God's Gilley Loo Bird

By Ray P.

After a series of shockingly narrow escapes from certain injury or death through more than a decade of chronic alcohol abuse, law student Ray P. found himself once again in a jail cell, hungover and unable to remember how he got there the night before. "You can never do this again," said a voice, clearly. It was God, and Ray listened.

Slowly, but surely, Ray gave his life completely over to the Lord and, in doing so defeated the curse of alcoholism and drug addiction. In the lucid, engaging style of a seasoned jury trial attorney, Ray now shares his life story with you. Laced with realism and humor, Ray's tales will take you through Friday Night Lights and dance halls to a Tijuana boudoir, the fishing waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Texas hill country and multiple Texas courtrooms. They effectively demonstrate how Christ chose Ray, a self-described "complete derelict dumpster fire of a human being," to reveal God's glory through His transformation of him into a valued mentor to other alcoholics and addicts in Alcoholics Anonymous, a successful attorney, and a beloved brother in Christ to many.

How can the Lord transform your life and help you overcome your addictions? Ray's hope and prayer is that in reading his story, you might find some of the answers you seek.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350911657

Book preview

PART I

The wily Gilley Loo bird is a small, usually dirty,

insignificant little bird that flies in ever decreasing circles

at ever increasing speeds until ultimately

he simply disappears up his own [rear end].

— Jim T.

24-Hour Club – 1978

CHAPTER 1

The title of this book is not the title I was given in the psychiatric ward over in Temple, Texas. I will retrace my steps as to how I got there as we go through one man’s life journey. Mine.

My self-admission to the ward for what I described as nervous exhaustion allowed me to interact with some rather interesting characters. One of whom was a very overweight, kind lady who gave me a book titled I’m OK, You’re OK. I read the book, and the main thing I remember taking from the pages of dense psychobabble is that the group therapy descriptions sounded a lot like Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

I had been to a few meetings of that fellowship, as some of my family and acquaintances thought that might be a good idea. But I was in this psychiatric ward desperately searching for any panacea for my mental state that didn’t involve not drinking alcohol. After seven days, I knew there was no help for me there and was now looking for any reason to get out. Since I was self-admitted, they couldn’t make me stay there. I called for a meeting with my psychiatrist and told him I was well now, adding, helpfully I hoped, that I was OK and he was OK. He believed that in my current state I couldn’t make it on the outside and would be back shortly. What he didn’t know, and I didn’t either at that time, was the power of God. This book is about, and for Him. I will walk through my life to show how I got to that point in the first place, then follow with what happened after I got out.

CHAPTER 2

I was a pre-WWII baby born in June of 1941. Six months later, Pearl Harbor was attacked. Being born beyond self-centeredness, I often wondered later if my birth had anything to do with the attack. My parents were like most parents of the early 40s. The perfect family included dad, mom, older brother, and little sister. They had three out of four before I came along. Needless to say, I was supposed to be the little sister. Pictures of my baby room that I saw later in life proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Everything was pink. I was dressed in dresses until I was about three and a half years old. They didn’t cut my hair and I had long curly locks. Their disappointment in my gender was not lost on me even as an infant. I truly believe babies can sense whether or not they are accepted and loved unconditionally. I believe that from day one I knew I wasn’t what my parents wanted.

Later in life that fact was confirmed for me in a vision given to me by the Lord. My vision was just one part of my lifelong healing and restoration process. I will touch on the specifics as I recount my journey.

Acts 2:17 (King James Version – KJV)

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,

I will pour my out my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons

and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men

shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:"

Neither of my parents were capable of giving me unconditional love, as they never received it from their parents. You can’t give away what you don’t have. Wounded people wound people. I spent the first 36 years of my life trying to make these people love me. I wanted them to love me like I heard Jesus loved me in church one day. Come just as you are, etc. Tragically, I don’t believe anyone who hasn’t experienced at least some taste of unconditional love can possibly believe that kind of love exists from Jesus or anyone else. They have nothing to relate it to.

I set out as soon as I was old enough to make them accept me and believe that all would be well. I will recount some of the more painful incidents that cemented my understanding that I wasn’t acceptable. I was blessed with some athletic ability and a reasonably good mind. In elementary school in West University in Houston, Texas, there was a corner drug store across the street from my school with an old-fashioned soda fountain. The proprietor enjoyed the kids and would reward them with a banana split if they made straight A’s. In the fourth grade I came as close as you can come. I made all A’s but for a B+ in handwriting. I showed my report card to the proprietor, and he said Son, that is close enough. l gulped down my banana split and couldn’t wait to get home to show it to my mother. I knew she would have to be thrilled. After all, I even got the banana split. As she carefully went over my card I sat there in anxious anticipation for my well-deserved congratulations. Instead, her only comment was You obviously need to work on your handwriting. It was just one gut punch in years of gut punches. Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you has to be the biggest lie ever told, excluding politicians.

Proverbs: 12:18 (KJV)

"There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword:

but the tongue of the wise is health."

Proverbs 15:4 (KJV)

"A wholesome tongue is a tree of life:

but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit."

My father was drafted to go fight the Nazis in Germany when I was just one year old. He didn’t get back until I was almost four. Most of my formative years, then, were spent with my mother. She was the one I desperately wanted to please. My dad was not so much on my radar. This upbringing from a dysfunctional woman left me with a bad taste in my mouth for girls and women in general. I will expound on that later.

Another of the most hurtful things I remember coming from my mother involved my getting a very special award. In high school I had become pretty good at football. At the end of every season, two of the newspapers in Houston named an All-City football team. The best players in the city at each position, as voted on by the sportswriters, were named to the team. I had a very good year offensively and defensively as an end. I knew I had a chance to make the team but there were other very good players. The morning paper announced they would publish their team on a Saturday morning. The paper was thrown at my house around 5AM. I was up at 3AM sitting nervously on the sofa looking out the window. When I finally heard that thump, I ran outside to retrieve the news. I opened the paper and sure enough a half-page picture of the eleven guys on page one of the sport page found me right in the middle. To say I was elated is an understatement. I, of course, had to wake my mother immediately to show her she really had a special son.

Before I reveal her response, there is a back story that has to be told. My brother, two and a half years older, had also played high school football. He did well enough, but he was not a contender for All-City. His teammate’s father happened to be the editor of the largest newspaper in Houston. The very one I held in my hot little hand. During my brother’s senior year in spring training, the editor ran a little story about his son’s football experience. As a photo accompanying the story, he chose one of my brother trying on an old leather football helmet from days gone by. The helmet was way too small for him, and my brother’s quote was, Hey this helmet is too small. The story was a human-interest story, buried in the back of the sport section.

With that stage set—I ran into my parents’ bedroom and woke my mother up. I told her she had to come in the living room as I had something to show her. She reluctantly got up, put on her robe, and came to the living room. She sat down on the sofa, and I proudly handed her the paper, open to the half-page picture of the eleven best players in Houston that year—myself included. She glanced at it, then told me to wait right there, she wanted to show me something. She went back in her bedroom and after a few minutes came out with that picture of my brother in that leather helmet. She then asked me—Do you remember when your brother’s picture was in the paper? She simply was not capable of showing me she was proud of me or happy for me. It was always That is good – but… The pain was real, and the anger was growing inside of me like a forest fire.

CHAPTER 3

So there I was, Mr. Never Enough. Accordingly, I could never be content with what I had or who I was or what I had done. Not a happy way to live one’s life. It affected me mentally, physically, and spiritually. I was devoid of any Spiritual life. Neither of my parents went to church. In junior high school, I had a girlfriend take me to her church. I even went down to the altar and made a decision for Jesus and a week later was baptized. I had absolutely no idea what any of it meant, but they told me l would go to Heaven. Having taken care of that matter, I quickly got bored with sermons I didn’t understand, and took my leave of religion. As I look back at what happened later in my life, I have always said maybe Jesus took me a little more seriously than I took Him. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t change anything.

I suspect that a lot of people looking at me from the outside (achievements, faux personality, and intellect) thought that I was doing just fine. However, my insides were a dumpster fire. I was afraid of the boys, afraid of the girls, afraid of success, afraid of failure. What would they think if they knew what my mother knew; that I was simply unacceptable.

Eventually this lack of real love took its toll. I began wetting the bed at 14 and 15 years old. I broke out with acne all over my face and back. I began to not fit in anywhere. Always a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. After my junior year football season was over, an event in my life changed everything for the next 20 years.

Houston has a major rodeo every February. It is kickstarted by what they call the Salt Grass Trail ride. This long-standing tradition starts in Brenham, Texas about 75 miles from Houston. All the real cowboys and the wannabes saddle up and ride for several days to Houston to kick off the rodeo. Back in the day, before they started their ride, they had a kick off dance in Brenham the night before. Two classmates of mine asked me if I wanted to go up there for the dance. I was hesitant, but gave in. They said they had some booze and wanted to get high before the dance. I had never even had a taste of alcohol in my life. I was 16 years old. I distinctly remember all these years later the exact kind of whiskey and wine they had brought along. They had a pint of J.W. Dant bourbon whiskey and a pint of Mogen David red wine. They called it mad dog. By the time we got to Brenham I was a different person. I consumed probably 2/3 of both bottles and I could feel no pain. I felt like I was 6'9" and bullet proof. Even though I couldn’t stand the taste of it—the effect was magical. I would dance with anyone, fight anyone, or do anything else anyone wanted to do. My problem was that my mind would go into a blackout, but I wouldn’t fall down. I would keep doing whatever I was doing, like driving, walking, and interacting with law enforcement personnel with no conscious thoughts, and would remember none of it when I woke the next morning.

Needless to say, this can often lead to chaos and tragedy. It is the bane of the chronic alcoholic. I was a chronic alcoholic the first time I drank. One definition of an alcoholic is someone that starts drinking, then loses control over the amount they drink. That was me. In the beginning on a few occasions, I did not drink into oblivion. However, once I started drinking, I never knew when I would cross the invisible line after which I could not stop. I obviously crossed that line that night in Brenham. To this day I don’t know what I did to earn my ticket to the county jail. I woke up there in my bunk (which I had wet) and didn’t know where I was or how I got there. Ultimately, they told me I kept trying to force my way into one of the dance venues but refused to buy a ticket. I had a beaver Stetson® hat, and the constable took that for my bail. My friends had hung around and were able to take me back home to Houston.

CHAPTER 4

I was born an alcoholic. I have three brothers by the same parents, raised in the same environment, and who participated in the same or similar activities. None of them have had the slightest problem with alcohol, now or ever. They all drink like normal people and know when and how to stop. I will try to unfold some of my life and show with certainty that it was God and God alone that could and did relieve me from this fatal malady or besetting sin, if you will. All the doctors, psychiatrists, medications, meditations, police, judges and clergy folks could offer me no relief. They did their best but simply weren’t equipped. I often think of the following verse when I contemplate just what happened to free me.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (KJV) (emphasis mine)

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom

of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters,

nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves

with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,

nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you: but ye are washed,

but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord

Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

The some of you who become washed, when it comes to drunkards, constitute an infinitesimally small percentage of the real alcoholics of my type. It takes a supernatural intervention from God for the real alcoholic to be relieved of the obsession to take that first drink. I have been sober for over 45 years and have watched countless men, fellow sufferers, come into the AA fellowship only to fall by the wayside anywhere between day one and 20 years dry. I asked my mentor in that fellowship, why me? His answer was why not? I can only be eternally grateful that Christ chose me to have a chance at being reborn into an entirely different life. I still work with new men who come into the fellowship, and I always suggest to them to pray that Jesus would choose them.

John 15:16 (KJV)

"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,

and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit,

and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall

ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."

I am convinced God set me apart from the womb to navigate the path he had laid out, ultimately to fulfill the purpose and plan He had for my life. Most of my Spiritual sight is hindsight. When I look back at the life-threatening situations in which my alcoholism placed me, it is clear to me that only Divine intervention kept me from permanent harm or death.

Following my jail experience in Brenham, I chose not to drink again until after my last football game as a senior. Hence, my next drinking bout was close to two years from my first. I still had the power to choose whether I picked up that first drink. True to form, however, when I did drink that vodka at our after-game party as a senior, I got insanely drunk again with the inevitable blackout. I was told I wanted to fight most of my friends and took a couple of wild swings. Fortunately, they spared me a beating as I finally passed out. Par for the course, I wet my pants during the blackout.

Once again, I thought it best to lay off of alcohol. High school was over, and I had been offered several scholarships to play football. I opted to play in junior college and accepted the free ride to a school in Victoria, Texas. I got a job that summer as a floor hand on a work-over oil rig down in Baytown, Texas. We worked from daybreak to dusk seven days a week. I had no time to do anything else the entire