Tondy: That's a pretty good idea, Doc about drinking hot sauce or mustard to get that burn that you like, instead of drinking liquor. I never heard of that. But, you seem to be hitting pretty hard on Alcoholics Anonymous. I understand some of your issues, but a lot of people are being helped by AA. Are you implying that people should not go to AA?
Doc: NO, Tondy! I ain't saying that. But I AM saying it ain't for every body, and some people cain't really go to AA, so if AA is the only way, then how is every one going to get help?
Like a cop. If a cop pulls over someone for drinking, or if the judge assigns someone to go to AA and they go there. Then they see the cop saying, "Hi! I am Sgt. Bill and I am an alcoholic." Do you think the cop can do that when he pulled half those people over for DUI?
Big Dave: Yeh, Tondy. I had to go to A.A., court assigned, which means either I had to go to A.A. or go to jail. I didn't want to go to jail again,so I went to A.A. I wasn't going to quit drinking, I just figured I'd cut back a bit. And, if the cop who pulled me over had been there, and said HE was an alcoholic, too, me and him would have been going round and round out there in the parking lot afterwards. He'd look like Popeye the sailor man when I was done with him.
Doc: That's right, Tondy. A cop would get jumped out in the parking lot, or even if he got up to go use the toilet. Cops aint real popular with people who been pulled over for DUI, and if the cop is an alky, too. Anyway do you know where a cop goes? A cop goes to F.O.P. [in the Sates, the F.O.P. is the Fraternal Order of Police, where police officers go to drink and relax away from the general public. Americans joke about how funny it would be if a Sobriety Check Point would be set up outside an F.O.P lodge! - Tondeleo] The cop goes to the F.O.P. and drinks all evening to try to unwind or forget his problems and then drives home under the influence, knowing nothing will happen to him, unless he is in a wreck but then his fellow cops will cover for him. So, a cop ain't really going to go to AA. There is a lot of cops with drinking problems. I know three or four what drinks. They call it going to Choir Practice.
A judge aint going to go either, for the same reasons. And doctors and school teachers don't want to go, because people need to trust them with their children or with their lives if it is a surgeon and you don't want a drunk teacher teaching your kids or a drunk doctor operating on you. These folks ain't likely to be willing to go to AA and say, "Hi, I am an alcoholic," and I don't blame them.
Then there is folks what work at night when the meetings are. They can't find a meeting. Folks what cain't drive or don't have a car cain't go. People without enough money for gas cain't go. So they is a lot of people with drinking problems what cain't go to AA.
Big Dave: And a lot of women won't go, because of the men. And some of them who want to get help can't go because their old man won't let them - and the old man won't go, or maybe he doesn't have a drinking problem, and figures she started drinking by herself so she can cut back by herself. And there's always the 13 Steppers that make some women not want to go to meetings.
Doc: Tondy, you didn't know what 13 Stepping is, when Big Dave talked about 13 Steppin' that girl. There is 12 steps to recovery in AA, and 13 Steppin' is when you find someone of the opposite sex, unless you are funny, then it is the same sex, and you start pickin' up on them to help them get "cured" quicker.
It is pretty easy to be 13 Stepped in AA because your self esteem is in the toilet, and it really helps you to want to come back to the meeting if someone is flirting with you, or thinks you're a catch. But after a while, if you're just there to get sober, you get tired of all the screw ups trying to hit on you.
Ain't no decent woman with a drinkin' problem wants to keep havin' unemployed rednecks trying to pick up on 'em. Hey, I faced that, ["Yeh, Doc, unemployed rednecks kept hittin' on you!" Big Dave interrupts] I mean, women flirtin' with me an' wantin' to come home with me, and I am not a good lookin' man or a rich one. But I am nice to most everybody, I usually have a decent truck and I play music, so that counted for something. Some people quit goin' to meetin's because of the 13 Steppers what goes to AA.
That is all I meant. What can a person do if they cain't go to AA? First, find some good people to hang around with. Stay away from the bars and the people you used to drink with. I say, "If you ain't gonna straighten up with me, I ain't gonna go to hell with you." If they cain't handle that, then they have to go. You flush that toilet and move on.
Number two is where do you find good people? For me, it was finding a little church where the people was real and serious about helping people. It weren't no big and uppity church what don't believe nothing. It was a Bible believing Church, one where Marilyn was going because the lady down the road went there and took Marilyn to church with her. Sometimes I drove her there myself and sat out in the parking lot in my truck. One night, I was waitin' out in my truck and one of the men came out and invited me in and he sat with me. That meant a lot.
The preacher was a working man and he preached his heart out and he preached from one end of the Bible to the other. I mean he covered more ground than a Weight Watcher's picnic! At the end he gave an altar call and I went up front and got on my knees and asked the Lord into my heart.
Big Dave: I done that once, too, but not at a church. I was in jail in Orangeburg, [South Carolina] for driving on suspended, no insurance, runnin' a red light and CDS with intent. I told the cop it was for personal use, but, that doesn't count. Anyway, I asked the Lord for help and He helped me. But I am not much of a church goer.
Doc: I ain't a choirboy, neither, but it's good to have some good people pullin' for you. Here is how you can find a good church. Look in the parking lot. Watch the people. If they are looking too snooty or it is nothing but big fancy cars, you might not feel too welcome.
If it looks like regular ordinary working people you might want to go in. Then inside, if the people sing out real loud, not self conscious, and the music is good, not funeral music, it is probably a good one, because the Lord will be there. In a good church, the preacher will preach from the Bible and will apply it to every day life so you can understand it, and the people will say "Amen, or "That's Right" or things like that, because they have experienced what he is talking about. It lets you know that they are free to be themselves. At the end, in a good church there will be an altar call or a chance to ask the Lord into your life.
If it ain't got that, it probably aint gonna be strong enough to keep your interest or change your life very much. That's my opinion. When I am traveling, I try to find a Pentecostal church. Good music, good preaching and full of flavor. Pentecostal churches are like what boogie woogie is to music.
Going to a lively church will help you find forgiveness and strength to overcome alcohol or anything else you are battling.
Then there is thinking different than you did before. You can't think good things about getting drunk and be able to stay sober. You gotta see drinking as your enemy and being sober as your friend. I used to think I had wasted a Friday night if I didn't get drunk. Then, I changed my thoughts to thinking I had wasted a Friday night if I DID get drunk. Every Friday night I could stay sober was a victory and I hated losing.
You got to get rid of that "stinkin thinkin." That's an AA saying and it is true. So is this one; "you need to get a check up from the neck up."
I had to learn to stay sober because we are like 20 miles from the nearest AA meeting that I liked and I did not always have the gas to go there or had to play somewhere. Now, I try to not play in bars, and I never, ever take Marilyn to a bar. Never. Nothing good would come of it. She is a good girl and good looking, and in a bar that means that someone would put his hands on her and then old Doc would think he was a cop and it would be a replay of the old days which aint nobody wants.
Stay outta drinking places if you are going to stay sober! If we play a festival or a party or BBQ, then we bring some soda's and tell people we aint havin' nothing stronger than that and they is usually ok with that. Even the biker parties we have played at. They understand and respect that and is always respectful of Marilyn.
Big Dave: Yeh, she's a nice girl and don't need to be dangled in front of idiots. It's just asking for trouble. Doc's right about that, Tondy. Don't go into a bar with anything or anyone who could get you drinkin' too much or fightin' and don't carry much money, maybe a $20, and don't carry any real weapons. Doc is a champ on improvised ones, though.
