Don P. from Aurora, CO at SWTA Correctional Facilities – Austin, TX – 2/3/1996

(0:05 – 0:17)
My name is Don, I’m an alcoholic. And I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. My
home group is the Denver Thursday Night Group, which meets in Denver every Thursday
night at 8 o’clock.
(0:21 – 0:49)
That’s as complicated as I’m going to get. By the grace of God, and because I’ve done
everything you said to do, the way you said to do it, and it worked, I’ve been
continuously sober since December 26th of 1967. And I’m the baby where I come from.
(0:50 – 1:03)
We’ve got sobriety up there in Colorado. Fortunately, at the Greeley Stampede, the
Friday night meeting is a call-up meeting of the old timers. Unless you’ve got 35 years of
sobriety, you don’t get to talk.
(1:05 – 1:17)
It’s quite a thing, and I’m very blessed by that. Our old timers are still active. Oh, I wish
he’d sit down, he’s making me nervous.
(1:22 – 1:38)
I appreciate your asking me to come down. One of the things I learned about my sobriety
is that it’s not for me. And if I don’t get the opportunity to share this on a regular basis, I
might get old and stale.
(1:40 – 1:55)
And I can’t stop the getting old, but I don’t want to get stale. Oh, thank you. I’ve got to
tell you a couple of things first to get them off my mind.
(1:57 – 2:09)
Alcoholics Anonymous did not get me sober, so I can’t lie to you about that. God got me
sober. It was a clean, free gift with no hooks in it.
(2:10 – 2:18)
And then five months later, it brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I belong to
you. This is where God brought me.
(2:18 – 2:34)
I’m yours, whatever you ask of me, I’ll do it. You took sobriety and showed me how to
live sober. And it’s my considered opinion that the worst and most intolerable condition
for any alcoholic is sobriety.
(2:35 – 2:44)
That’s why we drink. We can’t stand being sober. Unless there are some changes that
take place.
(2:45 – 3:00)
And the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is change or die. In kinder terms, it says if
you don’t want to ever drink again, you don’t have to if you’re an alcoholic. And you
don’t ever have to hurt the way you’ve been hurting ever again in your life.
(3:01 – 3:12)
We don’t promise you a pain-free life, but the pain of active alcoholism can end. We have
a way out. And that’s the message I got, and I wasn’t looking for it.
(3:14 – 3:39)
When Alcoholics Anonymous found me, and you literally found me in the Colorado State
Penitentiary, I wasn’t looking for you. When you found me, I was certified by one
government agency as a sociopath type 2. Don’t know what it is yet, but it’s not good.
Another government man said I was a psychopath, and a psychiatrist said that I was a
manic depressive drug addict.
(3:40 – 3:52)
And all I knew was that I was really, really tired. Just worn to a frazzle. I drank
alcoholically from the very beginning.
(3:53 – 4:09)
Some people catch it on a bar stool. I think I had it waiting for its first drink because I
have never, to my recall, had any control of the amount of alcohol that I drink once I
start. And I’m convinced that on my own, I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.
(4:11 – 4:18)
Absolutely convinced. Never did. I’m one of those that believes I’ve lost the power of
choice in drink.
(4:19 – 4:31)
And by the grace of God, it’s never been given back to me. When I had it, I made the
wrong choice every time. I have no more choice over whether I drink today than I did the
last time I took a drink.
(4:35 – 4:46)
You all taught me that. I don’t believe Alcoholics Anonymous is a selfish program. It’s the
most selfless thing I’ve ever seen.
(4:48 – 4:55)
The only way I get to keep it is to give it away. And the more I give, the more I get.
Which creates a vicious circle.
(4:55 – 5:02)
The more I get, the more intolerable it is to keep it, and I have to give it away again. And
you all understand that. That’s why you’re here.
(5:03 – 5:16)
I’m willing to go to the most sordid places on earth. Church basements. We had a hell of
a meeting down in the Senate hearings room, number one.
(5:17 – 5:26)
We weren’t even supposed to be there. But we had a good meeting, didn’t we, Johnnie?
Tourists would come in and we’d say, oh, come sit down if you’d like. Just like we
belonged there.
(5:28 – 5:35)
And that’s part of it. But today I belong wherever I am. And before I met you and while I
was drinking, I didn’t belong anywhere.
(5:36 – 5:48)
I grew up thinking that I was waiting for my people to come back from Mars and pick me
up. Because I really didn’t belong here. I’d been listening to human beings, and I wasn’t
one of them.
(5:50 – 5:59)
I didn’t feel like they did. I didn’t think like they did. I’m one of those people whose
emotions have always been just a little cockeyed.
(6:00 – 6:10)
I laugh at funerals and cry at hockey games. I almost got arrested in Mexico for that. I
was laughing when the funeral went by.
(6:10 – 6:19)
I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I brought all that stuff to alcohol.
(6:21 – 6:37)
If I were to make a list of the qualities that would be available to me in the family I grew
up in, that’s the family I grew up in. I come from a functional home. I apologize for that,
but I do.
(6:39 – 6:49)
My parents are still alive and still married to each other. They’re getting old. My brother
is a professor of music at the University of Colorado.
(6:51 – 7:10)
He was writing music with Stan Kenton when he was 19 years old. He grew up right
down the hall from me, next room over. My sister, bless her heart, recently retired from
IBM.
(7:10 – 7:21)
She made good money and great babies. And her babies have been busy making babies.
And because the young men of today are absolute idiots, they haven’t been able to find
good husbands to go with the babies.
(7:22 – 7:30)
But in my family, the attitude is when one of those babies comes along, looky here,
there’s another little Fritz baby. Let’s raise it. And so we do.
(7:32 – 7:43)
And I didn’t fit that. Mine was not a perfect home to grow up in. At one point in his
career, my dad was the second in command of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan.
(7:45 – 7:56)
He’s changed, fortunately. But he had problems along the way. But we were an intact
family, and we stuck together, and we helped each other through this stuff.
(7:56 – 8:11)
The one thing that we always did was face whatever was wrong and deal with it. And
then it was done. And I didn’t fit, and I looked just like him, but I don’t think they were
too sure that I wasn’t adopted either.
(8:12 – 8:23)
You know? Did you ever have that feeling? I must have been adopted. I brought all that
to alcohol one night. I didn’t belong in my high school.
(8:23 – 8:40)
I was neither front hall or back hall. I hung out with six guys who didn’t fit either. And our
favorite game after we got started was to drive up and down East Colfax in an old ratty
Ford, drinking Coors beer and looking for girls.
(8:40 – 8:48)
And I remember the horrible night that we found some. We had no idea what to do after
you find them. None at all.
(8:49 – 8:54)
Just idiots. I need a favor from you. It’s hot up here.
(8:54 – 9:11)
Do you mind if I take my jacket off? My mother and my wife made me wear that to
indicate that I respect you. The actual reason I took it off is I want you to see these
thighs. You’re all trying to drown me here.
(9:17 – 9:44)
That’s about the way I drank, too. It was a rite of passage on East Colfax in Denver,
Colorado, when I grew up, that around 15 or 16 or 17, somewhere in there, we got one of
the fellows from our Air Force base to buy a bottle of whiskey. You take it out east of
Denver and drink it and get drunk and have fun.
(9:44 – 10:03)
That’s why I started to drink. I went out east of Denver that night, angry, furious,
actually. When you don’t belong, over a long period of time, you end up furious and
baffled and frightened and stupid and short and ugly.
(10:06 – 10:27)
And I had a couple of drinks of bonded bourbon, and it happened. I have always known
that my answer would be spiritual in nature, but I’ve always been a spiritual thief. And as
I read the book Alcoholics Anonymous, I discover that what happened to me that night
was what Carl Jung describes as a spiritual experience.
(10:28 – 10:44)
In essence, ideas and conceptions that once were the guiding forces in the lives of these
men are suddenly cast to one side, and an entire new set of conceptions begins to
dominate them. That’s what happened to me when I had a couple of drinks of bonded
bourbon. I changed completely.
(10:45 – 11:09)
There was a guy in my high school class that hadn’t been treating me too well, and I was
going to meet him back at the drive-in and whip him, and I could have done it. And there
was a girl who hadn’t been treating me at all, and we were going to visit that evening. I
knew even back then that one of the nicest things that human beings can engage in is
visiting.
(11:10 – 11:25)
You don’t know how to do it, but it’s a nice thing if you can ever learn. It requires
something most of us don’t have. I have to be at least as interested in you as I am me in
order to carry it off, and so that’s hard to do.
(11:27 – 11:46)
The plans I had that night, and what happened really, despite the fact that I grew and all
that stuff, I had plans. Up until then, I’ve been ricocheting off of life, and all of a sudden
I’ve got some plans, and they’re good plans. At that age, whipping the bully and visiting
with the girl are not bad things to do.
(11:47 – 11:55)
If that’s all alcohol would do for me, I’d still be drinking and I’d buy you all a drink. I
would. It’s not a bad thing.
(11:56 – 12:12)
That isn’t all it does to me. It’s in my nature, down deep in my bones, that if one works,
take ten. I don’t even think about it.
I just do it. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. It’s just my nature.
(12:12 – 12:34)
So by the time I got back to the drive-in, what they got to see, instead of what I had in
mind, was my partners carrying me around by the elbows while I puked in the driveway.
I nearly died of acute alcohol poisoning that night. Couldn’t even sniff bonded bourbon
for four years without gagging.
(12:36 – 12:41)
I learned right away, I’ve got a keen alcoholic mind. I knew what caused that. Bonded
bourbon.
(12:42 – 12:53)
I quit drinking that stuff. In fact, I don’t think I ever had any more, ever. I believe that
that’s all I could have gotten a hold of.
(12:53 – 13:01)
I’d have had some, but I gave that up. That’d make you sick. I found out what wouldn’t
make me sick.
(13:01 – 13:22)
And I began, everything I know about alcoholism came to me from this book. And I would
suggest to you that everything we know about alcoholism came to us from nonalcoholics. We think we’re smart.
We’re not. Dr. Silkworth and folks like him taught us what we know. Everything we know
about spiritual things, by the way, came to us from non-alcoholics, too.
(13:23 – 13:32)
We just have a knack of presenting it to other alcoholics that makes sense. But, I began
drinking for effect. I found that in the book.
(13:33 – 13:41)
Early on, the effects were simple. I could catalog them almost. If we were going to go out
on the street and fight tonight, I drank vodka.
(13:42 – 13:54)
Because when I drank vodka, I’d get mean. And if you’re going to fight, you might as well
be mean. If we were going to go to a party, and there might be some girls there, I drank
dark Bacardi rum.
(13:55 – 14:04)
Makes me sensitive. And warm. I’d become a lover.
(14:07 – 14:16)
Also get drunk. I remember the pain at about 19. Of not being able to feel anything.
(14:17 – 14:33)
That’s one of the hardest ones to live with, is not to feel at all. And I discovered that I
could drink Coors beer and listen to Jim Reeves and Fernland Husky singing things like
Four Walls, and I could just cry like a baby. I could get involved, be in touch with my
feelings.
(14:35 – 14:46)
With red wine, particularly Mogan David red wine, I’m a poet. And I paint. I’m artistic as
hell.
(14:48 – 14:56)
Now that stopped after a while. Eventually all it did was get me drunk. But when I read
about drinking for effect, I began to identify with that.
(14:57 – 15:15)
I’m very fortunate that I come from an AA tradition that says, here’s what it looks like,
bring your own memories to it and see if you fit. I was in my first federal penitentiary
when I was 19. Absolutely baffled at why that happened.
(15:15 – 15:28)
I had quit high school when I was 17 and joined the Navy to become a hero and save
America from the communist menace. And I really wanted to be a hero. I can still hear it.
(15:28 – 15:44)
I’ve come home now from the foreign wars with my little white hat and my little blue
uniform and medal after medal after medal here. And I just quietly walked down the
street and I could hear them. There he is.
(15:45 – 15:53)
That’s him. He lets me talk to him. He’s my friend.
(15:53 – 16:06)
Gosh. Oh, I wanted that so bad because I didn’t belong anywhere. And two years later I
was in the Army prison in Tokyo wondering what happened here.
(16:07 – 16:21)
And I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and you told me by having me look in this book what
happened. Who’s turning out the lights? Am I going blind? I’m trying to get my eye on
you. Okay.
(16:21 – 16:32)
Make me nervous, Susan. They did that to me in Bellevue, Nebraska. Turned it clear out
and I had to quit.
(16:32 – 16:44)
I talked to people. They took all the people away from me. This will do.
This makes it romantic. Yeah. Bring out the rum.
(16:53 – 17:07)
I absolutely loved the Navy. At 17 and 18 and 19, that’s exciting stuff. You shoot at them
and they shoot at you and everybody runs up and down the coast of Korea making noise.
(17:08 – 17:18)
Pulling airplanes out of the drink. Liberty in Japan, you get to drink all you want and cuss
and spit and chew and chase girls. Oh, God, it was fun.
(17:20 – 17:29)
I was a radar man and a radio man and I loved the work. It challenged my mind. And
everything was fine until I went on liberty.
(17:30 – 17:49)
They’d give me a 24-hour liberty and I’d get back in 25 or 28. And one time it was 23
days and when I got home it wasn’t there anymore. They had moved it, headed for Korea
and at that time that was a shooting offense.
(17:50 – 18:00)
That was a bad trouble. And I wondered why that happened. I ended up with a bad
conduct discharge and some time in the Army prison and the Marine brigs.
(18:01 – 18:18)
Hit the streets of Denver at 19 wondering what happened. And I got to you all and you
explained it so clearly to me, I began to fit the pieces together. In the doctor’s opinion,
he talks about working with men who had been working on a business deal that would be
settled favorably to them on a certain date.
(18:19 – 18:28)
And I had a drink a day or two before and I missed the appointment. And there I was. I
could finally track what had happened to me.
(18:28 – 18:43)
I took a drink in Long Beach, California. And 22 days later I was in Pershing Square in Los
Angeles mooching drinks. Truly willing to do and did almost anything at all except go
back to that ship so I could keep drinking.
(18:44 – 18:51)
And on day 23 the madness wasn’t there anymore. Whatever that is that Silkworth
describes wasn’t there. And I turned myself in and went back.
(18:53 – 19:06)
In simpler terms, what happens to me when I start drinking is that I get lost and I can’t
find my way home. I sponsor a psychiatrist. Boy, is he fun.
(19:08 – 19:19)
The founding psychiatrist was one of the finest alcohol and drug treatment units in the
world. He just had difficulty staying sober himself. And when I sponsor people, it’s very
simple.
(19:20 – 19:29)
We all tend to sponsor the way we were sponsored. And my sponsors understood that
my main problem was that I couldn’t read. So they read the big book out loud to me.
(19:30 – 19:44)
And so that’s what I do. And I was reading this to him and I’m watching the simple
information that Silkworth gives us go into his mind and get lost in the information that
he had about alcoholism. He wasn’t getting it.
(19:44 – 19:53)
And the thing I like about new people is that you teach me effective prayer. Oh yeah.
You come into my house and you’re ready to die.
(19:53 – 20:00)
And I know that and you know that. And you put your life in my hands. Really, it proves
how insane you are.
(20:02 – 20:14)
And all I can do is say, oh God, please show me what to do and what to say here. Please.
And I’m praying my heart out because he’s missing it.
(20:15 – 20:32)
And I heard it come. You had that experience where you just hear it come out of your
own mouth. I said, Don, what happens to you after the first drink? He said, well, around
the fourth or fifth drink, I start getting drunk and I lose track of where I am and where I’m
supposed to be next and I end up drunk.
(20:33 – 20:50)
I said, Don, what happens to you after the first drink? Well, after the fourth or fifth drink,
what happens to me after the first drink is the second drink. That’s it. That’s all I need to
know to begin the path to sobriety.
(20:51 – 20:59)
And with that information, I can get to even the smartest of them. He got it. And I got it.
(21:06 – 21:19)
Christmas week of 1967, I just ran my string out. I don’t want to spend all night talking
about a 14-year string. I’m an alcoholic.
(21:20 – 21:37)
I’m also one of the freaks that came out of Berkeley in the 60s, screaming out, where
there’s dope, there’s hope. Burn down City Hall. I did a lot of speed and I took a lot of
acid and I’m not a drug addict.
(21:38 – 21:43)
I’m very clear on that. It took me time to understand it. Some folks are.
(21:43 – 21:49)
I’m not. I’m an alcoholic. I have always had a choice for concerned drugs.
(21:49 – 21:56)
I made bad choices along the way, but I could stop or start. I could postpone. I had
choices.
(21:56 – 22:09)
I’ve never had any choice whatsoever with alcohol. I drank, period. Anyway, I had been
raising two little boys on the street for about four and a half years.
(22:09 – 22:25)
Their mother took off when Terry was two and Sean was, or Terry was two and a half and
Sean was one. And we hit the road in my declining time of alcoholism. And I didn’t want
to do it that way, but it was catching up with me.
(22:26 – 22:46)
My kids thought that living with Hell’s Angels and living in the woods and moving every
month was a normal way of life, because for them it was. My little boys got to have all
the fun little boys can ever have. Living in the woods was fine.
(22:47 – 22:56)
When the federal narcotics agents broke down our house in 1966, that wasn’t such a
good thing. They almost shot my little one. Reflex action.
(22:56 – 23:10)
He let out a scream and the agent swung his gun around and almost shot my boy. And I
hated him for a while. I hurt everything that was ever important to me.
(23:12 – 23:22)
My family stuck by me the whole way. But Christmas week of 1967, my family ran out of
lies. I didn’t get sober because of the truth.
(23:25 – 23:35)
I just ran out of lies. When I, I’ve been active in prison work and I work in corrections
now. And my whole thing is still, I don’t bother telling the truth.
(23:35 – 23:47)
They don’t hear the truth anyway. Until we break down the lies. Float of memories there.
(23:48 – 24:02)
I’ll never forget the change when I realized my problems were of my own making. I was
working in the dishroom in the Colorado State Penitentiary just watching the show. And
you know, that’s a dangerous place.
(24:03 – 24:11)
Mess halls are generally where it gets started. In a maximum security penitentiary. So
they had the catwalks with the machine guns and all that high drama stuff.
(24:12 – 24:20)
And I’m just standing watching this go on. And the goon squad’s on the door. And the
executioner was one of the goon squad over here.
(24:20 – 24:27)
Now this was a little round person. No hair and big ears. And when you looked in his eyes
there wasn’t anybody home.
(24:28 – 24:38)
Just wasn’t anybody there. And I remember standing in that doorway watching that and
my mind was just musing. I thought, isn’t this a bitch? Here’s this guy over here.
(24:40 – 24:48)
And every now and then they say to him, you take this person over to that green room
and you kill him. And he does it. And then he comes back and has lunch.
(24:48 – 24:53)
It doesn’t faze him at all. And he’s in charge of my life. Okay.
(24:54 – 25:02)
And a thought rushed through my head. Yeah, dummy, but who brought you here? The
lie broke. Okay.
(25:02 – 25:15)
Who brought you here? You taught me that. I had unmerciful sponsorship. Christmas
week of 1967, let me tell you about it.
(25:16 – 25:23)
Because I was just running out of lives. I weighed 133 pounds. The boys and I lived in a
scuzzy little basement apartment.
(25:25 – 25:40)
I was on federal parole in ADC because I couldn’t work. I’d reached that stage where I
couldn’t get out of bed without a shot of methadone. And the only reason I did that was
to get up and steal something so I could buy enough booze to go back to bed again.
(25:40 – 25:53)
This was not a good life. I was getting tired. I would have told you that week that we
were okay because the family was intact.
(25:53 – 25:58)
The kids and I were together. We had a house and food and clothes. We were okay.
(25:58 – 26:02)
Don’t mess with us. We’re okay. And I began to see that that was a lie.
(26:02 – 26:11)
On the 24th, we didn’t have a Christmas tree. You see, coming from a functional home, I
know what Christmas looks like. Or is supposed to look like.
(26:12 – 26:22)
They bring this big live tree in from the outside and dress it up with lights and tinsel. And
we used to thread popcorn and drape it all over the house. It smelled so good.
(26:23 – 26:31)
Hot chocolate with marshmallows on it. And I’m not talking about them sissy things. Big
marshmallows that cover it.
(26:31 – 26:41)
You had to go and get them out of there before you could even drink the chocolate. And
mulled cider with cinnamon in it. And I remember then and can remember now.
(26:42 – 26:54)
The most important activity of all in the house I grew up in is that over the Christmas
holidays, people came over and visited with my folks. My folks are loved in Denver.
They’re marvelous people.
(26:54 – 27:04)
And folks would come and go and they’d visit. Nobody visited my house this year. Even
my parole officer wouldn’t come by.
(27:04 – 27:10)
I had to go see him. It was an empty house. And I began to see that.
(27:10 – 27:21)
Well, on the 24th, we took a walk because Dad was restless, irritable, and discontent. At
all times, that wasn’t a description. That was way of life.
(27:21 – 27:32)
And we found a buck in the snow and went to the Christmas tree lot and found out they’ll
sell you the biggest tree on the lot for a dollar on the 24th. And I’m an alcoholic. We
bought the biggest tree they had.
(27:34 – 27:40)
And took a nine-foot tree into a seven-foot room. So it tilted at the top, you know. I still
remember how that looked.
(27:41 – 27:56)
And we dressed it with garbage and junk and stuff. And the public merchandise mart in
Denver, on East Colfax in Denver, as we were walking home, we stopped by. And that
kind man gave me a pair of cowboy boots and a little shirt.
(27:56 – 28:10)
So the boys would each have a present. I stopped by there this year. It was done on
credit.
(28:10 – 28:16)
He knew I didn’t have any money. One look at me, and he knew I would never have any
money. Gave them to us anyway.
(28:16 – 28:30)
I stopped by just to tell him because this was my 28th-day birthday. And I wanted him to
know that his kindness was remembered. And he passed on, but I got to meet his son.
(28:31 – 28:47)
And he said that’s the way his dad was. It was a touching thing for me this year. But we
took that home, and my little boys wrapped up everything that could fit into paper towel
and put it under the tree for me so I’d have a decent Christmas.
(28:47 – 29:01)
And I started to fall apart. I could see there’s something really wrong here. On Christmas
Day, we went down to my folks’ place to spend Christmas Day with Grandma and
Grandpa.
(29:02 – 29:19)
My dad met us at the door, and he said, Don, I’m sorry, but your mother says I can’t let
you in here anymore because she can’t stand watching you die. And the lie broke. I lived
and believed in what I’ve told you.
(29:20 – 29:26)
Just leave me alone. I’m not hurting anybody but me. And suddenly, that was a lie.
(29:27 – 29:35)
I could see what I’d done to her and to my dad and to my kids and even the bums I ran
around with. It was clear. I hurt everybody I ever touched.
(29:36 – 29:50)
And then my dad snuck us into the basement anyway and tore up my last lie. I believed
and would have said, Nobody cares. Nobody loves us.
(29:50 – 29:55)
Nobody cares. And he did. He jeopardized his own home that day for us.
(29:56 – 30:07)
And I didn’t have any lies left. I went home with a heart filled with self-pity and pain. And
then I stepped across the self-pity into the truth, and the truth was, there’s no reason for
me to be here.
(30:08 – 30:24)
Everybody I could think of would be better off if I weren’t here, and that was the truth. I
think that’s the absolute bottom of all human pain because it says, I am useless. No one
can live with that sense of being useless.
(30:26 – 30:38)
The one thing we try to give the inmates I work with is the sense of being useful. And we
do that with our 12th step. But that day, I was useless.
(30:40 – 30:49)
You have to either surrender or die. And there was nothing left to surrender to. God, I’d
tried everything from the time I was little, I’ve tried stuff.
(30:49 – 30:55)
I was one of the first people in Dianetics. I knew L. Ron Hubbard. Now, there’s sanity.
(30:56 – 31:11)
Take a sick kid and turn his life over to the care of a science fiction writer. I loved
Dianetics. They gave me methadrine and probed my mind, and I gave them fanciful
stories and took their dope.
(31:12 – 31:19)
Mmm, mmm, mmm. Useless. I knew the kids would be better off if I weren’t there.
(31:20 – 31:33)
What I did just to get out, since there was nothing to surrender to, I quit. Which is a
really good way to surrender. I took a two-month supply of that garbage I had in the
house and shoved it up my arm and drank everything there was and laid down and died.
(31:34 – 31:42)
And I really believe I died. I’ve been different ever since. I’ve not had a drink or a pill or a
fix or a thought of one from that day to this one.
(31:47 – 31:55)
I had a spiritual event take place. I should have been dead. When I woke up in the
morning, I didn’t feel good.
(31:57 – 32:02)
The cops were at the door. Rightfully so. They had nine charges.
(32:02 – 32:10)
The first one called for three years to life. And the DA promised me he’d bring the rest of
them one at a time if I beat that one. But I was through.
(32:10 – 32:24)
And I really didn’t care. See, what had happened, somehow I had gotten into a state of
being where I was a complete failure at living and now a complete failure at dying. You
can’t scare me by telling me if I drink I’ll die.
(32:25 – 32:33)
That was my out. And it didn’t work. I can’t scare the people I work with by telling them if
you drink you die.
(32:33 – 32:50)
I scare them real good by telling them if you keep drinking you’ll probably live this way
for a while. That’s enough to scare you to death. I detoxed in the Denver County Jail.
(32:51 – 33:01)
And I really don’t want to forget that. Six weeks of leg cramps and arm cramps and neck
cramps. You can’t eat.
(33:03 – 33:10)
God, I don’t want to ever forget that. I don’t believe for a minute that remembering it
would keep me sober. I’ve done that before and it didn’t keep me sober.
(33:10 – 33:23)
I’ve got a terrific forgetter. What it does do is make me a pretty good sponsor. If you
come to me in your fifth week of detoxing convinced you’re going to die, I can look you
right in the eye and say, no, you’ve got a week to go.
(33:26 – 33:28)
Hang on one more week. I know you can make it. I do.
(33:30 – 33:36)
I just pray to God don’t bring me one at seven weeks. I won’t know what to say. But I’ll
probably make up some kind of lie.
(33:40 – 33:52)
I was different. The power of God went to work in my life before I ever heard the name. I
came to trial.
(33:52 – 34:06)
I’m on federal parole. So, oh, the Fed’s five years. And I come to trial on this beef and
they take me into a room and he said, we’ve been talking, the DA says, we’ve been
talking to the federal people and we all think you are really sick.
(34:07 – 34:18)
And I agreed. No question about that. He said, if you’ll save us the expense of this messy
trial, we’ll give you a reduced sentence.
(34:18 – 34:29)
We’ll give you one and a half to three and suspend it. And the federal people have
agreed to take you back and take you down here to Fort Worth, Texas to this hospital
you all have down here and fix what was wrong with me. And I signed on the spot.
(34:30 – 34:42)
I’m an alcoholic, not an idiot. Fort Worth beats the hell out of three years to life under
any circumstances. And they signed off on it.
(34:42 – 34:46)
Everybody agreed. I pled guilty. They reduced my age to 17 so I could qualify for the
charge.
(34:48 – 35:05)
Gave me one and a half to three, suspended it and gave me back to the Feds who had
already agreed to take me. And five days later, by the grace of God, I was in the fish
tank of the Colorado State Penitentiary. The federal man, for reasons he doesn’t know,
I’ve talked with him, changed his mind.
(35:07 – 35:20)
Had I gone to this hospital over there where there’s doctors and books, I’d have been out
in six months, nine at the most. They’d have taught me what was wrong with me. They’d
have told me about how long it would take to fix all that.
(35:21 – 35:36)
And they’d have given me a list of all the symptoms I’d have to show them to convince
them I was getting better. And that was my best game. I surrendered to nothing and was
put where I was supposed to be before you could come and find me.
(35:36 – 35:50)
And you did, you came looking for me. The people of Alcoholics Anonymous at that time
and to this time, in our third week, three inmates came over to 12th Step Us. And I still
remember that morning.
(35:50 – 35:55)
They called us down. I can hear the guards’ voice. You people will come down and you
will listen.
(35:56 – 36:11)
I didn’t have any pressing social engagements so I came down. And participated for the
first time in the miracle of my life. My new mind was at work.
(36:11 – 36:17)
I listened. That’s all you have to do here is listen. That’s all.
(36:17 – 36:21)
You don’t have to understand anything. You just listen. And here’s what I heard.
(36:21 – 36:33)
It was wonderful. A guy with a number on his chest said, my name’s Doc and I’m an
alcoholic. And that means that I’m powerless over alcohol and guards and drugs and all
of the other circumstances of my life.
(36:33 – 36:47)
And my life has become unmanageable. And if any of you smart bastards think you can
still manage your lives, look at the reward the state just gave you for the nifty job you’ve
been doing. There was nothing to argue with.
(36:49 – 36:59)
He said, your very best thinking got you to the penitentiary. You’re not doing too good,
are you? And then he did what we do here. He didn’t just leave it at that.
(36:59 – 37:09)
See, truth without love is cruelty. And confrontation without a real answer is brutality.
But they loved us, even though they didn’t know who we were.
(37:10 – 37:17)
And they had a real answer. He said, your best thinking got you here. You’re not doing
too good, are you? But we can show you a new way of thinking.
(37:18 – 37:27)
We can show you how to learn to live a way of life that will make sense to you. And that
was a new idea for me. I’d been trying to live my life so it made sense to you.
(37:28 – 37:37)
My life never made sense to anybody. Today, my life makes sense to me. And it still
doesn’t make sense to a lot of people.
(37:37 – 37:47)
But I much don’t give a damn. Until you put the bread on my table, I won’t do anything
to hurt you. But I much don’t give a damn what you think about the way I live.
(37:50 – 37:58)
The results of that suit me. I’ve been married to the same woman for 19 years and we
haven’t had a fight yet. You taught me how to do that.
(37:58 – 38:10)
Doesn’t mean we agree on everything, but we don’t fight. So you taught me something.
If my voice goes up and I begin to defend my position, it’s not the truth.
(38:10 – 38:18)
It’s my position. And I’m automatically wrong. She also thinks I’m the cutest thing she
has ever seen.
(38:19 – 38:34)
And I agree with her entirely. A lot of sidelights to that. I learned about women from
men.
(38:34 – 38:42)
It’s no wonder I had difficulty. We don’t know anything about women. I let my wife teach
me about women and I’m just fine.
(38:49 – 39:11)
Before we could go to Alcoholics Anonymous, the main meeting was on Friday night.
That’s where they let you outsiders in to tell your race history We weren’t allowed to go
to that meeting for five weeks. Before you could become a member of the AA group, we
had to spend every Saturday afternoon and every Sunday afternoon for five weekends in
a 12-step study school.
(39:15 – 39:25)
Now, I wasn’t afraid of the penitentiary. This was number three. You learn some things in
number one in about ten minutes that will get you through however many more you
want to go to.
(39:27 – 39:40)
And I knew how to live there. What had me scared to death is that I knew sometime in
the next one and a half to seven years they’re going to put me back on the streets of
Denver and I don’t have a clue. Not a clue.
(39:43 – 39:54)
So I was ready to listen. And I went to their 12-step study school because they promised
they could show me a new way to think. I didn’t know I was alcoholic.
(39:54 – 40:04)
I was a sociopath, psychopathic, manic-depressive drug addict. We didn’t have any
programs for that. So I went to AA.
(40:06 – 40:17)
Where I found sociopathic, psychopathic, manic-depressives. Oh, Lord. We got to our
first meeting and these same three guys were there smiling.
(40:18 – 40:26)
We sat down and they said, now for the next five weeks you new guys have nothing to
say. Well, you wouldn’t be here. So listen.
(40:28 – 40:47)
And we listened while they read the book aloud to us and helped us bring our memories
to them and helped us do the steps as they are in the big book. They taught me about
the allergy I have in my body that causes me to drink after I take a drink. The Chinese
described alcoholism 3,000 years ago.
(40:48 – 40:56)
Man takes a drink, drink takes a drink, drink takes a man. Alcoholism is a drink taking a
drink. Okay.
(40:58 – 41:14)
They walked us through that and I began to get a picture of that. I was really afraid of
this insanity business because I knew I was. My sponsor said, we don’t think that you’re a
manic-depressive.
(41:14 – 41:20)
We think you’re a good actor. Oh. And began to open me up.
(41:20 – 41:38)
I can show you the symptoms of a psychopath. Six of you got big guys back me in that
corner and you’ll see a psychopath because I learned real early if they start crowding
you, throw a mood swing or two at them. Be unpredictable.
(41:39 – 41:46)
The biggest of them back off. Right? Oh. So we think you’re a good actor.
(41:46 – 41:58)
And we began to explore that. And then I found in the book Anonymous, a story of a car
salesman named Jim that gave me a description of the kind of insanity I suffer from. You
know about Jim.
(42:01 – 42:08)
He’d been to AA six times. He’d been working with our founders. I paid close attention to
that story.
(42:08 – 42:17)
He had all the information I’ll ever get from the horse’s mouth. And he drank. The
information wasn’t enough to stop him from drinking.
(42:19 – 42:37)
But on trip number seven, the only thing he hadn’t done, it says in here, was that he
failed to enlarge his spiritual life. So I’m inclined to think that’s probably what I ought to
be about is enlarging my spiritual life. But anyway, he was mad at his boss that morning
because he was now working for the guy in a place he used to own.
(42:37 – 42:41)
Had a few words. No big deal. Low grade resentment.
(42:42 – 42:51)
Went out to sell a car or two and stopped in a bar where he’d been many times to have
lunch. Apparently it wasn’t the bar that caused the trouble. He’d been sober in it before.
(42:52 – 43:04)
Had a sandwich and a glass of milk. And somebody in his head said, Jim, you just had
lunch. You can safely have an ounce of alcohol if you put it in your milk.
(43:05 – 43:14)
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that’s a saying to start with. When you put
whiskey in milk, it curdles it. Who’s going to drink that? Okay.
(43:15 – 43:22)
But he did that. And he had a drink. And it was a very successful experiment because he
didn’t go crazy and tear the bar up.
(43:23 – 43:30)
Now, we put out a bad message when we say if you take a drink, bad things are going to
happen. Generally not. All that’s going to happen is you’ll have another drink.
(43:33 – 43:44)
And it was so successful, he had another and another. And then he ended up back in a
sanitarium. And then the book says whatever the precise definition may be, we call this
plain insanity.
(43:44 – 43:55)
How can such lack of proportion and the ability to think straight be called anything else?
And there it is. That’s what I suffer from. Lack of proportion and lack of the ability to
think straight.
(43:55 – 44:10)
I’m rubber-minded. My sponsor said, Don, we’re not even sure the truth’s going to work
for you. He says, you take it into your head and your ego catches it and says something
like, Aha, I can use that later.
(44:11 – 44:17)
I can catch the edge with that. So by the time I use it, it’s not the truth anymore. It’s a
warped version.
(44:18 – 44:28)
So they began to destroy things. My sponsors demonstrated what I had to have here.
And that’s the message I try to carry behind the walls.
(44:31 – 44:42)
They had been changed. Bruce had committed a double murder one morning when he
was 17 years old in a drunken rage in a shootout. I’d never done that.
(44:42 – 44:55)
If I’d had to identify with that drama, I couldn’t be here. He woke up that morning feeling
nobody cared whether he lived or died. And the pain of that was such that he started to
drink in order to kill the pain.
(44:55 – 45:03)
And this time it didn’t work. It intensified the pain and he went and killed some people.
I’ve had the same experience except for the shooting.
(45:04 – 45:11)
I was a coward. I’m a paper thief. I learned that you can get whatever you need if you
just write the right document out.
(45:12 – 45:27)
And we won’t get into that. Roy Nichols was a stick-up man. An armed robber when he
was drinking.
(45:28 – 45:42)
Phil Gutierrez came from Guam and he was doing time because last time he drank he
threw some people out of a three-story window. He was probably the most gentle human
being I’ve ever met. Bruce was incapable of killing anybody.
(45:43 – 45:48)
Roy couldn’t have pulled a stick up if he wanted to. And I challenged him on that. I said,
that’s right.
(45:48 – 45:57)
We’ve been changed and God changed us. He didn’t pussyfoot with me. All I knew is
they’d been changed and I wondered what they had.
(45:58 – 46:06)
And Bruce had something very practical that I wanted. See, the spiritual life for me is a
very practical life. It happens on the street not in the hilltops.
(46:07 – 46:18)
He got in and out of his cell whenever he wanted to. And the way I knew that is when I
was locked up and couldn’t get out he’d come by and visit me. I wondered what he had.
(46:21 – 46:39)
On one of those visits he said to me, Don, do you know that it’s possible for me to think
one thought at a time? And he had me hooked. There he is. Can you imagine that one
thought at a time? It turns out that the way you do that is to just clear away all the other
thoughts.
(46:41 – 46:50)
We call it inventory. It’s a way of getting rid of all the ideas that don’t fit. I wondered
what they had and they said it was God that had done it.
(46:51 – 47:04)
And I went back to my cell one day and took the greatest risk I’ve ever taken in my life.
With all the earnestness in my heart I said the third step prayer and waited for my
flashing light. And when it didn’t come I got pissed.
(47:05 – 47:13)
I had a terrible experience. Semi-alcoholic. If it shakes the room or if part of the room
falls down I can deal with that.
(47:15 – 47:27)
But absolutely nothing happened but flat. And I can’t deal with that. And I’d learned by
then that if your sponsor tells you to do something and you do it and you don’t get the
results you think you ought to get go pitch at him.
(47:28 – 47:46)
I did. I went back to him with the alcoholic war cry just ringing from my lips. Where’s
mine? Where’s mine? That can’t be mine.
(47:48 – 47:54)
It’s not big enough. That can’t be mine. It’s the wrong color.
(47:55 – 48:23)
Where’s mine? If you get that one figured out and alcoholics do there’s another one right
behind it you want to watch out for. I want more. He said to me dummy I had gone from
38-9-84 to dummy.
(48:23 – 48:35)
That’s not a bad leap. He said dummy you ought to be grateful you didn’t have a flash of
light it definitely killed you all your life. And we began to explore my flashes of light.
(48:37 – 48:55)
Warm southern comfort on a roof in Phoenix, Arizona in September will give you a flash
of light. I had the privilege of sharing a peyote meeting with a washout at an Easter
ceremony one time and had a vision. Great bird flying high with no head.
(48:56 – 49:09)
Understood clearly that was me in my life flying high going nowhere. Kept me sober four
months. I can tell you the truth from my own experience if you’re an alcoholic visions are
good for four months of sobriety.
(49:16 – 49:34)
He said God knows Don that you probably can’t stand one more big shock in the shape
you’re in anyway. And will probably come to you as he has to me very gently and he
began to explore that with me and share that with me. Then he destroyed all of my
concepts of God.
(49:36 – 49:48)
As he began to explore he’d have me talk my stuff and he’d destroy it. All of my
concepts of God at that time had to do with Santa Claus or what’s he gonna do for me.
And we just wiped him out.
(49:50 – 49:57)
And I screamed at him. You’re asking me to turn my life over to the care of nothing. He
said why not? Nothing can run it better than you’ve been doing it.
(49:59 – 50:10)
Boy he was hard on me. He really loved me. Then we found my last reservation.
(50:10 – 50:34)
I still had one. I believed at that time if I truly surrendered entirely to God’s will that he
had work for me to do and I didn’t want to do it. I’d end up at the corner of Colfax and
Broadway in Denver handing out Watchtower magazines and asking strangers have you
been saved brother? And I just you know I had this nice apartment up there on cell B49
right.
(50:34 – 50:44)
I couldn’t see me doing that. He said well let’s talk about that. And if you’re new that
doesn’t mean let us talk about that.
(50:46 – 51:12)
That’s sponsored talk for you be quiet for a minute and we’ll see if I can get something in
that thick head of yours. He said Don do you suppose that the guy that’s handing out
Watchtowers at Colfax and Broadway today had breakfast where he wanted to and I said
probably and he said you didn’t. Do you suppose that guy is making a fool of himself
asking those strangers if they’ve been saved is wearing clothes that he picked out to do
it in.
(51:13 – 51:26)
And I said probably and he said you’re not. Do you suppose when he’s all through
humiliating himself that he gets to go home. I didn’t.
(51:29 – 52:06)
We’re promised a new mind here an entire psychic change a new mind. And my sponsor
loved me so much he not only created a vacuum he laid the foundation in my new mind
and it’s simply this anything at all that God may have in mind for me is better than
anything at all that I will ever have in mind for me period end of story. And I had my first
taste of nobility because I really became willing to go hand out watch towers on the
corner of Colfax and Broadway if that’s what God wanted and I told him that and he said
oh that’s noble.
(52:09 – 52:20)
That’s all I know is noble Tom. He says but God’s already got a guy down there doing
that. So he’ll probably have something else for you to do.
(52:22 – 52:31)
Unmerciful. My first inventory was a lie. Of course it was.
(52:31 – 52:42)
I’m an alcoholic and I’m fresh. I went back to my cell and spent almost two hours writing
down some of the most bizarre things I’d ever done. I didn’t bother with the instructions.
(52:44 – 52:52)
Brought them back to him to fist step him and this same man who’d been so loving and
kind looked at it and he said that’s garbage. You wrote that to impress me. Get out of
here.
(52:56 – 53:05)
Now I’d just spent two hours working on this opus. Somebody’s gonna listen. And I found
a guy who would listen.
(53:07 – 53:29)
And I had a series of spiritual awakenings in fist stepping with him because I would tell
him something I had done and he would say oh that wasn’t that bad. And pretty soon as
we went through that I realized there’s something dead wrong here because some of
that was that bad. And I realized that once again I had picked someone who would tell
me what I wanted to hear so I didn’t have to change anything.
(53:30 – 53:40)
And if I didn’t stop that immediately I was gonna die a very ugly death. And I was not
then nor am I now afraid of death. I’ve died three times that I can remember.
(53:40 – 53:54)
There’s a lot of ways of dying I don’t wanna mess with. But death’s no big deal. The
problem with dying an ugly death is that to do that I will have to live an ugly life for some
period of time just before that.
(53:55 – 54:03)
And I can’t stand the thought. So I went back and did it the way the big book says. Went
to my sponsor got directions read them out of there.
(54:04 – 54:13)
Found out that resentment isn’t a mental or emotional problem it’s a spiritual disease.
Learned what to do with it. Began to discover my problems were my own making.
(54:14 – 54:26)
The federal agent that I hated went on my list. And the reasons that I hated him were on
my list. And all the things that were being interfered with in my life were on that list and
I still hated him.
(54:27 – 54:53)
When I finally got down to where I could see where I had been selfish and self-centered I
realized that I had brought that guy into my house with a hand engraved invitation and
everything that happened that day including my son nearly getting killed fell on me. And
if it hadn’t been for the promise at the beginning of the four-step I couldn’t live with that.
It says the purpose of inventory is so that I can face and be rid of the stuff in myself
that’s blocking me from God.
(54:54 – 55:04)
Be rid of. I don’t have to think in ways that bring federal agents to my house anymore.
Isn’t that nice? I haven’t had one in my house for, my God, 29 years.
(55:06 – 55:11)
They don’t even come for dinner. I don’t invite them. They may be nice but not in my
house.
(55:13 – 55:27)
I had a wonderful experience about a year ago. I was in North Carolina and my family
was up home and I had called home and my wife said the FBI called and they want to
talk to you. I said, well, I want to talk to them too.
(55:27 – 55:43)
Somebody’s been subpoenaing my bank records from a business I had owned at one
time and I was curious. And I called this FBI agent back and he said that’s the fastest
anybody’s ever called back. I said, well, what is it that you need? He said, no, I don’t
have time to fool with these people.
(55:45 – 56:01)
I had done some business with a fellow who was in trouble and they were doing a paper
track to see if any of the money he gave me had gone back to him. They were just
checking things out. And the agent and I talked a bit and I answered all his questions
and he says, well, that’s what I heard from everybody else and then he gave me magic
words.
(56:01 – 56:16)
He said, I guess I won’t have to bother you again. And I was smart enough not to say,
well, you weren’t bothering me to start with. But isn’t it nice to know that the FBI isn’t
even interested in me? And if they are, I don’t care.
(56:16 – 56:41)
An examination of my bank records shows a man who really needs a bookkeeper. And
help, he’s not to be trusted with money. I get very frustrated standing here sharing with
you because I’ve been living hand in hand with a consciousness of the presence of God
for 28 years.
(56:42 – 56:56)
I simply have a sense that where I am, God is. And that means that every day for that
period of time, I’ve gotten to participate in the extraordinary. I have stories that’ll take
years to tell.
(56:56 – 57:07)
That’s why I’m so grateful that you asked me to talk once in a while. And that sense has
carried me through good times and bad. I nearly died three years ago.
(57:07 – 57:14)
Hepatitis took me down. And he was with me through the whole business. And I learned
some wonderful things from that.
(57:14 – 57:29)
Like pain and suffering don’t necessarily go together unless I bring them together. And
when I’m doing God’s work, the strength is there. Anyway, it’s been very important in
good times and bad to have that sense.
(57:29 – 57:44)
Well, about a year and a half ago I was down in North Carolina. One of God’s messengers
came by and said, will you come down here with me? And since he was a messenger, I
said, yeah, let’s go. Left my family at home and went to do the job.
(57:45 – 57:55)
And I woke up at 6 o’clock one morning and my sense of the presence of God was not
there. It isn’t that God wasn’t there, but my sense of it was gone. It wasn’t there.
(57:56 – 58:03)
And I began to pray because over the years, prayer has become habitual for me. It’s a
habit. That’s what I do.
(58:04 – 58:09)
It’s a nice habit to get. The prayer was simple. Oh God, I need to know you’re here.
(58:12 – 58:25)
I need to be closer to you and I need to know you better. And my phone rang. And it was
a fellow from another part of North Carolina and he said, I was 7 years sober last week
and I drank.
(58:26 – 58:40)
And Alan was 12 years sober and he drank. And another member of our group was just
getting ready to drink. And we understand that you sometimes will sit down with people
over a weekend and just read the big book to them and go through it.
(58:40 – 58:49)
I learned that from Mac Cheeder out of Canada. Just sit down and read the big book.
Would you do that for us? Would you come to my place at the beach and do that for us?
And I said, sure, Billy.
(58:51 – 59:02)
Because I’m not a big book expert, but I’ve learned how to read. And I started to get
dressed and my phone rang. And it was somebody else wanting to talk about recovery.
(59:03 – 59:07)
I almost didn’t get to work. The phone kept ringing. And it suddenly burst into my mind.
(59:08 – 59:23)
It was God talking to me directly again. Saying, if you would be closer to me, get closer
to my children. You want to know me better? Get to know my kids better.
(59:28 – 59:46)
I’ve never left the fellowship, but it brought me back into the fellowship in a way that I
can’t even describe to you. The making of amends has been the most important single
thing that took place in my life. Straightening up the crooked path.
(59:49 – 1:00:00)
And when I came to that, at first, they wouldn’t let me out to make any amends when I
got willing. I hit my evangelistic stage and they kept me confined. Thank God.
(1:00:00 – 1:00:05)
I’d have messed it up. My sponsor gave me the key. See, freedom doesn’t come in the
ninth step.
(1:00:06 – 1:00:14)
Freedom comes in the eighth step. It did for me. He sent me back to my cell and he said,
I want you to make a list of all the people you’ve harmed.
(1:00:14 – 1:00:34)
We’ve got this from your inventory. He said, you know what you did to these people, but
Don, you are so insensitive you have no idea what it did to them. So I want you tonight in
your cell to picture each one separately in your mind and see if you can feel a
willingness in your heart to say to each one of them, look them in the eye, and say, I’ve
been wrong and I’ve harmed you.
(1:00:34 – 1:00:56)
Would you please tell me what I have to do to get these books to balance? And that
night locked up in that penitentiary, going over that list, I realized I’m willing to look any
human being in the eye and if I’ve harmed you in any way, you tell me what I have to do
and we’ll get it squared. And I was lifted from that seat and set free. They didn’t know it.
(1:00:56 – 1:01:11)
They kept me another eight months, but I was free. Do you know they started letting me
out of my cell to go around and visit the guys? And I can now think one thought at a
time. In fact, there are times when I don’t think at all.
(1:01:11 – 1:01:18)
It gets very quiet in here. And someday, I won’t be back from there. That’s where I intend
to leave from, God willing.
(1:01:19 – 1:01:35)
From that quiet garden deep within. What you do after you get to that place where
you’ve said to somebody, tell me what I have to do, is you shut up and you listen while
they tell you what you have to do. And that made it possible for me to make amends to
my mother.
(1:01:36 – 1:01:52)
There was no way I could do anything directly to make up for putting her in a position to
have to say to me and my children, on Christmas Day, you can’t come in my house.
There’s no way. What are you going to do? I can’t say I’m sorry and my sponsor said I
can never say that again.
(1:01:53 – 1:02:06)
He said, you’ve been sorry your whole life. When she finally let me come by, after I’d
been out a while, she was reluctant and I understood that. Chuck Chamberlain helped
me with that.
(1:02:07 – 1:02:18)
I have no right to ever expect anyone to ever talk to me again. If there was any justice,
I’d still be locked away somewhere. So I don’t go by to get your approval anymore.
(1:02:19 – 1:02:35)
I went by and I listened and I found a way to ask my mom, how do I do this? Very
carefully. And she said to me, honey, all I’ve ever wanted for you was that you’d be
happy. So for the past 27 plus years, I’ve been going by my mother’s house on a regular
basis, happy.
(1:02:36 – 1:02:43)
That’s all I’ve done. And it worked. She said it was six years before she thought I’d ever
amount to anything.
(1:02:44 – 1:02:51)
But I wasn’t doing it for that reason. My dad and I are square. My sons and I are square.
(1:02:51 – 1:03:01)
To the best of my knowledge, I’m square with the world. I accumulate new crap once in a
while, just for the fun of it. Or I’ll remember something I hadn’t remembered.
(1:03:01 – 1:03:10)
But to the best of my knowledge, I’m square. And that’s really important to me today. My
dad’s 85 years old and he’s got maybe six months to go.
(1:03:11 – 1:03:16)
We finally had to put him in a home. He’s too much for mom. And our relationship has
changed.
(1:03:16 – 1:03:30)
But when my dad goes and when my mom goes, I’m not going to have to stand at the
gravesite and say I wish I’d have said I love you, Pop. I got him a while back. I trapped
him in his little bitty office so he couldn’t get out.
(1:03:31 – 1:03:38)
Because he’s not a demonstrative man. He’ll run from you. I said, Pop, I’ve got
something I’ve got to tell you.
(1:03:38 – 1:03:54)
I have three heroes left on this planet and you’re one of them. And he cried. Let me tell
you what you don’t want to miss.
(1:03:55 – 1:04:13)
The day we had to put dad in the home finally, big family council with the doctors and all
that. And my brother and sister, God bless them, they mean well, but they’ve taken all
the good food away from him. They had to take out part of his colon and so all the really
good stuff he likes, they’re afraid to give him.
(1:04:13 – 1:04:20)
Well, hell, he’s going to die in six months anyway. Give him what he wants. We’re going
to hurt him in any way? And the doctor feels the way I do about it.
(1:04:20 – 1:04:38)
I sneak food into him and they try to steal it back. But he said to the doctor, finally said,
can I have some chili? And she says, Mr. Pritch, you go eat anything you want. So we
took him to Denny’s for some chili.
(1:04:38 – 1:04:45)
It’s not Tex-Mex chili, but it suits him. And now they say he has Alzheimer’s. I don’t see
it.
(1:04:45 – 1:05:00)
I see a tired old man, but they’ve been telling me he does funny things with food, like
put mayonnaise and lemonade and stuff like that. I haven’t seen that. And we’re sitting
at Denny’s and I’m sitting next to him visiting and he’s eating his chili like older men do.
(1:05:01 – 1:05:12)
And all of a sudden I saw him take one of those great jelly things and start to peel it
open. And I thought, uh-oh. He’s getting ready to put the jelly in the chili.
(1:05:13 – 1:05:24)
So I thought I’d finesse him. I got a muffin and I put it over in front of him and I said, you
know, Pop, that’d probably taste better on this. So he took a scoop of chili and put it on
the muffin.
(1:05:26 – 1:05:40)
And I said, I’m gonna put it on the muffin. Then he looked me right in the eye with that,
gotcha. There’s nothing wrong with him.
(1:05:43 – 1:05:56)
That’s what this is all about. Okay. That’s what I want to miss and that’s what I don’t
want you to miss are those moments of human contact.
(1:05:57 – 1:06:21)
We were the world’s most isolated, lonely people, and that’s worth more than anything
that’s happened to me in years, is that moment when Pop says, I gotcha. My little
brother and I made peace, and then I’ll get down from here, and it was 22 years. He had
good reason to not trust me.
(1:06:21 – 1:06:30)
I had betrayed the family. I was his hero as we grew up, and I betrayed that. I’d hurt our
parents.
(1:06:30 – 1:06:49)
There’s no way my brother should ever have trusted me again, and he didn’t for a
number of years. He was very touchy. I was 22 years sober when he finally invited my
wife and I over to dinner, and after the dinner he said, you know, Don, I’m not sure you
and I can ever be friends, but tonight was nice.
(1:06:49 – 1:07:01)
We can do this again. You all taught me early on, I don’t try to change anybody. I just put
my own life in order, get about God’s business, and let the chips fall where they may.
(1:07:02 – 1:07:33)
And I was home visiting from North Carolina, because I still go by regularly, talking with
the folks, and I had my leg crossed over, and my brother came in, sat down across from
me, and we were all visiting, and all of a sudden he kicked me on the bottom of the
shoe. He said, you know, I am really glad to see you, and he really was. He said, next
time you’re in town, let you and I go up to the cabin and do some fishing.
(1:07:33 – 1:07:40)
He’s got a little cabin up in the hills. I made a trip back, and he and I did. We didn’t catch
any fish.
(1:07:40 – 1:07:51)
We weren’t there to fish. We sat in that cabin and played cribbage and talked. Now, my
poor little brother doesn’t understand that cribbage is an institution game.
(1:07:54 – 1:08:10)
I am rigorously honest in every area of my life, except games. I just did a simple ploy on
him. I reminded him it had been years since I’d played cribbage, and that he would
probably have to teach me how to count again.
(1:08:11 – 1:08:16)
I got him playing both hands. You can’t lose when you do that. Cleaned him out.
(1:08:16 – 1:08:30)
Just, it was unmerciful. But as we visited, my brother gave me one of the most precious
gifts any human being can give another. He gave me what he thought of himself.
(1:08:31 – 1:08:43)
He gave me his soul. He gave me the bottom of it. He said, Don, you know, I’m 58 years
old now, and I believe I’ve made a decent contribution to life, and he really has.
(1:08:45 – 1:08:52)
And my heart soared. That’s not something you just tell anybody. That’s it.
(1:08:52 – 1:09:09)
That’s the real stuff. We’re okay again, my brother and I. But he gave me a much more
precious gift than me feeling good about it. I’ve been trying for 28 years to tell you
something, to tell you how I feel about you, to tell you what you mean to me.
(1:09:13 – 1:09:28)
And like everything else worthwhile that I know, I got it from a non-alcoholic. In two
weeks, I’ll be 62 years old. And because of you, I believe I’ve made a decent
contribution.