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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. >> All right.

Hi everybody. My name is Tom Pick and I am an alcoholic. >> Hey.

>> Hey guys. Um glad to be here tonight. I um I was asked a couple days ago to do this and I I've had such a a cool experience in Alcoholics Anonymous that I mean one of my favorite things to do is is to just run my mouth about it and and share what I've gotten out of this deal.

So I'm um I'm as thrilled as anybody to to be here tonight. Um, you know, my my story isn't, you know, very much different than than most people's NA. Um, there's a lot of things that haven't happened to me.

I've never had a DWI. I've never been to prison. Never been divorced.

I've never I was going to say I never lost a job, but that's not true. Uh, I lost one job back in ' 87. Um, but there there's there's a lot of things that that that I haven't experienced that a lot of people in AA have.

Um, on the other hand, I um I started uh drinking real young when I was 10 or 11 years old and I was drinking on a daily basis at the age of 12, which doesn't by itself make me an alcoholic. But what what it I I I say that to to illustrate the the fact that, you know, at a at a very very early age, I was just unhappy. And and yeah, there were some things going on in my life, parents, divorce, and that kind of stuff.

But if even if you disregard that stuff, like the book talks about, I was I was restless and irritable and discontent. No matter how great things are going or how poorly things are going, that is my natural state. That's what I'm like without alcohol.

Um, you know, I'm kind of like that, like the dog in the middle of the floor that he circles up and he tries to find a little spot to sit down and finally after about three or four um loops around the carpet, he finds the right spot and he just drops and he's just perfectly happy. I never find my spot. I'm just I'm I'm anxious.

I'm bored. Um I'm I'm always irritable. Um I always feel like I want to be doing something, but I got no idea what it is.

I can't go to bed cuz I'm afraid I'll miss something. You kind of get what I mean? And and so that's how I was with without booze.

Once I started drinking, all that stuff went away. And and The reason I drank on a daily basis was because this this spiritual malady that the book talks about was was upon me every day and it had to get fixed every day. And so that was that was my solution to my problem.

Um when when I drank I I don't I don't know if I ever had control over my drinking. The book talks about how some of us, you know, we we cross a line where we where we've lost control. I don't I honestly don't remember having control.

Um, you know, I remember wishing that I could, you know, have three or four drinks, five drinks, maybe six drinks or seven, get really buzzed, and then stop. I I always wanted to be able to do that, and I never could, and I never understood why. Um, and for my first, you know, 17 years around AA, it was never explained to me.

You guys talk about in your preamble, um, about the the physical allergy to to alcohol, which, um, which, uh, Dr. Silkworth talks about in the doctor's opinion, you know, what how that allergy presents itself in in my case, and any real alcoholic's case, is it causes me to crave more alcohol when I put booze in my body. That's that's what it does for me.

That's why when I try to get away with having six or seven drinks and getting really lit, I can't stop. I keep going and going and going and going until I either pass out or fall asleep or get arrested or, you know, something happens um against my will that that gets me to gets me to stop. Otherwise, you know, if I could stay awake, I' i'd probably poison myself with alcohol.

I'd probably just drink myself to death. People have done it before, mostly fraternity guys, but um you know, with little lightweights. Um but I, you know, fortunately for me, that's never happened.

So, you know, moving forward in time, I um because of my drink and because of, you know, the obvious problems that that come along with it, not going to school, uh not getting along with my family, um major major depression, no no ambition, none of this stuff. Um I ended up in in three separate psychiatric hospitals between the age of 14 and 18. And um two of them were long-term places for 16 months each and the other ones was for for about 4 months uh up in Chicago where I where I grew up.

And um I can tell you those those had to be the most most miserable periods of my life cuz I was I was removed from the booze. I was removed from my solution and and this spiritual malady just grew and grew and grew and they're trying to treat it from a therapy angle. But what I've got is a spiritual problem that requires a spiritual solution, which I'll I'll I'll talk more about that in a few minutes.

But I'm I'm in these places and the idea is that if I just talk about my feelings, if I just purge them, deal with my parents' divorce, my mother's drink, and all these issues that they assigned to me, if I can just deal with this stuff and get it out and cry or whatever I'm supposed to do, everything's going to be okay. I'm not going to have to drink anymore. Um there's people I've watched people for you know almost two decades in AA the same people talking about the same problems for 10 15 20 years and and they're just they're absolutely miserable and they and they think that if they can just get their hands around this stuff and resolve it whatever that means they won't have to drink anymore because what we do in in our meetings and I I don't know about this group but I know in the groups I was going to the message we send is hey you got a problem bring it to the meeting we'll help you fix it so you don't have to drink over it and and the truth is is that we don't drink over that stuff you know this deal is it's a it's a genetic thing out of the number that they throw around is you know one in 10 of us caught the magic bullet and and we're predisposed to this thing.

Um, there's millions of people who've had much worse lives than I have. You know, horrendous childhoods, abuse, rape, incest. I mean, you name it.

They've gone through this stuff and it didn't turn them into alcoholics. So, why are we going to take our issues and and blame our alcoholism on that stuff? It it just it doesn't make sense to me.

Now, when I was sitting in the middle of these discussion meetings, it made all the sense in the world because, you know, I started going to these meetings and and that pretty much became the doctrine. When you hear this stuff over and over and over, you start to think that that this is the way things are supposed to be. Um, you know, like a lot of folks, I I came to AA through uh through a treatment center.

I I had to go back to Chicago. I was living in Austin at the time and um I was 22 years old and things were just crazy out of control and I called my dad, asked him to send me a plane ticket cuz I wanted to go up and hang out with dad and you know kind of buddy up with him for a while and spend some quality time with him and hadn't seen him in a while and he he wasn't having any part of that. He told me, you know, look, I'll bring you up here, but you're going straight from O'Hare, the airport, to to this treatment center in in um little suburb north of Chicago.

And after I thought about a little bit, I've by the way, the the cops are knocking on my door at this time. That that's kind of what it's what got me to call dad to see if I could come up to Chicago. Um but it was some chicken thing.

They were they were knocking over and they they ended up going away, but I was like, "Okay, Dad. I'll I'll I'll take this deal. I'll go cuz I I thought they'd come back.

Um so I went and I went and got treated and came back to Austin. I had uh I got out on my 23rd birthday and I had I don't know 28 29 days something like that. And I I started following the directions they gave me.

They told me to um you know go to 90 meetings in 90 days and get a sponsor and do all sorts of stuff. So, I was like, "Okay, I'm in." And I went down I went to my first meeting the night I got out and um I got there and man, these were the coolest people in the world. I mean, they all came up, introduced themselves, kind of a younger crowd, lots of pretty girls.

Um and I I like these people. And I started going to their meetings and I started doing that 90 meetings in 90 days. Um the the problem was is is by the time I got there, I wasn't feeling any of the pain from when I was drinking.

Any motivation that I would have had to have taken the steps was was just gone by the time I got out and started going to the meetings. And so, yeah, you know, I knew it might be a good idea to do the steps cuz I heard people talking about them and we put them on the walls and but I didn't understand what they were about. I I thought I thought that they were about, you know, turning Tom into a good boy.

And I'm thinking, you know, I'm not drinking. And all that bad stuff that was happening when I drank, it quit happening. I'm a good boy.

So I I didn't really see the the the dire need to do this stuff. Um and so I didn't I kind of dragged my heels and did little little vain attempts at the steps. I had uh I had um some sponsors I I thought were good sponsors and and they were they were great people, but the problem was is that we didn't have any direction on how to do this program in our meetings.

We weren't bringing the big book to the meetings. We weren't talking about God in the steps. In fact, we didn't make a conscious effort to to not talk about God, but it didn't come up that much.

We didn't want to freak out any new people or make them think it was some kind of religious thing or or something like that. Well, you know, think about this. Our only solution is God.

Why in the hell wouldn't we talk about God in our meetings? That's the only thing that can fix this deal. We weren't doing that.

We weren't talking about God in the steps. What we were talking about is our day and our problems and our issues and our past traumas and and you name it, man. I mean, you know, it was it was discussion hell.

And um after a couple years, this stuff, I mean, it just started to grind on me. And after about 5 years, I'm I'm starting to resent the people that are that are participating in these meetings because I'm hearing the same things over and over. And it and it's just it's getting boring.

It's getting extremely boring. By that time, I had heard every slogan, every bumper sticker, every saying, um, and even three or four lines quoted out of the bid book. I I mean, I had heard it all.

And, and there was nothing fresh. And so, I'm, you know, I'm just stuck in these meetings. I'm afraid to leave the meetings cuz I was taught that if, you know, that the people that quit coming drank.

So, I'm thinking, well, okay, I've, you know, I can come. I mean, I got time. I got I'll show up.

you know, what the hell? And so that became my doctrine. And and we started, you know, training each other to to think through the drink and as if, you know, remembering how bad it was when I when I finished drinking is is going to scare me into keeping the first taking the first drink.

Man, when I think through the drink, I drink. You know, my mind takes me back to that sense of ease and comfort that Dr. Silkworth talks about that comes at once by taking a few drinks, you know.

So, I'm I remember I I had I moved to to Dallas from Austin in '98 and I remember being here for a few years. I think I had had about 15 years and I'm I I'm sitting in this meeting. It's a men's meeting.

this uh discussion meeting on Saturday mornings and and these guys are just they're just killing me. On on one hand, I really love them cuz I've spent, you know, 300 Saturdays with them, but on the other hand, I am so freaking tired of hearing about Mike's cat dying and Kelly's divorce and Joe's job problems and and all this stuff. I've just I've just absolutely had it.

And we're and we're going around in a circle and the chairman picked some topic. I don't know what it was. Doesn't matter.

But he starts calling on people and the topic keeps changing every time he calls on somebody because everybody's talking about themselves and so the topic will change. It gets to me and and I'm not prepared. I hadn't been sitting there working on my act.

I had no idea what to say cuz I I just I wasn't into the meeting. I wasn't preparing what I was going to say in the event that I got called on. So I paused for a minute and I said, "You know, my name's Tom.

I'm an alcoholic." And they all said, "Hi, Tom." And I said, "Look, man. I don't, you know, I don't want to scare any new people in this room, but I feel like I'm going to drink again. And I don't think it's going to be today or tomorrow or this week.

Maybe not even this month. And and maybe not even this year. But I'm I'm on a path where I'm going to drink again." and and I I can't derail this thing.

And um and they all said, you know, we love you. And then they kind of shared at me for the rest of the meeting. And then they they came up to me and gave me hugs afterwards and gave me advice like um you know, come early, make the coffee, set up chairs, double up in my meetings.

And I'm just thinking if setting up chairs and making coffee and doubling up on meetings is my answer, I'm I'm just I'm freaking dead. I'm just I ain't going to make it. And and two years later, I didn't.

um all those things that that I had bet my life on meeting attendance and thinking through the drink and and the laurels that I had accomplished at one time by doing treatment center meetings and other stuff. All that stuff that I was betting my life on quit working. The mental defense that I had to have didn't stop me.

And and before I drank, I had a dialogue with myself. You know, it wasn't like, you know, Jim's story where suddenly the thought, you know, maybe the thought came into my mind suddenly, but I I had time to have a dialogue with myself and I remember telling myself, "Buddy, don't do this. You're going to lose your sobriety date.

You could lose your family, your kid, your business, your life, your friends, all this stuff. You could lose all this stuff. Don't do it." And by then it was it was just too late.

I couldn't talk myself out of this and and I drank again and I was unbelievably freaked out. I thought that that by, you know, high meeting attendance and thinking through the drink and and using my head and being used to not drinking, you know, kind of being in the habit of not drinking. I thought all that stuff would save my bacon and it didn't.

And it scared the crap out of me. And um you know I I would I would guess that I'd probably been to 5,000 meetings at this point. I mean I I wasn't one of these guys that just drops in you know once a month or just to get a you know a birthday chip.

I mean I was there and I was going to the meetings and even after I started drinking I was going to the meetings. And I don't recommend this. I mean, if you're not happy in discussion meetings, don't drink and go to them.

But they ain't so bad when you got a little buzz. You can you can feel a little love for some of these people that you've been resenting for years. Long story short, I um I crashed and burned and I ended up in this little treatment center down in uh down in Kurville and I ran into this guy who um who just banged on the big book and and I sat down and listened to his big big book lecture and I'm just it's it's 95 degrees outside and I'm freezing, man.

I've I've got on scrubs and two blankets and two pairs of socks and I mean I am I'm in bad shape and I'm full of fina barbatital and I'm my speech is all screwed up and and my hands are shaking. I can't I can't even write anything and I sit down and and I'm listening to this guy read to me out of the big book and he's teaching me what step one means and man that guy's got my ear. He's saying stuff out of the big book that I'd never heard before in my life.

5,000 meetings. I never heard this stuff before. And and he's got my ear and I and I'm listening to this stuff.

And all I'm thinking is, "Oh man, when when my eyes start working again, I'm going to get my hands on the big book and see what this guy's talking about cuz I have got to see this for myself." And we had this meeting every morning at 8:00. Um, and I, you know, I did that meeting with him for, you know, 37 days. I I listened to him talk about my truth, my real problem out of this book and and the real solution.

See, the deal is like most people that come to AA at any group at random. The message I got was that step one means I've got a drinking problem and the unmanageability is all the goofy stuff that happens when I drink. All the bad stuff that happens.

DWIs, bad checks, losing relationships, getting arrested. I mean, you guys, you guys know the drill. All the bad stuff that that happens when we drink is what I was taught was the unmanageability.

Well, I had stopped drinking and the alleged unmanageability stopped happening. As far as I'm concerned, my problem solved. All I need to do is coast, go to some meetings, do some meetings at some treatment centers, you know, tell my story, try to, you know, tell some funny war stories, make them laugh and all this garbage and and everything's going to be groovy.

What what Chris is telling me down reading out this big book, he's talking about the physical allergy, the mental obsession, and the spiritual malady that gets the whole ball rolling. And he's reading out the doctor's opinion. and he's and he's talking about this allergy and and when he's talking about an allergy, he's not talking about, you know, hives or rash or your throat swollen up from penicellin.

All an allergy is is is an abnormal reaction to something. We act different. We we react differently than most people to to something.

Um I'm cool with penicellin. I can take it all day long. Most people are, but some people they have a reaction where their throat closes up and they could die.

They could literally die from from taking penicellin. These same people when when they come to my house, I do not have to lock up the penicellin afraid that they're going to get in there and just take the whole bottle. So the way our allergy manifests itself presents itself is in the form of a craving where I talked about earlier when I put booze in my body I crave more booze.

Um Dr. Silkworth in the doctor's opinion um talks about this in this paragraph on Roman 28. He says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol in these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy.

says the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. Normal drinkers do not experience the allergy. You know what what happens to them when they feel when they drink?

It makes them sick. They start to feel it. They start to feel out of control.

You know what they do when that happens? They stop. They don't like feeling out of control.

They don't like feeling sick. Not so with us. with the real alcoholic.

If you're a real alcoholic, you experience this. Um, says they can never use safely use alcohol in any form at all. And our bodies can't tell what's on the label.

It doesn't matter if it's a Nyquil, Listerine. I God only knows what what some of you guys have drank. I Our bodies react our bodies react to the alcohol.

That's what we react to. Um says once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it once having lost their self-confidence their reliance upon things human. I thought humans were going to save me.

I thought psychiatrist if I just get to the right psychiatrist get the right anti-depressant talk about the right issues cry the right amount of times what whatever I'll finally be okay. And that day never came. No no no preacher no spouse no girlfriend.

No parent, no human ever relieved us of our alcoholism. It never happened. Hard drinkers perhaps.

We'll we'll talk about that in a minute. Um then it says their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. Well, no kidding.

Bottom of the page, here's here's why we drink this. Now, this really kind of smashes to hell what what I'm guilty of of teaching people, new people in AA, where they've got to deal with their issues. What what he's saying here is that men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

Now, he's talking about alcoholic men and women. says the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious and those injuries include things like going to treatment, going to jail, losing your job, spending all your money, whatever. Those are the injuries that they're talking about.

They cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. It says to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. Here's here's the one of the big lines in the book.

It says they are restless, irritable, and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. He's talking about the spiritual malady. This is what it looks like.

You know, you can also turn to 52 or 53. I forget what page it's on. It goes more into the spiritual malady.

Um, but basically he's telling us that without booze we're just naturally miserable and and our only solution to the spiritual problem is the booze. And and for a while I I got to tell you, man, it worked perfectly. I'm not stupid.

I didn't I didn't drink this stuff and and have all these problems because it wasn't doing something for me. The the benefit outweighed the cost. until until it switched.

And then it turned out, at least for me, where I didn't want to keep drinking and I didn't want to stop drinking. And that was that was just a hell of a spot to be. And thank God there were some other outside issues I could um avail myself of to to keep the game going a little bit longer.

But um you know, finally I was brought to my knees and um I got help. If if our problem were just a physical problem, the answer would be don't drink. If you don't drink alcohol, you cannot crave it.

Period. Can't happen. You got to put it in your body to crave it.

Once it's out for, shoot, I don't know, 72 hours, 96 hours, not long. Once it's out of your system, the physical craving is gone. What are you left with, though?

I know what I was left with an unbelievable obsession where my mind kept going right back to that sense of ease and comfort that Dr. Silkworth talks about. My mind can't think through the drink.

All it can think about is how good it made me feel, how it fixed all my spiritual problems. Um, you know, for some people they can last a while. I'm good for about 12 hours before I'm I'm ready to drink again.

Think about think about the worst day of your drinking. The day that that the very worst thing that ever happened to you happened. I don't know about you guys, I I swore off drinking.

And when I swore it off, I meant it. And when I told my girlfriend about it, I was 110% committed. Eight hours later, maybe I'm drinking again.

I was I was able to remember that period 8, 12, 16 hours ago well enough to keep me from picking up a drink until later that evening. You know, at 2:00 in the afternoon, there was no way in hell I was ever going to drink again. 4 in the afternoon, no way.

8:00 at night or 9:00, whenever it was, way I'm drinking. and and that's what I did. Um, you know, another thing that that this buddy of mine down in Kurville explained to me was was about the the the mental obsession.

And once in a while those words would come up in meaning, but it it just it just didn't have a whole lot of of meaning to me because when I heard it, I wasn't experiencing any thoughts of drinking. Um, after quite a while, the the obsession had been removed and I wasn't, you know, my mind wasn't drinking. But when he starts reading this stuff to me out of the big book and explaining the second half of step one, the unmanageability and telling me what that is, that's when all the dots got connected.

You know, see, I was I was going to lots and lots of meetings and we had all sorts of little dots all over the meetings, but they were never lined up to where anybody could connect them. There's just personal opinion here, speculation here, no experience, but I'm going to talk about the steps anyway over here. All sorts of stuff.

And and I could never, you know, put two and two together until until Chris read this deal. And the top of page 24, it says, "At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. makes sense.

Says, "This tragic situation has arrived in practically every case long before it is disappeared, long before it is suspected." And then there's some metallic writing in it. If you guys don't have this underlined in your big books, go home and do it, man. This is one of the most important paragraphs in the whole book.

Um, it's the one that that saved my life. says, "The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink." Says, "Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent." Says, "We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink." What this is saying is it's saying even though I can remember everything that happened, some of it's cloudier than other other times, but I can remember all the bad stuff that happened, I can't remember it with sufficient force to keep me from that first drink.

What what I've been hearing in AA for almost two decades was was bad information. What I'd been telling people to do in AA for almost two decades was terrible information. I was teaching them like I was taught to rely on my mind to keep me sober.

That if I can just stay focused on on that last drink and what it was like, that'll be enough. That and going to meetings and making coffee. Um, so what they're telling us in this book is in complete conflict with what with the rhetoric that we hear in our meetings.

Um and and and trust me I mean I am a card carrying member of the middle of the road solution seekers club. I mean, for for 17 years, I thought I had found the bare minimum that it took and and I was focused right on that. And I'd hear us, you know, we'd talk in our preamble about, you know, how half measure of the vill is nothing and I'd think, "Oh, bullshit." You know, you you can do that when you're sitting there 13, 14, 15 years knowing that that what you're doing isn't even half measures and you're still sober.

See, I'm I'm thinking that that, you know, I've got this stuff figured out. The truth was is I had no idea what my problem was. I had no idea that my mind couldn't keep me from the first drink.

And I had no idea that it was my body that couldn't keep me from the second drink. That's that's an absolute death sentence. There is no hope in step one at all.

Period. With this knowledge, I found the motivation to take the rest of the steps. I understood the death sentence.

I understood how how dire it was to to treat this deal, how how lethal and and deadly my situation is. you know, now a week prior to hearing this stuff, I've been on two different ambulance rides where they're, you know, trying to keep me alive and stuff, and I'm not going to go into those stories, but I'm I'm pretty in touch with with how deadly this thing is and how dangerous it is. So, when when I finally understand exactly what the problem was, I'm pretty motivated to take these steps.

and and and the people that we're sponsoring. Um I don't know about any of you guys, any of you guys sponsoring people, but I I find that when when I explain this stuff to people, it's not that hard to get them to to take these steps. When when you explain to them that it's the spiritual malady, it's a spiritual problem that kicks off the obsession that once you start drinking, it triggers the craving and and it's just a vicious cycle and there's no end to it.

when they can really appreciate that that information and that the only solution is taking the steps, they'll do it. They they will do it. I remember is there anybody here that that disagrees that that our our success rate isn't that great.

In fact, it it's so bad we we ought to call it a failure rate. um Dallas, Texas based on chip sales. It's not scientific, but it's an indication of of where we're at.

Um you know, according to our chip sales, you got up five, seven, I'll be generous and say 10% chance of making it a year. You got 25% chance of making it 90 days. All those people that we tell to go to 90 and 90, we tell 125 are there to pick up their chip.

I don't know what happens on the 91st day, but I've told him to do it, too. I am I am just as guilty as anybody of giving that direction cuz I I didn't know anything about this book. I didn't know about the steps.

I just did what was done to me. And and I'm just I'm trying to pass this information on to people. But the deal is is is back in the 30s, what these guys were doing was they weren't they weren't setting up meetings and and trying to have four or five meetings a day.

so that anybody who needed a meeting any time of day or night could have a meeting to stay sober. That's not what they were doing. What they were doing is they were praying, meditating, keeping their side of the street clean and looking for people to work with.

Actively looking for them, going to hospitals, you know, cold calling doctors and priests, hey, you guys got anybody we can talk to? They were busting their butts looking for people to work with. That's what their life was like back in the early 30s.

back when 50% to 3/4 of them were getting sober and staying sober. The people that that that really did this work and honestly did it, they were staying sober, every last bit of them. The the problem is is is today we we've gotten to a point to where we've gotten away from the big book and and we've flip-flopped into putting emphasis on on the meetings and and the fellowship instead of the program.

Um, and you know, for me, hell, I mean, it was the softer, easier way. I had no problem with with how we were doing things once upon a time. Today, I got a big problem with it.

I almost lost my life in this deal. And and I've watched countless others go back out and drink and die, you know, since ' 87, since I've been around. People who who wanted the solution, who came for the solution, and and we didn't have it for them.

And and I I find that disturbing. And I'm I'm going to I'm going to share share some of my experience and some of my observations with you guys. And and this is I think this is where I'm going to close the the the warm touchyfey part of the talk.

And and and I understand that that some of the things I I might say might make someone in here feel uncomfortable. I don't know who it is and it might be nobody, but I I know for damn sure it would have made me uncomfortable when I was sitting around in AA taking up space doing nothing, being a total bogart, trying to get as much as I could instead of giving. But I but it's my experience and it and it's and it's what I've observed and it's what I've done.

Um, if you go to page 62, Bill Wilson tells us what the root of our troubles are. It it talks about the selfishness, the self-centerness. We We've all heard it.

I I even heard this stuff in meetings. Every once in a while, this would this would kind of slip in there and we'd talk about a little bit. We didn't know what we were talking about, but we'd talk about it.

It says that we think is the root of our troubles strewn by 100 forms of fear, self-d delusion, self-seeking and self-pity. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation.

But we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles we think are basically of our own making. uh they arise about ourselves.

The alcohol is an extreme example of self-willrun ride, though we usually don't think so. Says, "Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of the selfishness." There's one of the musts that we don't have in the program. Um here comes another one.

We must or it kills us. Not only they tell us that we must be rid of it, it tells us why. We got to get rid of this or it kills us.

What happens is it blocks us from God, which is the only thing that can save our bacon in terms of keeping us free from the obsession to drink and and treating that spirituality. So, that's how it kills us. If if if we're wrapped up in self, we're never going to get plugged into that power that we have to have to stay sober.

When when I'm thinking about me, there's no possible way I'm thinking about anybody else. And the only time I'm aligned with God's will is when my thoughts are are on other people and and God and what I can do for them and for him. When I think about what I can do for myself, I'm in big ass trouble.

Big trouble. Um, so we, you know, we we had our meetings, we had our our discussion meetings, we had lots of them, 35 a week, 34 a week, something like that. Just just just crazy.

and and and it's what what it turns into is is 34 opportunities to come in and talk about yourself. And if if if we love each other so much, what and and knowing that that this selfishness can kill us, why do we allow people to come in the meetings and and engage in in that selfishness and talk about themselves and let it go on and on and on. These people, you know, I I don't want to take anybody's inventory, but hell, I mean, it's right out there.

They're they're selfish. They're they're wrapped up in this stuff. They're not recovered.

And and we've got a responsibility if we love these people to to pull them aside and say, "Hey, man. You know what I'm hearing is is you can't think about much besides yourself. Let's let's go do let's do step 10.

Let's let's take the steps. Let's do something. Let's get you out of yourself instead of instead of just letting them rattle on and on." Cuz the the guys that have been there for a number of years are just you're just you're driving us crazy.

And the new people and and we don't know this. We don't the new people don't tell us. I hear at the treatment centers that I go to, the new people are disgusted by it.

They're disgusted by it. It makes them not want to come back. It makes them sick.

It makes them critical. And you know, all these guys are looking for a reason not to come back anyway. And we hand it to them.

I'm I'm telling you guys, take my word for it or don't take my word for it. You know, come, you know, come with me to some of these treatment centers and talk to these people who have had years or months or several periods of one year. I mean, I I see it twice a week and they're all saying the same thing.

They can't stand the meetings. And and you know what? I had I had a friend, we worked together before I got sober and and I had about five years and he called me up and and I finally got the call.

He's like, "Man, I'm ready to stop." I said, "Fantastic. I've been hoping to hear from you." He says, "Are you still sober?" I'm like, "Yeah." He says, "Well, man, let's, you know, let's go to one of those meetings." I was like, "Great." So, I take him to a meeting. We get in the car and we leave.

And he's like, "Hey, what what was that? Like, what do you mean? What What was that that we just went to?

I mean, I I know it was an AA meeting, but what is that what they're all like?" And I'm like, "Well, yeah. Why? What What's the matter?" He says, "Well, all they're doing is just pissing and moaning and and you know, I I I can't keep doing that." I'm like, "Dude, you don't get it.

you know, that's that's your solution. You know, you're you're just being critical because you probably still want to drink and so you're trying to find a reason not to go. Well, you know, I got news for you.

That's, you know, bad news is that's how it is. The good news is is, you know, it works. And so, we went to a couple more meetings and and then he went to a meeting on his own and he called me when he got home and he's pissed.

I mean, he's just he's had it. He's like, "Dude, I I can't hang with this anymore. There there's got to be something else." I'm like, "I'm not aware of anything." And he says, "Well, screw it.

I I just I can't I can't deal with that stuff. It's just silly." I was like, "Well, man, I think you're making a big mistake." And um and a week later, he um he wrote a suicide note and killed himself. And and there's some who may say that that he didn't want it bad enough.

I'll I'll submit to you that he wanted it plenty bad, but but when he showed up, it wasn't there for him because we were so busy talking about ourselves and wrapped up in ourselves and and violating the traditions by permitting people to talk about outside issues in our meetings. That that when the time came to carry this message, we were too busy doing something else. And and a guy like me, I had no idea that that what we were doing was was killing these people.

I I really didn't. I thought that that it was just kind of it just kind of made sense that only, you know, 5 or 10% of the people made it. I had no idea that back in the day, back when these guys were working the steps in in just a week, 10 days, 2 weeks, that that that they were getting sober.

I had no idea. When I first heard of this stuff about working the steps in in a week or two, that blew my mind. You know, I like most of you guys, I've heard all sorts of direction on on when to take the steps.

Um the one I liked was a step a year, you know. Well, you you can't do step four till you've had a year cuz you can't handle what's going to come out on your inventory. The people that tell you that don't know what the inventory is about.

Cuz I got news for you. You can handle it if if you understand steps one, two, and three. You've got enough juice from God.

You got enough of God's power to get through that fourth step and get through that fifth step. And it snowballs and it builds to get you through the rest of the steps. I had no idea.

Um I remember telling people uh that they can't sponsor anybody till they've got a year. Think about it. Our solution is step 12, carrying this message.

If if you got a problem like on page 24, we got maybe a week or a month that we're going to be able to think through the very till it doesn't work anymore. We got a week or a month to get to the solution or we're screwed. Whyever we keep somebody from the solution, working with others by telling them to wait a year.

That's it's it's crazy. It's it's a death sentence. These people don't need to be waiting for a year.

If if you've had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, you got what it takes to carry this message. In fact, maybe even more effectively than anybody with five or 10 years does because that new guy is going to listen to a guy with 30 days, you know, who 30 days ago was doing what he was doing and now he's not and and he he's experienced the promises in the book. There's nobody better that could do that for that guy.

This time around I took the steps in I don't know 9 10 days 11 days something like that and I was sponsoring my first guy with with three weeks and then I was going down to the Salvation Army every Wednesday night and and it never failed each night I picked up at least two guys to work with. Now, they had to have sponsors, but but I was sitting down there till 10:00 at night every Wednesday night taking the steps with these guys in this nasty hallway on this tile floor with lots of loud noises and cinder block walls and all this stuff and and we're down there and we're taking these steps and these guys are doing their inventories and and we're hitting our knees all together doing the third step prayer and it's the coolest thing in the world. I wouldn't be here today if if I hadn't done this stuff.

I I really wouldn't. I've got a new guy right now who just finished the steps less than a month ago who's just knocked on dead at the Salvation Army every Wednesday. It's It's the coolest thing in the world.

The The problem is is getting people focused on the steps and on the program and getting them through them quick enough so they don't get ruined by anything that they might hear in some meeting about how they can take their time with the steps. You know, if you've got me telling someone you got to take the steps in in less than two weeks like they did back in the 30s, and you got some other guy telling you to take your time, where where you going to go? I know where I'm going.

Hell yeah. I'm going with that other guy. So I I know I don't have to come out and say this, but I I think discussion meetings are just the worst thing that ever happened to AA.

I I do. And right after noon meetings because they they lend themselves to an environment where things can get out of control. Nobody likes to cut somebody off when they're talking, when they're spilling their guts, even though it's not appropriate for the meeting.

We don't have a right to say whatever we want in the meeting. Our primary purpose is to carry this message if we're not talking about God or the steps. We need to be quiet.

We need to go work the steps. So, we have something to say in that meeting. Um, but they they they lend themselves to this stuff.

And you know, I I wish that, you know, I started off going to to Bickbook studies. Our the group I go to now and and and there's no ego in this thing. I I wish I had something to do with this group, but I don't.

This group was up and running for 18 years just fine without me. I just happened to get lucky enough to find it. And and I hooked up with a guy who understands the steps and he understands the big book.

and he took me through the work and he threw me into carrying the message to others at detox centers and the sally and some other places speaking at other groups I I had like I don't know 4 months when I spoke at my first um group here in town um scary stuff but once once I did it when when I've got a message to carry it's not that hard all you got to do is just open up the big book and read it a little bit nobody knows the difference um so what what I saw on this group was was different than anything I'd ever seen before in my life. I I saw I finally saw a group where the emphasis was on carrying this message where if if I were to go in there and and try to talk about myself, I would have 150 people lean forward in their chairs and shut me down. Not just look at me and hope that I'd shut up, but they would speak up and say something and they would get it right back on track to the book study.

What we do there is we we carry I don't know the number. It's over 30 meetings to to windup joints, jitter joints around town, treatment centers, jails, hospitals. As you know, as members of our group, we we do this stuff.

We we meet three times a week, 150 people on Tuesday nights, sometimes more, but usually about 150 people studying the big book here in Dallas, Texas. Who would have thought? We could we could I'm sure we could pack the house every night, but but we don't.

We we meet Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays because we don't want people camping out in the meetings. The meetings aren't the solution. I mean, if if if you didn't get that from my story, the the the meetings are not the solution.

The meetings are a wonderful place to hook up, talk about the program of recovery out of the book, and find new people to work with. Great for that. I recommend you go.

But if if you're going to a meeting because you need to get something out of it, you you've missed the whole thing. It's for me doing this program for so long without working the program and doing the deal. It's it was like going to an orgy and and not having sex.

It was, you know, I was I was just I was just right there and and for some reason I refused to take my clothes off and and join in. And I was like that for 17 years. And and it's funny now now that I'm in the orgy, there's I run into people all the time who who criticize our group and and people that talk about the big book.

No, that's just some, you know, aa Nazi or some big book thumper. While those guys are standing out there looking in the window of the orgy, I got news for you. We don't hear the complaints.

We're in there having sex. We and and we and there's room for everybody. We don't we don't want this separation.

We just want to get back to doing what they were doing back in the 30s when this thing worked so damn well, when it worked beautifully. I'll um I want to finish with a little story that happened to me while while working the Salvation Army um a while back or not working there but um taking a meeting there. Finally, after, you know, almost 20 years in this deal, I I I finally feel like I'm doing my part in AA.

I don't feel like a deadwood anymore being a Bogart. And And I finally understand what the message is, and I understand exactly what to carry. And I've got no problem taking anybody through the steps.

And I'm not afraid to do that stuff because I' I've got experience. I've got this book to back me up. prior to that scared the hell out of me because I really didn't know what I was doing.

So, I'm at the meeting and these guys are all they're coming out of a out of a prison program and then they have to do 90 days at this alley and go through their program and then, you know, they can get parrolled or leave or whatever. And there's there's this guy and he comes up to me and this guy is freaking huge. 63 6'4 probably about 300 lb.

A little fat but not very large black man. His if if he makes a fist it can cover my whole face. And he comes up to me.

He says, "Sir, will you be my sponsor?" And he starts talking to me. He's like, he says, "You know, there have been five other groups that have brought meetings in here, and I've asked a bunch of people at every one of those groups to be my sponsor, and nobody will do it." He says, "I've I've been I've been in and out of prison for 27 years, and if I go back, I'm gone for life. Can you help me?" Now, the first thought I had was, "Well, you can't tell people that you've done 27 years in prison and ask them to spons.

That's like the worst sales pitch I've ever heard in my life." My next thought is, I can't believe that none of those people would help this guy. Either either they didn't know how to do it, which is fine. If you don't know how to sponsor somebody, if you haven't taken the steps to had a spiritual awakening and someone asked you to sponsor them, say no.

It's okay to say no in AA. Say no to that. But if you have, you say yes.

And so I don't know if these people just didn't know what to do or if they were too afraid of this guy or if they were too lazy or I don't know what the deal was, but I said, "Hell yeah, come on back." And and I pulled them out of the meeting. We do a meeting from 8 to 9:00. I took them right down the hall and we got started on this stuff.

when I started talking about step one and reading out of the doctor's opinion and out of the first part of the book and talking about the the physical allergy, the mental obsession, and I and I'm getting he's not quite getting it. I said, "Well, let me ask you a question. You're going to go back to prison for the rest of your life if you get if you get jammed up again." He says, "Yeah." I said, "Do you think that that knowing that that'll happen that that'll keep you sober?" He's like, "No." Said, "Buddy, that is the unmanageability.

that's what we're talking about. And his eyes get real big. He finally understands what his problem is.

And we go through step two pretty quick. He's cool with the God thing. He believes God can help him.

And we get on our knees. And I explain to him, you know, what step three means. You know, if if you look at the words of step three, you'll see real clearly we're making a deal with God.

You take away my difficulties. This is what I'll do. You do this.

This is what I'll do. And basically, we're telling God, "Hey, man, you take care of us and I'll go tell everybody about it. I'll bear witness to what you did and and I'll go work with others." That's the deal we're making.

So, if you've taken step three, you you owe God. You're you know, you're you got a debit to God. So, we get on our knees and I said, "Okay, let's let's read this out of the book.

Take my hand. We're going to we're going to read the prayer together, and we're going to say it together. then I want you to say it over in your own words and and I want to hear what you're saying to God.

So we go through it and then I say, "Okay, now put in your own words." And this guy starts talking and and he's got my little baby hand in his huge hand and he's squeezing it like crazy and he's pulling it into his chest. We're both on our knees on the tile floor of the Salvation Army and he's talking to God and it's just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And and this guy in in no uncertain terms offered every part of him to God and and told God exactly what he would do in exchange for that.

And this guy, he's got tears coming down his face. My hand is right there. My hand is soaking wet from this guy's tears.

And man, I'm not keeping it together. And and I've got tears going down my face. and he finishes and I just looked at him.

I was like, "Man, that was so cool. I got no idea what to say right now. I got no idea, but thank you for letting me in on that." This is the cool stuff that happens when we take these steps and we carry this message.

There's there's plenty of other stories like that. Every guy I work with, we get on our knees and I'll listen to what he's saying to God. This is the most personal thing that that anybody can do.

And and I get to see that and witness right in front of my eyes. And I get to see these people change in a week or two weeks. And I see them catch fire.

I used to think that sponsoring people was such a big chore because I'm going to get all sorts of phone calls with all their problems. You know what happens if you make the commitment with these guys on the front end and do the steps like it says to do in the bid book exactly like they're directed and as quickly as it says to do it. I don't get these phone calls.

These guys are doing fine. They do a 10-step call if they're fearful or frightened or selfish or whatever. They call me up.

Hey man, this is a 10step call. All right. What' you do?

I will go ask God to remove it and go turn your attention towards someone you can help. they go do it and everything's fine. All we do is just keep the focus on them and their self-centeredness.

That's all we have to do. And it's just absolutely the coolest thing in the world. So, if if you're new and you haven't taken the steps, get someone that knows how to do it straight out of this book.

Get started. If you've been around for a while and you're like me and you're freaking miserable and and you don't know where to turn, I'm I'm telling you, I don't believe you have to drink again to do this again. I've seen other people do it with 10, 15, 20 years.

I don't know if that's anybody in this room. I hope not, but but if there is someone in this room that's like that, I would love to talk to you after this meeting. I I really would.

Um, that's that's as far as I can go without lying. >> 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.