AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
May 2, 2024
(0:06 – 1:01)
I’m trying to do that at the end. I got my socks on. My name is Jim.
I’m an alcoholic and I’ve been sober since October 12th of 1982. I am extremely, truly
grateful for that. And a lot of people’s love and prayers have got me here and a lot of
people’s love and prayers continue to keep me here.
And I have to tell you, I promised I’d tell you, I got a call today from my five-year-old little
girl. Her name is Megan. And she lost her first tooth today and I said I’d say it on tape.
(1:04 – 2:22)
And I told her that you all agreed to clap for her because she lost her first tooth. I also
told her that you would back me up on the fact that the tooth fairy, as it progresses and
you lose more teeth, gives less and less money each time. Well then we’ll start at a
nickel.
How many teeth are in the mouth? I can handle that. What a wonderful place to be. I
came last night.
It was late and it was dark and I didn’t get to see my surroundings. I missed Chuck
because I got in after you got done speaking. And I woke up this morning and I looked
out on the balcony and that feeling of putting perfume on a pig kind of, you know, what
am I doing here? It was sort of a feeling I had about looking out of that balcony
overlooking the Platte River and I want to thank Joan for asking me to be here.
(2:24 – 2:41)
And Statsy for the great talk today. Phenomenal job and really touched me very
honestly. And how do you say, I had to write the names in my hand because I ain’t the
sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes.
(2:44 – 6:39)
Ajit, Ajit, Ajit, where are you? What happened to you? Hey, if I was like on the other side,
you’d be a good catch for me. You watch The Sopranos don’t you? Don’t mess with the
family dude. You gave a phenomenal talk too.
You really said everything that was prominent in my life and the things that were
necessary for me to get here and stay here. And I was a pretty big long shot. You know, I
was sitting in the airport and I realized that some sanity had come to my life.
We had an announcement over the PA while we were waiting to get on the airplane, or I
was waiting to get on the airplane yesterday and the PA guy said the landing gear is
malfunctioning. So we’re not going to get on that airplane. And there was a guy sitting
next to me, dieseling beers, and he was really, really aggravated that we weren’t getting
on that airplane.
And I thought secretly to myself, I thought, you know what, it’s good that we’re not
getting on that airplane. And then I knew something had happened profound. You know,
I suffer from this disease of perception and a terminal illness that’s laid dormant in me
for 19 years almost.
I believe it takes a lot of bailing of the boat to keep it at bay. And I believe that the
reason I’m here is, you know, that first page of Chapter 3 has always scared the dickens
out of me. It talks about how someday the thought’s going to come into my mind, not
only pre-AA, but in AA, that maybe I can control and enjoy my drinking.
And the persistence of that illusion is astonishing and many pursue it to the gates of
insanity or death. And that has been my staple reading since I came into Alcoholics
Anonymous, because I have a stone in my shoe. I’m not afraid of picking a drink up
anymore.
I have great respect for the disease of alcoholism and the fact that the pilot light of
alcoholism never goes out and then it burns quietly within me. And it’s a very patient
illness. But the thing that I hope and pray for and work hard for is quality of life, because
my disease has very little to do with drinking and it has everything to do with the way I
see, feel, and respond to life.
And the fear is that one day my life of sobriety will seem more painful than my memory
of that last drink. And that’s what I’m doing here. I’m around new people a lot because I
want to remember where I came from.
This disease is greater than me, but it isn’t greater than us. So, we can get into a lot of
psychological aspects of recovery if we like to. I’m more of a, you know I was blessed
with ignorance when I got here.
(6:42 – 9:47)
I come from a family of doctors and teachers and real estate tycoons and a nun in the
family, or was, she quit, got wise, anyway. And I was, I guess you’d call me the black
sheep. I never got a formal education of just about of any kind.
I do remember having to go to kindergarten in an elf outfit and that was kind of the end
of the deal. But I do remember, I do remember the feelings of odd and different. I do
remember the feelings of not fitting.
I do remember a sense of loneliness and emptiness long before I ever picked up a drink.
I do remember the teacher one day and she said, and I was probably six years old, seven
maybe, she said, Jimmy, you’re a fine young man. And I said, thank you.
She goes, you’re going to be put in a special class. I said, really? I was thinking, that’s
excellent. You see, these things that are known as ADD and all this other stuff today, you
were just called special back then.
You were special, and you went to school on a special bus, smaller bus. That’s how you
identified who was special, before you ever saw them. But you really knew when they
got off the bus.
And I was not so special that I was stupid. You know, I knew something was up there.
And I began to, I didn’t implode.
I was never an imploder. Okay? It was Katie bar the door when my red button got
pushed. And it was that way all my life.
And I began to strike out early. And when those other kids would laugh at us special kids
getting off the bus, they didn’t feel so special about 30 seconds later. Now, you’ve got to
realize, I was an early bloomer.
I was about the same size then as I am now, so I was intimidating. And then something
happened, I don’t know, caffeine, cigarettes, I don’t know, I just quit growing at about
nine. And I was introduced at some point to my father, who gave me my earliest
concepts of God, and purgatory time, and the sad reality that everything that was good
was a sin.
(9:50 – 10:49)
And I was brought up in the Catholic school, but I certainly had a twisted perception as to
what they were trying to teach me. As a matter of fact, I had a twisted perception of
what everybody was trying to teach me. Even as a young child, constructive criticism
would cut me to the quick.
I remember my father standing over the table with a pencil in his hand, trying to teach
me as a little kid, trying to teach me math or simple mathematics problems, reading,
whatever it might be. And he’d get frustrated with me, because I couldn’t learn. It wasn’t
that I didn’t want to, I couldn’t.
And the pencil would snap. And when that happens enough, and it’s not his fault, it was
tough, it was tough on him. But when that happens enough, when you’re a kid, you give
up.
You don’t care anymore. Game’s over. Let’s move on.
(10:50 – 11:15)
And I smelled alcohol on my father for the first time when I was about 10, 11 years old.
And I saw the way my father came into our house in the beginning of that experience. He
was always jovial when he smelled like that.
There was a magic about it. I realized the magic of that before I drank. He acted a
different way when he smelled that way.
(11:15 – 12:13)
And I anticipated my first drink long before I ever took it. I was looking forward to it. I
knew there was something about it.
But the real hidden deal here is, why was it so necessary for me to have the desire to
escape this reality that I lived in? But I arranged it. I found this guy. You know, my heroes
even by then were felons.
And whoever had the most tattoos and the biggest biceps and paid me the most,
because I racked cue balls on Sunday mornings at St. Vi’s Inn, and my mom always
wondered how I came home with more than I went with when I was supposed to put
money in the offering. Leave with a buck, come home with five. And I talked to a guy
named Jerry Caffley.
I said, Jerry, listen, I got to try this. Can you help me out? I want a drink. I want to try a
drink.
(12:14 – 14:01)
And Jerry, I kind of persuaded him over time. And Jerry said, all right, meet me on the
pool hall roof at 7 o’clock. And it was a Sunday, I believe a Sunday night.
I’m not positive, but I think it was a Sunday night. And Jerry met me up on that roof, and
Jerry had a bottle of MD-2020 and a bottle of muscatel. And Jerry was going to teach me
a lesson.
And I drank, and I drank, and I drank. And it was electric. And I was bulletproof.
You know, there’s a saying that my worst day sober is better than my best day drunk.
Not me. Not a chance.
I was bulletproof, baby. I was 12 going on 22. I could dance.
I was 6’4″, not 4’6″. You ever see The Wizard of Oz, the movie? You know, Dorothy gets
sucked up into the tornado, and the house is spinning around. It’s all in black and white.
She lands in Oz, she opens the door, and it’s color. That’s what my, I’m telling you. My
first drink, and a lot of people don’t, everyone’s story is different.
It’s not a cookie cutter deal. But my first drink, my first experience was spiritual. And I
rolled off the roof onto the landing, and I had the crooked nose going, and I staggered
across Canal Street over to Stevens and Main, and I stumbled down Main Street and fell
and cut my cheek, 12 years old.
(14:02 – 16:35)
Staggered down to my mom and dad’s little two-bedroom apartment. I fell up the stairs
and through the screen door, and they knew instantly what happened to me. My mom
was, she’s Italian.
The hands are going, ah, da-da-da-da-da-da. My dad is Scotch-Irish, you know, and he’s
in the back of the head, and he’s crying, he’s screaming. They drag me in the tub.
I’m bloody. I’m barfing. I throw me in the tub.
They’re barfing the water. I’m grounded for life. There’s all this, you know, bad.
They throw me in bed. You know, I wake up the next morning with my first experience of
a hangover, and I go to school, and I say to my friends, you guys got to try this. And it’s,
you know, I guess time and tragedy equals humor, but boy, that was a deadly
combination of tragedy and the ability of alcohol to blot out and totally alter the way the
world looked to me.
It was a powerful, powerful experience. That’s the danger of alcoholism in my life. That
experience was so profound and powerful that I remember it to this day.
None of the bad stuff that happened mattered. None of it. It didn’t matter.
You know, from the very onset of that deal, self-centeredness, like you talked about, it
permeated everything about me. It never mattered from that point on what I did to the
people around me, at least while alcohol was working. It’s a subtle son of a gun, though,
boy, I’ll tell you, because, you know, it’s almost the opposite of what non-alcoholics like
my folks would think.
They’d think I didn’t have a conscience, but see, when alcohol stopped working for me,
what began to kill me was my conscience. My problem wasn’t drunk. It was sober.
My problem was never drunk, no matter how bad it was. It was sober. I couldn’t do
sober.
I couldn’t do it at all. I had a real hard time with it. And from early on in my drinking
career, the feelings of shame and guilt and remorse really began to catch up with me.
And it perpetuated this kind of a merry-go-around cycle. Okay, get drunk, have to get
sober. I said it today, but it’s absolutely necessary to get drunk again because I can’t
stand sober.
(16:36 – 17:49)
And it was a difficult merry-go-round to be on. Don’t get me wrong. I had some pretty
darn good times, you know.
It’s not everyone that gets on a moped in Illinois and goes to the brat stop in Wisconsin
and, you know, got something to talk to the next day in the bar. But the horror of it, and
the, I’m sweating. This ain’t the deal for me.
I’ve got a bunch of suits hanging in the closet. I’ve been a house painter or a ditch digger
all my life. It’s Salvation Army.
Come on over. I remember a couple of events that were extremely, extremely painful in
my life. Many.
I was a nasty human being. I’d done a lot of stuff that I should be doing time for now. We
won’t get specific because I don’t know what the statute’s limitations are.
(17:52 – 18:08)
I’ve had my share of nightmares in sobriety. And I did a lot of things that hurt a lot of
people. And let me summarize that by saying, as you said this evening, our obsession to
control is outrageous.
(18:09 – 19:04)
It’s like the story of the ant on the log. And, you know, there’s like a 3,000 pound log
going down the Platte River here. And it’s bending and twisting with the turns in the
river.
And there’s this ant on it. And every time a bend comes up, he leans. And then he leans
this way.
You know, he’s the ant. The ant is convinced he’s steering the log. And really, the truth
is, he’s only along for the ride.
And that’s kind of the way it is in life. And that certainly was the way it was in my
drinking career. And quite frankly, that is the way it is in my sober career.
I am the ant on the log. And I was as an alcoholic. But I tried to control and enjoy my
drinking as long as I could.
(19:04 – 20:16)
But the painful, horrible part about my alcoholism was that I was not immoral, which
means without guilt. I think the common denominator for us as alcoholics is that we
don’t handle guilt with grace. And I remember many episodes.
I remember coming home to my wife. And I remember after being out for two or three
days, I married a beautiful young girl, young Italian, very balanced and lovely and kind.
And I loved her.
And I did love her. I was a drunk, but I, but look, it doesn’t, you know, oh no, I didn’t have
the ability to show on an adult level that I loved her. But it was going on in here.
That’s the killer, okay. And I came to her one day after being on a three-dayer and I fell
to my knees in the foyer of that house and I had a single rose in my hand. And I hugged
her waist and I cried like a baby and I swore to God, I swore to God and meant every
word that I would never, ever shame her again this way.
(20:16 – 23:23)
Never again will I dishonor you and hurt you the way I did today. Never. And she hugged
my head and she stroked my hair and she told me she loved me and she believed me.
And the next night I was in the bar with the paycheck going for another two or three
days. And I did it again and again and again. The killer is that when I said it, I meant it.
And I couldn’t live up to it. And I said it again and again and every time I said it, I meant
it and I couldn’t live up to it. You know, at some point, I was sitting in a bar with my
tough guy friends, you know.
And it was on a Sunday morning and we were all hungover and sick and, you know,
smoking joints under the smoke eater, drinking eggs and beer and doing what good
drunks do. And I picked up a Time magazine and I just opened it up. I don’t know why.
I mean, I wasn’t the kind that sits and leafs through Time magazines in the bar while
smoking a joint in the bar under the smoke eater. I think I’ll, you know, I think I’ll improve
my intellectual capabilities. And there was about seven or eight of us sitting around
there.
They’re all tattooed up and they got their earrings and stuff, big, you know, chains that
you walk like this. They’re so big, the chains they got holding their wallets, you know.
They’re big boys, you know.
And they were tough guys, physically. But I found out, you know, when I picked up that
Time magazine and I read this caption in there, it said, there’s nothing so tragic as when
the human spirit dies before the body. And I thought, I know exactly what that means.
And I burst into tears. And you want to see six badasses run, you just start crying. I
mean, I could have stood up from that table with a .38 and held it to their face and
they’d have said, go ahead.
But I cried. And that did it. You know, all this time, you know, I’m going through a lot of
things.
I’m not going to be overdrawn here. Me and that woman eventually moved to Florida.
And I came home one day and I saw a book on the table.
Now, I’d been a daily and nightly drunk and a mean one. And I saw a book on the table
that said, it was a book called How to Be a Better Wife. And underneath was the caption,
How to Keep Your Husband’s Love Alive.
(23:26 – 24:32)
And once again, I felt, I fell apart. Because as tough and mean as I thought I wanted to
be, you know, there was a little child in me that didn’t want to be that way. A good child.
A good person. And the conflict was so enormous that I left her. I packed my bags.
I got on an airplane and moved back to Illinois. And I never saw her again. And I had to
leave.
I didn’t have a choice. Consequently, I was accepted back into my folks’ home for a little
while. And downstairs lived a guy named Urban.
Urban was an undertaker. And Urban was an AA and sober. And my ma said to me one
day, why don’t you go talk to Urban? I said, talk to him about what? I said, well, Urban’s
in AA.
And maybe he can help you. And I said, help me what? You know what? If I had a job, I’d
be okay. Okay? I didn’t see it.
(24:33 – 26:54)
Remember, I don’t see it. You may see it, but I don’t see it. And I’d walk down those
stairs, hungover and sick, and Urban would be down there in this little two-bedroom, this
apartment building, which was a small building.
He’d be down there planting flowers. He was four or five years sober at the time. He’d be
planting flowers, and he’d be whistling.
And he’d be in his little apartment playing the organ, singing crap. And I’d walk down
those stairs, and he’d slap me on the back. I mean, he knew what I was, he knew the
deal with me.
And he’d slap me on the back and say, how you doing today, Jim? He had the look on his
face like, what’s his name in Jaws? Quint? Is that his name? Captain Quint? Hey, Sharky.
He’s looking at me like a tuna, like I’m a big, fat tuna, getting ready to spear my ass, you
know? And Urban was a cool cat, man. I mean, he never shoved a down my throat.
He didn’t grab me by the, he was afraid to even touch me, but he didn’t say anything.
And in his wisdom, in his understanding of Alcoholics Anonymous, I needed that magical
place called the bottom. And it wasn’t too long after that that that magic happened.
Somewhere along the line, you know, I added another huge pile to my bag of old
garbage. And, you know, during the end, I talked my nephew into playing Little League
Baseball. This is just part of being a drunk.
And he didn’t want to play, so I talked him into it. I twisted his arm, I convinced him he
was going to play Little League Baseball, and he finally relented. And the first time up to
bat, he stood at the plate.
We’re all there, you know, my mom, my sister, his mother, you know, me, my dad. And
the pitcher throws the ball, and the ball hits him in the chest, and it hit him right on the
heart. So it stopped his heart, and he died.
(26:54 – 27:57)
And I guess the reason I tell that story is sometimes I think we come into Alcoholics
Anonymous with a secret thought that there are certain things we’re never going to get
over. And what’s so profoundly wonderful about God’s grace and recovery in Alcoholics
Anonymous through taking the steps and giving this thing away is that what we
someday find out is the very things that we thought were our biggest defects turn out to
be our biggest advantages. I’ve been able to share that story with a lot of people who
lost a lot of loved ones.
In fact, I had a guy call me today, who I sponsor, who’s now 12 years sober, who was an
atheist. When he got sober, and he called me today, and he told me that his father was
just diagnosed with terminal cancer. He’s only got about a month to live.
He was healthy as a horse up to that point. And then the guy proceeded to say, isn’t it
wonderful? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, isn’t it wonderful that I know in
my heart that someday I’ll be with him again? And I thought, Jesus, it’s just powerful. It’s
just so incredibly powerful.
(27:58 – 29:38)
But that night was a tough night, and I knew that there was no way out for me at that
point. And so several months after that, I went up to my brother, the psychologist, who
was a very mellow kind of tofu eating, sandal wearing in December sort of chanting.
Very, very, very different than me.
I mean all that in a good way. He was a free spirit who was at peace with himself and the
world around him. He really was.
And he was in the practice of psychology to help people not to make money. He’s really
an exemplary guy, and I really love him. He was in from graduate school visiting, and my
oldest sister was in from Arizona where she’s a principal of a high school.
She was a nun in the Dominicans for 12 years. And you guys have had family meetings,
you know, where you go home at like 2 a.m. and you wake everyone up because you
want to have like an intellectual conversation with them. And I did that, and my brother
dove over to the table and started strangling me.
And I was really, really surprised that he was doing that because he was so passive, you
know. But what got him pissed was I said, you know, I’m either going to die tonight or
something’s going to happen. And he dove over to the table and started choking me to
death and said I didn’t have to die.
(29:42 – 31:04)
And, I mean, he was as burned out as I was. I knew there was really something wrong
with the picture that he presented to me at that moment. But he loved me, and he didn’t
want me to die.
But, you know, as most of us good old elkies, I did what I do best, and that’s run. I’m a
runner, baby. You turn the heat up around me, I’ll either shoot you or run away from you,
okay? And I ran.
I got back into that 40-250 van that I had called home on and off and headed back down
to Wilmington, Illinois, where on an ongoing basis I’d see this drunk on the side of the
road who lived in an abandoned car picking up bottles and cans, walking up and down
the frontage road off I-55. And I’d see that guy, and I would say to myself at the end of
my career, I would say to myself, that guy’s got it made. He’s got no one to answer to.
He’s got no conflict in his life, and he knows what he is. And I’d head back down to
Wilmington, Illinois, where I was staying with a young lady who at one point was very
involved in saving my life because she went to Al-Anon. And she went to Al-Anon and she
learned about detachment, and she learned how to be independent in a way that
threatened me so much that it made me begin to seriously take a look at myself.
(31:06 – 31:36)
And she asked her sponsor if it would be okay if she gave me literature on AA, and she
said, well, he sounds pretty defiant to the idea of being an alcoholic. What are the
indications? And she said, well, you know, like he’ll wake up in the middle of the night
and pee on the rubber tree plant, and he plants bottles in the dirt behind the, she had a
little place on a lake. And then he uses green straws to mark where his bottles are.
(31:40 – 32:05)
And, you know, he’s got all these sores, they call them wine sores, they’re all over his
body, it’s from alcohol poisoning, and the doctor said his pancreas is about the size of
the astrodome. And, well, it’s pretty evident that he’s probably got a problem, and are
you uncomfortable giving him literature? She said, I’m a little fearful. That was a smart
thing to think.
(32:07 – 32:39)
So what she did, rather than give it to me, she, like, strategically planted it. And she
planted it, like, in the pillow where I’d lay my head down and hear the crinkling. And I
love to fish, I’m a fisherman, it’d be like, there’d be crap in my tackle box, and on the
toilet paper roller, I sat down one day to go to the bathroom, and I’d peel off a handful.
(32:39 – 33:03)
And I know, you know, it was the merry-go-round of denial pamphlet. And she later told
me her sponsor thought of that one. And I attribute, I’ll tell you something, you know
what, it’s funny.
(33:04 – 33:22)
I mean, my ma, God love her, I mean, she’d make little charts for me, like, okay, little
pictures of beer bottles. Now, every time you have a beer, cross it off on the chart. And
when you get to number six, there’s no more bottles on the chart, that means you’re
done.
(33:28 – 33:47)
And you get an allotment, it’s like rationing. I said, Ma, you’re going to need, like, half
barrels, pictures of half barrels. And so as hard as they tried, those people, as hard as, I
mean, I’ll tell you what, they tried.
(33:47 – 34:18)
You know, ultimately, the reality is, and I know this is true, and you can, you got your
story, I got mine. The truth is, other people’s prayers got me to that point, where the
open-mindedness at least began. You know, because I had the mentality, like the
alcoholic who’s in rehab and the counselor, did you ever hear that story where the
counselor sits down with the alcoholic and he’s got a glass of whiskey and he’s got a
glass of water.
(34:19 – 34:32)
And he holds up a worm, and he says, now watch this, Jimmy. And he drops the worm in
the water, and the worm is all okay and happy, and then he pulls it out. Did you see that,
Jimmy? He goes, yeah.
(34:33 – 34:47)
And he drops it in the whiskey, and the worm dies. It’s dead. And he says, and he looks
at Jimmy, and he says, what does that tell you? And Jimmy says, it tells me if I don’t want
to get worms, I’ve got to drink more whiskey.
(35:00 – 35:24)
And that is the, that’s the denial mechanism that’s built into me. That at some point is
divinely smashed to a degree that I have enough open-mindedness to say maybe. And
Irvin was still talking to my mom and dad, and he always had a tape measure on him,
and he always looked at me funny.
(35:25 – 35:41)
That son of a bitch. I knew he was eyeing me up as a customer. So the time came when I
suffered the kind of, it was never the physical pain, and it was never a fear of death.
(35:42 – 35:57)
I wasn’t afraid to die, and I wasn’t afraid of pain. I didn’t care what you did to me. You’d
have to kill me to make me say I surrender.
I give up. You’d have to shoot me. My ego was too big.
(35:57 – 36:24)
See, it wasn’t a fear of pain. It was a fear of looking bad. That’s what it was about.
That’s all I had going for me. Okay? I mean, the last night of my drinking was October
10th of 1982. And I did everything that night, from Russian roulette to shooting vodka.
(36:25 – 36:33)
I did it all. And it wasn’t the pain. In the end, it was the loneliness.
(36:33 – 36:45)
It was deafening. The loneliness was so profound. That no matter who I was around, and
no matter how much love you tried to give me, I couldn’t feel loved.
(36:46 – 37:00)
I couldn’t feel. I was like a guy who was on a different planet, and everybody else was on
their planet. And that kind of loneliness is not explainable unless you’ve felt it.
(37:01 – 37:13)
It’s not unique unto us. I don’t believe it’s just unique unto alcoholics. I just think my
solution to that loneliness is different than the rest of the world.
(37:13 – 37:28)
It’s because something once worked powerfully for me. But it was that moment. And I
woke up at… I mean, I had been on a bad one, okay? And I woke up at 2 or 3 in the
morning in Wilmington, Illinois.
(37:28 – 37:48)
And the girl and her mother were looking in the window at me. And I mean, I had the gun
in my lap, the bottle at my feet, I had the thing hanging out of my arm. And here was… I
don’t know how to even… I can’t even convey what I felt when they looked at me.
(37:48 – 38:03)
It was… You guys see a lot of deer. You’ve seen them hit by cars in the middle of the
road before they’re dead. And you, you know, you feel horrible for the animal.
(38:03 – 38:11)
You feel so bad that you almost… You know what? To get it out of its misery, you’d shoot
it. You’d kill it. It’s the kindest thing to do.
(38:12 – 38:22)
They sort of looked at me like I was the deer in the middle of the road. That’s sort of how
they looked at me. And maybe I was looked at a thousand times like that.
(38:23 – 38:31)
The miracle is in that moment I finally saw what I’d become. I don’t know any other way
to explain it. It was reflected back to me.
(38:32 – 38:39)
And that window opened just a bit. The window opened. That magic moment.
(38:41 – 38:49)
The place we call the bottom. And I jumped through. The next morning I called Urban.
(38:52 – 39:10)
And Urban took me to my first AA meeting. My first AA meeting was at Lamont Oaks. And
that was started by my friend Frank M. Some powerful stuff that wasn’t coincidental
happened that night.
(39:10 – 39:20)
Urban was supposed to pick me up at 7 o’clock and I was sitting on the front steps of my
folks’ house. They’d let me back into their home because they called AA. And I was really
sick.
(39:20 – 39:31)
And I was vibrating and sweating. And I was going to go back down to Vi’s and get a half
pint. And really it was just an excuse to go get screwed up again.
(39:32 – 39:41)
But I used shaking and sweating as my reasoning. And Urban pulled up 10 minutes early.
I got in that car and Urban looked at me and says, You know what? I left early.
(39:41 – 39:51)
I don’t trust you. And I didn’t tell him right away, you know. That that’s what I was going
to do.
(39:51 – 39:59)
But he took me to my first AA meeting and then the magic happened. I walked around
here and people are like shoving their hands out to me. Boom.
(40:00 – 40:09)
Boom. It’s not like there’s four over here and then there’s six over here. Everybody is
together here.
(40:10 – 40:16)
All right. And I was sitting on the front steps of my folks’ house. That’s what I believe
enthusiasm is.
(40:16 – 40:28)
And, you know, what I saw there at that first meeting changed my life. Enthusiasm for
me. You know, in the beginning of my sobriety, I thought it was wanting to make coffee.
(40:29 – 40:35)
I’ll make the coffee. I’ll be a birthday lady forever. I’ll do all the literature.
(40:36 – 40:43)
I’ll set up and I’ll clean up. And I’ll mop. Go ahead, spill.
(40:44 – 40:56)
I’ll mop. And I thought I was really supposed to like that crap. And then one day I got
tired of pretending.
(40:58 – 41:07)
What I see is that enthusiasm is not necessarily always wanting to do those things. It’s
doing them when I don’t want to do them. That’s what it’s all about.
(41:08 – 41:36)
And I see that here. And when I walked into my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous,
I’m telling you I hadn’t been loved or felt loved or felt cared for in a long, long time. And
when I walked into that meeting, they were on me like you’ve never seen.
(41:36 – 41:41)
I mean, you have seen. They were all around me. They were putting their arm around
me.
(41:41 – 41:50)
They were shaking my hand. They were saying, if I can do it, you can do it. Saying, if you
don’t take that first drink and you take those steps, anything is possible in your life.
(41:50 – 41:58)
There is nothing that you can’t do within reason. And you’ll know peace and you’ll know
happiness. You’ve got to do the deal, though.
(41:59 – 42:05)
And I saw the 12 steps on the wall and I said, is that the deal? And they said, yeah. I
said, can of corn, man. That’s a piece of cake.
(42:06 – 42:16)
I’ll be out of here in 12 days. And Irvin walked me up to this little guy. His name was
Pauly.
(42:16 – 42:24)
And I had my REO Speedwagon T-shirt on. I lost a lot of weight. I was probably down to
120 pounds.
(42:25 – 42:32)
But, you know, I was once 180, lifting weights big. But you don’t realize how stupid you
look when you’re new. Me.
(42:32 – 42:42)
No offense. So I walk in with my REO Speedwagon T-shirt with the cutoff sleeves. I had
arms about as big around as a chicken’s leg.
(42:43 – 42:51)
And I’m bad. And I’ve got the sores all over me. And I’ve got the long, dirty hair going on.
(42:54 – 43:01)
And they’re talking sponsorship. And, you know, after the meeting, I’m sweating, man.
And Pauly, I’m sitting with Pauly.
(43:01 – 43:11)
Irvin gives me to Pauly. I don’t remember what they said, but I knew it was about
sponsorship. And I looked at Pauly, and I said, You my sponsor? And he said, No.
(43:14 – 43:23)
I said, No, oh, no, no. No, Jim. You know, it’s best you take your time.
(43:23 – 43:39)
Shop around. Now, Pauly, that was on a Tuesday. My home group used to be on a
Tuesday.
(43:41 – 43:47)
He said, But let’s talk about getting you to another meeting. And I said, All right. I’ll have
to check my schedule.
(43:48 – 43:54)
I haven’t had a job in six months. I was living in a car. You know, I’ve got to check my
books if I’m available.
(43:55 – 44:07)
You know, it’s funny. I had no one in my life. And I’m wondering, God, how’s this going to
affect my personal life? How’s AA going to affect my friendships? Well, everyone was
gone.
(44:07 – 44:14)
I mean, no one wanted to be around me. I think of the dumbest stuff, you know. And he
said, Do you want to go to a meeting on Thursday? There it is again.
(44:14 – 44:34)
You know, Paul, It’s kind of quick, ain’t it? You know, because it’s funny. Alcoholism is a
trip. You know, it’s like, You know, I remember getting out of kindergarten, going to first
grade, being scared to death.
(44:35 – 44:53)
I remember getting out of eighth grade, going into high school, being scared to death. I
remember feeling liberated when I quit. And I would imagine that someone going from
high school to college may be a little intimidated, particularly if they’re living, you know,
on campus.
(44:53 – 45:08)
And then I would have to imagine that someone going from college to college or
graduate school or whatever. You know, the whole central theme there is all them, all
day, know something I don’t know. Not newcomers, me.
(45:08 – 45:16)
This is the only place I can crawl into and I’ve got more answers than you. It’s the only
place I can say, Please, please help me. Not too much.
(45:19 – 45:27)
Help me with inconvenience. And I questioned what he was telling me to do. And I
questioned it a lot.
(45:28 – 45:58)
And that’s the other funny thing about my disease of perception as a newcomer in AA
and sometimes as someone who’s been around a while is, stuff that come out of his
mouth went into my bank differently. He’d say things like, Jim, every morning, every
morning, and every night, I want you to pray. Pray if it’s convenient.
(46:07 – 46:44)
And Jim, Jim, hmm? I want you at a meeting as often as you can get to a meeting. Which
is probably every night being as you have no life. Jim, if it’s convenient and you’re not
too tired and Hogan’s Heroes is not, you might want to consider going to an AA meeting.
(46:48 – 47:12)
And on and on and on. My sponsor was a runner, a jogger. And I really, I’ll tell you what, I
was really attracted to Paul in a manly way, okay? He’s a sweet, kind, gentle, wonderful
guy.
(47:12 – 47:22)
He still is today. He’s still my sponsor and I hope that he stays my sponsor the rest of my
life, the rest of his life, if he’ll have me. But I wanted to be a jogger.
(47:22 – 47:32)
Now, you know, I could do something about the three packs a day and we could curb
that appetite as it came time to do so. And in the meantime, I was going to start jogging
with Paul. He gave me the green light.
(47:32 – 47:48)
I started training. I started running from DeAndre’s Seminary to 127th Street, which was
a quarter mile. At that point, I had to light up, puke, come back, get my E250, drive back
to my folks’ house with the towel, the Robert Conrad thing going on around me.
(47:50 – 47:56)
Jogger. You know, I didn’t know that the pants are creeped halfway up my butt. I got
socks pulled up to my knees.
(47:56 – 48:07)
I got black Keds on. I thought the people driving by were going, They weren’t. They were
looking at me, but I didn’t know why.
(48:09 – 48:20)
And finally, the race day came. It was time to do the turkey trot and we got together and
we started to run and we were warming up and he’s talking to me. As he’s running, he’s
talking.
(48:20 – 48:33)
I’m wondering, first of all, how are you doing that? And he says, now listen, you’re going
to run a 5K race. That’s 3.1 miles. You will not win the race.
(48:33 – 48:38)
You haven’t trained long. There’s 300 runners in the race. Don’t even think about it.
(48:39 – 48:46)
The plan is like an AA, Jim. The plan is to finish. You watch me.
(48:46 – 48:51)
I’m going to beat these guys’ asses. I’m going to win. This race is mine, I’m thinking.
(48:53 – 49:02)
If you’ve ever run and you’ve been in races, you know that there are multiple types of
personalities, people’s values in races. There’s old. There’s fat.
(49:02 – 49:06)
There’s young. Men, women. There’s little kids.
(49:06 – 49:15)
That particular day, there was a woman that had to be eight months pregnant. Running.
And I thought there ought to be a law, for God’s sake.
(49:18 – 49:25)
Gun goes off. I hadn’t followed direction up to that point. Why start now, man? I’m
sprinting.
(49:25 – 49:36)
And I’m winning. I’m winning the turkey trial. I’m ahead of 300 people for about a quarter
mile.
(49:38 – 49:47)
Not realizing I can’t sprint three miles. And I start getting what they call a stitch. You
know, that hurts.
(49:47 – 49:50)
Really hurt. They hurt. And they hurt bad.
(49:50 – 50:00)
And I, you know, and people start going by me. I thought, hey, fifth, sixth, they ain’t bad,
okay? Try and keep this pace. And I get another stitch.
(50:01 – 50:05)
And I’m still trucking. And I’m trying. Now they’re going by me in droves.
(50:07 – 50:17)
By about mile two, I’m really starting to get physically nauseous. And I got those things
going on both sides. And I feel like my bowels are getting a little loose.
(50:18 – 50:35)
And now we’re into mile three. You know, and there’s one set of footprints behind me.
And I swear to you, I said, I will die before I come in last place.
(50:38 – 50:50)
It’s all perception. I heard it said that a snail thinks he’s fast until he rides on a turtle’s
back. You ever hear that one? Well, I look like that.
(50:50 – 51:06)
I look like my chest and the front of my body was out, and my arms and legs were going
real fast, but I was not going anywhere. And I hear the footsteps coming up behind me.
And I’m like in so much pain, I’m almost crying.
(51:08 – 51:35)
I mean, really almost crying. And, uh, and the pregnant woman passed. It was a
humbling… It was a humbling… That was one of the nightmares I told you about.
(51:38 – 51:51)
It was a very humbling and disheartening experience. And Paulie was gracious enough,
you know, not to… He knew I was really demoralized by that. Seriously, I was.
(51:52 – 52:01)
I mean, I was… You look, when I walk in them doors, I am an open wound. I am ultrasensitive. And I… You know, I really wanted to be a tough guy, even in AA.
(52:02 – 52:17)
You know, and I discovered tough guys don’t make it. You know? I mean, facades don’t
work here, and that just took off another layer, another mask that I’d worn for so long.
And the reason I wore that mask was because I found that it was all based on fear.
(52:18 – 52:32)
I didn’t want anyone seeing the real me. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was really a
scared little boy on the inside. I didn’t want anyone to know that the only way I could… I
thought I could get your respect was if you knew I could whoop your ass or if I couldn’t,
I’d shoot you.
(52:33 – 52:41)
Okay? That’s one way to get your attention. And that’s all based on one thing. Fear.
(52:43 – 52:56)
Fear permeated my life. My biggest battle, coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, was
keeping fear at bay enough so I didn’t have to drink to stand life. And here’s a
remarkable thing.
(52:57 – 53:07)
I was loved into Alcoholics Anonymous. There’s not a doubt in my mind and I was prayed
into Alcoholics Anonymous. I know, and I was taught, that the steps are Alcoholics
Anonymous.
(53:07 – 53:21)
That the thing that begins to effectuate a change in my life are the steps. The thing that
keeps me here is the fellowship, particularly in the beginning. And if I don’t believe that, I
have to ask myself a question.
(53:22 – 53:58)
You know, if God couldn’t, if He were sought and they were seeking on my behalf and
the steps hadn’t had a chance to yet effectuate a change in my life, how was it that the
desire to drink left after my very first AA meeting? Now that’s what happened to me.
How was it that the desire to drink was lifted from me then? That moment? How was it
that I went home after my first AA meeting? And I looked at my little Italian mom and I
said to her, Ma, I don’t think I ever got to drink again. And for the first time in years, she
looked at me and she said, I believe you.
(54:01 – 54:12)
And then she looked at me and she said, Son, you will never know the depths of love I
have for you until your heart beats outside of your body. And I hadn’t got a clue of what
she meant. She had to flat out tell me.
(54:12 – 54:32)
She said, Son, until you have your own children or your own child, you will never know
the love that I have for you. You will never know the depths of love I have for you until
your heart beats outside of your body. And then she got this look in her eye like Darth
Vader.
(54:35 – 54:46)
And she looked at me and she said, Don’t you dare break my heart again. And that was a
moment. That was a moment of truth and honesty.
(54:46 – 54:58)
That was another moment that I could let the wall down. Another layer. And so, Paulie
started me on the very essence of Alcoholics Anonymous.
(54:59 – 55:17)
He started me on the 12 steps. He began to show me what unmanageability was
because I didn’t believe I possessed it. I really, isn’t it just incredible that I come in the
way I came in broken and I don’t understand unmanageability? I mean, I said, I know I’m
powerless over alcohol.
(55:17 – 55:33)
I’ve proven that. But unmanageable? He goes, Jim, where do you live in? I said, in my
car. He said, Jim, where’s your wife? I left her in Florida.
(55:35 – 55:45)
He said, Jim, how many jobs have you had in the last six months? I said, none. Thought I
had them. You know, I thought I had them there.
(55:47 – 56:02)
He says, Jim, don’t you see anything wrong with this picture? Jim, how do you feel inside?
I said, Paulie, I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster ride. I feel so confused sometimes. I don’t
know which way is up sometimes.
(56:04 – 56:19)
You know what, Paul? Sometimes I want to reach across the table at the guy giving a
comment in the AA meeting. I want to strangle him to death. You know, Paulie,
sometimes someone new will walk in and I can tell instantly whether they’re going to
make it or not.
(56:19 – 56:29)
Now, I’m a couple months sober. I said, Jim, you’re definitely unmanageable. It isn’t just
about external things.
(56:30 – 56:43)
It really isn’t. It’s about what’s going on inside of you, Jim. Okay? And he began that
process of taking me on that journey and Paulie had taken those 12 steps in order, in
sequence, under his guidance.
(56:43 – 56:58)
He who took them under his sponsor’s guidance. And I began to start to recognize some
changes that had begun to occur in my life. Let me tell you, I’ll tell you that the basis of
my illness is self-centeredness and the thing that’ll kill me is resentment.
(56:59 – 57:30)
And somehow those things were lifted to the degree that I didn’t have to drink to stay on
life. I did a meeting the other night and we talked about step 6 and 7. And I said to the
guys in the meeting, I said, you know, so I took step 7. I said, what do you think
happened? I said, do you think all my defects of character were relieved? And everyone’s
hand went up when I asked, raise your hand if you think it’s yes. And I said, well, I got
bad news for you.
(57:31 – 58:04)
I suffer from a propensity towards intensity and terminal assilicity. And what has
happened in my life is that the ones that will kill me have subsided to the degree that life
is livable and I can look out the window and not see a war zone. When the blue birds of
happiness fly in, I don’t shoot them out of the sky with a 12 gauge anymore, okay? I am
human, will always be human.
(58:04 – 58:26)
On top of that, I’m an alcoholic. I don’t drink and I don’t drink and no, all the defects of
character in my life have not been relieved, okay? But they have been they have been
relieved to the degree that I don’t hate me. See, my biggest problem as a guy coming
into AAA wasn’t just would you please love me.
(58:27 – 58:33)
It was, God, I hate me. I hate me. There’s nothing about me I like.
(58:33 – 58:39)
There’s not one redeeming quality about me. I have trampled on the lives of people that
I love. I have broken hearts.
(58:40 – 58:49)
I have left debris in my wake that will never be okay. I have altered people’s lives forever
and I am a piece of garbage. Fix that.
(58:52 – 59:11)
And over time, the 12 steps did fix that. My father and I have never uttered the words I
love you. I took the 9-Step Alcoholics Anonymous with my dad and I looked him dead in
the eye, scared to death and I said, Dad, I love you and I want you to know how sorry I
am for hurting you.
(59:12 – 59:18)
He never said I love you back. His eyes just filled up with tears and he hugged me and
he said, It’s okay. It’s okay.
(59:19 – 59:49)
I was able to go to the grave of that kid, Tommy, little Tommy, and I was able to kneel
down and what was remarkable about it was it wasn’t there was no guilt. It was what it
was. Do you know I understood it then as I understand it now that every episode and
every event and every negative thing that occurred in my life was necessary for me to
get to that window that opened? It had to be the way it was.
(59:49 – 59:58)
I never would have picked that phone up and made that call. I’ve had trials and
tribulations in my life. I was a guy who was and I’ve had wonderful events.
(59:58 – 1:00:04)
I was a guy who was never going to get married. Ever. I had been that road, man.
(1:00:05 – 1:00:15)
Relationships and me didn’t work well. And I ended up falling in love with a young lady.
She’s 15 years younger than me.
(1:00:15 – 1:00:28)
I don’t know if my motive was to take care of me when I’m older. I love you, but today
it’s I love you. And I was also a guy who was never going to have kids.
(1:00:31 – 1:00:46)
And I don’t know, my timing must have been off. And we found out that Emily was
pregnant and we were both like freaked out. I mean, we just didn’t plan that.
(1:00:47 – 1:00:52)
It just happened and we didn’t have kids. We never had kids. I never had kids that I know
of.
(1:00:56 – 1:01:02)
And I ended I was going to have a kid. I’m a macho kind of guy. I know it’s going to be a
boy.
(1:01:03 – 1:01:11)
Now we’re excited. I mean, now the acceptance levels kicked in and we are really
psyched about having this kid. In the meantime, I had a business opportunity that kicked
in.
(1:01:12 – 1:01:26)
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I’m in a job I don’t belong in. I am selling medical
products to physicians. I go out and buy one of them fake college rings.
(1:01:26 – 1:01:58)
I mean, that’s part of the reason all those suits were in the closet, you know. I walk in
like Herman Munster because I ain’t comfortable in them. And so, my wife’s pregnant
and I’m counting on a son and we’re getting excited and finally the day comes and Emily
goes, we take her to the hospital and she’s pushing and finally the head pops out and
the rest of it comes out head first.
(1:01:58 – 1:02:24)
You probably know that. And the baby comes out and I look and I say to the doctor, this
boy has no penis. And no one, including her, no one laughed.
(1:02:24 – 1:02:42)
No one thought it was as funny as I thought it was. And I picked up that little girl after
they wiped all that slop off of her. I knew I had fear then.
(1:02:44 – 1:02:52)
But I picked up that little girl and I fell in love. I just fell in love. I mean, my heart took off,
you know.
(1:02:52 – 1:03:04)
I mean, I fell in love instantly. I felt something I had never felt before. I mean, I mean, I,
you know, everything that’s good in my life, I, I, I challenge anyone.
(1:03:05 – 1:03:14)
You tell me something in your life that’s good today that is not as a result of being sober,
if you’re alcoholic. Name it. Name it.
(1:03:15 – 1:03:30)
One guy said air. That’s why I don’t say that at rehabs anymore. That’s why I don’t But
it’s the truth, you know.
(1:03:31 – 1:03:51)
It really is the truth. But, but, you know what? Life’s not, you know, like my buddy Bazan
says, he says, Bob, I’m sorry. Life’s not a flat line and stuff happens and, you know, all of
a sudden, you know, one year we’re, we’re selling millions of dollars worth of medical
products and, and one day the Medicaid, Medicare law is changing and it’s over.
(1:03:53 – 1:03:59)
It’s gone. It’s done. And by then I got another child.
(1:03:59 – 1:04:05)
This time, it had a penis. And her name is Susie. No.
(1:04:07 – 1:04:18)
And his name is Jacob. And, and here I’ve, I’ve got these children and, and my business
has gone. And, and I’m, you know, I’m sitting in morbid contemplation about the whole
deal.
(1:04:18 – 1:04:37)
You know, every day my head is in my hands and, and then I get diagnosed with this
hepatitis C and I get put on this interferon ribavirin stuff which is like chemotherapy
which, which is a depressant and it really knocks the heck out of you. And I mean, if I felt
like, I felt like the sky was falling. I felt like my life was coming apart at the seams.
(1:04:38 – 1:05:03)
And one day, you know, Emily says, why don’t you take the kids to your mom and dad’s.
And I, I take them out of this big, beautiful house I lived in, I live in and they never should
have had and I put them in this nice car that was, you know, something that, again, you
know, perfume on a pig, you know. And I drive these, these beautiful kids over to my
mom and dad’s house and, and they go in and once again I’m sitting on the couch in
morbid contemplation.
(1:05:03 – 1:05:48)
They walk into a mother and father’s house that was never going to have me or couldn’t
have me in their lives because of how volatile and horrible I had become and some years
later we were best friends and, and they sit down with Megan on the piano, Jake’s
playing on the floor and my mom and my dad, Megan in the middle, my head is in my
hands and I’m just thinking, you know, which, which, you know, I forgot the schedule at
McDonald’s when they throw the food out in case we need to know. And, and, and I hear,
I hear my mom start playing You Are My Sunshine and I hear Megan singing it with my
mom and my dad. And my dad’s in throws Alzheimer’s but when he’s around my kids it’s
like, he’s, he’s just awesome.
(1:05:49 – 1:06:05)
And I look up at them and it was like a lightning bolt. I mean, I’d been praying for, for
God to relieve me of this fear so that I could continue to be a usefulness to others. And I
looked up at them and it was like a lightning bolt and I said to myself, how dare you.
(1:06:06 – 1:06:18)
You have everything in your life this day that a man could ever want. You have been
granted the gifts that you always wished you’d had. You have been given a life.
(1:06:19 – 1:06:54)
If all the crap goes away tomorrow, money, is it going to change the way those kids love
you? Is it going to change the way you love them? Is it going to change the way your
mom and dad absolutely adore you and your family today? Is it going to take the God
that has developed in your heart out? Did he take you this far just to drop you in the
desert? And it was like a lightning bolt and the next thought that came into my mind was
I’m going to miss the movie. It’s like going to the theater and falling asleep, okay? Don’t
miss the movie. You’re going to miss it.
(1:06:54 – 1:07:03)
You’re buried in self. It’s like going to the dentist and saying, no Novocaine for me. Drill
away.
(1:07:06 – 1:07:13)
Drill away. And you know what came over me? A sense of incredible shame. Incredible
shame.
(1:07:13 – 1:07:34)
When you said step three, I said, yeah, baby, you know what? I had to go back to live in
step three every single day. I surrendered my will and my life to God’s care to this day.
The business is gone, but as God would have it in His infinite wisdom, I now have a very
good job.
(1:07:34 – 1:07:56)
My best friend started an internet auction house, and somehow once again I fell in the
doo doo and came out smelling like a rose and it wasn’t an accident. You know what I
quit doing? I searched for solutions, but I stopped trying to steer the log. You’re
absolutely right.
(1:07:56 – 1:08:09)
The longer I’m sober, the less I know. And isn’t it a relief to not have to know? It’s just
such a relief to be a part of the team. Not the quarterback.
(1:08:11 – 1:08:22)
God’s flying the plane. I’m just sitting in the luggage compartment. You know, and then I
got sick, and we went through that.
(1:08:23 – 1:08:36)
The reality is through all these events that have taken place, listen, I get on my knees
and I ask God to let me know what His will is for me and give me the power to carry it
out. I have asked God for specific and real changes in my life. I have asked Him to
relieve me of self-centeredness.
(1:08:36 – 1:08:46)
I have asked Him to relieve me of financial insecurity before that ever happened. I have
relieved Him to grant me patience. I remember one night saying, God, I need patience.
(1:08:46 – 1:08:56)
And the next day I was cleaning up someone’s feces off the carpet. Literally. I remember
praying to God, teach me faith.
(1:08:57 – 1:09:08)
And then my business went away. I remember saying to God, show me patience. I got
very sick and angry.
(1:09:10 – 1:09:19)
And then I complained about all the events in my life. I got everything I asked for. I liked
the final result, but I hated the ride.
(1:09:21 – 1:09:36)
The ride sucked. You know, there’s a saying I use, when one door closes, another door
always opens, but it’s held in the hallway. It is.
(1:09:36 – 1:09:51)
But that other door always opens. Always opens. So, what’s going on today? Well, I
wouldn’t trade places with anybody alive today.
(1:09:52 – 1:10:05)
Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade places with anyone dead, either. Before I left, my
little girl and my little boy were holding me crying.
(1:10:05 – 1:10:12)
A miracle happened. A miracle happens every time I leave town. My kids run to me in
tears because they don’t want me to go.
(1:10:18 – 1:10:27)
God, I love those kids. I just never knew that I could love that way. I never knew.
(1:10:32 – 1:10:47)
I just never knew. And God gave that to me. He granted me the gems of life, and it’s not
about money.
(1:10:49 – 1:11:11)
It’s about know, I feel most of the time, I really feel like God’s holding me in his hands. I
really do. I feel like I’m protected, and I feel like no matter what happens in life, it’s
happening because I’m meant to learn something so that I can help somebody.
(1:11:13 – 1:11:52)
And those little kids, you know, they run up to me, and I read books on how to be a dad,
and you know, not how to screw it up, and not how to get too pissed. I even read a book
on how to wipe a baby’s ass. I read, I did, I read every… I mean, it was all new, you
know? I remember once when my nephew was little, he sat on the floor it’s just, it’s so
remarkable.
(1:11:52 – 1:12:11)
You know, every night I tell my kids bedtime stories. And, you know, I’ll lay on the floor,
Jake’s still in a crib, he’s too little, I’ll just rock him to sleep. And then I go into Megan’s
room, that’s my role, Emily does her, you know, we’ve got our things we do, traditions
are in my house.
(1:12:11 – 1:12:36)
And I’ll lay on the floor next to her and she’ll hold my hand and I’ll either make up a story
or I’ll read one. you know, every now and then, you know, she’ll just look over and just
say, Dad, I really love you, you’re the best, Dad. And she’s five, you know, and there’s
nights Emily and I will go into their bedrooms and we’ll just stare at them, we’ll just look
at them, just look at them.
(1:12:36 – 1:13:00)
I guess what I’m getting at is, I see the big picture, at least as well as I can, I see the
gifts, that’s called an awakening. It’s an awakening, a spiritual awaken, my spirit has
awakened. It doesn’t happen anywhere but here for me.
(1:13:02 – 1:13:36)
You know, I went through a period of sobriety where maybe, maybe we go through this, I
don’t know if everyone does, sometimes, you know what, I wonder if I’m making a
difference. You know? And I tell this story because it’s a profound story for me. It’s a
story about a guy walking down the beach in Mexico, and there’s a guy walking towards
him, way in the distance, and it’s low tide, and the guy in the distance keeps bending
over and picking things up and throwing them back into the ocean.
(1:13:38 – 1:14:04)
And he’s wondering what he’s doing, they approach each other, and finally the guy says,
what are you doing? And the other guy replies, it’s low tide, and there are thousands of
starfish washed up on this shore, and they’re going to die unless we throw some back in.
And the other guy says, well there’s hundreds of thousands of them, you can’t possibly
make a difference. And the guy bends over, picks one up and throws it in the ocean, and
he says, it made a difference to that one.
(1:14:06 – 1:14:28)
It made a difference to that one. See, those guys that introduced themselves to me and
surrounded me at that first AA meeting never knew that almost 19 years later I’d
remember every one of their faces. I wouldn’t remember almost anything they said, but
I’d remember, like Frank says, the music.
(1:14:29 – 1:14:38)
I remember the music. And the music was, I love you, you’re welcome here, no matter
who you are. And they did that for me.
(1:14:39 – 1:14:48)
And you do that for me. And my commitment is, I hope and pray that I can continue to
do that for those who still suffer. Thank you.
(1:14:51 – 1:14:54)
APPLAUSE ? ? ?
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