Larry T. from Bellflower, CA speaking Woodstock West in Los Angeles, CA

Thank you, young lady.

Thank you, Candace. I was expecting a little more than that, but

I,

my name is Larry Thomas and I'm an alcoholic

and I'm glad to be with you guys. And it's been a great conference. And it's, you know, nine months ago, Ralph had called me up and told me, asked me if I would do Step 2.

And every day I've been thinking about that step.

Now, I'm here to talk on 8:00 and 9:00,

but you will damn well better know that before this weekend's over, you're going to hear about Step 2.

If I got to find you in the lobby, you're going to hear about. And don't be sending Ron.

I know the difference.

He's a humble one.

I'm coming after you. We're going to hear a step. Don't send the voice,

don't send the it'll become the conference ear. By the time I'm we're going to hear Step 2.

So I'm glad to be with you In AI

up till this point,

I always got to remember that when

that when we're following our principles of this program that our co-founder Bill always thought that we were coming along right with them.

And the last paragraph of the first step in the 12. And so it says we stood ready to do anything to lift this merciless obsession. I can't think of a better word for this thing that we have merciless

and that we're now on this way and up to this point, it's it's been about us. We enjoy that

it's been about us looking at conceding to our innermost self that we were Alcoholics, looking over our lives, coming to believe in something, turning our life and our will over to writing about it. Now we're going to start.

Now we're moving out.

Now we're doing that thing that in my book, Alcoholics Anonymous, our book Alcoholics Anonymous is the delusion that we are like other people has to be smashed.

Now how you going to smash a delusion?

That's what this step is all about.

If you want to know what God's will for you, this is a book of hints

all through it.

And right in the Doctor's opinion, he talks about the problem and the solution, the phenomenon of craving and the psychic change he makes. No beefs about that. And that's what I'm trying to have done to me as I'm going through this process, you see,

and the delusion that I am like other people. What does that have to do with this step? Well, for me, I've had this ongoing

fantasy and this, this fascination with normal people

now, and I always compare myself to them. I don't compare myself to the drunks

because I don't think I have this thing. So I'm constantly comparing myself to people who are totally out of my league

and wondering why I'm frustrated and coming up short all the time.

And one of the things I've seen that normal people can do, they can let bygones be bygones.

They can get by with a mere apology,

but not so for the alcoholic. And this this delusion that we are like other people.

It permeates my sobriety all the way through.

I am like so many folks and Alcoholics Anonymous, and to the untrained eye, it looks like we all get along.

Except when you sit in my chair. There's going to be some moving on going on, you know,

And one of the things that happened to me when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous is I would see people get sober and they would stop drinking and they would get a job and they would get a car and they'd get a place to live with and somebody to dance with. And to the untrained eye, it looks like the treatment for alcoholism is normal living. Now, nothing could be further from the truth. And we all know that most of us here

that you don't even have to come to A to get those things. That takes hard work and good fortune. But the treatment to this malady that we have will be and always will be for folks like me will be the perpetuation of this gift, me and you in this book,

the perpetuation of this gift. And I had no idea

that this delusion was going to be smashed. And thank God for a Home group.

Thank God for a Home group. Now, I didn't come to believe when I got here.

I didn't come to believe. What I had to do is I had to come to serve a power greater than myself.

I didn't come to believe a power graded a long, long way to, but I came to serve a power greater than myself. And it is as amazing that the more you serve him, the clearer he becomes,

and that the more you serve you, the darker you become.

And I had no idea what was going on with me and when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. You see, when I think of sobriety today,

the thought of drinking or using doesn't even enter my mind. When I think of sobriety today, I think about the way that I live. I think about how I conduct myself when I'm away from you. Because everybody can be good for an hour and a half with sponsor right there. You know what I mean? But what do you like when you leave here? What do you like at home and work and play? So you see, that's where the real member is without telling anybody he is,

see. And I didn't know that, you see, But I can't live the way I used to live and expect to stay sober. I needed to change the way that I lived. I'm an undisciplined man,

and Alcoholics Anonymous would slowly but surely start teaching me something that I never wanted anything to do with and had been demanding my entire life. And it was a thing called respect. I've been demanding respect my entire life, but when I started showing respect for the people in my Home group and the people in my life,

I began to see what a valuable principle that was going to be for me. And I come from good people. I come from great people. I love my mom and dad. I was born in Detroit. I came out to California when I was about four years old. I was brought up in a little foster home for a while and my mom and dad finally got together again. And, and my mom's a sweet lady. She's a, she's a great little lady. She's about this high. And my mom used to eat speed. She used to eat those diet pills. So she was

running around the house around midnight, you know, and sorting out, you know, nuts and bolts in the garage all night long and, you know, raking the neighbors yard around 4:00 in the morning, you know,

and you know, and she would eat the speed and make make Afghans. So everything in the house had fresh Afghans on it, you know, couches had Afghans, chairs had Afghans, you know, my dad's golf clubs had little poodle heads, you know. And whenever time you got up, she was up doing stuff, you know, and, and she had a little room and you can hear all night in there. It's like a little garment district, you know?

And when you eat that kind of speed, you have a lot of hobbies

and you'd like to do them all at once. You know what I mean? You're, you're moving man, you know, and, and one of her favorite hobbies was to eat those diet pills and make these big jigsaw puzzles, right? Not the 3000 pieces, the 30,000 Pacers, you know, of the Mojave Desert.

And this would excite her. This would excite her. You know, she'd run around. It's going to be a beige night tonight, honey, you know, and go off and go to the drug store and get a prescription filled and, you know, come back home and plop open that card table and put her one and only mumu on and eat some more speed and start smoking these Raleigh cigarettes. She smoked Raleigh cigarettes because they had coupons on the bat and she would save these coupons to buy more yarn. It was a hideous cycle she was caught up in

and

and I'd loved being around my mom. I love being around my mom now. What was to happen to me

when I would come with you for which I hope is the last time on May 2nd, 1982

is me and you would start on this fact finding process. We're dealing with the facts. We're not talking about drunken behavior and we're talking about the facts. We're talking about the things that we were going to die with. You see the things that keep it up late last night, you know,

And I would look back and I would start this fact finding process and I would see things that I was doing as a child and dragging them into my adult year. They were hooked on me like an anchor around my ankle. And one of the things that I used to do as a young kid and brought it into my adulthood is what I would do with people who would give me love and attention and affection. And it started with my mom.

And you know what I would do? I would play her like a fiddle,

that there would never be a time too inconvenient

or an age too old for me not to put the tap on that Lady. And I never want to forget that. I never want to forget what it was like to be 8/17/18 years old and be put away somewhere for a small period of time. And you come out and you're supposed to come back at home and you don't.

No, you show up. You're supposed to come home on a Monday, but you show up on a Thursday. But you don't even show up at home. No, you show up at your mom's place of business. See, she's working in a dry cleaners and cleaning people's houses. And I'm ashamed of her. But I'm not too ashamed to show up at 9:00 in the morning and stand in a parking lot

with my drunken mud on. And I'm about from here to those back doors looking at her in that dry cleaners waiting for the customers to get out of there so I could make my move.

And with that Thunderbird bird wine and that blood all over me, I'm staring at my mom. With that rain hitting me. I start walking my way to the ladies place of business and one more time I I come in through the door and startler with my presence,

which would be an ongoing thing in that lady's life.

And she breaks out her little wallet and the picture falls out when I'm 8 years old on a Little League team. The only decent picture she'd have of Maine until I meet you. And she peels off that $1.00 and $2.00 and I run off the Long Beach, Wilmington where I'm going to die. Now the thing that brings it home to me this afternoon over here in Los Angeles is you take this same man and you bring me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with my so-called desperation and willing to go to any link. And you stick me in a Home group. And you put the secretary of that

Home group about the same distance as me and my mom in that parking lot. And I need to ask you something. If you're new, how come when my life depends on it, I can't walk that same distance and ask the secretary of a meeting for a job at a meeting that's going to save my life. But I can walk that distance and use my mom and folks like her time and time and time and time again. And I'm here to share with you, if you're new, that if my alcoholism doesn't kill me, my selfishness and myself centered with

no mistake about that.

Which is why it's necessary for a guy with 32 years to still have a job in every Home group meeting that he goes to. And it's not so that I can run off to LA and tell you about it for one reason and one reason only. We've been hearing it all weekend. I will never get so sober that I can't get drunk again,

but I can get so drunk that I can never make it back.

And I never want to forget what it used to be like, what we used to be like, and what happened and what we're like today. I never want to forget that. What it was like to be in and out of what I thought was Alcoholics Anonymous year after year after year and looking through your windows and wondering if I'll ever be in the middle of this thing called life. I never want to forget that. And if I can go through this book with you and my sponsor and find that thing that keeps me from serving you, I will have found the key to life.

Because the moment that I started serving the thing that I wanted so much from,

I couldn't keep it from bleeding in every area of my life. You can't stop it. There's a miracle here,

and it's one you can't pray about,

one you can't bring it, but it's something you must do. But,

and I had no idea now, my dad was a happy drunk. My dad was a happy singing the Blues, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin drunk. My old man loved to drink and sneak into his own home. It was an amazing thing, man. You know, he was a window climbing alky, which I think is a lost art in Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't hear about those guys anymore, man. Standing on that gas meter, pounding on that window for two hours, hoping it's his own home, you know what I mean? Getting ready to make the big dive in there, you know,

and my dad was what my dad was a World War Two vet.

He proud of it, proud of the Navy man. My dad was a World War Two vet, hard working man, worked out a refinery, started off as a janitor and after 30 some years become plant manager of this thing. He's the kind of guy that starts things and finishes them. My dad has that thing that when things get tough, he reaches down somewhere inside and finds this little Michigan God and and works through things.

He has that type of character. His son don't.

His son is wrapped with a four inch belt, A lazy ass that, you know, the only thing I think about when I wake up is my nap really. You know, I mean, everything's around 2:30 in my house, you know what I mean?

And my dad used to take my inventory every day. You don't know how good you got it. Back when I was your age, I was really tough. We really had it tough. And he did, man, he did. He worked in that depression. And you know, he knew. You know, his father died at a young age, choked on his tongue in a convulsive

mother was a Detroit

prostitute and she hung herself in a in a jail. And he brought up his kid brother and he had a dream. And that dream was to marry my mom and come out to California and live the good life because that's what everybody was doing. And he only wanted to go good for me. All he wanted for me was the best, that I would live a life that was totally opposite of his, where I wouldn't have to want.

And so they work two jobs,

and I grew up hating them.

I grew up hating the old man. I don't know what happened to me, but you see, I'm always seeking approval.

And I found out on this inventory that I was always seeking my dad's approval. And it wasn't because that I loved them, it's because I was afraid of them.

See, I was hearing what was going on in that house late at night and early in the morning and I could, I could hear things and I seen things and things were being done to me. And, and, and I, I felt so guilty about that. And I didn't trust my mom because she was letting it happen to her and everybody else. And I didn't trust my dad because he was doing it. And I had so many questions, but I didn't trust these folks. And I grew up hating this guy

and my whole, my whole goal in life was to grow up and finally get eye to eye to with that guy so that me and him can go at it.

And if that's what doing good and all that stuff is. And I just didn't trust what was going on there and I didn't know what to do with all this.

And along around 5:00 or six years old, my, you know, they got pregnant. My dad come into my room and told me that I was going to have a baby brother. And I start oiling up my glove. I start thinking about being that kid brother, how we're going to go to the drag races in the beach and stuff like that. Nine months later, my dad comes into my room and tells me that my baby brother died. I don't remember having any ounce of compassion or anything. I went after the old man with all 60 lbs yelling and screaming. You promised me,

you promised me, and my dad was going to be at the top of my list. And you know what else that did, Stuart kid? What type of God would create a baby and kill it?

Now I don't trust my mom and dad and I don't trust this Michigan God my mom's been bragging about, and I don't know where to go with that stuff. But at 11 years old, there was four of us in a garage and

and we started passing around a bottle of Four Rose whiskey.

I didn't have to worry about being good anymore. I stepped into the sweetest window I'd ever found.

I didn't have to be afraid anymore. I didn't have to worry about what I was going to be when I grow up. I found everything that I needed. Now, I didn't head off the Skid Row and lose my paper out the next day and come to a a, you know what I mean? But I marked that spot. I marked that spot. And the older that I got, the more I leaned on it. And by the time I got into high school, kids were going to their locker room to to get some books and I'm going to my locker to get some half pint of four rows whiskey or some Thunderbird or some

to take away the shakes. I start dating this little Mexican girl and she had some brothers. They like cars and I love cars to this day.

I love cars. They're custom cars. And I'm, and I, and at, when I was a, when I was a young kid, I used to help this guy with a dragster and I used to chase oil for him and, and be on his little pit crew and stuff like that, you know, and I started hanging around these little Mexicans and, you know, and I got this little girlfriend named Loopy and we drive around and we drink our Thunderbird wine and we listen to The Four Tops and the O'jays and Marvin Gaye. And God, I loved it. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes man, I loved it, you know, and

I was in my plumbing truck 2 weeks ago and The Four Tops came on and I just started sinking in my little car, man, you know,

we lowered our cars right down to the ground man. Had our 62 Chevy Impalas dropped right down to the ground. I had my hair all big like a Bakersfield tumbleweed. I had my white T-shirt and my black khaki pants up to here, you know, and driving around with a frown on because my ass hurts from bouncing around all day. You know,

Loopy's girlfriends were telling me that men who are well endowed had big feet. I had a pair of 15 inch shoes. I was driving around with man.

Somebody tripped over my foot this morning and I felt proud, you know,

Let me move that thing, you know,

Loved it, man. I loved it.

One day we were drinking that 151 rum all day long, man, just hitting that stuff all day long. 5:00 in the afternoon, Loopy says. Let's go to the jack-in-the-box and talk to the puppet, you know.

We were a lonely couple, you know. And

we pull into the jack-in-the-box and I see about 10 puppets, man, I, you know. And she goes roll up and talk to the puppet, you know, and, and I run them over the puppets hanging down, you know, and the cops come and they arrest me. They throw me on the hood of the car and they shatter my hair all over the place, you know. And, and I don't drive till I'm thirty. Well, big deal, let Rudy drive. There's nothing like riding shotgun, man. Looking at yourself in that mirror,

got your hair all big and flat because you've been sleeping on the window all night. You got 30 lbs of Tamale puke on your chest and you feel like dancing. You know

I loved it. I ran into a guy like that several years ago. I was up at the Glendale Mall. This kid comes walking by me. He was a macho kid. He had his moms earrings on

and and he had his ears pierced.

No, he had him drilled out. He had these big holes drilled out,

which is every sponsors dream because that guy gives you any lip. You say, hey, come back here, you got him, you know what I mean?

And he had ball bearings. He had ball bearings in his eyes and in his ears and in his nose and in his throat and on his tongue. And he had a chain around his neck hooked to his wallet and stuff. And I walked by him and he goes, well, what are you looking at?

I don't have a damn clue what I'm looking at. You know, I I wanted a squirt of Muslim WD40 to make sure he keeps moving on. You know,

now I sponsor. The guy

lives down in Chula Vista. His name is Ron. He used to call me, what do you want me to do? And I said, well, Ronnie, why don't you unlock yourself for God sakes? You know, well, I go to your meetings and I feel so different. Really.

Maybe you're the only one wrapped up in a chain link fence. Ronnie, how about that?

But I start, I started on this path and every time I drank, it did what it was supposed to do. Every time I drank,

it took that little scared little person and made him somebody.

And I had no idea was going to turn on me.

I had no idea that in 1975 I'd be coming back from a institution in Phoenix for writing prescriptions and came back to 1974 over here at the LA City, LA City Hall, and I get a probation officer. He puts me on an abuse

and I hadn't stopped drinking since the time I was 13 and he puts me on this anti abuse that sticks me in a little house, a little hotel over in downtown Torrance. I'm at this little downtown Torrance hotel. I'm two months without anything.

And after two months, my probation officer gives me a slip of paper to go to refinery, to be a, to be a part-time janitor. And I'm taking a bus because I'm not going to drive till I'm 30. And when you take a bus, you're either two hours earlier, two hours late. You know, there's, there's none of this, I'll be right there, You know what I mean? And I go to this refinery and I'm early and I'm waiting for my interview. And I go to this Little League dugout across the street and I go absolutely out of my mind, stone cold sober,

become hysterical,

become somewhat catatonic. And somebody calls the paramedics. They come and get me and they send me to the Harbor General Hospital, Harvard General Hospital. I'm sitting the emergency ward with an arm and a leg strapped down. And they're looking through my paperwork. And they seem to think that because of some of the things that have happened in my life, that maybe I need to go to a state hospital out by Oxnard and be observed for about 30 or 60 days. So they sent me out there and a year later I came out,

totally observed, you know,

we can't find a thing in that man, you know, and,

and they gave me certain medication to take away these certain things.

See, there was a man that drowned.

I was over there in Phoenix

and this guy drowned. My buddy drowned. He was twice my age and he drowned

and I went to, we were at Saguaro Lake and I went to dive after him and it was just muddy brown and I couldn't see him.

But I can hear them.

I can hear the screaming underwater.

And I gave it two or three shots. And then the thought in my head says, when he's gone, you get his dope.

And I let him drown.

And I would never be able to get those screams out of my mind.

To this day, my little wife Rosie looks at me like, you know what happened, You know, I'll have one of those left. And I couldn't get it out of my mind. And I didn't know what to do with that.

And I come out of that institution in the 1975 and they gave me some medication to take and it took away a certain things. But I tell you what, you can't medicate away in an alcoholic. And that is this idea that maybe this time it's going to be different. You see, that's the only thing not drinking ever brings in to me, see, because I've been trying to deliver this delusional lie that a lot of us have been trying to live, that have been imposed on us by a lot of people, that if you stop drinking, everything will be all right. You see, and I stop drinking and everything's not all right.

And the longer I stay sober, the worse I get. And if you're not doing a A and you're not drinking, you are in a most wicked place.

And I'd had no idea what was going on with me,

but I ran out of Thorazine and after a couple months and they found me in 1975 at A at a gas station over an Alvaro St. curled up like a dead dog, 120 lbs in yellow. They sent me up the wayside where I'm supposed to do 2 1/2 years and I'm up at wayside. And after a couple weeks they put a bunch of us in a bus. And in 1975 they sent me down to a courthouse in South Bay, Torrance. I'm in a holding tank about half this size

and in 1975 and 4:00 in the afternoon, everybody in that tank is gone.

All the buses are gone, all these other guys are gone. That it came in on the chain with just me and a Vons bag and no hope on where they gonna send me now.

And in 1975 a Scottish man with a patch opened this door and he says are you Larry Thomas? And I said yes, there I am. He said come with me, son, you're going to A

and I thought a a have never heard of that. I've heard of OR and PO, but what's a a, you know, who's this Scottish pirate all of a sudden, You know,

and in 1975, that man took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was ready for a long ride up north and maybe some lunch. You know, he took me for a 15 minute car ride to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in that car he told me the news. He said, Son, I know you've had a tough life and you feel different,

he says. But I can't wait for you to meet these people,

these people,

he says, an Alcoholics Anonymous son. The more different you feel, the more qualified you are. And the man took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1975.

And I took one look around that room and I seen how different that I was.

You see, because I did what I've been doing my entire life. I sat in rooms waiting for you to do something for me,

and what I was waiting to be done to me, God was waiting to do through me. It wasn't until of May 2nd, 1982

when I called up a ball headed Carpenter. I was down at the Beacon Light Mission over there in Wilmington,

and I've been running around this thing for years.

And I called up a man. I did what I always did that way. I called up a man in Alcoholics Anonymous named Don Don Adamson. I said, Don, I don't know what to do with my life. Would you come and get me? I'm down here at the Beacon Light Mission. And he told me the most profound thing I've ever heard in my life. He said no. He says, you know where we are. You know what we got. Why don't you get your rusty rear down here yourself? I'm tired of chasing after you. And he hung up and I took the longest walk of my life. But I went around that corner and I started crying because I knew

that my alcoholism was like a tale on a kite, that it was just up to the wind's going to hit me and I'm off and running. I didn't want to do that anymore.

Everything in me didn't want to do it and I didn't know how not to do it because I've been down with the pigs before

and being down with the pigs has never been enough to stop me. I'm powerless over that thing. And I got so afraid. But I came to believe in that afternoon and I didn't come to believe in God and I didn't come to believe in the book and I didn't come believe in the A, a or a sponsor. I came to believe in the hopelessness and the futility of my life at that moment. And I knew I always be like that. I knew it always be like there's nothing would ever change.

It's always going to be like this, Larry.

And I took the longest walk of my life, that 10 miles with my poopy pants and no hope. And I waddle up to this little dingy club that they'd ran me out of. And I waddled up to a guy and I asked the man something I never asked a man and a I said, Don, I don't know what to do with my life. Would you be my sponsor?

And that man lit up like a chandelier for five seconds and then he lit into me for 20 minutes.

And he was to take me through these steps.

And we started on this inventory

and we took blame out of there, right? The word blame was no longer in there. And we started on this inventory of mother and father. And I seen how I rubbed my mom and dad's know I, I introduced my mom and dad to a level of living they didn't know existed

and then demanded,

see, I never want to forget what I and I, I didn't know what to do with that. And I did. And I, I've been, I beat up my mom before I snuck down on her on one night. I snuck into her house and she's watching Johnny Carson and I'm, I'm on her lap and she's rocking me with my drunken mud on. And I can feel every tear hitting me as she's praying to this Michigan God, please help my baby boy. And I said, mom, it's going to be alright,

it's going to be all right, mom. And she waddle off the bed and I start looking underneath the cupboards for that bottle of wine that I know my dad has there

and I couldn't find it. And I start tearing up her kitchen like the days of wine and roses. And she came out of her little bed and she waddled up to me. She said, honey, what's wrong? And I said, don't you honey, what's wrong with me? And I started banging my mom around till I got blood out of her nose. You see that 4th column for a guy like me, even though I have the resentment and we write down these things as a result of that resentment that you had. How did you get even?

How did you make them pay the price for the hate that you had and the distrust?

Because they're going to pick, they're going to pay.

And I never want to forget that.

And my first spawn and my father. And I remember making that amends to my mother. You see, Darn was a smart man. He knew. He knew my record. You see, I'm one of those kind of guys in a a that every time I stop drinking for a week or two, I run around shouting the good news. And the first ones that I go to are the first ones that are going to get used.

You see, we are not talking about an apology. And every time I would do that, every time I would stop drinking in a a, I'd run off to moms. Everything going to be all right? I'm not drinking. And heck, by the, you know, after a couple years, every time I would mention a a she Oh God, he's going to be drinking again. You know she prepare herself and my sponsor, a wise man. He says no, no, no. You leave your mom and dad alone right now.

You wait till you get yourself settled down. You don't be. You do this. This is your record. This is what you do.

You call your mom and dad and you ask them how they're doing. But don't you start apologizing and making amends right now. They've heard this. Let them see you for a while

and eventually I got to sit with that little lady and she wouldn't hug me. It was one of these,

and because of Alcoholics Anonymous, my mom was introduced to her son and she was introduced to me.

Right now, she's over in Torrance. She's 8084 years old,

you see. She looks forward to seeing me.

She's having some memory issues right now. She's having some breathing issues right now.

She's got me power of attorney

and I'm taking care of that little lady and I sit in front of her and she gets pretty forgetful

and she has people taking her blood and stuff, you know, and she forgets their names and they're the same people, you know, several times a week. I was over there the other day and this guy supposed to be taking her Coumadin check, same guy for two weeks. We're all over there together. She looks at me, she says who is that fucker? You know what I mean? Just out of nowhere, man, You know, I said that's Raul. That's your blood guy, you know,

And

my mom has this balcony and on this balcony, she lives in this place where there's other balconies and all the other little ladies have real flowers on their balconies, except my mom. She's got plastic flowers. I noticed that a couple years ago and that bothered me. I thought you chump Larry, Mr. A A here's your your mom's the only lady with plastic flowers. Everybody else has real ones. Why don't you get her some real flowers? And I asked my mom. I said, mom, I says,

I want to get you some real flowers to put on your balcony, get you some roses and and stuff. You said, I don't want them, honey. I said, no, you don't have to pay for them. I'm going to take care of them. I'm going to put them up there and get you some roses and some lilies and some birds of paradise. And she said, I don't want them, honey. I don't want any real flowers. I said, you don't have to worry about taking care of. I wouldn't let it go, you know? She says, honey, I don't want any real flowers. She says I love my plastic flowers. She says I love to sit in my rocker and watch the Hummingbird.

I

I don't go there to see my mom to make amends. I go there because I love her and I'm her son.

I'm not that mechanical.

You see, if we are painstaking through a certain phase of development, if we are painstaking, that means you're going to give something an honest effort. I've never given anything an honest effort. I'm a something for nothing guy. And what these amend started showing me before I was halfway through

was that for the first time in my life, I was given something 100%

and I came to believe in Alcoholics Anonymous. I came to believe that maybe I'm not running a lie on myself, that maybe this is the real deal. For the first time in my life, I'm living in reality

and I bought the deal.

I started seeing myself doing something I had never seen before. I became responsible.

I have met with a thing that was all through my inventory was being irresponsible,

taken advantage of people stealing things and all that stuff. And now Alcoholics Anonymously, you see all these stuff, you see what they're getting ready to do. Now

that sixth step isn't it isn't about getting pretty and good. They're getting you ready. Bill's getting me ready

because Can you imagine what it would be like if we showed up making amends like we were when we were five days sober?

Have that guy on your doorstep again. You know what I mean? He's preparing us. He's getting this ready. He's getting these defects of character so that we can be useful. He's getting that stuff out of the way so that we start going to make amends. They open the door and they know something's changed.

Yeah, it's that Jackass, but there's something different about him.

And maybe, just maybe, they'll hear you out.

Maybe, just maybe. And he's getting us ready through that six. He's preparing us to do something. We got a job to do here. We're marked men.

I'm a marked man, and Bill was getting me ready to find the make amends to folks that are putting their harms out of the way. I'm going to clear up this wreckage, not so that I can run around with a peaceful head. That maybe they will,

maybe they can start tending to their lives and they don't got to be preoccupied when they hear a siren or read the obituaries or something like that. And I didn't want to go to my dad.

I didn't want nothing to do with my dad, but my sponsor insisted.

Johnny told me why don't you treat him like you treat me? In fact, dream a little bit better. And I said, Johnny, I don't know what to talk to him about when I see him.

He said Once you start talking about things that interest him,

he says make it an effort to get to know your father.

My father had some type of a kidney operation and I'm five or six years sober. And I rundown to the hospital to see him. And he grabbed my little hand and he said don't wait till I'm in the hospital to come see me.

And I started seeing my dad every week on Thursdays. That was our chili day. I'd go pick him up at his little place and we go to Norms and have chili

and sometimes there wasn't any conversation at all.

But I started I started talking about things that would interest him. I didn't bore him with this a a stuff and I was Hey, I went to Lawndale and talked or you none of that crap started talking about his life. I started sharing with him about my wife. I started sharing with him about

working in a refinery like he did. I started sharing him that some of the

stuff that maybe

he would be interested in about his son and I brought him into my life and every Thursday was our chili and dad got that liver cancer and he started dwindling away and I was taking care of that. And we go over to his house and I'd watch over and I'd sleep with him and and my dad's only request was that don't let me die at a hospital. Let me die in my own home. And if in the Hospice people, if your daddy couldn't stand on his own 2 feet, he can stay where he's at. And so my job, he says, is when those