The 48th Annual Big Deep South Convention in New Orleans, LA

There's the speaker. Well, the speaker and I met each other for the first time

5:00 today. We've spoken on the phone a few times and kind of felt each other out. And he got to know I was know I was a great guy and I got to know he was kind of a country twang from somewhere in Lardy, Florida. And, you know, we have a lot in common as it relates to alcoholism. And, you know, it seems like we two people who maybe wouldn't mesh that, you know, after talking to him a little bit, we we seem to have a a good connection.

Now. It doesn't seem like we're from the same country when we talk. OK, when you comes up here and he gives his spiel and you hear me give my spiel, it's like we're from two different planets. But John has been sober, as I just found out, since 2003 and never has gone back, which pretty good thing. So with that, I'm going to give you Johnny Tatum.

How y'all doing?

I'm an alcoholic. My name is Johnny Tatum.

My Home group is the Loyalty Primary Purpose Group downtown Laudy, Florida. Now all y'all know where that's at.

We got a red light.

We're proud of that red light.

We stopped to look at it when they put it in.

We got one meeting a week. You can't miss it came this.

My sobriety dates February 14, 2003. I have a sponsor or like we'd like to say I have a spiritual advisor. His name is Big Daddy Tom K Big Daddy Tom K got sober in Portsmouth, OH. His spiritual advisor was an old guy named Red Red Run, a sawmill Red Spiritual advisor was a guy named Chuck H Chuck H spiritual advisor was a guy named Don. Don spiritual advisor was a guy named Doctor Bob.

And that's the that's the way I was taught down that way.

I got sober in Gainesville, FL,

home of the Fighting Gators.

See, I got booed just like

all right, man, it's great to be here. What a wonderful event. And I walked around and talked to people and, and the people were so friendly and ain't it so dog gone. Nice to speak somewhere where I don't need an interpreter.

I was speaking in a northern city and I'd say something and they say say that again.

And I looked at the old boy that was with me, and I said they don't speak English.

He said, no, Johnny, not the same English you speak,

but it's hey, and I'm telling you, everybody is so friendly and so nice. And I will tell you right now to put something on like this is a lot of work and a lot of effort. So let's really be grateful and thankful for these people who are out here. They're out here early in the morning. They've been planning this, Vermont. They've been taking care of this and taking care of that.

The real great, let me tell you, folks like us, we got, we get to stand up here for an hour and talk to you. But the real heroes of Alcoholics Anonymous generally never take the stage. They're the ones out there who do the doggone work quietly, silently, and just just keep on doing it. And they're my heroes. They're the ones that really, really make anything possible for any one of us,

and it was a great team that did this. Now I don't know what Billy did to get stuck with me.

I guess he made somebody mad

and they assigned him to me. Well, it's worked out so far, so far and been able to meet some of our speakers tomorrow night and Sunday. And I'm tell you, the wonderful, wonderful men of recovery, you've got to be here. You've got to be here. I mean, leave now, come back tomorrow, OK, And come back Sunday because these men are are giants of recovery giants.

And my beautiful wife of 33 years. Hold your hand up girl. There she is,

now you hold that hand up that's got that wedding ring on it because I want everyone of you jokers out here to know she. You see this ring I got on right here? That means I belong to her. Okay?

And none of you jokers out here get any idea about anything else, especially you. Chuck, I see you. I'm watching you right there.

33 years. Only thing I know she was the prettiest girl who would pay me any attention. And yet I ain't leaving. If she leaves, I'm going with her. All right. My son, he decided not to chase cows around a pasture. And he come over here with us. He'd been in never been in New Orleans and his in his wife.

And so it's nice, it's been nice to drive out here, nice to meet these people. And how wonderful is it? And got to Eureka Spring bunch over there,

beautiful event. If you've never been there, Spring Tom and Ozarks. It's a wonderful town, wonderful place. Everybody but Chuck is just wonderful there.

God, and I want to thank everybody for letting me be here. Well, wait a minute. Y'all wait till I'm through before y'all thank anybody. It might not be that dadgum good. All right. I was. I'm a native Floridian. My family has been in the state of Florida since 1830s. All right, the part of Florida. I live in North Florida. We got one high school, OK, Everybody knows everybody. I think the population of the whole county is like 24,000 people. The county beside us got about 16,000 people in it. You know, it's just

to agricultural area. It's in the pine belt. I run a sawmill. My family's been in the lumber business many generations. My granddaddy ran a sawmill and he worked with his granddaddy at a sawmill who worked with his granddaddy at a sawmill.

It's not that we're such great saw Miller. So we're really dumb. We figured out this one thing and we're sticking with it. OK.

But, you know, working at a sawmill is all we've ever done. And so when I came in here and I was told that Alcoholics Anonymous deals with alcohol,

I was OK with that.

I'm OK with our traditions. I love our traditions. A lot of people want to change that, think we need to be a little bit more inclusive. Ah, ah, there's one thing that need to change it in here. What in our traditions? It was me, all right? And I learned that early on.

I grew up in that town, you know, and family business, sawmill and sawmill

work comes first.

When I come home from school, I was expected to throw my books down and go to the sawmill.

If I had time to do lessons afterwards, well, that was OK, but you was going to work first and you didn't want the old man to come looking for you 'cause you didn't come to the meal. Quicken up after school. Now, I'm not telling you I was in love with that. I'm just telling you that's the way it was, OK? That's why I kind of get tickled about this suggestion part of the program.

It's only a suggestion.

Well, when I was 16, I got my driver's license, had me an F-150 pickup truck with a step side on it and I headed to town. My daddy looked at me, said boy I suggest your butt be in here by 12.

Well for the first few months I followed his suggestions. Then came one night I decided not to follow his suggestion and when I came in y'all it was not a purty sight.

See, when they say it's a suggestion, what we mean You don't have to follow it

if you're willing to pay the price.

I paid a heck of a price that night. My old man's tough old man. I came in on time next week.

So when I know what they talked about suggestions, how they meant it not no soft way, a life or death way, a life

for death way. And I grew up in you know, that's a great community where I live at y'all. It's just a wonderful place, wonderful people, like a lot like in here. Just you couldn't ask for a better neighborhood. Well, there was no neighborhood. I never had a neighbor. My I had some cousins that live close to me, my grandma and them they live close to me and everything like that. But it was a wonderful place to grow up and you know, it's just it was just a good childhood. I'm not one of these who's going to sit up here and tell you, Oh, I had it

bad and everything like that, and I felt so different. Heck, I've been a father of two kids. What kid doesn't feel different? We Alcoholics want to capture it like we're the only ones who felt different growing up. It just ain't true, y'all. All of us go through this uncomfortable spot of life. We're not the only ones to do it, OK?

So I can't blame my drinking on that. It's something everybody goes through.

It was that that sawmill. I had my first bus. I don't know if it was my first drink or not. I can't really remember, but I remember it's my first buzz. My cousin Jimmy came over from Palacas, a neighboring town about 60 miles away. And his father also was in the sawmill business. And they would come over on weekends and my dad and his dad would exchange parts and talk sawmill and everything. And Jimmy looked at me one day. He looked at me and my brother said you want to drink some beer? And I said sure, but I ain't got none.

He had a plan on the Northside of the sawmill there was a couple houses, two or three houses at some of the mill hands lived in and this was the plan. He says Johnny, me and your brother is going to walk to the front door and knock on the door. You look through the back door and when the guy walks to the front you slip in the back and steal the beer. Baby. It went off like clockwork. I remember to this day Sam walking through the front. I slipped in the back. I sold a six pack of tall boy Budweisers

behind a sawdust pile. We went

and my cousin looked at me and my brother and said for this to work, you got to just down these two beers real quick, Johnny, just turn them up and just down them. So I remember to Disabia behind that sawdust powered my cousin and my brother and I turned him too tall boy Budweiser's up and I just downed them.

Woo. Now I can't really tell y'all why I drank like that that first time. Maybe it was curiosity, peer pressure, wanting to fit in. I don't know why I did it that first time, but I can daggum sure tell y'all why I did it the second time. I love the effect of the first time and that's why I drank. I drank for the buzz. Man. It's time we get honest about this stuff. I love to party

all right,

and that's how I got started drinking and most everyone of y'all did too. It was about the doggone party and the buzz gave me anything that made me feel single or C double I would take.

And you know, growing up in a rural community, agricultural community like that, it's hard when you're young to get anything to drink. You got to have a plan and I was always knowing I was kind of connected you what I'm talking about. They was always making all kinds of home brew around me in them woods. They was making elderberry wine. Y'all ever drank elderberry wine? All right,

she has to. Elderberry wine is like MD 2020 on steroids, All right? And it's hard to tell your daddy you ain't been drinking elderberry wine when your lips is purple, your hands is purple, your tongue's purple air, and it's it has a distinct odor all of its own. They were making strawberry wine. They grow a lot of strawberries around where I'm from. Strawberry wine, a lot of sugar cane whiskey. I don't know if y'all ever drank sugar cane whiskey. It tastes just like corn whiskey. You drank it, huh? Taste just like corn whiskey until you pulled up. Bottle away.

Whoop, baby doll. You can taste a sugar cane all right. A lot of sugar cane grown down where I'm from in Florida Way. So I had a plan. And we was always riding those flatwoods around Bradford County, you know, boys out riding trucks. And I learned if I'd aggravate them young, older boys enough, they'd give me a beer to shut me up. Well, naturally, I became a very aggravated youngin, OK?

And you know what? Those guys were not trying to hurt me or harm me in any way.

Matter of fact, as I look back in my life, I was training them how to accept my drinking. Now, if you look back in your own life, didn't you train people to accept what you were doing? It got to the point the time I was 12 or 13, I walked to the cooler and get what I wanted. It was perfectly normal behavior. Perfectly normal behavior.

Well, I've never gotten a lot of trouble drinking, never gotten a lot of. Well when I was 19 I got a DWI possession, concealed weapon and loose a speed charge. I bought this Trans Am and I thought I was Burt Reynolds.

I still got that Trans Am and I was driving a little fast and I passed the county cop and they radioed ahead and they took me to jail. And I really weren't that upset about it. I kind of deserved it, you know what I mean? I wasn't mad. Heck, I was. I was guilty. I remember laying in that jail that night and I made a vow I would never drink and drive again. I was done.

Never. A week later I was drunk, got in another wreck.

So at early age, forever was one week.

We all had our forever limits.

Not awake.

Ah, I quit college and at 19 and I bought into the family business. You know, I always knew I was going to sawmill. That's all I've ever done. That's all I've ever done is work out of sawmill and chase cows around a pasture. So I knew that's what I was going to be doing. And the 21 I got married. I married that little girl from Keystone. She's still back there.

Yeah. And the only thing I can see wrong with her, she was Baptist.

You know, Baptists don't drink. They don't dance either. Well, they can dance now if you keep one foot on the ground. All right,

She's non alcoholic. Boy, She didn't know what she was getting into. All right. Now, when I was 26, I had my I had my first kid, a little girl, a little girl, a little 6 LB, nine ounce girl. And I'm telling you, I love that little girl and I love being a dad. I did. I mean, she came out smiling and she was the most beautiful.

I couldn't. I can't tell you what it's like.

Some of us are experiencing it right now.

And and then when I was 28, I have my son Jack. Now there's a doggone lie going around Bradford County that I named him after Bottle Jack Daniels

as a dog gone. Why? All right, Jack means son of John. OK. And and I love being Jacks dad and I love being married and but my drinking is getting a little worse and a little worse and a little worse.

Some of us are a fast sinking ship.

Some of us are a slow sinking ship.

Now, what got us all in here is the ship was sunk,

no matter what age it was. And it happened, baby. All right,

well,

I was 29 years old. 28 years old, built my own home,

I was doing fairly decent in the lumber business. We had about 10 employees, was making a living and the sawmill I run a Yanks American, a 20 planar mill. You all know what that is.

I can tell everybody's on on board with me. Yeah. So I'm, I'm the guy who makes the lumber smooth. OK. If you wonder why I smooth the skies like me, OK. And I built my own home And and and I had I had this this little boy and this little girl and his beautiful wife and a good job. By all means. I got the perfect little redneck family.

And I do. I'm going to tell you all right now, I have lived in two houses, my mom and daddy's house in my house, OK? I get mail at the same mailbox I've been for 54 years, OK? I still got the first new bicycle I bought, the first new car I bought, and the first Harley-Davidson I ever bought. I still got it. And I still got the 1st girl I was ever married to too.

Y'all gone right? Y'all tell? I'm a little touchy about that subject. Can't you?

But you know, through all of that, my drinking was increasing. It was increasing when I graduated high school in 1979 and when I graduated Bradford County High School, reading and writing was not a requirement. If you show up, they'll graduate you matter of fact, a lot of us graduated what we called AG replacement. If you worked on the farm or worked in the log woods or did like that, they would give you a diploma. It's the same thing as attending school. And I was able to graduate pretty good like that and entered into the business and and was

a lot wasn't expected of you in Bradford County, but one dog on thing to work.

I was raised in one of these communities that judged you by one way.

It wasn't what your last name. It wasn't your religion, your race, your color, your greed. They judged you one way

work, and if you didn't work, they called you assault. And when I first came in Alcoholics Anonymous and I opened that big book and read Bill a story where he said he was to join this endless possession of Sots that had gone before. And I knew exactly what he was talking about.

I'd heard that word. I knew what it meant

and I was afraid I was one of them.

Well, when I was a writer, I graduated, I bought my first Harley-Davidson. And I tell you, I love riding in my Harley Davidsons. And I got to study Indian Harley-Davidson so much. I would spend hours just studying this one I've owned. I think we counted 22 different Harley Davidsons I bought or built through my lifetime. And I would study on this and go to places and look and I would use and I didn't use so much about it and I would use that to go to places like motorcycle shows. And I look and I say that ain't the original part on that,

that don't fit on there. And I would use that knowledge to rip you to shreds. I'd build myself esteem at your expense.

That's the way I was. That's where I was. And then, you know, I kind of got burnt out on the motorcycle stuff and I decided what I needed was a boat.

I know that sounds silly, a redneck idiot like me on a doggone boat. All right. And you can't buy any boat. You gotta go get your dog on good boat. So I bought me this Egg Harbor sport fisherman. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's a beautiful classic. It's like owning a 57 Chevy. And I put it at the at the Marina and Saint Augustine. I live about an hour and a half from Saint Augustine.

And I'm telling you boys, I look good on that boat.

Let me give you all my boat look

and you know when you show up with that boat and and and a beautiful wife and two nice kids, the Marina is glad to see you to come on in and sit down here and they tie you up at the best slip. And but after a while they get tired of this stuff because they look following you down the dock. It looks like a freak show. I got a bunch of old rednecks, a bunch of old drunks and a bunch of old bikers follow me down there and they see the all night party going on at my boat and my wife and my children are exposed to this. So next thing you know, they want to move you out of there, move you,

slip down here and move you down there to the point that you come so resentful, Adam, you leave the Marina

and I'll tell you, I did the same doggone thing with them boats I did with the motorcycles. I got to study no boats and studying those boats and studying those boats where I could see a boat coming from a long way. And I can even name the classes like the Ricky Scarborough's, John Morrison, Andy Morris's and stuff like that. And I would use that knowledge to tear your butt apart to build myself esteem at your expense.

Drinking Jack Daniels all at the same time?

Big shot? Well, not

got burnt out on boat inside of what I need is go back to my roots start showing cows so I would bought some cows. We couldn't showed us any cows. We started showing on American Brahma Association circuit and show probably about seven or eight shows a week. We show Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Gainesville, Tampa, Kissimmee, Orlando and this is strict big competition in the Cal business showing on the Brahma circuit can't just show any cows. You guys send back to Texas, get the best cows and bring them your cows and build us up and and you know what you pull up there them

it's a family event. You got a new 4 wheel drive and a new trailer and his beautiful wife and two beautiful kids and great looking animals and they proud for you to be at that cow show.

They'll tie you up front

should I see the all night party going on back at your at your stalls and it makes them disgusted for your see their kids and your wife all exposed to the stuff that you're bringing around. And then they then they turn against you and you turn against them. You know, I did the same thing with those cows. I studied them and studied them and studied them to when a cow walked in the arena, I could tell you the bloodline of the cow and the bloodline of the Cowboys showing it

once again, building myself esteem at your expense. Not even knowing I'm just think I'm just telling you the truth. Demonstrate nearly out. I'm I'm offering knowledge you need.

My drinking increases drinking more and more and more

and more. You know what used to be a weekend drunk now starts on Thursday and ends on Monday. Then what? You speak Thursday and Monday now goes seven days a week.

If you ain't slobber and drunk, you got a buzz. The buzz becomes part of life.

The party, the party. It's all about the party. You know, I tell you how much I love my children,

but the truth is, I'm ashamed to say this. The party came first.

I tell you how much I love my wife,

but the truth is

the party came first.

I had a motto.

Road goes on forever and the party never ends.

Well, baby, the road doesn't go on forever and the party does end,

but I couldn't see it from where I was. When I was about 30 years old some storms hit the state of Florida

and the lumber business was good up to that point. But when them storms hit the state of Florida, the lumber business went out of sight.

I mean just went out of sight. We went from 10 employees to 20 employees to 40 employees to 60 employees. Bought up several 1000 acres of land, bought a golf courses. What the heck is a bunch of doggone rednecks with a golf course?

We don't want all the land. Just what connected ours was I'm outta right and and and something showed up so big. You know, I went from pushing the MO raggedy old pant heads and shovel heads around to buy a new motorcycles and I took my wife from a Chevrolet to a Cadillac.

Went from smoking old homegrown and drinking beer and I told you all from agriculture community OK

smoking on homegrown and drinking old Milwaukee. Matter of fact, we called it Cold Milwaukee because they forgot to put the C on the can

because you couldn't drink it if it wasn't cold

to drink in Jack Daniels dadgum, right? I had arrived. I understood what Bill said in his story. I had arrived

too many times, I hear people say. I can't relate to that story.

You read a different story than I am

because I understand it perfectly. I had arrived.

Now where I arrived that was a little bit different than where he arrived at. I wasn't chasing golfers around around the golf course. I was chasing cows. OK, what is this? A little different thing, but the same meaning.

Drinking increased, it got worse. You know, it's kind of funny how these defects of characters come out in US and one of them that showed up and be big time was big shot is them

and big shot ISM. When you know you don't deserve it, you know what it leads to more drinking more than anyone. The alcoholic is the actor. He leased a double life.

He wants to enjoy a certain reputation but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it.

We've read that in a big book too, haven't we?

Yeah, And that was me. I wanted to enjoy this reputation that I knew I did not deserve,

but I wanted to deserve it so badly.

I wanted to. Well, I ain't gonna stay drunk too long, y'all. Let me get to the doggone into this.

I started drinking and drugging so bad that this is the way my family life was. That little girl that I told you I love so much, that little girl that was just the the center of my life. She came home one day, our little school went from kindergarten to 8th grade and she came home to me one day. She said, looked at me, said Daddy, the kids at school said you're a drunk

and the mother, mothers don't want their daughters playing with mine.

She's suffering to affect my drinking. That boy I love so much stays in his room and won't come out because he don't know what kind of dad is going to be my job. My wife, a beautiful wife that I love so much. She's trying to balance a checkbook that by all means should be going up, but I'm drinking it away faster than it can come in,

and she's stressed out. She don't know if I'm coming home, when I'm coming home, if the next phone call she gets is me wrapped around something, that gum telephone pole on a motorcycle, who's coming with me, what I'm going to be like when I get there.

And this becomes a normal way of life. My poor mother,

she doesn't know what to do. My father, my father, we got one restaurant in my little town. One don't go and restaurant. He should be able to go down to that restaurant and enjoy a breakfast with the other men. But he can't even go down there now because of what I'm doing. He goes down there. What he hears is this. Hey, Tom, that's his name. You know where your son was last night. Tom, your son's going to hell. Tom, your son's going to jail. And he has to endure this day after day after day. I want to tell you something. I go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous all over

and I hear people get up there and start telling the sad dadgum story about how bad they had it. Let me tell you something. You do not know what being powerless over alcohol is unless you're a loved one of an alcoholic. I had a whiskey bottle to suck on when I walked in. I suck on that whiskey bottles, rub my mouth and go in there and pass out. My wife didn't have anything.

My sponsor, Big Daddy, he says. We don't hurt the ones we love,

we hurt the ones who love us. And that's the way it is.

That's the way it is. You think you're powerless over alcohol? Try being the wife of the alcoholic who's drinking himself to death right in front of your eyes. You think your pile is over alcohol? Try being the son or daughter of the alcoholic who's drinking their self death right in front of their eyes. Try being the parent of that child who's drinking himself to death right in front of your eyes.

You understand powerlessness then,

and that's what I was doing to my family.

I was killing my wife, my kids, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters,

and I wanted them to accept it.

And I learned to use. I was raised at a sawmill, y'all. I know how to use that sawmill language to get what I want. If they said anything about it, I know how to raise my voice to get on them to shut them up

when they come a point that you can't shut people up. February 14th, 2003 I had done drank myself and to the point that I was having visual and audible hallucinations. They took me to a psychiatrist. He gave me some pills that some antipsychotic drugs that the good news is I didn't. I quit hearing voices.

The bad news is I started mixing them with alcohol

and my health started failing. Valentine's Day 2014, two 1013, 2003. I don't know where I'm at right now. Y'all, Dad got it.

I'm in New York. All right. I'm OK. Valentine's Day 2003. I left the work early. I made-up some kind of lie, as I always did. Like I was going to get some flowers for my wife.

No, I was going to get some whiskey.

I came down my driveway. My driveway is a long driveway and my father was coming from the other end and I didn't want to see him because I'm already lit up. He gets out of the truck and he's got a shotgun and I figure he's going to shoot me. He loads the gun and he pokes it underneath his chin and he puts his finger on the trigger and I said, what are you doing? What are you doing? He says watching you key yourself is killing me and I can't take it anymore. And I want you to see what it's like to see somebody die.

I fell on my knees and over arms. I said shoot me.

I can't do this anymore either.

I remember sitting there and my sister came down the driveway blowing her horn and I remember my wife running out of the house to stop the situation. This is what I did to my father, the man who loved me. I drove him to the point of murder suicide because he couldn't take it anymore.

It's something y'all need to know.

He got blamed for my drinking.

My other relatives would come to him and say why are you letting this happen?

Like he had some kind of control. Y'all don't understand it until you've been a loved one of a drunk.

So before you start talking about how bad you had it,

you better start thinking about how bad the ones around you had it.

My sister

and my wife had called Gainesville. I live an hour away from Gainesville, FL

and they had a room at a treatment center over there and they took me over there. I think this is the worst day of my life. February 14th, 2003.

So I start, they take me over there and they put me in there and I don't want to be there. I figure I've lost my part of my business. I figure my wife's going to leave me, figure my kids are not going to talk to me anymore. Worse. Worse than anything, I don't have to quit drinking the gigs up.

Isn't it terrible that what I'm regretting most is stopping drinking with everything there is to lose? That's how selfish I was.

They put me in that treatment center and I had a plan, boys. I figured I'd get kicked out of there and I can go back home, say, look, I tried it. I did my best and everything like that. And so this was my plan. I was going to use that old sawmill language on those people to the point that they ran me out of there, all right? And it worked on the patients. I talked to him like they were dogs, okay? And I'd walk the one side room and they'd walk to the other dog on the side room. I treated them like they were dogs. Let me tell you something. I learned the English language at a sawmill, all right,

and that's a heck of a place to learn it. And it worked,

but it didn't work on the nurses and the doctors. They were kind of used to language like that. I was in there about a week and I had just about made everybody in there mad at me. And a guy named Don, a black guy named Don came in there and he walked in there, his new guy, this new meat. This is my ticket out of here. And I talked to Don like he was a dog.

Don talked to me back like I was a dog.

Come to find out, Don was a truck driver. He knew the language better than I did.

He called me names I ain't never been called before.

Well I went out of my way and he went his way and later on that evening Don came to me. He said you are the most miserable sobi ever seen. I said some nice words to Don. He said will you give me 5 minutes of your time? And I said sure and I don't know why I did this y'all. I went in Don's room. He said get on your knees And I got on my knees and Don read something out of the Bible and I don't know what it was, I don't know what it was. And he grabbed my hands and he said, Johnny Tatum, for the first time in your life, you admit you a hopeless drunk and without God's help, you cannot get out of here sober.

And for the first time in my life, one week in that treatment center, I said, God, I am a drunk and I cannot stay sober without you.

And they took Don out of there two days later. I've never seen him since.

I don't know where he come from, where he went.

I don't know what happened, but something happened. I got the one thing I needed. I became, I didn't have no white light experience. It gives me chills to think about it when I talk about it, but I was overcome with something, the willingness to do what I was supposed to do, to stay sober. I filled out a card from Bridging the Gap and I want to tell you something. The only meeting a a meeting I've ever been to was in that treatment center. I filled out that card. Some people from a meeting in Bradford County came and saw me, those guys who carried that

into that treatment center, doing that 12 step work, that Bridging the Gap work saved my life. Because when I got out of there, out of Poly, never went to the meeting. I'd had some kind of excuse. But they showed up at that treatment center. They shook my hand. They said this is where the meeting was. And I recognized one of them. I recognized one of them. So I got out of that treatment center. I went to that meeting, I got a sponsor. I started working the steps

and within all two or three months I'd went through steps forth through night.

And I'm telling you step five was a big experience to me. But I'll tell you right now, step nine was bigger going to those people in that small community and going down and making those amend. I set my father, my brother and my uncle who I'm in partners with in lumber business. I sat him down in office and I looked down and I said, look, I've been I've been stealing from the company. I've been trading lumber for liquor. I've been showing up jointly said we know,

but here and you say it does something for us. They come up with a sum of money they wanted and I paid them back.

I paid him back and I started this journey and boys, I stopped

are stopped,

you know, because I heard this stuff. Meeting makers make it. All you have to do is go to meetings to stay sober.

Meeting makers make it.

I was working all day long at the sawmill, go home, take a shower and would drive an hour to Jacksonville or to Gainesville to a meeting and then drive home.

And I got miserable

and I got worse. I didn't know about Step 10/11/12. I didn't know anything about that.

The sponsor I had at the time didn't teach me to show up in the meetings and you'll stay sober is all I was told. And I fell into this bunch of guys. The media makers make it much and and we would even make fun of guys who told it a big book around

this right here. We'd call them Nazis and we'd say they were miserable and they were going to die and all kinds of stuff.

And I thought I was being honest. I thought I was telling the truth because they were saying it now. They were dropping like flies.

This one was gone and this one was gone and this one was gone my whole life where it started improving when I first got sober and was doing that step work, but now stopped. See, I still had this treatment center. God, I hadn't grown spiritually. I thought service work was making coffee. And if I made coffee, you dad come showing you I made it. I'd make the coffee and when you walked in the room, I'd say, hey, buddy, I made that coffee just for you.

Yeah, baby die. And I was so selfish and my dog gone.

I fired my wife in every position she had held. My wife had held my family together when I was on his twenty year drunk.

She held the finances together, she'd held the children together, she'd held the home together. And I fired her from all of that,

started telling this spiritual woman what God she should serve

to the point that she couldn't take it anymore.

And at six months sober, she moved me out of my home into the KOA campground.

Y'all don't understand Six months of untreated alcoholism? Going to a meeting today had did what 20 years of drunkenness didn't. It cost me my family.

I was miserable. I hated you and I hated you and I hated you and I hated. But I tell you how much I loved you. I was a fraud. I was trying to stay sober on drunken behavior, and I was more worried about impressing people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous than I was about impressing. God,

I was so stupid.

I'd sit in that camper miserable, hate everybody. I would, I lived, I was living there in sealing Bradford County, and I would drive to Jacksonville, which was an hour away, right? And I'd hear something real smooth, something real clever. Somebody would say something real sharp. The next night I would drive to Gainesville, which is another, and set my and position myself at a meeting. You know what I mean?

And I would raise my hand and I would repeat what I'd heard in Jacksonville. I would repeat it in Gainesville like I'd made it up.

I was a fraud and a liar

and I thought that was normal

and I get more miserable. I hate to tell the story. I was sitting at a grad. I hated gratitude meetings because I had none.

But I was sitting at one more time and I raised my hand. They said yes, Johnny. I said I was. Woke up this morning and I looked across that field over there and there was $2.00 deer standing in that field. One was me and one was God, and I knew he had me. There's who? That's good. It's a dog gonna lie. I'm living at the KOA campground.

There ain't no field

if they'd have been too dear out there how to shot them.

And this becomes a normal way of life.