The 6th annual Fellowship of the Spirit conference in Queens, NY

All that back there does it now. I can tell it doesn't.

My name is Jerry and I am an alcoholic.

This is overwhelming. This really is you.

I'll talk about alcoholism, I'm sure someplace and sharing my experience, but

if I could convey to you what you all are giving to us

at this very moment, it would take all the time that I have a lot of just to share how deeply you touch us.

You guys are absolutely marvelous, absolutely marvelous, and I want you to know that I really do. You bet, you bet. Give yourself some applause. I mean to put this thing together like this. I was trying to tell a non alcoholic here the other day what it's like to get to go do this.

And

it's, it's difficult to describe

the marvelous, marvelous way you all treat us and the way you'd greet us. And this morning I I was sitting over in Brooklyn and just setting out on somebody stoop and yeah, and I was, and I was watching the show.

I mean, that's a treat. I'm just a rube from Kansas. And so I mean, this really was that was great.

I have had just a marvelous time with Sam and Paul from London. And

I mean, this is great.

Gary and Linda know how I feel about them and, and I ran into them in the hotel this afternoon and, and Gary's wife Julie. And I tell you what, there is such a connection with you folks and and it's just hard to describe it.

I want to do 1 little thing and I don't want to get modeling about this because I talked to Don a couple of days ago and he is doing swell, doing well, doing real good

as we as we're here together.

Just remember him because he really would love to have been here, wouldn't he, Gary? Yeah, he,

you know, there's a part of me just wants to, and I'm going to try to do it anyway. Part of me just wants to have a grand time with you while I'm talking to you.

I mean you, you're so good. I I cannot describe to you how good you guys are and how much you mean to us,

but I have a little bit of a job to do.

Part of that job is to talk about what it's like to be an alcoholic

because we have so much fun in what we do.

We forget sometimes that there are many, many, many people who die from the disease of alcoholism. And so we're in here having a great time. And we have to remember that this is a very, very Underneath all that, there is a very serious issue of the fact that what we suffer from is a fatal malady. And so when you think about

the whole premise of Alcoholics Anonymous starts in that first forward to the 1st edition

where it says we have Alcoholics Anonymous are over 100 men and women who have recovered

from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show others precisely how we recovered is what we're all about, and that is what we're all about.

You know, the first time I heard somebody

quote that recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, they went on to explain

what hopeless mind and body was. And, and what that is, is it's and some of you have heard me say this and I stole it from him. He said. It's

we do do that a lot, don't we?

I have a mind that doesn't work right in the body, that won't die,

and that is a. That's a horrible combination.

You know, a mind that doesn't work right in a body that wasn't won't die. And see, I'm the kind of an alcoholic as I, as I've uncovered my own truth, I'm really clear about something. I've had a mind that didn't work right as far back as I can remember.

Some of the old giants in our fellowship talk about many of us have almost died, almost killed ourselves trying to be good,

trying to do the right thing and and see if if I were to share my total experience and I had a lot of time. By the way, the reason they put me up first was they thought I could probably, I talk so fast that they figured I could get, I could get everything talked about in about two hours.

And then I'd give Linda 10 minutes and Gary 10 minutes and we'd all go home

at work.

So no, they're afraid. They wanted to get me up first 'cause people go to sleep when I talk and, and so I gotta get mine out of the way while you're still halfway fresh.

But if, if, if I were to sit here and talk to you, what I would really describe about from the time as far back as I can remember, I have done my very level best to do what I thought was right. I, I really, truly worked hard to be a good little kid

and I'm the kind of a kid that

can check out a library book. And some of you have heard me tell these stories, but I haven't got anything that works any better. I, I can check out a library book and it's due two weeks from Monday and I think I'm going to get it in and I'm ready to go in on Sunday. I get that book ready to go and and I'm going to turn it in like because it's due and somehow it ends up being Tuesday and I'm still a hold of the book.

Yeah, by now I'm feeling so bad. I'm trying to figure out what can I tell the librarian, But you know,

and as I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to tell them, it turns into Wednesday

and then there's $0.10 a day. Do you know a fine for being late? And I don't have it. So then it's Thursday. I mean, you can see where I'm going to And my whole life is summed up in just that right there. I I'm going to do the right thing and somehow the I can't do the right thing

and then catastrophe.

I'm just going to have a drink.

One of the first ways that I knew I was really an alcoholic here, by the way, I'm talking about being a real alcoholic. Do we have any real Alcoholics in the room?

One of the joys of Alcoholics Anonymous is that the longer you stay here, the more opportunity you have to discover whether or not you're a real alcoholic.

Oh, I know today that I'm more of a real alcoholic than I did two years ago.

The depths of my illness are more clear to me today than they were three or four years ago.

My powerlessness is more clear to me today than it ever has been.

I am the kind of an alcoholic that

and I won't go back and start does has anybody ever had to have a drink in the middle of the night?

Anybody ever have a spouse say at 3:00 in the morning when you're trying to be quiet, say what are you doing?

And you're doing your level best to screw that lid off and be quiet.

And at 3:00 in the morning at vodka sloshing around and that bottle sounds pretty loud, doesn't it? And no matter how hard you try, I mean, that's a hard way to live. That's a hard way to live,

but I don't know about you all, but I had to do that. I had to do that. There's not a day goes by anymore. Really true. This is true fact. There's not a day goes by that I am not

grateful in the extreme because I get to wake up and my mind and my body are not screaming for relief.

See, that's that's kind of an alcoholic. I finally got to that point. My insanity was so invasive and the need for some kind of solution was so overwhelming that when I would wake up in the morning, I really needed some form of relief right away.

And it manifested itself obviously in drinking. But I, I, I just, I just, I just absolutely had to have a drink so

many years ago on some of you have heard me talk about some of my the more humorous elements of, of being an alcoholic was long before I knew I was an alcoholic. I had the alcoholic mind and I had people meeting and like aunts and uncles and school principals and, and what have you. And they were having these meetings and, and they're the topic of the meeting was what are we going to do with this boy?

You know, and and I talk about that and I'm not going to bore you with that tonight,

but that's,

you know, my whole life I've been just slightly out of step.

And so when I took my very first drink of alcohol, how many of you remember your first drink?

I bet you I would only have about 2% of those hands in the area. If I ask you about the first time you had sex,

we remember when we had our first drink. I can remember that better than I can first time I had sex. The sex is damn important.

Of course we got. We got Studly over here, he says. I remember both.

I do too, really. Anyway,

and, and, and so I've always been, you know, knowing that there's something wrong with the first time I had a drink. I can remember that grand experience. And the grand experience was,

God damn, everything is all right.

I am OK. I mean, I really was. I took a drink and I can remember as that booze traveled down and it went right straight to the place where fear is. And all of a sudden the fear began to slowly but surely go away. And I, I remember so clearly I could carry on a conversation with some friends that were there with me and I was no longer that little old, weird

Weasley, little Jerry.

I was kind of OK. I mean, and it was just, it was just the most marvelous experience. I was OK. And from that point on, from that point on, that's all I ever was seeking to find again, was I I simply wanted to be OK. And one of the reasons that I had so much trouble in trying to get sober was people would say to me, Jerry, if I were drinking, they'd say, Jerry,

that stuff's causing you some big problems.

And I'd look at it. I mean, that's not causing me a problem. I mean, I got a lot of problems, but this isn't one of them.

That's a solution for me. I call this a solution for me. So when you're sitting there and you're trying to tell me, Jerry, you got a problem with this stuff called booze, we're not even on the same wavelength,

'cause that's not my problem. That is a solution.

We sitting here in this room tonight and I don't know how many of us, there are quite a number,

but it gives me a lot of joy to know that I can say to you that

bourbon is a great solution and not a problem. And there's a lot of people in here who understand. If I say

at Jack Daniels traveled right down to that spot where the fear resided, I got people who understand and it went away, didn't it?

And people would say to me, Jerry, what in the hell is wrong with you?

And of course, I'd try to explain what I thought was wrong with me. And we were talking this afternoon,

one of the one of the great joys, a little aside, one of the one of the fun aspects of one of these conferences. And some of you who have been around for a while already know this. If you're fairly new, I'll tell you what's happening. Once you get head out for a weekend like this, you're in a continuous meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You get in your car and you drive over here and you're with some Alcoholics and you started the meeting. That's all that's going on. And so from now until you go home on Sunday afternoon, you'll be in a meeting. And there is some magical thing that happens when at least two or more Alcoholics get together, isn't there? And I don't know, I mean, there's probably 100 definitions of what's occurring,

but Sam and Paul and I and

and that guy, but Amillary we're talking about this morning. One of the things that happens is for the moment that we're together, everything is OK

tonight, shedding here. Aren't we all OK? I can sit here right now and I don't even know what else exists out there. I'm not worried about it. That's not on my mind. I'm sitting here with

the dearest people in the world and I'm fine and they're fine and I know it. And I, when I'm with you all, I'm always in the here and I'm always now.

And you know, we, we say some those little expressions and sometimes I know I'm guilty of, of, of forgetting. Wait a minute. There was a time when I couldn't be here. I might be here, but I wasn't here

and I certainly wasn't in the now I was in last week. Or when I told her that I would be there and I wasn't there and and all. Or I told this guy that the check was in the mail and I hadn't even written it yet.

See, I can tell a little deal like that. And some of you chuckle and I know you've been there,

you know, on the phone talking to him. Yeah, I sent that yesterday. You haven't got it.

Jesus. God damn mail system,

Gary. I think we're in a room of real Alcoholics,

so you all are getting the picture.

I'm a I'm a graduate of a number of fine places that tried to figure out what was wrong with me.

Some of them were pretty exotic and they were very comfortable and some looked a lot like a jail shell.

I think they looked like a jail cell because that's what they were.

One of my favorite questions is did any of you ever get up in the morning and and say, you know, I want to make my mother proud of me today? What I think I'll do is I'll behave in a way that causes a black and white patrol car with colored lights on the top to pick me up, put handcuffs on me and throw me in the back seat. That's what I think I'll do today and make my mother proud of me.

I have had that experience on a number of occasions and it and, and

and I never planned on doing it.

Anybody ever have a DUI?

Jesus, this is a quiet bunch.

I've had a DUI on more than one occasion. One of my God at the Strategic Air Command

up in Nebraska

's B52 base. It's kind of a fun experience. I wouldn't recommend it.

They call out, they call out a lot of horsepower when you wander onto the base and your eyes are glazed over and you and I and you just tell them I'm lost.

I was.

Oh goodness. Oh,

so

you get the idea that and, and people would say Jerry Horton in the hell is wrong with you. And I didn't know what was wrong with me. I, I would try to give some explanation and I and I and I really, I really meant when I, when I would try to tell people what I thought was wrong, I, I really meant what I was telling them.

But I just truth matters. I just thought I was. I just thought I was bad.

In the final analysis, I thought I was bad. And if I cut through all of that happened to me in all these treatment places and these fine places,

they finally one time decided they were just going to lock me up in a in an insane asylum. And an old alcoholic saw what they were about ready to do to me. And he said, do you mind if I gave you my,

my opinion as to what's wrong with this young man? I was 35 years old.

And he said, I don't think you're dealing with a crazy man. I know he looks that way, but I think he's just a simple alcoholic. And so they said, well, we'll give you a chance. And, and so they sent me off to one more, one more deal for treatment. And in that treatment, somebody suggested that I might want to try prayer.

And the reason that came about, and I don't want to get off in the vet story and that takes too long to tell. But the bottom line is, I, I thought the easiest way to get through treatment was to drink my way through.

And in order to drink your way through treatment, you have to go out and smuggle it in. You understand. But if, if an alky is an alky, he's going to get it one way or the other. I mean, 24 hours a day, your minds on drinking and, and their, their days are more like about 12 or 13 hours are going to watch you. And then they quit watching you. And when they quit watching you do what you need to do, which is get a drink.

So anyway, I was in this treatment place real quick. They were going to just have to kick me out and and send me over to the nuthouse. And so they were getting ready to transport me over there and they said, Jerry,

you wait for us down in the Chapel. We'll come and get you when it's time to take you over. Now send me the Chapel. And they ask me, I said, what am I going to do in a Chapel? For God's sake? Me said, well, you better try to pray. And and so I'm sitting in that Chapel and I still remember us clearly as though it were yesterday. By the way, if you if you really are at all interested. And it's not very important in the overall scheme of things, except to show

that this spiritual recovery program is effective.

My sobriety date is January 17, 1977.

And this day in the Chapel was January the 16th, 1977. And they told me to pray. And I said, and I'm sitting in that little Chapel and I'm thinking, pray to what

the God that I knew at that time was not going to listen to a little Weasley guy like me. And I was as low

in all respects as you can possibly be. I was dishonest about everything. I would steal anything that I needed to steal in order to live the way I had to live.

And just, I won't bore you, but from a moral standpoint, I was as low as you could get. So a guy like me can't pray. And so I'm sitting in that little Chapel and, and, and I'm just, I'm just tired.

Just tired. And I

was trying to figure out how to pray and what to pray for and who to pray to. And he finally dawned on me. There is nobody I can pray to, there's nothing I can pray to, and there's nothing I can ask for. So my prayer was something crudely along these lines. If there is a God undone, I'm tired. I really am. I just give up. I don't care anymore what happens to me. If they want to lock me up in the nut house for the rest of my life, that's fine. I'm tired. I can't do what is required to do

to stay sober. And by that time I had, I had just literally beat myself to death in trying to do what I thought you guys were doing.

I, I, I really did. And, and, and I, I don't know any way to, to bring people to that when you're doing 12 step work. I don't know any way to bring people to that point of a surrender because that's what that was what I just described to you was a real, real, real crude form of surrender. And I had recognized that I was truly powerless. And that's what I talked about when I wake up in the morning these days, I remember now so very clearly

how terribly powerless I was because I had analyzed myself.

That's an extreme statement and I analyze myself, but I thought I had. And I'm a self help book expert.

Jesus, I just think about that self help.

Don't you just love to wonder through the self help section of the bookstore? Jesus, God, it just that's it. Oh, it's a great joke. Anyway.

Yeah,

So I surrender That night I come stumbling in. The AAI don't know anything about anybody. I don't know anything about what it is you do. All I can understand in my initial contact is that you guys must not have had a serious problem as I did. You remember when you first got here and you look around and everybody looks like they're doing great. They're all. Their faces are aglow and they're having fun and their eyes are sparkling and God Dang, they're just doing fine. And you're just sitting there trying to figure out. I hope they don't ask me to.

I said an, a, a meetings in a little Old Town and, and in Kansas and, and we had to sit around the table and everybody go down. They talk and, and, and every week that, you know, I'd come to me and I had to talk and I didn't want to talk. Oh, God knows I didn't want to talk. And I'd gone to these meetings for about four or five weeks and it came around to a lady just ahead of me and she said, I think I'll pass tonight.

I thought pass.

Nobody told me I could pass.

You people lie,

so I passed. Well, that's a great way to get through this. They'll just pass.

But I was hanging around with Alcoholics. I had an old man who came by every day. I didn't know then that he was he needed somebody to 12 step. And there weren't many drunks to 12 step in this little town in Kansas where I was and and Oren had come by and picked me up. We go drink coffee and I can't, I, I can't tell you why state sober, except there was 2 old drunks hooking up with one another. And the magic occurs. The magic occurs

and,

and so I got in here and I began slow a bit, surely getting some health back and then about five years sobriety, I began to make money.

There's two bad situations for an alcoholic. One is not having any money and the other one is having money.

And then I began to think, God damn, I'm good.

And it went downhill from there. No, I had about 5 or 6A real good years of money, if you want to look at it and major in those terms. And then all of a sudden I was 12 and 13 years sober. Many of you have heard my story and, and, and I want to wrap it up because I'm not going to go through it tonight. I but I want to wrap it up. I just want to say a couple of things. I, I ran into some guys like like Gary and Linda,

and they were just marvelous. And I could tell when I could hear him talk

that they were OK. Can't you spot anarchy? Who's comfortable? Chuck C used to say comfortably, peacefully and joyously within ourselves. And if I can live that way, then I can hear you when you come to talk to me.

See if I'm peaceful, comfortable and joyous within myself when you call me with your situation, I can hear you. Better yet, I can hear my kids when my kids call. And I'm OK with Jerry and and I don't need anything now. I can hear them clearly when my wife needs something

and I am peaceful, comfortable and joyous within myself. I can hear what she needs. I can really hear. And that's, that's one of the things that these people had. And so I am about 13 years sober at that time. And my work in the steps was looking up on the wall and, and kind of yeah, Yep.

And I'd check him off

and bada Bing, bada Bing. I'm out of here

and and I'm so sick

and I'm on a 32nd floor of a hotel room and I'm thinking, I think I'll just jump out the window.

That's thirteen years sober folks.

And it looked bad. And and then I'm starting to run into folks like this and I began to have a hunch that that they're doing something. And and so I asked them what they do when they tell me and they do what we do here.

They live a life based on spiritual principles. And that sounds like a cliche. And I don't want to talk in cliches because I what I'm trying to convey to you tonight, if nothing else,

as I am really, really a small town drunk.

And somebody

in this city

went out to Cleveland and met another drunk and they put together a thing that called our program of recovery. And people like you have kept that alive and intact with integrity until a guy like me comes along in 1989 and need something like this because it is truly a matter of life and death. And it's no longer about drinking.

See, that's what this thing is all for. This, this, this spiritual recovery is about for me. It's about

I don't have the option to drink. That was taken away.

Now I need something else, so you guys are doing something. I can look at you and I can tell you're okay.

You're OK.

So I get started into this process and I'm just about to finish up here and I'll tell you what happened. I'm into this process.

Any of you ever have a tough time writing your first fourth step?

I'm struggling with mine

and I got old hard heads like Brown over here and they cut you no slack. And so I'm thinking, you know, there's got to be an easier way to do this.

So I go over to the biggest bookstore in in Denver,

the Tattered Cover. Anybody ever may go to Denver. You got to go to the Tattered Cover and go to the self help section.

I mean, just read. Read the titles alone and you'll get well.

So, so I'm reading some of this stuff and I and I go bouncing back over to my sponsors house and I say, listen,

I'm trying to get this thing written and I'm going to a lot of meetings and there's a lot of folks. You don't have to do this.

What I'm really saying is why are you making me do this? Now you understand that he's not making me do anything. I ask him

if he would sponsor me, You know,

yeah, these people up here are following me real close. I asked him to sponsor me and all of a sudden I'm saying why are you making me do this?

Aren't we a whiny little bunch?

Why are you making me do this? Other folks don't have to do this.

And he he looked at me and he said,

Jerry, do you want what those folks have?

And I said, well, no,

hey, Sir. Well, let's not worry about what they do.

I love you all so much.

I really, truly do.

I hope some of what I have discovered and the joy that flows from God through me to you is apparent enough that at some point this weekend you'll say, Jerry, what is it you do? And when you do, I may just be dead tired and all of a sudden I'll come to life

and I and you won't be able to shut me up when you fall off your chairs from just so tired you need to go to bed. I'll get the hint that I've talked long enough to you,

the most marvelous experience of your entire life. If you're new here, if those of you are many or I know what I'm telling you, it's like preaching the choir. But if you're new, this is without question the most marvelous experience in the world to live with and by the Spirit at all times.

At all times. I don't care what the catastrophe is. And if you want to hear about catastrophes, I can tell you something.

John is fine. You're fine. We're all fine. And if I say I love you, that's not just a speaker going through a cliche. Some of you know me here. And you know if I say I love you, I really, truly do. You guys are great. Thank you.