The H&I Day in the Park in Pheonix, AZ

Or what's left is sunny. See, I'm sunny and I'm an alcoholic

and I love drugs

and,

you know, Jesus Christ, man, ain't nothing to do in Phoenix on Saturday night.

Yeah, this is coming to any length.

You know, I'm grateful for the committee who selected me to come here and and speak to you people tonight. It's good to it's good to be any God damn where clean and sober and am I right mine most of the time. I know I'm in my right mind today because I stood outside and watched them people getting that dunk tank and it wasn't me.

And a friend told me that

he thought the second step had taken effect. And I said no, It said it could.

It didn't say it would. And you know, I watched them people out there freezing to death, man, busting their ass in that tank. And I thought, God, I'm so glad I don't do that shit no more.

It's good not to be a newcomer.

Had to get some time in this program. You just step aside and let the newcomers do all that ignorant shit.

And

I want to tell you that

when I was out there on the streets doing my thing, nobody ever came up to me and said, Sonny, don't use drugs, just drink alcohol. Because one of these days you're going to be in A and you can't talk about drugs. Nobody ever said that to me. Nobody ever said Sonny just used drugs because one of these days you're going to be in NA or CA or Overeaters Little Peters or something and you can't talk about alcohol.

What I'm going to tell you, I did every God damn thing that worked out there

and some that didn't, some that didn't. I'm not a cocaine freak or cocaine addict.

When I first used cocaine it was something new. And they said Sonny try that shit, that old pile of it on the table. And I stuck a a God damn straw down there and sucked it up one nostril and sucked it up the other nostril. And it burnt like shit. And it lasted about 15 minutes and I had to go do it again. And I said fuck this. I went and got me some crank.

You don't have to do that every 15 minutes.

And I want to tell you that if I had stayed with it long enough to where you smoked it and fixed it and stuffed it up your ass and done all that other shit with it, I'd have probably been there.

Because I would do anything if somebody walked up to me and said, Sonny, here's a Hershey bar with almonds. If you stub it up your ass, you'll get loaded. I'd have been stuffing Hershey bar up my ass.

The almonds might have hurt, but

when I got here today, I found out that one of the guys that I used to sponsor was over here talking to you a couple years ago, a guy named Rashad

and

Rashad was one of the craziest babies I ever had. I knew Rashad in the joint and or what do you call them places Correctional Facility,

whereas there is freaking penitentiaries and

you know, he was the only white guy I knew that was crazy. Just totally fucking nuts. He joined the Black Muslims while he was in the joint

and he's wait.

I saw him at the Hatchby when I went up there on a panel and I said, hey, Patrick, how you doing? He said no, no, cool it, man. My name ain't Patrick no more,

said. Oh, you changed it. What is it? He said It's Rashad.

I said you're a ignorant son of a bitch boy, you know, But you know, he's out doing great today and so am I. And it ain't about none of that shit no more.

I'd like to tell you that my life out here, it has been a bed of roses and it has been compared to what it was in there.

I haven't had a bad day period

since I've been sober and clean. I haven't had a bad day. Somebody asked me one day a couple years ago. They said, Sonny, what was your drug of choice?

I said drug of choice,

they said. Yeah. I said I don't know. I didn't know you could specialize in any God damn thing. But if I had a drug of choice, it would have probably been yours. See,

because I always wanted yours and I wanted to save mine. I don't know where you came from, but that's how I grew up.

I remember we used to we used to rob them doctors cars because back in them days they had

they had them doctors bags and we used to use everything in them bags. And I know that sooner or later in one in bags, I got a hold of some of them pregnant pill and I took them and I'm here to tell you that they work.

I haven't been pregnant since then.

I've taken a little bit of error. God damn thing

I took some shit one time and made me walk sideways.

We're shit I'd ever had.

Yeah, I started drinking and using when I was eight years old. I had a school teacher turn me on and I want to tell you that I've had a thing for school teachers ever since,

the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. I used to go over there ever on her yard cleaner yard and stuff on Saturdays and she'd always give me $0.50 or quarter and some milk and cookies or lemonade or some shit, whatever happened to be in style that day, and I'd get my stuff and go on home. One day I went in to get my stuff and she was sitting in there and she was half in the bag and she was drinking whiskey and, and, and cleaning a kilo of weed.

And I thought, God damn.

And she said, Sonny, if you ever drank any of this stuff, she yelled at this bottle of whiskey And I said, Oh yeah, we've got it in my house all the time. And I want to tell you, nobody at my house drank. So she said OK, and she poured some into a water glass

and I took that water glass and I don't know if any of you can remember your first drink, but I can't

see because that was what set me free. You know, I had the ISM of alcoholism before I ever took a drink.

And I took that goddamn drink and it was like, I just thought it would be like kool-aid or iced tea or lemonade or some shit. And I threw it in and it got down into my throat about here and it started burning. God damn, it burnt all the way down. It got down at the bottom and started to come back up and get back up to here and I get it back down and come back up and finally I got it to stay down. When it stayed down it set this warm fuzzy feeling all over me and I thought, son of a bitch let me have some more.

And then she asked me if I'd ever smoked any of that Mexican non habit forming marijuana

and I told her no but shit I'm willing let's go for it. And she gave me some,

and I spit and sputtered and gagged and choked, you know? And finally she said, wait a minute, you're just wasting that shit, let me show you how to do it. And she did. And I got some to stay in,

you know, And I sat there for a while and I didn't feel anything, but all of a sudden the corners of my mouth started to spread. They started going towards my ears

and I thought, God damn, this is all right, because there wasn't a lot of shit going on in my life. That was funny at that time, but it felt that way.

Now, I've been in a lot of meetings and I've heard a lot of people share that they tried marijuana and it didn't do shit for them.

I feel sorry for them people,

I really do. They must have been doing it wrong.

At nine years old, I was taken away from my parents, declared incorrigible,

and they put me in juvenile hall.

And as I was walking out of the courtroom,

my parents told me, said Sonny, don't worry, we'll be in to see everything is going to be all right. And I said, all right. So I went on to juvenile hall. Sunday came around. He hadn't been there, and I was waiting. I was sitting on the edge of my bunk.

7730 rolled around. They still hadn't came. Guy came over and sent out on my bunk and said what's the matter, What are you doing? I said I'm waiting for my parents to come. He said, man, you ain't got no parents no more you. They don't took you away from them. Ain't nobody coming to see you. And I'm nine years old and nine years old. I didn't know what the feelings and and all that shit was that I was going through at the time. But today I know what it was. And I sat there and I began to cry

and I cried for about four hours

and in about 3 or 4 hours these four boys that came over whoop the dog shit out of me raped me and left me laying there on the bed.

Next morning I got up and I was sitting on the edge of the bed

and this one guy came over and he sat down next to me and he said Sonny you better do something or this is going to happen again. I said no it ain't going to happen again. I don't know what the fucks going on, but it ain't going to happen no more.

And I got up and I went to the bathroom. I was on my way to the bathroom and I noticed that the utility closet was open. And I opened the door and I looked in there and there was a mop bucket and they had a metal mop ringer and model metal handle on it and it had two screws holding it in. And I took them screws out and come out of that closet and went up through that dorm and found them guy and I almost killed two of them.

I learned two things in that 24 hour period.

One of the things that I learned was that if if you cried, it was a sign of weakness and people would take advantage of it.

The second thing that I learned was that the more violent you became with people, the more they left you to fuck alone.

You see, they left you alone. And so that's the way it was for me for a long, long time.

I grew up in the system and had that system's attitude over there.

I went to Clinton on an armed robbery and got out. The club I rode motorcycles with came and picked me up and we went to party.

That was on a Tuesday. The following Monday I came to myself and I was in the old LA County jail one more time, which didn't surprise me, but I was wondering what I was in there for because I had these funny looking coveralls on

and I was in a tank that I'd never been in. And so I took them steel, stainless steel cup and racked it on the bars. And the bolt came down there. And I asked him what was the problem, Why was I in here? And he said, Sonny, you're charged with 187 PC. That's first degree murder. And I thought, well, what a trip. I couldn't remember it. So I didn't even think that it happened in a blackout that weekend. I'd kill the guy in a bar.

And the state of California was present for special circumstances. They got it all

and they sentenced me to die. I spent 2 1/2 years on death row. At the end of 2 1/2 years, the US Supreme Court overturned the penalty phase of my case, took me off the road and put me out in the yard. Couple months later when I was out on the yard I was involved in one M race riots and this black guy stabbed me twice. I chased him down and I stabbed him and I had him by his head and pulled back and I was going to cut his head off and the tire guard shot me.

The next thing I remember I was in bus whites and I had about 150 lbs of chain on me and I was headed for Folsom.

We pulled into the front entrance gate at Folsom and Sally port there. I was sitting there in this little bus and I was thinking,

God damn, man, something reminds me this, this reminds me of something. What it was was when I was 12 years old, there was a juvenile court judge that told me, said, Sonny, if you don't straighten your act up, you're going to wind up and fall someone these days. And I had laughed at him. I had laughed at him because I thought he meant Dan. And I knew they didn't send 12 year olds to Folsom. But then there it was. And that should have told me something, but it didn't say anything.

And I spent the next 11 years there. I'm here to tell you that I spent 25 years in prison,

25 goddamn years in prison and never learnt anything. The

the only thing I ever got out of them 25 years was an education. The way I got the education was that a guy that ran with us on the yard went to work in the education department and he came down and told me, said Sonny, didn't they tell you at the board that you needed an education? And I said, yeah. He said I can get you a high school diploma for two boxes.

I said cool, OK, so I gave him two cartoons of camels and he got me at high school diploma.

My grades were so good that I graduated valedictorian of that class.

Now, I want to tell you, I didn't know what valedictorian was, but it sure as hell didn't sound good to me.

And I went looking for this dude,

and the Sacramento Bee, which is the newspaper up there at Folsom, came in to take pictures of everybody with them funny hats on and them robes. And

it was a trip.

And I had the guy that got me made valedictorian to make me a speech because he said that's what I had to do.

Couple years later he came out on the yard and he said I can get you a an associate arts degree, Sonny,

how many boxes is that? He said it's four boxes. I said let's go.

So I got an associate arts degree

and

I have to laugh my ass off.

I got busted and I got sent to 4A, which is jail inside of jail. Well, I was in there.

Yeah,

only in California.

I was in there for 2 1/2 years

and while I was in there, I was at the cell Down the road for me was a guy who had been a professor up at UC Berkeley. He was a psych professor. And he kept after me about getting a correspondence course. And I told him why don't you do it for me? And he said, really? And I said yeah. And he said OK, well, some other words went down too, but thing was that he went ahead and done that. And when I

when I got out of four AI only needed 9 units for ABA degree,

you know, and it made me mad. I'd like to stuck around for another six months and got that BA degree. Been an educated son of a bitch and

and the extent of my reading. My reading was just good enough for me to read. Lewis Lamore

That's that was it. The second, the only ones I wanted to read and

one day I was laying on my bunk. They shipped me from when they, the state appellate courts had reversed the They gave me a new trial and in a new trial they reversed the,

the sentencing in they took life without possibility off and gave me straight life and all that old bullshit that goes with it. And when they did, they sent me down to this place called Tehachapi.

The Hatchapee was one of the funniest goddamn camps I'd ever been in. You know, it was dorm living. I never lived in a dorm since I was in juvenile hall. Everybody in there had a radio or a record player, and none of them was on the same channels or the same record. It was just fucking noise

and everybody there was 87% of the guys that were there was in the joint. For the first time they reminded me of newcomers.

I don't really know if they belong yet or not, but got a lot of information,

you know, And I'm not picking on a newcomers because I was the same God damn way when I got here. And I thought it was the weirdest camp in the world. All these guys living in the dorm. And finally one night, this was in 1970, I think it was 6970, and the woman was wearing them real short dresses and skirts.

And this guy in a bunk next to me jumped up and started getting ready. It's about 7:00 at night. He starts getting ready like he's going somewhere.

And I thought, what's the zombie doing, man? Ain't no place to go this time of night. And you got to clean up for it too, you know? And so I asked him. I said, where are you going? He said, I'm going over at the visiting hall. They're, they're having winos in tonight.

And I thought, I know he snapped, man, and I'll bring winos to the penitentiary. What in the hell would they be bringing Winos to the penitentiary for? And how did they get them? Take that, take that bus and go down on Skid Row and pick them up. Tell them you're going to the penitentiary tonight. You know, I didn't understand none of that shit. And I said, well, what happens over there? And he said, man, he said they gave you free coffee and cookies or Donuts and and then one of those, I'll give you a goddamn cigarette if you get next to them.

You know, sound like no one knows. I knew they was always trying to get next to me, get something, you know. And so I said, well, what else happens? And he said, well, they bring in Broads.

And I said what? He said they bring in Broads. I said real ones. And he said, yeah,

now I've been down a long time

and in wheels had already run off them cars and the motorcycles and all that shit, you know, that been, had too many flats. I couldn't have been Mr. Firestone and kept them in wheels, you know what I mean? Had it already stopped. And so it's been a long time. I've seen a lot of them. Could have been, would have been, it should have been, but I didn't see the real thing. And so I said, how do I get over there?

And he said you just go, son. I said no, you don't have to have a Duckett or something to go. And he said, no, you just go.

So I thought, shit, all right,

So I put on my yard jacket and my shades. Yeah,

because you have to be cool.

They ain't gonna know who you are, what you are, man, if you ain't cool. We all know that.

So I walked in there and I took a look around that room and I saw them convicts that was in there and I knew I didn't belong with these assholes. And if somebody came in and saw me with them, then I have to have an excuse of why I'm there. So I just took one of metal folding chairs and moved it to the back of the room. And I figured if anybody knows me, comes in, says anything I'm telling, I'm just checking it out, man. And I sat down in a chair and folded that jacket over just right. Crossed my legs look good.

I went in to take a leak just before I come out here to speak and I seen guys in there getting cute, getting ready just in case She was here tonight

and I totally understand it. Totally understand. And

I sat down in that chair and I struck that pose. Man, if I'd have been any cooler that night, they'd had chipped me out of that chair with a goddamn ice pick.

And I heard this commotion

and the gate flew open and these people come in and these brides is with them and they were looking good, goddamn. But after all the time I'd done anything would look good. And you know,

there's a couple convicts standing by the gate there. And when they came in and Broads was kissing on him and hugging him and I thought, what in the fuck is this man? Things can't be that bad out on the streets that they got to come up here to catch.

And I want to tell you that I sat back there in that chair and I fell out of that sucker five times that night.

I found out you can only bend over so far and that chair gives you up. And I don't give a shit how you land on that floor. You can't look cool. There is absolutely no position that you can get in that looks cool

and it was a program of attraction for me then. And it still is. Still is. I don't go to men's stacks. Can't stand a God damn men's stack.

I never heard of so much fucking sniveling in my life

and my sponsor told me, said Sonny. Go try one. I went for about 1/2 an hour and left

and he said what's the matter? I said man, I was in. It's been stag for 25 years.

You know, I go to these meetings where they got women. Because what I do is if I'm sitting there and somebody is talking that I don't want to hear, you know what that is? You know how you hear those people who come to meetings and share that and they share all that old bullshit, You know, I don't want to hear that. And So what I do is I tune them out and I look around the room to see what's happening. Yeah,

real simple for me. I can't do that in a men's day, although I've seen some of them guys that go to men's day.

But I've been out of the joint a long time now

and

in 73, because I was going to a A so God damn much, they thought that my life had changed

and that there might be a chance of putting me out on the streets one more time. And so they paroled me and the club I rode with came and picked me up.

And

two years later I was on my way back.

And

I'll never forget the day that I knew that I was going back to the penitentiary or I was going to die.

And that was the day that I, I couldn't shut off anything in here and I couldn't shut this off no matter how much I used or how much I drank.

And I got to that point, I think where everybody sitting in this room, if you're an alcoholic or an addict or whatever that every one of us gets to. And that's that point where we're just fucking tired. Just tired, man. You know it's sick and tired of being sick and tired.

It ain't working no more.

And I finally got violated and came back to the joint and I was down at at Chino at RC West and

I went for a parole revocation hearing and they got to talk and tell me so bad. I just got up and walked out. I didn't care anymore. I just didn't fucking care anymore. And they could do whatever they wanted to do. And I walked out on the yard and I was looking at the tower and I was looking at the bull in the tower. And he was a youngster. And I knew if I hit that fucking fancy, blow me off the fence and I wouldn't have to feel the way I was feeling. And that's what was going through my mind at the time.

And then all of a sudden I heard over the PA system that there was an alcoholic synonymous meeting in the visiting room.

And I turned around and walked into that visiting room. And today I understand what it was, what was happening. My my whole thought pattern was to hit that fence and get it over with. It wasn't about AAI didn't give a fuck about a a or nothing. All I gave I thought about was what was happening with me man. And I wanted it to end

somehow or another, you know, I know that God doing for me. It was doing for me that day that I what I couldn't do for myself. And he turned me around and walked me into that meeting. And when I walked into that meeting, there was a little short fat ball headed guy named Bill Hunnicutt standing there. And he walked up and put his arms around me and told me. He said welcome back. I'm not glad to see you back in the penitentiary, but I'm glad to see you back in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe now you'll sit down and shut up and listen.

Yeah.

And I knew it was all over for me. I knew it was all over for me, man.

And they sent me back to that God damn place called Tehachapi.

And I got up there and I got involved in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And on July the 1st, 1977, I stood up in front of a bunch of people just like you, only they were dressed a little funnier and some people from the streets.

And they had smuggled a cake out of the goddamn bakery. And Bill Honeycutt had brought up on him a little chicken shit candles, and he'd stole it from somebody at a birthday meeting because it was already used. Yeah. And they stuck in the middle of that cake and sang happy birthday to me. And I stood there and the tears rolled down my cheeks.

Just roll down my cheeks.

Six days later

I was standing out at the canteen waiting for him to open the cantina and they announced over the PA system for me to report the dorm. Roll my stuff up. I was going home

and I wasn't supposed to get out. I wasn't supposed to have another hearing until 1990.

See, I know what it is for me today.

I don't know how anybody else feels about this program and else any how you feel about any goddamn thing. I want to tell you about how I feel about it. I think that the day that I walked out of prison was the day that the old sunny day and the day that I came out here into this world, a new Sonny was born. And everything that I have today and everything that I am today is a gift from God in the program.

That's what it is. It ain't nothing I deserve. I was talking with my friend here and I said I was at a meeting and this guy sitting next to me, he was sharing and he said he just waiting for when he gets what he deserves. And I got up and moved.

They said, Sonny, why did you move? I said, I don't. God might give it to him. And I don't want to be in, you know, I don't want to be in the fall out of it, you know?

And when they told me to report to the dorm and roll my stuff up, I was going home. I was, I was scared. And when I get scared, I get crazy. And I went up there and I told this bull. I said, if you're fucking with me, man, I'm going, I'm going to just do you right here. And he said, Sonny, they've been trying to tell you since January that there was a chance that you'd go home

in January of 1977. And Governor Brown at that time over in California, signed a new law, which was called

SB42 or some fucking thing. I don't know. It's been so long now, I ain't paying no attention to it. Anyway, what it did was it overhauled the judicial system. It took the adult authority out of power, put the power back into the judges and all that shit, and they had to write new laws, sentencing laws and stuff. When they got done doing all that, they had to review everybody's case that was in the penitentiary when they reviewed mine under the new laws. I've done 4 1/2 years too much

and I had to be released immediately. So on 7/7/77 I walked out of the penitentiary for the last time.

Yeah, and it don't work anywhere.

And don't work in Vegas and don't work on the Lotto or none of that shit.

Just worked that one day. And I'm thankful to God for that day.

You know when I went out and I set out in the entrance building and was waiting to see what was going to happen. I had no idea where I was going to go, what I was going to do or any goddamn thing. And I stand in there and I got to shaking. So I sat down and I still got to shaking so bad. I finally I sat on my hands. Then I was sweating like a son of a bitch and

finally I said, man, I don't know if I can handle this. There was a telephone right outside the entrance building,

and I had money in my pocket. I could go out there and use that phone, but I didn't know who I'd wanted to call. Yeah.

And all of a sudden, this Lieutenant walked in and he said, Sonny. And I said, what? And he said, this guy coming across the parking lot is coming for you. And I said, what makes you think so? He said, because he's the only asshole we've seen all day that looks like you, you know. And I looked out there and here come this guy had long hair and a big beard, and his name was Carl Dake. He was a clean and sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous out of Bakersfield. And he walked in there in that room, and he threw his arm around me and told me, come on, asshole, you don't live here no more.

Let's get out of here,

I thought. All right,

when I walked out of the penitentiary that day,

the clothes I had on my back, $200.00 worth of state check kick out money and a few other dollars that I had in my pocket

and a shoebox was all I had.

So all I came out here to you people with

we got into Bakersfield and he said I'm going to take it to a meeting and I said OK, so we went to this meeting. When we arrived there I sat in that car and he said come on let's go in. I said no.

Then people might reject me, knowing where I came from and what I've done.

And they said no, no, come on in, God damn it. And I said, no, I'm going to stay here. You go ahead. I'll wait for you.

And I was sitting there in that car. He said OK. And he said he took off, went in in the meeting and I sitting in that goddamn car and I got to thinking,

this is Bakersfield.

The only ID I got is what I got here in my hand that I just got out of the joint today. I don't know who this car belongs to and if it don't belong to Carl.

So I got to thinking about it, you know, and I'm an old convict man and and, you know,

that meeting looked better and better

because I didn't know how to explain all this shit to one of them cops. Oh, yeah, I just got out of penitentiary. No, I'm just sitting here waiting for this buddy of mine to come out of a hey, hey, you know,

it didn't even sound good to me.

So I got up and I went in there,

and I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that the fear of going to jail got greater than the fear of going into that meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I walked in there

and it's a lot of people just like what's here tonight who do hospital and institutional work, and only they were from Bakersfield and they all knew me and everything, and they welcomed me home. And then Bill Honeycutt come and got me and took me to Long Beach and started taking me to meetings. You know, I was sitting here tonight and I was listening to some people sniveling about going to meetings all the time.

I want to tell you that my first 90 days on the street, I didn't know there wasn't anything but meeting.

I asked him one night. I said, Bill, how about us just going to a movie

instead of going to that meeting? He said that's cool, you can go. He said next time you feel like taking a drink,

go to fucking movie.

See, God put the right people in my life when I first come out of the penitentiary because I was a hard headed son of a bitch man and everybody was in my life when I came out of the penitentiary was demo crabby ass old timers

you. I'd be sitting in a meeting and I'd be sitting between two of them and it'd be one behind me and one in front of me,

and I'd start to raise my hand. When it asks a question they say shut up

and I said what do you mean shut up? And they say that Questions about sobriety

and you don't know nothing about sobriety, so shut up.

Didn't they tell me that? Good one if your lips are moving your line.

He used to just bust it off. And me. Every God damn time, man,

they take me to the meeting after the meeting, you know, at the at the restaurants and they'd make me sit in the middle.

You know, I don't like sitting in the middle. I don't do it today,

but I used to sit in the middle of all these assholes and they wouldn't let me share.

And I told him one time I said why can't I say something? They said because you don't know nothing.

The hell are you going to tell us? Yeah,

that it may be. Just maybe if you keep your God damn mouth shut, you'll learn something. I tried that on one of my babies here a while back. I haven't seen him since.

I guess he wasn't as ready as I was.

All that stuff when I first got sober and out here and I got a job. I got my first job. I want to tell you the 1st place that I applied to a job was in a parts store

and

I didn't fill out the application. I said let me just see the manager or the guy that's in charge. And they said, well you got to. I said no, let me just see the guy because ain't no sense of me wasting all this time. And so they let me see this guy. I walked back into his office and we sat down there and we were talking and I told him where I'd come from and what I'd been and all that stuff. And his eyes got big and his mouth flew open. And when I got done talking to him, he said, well, Sonny said I'd love to have you working here, But he said we handle a lot of money here

and I don't know if I can trust you.

I said, man, I'm not here to steal your God damn money. I'm here asking you for a job. If I was here to steal your money, I wouldn't be asking you for a job.

It just, you know, I couldn't get it straight in my mind. So I had a hard time. And then finally there was a guy in the program gave me a job and he said you can come to work for me Sonny. And I said OK, what am I going to do? And he said, well, I'll show you when we get out there tomorrow.

I had a real bad feeling about all that shit.

And So what he taught me was that how to dig ditches and lay water line.

I thought, man, why don't you just get a God damn tractor to do this? I said no, because I got two or three of you guys do it.

And I used to stand in ditches, men, that they were higher than my head and that sand running down on your neck and on your body and it's sweating and thinking, what the fuck, man? It wasn't like this in the joint. It wasn't this bad in the joint back there. I'd throw that shovel down and start out of that hole. And I said, well, wait a minute. Now let me think about this again.

Then on Fridays, I'd go home, take a shower and all that stuff and give my check the bill or whoever was there, and they would give me $10

and I'd say, well wait a minute, man, I need some more money. And it's no, If you need more money, come to us and tell us what it's for and we'll take care of it. I said OK so I never got to see my checks

for a year. They kept taking my money and I kept praying. The son of a bitches didn't get drunk.

They got drunk. My money's gone and then I'm going to be really pissed off. And at the end of the year they came and got me, took me to the bank, gave me my bank book and all that stuff and gave me the money that I've been giving them. And then they took me down to buy my first car

and they signed for me to get my first car.

And that's how I was raised in this program.

Todd's raised in this program. I thank God for the old timers.

Thank God for the old timers. I used to get so tired of listening to their shit. But you know what? They never lied to me. Not one time did they ever lie to me. Man, they always told me the truth.

My last sponsor just died a while back. He had 45 years in the program. He's a six foot five Jew, never rode a motorcycle, never been to prison, none of that shit. And people used to tell me, Sonny, why did you get that dude?

I said, well, I don't need nobody teach me how to ride a motorcycle. I know you tell by the way I walk.

I didn't need nobody tell me how to go to God damn penitentiary because any fool can go to penitentiary. What I needed was somebody been out here, knew how to live out here and that's why I asked him to be my sponsor. You know, he was a big old rough shot Jew man, but you know, he used to walk up to me and put his arm around me and talk to me and he cried with me and

all that shit.

And you know, when I got into the steps, working the steps, I got up to step 8:00 and 9:00. And I got to thinking, man, how in the hell am I going to make amends for this murder, you know? And I went to him and I told him and he said, I don't know Sonny, cause I've never come up to this before. But he said I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. He said, I'll find out and I'll get back to you. And I said OK,

But a month or so later, he came up to me and he said here, he gave me an address. He said go here Friday,

leave early in the day and get out there and I said OK.