Sober Sunrise – Marty J. – Laughlin, NV – 1999
Marty J. from Red Deer, Alberta shares his journey from 11-year-old first drink to 23 years sober. An AA speaker exploring powerlessness, the voices in his head, sponsorship, and working the steps.
Marty J. from Red Deer, Alberta was drinking by age 11, his mind divided between voices of destruction and survival. In this AA speaker tape from a 1999 Laughlin conference, he traces his path from that first drink to 23 years sober—walking through sponsorship with a no-nonsense Norwegian named Dwayne, the brutal honesty of Step 4, and how surrender finally broke the cycle of powerlessness that had ruled his life.
Marty J. explores the nature of powerlessness in alcoholism, explaining that alcoholics with multiple competing voices in their heads cannot will their way sober—willpower fails when internal factions disagree on action. This AA speaker describes how his sponsor’s loving toughness (calling him “Fathead” and telling hard truths) helped him accept that he was broken, leading him through Steps 1-7 and the spiritual experience of letting go of character defects. He emphasizes that character defects—not circumstances—shape life, and that service work maintains spiritual condition, illustrating how acceptance of forgiveness rather than self-forgiveness releases the shame that keeps alcoholics stuck.
Episode Summary
Marty J. opens this talk with humor and sharp observations about AA, then settles into his story: a kid who felt fundamentally different from the moment he took his first drink at 11. That first taste of Loganberry wine gave him something he’d never had—all of himself in one place. The feeling was so profound he spent the next decade chasing it, gradually becoming alienated from his peers and spiraling into a life where alcohol was the solution to everything.
By 23, he was a drunk in the radio-television business, making increasingly reckless choices at company parties. His sister—”one of you,” he says, because she asked the right question—intervened. She sent over an AA member named Dwayne, a blunt Norwegian who became Marty’s sponsor and changed everything by refusing to let him off the hook.
What makes this AA speaker’s talk distinctive is his exploration of the multiple voices in his head. Marty describes alcoholics not as people with one coherent will, but as people with competing internal factions—some pushing toward destruction, others toward survival. Willpower doesn’t work because it can’t mediate between warring parts of yourself. He needed someone outside himself to make decisions for him until his mind could be “reinstalled.”
Dwayne did exactly that. He didn’t lecture or shame Marty about morality. Instead, he posed a simple question: “Do you think that when you’re drinking, most of your trouble happens?” The seed was planted. When Marty threatened to quit meetings, Dwayne made it clear—bluntly, brutally—that he’d be watching, not out of cruelty but out of love. “I know if you drink you’re going to get hurt, and I don’t want you hurt by strangers. It’s really simple—I want to do it myself.”
Fear kept Marty sober for the first 90 days. But something shifted as he dragged his mind to meeting after meeting. The solution, he learned, wasn’t in willpower or circumstances. It was in Step 2: accepting that a power greater than himself could restore him to sanity. That meant admitting he was utterly, completely defeated—the paradox at the heart of AA.
Marty walks through his Step 4 in vivid detail. He found he was resentful at everyone—people, places, institutions all seemed to control him. But as he wrote it all down, he realized the reverse: he was the one giving them power by obsessing over them. The wrongs he’d written down, when examined in the nature of them, revealed something simpler: selfishness, self-centeredness, insecurity, fear. Not everything was wrong with him—just these things. Once he saw that, he could start to work with it.
Step 5 was the beginning of real change, and Steps 6-7 brought the spiritual awakening he couldn’t manufacture. He tried to force it once—got so spiritually minded he became “of no earthly good,” judging others at meetings. His sponsor kicked him out of the car. A pastor at church asked who the audience was when they prayed: “Not the congregation. God.” The message was: stop performing. Just be honest with your Higher Power.
The breakthrough came when Marty realized his spiritual condition was maintained through service. He didn’t have to earn forgiveness—he had to accept it. For 35 years he carried a character defect he couldn’t shake through willpower or psychology. On February 6th of that year, at a meeting in Chicago, it was lifted. He doesn’t know why. But the program is about surrender, not victory. You don’t remove defects—you become willing, and God removes them.
In the second half, Marty talks about his family today: his wife Shirley, his children—some sober, some not, but all touched by the miracle of recovery lived in front of them. His son asked at age 9 how to join AA so he wouldn’t drink. His daughter, after a couple of drinking episodes, stopped and never went back. His oldest child has six months more sobriety than Marty himself. None of this was forced. It was modeled.
The message is clear: if you’re moving toward the picture of desperation and chaos, that’s what you’ll get. If you can see a picture of someone doing this thing—living sober, at peace, connected to something larger—and move toward that, everything changes. The fellowship is everywhere. Whether Amsterdam or Paris, drunk alcoholics will pick you up and take you around, no questions asked, because you’re a drunk just like them. All you have to do is not drink today. Until midnight. That’s how it starts for everyone.
Notable Quotes
I had one group of voices in my head that was for destruction mainly of me and I had another group that was for survival—and when the idiots in your head meet, it depends on who has the strongest presentation that day.
Willpower will do you no good here—you’re like a volleyball in your own life.
The more they abuse you, the more they absolutely adore you here. Words like Fathead and Stupid and Get in the car are terms of endearment.
I am powerless over alcohol, and my life has become unmanageable—that’s the total statement of everything that’s wrong with me.
I don’t have the power to forgive me. I’m the perpetrator for God’s sake. But I couldn’t accept that someone else could forgive me.
Your spiritual condition is your service. We grow spiritually through service.
This is a program of surrender, not victory. When you say to God I surrender, he will in his time start to take these things from you.
I was there—just right with you. I saw those speakers and thought ‘Easy for you, you suited-up dork.’ But as long as you’re moving toward that old picture, all you’ll have is chaos and madness.
Step 3 – Surrender
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Sponsorship
Hitting Bottom
Acceptance
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Sponsorship
- Hitting Bottom
- Acceptance
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe whether you join us in the morning or at night there’s nothing better than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today’s speaker well thank you very much I’d like to just listen thanks it’s I hate when people do that at meetings I always thought I’d like to try that at the public level I’ve been a lot of places I’ve never any ever heard anybody read the traditions and have a favorite before that was good or the guy in the front when they said that science will some they get us uh maybe they’ll find a way to get us to be normal drinkers how could that happen I mean even if they fixed our physical craving we’d screw it up again who wants to be a normal Drinker right I mean they’re so boring I am uh going to just very very briefly thank the committee I I don’t like sometimes how how people just get into thinking and thinking but you know every once in a while you go to a conference and they do everything they can to make you feel like you’re welcome there and this committee has done that in in every way and my wife is here with me which is unusual uh normally what they do is they pick you up at an airplane Chuck you in a room uh you deliver your talk in the morning they say are you still here you know there’s nothing as useful useless Sunday morning as a Saturday night speaker that’s that is the truth Alcoholics Anonymous is a place where we love to eat our young and uh I got a chance to stand in your lineup I wanted to find out what you were really like before you knew who I was interesting I was lined up right into where the movie theater is waiting to come into this meeting and I didn’t hear anybody being rude to anyone or any sort of pushing one I just see a guy come down who is just about loaded and uh he had this that the deal going you know and he said is this Alcoholics Anonymous the whole line Alcoholics Anonymous somebody said yes it is he said will I get a suit if I join that thing somebody and then he got downstairs and said what losers they all have to wear suits you know it’s it’s uh it’s different coming here to talk uh you know in Nevada I heard two people out front of the casino saying where do you think they get the money to build all the these beautiful buildings yeah and everybody in the casino says good luck stupid so anyway uh my name is Marty Jeffrey and I’m a alcoholic I’m from a place in Canada called Red Deer Alberta so there’s not a double speaker red D is not coming along with me they for some reason on the program they made where I’m from Anonymous as well I don’t know whether to be inspired or nervous at this point red dear Alberta is between two Canadian cities one named Calgary and one named Edmonton and Albert as the province next to British Columbia and I among many many Canadians consider it an honor and a privilege to have neighbors like the United States of America we love United States of America in Canada glad that you’re our neighbors and we don’t have to have any guns either that’s neat when you got a neighbor the size of you guys you know who’s going to attack you so well um I’m an alcoholic and that’s a contraction of two words alcoholism and addict alcoholic and uh I mean there’s other stuff I’m going to tell you it’s getting deep so far but somebody said to me the other day where do you think the word alcoholic came from I said well I think alcoholism is that situation that happens when you get so much alcohol in your blood it’s like botulism and uh and so people that drink to excess and have a lot of alcohol in their blood have alcoholism alcoholics are people that have no more alcohol in their blood you to to get it you have to stop you see it’s it’s kind of scrubble a lot of people don’t understand how that works but but even people that return drinking say that I thought I was an alcoholic but I I guess I wasn’t and so they’re back in alcoholism we’re alcoholics yeah some of you in the other room are saying ick already to this talk but it just trying to get comfortable by the way high Starlight Room I want scream loud and see if we can hear them no glad you’re there anyway you know there’s a there’s a real I don’t know where it started but somebody at a Podium somewhere uh started saying that we say what it was like what happened what it’s like now you see and that’s not right it’s not right what it is is what we were like what happened and what we were like now what it was like doesn’t really matter and I hear a l lot of people living in it you know like what it was like what they were doing what happened to me and yada yada yada and and what it’s like now I got money I got friends and you know like so what um I want to know like the we that I lived with back there is what I want to talk a little bit about first of all and I can say I think most alcoholics recognize that they had many voices in their heads um I had one group that was for Destruction mainly of me and I had another group that was for survival I had my father’s voice in my head I had a number of voices that used to talk to me some people think that’s schizophrenia but it isn’t because each voice is clear all at the same time and they I find the voices that I meet with usually like to shower at about the same time and start talking it just depends on this is why willpower will do you no good here you 302 members you think that you’re going to come in and will yourself sober or something the problem is when the idiots in your head meet it depends on who has the strongest presentation that day and so if the voices that are saying don’t do it if they’re there you don’t do it the next day you say who’s going to stop us I mean it’s just a you’re like a volleyball in your own life and so this this concept of the of of uh not being able to hear and not being able to see when you’re new in alcoholic synonymous really true was for me when I first came here and uh I I guess one of the other things that I want to say tonight before I really start saying anything tonight is that um I I didn’t come here I was brought here and I was one of the big voices at 10 years sober for non-intervention well about 15 years sober I realized that I was an intervention I used to say to people let them drink till they’ve had enough they’ll know when they’ve had enough and then they’ll they’ll come in they’ll want well maybe but maybe they’ll die first I know I would have and so uh this person that brought me to this meeting I want to talk about some of my sponsorship issues tonight I want you to know something that um what I say tonight which sometimes sounds like criticism of my sponsor is from a very deep place of love I mean uh you will understand quickly in this Fellowship that that the more they abuse you the more they absolutely adore you here that words like Fathead and stupid and get in the car are terms of endearment that’s I I love you the ones that tell you you’re okay are the ones that are killing you anyway what we were like um you know I I was there there’s a a step in the program that says that we’re restored to sanity and so it dawned on me one day I must have been sane somewhere prior to when the disorder started and so I started to map back through my life and I the last thing I remember that I was any semblance of normal was about 4 years old it was the last time I ever remember kind of being being part of Christmas and then from then on it was what are these people doing like my mother used to really annoy me you know breathing in breathing out breathing in breathing out I just wanted just you know I these people that love and care for you I like to kill the whole bunch of them I hated that uh particular group of people I prayed God every day until age nine that I’d been adopted and these weren’t my real uh nuclear people I had a brother he turned out to be alcoholic and uh this guy was a piece of work and and maybe contributed to some of the fact that you know I started drinking at the age 11 and I’m sure the next speaker will start at 7 and then we’ll have a prenatal Alcoholic by the end of the conference but uh this guy I mean this is the kind of stuff he used to do he Christmas morning he’d get up and he’d move all the labels around in the Christmas presents and I get like this is my fourth pair of socks and he’s getting a truck and an airplane and I hell is going on with this but there is a God there is a just God because when I was about 11 years sober there was a knock on my front door and there he stood the the present snatcher and he uh had everything he had in the whole world in a Safeway shopping bag and he said I don’t know anybody Marty that can help me I am uh out of control and I just believe that you’re the only person left on the earth that I trust would you sponsor me I thought sure I will you son of a get in the house I’d be happy to sponsor you and I had years of frustration taken out on him in his recovery he’s still sober today damaged but still sober that’s the kind of stuff that’ll happen to you if you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous long enough a lot of trouble with the word alcoholic I knew that uh for a number of years that I had been drinking to change uh what I was I knew that I mean I understood that if that’s what alcoholism was it probably had that but I had um I had no sort of uh conscious recognition of that you know like I I I knew something was wrong and I knew other people were different than than I was but I didn’t you know drinking seemed to me to be more uh as the book says a solution than any sort of a problem it seemed like when I was drunk even though I might be puking up chunks of pizza under a bed I felt in control and felt out of control sober and you know I’ve really come to understand that that first step is everything I need to know about me it’s every statement of everything that’s wrong with me I am powerless over alcohol and I have to admit that my life has become unmanageable that’s that’s the total statement of everything that’s wrong with me and I mean I was the kind of a guy I never would have come to alcoholics synonymous I I went out one night and I got drunk one more time and you know how that goes I had made a a pledge to God absolute pledge that if you could just get me out of this little scrape that I’m in right now father I will never drink again and and it this happens when you’re an alcoholic and I don’t know if this happens to Earth people or not but when you’re an alcoholic seemingly unsolvable things get resolved and this day I went from I’m going to get fired I mean I I went to a party staff party I was in the radio television business in those days went right to the food stand picked up a pizza walked right to the president of the company and and then stood back to see what the hell was going to happen next you know it’s there’s that sense of adventure when you’re alcoholic like I’m convinced there’s something not a attached in a full-blown alcoholic like cause and effect I was always surprised when people hit back I was always surprised when people were mad it was like just screwing around we’re just having fun and I mean I did a bunch of other stuff and I woke up that morning and oh my God was I sick I had that kind of like in the throat nausea dying puking sick where you just honestly don’t know if you’re going to make it or not your your heart is going in in a rhythm you know that she say the vomit goes up somebody once said you know you’re alcoholic when you can puke over your own head nugget your hair wet that’s it’s oh yeah and I had that down man I was an in the car Waker up kind of guy and uh anyway the phone was ringing I could hear it off in the distance ringing way off in the distance anyway I went I picked the phone up and it was my uh Looney sister man she was nosy this woman it seemed and she had radar every time I was in trouble she seemed to Zone in and she had the dumb question duure which was how are you how am I you know excuse me good how are you and uh she said the most remarkable thing I’m absolutely convinced today that she had been one one of you cuz she asked that question this is the right question people say to me all the time how do you approach somebody about quitting drinking I say ask them this question she said do you think you have a drinking problem thinking drinking problem like everybody I know is out cold before I ever stop drinking I can swallow more liquor than anybody I know no problem like I don’t I’m think where is this going so she says would you see a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for me and I’m thinking man I’m not in enough trouble now I got to see some idiot from Alcoholics Anonymous and try and help him out oh for a moment I had a flash of Elan on recognition just right oh not another alcoholic to help and she sent over an alcohol ick by the name of Dwayne now Dwayne was a Norwegian that doesn’t offend a lot of you it really offended me because I was married to a Norwegian that was good but her father was a Norwegian you know what I’m getting out here and I’d go to pick her up and he’d talk to me in Norwegian barbecue you know and uh I’m not in this guy’s car 2 minutes and he’s telling me he’s Norwegian I’m thinking so like so what got a brush cut 1976 I was 1976 when I had my last drink I was 23 I am 23 years sober I’m at the Equinox right now and this guy at that time no yeah alcoholic synonomous the only place in the world you get a round of applause for saving your own ass you know what I’m saying this guy at this time is 13 years sober 13 years I’m thinking you liar first of all anybody who was 13 years sober would be in a religious Cult of some sort not Alcoholics Anonymous and number two he told these bizarre stories you know I I look back on this and again if you’re new in the room and you’re going to be doing a thing called a 12 step call don’t delay go out there right away can’t screw it up they can’t hear you anyway I often wonder where the two-year rule comes from I mean if Bill would have waited two years to 12-step Bob you know we’d all still be dead right well anyway he takes me out in the car and he starts telling me about breaking trains in the half to get to the bar and all this stuff and he tells a story and I tell a story it got worse and worse and worse and eventually of course they’ve extracted most of your fifth step out of you and and he said the the one thing that allowed me to come here and stay here and that was this he said do you think that when you get in trouble most of the time it’s when you’re drinking I had never thought of that before he said do you suppose that like when you’re not drinking these things don’t happen I never really ever put that thought in my mind before not not that you should quit drinking not that you know uh you’re a bad person or morally weak or any of that stuff he said do you think that if you didn’t drink you’d get in less trouble I thought H interesting concept now the other thing you can be absolutely Ely sure of if you’ve got a new alcoholic on the line is is that within 12 seconds of being with you they’re already changing their mind a number of times I want what he has I don’t want what he has I want what he has I don’t want what he has well if he’s going to say that then I don’t want what he has you know oh my god look what he’s doing now now I want what he has no I don’t want you know you know you’re laying out the profound things and I’m trying to say am I am I was I driving the car when we parked or was he driving the car when we parked are we in my car his I mean I got I got stuff going on up there nothing to do with anything he’s talking about but in the morning he says there’s a meeting this was a Sunday morning meeting uh called The Breakfast group in a place called Saskatoon saskat in Canada and he said I will pick you up for that meeting it’s at 10:00 in the morning and so I’m an alcoholic I left the house at 9: he was in the car waiting for me that’s that’s something you learn real quick they’re psychotic and they also have telepathy that’s something you learn right away if you’re going to be and so we went to this meeting and I I would characterize this meeting like this at 23 years old to me everybody in that room is over a 100 they looked like they’d been sent out to be wrinkled they were so old and they had I don’t even know how to describe the way these people were drinking coffee it was it was it was like compulsive you know what I’m saying here I didn’t drink coffee to me coffee was a way to screw up a $5 drunk was drink some coffee and there and I figured any minute some of these seniors were either going to pass or pee on themselves one of the two they’re they’re this meeting is in the back of a restaurant and I’m going through this restaurant and I’m saying to people as I pass I’m not in Alcoholics Anonymous I’m just I you know and finally he came over to me he says would you shut up you’re you’re embarrassing me I just thought anybody that went to that back room was instantly marked with a big a on their forehead you know uh I didn’t know what Alcoholics Anonymous was but it sounded suspicious the Anonymous part sounded suspicious I thought they were all hiding they in shame for what they did I had no idea that an anonymity is more to do with protecting us from our super egos than it is to do with us being ashamed of any particular thing that we’ve done and I go into this room and there they are right geriatric Miracles every one of them and were they happy holy God were they happy they’re going up and down some 12 stairs or some damn thing I couldn’t understand what they were talking about but the more stairs you did the better you got and there was one unfortunate who was stuck on the 12 or the fifth stair and there was quite a bit of discussion about that fifth stair one of them said if you don’t get off that fifth stair you will get drunk and I’m thinking so where’s the fifth stair let’s get at her yep yeah that was a big meeting for me I’ll tell you I could hardly wait for that thing to end it was just and anyway at the end of it the one the president or whatever the hell he was at the front of the room says and this was the most remarkable thing I’d heard anyone say at that meeting to that point he says if you want what we have I start looking God they’ve got no hair I know I know you you stick around anywhere long enough you you you you go out like you came in no hair no money no teeth but I and I’m and they’re like they’re a hundred and then they can’t drink for the rest of their lives do you want what we have oh absolutely I do sure I want that I’m thinking what were those choices again oh yeah oh yeah here it is death insanity or join them I’ll take death I mean I’ll take death oh man that thing and and you know they never leave they haven’t had enough coffee they want to have some some coffee after you want to stay have a coffee after the meeting I’m thinking where the hell are you going to put it you know I’m figing they’ve all going to have colostomies or some damn thing to be it’s incredible the amount of coffee that these people drink inhale oh man I think some of them were you know that’s that I’ll tell you one piece of information I’m glad I didn’t have when I got here was the vanilla in the eyeballs routine last night oh yeah and the spray net up the throat that sounded attractive to me I don’t know about you a yellow coach with blood and urine man this is living we get outside of the meeting after what seemed like in an interminable amount of time and he says to me another remarkable question what did you think of the meeting so but I’m an alcoholic I’m not stupid I know if I say I didn’t like the meeting that I’m going to get a lecture so I says to him I loved it I almost wish I was alcoholic I swear to God that was interesting stuff and whatever you people are doing there I am more than happy if you need money you got to understand we had not a pot we had nothing if you need money or if you know need me to get you on the radio for some publicity or whatever you need Dwayne you just call me man because what you guys are doing good stuff and he said yeah right anyway so I figured that’s that I went home and my wife is here she’ll testify I came home from the meeting I said to her I have been at a zoo you wouldn’t believe what’s going on at this place and I told her then she went no no and I said you know do you think I’m an alcoholic no she said you know what I think I think you shouldn’t drink so much problem solved well was I surprised when he came to pick me up for another meeting because I thought I’d been pretty clear you know well anyway I didn’t want to offend him cuz he’s Norwegian and they get rough got on a car we went to another meeting and this one’s called The Mustard Seed group and we go into a mustard seed group and there’s all the same guys from the early morning meeting and there’s a couple of women hookers I figure well you know what would a nice girl be doing at Alcoholics Anonymous that’s what I’m thinking cuz I was a saint myself you know so at the end of the meeting they you know they’ll say sometimes does the newcomer have anything to say and I said oh yeah I got something I’d like to ask so they said well go ahead and I said are you two hookers and uh yeah Ruth said no we were never hookers Marty but what we would do sometimes if we got really drunk is we’d pick up an an an anemic little turd like you and uh if he was very good we’d show him a good time and if not that we just throw them out of the car you know so now I hate the women and Alcoholics Anonymous I hate the men in Alcoholics Anonymous I hate Alcoholics Anonymous I know there’s nothing for me all they’ve got is these stupid 12 Little Steps I could have written them myself I’m thinking God anybody could do that and I got out in the car and I says to him you know what Dwayne I don’t want to go to any more meetings he said so what I said so what so what is I have rights he said you don’t have any rights where did you ever hear that I said I’ve got rights I’m a Canadian he says you’re an Al coholic alcoholics have no rights and he said I have people all over this town I know where you go and I know what you do we are everywhere that’s why we’re Anonymous we’re watching you all the time and he said if you decide to drink you phone me right away and I’ll give you your first beer and then I will bust every bone in your body said why do you talk to me like that and he said it’s really simple he said I know if you drink you’re going to get hurt and I don’t want you hurt by strangers it’s really simple I want to do it myself yeah see you know how do you know what you don’t know you don’t know see I had a way of solving things all of my life it went in a kind of a circle I started here I went there alcohol was involved somewhere in the middle that’s how it always turned out how do you know what you don’t know you don’t know I mean it’s so crazy and so I did not know I was powerless over alcohol because I took alcohol it always did that to me I can’t when I was 11 years old and I took that first drink I was in a bathroom it was Loganberry wine and from the first time I took that first drink I knew that I was for the first time I swear to God that the words that I’ve got to describe it are this I was all in one place all at the same time for the first time ever in my entire life that’s just that’s what happened to me and I got on my bicycle and I knew I could ride faster than any person in history and I got on this thing and I just let a rip and I was probably doing between 4 and 700 miles hour when I hit the truck and I went off the back of the bicycle and I did a little skin donation and I remember thinking as I was caring off of the pavement this came through my mind as it does every alcoholic’s mind this doesn’t hurt nothing hurts I can go home and beat Michael up that’s I mean everything just came into focus and I went home and my mother now I did not come from an alcoholic home you need to understand that I came from a Christian home this is a a breeding ground for alcoholics because they don’t know anything and my mother opened the door and there it was 11 years old KNE out of its pants blood all over it lying you know she said are you drunk I had two I’m 20 years old I’m still saying I had two that’s it it’s the only lie you get when you start drink and so she threw me in the bathtub I puked I found out you know that Loganberry wine goes down this dark purple comes up this foamy pink life was good could hardly wait to get to school in the morning and tell all the kids the transition the transformation that had happened to me could not get one other kid in grade six remotely interested in drinking and so I did what the book says I started to look for lower companions you got to do that until you finally become a lower companion and by grade seven I was kind of an alien in my own class in grade eight I didn’t really know the kids very well and grade nine I was a stranger there and and that’s how that went and so in that car that night when he said I didn’t have any rights and that he was going to look after me immediately what happened to me was I felt the same powerlessness I’d felt all of my life and you know I’ll tell you something about powerless people powerless people blame other people you know we confused uh resentments with thinking it’s it’s not thinking you know we we try and find out whose fault is this anyway that I’m in this trouble and and then if I can attach to that person I can spend the rest of my time not focusing on me but focusing on them and what they did to me and my powerlessness is Justified and then I can get Juiced at them and I can do this and you know what that night in that car that powerlessness it was just it was the Blackness and the madness was all around me I had the Norwegian Hitman who had taken a personal interest in me this idiot introduces me to a guy at the meeting who had murdered his best friend told him where I lived if you want what we have and you’re willing you see what I’m saying you guys aren’t exactly catch of the season when we first come in here and so the powerlessness over the alcohol made my life unmanageable but the sobriety compared to the drinking the sobriety was absolutely untenable I never ever got drunk once to get drunk and I hear all sorts of Alcoholics contradict me and say you know I don’t agree with that but I’m telling tell you something I never went out to get drunk I went out to not get drunk I went out to get a buzz I went out to get comfortable I went out to get different and we shouldn’t tell newcomers it’s going to get better we should say it’s going to get different just for a period of time because it it just doesn’t get better it’s like the Australian dung bee it rolls manure until the ball is so big it can’t push that crap anymore so it drills a hole in the middle of it and lives in it and yeah you get up every day and it stinks and you got a shitty outlook on everything and then and what they say to you is I never remember it smelling like this when I drank no that’s right you weren’t awake long enough to have it smell like that when you drank you know you weren’t conscious long enough to see what you pushed behind that wall that now has to be dealt with and so when he said to me I will keep you sober for 90 days you’re not going to drink immediately I started thinking you are my problem and I was able to focus on him and I started thinking in 90 days I am going to kill you and I’m this is sort of like newcomer gratitude stuff I’m G to kill you I’m going to burn your car and I’m GNA I wanted to kill his dog he had a dog that was like a hundred years old it was like all the people at the meetings you know it name was tinker tinker guy 6’4 280 lb got a dog named tinker and you’d knock on the door and you’d hear like that and he’d say and this is the big Saturday night entertainment he’d say smile tinker and the dog would go I’m 23 years old we’re over at Dwayne’s watching Tinker smile Saturday night I don’t know about you wasn’t what I kind of had uh in my mind for Saturday night 90 days was forever 90 days was a jail sentence and I swear to God the only thing that kept me sober was the fear of what he would do to me if I drank that’s the truth that is God’s truth and you know it’s an amazing thing but by the time I went through those 90 days something happened and it happens to anybody that’ll go to enough meetings they say if you drag your mind to enough meetings eventually it’ll open and that’s what that was what my experience was and you see if the problem is that I’m powerless over alcohol and the problem is that my life has become unmanageable I am going to go in the same Circle over and over the unmanageability is going to drive me back to the powerless nature of the drinking and so it goes and unless somebody breaks that cycle how do you get out of there and you see the whole solution to my problems in the Second Step where it says that that we have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity and you know I’ll tell you what sanity for me today means being whole being being good in my mind and my body and my family and my community know like being whole that’s what being saying is the first vestage of that that I had was that at some point somehow some way I didn’t want to drink anymore and I can’t explain that to anybody I just all of a sudden I did not want to drink people say to me sometimes don’t you wish you could drink no I don’t even want to drink in fact I get with people drinking and they make me nervous they seem like they’re out of control they’re going to flip any minute I can still remember thinking like that I don’t want to be around people are drinking I like to be around people that are thinking row 15 uh-uh no so here’s what I had to do I had to over a period of time let go of some old ideas I had some ideas that went like this if there’s a God I’m going to hell so I can’t accept that there’s ever going to be any sort of a higher power or a God because I know that a scumball like me is never going to be forgiven I remember calling Dwayne in about my 120th or something day of sobriety and saying Dwayne I can’t give my life and my will over to the care of God he said why not I said because if I give my life to God Dwayne God will send me to Africa as a missionary and he said what do you think God would do with an ass like you in Africa you know as as screwed up as I was I had to think good point that’s a really it’s a good point I it didn’t come on me all at once that my solution was going to be from a power outside of myself in fact the first thing I had to accept was how utterly defeated I was this is the Paradox of Alcoholics Anonymous it’s the only place in the world where they say look if you’d really like to win it this thing give up sounds it’s upside down and backwards most of the stuff in here is they say no do or fees and then they pass a hat what’s that about I I remember the day that it finally dawned on me oh my God I’m alcoholic I was driving a car it was like 94 days sober or something I’m going down a freeway and all of a sudden it came across me with such finality I had a terminal disorder that only a spiritual experience could relieve and I’m thinking oh I’m screwed oh my God I’m really an alcoholic I’m one of them I’m going to get Tinker the whole thing it’s going to it’s I oh my go so I phoned Dwayne I said Dwayne Dwayne God oh my God I’m an alcoholic he said holy God what what brought you to that conclusion I said I don’t know I just know I’m an alcoholic and I if I if I drink I die and he said Marty treasure this advice for the rest of your life okay he said people that are alcoholic can bath in whiskey just don’t put it in your mouth that’s it don’t take the first drink and you won’t die from the ninth drink click that was Dwayne’s sort of like we’re done talking sound that wasn’t good enough for me I went to a an Associates of Dwayne’s this guy was a he had gray hair you know those guys that look like they’re out of a soap opera his name was Bob he’s got like the $1,500 suit and I said Bob you know you’re like you’re so much brighter than Dwayne did you talk about your sponsor behind his back oh I always did I said Bob you know tell me what this alcohol do me he says well Marty Bob was very official he said Marty what you’re suffering from is a genetic disorder centering in the hypothalmic information control center of your brain and this is made worse by your liver’s inability to metabolize alcohol without producing acid alahh which mixed with dopamin produces Tetra Hydra isoquinoline that’s a nasty combination Marty given the narcissistic egocentric core of your personality which is driven at times by feelings of omnipotence which tend toward their own integrity despite cognitive dissonance and stimulus augmentation okay yeah I said what does all that mean he said your Drinker is broke go back to Dwayne you know Bob taught me a lot of lesson I I remember one time I was in I was selling clothing and Bob stopped in the store and I said geez I hear Jake C got drunk he said when were you talking to Jake and I said I I I wasn’t I just heard that he said so then what you’re really telling me is you’re a malicious snotty little gossip oh yeah well I said no he said oh yeah yeah that’s exactly what you are and he said I don’t associate with gossip so see you walked away I don’t know you know uh Dr silkworth talked about deflation at Great depth deflation at Great depth is is is that thing that happens to you when you’ve got people that love you so much they won’t lie to you anymore and that they are you know ready to point out some of your shortcomings it’s a it’s it’s a it’s a loving thing that’s done sometimes it’s it’s about it’s about the fact that if you’re like I was and you’re in a fog you know the fear the obligation and the guilt and You’ got the repetitive solution going the same thinking trying to solve the same old problems then you got to have some people that that have the the the wherewithall not to worry about you rejecting them these are the people that will save your life if you got some crusty old fart in your sobriety right now that says things to you that you don’t like but you know at the same time that there’s some sort of a truth in never let them go they are absolutely invaluable to you because you see if the first step is the problem and the second step is the solution then what it’s asking me to do next next is the really hard piece and what it’s asking me to do next is simply the most difficult thing alcoholics have to do make a decision make a decision you know there’s a guy in 1936 wrote a book called Think and Grow Rich and he had interviewed a number of millionaires in 1936 and without exception people that became wealthy all made decisions quickly and changed them very slowly if ever people who never acquired anything made decisions very slowly and change them frequently he should non-alcoholic Al coholic right I made decisions every day but I could never stay with them and you see what these people this this this group of crusty oldtimers said to me in those days was really simple it said you are too sick to make a decision we’ll make the decision for you until such a time as you get your brain reinstalled and then you can start to make some decisions they said somewhere around 15 to 20 years sober I was brought up in the old school where they said said you will not quit your job you will not change your relationship you will not do anything life altering for the first 2 years and we really interested to hear how much that upsets you because we don’t give a rip and I mean I did those things and if I would not have done those things you see if you changed so many things in your life and at the same time you’re trying to change how you think it’s just like trying to get your feet down on sand that’s moving around at least keep something consistent in your life and when you make a decision in Alcoholics Anonymous and you’re going to succeed this thing I’m going to tell you right now it’s an irrevocable decision it’s a decision that can’t be changed it’s a decision to turn your life and your will over to the care of Alcoholics Anonymous it’s a decision to do the steps you see what I’m saying step three is nothing more than saying that’s it this is the line it’s from this day I change here I I will not I might make some different choices in my sobriety but the decision is to not take the first drink the decision is is that I turn it over and I start to become teachable and I start to allow other people to say to me the things that I’ve allowed no one ever to say to me and the first thing it says is is that although that’s a powerful decision it says if it’s not followed immediately by action that the effects are not lasting and you know that’s true and so I I started to do this thing called a step for a searching and moral inventory Bill’s way of saying like get in there and find out what’s underneath the surface I’ll tell you why you got to do a step four it’s because if you squeeze an orange nothing but orange juice comes out no probably you’re thinking he’s really gone this time but if you squeeze an orange nothing comes out but orange juice because there’s nothing in the orange but orange juice you get an alcoholic in recovery who has all of these things just below the surface and you squeeze them and what comes out is not sweet what comes out is not predictable what comes out is not what the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and people that that think that circumstances somehow shape their sobriety are exactly upside down and backwards Bill said that character building was never a desirable thing for alcoholics but in reality it’s the character that shapes the things around you it’s an inside job no outside change is permanent unless there’s inside change that’s what step forward was about so that when they squeeze and it will squeeze because this is life this is not a dress rehearsal this is life it starts people will run into your children I met a woman not so long ago I was called to go and talk at a conference to fill in for somebody you know the hand of God and I had this U unbelievable growing Blackness around me that if if ever anybody’s kid was going to get killed by a drunk driver it would be my oldest son Donovan you know why because this kid had never drank this kid was a perfect student this kid was the best dad I ever had I mean he was just born old and I thought if anybody you know was going down the highway and some drunk idiot would tell him it would be my Donovan because that would be God’s way of getting even and this thing started to obsess me and I went to this meeting this night and there was this woman there and what had happened to her was absolutely incredible she had a son who was killed in a rollover on a tractor one year to the day that that boy died her second son went downstairs and hung himself the following day after she’d phoned her mother and father to come home for from Florida for the funeral the next son went downstairs trying to mess around I guess it’s not an even an uncommon thing in suicide trying to figure out how the older brother had done it and he too hung himself she buried three children in the space of one year and I said to her how do you live through that and she said you know the reality is Marty you don’t live through that you have to come out another way you have to first of all understand that all the kids are God’s kids they’re only on your bus for a period of time he will take them home when he decides to take them home this is how it is with your pigeons and your babies they are on your bus for a period of time they are only there for you to learn from it is a blessed gift but we cannot decide the outcome you see what I’m saying she was from the inside squeezed at a place where most of us would have broken and all that came out of her was sweetness because all she does now her entire life is to carry this message to people about how to survive that level of tragedy and I know that some of you in this room tonight and you’ve got some really heavy luggage and you come to these conferences and you see these people flowing in fed too much rooms paid for aren’t they having fun and you’re dying out there and it’s it here’s the big secret of Alcoholics Anonymous for every single person that’s ever got this program it starts from the inside it starts in that step for it says those of us who were not thorough about this step usually return to drink and there’s a reason why it’s because I have a picture of how things are in my life and I will always solve to the strongest picture it’s interesting you know I talk to alcoholics and they have got a reshaped idea of who they are and everything they move toward is about success and happiness and love and giving and then you have some other ones that still have this picture of of getting and keeping and selfishness and self-centeredness and everything that comes to them is scarcity and lack and poverty and anger and and greed and and negativity and you say why is it some people are able to not live like that and it’s so clear to me now in that chapter it says some of us tried to hold on to Old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely so we need to find out what are the old ideas that’s what the step four thing was all about for me you know I had one of those sponsors that said uh were you uh did I see you uh putting money in the collection plate Marty uh in because we don’t accept outside contributions you you haven’t done your step four and five yet why see I don’t know about you but I think sometimes that we make it it’s so uh it’s almost like we’re begging people to come in Alcoholics Anonymous this is the most exclusive club in the world people are dying to get in here if you are ever to understand is you know sometimes it comes to you how rare a bird you really are how few people actually ever to get to hold on to this thing sobriety ever get to have the blessings you have it’s a minuscule uh percentage of the people that are dying from alcoholism yeah here we sit and we we don’t have an attitude of gratitude and it’s because just below the surface in many of us there are these unresolved things and you know as long as you remain in that powerless State blaming people places institutions for things that are going on in your life you will never be free of it and so I went into this step four and what I did was I listed every uh person in my head I just took a full scap paper and I just started writing I had I couldn’t believe it I should have just done a list of the one person I wasn’t pissed off at it would have been quick I was mad at everybody everybody had control of me I didn’t the book is so right people places institutions had control of me I thought I was mad at them and teaching them a lesson and they were controlling me I was avoiding places because people there not going to meetings cuz so and so is cheering yada you know what you start to write all that crap CRA down and you start to see uh how it affects you and and you start to understand there’s that like for me well Bob used to say Marty at 7 o’ get in the chair and read page 62 and I think why on Earth does he get me to read this all the time and it said selfishness and self-centeredness we think is the root of our problem driven by aund forms of fear selfishness self-seeking self-centeredness we step on the toes of our fellows they retaliate seemingly without provocation but we invariably find it was us who set it in motion I think what a strange thing for him to get me to read all the time cuz I’m the one persecuted here I’m the one it’s done too you know I was a person that believed humility was more to do with humiliation I thought there’s no way I could ever be arrogant because I hate my own guts you know you know you you go into that step four and you start to mine this stuff up and I see people do it all the time they’ll get through a step four and then they don’t want to do a step five it’s like Gathering up Glad bags full of garbage and then leaving it in your front room to really Fester you know let’s get it up so it really stinks and then just leave it there and then say I don’t think this is working for me you know you want to go to another person and you want to talk to them about the nature of the wrongs because it is within the nature of the wrongs that I started to understand some really amazing Dynamics number one and most of all what is wrong with me is a very small thing not everything’s wrong with me the things that are wrong with me kind of narrow down into selfishness self-centeredness my insecurities and my fears if I could just start to think in a positive way a whole bunch of stuff starts to happen that’s good it’s so simple to do it almost eluded me and so now I sit in the world and the world starts to get negative and I I start to think negative and I’ve learned from a friend of mine a member of Alcoholic Anonymous named Bob I just say next thought please I’m not going there today you know I start listening to that stuff in my head and it it’s all this powerless crap that I want to start blaming people or places or things and I just say next thought think something happy start focusing on how much oxygen there is in this room it’s a good thing believe me I used to I used to be so insecure as a kid cuz I had a big nose then I realized hell I’m getting more air than you are there’s something positive in almost everything you know I’m one of those people that came out of the step five and I and I I recognized that I didn’t have that thing done I I had done it to the best of my ability but at the time I didn’t have enough ability at the time I didn’t have enough honesty to stand in the center of that and really look head along to the things that were really causing me trouble because you know I didn’t want to get rid of some of them I did not want to get rid of some of the defects of character that gave me what I thought was pleasure actually it was creative avoidance what I was doing was just substituting some really crappy stuff and beating myself out of everything that I absolutely love this is the most amazing thing the Greeks had a word for it called scotoma it’s a blindness that you get and it’s it’s only partial but you can just see some of what’s going on in your life and that’s where I was and I thought man if I let that thing go I I mean that’s the only thing that really makes me happy right now you know hating people being being totally like I’d see people that had all these friends and you know Stan my sponsors used to say to me Marty go home and pray this pray to be a guy on the Block a friend among friends just pray to be just absolutely ordinary so that you can have everything that this program has to offer you just be a part of not in front of not on top of just a part of the greatest blessing in the world is being a face in a crowd you know I don’t understand that I remember going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and say to Dwayne everybody’s staring at me he said Marty when you walk in a room you have no idea how little they all care it was like 10,000 pounds came off of my back I don’t know where you are in this room today but what I learned was this that when I’m thinking that about them I don’t have to worry because they’re thinking everybody’s staring at me you know the the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous where you feel most aart from and different than and lonely what they taught me to do is go and find the other loneliest son of a gun in the room put my hand out and you get a friend for life Alcoholic Anonymous is about becoming a leader servant you’ll find the ones that you most want to be like are the ones who choose to think the positive things they haven’t got everything good happening in their lives they just say next to all of the negative things that are going on in their lives and I came through that step five and I was entirely ready for just a moment in time to have God remove all these defects of character and then I got to work removing them hello I was in entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and then I got about removing them doesn’t work you know I I got involved in the church I got so spiritually minded I was with no earthly good I used to go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and silently pray for all of you because you smoked and swore one day I was with Dwayne and he you know he he told a dirty joke and I I said you know I don’t have to listen to that he got mad and and he he slammed the car the curb and he said listen he said I want to tell you something you pompous little ass he said I have more spirituality in my rear end than you have in your entire body and I said how would you know a thing like that Dwayne and he said because you don’t have any peace and he said you know what get out of the car get out go die drink don’t care you’re out of Alcoholics Anonymous get out man you think AA is the last house on the Block I’m afraid not I went to church the next day and the Pastor said to me when when we’re in the in a congregation Marty and we’re praying who’s the audience the people he said no God said and he said I watch you Sunday after Sunday and I know there’s something wrong and what it is is is that that you don’t understand when we pray that what we’re doing is we’re all praying together and whatever your religious beliefs are don’t don’t let my Christian get in in the way here but where however you’re relating to your higher power that’s who’s the audience and I want oh and he said you know what I really would appreciate you doing I wish you’d go back to AA now I’m kicked out of church and I went back to alcoholics I there’s an old boy named Jeff charlot Bo he’d been sober about a year longer than it took the crusts Earth to cool that mean 31 years or something he’ been around forever and I walked past Jeff and he said there but for the grace of God goes God yeah I had a lot of pain I don’t know about deflation at Great depth for you but I had a thick skin and a hard head and a really bad heart I had an attitude of you know like uh let me stay with everything that’s wrong with me and just make me comfortable and you know step six is the first time in the program of Alcoholics annonymous where you actually admit that the second half of the first step and the first part of that first step are really true you are powerless there is no way out I remember being at a meeting and Tommy I was speaking and the the speaker finished and and I thought oh man like I’m having an LSD experience somebody must have drugged my my uh drink or something you know like all that stuff going on any druggies in the in the group here and uh oh I look at the woman across me her makeup all running down her face holy cow so I rip across the the uh highway to where I was staying in a motel and I uh Shirley was in bed she said what’s wrong and I said you know like all new alcoholics do I shared with my spouse I said shut up that’s what that was really like at our house for a long long time hea out here Mr Nice Guy in the house not like that anyway I go in the I go in the bathroom I get on my knees I open the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and says you have a a reprieve and it’s it’s a contingent condition you know what that means it means it may happen it may not God’s got a if it says if you maintain your spiritual condition I couldn’t get through to that I didn’t understand what a spiritual condition was but I’ll tell you one thing that did happen is at the end of that experience I went quiet I didn’t have the drug thing happening any I just went quiet and I slept that night and in the morning I made a decision that I was going to go to my group’s big book study even though I knew they didn’t know anything and I decided that I would sit at the back of the big book study and I would not contribute even though I knew everything and they were reading on the 14th page where Bill was in the hospital and he talked about the fact that eie had emphasized that he had to give it away and he said that this is how we grow our spiritual condition and I understood for the first time in Alcoholics Anonymous your spiritual condition is your service that we grow spiritually through service and that as long as I was willing to maintain that spiritual condition that I was going to be okay and that’s how that was when I came to step six what I suddenly understood was that I was entirely ready not to live like that anymore I was entirely ready not to have those old ideas anymore that I was entirely ready to let that go and then I did that thing that it talks about in Step seven this is the first time that the siren went off when I said that if you want me to stop you could just say stop does anybody know what to do so in conclusion a test can anybody verify with the hotel if that’s a test or whatever it’s probably just a test sir just a test can you get them to stop testing sometimes where when you hear the truth in AA some of you newcomers like you’ll hear sirens I’m serious like got yeah a big chunk of truth will hit you and it’s like like that so let me sum up by saying this that that by the time I got into that that seventh stair that uh what I recognized was that humility for me at this point is to clearly understand that I am not going to fix the nature of my wrongs that I hear this all the time and you know like God bless you if it works for you it did not work for me I spent a lot of my life trying to forgive me I don’t have the power to forgive me it is outside of my control to forgive me I’m the perpetrator for God’s sake how do I forgive me but what I couldn’t do was accept that someone else could forgive me it’s an acceptance of forgiveness that there’s power and I said to Dwayne one time I just don’t believe God’s going to forgive me he said with the snotty little sins you have you nothing zero little garden variety alcoholic you’re more powerful than God who the hell hell do you think you are boy I felt so forgiven like that and and you know I mean I I’ve spent the first part of the whole program talking about me it’s the same old thing why people don’t want to do step four I can’t understand it’s an opportunity where you talk about nothing but your bloody self that’s our favorite subject you know the old adage is true I’m not much but I’m all I think about that is step four Billy Graham said the smallest package in the world as a human being wrapped up all in themselves that is step four step five Let It Go and then in that step six and that wonderful healing you know I had a character defect for 35 years and I tried and I prayed and I and I uh I tried every form of psychology I tried every form and believe me I’m reading those things I understand those things I could not rid myself of this thing it drove me insane and February the 6th of this year in Chicago Illinois at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous it was removed I don’t even know why but it’s gone and it’s been gone every day since then I I don’t know when that Miracle takes place but I know if you’re not ready to do it and if you’re not ready to be entirely okay with the fact that that those things will be removed it’s a tougher ride you don’t have to do it you have to accept it this is a program of surrender not Victory this is about the the Confederate Army laying the flag on the table and saying we surrender doesn’t mean you got any more moves and any more troops hitting in the ditch it’s over and when you say to your higher Powers you understand that God of yours I Surrender he will in his time start to take these things from you and all I have to do is be willing to be grateful when the things are removed isn’t that an amazing reality and then in the on the 10th on the the eth nth uh steps I start to go and start to try and fix things that I’ve caused in other people’s lives you know I love that story in the book about the guy that comes out of the cellar and says the trees are flat and he says ma the wind stop blowing that is me that is the alcoholic that goes out after you’ve got sobriety and you’ve got wealth and you’ve got all those things that have happened to me and I go into and and I don’t want to go and tell anybody you know I was wrong you w it was me this was my place in all of that stuff and I can go out and start not making amends to me go out into the world and start making amends to other people cleaning up the wreckage because if I will not do that I will not move closer to this power that’s greater than myself and there’s nothing I want more than that like I’m really starting to understand at a at a very deep level more every day that if if I continue to be grateful for the things that around me I will move closer and closer to the substance of the entire universe and that all I will have to do from this point on is just learn how to have that sort of a connection with the power I can have anything I want and all I have to do is just try and find a few other people who want the same thing and share that freely and openly with them and that’s what I’m trying to do with my life at this point I told you I was going to tell you what we are like now and uh this is just like right out of a fairy tale for me I told you I stopped drinking when I was 23 we had nothing we were bankrupt in every single area of our lives and we were angry with one another Susie we were Susie and I Shirley my wife Smoky Goldie I call her all kinds of names so that’s the only girl I’ve got I promise we were angry we found in like 20 or 21 years of sobriety suddenly we had to we’re at a place where I had to sort of meet and fall in love all over again that happened uh I went home and tried to re-enter my children’s lives after a successful business career anybody out there who’s working day and night to make a whole pile of dough and you’re missing your family tell you what just from a friend don’t do that anymore because you would I came home one day and there’s this six foot tall guy standing in our front hway and it turned turned around it was my son and I thought God what is she must be feeding these kids manure or something it’s just huge and I had missed that kid growing up and then I and I found myself in his late teens re-entering his life as his father and his friend and I mean this is a kid that I just absolutely loved but I got so busy I couldn’t hear and I couldn’t see in my house anymore it’s just another form of doing the deal this is the kid that at 9 years old came to me and said how do you join Alcoholics Anonymous and I said why and and he said because I don’t want to drink I said well just don’t drink he said you can do that without joining I said yeah yeah you you can’t he’s 24 years old today and he has six months more sobriety than I do never dry I know it’s a miracle I have a middle son named Chad I think he’s drank a couple of times and doesn’t have much interest in it and then we had beob my daughter 16 years old got herself a bottle of and just got absolutely hammered it passed out down the basement and the whole deal and uh and what I want to tell you is is that because of Alcoholics Anonymous and the friends and the fact that you take time with my kids and and they hear you and they see you and they and they love you is is that after after a couple of those episodes with her that behavior stopped She today doesn’t drink she’s got a partner who’s got juvenile diabetes and he can’t drink and they just bought their first home they’re 20 years old about their first home with their own money I don’t know how you explain that Shirley and I had a beautiful Ranch and she ran thoroughbread race horses and we’ve been gifted with money and travel and I get to do this a lot I’ve been all over the world and some of the newcomers are thinking keep going I feel like I’m going to puke I’m telling you I was there I was there just right with you I saw those speakers and I thought yeah easy for you you suited up dork what would you know about where I am what do you know of the pain or the fact that I’m a loser or I didn’t complete this or didn’t do that and I’m telling you as long as you’re moving toward that picture in your life all you’re going to have is chaos and Madness and blackness in your life and what you need to do is get a picture of somebody who is doing it get a picture in your mind clearly of what’s possible for you and start to move toward that thing let go of those old ideas Bill said join us on the road as we trudge this road of happy Destiny it’s an amazing thing you know when you’re an Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous is in you and you go all these places and there’s all these faces and you don’t know them but you know that they’re all just like you it’s an amazing reality isn’t it I can get off an airplane in Amsterdam and some drunk named Flying Bob picks me up and takes me all over the city parks up on the sidewalks why because I’m a drunk that’s why what are they going to do about it and I go to England and I go to Paris and you’re all the same everywhere we go we have this common disorder called alcoholism and we have common language and common purpose and it’s it’s all there for you and all you have to do uh is just not drink today just until midnight tonight this is how it started for me and for every other person in this room just do these simple things pick up these simple spiritual tools let somebody tell you the truth about yourself and join us it’s a great place to live and to die I’ve seen some people die in Alcoholics Anonymous too and uh it’s a wonderful thing to see somebody go home happy it’s a terrible thing to watch somebody in a one car funeral die with no family and no hope simply because they wouldn’t let go of some old ideas so kind of a serious message for a Saturday night but I never ever get to control what I say it’s an amazing thing God sometimes says to me you can be funny and sometimes he says to me I’ll put a couple of horns in the middle but the rest of it buddy for you tonight going to be serious because there must be somebody here in that place tonight and if it’s you take it and do with it as you will let me thank the committee for uh asking Shirley and I here let me thank you for my sobriety I’ll have another day thanks to you we’re going to go from here to Las Vegas this is a miracle in s I’m taking my Norwegian mother-in-law there is no amount of money she can spend or anything she can do that will offend me I’m going to spoil her rotten I am going to spoil her Beyond her wildest dreams and you guys made all of that possible thank you and good night thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today’s episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message until next time have a great day