The 40th North Shore Roundup in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Good evening. My name is Dix Kelly and I'm an alcoholic. At this point in my life, I hope I'm an alcoholic because if I'm not, I've wasted 34 years of my life coming to these damn meetings. And

he want to thank the committee for having, well, the extreme good judgment to invite me,

right? It includes those you just saw,

Rich and Don and Dennis, Darcy, Annie, Greg, Dan Warren, Lisa Meehan, Christine, Deborah, Larry Bilby, Bill M. Thank you all for your service and thank you all for being so kind to me and my wife and greeting us when we came here both in person and by by letter. And a special thanks to Mary Ann and Arch for being so kind and considerate to me and my wife during our

short stay here.

We we love Vancouver. This is our third trip here and we spent the afternoon going over to North Vancouver

where, among other things, you can find many good places to eat,

particularly if your preferences go toward Greek

or sushi.

Now, Atlanta and Georgia are not thought to be cutting edge communities, but we've had sushi for a very long time.

We just didn't know any better. We just called it bait

the by the way. I wonder if apologize or just explain the vast. I'm a lawyer by trade and it's kind of a uniform. But more importantly than that, at the end of my drinking

I knew I was a a very high bottom drunk.

Oh, I I did,

yeah. I always had a hold in my silk tie when I threw up.

I got around that by wearing a vest and the vest held in the tie.

Except that the vest created other problems.

I used to stagger into the men's room, stumble over to the latrine, opened my vest, pull out my tie, and pee in my pants.

I don't want to frighten you, but I did come here armed with notes. I

this is for your benefit more than mine. In addition to being an alcoholic, I'm also a Celtic Mystic.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Irish, Celtic Mystic is an Irish bullshitter

and I brought these notes so you don't have to stay here and listen to me till one or two in the morning,

in which case you'd be walking out with just happy with your bargain. They're getting 5 CDs for $10.

The

like most of you, I I drank alcohol because in the beginning it worked.

It did what it was supposed to do.

In my case, in my late teens and early 20s, it got me over the rough spots in life that made me comfortable talking with girls

a little bit later as I got into law school. I went through college and law school on scholarships. My my dad was a steel worker. Most of the people I went to college and especially law school with, with the sons and daughters and judges and doctors and bankers and the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, was kind enough

to place Seton Hall Law School on Clinton St. In Newark,

right next to a Tavern.

How considerate could they be?

And we would adjourn after classes next door to that Tavern and I'd be there drinking with my fellow classmates and, and they'd all be talking about their prep school lacrosse team.

I didn't go no prep school. I didn't. I didn't play lacrosse. I went to a small parochial high school and I played stickball in a playground,

but after a couple of drinks, what the hell? I played lacrosse to

and although it worked for a long time, there was a point in time when it stopped working. I had used alcohol into the beginning of my career as an attorney

and

sometime in January of 1977. I didn't get silver till May, but I went to an AA meeting just to get some pamphlets to prove I had been there

and come home with the pamphlets. And of course, I came home drunk,

staggered into the kitchen through the pamphlets on the table in front of my wife, and insisted that the damn thing didn't work.

This allowed me to continue drinking for another several months, and during this time is when alcohol stopped working. I remember I was preparing for a trial,

and as I usually do, I prepare for trial in those days by putting myself on half rations of liquor for two weeks before trial.

And I went to trial all prepared,

and I got to the courtroom and I found out that the prosecutor was going to ask for a continuance because his chief witness, a police officer, had been called up by his guard or reserve unit. It would not be available for several weeks and he was going to ask for a continuance. Well, I was furious.

Fury was the first reaction. The second was frustration,

because I could not argue to that judge. Your honor, I've had myself on half rations of liquor

for the last two weeks.

Who do you think you are granting it to? Genuine.

And my last reaction was terror because

I recognize that

I could not guarantee you my conduct. I could not guarantee my condition three months from now.

If you're going to put it off for a couple of days or until the early next week, I could keep a lid on it.

Three months from now. I had no idea what condition I would be in and that's when the terrorist struck

because I knew I could not control me.

So I went back to the clubhouse I went to, was at Rebus.

See, lawyers, everybody has their own. Lawyers have a barrier to recovery in many ways, because alcoholism is a disease of consequences. If you're an alcoholic who keeps drinking, consequences are going to come upon you.

Well, lawyers make their living

postponing, diminishing, eliminating consequences. That's what we do. We're experts at it, and we can put off those consequences. And meanwhile, the damage done by alcohol progresses because we haven't had to face them. I was lucky to have to come to face mine, and I wound up going back to the same place where I got the pamphlet. It's a place called Rebus. That's silver spelled backwards.

And it was a clubhouse in Marietta, GA. And you know, those groups were they were they love you too. You can love yourself.

Rebus didn't go for that stuff.

They had people there.

There was one guy there named Speedy

and I walked in here for my first meeting and was still debating whether I really belong there or not. This is the mid 1970s, and Speedy died just about a year ago. But he came to me in the mid 70s, resplendent in a lime green leisure suit

with white patent leather shoes

in a matching belt

and a buckle you could serve a Turkey on.

And he came over to me in that southern drawl of his and he said you want what we have

not right now.

And at this group they have a process. They if it was 12 step chairman in this place is in charge of getting you a temporary sponsor. If you don't have one, that mean even if you don't want one,

you'll have one before you leave there. And I have this fellow

he was,

what's the word? He was inflicted on me.

His name was Germany. He wasn't as smart as me,

and I spent the most of my first year of sobriety explaining the true complexity of life to Jim,

Jim said. Stupid stuff like I'm going down to Florida for a week.

You're not going to people that go with me, they're going to have booze and I'm taking a soccer. Oh, by the way, I at the end of my drinking, I had apparently coached a soccer team to A state championship.

And I remember getting a letter from the state soccer association and reading it and going, damn, I must have been good.

But we went down to that. And I kept telling us, you know, the people are party people. There's going to be beer around, and how am I going to stay sober down there? And it's simplistic as ever. He said well don't drink.

Later on I went through and I told Jim I'm having a problem with honesty. He's not tell the truth.

I had to spend a lot of time explaining things to Jim because he didn't understand.

And

I guess it was during the the months between my first meeting in January and my sobriety. And in May,

I, I had to have the Big book and I bought it when I was there at the first meeting and I brought her home and would occasionally take it out and read it of an evening. And I would have a Big Book in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other. And this, by the way, is not the best way to go through the Big Book,

but I would sit there as trying to get the essence of it. And I heard it the first thing this guy, Bill W was the founder sending Bill story. I'll find out how he got sober. And I'm reading and he's in the wind with the other kids drinking at the Country Club. And then he goes to the military school and he's drinking again. And he's over in Europe at World War One. He's drinking, he comes back, he's on the stock market, he's drinking. I said no, where does he get sober?

And he finally goes into the hospital and he's OK, he's going to sober, He's in the hospital. And then he tells he saw the wind and the light

and

guess I got to wait for the wind and the light to come through here

as soon as it does up with this drink down.

But having gone through the big book the first time, I had also taken one of those Evan Woods speed reading courses. I went through that big book in about a 2 1/2 hours,

and I went back the second time and I was making notes in the margin because at two weeks over, I thought I had, you know, some good ideas for the next edition.

I may be the only pigeon in the history of this program who sponsor took away his big book.

He told me to go to meetings and listen. He let me know when I was ready to read.

Of course, the truth was I read the big book, like the opposition brief, you know, let's see the parts that don't apply. And

yeah, that one's not on all fours. Yeah.

So I went to him and I see how we go these meetings. I said how many, how many meetings I have to go to is that? I'll get back to you on that.

A few days later he come to me. You know, we've been talking, and in view of your obvious intelligence and extreme education, we figure if you want to go to seven meetings a week,

I said, that's every day,

he says. See, you're getting better already.

So Jim got me working the steps,

and I began a serious effort at the program. At that time

it was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer hardly thought it worthwhile to spend much time on the old violin, but he held it up with a smile. One of my bid for this fiddle, he said. Who start the bidding for me a dollar. Then who make it to $2.00? Who make it 3-3 dollars once, $3 twice and going and going. But no.

From the back of the room an older man stepped forward and picked up the bow,

and wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening its loose and string, he played a melody pure and rich as caroling angels sing. The music finished in the auctioneer, in a voice that was hushed and low, said, What am I bid for this fine violin? And he held it up with a bow $1000 who make it to 2000? Who make it 33000 once, 3000 twice and going and gone,

said he. The crowd stood and cheered, but some of them said, we just don't understand what changed Its worth Quick came to reply, the touch of the Masters hand.

My God began to touch me and get in touch with me by working these steps and dealing with you people.

And I got here and I, I took that. I called him the 12 steps, but in my case they were the 12 missteps

that I could admit I was powerless over alcohol, but I didn't think my wife was unmanageable. I had had a a streak of bad luck,

but it wasn't an manageable After all, I had five D4 DUI arrests, no convictions.

She I I made a point of always carrying a half empty half pint under my seat, so if I did get stopped, I grabbed the keys in one hand, the pint in the other, get out, Polish off the pint in front of the cop, And later on it would be impossible to tell whether I flunked the breathalyzer because of drinking I did before I stopped driving or after I stopped driving.

That was insane. I wasn't stupid.

Don't try that in Georgia anymore.

There's a law now they if you're tested, you're presumed to have been that way for at least a couple hours. It's called Dick's Law.

Not really. Really. Not really.

And I got that second step

and I pray there for only as much sanity as I could handle.

I thought I had concerted myself a believer because I held the opinion that there was a God. I thought that made me a believer. I didn't live or act like there was a God, but I held that opinion. And I might have been a functional agnostic. Never be an atheist. Like, I always felt sorry for atheists because they have nothing to holler out in the middle of sex,

they said. They're absolutely silent, you know,

and I took that third step and made a decision to turn my will in my life over to the care of God.

And I hear people when they talk about the third step, they're always talking about, well, I turned it over and then I took it back. And well, I turned it over again and I took it back.

The operative word in the third step is not turn it over. The operative word is make a decision,

and his decision is just that. In our case, it's a decision to take the rest of the steps, but it's a decision. It's not an action.

The first three steps are all mental functions, Admit, believe, decide. Nothing really to do. As a friend of mine who's a pilot in this program, he he tells me on a flight from Atlanta to San Francisco, the plane in terms of hairline accurate on course, is only on course about 2% of the time.

The other 98% of the time it's correcting.

So we make a decision. All we're doing is setting the course. There's no guarantee we're going to be specifically on course every moment of the time. We may like that plane only be on course 2% of the time, but we know what the course is. And the other 98% of the time we can be working toward correcting it. And that's how it's had to work with me because I've never been

totally on course all of the time or even close to half of the time.

I had a sponsor. That sponsor came to me and he

see the first couple of months I kind of wallowed around in the first three steps in the fellowship in in July, he was going on vacation and he came to me and he says do your floor step when I get back in early August, we can do your first step as your footstep. Yeah, you got a lot of anger and resentment and I didn't think I had any anger and resentment. And in fact, it really pissed me off. And he told me that.

So did my first search. Listen. Fearful moral inventory,

and I've done a bunch since then. There were some old timers around at the time. It told me only take one fourth step.

I don't know why you take all the other steps repeatedly, but full step and you're taking it enjoys all the time if you're doing it right. And the 10th step is a good dusting and cleaning step to get rid of the daily stuff. But

once every year or two, you know, you got to pull that refrigerator away from the wall and see what's under there.

Pull that sofa away, see what's behind it, lift those cushions out. You got to do a good four step every once in a while. You can't get by on 10 steps exclusively.

My 5th step is says that admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature and I had to do that

and I admitted to God and myself I could not find another human being. So I used my sponsor

and

in fish steps I was always just the one that keeps you. You did, that's what you don't. Most people don't do a fourth step. They read the 5th step. No. And

within last 30 plus years, I guess I've heard a dozen or so fifth steps

and they're all the same.

There's not a unique scene in the world. You know, I, I think I've heard everything except maybe cannibalism, you know,

and I had the same hesitation when I started, you know, I, I didn't want to do that for step and I didn't want to do that fifth step. And I I was raised to believe you should try anything once except incest and folk dancing.

So I did the 5th step and you know the good part about it is when it's over with, you haven't told everybody everything that you've told one person and it's no longer inside of you. You're not taking that defensive posture so nobody sees it. You've let it out and you can open yourself up to other members of the Fellowship and to the world at large

'cause you're not protecting it anymore. One of the guys I've sponsored over the years

is

a Methodist minister and he told me he thought one of the biggest mistakes of the Reformation was the abandonment of practice of compression as a regular habit. And in fact, when they, it's when they stop regular confessions that we started seeing psychiatrists.

You got to tell somebody you know. So it, it, it, it helps just to get it off your chest. And, and one guy told me that my sponsor told me, I said,

you know, even the Pope has a confessor. You know, who do you think you are? You know, so I, I said we had to get into the 6th step and totally ready to remove those defects of character. And it says ready in my case, I, I wish it were another mental function, but no, it's ready in the law. We have a phrase ready, willing, and able.

There are three different things and ready just means you've done the work,

you've done what's necessary in advance. I was a DCM for my Home group, my home neighborhood, and went to the state Assembly and I had an alternate DCM, was an engineer and, you know, kind of obsessive.

We had a 9:00 AM meeting scheduled for Sunday morning in Macon, GA and he's calling me at 6:45.

I was willing to go to that meeting at 6:45, but I was not yet ready.

I have not yet gotten out of my pajamas, taking a shower, done anything. I hadn't done the things necessary to go to that meeting. Despite my willingness, I was not yet ready. And as is separate things, just remember those that total different.

And that seven step. We humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. It does not read. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings and He did.

Doesn't say that I have most of the shortcomings I came here with. The only difference is they don't run my life anymore.

Used to be if you came up and told me you didn't like my tie, that gave me the right to burn down your house with your wife in the kitchen.

I'm going to take things more proportion. Now

I, you know, I've on Money Expressway in Atlanta and some little old lady cuts me off. I'll still speed up to get up next to her to give her the finger.

The only difference now is I after 34 years I don't find it necessary to follow her past my exit.

A little enlightened self-interest sets in there and

and at a step said We made a list of all persons we at home. They became willing to make amends to them all.

And he make that list in writing. Make it in writing. That's why they tell you you don't have to make it in writing for yourself. You know how you've done wrong. You've taken that full step. You put it in writing so you can review it with your sponsor or some trusted member before you go fumbling out there to deal with earth people which are totally unequipped to do at this point in your sobriety.

You write it down and you review it so you know what amends have to be made, how they should be offered, how somebody should be approached. Maybe somebody should not be approached right now. He may, you know, still have the knife in his back.

And then at nine step it, it tells us that made direct amends to people. Now it says amends. It does not say apologies. My sponsor called me up on that One is you're a lawyer. What does amend mean

is that it means to change, right?

Change. If you come home drunk and knock over your neighbor's mailbox, you don't owe him an apology. You owe him a mailbox.

They owe him a mailbox. That's your amend

and a ten step I and it continued to take a personal inventory

and when I was wrong promptly admitted I I used to read that as if I was wrong

has saved a lot of admitting

just like they say, you know, contempt prior to investigation.

Contempt prior to investigation will save you a lot of investigating time.

When we got there at 11 step, that's the long distance for me. The powerhouse step in the in the 12 steps

saw through prayer meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.

And I was raised in Catholic schools. We knew a lot of prayers. We had a lot of prayers where we had prayers for everything and prayers for the men in the service, prayer for the president,

prayer for the crops. I grew up in New Jersey and didn't have any crops in

Guy in the corner growing marijuana.

But one thing I found particularly helpful to speak about later that I It says in the 12 and 12 in the treatment of the 11 step assistant, even in times of

sorrow in the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust. New lessons in life were learned and more courage was uncovered.

To know eventually that His will is best for us

in that 12 step

says

that spiritual awakening is the result of the steps. It was not, as most people frequently interpreted, anything similar to that hot flash that Bill had in the hospital. The old timers referred to the wind and the lightning as as Bill's hot flash, and that was not it. Because when he got to Akron, when he held back on his experience to help Bob,

he did not think back on that night in the hospital.

He thought back in all his drunks he'd been working with for the last six months. And it couldn't have been the spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, because the steps hadn't even been created yet. And Bill may have taken one or two of them, including surrender of it. That was about it. But those disputes are awakening. We talk about as the result of what we do here.

And then he carry the message.

Everybody's had different experience in carrying a message and a lot of people talk about getting those 12 step phone calls at midnight and 1:00 in the morning.

In my early sobriety my calls used to come at supper time and we have 4 kids at the time I mentioned were Catholic

and you know, stuff we're talking about four kids in the house can be kind of hectic

and I get a call and if the guy seemed halfway all right I try to meet him around 7:30 and that were good. I take him to an 8:00 meeting and that would be good. I made this announcement to my wife and she will. Before you go, can you help get the kids ready for bed? Sure,

you ever try and convince the two and a four year old just because they're putting their pajamas on now does not mean they have to go to bed right now.

Get your pajamas on. It's not that day.

I know you're going to go to bed later and put your vision. You're going to make it out of bed. No, I'm not going to make you to go to just put your pajamas on. We'll go to bed later. Mommy, he's going to make me start.

God damn it, put your pajamas on

and I'd be leaving the house. And she said, when do you think you'll be back? As soon as I give this son of a bitch some of my serenity.

Wonderful wife of mine, by the way. There's in the audience tonight. And last August, she celebrated one year in this program.

The She'll be around after the meeting. We've been married. We're going on 44 years and

I have been sober 34 years and if you'll speak with her after the meeting she'll tell you how I got through the 1st 10 years on Charm.

I still call her my current wife.

I find it keeps her on her toes.

Do that 12 step and I guess, you know, I sponsor people the way I was sponsored. I, I guess your parent the way you were parented. I don't know. But I I have people I sponsor and that the people I sponsor

tend to have less than six months or more than five years.

Somewhere around six months they get sensitive.

Hey, one guy I was sponsoring, he, he was doing well sober wise, but I kept telling him to know you, you ought to get a job.

I think I have something to do between meetings, you know,

And I'd see him all the time. You get a gym now you're gonna jump here

and I finally went to after a month or two of pestering and you get it. You gotta go to job

is where you're working. He said that death and beyond and I asked if he were in the beyond department.

He he fired me. He got another sponsor and

but the the program has helped not just in my own sobriety, but in life, which is what it's supposed to do.

When I got sober, I I had gotten a job with a a company that had gave seminars to doctors on how to run the business end of a medical practice and they wanted to add a lawyer to that mix. And I did. And it so happens that doctors were the first of the really small businessmen to start getting into many computers and laptops

and we developed a process to help them acquire it. Because of small business like that is for the first time a business that did not have internal programmers and system people on their payroll to advise them. So we offered that service and and because they were doctors, they knew everything

and they do it on their own. And I'd get a call a month later, you know, can you Get Me Out of this contract? I tried her two or three in those cases. And in the process of trying them, you learn what you have to learn to try. Occasion after three or four cases of computer law litigation, I looked around and I said, you know, I know more about this now than 99% of the attorneys in the country.

I'm an expert

and I'd

people would, you know, come and ask me, you know, Gee, how'd you get in into computer law? I said. Well, I I'd like to say it was a matter of astute career planning,

but really what you do is you, you almost drink yourself to death

and you scramble for any job you can get.

And I wind up those early months

with folks in the program that come your lawyer if you can, you help. And, you know, I wind up spending the morning in depositions with systems engineers trying to get him to speak English.

And in the afternoon some guy from the program who was, you know, 10 weeks sober and something had happened 8 weeks ago was coming home to Ruse tonight going to court

that this three piece shoot and his Gray hair and his voice and I understand here and address the court. Yes, your honor, the defendant. The defendant was running naked down Hwy. 92

with a fistful of Q-tips up his butt,

insisting he was the Easter Bunny.

But we do have an explanation, Your Honor,

Sing Peter Cottontail for his honor.

You you do what you can.

I'm semi retired now and I put my name on a public defender list just to keep myself off the streets. And

not all the problems are people have problems other than alcohol. And one of the guys I tried to help and we kept him out of jail, got him on probation. But about a month before I got here the court sent me a letter they were going to revoke his probation. It turns out he punched out his anger management counselor.

Yeah, sometimes I get these files I'm reading in mind.

You're doing is just for me, aren't you, Guy?

Yeah,

another guy had a felony quantity of marijuana in his bedroom closet, hadn't paid, ran and got an eviction order in. The sheriff wrote them and said if your belongings are not removed by next Tuesday, we will be there to remove them. And this would have behooved most people to move the marijuana to a less discoverable spot.

This guy was pretty complete burnout and

he had a full 6 pack but he didn't have that little plastic thing that holds it all together.

He gets a letter from the sheriff saying if her belongings are not removed we'll be there and we should have removed him but he was at a friends house sleeping on off the night before.

Shows up about 11:00 Tuesday morning. The Finder, sheriff and his belongings out on the curb.

My client walked over to By the Way. He was resplendent in thong slippers,

cut offs,

and a T-shirt that read poetically and prophetically. Shit happens.

He walks over to the deputy, He points to the marijuana with surprise and delight and said where did you find that? I've been looking for that for weeks.

The sheriff immediately accessorized his outfit with a pair of pair of handcuffs

to a commander and I met him a few weeks later. Again, a time served drug evaluation. We're walking out of the courtroom and he asks, in all in essence, who do I see to get my stuff back?

What,

You're not causing $800, you know, And so I gave him my card.

You tell the sheriff I said to give that back to you.

I got a call two days later.

The sheriff said no.

5 minutes after that I got a call from my deputy.

Scale of youth, center of a bitch. Why you sending these guys down here?

Well, he wouldn't believe me, I thought. Maybe believe you,

but these things happen and one incident that kind of makes a lot of the other things worthwhile. There was a girl named Pat M She went to a group called 8111 across the river from me, and she went through those meetings. But she was living in a halfway house for women. And one day she took me aside after the meeting and said she had gotten a letter from the District Attorney to go down for an interview.

And I found out what happened. Apparently, at the end of her drinking and drugging, she had become pregnant.

And because of her drinking and drugging, she had miscarried the baby.

And because she was taken to the hospital by law enforcement, the file made his way to the day's office and some hot shot young attorney decided he was going to pursue it under a Georgia fecal drug and fetal alcohol law. They had. And you wrote her a letter telling to come down for the interview. And the first thing I told her, of course, that she was not going to go down for that interview.

And I did some research and sent a letter to the DA telling him that the I'd researched other States and they were still going to have to prove intent. They'd have to prove that she knew she was pregnant when she was taking the drugs. And they might also have to prove that she knew this particular drug she was taking was capable of permeating the placenta and damaging the fetus. And he dropped the matter, never heard from him again. I guess he decided to go after some more defenseless woman

then,

was it? Only a couple of weeks after that I found out that fact, despite all their difficulties, had graduated college with a very high grade point average, had applied for and was being admitted the Georgia Medical School in Augusta.

She would not have been admitted as if she had ever had a criminal record, and I didn't see her for a while. She went off to school.

I just see an e-mail catch her on vacation time. She cruise by 8111

and about two or three years ago, another woman at a doctor from with my Home group used to be my Home group. She's now a neurologist in Savannah. She had apparently shared a room with Pat when they were at medical school and wrote her and told her and Pat wrote me this letter, which is kind of makes up for a lot of other things that don't go right. She addressed me and she always did. It's my dear, blessed and profane hero Dick.

They got a call from Susan last week and after her return from Arrieta she called to say how she spoke with you at some length and we forced that. You are, thank God, still the same.

When we last met at 8111, a few years back, I had just graduated. It was in the process of moving to Kentucky for my residency in Pediatrics. You probably thought I was either trying to strangle you with hugs or drown you with tears. You seem to be embarrassed but told me to show my gratitude by using my skills, occasionally without pay, to help others. You told me that it's a rare blessing from God

for people like us to be put in a position to do that. I can never forget how you did that for me.

I pulled out your three page lawyer letter to the Atlanta authorities and I read it again. It wasn't one strong and elegant and poetic.

Your explanation to me, however, was less elegant and less poetic. As you summarized it. I threatened them with more shit than they could shovel.

It's nice to have a bilingual attorney,

so try to follow your example and direction. There's no way we can pay back what we owe. The only repayment is to pass it on one weekend a month. We take a volunteer van to Harlan and Verda and efforts for well, baby care and vaccination and general Pediatrics.

What then was that

15 years ago I wrote a letter,

and today a couple of 100 kids in Appalachia have a pediatrician. What is that? That was not.

That was not me. When I wrote that letter. I was an arrogant, wise ass defense attorney trying to get one up on a prosecutor. My motives were not there, but God took that behavior and did something with it. That was not part of my intention.

So the opportunity comes, you take it and do what you can. You never know. You just never know. Now, my recovery is not all that different from other people's. When I first got here, I had lost the wife and the family, a home and most of the money.

And I heard and I cried and I didn't drink and I went to meetings.

And when I was two years sober,

we found out my son Brendan was a retarded child and needed open heart surgery. And I heard and I prayed and I didn't drink, and I went to meetings.

When I was three and five years over, two more children were born to a reconstructed marriage, and I shared that joy. And I didn't drink. And I went to meetings

when I was eight years sober. My youngest son, Kevin, was diagnosed with cancer and leukemia at five years old. And I heard and I cried and I didn't drink. And I went to meetings and I was 13 years over. He was declared cured of his cancer. And I shared that joy. And I didn't think

when I was 20 years over, my oldest son Brendan died at age 22.

And I heard and I prayed and I didn't drink and I went to meetings

in the years since then and I've had cancer and a heart attack. My daughters have gotten married and I've been there to give them away, including the only daughter who knows it of a drinking father.

My mom died.

Good things and bad things have happened

each time I I didn't drink and I went to meetings.

When I was 29 years over, my son Kevin, this cancer survivor, had met and married a girl he met at a camp for kids with cancer. And I was there to participate in their wedding.

When I was when I shared that joy and I didn't drink and I went to meetings and I was 30 years over, this disease came to my home again.

Try to take the love of my life, my wife, 30 years, 40 years. And I heard, I prayed and I didn't drink. And I went to meetings. And at 32 years over, she found this program

and I prayed and I was joyful and I didn't drink and I went to meetings.

And I guess when she celebrated her first year of sobriety, within a day or two of that, we had our first grandchild,

cancer survivor son, and his cancer survivor wife gave us our first grandchild. And he shared that joy. And I didn't drink and I went to meetings. It's just that simple, just that simple.

Not easy, but simple.

And they tell us here that you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free, but first it will make you miserable.

And our job is to hold on to that truth through the misery until the freedom comes.

And we're not bound

to recognize truth here. We're only bound to be honest.

I only have one truth I have to hold on to, and that's the truth with which I began my remarks to you this evening. And that truth is that my name is Dick and I'm an alcoholic.