The 19th Annual Tri State Roundup in Laughlin, NV

My name is Tom Burns. I'm an alcoholic.

My Home group is Avon Lake Friday.

Avon Lake is a suburb of Cleveland, OH about 17 miles to the West

and Tuesday nights on my Home group is Avon in the bond they call it. My sobriety date is July the 5th, 1962,

which means I pulled from 41 years of experiences

and that's what I'm here to do.

Hoping upon how anybody gets hooked here, People, anybody gets up here, you hope upon hope there's somebody out there that felt the way you felt when you got here.

And he leaves with just just the whole boy of those nutty son of the guns can do it. Maybe I got a chance.

I'm going back one more day, that's all. One day

I won't promise anybody in the room I'll be sober. Tomorrow I won't do it.

I It tickles me when you hear these countdowns.

53 years, 54 years. Good deal. Good deal.

Three days and the house comes down.

You know why that is?

We know you just left hell

and we're going to try to make you feel so welcome. You don't want to go back. That's where that is. That's why we have these things. That's why people meet you at the door. That's why we make the coffee. That's why we tell our stories and share to try to give you the the strength and the fellowship to to hang around one more day.

My wife says Tom. She says, I,

I think you can see now, Tom, ever since you turned 70, you jump around so much in your lead, I can't even follow it myself. You talk about 40 years ago and then you talk about today and then you talk about 30 years ago and you talk about today. She says I can follow. I live the time for those people don't know you. They may not be able to follow you guys. Honey, I'm I'm talking Alcoholics

and believe me babe. Then I wrapped too tight either they

Alcoholics don't have any problems communicating with other Alcoholics.

I'm not too good at small talk with normal people, but with other Alcoholics? Believe me, I'll take any 5 Alcoholics in this room. The next door have two cups of coffee and we know each other a long time.

Because when I say to another alcoholic, you know, when I come here, I was afraid all the time and I didn't even know what I was afraid of. Oh, yeah, yeah. That goes with the territory. We understand that

I woke up in jail and I was sick and I didn't know why I was there, what day it was. Oh, yeah, yeah, I've been there, done that. I got to shock him,

woke up my home and my wife and kids were gone. The house was cold and I was broke and I didn't even coming off a blackout, not knowing where your car was or all those. We understand that. We know the feeling, we know the fear.

That's what helps make it work.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. People drinking was a way of life.

My dad died and Alcoholics death.

Not pretty to watch it man. It was 200 lbs weighing about 114 lbs. No guts, no nothing

but but drinking,

no big deal. It was the social event of the week. My dad worked in the shipyards and they used to get paid on Friday nights and they met at the neighborhood bar. That's where you met Dubin's, had the fish fries, played shuffleboard, sang songs, told lies about the old country, how great it was in Ireland. But crying out loud, half of them never seen Ireland

and the other half I figured there's something wrong with them because if it was so good, why'd they leave?

South Brooklyn was number bargain.

Everybody had a draft card saying they were 18,

got into some trouble at a young age and they sent me to disservice.

It was either that or upstate and I, I didn't want to go upstate. So,

and there's no service stories, people. I went in a private and four years later I come out of private. That was the, that was the end of my service career. I, I didn't like the service. I remember I got a promotion. I went to town to celebrate and, and, and if I had money, I didn't go back. I just didn't go back. And they frown on that. They don't like that at all. They

so you get discharged and you get back home and and you go through the legal drinking years,

you're expected to drink. You're getting rehabilitated to civilian life. And where do you get rehabilitated? At the neighborhood bar.

Now I can't go on a date trip with you people.

I'm trying to qualify. I'm trying to go from the from the fun years and there were a lot of fun years to the sick years to the dying years

and I'm trying to get there fast so we can get into this good stuff. Just learn how to how to laugh, learn how not take a drink today and be happy. Do you realize that's possible? I didn't know that.

I didn't know that

I'm home maybe a year. It's not a language from the head, it's a language from the heart.

That's why we understand

how these aren't too interested in yak yak, yak. Now people watch you. Show me the results of this program. Show me the results of working the 12 steps. You tell me to work these 12 steps. Why? Show me what it's done for you. Anaki will come. He'll watch you. You don't care what you know about the big book. He'll watch you.

What has it done in your life if I if I left my house and my wife and kids are looking at me with fear in their eyes. And I come to this meeting and I meet you and you tell me about this great spiritual life you found and how great it is to be sober. And I go to your house and your wife and kids are looking you with fear in their eyes. You haven't got a damn thing I want.

If I see your wife say, oh, honey, you got a new man, I'll, I'll get some coffee and I see your kids jump up and say, hey, hey, dad, look what I did school today.

Now I want what you got. That's what impresses an Alki, what he sees.

I'm home almost a year.

My dad grasped 190, says Tommy says. I think your mother seen enough of this nonsense with me.

There's no reason she has to contribute again with you if this the way you want to live. I'm going on two and three day benders and I'm getting into some jackpots.

Get out into the world and grow up.

It's OK, Dan, OK.

And I was going to go back out to Riverside, CA. I was stationed in Riverside, CA for a while and I got discharged there and, and it seemed like pretty good living out there. So I got on a bus, I was going to go to Riverside and they had a rest stop and it's all called Lorraine, Ohio, Little

Greyhound bus stop. And I looked up the streets in Lorraine, Ohio and Broadway and there were all kinds of bars and what have you. And I figured, well, I'll stop and have a couple of drinks in Lorain. OH,

that was 1953.

Still there. I cannot qualifying right there, people. Whenever I drink, everything leaves. Buses, cars, clothes, houses, kids, jobs. Everything leaves because there's something wrong with me. They call it alcoholism. I don't care what you call it, people.

When I take 1 drink, the only thing that's important to me is another drink. That's it. Drink trouble. That that's all I have to know. My whole message, people, is simplicity.

40 years, 41 years, and the longer I'm here, the Dumber I get.

You realize there's so much you don't know.

Oh, if I was leading this meeting when I had 10 years, I could have told you all about this damn book and this program at all. Boy, I always sharp is attack.

20 years I well, I kind of. 30 years I learned to listen. 40 years I learned to keep my mouth shut.

I come off a three day drunken and

almost broke and I called home for money as his dad. I'm in this town, I'm almost broke. He sent me some dough. When I get out to the coast dad, I'll send it back 100 fold.

My dad had been talking to people in AAA. Hey, I got this son that's nutty and a jaybird when he drinks. What can I do to help him?

Frank, you want to help them? Yeah, don't help them. What the hell kind of advice is that?

Let them wake up in enough jails and beat his head in against enough walls. Let him get to the point where he's sick and tired of being sick and tired. Let him get to the point with just a couple of seconds. Just a couple of seconds. He gets honest with himself. He says maybe it's me. Then we'll break our backs to help him, Frank.

Till then, let the clonal finishes act.

I don't think it's for people who need it. I needed a A when I was 17 years old. You could have set 100 AAS to my house every weekend. I would have asked them that. That's just to get the hell out of the house.

But when? When? When the price got too high? When, When Diane looks easier than living, huh?

What do I have to do, fellas? I'll do whatever I have to do. Well, go out to Laughlin and speak. OK? OK, Let me help me keep Stobie. Yeah, bro, I'll do it. Pick up the cups or set up the chairs or or or make the coffee or go to the hospitals and take people to meetings or go to somebody's house and spot. Whatever it takes, I'll do.

Don't get me wrong, I love the big book. It's my Bible. Big book can keep you so anyone. A Bible will get you to heaven

doing what the big book tells you to do. That's what will get you. Sobriety is in the action, people in the action, not the knowing. I'll introduce you to men who could quote this big book till you read 449 to quote the 12 steps by heart, the the purpose, everything. They know that thing inside out. They could tell you what page you can find what, and they're drunk

because they forgot to do what the book says to do. These are the things we did.

That's where the secret is moved to feet.

My program this morning was the same as I'd learned 38 years ago. I get up in the morning, I say, God, please run the head. I'll move the feet.

I'll move the feet,

you let me run the head. And you never seen anything get so screwed up in all your life.

My wife can tell you four days in advance when I'm ready to go nutso. There he goes. Yeah. Hey, Chris. Dad's going nutty again. Yeah. OK.

I talk a lot about my family. I talk a lot about my home life. I talk a lot about my wife and my relationship. I don't do that because I think I'm a marriage counselor. People,

you're going to hear all timers all over the country say take this program home, take this program home, take this program. We don't tell you to take it home because we think we're marriage counselors. We tell you to take it home because we're worried about your sobriety

and we know it's a lot easier to stay sober when things at home are going good. When there's a dinner and a show, when you're sleeping in your own bed once in a while, that ain't a bad deal. When things are fighting you get, you get very self awe. Poor me.

Where? At the house, slamming the door. They still treat me like they used to, you know, they know I haven't had a drink in six days. Oh my God,

I'm a change man. Yeah, you've been kicking people in your teeth for 16 years.

Well my dad says good luck and goodbye. Hangs up.

I get drinking at a local bar and they they tell me they needed chemical engineers at a chemical company, Avon Lake. So I went for an interview. I got the job, Chemical engineering. I can't spell chemical engineer,

but believe me, you put an algae with his back against the wall. He'll be whatever he has to be. You watch him

Friday night, he's fighting 6 cops. He's winning for three seconds

Tuesday morning before the judge. You think he's an altar boy? Oh my God, you're running right in.

I didn't nurse. Tell me about how these people. I'll never forget it. God Almighty

jump around right the hell.

I had a sponsored. It was a great believer going up to the hospital and talking to patients.

He come in in 1948, he passed away on a Florida, but he said it was easy. And going in the house and I'm going to puke on your shoes, you know,

but the hospitalization came in I think around 5859. Well, by 62, they didn't have much time to build alcoholic wards and so forth. So in, in Lorain County, they took the Alcoholics and they put them in with the mental patients to West Hillary Range community. And every Tuesday my my sponsor used to come get me and we go up to the hospital to give a 15 minute talk

and then we have a discussion and I be it. Well, one night he called me, says Tommy's, I can't make it tonight. Will you run up to the hospital and talk to the patients?

I was OK, Jay and I got the two W the nurse seen me. She says, oh, Tom, she says you're here for the a a meeting. I says, yeah, she's I'll get the patience. And she walked down a long haul and I see it. Tap somebody and talk to him and tap somebody else and walk by a few people. Tap somebody else. Finally, she's got 10 or 12 guys together. She said go down to the TV room. We're going to have an A a meeting

and I grabbed her. I says how do you know who to tap and who not to tap? How do you separate the Alcoholics from the mental patients? She's always easy as she having sober a little while and I don't see any difference. She's you could if you were here 3 days Tom

as why is that? She says. Well we carried them all in. After three days, you see the ones walking down the hall kind of quiet and sedate into themselves.

I said yeah, she says. They're the mental patients,

you see the ones in the office telling us how to run the hospital.

Huh. OK,

are we quick? Forget his.

Do you realize if you're an alcoholic and you're laughing at yourself,

you know how good that is? People,

that's the beginning of getting well. That's the beginning of getting well. You, when you come here, you think you're the center of the universe.

You tell a joke about an alky when he's drinking or punching lights out. We're very thin skinned people. We have feelings, we don't.

You come here and you learn to laugh at yourself.

You learn how to wear things kind of light. God Almighty people is a great way to go. I tell you I won't be so good. I live my whole life one day at a time,

he says. For the moment, I haven't got there yet, but one day at a time. I'm, I'm handling.

I used to worry all the time. I, I remember worrying about Social Security, going broke and Oh my God, this, you know, I used to worry about money all the time. Money, money, money, money, money. I come here, you teach me how to live. I got enough money to last the rest of my life. If I die tomorrow,

you don't worry. You don't worry anymore. Those promises, we're not talking Lala land people. There's promises are true

if a power brain yourself get your soul or make sure they can't take care of anything you got

and as far as you new people are concerned, they're looking for God. I'm going to tell you something real fast. He's not lost,

you just don't know it yet.

Just bring the body. The mind will catch up. Move the feet.

Put your feet. Will we put eyes?

It's easy to become an old timer. Don't drink. Don't die. What the hell?

I'm limping up the stairs,

somebody says. I want to be like that. It's not me. I want to be 20 against starting fresh. You know

my knees are shot. What the hell is the difference? Who cares?

So why? Where can I met a young lady? People, God Almighty, the most beautiful thing I've ever

seen in my life.

I know adequate thing. She was only 18. She didn't order. Poor thing, she's not.

I met her in November and I married her in December. Huh. We think, we think a lot about things. We just don't jump in. We kind of look it over. But her mother was so happy her daughter was marrying his chemical engineer and she was going to have things made.

I went to work drunk and lost a job.

I'm in a strange time with a wife and no, no money, no nothing, no job. Dad was a pipe fitter, welder by trade. He was working out of town and he'd come home over the holidays

and he took me into Cleveland and got me involved in a pipe fitter apprenticeship

and we took A2 car garage, a brand new two car garage. We made a honeymoon cottage out of it,

tipped the door off, put some windows in the front door and we we put a bathroom in a little kit. Oh, cute little place. And the deal is as as soon as Tommy gets in his fourth or fifth year apprenticeship and starts making a decent buck, we're going to buy a house in the suburbs and we're going to live happily ever after.

Four children and seven years later, we're still in the cottage

and I'm a journeyman, our people and I'm making a pretty decent buck.

But the more I make, the more I drink.

I used to drink on Friday, Saturday, sober up Sunday, go to work Monday. Now it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So work Monday, go to work Tuesday, get paid on Wednesday, don't make Thursday, never make Thursday. Wake up in Chicago. Philadelphia knew you never knew where I was going to wake up. Kitchen floors. Wake up on the kitchen floor a lot

and she come out with the kid. Tommy, I need I need some money for groceries. I don't have any money for groceries.

I don't know what happens. I go in to cash the check and have one drink and the next thing here was last call. That's all I ever heard. Last call? What the hell happened to 8:00 at 9:00? What the?

So I do the only thing I know how to do at the time I used to attack,

damn it. I drank when I married you. I'm going to continue to drink. And if you don't like it rah rah rah, you're not going to make a wimp out of me like that neighbor I got had a neighbor. I hated his guts. A normal guy. Biggest thing in his life was his grass. He used to mow his grass every Saturday morning. I was get a life for crying out loud.

I'd be a neighborhood bar he'd walk in. I send him down a drink if so and so a drink. He drink and leave.

I said where you going? He says I have to go home. Suppers waiting, Suppers waiting

when I stopped in for one drink. I don't care if the Pope is waiting.

I'm leaving you. That was my big spiel. I'm leaving you. Where the hell am I going?

Get my brown paper bag on the bedroom, start packing my toothbrush and my underwear. And

she'd come in and cry.

Tell me what I did. Upset, genuine, upset you, Tom, I was sickening People, people. I can only tell you what it's like in my house. I can't tell you what it's like in your house, but if you're alcoholic, I'm sure we're going to.

You can identify.

When my wife was 26 years old she looked 60.

She was beat down South. Bad memory, she didn't think she had a brain. She was born and raised in that town and she couldn't even face people she went to school with because she was married to some yo-yo that was gone 345 days every month. Never knew where he was

taking care of kids. Didn't have nice things

and they took me to a A and they took her to that communist club.

You laugh. I hope that God your wife goes there, fella.

I was so happy when she went there. I thought she's going to go there and learn how to help me. No, no,

they go there and learn how to help themselves. They go there and learn how to be happy in spite of you.

We tell a lot of jokes about Alan Owen. Let me tell you how I feel about alanine.

Like I told you when my wife was 26, she looks 60 now. My wife is pushing 70. She looks 26 to me. Thank you, Alan.

She walks with her head high. Her eyes are bright. She's a miracle worker. She has gardens that they commit. What is that? American

Home and Garden and Good Housekeeping? They come and take pictures of her stuff and put it in magazines. She takes care of that yard herself, that acres of roses and herbs and everything. She's a miracle worker, son. Up the sundown. She's in that yard so loves it. And whenever I go off on one of my spiel, she says stick it burns. What the hell does that mean?

She don't let me near the stuff because I cut everything down. Everything looks like a weed to me. Herbs look like weeds. I don't care what you say. They look like weeds. And so I mixed the the compost. I'm I'm the compost maker.

I could down I get down to the the farms and get the cow manure,

bring it home, mix it with the dirt and the and the mulch with the with the rototill.

Great Big Brother. Anytime you feel good, you you just get the boots on and go out and mix the roads. It's the horseshit.

I was watching the guy a few years back. He come over the house,

they don't appreciate me

going out loud guys come on, we'll talk about out in the back and I gave him a pitchfork. I say you start churning that and I'll turn this. He's turning the common room and frankly looks at me. What are we doing?

I said. This is what I do. I mix the horseshit.

He's always says I'm I'm going home, I got it made, he says. I got a maid.

Anytime you feel important, come to my house. We'll mix some more.

God Almighty

and don't mind. Don't mind at all.

High moment. Night. About four in the morning, my suitcase hit me right in the chest.

I was happy. I was going to. I was going to go live in the Gold Coast in Cleveland and get Cadillac convertible Drink and dream, you screwy son of a gun. When you're drinking, you're working to study. You don't live in a Gold Coast. You're living with 65th and Detroit Ave. $8 a week for the room. Got the picture

And your big nights out is sitting in the neighborhood died peeling the labels off of beer bottles. Listen to poor me songs. Tell me about good times drinking people and you're getting popped. Your timings off. You're a mess

when you want to see the wife once their wife's 3:00 in the morning. So you go out to Avon Lake and you will beat up drunk a car with no keys. I don't know, beat it. Most people in construction, they have two cars. They have a a nice vacation car that they go with the family and then they have it all beat up, pick up or a junker that they take to the mills of the jobs they want. We never had a decent car.

Beat up junkers and fall tires. No ignition can. I lost the keys. My brother-in-law. My brother-in-law now. He used to be electrician. Drinking buddy of mine introduced him to my wife's sister. They got married. Oh God, you see my father-in-law now? He's a Raven maniac.

I lose the keys one night, he says. Don't worry. Tommy reaches under the dash, pulls out all the wires, gives ME3 wires and a clothespin. Put the three wires

together, put the clothes spin on and I car would start and I'd be going to work. I'd be going down Clifton Blvd. 600 cars all around. You hit a bump, the clothes been falls and the car stops

people honking their horns. Why? I'm looking for the damn clothespin.

I just think that was normal. I'm not going to spend any money on keys that's open is who the hell is going to spend?

Get out Avon Lake and pull in and the cops stop your term. Don't give us a hard time this week, Tommy. Come on. I'm going to see my kids. No, you're not. They got restraining orders.

I'm going to do you a favor. Anybody in this room thinks he's going out again. If a cop says do you real nice, a young fella, come with us. Do yourself a favor, go with them,

because if you think you're John Wayne, you're going to throw one punch, you're going to wake up and jail. Your hair is going to hurt. And I got nothing against cops. If I was a cop in some punk, talk to me the way I talked to them. I break his head too,

she said. We were separated a year and a half. I don't remember people

remember. I called her up. I said, Glenn, I'm, I'm fed up living like this. I I haven't had a drink in three weeks. And, and

I'm working and I want to take you and the kids down the valley on a picnic.

You haven't drank in three weeks? That's right, she says. OK, so someday I went out and, and I got a picnic baskets and baseball gloves. And what'd you get? Potato chips. And I did what I thought normal fathers do. Who teaches you how to be a father?

Play dad, play catch the ball. Well,

we did this for three Sundays in a row. We thought as a change man and we were going to try again. Always again. Always. A fresh start, huh? How many times have we had fresh starts

and bought a house on land contract Navon Lake

and I'm not blowing smoke and I'm not trying to con anybody. I'm standing on the front porch. I says Glenn, I'm not going to drink anymore.

I'm going to work Monday. Monday was always the magic day. I'm going to work Monday. We're going to start paying the bills. People in the neighborhood I lived in, people buy new cars every other year. Their kids were going to school dressed nice and warm. They were taking vacations in Florida every year. We couldn't afford to go to Akron, which is only about 1/2 hour S, all junkie cars and my kids going to school with holes in their shoes. There's something wrong.

Well, 30 days later, I'm sitting on the front porch nursing a Hanover

because sometimes during that 30 days I stopped in for one drink.

I've been so good that trying to make a wimp out of me. I work hard, I play hard.

While I'm there, my bread in law comes up.

My pregnant law,

he don't look good at all.

Geez, Tommy's I got problems, he says. I got a drunken driving charge. I got to go before Jensen Tuesday. I said, Bob, I don't want to hear it.

I go forward them in five months. I'm paying the last one off on time. Payment. Something up in Avon

is. Yeah, but I'm getting sued for divorce. I say I know always. How do you know? As I got my papers this morning too. Jensen was a friend of the family. He called Judge Jensen. He called the wives and he's. Look, I'll give you 2 divorces for the price of one. Get rid of both the losers. You girls can do better.

Where I was sitting on the porch talking, the wife comes out

talking to the bread and law.

My sister and I were talking to a minister. This time he told us about a group of people to meet on Friday nights at his church. And they must be doing something right because they're not drinking and they're putting their lives together.

And Bob says, you think if I go to that that club, she'll hold off on the divorce? She says I don't know Bob, that be up to her, but him it might be worth a shot.

I figured there's my elite. How about me? I'll go. I'll go to Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts. I don't want a divorce, she says. You, they don't make any. No people like you.

Friday night we went to our first a a meeting.

I'm 28 years old, he's 26. Who can tell you anything when you're 28?

History wise,

I get this swinging doors, apron laking. There's two things I know in my life at that time. People I don't like or trust people.

Everybody's a phony. Everybody's out for what they can get. And I'm going to suck at you before you suck at me. When you when you live in the streets, you think like the streets.

I didn't know I was going to meet people like I met in this room. These rooms

I didn't know I was going to meet. People had to hand out to do nothing but help you come back and sit your kitchen table to 2-3 in the morning because they want to help you get to the night.

And they get their greatest joy out of watching a Newman stay sober. Do you know that?

Because they know what's coming.

Walked in. I looked around the room. My God Almighty, there were 20 or 30 people there and they were all old.

4550, sixty years old. No wonder they quit drinking. Look at them for a crime or they try to drink now they're dead.

Dress nice, look good. I thought I was a PTA meeting

talking to their wives. Some guys were there with their wives talking to who the hell talks to their wife?

My wife and I don't talk. When we can't talk on 5 minutes, we're at each other's throat.

One guy breaks away from the crowd, there's five or six guys, a little bit of coffee, telling jokes and laughing. One guy breaks towards. He comes towards us. He's got to be 105.

Good to see you young fellas. This program works, guys. I haven't had a drink in 16 years.

16 years.

Oh my God, my legs got weak.

My brother-in-law says you've got to be awful thirsty Mr.

Who the hell ever heard and not drinking for 16 years? Don't talk years. Talk days, hours and minutes

or you fellas don't know you're in. You're going to have a life that you never dreamed of and you're going to find God. And I thought, oh boy, I didn't know. I did.

Hey, Mr. Not not me, Him. He's got a drunken driving charge

and his wife is divorcing him, and I come to help him because he's a good friend of mine.

Oh, thank you. And he took Bob and I went over, got some coffee, and they were telling jokes about drunken driving charges. Jokes about drunken There's nothing funny about a drunken driving charge.

And they announced the lead. Oh boy, here's the Messiah.

His guys going to touch his on the head and make us well huh?

I'll never forget this. This is a long time ago

cake. Little cake, 1 candle.

It was his first year, his first anniversary in his first lead,

and he was just Oh yeah, a white shirt and tie, new suit. Oh he looks so cute.

I got $0.35 in my pocket and cleaned work clothes. That's it.

There's no food in my refrigerator that turning off the gas.

I come here because I heard you people had something going and I was going to try to find out what it was. I had no idea.

He gets up. His wife isn't about the 3rd row. He looks out of her. He says hi honey, I love you.

She stands up, says I love you too.

My brother-in-law poked me. What the hell are we doing here?

As I know what we're doing here, you six son of a gun, you wanted to come here.

Second thing I hear in a a meeting. Isn't it great to be sober? I got up this morning and I could smell the flowers.

Smell the flowers.

My wife's home lightened candles. Dear God, let them die. We'll get the insurance. That's where we work.

We know I love you in my house

and I have no use for flowers. I don't want anything to do with flowers. I wasn't impressed. I want to get that just just get done so I can get out of here.

He finally got finished. I start towards the door as quick as I couldn't. There's only one way out and Avon Lake Big John used to stand there 64220 good shape. John don't take his eyes off me. I think Oh that's how it works. That's how it works. You know what to drink tonight, Tommy. You got to pass John, and John looks an awful good shape.

I got close to John. John put out his hand, He says.

How you doing? Young woman

is fine, fine.

They don't let go of your hand.

You ever noticed they don't like all your hair? He told my whole story in 5 minutes.

He's the people. This room come out of $500,000 houses on the lake. There's people this room, amount of prisons, hospitals, insane asylums, streets, cardboard boxes. You're going to meet everything from priest to laborers here,

but you do yourself a favor, young fellow. You bring the body here, the mind's going to catch up.

Bring the body here.

You're not going to get well trying to fix yourself laying on the couch reading with a sick head.

Get the fellowship. Get people over there before you put your feet where they put bears.

Move the body, move the feet.

How do I stay sober? I'm not going another meeting. You guys tell me

how Long's been fire? A drink of five days, Yeah. How'd you stay over yesterday? Well, by the time I got home from work and you guys were here, we ate and went to the meeting. I'll just say. So the day before, well, same thing. We went to that other meeting and then we drove down. We went there, I'll just say sober last week, although we went down to that halfway house and talked to those guys. I was just too busy.

Oh,

oh,

keep moving.

Gee, drink so much coffee. Don't sleep. He's walking around like a zombie. Great.

Where we going today? We're going to a meeting. OK, keep them. They won't get a drunken driving charge if he's like a zombie

if I have my way. We take his brain out of his head the first year.

All these learned by, by by results. Gee, when I do this, I don't drink. Gee, when I do that, see most people, most people think of consequences.

Normal people think, well, if I do this, this going to happen. He's never think of consequences. Alky wants to die, walk the big board. He goes out, gets on the big board and jumps. He don't even look to see if there's any water

halfway down. It's God help me. No, it's too late. Too late.

How do you explain eyes?

How do you explain to somebody eyes? How do you explain somebody? I met people with good, strong, kind eyes.

I'd explain it. I met people seem to know who they were, what they were, where they were and where they're going. Where do you get that without a drink?

Where did they get that strength?

I lived in fear all my life.

Didn't you know what the hell I was afraid of?

John introduced me to two other men had the good rights. Three people. Three people I liked,

Boss. What do you think about those people? Have something on what it is, but damn it, they have something. I'm going to find out what it is. It's not me. I'm too young, he says. I got too much living to do. They did all those things tell you not to. Bob did all his living. 18 months they've been in a white coat, swallowing his tongue.

I come back to your knees for four months.

I come to your meeting and I hear, well I had a business and I was a millionaire and I got drinking wine. I'd wine. So as I lost everything, now I'm so over two months and I got 6 Cadillacs. I could sit out there and say bullshit.

I leave the meeting. I go home, I walk in the kitchen and wife say hi honey, how'd the meeting go? What do you mean how'd the meeting go? I'm so brain out without more than you want

Good A a solid a

keep the kids quiet. You know, if the kids make noise, I'll get nervous and drink. Oh,

and you better have breakfast on the table, they said. I got to eat breakfast. I don't have breakfast. I'll get drunk. I get drunk. It's your fault.

Do us a favor. Go get drunk, please. We had some peace

people. I didn't know my own children.

I didn't know my own kids. Later I come to the program when I was 7-8, nine years old.

My daughter was 3.

They were afraid of daddy. Daddy was always some kind of nut

in the kitchen. I walked in the kitchen, they go in the living room. If I went in the living room, they go upstairs. They never brought kids over to my house because they never knew Daddy was coming home sober or drunk. They were always living on pins and needles.

God, you get a second chance here.

We got six grandkids. They think I'm well. The youngest is 21 now I'm going to Ohio State. Three of them already graduated.

God Almighty

had a tough time finishing high school. My kids are graduating from conference. Grandkids isn't great. Thanks A A Thanks AA

just in my tough little monkey Justin. I love him. God, Oh my plays football for College in Pittsburgh

when just when seven years old he was taking karate. And Justin has to share everything with Grandpa. Grandpa is his man.

On Saturday morning, I'm making coffee and Justin comes running in the kitchen. He says, Grandpa, I learned a new move today. I says, you did what? And he jumps up and kicks.