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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Wow. Hi everybody.

I have no idea how to speak in front of a non-poder, so this is going to be a first. Um, my name is Dave Phillips. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

>> Welcome. Um, some things that uh I've learned. I just think it's it's just out of this world that this group asked how many people have been through the has a working knowledge of the 12 steps and available for sponsorship.

Cuz if you're new and sick, you're scared to death. If you had looked up at at that one second, that one instant, there's somebody in front of you with their hand up that could save your life. avert misery and death, which if you're an alcoholic of my type, which I'll get into, and hopefully it won't be a whole long time of getting into what it was like.

That's where alcohol took me to. And by the way, I never signed up to that. I don't remember that being on any job description in high school of what you want to be when you grow up as a drunken, junky, drug addict, alcoholic, you know, but uh that's what I became, you know, very early on.

Oh, cool. There's a watch up there. Let me read one thing in the book.

Man, I was tickled to death. They got first edition big books here. You know, I just I was just up I spoke up in Massachusetts two weeks ago, Tuesday, and asked me if I would go up to uh New Hampshire and speak there, too, the very next day.

And so me and my wife treated it like a vacation. And they they made me aware. They said, "Hey, you're only 80 miles from the Wilson house." And I was like, "What's that?" They said Bill Wilson's home, you know, house that he grew up in as a kid and from the time he was 11 when his mom divorced where he came back and there's a library there and it's only it's only 80 miles from where you're going to be speaking.

Why don't you go spend the night up there and I was like they turned it into a bread and breakfast and um so I talked my wife into it spend another day. God, what a wonderful time. But that exact edition big book was sitting up there.

Not the copy faximile, an actual 1939 copyright first edition big book. And in there, for those that may not know it, it doesn't say stuff like it says in here, like ex problem drinker. Says exal alcoholic, you know, and um I just tickled to death when I found that out.

And I just read the other day, and if you're interested about the definition of that term, it's in our actual service manual in the bylaws. Bill Wilson wrote a definition of what an ex-alcoholic is because that's what Dr. He got that term from Dr.

Silkworth and Dr. Tybout. They listed it in aa comes of age and I was reading I was like exal alcoholic what the hell are they talking about?

You know and and uh came to find out when I read that in the Bible. So I was like wow somebody who no longer embibes alcohol and who lives the 12 steps that are outlined in this book which may be a problem for some because I know AA modern AA my favorite AA is the Burger King. You can have it your way.

Good luck with that if you're a real alcoholic. You can use me as an example of what not to do for for many many years in AA. It says unlike the feelings of a ship's passenger, however, our joy and escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways.

The feeling of having shared in a common peril. Alcoholism is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.

The tremendous fact for every one of us, that means all of us guys, not me, not you, all of us, is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, which means I'm not supposed to be arguing about the terms and stuff in this book. That'll kill you, by the way, if you're doing it.

I did that and I nearly died the last time. And upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.

And I can tell you from my own experience, my sorbet day is July 22nd of 2001. That's so you know I have one. That that was my last one.

Hopefully that's the last one I'll ever have. But this is my fourth time fourth time in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I sat in a meeting not too long ago in my local clubhouse where somebody had the audacity to just say two seats down from me.

So, of course, it kind of like upset me that that we have newcomers in here and he he would say this nonsense, but he and he didn't say in his experience, he said he didn't think there was no wrong way to do this. And uh I was like, "Wow." Okay. Uh and then it was I shared and I said, you know, I I I kind of find fault with that.

If there's no wrong way to do this, then how come in 1992 1995, sober two and a half years, I got drunk? is the end result of AA to end up drunk again. Do I see any heads going this or no?

No. The answer is no. 1995 to 2000 four and a half years sober.

Sober actually had people that were trying to do they were doing what was outlined in the book. They were trying to give me what was outlined in the book, but I didn't wasn't willing to go to any lengths. I had bulky ideas which means I do what I want and I take what I want and I leave the rest.

And I end up drunk again. second time. Third time, I only lasted four days.

Within two days from that period, I was pounding my fist on a bar down in Chester Town, Maryland. I had no money. It was payday.

I had a paycheck. My co-workers had taken me in there. We worked on a roof on a building on this hospital and it was probably 120 degrees up on that roof and the material didn't act right.

And all they wanted to do was go get a couple drinks. And they knew for a fact I was trying to stop drinking. So, they wanted to go have a couple of beers.

And they said, "Dave, we ain't buying you no alcohol, but we will buy you a Pepsi." Well, I'm an untreated alcoholic suffering not from being drunk because I was like, I don't know, five days sober. I was suffering from lack of power and I had fear. I knew I planned to go to AA that night.

I had been to AA four times that week. I went to to be the little league coach the very next day at my son's little league game. And it they have lines in the big book that like consumate actor.

I don't know for you, but I would smoke crack till 5:00 in the morning and then go coach little league Saturday morning. I was not A HEAVY PICK UP THE DAMN BALL, YOU KNOW? SO, it's it like, you know, I'm trying to be the actor, but that's kind of hard, you know, and like the parents are like, "Oh, God, he's coaching again." You know, but as I stood in front of the bartender, out of my mouth didn't say, "Can I have Pepsi?" It said, "F it.

Give me a Budweiser." And he didn't look to my guys that were paying it. And then once I got that one down, well, you're buying. Guess what?

You're really going to buy. And that's what those guys had to do. Because alcohol demanded, not only from me, but everybody around me.

See, I don't know what your experience is, but I'm here to tell you what my experience is of trying to prove through every form of selfdeception that I could drink normally. And fa, well, I succeeded. If drinking normally is falling face flat in a urinal cuz I'm too drunk to stand up, you know, might be an alcoholic.

Um, I don't know. You know, I mean, if some of my experiences with uh not normal drinking, I have you ever helped a bartender clean up after the bar closed? Cuz you ain't done yet.

My whole object was to sit there and drink, you know, and you come across that occasional cigarette butt. You pick it up, but you still drink. I'm sure none of you ever did that, you know, but that was my experience, you know, over and over and over again, you know.

I do not I do not even process alcohol scientifically. They say I don't even process it normally. And I definitely like the effect that alcohol produces in me.

My problem has never been alcohol. I thought that's what it was when I came up, you know, because of all the prices I paid. But why is it that I would always return to that that that which enslaved me that alcohol the the the they use a term in the big book um a rapacious creditor.

I know what that's like when alcohol is demanding me to continue drinking, you know. And so I would just spend, you know, in and out in and out in and out of a sober on my own, sober with church, sober without church, getting baptized as an adult. speaking in tongues.

I don't know what all that about, but I went through that period and it lasted maybe about three months. I tried to live by these moral and philosophical convictions galore. The book says I tried that.

I ended up drunk, you know, and it just alcohol king alcohol shivering Dennis of his mad realm, you know? I mean, it just it freaking tortured me. I remember the the other week I said in the meeting that um I said, you know, alcohol raped me and molested me and a lady took offense to that and she made me know it afterwards.

I was like, well, let me ask you a question. This is my understanding of the definition, legal definition of rape. Now, I'm married to a woman and she said no to me, but I I had sex with her anyway.

Now, she said no. She meant no, but I went ahead and forced myself on her. That's rape.

How many times have all of us sat in here, the real alcoholics, and said no to alcohol. But alcohol did made me go like this. As easy as I'm drinking water right here, and just and I can't set it down.

I'm just thr I'm just nuts sober. How many times has that done it to you? More times.

It's done it to me more times than I can freaking count. more times than there's fingers and toes in this room because at the end alcohol see everybody misinter like I I misinterpreted step one I had an old-timer come up to me where they at right there and he said read step one and I said we admitted we are powers over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable is there an and in there uh he said do you even see what you're reading and then I read it but he goes what's that between. Do you even know what that that minus sign there is?

No. See, nobody ever took the time, even good sponsors, they never took the time to explain this thing to me. I've heard the rehab definition of unmanageability.

To me, unmanageable is like I can't I'm showing up to work on time or I'm not paying my bills on time or I'm not. I think it's a life thing that the unmanageability that our founders were trying to THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT ANY OF THAT CRAP and there's a solution and more about alcoholism. there's in the doctor's menu, which is all about step one and getting done.

They don't mention any of that stuff. An old-timer told me, he said, "Son, that's a hyphen." And it means continuation of thought. And what the founders when they wrote in his experience, what he thought they meant, and it matches up with what's actually in the definition of that is continuation of thought.

My life is unmanageable because alcohol at the end is managing my life for me. Now, how does it do that? My sponsor asked me two or yes or no questions when I got here.

He said, "Dave, when you start to drink, can you predict with any certainty once started when you're going to stop? Yes or no? And running out and passing out doesn't count?" No.

Okay. Have you ever stopped before? Yeah.

Has it been more than once? Yeah. And I thought it was kind of rude when he said that because he knew me my second time sober.

like what do you ask me? You know, this ain't my first time. He goes, from a point of being stopped, can you predict with any certainty, any certainty at all when you're going to get started again?

And I thought about it. I was like, no. He said, but you have every attention to to when you stop to quit, that's it.

You're not going to do it anymore. He said, Dave, if you answer no to both those questions, what the big book says is that your power over alcohol when you're drinking it, you got the allergy, but you're also powerless over alcohol when you're not drinking it. The unmanageability in step one's got nothing to do with you paying your bills, being a good father, being a good husband, being a good employee.

None of that stuff. It's got to do when alcohol is managing your life for you. And at the end, alcohol is now your god because it will demand stuff from you.

And you willingly give that because you ain't got a choice in that matter, you know, and at the end, that's what that's what my experience was. I remember some old-timers tried to tell me once that I chose to go drink. You know, if you're telling newcomers that stop, if they're alcoholic, they've lost the power of choice.

That means that you're not going to be able to bring into consciousness the forefront of your mind the memory and suffering of even a week or a month ago. You're without defense against the first drink. I don't know why on earth we use carnival tactics in AA in a life ordeath situation.

Why on earth any of us, including me, would tell somebody think to drink through? You know, this big book, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, doesn't give me any way to stop drinking. Doesn't give me any cheap carnival rehab tactics that, you know, oh, keep everybody all this other that I heard from rehabs.

It doesn't work. Not for the real alcohol. Not for me.

It didn't work for me. I tried it. It didn't work.

It worked for maybe a day or two and then I'm off to the races again because I'm one of the real ones that they talked about. You know, once I had arrived at that point where I've gone beyond the power of choice, I don't get it back. And now once I've reached that point, now I've got to I got to I got two choices.

The big book says, one, to accept spiritual help, whatever that help is, I don't get to dictate it. Or two, continue to drinking to blot out my miserable existence. You know, and I tried that more times than I can count.

You know, I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous's doorstep out of result of going to a DUI program again. No wonder you drink and drive, you know. God, and they got repetitive, you know.

It's like you fail the first one because they got that stupid thing cuz you got to go to AA. And I'm not going to go to AA because I've been to AA 1970s. I went to AA.

You know, they had a bunch of old people in there. They were like 30. You know, I didn't know any better.

I'm like 15, 16 years old. buddy, that's old. 30 years old is old.

You got a gray hair, you know? You know, no offense, but the women didn't even have teeth back then. If you LIKE BACK IN THE 70S, you know, if you were like a woman and you had two teeth in your mouth, you were doing real good.

Some of you guys know that, too. You had none. You know, there was all these people I DIDN'T LIKE.

HOW AM I GOING TO IDENTIFY with these people? You know, and plus I'm tuned up at the time, you know. >> >> Christ.

I mean, the state of Delaware because of I I drank alcoholic back in the 70s decided the kind thing was because I was self-employed. Self-employed. My sponsor tells me I have to tell the truth.

Uh I stole for a living. That's self-employed, you know. Um they put me in a mental institution in Delaware City called Governor Bacon.

And so here I am. I'm locked up and it's a co-ed mental institution. And I got my nut girlfriend, you know, and um when you act up in there, they give you drugs that that are like way beyond heroin, you know, how doll thorazine, you know, and so when you act up, they have rules and like it's like I don't know about you all, but being strapped down to a bed and peeing yourself because they ain't letting you up because they've shot you up with thorine again or haladol is not appealing.

And so I escaped. Three days later, they caught me because I had been stealing buns outside of McDonald's at like four o'clock in the morning. That's what I was eating, you know.

So, I had a sponsor, you know. He was an older guy. He gave me my first tattoo.

He said, "Here, I get I'll tell you how to get that." He said, "Go to rehab and you can escape from there and they won't even chase you." I was like, "Well, how do you do that?" He said, ' Tell him you're a heroin addict. I didn't know what that was. I became one immediately.

Sure enough, two weeks later or so, I'm I'm in a rehab in downtown Wilmington, Delaware. They're talking about scrubbing toilets with toothbrushes and hollering at me. Very, very rude, you know.

And uh 3 days later, I walked away from the place and guess what? They didn't chase me and I got away, you know. And so, uh, you know, I I I've been there.

You know, I went to rehab. I went to AA in the 70s. You know, I think I know.

And that can be a problem for a real alcoholic, you know. Um, make a long story short, I lost a milit I didn't lo I gave away a military. Let me see.

I'm trying to tell the truth. I gave away a military career for the price of what alcohol did for me. I gave away a career in the Delaware State Police, which I got accepted because what alcohol could do for me.

Yeah. I I was going to be Can you imagine me being A COP? MIS YOUR LICENSE.

Getting drugs. Well, I got to ask that question. YOU KNOW, I TOOK THE I sent off the application and they accepted 1983.

I'm like, I just got honorably discharged out of the military. I can do push-ups until the cows come home. I'm in the best shape I've ever been.

I can run two miles in under under 12 minutes. And I smoked over a pack of cigarettes and I can still do that. I can do as many sit-ups as need be.

I can shoot fairly accurate because I'm an ex infantry. I applied for the Delaware State Police and they accepted. And then my buddy asked me, he goes, "How you going to arrest people for what you like to do?" I did the alchemat.

No. had a I was in the Air National Guard. I took a flight aptitude test.

Got offered a chance. I passed. They offered me to go a chance to go fly helicopters down in Fort Rucker, Alabama, become a warrant officer.

And what that said, my ego filled my I can you believe this? I was full ego back then was I remember the the first sergeant that slighted me numerous times when I was stationed in Hawaii. And it meant if I was a warrant officer, he would have to salute me.

So that my plan I didn't care about the flying helicopters. I wanted the the respect and I was going to go all the way back there to make his butt salute me. I think they call that a resentment.

I became self-employed again and the federal government had a problem with that and they sent me off to federal prison for seven years. 1985 I got out in 1989. I should be safe in federal prison, right?

Should be. Alcohol shouldn't be really effective. Guess what?

They make booze. I was in a co-ed federal prison. I was let out on overnight furlow.

You know, they had rules. Don't drink, don't do drugs, and stay in town. Well, shoot.

I can do the You ever do the alchemath? 32 hours. I can get drunk.

Give a clean breathalyzer. So, I I did. I gave a clean breath the next day.

My buddy bought some of that unlicensed pharmaceutical agricultural product and we debated drunk how much I could actually inhale and give a clean urine the next day. Tens, five, seven. I said four.

Okay, let's do it. Two weeks later. Uh-uh.

Here they come. I was in a co-ed. There's women there.

No offense. You know, and now I'm shackled on the way to upstate New York and my cellmate is now godfather of Rochester, New York. True story.

You know, I'm with with guys that like, you know, that you mobsters and stuff like that. you know, real criminals. I'm not like them.

I'm like, "Oh my god." You know, and I mean, it's like a different atmosphere because like the guards were coming in there and bringing him food saying, "Mr. Indeino, cuz they respected this guy." That's my cellmate. I'm like, "Oh my god, what have I done?" Now, not once in there does it occur to me that alcohol might be a problem.

You know, I get out on parole and and you know, I get my I get out of the halfway house and the first time I'm out on overnight furlow. I just want to hook up with her. I don't know who her is.

I didn't but I was looking. Somebody handed me a beer and I don't make it back for the curfew call. Bam.

Automatically 2:00 in the morning getting roused by the halfway house guards going back to prison. All for the price of what alcohol is demanding from me. See, I don't know about you, but it's alcohol is not supposed to do that to me.

You know, doesn't it say somewhere in the book of being free from alcohol for a period of time, he believes he can drink. Isn't that something like that in the book? So, I start paying some heavy heavy consequences for the price of what a drink can do for me.

And at the end, guys, at the end, it was so bad. I I just I I wrap this up. 2000, I left Alcoholics Anonymous thinking I must have been a junkie cuz when I stuck a needle in my arm when I was 15, couldn't have been the alcohol.

And I left AA four and a half years sober. Five years sober. I'm sitting across from my non-alcoholic wife.

She likes to abuse alcohol. You ever been with an alcohol abuser? Come on.

You ain't never drank with a normal person. They order a drink this big and they might drink that much. And you're focused on that freaking drink the whole meal cuz the ice is melting.

You going to finish that? Do you know how much that costs? >> >> Took me a long time in sobriety to quit asking my wife that, you know, but I'm sitting in front of her and I asked her, I said, you know, I had this thought, God forbid you, you know, I had this thought that like I really wonder what it was like.

They had Zema out. Oo, Red Dog. Jack Daniels got wine coolers out.

I sure like their whiskey. I wonder what their stuff tastes like. And this is what's going on in my mind.

No effective mental defense against the first drink. Quit telling newcomers NA to think the drink through. That's not a solution.

It's only a solution if you're a problem or heavy drinker. Not for the real alcoholic. Cuz they can't do it.

So why on earth as a fellowship are we telling it? Cuz I can't bring that. It says I'm not going to even be able to bring the consciousness what one beer will do to me because one beer guarantees that another one's coming and another one's coming.

Another one's coming. I just, you know, Dave Perry, I love him. He says it perfect.

You ever hear Dave Perry say, "Here's my law degree. Give me a give me a shot. Here's my law degree.

Give me a shot and a and a backer. Here's my marriage." See, I know what he's talking about because I've experienced that. That's not madeup BS.

That's that's from his actual experience. Alcohol did the same exact thing to me. So, here I am, five years sober, and I take that sip and I did I I only drank socially twice.

I DID IT WHEN I WAS FIVE, AND NOW I'm I'm doing it at at at like 37, 36, 37 years of age. I took a sip. I could feel a little bit of effect, but what I said to myself in my mind, and I didn't let my wife know it because I don't know about you, but saving face is kind of important.

I care about what people think of me. I said to myself, David, that's the stupidest thing you've ever done. You just threw away five years of sobriety.

Why? So, what's Dave do? Dave starts drinking on the weekends.

That works so well. How about during the week? Start pulling nuners at work.

Now, just the alcohol by itself ain't enough. I don't like to get spinny drunk. There's chemicals out there that'll make those spins go away.

Be able to drink maybe a little bit longer, you know? And that stuff has a life of its own. You know, when your kids are begging you, "Daddy, put some food in the refrigerator this week.

We want to eat." There's a line in in uh to the wives. It says, "Uh, armored car could not have brought the paychecks home safe enough." Why is that? Cuz my wife's got to go to bed sometime.

You know, see, I don't know about you all, but when when that when that obsession hits me, I'm gone. And it's not because I'm picking and choosing between the love of my wife that I love, the life of my kids that I would die for. But when alcohol says go, son, you go.

And I can't bat an eye. I can't say yeah, but cuz my mind doesn't function that way. And every time I go back from being sober, it gets worse.

And the big book covers that. We continue to do terrible, terrible things. And so I'm I get on a ride that I never signed up for.

I heard it best and I'll steal it. Guy's name's Herby. He's one of the youngest looking old guys down in Baltimore.

Sober over 40 years. He He looks like he's 50. He's He's lived the life beyond his wildest dreams.

He said it best. He said it was like he sold his simple human dignity for the price of a drink and he doesn't know when that happened. way and that's me, you know, and and so I'm dying again, you know, and and it gets really really bad, you know, and um let's get sober cuz uh it's top of the hour, you know.

July 21st of 2001, I came up with a plan. It was a good plan. Y'all ever have a plan?

God, I love plans. You know, if you're on a crack binge for about 2 or 3 days, you may not be thinking right, but the plan seems good, you know, and it was I'm going to rehab. That was my plan.

I got insurance. My wife is handicapped. One of the last jobs she had before her her disability got too much for her to work, she got Cobra insurance and we were paying it, you know.

And so my plan was I'm going to go to a rehab. They got a chef. It's on the water.

I heard they got celebs there. Oh god, they got to take me. I got insurance.

So I called them up 8:00 in the morning. They said, "What's your insurance?" And I gave it to him. And they came back on the phone.

He said, "Mr. Phillips, we got a problem." I was like, "What's that? You You can't come here." I was like, "Well, how do I get to go there?" He goes, "You got to go to outpatient therapy and fail." I don't know about you guys, but I just felt like somebody just kicked me right in the stomach.

or down below southern R. I'm dying. And as crazy as I was, I knew I was dying.

I'm dumping enough narcotics in me to kill me, you know, and I can't. I'm begging God to kill me, and he's not. And freaking Yeah.

You You ever get to the point where like the birds are are there and you're cussing the birds? Oh god, I hated that. Well, that's that's what's going on in my mind, you know, and um I said to the buddy, I said, I said, uh I can't fail.

And then he asked me something and I always remember that. I don't tell what rehab told me this, but it's pretty effed up. I heard Frankie Lynch, one of Clarence Snider sponsors, say rehabs are about money.

It's a it's a business. They like repeat business. I'm not here to put rehabs down because there is a purpose for them.

But he asked me something. He goes, "You got any money?" "Oh, let me just go ask my crack dealer. I put an addition on his freaking wing on his mansion.

I'm sure he'll give me a loan." I remembered I came to AA in June of that year. I did the math. Two and a half years, four and a half years.

This time I'll be here the rest of my life. I'll get at least 10 years. Within two days, I was pounding my fist on the bar wondering how the hell it could have happened again.

But something happened in that meeting. A guy came up and he gave me a phone list. He said, "My name's Dicki." And he made sure I knew where his name was.

He said, 'If you ever want if you ever want help, David, please call me. Doesn't matter what time or day or night, just call me. See, he knew I was dying.

Hey, he's free. You people give this thing away for free and for fun. There's no cost on it.

You have the ability to avert misery and death. Rehabs can't do that. Doctors can't do that.

Psychiatrists can't do that. Religious people can't do that. But a recovered alcoholic armed with the facts about themselves can do that and does it countless times throughout their lifetime until God calls them home.

And that whole scene of him coming up to me as soon as I hung up the phone, dejected from that rehab. It was like watching a made for TV movie. And nobody can't tell me there's not a God because I was not in my right mind.

But I seen it just like I was watching a movie. And so I called him up and I met him that night. That guy saved my life.

He didn't take me through the steps, but he saved my life. He made sure that my paycheck every Friday got into the bank. And he met me to make sure that it got in the bank.

Y'all ever get to the point in your sobriety when you're new and money's a problem? You got money you're going to go use. That guy made sure that that money got in there.

You know, I was told things that did not work. Like, read the first three steps out of 12 and 12. Folks, there's no directions in the big book.

I mean, in the 12 and 12 for the steps. That's Bill's interpretive commentary. I read the 12 and 12.

I love the 12 and 12. I love Bill's interpretations. I love the traditions and stuff, but if we're going to do the steps, do them out of the big book.

Cuz I was reading the big book while that was going on. And I got up to A, B, and C. And then there it says, "If you're convinced, and I was convinced in some oldtime, keep reading the first three steps." I don't see, you know, the foolishness in that is, and he's giving me THE BEST HE'S GOT.

BUT CAN YOU PREDICT with any certainty when you tell somebody to wait to do the steps when on earth the mental obsession that will cause them to go back to drink is going to happen to them? Can anybody in here predict when your next mental session is going to happen? Cuz you are your God.

And that's what they're fighting against. That's the rush to get through the steps. The founders, and most of you know this, the founders didn't wait to take them through the steps.

Hell, most of them until they did the they did that third step prayer, they were they weren't allowed in a meeting until they did that. They didn't wait months to do the steps. Some of them were doing the steps in a week.

Read AA Comes of Age. It talks about Clarence Snyder, man. that plane dealer thing hit and all of a sudden you got people that are only a week sober.

Buddy, you got to get through the steps. We got a couple hundred people to take through the steps. You don't have time cuz they're going to die if you don't.

And that success rate from that book before it was before it was adulterated by our GSO and changed had a 90% success rate. That's listed in our AA literature. And some of you are shaking heads because you know what I'm telling is true.

You know, a month's over, I get a sponsor. I didn't pick my sponsor. I was in a meeting sort of like this.

It was a lady sir anniversary and she carried a message of hope. I didn't identify with her drinking, but she hooked me with something she talked about in the eyes prior to coming in and it connected me. A woman did that for me, not a guy, not her drinking, but something about her eyes that she talked about.

And I'm telling you, I had an experience and that I was like, you know, I went up and asked this old gray-haired guy for a sponsor after the meeting. I didn't even ask him for a sponsor. I asked him this, "Would you please help me?" And he gave me a sponsor that night.

I didn't know that guy from from sin. I didn't know him. 6 months over that guy was, he asked me, you know where the doctor, you got a big book.

That's the first thing he asked me. I lied. I said, "Yeah, my wife had one.

She's not even one of us. My big book, the first one I had 92 to 95, the dog used it as a chew toy. I still got it.

The first 80 pages are missing. You know, you're screwed if that's the book you want to recover by cuz that's like how you get well up to step nine, you know. Still got it.

It's constant reminder of of the dog found better use than I did, you know. But anyway, he goes, you know what the doctor's opinion was? Folks, I I'd read that big book for years.

I thought he was talking about Dr. Bob's story and he had to explain to me. I'm like, Roman numerals?

I've been to college. What? You know, who reads the Roman numerals?

You know, I don't know. But he explained it. He said, "Read it three times and show up the next day." You know what alcohol did for this alcoholic?

You ever meet? You ever anybody here sponsor other people? Let me see a show of hands.

How many people here have taken people through the steps? How many of you have heard the yeah butts? And if they're not saying it, their actions indicate that because their actions are what what a recovered alcoholic looks at, guys.

They ain't looking at your God. How do you know an alcoholic's lying? Their lips move.

My god, they're freaking delusional. They're not in denial. God.

And can you believe they put that story in the big book, denial, and they're trying to claim the same thing as del. Oh god, man. My opinion there.

I'm sorry. Anyway, he asked me to read it and he asked me to show up and I did. 38 milesi from my house, the Yale butts were gone.

I didn't argue. I didn't fight. They asked me things like, "Dave, do you like your booze watered down?" No.

God, in the military, we used to bypass our company because they bought this thing called Olympia beer. It's Oh god, it's nasty. Cuz Bravo and Charlie Company got Michelob Budweiser, you know.

So, let's go. No, I didn't like booze watered down. He goes, "Did you did you do drugs?" "Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I did drugs." He goes, "Did you like your drugs cut?" Now, I don't know about you all, but I used to bypass dealers to go get cuz if it's closer to killing me, I like it even better. You know, go figure. Drink cuz we like effect, right?

I might like the effect of other stuff too, right? So, I said, "No." He goes, "Then why on earth would you want your directions that your life depends on cut or water down? Why don't we do just what's outlined in the book?

And that's what we did. He gave me the best of what he had. He missed some of the directions for the fourep.

See, an old-timer told me, "Don't ever let anybody read your big book for you." And I let my first sponsor read the big book for me. And I missed some vital directions in that fourp. The new sex, I didn't have a new sex ideal.

I didn't know that there were three prayers in the four step. There are three prayers. 67, 68, 69.

There's a new sex ideal. seems like, you know, I don't know about you all, I I've I've had the privilege of taking men and women. I sponsor both.

I'm I'm not I'll take any sick and suffering person through the steps. I get asked all the time and I don't distinguish if they're male or female cuz my sole purpose is not to hook up with anybody in AA other than to get you hooked up with God. That's my responsibility as a recovered alcoholic.

My life was averted misery and death. That's what I'm responsible to do. You know how many people I've sat there and watched and they fail at doing the steps because they don't live up to that last.

It's like I heard it best in in Texas. My friends call it my current agnosticism. And their definition is areas of my life I'm still playing God.

I'm willing to allow God to have. You can have my resentments, God. You can have my fears.

I'll keep my sex. I've seen people get drunk over that You know, I didn't know. I didn't even know two and a half years at two years sober my wife chose to leave and I won't go into particulars because it's not really it's not really prudent but boy over 6 months did I play God again judging her I'm a victim you know it was terrible you know and I used AA as group therapy and in my local AA you can do that oh god man it's like that's not what AA is for but that's what some of us use it before I hear things like a problem shared is a problem half.

Crap. That is crap. Group therapy.

I was molested as a kid. Guess what? I went to a ton of group therapy.

It didn't work. I played a victim into my 30s. Not until I went through the steps and seen what my part of that was, cuz I did play a part in it.

God forbid. Maybe I didn't cause it, but what did I do during it? Especially what did I do afterwards?

You know, well, you'd be drunk, too, if you hadn't my childhood. Victim, victim, victim. Aa taught me not to do that.

Two and a half years sober, I go through the steps again with my now sponsor and all of a sudden, wow, there is prayers in the fourth step. I wrote some inventory on it. My sponsor and doing my fifth step turned and looked at me.

He said, Dave, you've been raping your wife. And he explained that to me and I was like, I almost turned pale, shocked, and all of a sudden I seen it. It's like, no wonder she left.

I played God with my wife and kids to such an empty degree that that it's just terrible. How on earth would somebody be able to put up with that? N sober sober I you hear things in a and I'll mention this like I didn't drink today.

That makes me a winner. I'm two years sober. My first time in AA and I'm walking across a threshold with a gal I met in AA to go have sex with her.

I'm married, guys. Does that make me a winner? I don't have to talk about your dirty laundry.

I'm talking about mine. But I'm talking about the nonsense that we hear in meetings that doesn't line up with our book when we're all What did I read in the beginning? We're all supposed to be on the same page.

Absolutely agree. Just cuz I'm not drinking does not make me a winner. Let me tell you something.

Just because I was locked up in federal prison and I didn't steal anything, I think didn't make me attorney general of the state of New York. You know, so let's get to the reality of things. And I'm looking at this stuff with my sponsor and it's like, oh my god.

I know this might find hard to believe, but like after that incident happened at two years sober, my wife got a court order because I wasn't leaving. And I I I began doing that illegal thing. Well, it wasn't illegal at the time called stalking um you know, detective.

You know what's bad is when you got a new guy with you that's two weeks sober. They're sitting there saying, "Dave, come on. I know I'm only two weeks over, but God, you got a quarter order.

You ain't supposed to do this. And I'm like, shut up. WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

You know, got to have that. See, that's that playing God, guys. It's my wife, my kids, my my my You know what I didn't know?

What I did not realize the first two and a half years this time is when I made that spiritual contract between me and God, which is step three, and I said that prayer, my life no longer became any of my business. Neither did yours or anybody else who is with me, even my kids and my wife. They are not mine.

They are God's kids. Quit possessing them. When you realize when I went back through the steps with my sponsor, I got a freedom I've never had before in my entire life.

I left him alone. You know that thing that that this other fellowship tries to insert into AA and I hear people mention it from here on powerless over people, places, and things. Crap.

Lack of power is the dilemma. The solution of the steps is to connect you to power. If you're not playing God with your fellows, you don't need power over them cuz you work.

We work for God. That's what that contract that I agreed to when I got down on my knees and said that prayer with my sponsor. That's the importance of that thing because then my life really I mean look what he says.

God take away my difficulty so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. Not how well I'm managing life, but what he can do and show others that he can keep us sober through high spots and low spots. Well, how do you get to that point?

You got to go through the steps, get unblocked, become awake and aware of the presence of God. I hear my friend Mark out in in Texas say it best. He said, "If you go to the ocean with a thimble, you get a thimble FULL OF WATER.

HOW much of God do you want?" Cuz this thing is about God. And to this day, I don't know who or what God is. It doesn't really matter.

It says in our book, we're all united under one God. Does it matter what somebody chooses to call God, Buddha, Allah, Yahweh, Jesus? Does it matter?

I don't think so. I don't think God if God is everything or he's nothing according to book. I don't think God sits up in heaven and he ain't calling me by the right name.

I don't think that happens. Maybe God might be a little bit bigger than that. But that used to be my conception of God.

How much am I stuck in old ideas that I bought to AA of that I know who and what God is just to be superior to you. And I'm not saying to make you feel bad because I've done this stuff myself. That's what I bought to AA.

preconceived notions, not only what aa, but what God is. And God is stuck with me like that until I'm willing to allow it to let it go. And so I have to let it go if I'm going to continue to grow.

So I do. I start going through things that are beyond my wildest dreams. I'm start I spoke about it last time I was here, 2005.

I I I was doing a lot of skydiving and base jumping. not advisable if you're a crack addict, obsessive, compulsive because you might like it, you know. And I was learning how to fly.

Well, I wasn't learning. I was trying to teach myself how to fly canopies. Extremely close to the ground, extremely dangerous.

You're going to get hurt cuz this stuff whips body limbs and kills people. In July of that same year, right before my accident, two friends of mine died in Williamstown, New Jersey. I'm sure you all heard about it.

It was all over the news. Two people collided 200 feet above the ground at Cross Keys, New Jersey, and they died. They fell to the ground.

One of those ladies was my friend. Next month, I'm doing the same exact thing, except I didn't collide with anybody. I collided with the ground.

I did. My ego got in the way. I'm 600 feet up in the ground.

I said, my friend's VISITING FROM PUERTO RICO. HEY, DANNY, WATCH THIS. BAM.

Shattered my pelvis, shattered my sacrum, both broke my broke both my feet and punctured my femoral artery. in in one of my legs like dying on the ground. Came two 13 and 12 days later out of a drug induced coma paralyzed from the waist down.

I thought I was in a movie crying to my sponsor. How am I going to get through this? You know, I wasn't crying over the fact I lost my legs.

I wasn't crying over the fact that I can't even feel you know what down there. It's not attention anymore. You know, I ain't crying about that.

How am I going to keep from being addicted to these narcotics that they're making me take because I didn't have a choice in that fentanyl and and other narcotics. I'm on a drip. I can't even spell the freaking drugs that they're giving me.

My sponsor goes, "Dave, you you've been through the steps. You're recovered alcoholic. You sponsored other people.

You know how to follow directions. Tell your doctor you're an alcoholic and let them know that. Take the minimal amount." He said he said, "Son, you're in such bad pain.

And the only way you ain't going to feel no pain is to be knocked out. And you ain't going to be able to do that. So that's what I did.

I get bought home from the hospital and and you know what a did for me? They bought me meetings in the hospital. They also bought me meetings to my house.

But they did something else. Listen to this guys. This is important.

If you know somebody that's that's suffering a debilitating illness, don't just bring meetings to them. Bring them new people to take through the steps. Cuz that's what AA did for me.

I remember asking, "What am I going to do with this guy?" I can't even wipe my own butt. You ain't got no dignity left when your when your 10-year-old has to wipe your butt. And I can't I can't I can't move myself.

And so they bring me people to take through the steps. What am I going to do with these guys? You know what my sponsor said to me?

Shut up and take them through the steps. Quit thinking about you. Oo, that's tough love.

I didn't get no I didn't get no whining from my sponsor. So that's why I did. That guy didn't stay sober.

I did by me having my attention averted from how bad I was broken. I believe what happened is God came in and had the ability to heal me. Could be.

I don't know. I'm standing today. I still got a fractured pelvis.

My pelvis was so bad looking when you looked at X-rays. It looked like Edward Scissored Hands hands, you know, it was nasty looking. I remember friends of mine from AA coming over and I had the X-rays out and they WERE LIKE, "OH, GOD, put those things away cuz it's nasty looking." Right?

So, I start rocking and rolling people from a hospital bed through the steps and my life began to change and take a new direction because God can use us any way we come to him. Ain't that wonderful? My friend, my friend down in Baltimore says there's only two jobs in AA.

One is to show people what to do and the other is to show people what not to do. Which job do you want? Yeah, I better want this ladder cuz this is this is going to suck and could end me up drunk or dead.

It was so powerful of an experience that that God began showing up in my life. And I'll mention this real quick because it's on my mind. I had to take a guy.

I'm walking with a walker from my vehicle into meetings and I got to take this guy, this other new guy through the steps and I'm in so much pain. So much pain. I came off all narcotics before it was recommended because I didn't like being fogged and I was in so much pain that that I'm I'm sitting on my hands during the entire meeting just out of my freaking mind and I'm dreading because I know I'm going to spend an hour and a half because when I take somebody through the book I don't tell them what I think I give my current experience whatever that is and at that time and it still is to some degree we take them through the book page by page paragraph by paragraph and we read the book we turn the statements into questions do these fit your experience novel idea.

Let's see if the big book fits them. Let's qualify them as an alcoholic. Guess what?

The sponsor's job is to be sat if you're a sponsor, your job is to be satisfied that the prospect, your pigeon, your spons. It says that in working with others, does it not? Yeah.

So, it's my job to understand that they are alcoholic or not, what are they afflicted with? And not only that, do they understand that this is a life ordeath illness? you know.

And so I'm sitting there. I I we invited God into it. We're in the We're in the truck and this caught my attention.

Caught my attention. All of a sudden, my pain left. Left.

Gone. Hour, hour and 15 minutes. I don't know what it was.

Hour and 20 minutes. We're rocking and rolling. And we we held our hand and did the third step prayer together.

And I leave and he goes his way and I go my way. And about 10 or 15 minutes later, the pain came back. Where did that come from?

That caught my attention. Explain it to me. I've yet in speaking from the podium when I mention that anybody come up to me and explain to me where that pain went.

Cuz I always follow it with this. Maybe that pain would have been in the way of me doing God's work for that night. I do work for God.

That's what the third step prayer is. I agree to it. you know, take away my difficulties so that victory over them may be enable me to help his other kids to over a misery and death.

That guy is still sober. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. I I I can tell you this, that experience of going through the steps handicapped, disabled, because I still have a fractured pelvis.

A couple years ago, they had to take my hardware out. My body rejected it. My pelvis is not knitted together.

It's still fractured to this day. I was warned when they did that that if I fall, I could die before they could get me to the hospital. I'll bleed out cuz my pelvis is not held together with bone.

It's fibrous tissue and I do have debilitating pain at times. But it's okay. You know, I caused that.

I can't blame you. I can't be a victim for my own party. You people taught me that.

I started taking people through the steps all over the world via the internet that I would meet in in recovery chat rooms. We use programs called Skype and Yahoo messengers that I could take people through voice page by page, paragraph by paragraph. We invite I've been a I've had the privilege because sponsorship is a privilege.

I've had the privilege of taking people from the steps from from Mumbai, India. I have spons I I I've had the privilege of taking people from Korea. I get to take men and women through the steps all over our country.

And for those in our country in Canada, I do it over the phone just like if we were face to face. See guys, God can work with anything, you know. And so what I do is I give him the opportunity to recover through this, you know, and and I've I' I've sat there and watched misery and death averted in a couple hundred people for those that are done that do what we do, you know.

And what mind you, I'm not in the results business. So if they don't do what we do, that's okay, too. My experience begins to change exponentially when I'm taking one of God's kids through the steps.

It goes beyond what I went through the steps with my own sponsor. And that blows me away because we all have a right to our own experience. It's our own way of connecting and and and and being a awakened and aware of the presence of God.

You know, I live in steps 10, 11, and 12 on a daily basis. I read two pages out of this book every day. I read now I've read all the way through the fourth edition.

I read normally up to Bill through Bill D's story because he's one of our founders and I go back to the beginning. I read AA Comes of Age. I read Pass It On.

I read that Bill sees it. I I I do outside AA stuff. Um, I've read some of the Cambala.

Um, I've read a lot of EMTT Fox books, you know, and um, because I was told that was standard, you know, a lot of Clarence Snider's guys, one of the main thing was the book of James in the Bible. I've read that and EMTT Fox required reading from one of our founders. He got sober in 1938.

You know, I want, you know, why is it that that when Clarence went from word of mouth satiety with his wife to the book and didn't make this stuff up anymore? Let's try this and use the book as a tool, I believe it was intended to do that. They have over a 90% success rate of people who recovered and died that way when we have less than 3% today.

I have a very good friend of mine. He's one of Joe M. You know Joe and Charlie?

Y'all know Joe and Charlie? I've never met either one. I talked to Charlie on the phone.

Joe's dead. The first Joe's dead. Uh Cliff B is one of Joe McHugh's uh sponses till he died.

Uh you all may be aware of the Rymer boys, Mark and Meyer. That's my sponsor. I do a big book study with Cliff online on Skype usually about once or up to three times a week.

And he gives me history I've never heard before. And I'm just It's just so neat. It's a privilege.

This guy's in his 80s sitting in the living room of his house taking us all over the world through the steps. His home group 200 strong every week, three times a week, big book study. It's not discussion hell.

They don't care about what your opinions are or your experience. We're here to study the book. But not only and don't be there's people that I'm study the book.

No, they experience the book. Don't mistake the two. They do both.

They get the newcomer connected. But anyway, he he does statistics. Dallas in a group back in 1999 had over 20,000 medallion chips, desire chips.

1999, that's what they sold. 2009, how many 10-year medallion chips do you think they sold for Dallas in a group? Now, they had 20,000 medallion chips.

One day at a time, chip. You know the kind that that they'll tell you in the room, if you put it under your tongue and it melts, you can drink. What do you think?

We're freaking But they sold 20,000 of them to the groups. Gave out 20,000 of them that year. Guess how many in 10 years got 10 year medallions?

That in a group sold less than 150, guys. That's less than 1% success rate of people who made it to 10 years. Why is that?

Why are we in a fellowship that has some of the worst recovery rates when we have a book that has the exact directions that if I follow I'll get results that I can't doubt? And I'm the biggest doubter in the room because you got to prove it to me. Why?

Because I'm a real alcoholic and I question stuff. But when I get results that I can no longer question, it makes me when it averts the misery and death in my own life and I see it in countless others, it proves to me that God is real. Not only is God real, this is real.

And I can't doubt it. And I begin to live a life that not only did I get sobby out of this, I began to live comfortable in my own skin. I don't know about you all, but when I was new, my mind would go a million miles an hour.

And you know, booze would shut it up. You can't sleep when it's doing that. You all that ever happened to you where your mic's just like a freaking It's like shut up and it doesn't.

When I began living these principles on a daily basis, not if but on a daily basis, my mind actually shut up and I got peace of mind. Misery and misery depression got averted in my life. You know, when when situations come up, you know what AA taught me to to do?

They taught me, Dave, quit being a taker. Quit asking what can they do for you. You go to them and you ask what you can do for them.

When I started posing that question, I got results that that just like revolutionized my attitude, my outlook in life. I got rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence. My worst day sober is still way worse than my best day drunk.

I don't know about you guys, but I lived in Hawaii for 3 years drinking. 80 to 83. Oh god.

Coming to on a on a beach with skinny lad clad women is a lot better than what it was coming to out of a druginduced coma paralyzed from the waist down. But I will tell you this because of these 12 steps and because of not only having a sponsor but just trying and that's what they told me. And he say do it do God to to the do God's will well which means to the best human ability.

If you turn your life which is your your life which is your thoughts or rather your your mind which is your thoughts and your life which is your actions over to care of God you will live a life that's beyond anything you've ever experienced before. That's why they said in the book we get reborn. We don't get the old life back.

We get a brand new one. Godd driven. God purpose, trudging, walking with purpose, not suffering.

I haven't suffered from alcoholism in over eight years. I haven't been powerless over alcohol in over eight years. I haven't been powerless over any people, place, or thing, provided I allow God to control me and me not try to play God.

Drunk or sober, I'm not qualified to manage anybody else's life. Sober. I only made it working for McDonald's three days.

Why on earth do I think I'd be able to manage anybody else's life? That's a real success. Three, two times I worked at McDonald's.

Fired within three days both times. I have some, you know, not too good of a manager. Look, I only know this is that this thing works.

It works so well that it just I I I I drove three hours to get here and picked the new guy up on the way out of my way to come here to introduce him to his sponsor. How neat is that? And I took him through the I had the privilege of taking this guy through the fourth first four steps and he's ready to do his fifth step to one of your home group members here because I know for a fact what he will get from this home group.

Another recovered alcoholic that will not lie to him that will give him a life beyond his wildest dreams if he can abandon himself to this as I did. But we each all have our own bottoms, you know. And they they do say this, your bottom is only as low as it gets when you stop digging.

Don't try to do AA your way. Don't do your program. My program got me drunk and homicidal, you know.

And when sober, it was worse than being drunk. Cuz when I was sober, my first month, two weeks sober, my wife told me to go back to drinking cuz I wasn't at least trying to kill her and the kids when I was drinking. I don't have to live that way anymore.

You people and God gave me a freedom beyond my wildest dreams. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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