Steps 8 and 9 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV December 9th

Hi everybody, My name is Larry Thomas and I'm an alcoholic

and I'm guilty with an explanation. So

I I'm glad to be here and I want to thank Bob and who's ever responsible for asking me to come out and be here. Last year I talked on step six and seven and the response was so good that I had about 100 guys call me afterwards and four of them send me dirty pictures. So I

kind of glad I'm that's on Bill this year. So

I want to make sure that I get done in time because I, it's I don't want Bob Darrell to get up and tell me when to stop, which I think is ironic in its own, you know, I,

which is Bob could give a 2 hour talk on, you know, rarely. So I

it's OK, I got my check. No, I,

I, I'm glad to be here if you're new. I want to, I want to, I want to talk to the new people because the old timers don't like me. So I,

I, I'm a loser. We've heard some, we've heard some excellent talks, excellent, excellent talks about Alcoholics Anonymous and these steps. And

for a couple days now we've been talking about these steps, and up to this moment,

everyone of these steps, the alcoholic of my type has been facing this way.

All the steps, the self examination, coming to believe, the inventory, everything's turned this way. It's turned inside.

Now comes the thing

that makes Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous, in my mind,

is when that alcoholic turns that way and starts going out into the world.

I don't so much think about forgiveness when I think about these steps as much as I think about responsibility.

Now we become responsible.

Now we've become willing to go out and make right or the wrong that we've done and take blame right out of the vocabulary. No longer is there any more finger pointing. No longer is there any excuses.

We've got the facts and we're that guy.

And this is the thing where most of our membership starts hauling ass.

They start taking off, baby, you know what I mean? And if there's ever a spot where your defects of characters start popping up, it's right about now.

Procrastination, greed, sloth, all these things that keep you from going out there. You know, I, my sponsor tells me that I'm living proof that a man can stay sober for close to 29 years.

And he says, you know,

I'm not much, but I'm all I think about, that's for sure, you know, And

I believe I don't ever want to forget from whence I came.

I don't ever want to forget

what happened to me

about 30-4 years ago

when I was in a holding tank at the South Bay courthouse

and the holding tank was empty and everybody was getting ready to go. And all the buses are gone and all the other guys are gone. And I'm sitting around a holding tank on a concrete floor with some baloney sandwiches, wondering where they're going to send me now.

And a little Scottish man with a patch opened up a jail door

and said, are you Larry Thomas? And I said, yes, Sir, I am. And he said, come with me, son, we're going to AAA. And I said, Oh my God, what's a A? I've heard of OR and PO, but what's a A, you know, And who's this little Scottish pirate all of a sudden, you know, And where's his parrot, you know?

And looking back,

that man took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1975.

And looking back, he was the first time I'd laid eyes on a trusted servant here because he had no business being there. Now, I come from a great home. I come from some great people.

I was born in Detroit and to come out to California when I was about four years old, I was brought up in a little Jesus. Do you think this will be enough?

No, I don't think it will be.

I, I was born in a

little place outside Detroit and

my mom's a little Scandinavian lady and my mom loved diet pills. My mom loved eating that speed and running around the house cleaning, you know, and, and everything in the house was, was spotless, you know, and she used to run around and, and, and make Afghans. Everything in the house had fresh Afghans on it, you know, couches had Afghans, the chairs had Afghans. My dad's golf clubs had a little poodle head. She knit, you know, and,

and if there was any animals, they had a tight vest on, you know, and

everything was tight and pink just like her, you know, and, and no matter what time you got up, she was up doing something, you know, cleaning it with your toothbrush, you know, and,

and I love that Lady and I love her today, you know, love her today. But what would start at that early age is something that would follow me into Alcoholics Anonymous

and that is, and it came out in an inventory and that is what I would do with people that love me and showed me affection

and it followed me. It started then and it followed me into Alcoholics Anonymous

and I would play that Lady like a fiddle that there would never be a time to inconvenient for me not to put the touch on that Lady.

And make no mistake about that, there was never a time too inconvenient.

And that would be a pattern of living for me that would follow me into Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a taker, I'm a user. I'm a user of people,

and if I ever want to find out on my list who should be on there, I just got to write down the people that I took from.

And I've been taken from people my entire life. You see, I'm a loser.

I'm a quitter

and I'm always on the take and I got my hand out and I never want to forget what it's like to be 16 years old and be put away for a little short period of time for being a punk.

And I'm supposed to get out of this little place. And I'm supposed to show up at home on a Monday. And I don't show up on a Monday. I show up on a Thursday. And I don't show up at the house. I show up at my mom's place of business. My mom's working at a dry cleaners.

She's cleaning people's houses, but she's working at this dry cleaners. And I show up at this dry cleaners on an April morning about 9:00 in the morning. And that rains hitting me. And I got my drunken mud on

and my mom's about from here to those back doors. And I'm staring at her through that cold April rain. And the only thought that I have is she better have a buck.

And I walk through that rain, enter that lady's place of business and one more time my startler with my presence, which would be an ongoing thing with me.

And without batting at I, I asked that Lady for some money. And she opens up her little wallet from she got from Woolworths in a picture of me falls out when I'm about 8 years old on a Little League team, the only decent picture she'd ever have of me. And she breaks out that $1.00 and then $2.00. And I take the money and I run off to Wilmington where I'm going to die. Now, the thing that brings it home to me, if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous is you take the same man and you bring them to a room like this or a Home group

where every action that I take is for my life. My life depends on everything that I do here in a A and I need to ask you this if you're new.

And that is how come when my life depends on it, I can't walk that same distance. If you were to put a secretary of a meeting that same distance as me and my mom. How come when my life depends, I can't walk that distance and ask a man for a job at a meeting that's going to save my life. But I can walk that distance and use my mom time and time and time and time again. And I'm here to share with you if you're new, that if my alcoholism doesn't kill me, my selfishness and myself centredness will. Make no mistake about that.

Which is why it's necessary for a man with close to 29 years

to be close to and active in a program called Alcoholics Anonymous and even more so, a Home group. You see, I'll never get so sober that I can't get drunk again.

There is no place

but I can get so drunk that I can't make it back. And I never want to forget what it's like. I never want to forget what it's like to be out there, to be living that life with no answer, to be restless, irritable and discontented when you're sober

and the only thing you have to live for is maybe this time it'll be different. If I can just get that ease and comfort again now. My dad was a happy drunk.

My dad was a happy singing the Blues, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin drunk. My dad loved to drink and sneak into his own damn house. It was amazing thing, you know, and and you can tell because he had these big refinery boots as he's sneaking in that damn window and and he's always stepping on my little chest as he's coming in there, you know, and I grabbed his boot one night and I said, you know, why don't you have mom make you a set of keys? You know she's up anyway. I mean,

I can hear the Hoover going now, for God's sake.

And

oh man, and I wanted to be, you know,

I, I love my dad. I thought until I come to Alcoholics Anonymous,

I had no idea what love was. I had no idea what love was until I met you.

I spent my entire life seeking my daddy's approval.

I've spent my entire life

feeling guilty and full of shame,

and no matter what room I would ever sit in, the only thing that I would bring in would be guilt and shame.

That's all I would ever bring in.

I was so afraid of my dad

that I saw it as approval so he wouldn't do to me what he was doing to my mom.

Both of these people were on my amends list. I got my amends list from doing an inventory with a sponsor.

I didn't go up out in Malibu and burn it.

I had some people's names on there

and they weren't hard to find

because all that was on that piece of paper

was the wallpaper of my mind.

You see, I'm an alcoholic.

I can't get away of the memories in the faces of people.

They're all around me

and I try to drink to get rid of those faces

and those things that I've done,

and these faces are all around me when I'm sober.

These people that I continually to run through because of my selfishness and myself centeredness

and to use them time and time and time again.

I felt so guilty about not being able to keep my dad from beating up my mom that I thought it was my job at A at a young age of four and five. And I hated that guy.

And yet I was so ashamed of myself for not being able to stop them from doing that. And I grew up in this environment of not trusting. I didn't trust my mom because she put up with it. And I didn't trust my dad for the things that he was doing. And God, I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know where to go with that. And I had these two sisters that love me to death today and I had no idea. But I avoided them like the plague,

you see, because I needed to have that 100% approval in my family.

Bill Wilson always talked about that being on the top of the heap.

And I never got close to these little girls. And they loved me and they looked up to me and I would have no part of that. And I would run through their lives and I would use these people

and they would be on my list

and their names and my actions would blind me. And at the age of 11 years old, I went into a garage and me and my buddies poured a bottle of four Rose whiskey. And for the first time in my life, I felt that sense of ease and comfort, that sense of well-being. That place that I couldn't find when I was not drinking. That place that no matter what was going on my my life and and how close I was to people and how well I was trying to do in school. That place that seemed to avoid me no matter how

trying to get.

But what I found when I took a shot of alcohol, if I could step into this room,

I could step into this place. That was the safest place that I know

and would become. The surest thing that I ever believed in was that every time I took a shot of four rows of whiskey, I stepped and I walked into the most peaceful place that I ever knew.

And the longer I drank, the more I stepped into that little room. Now, I didn't head out to Skid Row that next day, lose my paper out and come to a A, you know,

But what I did do is remember that spot

because the older I got, the more I would rely on that spot

because I wouldn't have the ability to mature and develop and just grow along and just grasp and develop a manner of living like everybody else. Everybody around me seemed to just stepped into maturity and I just didn't have that. And I felt so weird because I felt so crazy and out of place, but yet there was nothing around me that I could pin it on. And that made it feel even worse.

And I live this life of irresponsibility, of being a taker. And I've been taking my entire life. And I started hanging around some guys and I started around 12 or 13 years old. I walked past a garage and these guys were working on a,

on a dragster and I fell in love with these guys and working on these cars and became a part of something. And there were some beer drinking and there were some camaraderie and I loved it. And I wasn't interested in school. I was interested in meeting in that garage on every weekend, you know,

chasing tools for these guys and going away for the weekend to drag strips and feeling a part of something. And I know that disappointed the old man, but you see, I've got that wall of hate going with him already. You see,

I've got to feel guilty about the people that I resent. I've got to keep that going because I'm not going to apologize for any action that I ever do. I've got to have that chip on my shoulder at all times, you know?

And I get into high school and I start dating these, this little Mexican girl and I start hanging around these little Mexicans and I start dating this little girl. And this little, this little gal had some brothers and her brothers like lowered cars. And I loved lowered cars. And we used to take our 62 Chevys and lower them right down to the ground, get our hair up real big, like a Bakersfield tumbleweed, right? Drive around and listen to The Four Tops and the Temptations and the O'jays and Marvin Gaye. And God, I love it, man. I was in my plumbing truck

other day and The Four Tops came on. I just start sinking in my damn car, you know?

I loved it. I had my white T-shirt and black khaki pants that came up to here, right? Women were telling me that men who are well endowed had big feet. I had a pair of 15 inch shoes I was driving around in, you know, got my big hair and my big feet, you know, and I got a big frown on my face because my ass hurts from bouncing around all night, you know? I had a little Mexican girlfriend named Loopy. She curled up her hair real big and I curled up my hair real big. And we'd bounce around wondering what the hell you're staring at, you know,

drinking that 151 rum, driving up and down Lenox and Hawthorne Blvd. And, you know, I'm 120 lbs. I can't lick a stamp. My eyes are about this. My arms are about this big. I drink that whiskey and I lean that little arm and press it around that big car door to make it look big so you don't mess with me, man, you know?

And I became somebody in my own mind, you know, nobody else knew it. But in my own mind, I was Lawrence of Torrance, for God's sakes, you know? And that's all that matters is that you're something, you know what I mean? And I bounced around these guys for a long time. And every time I took a shot of that little Thunderbird wine, I stepped into that little place, man. I stepped into that little place. And when I stepped into that little place, I wasn't that little goofy kid who was afraid of the dark.

I wasn't that little.

That wasn't that little kid that

when his baby brother died. I'm about 6 years old and my dad came into my room.

My dad came into my room and said you're going to have a baby brother. And I start saving up my my base park clubs and started cards and started oiling up my glove. And I started thinking about that little kid brother, how me and him are going to go to the drags and we're going to go to the the beaches man, and I'm going to have a little buddy.

Nine months later, my dad comes into that same room, tells me that my little baby brother died.

I didn't have any ounce of compassion. I didn't think about how his mom, how are you? I went after him

with all 60 lbs. Now I'm only 6 years old and I'm banging on this guy, telling him that you promised me,

and I blame that guy for something that he had no power over.

And when I took an inventory in Alcoholics Anonymous, lo and behold, that little guy was going to be on the top of that list. My dad

and already I'm building this little wall between me and my old man

and I wanted nothing to do with them but God. I wanted to be with them. God, how I would miss him.

And what happened to me is the older that I got and the more I leaned on that wine,

I began to introduce my mom and dad to a level of living that they never knew existed.

They were just little,

little folks from Detroit and Ohio.

They were naive to some of the things that I would bring to their porch

and I would rub their nose into a level of living

and ruin any dream they ever had of living a decent life.

They were both on my list.

I bounced around with these guys for a long time because there comes a point in the Alcoholics life

that the longer I drink, the smaller that window got and the smaller that window got.

And there comes a time and an alcoholic's life where that little, that little window of ease and comfort no longer is there and you can't find it.

But you got to find it. Because when you're sober, the nightmares are right there,

and yet I can't find that little place. And I'm desperately trying to find that place. And I've got the shakes and I've got the physical things going on with me, and yet the nightmares are still there and I can't get them out of my mind.

You see, I'm an alcoholic.

What I've come to believe in and learn here in rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that I'm an alcoholic and that the memory of my last drunk haven't sufficient force to keep me sober. And I had no idea about that. I had no idea that that no matter how bad that last drunk is, no matter how disgusting and what happens to it for long term sobriety, it has no sufficient force

that the memory of my last drunk, no matter how bad it is when I am not drinking, is pushed away by the way. And the pain that I feel when I'm sober.

And then I'm going to drink again, not because of choice, but because of the pain that I feel when I'm not drinking. Sobriety drives me to drink time and time and time again. I can't stand the way that I feel when I'm sober. And the longer I stay sober, the worse I feel. And come to a A and watching these guys with these ties on say things like 30 days ago, I was on the streets of Los Angeles.

Now I'm the president of the Bank of America. Thank you. You know, and I'm going, my God, I came in with that guy, you know,

and isn't it amazing what happens to people like me and you?

I persisted in trying to recapture a moment that wasn't even really happening.

The persistence of that illusion was astonishing.

I pursued it into the gates of insanity and death, and I come to Alcoholics Anonymous to find out that that little window wasn't even really there, that there's just one out of 12 people that that thing opens up to. And it was an illusion, but it was a realist thing I ever knew.

It was the only piece I'd ever had. It was the only good life I ever knew

and whether it be real or not, I needed it.

And every time I would get physically sober I would see the things happening to this young body

and I would see the swelling and the sores and the things that go on with us physically. I would see them the mental things that go along with this. I will see the threats of institutions. I would have people that love me to death telling me to stop and begging me. Yet I'm an alcoholic.

All of that stuff I know perfectly well, and it seems to be all pushed aside for the silly notion when I'm three months sober or three weeks that men, maybe this time it'll be different. It's got to work this time. I'm out of my mind now and I can't imagine life without it.

And I had no idea that I had this thing called alcoholism. I had no idea

and in 1972 I'm over there in Phoenix, AZ. I'm over there at the at the Apache Hotel.

I was on my way to Detroit

and I wound up in Phoenix at the Apache Hotel.

And the Apache Hotel is about five floor high.

Everybody's got a TV and it's in the lobby.

Everybody got a bathroom and it's down the hall.

It's about 35 bucks a month

and I can't get the dough to pay my rent. I'm in this little room with a hot plate and a hot TV. I got a little window that I peek out every now and then because I'm afraid to go outside. And then as soon as the sun goes down, I'm afraid to be inside.

And I walk the streets

and I duck into the Wagon Wheel bar,

thinking that maybe this time I can find a little bit of peace.

After a while I hook up with these guys and I got this best friend of mine.

I got this righteous partner that went with me from Los Angeles to

to Phoenix, and me and him are out at Sirara Lake

and we're drinking our Thunderbird wine and we're floating around on there in a raft.

And my best friend flips over and he starts sinking

and I take a dive after him

and it's pretty brown and I can't see anything.

And that's the last dive I took

because the only thought that I have is maybe now I can go get his dope.

And the only thing that I hear when I'm underneath that water is a man screaming underneath water.

And it's a loud scream,

but it ain't loud enough to turn me back

because I know what's in his room

and it's all mine now.

And I get up and I swim to shore as the sheriff's and everybody try to find this guy.

That man was on my list.

That man was on my list

and that scream haunts me every now and then a day.

They say no, you can do anything you want to an Alcoholics Anonymous if you're willing to pay the price.

There are some things that we have done

that no matter how hard we try to make amends,

just doesn't erase the memory of the action. And that's the price.

But yet there's a way to live that maybe we can make it as right as we can, regardless of the situation.

In 1974, I came out of a county jail in southern Arizona for writing prescriptions.

And I'm not a doctor

and I'm no big time convict. I'm just a loser, believe me. And they sent me back to to Los Angeles and I went to the LA City Hall and I registered there and they gave me a little room at the Greyhound Hotel.

And my probation officer put me on an abuse for the first time in my life.

And for the first time in my life, I'm not drinking and I don't have any drugs in me and I'm stone cold sober. I don't have a driver's license because that's been taken away till I'm 30

and I get a little job offer over there and in El Segundo, CA.

You see, my dad worked for a refinery.

My dad was strapped with character. My dad was a type of guy who started things and finished them.

I'm a quitter

and I wanted to be a refinery worker like my dad. My dad worked for as a as a janitor for Union Carbide and then after about 30 years become plant manager part of Oshaw.

I wanted to be like my dad in the

in my most drunken moments

I thought it was possible.

And I get this little job offer for for a labor over at this refinery and I take the bus over there and I'm about 3 hours early

and I don't know what to do with myself. So I go over to a Little League dugout and

weight and I'm stone cold sober and I'm slipping to this in between hysterical and maniacal.

My paranoia gets so intense that I start hallucinating and I don't know what's going on with me.

Somebody said. They called the paramedics and they came over

and they took me to the Harvard General Hospital and they looked at some of my paperwork and they said, by the looks of what's been going on with you, maybe you need to be go to a state hospital for about 30 or 60 days.

And they sent me to a state hospital out by Oxnard.

And a year later I came out and I was totally observed by that point

and they gave me some medication to take for certain disorders. But I tell you, there's one thing you can't medicate away in the alcoholic This time it's going to be different.

And after about two months, I ran out of Thorazine

and they found me over there, Alvero St., behind the Chevron gas station,

curled up. A public nuisance. That's what I am.

I'm a public nuisance and they rolled me up on a violation and sent me up the wayside.

And I'm up there at Wayside for a couple months and they put about 40 of us in a black and white bus and they send me down to the South Bay courthouse. Wrongly tried and put away

the losers finally going someplace.

And like I said at the beginning of this thing, I'm sitting in this little concrete floor of this holding tank and the Scottish man with a patch opens up that little door and he says, hi lad, my name is Alex, come with me. We're going to a A Now I'm ready for a long ride and maybe some lunch,

maybe a long drive up north and stuff like that. And he takes me to a 15 minute car ride to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he drives me to the stinky, puky, smelly little Alano club over there in Torrance called the TLC Alano Club. And I said, my God, what is what is an Alano anyway? You know, is that like an elk or a moose or, you know,

some kind of Samoan bar maybe? What is an Alano, you know? And he pulled up to this Alano club and there they were. All the Alanos were walking around, you know, and

everybody had a nickname and a tattoo.

He started introducing me to all these Illanos, Indian Genie and Captain Bob and Tennessee Bill and singing Sam and Serenity, Sam and Bicycle Ray and Santa Claus, Ray and dancing Pete and Whistling Butt and all these. I go. I said, my God, I just left a group of people like this.

Everybody had a nickname and a cup on a wall, you know, and little Moose come running after me through that. Hi, honey. My name is Moosen. I'm expecting a miracle. I said, I bet you are, man. I'm not it, you know. And some transvestite came out of the card room. He starts circling me like a helicopter in Norwalk, you know, and

it lands. And he walks over to me in his new moo moo. And he says hi, I can't wait to take you to our candlelight meeting. And I said, I don't think so, you know,

not till I get my year, you know? And,

and I told Alex, I said, my God, that guy's got big feet, for God's sakes, you know,

and I looked around that room and I said, my God, I said, you know, if that's the effect of that little blue book, I'm not going to crack that thing open either, you know? And,

and from 1975 to 1982, I came in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was the biggest lie that I was telling myself was that I was coming in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I hadn't touched AA,

hadn't touched it.

What I did is what I've been doing my entire life though,

and why would it change?

I sat in these rooms waiting for people to do something for me.

I've been sitting in rooms my entire life for the state and the county, having them do things for me and give me checks and blocks of cheese and stuff. All my life I've had to hand out

and it became another room for me to sit in, waiting to find out what you can do for me. What will you do for me? What are you going to do to me? And isn't it amazing that what I was waiting to be done to me, God was waiting to do through me?

That my days of getting were over

that Alcoholics Anonymous isn't a place to get anything.

You don't even get sober here.

You can do that around the toilet,

but this is where people like me learn how to live, where I don't have to return

to the pursuit of that little blue window, that illusion.

Alcoholics Anonymous is, when these steps are taken, relieved that obsession to drink.

And I had no idea what was going on, but every time I called Alcoholics Anonymous and I would call that central office, somebody would come and get me. And they were always clean and they were sharp.

And whether I called South Bay Central or the harbor area in Long Beach or LA, somebody would come and get me. And most of the time,

most of the time as a little ball headed Carpenter,

a little Montana cowboy,

he would come and get me.

And he never asked me, Are you ready to come get sober? Are you done yet? He'd come take me to you.

That little ball headed Carpenter would take me to you.

I wear a coat and tie because of people like that.

I wear a coat and tie

because this is the only place that I've ever learned how to live and show respect for the thing that's saved in my life.

I wear a coat and tie because there's people in this room who taught me how to do certain things and take certain steps and make things right.

We're wearing a coat and tie for you isn't nothing.

It is a privilege.

Everything about my life is a privilege,

and it is an amazing how these obligations turn into privileges. If you're new, the only thing that I can tell you is be prepared to be divinely inconvenienced for the rest of your damn life

because there's nothing about a eight that's going to go to your like. And in fact, we have to do the uncomfortable to get comfortable,

which is where we at in this step.

This is exactly where we're at now

and on May 2, 1982 I'm standing at a Woolworth window

and I'm looking at myself and I'm 120 lbs and I'm yellow.

My hair is down to my back and I get everything I owned on my

and I'm looking at myself in this little reflection of this mirror. And I said to myself, my God, whatever happened to my dreams?

How come I'm always getting drunk and I'm always getting sober and there's nothing ever in between? How come I'm, how come I don't have any dreams? The only dream that I've ever had is I've got to get this stuff to work, no matter how hard it is. There's got to be a way for me to get this stuff to work.

And that was my only goal in life was to try to find a way to get this stuff to work.

And I looked at myself in that Woolworths window and I said to myself, my God, whatever happened to my dreams? And I did what I always did when I got that way. I panhandled some money and I called Alcoholics Anonymous. And who do I get? I get Don. I said, Don, this is Larry. I'm ready to come back to a a. Will you come and get me? And he told me the most profound thing I never heard in my life. He said, no. He says, you know where we are. You know what we got. Why don't you get your rusty rear down here yourself? I'm tired of chasing after you. And he hung up

and I said, my God, whatever happened to that? A A love, you know, and I,

I just heard it. I just heard it for the first time in my life. It was unnecessary for the good people of Alcoholics that anonymous to come get me. It was now up to me to go to you,

and that very day I curled up in that little alley over there off of Anaheim and Broad. I was over there by that little Beacon light mission and I checked into that little Beacon night mission and I conceded to my innermost self

that I was an alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery.

I was able to look at my life and see what this thing had done and that I was like a a tail on a kite that whenever it says we're flying that I would have to go with it. And now I didn't want to drink anymore. Now I didn't want to be that animal anymore. Now everything in me wants to stop and I can't,

and I'm so afraid of this thing whipping me again and whisking me a way that I had a fear for this thing called alcohol that I never had before.

It was a respectful fear because I knew that I was powerless, that I'd been in this place before and that there wasn't a living situation that strong to keep me from drinking again. And I knew it was going to happen. And I was so afraid

that I called that guy down there at that Alano club, and I made the longest walk of my life, that 10 miles with that poopy pants and no hope. And I went down to that Alano club

and I walked that 10 miles. And every mile of the way my head was telling me, you ain't gonna make it. You're a loser. You've been here before, Larry. It ain't gonna do it, pal.

You ain't going to cut it. You've been here. You know what's going on here.

And I didn't listen.

My eyes were on the Montana Cowboy

and I walked into that Alano club

and I said as Dawn here, and they said, yeah, he's over there by the coffee bar.

And I walked up to that guy and I asked that guy something I never asked a man. And Alcoholics Anonymous.

I says Don, I says I don't know what to do with my life. Would you be my sponsor?

And that guy lit up like a chandelier for about 5 seconds and then he lit into me for about 20 minutes.

And under no certain terms is he going to put up with my nonsense?

And we checked into that mission and it was my job to leave that mission. And I remember my first night at that mission, they didn't have a big book because they they saved you and you had to sing for your beans to eat. And then they let you out

and I remember my first night there

how they didn't have a big book, so I grabbed a Bible

and I'd never had a buy. I had a Bible one time and I used it as a leg on a couch.

I'd never opened it before in my life and I didn't open it that night. But I held on to something because

I knew a A had something to do about God and it was the closest thing that I had.

And I held on to that thing and I tied my shoes to my feet so no one could take them. And there was only about 15 of us in that mission.

And I stayed there that night and I couldn't wait to see you guys the next day.

I couldn't wait to see you.

And Don got me on this road and he got me started into service and he got me to do that inventory. And after several weeks, we had that list.

We had that list

and I said I can't wait to go see mom and dad and tell them about this and he says, Oh no you don't.

Oh no, you don't.

You're at the point now where you've been coming in and out of these rooms so much that when you mention AA, they think you're going to get drunk again,