Wayne's 46-Year Journey: From Psychiatric Hospitals to AA Chapter Four

- My name's Wayne Butler, I'm an alcoholic.

- Is there money?

- My head cut off?

No, we're good.

Concerned about myself.

Wayne alcoholic.

Handsome invite me, Ben.

I was over here a couple of months ago

when my friend Marty was speaking and I got caught.

So that's all, that's all.

So, you know, just give me a little preview.

It's AA life.

How many of you are in your first year?

So I get a beat on you.

Everybody's got more than a year?

Thank you, thank you.

Good, all right.

Last, three weeks ago, I was in Hawaii.

Week before that I was in Roanoke, Virginia

with a men's retreat around this beautiful lake.

Last week, I was on the beach in St. Pete Beach, Florida

doing a workshop.

And this week I'm in Reseda.

I used to go to the group when it was lights and session.

And I'd heard that you'd, they'd split off

and started another group.

And I found that when I came with Marty.

I love you, my own group, specific group.

My sponsor is Boston Tommy Mar out of St. Petersburg, Florida.

My previous sponsor was Tom Ivester, Clancy Imisland,

and my first sponsor, William Barney Barnett.

So I've got great training in AA.

And I want you to know I've been trained.

And I say it like that because I think that's the best

asset of groups like this.

I know, I know where you guys come from.

So I know your group is a training group

and we train each other the AA way.

We train each other to be respectful, to be courteous,

to clean up our act.

And that is no easy job for Wayne Butler,

I have to tell you the truth.

But I acquiesced, if you will.

My sobriety day is 8th of November, 1977.

That's 46 years, six months and 17 days,

but who's counting?

This is kind of a cheesy thing.

You hear it a lot, but I think it's accurate.

I'm here on the shoulders of giants.

I owe such a debt.

And as you, as I unfold my story,

you'll understand what I mean.

How I owe, I am one who is grateful he's an alcoholic.

And I know that's an absurd thing to hear, but I am.

And there's a reason why I'm grateful to be an alcoholic.

And I'll share that with you later.

I don't want to pop the surprise just yet.

I remember this guy from the Marina Center

and he was a piece of work.

And Dan, my sponsee of reason, he's my newest sponsee.

Oh, and he got what, three years, four years?

Where you at?

Thank you, no fronts, right?

I gave him a chance.

I'm an alcoholic.

I want to become an alcoholic really quick.

Some of you know much of my story.

And so I like to become alcoholic before I tell you my story

because if I tell you my story first,

you might think I'm in the wrong room.

You might think I belong in a psych ward

where I spent most of my life, by the way.

Some people spend their life in prison.

I spent most of my life in psychiatric hospitals.

So I wanted to become an alcoholic first.

And it's so, you know,

Bill devoted four full chapters to step one.

And then he repeated over and over again

that we must get a full knowledge of our condition.

Not self-knowledge, but a full knowledge of our condition.

I didn't know why that was.

It seemed strange because Clancy would always preach.

Well, he wouldn't preach.

He would say, talk about the disease of perception.

And I never quite understood that at first, but I learned.

And I'm so glad I stayed to learn these little conceptions

and misconceptions, by the way.

And you want to read your big book

because a lot of people like me get up here

and start spouting off things are in the big book,

but they're not in the black print.

And so I'm going to try to stick to the black print.

I used to be a big book thump and one book wonder.

That's what my sponsor called me.

Big book thump and one book wonder.

'Cause I would always thump one book, the big book.

All the answers are in the big book.

And he would say to me, don't look like some of yours are.

And then he would recite page 164.

We realized we know only a little.

So how can all your answers be in there, you big dummy?

That's how he talked to me.

Really rude.

I was awakened to the three primary books of alcoholics.

Now I'm just a big book to 12 and 12 and 80 comes of age.

And I found myself in the first four chapters,

I found loophole after loophole after loophole.

I can find ways not to be alcoholic

by the way the big book is written.

Anybody can.

But I could not defeat chapter four

and I could not defeat the 12 and 12.

Because the 12 and 12 gave my emotional symptoms

more clearer than any of the psychiatrist

that I've had in my life.

And so I'm a chapter four alcoholic.

And I say that because the title of it is We Agnostics.

And the reason I didn't, I refused to read that chapter

because I'm a believer.

So I told my sponsor, if I read that,

won't God think I'm not sure of myself?

And he looked at me and he says, you are SOS.

And I said, what's that?

He said, you're stuck on stupid.

And he finally got me to read chapter four.

And I'm so glad he did

because I became an alcoholic that day.

And here's what it says.

I'm gonna put it in the first person.

It's on page 44 if you're interested, sentence three.

If when I honestly want to,

do I find I cannot quit drinking entirely?

You know, I've taken a,

how many of you have taken a John Hopkins 20 question test?

Are you an alcoholic?

I know many of you probably have.

And I don't mean no disrespect if that test helped you.

But personally, I think it's the dumbest test

I've ever seen in my life.

Now I'll tell you what,

are there any read aheaders here?

You know what I mean by read ahead, right?

Yeah, like when I get a new book,

I read the ending, see if I like it.

If I don't, why waste my time reading the book?

And they gave me that little card.

I was in the Navy when I first got that card.

And I wasn't an alcoholic, in my opinion.

And they gave me this card with 20 questions on it.

It was at that time, it was a yellow card.

And they put the quantification of the test

right at the bottom for everybody to see.

And it goes like this.

If you answer yes to one question, one,

you might be alcoholic.

If you answer yes to two, you are probably alcoholic.

If you answer yes to three or more,

you are definitely alcoholic.

Well, I know they're not getting three.

I don't care what's on the test.

My question is, do I give them one or two?

I don't want them to think I'm lying.

So I'm prepared for 20 questions in here too.

And my sponsor had this ability to take these statements

and turn them into questions for me.

And so that's what he did here.

Question number one, if what I want to, do I find,

if what I honestly want to,

do I find that can I quit drinking entirely?

And we started going back to my drinking history.

When I was in the United States Navy,

I wanted that to be my career.

I loved the military.

I loved everything about it.

I loved the esprit de corps.

I had a chest full of medals from Vietnam.

I had it made, if you want to know the truth,

going in the Navy, staying in the Navy.

But they wanted me not to drink.

You know, something about when the ship's gone

and you're supposed to be on it bothers them a little bit.

We was in Subic Bay, Philippines, and I fell in love.

And when I got back to the ship Monday,

there wasn't no ship.

I thought, uh-oh.

And, but I didn't blame it on drinking.

I blamed it on her.

She kept me busy.

So there were times I honestly wanted to quit drinking.

Anybody else?

I honestly wanted to, and I found I couldn't.

And that was baffling to me.

And if you know, Bill wrote how it works,

alcohol, not disease, alcohol.

Cunning, baffling, powerful.

And it was so baffling to me

why I couldn't just drink one or two and stop

because I know the science of ethanol alcohol.

And the science is a proven fact.

Alcohol is not addictive.

I don't care what the moneymakers tell you.

Alcohol is not addictive by nature.

Nine out of 10 people can drink safely.

You can't even make someone an alcoholic.

You pour enough booze down somebody's gullet,

that's not gonna make them alcohol.

It's gonna piss them off is what it's gonna do.

And normal social drinkers that quit

when they're starting to feel us.

My sister's one of them.

I go bowling with my sister when I'm back in town

'cause I'm the younger brother.

And so I have to kiss her butt.

And I go get her shoes and I go get her a drink.

Slow gin and orange on ice.

I never understood ice.

Why do people put ice in alcohol?

There's volume involved here.

And I get her drink and I swear to God,

we'll be bowling for an hour and a half

and that drink is still there.

And I'm watching the ice melt, I swear to God.

And I don't know if you noticed this or not,

but when the ice melts in a mixed drink,

the water floats to the top because it's lighter than liquor

and it's like drowning alcohol, correct?

And so I'm saying to my sister, you gonna drink that?

And she says, why, is it bothering?

I said, yeah.

And she's, well, don't look at it.

And I just wanna punch her right in the mouth.

It took her two hours to drink that first drink.

And then she says, will you get me another one?

No, I can't take it.

So I go get another one.

She drinks half of it and we're done bowling.

We put our shoes up and I asked her,

are you just gonna leave that there?

She says, yeah, I've had enough.

And I said, what?

She says, I'm starting to feel it.

And I said, feel what?

I don't understand what you're saying.

And she takes her keys out of her purse and hands them to me.

She said, here, you better drive, I've been drinking.

I said, Sharon, you don't understand alcohol at all.

Let me explain something to you.

Creation designed all human beings

to be able to metabolize one ounce of alcohol per hour.

This is a fact.

Creation designed us to be able to metabolize

one ounce of alcohol per hour.

You've had one and a half ounces in three and a half hours.

There's none in your blood.

What are you feeling?

She didn't care.

She just said, I don't think it's safe for me to drive.

And I said to her, I said,

would you mind telling me what it is you're feeling?

And I was being serious.

And she says, I'm feeling like I'm gonna lose control.

And she gave me the answer that's been plaguing me.

The difference between me and them.

When they start drinking,

they begin to feel like they're gonna lose control.

And unless they're partying heavy, they stop.

I feel like I'm gaining control.

That's the difference between me and them.

They're beginning to lose control and they don't want to.

I don't understand that at all.

But I'm feeling and I'm gaining control.

And that's part one.

If I actually want to, I cannot put drinking entirely.

So there's one yes.

Next one, or if when drinking,

do I have little control of the amount I take?

Once again, I can't lie about this.

I'm screwed, I'm two for two.

I don't wanna take the rest of the test.

And fortunately for me, the test is over.

Then it says, you are probably alcoholic.

And I thought, that was close, probably.

And I found out those of us who died drunk and loaded,

most of us died between probably and definitely.

And if you're newer,

I cannot tell you when I went from probably to definitely.

But it was somewhere in my training period.

It was somewhere in that first year or two

where I was being trained the AA way.

Somewhere between the first hundred speakers I heard.

Somewhere between that 50th pot of coffee I made.

I made bad coffee 'cause I didn't want that commitment.

I made coffee so bad it made the Navy look like Starbucks.

Oh, Curly, Curly was just a mean SOB.

He was a body shop, body, body shop guy.

And just as surly as you can be.

And he would come up to me and we got this 30 cup urn, right?

I would put five cups of browns in there

and it would be like soup.

And Curly would swirl around.

He would take a drink.

He'd say, boy, that's really stout coffee there, newcomers.

You keep coming back.

I couldn't get fired from the coffee commitment for nothing.

So somewhere between that, going to two meetings a day,

three meetings a day till I got a job.

Somewhere in all these things,

I was pulled without my knowing it

from probably to definitely.

Perhaps it was in step two, maybe step three.

I don't know.

And unlike our first speaker,

thank you for sharing, by the way.

Unlike our first speaker,

I come from a real traumatic childhood.

I'm gonna tell you just two stories for the sake of time.

When I was nine years old.

That was back in the day when it was a very violent home.

My father is a self admitted alcoholic.

He drove truck out of Chicago.

He was a union teamsters.

He was steward for the teamsters.

And he worked for a guy named Jimmy Hoffa out of Michigan.

My dad was a bone breaker.

My dad was a tough guy and he wanted me to be a tough guy.

And I wrote poetry.

I didn't know that's what it was, but he knew what it was.

I have this gift with words, writing words.

And I didn't know that that was a gift, but I could,

when I was nine years old, I was walking home from school

and a neighbor guy pulled me into his basement.

Back then, this is in the 1950s.

I mean, I'm old.

In the 1950s, all houses in my hometown

were heated with coal.

And so we all had coal bins in our basements.

They would load the coal through the basement window.

And he locked me in that coal bin.

He chained me to the coal bin

and he tortured me for three days.

He raped me.

He put things in my body.

He beat me.

He burned my body.

And on Monday morning, he took me naked

and threw me out in the street and told me,

if I told anybody, he would kill me and my family.

And I knew he would.

And I never told a soul.

And I want to tell you about the power of step five.

The first time I owned up to what,

I wouldn't tell the police.

I wouldn't tell my family.

I told nobody.

I shut my mouth.

That didn't make me alcoholic.

I want you to hear something and this is critically important.

It did not make me alcoholic,

but it added fuel to that fire.

It has to be solved.

It has to be resolved.

Some people out there want to make it

have nothing to do with alcoholism.

And I know that's not what you did.

And I'm glad because I would have said something you did

because it's so dangerous to tell me

that that didn't affect me about drinking.

Because what happened was I discovered that the disease

that they call it a disease is arrested

when we stopped drinking.

And if you're new, I want you to know this.

The disease is arrested the minute you stop drinking

and the obsession lifts.

The disease is arrested.

There's nothing trying to get you.

There's nothing wanting you dead.

I had a guy ask me to sponsor him a cup.

We spoke at the club that Dan and I go to.

And he starts out by telling him my disease wants me dead.

And I said, I'm gonna have you dead here in a minute.

You keep that crap up.

And he says, my disease is doing pushups in the parking lot.

And I said, come with me.

He went out to the parking lot.

And I got down on my hands and knees

and looked underneath the car.

I looked around and he says, what are you doing?

I said, I'm looking for your freaking disease.

It's gotta be down here somewhere doing pushups.

I wanted him to feel so mocked that he would listen

and hear what I was trying to say.

There is nothing trying to get you.

And that thing that's in your head, it's not your disease.

It's selfishness and self-centeredness.

See, because otherwise I can't do this program.

'Cause this program is based on a spiritual malady.

It's not based on anything else.

It's based on a spiritual malady.

You see AA is not designed to treat disease of any kind

or this room wouldn't be even close enough

to hold a regular meeting

'cause cancer people would be running in here.

Diabetics would be running in here.

Tuberculins would be, everybody would have medical disease.

If we could fix a disease, this place would be packed.

He's not designed to treat disease.

And what Dr. Silkworth suggests in his opinion

is that the disease is arrested when we stop drinking

because as he says that the only relief they,

the men and women of medicine and science,

the only relief they have to suggest is entire abstinence.

That means don't drink.

And so, and they don't give us nothing about that part

that AA believes in is that I have a spiritual malady

that triggers all of that.

And it's disassociated with the disease, but yet it's linked

because if I pick up a drink,

the disease comes out of arrestments.

I've been sober 46 years, six months and eight, 17 days,

one day at a time.

My disease was arrested that day, but I didn't know it

'cause people were telling me it's here forever, the disease.

Yes, it's progressive.

Yes, it will always be here.

There's no cure, but it's arrested.

It has nothing to do with my life

unless I give it power in my life.

And what I've learned in alcoholics and ominous

through the tutorship that I've had with these,

here's six of my influencers, my heroes.

I went to my first convention when I was 17.

I was weighed 146 pounds.

Now when you're six foot three and you weigh 146 pounds,

as my friend Marnie would say,

"You are too light to fight and too thin to win."

I had four teeth strategically located to whistle and to win.

(laughing)

I had maggot-like hair.

I had so, I was so sick living on Skid Row.

And this is in the wintertime in Illinois.

So I got it bad.

And I just don't know what to do.

I'm lost.

And my sponsor says, I'm gonna take you to salvation.

I'm gonna take you.

They didn't tell me salvation army.

So I'm gonna take you and buy you a new set of clothes.

And I want to take you to meet some friends of mine.

So I'm thinking JC Penny or a surgeon robot.

He's thinking salvation army.

Now this is November of 1977.

It's Thanksgiving day.

And on Friday, the day after the convention starts,

he took me to salvation army that Friday morning

and we went shopping.

And the only suit they had that would work for me

was a lime green double knit polyester leisure suits.

Some of you guys remember the leisure suits.

He bought me a shirt that was, I thought it was silk.

It was brushed polyester, bright yellow, shiny

with animals around it.

I really thought it was cool.

Had two buttons, none were missing.

Two collars down to here.

Made me wear a tie with it 'cause you're one of those guys.

The only shoes they had that would fit me

were these black and brown box toe

Oxford platform disco shoes.

So we bought it.

Got out of there for a buck 85.

I went in six foot three, came out six foot eight.

He took me to his trailer, allowed me to take a bath,

which I hadn't taken in months and months and months.

And I put that hideous suit on.

But I tell you, I thought it was cool.

I have not had any clothes on like that in a long, long time.

And he took me to that convention,

stood me at the front door and made me a greeter.

You know when they say we're laughing with you?

I wasn't laughing.

And the six members of AA that came to give their talk

in Illinois that weekend.

And I know from my own experience now,

Clancy and Chuck C and Norm Alpe

never left California on Thanksgiving, except this one.

They all came to this initial convention

in Rock Island, Illinois.

They made a pact to come.

It was Norm Alpe, Chuck C, Clancy, Johnny H,

Donnie Shore from Radford, sponsored by Alabama brothers

and a guy named Tom Brady Jr. in South North Carolina.

And they became my first six influencers

besides my original sponsor, William Barney Barnett.

And those were just the beginning of my influencers.

And as I stayed sober one day at a time,

I became a guy by the name of Father Joe Martin

befriended me.

He heard about my case and he took my case under his wing.

And he really became a good friend and a helper to me.

Joe and Charlie, I began to run with Joe and Charlie.

I God know I needed some serious help.

And I was in deep, deep trouble

'cause I've been psychiatrically institutional

like 17 times.

I've been psychiatrically diagnosed 21 times

from the age of nine to the age of 27.

I became very violent.

I was in a water town insane asylum

for the criminally insane 14 times.

I self signed in four times.

That's where my girlfriend lived.

She was hot.

She was in there 'cause she murdered her family.

(laughing)

And she was found and capable of standing

in defense of herself.

She never left.

She died in there actually.

But my God, I didn't know about sexual restraint

till I met her.

I was in restraints.

Don't judge me.

And I'm not gonna be graphic,

but I woke up with somebody bothering me

and I thought I like this girl.

'Cause I was in a padded room,

but they didn't lock my door

'cause I was strapped down to a steel bed.

I wouldn't go in anywhere.

And so I was a captive audience for it.

I fell in love right away.

And my diagnosis was psychopath with homicidal tendencies.

You see on February 13th, 1977,

I tried to stay sober too long without a solution.

I tried not to drink.

I tried to will myself into not drinking.

And my mother drove down to my dumpster

behind Larry's Oasis

and invited me home for Valentine's dinner.

So we got to her house the morning of February 13th.

I'd been going to AA meetings

for four and a half years drinking the whole time.

Not an alcoholic, giving a diagnosis every time I talk.

They would say, "Keep coming back."

And my mom said something that I guess it bothered me.

I don't know, but I left her.

I set my mom's house on fire.

I went out and blew up my dad's car.

I went to a meeting with my pistol and my sponsor says,

"Do you know this program works better

"than you won't drink if you don't drink?"

And I walked to the other side of the room

and 30 feet away, I pulled a .357 out,

pointed at my sponsor's face and fired a round off at him.

And I missed him six inches high.

I came to the next morning

at Francis 600 Mental Health Center

in Rock Island, Illinois,

black and blue from head to toe

from a little AA group therapy.

(laughing)

I was black and blue from head to toe.

I found out those are AA's national colors, black and blue.

I had a visitor that morning, my sponsor.

Now it wasn't a big deal to me.

He often visited me in the psych ward.

I don't remember what I did that night.

I was in a blackout.

I had no clue what I'd done the night before,

but I knew I was in a lot of trouble.

And he visited me and he ends up by saying,

he said, "I don't know something wrong with you dummy."

And he says, "And if they let you out of here,

"and I don't know that they're going to,

"they're talking about keeping you

"and studying you a while."

He says, "But if they do let you out of here,

"if you'll come with me and do what I did and still do,

"I believe you can recover too."

And then he left.

It didn't mean anything to me at the time

because I didn't know what I'd done, but that afternoon,

when this psych nurse was going off duty,

she was standing outside my door,

telling the oncoming psych nurse my case.

And that was the first time I heard

what I tried to do that night.

And then the next morning,

they transferred me to the Watertown Insane Asylum,

and I was in there for good, they said.

They said, "I ain't going anywhere."

And now I wouldn't mind being an alcoholic

if you wanted to know the truth,

because when you're on a psych ward,

you have no rights, none at all.

And I found that out the hard way.

You can't even get a lawyer.

Everything is up to that head psychiatrist.

I don't say that to overwhelm anybody.

That's just my case.

And I got a couple of other things I want to tell you

because I want to emphasize the importance of sponsorship.

God is a given.

If you have a problem with God,

no need to worry about that, in my opinion.

I believe God and AA are the same thing.

I believe that there's a guy

who wrote a book called "Not God."

It's not AA approved, but we let him come into our archives,

the only non-alcoholic ever to be allowed in our archives.

He was doing a doctoral thesis,

and he wanted to do the history of AA

because we'd become so successful,

society knew we had something that nobody else had.

And so we gave him permission to go into our archives

because we had so many people giving their idea

of the history of AA,

and it was really muddled there for a while.

And we wanted an outsider to come in

and give an objective view

instead of all these other subjective views

we've been given.

And when he got done, he wrote his thesis,

would turn it into a book, and he called it "Not God."

And I was really struck by that.

Why did he call it "Not God?"

So I hunted him up, and I found Ernest,

and I got to have an audience with him.

And I said, "I got a question for you.

Would you mind sharing with me

why you named that book "Not God?"

He said, "Well, obviously, I didn't read the flap."

I said, "What?"

"See, the dust cover."

So then we read it together,

and it says right on the flap

that these people must learn they're not God

and quit playing, say, "Quit playing God."

But the second one is the one that struck me.

He says, "In my opinion,

after studying the history of alcoholics and hormones,

I do not believe AA's about God."

He says, "Lots of those alcoholics make AA about God

because it's an emotional panacea for them."

He says, "But what I believe is AA is of God."

And that turned the course of my life,

and AA, I thought, "Oh, that's it."

So when I'm with you, I'm not with me.

When I'm with you, we're of God.

You know that part in "How It Works," part B,

where it says, "Probably no human power

who leads the revolution?"

So many people inherently drop the word "probably,"

and they say, "No human power."

And then they'll talk about your sponsor.

That's including your sponsor.

But the erroneous nature of that statement is this.

Bill wasn't talking about that.

When you read his handwritten remarks

before the book was published,

you get to see a clearer picture.

What he's talking about there is that when we get together,

when I was talking to this fellow here,

when he reminded me about the Marina Center,

and we're talking about AA, talking about the steps,

we are no longer a human power.

We are now a spiritual power.

That's why we help each other.

That's how come we have the power

to help a troubled alcoholic in the health and life

is because we become a spiritual power.

It's only momentary, though, isn't it?

As long as we're talking about AA and service work

and sponsorship and the steps, we're spiritual powers.

And we have the power to alter the course

of an individual like me long before them well-meaning

experts can ever turn the tide for us.

And I'm not bad mouthing them.

That's just my experience.

And I had an experience when I was 10 years old.

This is the other story.

And I want you to hear this to the end.

Don't judge me until I'm done,

because it's worthy of judgment.

When I was 10 years old, my dad, being a truck driver,

his loads went through the Deep South.

My dad was a hateful man.

I was raised in hate.

My dad was a hate.

I'm not blaming him.

I'm just stating facts.

And by the way,

I forgot to add this in my pitch at the beginning.

I never shared nothing in my talk

I haven't fully recovered from.

I want you to know that.

My sponsor trained me.

You bring your problems to me first.

Don't take it to the group and whine

so you can get a bunch of uggs and then feel better

and then lose all your motivation to do anything.

He says, "You come to me,

"we'll step our way through the problem,

"then you take that to the meeting."

He says, "That group has a right to be protected from you."

Talk to me about that.

So what I used to be like,

I've got about eight, nine minutes, right?

- Yeah. - Okay.

We're supposed to share what we used to be like.

I just shared what happened.

That alcoholic home, the insanity of it,

I became neurotic.

I was so scared.

Here's the power of alcohol.

I wanna give you the problem first

on the power of alcohol

and the power of alcoholics anonymous, if you will.

But my dad, when I was 10 years old,

he kind of kept me close to him

after they know what happened to my body 'cause they saw it,

but I would never give it up who it was.

And so my dad kind of tried to protect me.

And so he took me on runs with him

and he took me through the deep South,

Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi.

And my dad belonged to a hate organization.

And I didn't know I was being groomed into it.

When I was 10 years old, he took me to Mississippi

and they had this farm that a bunch of people were at

dressed in funky looking robes.

And they had these funky looking hats.

They even had a junior outfit for me.

And I have to tell you too, I thought it was cool.

I don't know what it is, but they put it on me.

And I felt like I belonged.

It was a part of what was going on.

And I'm looking to belong to something.

I'm looking to want to feel like I fit in and I'm a part of.

And they put that outfit on me.

And I remember asking my dad if I could work to school.

He says, "No, this is just for parties."

I was like, "Okay, I'm 10, I don't know nothing."

And I'd like to tell you, they did not get me,

but they got me.

When I got here, what I used to be like,

when I got here, I was a white beater, a child abuser,

an animal abuser, I was racist, bigoted,

what you call homophobic.

All those labels you could put on me,

I was nothing but 100% hate,

looking for someone to open it up on.

That's what I was.

That's what I used to be like when I got here.

It's repugnant, but it's the truth.

And there's no answer for that,

they told me in the psych ward.

I have to be medicated for the rest of my life, they said.

I wasn't safe to be around.

They called me killer.

A lot of names that I brought into AA.

And there's no answer for me.

I didn't think there was an answer for me,

but Barney says there is.

And when I was seven years sober,

I'm running around AA meetings in the Quad Cities,

putting guns in people's faces,

not trying to hate my sponsors so they'll fire me.

And I'll tell you that story.

'Cause how does a guy like me overcome something like that?

What power can possibly relieve that in me?

When I was three months sober, Charles, a black man,

came up and asked me to sponsor him.

I pulled my gun out of the back of my belt,

put it to his head and I said, "Get away from me."

And I called him a name.

I said, "I'll put you in the ground."

And I left the meeting.

I got a call that night, my sponsor called me.

Says, "I heard you told Charles you wouldn't sponsor him."

I said, "I can't sponsor him.

You heard my fifth step.

You know why I can't sponsor him.

You're gonna explain something to you, dummy."

Says, "Are you aware nobody in AA likes you?"

I said, "Not."

He said, "Not one soul in AA likes you."

And I said, "Yeah, so much for love and tolerance."

And he says, "Are you aware that I am the only alcoholic

in the Quad Cities that'll sponsor you?"

I'm it, I got the short straw.

And if I don't sponsor you,

you got no chance of staying sober.

And I believed him.

And I said, "Okay."

He says, "You're gonna go home now.

You're gonna call Charles.

You're gonna apologize.

You're gonna tell him you'll never use that word again

as long as you live.

And if he'll forgive you, you'd be happy to sponsor him."

Now, I know there ain't a snowball's chance in hell

he's gonna want me to sponsor him, so I'll do it.

So I called Charles up.

He was surprised I called.

And I did exactly what Barney said to do.

I wrote a script and I was monotone.

I wanted him to know I wasn't sincere.

I said, "Charles, I'm sorry I said such and such.

I'll never use that word again as long as I live.

I would like you to forgive me.

And if you're willing to forgive me,

I'll be happy to be your sponsor."

Charles starts crying.

And he says, "I can't believe you've done this."

He says, "Of course I want you to be my sponsor."

I thought that didn't work.

Three months later, this six foot lesbian come up to me,

poked me in the chest, says, "You're gonna sponsor me."

I said, "The hell I am.

Get on your kickstand and ride your ass away from me."

Got a call that night from my sponsor.

Same routine, called her up.

She says, "I told you he's gonna sponsor me."

And then not too long after that, Adam, Adam,

the Jew asked me to sponsor him.

I'm not even gonna repeat what I said here.

Got a phone call that night.

That happened six more times

in my first two years of sobriety.

And I found out later that Barney was sending them to me.

My sponsor was sending them to me.

That's spiritual power and it worked, it worked.

I have now sponsored everything

that my dad's crew taught me to hate.

I don't think there's any other way I could have been freed

from that amount of hatred in my body.

But I had to get free of alcohol first.

And then I met the two goals of AA,

victory over alcohol and freedom from the bondage itself.

And I learned, I'm gonna try to get this in in two minutes.

I learned there's three phases of 12 step development.

And it's so critical.

It helps to know this if you sponsor people.

And I know you guys sponsor people.

The three phases of 12 step development

is desperation, restoration, and transformation.

Steps one, two, and three are desperate.

We wanna get these newcomers started on the steps

while they're desperate.

Because you and I both know as the desperation lifts,

so does the willingness.

And so we get them while they're desperate.

And if they're not very desperate, I'll help them with that.

I'll take them through the big book and the 12 and 12

and I'll read facts to them

to try to get their soul desperate.

Not their head, but their soul.

Because if they're desperate,

they'll move on to phase two, restoration.

And the reason restoration is so important

is steps four through nine.

A lot of newcomers don't really know

why we need to do four through nine,

except to clean up the slate, right?

But the truth of the matter is there's a duality

to step four through nine.

Be restored to sanity where alcohol is concerned.

I am absolutely convinced I can never drink alcohol safely.

I'm restored to sanity where alcohol is concerned

for one day, one day at a time.

The other one is to be restored to sanity

where life is concerned.

You see, steps four through nine have to be done

if I'm ever to be a free citizen,

if I'm ever to be a man amongst men,

if I'm ever to be a human being among other human beings,

I have to do steps four through nine,

or I won't get to the transformation phase,

steps 10, 11, and 12.

It's so important to get to the transformation phase

because I've been transformed.

And I know God's not done with me yet,

my sponsor's not done with me yet,

which means there's still more transforming to do.

I can't do it for myself.

And so I sponsor alcoholics.

I work with alcoholics I don't sponsor.

I'm engaged in AA.

And I get the fringe benefit of traveling around the world.

I've been around the world several times in AA

doing AA service for fun and for free.

That's not meant for bragging.

That's to tell you that I have no idea

that was God's plan for me.

And I'm so happy to feel like I'm useful,

to feel like I'm a part of society.

I want to tell you one quick story,

the one minute lighting on yet so I can get it in.

How many would you believe if I told you I became a cop?

It's impossible.

With my record, I've been arrested nine times,

twice while drinking, seven times in AA meetings.

(laughing)

You haven't lived till you've been arrested in AA meetings.

Those cops came in there one time,

they come up to the door and there was no motion.

So the group turned and looked,

I saw these two deputies and they were looking right at me

and I knew they had the right guy.

And so they come in and I was fine

till they got that first handcuff on me

and then all hell broke loose.

And I want to thank my home group for getting out of the way

to give them room to work.

They got me handcuffed or dragging me out the door.

And as I pass by a newcomer, who's holding the door open,

he goes like this, "Keep coming back."

I did not believe I could ever be a cop,

but I want you to know something.

Murals Fish Academy, I'm not the miracle.

AA is the miracle.

And I'm one of the beneficiaries of this miracle.

And I went through the motions, my sponsor,

he sponsored a bunch of lawyers.

They got my record expunged.

They got my psych report sealed.

And at 10 years this Friday, I passed all the tests.

I passed the polygraph test

and I got sent to the Polk County Sheriff's Academy.

And I graduated fourth in my class out of 16.

Not bad for a guy who's in a retarded class in school,

right?

And I got to do drunk driving

and I got to arrest a whole bunch of alcoholics.

And I got to 12 step them and take them to jail

and then tell the judge, if we take them to AA,

they might have a chance.

And they allowed me during the course of my time as a cop,

I took 37 members that became members of AA,

37 men and women that I had arrested for drunk driving.

And they allowed them to come to AA and change their life.

I still sponsored many of them.

Two have died sober.

The other 35 are still sober.

I get cards for most of them every Christmas

because God used me.

And then when I couldn't be used anymore, that job ended.

I got called to California to work as a bodyguard.

I've been here ever since.

And so just to close that up,

the grace of God and the power of 12 steps

have transformed my life completely.

And I suppose if it could work for me,

perhaps it can work for you.

Thanks.