Steps 8 11 at a Big Book Workshop at the Fellowship of the Spirit conference in Queens, NY

We're back. We're live in New York,

live in Queens.

Hang on just a second.

OK,

now we've got 80 minutes for the CD. I don't know how long this is going to go, but we'll just let the spirit guide us. It always happens like this Sunday morning. We're we're paring down to the the maddest of the mad dogs.

You know, I had an agenda and for how I wanted this to go. And God always seems to laugh at that.

That got blown out of the water we had wanted to do.

I don't know if you've, if you've heard it from us this weekend, but we really, really believe that amends are important. You know,

and I was talking to someone this morning about this. You, you talk to people, you know, they're five, 1015 years in sobriety, whatever it is, sometimes 2025 years in sobriety. They say I'm really depressed. I'm really, you know, I'm having trouble. Everything's flat. You know, I don't know what's wrong. First question we always ask you got any unfinished amends? OK,

I don't think anything eats your lunch worse than unfinished immense. And, you know, I think it's the cause of most, you know, typical depressions in Alcoholics Anonymous. I really do. You know, Ed was talking about it this morning. He had severe depression. You know, he worked the steps and the depression went away. Bill Wilson, what was he, 14 years sober? Father Ed Dowling catches him in New York,

asks him this horrible question. Bill, have you ever worked these steps? And he's

indignant. Well, I wrote them, he said. He said I didn't ask you that. Have you ever worked them? You know, and bills, you know, finally gets on and says, no, I never did, you know, tell you the truth. I, I laid in a bed in towns hospital and Evie asked me some questions. I answered them and had an experience, but I never really worked them to depth. I never did it again. The working and reworking of the steps. OK.

And so Ed says, well, I'm willing to, you know, boogie with you if you are. And he says yes. And the depression is lifted for Bill because he goes through and he, he does these things

that he only wrote about, you know. And so anyway, that's that little lecture,

but nothing has set me as free

as as making my amends. I, you know, Don used to say you don't do this because you're guilty. That's not why you do it, OK? He said. The essence of this thing is if I owe you, I have to pay you. OK? It's just that simple. If I owe you, I have to pay you. I don't cut deals with the amends,

but for me and you know, Don didn't like this, but and I hopefully I will evolve more spiritually so that I get to the plane that he was at. But I do a lot of it because it makes me feel, you know, I can sleep better at night after I've done it. You know, I do it from my own Peace of Mind. A lot of it. I know it's not why we do it. The the idea is if I there's something between me and you, there's something between me and God, OK, And I can't be effective working with God's kids if I'm carrying all this baggage with me. That's why we do four step.

That's why we do 9th step. OK, Don simplified it for me one time, he said. Here's what it boils down to.

80% of them just want to hear you say you were wrong. The other 20% want their money back. Hey, pretty simple deal. I'm going to tell a quick story that's more of a four step story than it is a nine step story. But I talked to Michelle earlier and and I hope this will be helpful. May or may not, just depends.

There's a lady in AA, she's very virtuous, sober AA woman, and she's out on one horribly cold winter night crossing A4 lane highway. I mean, it's really cold, freezing cold. She's giggling

as she stands on the shoulder looking across the highway. She hears something. It sounds like a squeak at first and then she realizes it's it's a voice and and the voice is going please help me,

please help me. I'm freezing. And she looks down and there's a snake down laying at her feet and fairly large snake and it's stiff, but it's it's speaking to her. Please help me. And she goes, my God, a snake that can talk. It goes help you.

What are you saying? What can I do for you? Please carry me across the road. I'm freezing.

I can't get across the road. She goes, my God, carry you across the road? No, she says. That's it's crazy. You're a snake. You'd bite me. And the voice goes, I wouldn't bite someone who helped me, Please carry me across the road. And she kind of looks around. She thinks she's going crazy. But she says,

well, all right, OK, you know, I OK, I'd like to help you. And she reaches down and the snakes just almost stiff and she's got on a down jacket

and she puts the snake in under her down jacket and she starts across the road with it. Well, she crosses the four lanes and she gets to the other side and she can feel that this, her body warmth has warmed the snake up and it's wriggling a little bit, you know. And so she reaches in and, and takes it out and she's gently putting it down. And just as she does, it bites her, a good one right on the hand. And she drops it and she goes, Oh, my God. She goes, I helped you, you. You promised me that you wouldn't

me. And you did. And the snake, it's now, it's not squeaking. It goes, you knew my nature when you picked me up, OK. And the idea is, how many snakes have I picked up knowing full well what their nature was over and over and over again. And then I'm pissed off because the snake does what it can only do, OK? It's just something to think about.

I don't know if that's helpful.

You know, we have a friend, he's a Native American friend of ours and, and I don't see him very often except when he needs something. And then he's right. And he lives around the corner from us. And he recently asked me for a loan of $100 and I went and I don't lend our money. It's our money. So I don't lend it out or give it out, you know, unless I talk to my wife because it's our stuff. And I said, this guy, you know, he asked me for $100 loan, you know, do you mind if I

do that? And she said, yes, I mind. She said, you're not going to loan it to him. You can give him 100 bucks if you want, but you're not going to loan it to him because you know full well it's a set up for resentment.

We clear on that. You know, you know that one Don't lend money in a a just give it. You know you probably owe it some places and amend anyway. You know what I'm saying? So but or, or if you want to have a resentment, lend the money. It's a good way to do that. It'll work, I promise you.

OK,

here's a here's a few things and then I want to tell a few stories and we're going to have to move on out of here.

It says

we subjected ourselves to a drastic self appraisal. I'm on 76 now. We go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self will and run the show ourselves. This is the theme of the whole big book. OK, They hammer you in the third step with it. They talk about it in the fourth step. They're they're talking about it again. I live life on self will. I step on the toes of my fellows. They retaliate, then I get mad, blame them for it.

OK. It's a way I've lived my whole life. They're going to in the what we're going to miss this morning, unfortunately, is the family afterwards. My favorite, personal favorite chapter in the whole book. You know, there's people who say, don't worry about that. Just read working through others and you learn about the 12 steps. Well, the 12 steps says we practice these principles in all our affairs. And I find those principles laid out mostly in the family afterwards,

some in the chapter to wives a little bit and employers a little bit of division to you. But basically

the the family afterwards is loaded with, they say giving rather than getting will become the guiding principle. And they talk about how in the family, everybody's trying to exert their will. They want their own way. And it causes discord and unhappiness in the family. OK, same theme that we've got all the way through. When I insist on my way, it blows up in my face. And it's happened all my life and I'm still trying to learn the lesson at almost 60 years old. Incredible deal. But anyway, what has caused these problems?

My my effort to run the show myself and live on a self will basis If I haven't the will to do this, meaning clean up the debris, then I ask until it comes. I ask God, I pray for the willingness. But here's here's the kicker. And this is a good thing to remember when you're working with other people. I don't know if you guys do what we do, but we, I'm, I'm a busy cat. I'm really busy. I run a construction business and I sponsor too many people.

And, you know, I

go to meetings when I can. I'm always at my Home group. I have children and grandchildren. I try to be a part of their lives. I think that's what, you know, somebody said if your program doesn't work at home, your program doesn't work. That's all there is to it. I mean, that's that's a good way to judge it. So I don't have much time. I have zero time to waste, OK? Almost 60 years old, got hep C. We don't know how long I'm going to be on the planet. You know I don't have time to waste and neither do you because your time is precious and you've been given a great gift. OK,

so I sit down with the person. I say, why do you want to do this?

You know, let's talk about it. And this is what going to any links might look like. It's pretty hairy stuff. I mean, it's not just stuff you do for fun and amusement. Okay. I mean, you heard some of that. So are we, do we have an agreement? Do we have a little contract here that you're willing to go to any length for Victory over Alcohol? OK. And you now know what going to any length would look like because I've explained it to you. And they always say, yes, you know, half of them bag it. But they always say

in the beginning, but this is kind of, you know, I write contracts. I'm a general contractor. And this is the kind of thing that I might pull out if it were a contract later when we have a discrepancy, you know, in some construction project is, oh, whoa, whoa. Remember, it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol in italics, which meant they were screaming at you. That's what the old timers used to say. They're yelling at you when they put it in italics. If you've seen a first edition, that's in large case caps,

right? You've seen it. Probably there's still some misgivings as we look over the list of business acquaintances and friends we have heard. We may feel diffident, which means you don't want to do it. You feel bad about it, about going to some of them on a spiritual basis. It says don't worry about that. You're, you're not going to have to do that. God bless you.

You might prejudice them anyway. At the moment we're trying to put our lives in order, but this is not an end in itself. Juanita Reddit, Our real purpose is to fit ourselves, to be a maximum service to God and the people about us.

Let's see,

there's a couple of these that I wanted to read to you.

Go ahead,

I'll find him.

Here's here's a good one on page 77. Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue.

You get that? Yep. We go to make amends. We don't criticize them

or we don't argue.

OK, let me. I'm back on it.

Hold that thought.

Let's see. The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. It may be he has done us more harm than we have done him, and though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults. Don used to say there's This is the truth of the thing. Because I am wrong doesn't mean you're right.

But I can't dwell on that. That'll mess me up. OK, but just just to know that that's true. And he may have done more, more harm to me than I've done to him. But I'm the fish I've got to catch. It doesn't matter what they've done. That's the piece I have to get. That's the piece that's so important. Nevertheless, with the person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It's harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. Here's the direction We go to him in a helpful and forgiving

spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. We were taught a formula. You know, I might go back to this. And the formula is this. I go to the person or call them on the phone. Sometimes I don't want to arrive in your life because last time in your life wasn't so wonderful. And I don't want to be. And I and, and one of the things that I did, Don did this too. I was a surprise in people's lives. They didn't know what to expect. OK, it wasn't normally good, but it wasn't always horrible. But you never knew,

OK. And that's not good. That upsets people. So I don't want to pop back into your life and be a surprise again. Typically, I'll call you on the phone or write you a letter. OK, This is what I'm up to. Member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've, I've got to do everything in my power to, to take care of the, you know, mess I made out of my life prior. I believe that I've harmed you. And would you please, you know, be willing to listen to me about some harm that I caused you If they say no

thanks. Anyway, wonderful hearing from you. Go and have a good life. I don't want to talk to you anymore, then that's great. That's it. But Don taught me that I have to stay willing that if it should ever come up that I could make that amends, okay, That I I will make it in the future. That's that willingness piece to hold on to that. OK. But if they say, well, OK, you know, I will talk to you.

Then I make an appointment, you know, and, and I've made the approach and now I go to see them.

Nine times out of 10, the harm that I did was not over the telephone or by letter. It was it was face to face in person. That's the way I like to hurt you. Yeah,

up close and personal. So I was taught that the nature of my men should be similar to the nature of the harm, that if I if I did it in person, I make the amends directly in person if possible. Now, some people are willing to talk to me on the telephone. They don't want to see me face to face. And I honor that. And I said, well, thank you

people. They they say, I don't want to see you. I don't want to talk about it. And I asked them, well, would you would you mind if I wrote you a letter? I mean, was that would that be OK? OK. And most people say, well, yeah, that'd be all right. The big book talks about some people cannot be seen. We write them an honest letter. That's what we do. OK. That's the direction. So if they'll see me, I go to them and I say, you know, this is the harm that that I'm I'm

believe that I caused you. OK, now before I barge in and talk about harm I caused them, I talked to my sponsor.

I say, how do you think this sounds OK? And sometimes they'll reflect it back to me. They'll say, well, how would that sound to you if somebody came to you and said that? And sometimes I say, well, I I think it would hurt me. I'd be pissed off to hear all that they say. Exactly. Don't say it like that.

Don't say those things. Say these things, OK. And we work it until it's not going to hurt the person. I mean, it's some work to be done. I call that eight step work, you know, working with your sponsor to figure out how how the deal ought to be. We talked about the cards. I did. We talked about the cards this weekend. Index cards. No, a pile of index cards right on them. You know, what are they? 3 by 5 right at the top. This is the person. This is their last known address, phone number, e-mail, whatever.

This is the harm I'm clear on, you know, and, or if I don't have the address and all that, fined. OK, fine,

3 piles, at least for me,

piles that I'm willing to make amends. I'm willing to make middle pile where I'm not too sure I'm willing to make it. And then bless you, there's the never in hell will I ever make these men pile. Yeah, what what we find, and I know a bunch of you have also is that as you start making the willings, then the and not so willingly

come. Oh, that's not a big deal. I made these others. And finally, once you make those that I'll never in hell do it become possible to do. At least that's that's my experience hers too. So

I say this is the harm that I'm clear on and you know, I'm pretty selfish and and I've been a tornado through people's lives. I mean, I don't say it like that, but I say I express it. And is there any harm that I didn't mention that that you could tell me about

that I caused you? Some people get in this thing of how did it make you feel and all that. That's too complicated for me. I'm a simpleton, you know, I I also never graduated high school like Ed. You know, they'll tell you if they want you to know. Yeah, exactly. I keep it. I try to keep it a little simpler. And I say, you know, is there is there any harm that I caused you that that I haven't mentioned that you could tell me about? And then my direction is shut up and listen. OK, Juanita, just read this part. I don't argue with them, OK. When I made amends to my mother,

didn't even have to ask her if there was any harm that I hadn't mentioned, man, she had a whole, you know, boatload of it. And you know, it was my job to sit there and

then you and and anyway. So shut up and listen, OK, Real good. If you start retaliating and do that and get into arguing with them, then eventually you'll either drink or you'll have to go back and make amends for the sloppy amends you did, which is really humiliating. I've done that twice.

OK, don't do that. Don't argue with them. It's not worth it.

And the kicker is what can I now do to make this right? You know, Don used to say even the books. I don't know about that. But what can I now do to make this right between US and and clean this up and then shut up and listen and be willing to do you know what anything they might ask, Am I still on? Am I still okay?

I've, I've told you about, you know, I interacted with Don before. He was my sponsor and stuff. And when I first got to know Don, I was, I hadn't made all my amends and I was really worried about it. And I said,

Donna, I need to ask you something because I'm concerned about this. You know, I'm mistreated a lot of women. I owe a lot of amends to pass girlfriends.

I owe a bunch of money, you know, because I basically robbed people. What? I didn't rob them with guns and stuff, but I would borrow your money and then move 2000 miles away and it's out of sight, out of mind. And that was 30 years ago. Anyway, it doesn't really, you know, guy told me the what, what did he say? The The subconscious knows no statue of limitations.

No statute of limitations for the subconscious. And that's true. It'll eat you alive no matter how. I've paid back debts over 30 years

prior and the weight that is lifted when I've done it is amazing. And now I completely lost my place.

Let's see, where was I? Oh, so I'm talking to Don. And I said, here's here's my fear, Don. I'm afraid that if I go back to some of these old girlfriends, I was pretty selfish, right? I was pretty selfish lover and just a selfish guy in general. And what if they say to me, well, you can make it right by hopping in the sack with me, OK. And you're not laughing. Usually people laugh when I tell this story. Anyway,

Don did. Don didn't laugh. I'm sure he wanted to, but he didn't. By the way, not one girlfriend has asked that. You know, just just for the record, he kept a straight face. And I said, well, what if I go back and and I owed him $1000 and they say I want 20,000, you know, and he said, Tom, let me ask you something. He said, would any of that stuff make make right the harm that you did? And I said, no, it wouldn't. He said, you didn't ask what can I do to make it worse? You asked what can I

to make it right? And in the improbable instance that they did say something like that, which they, by the way, they never have, he said you wouldn't have to honor that because that's not what you asked for. You asked what can I do to make it right? You know, trust that God is going to take care of this deal. You know, don't worry about it. In every case, it's been more than than made right. So they they tell you what you can do and then you're willing to carry that out. And that was the direction I was given. OK, here's the deal.

My former wife, we try not to ex out our, you know, we try. That's a long story, but we don't call them exes, OK, they're part, especially if you've had children with them and stuff. They're part of your family. You may not be married to them anymore, but they're part of your family. We say my former. Okay, that's just our quirky little thing we do. So my, my former wife, my first wife,

I broke her spirit. I was, I was the worst husband you can imagine. I mean, anything, anything

horrible that a husband can do, I did it. Guilty on all counts, Your Honor.

And, and she of the, of my in-laws, four children, she was their favorite absolutely bar none. I mean, they wouldn't say that, but everybody knew she was their favorite. So I broke the spirit of their favorite child. You know, I was a crappy father to their to their grandchildren. OK, to say that they hated me is just, it doesn't even come close to how they felt about me, right? What a bum they thought I was and I was

so

came a men's time and I got to make amends to them. I really don't want you. Last time I talked to my former father-in-law, he told me that he was going to if that that here's what he said. We're in a parking lot of a of a like convenience little grocery store in Santa Fe. He said, if I ever hear of you laying a hand on my daughter again, I'm going to take you apart like a cheap watch. This is verbatim what he said last last time I talked to him. It's like 15 years, 20 years prior, something like that.

So now I got to go to them and make amends, right? And my, I think my mother-in-law said something to me like you just broke my heart. That's what, that's the last thing she said to me. So now I'm back. I've got to see them. I hate them. They hate me, da, da, da. Or I did hate them. I don't anymore because I've done the work on it. I've looked at what I did to set all that up. I don't need to forgive them because I'm the culprit. I made all that happen, OK? There's no forgiveness necessary. You know, there's there's remorse on my part.

So I'm going to see them and I'm scared to death. I'm just scared to even talk to them. And I'm praying this prayer, You know, God, please help me, God, please help me. And for some reason, I stop, I pull off the road and I get out the big book and I read this piece and it says we go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. And what I thought was you're making this all about you one more time. You hurt these people. You know, you broke the spirit of their daughter. You did this

you know you're supposed to go to them in a helpful and forgiving spirit and my prayer changed and it was God show me how I can be helpful to them show me how I can heal what's been broken here. Okay, not help me give me me me me me but them them them them them what can I do for them Show me how to go in a helpful and forgiving spirit. I had absolute forgiveness. I mean, there was nothing to forgive anyway. And, and my

focus was on being helpful to them.

It was a really great, immense OK. They told me what they wanted me to do. They'd always wanted me to support my children better than I had. My children were grown. They said, you know, help them go to school, go to college, go further if you can. And I said I would do that. And I've helped my kids ever since. I mean, I'd help them before that, but you know, that's, that's what I did. I had owed them some money. I said, I have to pay you this money back. They said we don't want the money, you know, forget about it. And what I did was I took that amount of money and I paid it

their grandchildren to my kids because that's, you know, that was where it logically needed to go.

I've paid a lot of money back. I'll tell you one quick story.

I I started drinking on a little island off Cape Cod called Nantucket Island. That's where I started alcoholic in a place called the Chicken Box. And if you've never been there, don't worry about it. You haven't missed. You have not missed a damn thing.

Plywood floors, you know, bucket of blood Portuguese fishing bar. Anyway, they hadn't served chicken there in 40 years, but still the chicken box

and, and, and that is where I live. That's where I had, I had lived there on Nantucket and for about 3 years I had a shop there, a retail shop in the summertime because the tourist place. I had a partner, he borrowed some money from his aunt

keep the store floating. I promised him I would pay it back, but I don't pay debts back when I'm when you, if you're not around, I don't really owe it to you. You know, that's just kind of the way it goes. He had called me over the years and he had asked for this money and, and you know, I just remember getting scared every time he would do it. And I talked to him when I first got sober and he said, you interested in paying back your debts? I said, Oh yes, I will when I get on my feet. But you know, I just, I'm newly sober and there's nothing I can do and you know, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, so I would think about it and I that you do you know about the white noise?

Do you know about that? That's that,

you know, I'm saying you're trying to meditate, but this, you owe David that money from 30 years ago.

So I would think about it, I'd feel guilty. I paid, you know, an incredible amount of interest, psychic interest over the years. But I had it in my head it was $3500 and I never had 3500 together and nobody was telling me. Just paying increments, you know, just start paying,

you know, I'm saying. So my mind came up with this, you know, my mind's always there to feed me wonderful, useful information. And what it told me was you can't afford this, don't do it. Don't go there. You know, don't call him. Don't you know someday you'll have a windfall and you can pay them. 3500 Finally, I'm making amends and I can't stand the white noise. And I find he's in Oakland, CA. I find him and

call him up. I say, David, this is Tom. And you know, I vote you money for almost 30 years and, you know, trying to stay sober in a A and I need to pay you back.

And here's what he says to me. You know, I was wondering when if you would ever pay me that $500 you owed me.

And I said, what? And he said, yeah, you voted me 500, you know, and I was just startled, you know, and, and I said, well, you know, I'd like to pay you some interest. And you said, well, you could pay me a little interest. That'd be all right, you know, simple interest, whatever. And so, you know, Long story short, I pay it off. But the point of that was my ego. That is never my friend. This, you know, my rational mind without God involved had had served up a scenario where oh, the guy 3500,

if I had ever called him like 20 years praying, you know, 15 years before this, he just said you owe me 500 and I could have paid him 20 times. You see what I'm saying? But instead of doing the right thing, I listened to this. And then I pay interest on a debt that I don't even owe.

OK, Again and again and again in guilt and shame and white noise and all that jazz.

I left out a piece. Well, there's there's something, you know, we could do a weekend on, on the ninth step. We could and we can more than do a weekend on the on the family afterwards. But I want to tell you about a few more that are, that are real important to me. Some people say

OK, background on this. When I got sober in Santa Fe, the inner child was running rampant. I don't know if you've ever seen him, but he he was not my friend. What does that mean?

Yeah, well, he said we could go longer.

Bart said we could go longer, didn't he? We OK with it One. That's it. Oh, OK. Well, I got to hustle it up

a the the inner child was running rampant. Everybody had their therapist. They have crystals on the tables in a a meetings. I mean, it's just on we were the woo woo capital of America. If you didn't have a therapist, but you couldn't even share at a a practically and and you heard this kind of thing. If anyone brought up the 9th step, then the next person sharing would say, well, you know, my sponsor told me

that the step reads, except when to do so it injured them or others and I'm others and if it's going to hurt me, I don't have to make the amends.

And people go, Oh yeah, my sponsor told me that. That's right. Yep, good point, good point. That'll keep you enslaved for the rest of your life. And and then you hear things like, well, I would have gone on that 12 step call, but you know, I realized it would be codependent of me to do that because it wasn't a convenient time. So I didn't go because I don't want to be codependent, whatever the hell that means. And, and, and everybody nod and yes. And this is the atmosphere that I came into a, a,

A went to Colorado, heard immense stories, realized I've been missing the whole boat.

So anyway, that's the background on this. And that's kind of why I dragged my feet for, for, for quite a while with this. I'd heard you can't make amends to people who have died. That's not true. I mean, here, OK, I'm going to go on record. You can make amends to dead people. Okay. And I'll just quickly end with this and then give you whatever. My dad and I had a horrible time together. We, we, we never got along. We, I think I was just

AI know I was a disappointment to him. I was kind of skinny intellectual kid,

you know, he was a great big guy, had been a great athlete, World War Two vet, you know, on and on. And I was just a just a disappointment to him. I mean, as a, I was a screw up how to tell you any other way. I was just a, a screw up and I got kicked out of school and, you know, I told you I blew up the sewer and, you know, bought booze underage and went to the end of just all this, this stuff. I was always messing up somehow or another.

And

we're going to Fast forward, it's 1967 and I've been, my draft number has come up. I'm 19 years old. I'm the perfect age in the perfect year to go to Vietnam, except that I'm, you know, a revolutionary, you know, and I ain't going to Vietnam. And so I've got to go over here. Fort Hamilton and Brooklyn was my draft board. Probably a bunch of you guys were had to go to Fort Hamilton

or your older brothers did or something. And so I'm going from my induction physical and I'm having a little talk with my dad and he's probably had a few nips by then, but was he wasn't drunk And I this will I'll always remember this. And I said, you know, we're arguing about it. I'm not going to do that. You know, I'll go to Sweden, I'll go to Canada, I'll do any damn thing. And I'm yelling and we're finally yelling at each other. I say I'm not going to go fight your racist. Were you capitalist son of a

which you know, and and so anyway, on with my in in just you know, anyway, on with my life and I get out of the Vietnam thing because I've got a bum hip. You might have seen me limping around here and it's been haunting me for years. But anyway, I get a four FI don't have to go. I'm on with my life long career in drug and alcohol abuse.

My dad dies in 73. He drops dead

in Manhattan. He was alongside God. I wish we had more time. I swear.

My dad was part of the New York City Building Congress, which was all of the building industry in New York City. And he was a frustrated showman. He was a singer and dancer, had a fabulous voice. And he always, you know, that's what he would have done, but he was, he sold Caterpillar tractor. That's what he did do. That's what, you know, he had to do to make a living. But what he would have done, had he done, his heart's desire was he'd have been a showman. He would have been a musicals and stuff and

the Congress had a had a Christmas show every year and they had held it at the Waldorf and he was always in it. He was always in it. Then he had a heart attack he couldn't be in, but then he made a comeback and he just loved it. He lived all year for this Christmas show that he did and he was singing and dancing on stage at a place called the Lambs Club in in Manhattan where they had the final dress rehearsal. Now he's doing that. I'm up in Harlem scoring heroin at the time, so December 73, and I don't even have a telephone. I'm living

Long Island and he drops dead of a massive coronary wife singing and dancing on stage. I find out about it the next day because we didn't have a phone. Anyway, a lot of resentment towards my dad. You know, he never treated me right. No respect. Woof, woof. So we come back to, I don't know, it's a six year, seven-year sober, something like that. I think, you know, maybe five years sober, I think. And we're up in Taos, NM, and we're listening to a gal speak and

talks about how she went to see her father when he was dying of cancer. And she told him everything about what her experience of living with him as an alcoholic dad was like. And then he shared stuff with her and supposedly they had this catharsis and it was all wonderful. So I tell Mary Thayer, well, I'm going to go to my daddy's grave in Kentucky. And I'm going to do that. I'm going to, I'm going to tell him what it was like. And Mary, there's there's a silence, you know, And she says, well, that doesn't sound like amends to me, you know, and I'm thinking will screw you. I'm doing it,

you know, I know I know better than you do. So I go to my dad's grave and actually I went to visit my mother and she had broken her hip and was in the hospital. And so I, I had time on my hands and I'm, I'm at the cemetery and I start talking to my father and I start praying. And instead of this scenario I had about telling him how awful it was, I start asking for his forgiveness and telling him how absolutely sorry I am for the disappointment that I was to him. You know?

And just how I know I could have. I wished I'd been a better son and I appreciate everything he did for me and how hard he worked and this and that. It just flipped. And it wasn't in my doing. I swear it wasn't. And I'm crying and I'm praying and the guys are mowing the grass out there and I'm hugging the grave and crying and all that jazz.

And it was, it was a sweet deal. And I got up and from it, I was there about two hours and I thought, I'm clean on this deal. You know, I'm clean. Well, oftentimes there's more to the story. And in this case there was. And about 3-4 years later, I think it was Juanita and I went to the movies in Santa Fe and we saw this movie called Saving Private Ryan. If you've never seen it, it's extremely graphic stuff about World War Two. OK.

And,

and I'm looking at it and, and the end of the movie, they've got the paratroopers

in France who are like hanging there. And all of a sudden it comes to me. And my dad was a paratrooper in France.

You know, he was like 17 years old when he went into World War Two. He bribed a draft board. He had high blood pressure. He bribed a guy at a draft board to let him into World War Two, you know, so that he could fight for his country, right? And, and he's, and, and he was one of these guys that just hung there and that the German like the 5th columnist or whatever the guys got left behind, would take pot to snipers, would take pot shots at these guys, often kill them while they were hanging there, you know, and he's like 18 years old. And I get this image of my father

doing this. And my next thought is what a punk he must have thought I was. Can you imagine? This is a guy who bribed a draft board so he could fight for his country. And his oldest son is telling him, I'm not, you know, you capitalist pig and all this crap. And it just broke my heart. It killed me, just absolutely killed me.

So I went back to the grave. I had another trip back to the grave and I said, God, I am so sorry. You know, I had no idea. I was so wrapped up in me, you know, and my crap that I, I never once thought of what, what that must have been like for you and how your heart must have broken, you know, to go through that. And please forgive me, you know, and know that I wouldn't have done that, you know, had I had I known better

and and I had the power to to do better.

And, you know, I just can't tell you how sorry I am. And, and, and I got straight on it, you know, I know I was talking straight to a spirit And, and when I left that time, I was absolutely clean, OK. I mean, I was done with it. And, and I felt, and I still today, I feel like my dad is with me right now. You know,

I feel like at times he's been pulling for me. I feel like Don Prince is pulling for me. And you know, I feel like I've got an Angel in heaven or something, you know, and it's good, you know, it's, it's clean between us. I've been back to that grave. There's no pull at all. There's no hook whatsoever. That wasn't the end of the immense, though. There was a little bit more to it than that. I had,