June 19, 2024 • 43 mins
2024 1035 Elder statesman Chuck B shares the problems experienced by "turning his will and life over to the care of alcohol as he understood alcohol" at an early age to the benefits received by turning his will and life over to the care of God as he understood God via the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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(00:00):
Good morning everybody, this is Rusty and I'm an alcoholic.
(00:06):
Alright Rusty.
Hey Chuck.
And I'm Tim and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
This guy that I'm going to introduce just briefly here is, I've just respected him for
so many years in recovery.
He's done so much in his own life and what an example he's been for all of us.
(00:26):
I don't want to say too much because he won't like it, but I'm just going to introduce Chuck.
Hi, my name is Chuck and I'm an alcoholic.
Hey Chuck.
I'm from a family of eight children.
My mother and dad married each other and they stayed married to each other until my dad
died.
(00:47):
They went to church and they took all of us with them until we got old enough to break
and run.
That the only excuse my dad would accept if he had a job, it would be alright to take
care of the job, but other than that on Sunday morning if you're living in his house you
need to go to church.
(01:07):
I didn't fit well there from the beginning.
I wasn't born just right.
I always wanted to do the things that you're not supposed to do and that was from a very
early age.
We lived in a country, but there's a little store within a mile of the house and I'm old
(01:28):
enough back then a six-year-old could walk to the store and there wasn't any danger to
it.
I often did that.
I'm B82 here for long and so that'll date me, but in those days after World War II everybody
smoked.
Everybody had AC in their car so when they got through smoking they'd just throw them
(01:52):
out the window and that was everywhere.
So I'd go to the store and I'd pick up them butts and I'd smoke and cuss all the way to
the store.
Now my dad did not swear at all, but we lived on an oil lease so there was a lot of men
come and go and they did cuss.
So I'd hear those words and I'd get out by myself and I'd practice them.
(02:17):
And I'd heard enough at church, I knew that that was going to cause me to burn some day,
but I just couldn't keep from doing it.
And that kind of describes my life.
I'm six down and those eight children and so my older brothers and sisters taught me
how to read and write.
One brother in particular taught me how to play ball.
(02:38):
I had some natural ability and so I learned how to play ball and I was always ahead of
the guys in my class because I had teachers right along.
So that went well.
I did well in school except I could never color or write.
I mean I could write but you couldn't read it.
(03:02):
And I could already tell.
I'd look at other kids' color pages and they'd be pretty good.
I'd look at mine and I'd think, oh my, this is horrible.
And so I was really surprised when the first grades come out.
I got whatever you got good back in those days and I was just really surprised.
(03:22):
So life was pretty easy for me but I still always felt a little different.
And nobody was abusing me.
Nobody was mistreating me.
My mother and dad wouldn't allow any fighting to speak of when we went to the table.
It was an orderly table.
So I had good values given to me but I just couldn't accept them all.
(03:48):
I had my first job when I was 11.
That was putting me in the sixth grade I think and I made enough money to buy my own school
clothes.
And so daddy and everybody was happy about that.
But today I know if you give an 11-year-old money they've got more freedom than they once
(04:10):
had.
And because I had older brothers and one of my older brothers was a good athlete and everybody
knew him, so it was easy for me to mingle in with older guys.
By the time I'm 11, I mingled in with a group and somebody said, let's get some beer.
And we did and we drank it and I got that feeling that pre-alcoholics get.
(04:37):
I am not a professional but my experience tells me that alcohol does more for we that
become alcoholic than it does other people.
And when I got that first buzz there wasn't anything wrong anymore.
I felt, you know, not only did I fit in, I felt at the top of.
(04:59):
And when I wasn't drinking I was pretty quiet and pretty much in the corner.
But when I began to drink I immediately took over.
I got in the middle of the room and began to tell people how it was and how it ought
to be, etc.
So, so happened we had hors d'oeuvres with a beer, those Fritos.
(05:23):
They were delicious going down.
But later in the evening coming up they wasn't quite so delicious.
The next morning, of course, I felt a little fuzzy and not so good physically but my head
immediately went to how cool I was.
And I didn't know it then but I know it now that I turned my will and my life over to
(05:48):
the care of alcohol as I understood alcohol.
And so I chased that first feeling for about 20 years.
It's about what it amounted to, maybe 22, but who's counting really.
I did well.
Football, I played three sports but football was my best sport.
(06:10):
And as a junior I set some school records and led the school conference and scoring
and etc.
And of course small town newspaper, my name was in the newspaper every week for eight
weeks.
I did not know how to handle that and I didn't handle it well.
But I didn't make too big a deal out of it unless I was drinking.
(06:33):
And then if I was drinking I told everybody how, you know, how it was and how much better
I was going to be and so forth.
My junior year, that was my best year.
But drinking was always happening.
Of course I couldn't drink every day but it was happening every time I could make it happen.
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I had offers of scholarships in my junior year.
Between that summer I did a lot of drinking and all the offensive line graduated when
I was a senior and things were a lot different.
Part of it was the offensive line being gone but a bigger part of it was my attitude and
(07:18):
my dedication.
And it took me a lot of years to accept that.
But what it amounts to, once alcohol got important in my life I was pretty well uncoachable and
unteachable.
If it wasn't my idea I just didn't go for it.
Now I was smart enough or maybe my parents told me I didn't always have to tell them
(07:43):
I wasn't going for it but I wasn't going for it and that's how I lived my life.
I did go on, I played two years with Juco Ball but it was never the same.
But I was elected captain at my junior college team and I felt kind of like Bill did when
he went to Canada.
(08:06):
That's when he went broke in New York.
He went to Canada, he made money for a few months and he felt, well I've regained my
post and that's how I felt in junior college.
I finished there and then I went to a four year school and I walked on and didn't make
it.
And that was really the first time that I accepted, you know, I've drank myself through
(08:31):
with this.
And so then my notoriety was I was the guy at the party and that's what I did.
I was fortunate enough to graduate from college because I come from poor people.
When I was in high school some teachers said those that go to college will make X number
(08:56):
of dollars more than those that don't go and so you ought to go to college.
So I went to play football and get that piece of paper.
I had already decided by then that I was going to remain a bachelor.
And I liked the girls and I had girlfriends, never that successful.
(09:18):
But what I discovered of course with teenage girls, most of them had curfews and if there's
anything I hated when I started drinking is somebody says we need to stop.
Boy, I hated that.
And plus in those days, well if you had a date, well the guys always paid for whatever
(09:38):
you done and it was easy to figure out it takes more for two to drink than it does one.
And so I thought I can eliminate two problems there and what have you.
However, the semester before I got out of college, I run into this gal, I already knew
her but didn't know her that well.
(10:00):
But it was around, you know, late at night I was already feeling my oats as you might
say.
So I met her on a different basis that night as the big, big Bible says, you know, we knew
each other.
And she had some mental illness but she was quite bright, quite intelligent.
(10:20):
She was the only child.
And in 90 days we're married.
Anybody listening, you can fill in the blanks from there but my mother was just overwhelmed
to say the least but at any rate in 90 days we were married.
The biggest problem was I really didn't like her.
(10:44):
And so, you know, I wallowed around and I thought, well, I just won't tell anybody.
And you know, I drank enough and I could say the words, you know, I could convince her
and what have you.
And so I actually thought, you know, that's what I'll do.
Kids coming, I don't want any kids coming from a broken home.
(11:07):
And so I intended to be a good husband and father like my dad had been.
And I would have been except I had one problem.
And with my dad it was easy.
Mom said we're going to eat six, he'd be there, you'd bet money on it.
So I thought, well, I've got to be on time.
(11:30):
And I was, I made it about seven days on time.
And the eighth day somebody said something that disturbed me or no telling what happened.
But I knew what the answer was, you know, I've got to have a drink.
And I can probably forgive them and move on.
And I did have the drink and some more.
(11:54):
And the first drink gets me drunk.
I know that.
Back then there was another drink that was pretty troublesome for me, but I never did
know which one it was until after I'd finished it.
And after I'd finished that, maybe it was the fourth, I just knew, well, it's on for
(12:15):
tonight.
And so, you know, I didn't get home on time.
And so that happened periodically, drinking allowed us to move to the big city, if you
will.
And by drinking, a friend of mine had a job and we had drank and run in high school.
(12:38):
And he said, it's the best deal in the world.
You get a company car, you get an expense account, and you don't have to punch the clock.
Now, for a budding drunk, I think, you know, anybody would go for that.
I didn't have any idea what the job did.
But anyway, I interviewed for the job and I got it.
And he was right, it was a small insurance company.
(13:01):
So a lot of people would go to work there that get experienced and then they'd leave.
And so we had a party for everybody when they went to work and for when they left.
So there's a lot of partying going on and I'm still trying to get home on time and most
of the time I did, but then there'd be that time and I'd call the kid's mother.
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And by then the first kid was there and pretty quickly thereafter, there was two more.
But at any rate, I'd call the kid's mother and say, well, I'm with the boss and we're
having some drinks and I can't hardly leave him.
He don't want me to do that.
So I'll be home after a while.
So of course, I always missed after a while, whatever time I said.
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So we'd have a cuss fight, whatever.
The next day with that guilt remorse, I'd say, boy, I won't do that anymore.
I won't drink so much.
But it repeated itself.
I've always thought I was a great thinker.
And it only took five or six times.
(14:10):
And I thought, you know, I call her on the phone and we get the fight.
Then I get drunk and go home.
We get another fight.
I can eliminate one of these fights.
I'll just stop the phone call.
And so I did.
And of course, that caused additional trouble.
And she began to lock the door and I went around her to pull the screen door off the
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hinges or what have you.
But she eventually got enough locks on that door.
I didn't get in until she said, OK.
And I got sober in the month of February, by the way.
And in Oklahoma, you could freeze to death with a good car and a good house if you're
too drunk to get in the car and drive it to get to the house.
(14:59):
And if you get the house, you can't get in anyway.
And so I slept in the car in my own driveway more nights than I'd like to admit.
And then I could drive good until about my mid-twenties.
And suddenly I started hitting stationary objects, parked cars, telephone poles.
(15:20):
And two or three, my memory is fading, but at least two parked cars.
Nobody ever knew about it but me.
And of course, I had to lie and cheat and steal to get that cleaned up.
And that wasn't always easy, but I did.
And so I'm trying to give a pattern here of how the disease always gets worse, never better.
(15:48):
So when I started hitting these parked cars, I'd just flop anywhere somebody let me.
I'd talk somebody into driving my company car somewhere else.
They probably drunk as I was.
But at any rate, I do stuff like that and I've interposed real quick.
(16:08):
I like the women, but when I drank, women wasn't a problem for me.
When I drank, I wanted to drink.
And so I've woke up in places of eight or nine people, men and women, and I wouldn't
know any of them.
But you know, they're my best friends the night before.
And again, I've done that a lot more times than I'd like to remember.
(16:33):
So that's kind of where drinking was taking me.
Now, we had three kids and we lost one that lived eight days.
And so the kids' mother and I got along well enough in that particular department.
But raising the kids, we didn't agree how to do that.
(16:53):
And well, she was a pill addict.
She's dead and gone, but she really was.
And so we had those things going on.
And so basically, it was a mess.
The older boy wasn't learning how to read and things just wasn't going well.
And we discovered what the problem was and did get that corrected.
(17:17):
But what brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous, I think I've painted a good enough picture
of being a drunk and so we're going to get sober.
And what brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous was I was failing as a father and I knew it.
I blamed everything else on the kid's mother.
(17:39):
And I really believed that was the big problem.
But I recognized that I couldn't blame her about this father failure.
So by good fortune and a power greater than me, a college friend of mine made a trip from
(18:00):
Arkansas to where I was and confronted me.
But a good buddy and he admitted, you know, we drank, parted in college.
I drank much as you did.
I understand that.
But your wife and other people think that you may be in trouble with your drinking.
(18:21):
Just so happens, I worked for a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He owns the company.
He's a good boss, a fair man, and he helps a lot of people.
Drunks get out of jail, he'll put them to work, etc.
So if you think you have a drinking problem, maybe you'd want to talk to my boss.
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Or if you don't want to do that, well, maybe you'd want to check out AA.
So the seed is planted.
By this time, my self-esteem based on how poor a father I was and that lying and stealing,
like hitting parked cars and stealing money to get the company car fixed and so forth,
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was eating my lunch.
And so I didn't have enough self-esteem to call the boss, but I did make it to the central
office in the city where I live.
And I'll never forget, they say this lady never existed, but that day there was a lovely
gray-haired woman working in that office.
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And I walked in, she said, can I help you, sir?
And I said, well, I'd like to find out if there's a meeting I could go to.
She said, well, probably, but I need some information.
And she said, do you think you've got a drinking problem?
I didn't do any prep for this meeting, by the way, and that question just straight at
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me, it just caught me by surprise.
And I took a breath and I said, yes, ma'am, I think I do.
She said, well, we can direct you to a meeting.
I said, I'll have somebody come and pick you up.
Well, immediately that, you know, I'll do this deal.
And I said, ma'am, I drive all over Tulsa and I can go anywhere I want to go.
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If you give me the address, I'll go there.
Didn't ruffle her at all.
And she said, oh, sure, that'd be fine.
If you'll give me a quadrant of the city you live in, I'll give you a meeting place.
And so she did.
And so I did go to that first meeting.
And it just was just right for me.
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Everybody doesn't say that.
Now, I didn't feel glorious.
I didn't feel like, wow, I've come home.
But it was comforting to be there.
And they let me diagnose myself.
I begin to hear more about it now, but that was a long time ago in 1976.
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And at that time, they read the questions presented by Johns Hopkins University.
I think there's 35 questions.
And then, of course, us drunks added five more to it.
They ended up being 40 questions.
And I still have it today.
And I use it some with new people.
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But it so happened, the guy leading the meeting, he and I had done some volunteer coaching
in kids' programs.
And I thought, well, old Jerry's still helping people, doing good things.
I didn't have any idea that he had a drinking problem.
And he said, Chuck, I'm going to read you these questions.
And we don't care.
Nobody's going to score you.
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We're not going to grade it or anything.
You might just be interested in the questions and answer them as you go along.
And so he starts reading questions like, do you require a drink at a certain time each
day?
And is drinking causing you peace of mind problems in the field with your life?
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And just common sense questions.
They're really good questions.
So the first 13 questions, I answered yes to.
So then my thinker kicked in.
And I thought, a guy could get more yeses here than he wanted if he wasn't careful.
So I just quit answering questions.
And we got down to the end.
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And I answered two or three more yeses and a couple of maybes.
And it seemed like he speeded up.
But I doubt that he did.
But he said, if you've answered yes to one of these questions, you've probably got a
problem with alcohol.
If you've answered yes to two, it's pretty sure you've got a problem.
And if you've answered yes to three or more of these questions, you're definitely an alcoholic.
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And again, it seemed like he pronounced definitely louder.
And I thought, I'll be damned.
I had two uncles, and they were the town drunks in my little small town.
One of them had enough dignity to get out of town.
But the other one didn't.
He'd sleep in the alley.
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And so forth.
So I knew what a drunk was.
So I didn't do any of that.
I kept a job, had a paycheck coming in, blah, blah, blah.
And I just thought, well, I am.
And so that was my diagnosis.
I had diagnosed myself that night.
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I've never changed my mind about that.
Now I did think, you know, again, I always thought I'm pretty smart.
I thought, well, I'm alcoholic, but I'll go and listen.
And I'll outthink these people.
And I'll be back to, I'll do me some more social drinking, which I never did.
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But I thought I did for a while.
But every time I thought I'd have a plan and I'd hear somebody's lead, as they called
it back then, like we're doing today, and they had already tried my plan and it didn't
work out.
And so I did have enough humility, maybe, to think, if everybody else is getting drunk
(24:13):
after they try this, I'm probably going to also.
And so I set out to get this program.
As I've already said, I got to diagnose myself quickly.
And an old guy named Dan said, this is really a simple program.
Well, they said several things about simple.
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Another guy said, it's really simple.
All you got to do is change your whole damn life.
And I grasped what they're talking about.
And then this other old guy said, now here's what we do.
He said, in the morning, you got a big decision to make when you wake up.
You need to decide whether you're going to drink or whether you're not going to drink.
(25:00):
And he said, if you decide you're not going to drink, you need to ask a God, he, she,
or it, I don't know which that is, but there is a power greater than all of us.
And you need to ask that power to help you not to drink that day.
And then at night, if you didn't drink before you go to sleep, you think that same thing.
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And now you do that every day.
We don't care what you believe.
And they also, they worked, they built on that.
We say a lot of things in my circles, but we cut them short.
And so they said, you need to get a home group.
And when they meet, you meet.
So that's simple.
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You don't need to know who's leading the meeting.
If it's the Speaker of the Union, you don't need to know anything other than your home
group night.
You'll learn the rest of it.
And I did that then, and I have done that every since.
When my home group meets, I meet unless I've got another commitment or an important family
(26:07):
situation.
Other than that, I go to my home group.
And I've already talked about praying.
And then they didn't really start me per se on the steps.
They talked a lot about the steps, but they said, whatever you make a commitment, keep
it.
And whenever you say something, why, follow up.
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Do what you say.
And in the meantime, it would help if you would get a little more thoughtful and polite,
even though it may not be so good at your home.
At least you can be polite.
And that solved a fair amount of problems in my, it wasn't good at my house when I got
to, I can tell you that one of my first resentments, probably lose my trend, but I just want to
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say that every place I've been in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, when it's time to stop
– we stop.
And I thought, hell, why do you need to stop?
I'd rather stay there at the meeting than go home.
But that was my first resentment.
They insisted on stopping right on time.
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Then we'd go to the coffee shop and smoke and drink coffee and couldn't figure out
why we couldn't go to sleep.
But that's just a side light that happens.
The marriage didn't make it, but we stayed married four years.
I was sober four years and we were divorced.
I guess I want to say quickly, I really thought, I really did, I thought, well, you know, I
(27:42):
don't drink anymore and I've gotten polite and I'm not lying as much as I used to.
I quit stealing on my expense count.
I thought, I'm a pretty good guy.
If I can just get rid of her, my life's going to be okay.
And I could have passed a lie detector test on that.
I could have.
(28:03):
Well, it didn't take a month after I had that piece of paper which I carried around in the
car just in case I needed to prove something.
Anyway, I found out as the book says in the place, there was plenty wrong with Chuck about
which a lot needed to be done.
And so really at four years, I really began to do steps.
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I'd already been doing them as best I could.
I didn't have any more ability but I suddenly got better ability and more need.
And so I began to take steps and put steps in my life and things just happened.
After about two years divorced, I met another lady which was a non-alcoholic.
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She was badly in need and willing to go to Al-Nan and she did.
And so we dated and fell in love and got married.
When we got married, we had five teenagers between us.
I had three and she had two.
So the marriage survived that.
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I used to say, oh, I kept going to, I was very regular about my home group.
I did some outside work but mostly I'd say we stayed home and raised the kids.
Every day I'd say we stayed home to protect the property but I don't know about raising
the kids but we did protect the property.
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I gradually was doing more and I finally got in, I didn't finally, I didn't want in the
service structure.
I just liked to go to my home group and go visit groups and I didn't mind giving an AA
talk if they'd let me tell a joke to get started.
So I did that and I did some 12-step work but another thing that Dan said in the early
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days, he said when you get an AA request and he explained to me what that was, you need
to say yes unless, and that's one of those things we need to build on.
Sometimes we say, anytime AA asks you to do something, you need to say yes.
That's too short.
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Unless you've got a good legitimate reason to say no and those are two totally different
things.
But there's times come and I did say yes when I didn't want to say yes but I didn't have
a good reason to say no and that again has served me very well.
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I want to talk about sponsorship I think briefly.
Different personalities do different things and I've found that I need a personality that
kind of matches mine or I really can't do much for anybody else.
That's just, has been the deal with me.
(31:08):
So I never was in the Army.
I didn't intend to go to the Army unless the government intended for me to because I'd
been to enough picture shows to know that they give prompt orders and they talk down
to people and I don't like to be talked down to.
I never did and I didn't expect I wasn't going to put myself in a place where people would
(31:33):
talk down to me.
So I didn't want that and I don't do that.
But I was sponsored pretty well is here's what we do, the rest is up to you and that
has worked for me and that's what I do when I'm working with other people.
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Here's generally what we do.
You may not have to do all of this but you're going to have to do some of it or you're not
going to get sober and stay sober.
It's strange, I don't mind doing this but as a social creature I'm a total bore.
I don't have much to say.
I don't waste a lot of words or what have you and so sponsorship is pretty easy for
(32:20):
me.
I say what you know.
I had this experience.
This is what I've done.
It worked well.
I see other people doing it and it seems to work well.
Now you're on your own.
You know it's up to you.
And if they come to me with a situation, if I haven't had any experience I say you know
(32:41):
I don't know anything about that.
I could probably help you find somebody that would know something about that but I don't
know anything about what you're talking about.
There are things popular at various times in various places.
Right now everywhere there's a weed shop or what I don't even know the right title for
(33:04):
weed or what have you.
We've got them on every corner where I live and doctors are prescribing it now and so
forth.
A few times when I was drinking I did some weed but I never could tell it done anything
because I was already drunk.
So I don't really know anything about that but I've had people come and say well you
(33:26):
know they tell me I can smoke marijuana or what have you.
I say well I don't smoke any.
I don't know about you.
I'm going to leave that up to you.
I've had people ask me if they needed to break their sobriety date.
I said that's not my decision, that's your decision.
My experience has been those that did it takes care of itself.
(33:52):
You know I don't have to do any diagnosis or issue any proclamations.
That kind of takes care of itself.
Otherwise if somebody is hurting I'm there.
And again I say we lean on the program and of course I can say that.
(34:12):
The love affair with my wife that I just talked about where we had five kids between us.
We were married forty years.
We had a marvelous life together.
She went to Allen and I'll ad lib right here.
One way to have a really good marriage is to have a really bad one first and then you
(34:34):
can't hardly do but improve on the next one.
And we both felt sure we had had bad marriages and so we were always polite and thoughtful.
I can't tell you we always agreed.
I can't tell you that sometimes you know another ad lib we say in IA when you resent somebody
(34:55):
well I pray for them for at least eight days and I ask God to give them what you'd like
for yourself.
And so I prayed for the kids mother every day for a long time.
I don't know we'd been married two or three years.
My wife my second wife just out of the blue one day she said do you still pray for Tommy
(35:16):
every day?
That was my ex-wife.
And the first thought that came to my mind on that day I wanted to say hell no I started
praying for you.
But I did not say that by the way.
So there were times you know when I would be disgusted or what have you.
But again I would be disgusted.
(35:38):
I might be quiet too quiet but I'd at least be polite.
And I have learned in this program you know I can use silence as a weapon.
I have to be careful about that.
When I'm doing that anybody that knows me they know what I'm doing and my wife certainly
did.
And she said I know why you're not saying anything but and then she may or may not go
(36:04):
on.
But for the most part we had a wonderful life.
We got to do things I never being a poor boy from poor people I never dreamed we'd get
to do.
And we enjoyed each other we had a wonderful life.
She contacted Parkinson's disease and it was kind of slow in the beginning.
(36:27):
It wasn't diagnosed really.
We both knew things were going downhill but we just was pretty quiet about it.
But in twenty one we started twenty one.
Well she also had an aneurysm in her brain and they operated on that but it was successful.
(36:47):
But apparently the Parkinson's kicked in pretty quickly after that.
And so all of twenty one most of the time she was confined at home and the last three
or four or five months she was in bed all the time.
But I'm very grateful I was able to keep her at home.
My people from showed up from everywhere and we went to church.
(37:11):
They always said my wife my wife likes to go to church and I like my wife so I go with
her.
Now I have continued to go to church by the way but I has always been first whenever there's
a new pastor come I'd always ask to meet with him not tell him you know I'm a member of
the A and that's first.
(37:32):
But if you got any drunks you don't know what to do with I'd be glad to help or whatever.
So that's how I did that.
But the people at church also came.
So I never had to miss a home group and if I needed to do something there was somebody
there to sit with my wife and people brought in food and what have you.
And so I could assure people I sponsor helps available.
(37:56):
You just got to be willing to say I need help and it has been available.
I'm going to wind down this particular drunk that's doing the talking now and a lot more
I've watched are in bad company when they're by their self thinking.
And so I try not to do too much thinking on the own particularly if I'm a little discouraged
(38:22):
or uncertain or what have you.
So I get with somebody and talk to somebody.
There's something about the written word and the spoken word.
It's much clearer to me than the word in my head.
And when I stay in my head and I want to lie to myself I say I don't really need help or
(38:43):
I don't want this anyway or whatever.
Whatever I want to think I want to hear that's what I say to myself.
When I speak it out I hear it differently.
And when I write it out I definitely hear it and see it differently.
So I don't keep any secrets.
(39:04):
There's somewhere I read in one of the many books that I've read over the years you're
as sick as the secrets you keep.
And so that back to sponsorship I tell guys I don't necessarily need to know everything
in your life but you don't need to be keeping any secrets.
If they're too secret for me that's all right I don't mind I don't need to know everything
(39:28):
but you better find a priest or a preacher or a lawyer somebody because you keep this
by yourself and it's going to kill you.
And I believe that by the way it's a negative thing.
I had strange stuff.
I had one experience I sponsored a guy and I met him in a halfway house a penitentiary
(39:53):
thing they keep them for a while.
That's where I first met him and we'd do some work and he'd go to some meetings a smart
guy very personal what have you but lo and behold he'd end up back in prison.
But every time when he got out I think I was probably about his second phone call we'd
(40:15):
start up again.
It's interesting I've never been a book quater and I've talked about that as a big book and
I don't have much memorized out of the book but I said well let's go out to Hakey Creek
Park we're going to do the third step real this time.
So we go out there and I open the book and I start turning pages.
(40:38):
He said it's on page 63 and it just kind of caught me because I didn't know it was on
63 I really didn't.
And I thought yeah he knows more about this book than I do.
The book's not the problem.
I don't know what is the problem but it's certainly not knowledge and he did know the
(40:59):
book.
The last time he was in another halfway house and three days before he was going to get
out for good he just walked off and his wife called me in a couple of weeks and she said
well he's back in the penitentiary he just took off.
And so I had decided that what they call he was institutionalized.
(41:25):
But then in about a year I read in a paper there's a guy with his name and he was a suspect
for a murder that happened a long time ago.
And I always suspicioned that he probably had that murder that nobody had ever talked
about and he was probably safer in prison than he was on the streets.
(41:45):
Prison they wouldn't be looking for him anyway.
So that's what I believed and so that's my example of a kept secret.
I've already said I'll soon be 82 years old.
I've been sober 48 years.
I won't live long enough to pay back.
No way.
(42:09):
Excuse me.
But I really and truly believe I didn't have any criminal record.
I never had a DUI.
It was all just good fortune.
I drove 100,000 miles drunk.
I feel like I was more blessed than some and therefore I feel like I owe more than some.
(42:35):
And so I don't judge what other people do.
They probably wasn't as fortunate as I was.
And so there's not, you know, I can't give enough back and I know that plus that's my
most comfortable time when I'm thinking of somebody else and not me.
(42:56):
And I'm complete.
Thank you.
This has been a production of Children of Chaos dot net and we invite you to share your
thoughts with us via email to comments at children of chaos dot net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and
(43:16):
recovery in America is not affiliated with endorsed or financed by any recovery or treatment
program organization or institution.
Any views, thoughts or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely
that of the individual and do not reflect the views, policies or position of any specific
(43:39):
recovery based entity or organization.
Good morning everybody, this is Rusty and I'm an alcoholic.
(00:06):
Alright Rusty.
Hey Chuck.
And I'm Tim and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
This guy that I'm going to introduce just briefly here is, I've just respected him for
so many years in recovery.
He's done so much in his own life and what an example he's been for all of us.
(00:26):
I don't want to say too much because he won't like it, but I'm just going to introduce Chuck.
Hi, my name is Chuck and I'm an alcoholic.
Hey Chuck.
I'm from a family of eight children.
My mother and dad married each other and they stayed married to each other until my dad
died.
(00:47):
They went to church and they took all of us with them until we got old enough to break
and run.
That the only excuse my dad would accept if he had a job, it would be alright to take
care of the job, but other than that on Sunday morning if you're living in his house you
need to go to church.
(01:07):
I didn't fit well there from the beginning.
I wasn't born just right.
I always wanted to do the things that you're not supposed to do and that was from a very
early age.
We lived in a country, but there's a little store within a mile of the house and I'm old
(01:28):
enough back then a six-year-old could walk to the store and there wasn't any danger to
it.
I often did that.
I'm B82 here for long and so that'll date me, but in those days after World War II everybody
smoked.
Everybody had AC in their car so when they got through smoking they'd just throw them
(01:52):
out the window and that was everywhere.
So I'd go to the store and I'd pick up them butts and I'd smoke and cuss all the way to
the store.
Now my dad did not swear at all, but we lived on an oil lease so there was a lot of men
come and go and they did cuss.
So I'd hear those words and I'd get out by myself and I'd practice them.
(02:17):
And I'd heard enough at church, I knew that that was going to cause me to burn some day,
but I just couldn't keep from doing it.
And that kind of describes my life.
I'm six down and those eight children and so my older brothers and sisters taught me
how to read and write.
One brother in particular taught me how to play ball.
(02:38):
I had some natural ability and so I learned how to play ball and I was always ahead of
the guys in my class because I had teachers right along.
So that went well.
I did well in school except I could never color or write.
I mean I could write but you couldn't read it.
(03:02):
And I could already tell.
I'd look at other kids' color pages and they'd be pretty good.
I'd look at mine and I'd think, oh my, this is horrible.
And so I was really surprised when the first grades come out.
I got whatever you got good back in those days and I was just really surprised.
(03:22):
So life was pretty easy for me but I still always felt a little different.
And nobody was abusing me.
Nobody was mistreating me.
My mother and dad wouldn't allow any fighting to speak of when we went to the table.
It was an orderly table.
So I had good values given to me but I just couldn't accept them all.
(03:48):
I had my first job when I was 11.
That was putting me in the sixth grade I think and I made enough money to buy my own school
clothes.
And so daddy and everybody was happy about that.
But today I know if you give an 11-year-old money they've got more freedom than they once
(04:10):
had.
And because I had older brothers and one of my older brothers was a good athlete and everybody
knew him, so it was easy for me to mingle in with older guys.
By the time I'm 11, I mingled in with a group and somebody said, let's get some beer.
And we did and we drank it and I got that feeling that pre-alcoholics get.
(04:37):
I am not a professional but my experience tells me that alcohol does more for we that
become alcoholic than it does other people.
And when I got that first buzz there wasn't anything wrong anymore.
I felt, you know, not only did I fit in, I felt at the top of.
(04:59):
And when I wasn't drinking I was pretty quiet and pretty much in the corner.
But when I began to drink I immediately took over.
I got in the middle of the room and began to tell people how it was and how it ought
to be, etc.
So, so happened we had hors d'oeuvres with a beer, those Fritos.
(05:23):
They were delicious going down.
But later in the evening coming up they wasn't quite so delicious.
The next morning, of course, I felt a little fuzzy and not so good physically but my head
immediately went to how cool I was.
And I didn't know it then but I know it now that I turned my will and my life over to
(05:48):
the care of alcohol as I understood alcohol.
And so I chased that first feeling for about 20 years.
It's about what it amounted to, maybe 22, but who's counting really.
I did well.
Football, I played three sports but football was my best sport.
(06:10):
And as a junior I set some school records and led the school conference and scoring
and etc.
And of course small town newspaper, my name was in the newspaper every week for eight
weeks.
I did not know how to handle that and I didn't handle it well.
But I didn't make too big a deal out of it unless I was drinking.
(06:33):
And then if I was drinking I told everybody how, you know, how it was and how much better
I was going to be and so forth.
My junior year, that was my best year.
But drinking was always happening.
Of course I couldn't drink every day but it was happening every time I could make it happen.
(06:54):
I had offers of scholarships in my junior year.
Between that summer I did a lot of drinking and all the offensive line graduated when
I was a senior and things were a lot different.
Part of it was the offensive line being gone but a bigger part of it was my attitude and
(07:18):
my dedication.
And it took me a lot of years to accept that.
But what it amounts to, once alcohol got important in my life I was pretty well uncoachable and
unteachable.
If it wasn't my idea I just didn't go for it.
Now I was smart enough or maybe my parents told me I didn't always have to tell them
(07:43):
I wasn't going for it but I wasn't going for it and that's how I lived my life.
I did go on, I played two years with Juco Ball but it was never the same.
But I was elected captain at my junior college team and I felt kind of like Bill did when
he went to Canada.
(08:06):
That's when he went broke in New York.
He went to Canada, he made money for a few months and he felt, well I've regained my
post and that's how I felt in junior college.
I finished there and then I went to a four year school and I walked on and didn't make
it.
And that was really the first time that I accepted, you know, I've drank myself through
(08:31):
with this.
And so then my notoriety was I was the guy at the party and that's what I did.
I was fortunate enough to graduate from college because I come from poor people.
When I was in high school some teachers said those that go to college will make X number
(08:56):
of dollars more than those that don't go and so you ought to go to college.
So I went to play football and get that piece of paper.
I had already decided by then that I was going to remain a bachelor.
And I liked the girls and I had girlfriends, never that successful.
(09:18):
But what I discovered of course with teenage girls, most of them had curfews and if there's
anything I hated when I started drinking is somebody says we need to stop.
Boy, I hated that.
And plus in those days, well if you had a date, well the guys always paid for whatever
(09:38):
you done and it was easy to figure out it takes more for two to drink than it does one.
And so I thought I can eliminate two problems there and what have you.
However, the semester before I got out of college, I run into this gal, I already knew
her but didn't know her that well.
(10:00):
But it was around, you know, late at night I was already feeling my oats as you might
say.
So I met her on a different basis that night as the big, big Bible says, you know, we knew
each other.
And she had some mental illness but she was quite bright, quite intelligent.
(10:20):
She was the only child.
And in 90 days we're married.
Anybody listening, you can fill in the blanks from there but my mother was just overwhelmed
to say the least but at any rate in 90 days we were married.
The biggest problem was I really didn't like her.
(10:44):
And so, you know, I wallowed around and I thought, well, I just won't tell anybody.
And you know, I drank enough and I could say the words, you know, I could convince her
and what have you.
And so I actually thought, you know, that's what I'll do.
Kids coming, I don't want any kids coming from a broken home.
(11:07):
And so I intended to be a good husband and father like my dad had been.
And I would have been except I had one problem.
And with my dad it was easy.
Mom said we're going to eat six, he'd be there, you'd bet money on it.
So I thought, well, I've got to be on time.
(11:30):
And I was, I made it about seven days on time.
And the eighth day somebody said something that disturbed me or no telling what happened.
But I knew what the answer was, you know, I've got to have a drink.
And I can probably forgive them and move on.
And I did have the drink and some more.
(11:54):
And the first drink gets me drunk.
I know that.
Back then there was another drink that was pretty troublesome for me, but I never did
know which one it was until after I'd finished it.
And after I'd finished that, maybe it was the fourth, I just knew, well, it's on for
(12:15):
tonight.
And so, you know, I didn't get home on time.
And so that happened periodically, drinking allowed us to move to the big city, if you
will.
And by drinking, a friend of mine had a job and we had drank and run in high school.
(12:38):
And he said, it's the best deal in the world.
You get a company car, you get an expense account, and you don't have to punch the clock.
Now, for a budding drunk, I think, you know, anybody would go for that.
I didn't have any idea what the job did.
But anyway, I interviewed for the job and I got it.
And he was right, it was a small insurance company.
(13:01):
So a lot of people would go to work there that get experienced and then they'd leave.
And so we had a party for everybody when they went to work and for when they left.
So there's a lot of partying going on and I'm still trying to get home on time and most
of the time I did, but then there'd be that time and I'd call the kid's mother.
(13:24):
And by then the first kid was there and pretty quickly thereafter, there was two more.
But at any rate, I'd call the kid's mother and say, well, I'm with the boss and we're
having some drinks and I can't hardly leave him.
He don't want me to do that.
So I'll be home after a while.
So of course, I always missed after a while, whatever time I said.
(13:48):
So we'd have a cuss fight, whatever.
The next day with that guilt remorse, I'd say, boy, I won't do that anymore.
I won't drink so much.
But it repeated itself.
I've always thought I was a great thinker.
And it only took five or six times.
(14:10):
And I thought, you know, I call her on the phone and we get the fight.
Then I get drunk and go home.
We get another fight.
I can eliminate one of these fights.
I'll just stop the phone call.
And so I did.
And of course, that caused additional trouble.
And she began to lock the door and I went around her to pull the screen door off the
(14:35):
hinges or what have you.
But she eventually got enough locks on that door.
I didn't get in until she said, OK.
And I got sober in the month of February, by the way.
And in Oklahoma, you could freeze to death with a good car and a good house if you're
too drunk to get in the car and drive it to get to the house.
(14:59):
And if you get the house, you can't get in anyway.
And so I slept in the car in my own driveway more nights than I'd like to admit.
And then I could drive good until about my mid-twenties.
And suddenly I started hitting stationary objects, parked cars, telephone poles.
(15:20):
And two or three, my memory is fading, but at least two parked cars.
Nobody ever knew about it but me.
And of course, I had to lie and cheat and steal to get that cleaned up.
And that wasn't always easy, but I did.
And so I'm trying to give a pattern here of how the disease always gets worse, never better.
(15:48):
So when I started hitting these parked cars, I'd just flop anywhere somebody let me.
I'd talk somebody into driving my company car somewhere else.
They probably drunk as I was.
But at any rate, I do stuff like that and I've interposed real quick.
(16:08):
I like the women, but when I drank, women wasn't a problem for me.
When I drank, I wanted to drink.
And so I've woke up in places of eight or nine people, men and women, and I wouldn't
know any of them.
But you know, they're my best friends the night before.
And again, I've done that a lot more times than I'd like to remember.
(16:33):
So that's kind of where drinking was taking me.
Now, we had three kids and we lost one that lived eight days.
And so the kids' mother and I got along well enough in that particular department.
But raising the kids, we didn't agree how to do that.
(16:53):
And well, she was a pill addict.
She's dead and gone, but she really was.
And so we had those things going on.
And so basically, it was a mess.
The older boy wasn't learning how to read and things just wasn't going well.
And we discovered what the problem was and did get that corrected.
(17:17):
But what brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous, I think I've painted a good enough picture
of being a drunk and so we're going to get sober.
And what brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous was I was failing as a father and I knew it.
I blamed everything else on the kid's mother.
(17:39):
And I really believed that was the big problem.
But I recognized that I couldn't blame her about this father failure.
So by good fortune and a power greater than me, a college friend of mine made a trip from
(18:00):
Arkansas to where I was and confronted me.
But a good buddy and he admitted, you know, we drank, parted in college.
I drank much as you did.
I understand that.
But your wife and other people think that you may be in trouble with your drinking.
(18:21):
Just so happens, I worked for a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He owns the company.
He's a good boss, a fair man, and he helps a lot of people.
Drunks get out of jail, he'll put them to work, etc.
So if you think you have a drinking problem, maybe you'd want to talk to my boss.
(18:42):
Or if you don't want to do that, well, maybe you'd want to check out AA.
So the seed is planted.
By this time, my self-esteem based on how poor a father I was and that lying and stealing,
like hitting parked cars and stealing money to get the company car fixed and so forth,
(19:04):
was eating my lunch.
And so I didn't have enough self-esteem to call the boss, but I did make it to the central
office in the city where I live.
And I'll never forget, they say this lady never existed, but that day there was a lovely
gray-haired woman working in that office.
(19:27):
And I walked in, she said, can I help you, sir?
And I said, well, I'd like to find out if there's a meeting I could go to.
She said, well, probably, but I need some information.
And she said, do you think you've got a drinking problem?
I didn't do any prep for this meeting, by the way, and that question just straight at
(19:48):
me, it just caught me by surprise.
And I took a breath and I said, yes, ma'am, I think I do.
She said, well, we can direct you to a meeting.
I said, I'll have somebody come and pick you up.
Well, immediately that, you know, I'll do this deal.
And I said, ma'am, I drive all over Tulsa and I can go anywhere I want to go.
(20:09):
If you give me the address, I'll go there.
Didn't ruffle her at all.
And she said, oh, sure, that'd be fine.
If you'll give me a quadrant of the city you live in, I'll give you a meeting place.
And so she did.
And so I did go to that first meeting.
And it just was just right for me.
(20:32):
Everybody doesn't say that.
Now, I didn't feel glorious.
I didn't feel like, wow, I've come home.
But it was comforting to be there.
And they let me diagnose myself.
I begin to hear more about it now, but that was a long time ago in 1976.
(20:54):
And at that time, they read the questions presented by Johns Hopkins University.
I think there's 35 questions.
And then, of course, us drunks added five more to it.
They ended up being 40 questions.
And I still have it today.
And I use it some with new people.
(21:16):
But it so happened, the guy leading the meeting, he and I had done some volunteer coaching
in kids' programs.
And I thought, well, old Jerry's still helping people, doing good things.
I didn't have any idea that he had a drinking problem.
And he said, Chuck, I'm going to read you these questions.
And we don't care.
Nobody's going to score you.
(21:36):
We're not going to grade it or anything.
You might just be interested in the questions and answer them as you go along.
And so he starts reading questions like, do you require a drink at a certain time each
day?
And is drinking causing you peace of mind problems in the field with your life?
(21:57):
And just common sense questions.
They're really good questions.
So the first 13 questions, I answered yes to.
So then my thinker kicked in.
And I thought, a guy could get more yeses here than he wanted if he wasn't careful.
So I just quit answering questions.
And we got down to the end.
(22:18):
And I answered two or three more yeses and a couple of maybes.
And it seemed like he speeded up.
But I doubt that he did.
But he said, if you've answered yes to one of these questions, you've probably got a
problem with alcohol.
If you've answered yes to two, it's pretty sure you've got a problem.
And if you've answered yes to three or more of these questions, you're definitely an alcoholic.
(22:43):
And again, it seemed like he pronounced definitely louder.
And I thought, I'll be damned.
I had two uncles, and they were the town drunks in my little small town.
One of them had enough dignity to get out of town.
But the other one didn't.
He'd sleep in the alley.
(23:04):
And so forth.
So I knew what a drunk was.
So I didn't do any of that.
I kept a job, had a paycheck coming in, blah, blah, blah.
And I just thought, well, I am.
And so that was my diagnosis.
I had diagnosed myself that night.
(23:25):
I've never changed my mind about that.
Now I did think, you know, again, I always thought I'm pretty smart.
I thought, well, I'm alcoholic, but I'll go and listen.
And I'll outthink these people.
And I'll be back to, I'll do me some more social drinking, which I never did.
(23:46):
But I thought I did for a while.
But every time I thought I'd have a plan and I'd hear somebody's lead, as they called
it back then, like we're doing today, and they had already tried my plan and it didn't
work out.
And so I did have enough humility, maybe, to think, if everybody else is getting drunk
(24:13):
after they try this, I'm probably going to also.
And so I set out to get this program.
As I've already said, I got to diagnose myself quickly.
And an old guy named Dan said, this is really a simple program.
Well, they said several things about simple.
(24:35):
Another guy said, it's really simple.
All you got to do is change your whole damn life.
And I grasped what they're talking about.
And then this other old guy said, now here's what we do.
He said, in the morning, you got a big decision to make when you wake up.
You need to decide whether you're going to drink or whether you're not going to drink.
(25:00):
And he said, if you decide you're not going to drink, you need to ask a God, he, she,
or it, I don't know which that is, but there is a power greater than all of us.
And you need to ask that power to help you not to drink that day.
And then at night, if you didn't drink before you go to sleep, you think that same thing.
(25:23):
And now you do that every day.
We don't care what you believe.
And they also, they worked, they built on that.
We say a lot of things in my circles, but we cut them short.
And so they said, you need to get a home group.
And when they meet, you meet.
So that's simple.
(25:44):
You don't need to know who's leading the meeting.
If it's the Speaker of the Union, you don't need to know anything other than your home
group night.
You'll learn the rest of it.
And I did that then, and I have done that every since.
When my home group meets, I meet unless I've got another commitment or an important family
(26:07):
situation.
Other than that, I go to my home group.
And I've already talked about praying.
And then they didn't really start me per se on the steps.
They talked a lot about the steps, but they said, whatever you make a commitment, keep
it.
And whenever you say something, why, follow up.
(26:31):
Do what you say.
And in the meantime, it would help if you would get a little more thoughtful and polite,
even though it may not be so good at your home.
At least you can be polite.
And that solved a fair amount of problems in my, it wasn't good at my house when I got
to, I can tell you that one of my first resentments, probably lose my trend, but I just want to
(26:57):
say that every place I've been in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, when it's time to stop
– we stop.
And I thought, hell, why do you need to stop?
I'd rather stay there at the meeting than go home.
But that was my first resentment.
They insisted on stopping right on time.
(27:18):
Then we'd go to the coffee shop and smoke and drink coffee and couldn't figure out
why we couldn't go to sleep.
But that's just a side light that happens.
The marriage didn't make it, but we stayed married four years.
I was sober four years and we were divorced.
I guess I want to say quickly, I really thought, I really did, I thought, well, you know, I
(27:42):
don't drink anymore and I've gotten polite and I'm not lying as much as I used to.
I quit stealing on my expense count.
I thought, I'm a pretty good guy.
If I can just get rid of her, my life's going to be okay.
And I could have passed a lie detector test on that.
I could have.
(28:03):
Well, it didn't take a month after I had that piece of paper which I carried around in the
car just in case I needed to prove something.
Anyway, I found out as the book says in the place, there was plenty wrong with Chuck about
which a lot needed to be done.
And so really at four years, I really began to do steps.
(28:28):
I'd already been doing them as best I could.
I didn't have any more ability but I suddenly got better ability and more need.
And so I began to take steps and put steps in my life and things just happened.
After about two years divorced, I met another lady which was a non-alcoholic.
(28:54):
She was badly in need and willing to go to Al-Nan and she did.
And so we dated and fell in love and got married.
When we got married, we had five teenagers between us.
I had three and she had two.
So the marriage survived that.
(29:15):
I used to say, oh, I kept going to, I was very regular about my home group.
I did some outside work but mostly I'd say we stayed home and raised the kids.
Every day I'd say we stayed home to protect the property but I don't know about raising
the kids but we did protect the property.
(29:37):
I gradually was doing more and I finally got in, I didn't finally, I didn't want in the
service structure.
I just liked to go to my home group and go visit groups and I didn't mind giving an AA
talk if they'd let me tell a joke to get started.
So I did that and I did some 12-step work but another thing that Dan said in the early
(30:02):
days, he said when you get an AA request and he explained to me what that was, you need
to say yes unless, and that's one of those things we need to build on.
Sometimes we say, anytime AA asks you to do something, you need to say yes.
That's too short.
(30:22):
Unless you've got a good legitimate reason to say no and those are two totally different
things.
But there's times come and I did say yes when I didn't want to say yes but I didn't have
a good reason to say no and that again has served me very well.
(30:47):
I want to talk about sponsorship I think briefly.
Different personalities do different things and I've found that I need a personality that
kind of matches mine or I really can't do much for anybody else.
That's just, has been the deal with me.
(31:08):
So I never was in the Army.
I didn't intend to go to the Army unless the government intended for me to because I'd
been to enough picture shows to know that they give prompt orders and they talk down
to people and I don't like to be talked down to.
I never did and I didn't expect I wasn't going to put myself in a place where people would
(31:33):
talk down to me.
So I didn't want that and I don't do that.
But I was sponsored pretty well is here's what we do, the rest is up to you and that
has worked for me and that's what I do when I'm working with other people.
(31:55):
Here's generally what we do.
You may not have to do all of this but you're going to have to do some of it or you're not
going to get sober and stay sober.
It's strange, I don't mind doing this but as a social creature I'm a total bore.
I don't have much to say.
I don't waste a lot of words or what have you and so sponsorship is pretty easy for
(32:20):
me.
I say what you know.
I had this experience.
This is what I've done.
It worked well.
I see other people doing it and it seems to work well.
Now you're on your own.
You know it's up to you.
And if they come to me with a situation, if I haven't had any experience I say you know
(32:41):
I don't know anything about that.
I could probably help you find somebody that would know something about that but I don't
know anything about what you're talking about.
There are things popular at various times in various places.
Right now everywhere there's a weed shop or what I don't even know the right title for
(33:04):
weed or what have you.
We've got them on every corner where I live and doctors are prescribing it now and so
forth.
A few times when I was drinking I did some weed but I never could tell it done anything
because I was already drunk.
So I don't really know anything about that but I've had people come and say well you
(33:26):
know they tell me I can smoke marijuana or what have you.
I say well I don't smoke any.
I don't know about you.
I'm going to leave that up to you.
I've had people ask me if they needed to break their sobriety date.
I said that's not my decision, that's your decision.
My experience has been those that did it takes care of itself.
(33:52):
You know I don't have to do any diagnosis or issue any proclamations.
That kind of takes care of itself.
Otherwise if somebody is hurting I'm there.
And again I say we lean on the program and of course I can say that.
(34:12):
The love affair with my wife that I just talked about where we had five kids between us.
We were married forty years.
We had a marvelous life together.
She went to Allen and I'll ad lib right here.
One way to have a really good marriage is to have a really bad one first and then you
(34:34):
can't hardly do but improve on the next one.
And we both felt sure we had had bad marriages and so we were always polite and thoughtful.
I can't tell you we always agreed.
I can't tell you that sometimes you know another ad lib we say in IA when you resent somebody
(34:55):
well I pray for them for at least eight days and I ask God to give them what you'd like
for yourself.
And so I prayed for the kids mother every day for a long time.
I don't know we'd been married two or three years.
My wife my second wife just out of the blue one day she said do you still pray for Tommy
(35:16):
every day?
That was my ex-wife.
And the first thought that came to my mind on that day I wanted to say hell no I started
praying for you.
But I did not say that by the way.
So there were times you know when I would be disgusted or what have you.
But again I would be disgusted.
(35:38):
I might be quiet too quiet but I'd at least be polite.
And I have learned in this program you know I can use silence as a weapon.
I have to be careful about that.
When I'm doing that anybody that knows me they know what I'm doing and my wife certainly
did.
And she said I know why you're not saying anything but and then she may or may not go
(36:04):
on.
But for the most part we had a wonderful life.
We got to do things I never being a poor boy from poor people I never dreamed we'd get
to do.
And we enjoyed each other we had a wonderful life.
She contacted Parkinson's disease and it was kind of slow in the beginning.
(36:27):
It wasn't diagnosed really.
We both knew things were going downhill but we just was pretty quiet about it.
But in twenty one we started twenty one.
Well she also had an aneurysm in her brain and they operated on that but it was successful.
(36:47):
But apparently the Parkinson's kicked in pretty quickly after that.
And so all of twenty one most of the time she was confined at home and the last three
or four or five months she was in bed all the time.
But I'm very grateful I was able to keep her at home.
My people from showed up from everywhere and we went to church.
(37:11):
They always said my wife my wife likes to go to church and I like my wife so I go with
her.
Now I have continued to go to church by the way but I has always been first whenever there's
a new pastor come I'd always ask to meet with him not tell him you know I'm a member of
the A and that's first.
(37:32):
But if you got any drunks you don't know what to do with I'd be glad to help or whatever.
So that's how I did that.
But the people at church also came.
So I never had to miss a home group and if I needed to do something there was somebody
there to sit with my wife and people brought in food and what have you.
And so I could assure people I sponsor helps available.
(37:56):
You just got to be willing to say I need help and it has been available.
I'm going to wind down this particular drunk that's doing the talking now and a lot more
I've watched are in bad company when they're by their self thinking.
And so I try not to do too much thinking on the own particularly if I'm a little discouraged
(38:22):
or uncertain or what have you.
So I get with somebody and talk to somebody.
There's something about the written word and the spoken word.
It's much clearer to me than the word in my head.
And when I stay in my head and I want to lie to myself I say I don't really need help or
(38:43):
I don't want this anyway or whatever.
Whatever I want to think I want to hear that's what I say to myself.
When I speak it out I hear it differently.
And when I write it out I definitely hear it and see it differently.
So I don't keep any secrets.
(39:04):
There's somewhere I read in one of the many books that I've read over the years you're
as sick as the secrets you keep.
And so that back to sponsorship I tell guys I don't necessarily need to know everything
in your life but you don't need to be keeping any secrets.
If they're too secret for me that's all right I don't mind I don't need to know everything
(39:28):
but you better find a priest or a preacher or a lawyer somebody because you keep this
by yourself and it's going to kill you.
And I believe that by the way it's a negative thing.
I had strange stuff.
I had one experience I sponsored a guy and I met him in a halfway house a penitentiary
(39:53):
thing they keep them for a while.
That's where I first met him and we'd do some work and he'd go to some meetings a smart
guy very personal what have you but lo and behold he'd end up back in prison.
But every time when he got out I think I was probably about his second phone call we'd
(40:15):
start up again.
It's interesting I've never been a book quater and I've talked about that as a big book and
I don't have much memorized out of the book but I said well let's go out to Hakey Creek
Park we're going to do the third step real this time.
So we go out there and I open the book and I start turning pages.
(40:38):
He said it's on page 63 and it just kind of caught me because I didn't know it was on
63 I really didn't.
And I thought yeah he knows more about this book than I do.
The book's not the problem.
I don't know what is the problem but it's certainly not knowledge and he did know the
(40:59):
book.
The last time he was in another halfway house and three days before he was going to get
out for good he just walked off and his wife called me in a couple of weeks and she said
well he's back in the penitentiary he just took off.
And so I had decided that what they call he was institutionalized.
(41:25):
But then in about a year I read in a paper there's a guy with his name and he was a suspect
for a murder that happened a long time ago.
And I always suspicioned that he probably had that murder that nobody had ever talked
about and he was probably safer in prison than he was on the streets.
(41:45):
Prison they wouldn't be looking for him anyway.
So that's what I believed and so that's my example of a kept secret.
I've already said I'll soon be 82 years old.
I've been sober 48 years.
I won't live long enough to pay back.
No way.
(42:09):
Excuse me.
But I really and truly believe I didn't have any criminal record.
I never had a DUI.
It was all just good fortune.
I drove 100,000 miles drunk.
I feel like I was more blessed than some and therefore I feel like I owe more than some.
(42:35):
And so I don't judge what other people do.
They probably wasn't as fortunate as I was.
And so there's not, you know, I can't give enough back and I know that plus that's my
most comfortable time when I'm thinking of somebody else and not me.
(42:56):
And I'm complete.
Thank you.
This has been a production of Children of Chaos dot net and we invite you to share your
thoughts with us via email to comments at children of chaos dot net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and
(43:16):
recovery in America is not affiliated with endorsed or financed by any recovery or treatment
program organization or institution.
Any views, thoughts or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely
that of the individual and do not reflect the views, policies or position of any specific
(43:39):
recovery based entity or organization.
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