The Edisto Roundup in Edisto, SC

With that kind of greeting, I can't hardly wait to hear what I'm going to say.

I haven't done anything yet. Let's thank some people who have done something. The committee that push this thing together, that worked hard all year to have us here tonight, Let's thank them.

And I come to these things a lot, and I'm at a roundup.

I always wondered why they called him roundups. I don't know if anybody knows. I do.

I looked it up

and in a dictionary it says a roundup is a systematic gathering up of suspects by the police.

They were right.

I want to thank the speakers. I've had the privilege of being with all of them before. Somewhere.

Bobby and I go back probably 15 years. Deb and I have been different places around the country

and and it's always a pleasure to be with them.

Larceny. I don't think there's better speaker in any program than Larcene,

and the last time I was with Sister Moore Research skirt fell off while she is talking.

You might want to come to the Sunday morning meeting.

You know, they got me staying at a place, but it's unbelievable. I got sunburned. You probably didn't notice

I got a bathroom bigger in my house down here.

I sat on the beach and everybody think, well, that's stupid. Yankee got sunburned down here.

Well, let me just raise your hand if this morning you had women rubbing stuff all over your body for you. This break your hand. Anybody else?

You know, it just makes me think in situations like this that, you know, it was better to have drank and lost than never to have drank at all.

No, I'm, I'm pretty sure what I'm going to say up here tonight. I'm

I'm not pretty sure what you're going to hear, though.

There's a story I like to tell. It's a story about a state trooper

and that state trooper, he's parked on the side of the road. He just doing what state troopers do, waiting for somebody do something wrong.

Along come this boy in a pickup truck.

The back of that pickup truck is full of Penguins.

And that state trooper, smart as they are, he knew there's something wrong with that. He pulled that boy over. He says, son, where are you going with all those Penguins in the back of that pickup truck? And so, officer, we're not going anywhere. We're just out for a ride,

he said. Boy, you can't take Penguins for a ride. What's wrong with you? You take those Penguins to the zoo, he said. Yes, Sir.

Next day, that trooper, he's in the same spot.

Here comes that boy in that pickup truck again, back at that pickup truck, still full of Penguins.

But on that day, all those Penguins got sunglasses on.

So that trooper pulled him over again.

He says, son, I thought I told you, take those Penguins to the zoo. He said, yes, Sir, I didn't. Today we're going to the beach.

My my name is Tim Tousley. I'm an alcoholic

and I approve this message.

I did not want to be an alcoholic.

My daddy was an alcoholic. He was a member of this fellowship. He got sober in 1946. He passed away in 1980 at 10 years of continuous sobriety put together at that time in his life. And what that did for me at an early age, it gave me an opportunity to see what an alcoholic was all about, to see what alcoholism was all about, and also to see what Alcoholics Anonymous was all about.

I came from a family where I had six stepfathers.

I had 13 stepmothers.

I went to over 20 schools. I never got out of the 8th grade. I left home when I was 14 years old.

I've had an opportunity in my life to spend time in boys homes, detention homes, city jails, county jails, workhouses, psych wards, treatment centers and penitentiaries.

I spent 12 years of my life either locked up somewhere or on probation or parole. I've been married three times and divorced twice.

And you know, not one of those things. I just talked about it a reason I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. Those were merely the situation that my disease of alcoholism created in my life. But on June 23rd, 1982, I woke up at the bottom. It's the bottom they talked about in a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's when you know a loneliness such as few men know.

You're at that jumping off place. You're wishing for the end. You can no longer imagine life with

or life without alcohol. And that's the bottom.

That's not a high bottom, but it's not a low bottom either. You see, that's my bottom. My bottom is the only bottom that I need to concern myself with in a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I never want to be in a position in my sobriety to sit in a room of Alcoholics, listen to a speaker speak and start thinking things like, you know, maybe I wasn't that bad

or maybe I was worse. Because as soon as I can sit out there and I can make myself believe I'm different in any way from anybody else that's sitting in a room. As soon as I can make myself believe I'm unique in any way from anybody else is sitting in a room of Alcoholics Anonymous, then I have reservations.

There was an old timer in Berea, OH, where I got sober, used to tell me all the time, he said. Tim, you know, if you got reservations, son, you must be going somewhere, huh?

I don't want to go anywhere today. I like it here.

At my first drink at 13, I got sick. I blacked out, I passed out. I woke up in a backyard of a lady's house in Rocky River, OH.

I had my last drink at 30. I got sick, I blacked out, I passed out, and I woke up at home in bed. 17 years of use and abuse. The only difference in 17 years was where I woke up the next morning. Most of the days were pretty much the same. But I know one thing for sure today. I know God wants me in Alcoholics Anonymous.

See that woman came out of her back door. She found me laying in her backyard. She took me inside. She cleaned me up. She laid me down,

found out who I was, called my mom and let my Mama know I was OK.

17 years later I came in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I sober about two weeks. I went to a meeting. That Lady was speaking at the meeting

my my very first drunk. I found myself in the arms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she did for me that night what she knew how to do.

The people at her Home group told her to help a drunk, and that's what she did. When she found me in her backyard, she was sober 3060 days, something like that, and all she knew how to do was help a drunk. That's what they told her. Help a drunk. They didn't tell her,

only help the young drunks or the old drunks. The black drunks are the white drunks. The male drunks are the female drunks. They told her to help a drunk, period, and that's what she did that night. Do you know, I still see that woman at meetings today. She's over 80 years old and 40 years sober, and you know what she's doing? She's helping drunks, man. There's two things I ran from most of my life. I got a lot of them today. Still. I'm not real crazy about them, but I got a lot of them. I don't run from them today. I deal with them.

Those two things are responsibility and authority.

I don't like being responsible. Huh.

A lot of responsibility of being responsible,

and I don't like people telling me I'm supposed to be responsible. Seem like in my life there was always somebody had an idea about Tim's life, how long my hair was supposed to be outside, my jeans were supposed to be. I had heels on, my boots were supposed to be smoked. Don't smoke, drink, don't drink, come home, don't come home. Everybody had an idea about Tim's life. No one asked me,

14 years old, I met a family gathering and I'm listening to people talk and I heard somebody say this. They said my daddy, my real daddy, was in New Orleans

and he was sober. And with that information, I left home the next day because I knew what my problem was. It wasn't what I was doing or who I was doing it with. I didn't have my real father in my life. If I could get my real father in my life, everything would be OK. And I made my way to New Orleans. I contacted Alcoholics Anonymous. They contacted my daddy and they put us together

and all of a sudden I had a father and he had a son

and we tried to be those two things, but neither one of us ever been either of those two things before. We did the best we could. We just didn't know what he's doing

and we tried for about 3 months and then my daddy started drinking again and I learned something.

She used to come home drunk, pass out in my mother's living room with 13 or 14 years old, and next morning she'd scream at me,

son, don't drink, please don't drink. You'll get what your father has. I never saw what she was trying to keep me from getting until I watched my daddy drink. And I watched him get drunk and I watched him go into the D TS. And I watched the people from Alcoholics Anonymous come into our little house and take him away and put him in Bridge House in New Orleans. And I made a decision on that day, I'm not going to be an alcoholic. I'm not going to end up like my daddy ended up

and I didn't have another drink for the next four years.

I can do much anything for the next four years.

I just hitchhiked all over this country. If I didn't like it in New Orleans, I went to Los Angeles. I didn't like Los Angeles, I went to Dallas. I didn't like Dallas, I went to Miami. I just hitchhiked for four years because all of a sudden there I was.

I got no responsibility, I've got no authority, got the rest of my life to do whatever it is I think I want to do. I'm in a city of New Orleans and it's 1966.

I guess I was a hippie,

at least that's what folks called me, unless I was like in northern Alabama or West TX or something. There's another word in front of hippie they always use.

But I had four good years. My expectations were met. If I had a pack of cigarettes, a sleeping bag, and something to eat on that day, it was a good day.

Now, a big book tells me that my expectations are inversely proportional to my serenity level. And I don't know about you, but I do know about me. And I can tell you this about me. If I get exactly, I mean exactly what I think I'm supposed to have exactly

when I think I'm supposed to have it, I'm a pretty happy guy.

But as soon as I don't, my expectations aren't met. My serenity level goes down.

All of a sudden, I don't want to play anymore. I don't like what I'm doing anymore. All of a sudden, I want to go home. I want to settle down. I want some of the stuff I'm seeing on the other side of the freeway. People in their backyard, they're playing. They're playing with their kids or mowing the grass or painting the garage. I want some of the stuff from the Billboard. You know, the billboards that tell us if we drive this kind of car, we're OK. We live in that kind of neighborhood, we're OK. If we wear these kind of clothes, we're OK. All of a sudden I thought I wanted some of that stuff because if I had the stuff, you'd see me with it. I know you read the billboards too. You knew if I had it,

you'd know I was OK because the billboards told you you'd have to be OK. If you had it, you'd tell me I was OK

because I could never tell myself.

I'm outside Salt Lake City. I'm with a buddy of mine and we're coming home. I just don't want to do this anymore.

We got dropped off up in the mountains in the middle of Utah. There's nothing at this off ramp, No gas station, no convenience store, no houses, no nothing. This is a road that goes up into the mountains in the middle of Utah somewhere, and that's where we got dropped off. We slept there that night, woke up the next morning about froze to death. It's cold in the mountains in the morning,

so we walked down the on ramp. Start hitchhiking home

at the bottom of that. On ramp in the middle of Utah, in the middle of the mountains, at 6:00 in the morning, all by itself, sits A6 pack of Olympia beer.

I know God wants me in Alcoholics Anonymous.

That was my next drink. I drank 3 beers. He drank 3 beers. I told him you know if I ever get home alive, I'm settling down. I want to marry the 1st girl I see.

That's the American dream. You got to have a girl.

I got back on my stepfather. Wasn't home size allowed in the house?

I changed my clothes, I took a shower, borrowed my mother's car, drove to the corner to pick up a pack of cigarettes, picked the young lady up a checking, and we got married.

A winning a married that day.

But we might have.

But in the state of Ohio, the male had to be 21 who have parental consent and female had to be 18 who have parental consent. And when I married my first wife, I was 18 and she was 15.

And this was not a marriage that was made in heaven.

This was a it was a simple marriage.

I can't tell you today if I loved her. I really can't.

But I can tell you this,

that I live in the band, my brother's van in a driveway of his parent, my parents home. She lives wherever she can

because she just don't want to go home. And it brought us together and we weren't alone anymore. And just not being alone was enough for us to get married at that time in our lives, Just not being alone.

And it was a simple marriage. I got up in the morning. I got drunk.

She got out in the morning, she got drunk,

then we beat each other up.

And we did that one day at a time

for about seven years.

But I had seven years. I was away a lot. I traveled a lot. I like to travel

it. Just then I was traveling different places and other people were deciding where I was traveling to.

Funniest thing I'd walk into a room like this, there'd be a guy sitting in the front of the room and you have a long black coat on.

And every time he did this,

I went somewhere.

I just always in trouble, man. I had a bad attitude

as a child in the 60s. I I just had a horrible attitude. I got a report card home from 3rd grade. Y'all remember your report card? You got to take them home. Teacher would snitch on you on the back. You'd have to give it to your mom and have your mom signing. My third grade report card says this bad attitude says Timothy does not play well with others.

I'm 8 years old. I haven't had a drink yet, but they know I got a problem.

I was just always in trouble. I got arrested. Seemed like for 12 years of my life, I really only did two things. I got ready to go to jail and I got ready to come home from being in jail. I wasn't a violent criminal. I was stupid criminal.

I got arrested for stupid stuff. You know, I got arrested for stuff like verbal abuse of a police officer

that was in a little town called Parma. OH,

I got arrested for obscene finger language to a police officer,

and that was in Parma. OH,

if y'all ain't never been to Parma. OH, I'm going to tell you this about Parma. OH, they got no sense of humor?

Farm, Ohio.

I was at a meeting one night. I was about two years sober and I don't know anybody else. I was two years sober. I was pretty close to the smartest person and Alcoholics Anonymous

and I got to a meeting. I made sure y'all knew just how smart I was and how much I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous.

But as at a meeting about two years sober and I was a speaker talking an old friend of mine, he was an old timer and he was just one of those guys. He I just like being by him. He didn't even have to be talking to me. I just wanted to be by him and listen to what he was saying. He had a past a lot like mine, only was like 30 years before mine. You know, he was in jail with all my heroes, Machine Gun Kelly and, you know, all those guys. You know,

I always thought I'd be the next Al Capone. I didn't wind up being anything but alcoholic.

And you know how you go to a meeting and you hear somebody say something, You know, you've heard him say that exact thing 50 Times Now. It makes sense right now. It makes sense. Vic was speaking that night and and he stood up here and I'd heard Vic 50 times anyway and he was tanning up here and he said I've been arrested 63 times.

I wasn't a good criminal man. I picked right up on it. I know I've been charged with 63 crimes.

I wasn't a good criminal. People that did what I didn't get caught as often as I got caught weren't real good at what there's doing.

You know what? I was good at getting caught.

Now, in that verbal abuse case of a police officer in Parma, I learned something.

I learned something else. You see, I decided to represent myself in that case.

So funny,

I know. I saw enough Jared for the defense. Perry Mason, I can handle this. And I went to court and I called witnesses and I cross examined witnesses. I gave my final arguments to the judge. Y'all know what I found out? I'm not a very good attorney either, man.

That's just the way my life was going.

1975 I sit in front of a judge in that old lakeside courthouse in downtown Cleveland. He sentenced me to 20 to 40 years in the penitentiary

and I took a big sigh of relief that day. I felt good that day. I felt better than I had in a long time that day because I knew something.

I can hear my wife and my mother in the back of the courtroom. They're crying.

They don't think I should go away, and they certainly don't think I should go away for that long. But they don't know what I know.

See, I know this, that they can't send me anywhere.

It's going to hurt me as much as I've already hurt me. And I knew it on that day

that judge had no idea that there was number way on earth for him to punish me as much as I punish me. And I was ready to just go anywhere where I might have a better chance against myself. Now in 1976, the laws in Ohio changed. My sentence changed, went from a 20 to 40 to a one to 10. And three years later they sent me home. When I came home, all my stuff was gone. All the stuff I had to have to prove I was part of this society to you so you know I was OK was gone.

My wife was gone, my car was gone, my motorcycle was gone, my clothes were gone, my jewelry was gone. Everything was gone

and that just left me

and I didn't do anything for the next 30 or 40 days. But drink. I crawled into a bottle. I got his blacked out, passed out as many times that day as I needed to. I crawled into that bottle. But not once in my life have I ever crawled into a bottle of alcohol to hide from you. I have never crawled into a bottle of alcohol to hide from them. I got as drunk as I could, blacked out as I could, passed out as I could, as many times that day as I needed to. I crawled into that bottle

to hide from me.

You see, I knew what I was.

I was an ex-con, I was an ex-husband, I was an ex brother and I was an ex son and I failed that. Everyone of those things,

but if I was drunk enough I didn't have to look.

Finally a friend of mine came over and just one go let me stay there anymore. Almost physically took me out of my house,

he said. I'm not gonna let you sit in that chair and drink yourself to death. You're out of jail. It's time to start living again. You're coming with me. And he took me down to the flats in Cleveland.

This is a long time ago. This is before they ruined the flats in Cleveland. What Bobby say Thursday night? They yuppied it all up. You know,

used to be a place where you went to get drunk. You rode your motorcycle down there and you went down there to get drunk. You didn't go down there to have dinner. You didn't go down there with your boat. You certainly didn't go down there to drink anything

from something called a micro brewery, for Christ's sake.

You drank Jim Beam bourbon and past Blue Ribbon beer and you got drunk and that's what you did in the flat. All the bar room floors were flooded. I'm not sure with what,

I got an idea, but And we walked into a little bar called the Pirates Coast.

My cousin's band was playing that night. They're playing a Marshall Tucker song. I'm drinking past Blue Ribbon Beer. I'm about half in the bag and this Pretty Little girl walked past me and she smiled at me,

you know? I smiled right back at her.

I was in jail a long time.

And that was her.

That was my future ex-wife.

That heretofore shall be known as the plaintiff.

That's who that was.

Let me tell you about my second wife, because she has some stuff with her. When she came, she came into my home and she has some stuff. I'm sure I must have had it some point in my life. I just don't know where it went. She brought things with her like purity, she brought honesty, she brought love, and she brought unselfishness. These are the things she had when she came and four years later she left

and all she had to take with her was a disease of alcoholism. It stripped every decent thing she had.

I'm not the only one. I hurt when I pick up a drink. And I know that today I touch a lot of lives. I tried for a couple years. I had a decent parole officer. He didn't bother me too much. He's more interested in playing on my Doberman and wondering what I was doing. And I and I got a job and I was moving up in the company and I went to their little trade schools to learn more. And I never missed a day and I never called in sick. And I worked any overtime they wanted me to for two years.

Two years I worked you paying attention to me.

Two years

after doing that for two years working that hard, I'm sitting in my living room one night, drunk, surveying my dynasty. Huh.

You know, after two years, I don't have a house on the lake.

There's not to Lincoln sitting in my driveway. I'm not wearing the right kind of clothes, don't belong to the right kind of clothes, and I'm certainly not running around with the right kind of people. So I came to a conclusion,

if those things are for other people,

no matter what I did, I was just never supposed to have many weight. Just didn't make any difference what I did. So I got up the next morning, called my boss and quit my job. So there was really no reason to work that hard if I was never going to have them things anyway.

In the last two years of my drinking aren't too exciting. I got up, I got drunk, I got up again, I got drunk again that day. It's just what I did. My wife lasted for a couple years and then she had to go.

She did the best she could, but then she had to go.

The end of my drinkings like this. I got a Doberman at this time in my life.

I got a dumb Doberman at this time in my life.

I said that at a meeting once in Cleveland. A guy came up to me after the meeting. He said Dumb Doberman is redundant.

You know, I went home, looked up, redundant,

and he's right.

See, I'd come home and I'd get that dog and I take that dog out in the yard, tie him to the tree, and about 20 minutes later I go back out and get the dog. As soon as he walked in the house, he peed on the floor.

I

I don't know what he thought I put him on that tree for. He probably stood out there the whole time wondering that himself.

I came home one night in a blackout

and I got up the next morning. I called my wife just like I did every morning, see if she left me any wine money or cigarette money laying around a house and she was frantic that morning. She said, where's the dog? I said dogs laying next to the bed, right where he always is. What's wrong? She goes, the dog was going to hurt you last night. Dog was mad. The dog was showing his teeth. I was really afraid.

That's what do you mean That's some that dogs best friend. That dog wouldn't hurt me. I said. What happened?

Well, apparently I came home that night in a blackout and I walked into the bedroom and I peed on the bedroom floor.

You know that dogs probably thinking that dirty SOB kicked my ass 100 times for doing that. You know,

even my dogs got a resentment, man, you know?

You know those family gatherings we have,

Maybe it's Christmas or Easter, Thanksgiving. Whatever it is, we'll all go somewhere. We'll sit at a table, we'll hold hands with our family and say grace. We'll share a meal with each other and then afterwards we'll sit around and we'll share what's going on in each other's lives. This is what happens at my house. I pull into my parents driveway and I blow the horn.

When they hear the horn inside, my little brother will come out of the back door. He'll have a paper plate in his hand and it'll be wrapped in tin foil

and he'll hand me my holiday meal and I'm permitted to sit in my car and eat my holiday meal off a paper plate with a plastic knife and a plastic fork.

I can't sit at their table. I can't have a real knife and fork or a napkin. I can't hold their hands and say grace, and they certainly don't want me to share anything with them that is going on in my life.

But I don't want you to think they stopped loving me. Not even this much did their love diminish for me at that time in my life. They simply realized that every time they reached down and stopped me from hitting my bottom, every time they allowed me not to be responsible for my own actions, they were killing me.

See, my parents loved me so much

they let me go.

I don't have any children.

I can only imagine how much love that must take.

June 23rd, 1982, I woke up at that bottom I told you about and I didn't know what to do. When I didn't know what to do in my life, I always did the same thing. I made a phone call. It's always to the same person. I don't know if I made it a hundred, 1000 or 10,000 times, but it's always the same call. It was mom help.

My mom came. I couldn't go to her, but she'd come to me. She walked into my little house. I'm kneeling on the living room floor.

I'm crying uncontrollably. I'm shaking apart. I have hepatitis and I weigh 112 lbs

and the first words out of my mother's mouth were I'll kill her for doing this to you. Alcoholism. This is a family disease. Blaming others is a big part of this disease, and my mother has it, too.

We made some phone calls and I found myself in an emergency room. I got a doctor playing with my liver. He said, son, you got alcohol problem. I saw. No, Sir, not me. I'm vibrating on the table,

not me, and we're arguing back and forth. He said, son, you got alcohol problem. And I just, I told you all before I didn't want to be an alcoholic and I told him I'd be whatever he wanted me to be, but I'm just not going to be an alcoholic. He said I don't care what you want to be or don't want to be, call yourself or don't want to call yourself. You don't stop drinking. You're going to die.

And I heard him say that,

and he sent me to a psych ward on the east side of Cleveland.

I spent 10 days in that psych ward, three days in restraints. I'm powerless over alcohol. My life had become unmanageable. That sounded a little bit like step one, didn't it? Just a little bit.

They got me in restraints, just straps, not four point restraints or anything. I tried to hurt myself the night before and I think they're just going to make it a little hard on me. If I thought I wanted to go somewhere. I got a psychiatrist in my psych ward.

I got the happiest psychiatrist on earth

in my psych war and he comes to visit me every morning. Happy Tim, how you doing? Good to see you. Isn't it a wonderful day, Huh?

Now I don't know about the rest, y'all? 6:00 in the morning in a psych ward on the east side of Cleveland, tied to a bed.

I'm not real spiritual man, you know.

I told him what I thought and he just did what psychiatrists do. Y'all know what they do right?

They write in our charts, they nod their heads So what they do and they go away. Then they make you take that test. You ever take that test? Man? I'd like to have a nickel for every time I took the test.

Every time I went somewhere, they made me take that test. The MMPI test got 600 questions on it. Man, you know there's only one question on MMPI test I can't answer. It's my favorite question on the whole test.

It says do you urinate more than most people?

I don't know.

I'm the one supposed to be crazy right

now. In the third day, that psychiatrist came into my room. He undid the straps. I ever want to forget this day. He sat on the edge of my bed. He put his chart in the window sill.

He said. Tim, I can't make your wife come home.

I don't have a job to give you. I'm not going to make a house payment for you. But if you never

want to take another drink as long as you live, I can tell you how to do that one day at a time.

You see, this psychiatrist was recovering member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I know God wants me here. And he sat on the edge of my bed and he shared a little bit of his story with me. Then I shared a little bit of my story with him. And all of a sudden, it was no longer I'm powerless over alcohol that my life had become unmanageable. All of a sudden, it became we. We

admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives

had become unmanageable. And that's step one.

And I know without the we, I don't have a chance, man. Seven days later, he sent me home. He gave my prescription. I think it's most valuable thing anybody's ever given me. Give me a meeting schedule to Alcoholics Anonymous,

he said. When you get home, I want you to do 2 things. I want you to go to a meeting and I want you to get a sponsor.

And I got home and I didn't know what to do.

I told you all what I do and I don't know what to do. I called my momma

mom, I got to go to a a meeting. She said, well, I'll come get you.

See, my mom knows all about Alcoholics Anonymous. She went to meetings with my daddy in the 40s and 50s. There's been a big book in my house as long as I can remember, and

she took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was July 4th and it was 1982. She dropped me at your doorstep. She left me with some advice I want to share with you. She said I'm not coming back to get you. You go to the front table, you tell the people at the front table you're new, you don't have a car, you don't have a driver's license. You need a ride home and you stay away from the women in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I paid attention to just about half

my momma's advice. But I got a sponsor that night.

He gave me stuff to do that night. His wife was a chairperson. She came up, asked me if I'd read the traditions. I backed up. So I don't know, honey, you know, they just took the straps off me. You might want to find somebody else to do that.

And my sponsor just looked at me. You know how they look at you,

he said. Here's your first lesson in Alcoholics Anonymous, Tim, You never say no to a A, no matter what the request is. The answer is yes. That's all you're going to need to know about that. Then, he said, if you sat in a chair, you put it away. If you had a coffee cup, you throw it away. If you do it in an ashtray, you empty it,

he said. I want you to read one page of the big book every day. Don't turn the page until tomorrow. Read that page as many times that day as you think you want to or need to. Do not turn the page until tomorrow

and maybe, just maybe in 164 days, you might know something about the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You said if you're not praying, this is the way you're going to start.

They're going to use 3 words your mother taught you when you were a little boy.

You're going to get up in the morning and you're going to kneel down and you're going to say please.

You're going to go about your Dan at the end of that day when you haven't had a drink, you're going to kneel back down and you're going to say thank you,

please and thank you.

You know, my Mama did teach me those words when I was a little boy. Do you know what she called him? Magic words.

Whenever I wanted anything, she'd say, What's the magic word to me?

I had no idea how much magic those words held till I came here to you.

My sponsor asked me that question. You know, I'm a firm believer in this. Newcomers come in here, we tell there's no such thing as a stupid question. Then we ask them ten stupid questions.

My sponsor and he asked me that question. I know your sponsor asked you, he said.

Do you want what I have?

I don't know, man. What do you got?

Do I want what you have?

I had no idea what he was trying to give me. All I know is my first sponsor. Sponsor had a brand new tornado war Rolex watch at a stewardess for a wife. Had the prettiest green eyes I ever saw in my life.

I want what you got.

What page is that on pal? Huh.

That's what I want to know.

I had no idea what he was trying to give me.

You know, when I knew what it was, what he wanted me to have

was the first time I gave it away.

That's all he wanted.

He wanted that feeling of uselessness and self pity to leave.

That's all they wanted for me. And I didn't know what he was trying to ask me because when I came here I did not want what you had. And I don't think it's the newcomers responsibility to want anything to come through that door. That's not his responsibility. But it is my responsibility as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous to have something for him when he gets here, something attractive.

Because all I knew for sure when I got here, I didn't want what you had. But what I knew for sure is I didn't want what I had either. That I knew for sure,

I came to believe by watching you that my life could change if I do what you do. And that's what I did. Then I knelt down with my sponsor and I said a third step prayer. I like the third step, Wasn't crazy about third step prayer for a long time, argued with them about it all the time. So I don't know about anybody else. First time you looked at the third step and read the third step prayer, you know what went through my mind first?

What if it works?

Then what?

I don't know what that means. You know you're going to tell me what's coming next before I kneel down with you. And he gave me something, he said if you have one, you'll understand the third step. And I always have one with me.

That's a penny.

It's a special penny. It's pennies from 1918.

I see where my Mama was born,

and if you look at the back of that penny,

you're going to see the link memorial and it's going to say 1 cent.

But you know what happens as soon as you turn it over

on the front of the penny, it says in God we trust. That's the third step steps not about God's will, it's about my will. And am I willing to trust God with it. I can tell you that today I am. And once I can do that, there's another word down that penny a little ways that words liberty. And that's the freedom I can have if I can just trust God a day at a time.

I started on that four step, but that's not one you want to start right into, right?

You gotta take your time with that four step, man. You really do

'cause you gotta read all them books. If we ain't got nothing in Alcoholics Anonymous, man, we got books, don't we? We got blue books. We got blue and blue books, little blue books, little red books, little green books. We got books, We got lists, we got guides, we got experts. Now in Alcoholics Anonymous and you got to read all them books. Talk to every old timer in the world. Well, you're going to mess four step up, aren't you? Nope, It's only one way to do the 4th step wrong.