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Thanks Tim for the help. >> >> I'll be the spiritual speaker this afternoon. My name's Dave Doss.

I'm an alcoholic. >> Um the topic that I'm supposed to try to I guess stick to or try to cover is one that I think is uh certainly one I feel strong about. And uh it's uh as it's defined in the book, it it's a vision for you.

And so before I start, I want to read a couple of my favorite sort of paragraphs out of that chapter. There's a whole chapter on it in the big book. So there must be a must be a vision if you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And uh when I say I'm an alcoholic uh and I come to AA, it means that uh what people like me have experienced who have been here a little while and what the you know the old-timers and the uh you know my my heroes in AA have told me uh is available to everybody. And uh so I want to read two things. one one focuses on um on fellowship and as I talk some today I want to try to tie in I mean believe me you you'll hear that uh I am a bit of a big book thumper um it's kind of how I got it I mean you know that's kind of kind of what I know works um but the fellowship and when I talk about fellowship I'm not talking about sitting next to somebody in a meeting I'm talking about uh talking about what I've experienced in Alcoholics Anonymous where uh where we share who and what we really are from the soul with each other where we really are brothers and sisters and uh in in this journey together.

And so the first uh the first paragraph I really like is uh you know for is kind of in the middle of that chapter and you know when I got here um my sobriety is June 23rd 1990 um so I'm sober uh coming up on 15 years um I got to alcohol first time in 1987. I was 19 years old and you know when I first walked in my first meeting of Alcoholics Namoth and looked around and I was 20 years junior than the next person in the room I thought my god you know what is a hip slick cool guy like me going to be doing drinking coffee and hanging out with these fat old men you know uh what have they got to offer you know what you know I mean you know I was a barroom drinker and I like the bright lights and and and fast times and and man, I walked in here and I thought, "Oh my god, this is horrible. They're talking about going to Denny's or Friendley's or bowling was the highlight of their life." You know, what's a guy like me going to find here in terms in terms of any kind of fellowship, you know?

And here's what the book says about it. talking about our old life, the the times that the first uh proceeding kind of leading up to this paragraph talks about, you know, the the good times drinking, you know, and if you're like me, I I don't I think it's hard to be an alcoholic if you don't have some good times drinking, you know. Uh my sponsor says it's like getting pregnant without having sex.

It's just, you know, it's not a whole lot of fun to it, you know. Why why would you why would you do it, you know? And uh and so, you know, I had some good times drinking.

And one of my one of the hard things for me coming in and out of AA for those three years was it was hard for me to figure out um you know what the hell am I going to do with my life man? What's it going to mean? What do I do when I go home at 9:30 on a Friday night and it's like you know my god culture shock you know I'm I'm home and it's a weekend and I'm so alone and it sucks being young and sober you know and here's what the book says about you know thinking about those good times and what we what we can expect to find an A.

So, if you're kind of kind of new in sobriety or young sitting here wondering what you know what's this a thing got to offer? Well, here here's what it's got to offer in terms of fellowship. Yes, there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that.

It is a fellowship of alcoholics and there you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last.

The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus, we find fellowship. So will you.

I see. I can say that confidently. If you're sitting in the room here tonight and you're new to AA or you're coming back to AA and you're wondering, man, what the hell is my life going to mean?

That's what you got to look forward to. And I I couldn't stand here and with 15 years almost of sobriety and then I've been involved in a that whole 15 years. I mean, I I've been doing and willing to do whatever it takes from day one and I still am here today willing to do whatever it takes.

And I couldn't keep coming back here and stand up at podiums like this and and say with confidence that what I found you will find if I didn't believe it. If I didn't believe it down in my soul. If I hadn't seen it work countless times.

If I hadn't seen the miracles not just in my life but in your life. So that's what you got to look forward to. The most satisfactory years of your life are ahead.

You know and if you're sitting here tonight and you think you've got it good, guess what? Gets better. It keeps getting better.

You know, I've got some heroes in AA and I was hanging out with one a few weeks ago, guy Lamar R in Baltimore, and he said we're better than 40 years and he's 80 years old and he's falling apart, you know, and a guy lives in a in a little rented room. Um, and he dresses like an 80-year-old guy from East Baltimore, you know. Um, and his health's failing and his wife's dead.

And you know what he tells me? and he keeps getting better because what he's talking about, what keeps getting better is what happens on the inside. And the other thing that I've been on a kick here lately kind of about and I'm probably going to talk a lot about today is that uh especially in the society we live in the western culture, you know, the country we live in.

And if you watch TV, you see it, you know, pretty pretty well displayed across uh across our culture is that the wild outside world judges success based on the things that you have and how you dress and what you look like and how much money you have in the bank, what kind of house you live, what kind of neighborhood, you know, you grew up in and uh what kind of job you have. And alcoholics anonymous, you know what what it's really about is our character. What it's really about is when you close your eyes at night, what you know about you and God knows about you, you know, and what Alcoholics Anonymous is about is uh not about what you get on the outside.

It's about what God gives you and builds on you on the inside. And what we have here is second to none in building character. And I really believe that's what the program hawks is about.

That's why guys like me need to keep coming back. I'm so flawed when I got here and I'm still so flawed. I need to keep coming back because I just can't make it out there.

You know, I walked through the door doors of Alcohawks and June 23rd, 19, I really walked through the doors. I kind of had a meeting and carried to me because I was in a hospital bed and I and I couldn't get out and uh and I was begging for you all to give me what you had, you know. And almost 15 years later, when I stand up at a podium like this, I don't ever want to forget when I walk through the store today that I I still better be a beggar asking you to give me what you have in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I I don't want to be so arrogant to think that I can become a chooser in Alcohol Anonymous. It's all or nothing for me. You know, that's that's the way I see alcohol synonymous.

All or nothing. So, that's the first part that I want to read and I'll read one more thing and then we'll talk a little bit about me, my favorite subject. And I love this paragraph.

This is the LA, you know, I've read a lot of books in my life and I, you know, I got a bunch of degrees and, you know, some people think I'm pretty smart and and a decent intellectual. And I'll tell you what, this this much of this book, first 164 pages of the big book of alcoholics anonymous is my instruction manual to life. Everything that I need to know lies in these pages.

And I'm not just saying that as for podium flash. I'm saying that because that's I really believe it. And for a guy like me, I mean it.

And so the very last thing in these 164 pages, which in some ways are like are like the the instruction manual to my life that I always wished I had, you know, all my life. I'm saying where's the instruction? You all got it.

Somebody got it. I don't fit in. No matter where I'm at, no matter what I have, no matter what kind of clothes I have, girlfriend on arm, car I'm driving, I'm not I'm not fitting in.

Somebody forgot to give me my instruction manual light. I got down all comments. God said, "Here it is.

We kept it short and we didn't use we didn't use too advanced language that you could understand it, you know, like great." So, what do they wrap up with in the in the in the in the end of when they define the instruction manual for being a member of Alphah Hawkamus? What what do they end with here? I want to read it to you because I think it really uh it really drives home.

Two paragraphs. Our book is meant to be suggestive only. If you don't want it, fine.

You know, suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. And that's pretty humble considering what they had seen when they wrote this book in four years.

The miracles that they had watched firsthand like first century Christianity, watching people raised from the dead, you know, and watching people die alcoholic death. You know, Bill Wilson was on the firing line of Alcoholics Anonymous and always was. Don't let everybody ever tell you that Bill Wilson wasn't was a super promoter that didn't really, you know, he had a big ego.

Let me tell you what, I don't think I could fill his shoes. I don't think I could fill his shoes in what he did. He was on the firing line of life.

And then when he read this book, Four Year Sober, he had seen a lot. But yet, they were humble enough to say, "Hey, we don't have all the answers." God will constantly disclose more to you and us. Hey, we're not done, man.

A work in progress. I'm definitely a work in progress a guy that ride with me and know me best know I'm a work in progress. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick.

The answers will come if your own house is in order. But obviously you can trans transmit something you haven't got. So see to it that your relationship with him capital H is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.

This is a great fact for us. He talked about the a minute ago. The most satisfactory years of your life lie ahead.

Great events will come to pass for you and countless others. We read a lot about the nine-step promises. Those are some major promises for a guy like me of what I've got look to look forward to in Alpha Hawks and the rest of my life.

That my life will mean something. It'll have purpose and depth. And no matter how good I think I've got it right now with my 14 and a half plus years of sobriety, you know what's going to get better?

It's going to get better. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows.

Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit.

And you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road to happy destiny. Vision been my experience. what they say in here, what I just read to you, I never would have believed it when I got here.

I had read this book when I got here in June 23rd, 1990. I'd read this book several times cover to cover. But somehow I didn't believe what was in this book applied to me.

I didn't believe that the problem of alcoholism when I first came to you in 1987 was really mine. And it took three and a half years of painful experience to become convinced. And even once I was convinced that I was one of you that I was an alcoholic, I was not convinced when I got here June 23rd, 1990 that what you told me would happen with my life.

The great things that I just described to you would be mine. I believed I was different. You know what?

God doesn't care if I believe I'm different. God doesn't care if I don't believe this will work for me. We talked a little bit about faith without works is dead.

If you take the action, it always works. God will never turn our back, his back on those who ask. But we must ask and we must do.

And so what I'm going to talk about real quick is a little bit about why I'm standing here. You know, why why am I an alcoholic synonymous? My god, you know.

Um, and I'm going to start near the end because I'd like to talk about sobriety. Now, as soon as I say that and start your watch and figure I'm going to talk at least for a half hour about being drunk. >> I never mean to do that, but whenever I say that, it's the way it works.

Um, last two weeks, uh, June, early June 1990 to June 23rd, my sobriety date, I was on a roll. Um, first of all, I had just gotten I I had just gotten drunk in Tijana, Mexico. Um, after after three months sober and and and I had and getting the sponsor that I had who talked about steps, who began to really put me on the path, but I had only gotten to my third step, of course.

Um, and I walk into a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, and the insanity returns. And now what the insanity for me is not what I do when I take a drink. I am a crazy, obnoxious, you know, tear this freaking whole building down kind of drunk, right?

I'm a gun carrying, you know, raging maniac. destroy everything that's in my path when I'm drinking kind of drunk, right? But the insanity they're talking about is not that.

The exact same they're talking about is with three months sober, knowing that there's an answer, knowing that I'm an alcoholic, having gone through treatment centers, you know, learning about tetride rice, how my body metabolized alcohol different than a normal drinker, identifying my triggers, having a relapse prevention plan in place, having gone to more than 90 meetings in 90 days, having worked the first three steps in my first year, walking into a bar as physically sober as I am tonight, complete absence of the presence of alcohol in my body, and and telling myself the lie that I am not an alcoholic. olic in Tijana, Mexico, and believing it. That is insanity.

That is insanity. Our big book talks about our insanity being a strange sort of insanity. And that is a strange sort of insanity, right?

That is strange. When that thought came to me, I drank because I'm an alcoholic. Because the first step tells me of myself and by myself I cannot keep from taking a drink.

I am powerless. It means that I am I'm done. If I really believe that, what it means is that I will die a horrible, terrible alcoholic death destroying everything in my life, right?

And I don't have a choice whether or not I take a drink. And when I walked in that bar in Tijana, Mexico in early June and somebody put a drink in my hand and I told myself I'm not an alcoholic in Mexico. There was no God in my life, no real God.

There was a concept of God, but there was not enough God in my life. There was not enough power, capital P, we find in the second step to save me from my powerlessness in the first step because I had not worked all 12 steps. I had not got to the 10 step of alcoholics anonymous where I've been returned to sanity.

I had three measly little weak steps between me and that drink. And I'm a real alcoholic, man. And it takes all or nothing for me.

It's going to take everything I got and everything that God can give to keep this guy sober. Nothing less will do. And uh and I drank.

I brought back to Maryland uh my alcoholism. Uh I think it was kind of with me all along in hindsight, but I really thought I picked it back up in Tijana. They said, "Don't drink the water." I drank their beer and it gave me alcoholism again.

Um, and then within a couple weeks after getting back to Maryland, this is the kind of things that happened. I mean, you know, it seems like for me, you know, my alcoholism was, you know, kind of kind of good at first and a lot of fun, you know, kind of fun, you know, and then we had some fun with problems probably, you know, as I'm finishing up high school and I'm getting suspended from school and locked up for high-speed chase with cops. But that happens to everybody, right?

Um, you know, I hit my girlfriend for the first time, but you know, damn. You know, I'm really going to get it under control now. You know, I know I shouldn't have hit her.

Um, she certainly didn't deserve it. I wasn't telling myself that lie even from the beginning, but you know, I can get a handle on this. I've shown great willpower in my life in other areas and I'll get a hold of this.

Um, so then there was, you know, there was there was drink, there was fun with problems. Um, and and then there was there was problems with some occasional fun from, you know, maybe like 19 to 22. And some of that was my period in and out of AA, you know, where, you know, I I' I'd stay sober for a month or two and maybe I'd go out and and and I and I I followed the directions in the big book.

See, I was really big on following the directions that I thought were the things I wanted to do. It would say, "Step up to a bar. Try some controlled drinking.

Try it more than once. It'll be worth it to get convinced." What I need is a lesson in convincing. Maybe I'm really not an alcoholic, you know?

So I'd step up to the bar, try some control drink, and try it more than once, you know. So there was a lot, but there would be an occasion. And the worst part about that is you step in the bar, say, "I'm going to try some control drink, have a great time, drink a few drinks, you know, hang out, you know, talk to some women, you know, a lot of fun, convivial, got some fellowship back again.

My god, thank god I'm away from them old people, you know. Um, you know, race a couple cars, you know, um, sit down on the beach and watch the waves, you know, waves come in, you know, drinking, you know, watch the sun come up, drinking, fun, fun. But then there would come that time not too long after that or it would be 3 days later and there was no paycheck and I wasn't sure where my car was and I knew some bad things had happened.

and I wasn't really sure what they were. And I had the same clothes on and I'm passing my grandparents who has I'm passing my grandfather who used to, you know, go to work about 6:00 every morning and I'm coming in after a three-day run in the same clothes and that look, you know, the look of disgust on the people that love you's face where they're done trying to talk to you anymore, where they're just kind of hopeless and and just seeing you reminds them of how you've destroyed all their hopes and dreams for you, of how their love and their attention and their and their life's work rested in the legacy that they were going to pass on to you and this is what they've got. This is what they've got in that book of disgust and then I'll talk about the last two weeks which are kind of like just all problems, right?

So June, you know, I go get drunk in Tijana, I come back, I immediately wreck my car. No big deal. I've wrecked lots of cars before.

This kind of happens when you drive really fast drunk, you know? We used to look at it in the crew I ran with, we we there was a handful of guys and we called us the the the crash crew and in order to be part of our crew, you had to total total at least one car, preferably more, you know, and drinking and driving for us was a sport. We all had fast cars and and so, you know, you get really drunk and drive as fast as you can, you know, and when you do that, you tend to wreck them from time to time.

You know, a little ice on the road, it's raining, you know, the imaginary person runs you off the road when which is what I always told the cops. You know, I had a lot of people always trying to run me off the road for some reason. Um, and you know, so those kind of things would happen.

Um, and so I wrecked my car almost immediately when I got back. Um, I started off um the evening at a party of of of this crew that I hung with one of their houses and it was a great party. You know, I'm sitting there and I'm sipping my first couple beers out of the cake and we got a band playing and I'm there with my my new girlfriend and my old girlfriend's over there with with her new boyfriend and he's looking a little scared because he he knew me and he kind of was wasn't sure yet whether it was safe to to to be with her yet.

And I'm thinking, you know, I really need to go over and make amends of that guy cuz I said some things and done some things and probably to her too. And you I know some people over there I beat the hell out of a few, you know, a few weeks ago. And you know, I I need to start working these steps, you know, that I've learned about in AA for this last three years kind of kind of with this people here and kind of try to set some things right.

I got some amends to make, you know, and uh and then I don't know what happened, but it seems like it's really early in the morning, you know, 2 3:00 in the morning. And um you know, apparently I had uh hit on my old girlfriend while my new girlfriend was there. Um had had threatened, you know, I think death to her new boyfriend who was no longer around anywhere.

Um and had my girlfriend at the time with you know, tears running down. That's the way the women who were with and I I happen to have, you know, I think alcoholics have kind of a a sense that when we're in the state that I was in that you better find some decent women to try to take care of you so that you don't die. And so I tended to pick and I had basically two long-term girlfriends, you know, for 3 four year stretches each.

And I was probably about midway when I say my new girlfriend, she was around a year. I was torturing her for about a year and a half at that point, I think. and uh and and you know so so the women in my life all look like this you know they'd have tears running down their down their down their face you know they look completely frazzled you know beautiful women who were you know 19 20 years old and and they're just completely a neurotic mess from me and and she's got her finger in my chest and the tears running down her face I'm looking down and she goes you know I wish you I never would have met you you so you'll never change and those words just kind of echoed and I can still I remember kind of looking down at her and thinking, you know, I should be like emotionally impacted by that statement.

You know, I should I should show I should show I should show great concern, remorse, start crying, swear I'll never do it again, promise it's going to be different. But I I was just so done with that because I knew what she said was true. And what went through my mind, I didn't say anything to her.

I just stood there and looked at her. It was just, you know, solemn as I am now, looking at her. And a thought went through my mind, you know, you're right.

Best thing for you is to go find yourself a decent guy because you sure don't deserve having me in your life. See, I gotten to the point where I knew that the pain and the tears in everyone who loves me's eyes was not their fault. They just love me.

You know, they saw they saw glimpses of the God in me. They saw glimpses of the good that really was and is who I am today. And they all desperately hoped that that that this other stuff would move away and I'd blossom and become who it is that they they thought they saw inside.

And instead, what happened is it seemed like the disease of alcoholism continued to strip away that little hope, that little flame, that little flicker of decency until it was just snuffed out and all they had left was the pain in their eyes. you know, I wound up uh shortly thereafter, a day or two after that, locked up for assault and battery in uh in and and in Baltimore's east side jail. Um no big deal.

Again, you know, um I happened to be up on Baltimore's block, which tended to be a place that I wound up some reason at 4 or 5:00 in the morning. I I lived in Anona County, which is kind of south of the city, and and it it seemed like, you know, there wasn't nothing to do after the bars closed. But boy, the city always had something going on.

And I told you I'd like that action, man. I could always find something going on in the city, you know, and I go try to find people like me, you know, um, dancers or crack dealers or, you know, I mean, you know, usually they all hang out together, which was good. It's one-stop shop, you know, you just, yay, we're here, you know, GREAT BASEMENT IN BROOKLYN.

YEAH. WOO. You know, and uh, I got in a little altercation with a guy over saying something to his his girlfriend and and next thing I know, I'm in jail, locked up for salt and battery.

My grandfather's coming to get me out of jail and I'm riding home with him. And again, he's just beat. You know, my grandfather's like my father.

My father got killed in Vietnam when I was when I was two. And my grandfather basically was uh did his best, absolute best and continues to do his best to see to it that uh that everything that my father would have done and been and given me that that that I received. Um and we've got an amazing relationship today that I'll talk a little bit about in the vision for you part.

Um and he's, you know, we're riding home and we're not looking at each other. We're not talking. He's not saying, you know, are you done now?

He's not saying anything. And I get back home and I start drinking again. And uh by about 2:00 that night, I'm leaving the bar with a one guy who's a decent friend of mine who I hope one day to see in rooms of alcohol cuz I love this guy, Mike, and I hope to see him one day.

He and I were like brothers. I mean, we were I don't know if you all ever had the, you know, that one or two people, man, that you shared the freaking depths of your disease with. And it had the kind of fellowship and the kind we would share about that I only share about with guys that are close to me.

Hey, now we would share about that stuff and just he and I in the car, you know, the stuff that was really deep down inside how we really felt about who and what we are, you know, and we and we'd take a beating for one another without even thinking about it, you know, and he took a lot of beating for me cuz I had a big mouth and he was a little and he was a little guy and uh he was with me and we had when a friend of his brothers with me and anyway me and his friend of his brothers got in altercation over he was sitting in the front seat of the car on the way home from the bar and uh after I hit him a couple times while I was sitting in the passenger seat I realized that I kind of react every now and again I get this like moment of standing like whoa, you know, shouldn't be hitting people while they're sitting in the car, you know. Not good. You know, I mean, I kind of I kind of just said something.

He smiled. I thought he was making fun of me. I punched him a few times.

You know, my friend's freaking out. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on.

You know, little overreaction there. And uh when I let him out of the car, he tossed me off the second story of a parking garage and it landed on my head. Yeah.

So, in terms of the kind of fights and the drama that I had had in my life with being shot at, pool sticks busted across my I got two fake teeth up front. They're not from eating too much candy. The kind of drama, the kind of knockdown dragout barroom brawls I see on TV.

I like to think that's maybe the way I look, but probably not. It's probably much more, you know, falling down trying to throw a punch or something, you know. Uh nowhere near as elegant as, uh, you know, as Arnold Schwarzenegger or any of them, you know.

So, um, and, uh, you know, I'm thinking it wasn't very exciting as a kind of the way to die. You know, it just kind of, you know, guy got out of the car. I don't think he meant to do it.

I think it's just kind of part of the nature. When I lay him out of the car, he just kind of knocked me off my feet. And I remember coming off my feet and thinking, "Oop, not good." You know, feet not on the ground in the air.

Whoa. Not good. You know, strategic air.

Strategic air. And, uh, next thing I know, I'm coming to in a hospital bed. And I'm 22 years old.

I just turned 22 the month before. And uh they've got me strapped down on one of those, you know, hospital gurnies. Um because apparently I've been grabbing people when uh anybody that was close enough to me to grab them, saying, "Don't let me die.

Don't let me die." 22 years old and I'm dying. And I know it. I'm not talking about, you know, some kind of some kind of go out in a bright lights blaze of glory kind of dying.

I'm talking about cold, dark, and scared. Knowing this is it. Knowing your life doesn't mean nothing.

Knowing that the only legacy you're going to leave behind is the pain and your parents and and girlfriend and the people that love you's eyes one more time. And that the best best example that your life will be will be those people in alcohol synonyms of what doesn't work. That's June 23rd, 1990.

And that that night was a a snapshot of of you know 30 seconds a minute and then out for two hours. The next time I came to, they're shoving me in a cat scan machine. The next time I come to, I'm holding my grandfather's hand and the doctors had just got done telling him that if I didn't die, um, I probably would be a brain dead vegetable the rest of my life.

The whole side of my head had been smashed in. Blood was coming out of both my ears. I become paralyzed.

And that was what I brought to you. That's my best efforts at trying to beat alcoholism on my own. And I I like to think of myself as having willpower, as being a bright guy.

And boy, I gave it a run, man. I gave it a run and that was my best effort. See, see, people like me do not surrender easily.

And I don't believe God brings me to my knees. And I'm not sure why somebody like me just stays on this side of the line. And God God I actually believe I was on the other side of the line.

I believe I was dead. I was done. And in my arrogance and early sobriety, I said a prayer holding my grandfather's hand that night when I asked him if I was going to die and saw the tear run down his cheek.

I said a prayer, "God, don't let it end this way. God, please help me. That's still the most powerful prayer I have.

God, help me. Please help me. Please help me.

And when the tear ran down his cheek and he held my his hand started to shake at mine, I knew the answer. Now, my early sobriety and my arrogance, I thought that prayer that I said to my God is what pulled me back over the line from being here or from being buried next to my father in a cemetery not too far from where I live. I'm not so arrogant to believe that today because my grandmother is also a person, a lady of great faith.

I mean, lifelong faith. And what she did action she went in she laid her hand on on my head and she said God your will be done with this guy. If you want to take him then take him now but if you don't you do something with him cuz it is not fair to him or to us to leave him the way he's been living.

It is not fair to see him and to have us suffer so much. And she didn't just end it there again. action, you know, what does God want us to do?

She went and she got on the phone and started calling people of her church and they began to pray for this guy, you know, and later that night in a little room with uh with her pastor praying over me at about 5:00 in the morning, four or five o'clock in the morning, covered in my own vomit, paralyzed. I come to and I understand paraly. first step hit for me in a way it had never had before.

I knew I was done. I knew I could not beat this thing. I knew I was powerless over alcohol.

And I was hopeless. Any ounce of human dignity and self-respect had been stripped away. There was nothing left but a shell of a shattered worthless human being laying on a bed with a priest praying over a more dead than alive paralyzed covered in his own vomit.

I tell you the details of that, not so much for you. Not to get a tear in your eye or from some reaction. I tell you that because I don't want to forget it.

I don't ever want to get so arrogant and so comfortable in my sobriety and the life that I have today to forget what I brought to Alcoholics Anonymous 14 and a half plus years ago. The shattered life that I brought to you all and the life that I have today you're going to hear about. Oh, it is not that.

It is not what I would have hoped my life would have been when I was five years old and had great dreams and great ambitions for what God would have me do. I've always felt close to God except for a period of time when I turned. I've always felt like he was my father.

He loved me and he had great things in store for this guy. I didn't get up from that bed. I didn't have the Bill Wilson cool mountaintop, you know, peppermint patty wind blowing through my gut.

God in my room. Bright light experience. I've had it since.

You know what about those spiritual experiences? You know how much they mean for a drunk like me? Bill Wilson December 1934.

God is in his room. June 1935, 6 months later, he's in a he's in the hot in in the Mayflower Hotel in the lobby and he's going to drink. That's how much it means to a real alcoholic.

Action, spiritual transformation, the slow continual educational variety of character building and growth is much more valuable to a guy like me. I get a spiritual experience. I'm waiting for my next one, wondering why it ain't happening yet, you know.

All right, I got the light. Can we make the light brighter? You know, um, can I heal somebody?

I'd like to raise someone from the dead, please. You know, every now and again when we say the Lord's Prayer, I'm trying to heal the sick alcoholics next to me. You know, I mean, that's the kind of ego I have.

What's happened in the last 14 and a half years that the guy hopefully that you see standing here before you that maybe you believe that he might be different? And I really don't care if you believe I'm different or not. I really don't.

It's merely my reputation. Alcohol anonymous. You know, talk is the simplest and easiest of gifts which God has given us.

If you've been around here long enough, you'll hear people up from this podium more eloquent than me. And then you walk into their home and wonder what happened to that program. Talk means little action.

Faith without works is dead. You know, how do you get that vision? A vision is nothing but a delusion without a plan of action, without a stepbystep process to get from wherever it is that you are now to that vision of where you and God intend your life to be.

Alcoholics Anonymous is that action. It's been the only thing in the last 14 and a half years that I've been here, the only quote unquote therapy, the only quote unquote plan of living that I've tried to adopt. And so all the results that are in my life today, I don't attribute to my intellect.

I don't attribute to the people that love me. I don't attribute it to maturity. I attribute it to consistent work in the program of alcohol and nothing less than the loving hand of a powerful God in my life.

It is not through my own capability and my own deed that I am where I am. Even the action that I've done is little compared to the results I've seen. I heard a guy in AA say one time, he said, uh, you know, God does 99% and I do 1%.

But God expects me to do 100% of my 1%. And what he was saying is that what I found to be true is that of myself and by myself, I cannot change who I am. But there are some basic things that I can do that God has given me the power to do.

He's given me the power to make a commitment to alcohol and one day at the time to show up and do the simple things that you all have taught me to do. He's given me the ability to decide when that phone call comes whether or not I want to talk to that drunk, whether or not I want to get them, whether or not I want to spend time on a beautiful Saturday, you know, uh spending seven hours in the in the car and or seven hours to go to the 1 hour meeting that I'm talking at. He's given me the ability to choose that.

What's my choice to be? Will I do the simple action? Will I continue to say yes to Alcoholics Anamas as I was instructed to from the beginning?

If the date and time is clear, you say yes. You will do whatever you asked in Alcoholics Anamas. Very simple instructions from my sponsor.

He was my sponsor when he walked in that hospital room in the morning of June 24th of 1990. And he's still my sponsor today because what he taught me, what he what he practiced in all areas of his life exactly what I want to reflect now. And I tell you what, if you've got a human being in your life uh that you think that's true of, you're delusional and you'll find out sooner or later they're human, too.

But the reason my sponsor is still my sponsor today is because he still selflessly gives and devotes his life to the program of alcohol economics. And one area where I will not get any compromise from him is on compromising alcohol can economist and what I've been doing. And I need that more than anything in the world.

I cannot compromise what I've been given for worldly success, no matter how good. For the things that are often very easily distracted in life. Two beautiful kids at home, six and three.

Certainly on a nice day like today, we could be doing something as a family together. Certainly, I could be spending time with them. But God wants me to be here, so I must be here.

Otherwise the time that we would have on a Saturday maybe next Saturday will not be a very good time. That sponsor was a step I call him stepnazies and no you know political incorrectness intended but uh he believed in that first 164 pages of the big book he believed that the 12 steps were the program recovery. That was it.

If you wanted to recover from disease of alcoholism and you could recover from disease of alcoholism that there was only one solution alcohol synonymous offer and that was 12 steps of alcohol. That was it. If you don't like that it doesn't say turn to appendix G in the back and try the alternate program for those of you who have a problem with God or doing steps.

We don't have an answer. It's it said what I just read to you. You know I mean early on in the vision for you.

You know we don't have we don't have a lock on this thing. You know you're welcome to try something else if you like. you know, but when you're done like me trying everything else and there's nothing left to try and there's nothing left to you and you're hopeless, maybe this will work.

So, I worked the 12 steps with that sponsor. Um, see, I told you that's going to happen. It's now getting sober.

Worked the 12 steps with the sponsor and uh, you know, I stood on the shores of a sever, uh, September of 1990 and I just got done telling this guy who's old enough to be my grandfather, a little Irish guy about this big. you know, at time I was, you know, bodybuilder and, you know, great big, you know, tough guy, tough guy, you know, and a cr, you know, tough. And I just got done telling him who and what I was.

And that's the first time I'd ever shared with another human being on the face of the earth all all that there was to tell. And the tough guy had been reduced to the shoulders slumped and the tears running down his face and not even able to look at this little Irish guy. And uh he reached up and he pulled me to him and he hugged me tight and he said, "God loves you, son." And so do I.

And he said these words to me and it was the first time I had ever believed him. You may never have to drink again. Welcome to Alpha Hogs Nights.

and a very good friend of mine who is no longer with us in body but is boy is she with me in spirit and with many people in spirit one of those heroes in alcoholics synonyms she's in my hall of fame in AA if you wonder what that is I'll pass along what Lamar told me when I was early in soiety about a hall of fame of AA to get into the hall of fame of Alpha Hawks anonymous there's a simple requirement not only does that person have to become better for having come to AA. But AA has to be better because they came. And hopefully in your mind and in your experience, you can think of at least a couple people who are not any better because they came to Alcoholics, but have somehow made enough of a difference in enough people's lives that all of AA is better because they came.

And Virginia is in that category. And V Virginia used to talk about the fifth step and she'd say a deunitor. And when I share with my sponsor exactly who and what I was and he put his arms around me and he told me God loved me a great deal and welcome to AA.

I wasn't different anymore. And he had shared some things back with me through that fifth experience that that surprised the hell out of me. You know, I had no idea the old guy was capable.

You know, wow. Yeah, go figure. and uh and I wasn't different anymore.

And I could be one of you. And if it worked for you, guess what? It might work for me.

And I carry that with me to the day. And it's gone from the a flimsy read of hope to certain conviction way deep down inside somewhere where it can't be taken. Not one day at a time keeping this in my in the center of my life.

It can be taken over a period of time. time if I again choose to wrestle my laurels and choose to do other things than what I'm asked to do by God and by a you know certainly it can be taken but not easily not the way it could be taken in a split-second thought in June of 1990 when I'm not an alcohol in Tijana all know there is more between me and that drink today and I don't say that egotistically because it's not me but it's 14 and a half plus years of you 14 and and half plus years of God is 14 and a half plus years of power with a capital P. And so with vision, there needs to be a plan and there needs to be commitment and God knows there needs to be a power.

So worked through those steps with him. Did eight and nine did some hard nine step amends. Thought I was done.

Amends to the family can scarcely be made in a lifetime. What our book says. Still making ninestep amends today.

Living ninestep amends. Grandfather held my hand, watching me die. And talk a little bit about amends real quick.

August of 1995, he stood beside me as my best man in my wedding. About three years ago, I stood beside him on the hospital bed watching him die and praying with him. He didn't die, but I was there.

It's close. And I was there. Few weeks ago, we sat on my mother's front porch in Florida after we had all traveled, four generations of us, a thousand miles to take my kids to Disney.

And I sat out on the front porch with just him smoking a cigar and talking for about two hours, telling him what he meant to me. Telling him what he had done for me, my life. Those are mess.

Took my son down this morning for a little visit to see him. You know, be an active part of the people who love your lives. be an active part of the people who you've damaged the most lives if they'll let you in.

If they don't hurt you back, but try try to be part of their lives. Father, I got killed in Vietnam. Said a little uh mumble prayer on my ninestep.

Didn't even go to the graveside like people thought. Graveside didn't seem right for me personally. Always kind of felt like that.

My dad was a fine man and when he died, he went up to be with God. He was kind of always watching out for me. Anyway, I said a little mumbled prayer, told him I was sorry for being angry all those years for him running off and getting killed in Vietnam.

And there were some circumstances that I didn't really understand about some things that he did over there. He had he hadn't volunteered for the mission that he got killed on. And I thought, well, how self, you know, how selfish was that, you know?

I mean, I didn't understand. I held uh my daughter in my arm. She was 3 months old and the phone started ringing.

Brun hadn't rang in 30 years or people had served with my father and people who knew my father who began to call me saying you know we don't know why we're calling but for some reason we were thinking about your father and about you and we tracked you down and just wanted to know if you'd like to know more about your dad both who he was before he went there and who he was when he went there. And I'm holding this little girl in my arms and I'm looking down at her. I'm thinking, if I die today, would I want that little girl to know who her father was?

Would I want that little girl to seek out all she could know about the and how much I love her? And so I started returning calls. I started getting on planes.

I started answering emails. I got on a plane and went to Savannah, Georgia to a reunion with guys that had held him when he died. I understood why it was that he volunteered for that mission and he went on.

I began to understand and see things in a different light. And I began to really know who my father was, not just by what people had told me, but by the consensus of shared experience through people who I believe really did know him well. And I could look I' done enough inventory by then that I could look on the inside and see pieces of who they described in me, you know, and I found out I'm a lot like you, you know, found out I'm a lot like you.

And those amends aren't done, but there's a piece now that I didn't have before that. And the way Alcoholics Anonymous works is as I began to do that, my mother began to tag along with me because she had a lot of unanswered and a lot of un a lot of issues that she needed to put to rest. and uh and through the work in Alcoholics Anonymous that you all taught me to do.

And through me walking through my fear, it made it easier for her to walk through her fear and the people who had guilt about having him die, who had served with him, who were there, people whose place he might have been in. I've had a chance to help them make amends and set it right too. That's the way alcohol economics works.

Just like my disease, you know, it talks about the farmer coming out of the cyclone cellar and everything's destroyed. You know, sweet relationships are dead. It's a freaking wreckage around them.

Isn't it great the wind stop blowing? You know, and you know, in my early sobriety when I did that first nine step, I'm kind of I was kind of like that, you know, say some say some apologies. You know, most of the people love me are happy as hell.

I'm just sober, you know. But there is this vast field of wreckage. Sweet relationships have been damaged.

And what you all have taught me to do is be part of the people who love me lot. And what I've seen in time that I've been here is I've seen the great healing just as my disease was a destroyer not just of myself but of all around me. I've seen the recovery and the power of God that you all have given me.

Be healed. and reconstructive power to create a beautiful life around me and to touch people in a way that I'm not capable of doing by myself. These are some of the things that I've seen.

This is some of the vision of what you can expect. If you're new to Alcohol Economics or if you've been here a while and you haven't done the deal or if you're done the deal and man, you're just ecstatic about where you are. But you know what?

There's more ahead of you. And there's people in this room I'm sure are sober longer than me and probably say, "Yeah, boy. We know, boy.

We know you keep coming back. You keep coming back." Some of the things that happened on the outside, I've kind of touched on, but I want to kind of wrap it all together and then close. I've had a chance to accomplish some things on the outside that are also impossible for a guy like me.

And not that I think that this is what it's really about. I've already told you I think it's more about building character on the inside. Some of the things I want to talk about have built character on the inside.

So I want to talk about them. One day I was better about 3 months and I'm paralyzed. Look, I had a stroke.

One side of my face went down like this. I talked like this. I used have to tape my eyes shut at night so I wouldn't go.

Food would fall out of my mouth. One side kind of droop down like this. So there about three months and uh one day I'm not paralyzed anymore.

Now that'll get your attention. Start praying. You start praying and all of a sudden one day you're like, "Whoa, this works, man.

Let me tell you, even the doctors are going, whoa." You know, what the hell is going on? I'm thinking, "Maybe I am the Messiah." My sponsor quickly put that to rest. You know, I said, "What are you going to do with yourself now?" I'm like, "Oh, I just got him paralyzed." You know, I mean, up to that point, I pretty much been planning on being a vegetable and going to AA.

I mean, that was my first three-month plan of recovery, you know. Somebody comes pick me up, take me to a meeting, I listen, I feel a little better, I go home, you know. Um, but now like have to have a whole plan of life because now I'm actually like, you know, restored to some kind of physical capacity and like I probably ought to do something um other than sit around and feel sorry for myself all day waiting for the A people to come pick me up.

And uh so they said, "Why don't you go back to college?" Oh, you don't understand how junior year of the University of Maryland engineering curriculum. I ain't got a I didn't have what it took before I got the whole side of my head caved in. Didn't you hear that part of the story, old guy?

Get some herinades. Would you? And he said, "Well, what else you going to do?" He had a good point.

So, I went back to college and I went back to college convinced I was going to fail. And this is basically, this is why I tell the story because I went back scared to death, convinced I was going to fail. And what you all taught me is that not only will God help me not drink one day at a time, but God has the plan for my life.

And if I'm willing to do what you all have taught me in Alcoholics Anonymous in other areas of my life, it works. And the the school thing was the first example of that. And my sponsor said, "Do what you do in A." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Whenever there's class, get there early and stay late." Not why.

He said, "Sit up front so you're not distracted. If you don't know what the hell is going on, ask for help. Find yourself a group of school winners.

Get get to know them and figure out what they're doing and ask God to help you." Oh, I knew that. I started going to class when I started turning in homework when homework was due. That's a new idea for me in college.

I started taking tests with the rest of the class. I used to have dead grandmothers, dead grandfathers, you know, I was always had cast, you know, car accidents. There was always some reason why I wasn't taking the test with everybody else.

Usually because I was on a drunken binge and missed the test, you know, and uh day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, I stood up on a stage with a couple years sobriety and picked up a degree, you know. And this is this is this is really what Alcoholics Time is about. Not only did I, you know, squeak by, which is the best I would have hoped for when I started that that endeavor, is that I was the outstanding graduating senior in my department, you know, and that the same people who had, you know, I'm the first guy in my family to ever get a college degree.

And they had had those hopes and dreams on me from the time I was a child. And people worked really hard like my grandfather with this with a seventh grade education to see to it that I would have the opportunity to go to college if I wanted. And that same man who who who saw to it that I was able to to go to college um also gave me a place to live while I finished a masters and a PhD.

These are the kind of things that I've had in my these are the kind of people that I've had in my life. These are kind of shining examples of humanity that I I want one day hopefully to be able to live up to the kind of kind of person that makes a f makes a promise to my father when he goes to Vietnam and follows through with 30 years of action. 30 years seventh grade education and sees me through a PhD.

kind of here as I have my life, not just an AA. Hopefully you have some, too. God, you know, God really care about another PhD on the face of the earth.

Hell no. You know what he cares about? He He cares about me showing up here and telling you I'm a brain deadad bum laying in a bed with the whole side of my head smashed in, completely destroyed in every area of my life, and he can make me a freaking PhD in engineering.

That's the power of life here. Do I think I'm different than you? Hell no.

>> Alcoholics Anonymous as one example has not only given me the ability to reach and achieve and see my dreams as a child and the dreams of my mother and parents come true, but you all have given me access to a power by which I can dream even greater dreams and a power by which things can happen which just shouldn't happen for a guy like me. The other thing I was absolutely convinced of and I'm going to shut up. I promise.

Growing up, my mom uh when my father got killed, um my mom didn't remarry till I was 16 years old. There's 14 years it was just she and I. I mean, it it devastated her in a way that uh that I hope never to know.

And it left a hole in her like I hope never to feel. So, it was she and I for for a long long time. And uh growing up as being raised by a single mom who put herself through college part-time and worked and you know I used to watch the other little kids playing and I thought one day maybe one day God I'd like to be the kind of father that I wish I would have had you know and with the about seven years of sobriety I held my wife's hand in a hospital in North Baltimore and watched her give birth to our beautiful little sevenb baby girl you know and a few years later in a little different, you know, scenario, a little more scary with an emergency C-section and seeing my wife cut in half, which is not a sight that I'll ever forget.

Um, my little wild man boy come popping out, you know, and uh James and uh he's three now. And the guys always give me crap for this, but it's it's it's something that really really is true for me. you know, uh, when I go home this afternoon, this evening, and I walk through that door, there'll be my beautiful wife who will be very glad to see me and there'll be these two little kids, one six and one three, with sparkling eyes.

He'll come up and rug me and my son will probably pull my pants off. He comes up, grabbed onto my leg and he, you know, weighs me down. And out of everything that I have to be grateful for in Alcoholics Anonymous, the look in my wife and the spark on my children's eyes are priceless.

And there's a result of the character that you built in me. Again, I am nowhere near a finished work. But boy, I am not the man that I brought to you off 15 years ago.

My life is not as best as it would have been had I not been an alcoholic. My life is better than the best I've ever known. As Ebie told Bill when he came to see me in this book, taken from the scrap heap of humanity to a level of life better than the best have ever known.

Now that for a vision, huh? And I want each and every one of you to have all that I found and more and more. So I'll end with this.

guy named Sam Shoemaker was not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but he was Bill Wilson's spiritual adviser. Some would even say he was his spiritual sponsor. Sam Shoemaker was a powerful powerful force in Alcoholics and a powerful force in our spiritual development.

And I want to read for you an excerpt from a writing of Sham Shoemakers. And this is out of his credo for life. This is something that he believed in and the way he tried to live.

This is Sam. I stand by the door. I neither go too far in nor stay too far out.

The door is the most important door in the world. It is a door through which men walk when they find God. There is no use in my going way inside and staying there when so many are still outside.

And they, as much as I crave to know where the door is, and all that they ever find is the wall where the door ought to be. People still out there suffering, looking for the door. They creep along the wall like blind men withoutstretched groping hands feeling for a door knowing there must be a door yet they will never find it.

So my job in aa stand by the door. Thanks. 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.