Tom B. Jr.

Well, it's Sunday morning and I'm a Southern Baptist. Get ready.

My name is Tom Brady Junior. I'm an alcoholic

and by the grace of God, I haven't had a drink since July 20th, 1965.

And I'm grateful for that.

That's why I'm here. I'm one of those who believes that gratitude is more than a word and more than a feeling. That real gratitude always translates itself into responsible action.

I can sit on my butt and tell you how grateful I am. And if I'm not out there trying to give away this gift that has been so freely given me, I'm a liar and the truth is not in me.

There's a book we used to look at on Sunday mornings that says it really clear,

though. I speak with the tongue of men and angels and have not love. I'm like a tinkling symbol or sounding brass. And to me, love in the spiritual sense that I've learned in this program is not a feeling either. Feelings come and feelings go. Love stays.

Love to me is responsible behavior towards other human beings based on care, respect and concern for them and acceptance of them just like they are. Love for me is a recovered alcoholic is to try as hard as I can to bear witness as a third step prayer says to those I would help of that power, thy love and thy way of life. I'm here today to bear witness.

That's an old spiritual term. It's a spiritual program. Alcoholics Anonymous is not based on thought and it's not based on feeling. It's based on action, like all spiritual programs are.

Every spiritual teacher, whoever walked the face of this earth stressed one thing. Do it, do it, do it.

Don't talk about it.

And they made it very clear that the talkers and the doers were quite of a different school.

And so I've tried to be a doer over the years

and I've, I've worked really hard at it. But you know, with all of my efforts, I'm very aware

that without the grace of God and you, I'd be dead now.

Think about that for a minute. I'd be dead now.

A spirituality is often looked at as some far off ethereal kind of a thing, and I've learned in this program it's anything but that. It's here, it's now, it's real

over the beginning of the 10th step where it says we've now entered the world of the Spirit. To me, that means I have left the past and come into the present.

The Spirit is now You are, I am, God is, and I am now to live in this present time and grow in understanding and effectiveness.

And I grow in understanding through steps 10 and 11, effectiveness through step 12.

I do it and I do it and I do it even when I don't want to do it.

And I want to talk to you about some of those things. The Greeks have a word for spirit, and that same word means air and wind and breath and life.

Let's take breath for a minute.

Breath and spirit. I breathe out. I give life. I breathe in. I take in life. If I do not breathe out or give, I die. If I do not breathe in or receive, I likewise die. It's just as simple as that.

I spent a lot of my life storming the gates of heaven looking for God

and like an old timer told me at one point in time, and I hated him when he said it.

Tom God ain't lost,

and he's not. I remember a story told by one of my heroes in this program about 3 little fishes swimming around the ocean one day and a big fish swam by

and he said to these three little fish, nice day, isn't it? They said, yeah, he said, in the water, nice and swim away.

First little fish turn to the second one said what's water? He said, I don't know. They turned around and asked the last little what's water? I don't know. And these three little fish spent the rest of their life swimming around in that, looking for that in which they lived and moved and had their being.

So it is with God.

Be still and God will reveal Himself to you.

Another line from that book which is not conference approved, but I'm going to use it anyway.

Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall run and not be wary. They shall walk and not faint. They shall mount up with wings like Eagles.

Damn, that's worth waiting for.

So it's not an ethereal thing.

Another thing I've noticed about spiritual teachers, they're always advising me to become like a little child again.

I've seen some little kids running around here this morning. They're absolutely gorgeous.

I don't want any more of them, but they're absolutely gorgeous.

Now. Why in the world with spiritual teachers say if you want to come in my Kingdom, you're going to have to become like a little child? Why would you say that? I think there's good reason for it. Love children are wise, honest, open,

have a lot of common sense.

When I was a little boy,

I knew some things before anybody taught me,

and you did too. And one of the things I knew was when I was beyond my limits. If I went and got somebody bigger than I was and turned the problem over to them, there was a good chance the problem would be solved. I knew that.

And so when I found myself in over my head, I'd go get my daddy or my Mama or my sister or get a big stick. I'd get something to even an out

and I knew that nobody had to tell me that. You know,

he used to have a friend when I was growing up, name was Ronnie. He felt this kid ever met in my life. Ronnie had boogers all over the sleeve. It was

pick him out his nose, put him in his hair, twist his hair up

and Ronnie's mom and daddy were St. drunks. He didn't have anybody to take care of him. And I loved Ronnie, but I scared of him

and I could beat him at two things. I could beat him shooting marbles and I could outrun him, which was good because I was scared of it.

Now the game of marbles, any all ever shoot marbles. Very simple. The rules are simple. You win, you get the marbles. I'd win. Ronnie take my marbles.

And I'm scared, Ronnie, But I knew if I got somebody bigger I might get my marbles back and I'd go get my daddy. I'd say Ronnies got my marbles again, dad, and he had said you win, son. I'd say yes, Sir. Let's go get them back.

Go over to Ronnie's. He says. Son, you get Tommy's marbles. Yes, Sir. Do you win? No, that's not right. Give them back. OK? It was just as simple as that. OK,

now I've heard philosophical dissertations for 32 years on the first three steps of this program. If I look at it through a kids eyes, it falls out real simple. Like this step one says, I've lost my marbles and I can't get them back.

Step 2 says I believe somebody bigger than me can

and I turned the situation over to the bigger one and lo and behold, I get my marbles back.

So I've come to simplify,

especially for the new people here

and for those people who are in that state that Clancy was talking about last night where you're sober

but you're miserable

over North Carolina. We call it five year menopause.

Good. It's an excruciating time. I'm sober, everything is wonderful. I feel like shit.

Well, talk to you. I won't talk to you in little Red Hen language about what I believe about me as an alcoholic, of whatever I believe about me and my alcoholism. OK,

First off, I never liked me very much.

I always considered myself a failure.

Now I'm a perfectionist and by definition I'm going to fail at everything I do. And the more I'd fail, the less I'd like myself.

And I'd fail over and over and over and over again. And since I didn't like myself, it became very important that you did.

And so I performed for other people to get their acceptance and approval. My whole life was a performance.

I knew what it said, and the big book was true about me when it said. The alcoholic is very much the actor. There's his stage character. This is the one he wants the world to see. I had 100 stage characters. Whatever you wanted me to be, if you'd approve of me and accept me, I'd do it.

And I still have periods of that.

One of the greatest jobs I've had in this program is to accept me, all of me,

with my glitches in my warts and my imperfections and my goodness.

Because I realized today that I'm a combination of lightness and dark. I always will be. We are not Saints,

but I've come to be able to accept. Like someone said to me not long ago, some people think you're a St. and some think you're a son of a bitch. Which one are you?

And I said both of them,

and I am, and that's all right.

But God, that self dislike reached a point where I hated my guts, and I hated them so badly that when things got going good in my life, I'd screw it up.

Like the Big Book says, I'd build up a bright outlook for my family and bring it all down around my head with a senseless series of sprees.

I'm also the kind of person that always believed that anything that feels good should be done to excess.

If it feels good, overdo it.

And I ate too much and I drank too much and I gamble too much and I remember when I found out sex felt good. Y'all remember that

as by myself, just like all y'all were,

and in spite of some dire warnings from my mother,

well, a certain part of my anatomy riding off and going blind,

I figured it felt so good I'd keep on till I was nearsighted.

It's one of my big successes in life.

And you know, that's one of the things that drives me today. Clancy was talking about last night. Clancy made a good talk last night. I thought, you know, he talked about that old jet. They don't put on no brakes. They put the engines in reverse. Okay, do you know what feels good to me today? Sobriety. And if it feels good, I can't get enough of it.

Same dynamic, different direction. What is the difference? The program and God. The program and God. You do it, you do it, you do it.

I've always been looking for magic. Y'all look for magic? I want a magic fix

in between every two drunks. I go back to the Baptist Church and rededicate my life to Jesus and honor. Jesus flinched every time he saw me coming in the door

and I was deadly serious, but I was deadly deluded because I believe that God was a big magician and he was going to tap me and make me, well, miraculously without any effort on my part because essentially, as an alcoholic, I'm lazy as hell.

Let's face it y'all, we work 9100 hours a week on the job but our sponsor tells us to read 2 pages in the big book and we simply can't find time.

Let's face it, you know,

and I wanted instant results. Damn the process.

Fix me and fix me now. God, I dare you.

There's no magic. Magic, by definition, is illusion.

It don't last.

Always been the kind of person likes to do everything at one time, do it all perfectly.

Get home, have phone calls, you know I'll start answering the phone calls, have letters, start answering them at the same time.

You ever try to pee and comb your hair at the same time?

And now women may be able to do that. I don't know,

but when you 6 foot three, you going to miss something?

I wake up sometime in the morning, you know, my body's not awake. My brains going 1000 miles an hour. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it, I got it.

That's the reason that period of quiet

in the morning is so important to me. Just sit there and focus on my breath. Nothing else. Just focus on my breath. And I don't mind just running crazy up here, but I ain't looking at it. I'm looking my breath

serious. Every good form of meditation focuses on the breath.

I ain't trying to do nothing holy. I'm trying to let go and let God.

I'm trying to take my focus off this monkey that runs around my head up here all the time, chattering and falling, you know, and put it on quietness and stillness so that God can reveal himself to me.

Always been a great starter and a poor finisher.

Everything I did in my life, you know, I went into it full speed. I had two basic speeds, full speed ahead and stop,

and I'd go into things and I'd master them. I'm a very intelligent human being. God gave me a very high IQ which damn near killed me.

Not go running in and master it, you know, thinking this is it

and it wasn't it Now did that in Alcoholics Anonymous. I come zipping in full speed ahead when the law was on my butt.

And then something incredible. What happened? I'd get feeling better

and the law wasn't chasing me and my dog was licking my face again

and I pull it back on, stop and go right back out and do it again.

When I say I'm an alcoholic, I mean I live in a body. You knew people listen

that will not handle alcohol. It never would, and it won't now.

When I put alcohol in my body, my body sent me a clear, instant, certain message. Get some more of that stuff, Tom, and get it right now

at Doctor Silkworth calls that the phenomenon of craving. It doesn't happen in the average normal drinker, but it happened in me instantaneously

and the scientists say I have a

biochemical genetic disorder having to do with the hypothalamic information Control Center in my brain.

I read that and I said shit.

And you know they're right,

but who can understand that?

And I came to simplify. AAA says I'm allergic to alcohol. Same damn thing,

just one word instead of a long sentence

with multi syllabic words. How you like that? I got my tongue going early

and I had a mind that kept telling me I could do what my body wouldn't do. Y'all have a mind like that?

Someday, somehow, if I just handle it right,

I'm going to learn to control and enjoy my drinking,

you know? And psychiatrists get hold of that and say I'm a narcissist, egocentric, dominated by feelings of omnipotence and tend at all cost on maintaining my own inner integrity.

And I said shit.

You know what a A says when it comes to alcohol? I am strangely insane.

This is not insanity in the sense of schizophrenia or clinical depression or bipolar. This is insanity of a totally different ilk.

You know why do I say this? Because it doesn't have to do with mental processes alone. It has very little to do with you can't treat it with medications. Alcoholic insanity cannot be treated with medications. You can give a schizophrenic some Haldol and he'll come into the world for a little while. You're giving Alcoholics and howled all, he'll be like 10 minutes later. So give me some more of that shit.

You can lay some people down on the couch got emotional problems. You don't even talk it out and everything. He laying alcoholic down there. He's going to say exactly what you want to hear. Magnified 100 times. Yes, Sir. It was my Mama. My potty training was terrible. My little potty chair pinched my ass one day

and I ain't never been right

and he said.

Characters always overly interested in Mamas and shitting. You ever notice that

the strange insanity of alcoholism responds to one thing and one thing only because it is based on my being

disconnected from something I mustn't be disconnected from?

It responds only to power.

Page 45. It doesn't say lack of good intelligence was my problem.

Don't say a lack of a, you know, a good mind was my dilemma. It says lack of power was my dilemma,

that I had to find a power by which I could live,

and obviously that power had to be greater than me.

So it's a kind of insanity that only responds when I can reconnect with that which I have become disconnected from that power source. And I believe that was all my heart. And what separates Alcoholics Anonymous from all other programs that ever came into this world to deal with people like me is it says I'm spiritually sick too,

and that once the spiritual maladies overcome, notice this please. Once the spiritual maladies overcome, I'll straighten out mentally and physically, not the other way around

like I did between every two drunks. You know, I I go out to Finish Line sporting goods store and get me a Nike outfit

done to rededicated myself to Jesus and I go to Nike store

put on this new outfit and I'd workout and I'd get all physically healthy.

Now start reading Aristotle again,

studying low theology here in a little there, you know, and I'd get all mentally well.

Then I get drunk.

Somehow I missed the problem.

You know those spiritually sick mean. I told you I'm a perfectionist. I'm also an idealist. I'm a hypersensitive romantic dreamer. I've never been satisfied with life or me or you the way it was. I always wanted more,

and in order to get that more, I became an ace manipulator.

I tried to control people. It was important to me to always be right, to always understand everything, to always be in control, because only then was I ever comfortable.

And I was a really good manipulator. Only when you manipulate people, you know they don't like it.

I'm talking pages 60 to 62 in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. Read it and reread it and reread it.

And they fought back and a wall came up between me and them, and I became cut off from my brothers and sisters. And I believe in the process from the higher power.

And I was isolated, separated, disconnected and lonely.

And Alcoholics Anonymous program is so simple. It's beautiful in its simplicity. It says the way out of this is you get spiritually well. Well, how do you do that? Well, first of all, you quit playing God. Quit trying to be in control. Quit trying to be right.

Go take a look at that wall that you've built, Identify the stones in it. Go talk it over with somebody else to make sure you haven't missed any. Ask God to remove those stones, just enough of them, so you can be of use to Him and your fellow man. Step across, make restitution. Rejoin your fellow man and you'll rejoin the power

and you'll be signed.

That's too damn simple, isn't it?

Intellectuals don't understand that. I didn't understand that when I was working up here on this plane. They all working on this plane.

I told an intellectual today, you know, he say, you know, you've been sober 32 years. You must be an awfully strong person. And I'd say, no, Sir, I'm pretty weak.

And he'd say that makes no sense and he'd be right.

Well, he must have fought very hard to win the victory over alcohol. No, Sir, I surrendered

and to him it makes no sense. And he'd be right.

What else do you do? I go to meetings. Oh group therapy.

No sirs not group therapy. It's a bunch of drunks that around talk to each other, lie a lot too.

And he says that makes no sense. And I say I know it doesn't. Well, what else do you do? I have a sponsor. Oh, a psychotherapist?

No, Sir, he's a plumber.

And he said that makes no sense. I said I know it doesn't.

Well, what else do you do? Well, I haven't followed this program. Oh, the great metaphysicians and theologians got together and laid you out a program? No, Sir. It was put together by a bunch of drunks

and he says that makes no sense. And I said I know it doesn't. He's beside himself by now.

Well, who founded this outfit?

So I bankrupt stockbroker and a proctologist who had lost his ass.

Put this in the bank. What may seem like nonsense intellectually is real sense spiritually.

As long as I can remember my life, I was mad. You all have been mad. I don't know what is mad about it, just mad

had everything I guess you know.

And later on in my drinking days, when I was drinking, the anger would come out big time.

And I was always afraid.

You know, we talk about fear as if, you know, it's a many splendored thing. And it is. But fear is just one great big ball. The way to program teaches it. It's got lots of tentacles, like an octopus. But fear of this, fear of that. But fear is fear

and I'm scared and I had a lot to be scared about. I was ugliest baby you ever saw.

Doctor asked me one time how you know that? I said My momma told me

she wouldn't Take Me Out of the house. First six weeks. I was on the face of the air. She didn't want anybody to see me. He said, oh, that must have been traumatic for you. I said no Sir, I've seen my baby pictures. Mom was right, I was ugly

and didn't get much better as I grew. I was one of those skinny little kids, you know, skinny little boy, you know. My shoulder blades protruded badly and I pull my shoulders around to try to compensate. In my little chest would disappear.

Had a little old skinny bird legs and Mama made me wear knickers. Any of you guys have to wear knickers?

Somebody told me not long ago knickers are coming back, I said. Not on my ass they ain't.

If that wasn't bad enough, I had freckles. I had freckles and soles on my feet to the tip of the longest hair on my head. I had freckles where people never afford to having freckles before, and I hated them.

I wouldn't want to be a macho man, you know? Isn't it funny how you always want to be something you ain't? Whatever it is you are, that ain't what you want to be. You know,

I always want to be a charter boat captain or a hitman for the Mafia.

There's a control problem for you?

Damn, that's pretty ultimate.

Not dream about that stuff. I just remember the story, old Jack. Oh, you should tell about dreaming. You know when you're living in a dream where you miss a lot of life. He said, he's two winos woke up under a bridge one day there. One of them said to the Elvin, I had the best dream of having my life last night. He said, what did you dream? He said, I dreamed I went home, Mama gave you $100, told me go spend the whole day at Disneyland. He said, you go. Yeah, I went. I had the best time I ever had in my life. Rode all the rides, saw Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, looked at all the pretty girls, went to the shows. The other old wino said that ain't nothing. I had a better dream than that.

Oh yeah, he said, would you dream? He said, I dreamed I had a luxury apt. 2 cases of Jack Daniels and the door opened up in two most beautiful women you ever saw in your life came through and started taking their clothes off. And the other wino was all caught up in the story and he said, why didn't you call me?

He said I did, but your Mama told me he was at Disneyland.

You know that. That's no Jack Old story out of San Antonio.

I want to be a macho man and

my mother had four big old brothers and the most macho one was my uncle Durwood. They called him Dud,

and Dad was a motorcycle cop back in the days when they wore riding bridges, leather spats up to their knees. And he had a harness across here with silver bullets in it, Pearl handle 38, sitting high on his hip, and he smelled like gunpowder and shaving lotion and he squeaked when he walked. That's macho

and that's the way I wanted to be. But on top of those freckles and that skinny body was the most beautiful shock of Snow White hair you ever saw in your life. And all of my macho uncles called me Pudding Head.

How in the hell are you going to be macho when people call you Pudding here?

But you know, I remember in retrospect when I was sitting behind my Uncle Dud on that police motorcycle, when my arms wrapped around him, I was not afraid.

Even then. I needed a higher power.

Uncle Dodge, 88 years old now. He's my hero. He's always been my hero. I tell him that and it just tickles him a day. The man can lie like nobody ever heard in your life.

Every time he tells me one more police stories, the guy gets bigger, you know what I mean? And he shot further and that can I just love it, you know, he's a wonderful man. I told him you can't die. He said why? I said I want no hero. He said, OK, I won't die. And he ain't died yet.

We need heroes in this program. I believe that with all my heart. I'm not talking about idols. Some poor sucker makes a good talk and you put them up on a pedestal somewhere and you wait for them to make a mistake so you can bust his ass wide open. That's what idols are made for, to destroy. I'm talking about heroes. The people. This program get out there and do it and then make big mistakes. But to get up and they do it again and they do it again and they do it again, again. Do it, do it, do it. These are the heroes. These are the ones I can follow. And but for my heroes, I would not be alive this morning.

And most of them are dead. But they're not. Do you understand that? They're not? As long as I'm walking around, they ain't dead

as I'm a sum total what they gave me. It is their spiritual teaching that feeds me to this day.

You know, I heard old Jack O talking 1965. I laughed so hard that I cried. I

I just thought, this is wonderful. I didn't know it was all right to laugh, you know, and damn sure didn't know if it's all right to cry. And I've learned since that laughter and tears, that's God's way of cleaning out my soul. And I laugh a lot, man. And I cry when I got to sometime when I don't got to. You know,

I was a sad little kid,

but my childhood wasn't that bad. I get sick of these people talking about their parents. Damn it, my parents weren't perfect.

My Mama was a black belt Southern Baptist. Just think on that for a little while.

Who would have breathed for me if she could? Who tried to relive her whole life through me. And I hated her for it.

And I love her to death.

She's one of those poor people who didn't know how to openly express their love. She didn't know how to do it. She didn't hug me and kiss me much until the last seven years of her life when she had Alzheimer's. She just couldn't let me go.

She loved me dearly,

but she didn't know how to express it the way that we understand it being expressed.

Can we cut our parents some slack?

Can we do that instead of blaming them for everything?

I think the Eagles put out a song about that

turn on the tube. What do I see?

Whole lot of people crying. Don't blame me. Point the crooked little fingers at everybody else. Spend all the time feeling sorry for themselves. Victim of this. Victim of that. Your mom is too thin, your dad is too fat. Get over it.

Yeah,

like going to confession every time I hear you speak. You're making the most of your losing streak. Some call it sick, but I call it weak.

You drag it around like a ball and chain. You wall into guilt. You wall into pain. You wave it like a flag, wear it like a crown. Got your mind in the gutter, bringing everybody down. Bitch about the present, blame it on the past. I'd like to find your inner child and kick his little ass.

My mom and dad did a good job with what they were given,

and I lived in a little town where I was lucky enough to have an extended family on the block where I lived. And those things are things that have passed now.

All the kids belong to all the parents and all the parents belong to all the kids. You know, It was wonderful

and I remember these people with fondness because I had some good times in my childhood. I want to pinch you. A totally black childhood. It was glitches and dark and light, too, just like everybody's. Remember the lady next door, Her name was Lena. She's the best cook on the block, best eater on the block.

Lena was heavy. I used to love to hug Lena. You know when you hug Lena, you had a titty in both ears.

I didn't know she knew leadership

and Lena, Ruby on heads, I love you Pudding and I just go.

And you know, old man Lucas had come out of house and he'd be going down to slop the hogs down to hog pen and I'd get in that wheelbarrow his and ride down the hog pen while he fed the hogs. I'd go over the Creek and and wade and drink cold water and catch some crawdads.

That was wonderful. I take off my shoes, you know, and walk on home down that path and life was good, man.

And I go home and lay down on the grass and look up in the sky. I wasn't looking for nothing. It was there. So I looked at it. That's what kids loop is there. Shit, they look at it

and I'd say that beautiful. I wonder who made it remember thoughts like that.

Cloud go over, nice cloud, wonder where it came from. It go West, I wonder where it went, then try to figure it out. I just put it in my memory as a pleasant experience and moved on to my next one.

And they go to movies every Saturday, you know, cost $0.09 to see a double feature movie with a serial like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and some good cartoons, you know, Bugs Bunny and and and Tweety and Porky Pig. Not just crap they got on TV now. I mean it's a disservice what they do now.

Wiley Code is one of my role models.

Whatever you say about Wild, he sticks to it, don't he?

And these Cowboys, man, they were wonderful, you know,

and, and, and the man next door ran the theater and popcorn fresh popped was a nickel a bag and you run out of popcorn. He knew he had no money and he'd fill up your popcorn, you know. And so I spent the whole day every Saturday at the movies. It was wonderful. And do you remember some of these guys? You remember hopping on Cassidy and the Durango Kid and Rocky Lane and and

only Sunset Carson while Bill Elliott, there's a good one, wore 2 silver six guns turned backwards.

You draw down on Bill, he spend them guns and shoot yours out. Then

it had to blow your guts all over the screen. You know

my favorite cowboy was Lashley Rue.

Call him last because he carried a bull whip. You draw down on Lash. He whipped a gun out of your hand

lashes. Cool man. I watched him last one day and he's standing up on the roof of the saloon. Done run all the bad guys out of town. He popped his whip and his horse run by.

He leapt into the saddle, popping that whip, riding off in the sunset, and tears came to my eyes. It was magnificent,

set through that movie again and again and again. See old Lash right off in the sunset. And you know you got to emulate your heroes. I went home got a piece of rope, went up on the garage,

little boy next door had a pony named Beauty. I said John Q go saddle up Beauty and he did. I said now walk her past the garage and he did and I popped my rope and leapt into the saddle. When I hit it, you could heard me screaming Myrtle Beach.

I don't know if that's a spiritual experience, but I never forgot it

and 30 minutes later I got my breath back. I started wondering about Lash LaRue

I.

But something was missing and I knew in my insides it was missing. I said clear as I can put it, and I knew if I ever found whatever it was, it was missing. Everything was going to be complete and total. There was an emptiness inside of me and I didn't know what made it,

and it took my first drink and the emptiness was gone.

God that was powerful. God that was powerful and it was magical. I didn't have to work for it

and it felt good and I liked it and I wanted more.

15 years old,

blacked out the first time ever drank. It's a blackout drinker from the word go by time. I'm 16 and 17 with this answer of mine that I had found. I was being locked up regularly in the Wake County Jail in Raleigh, NC. My father on the board of Deacons for 50 years, My mother Hostess of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, and their sons making the social pages.

And I dislike myself some more, and some more, and some more

time. I'm 23, I'd had over 1000 stitches taken in my face alone as a result of drinking,

and I was still telling myself

someday, somehow, if I just handle it right

and we'll be able to control and enjoy my drinking. Because it was the only answer I'd ever had. It was the only thing I'd ever found that would fill up that emptiness even for a minute. I know what Clancy said last night. I quit drinking. I was a Wildman.

Sick

and I had to have that place filled in me.

I'm not going to bore you with a drunk of logs. Not important.

I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 23 years old.

You know, I've been in the service and I'd been booted out.

I've been in several colleges and I've been booted out.

You know,

I just gotten out of a psychiatric ward and I was booted out.

I was. I was throwing out the psychiatric ward.

The Cherokee ended up there. Wouldn't do what I told him to do. I'll beat the shit out of him.

I'm laying up mom and daddy's house drunk. Ain't it funny how you hate your mom and dad and they blame everything happens to him on him but your ass gets drunk and you need help. You end up at mom and daddy's

and I'm laid up there drunk. Mama goes down the street, the little florist shop run by a little guy named Simon Parker and Simon happy he run around there happy man got this little Medellin around his neck. She said Simon what you so happy about? He said Miss Brady, I've never told you this, but I'm an alcoholic and I'm in recovery and last night was my 7th birthday and and they gave me this my day and then they're beautiful. And if you ever know anyone I can help Miss Brady, just let me know.

Mama took him by the arm, said Come on, Simon.

Now here's the picture, y'all.

He's taken Simon Parker to see a boy, OK, who has lived by his wits, who even when he was drunk has made straight As, who has always finished on top of everything he's ever done. He's an intellectual nightmare. And on top of that, he's full of religiosity.

He knows all the spiritual answers to Simon. Had any sense he'd gone back to the florist shop.

It took me to a meeting.

Well, I win today like it always garnered everything else. Full speed ahead,

master it, rise to the top. I like control and say I used to. I said I like control.

Some of y'all saying I don't like it

if I was to pull the bus of life in this room today. Every person in here go for the damn steering wheel.

12 steps on one side, 12 traditions on the other. I got a partial photographic memory. It was duck soup. I had them

guys stand up front with a Blue Book. Everybody listen to him. He was in control. I like that I got me a Blue Book,

started memorizing. I can quote great passages of the book Alcoholics Anonymous to you right now, but I don't have to anymore.

What a relief.

But it's all ahead. The same old persona came to Alcoholics Anonymous. Yeah, I wanted to stay sober on my terms.

And for the next seven years, the longest ever state drive was 89 days.

I knew all the answers. Your intellectuals hear me.

I knew the words.

I didn't do the action.

I didn't do the action and I wondered why. It's like Chuck used to say, the turtles of life were passing me by like this, riding motorcycles.

I know that feeling. I'm that close to the switch and I can't reach it. Everybody else is reaching it. I can't reach it

and that's true, I can't.

I missed a big point. This is a weed program.

Oh, I hurt. And I met some of the hatefulest people I met in my life. They were ugly, profane,

talked in circles, nonsense, and people called them old timers.

There's one old boy up in Burlington, NC named Bill Crumpler. He's dead now. God rest his soul.

I hated that man. I called him grumpy.

He'd wait for me at meetings. He denied that, but he'd wait till I got there.

Soon as I got through the door down would come to finger. How you doing, boy?