God Writes Straight With Crooked Lines – AA Speaker – Ralph W.

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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. I see you, Eva.

We know what you're thinking. I'm jittering alone. I can't do this.

But you can to duplicate with such backing what we have accomplished is only a matter of willingness, patience, and labor. Still, you may say, I don't have the benefit of those of you who wrote this book that we can't be sure. But your real reliance must be on a power greater than yourself.

God will show you how to create the fellowship we crave. My name is Ralph White. I am an alcoholic.

I want to thank the committee for asking me to come up here and share my experience, Strength, and Hope tonight. This morning, I want to thank the speakers who preceded me. Mr.

Kenny Bob who got this party started off right on Friday night. Speakers I listened to at the old-timers longtimers meeting on Saturday. Uh the split speaker Alanon and AA speaker I had the opportunity to listen to the other speakers I've had over the heard over the weekend.

the new friends I've made this weekend and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous stepping up and showing again and demonstrating to me what it is that we're about. And I really want to thank this committee. You know, I want to thank Robin for her hospitality.

I want to thank the committee for, you know, the gifts, the baskets, the hospitality, all the things that you've done for me this weekend. Uh I want to thank the diva squad on the committee for all that you did this weekend, you know. Um, Miss Patty, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your message and thank you for your walk.

All the people who took the time to stand off to the side with me and share their experience, strength, and hope this weekend. I want to thank you. My good friend Tim over here on the taping, you know.

And now I got all the housekeeping out the way. I cannot, you know, I cannot, you know, forget this one guy. You know, when you get up here sometimes you'll feel like, and I don't want to make this the Oscar, so I'm gonna cut this short, you know, but Tim Wickham, you know, daily inspirations on a daily basis, you know, uh if if you do this thing, Alcoholics Anonymous, we have u in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, we have a logo.

Uh it's a triangle inside a circle. Triangles, unity, recovery, and service, you know. And if you really want to experience the gifts and the benefits of this program in its entirety and in its totality, you know, I salute the soldiers in Alcoholics Anonymous, our service junkies, our H&I people, the people who go out and do what's done not in the light.

See, I'm standing in the light right now. I'm at a podium. But we got some service soldiers in here that are in our institutions, that are in our hospitals, that are in the prisons, that are in the jails, that are on Skid Row, that are in the missions, that are carrying this message to the still sick and suffering alcoholic.

And I'm glad that we have those soldiers because it is those soldiers who kept the light on for a drunk like me. And they still keep the light on. And I'm grateful.

>> >> got the housekeeping out the way, I'll do the most important thing I can do this morning. I want to welcome our new friends to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to let you know that if you drink like I drink and if you felt like I felt this is probably the best step you can take from the cradle to the grave.

I don't say that because I'm this morning speaker. I don't say it because it's the right thing to say when you get behind a podium in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. I don't say it because this, you know, that's the correct and proper thing to say.

Though I'm all those things. I say it cuz this program, this process, and this power that you introduced me to has been working in my life like nothing I had discovered. You know, when I sit through a countdown like this and I get humbled in the presence of so many years of recovery, I get humbled in the presence of some of the people who I've admired from, you know, even though I don't know you yet and even though I don't know your face, you know, I've heard your tapes and I've seen your walk and I've seen the demonstrations of you through some of the people you've touched, you know, and and so when I get in a in a countdown in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, I'm humbled.

still feel like a baby and and when I get in the presence of people, we started at 58 years, you know, I kind of and I'm following up Patty and Kenny and I I want to impress you guys. I say I just I'm not going to share alone drunk along. I really want to share about recovery.

But I remember being new to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, somewhat like our new friends who are here this morning. And I remember going to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and a speaker was standing in front of the group that particular night and he was dressed pretty nice and his hair was comb and his eyes were bright and he was stringing sentences together real well. And I remember thinking to myself that particular night, I know this cat ain't done what I done.

I know he ain't felt what I felt and I know he ain't been where I've been. What can this lame tell me? So, it's real important that I share with you, you know, that the guy that's standing in front of you this morning is not the same one that stumbled into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous October the 11th, 1986.

I'm going to share with you in a general way, what I used to be like, what happened, and what I'm like today in the hopes that somebody out there will be thinking like I was thinking, man, I used to do the same thing. Man, I used to feel the same way. Or more important, I too want to have this thing.

See, you can't appreciate what it is that it my life has become today if you don't know where it is that I come from. You know, I grew up in South Central Los Angeles from a real large family. We had six I have five brothers.

We stayed in a little two-bedroom apartment. Moms and pops stayed in one room. The six boys stayed in three bunk beds in the other room.

Earliest memory of my old man was he was a drunk and I didn't want to be like him. My father wasn't abusive and my father wasn't violent. My father wasn't absentee drunk.

And every other Friday, like clockwork, you could count on him not showing up at the house. It would be a kid in the neighborhood who would feel like it was his duty to share with my family how my old man had been showing his ass up at the pool hall a previous Friday or Saturday night. And I would feel ashamed and I would feel embarrassed.

And those are feelings I'm familiar with from a real early age. Pops got put out the house when we were nine. When I was about 9 and 10 years old, my mom proceeded to raise these six boys by herself.

Don't know about any of you guys in here, but when I grew up, you know, uh, at least in my mind, ideal family life was depicted by the TV programs that came on at the time. And the TV programs that came on when I grew up showing Ideal Families, Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, My Three Sons, Donna Reed, and bet that wasn't jumping off at my house, you know. Um, when you when you grown, you get something that's called perspective.

And perspective works like this. You had a mom that raised six boys by herself. She was on welfare and she didn't have a high school education.

She put herself back through high school. She put herself through college. She worked two jobs.

She took in clothes that she washed and ironed for other folk. And when you grown, you look back on your life and say, "Damn, I had a hell of a mom. Look how she sacrificed to raise her boys." But when you're a kid about 9 or 10 years old and you bringing a couple of partners home from school on a Wednesday afternoon and you hit the front door and moms is in the living room with an ironing board up and a rag on her head, you don't feel proud.

You feel ashamed and embarrassed. You start living in that fantasy world about what life is really like for you at the house. And if your name is Ralph, you retreat into that prison I've lived in much of my life.

And that's the prison of what I think you think about me. See, I don't know what you think about me, but I'm trapped in what I think you think about me. And I'll do whatever it takes to shape and form and mold your opinion of Ralph.

I'll whine you. I'll dine you. I woo you.

I'll con you. I bully you. I manipulate you.

I buy you. Please like me. Now, I don't particularly have to like your ass, but please like me.

You know, I like to throw a disclaimer out at about this point in the proceedings cuz somebody's getting confused about what we going got going on this morning. Somebody is probably thinking to themsel, "This guy might be all right." Speak, you looking around the room making eye contact with everybody. Don't let that fool you.

I'm looking for the person whose attention is drifting. look like you going to sleep. I'm going to work on your ass.

You'll like me. Trapped in what I think you think about me. And to our new friends, you'll hear a lot of common themes in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And one of the common themes you'll hear from a lot of our members is they just never felt like they fit in. And that's not my story. I'm a little guy.

I like a lot of attention. I've never been interested in fitting in. I've always wanted to stand out.

And as a result of that, I achieved and I accomplished a few things in my life. You know, there are many different pictures of the alcoholic, you know, as there are men and women sitting in this room right now, you know, and I used to be confused about that when I came, you know, and my story is my story. And the reason you're getting mine is cuz I'm this morning speaker, you know, that's pretty much it, you know.

And you know, and my story goes somewhat like this. Every single one of you had me in your classroom. You know, I was a straight A student.

I was teachers pet. I was generally class president or student body president. I played ball.

I made all stars. On the outside, it seemed like I should have been okay. On the inside, I've always felt like if you really knew me, you wouldn't like me.

You know, I was a teacher's pet. I was a straight A student. I did all those things, but I would have traded it all in if I could have been cool.

>> If I could have been cool, cuz the neighborhood I grew up in, it was a whole lot more currency put on cool than it was on smart, you know? And and and uh you know, I always have to backtrack right here cuz somebody's probably thinking to themselves, maybe this guy was alcoholic. He come from a single family house.

He had this mom and he didn't have a whole lot and he has he seemed like he had this bleak background. And that's not my story at all. I felt like I had the ideal life and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

I had five brothers, you I never knew a lonely moment. You know, we didn't have anything. Sometime you don't know what you don't have till you find till you have something, right?

Cuz I didn't know we didn't have till I became a parent myself and started trying to provide on on Christmas. I used to go to sleep on Christmas Eve in my clothes cuz I couldn't wait to get up on Christmas morning. We'd have board games and Chinese checkers and my brothers maybe would get a glove or B.

Now, I didn't realize my mom was doing Christmas for six boys on probably $50 to $80 back then, you know, and I didn't realize till I was grown that the church used to kick in and we would have some things for Christmas. I just thought it was a lot of love in my house, you know. And after my old man got put out, I never saw chaos.

I never saw drinking. I never saw any of that in my house. My mother was a real strong woman and she ruled with a firm hand.

And somehow someway she instilled this drive in these boys that she had, you know. And so growing up for me, man, I couldn't have imagined being anybody but me. You know, we played ball.

It was six of us. Five of us made up the infield. One of my brothers played left field.

You know, in those days, you know, in those days, there's some people in here that remember, G, you could play in the street, man. you know, and and we be it two people, three flies up, you know, three people, you know, over you just all kind making up G. So anyway, I grew up in this.

I had a I thought, you know, I wouldn't have traded my childhood like Patty. I fell in love with books. You know, me and my brothers used to walk to the library and we check out, you know, the limit was four books a piece and we check them out and we read them in a week and we take them back.

Anyway, so I'm growing up like this, man. Just a kid growing up with big goals, dreams, and ambitions, you know. So I'm I'm I would have traded in to be cool though, you know, cuz the cats who was cool, you know, they were shooting dice in the bathroom.

They was smoking cigarettes. They can was taking quarters from guys like me that brought extra quarters, right? And and and they knew how to talk to girls.

And girls were a mystery to me, man. You know, and so I fast forward and I'm still like this. I'm on a fast track for success.

I'm not going to be my daddy. That I'm not going to be. I'll make my family proud of me.

I'll never abandon my kids. I'll never embarrass them, you know. So, I'm on this fast track for success.

I'm growing up, still shy and introverted. I'm 16 years old now. Still ain't never done nothing.

Not even trying to. I'm 16 years old. And and I get a girlfriend.

Now, Ralph with a girlfriend at 16 don't mean the same thing it means for some of you cast. Ralph with a girlfriend at 16 simply means this. I ran with a crew of dudes that went with the same group of girls.

One of my boys broke up with this girl. I waited a suitable amount of time to pass and I told my other boy, "Look, I want to go with her." He went and asked and she came back and told me. She said yes.

Right now I have a girlfriend. Right. But I don't know what to do with her cuz Ralph don't do girls.

Right now check this out. I had had other girlfriends before but this one actually knew she was my girlfriend. Right.

And she was claiming me. If if if she was claiming me. Check out how I was this.

This is how I was rolling it. This girl, she if you would ask her who do you go with, she would have told you I go with Ralph. And this is my official girlfriend.

And back in those days, remember them old rotary phones? The Some of you youngsters are like, "What?" This device that had Anyway, talk after the me, you know, this rotary phones. And I'd dial that seventh number and it would come back around seem like in slow motion and terror would set in cuz I knew what would have to happen when she answered the phone, right?

It's the telephone. You got to talk. And I just hang up on my girlfriend.

Click, right? Cuz I didn't have no conversation. Go out this particular night.

Uh I'm with an older partner of mine and him and his girl are in the front seat of the car. Me and my girl are in the back seat. We go out on a double day.

Plastic cup of rum and coke comes to the back seat this particular night. Drank that rum and coke down. Went down real warm.

Rush back to the top of my brain. All of a sudden Ralph's hand started doing things they had never done. Mouth started saying things that it never said.

And I had arrived. Alcohol did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Gave me the courage to do and to be and to say things I wouldn't do, be and say without it.

And I liked it. I liked it a lot. The big book Alcoholics Anonymous talks about me in a lot of places.

And it starts talking about me in the front of that book. To our new friends, there's a chapter in the front called The Doctor's Opinion. And they slipped a line in there to, you know, I didn't recognize or understand a lot of what I read, but the first time I read this line, I understood it immediately.

There's a line in there to go something like this. Men and women like Ralph drink essentially for the effect produced by alcohol. I recognized that the first time.

Some of you old veterans sitting in here might be drinking that scotch and be like, I was never I'm scrunching my face up, but I like what it did when it went down. I'm not overnight alcoholic. I understand we talk about this disease being progressive in nature because that's how it showed up for me.

I started drinking in the 11th grade and I was just drinking to go to parties. parties the youngsters used to go to, you know, and we be drinking what youngsters drink. Annie Green Springs, Boon's Farm, Tyrolia, Spinata, you know, and I'm getting in there and I'm at the party and I even got the courage.

Now I'm dancing. I'm even slow dancing and grinding in the corner. I'm like, "Yeah, I like alcohol, you know." So, I graduate from high school and my drinking is still just to go to parties.

I graduate from high school in 71 and I graduate to higher education in every sense of the word. I start college and I'm still just drinking to go to parties. By 70, by the end of 71, I'm drinking not only on the weekend to go to the parties, but I'm drinking on the weekend during the day to get ready for the party.

By 72, I'm drinking not only on the weekend, but I'm drinking during the week. And like uh Kenny Bob, I too added some non-addictive marijuana to the mix. By the end of 72, I'm drinking and I'm smoking herb and I'm selling it and I'm doing it.

By 73, I'm drinking. I'm smoking herb. I'm selling herb.

I'm doing other drugs. I'm doing it on a daily basis. And you could not have told me it was anything wrong with the way that I was living.

The big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, talks about at a certain point in my drinking career, I won't be able to tell the truth from the false. And the way that that worked for me was this, you know, in the way that I'm doing it. Isn't that the way everybody does it?

Why would you be young with a bright future with a little bit of money? I was getting financial aid. Didn't chasing women and getting loaded come with the territory in those days, man.

If you came over my house and I couldn't offer you something to drink or something to smoke, I wasn't being a good host. And if I went over your house and you didn't do the same for me, not only weren't you being a good host, wasn't coming over your house no more. You know, for what?

You know, you know, I don't know if it was a sim, you know, no disrespect to our young friends. I'm not talking about our new friends now. I'm talking about our young friends.

No disrespect, but I am so glad I grew up at the time that I grew up. I don't know if it was a simpler time, but it seemed like a simpler time. You know what I'm saying?

You know, now in 2006, you got to worry about sexually transmitted disease, AIDS, and safe only. Man, back in those days, you know, I would go to a club. I'd have a one question interview for a girl.

You get high if not next. You know, I don't need to waste no time with where do you work and what's your last name and what's your sign and oh, do you let's get to the basis of this relationship. You know, you know, somehow I made it through school and I and I started working as a counselor for LA city schools.

And even though I had the kind of job that should have allowed me to acquire what normal people did, I never did that. Never did it. snapshot of Ralph's life.

This is when alcohol was working. I would buy a car. I make exactly three car payments.

Then come find it. Come find it. You know, the first time I got a car repossessed, first time I got a car repossessed, I had the nerve to call the police.

You know, I call them, you know, I call the police. My car, you know, I went outside. No car.

What? You know, I call the police. They do what they do.

Come back on the line. No, Mr. White, your car is not sown to the right.

stolen. The rifle owner just came and picked up this, you know, I'm nine months behind on the car note and I'm calling the police. Uh the next two times I didn't even trip.

I already knew, you know. Uh I'm the kind of brother that never had a problem balancing a bank book. Payday, I got money.

Two days later, broke. Zero. No problem balancing my bank.

You know, I stayed in the crib from 1976 to 1979 without paying rent. couple of baffling features about the disease I suffer from and one of them is this. I can't see my relationship with alcohol until I'm free of it.

I can't see what it's doing to me when I'm in the mix. So, some of the things that are crystal clear to me now looking back in the rearview mirror of experience were not at all clear to me when I was in it. You know, I don't know about you guys, but I like to play the game sometime.

I used to do it a long time in Alcoholics Anonymous, the regret game. If I only knew then what I knew now. Because you know what I don't like about that invisible line.

Yeah. You already It's invisible. It ain't no warning.

If you take that next one because I you know it it ain't it don't work like that. I be out there. I see somebody like Tim and be like man if I get like him I'll quit.

You know if I ever get like that look at Jeff and be man you need some help. What's wrong? You know the book talks about seeking the Lord companion long before I became the Lord companion.

You know but but that's the way I was rolling man. If I only knew then that what I knew. Yeah.

Right. You know, I you know, there's a story I like to tell. Story about a little boy named Johnny.

And Johnny had a habit his father frowned on. Johnny used to like to play with himself. And one day, his father goes off to work and comes home early.

Lil Johnny's bedroom door is closed. Father goes into the bedroom without knocking. Sure enough, little Johnny's in the bedroom masturbating.

Father looks at him and says, "Son, I thought I told you if you keep doing that, you'll go blind." And little Johnny stopped and looked at his daddy and said, "Well, dad, can I just do it till I need glasses? You know it. See, I like that.

That's an alcoholic story. That remind me of me in the life. I said you going down.

You I'm just going right. And I can't tell you the moment. I can't tell you the hour.

I can't tell you where I was or what I was doing when alcohol ceased to be a luxury for me and became a necessity. you know, Bill's description of the invisible line, but I can tell you that it did happen for me. 1980, I got married on a Saturday afternoon at 1:00.

I had a bachelor party the night before my wedding. None of the guys in my bachelor party are getting married the next day. All them have sense enough to go home at 2 or 3:00 in the morning.

I'm still in my bachelor party till 7:30 in the morning, right? Uh me and my brothers, four of us made it to these rooms, you know, and and I go to I get into bed, they pour me in bed at 7:30. I get up at 10 o'clock for my one o'clock wedding, right?

I've just laid on the top of the bed closing towe up toe up, right? I'm just laying on the bed and I get up for my one o'clock wedding, right? And I show up at the wedding and I'm wobbling in and I'm supposed to say my own vows at this wedding and I wobble in there and my then wife to be looked at me wobbling and she looked at the preacher, she said, "Scratch the own vows.

Say the regular on his ass." Right. So now my lines are cut to two words and it get we get into the ceremony and you know it gets to me and and I get ready to say I do. I say I and threw up.

Oh passed out. have not taken a wedding picture to this day. Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

Again though, our new friends, if you're anything like me, when I came around the rooms, you know, the people in the rooms weren't using words I was unfamiliar with. I was familiar with all the words, but I wasn't familiar with the way that they used them in here because the way they used them in here was not the same way I used them in my everyday walk around vocabulary. Folk in here were talking about this phenomena craving and this psychic change and this allergy of the body and I needed some help for some of that.

But the first time I heard pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, didn't need no help with that one. Folk like us don't need a dictionary for pitiful incomprehensible demoralization. I live pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization up close and personal.

And I lived it over and over and over and over and over and over again. Cuz I got to let you guys know that that wedding day was the high point of that marriage. Went downhill after that.

Cuz I'm the kind of father and I'm the kind of husband remember sitting on my living room couch, wife coming out the bathroom real fast, pulling her pants up and going to the dining room table, picking her purse up off the table, clutching it real close to her. She went back to the bathroom and I feel as tall cuz nobody was in the house but me and her. But it got like that in my house.

I'm the kind of father and I'm the kind of husband remember coming home sticking my key in the door. Wife and two-year-old daughter sitting there and they're crying. I look over here and homeboy sitting in my seat with a gun pointed at my stomach talking about I want my money right now.

Let me talk to the man for just a minute. Don't know if the rest of you guys ever had those fears and doubts about do I have what it takes to be a father? Do I have what it takes to be a husband?

Cuz if you in the life, your track record already give you your answer, right? Cuz what's the father's role and what's the husband's role? To protecting the providing is a cold blooded feeling, fellas, laying in bed with a woman night after night after night after night, knowing not only aren't you protecting, knowing not only aren't you providing, you the one bringing the wolf to the door.

See, my house got broken into several times. Each time I pretended to call 77th Division. Each time I knew I was playing a game because they had told me, "You gonna give us our money or we going to come up in there and get it." I'm the kind of father and I'm the kind of husband remember sitting on my back porch, two-year-old daughter coming outside, pulling at my coat.

Daddy, daddy, that's my piggy bank. I remember stopping and giving her a shitty grin. Don't worry, baby.

Daddy's going to put some dollar bills in here for this change. And I wasn't raised to be stealing from my daughter. And I wasn't raised to be stealing from my wife, but I was an alcoholic with no tools of recovery.

And I did what it took took to get what I needed to get. I've already shared with you guys that my disease is progressive in nature. And in my experience, it's progressive in a couple of areas.

Share one already. Takes more than it used to take in order for me to get the same effect. But my disease is progressive in another area.

My behavior my behavior gets progressively worse. I'm willing to do more more readily to chase this thing. I discovered first time I went in my wife's purse.

If you would hook me up to a poly this mo that morning, that particular night, if you would hook me up to a polygraph, I I I I know I would have passed when I said, "I'm just taking this money and I'm going to replace it before it's gone." Cuz I don't steal. I don't steal. You know, I really don't steal from my family.

You know how the line keeps changing? I really don't steal from my family, you know. And I took $40 out my wife's purse.

I had been out doing what I do. Came in, looked for some money. She was not hiding the purse.

I had never hid it. Took $40, deliberated a long time, said, "I'm going to replace this money before she knows it's missing." And I did that. And I went out, spent it up, came back looking for some more money.

She had moved the purse. I didn't look too hard for it cuz I couldn't believe what I had done already. Replace this money before she knows it's missing.

Two weeks later, the same scenario presented itself. Gotten paid, giving her some money, went out drinking like I do on payday, staying out all night, you know, and and they wrote our book. It was published in 39.

Wrote it back in the 30s. And they knew I was coming in ' 86, you know. And they slipped a lot of lines in there about me.

And there's a line in there. They say, "We don't know why, but the alcoholic could be unable to recall with sufficient force, pain, suffering, humiliation of weeks or even days ago." And that thought of, "I'm going to replace this money before it's missing was replaced two weeks later." You know, I didn't deliberate so long before I looked at the purse this time. The idea replacing the money didn't come up.

In fact, it was replaced with a new idea. I said, "Last time I took $40, came back looking for the rest of the money, and she had moved the purse. This time I'll take all the money out, and that that I don't spend up, I'll sneak it back in the purse." Right.

And I was off and running to hit my wife's purse on a daily on a regular basis, you know. Um I take it on a Wednesday, come back on Monday. Did that one too many Wednesdays, came back one Monday, suitcase was on the porch, note was on the screen, the rest of your stuff is at your mom's house.

I'm put out my house. I'm now my daddy. You know, I went to stay at my mom's house back then.

And over the course of that next year, my five brothers got put out of their respective homes for the same reason. And all six of us ended up back in my mom's house. And over the course of those next several years, we proceeded to damn near kill my mom.

When I came around the program, I came around here several times before I came to stay. Somebody take me back to just got to my mom's office. I lose this train of thought, you know, but I'm going to go down another path for a minute.

When when I came the way I used to do the program the first couple of times I came, I'm a good mimic and I'm a good chameleon and I like a lot of attention, you know, and I like to sound good and look good at all costs. That's what I'm really about, you know, image over substance all the time. And I come into a room and I go to meetings and I thought I was sincere.

You know, I thought I was sincere. you know, the proof wouldn't come until looking back. And I'd be at meetings and I'd listen to people share and and and I'd listen like I heard Patty last night and I pick out the most profound stuff she said.

I go to a meeting the next night, make sure Patty's not at the meeting, and not too many of you guys. I repeat what she said. I tack on her, keep coming back.

And I thought I cuz I claimed it from the podium that would make it true in my experience. And I kept getting loaded. Kept getting loaded.

kept getting loaded. Did not see myself at all in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, in one of those treatment programs, because you guys read a portion of chapter 5 at every meeting, I knew chapter 5 was the most important chapter.

So, I would go to my room and I'd start reading the book at chapter 5. Later on, somebody told me, Ralph, opening the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and starting at chapter 5 is somewhat like going and getting a math book and opening it up to the chapter on algebra. you would look good to know some addition and subtraction and first you know and so opening up the big book in the middle you know but that's what I did you know I never saw myself in the book never found my story in the book read Bill's story saw all the differences in the book you know Bill was an older white gentleman you know we don't have that in common was a veteran of foreign wars I'm a Vietnam era draft dodger Bill talks in his story about there had been no real infidelity Oh well, miss me on that one too.

You know, uh, Bill was a Wall Street stock broker. Check out how I handle money. You know, we don't have.

So, I look for all the differences. And when I came back the last time, somebody taught me how to read the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. And they said, Ralph, the same way that you read the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous is the same way that you listen to our members share their stories when they get up to that podium or at our meetings.

When you read the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and when you listen to our members share their stories, ask yourself three or four questions. Did I drink like he drank? Did I think like he thought?

Did I feel like he felt? Or did I do what he did? And when I read the big book with those questions in mind, it became alive for me.

It came alive for me because I remember Bill talked about he was a part of life at last and drink was taking a more and more important part of his life. I got to this major university. I'm running with these people and I'm running with this fast crew.

I had arrived just like he had arrived. You know, Bill talked about the drive for success was on. I'd prove to the world I was important.

That was always me. You know, that was always me. Drive for success was on.

I got to prove to you guys I'm not my daddy. You know, my first goal as a kid, I had two goals. You know, uh, one I wanted to play shortstop and wear number 30 for the Dodgers.

Mari Wills was my idol. When it got clear I wasn't gonna have that career. I had a second goal as a kid.

I listened to Patty. Her story was so similar to mine talking about want to be the first female Supreme Court justice. I used to tell people I'm going to be the first black president of the United States.

And when I read Bill's story, Bill said he imagined himself the head of vast enterprises identified with that kind of grandiosity. You know, so I saw myself in Bill's story all the time. Once I came and could see clearly and one of the things I see clearly now, Bill talked about he wouldn't draw a sober breath for five years.

You know, he got put out of his spot. Read it for yourself. He wouldn't.

And he talked about being at his in-laws house and his wife coming home every day with a little bag. When I got put out of my house and went to stay at my mother's house, my mama came home every day with a bag of groceries. Because if she didn't, these six grown leeches she had given birth to would have been giving out plates to the people in the neighborhood.

You know, that's how we were making my every day. We damn near killed her. It was something salvageable about this piece of man that my ex-wife thought she married at this particular time when I first got put out the house.

And she used to bring my daughter over to my mom's house on Saturday afternoons so we could keep a father-daughter relationship. And I wanted to be a father to my little girl with everything in me. I really, really, really did.

I wanted to take my girl to Disneyland and Magic Mountain. I wanted to take her to a movie on a Saturday afternoon. I wanted to walk up the street with her little hand and my big hand and just take her to the store, buy ice cream.

I wanted to sit her in my lap and read her stories. I wanted to tuck her in bed at night, give her a good night kiss. I wanted to get the look from my little girl that I've seen men in this fellowship get.

The look like this is my daddy and this is my hero. And the best I could do on those Saturday afternoons was 30 minutes. 30 minutes.

I tell my mom something like, "I'm going to the store to buy rain some ice cream." And I would disappear. It would be Saturday afternoon. I would come back on Monday.

I'd sneak back on Sunday night when her mom was picking her up. Still remember some of them long Sunday nights, man. Sticking my head around the side of my mom's house.

See those two heads in the car and the headlights backing out. And I'd be thinking to myself, tears streaming, tears flowing. I'd be thinking to myself, there go my life backing out this driveway.

I be crying, man. And I've heard a lot of people in the room share about being scared of dying when they were out there. It's not my story.

I was never scared of dying. I was scared I was going to keep waking up to the same old thing. Monday the same as Tuesday, the same as Sunday, the same as Christmas, over and over and over again.

And I am so glad God don't make misery comfortable. And on October the 11th, 1986, I got miserable enough and I got tired enough that I got directed to my fourth program of recovery and I went to the Harbor Life Center on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. Two days after I was in that program, they took me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and a gentleman was standing up in front of that meeting somewhat like I am this morning.

And I remember that October in 1986. I was full of shame. I was full of guilt.

I was full of remorse. I was full I'll never be able to forgive myself for things I had done and what I had become. I've only shared with you guys the tip of the iceberg.

Didn't share with you when I got put out my house and went to stay at my mom's house. Start stealing out my mom's purse. Didn't share with you when I got put out my house and went to stay at my mom's house.

Check came to one of my little brothers in the name of R. White. All of us are R.

White. All that didn't share with you when my grandmother gave me $200 to buy her plane ticket for the family reunion. If it wasn't for my mom, my grandmother never would have saw Atlanta, Georgia.

Didn't share with you. First time I tried to get sober, my ex-wife got me a job at her job, stole $1,600 from there, ruined her reputation in that industry. Didn't share with you a lot.

Suffice it to say, I had a lot on my tip when I came. And a gentleman was standing at the meeting at the podium that particular night at that meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he was sharing somewhat like I've been sharing this morning.

He was sharing about taking from the job. And he was sharing about taking from the family. And I remember sitting out there and looking at him and thinking to myself, "Yeah, you sharing about doing scandalous things, but you look scandalous.

You should have been doing that You know, I'm different. Y'all ain't going to hear my business." And the speaker seemed like he was reading my mail and knew I was in the room. He dropped something on me like this.

He said, "If you're sitting in this room right now, you are not responsible for your disease, but you are responsible for your recovery. And you have just now tapped into a source of power much greater than yourself. And you don't have to drink and you don't have to use no matter what, provided you are willing to fulfill some conditions." And he caught my attention.

He went on to say, "This is the only club you can be a member of, where the worse off you are when you get here, the better off your chances of staying." And I got the message of hope. I got the message of hope in the first meeting, Alcoholics Anonymous, they took me to. He described to me what I suffer from.

That is something physically different about me than other folk. And see, I don't know about anybody else. We do a lot of sharing.

We do a lot of caring. I listened to Patty talk about good sponsorship last night and the need for good sponsorship, you know, and there are lots of things that people bring to the table. I don't have to bring but one element to the table.

Can't nobody bring it for me. To our new friends, that's the one can't nobody else bring for me. Not sponsor, not Bill, not Bob, not this morning speaker, not any of the people in sitting out there in those seats.

You know, that's the one ingredient can't nobody else bring. And I brought it that morning. A well whooped ass.

I was willing. I was willing. You know, I was willing.

And old-timers in AA say, "We want you when alcohol is through with you." That's the great persuader. I don't spend a lot of time trying to convince nobody of their powerlessness. Alcohol convinced me.

And step one is a conclusion I draw based on my own experience. And that last experience I had in that last goround I had, I came up in here, man. I learned some things about my anatomy in in in those last years, too.

I found out that when that ass is raw, my mouth clos my mouth closes and my ears open. Curious thing about that phenomena though, when it starts healing, my ears start closing and my mouth starts open. Funny thing, you know, so I needed to be well tenderized.

So my ears would stay open a long time. I would sit on the front row and the speaker was sharing. It seemed like he was talking directly to me, you know.

I was listening to him and he was saying it's something physically different about me. And he seemed like he invited me to diagnose myself. Ralph, don't take my word for it.

You know, ask yourself, how many times did you say I'm just going to spend 20? What happened? Whole paycheck.

How many times did you say I'm just going to stop off over here at happy hour? What happened? Whole paycheck.

How many times did you say I'mma stop over here at my boy Ken's house? What happened? Whole payche.

Did it happen once? Did it happen twice? If your name is Ralph, every two weeks from 1979 to 1985, whole paycheck.

My experience, not yours, not my sponsor, not nobody else's. My experience abundantly confirms for me when I take one in anything. No matter where I have to go, what I have to do, who I have to see, no matter how great the wish or the necessity, my body takes over and I have to have another.

Okay, smart guy. How do you explain stone sober? My car seem to drive to the LiQ on payday.

Second part of this disease, this mental obsession, the obsession that somehow someday I'll be able to control and enjoy this magic potion I discovered all those many years ago. Cold one to have. Where is that coming from anyway?

The obsession to control and enjoy. Check this out. Anytime I was controlling, I wasn't enjoying.

And anytime I was enjoying, I damn sure WASN'T CONTROLLING. WHY AM I OBSESSED with that idea? I can't drink because of my body.

I can't stop cuz my mind refuses to accept that fact. I'm powders. Third part of this disease, spirituality.

12 and 12 describes it sometime as a soul sickness. And in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, it says, "Ralph, if you work on the spiritual, the mental and the physical are straightened out." That's what we do in these rooms. To our new friends, that's what this whole program is about.

If you're looking for the speaker in front of you this morning that's going to be trying to scare you out the rooms with or if you go back out there still kicking ass or if you you know that you'll have another speaker. You know, that's not the message that I had to convey to you this morning. You know, I share with you guys that I did some everything and what I used to think of as my heyday.

And sometimes at the height of it, people used to look at the way I was doing and be like, "Damn, Ralph, ain't you scared of overdos?" And I'll be like, "Overdose? I'm scared of the deadly underdose? You got to give me some most, you know." So, the message of the whole alcoholic of my variety is not the message of fear.

The message that a whole alcoholic of my variety, the book describes it as a message that's got to have depth and that's got to have weight. And the message that this morning speaker brings to you that's got the most depth and the most weight is that you're looking at a guy who at 33 years old had given up on life. You're looking at a guy who at 33 years old had not answered anybody's 8:00 or 9:00 wake up call to go to work in so long no longer thought I was employable.

You're looking at a guy who at 33 years old did not know where his family was living and didn't know what school his little girl was enrolled in. You looking at a guy who had graduated from a major university in this country and my job at the end of my drinking was taking the trash out for a 21-year-old stayed across the street from my mom's house. I was living in the back and sleeping in the back of my mother's garage.

I was eating lemons off a neighbor's lemon tree for breakfast. And I stumbled into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, October the 11th, 1986. And the men and women in this fellowship, the fellowship I crave, you love me and you nurse me back to hell.

You gave me something a way out upon which we can all agree. And you told me something back then that I didn't believe. Couldn't believe.

They used to say something then and we still say it now. Let us love you till you can love yourself. Didn't believe that.

My last four years when I was out there, I never looked at myself full face in a mirror. Never. I took fleeting glances.

Couldn't believe what I had become. Couldn't stand what I had become. How you gonna tell me you'll love something like me.

Didn't believe it when they said it. If you turn your back on me, I'm liable to go in your purse right now. I sting.

How you gonna tell me you'll love something like me? That was before I knew what took takes place in the rooms Alcoholics Anonymous. That was before I knew what happens when the God and you reaches out to the God in me.

That was before I knew that in Alcoholics Anonymous, we specialize in loving unlovable people. And you love me and you nurse me back to health. You gave me something I wasn't looking for.

When I came in the rooms, all I wanted to know was how not to spend a whole paycheck every two weeks and how to get my ex-wife back in my life. And I got a whole lot more than that. If you're sitting in this room right now and you think this program is just about not drinking and just about not using, you short changing the program and you shortch changing yourself.

I'm not knocking physical sobriety, don't get me wrong. If you just don't drink and you just don't use, you might stop going to jail on the weekends. If you just don't drink and you just don't use, you might make it home with a whole paycheck.

If you just don't drink and you just don't use, you might make it to work on Monday morning. But what this program has to offer is a whole lot more than that. What this program is really about is about obtaining and maintaining access to a source of power that does for me what I can't do for myself.

What this program is really about is about obtaining and maintaining access to a source of power that can do anything but fail. What this program is really about, you see people looking at the Trish, some people talk about the work, the process, the program, the step. What is this program about in my everyday life?

You know, I have a friend up in Canada, Lou, and Lou says the program Alcoholics Anonymous walks, talks, and shakes hands. What this program is really about, it's alive, and it's vital, and it's vibrant. You want to see it?

You want to see the program Alcoholics Anonymous, you want to see it at work, you want to see it up close and person, take a look around this room right now. What this program is really about is about taking people like us, drunks and boosters and dolphins and convicts and con artists, prostitutes, tricks, failures as parents, failures as kids, broken down pieces of men and women who don't have dreams and goals and hopes anymore. This program takes people like us and I stick one hand in your hand and the other hand in God's hand and we pick up our beds and we walk out of these rooms as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, employees, employers, role models in our community.

This program is about growth. This program is about change. If it's going to be any changes made in my life, it begins and it ends with me.

I got the opportunity to work with a lot of men and women in this program. I had the privilege of walking through this thing called life with a lot of men and women. And I don't spend a lot of time with the don'ts in the program.

Don't go around these kind of people. Don't go around them kind of places. Don't get in these kind of relationships.

Don't do this. Don't do that. Do read the big book Alcoholics Anonymous with somebody who has working knowledge and experience with that book.

Do go to lots of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Do get a sponsor who has a working knowledge and experience with the steps in their life. Do apply the steps to your life to the best of your ability right where you are right now.

Do work with another alcoholic. Do get in touch with a God of your understanding. Then do whatever the hell you want to do.

This program is about living. This program is about living. It ain't about losing.

And I have been abundantly blessed since I've been in this program. Man, that's the message of hope that I carry to you this morning. that you're looking at a guy who had given up on life.

And at 53 years old, I conduct myself and I feel like a 53 year old man does. 13 years ago, another woman asked me to share this thing called life with her. I got all the way down the aisle this time and I even had her pictures to prove it.

You know, I have an 11year-old daughter at home that one day at a time has never seen her daddy loaded or one day at a time she never will. I travel a lot. I travel a lot in this fellowship and I travel a lot at work.

I do a lot even at home going from home during the week. And every time I tell my girl, talked to her on the phone yesterday morning, every time I tell her, "Daddy's got to leave and he'll be back such and such a time or date." Check this out. Never seen the flicker of doubt in her eyes like, "I wonder if he's coming home." Cuz she don't know that guy.

Daddy's always home. Imagine that. that two-year-old daughter whose piggy bank I was going in.

She's 23 years old right now. And on Father's Day this year, the whole family was standing in Paulie Pavilion and I watched my little girl throw the tassel to the other side. She graduated from UCLA.

And as we were taking pictures, you know, when you new friends, I ask myself a lot of questions all the time. You know, when I was new, I look at you guys who've been on this road a long time and I say, I bet they don't even remember what it was like to get loaded in the I bet they just up there telling they really don't really remember, you know. And then they and I bet some days they don't even think about the fact they're alcoholic.

I bet some days they've been doing this so long it's like second nature and blah blah blah blah blah. And it's just so easy for and check this out. Everywhere I go, everything I do, everywhere there is nothing.

It's like this meeting right here. It's like when I was standing out of UC all you you know the Verizon commercial where everybody standing with you. It's like Alcoholics Anonymous is standing with me everywhere I go.

everything I do, you know, you guys are just standing in the re standing there got my back, right? Cuz I'm standing there and at the oddest times and at the you weirdest, you know, go to just just go to a parent teacher conference sometime I leave and I'm crying >> mundane stuff to other folk, you know, and and if I say that to one of them other parents, you just don't know who this is doing what huh? That's why I still go to meetings 20 years later.

Somebody in here understands >> what it mean to just go to a parent teacher conference. You know, when we were standing there taking the P family pictures out of UCLA, you know, and they took one picture with the little girl on this arm and my big girl on this arm. And I remember thinking to myself at that moment that said looking at daddy and as I look back at the pictures now, I get to look for my girls like this is my daddy and this is my hero.

That's Alcoholics Anonymous. That's Alcoholics Anonymous. Didn't come here for that.

That's Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, my 11year-old, the things that you, you know, it, you know, somebody in here is probably wondering, you know, well, when is this miracle going to happen for me? You know, everybody else is talking about this spiritual thing and and I'm not feeling it.

You know, when is it going to happen for me? And it's a looking back experience most of the time. You know, in Alcoholics Anonymous, I have had the privilege and I've had the benefit of a whole lot of stuff.

I've had the privilege of the IRS coming after me real tough and wanting $65,000 right now. I've had the privilege of going broke at 16 years sober and moving back into my mother's house. I've had the privilege of standing up at some funerals that I've had to go through.

I've had the privilege. Why is that a privilege? because I've come out on the other side armed with something that I can't get no other way.

And that's armed with an experience to work with another man or woman. See, there's some things in here that we do. Somebody in here feels like they're in a real dark place and it just ain't going to get no better.

Somebody in here feels like, "God damn, this money situation." And I have a sponsor that says, "Is it all right now? Not next week. Not if I don't not if he don't act right by next week.

Not if she don't get right by next month. Not if I don't get this money right now. While this long-winded SP speaker is standing up at this podium.

Is it all right right now? And every right now kept being all right. And when I get to the other side of something, I'm armed with something that's indispensable.

See, I did something in my first year and I reaffirm it every year and I reaffirm it with some people. See, I did something that a lot of folk in here did and they still do it and they stand on it. God, I offer myself to you to build with me and do with me as you will.

Relieve me of the boundaries of self that I may better better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help. Keystone alcohol is synonymous.

Take away my vic. take away my difficulty so somebody out there can see God works. God works.

God works. Having experience is fine. It's getting experience that hurts so much.

Somebody in here just getting experience. Somebody in here just getting experience. So if I say God can handle anything, guess what?

Sometime I got to have something for him to handle. Sit. That's all.

I get grateful because I stand I now I start standing because I stand in grace all the time since I've been here. And now you know what happens whenever something seems like an adversity for me. I've been doing this thing, doing this thing, doing this thing, doing this thing, doing this thing long enough that I know whenever I'm standing in what seems like an adversity, get ready for the blessing.

Huh? There's some people in here that to tell you, there's some people in here that tell you that power is transformational. He'll take what seems like what I think cuz the chapter ain't written but I'm tripping off the page.

Don't trip off the page. God's writing the chapter. Just a bad page right now.

Removing her cuz I got something better for you over here. Just get out the way, you know. And that's what has been my experience in here, you know.

Um, last year I remember standing in this hall, not in this hall, but in a hall. And my mom came walking through the door cuz it was a birthday party she thought for my little girl. And my mom is walking in and she's late and she's rushing.

Where's River? Where's And she walks in the door with the present out for my little girl. And about this many people, half this many people are sitting in that hall and they all holler surprise.

And my mom just breaks down cuz these six grown leeches that had once been in her house, it's four of us in recovery right now and we had given her a surprise 75th birthday party blew her away. Alcoholics Anonymous when we were sitting around the house that that night talking and reliving things, you know, cuz I just thought we giving her a party and my mother said, "Ralph, you know what? This is the first party I ever had in my life." cuz my mom's the giver.

First party I ever had in my life. I want to thank you guys on behalf of my mom that she got a chance to have a party while she's still here. That never would have happened.

That's alcoholic synonymous. We do something in these rooms that most of the time most of us don't even know we do. We uniquely qualified to do what it is that we do.

Nobody else can do it. Nobody else can do it. that October in 1986 if God himself had come down and talked to me I would have thought oh man that little brief bout I had with PCP oh it's a flashback you know never would have made it to the rooms oh you know only person could reach me then was one of you one of you we uniquely qualified to do what it is that we do and nobody else does it like us and sometimes I miss it I miss it going on right now and I'll miss it.

I'll take it for granted. It's going on right now. It happens every time I go to a meeting.

Every time. Every time me and you go to a meeting, check this out. Every time me and you go to a meeting, some little boy or some little girl, I don't know, may never know, is getting ready to have a hell of a mom come back in the house.

>> Every time me and you go to a meeting, I get to participate. and some family getting ready to have daddy come back home. Every time I go to a meeting, I get to participate and some w and some lady or some man getting ready to have a hell of a spouse come in their life.

Every time I go to a meeting, me and you get to participate in some employer that I don't know and really could care less about getting ready to have a hell of an employee come in the workplace. Every time I go to a meeting, who wouldn't want to be part of a fellowship like that? Share with you guys.

I always wanted to do something important. I always wanted to leave a significant mark on the world. My grandmother said, "God write straight with crooked lines." And I can think of nothing more important.

And I can think of nothing more significant than being a participating member of the lifesaving lifechanging experience that is Alcoholics Anonymous. Whenever anybody anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand alcoholics anonymous to be there for that. I'm responsible and I take the responsibility real seriously and I don't take it so serious that I'm glum and you know I you know I asked this cat, you know, and he's got 49 years of recovery.

I said, "Tom, what's the most important ingredient you found in your 49 years?" And he didn't say walking with God, and he didn't say sponsorship. And he didn't say work with another alcohol. All the stuff that I know is the most important thing.

He said one thing blew me away. He said enthusiasm. He said enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm. If this is a program of attraction, make it attractive. You know, don't be sitting up here, you know.

me monotone and man. Yeah, it's a No. God damn it.

New friends, I'm on fire for something that saved my life. You'd be on fire for it, too. And if you sitting here wondering when is it going to happen for me, anybody that's in here tripping, if you can bring something green out on Sunday morning, following Saturday night, and you still got it, and you sober, you sitting in the middle of the spiritual experience right now.

>> >> We have a lot of fun in here. And that's why I like these conventions. That's why I like what it is we do.

New friends. Man, if this wasn't a better way, I wouldn't be doing it. You know, I used to worry and trip.

What am I going to do when I get sober? You know, and I had a counselor said, "Why would you ask that question? What were you doing before you got here?" And my life consisted of getting it, doing it, coming out from it, getting it, doing it, coming out from it, getting it.

And I had the nerve to say what you going to do when you like I had a full social calendar, right? I go to Laker games, Dodger games, Angel games. I go to movies.

I go to plays. I go to dinner. I go to work.

I go to conventions. I go to meetings. I travel.

I go to my mom's. I go to PTA meetings. I go to parenting.

I My life is so full, man. My life is full, you know, and and and I have a whole bunch of fun doing this thing. Check this out.

If you ain't laughing in this program, you ain't taking this program serious enough. Enough for me. I don't soap box real well, you know.

I just But I love this thing. You know, you're looking at a guy that loves this thing. I love this thing we do.

I love this thing we discovered. I love the fact that you guys restored this guy to hell. You know, I've been on this road for 20 years, and you know, I'm not so impressed with that, but I am impressed with what a loving God can do if you give him a little bit of material to work with.

You know, I am impressed that you guys have given me a walk, a walk with a sense of purpose. If you coming from that dark place I come from, if you coming from walking the streets at 3 or 4:00 in the morning with no place to go. If you coming from your family no longer wanting to see you.

If you coming from that place of not being present on holidays and at birthdays. If you coming from that next year daddy place, next year I'mma get that girl something. If you coming from that real dark lonely place, if you come from the place of no hope and you come to a place like this and you get embraced by people like these and you get what it is that I've gotten, you know, over these past 20 years, man, I want to thank this fellowship for supporting me.

I want to thank this fellowship for uplifting me. I want to thank this fellowship for encouraging me. I want to thank this fellowship for crying with me.

I want to thank this fellowship for laughing at me. I want to thank this fellowship from on behalf of my mom. I want to thank this fellowship on behalf of my daughters.

I want to thank this fellowship on behalf of my wife. I want to thank you. Thank you.

Thank you on behalf of my family. I want to thank this fellowship on behalf of those new members we have. >> 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. >>