>> 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. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com.

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. >> >> My name is Mike Lorenz.

I'm an alcoholic. And wow, what a wonderful weekend this has been. And the level of sharing has been just stunning.

And uh I uh I want to I want to It's different be >> >> I've attended this conference since the the very first one. Uh and it's been a special event every year and uh uh to now to get to participate with a a lot of people who have been my heroes in Alcoholics Anonymous uh is uh is a real privilege and an honor. And to share myself with you.

Uh Somebody was asking me as I came in this morning how I was feeling and I you know, I thought since I was talking on the 10th and 11th step, I ought to tell the truth. So I said, "Well, I'm you know, the fear wave's coming." And uh that happens all the time. Uh but I understand it's just ego.

So uh we'll jump up on the the wave and see where we go this morning. Uh I uh I need I guess I'll start with a story. Uh One of the things By the way, I want to say thank Bob for doing this because what this is for me is uh it's a family reunion.

And I didn't know my family was this big for a lot of years. Uh I I'd go to the people that were I'll reference some people that have been my teachers along the way and understand I've had one sponsor, but that sponsor allows me to have as many teachers and mentors as I need. Anytime I I need to learn something new, I don't need to fire my sponsor and get a new one.

Uh I simply have a teacher and my sponsor says, "If you learn something good, please share it with me." Uh and that's worked for us for more than 20 years. And uh I dearly love and honor him. My dry date's September 7th, 1985.

Uh that shocked everybody in my area because I was not on the list of most likely to succeed. I uh I have a special passion for what I'm going to talk about today because I'm one of those that nearly died in Alcoholics Anonymous further from a drink than I ever expected to be. Uh Getting getting ready to celebrate my fifth birthday in Alcoholics Anonymous and have on paper having everything I needed, thought I ever needed or wanted and everything else.

And uh only one thing missing. I was just completely hollow inside. I was I was I was dying of untreated alcoholism and sitting in 10 or 11 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous a week and that wasn't the fault of the meetings I went to.

Uh What I'd done is I'd I did in Alcoholics Anonymous approximately what I did years ago when I went to the University of Iowa. I I went over to the field house, I signed up for all my classes, went down to the bookstore and bought my books, joined a fraternity, threw the books in the closet, and started partying. And if you ran into me on campus and asked me what I was doing, I would tell you, "Well, I'm pre-law student, sir, here at the University of Iowa." And that was technically true.

Except I rarely went to class. And what I did in Alcoholics Anonymous was I I went to every meeting I could get to get my hands on. I I Well, I did what every good junior guru does.

I started my own meeting because nobody else's was really adequate. Uh and And I I never missed a dance, I never missed a function, I never missed a party. What I missed was the recovery program in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Uh And the fellowship loved me and held me up so well that I made it 5 years that just on on that momentum. Uh But I'm in I don't the miracle 5 years, I don't want to drink, but I do want to die. Uh I'm I'm thinking Now, here's a spiritual thought.

Celebrate your fifth anniversary in AA by trying to figure out how you can kill yourself so it won't embarrass the people you sponsor. Uh This is This is not a vision for you. Uh So and and who knew the man I disliked most in Alcoholics Anonymous was the guy that uh was the channel of the solution that ended up saving my life and and giving it purpose and meaning and direction.

Uh And like everybody, when I find a a solution, I grasp it and I I go through what I I go through an evangelical period, you know, and I'm very tightly focused on on what I've learned and the miracle of all of that. And if you don't do it my way, you're wrong. Uh And I spent a period of time and thank God another teacher came along and grabbed me the mic and he said, "Those people aren't wrong.

They're successful what they do. What they have is they have a different style than you and I do." Uh and they're members of our family, too, and you need to honor them. Uh And so I love it that I get to come together on a weekend like this where I hear other members of my family, some of them with different styles from mine, and I get to benefit and learn from all of you.

So thank you so much for what you've given me this weekend. Uh Mother I always like to quote from Mother Teresa. Somebody asked her what it was like now that she would had become enlightened.

And she says, "Oh, well, that's simple." She says, "Before I was enlightened, I looked down on people. And now that I'm enlightened, I look down on people that look down on people." And uh And I love that because it lightened it up. It It It It's a reminder to me that I'm not going to arrive and I don't need to worry about arriving.

What I need to do is learn to enjoy the journey. Uh One of the uh This journey for me has been a constant process of finding and and discarding old ideas. My My friend Clint, I used to love it.

He He and his wife had a thing, "Honey, why don't we why don't we just spend a day this day and see if we can find an old idea and get rid of it." Uh What a What a What a one What a wonderful way to uh uh enhance the quality of your life. And uh So one of my old ideas is that well, I've got I've got a whole collection of spiritual awakenings where going to feel good. Uh-uh.

Uh The problem with spiritual awakening is they they involve the disappointment of my ego. I mean, my my ego really believes that it could kill me and go on living all by itself. And uh It was mentioned yesterday several times by several of our speakers, you know, the price I pay for image, ego, whatever you want to.

If I If I If I look at all those stacks of inventory, gee, if I didn't if I didn't care about my ego, uh you know, what would this look like? And so I keep remembering that old Chinese proverb that it's impossible to save face and ass at the same time. You've got to make a choice.

Uh and so we do around here. Uh I was really blessed uh the first couple years uh I didn't find this conference actually uh my my fiance sweet Linda did. And she was in uh contact with Bob and heard about this conference and she said, "Let's uh let's go there for this weekend.

That's a place where neither one of us will have to do anything and we can just sit back and be together and and have an AA weekend together." And so we began coming here. Uh June of uh 2007, I uh I went out to Santa Fe to see some friends and do some AA and and everything else. And uh Uh Linda lived We weren't married We hadn't gotten married yet.

And so she lived over on the west side of town near the airport. And uh so I took my car over to her place and dropped it off with her in the morning before my flight to Santa Fe. And I parked the car in her garage and she gave me a ride to the airport.

And uh I took off for Santa Fe and uh He had a wonderful time in Santa Fe. And while I was down in Santa Fe, my friend Tom took me up into the mountains one day to see a Vietnam Veterans Memorial up by Angel Fire. And I couldn't get it I was having trouble with a cell signal up there, so I turned my phone off.

Uh cuz it kept looking for a signal and was eating the battery up and everything else. And I I got I got back down later that afternoon and turned my phone back on and I had a real nasty voicemail from Linda. You know.

You don't need to avoid me if you want to go off and play with your friends and da da da and have to be distracted by me and so on and so forth. And uh so I uh I examined my behavior. Uh and uh I called her back.

And uh we had a con- conversation and and uh we squared things up cuz she'd written some inventory in the same time and and talked to her sponsor and one of the gals she worked with. And uh so we'd both exercise this uh marvelous 10th step of ours. And that becomes very important because a couple days later I uh I flew back from Santa Fe and uh I'll shorten the story up.

Long story short, I get back into Indianapolis and Linda was supposed to pick me up that night at the airport. And she was a reliable woman and she wasn't there. And I called her and uh I didn't get a hold of her.

Uh and so I I waited a period of time and then eventually I got a cab and had the cab take me over to her house. And uh because we're engaged, I had a key to that car house and I uh I went inside the house and uh uh found her collapsed in the bathroom. She'd uh collapsed with a stroke that morning while getting ready for work.

Uh and so we got the paramedics there and uh began a process uh of 5 days in neuro intensive care uh until the the doctors told us there was no hope left and that we needed to go hospice. Uh I am so grateful. The first thing I could be grateful for in that experience uh was that she and I didn't have a bunch of unfinished business between us.

That we'd both practiced these principles of this program and that we were clean. Uh And that I didn't have to stand by her bed and hold her hand as she was dying going, "I wish I'd done this." Or "I wish I'd said this." Or everything else because uh uh it had been said. Uh And more than that, I want to thank you because of what you've taught me and the principles you've given me uh that I got to be part of the solution there and started the instead of part of the problem.

Uh Uh Linda was about the only recovering member of her family, so we had people that were uh in various sides between uh needing AA and needing Al-Anon swarming the hospital and uh intensive care unit. Uh and instead of being one of the crazy ones, I got to be one of the ones that could support uh the other family members and and help things uh happen. Uh Not because of my strength, but because of what you've given me and what you've taught me.

Uh My dear friend Don taught me years ago and one of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten around here is how to be in the presence of death without fear, and not without losing my mind. Uh And I didn't know I even needed to learn that lesson because I'm a I'm a combat veteran of Vietnam. I uh I was in the front edge of that.

Uh I was part of the I I led a platoon of men into the Plei Me Reach one Sunday afternoon and 3 days later 32 of us went in, 3 days later three of us came out. Uh I thought I knew about death. Uh But I didn't.

Uh Because in those days, what I did is I sat down and if you'd asked me, "I'm sitting next to my friend's body." And if you'd asked me what was going on with me, I'd say, "You know, it's okay it's all cool, man. Don't mean a thing." Uh cuz I'm shut down. And what I did is I spent I found I spent my life uh it's like I had an emotional MasterCard, you know?

And I as I went through life, I had a choice. I could either experience what was going on and pay the price at the time and have the experience or I could put it on the card. Uh and you know what I chose to do.

I just put it on the card. Uh And I got here uh and I couldn't even make the minimum payment on the balance anymore. Uh And so I had people around here uh that showed me important life skills.

See, because uh sobriety wasn't my solution. Sobriety is my problem. Uh That's what the the message that I got that saved my life.

I cuz I couldn't understand I was sitting in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous and you all looked like you were enjoying this and having a good time. And I'm dying inside with a smile pasted on my face. Uh And I remember when they when he said to me, he says, "Oh, Mike." He said, "You know, he says, "Sobriety's not your solution, it's your problem.

You've been sober hundreds and thousands of times." He says, "You can't stand life sober sober. That's why you go back to drinking. The idea is how do you get a a a meaningful sobriety that's sufficiently comfortable and tolerable for you that you can wear it and and stay in it and live in it." And uh that's uh where we are here.

I uh I was so blessed by that woman. Uh I can't I I could stand up and take all of my time I want telling you about her, but I think probably if I had I was thinking of what could I tell you in a sentence that would describe Linda. Uh And uh we were having a conversation one time and she turned to me we we sometimes did these workshops and retreats together and so forth.

And she turned to me with this big smile on her face and she says, "Mike." She says, "Since we have resentments where we refeel and re-experience anger." She says, "Do you suppose that it would be possible for us to have relovements? Where we can re-experience the love that we've been given and the love we've experienced and the the love we didn't even that was given to us that I didn't even know was love at the same time." Uh And so she was one of my teachers that walked through my life and and uh I uh I miss her I miss her terribly, but she also gave me the tools to to move on without her as as my other teachers have. Clinton, Don.

Uh A uh >> >> I was having a moment. Uh And uh I heard Linda talking to me and and and the first time she talked to me, she said uh uh She says, "Mike, you need to know I don't need you to grieve me. I need you to be happy." Uh And my heart knew that came from her.

And then some weeks later I in another moment I I just do it I was in the in the anguish and I says, "Oh God, I'll never love anybody like I loved you." And I heard her laugh and she says, "Well, of course not, silly. You've already done that." And so we go on. And thank God for the for the example God couldn't would if he were sought.

And these are these are the God these are God's seeking steps. Uh The same way I used to seek out that alcohol or score whatever I was going to do, I I I need to be uh have that thirst and that hunger for God today. Uh One of the one of the things I like best about my home group is that uh we have uh what we call that's not formally structured, but we have 10th step circles in there.

And we have a real tradition of 10th stepping with each other in there. And part of that tradition is that you 10th step with the new guys. Uh So they see how the old-timers get it done.

And one of the guys that changed my life was a man by the name of Gary B and he was he was the uh the old guru in the group uh when I was very new there and I didn't know what to do and he grabbed me one day uh I I'd seen him in a group of people for lunch and we were walking away and he grabbed me as I was headed back to my car and he said, "Mike, I need to tell you about something that that I did at work this morning." And he went ahead and uh explained to me that uh he'd uh taken credit for a sale that should have gone to another salesman who wasn't there that day and so forth and uh that he was here I'm he says, "I think I'm going to go see I'm going to go see the boss and I'm going to own up with the boss and tell him what's going on." And then I'm going to you know, he laid out the whole his whole plan of action. And uh then he uh then he said, "You know, before the meeting tonight, why don't you Can you meet me down at the Salvation Army? Let's see if we can talk to a couple drunks down there." Uh And he gave me a port list.

First of all, I didn't hear somebody tell me about how I was I should live Alcoholics Anonymous. I had the the oldest member of my group go to one of the youngest member of the group and humble himself and lay out says, "Look, here's what I did. Here's the mistake I made." Now he could have gone to his sponsor or he could have gone to any number of people but he he went he went I was one of the people he went to and I'll tell you it made an impact on my life.

And then he also demonstrated that often forgotten part of our 10th step you know that we need to turn our thoughts to somebody else we can help. And I what I find with this 10th step is what I have here is if I if I choose to I get to par- participate participate in God's recycling plan. See I go out here and I'm try- I'm trying I'm trying to live life the best I can.

I've always had a life full of good intentions. I suspect you did too. We mean well.

But I get caught up in in in in my ends and means and I'm frightened and so I create a I take my good intentions and I create garbage and if if I will take them and simply put them in the in the program process and and into God's hands God recycles my garbage back into something that can help somebody else if I will allow it to happen. So uh I'll share with you a couple uh few weeks ago I when the gas prices were still astronomically high I was I was at Costco pumping gas and uh the attendant came over and said sir please don't top off your tank. And I turned to him and I said look buddy I says the time day you start putting your credit card in that machine you can tell me how to pump the gas.

Until then by God I'm pumping it the way I want to. Yeah. I mean it's times like these I'm so happy that there is no I'm a friend of Bill W bumper sticker on the back of my car.

See my anonymity is not for me it's for you. And I hadn't even got the pump back on the hook and of course because you've awakened me I knew I was wrong. It just felt wrong.

And so what I did is I I immediately went to that gentleman I said you know I had absolutely no right to talk to you that way that was completely disrespectful and you're standing out here in this wind and cold and and and trying so we can get gas and help us and I'm I'm sincerely sorry that I I I was disrespectful to you that way. Please accept my apologies. And we we started a conversation we did.

I taught I immediately when I left there I got on my phone and I called the newest guy that I'm working with and I told him exactly what I his sponsor had just done. And that's the way we work and it turns out to be a a very a very effective way to do things. See the image that was given to me see I I got here because I I was picking all my knowledge of step works in our program up out of what I heard in meetings.

I'd hear something in this meeting over here and I'd repeat it in that meeting over there if I thought it sounded good. Uh and so I didn't have a program what I had was a collection of sound bites. And I well I just lost my train of thought I don't know.

Uh Oh yes the the So the man that explained this to me in a way in a way that made sense to me you know because I thought 10th step okay I I sit and I do the 10th step at night before I I go to bed. That's what I do is I'll do my 10th step at the end of the day and I I I review my day and all that kind of stuff. And he said well Mike let me ask you this.

He says suppose I was walking my dog and I walked past your house and my dog made a deposit on your lawn. He says would you like would you like it if I came up to you and said well look you'll be happy to know I'm part of a spiritual program and I'm going to think about this later today and if I decide that I my dog shouldn't have dumped on your lawn I may come back tomorrow or the next day and clean it up. Uh how would you feel about that?

No he says what about if I immediately told you I was sorry about what my dog had done and I cleaned up the mess right on the spot. Would you like that better? Uh-huh.

Uh so this whole 10th step business is is about the here and now. The spiritual life is not is as was mentioned yesterday the spiritual life is happening right here right now in this moment. It's the only place God and I can can meet together.

And so I uh The adjectives in the 10th step we you know we ask God at once. You know doesn't mean I was told by the way it doesn't mean he delivers it at once but you're my job is to ask at once. So I ask at once.

You know I make amends quickly. I do quickly at once all of this stuff. I do this stuff rapidly.

I don't I don't waste time with it. And then I turn my thoughts to somebody else I can help. And if I do that I get to be part of God's recycling program and I don't think it's any action accident that uh that our uh the 10th step promises are such wonderful set of promises.

And I uh They tell me by this time you know I'm I'm going to seldom think about alcohol. And that I'm going to actually this is where this is the point where a sane life starts to happen for me again. And can't you imagine it what what would be a saner life for me going along hey uh me out there living with my best intentions I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to clean it up right here right now.

And as I as I told you that uh uh that's born so much fruit in my life. I uh This whole business of self-examiner examination and inventory is so important that we get asked to do it in any number of places in our program. Uh obviously in the fourth step the 10th step the 11th step and inventory at all levels is so important that uh I didn't I didn't really have a first step that I could hang on to until I got a fourth step.

And I'll share you I'll share with you just quickly where my first step came from where I really understood it and maybe it'll be of some use to you. Uh this is uh this is a piece of conduct inventory I wrote about the love of my life the woman my college sweetheart the guy the girl I wanted to marry and the one woman I wanted to have my children with. Uh And it's not long this is her name was Ellen.

Where was I selfish? I wanted to enjoy sex with her regardless of the consequences. Where was I dishonest?

I told her not to worry that I'd always be there for her no matter what. I dishonestly refused to consider my ability and willingness to keep that promise. I was inconsiderate I gave no consideration to the consequences to her of of my behavior to her her family her faith her reputation and her career.

I aroused jealousy told her if she didn't have sex with me that I'd get it elsewhere. I paid an undue attention to other women in her presence and I told her how attractive I found them. That's nice way to treat the woman you love.

I aroused suspicion often spent time alone with other women and she found me in Holly's apartment. Bitterness when she became pregnant I told her I doubted that it was my child told her that I was too young to get married and didn't want to marry her anyway and when she was in California having our baby I made drunken phone calls to her rang her and I abandoned her and our child and because I was back home in the Midwest and she was in California I was the one that's telling the story look at she abandoned me. Uh who did I harm?

Well I harmed the baby obviously Ellen her family my family and our friends. Uh what should I have done instead? Uh Don said well almost anything would be an improvement.

>> >> And this became the foundation for the first I've got others since but the my my first ideal for my conduct here is that I should have treated sex as a sacred gift that it is. I shouldn't have engaged in behavior that I wasn't willing to be responsible for. I should have honestly faced the consequences of my action.

I should have been honest with myself and others. My harms were all rooted in dishonesty particularly about how afraid I was. Self-reliance will always produce fear and pain.

And see I got the first step because this is where I got a first step because I understood that I loved this woman so much that if I could have treated her any other way, I would have. This was the best I could do with the person I loved most on my power putting everything I had into the effort. This is the best I could do.

And I looked at it and my spiritual awakening at the time was understanding that I could keep trying the rest of my life, but it would it was always going to be some version of this story as long as I did this on my will. And if all I'd done is just not drinking and if I'd if you hadn't encouraged me and forced me to pick up a pen, I would have I would have never never gotten anchored in this. I mean, obviously amends flowed out of that and other things.

Uh but that's that is the foundation years later that allowed me to have a a loving relationship with a woman like Linda. Uh and have that woman uh look at me and tell me she loved me and she wanted to spend her life with me. Uh what a gift.

Uh and it all began with the disappointment of my ego. I uh >> >> We move into the talk a bit about step 11 here. I uh I'm not going to try and give you techniques or anything like that here.

Uh I'm going to just maybe tell you a few stories about my experience and uh one of the one of the beautiful things that happened here as I approached this is the people that that revolutionized my life in the in this area. Uh they would they would give me they would give me what seemed like vague outlines and point me maybe in different directions and and pick me up when I fell down a little bit, but they would never uh I remember asking Don, I said, you know, "Well, tell me to get more specific. Tell me about your guide." And he says, "No, I'm not going to do that." He says, "If I do that," he says, "what you'll do," he says, "you're a spiritual thief." He says, "What you" No.

If I lay out my experience for you in that depth, he says, "What you'll do is you'll just simply take my experience and you'll never have your own and it never really will be your own." So, I can point to directions. I can give you some guidance and stuff like that, but you had you need to have your own experience. I remember the one of the one of those moments that uh we had so much fun together.

Uh I'm going, "Don, I don't think God's going to work for me." And he looked at me and he says, "Well, why should he?" And I got another old idea. See, I thought God was supposed to work for me. Hello, you know.

As a matter of fact, Don kind of he he kept smiling more and more and I kept getting the idea, "Oh, you mean it's the other way around, huh?" And uh that's what that's what a spiritual awakening's like. And that's that's what the the sweet teacher is like for me. I uh I found uh I actually found my uh conception of God by doing a piece of inventory.

You know, bore you with all of that, but I'll I'll show you how that process works because see, the beginning of the solution of any problem I've got begins with the acknowledgement that I'm powerless in the in in the in what Mike's bringing to the party to try and fix this isn't working. Uh and I don't need to spend days or weeks or months on that. And likewise, I can very quickly and do I believe spiritual help's available to me with this problem?

Am I willing to ask for spiritual help? Am I willing to examine my behavior? You know, am I you know, am I willing to take this and place this in God's hands and in in follow the direction that I'm given there.

I don't need to spend months or weeks working on this. It's it happens in a flash. Uh we've had several uh people with legal educations talk to us this weekend.

I mean, uh every every profession every discipline has got their problem-solving method. There's a legal problem-solving method that the way the way the lawyer will walk through the problem. Well, we have a spiritual problem-solving method and it's our 12 steps.

And so, whether it's an expanded version or very quickly, we're always operating from this on the same principles here. Uh This was a this was not my first inventory and I'll tell you with any of this if I was writing it again today, I'd write it neater, better, and you know, with and all that kind of stuff. Uh I'm alive because I was willing and people let me write inadequate bad inventory.

Uh but it was good enough to get me to the next step in the road. Uh And this was a inventory that I resisted writing because for a whole variety of reasons, but uh another man named Mickey said, "Look, if you don't write this inventory, uh just quit calling me. I don't want to hear about it anymore." Uh And so, I wrote the inventory.

And the inventory, the reason I wrote it, it was about all the ways at the at this time that I was resenting and hating myself. Uh and I didn't want to write the inventory cuz I'm a smart guy. I know that means I'm eventually going to have to make amends to myself.

And uh I've heard those guys in the meetings that talk about making amends to themselves. "Oh, I hurt myself worse than anybody else and so, I'm going to get myself a new Porsche instead of paying my child support, you know." I yeah, I see, I don't want to be that guy. It's it's my image.

And so, I'm not going to write the inventory. But I write the inventory here cuz Mickey drove uh Here I am in the first column, second column. Uh I'm I'm not a I'm un I'm unable to be a true friend.

I gossip. I only pretend to care about you. My mind's always fixed on me.

Watch your wife or girlfriend around me. Uh What's this effect? Well, my self-esteem cuz I don't respect my own behavior.

Imagine that. Uh my security's lacking because I assume other people either like me and don't really care or they're better than I am because they do. I built myself a box where I'm screwed either way.

Uh affects my personal and sex relations because I'm always looking for my own pleasure and trying to manipulate other manipulate other people for my benefit. Uh Even the so-called good things I do are done to impress others or benefit me and manage and control how other people see me. Uh Uh >> >> My mistakes, unwilling to trust God, demand to be the center of attention.

Uh and it goes on. Found an old idea there. Uh Why was why was I chasing your wife or your girlfriend?

Uh I was actually trying to steal some self-esteem. If I can be loved by somebody you want, uh I can steal a little self-worth. Uh not terribly functional, but it worked.

I uh I got I come from a tradition and because I'm an alcoholic, by the way, anytime I do the slightest bit of work, I want the maximum benefit out of it. I mean, if if you if you want to if you want to mess with an alcoholic's mind, let him think he may have done some unnecessary work. I mean, it it's just it It just drives us crazy.

And so, I I fifth-stepped that material with Mickey and everything else and and that was okay, but again, I I took I took that back to Don and and and Don heard something else in there because there was page after page of stuff like that. Uh And he he said, "Mike, I hear I hear in there in every one of those fourth columns, it's some version of unable or unwilling to trust God. Unable or unwilling to trust God." He says, "Mike, since I I know you a little bit," he says, "I believe you're a man who truly like to trust God.

So, if you're not trusting God, there must be something blocking you. Let's see if we can find out what it is." And what had happened, I I went into some consideration and talked to Don a day or two later and what I'd gone back at that time I was operating with the uh uh a vision of God as God the Father. And as I wrote and thought about this, I realized I I admired my father.

My father was my one of my biggest heroes. I loved the man. Uh But what I came to is I came back to a place and I saw myself sitting at the kitchen table with my dad when I'd come back from Vietnam and I'd been back for maybe a 6 months or a year now and uh >> >> I was partying because I was entitled to.

Uh and my dad my dad was a I'm I resemble my mom. My dad was a big football player. Uh uh went to college on a scholarship as a tackle at Drake University.

And so, uh tackles in the '30s weren't as big as they are today, but he was a big man and uh there's that big man sitting in front of my my powerful hero and and he's got there's a pile of my bad checks between us. And my my dad's got tears in his eyes and he says, "Son, I love you more than I can begin to tell you." And he says, "I would do anything in the world to help you, but it seems like the more I help you, the worse you screw up. What am I going to do with you?

Uh And see, because I was operating with what had been a good conception up to then of God the Father, I heard God saying to me, "Mike, look at all I've given to you. I've saved your life in Vietnam. I I've given you careers.

I've given you relationships. I've given you money. I've given you this.

I've given you that. And you keep screwing up. What am I going to do with you?" See, what was perfectly appropriate for my head my my earthly father to tell me was something that blocked me from a real relationship uh with that power greater than myself.

And one of the things I'd gotten taught along the way, by the way, was that uh conceptions are important. Uh conceptions rather than concept, because conceptions can be changed. Concepts can't.

Uh So, my conception is very important, but I want to hold on to it loosely. Uh a description a man used that made sense to me. He said he was um a man from India.

He says, "If I want to go visit my friend in the next village, I I will get on my donkey and ride to the next village. But if I want to go into the my my friend's house and visit him, I must dismount from my donkey." So, the that which carried me on the journey at some point is the thing that prevents me from completing the ver- the journey if I insist on hanging on to it. Uh So, that's part of part of what I need to do and stay fresh around here.

Uh and where step 11 becomes so important to me. How do I stay fresh? How do how do I stay in consciousness of of what has carried me as far as it's going to carry me now, and I need to dismount, and I need to learn something new in order to move on and continue to grow and be a useful in the in this program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I uh So, that became the vision. Uh what I got is I and I I'm a guy that needs things simple. Uh so, uh I I had to come up with uh I came up with what I call my four pillars.

The the four points that my relationship with God sits on today. Uh it's a conception. It may change.

Uh But in a general way, the most important thing for me to to have in that conception is that God's not angry. Uh See, uh I don't know about you, but I'm not going to really open myself up to an angry person. Would you?

Uh Would How How How intimate are you going to be with somebody where you where you're never going to be good enough? You're always failing. You're always behind the eight ball.

So, it was absolutely vital for me at at the beginning of everything to know that God wasn't angry with me. And so, that's the cornerstone. The next The next piece was that uh God doesn't think comparatively.

Uh God loved me just as much when I'm standing in a liquor store writing a bad check to buy a bottle of whiskey to go seduce the neighbor's wife as he does when I'm down at Salvation Army holding out my hand to the newcomer. Now, make no mistake. I get different consequences according to which of those things I'm doing.

But that's not God punishing me. That's just me getting the consequences of my actions, you know. Uh It's uh I don't know why I thought God was punishing me all the time.

I was just si- experiencing the natural and normal consequences of my actions. So, God's not angry. God doesn't think comparatively.

And then one of the questions that revolutionized my life was simply this. Mike, what would your life look like if you took the position that God wants your happiness more than you do yourself? Now, I don't know about you, but I'd never thought of God as wanting me to be happy.

I thought God wanted me to be good. God wanted me to work hard. God wanted me to help you.

Uh everything. I never thought of God primarily as just wanting me to be happy. Now, that's a relationship I'll show up for.

You know, "Oh, you want me to be I'll be over to your place in a hurry." Uh And then finally on the other side of that simply uh the final piece is would it be possible that God might know what would make me happy more than I do myself? And that's where all these stacks of inventories came in. I looked at that and I said, "Yeah, here it is.

This is If you want to boil this inventory down, it it's 40-odd years of me doing the best I can to make me happy." Uh And I've failed utterly, and I've harmed others. I start out with good intentions, and I end up as a man that terrifies children. Uh I'm an I turn into uh somebody that I can't look at in the mirror.

Uh So, yes. I'm willing to buy that God might know what would make me happy more than I do myself. And uh they gave me the other piece there.

They pointed out It should have been obvious, but they said, "Mike, there's a difference between happiness and pleasure." Uh >> >> See, and I always had conflated those two things. There's a word for Peggy. Uh I What I didn't know What I didn't understand is that that pleasure is is like me uh just mainlining a pint of Häagen-Dazs, you know.

And you know, it's it's going to feel real good, but there's going to be a price to pay for it on the other side. And happiness true happiness, there's no downside. There's no consequence to happiness that's on the downside.

Happiness fills me up. It sustains me. It's uh it There There isn't a price to pay for the happiness.

So, I uh >> >> I moved on. I was uh I was blessed by a uh experience when I had probably 60 days in my my pre-step working days here. I I'd gone to one of those meetings that I told you about, and I There was a man who had an attractive message in that meeting.

I Uh his name was Jim, and uh Jim would always begin his whatever he'd say behind, "My name is Jim, and he says, 'I'm an a devout 11 stepper.'" And nobody else seemed to talk like that. And I I paid attention to Jim. And uh I of course, being who I was at the time, I noticed Jim had a corporate jet and flew around and uh and had had businesses in Mexico and Switzerland and so forth and so.

Uh Jim was attractive to me for any number of reasons. Uh But I thought, "Well, if this 11 step's so important to Jim, maybe I ought to try it." So, I went I went home to this little apartment I'm in at the time, and I got in my easy chair, and I got out the 12 and 12, and read the 11 step in there, and read the Saint Francis prayer, and something happened. I I don't know.

I I went somewhere, and then I came back. >> >> And a couple days later, I'm sitting in an AA meeting, and I noticed the guy across the table from me is firing up a cigarette. And it hit me.

Oh my God. See, I'm At this time, I'm the kind of smoker that annoys other smokers. I'm a three-pack-a-day, you know, just hope-to-die cigarette smoker.

Uh I've made no decision to quit, and I haven't had a cigarette in 3 days. They're in my pocket, but I haven't reached for one in 3 days. And the only thing that's happened was that little experience, whatever it was, in the chair.

Now, immediately, I'm horrified, and I borrowed a cigarette from the guy I be- I begi- I began smoking rapidly. But see, I I got a I got a clue that, "Wow, there's some there's some real power available here." And so, I did what every good alcoholic would do. I ran back home, got my chair, got the 12 and 12.

I think I put on the same pair of blue jeans, and I don't know if I could I don't know if I could find the same pair of underwear, but whatever it it was I was I'm going to recreate the experience. And nothing happened. >> >> And I smoked for another couple years.

Uh But uh But what happened here in in the significance of all this is God had given me a free sample. Uh He'd He'd shown He'd shown me that there was this the power available in our 11 step was real. It's tangible, and it's not just kind of la-di-da for people who want to get extra credit and brown-nose the teacher in AA.

This This is This is where the real deal is. Uh And then he did another loving thing. See, because he wouldn't let me with my own power recreate that experience and manage it.

Uh because if I could create and manage that own that experience there, uh who'd be God, you know? I wouldn't need God. I'd just, you know, he'd be a subcontractor there.

And in that reminds me that whole deal about you know, whether God likes me according to how I'm behaving. Just think about it. If I can change whether God likes me or not by how I'm acting, again, who's God?

I can make him like me. I can make him not like me. I can, you know, give me a break.

See, my mind's always trying to take me back to that place where I'm playing God. Every every every the solution to all these problems keeps coming up, you know, okay, uh whether it's the office, whether it's in a relationship, everything else, where have I tried with good intentions, of course, but where have I been trying to play God here? You know?

I uh I uh see, where am I? Just uh Oh, okay. Another important thing that guy Don told me, he said uh took care of another one of my old ideas.

He says, Mike, he says, you need to know that God's a gentleman and he won't change you without your permission. Uh and that was important for me, too. Uh because I was I was so I was so afraid in this thing it well, what what am I going to be like if I turn my will and my life over the care of God?

What what will my life look like if I'm on the spiritual path? You know, will I ever get laid again? I mean, you know, what what's you know, well, I'm sorry, but, you know, am I going to make any money?

I mean, you know, you know, how am I going to I need my Starbucks. I, you know, I And so I uh I got on this path and and as I woke up, part of one of the things in my home group that that we do to begin our meetings now and that would that started helping me is we start our meetings with a 5-minute meditation. And we find out we we find the quality of the meetings when we do that are are are much better than the quality of the meetings when when that somehow doesn't happen.

Uh that we all we're all starting from a better place here. I uh I'm going to run out of time, so I want to I want to tell you about the the most im- the most important prayer that has come to me or maybe the most important prayer that's come to me uh in my time in Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh and I got there, not surprisingly again, through a piece of inventory.

Uh I uh as part of managing my life when I got here in my junior guru phase in Alcoholics Anonymous, I I got into the perfect AA marriage, you know, and I even had my sponsor perform the marriage ceremony cuz I thought that would give me some insurance on on how how the how the marriage was going to go. And uh it turned out not. Uh So, I uh part of I I identified so much with Ralph's courage yesterday.

See, I found myself at 7 years sober living in a sleeping bag on the floor of the den of my best friend after my wife had put me out of the house uh and this was not what my AA image wanted I wanted to be around here. Uh We went ahead and we got that divorce and it was respectful and so forth and so I got to start seeing my uh shortly after we said that I got to start spending time with my son Andrew. And uh one night uh I'd I'd have him usually for a long weekend.

I'd have him Friday, Saturday, Sunday uh and take him to school on Monday morning. And so Friday night Andrew comes to me and he says, Mike, he's 6 at the time and Andrew says, Mike, he says, I'm tired of McDonald's and all those kids places and Applebee's and everything. He says, would you take me to a grown-up restaurant tonight?

I said, sure, Andrew, I'll do that. So, I take Andrew to a grown-up restaurant. And we're we're going along and we're having fun and all of a sudden, I start looking around and I'm I'm here with a 6-year-old and I'm surrounded by couples in love.

And and the and the way of a self-pity tsunami just hits me. I Every every every everybody else here is sitting there and they're in love and I'm with the 6-year-old. God, you know, it's a You you've taught me how to behave by this time, so I treat my boy right and we finish our meal and go home and we watch the video and I give him a bath and put him to bed and everything else, but as soon as his little butt hit that mattress, I got my pen out and I'm writing, you know, and I'm mad.

I am hot and I am mad at God. And uh I was taught that I could, you know, part of any real relationship, you know, uh if you can't be angry with somebody, you don't have a relationship. Uh and so because now I got a relationship with God, I can get angry with God.

And I don't have to do that in a fearful way. But uh so here's the little inventory that came out of that. Uh Uh first column, who do I resent?

God. Why? Well, because I don't have the relationship I want to have with a woman.

I think God's going to only give me the choice between having a sick relationship or no relationship. You're cruel. I've I'm lonely.

People that I sponsor are having better relationships than I am. It gets better. I'm afraid that God will keep me in this pain because I will be more useful to others this way that if I have the relationship that I have in this life I'm a Yeah, get down off the cross, Mike.

We need the wood. >> >> I feel like God has given me the gift of communication with others and the price of the gift is my own happiness. I'm mad because I know only that God could God only that only God can help me and I don't believe he will.

And uh Well, anyway, I didn't know I was going to be reading that from here when I wrote it. Thank God. Apparently some people identify, though.

Uh well, what's it affect? It affects my self-esteem because I'll I I feel like I'll sell out my principles to have a comfortable relationship. In fact, I might do something like hit on a newcomer.

As a as a result, I feel like a phony. Don says, that's cuz you're phony. Uh It's distorted my sex relations.

Uh I I I I came up with my solution to my sex life at this time and post-divorce, I did what all the major corporations were doing. I decided to outsource my sex life and uh So, so what I did was I uh I entered into a a sex-only relationship with a woman who is not in Alcoholics Anonymous. No dates, no movies, no flowers, no dinners.

Uh we just emailed or called and made appointments for racquetball. And and uh see, well, it says I'm in engaged in this increasingly emotionally unsatisfying sex-only relationship. I'm starting to buying porn again.

Uh affects my first personal relationships and keeps me jealous of others and comparing myself and coveting what they have. I'm absolutely unwilling to share my pain about this. I feel ashamed, apart from flawed and different.

My unbalanced drive in this area makes me vulnerable to getting drunk. Compromising my principles will get me drunk and I know that I don't have the strength not to do this on my own. Uh And uh my mistakes here.

Uh I'm not willing to give this to God because I don't think he's interested or willing to help me. God doesn't care about my sex life. God doesn't care whether I have a woman my life.

Uh And I'm absolutely willing to sell out my principles for re- for relief. Uh I'm I'm impatient. Uh I'm not willing to take an honest look at what this fantasy relationship isn't going to do for me and I'm looking for somebody else to fill me up and make me feel safe and secure and only God can do that.

Uh I'm if I was in a relationship, I'd be be misusing it at this point. So, uh I immediately This is all the same night. I'm I'm I'm on the phone and I call the old-timer in my home group and I call Gary up and I read it to him and uh then I start working my way west across the time zones and I uh >> >> I uh I get a hold of Don and I I read that to Don and you know, he's got some comments.

Well, like you said, "Well, yeah, you're a phony." And he says, "Well, Mike." He says, "You know, you don't want Miss Right, you want Miss Right Now." And uh He said, "What I want What I want you to do." And here's where my it's Clancy talked sex and inches, you know. This is This is a pivot point for my life and this is what 16 years ago now. Uh He says, "Mike, I want you to do this and just this." He says, "I want you to start praying a prayer and the prayer is just this, God, please teach me about love." He says, "You know a lot about sex, you don't know anything about love." And so, I'm you know, I didn't It was almost like a throwaway and I called a guy in California then to see if I could get a different answer and uh I >> >> But I loved Don and I trusted Don, so I I I follow followed his direction.

And I got uh One part of my deal with him is that if I did what he suggested and I didn't like the results, I could call him back and complain. So, about 2 weeks later, I called Don up and I says, "Don, I says, you need to know I don't think much of your damn prayer." And he says, "Well, what's wrong, cowboy?" And I says, "Well, since I started saying your prayer," it was his prayer then, uh since I started saying your prayer, the only woman I was really interested in got a job transfer and left town and on top of that, I went to see my doctor the other day and he gave me some blood pressure medic- medication that's made me impotent, you know." And And he says, "I think you misunderstood the prayer." He says, "The prayer wasn't God, get me a woman." He says, "The God, teach me about love. Work with me on this." And so, I continued to pray the prayer and live a life in meditation.

And a wonderful thing happened. I I fell absolutely head over heels completely in love with my son. Now, I'd always loved him, >> >> but he and his mother had always had a little something different going than what he and I had going.

And there was There was just like a There was some kind of a wall or barrier, I don't know what. Uh But it went away. And I just loved my son wildly and I do to this day.

And we have a wonderful time. He's a great kid. Don loved him, by the way.

Uh Don and Donny Don had come to town and Don had go over in corner with Andrew and he'd come back shaking his head. He says, "That boy is a very old spirit, Mike. Pay attention to him." I He's 4 years old.

I pick him up at daycare and I'm bringing him home and he turns to me and I I was talking about something. He says, "Mike, you know, it seems to me your life might work better if you said the second thing that comes to your mind, you know." >> >> My ex-wife told me, you know, she she made amends to him. She says, "Andrew, I'm sorry that my inability to have a stable relationship with a man has caused such chaos in your life." And he looked at her and he said, "Mom," he says, "I think it's been a lot harder on you than it's been on me." Yeah.

And the next thing was I fell in love with that ex-wife again. I didn't I didn't want to marry her again, but what happened is God restored her to the place she had in my heart before we got married. And what happened was that we were Lori and I were two people that met in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and and we were well suited to be in each other's really good friend, but we're alcoholics, so marriage sounded like it was more.

And And what what happened was God just restored us to that place of friendship. Uh and that exists to this day. Uh And So, year after year, the prayer has unfolded in new and different ways.

I uh I get to uh have a new meaning to that prayer. I've uh I met I met Linda in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I met her in a different way. She and I'd been friends for a lot of years before we became romantically involved.

Uh we were both with with other people. Her husband was a good friend of mine and he died suddenly and with a very vicious tack of pancreatic cancer that killed him in 3 months' time. Uh and I got I got to watch her care for him as he was dying.

Uh and I got to share a home group with her for a number of years. Uh and I was really astounded when I'm in the parking lot. We'd had a weekend workshop at the home group and can you imagine uh I'm standing in the parking lot and Linda comes up to me and this gorgeous woman uh comes up to me and she says, "Uh Mike, I love you." And I said, "Well, I love you, too, Linda." And she says, "No, I really love you." And she says, "How about a hug?" And so, I give her a hug.

She says, "No." She says, "I don't want that agape hug from you, I want a real hug, you know." Uh And it didn't It didn't start out of lust or anything like that. We started We started from a a place of of love and mutual respect and so forth and we got to uh we got to practice these principles and as a and she was she became one of my teachers, too. Because uh uh I feel realized I had a whole had a rule that only certain people were allowed to teach me things and I was missing learning a lot by by limiting number of people that I allowed to teach me things.

And uh she she did things to me like she came up to me we shortly after we became romantic, she came up to me and she says, "Mike," she says, "I've written out the primary purpose for our relationship here." She says, "I want I want I want to see yours, you know." And I oh God, you know. You You You want You want it in writing. So, I did what I did.

I I I did I came back. She used to She used to stand at the podium. She said, uh that her her primary purpose for our relationship was so specific that it it described the color, weight, and clarity of the diamond I was supposed to purchase and and mine was so vague that it could have covered my relationship with my cat.

Uh uh But she around starting from those two That's probably about the poles we Starting from those poles, we get to we get to form a common purpose. It provides a stable foundation for the relationship. And we did that One of that thing One of the things we did, she suggest we we sit on the couch side by side frequently and we just hold hands and we take turns talking out loud to God.

Now, it's really hard when you're sitting there holding her hand and talking to God to spin it that it's her fault. Uh you know. Uh And it's you know, it's just it's just a little thing, but it was one of the one of the ways She said, "Would you be willing to try this with me just just to see if we can we can start building the foundation of of of a spiritual life?" And we tried all kinds of things and and we meditated together and uh we had a wonderful time.

Uh And it wasn't always a smooth road, but because of the teachers that we both had, uh we got we learned how we could turn our problems into assets that we we actually grow stronger in the in the broken places. If we will if we will take those things and place them in God's hands. Uh So, when she died, I was sure that uh that the prayer had come to an end.

Uh I'd acted appropriately and and so forth, but she was gone. As matter of matter fact, I you know, I I thought that the prayer had actually turned into a cruel joke. Am I ever going to be able to talk about this again?

Teach me about love. How could you do this to me? I I get the I get the real deal and you take it away.

Uh And then I found out that the sky opened again and see, my next lesson is to accept the love of you because when she died, uh all of you were all over me loving me and everything else and you see I realized that I had an old rule that I'm the dispenser of love not the recipient of it. You know, because I felt much safer that way. And I found out it took real courage to let you love me.

Because I'm much more vulnerable than what if what what if you decide to stop loving me? It's better just to keep you at arms length in the first place. So I had to let you in and I had to let you love me.

And I've learned time and time at the lessons go on every day in terms of conscious loving. I was I was doing something last this summer I was I had a practice suggest to me some Mike would you be a friend of mine said Mike would you be willing to give God just 1 minute out of every hour you're awake in the day. I mean does that sound like a lot?

Could you You say God's everything. Would you be willing to give God a minute every hour? So I oh yeah, yeah, I can do that.

So I start doing that and I'm doing it for a couple days and then I get a call from my friend Annette and uh she's working that day and she has a she's having a migraine attack come on. I says don't worry about it. I says I'm already spending time with God every hour.

I will you know, you're you're going to be the focus of my meditation the rest of the day. And so I start out I'm going to I'm going to consciously love and hold Annette up in meditation. And that goes well for 2 hours.

In the third hour I sit down and I start to meditate for Annette and her migraine and everything else. And you you know, she'd take better care of herself. She wouldn't have these problems.

You know, I mean she you know, the way she drinks caffeine I mean it's no wonder that she you know, And like you see I get to laugh at myself. Because God all that God did is just reach over and give me a little nudge and say hey Mike, what you've got is a good idea and a good intention. You just don't have the power to make this happen on your own.

So I I guess if I've given you anything today I I hopefully a little experience, a couple laughs at my expense and maybe maybe an inkling that there's a lot to explore and enjoy here on this. This is this is the realm of the spirit and it's broad, roomy, and all-inclusive and room for all of us and there's always more to learn and more to do here. Uh I want to close up here with uh something I have found in Linda's effects as I was uh executing the my responsibilities to her estate.

You know, I think I have it here. Maybe not. Maybe we're not supposed to do that.

Well, apparently Linda in her spirit have intervened and decided not today. So I will simply leave you by uh asking that you just please remember me as loving you. Thank you very much.

>> >> 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.

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