The 2010 Florida State Convention in Miami, FL

Obviously you weren't here Thursday morning.

I discussed my abandonment issues.

I'm Wayne Butler. I'm an alcoholic.

I want to thank the committee for inviting me to participate in this

exciting event. Deeply humbled and moved to be invited to participate with his table full of fine folk from A A that gave up their weekend to come join us in Florida to share our 54th anniversary of the Florida State Convention.

Before I get started full of myself,

it's been a very, very enlightening weekend for me and to see Bob and Betty, Ann and Theresa and Ralph, Bob, Phyllis, Sandy, and here are the things that my soul heard this weekend

has altered my life irreversibly as it has yours. If you're here, you may not even know that. If you knew,

yes

man, I'm about 1/2 a bubble out of plum on a good day. I am. You are the one of the finest looking groups of disturbed people I've ever seen.

And I've seen a lot of disturbed people in my day.

I want to say that I've talked to a lot of Alcoholics who have said I found God and I always ask them what's that mean to them? And here's what I came to grips with after talking to so many that said I found God. It's one word and it I believe it's predicate A. A is predicated on this one word.

When I say to you, I found God, I found hope.

Hope. And based on that, God is in the house tonight.

My sobriety days November 8th 1977. Haven't had any

whose pills, Potters, potions or lotions that affect my emotions from that day to this.

However, if you see me on a freeway, you probably think I need them.

I'm not up here to pretend that I'm a well man I'm not.

I am the best that I can be, that God and AA have made me through a series of surrenders that are ongoing today.

If you're judging me by what I was like W last week, last month, last year, or ten years ago, too bad

you got the wrong guy.

Perhaps not.

I love to drink. I do. I love Budweiser. Now, many of you probably drank all kinds of liqueurs with cute little umbrellas in them.

Not me, Budweiser

and find wine Ripple.

By the way, if you're underage 30, they closed that chemical plant down.

Never saw a great.

I also like Boones Farm Strawberry Hill and we'll tell you why.

I

I told you David, some disturbed people here. Now the reason I like Boones Farmer Strawberry Hills. When I puke, it looks like I'm bleeding internally,

and then I tell you I'm dying from something that you heard all the other speakers talk about. If I get a pimple, I've got a tumor

and then you feel sorry for me and you buy me a beer. It worked every time. And I like little Mad Dog doocy doocy too.

Now I want to know, I want to tell you about a condition I got as a result of drinking Budweiser Ripple, Boones Farm and Mad Dog doocy Doocy. You might not heard about it here in Florida. It's called alcoholic terminal diarrhea.

I swear before God

I have diarrhea for six years,

no time off.

Have you had alcoholic terminal diarrhea for six years? You better have good decision making skills

and split second timing,

of which I had neither.

I also want to suggest to you that I fit in the big book and I love the big book. I want to put that out there before I go any further. I believe my sobriety must be authenticated by that book. I believe that for me to be able to carry this message,

according to Doctor Silkworth, this message must have depth and weight. Only you can judge the depth and weight of my message. All I can do is share my experience and hope that it bypasses the newcomers head

and gets word counts right here where the problem is. The problems not up here. That's symptomatic of the problem. The problem is here and I didn't know that. I almost died in a A because I didn't know the problem was in here. I've been in every kind of psychotherapy you can possibly be in since I've been 12. I didn't mind it there either. I've got to add that I like doctors.

I never told them the truth.

Every time I was diagnosed psychiatrically, that diagnosis with 95% based on my symptomatic reporting skills

and it was always bad.

I fit, in the doctor's opinion, in the category of those who suffer from grave

emotional and mental disorders.

About whom

forgot that Oh got something with honesty.

About whom a whole chapter could be written.

I want you to know something. That I'm so blessed that given my state of mind, body, and spirit, that I eventually found my way to you people. And you exposed yourself to me so that I could see me. And you didn't expect me to change. Now you hope for it. Didn't expect it.

I have a sponsor and along with our theme of the green curtain out there,

follow your sponsor. Your sponsor is your friend.

I've been psychiatrically institutionalized 17 times. I need to tell you that and get it out of the way.

I was court committed by my own mother and father twice because they said they loved me.

I told my mom I didn't want her to love me so much

and after the second time I was a self sign in 15 times.

Let me tell you why, in case you have a little slippy poop.

Given the way I drank, the way I looked, the way I acted, and the way I smelled, I couldn't get a date on the street to save my life.

But you put me in a Co Ed psych ward.

And I'm a pretty charming fellow.

And I'm pretty clever too.

I make plans. Anybody else make plans? I make plans. So I'm eyeballing Psycho Sober Civil on the unit

and I'm feeling lonely and I'm wanting some action

but she won't listen to me. She won't get she won't get up with me where I'm in the psych where they bring the Med cart right onto the floor and you line up to get your meds. Well I got bald cycle sober Sybil and I saw she's about to take some Thorazine and I thought here's my chance.

I washed her. Take it. And then I timed it because I knew the time was near.

I'm gonna make, I'm gonna bust a move, you know what I mean?

And about the time I decided to bust my move, my thoracine kicked in.

Boy, that's tough when you can see it but you can't get at it. I'll tell you that right now. Oh my God,

matter how hard you try, them feet won't. They just won't go along with the show.

I come from an alcoholic home and I'm going to stay in line with the rest of our message carriers because I agree with it that my family did not, could not, will never make me alcoholic. Now they put a definite spin on my personalities.

If you grew up in an alcoholic home like mine, you got problems.

Mine started soon.

In the book Alcoholics Anonymous they say that some of us seem to have been Born This Way. And as I look back through my four step inventory process, I uncovered and discovered that I seem to have been born with an interesting predisposition that had no idea it was going to end up one day. And alcoholism. The best way to put it is I was probably a potential candidate for Al Anon.

God bless you guys. You're glad I drank. I know you are.

My father was a whiskey drinking, bar room brawling truck driver who ran illegal cigarettes out of Chicago and whiskey. My mother was the greatest character of all. She was a little German woman that she's about 5 foot tall, 160 lbs, no fat wrestler,

and she loved to beat up men. She did and she was catted out from the neck down. Now this was 50 years ago.

They used to call catted women a painted lady. They say that to her once

she had a flying eagle tattooed on each forearm and when she get mad at a man you could just see the wings start to move

and she had a full double breasted eagle across the back. That was my mom. Gosh, she was fun to watch. She was an alcoholic, but she sure liked to drink. My dad was the drunk. I have an older brother who's silver 29 years. I have an older sister who doesn't need help it appears.

Not my hula hoop, folks.

And then there was me. My mother died, God bless her soul. Still believing I'm not an alcoholic.

She really thought I was psychiatric. She really did.

Jesus, I'm glad you're sobering that a but I know you're going to come apart anytime.

My brother calls me a smoking volcano. He says you're puffing away. Well, you ain't exploded yet, but it's coming.

There was something odd about me, and if you're an alcoholic of my type, then you probably are sitting in this room thinking or something odd about you. Even if you're in a a Many of us sit in these rooms, such as myself, saying what's wrong with me. Even after I've raised my hands that I'm an alcoholic, I'm still saying what's wrong with me and I don't know what's wrong with me. I want to know what's wrong with me, but when I find out what I think is wrong with me is wrong with me, I find out that ain't it.

And a little pilly Willy they gave me didn't work.

Just to give you a brief background,

if you live in an alcoholic home, it may not make you alcoholic, but it will cause neuroses.

What's that mean? Well, it means my head really has a Rubik's Cube on it

and it's like clicking, trying to find the color code to life. And it's like everything basically click

and my emotions are like a broken Maytag washing machine.

There's no normal cycle

and I spent most of my life on agitate and spin,

but I'll be hanged if you if you don't. If you open the lid to the tub and pour in a couple of Budweiser's, it balances the load.

Pepsi never did it.

And there's something odd about me and I can't it, it's, it is inexplicable calamity. When inside me, I know something's wrong, but I can't put word to it, nor do I want to put word to it because I'm enveloped in this, this veneer of fear. I'm enveloped in this this entity that can't say what's wrong with me to another human being. I they call it acting out.

I love Teresa's dog.

Talk about acting out.

Theresa, Stay.

I'm eight or nine years old. Just to give you a brief insight. Not along with just a brief one. Somewhere between the age of eight and nine. I'm looking in my mirror. My mirror. Nobody's there. Just me, us, we.

I'm looking in the mirror and I'm saying to myself,

Butler is too bad. Well, it's going to be a long life. It's going to be lonely because you are butt ugly, pal.

I swear I don't know where that thought came from. Mama Butler never one time sat me down, said oh you, you poor little son.

Boy you are so ugly.

Just out of mercy alone, I put you back if I could.

That's not what my mother said, but that's what I heard when my mom said things like Wayne, I love you.

I see you got the same mirror.

You know what? There's a lot of things happen to me in that childhood home that I'm not going to go into because this isn't the appropriate forum. Teresa went into it very well last night, and I can just say, right,

things that happened to a boy that wasn't supposed to happen to a boy. My life was upside down. Now there's absolutely no. Here's something that I want to share with you newcomers that I almost missed because I wasn't paying attention. Victims don't get to stay sober. We don't.

And I want you to know I'm not disrespecting your experience.

I am just as suggesting to you that as long as I live in the past, I've got no today and I sure don't have it tomorrow. And so thank God, we have 12 steps to pull my head out of my past.

I told my sponsor one time I'm bipolar. I did, he says. I know it,

he says. I've known for a long time you're bipolar.

Really. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? One of these days you're going to be walking down 16th St. You're going to hear the loudest explosion you ever heard. And I said, what's that? He said. It's your head popping right out of your ass.

And you won't be bipolar no more.

How to fire him? If I knew I could,

I was going to fire Barney one time. But he said look around, Nobody else will take your case on sport.

He's Zombie or exploration Oasis for you.

I'm getting Otter by the minute.

8th grade, they don't know what to do with me. I'm acting out. They call it acting out. I'm acting out all over the place. They sent me to see what's now known as school psychologist and I'm being given all kinds of tests. And in the early 1960s, they came out with a thing called the IQ test. I heard one of our speakers elude over the weekend to their spouse, who is a Mensa. You may not know what that is.

I do

don't tell you why I found out. I'm not happy about it.

Back in the day they gave me that IQ test with puzzles and pictures and questions. Now, if you score over a 120, you're pretty bright. You're a pretty big light bulb in the life of a light bulb.

If you scroll over A-150, you are Mensa material. They will pay you to think.

If you score over a 180, stay home.

Too smart to drive a car?

I want you to know what I scored. I swear to God I scored up 57.

I didn't cheat.

They diagnosed me retarded

and I got put in retarded class and by God I improved.

I rode the short bus for four years.

I want to explain something to you. What? Explain some to you? Here's what you're dealing with tonight. We had Bob. Successful contractor. Yes. Ralph. Educated beyond his means.

Teresa. Just a shining star.

Bob. I want a Robbie

and then there's me. I rode a short bus. So there you go.

That's your committee.

I'm going to say a couple of things that

took me by. I'm not playing the victim card. I'm just reporting my experience.

But when you're in the special claim, by the way, if you have a child who suffers organicity, I mean no disrespect. I'm just telling my experience. I promise.

I got put in that class and the bullies came. The bullies are here. I spotted you already.

Bullies are a dime a dozen. When you're in the retarded class, you're going to meet them all.

And we had us, we had a kid assigned to each one of us. There was eleven of us in that class. Each one of us had someone from school, you know, brown nosers, you know, want an extra credit you don't like to sponsor to get their their sponsor coffee.

They assigned a kid named Tom, and Tom had me all the way through school. His job was to keep me out of trouble. Wasn't hard. We didn't go to class.

You see, the big bus came by at 8:00, the short bus came by at 10. We went to school, we went to lunch and then we went to Putt Putt

miniature golf all afternoon. That's the advanced education I got.

I can putt

some bullies got a hold of three of us kids in that special class on a Friday night.

They locked each one of us in a hall locker on Friday night and they did not find us till Monday.

Those other two kids who suffered organicity came out the way they went in. I came out just a bit different.

I had to come to you to find out I was harboring a Reese that night.

Tom found out what those wrestlers did. He tracked him down and he kicked the holy crap out of him. Tom was my instant first hero,

and I started lying to Tom. I learned how to lie. I started lying to Tom time. They're picking on me again. You go beat him up again.

They never said a word to me

that came important when I was a senior. Four years later, I have no academic education. And by the way, my ability to communicate to you from here is the gift of God in a, a, you hear me

when I was a senior because they, by the way, they don't give you tests, they pass you.

So in my senior year, Tom takes me to the senior dance. I've been in the special class since the beginning of 9th grade.

Tom takes me to the senior dance. I'm standing up against the wall and I'm watching everybody dance, and I'm not quite sure what's going on over here.

I see these boys, these girls, you know that. Some of the senior men invited junior girls, hoping to get their way, if you know what I mean. I'm standing against the wall now. My dad drank whiskey, my mom drank tequila,

didn't know from nothing about beer. Tom walked up on me and he opened up his coat and he brought a brown bottle, a long neck bottle out. Remember those?

They had a red, white and blue label. So pretty,

he said. Here, kid, drink this. It'll make you feel better. I would have drank battery acid for Tom.

I guzzled it down, let out a big old belch and I said, Tom, that tastes terrible. I want a Pepsi Cola. Tom said words to me I'll never forget. He said that's OK kid, you'll get used to it

now. Tom is a normal drinker to this day. Tom is a friend of mine to this very day. Tom does not. He's only been to one a meeting and that was to give me a five year cake. He's never been back since because he thinks you guys are strange. He's happy for you.

He thinks AA is a de retarded program. He doesn't. He does.

I'm not going to try to straighten this thing out neither,

Tom. Here's what Tom meant when he said I'd get used to it. You see, Tom got drunk the first time when he was little, got a little bit disorientated, thought he was in the bathroom. He was in his bedroom, peed in his dresser

and almost went crazy trying to flush it.

And he said to himself, I ain't never doing that again. And from that day to this, by his own word, he's never done that again. That's what he meant, that I would get used to it too. And of course he would think that he's one of those.

You know them social drinkers.

You can always tell a social drinker they say stupid things after 1/2 a drink, half a drink. My sister let me take you on a drink and spree with my sister.

She orders a slow gin and orange that has ice in it, by the way.

An hour later, it's still there,

but the ice has melted and risen above the liquor, and now it's drowning the booze,

which in my opinion is alcohol abuse.

I am more preoccupied with my sister's drink than she is. And I finally say, Sharon, you gonna drink it before it melt? She says no. I got to slow down a little bit.

I'm starting to feel it.

You've all heard that. I know you have, just not in the mirror.

I have never in my drinking career said I'd better slow down.

Not even driving a car drunk.

I'm starting to feel it.

Somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 Budweiser's I got some good looking. I couldn't stand it.

I did.

My IQ jumped up to about 3:20.

Had me a plan.

How many of you have got a treatment plan of your own? And there's a group of girls over here that are brand new. And there's a couple of guys over here brand new. We know you have a plan.

Scott R used to say it a whole lot better than I will, but all I can do is tell you what my plan was. Many of us have our own plan for treatment, for the treatment of alcoholism. And here's my plan. And This is why I have a sponsor to this day, because I have a plan

now. Here's how I treat myself.

I treat loneliness with isolation.

When I'm lonely I go off into my own room and think about it.

I treat anxiety with caffeine and sugar

and a six pack of Red Bull

by any teeth I'd grind them.

And I treat depression with countries western music.

So I had a plan.

I looked down on that dance floor and I bought me a blue eyed blonde dancing with some loser.

I walked up on her and I'd overheard someone say can I cut in, so I used the words I'd heard Can I cut in and she said yes. I didn't know she was a junior. It wouldn't matter to me. I'm a retarded senior,

she said. Yeah, we danced and then we danced again. Then we danced again. She then she had another sympathy dance for the special Ed kid.

We danced the rest of the night. She started liking me. Some of you newcomers understand that

we found out later that night sex met two people.

I didn't know that.

Listen, in the special class, sex Ed wasn't a topic.

They didn't want us have any clue about the potential of reproducing.

And I'll have you know the very first woman I was with is responsible for ruining my sex life.

You see, I haven't said I've been having sex since I was 13. I thought I was pretty good at it.

She complicated the entire procedure.

Tom told me I had a great time.

We went back to class it was only a few weeks from there. Graduation was like 9 weeks away and a couple of weeks before graduation I got called into the principal's office. Tom come and got me out of the special class and took me to the principal's office and there sits my mom and dad and I looked to my left and I see her Bonnie.

Euphoric recall is something, isn't it?

And then I saw her parents and I thought, well, I wonder what's going on here?

I walk in and her dad flies out of his chair. Do you have sex with my daughter? I'm not lying to him, I said. Yep,

I said. Can't do it again.

He lost his flipping mind.

He's screaming at me. I'm going to do life in prison. I don't. What do I know? I'm going to return to class. He's screaming. You're going to go

prison for wrecked your life. If I have anything doing this see in the state of Illinois, if a boy 14 or older has sex with a girl 17 or younger, whether she wants her or not a statutory rape. And they clarified that to me. Her dad says you're going to go to prison for 20 years. I looked at it and I said even if you're retarded.

What do I know? I'm retarded.

We got married.

They didn't think it was funny.

And then a year later, I'm in the Navy and I'm in Vietnam.

By the way, they were taken. They didn't give you an IQ test back in 1968.

Do you raise your hand and say I will, you're gone

and I'm not going to go into that because this is not about that. Being in Vietnam did not make me an alcoholic. It put an evidence spin on what personalities were left untouched.

I came back in Vietnam the first time. My first wife and I got divorced shortly thereafter. I'm driving in a car. I don't know from a blackout. I don't know what a blackout is. Apparently I'm in a blackout and I'm coming out of a blackout driving a car. And I always said I would never cheat on a woman like my dad and my brother, anybody. I will never cheat on a woman. That's the one thing I will never, ever do.

And now I'm sitting driving a car and I looked at my right and there's a woman in my car.

I'm wondering who did.

Have you ever been afraid to look over there?

Have you ever thought if you just don't look, it ain't there?

So I'm I'm trying to get a glimpse of who this person is without being obvious.

And then I noticed she's wearing a flipping wedding ring and I've done it now

with a married woman.

And then I heard her say to me, what's the matter, honey?

I may be retarded, but I know a term of endearment when I hear it.

I said, honey, I looked. This is a bad thing to say on your honeymoon,

I said. Who are you?

I'm glad you guys think it's funny.

She didn't see the humor

and she hit me right there. She says that's not funny. And I said no really, who are you?

And she starts crying.

OK, who are you?

We just went to Palmyra, MO and got married. I said. There you go.

So we figured it was God's will.

So we made we stayed married for justice one day at a time for 12 years.

We're sober. We're in a five years. I just got to tell this record any further. I don't mean no disrespect, It's just what it is. I'm sober five years and we're just doing the dance of love and a a right. And one night I come home from a a dance and she decided not to go to and I caught her in bed with my sponsee.

Yeah,

my sponsor says he wanted what you had

and from the looks of things he was willing to go down length to get it.

We got divorced 27 years ago. I miss my sponsee.

I'm in and out of institutions. I go back to Vietnam for the second time because I can't stand the second marriage. I mean, I volunteered to go back to Vietnam and I got to tell you something, ladies and gentlemen. I was hoping that I'd get whacked. I was. I don't have the courage to kill myself, but I figured I'd get somebody to do it for me and just my luck couldn't get it done.

I come back from Vietnam and I got off that ship in 30 2nd St. San Diego, and our captain told well through the chain of command, he informed us that we should not wear our uniforms and medals off the ship. And I didn't understand that.

I got off of that ship with three of my buddies and we were loaded down with medals. I don't mean no disrespect. I'm not pretending to have medals I don't deserve. We walked off that ship and dressed Blues. We got over to the 32nd St. underpass

and we were pelted with urine bags. We were pelted with paintballs. Not not the gun type, but

I developed another resentment.

I quit that day. The shot to my system was so great. I said screw this and we all went in town and I got Budweiser. They got what they got and we turned angry. I'm not blaming, I'm reporting. You hear the difference? I want you to know if you're new, I have no threads of resentment towards that at all today

because of a grace of God. A A in the 12 steps.

But that made a turning point. It didn't. It didn't cause me to need a drink. It just fueled the fire that was already burning inside me that I didn't know about until I found you people and got a book called Alcohol He's Anonymous. It took the combination of you people and the book.

I don't know if the book alone would have done it for me. That's not my experience. It was the people in the book, and I want to tell you about that. I came back.

I couldn't live with my second wife. I'd done some things I couldn't live with. I was so afraid I'd hurt my little girls. I moved out and I ended up on the street.

I remember I went in Larry's waist and started drinking Larry's waist.

My weight was down to 146.

I want you to know something. That's my psych report. My weight 146. I'm 6 foot 3 1/2. I'll tell you what, I weigh 245 lbs right this minute and I'm really happy about that.

But I want to describe a moment of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I'm sleeping in a dumpster

behind Larry's Oasis. It's a BFI.

I hear a knock on my dumpster lid.

I was home.

When you're living, when you're sleeping in a dumpster, you better know when they're coming to pick that dumpster up.

But it was about midnight, I didn't know who was out there. I had to know. Might be a girl, you never know,

you know, trying to upgrade.

I opened a lid to that dumpster. You know who was looking down at me? This is my dad,

the same man who just a few years earlier put a 357 in my face. My dad was one of those guys that don't threaten. You know who you are, You're in here. I've seen you. You say it once and you don't have to say it again for 10 years to act on it. My dad was that man, and he told me that if you ever saw me around my mother again or my kids, he would kill me.

And when I saw my dad, I looked for the gun in his hand. And I have to tell you the truth.

I was hoping he'd kill me,

you hear me? And instead he had a look in his face I didn't understand. He had a look in his eyes that I didn't understand until I met you.

He had this look that I now know how to put a word to it. It's called compassion. My dad had gone off and joined this cult

called AA

and he told these guys about his whacked out kid and he told him, Frank, we generally find that we can't help your kids. You can't help your own kids. But if you if you got to do it, you got to do it. Go try to talk to him one time. And he did. He looked down at me and he said, Wayne. I said yes, Sir.

Do you want to come home with me tonight?

And I looked around my little room

and I didn't miss a beat. I said no thanks dad, I'm doing fine.

He said OK and he left. I thought that was insincere.

He left. It occurred to me he knew where I was.

I got a little paranoid. Any other paranoids in the room

as they look around?

Let me tell you about alcoholic paranoia. Look, there's there's drug induced paranoia where you're at the curtain looking for them. They're out there.

That's drug induced pair. Here's alcoholic paranoia. It's when I'm driving my car and I think the car in front of me is following me.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever seen their eyes in the mirror looking at you and you know they're out to get you? So I turn off to see if they're following me. Now I don't know where they went, so I go look for them.

So I'm figuring my dad went to get his gun. So I bail out of that dumpster. And I want to tell you about how unexpected my recovery really is. Because you see, I've done been diagnosed psychiatrically so many times that I have no clue what's wrong with me. I just like to drink. Just give me a Budweiser. I just want a beer.

I jump out of that dumpster and I start that walk and walk that every man and woman in this room has made in your own way. If you're sitting there thinking

I don't relate to you, I never slept in a dumpster, you're in.

You just joined a A cause. No normal drinker ever thought, well I never lived in a dumpster.

Maybe your bottom started

from the front seat of that Cadillac you parked on your front porch,

or that closet you came to in,

or that basement floor you were stuck to. It's all relative. It's all about location. Location

I went on that walk and I went past this restaurant called Harvey's Restaurant in Moline, IL at the foot of 34th St. and 4th Ave. I went walking by there. It was now about two or 2:30 in the morning. I came up on this all night mom and pop coffee shop. Remember those all you, some of you old timers, remember those truck driver coffee stops where you go in and the the

seed is like a bar seat and it's wobbly and remember knows, weren't they great? If you're drunk, it's great. They don't know for sure

when I walk by this restaurant and I looked inside and I saw this little 800 year old woman slowly wiping down the coffee bar. I sized her up and immediately knew I could work her for something to eat. I just knew I could. I'm a worker among workers.

I put on my best pathetic look, as though I needed it.

I go stumbling in the front door of that restaurant. She sees me and she like, makes a beeline for me. She's got a glass of water in her hand, sets it down in front of me. She says what can I do for you sweetie?

I'm trying to work her. They isn't going so well.

And I went into action. I told her about the alcoholic home I lived in. I told her about the violence. I told her about the physical conduct that I didn't understand. I told her about being tied up in the basement as a babysitter. I told her about things I'm not going to talk about from this podium tonight. And then I told her about the retarded class. I told her about the constant humiliations from the bullies in school. I mean, I got tears rolling down her eyes. I told her about Vietnam and the terrible things I saw and did there. Tears were rolling down her eyes. And then I thought, I

cry to her. Won't look real.

And I moved in for the burger.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know I found out later why she was really crying. My story didn't move her at all. She'd been used to it. She'd heard it 1000 times. She was in a program called Al Anon.

Don't you, Alan Nines, raise your hand?

I just want to see where you are.

Personally, I think part of your program should be must wear badge identifying self at work.

And I'm going to tell you why she was so happy I was there. You see, her husband Harvey was having a hard time staying sober and she knew from her al Anon life that Harvey only had a chance if he had a drunk to work with. So she took me. I mean, she kept me around

until Harvey showed back up.

I'm sleeping in the car out in the parking lot when Harvey shows up. I'll never forget it. I could smell myself. I know how bad I was. I didn't have any teeth. My teeth were rotted. Funny thing, ignore your teeth. They will go away.

That will help you get a date. I'll tell you,

I'm like a man who's lost his teeth. I can't grow new ones.

Now, Harvey, I want to tell you about Harvey. Harvey comes up on me.

He he made me feel good. He's so ugly.

I mean, I looked at him and I thought, Oh my God,

what happened to you?

Now only and alcoholic in his cups could judge a businessman.

He's got this nose straight with two golf balls on both sides. Remember

you ever seen that? It usually happens in the Midwest with winter and his face had these red and black and blue blood veins running through his face. I now know it's technically called spider angioma, late stage fatal alcoholism, and I swear to God when Harvey's heart would beat, his nose went like this.

He shakes my hand. He puts something in. It

is around brass coin that I knew wasn't worth the plugged nickel.

I opened up my hand and it had these two A's on. It meant nothing to me.

Flipped it over because he said turn it over.

I turned it over and it had this stupid prayer. God grant me something. So I scanned it. It said nothing about money, food, shelter or pill mill, tailor made cigarettes.

But I win anyway because a fool led me to believe I'd get something free if I went. He told me to go the next day down to 410 16th St. Moline, IL. He said go there about noon time. There's going to be some friends of mine there. You tell him Harvey sent you, they're going to help you. What I heard was money, food, shelter and something. You hear me? He told me when I got there to look into the cellar window. There'd be a light bulb hanging on a cord. He said if the light was on, go in.

They're expecting you.

If he'd have told me I was going to, AI would have never went.

He tricked me. He manipulated me.

I swear. I got there the next day about noontime, just like he said. I looked down on the solar way and there was the light bulb hanging on the cord, Harvey said. It was on, Gwen. It wasn't on. It was flickering on and off

and I'm watching the light waiting for it to stay on.

Now I'm think, think, thinking, you know, thinking it must be code. I wonder what it means and I'm out there going with the light. Now

I'm experiencing alcoholic neurobics

and I'm waiting for it to shut off, you know, and I can't take it, so I leave. I can't go in. I went down, Laurie Waces mooched me a few Budweiser got oiled up. Now it's about 8:00 at night. Now I've told myself they owe me.