand that step. And, you know, when I fought back and I thought, you know, that's all my life, I've been doing the same things over and over and it never worked, you know, And so that I was able to get through that step. Now I get to the third step. What has to do with turning my will and my life over to care of God? And you know,

I told you, I was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. I never ever quit believing in God at all. I truly, truly never quit believing in God. But when I got in the program, I was at the point with God there I was with a lot of other things. I didn't care. I just didn't care. And so I needed to, I knew that I needed to, some work had to be done for me to get where I needed to be with the third step. And my sponsor again says to me, don't sweat it. Don't try to force it. Let the process work for you. Do the same thing you're doing before,

Read, talk, listen, chair meetings. And you know, I did and it works. At some point I have no clue where it is. Doesn't make any difference. I became truly willing to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. I was talking to somebody today about tonight, about the third step prayer in the big book. Absolutely beautiful prayer, just beautiful. I carry copies of that in my wallet in case anybody needs one. You know, it's such a beautiful, beautiful prayer.

And so I became OK with God and that's, and you know, that's really something I'm saying I'm OK with God, you know, but, but I am OK with God and that's great.

I was talking at my Home group one night and I said the rest of the steps were a piece of cake. And well, I didn't go or too good either. And of course that's not true. They are not a piece of cake. But for me, they were much easier. They were much easier than the first three were. And I managed to get through all of them with a lot of help on the 4th step because I I think it beginning. I truly didn't understand how the four step worked.

But I got through all of them and I love the steps and I really try to live my life today by the steps.

The first three particularly, I just recently had a problem of control or attempted control, you know, and I had to stop and slow down and, and, and, and, and go upstairs in my office and, and, and sit there and do some meditation and do some thinking and do some reading and realize that that I was attempting to control something that I had no right to control. And it was causing me a lot of problems. But I knew where to go to to think about and work it out.

Well, after I started getting better, my wife started getting better and I had I had to do, which we do. I do was doing inventories and it was during the inventories that I begin to understand the truth,

harm and injustice that I had done to my wife when our children were young

and the true injustice that I had done to my children, not when they were little, but when they were teenagers when things were really bad in our house. I was not a good father. I was a tyrant. I was I would not let them talk about or think about anything that made me uncomfortable and everything made me uncomfortable. And so my kids when they were teens had a rough life. And, you know, some of them are still paying a price for it today.

And so I had to make amends.

And I talked to my wife about

how sorry I was about not understanding what her needs were and how I truly did understand her need to drink to be able to survive, which I never understood before.

And I told her that I would try to make real amends by becoming a good husband,

which I tried to do. And I talked to my children. By this time, my kids were adults and they were scattered all over the United States. Now, you know, it's making amends. Long distance is kind of difficult. You know, I had two of my kids are pretty hard headed anyway. They take after their mother

and

they don't want, they want to talk to me about it. I try to talk to them. They want to talk to me about they want everything to do with it. You know, it's uncomfortable for them. And those were the two that I really needed to make the most amends to. But I kept working at it because I knew I had to for my own Peace of Mind. I remember the pain that I felt when I understood what I had done to my children when they were teenagers and I knew I had to do something for me and for them. And so I persisted and persisted

and it worked. It got through

now. We went and got in a program in 1985. In 1993,

we had a family reunion in Mount Shasta, CA, where one of my daughters lived. And it's the first time that my wife and I had been together with all six of our living adult children at the same time for 12 years. And it was not because my wife was an alcoholic. It's because I was a crazy man. But you know what God gave us that week And we became a family again. And we were not a family when we went into that, that that

family reunion.

We became a family that week. And what a gift. What a gift from the program from God.

We have had a family reunion every other year since that time and it continues to be a wonderful gift to us now. My wife and I in recovery enjoyed life.

I retired in 1982. I love horse racing. We went all over the country to horse. We went to, to California, to Santa Anita and we went to Saratoga, NY and Gulf Streaming and we went to fairgrounds in New Orleans and some of you all recognize that and went to Oklahoma when I love horse racing and she, she grew

to love harsh racing because I did, and we did a lot of other travel. We were fortunate that we were able to spend the, the winters in Florida or California or Hawaii or whatever. And, and, and this became A and you know what?

We had a Home group in Florida where we used to go every winter

because anywhere you go, the meetings are there.

See how I'm doing talking?

We went to a lot of conferences. We enjoyed conferences, we went to a lot of meetings. We made a lot of friends. I

I volunteered at the treatment center

where I went through the family program for 10 years. That's my wife got out of there. And that was one of God's greatest gifts to me, that 10 years in that treatment center, working with the families of people in there for treatment. I got to introduce many, many, many, many people to the program of Al Anon and what a gift that is.

In the year 2000, we spent the January and February in Orange Beach, AL because we were going to a conference in Pensacola in February and my wife became ill when we were down there.

When she got, when we, we tried to get go to the doctor down there, we couldn't get any satisfaction. When we came back, she went to our family doctor and he took a bunch of X-rays and sent her to a clinic and they took a bunch of X-rays and he called and said I need to talk to both of you. And we came in, this is our family doctor we've had for 30 something years. And he said to my wife, he said you have terminal cancer.

She had lung cancer and liver cancer

and she said how long do I have? And he said I don't know, I can't tell you that, but I think maybe six months. He said I want you to go to another clinic and make sure that I'm right, which we did. And the clinic told her the same thing

and my wife said to me,

I would like to have two things. I want to die at home and I want to die with a minimum of pain.

And you know, God gave her both of those and I'm totally convinced that he gave those to her because the prayers of my immediate family in our A A and Al Anon families,

my wife never once said why me. She accepted that it was God's will.

She went to her Home group meeting as long as she could walk. I drove her as long as she could walk. She went to her Home group meeting after she couldn't go to her Home group meeting anymore. We had a A and Alon meetings in our home.

I see my wife. Her spirit was just unbelievable. And I remember the first time Hospice was there and there was there's a chaplain and a nurse and somebody else. And the chaplain says to sue my wife. He says, how are you all doing? And she's well, I'm doing great. But he's a basket case, you know. And she was right. She was absolutely right.

She died in January of 2001. All of us were with her when she died. She had a very minimum of pain, just what she wanted, God gave her. And she told me that she wanted for her funeral service to be almost an A a meeting and that's what it was. And there are two couples spoke at there and I shared

it was difficult, but I did.

And the reason she wanted that, she wanted her children and her grandchildren to understand

better how important a A was to her and to her life. And they did after that.

And I told my children that your mother taught you how to die. And she did. She taught us all how to die.

Now we've been married 48 years when she died and, and you know, it's kind of like, I guess

families that are married or fortunately not to stay married for a long time where alcoholism is involved in recovery is involved. Pardon me.

The first years of our marriage were absolutely wonderful.

We had a lot of kids real quick, You know, that was pretty good. Somebody asked me if I knew what caused it and I said yeah, that was a problem.

So it was really great initially, and it was good for a while, then it wasn't so good,

then it was bad, then it really got bad. And then God gave us recovery, you know, and what a wonderful gift.

And so we had 16 years of recovery together

of learning how to talk again to each other and learning how to share our lives with each other and, and,

and it was great.

One thing I forgot to tell you all that is important. I don't know how I forgot this, but I did. When my oldest son was 24 years old, he took his own life. And this was in 1980. This was

we got in a program in 1985 and between 1980 and 1985 our lives were literally hell on earth because I was felt responsible, my wife felt responsible, and neither one of us would do anything to get help. And we did not get help until we got into program. And the people in the program who had been there helped us. They taught us how to grieve and how to deal with it.

My grief for my wife was totally different than the grief for my son. My grief for my son had a lot of anger and guilt in it.

There was number anger and guilt in the grief I felt for my wife. We had grieved together.

We had, we had, we had some of our happiest times when she was dying.

And I think that's God's gift to us.

So I, you know, I got along a year, year and a half after my wife died. You know, the people in the program helped a lot. I did not realize how much I was grieving. We both like music. We have all kinds of CDs and records and, you know, from country to classical and everything else. And

I guess for 14 or 15 months after my wife died, I never played one piece of music. And one day for I don't know why don't have no reason. I went in and put a Patsy Cline CD on, you know, and when that was playing, I understood that, you know, maybe, maybe my grieving process is, is, is is less now because I want to listen to music again. And that was a manifestation of my grief that I was not even aware of

during this period of time.

I mentioned to y'all that I loved horse racing. A friend of mine called and said that he had located a 2 year old horse that looked pretty good and that

want to know if I want to be a partner in this horse. And there was going to be seven of us. And I said, well, how much it going to cost? And he told me there was something I could afford. So I said, sure, I'd love to. And so, OK, we, we, we bought this horse and we put him in training. Now he's two years old. And he, he, he was fast, he was working out fast and everything. And we were just ready to put him in a race at Churchill Downs when he's two years old when he hurt his leg. So he took the winter off

in the middle of his three-year old. He ran his first race at Churchill Downs and won by 12 lengths. Not me that that's pretty damn good. I think we thought we had another Seabiscuit. See, about a month later we ran him down Ellis Park, which is a smaller track in Kentucky. He won by 4 1/2 lengths. You know, until, man, we're really raring to go. But he got hurt,

so he took the winner off.

Now this is second one in a row. He takes off. Now, you know,

the following year, he ran in a race, pretty big race, on Derby Day at Churchill Downs. He finished fifth, which is not bad because there was some really good horses in there, and he collected money for finishing fifth. And about a month later, he ran in another race at Churchill Downs, and he was moving up on the backside when he quit. So he hurt himself again. Now, here's it. The horse is 4 years old. He's won four races. That's it. Well,

January the 1st of this year, he's five years old. Five years old,

a couple months later, three months later, we ran him in a race up in Mountaineer in West Virginia and he won by 10 1/2 lengths. He's still fast.

About two weeks later we were working him out. He got hurt again. Now this is a gorgeous horse, a big horse, too big for his own well-being who is really fast, but he gets hurt all the time. And so we have we ever that right now. And I can tell you folks, if if you've ever owned a racehorse and you want to race, man, that is a real high. It really is great. It really is the first race that he won in Churchill Downs. One of my sons was standing beside me and I was standing on a chair at the finish line at Churchill Downs. And he told me, he said, pop, when he went across the finish,

you were six feet up a chair. You know, I mean, that's kind of how you can get from that. Well, we're trying to decide now whether we're going to run him again or whether he just going to give him to one of these organizations that that uses horses for rehab purposes and everything. He's real gentle horse, you know. So that's my harsh experience. I want to tell you a little bit about my life now,

one of the

books that we have in Al, Anon says. When I got busy, I got better

and I truly, truly believe that. I truly believe that. I do volunteer work in the Al Anon office. I go to meetings every week. I go to conferences. I'm head of the grounds committee in the condo where I live. Once a week I play

Texas Hold No No Limit Texas Holding Poker at the Senior Center.

I go dancing once or twice or three times a week if I can. I love to dance. I was really glad to see on the boat and we're going to have a dance tomorrow night. I like to dance, you know, and everything.

I have a full wife. I really enjoy life. And I'm not telling you all this to for you to say, well, you know, he's a cool dude for an old guy to do all that. That's not why I'm telling you this. I am telling you this because I have a life that was given to me by the grace of God and the program of a A and Al Anon. That's the only reason I have a life.

When I went to that first Al Anon meeting in August of 1985, I did not have a life.

I never expected to have a life. What a great gift God has given me. I love you all, thank you.

I, I feel like the guy on Ed Sullivan that came on after the animal act.

I mean, that was great.