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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> My name is Gary Brown. I'm an alcoholic.

>> And I guess like uh all the rest of us here, we're all here to celebrate Paul Martin's gold diamond jubilee, I guess, is what you'd call it. uh his 60 years as being a sober, productive member of Alcoholics Anonymous and probably society. I haven't looked that close.

And he has given me some names of some people that he would like to have come up and uh and share with you a little bit. They haven't been given any script, but they have been given strict orders. They got five minutes.

And I will embarrass you if you mess it up. I promise. >> But Florian, >> would you join us up here first, PLEASE?

Thank you, Gary. Congratulations, Paul. God bless.

Paul said not to speak about him when we're up here, but I've got to tell him I've spoken about him lots of times, particularly when he didn't agree with me on something. Uh, I was chosen here because I have a magnetic personality. When I was a kid during the depression, they put tax in my cereal and they said years later it will crack it would crackle and and and make other kinds of sounds.

And I've been crackling ever since. Snap, crackle, and pop. That's right.

Uh when I called for help to a group in Lraange, I I was I was 22 years sober and I was highly insensed when the man on the other end, who shall be nameless, but his initials are PM, said, "You have untreated alcoholism." I said, "I'm sober 22 years." He said, "That's a good beginning. That really hurt." But I was so desperate. I never I thought, well, I didn't know what AA was about.

Had you come up to me uh in up up to 1990 and told me that I don't know what I'm talking about and I don't know about, I would be highly upset. But I went to college and I got to admit, not that I learned to be honest there. I got to admit that as regards Alcoholics Anonymous, after I came down here and and got to that group and talked with Paul, I really found a new kind of alcoholics anonymous.

There's a a story, some kind of little legend book. Uh, I think it's called the Velvetine Rabbit. And there's a sentence in there and it says once you become real, you can never again become unreal.

I got real in Alcoholics Anonymous against my will when I was told to go home and do a fourth and fifth step. And I was a conser at a treatment center with a certificate from the state of Wisconsin that said, "I'm not crazy, but you are." And I was told to go home with with what I was telling people in the treatment center to do. Go home and do a fourth and fifth step.

I wanted to say, "Do you know who you're talking to?" And I didn't. And I went home and I did that. And then I started doing a lot of fifth steps and I thought, "Boy, I'm glad I got a couple fifth steps.

Matt, I got down with Matt and I got a couple other people." And then other people started calling me and I said, "What? What's going on here? I've done all these fifth steps.

I've got this experience. I know I should be honest now. And and I didn't honestly I didn't know what honesty meant in terms of what I know about it now.

And then he wanted me to do amends and I thought I haven't heard anybody have you ever heard anybody say that to you? I have no amends to make. I had 60 people on the list.

I wrote 35 letters of amends to the South. I had lived in Mississippi and in Memphis for a while and I wrote things and I I I was making apologies if I called somebody your name and so my relatives would say, "Will you stop? That's enough.

Who quit going back there?" And I said, "Well, I did. I hurt your feelings once and this and that. I called you a name.

We don't want to know about it anymore." And I wanted to make sure there's going to be nothing left over. I wanted to make sure. Then I came down here.

I'm not bragging, but maybe I am. I came down here 14 months every Wednesday to the Wednesday meeting humiliated. I was the living example of humiliation.

I'm humble now, but you should have seen me then. I wanted to make sure if I was going to die because I was suicidal when I came down and my instrument of choice was a butcher knife and and that's what made me call this man and I hope it wasn't home. Remember that radio program a couple decades ago?

It would open up with a guy knocking. He was a salesman and it say I hope I hope nobody's home. When I called I hoped and hoped nobody was home.

He was home and then he tells me I got this untreated alcoholism. I've been treating it ever since. I work with other people.

I do fitsteps with other people. I meditate. I enjoy meditation.

I I do an hour of it a day. And uh and I'm not saying that to brag. That's only part of it.

But if I say I believe in a power greater than me, but I don't spend any time with the power. Figure that one out. I got you might like the guy who says I got a wife.

I spend five minutes a day with her. Something's wrong. So this higher power, I spend time with this higher power.

Uh I can't say enough about Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh I found a spiritual life. I know all about theology.

I taught religion for years and years. I read St. Thomas Aquinas in English and in Latin.

I made 30-day retreats, silence. I made 8-day retreats. I've been preached at, prayed over, baptized many times.

And I'll tell you what, the spirituality in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is all I need to be in constant contact with a power greater than myself. I've got to come back to these people. We used to call them, you know, seculars and ordinary when I was a brother.

They taught me what spirituality is. And I'm trying to pass that on to other people. God bless you.

God bless you, Paul. Thank you. Set the bar pretty high for the rest of you guys.

Look at that. And Bernie, you get to do it next. YEAH.

>> Hi everybody. I'm Bernie and a slowly recovering alcoholic. >> Hi Bernie.

>> And I'm from Columbus, Ohio. It's also known as Buckeye country. And um I figured the only way I was going to stick to five minutes is to write down what I wanted to say.

So, I'm going to try and refer to that and stick to the time frame. I sobered up in Lraange Park in 1968 and uh Paul Martin made the first call of me and uh I'm grateful that he did. I'm fortunate that he did.

I'm also fortunate that the uh stuck with me even though as a result of uh some very severe anxiety attacks. I had some really bad gas the first couple of years of sobriety. And uh that was one of the measures of the quality of my sobriety.

How's your gas today, Bernie? >> >> It's worth noting that I spent some time in uh the Hinsdale sanitarium after uh going to AA meetings and drinking for about a month. And uh those of you not from Chicago, that's right up the street.

And um hospital psych wards, state mental hospitals, and jail were the main main treatment centers of the era. I think Lutheran General Hospital had just uh just been opened a short while with their treatment center. I uh I remember distinctly Paul and I doing a fifth step in the lobby of Elgen State Hospital with a uh another ex-counselor who had chosen to neglect his personal program, not Florian, different guy.

And but two significant things happened to me in the Hinsdale sanitarium. I received a document from them that diagnosed me with acute alcoholism. I'm very grateful for that.

I had credentials then and the um the chief psychiatrist Dr. Anderson after listening to my tale of wool uh told me that my best chance of recovery was to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous and do whatever they told me. And that was huge for 1968.

I didn't realize it at the time, but it was. And uh that's not uh too far apart from what happens today actually. I was promised that AA would work under any circumstances the world had to throw at me if I would just work and rework the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I call doing the deal.

Uh I was also promised that I would never be alone again. And both of these promises have been true in my life. I've experienced unemployment, the house flooded by a hurricane, uh the death of a spouse after seven years of illness and 40 years of marriage.

Uh we raised four wonderful children and I have eight grandchildren. I traveled most of the United States and uh six foreign countries and made AA made AA meetings everywhere I went. I know that we are truly a worldwide family and I'm so grateful for that.

Through all the experiences of my AA life, my sober life, doing the deal of AA's 12 steps has enabled me to not drink and to operate with a relatively sane manner with some dignity and grace. And that's all I ever wanted to do. Uh we recently started a 12step group in Columbus on Fridays at 7 a.m.

Uh it's modeled after the Bington group's 12step format that uh Pete was kind enough to send me which is modeled after one of the original many the original meetings that I attended in Riverside that Paul had started. We try very hard to stick with AA as it was designed uh straight up and undiluted and we named our group the straight up 12step discussion group. Uh staying current and doing the deal has enabled several of our members to grow.

Uh Dean did a new fifth step with me. It caused him to make amends to his mother for the first time after 16 years of sobriety. And the guy has been taken off ever since.

I'll tell you. Rex um I'm scheduled with him u actually Monday uh to uh do a new fistep with him and he's considering uh doing an amends to his sister after 20 years of sobriety. So, uh, the healing process of Alcoholics Anonymous has never stopped for me and and the people that I'm in contact with as a result of the hours that have been invested in me.

Um, I recently, you know, my brother has been one of the uh weak points in my uh my sobriety and I I've been trying to love this guy as best I can my whole life and we recently uh went on Alaska fishing trip together and it was really cool and and and we reached a new high point in our our relationship and I'm just very grateful for that. But my uh my experience is sustained continuous effort with inventories. Uh my character defects, amends, prayer, meditation, and passing on the good news of recovery to others equals work.

It's darn hard work. Uh last year I heard the Barington group's discussion of the sixth step that willingness without action is fantasy. And that's my experience.

Also, this work has enabled me to stay awake, to stay alert, and not fall asleep. returning into untreated alcoholism. The only payback currency I know is for this unmmerited grace, this gift of the grace of God is passing it on to others.

One brother to another, just like it was passed on to me by Paul and others. Getting better together, acts of love and service is the life. It's the center of my life and uh for which I'm grateful beyond words.

Uh Paul Martin has been and will continue to be uh as long as I live a beacon of truth about what works in Alcoholics Anonymous. I thank you, Paul, for being there for me. Gosh, I didn't meet Paul till I was 22 years sober.

You've had to go with this all along. I'm amazed. I also know that there's two guys that that I work with a lot that are out there, one in Akran and one in Indianapolis that have brothers that can be difficult.

And you might be talking to those two people shortly. I'm real good at handing them off. See, JACK RYAN We got a lot of people here that aren't well, including those first two speakers.

Uh, I'm not going to try to follow them. Um, Paul gave me two instructions when he asked me to talk. Uh, one was not to talk about him, which Bernie and and Florian have already done, and I'm going to try not to, but I know I will mess up.

The other was not to embarrass him any more than I already have. Uh, he told me that three times and I haven't talked to him in the last 3 or 4 days and if I had it would be three or four more times. So, um, I made some notes and I don't know if I can read them or not.

I'm nervous as hell, which is kind of nothing new lately. But uh he suggested I talk about what AA has done for me. As a kid, I had no mother.

I had a alcoholic father who was a great guy but emotionally very unstable. He raised me along with my grandmother. I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous literally not knowing how to think.

I wasn't looking to be restored to sanity. Uh I had none. I didn't know what it was.

Um, today because of Paul and the things Bernie and Florian and I'm sure the other speakers will talk about today, I do have the option of thinking sainely just for today for the 24 hours if I ask for it. And believe me, that's all we got. That's all I want sometimes.

And if I could just remember it, I'd be a lot better off. Pat Kavanaaugh uh told me I should ask for 24 hours off work. Well, thank God I'm retired from that joint.

But uh I want to tell you just some notes I wrote earlier. I've been sober in spite of myself for a long time, close somewhere around 38 years. I guess I've had a lot of ups and downs since sobriety a lot.

Most of you are familiar with him. Many of them are. Uh through the worst of it, Paul stuck with me.

He hung on like a goddamn bulldog, if you'll pardon the expression, and I'm I'm grateful to that and will be as long as I live. Uh, I came to AA out of a straight jacket and there's been many times sober that I probably belonged back in one. I got real close.

Willie, you'll appreciate this. Uh, on my trip to Lyola a few years back. Um, I met Paul.

I knew I'd been sober about three and a half years in AA and I was taken to hear him talk. uh by some friends. I'm going to mention some of these people.

I want to speed this up here a little bit. Uh and I knew what I heard was different than what I'd been hearing, which was good stuff. I love the Southside.

I'm a Southside guy. But I got to tell you, the Cubs are winning. It's sickening.

Uh um uh but uh when I heard Paul talk at the Orington Hotel, I knew that there was another dimension to the program that I said I believed in. And it was a dimension that I was ready to accept uh and do some of the things that he suggested. Bernie and and Florian talked about fifth steps and so on and so forth.

And I'm quite overdue. Unfortunately, my pal Mike B back there asked me if we were going to get together one of these days. I apparently been ducking him for a while.

I didn't mean to do that. And we will get together shortly. I'm ready.

The message I heard was the message I needed to hear. I think we all hear what we need to hear in AA. And those of you that are here apparently need to hear the message that Paul has been so instrumental in carrying to many of us.

I will continue to hear this message as long as I hang around you guys and gals. And I want to hear this message. I don't want to drift away from it.

And it's my nature to drift away from it. Um, I'm going to close now, but I want to mention some people that personally meant a great great deal to me. And I'm looking at my buddy Frank right now, uh, who uh, heard my first fifth step in AA and uh, he encouraged me to continue on.

This fifth step was about half the size of this paper. Um, and I have continued on and I I hope I've continued on in a way that would be to his liking. I know I have.

I've tried to. But I particularly want to mention some people many of you know, and I know you've all heard of him. My other sponsor in the group here was Dennis O'Brien.

Uh, those of you who know him will never forget him. God knows I won't. I think of my two closest pals who are gone now.

Al Lesniaak, Charlie Daly, and I think of many others that have gone on and guys in the groups that were good guys. I'm hearing music. It's got to be getting close to the end here.

Uh uh uh Don Gaines, uh Bill Cahill, Bill Kelly, and recently uh Ray Williamson and Bill Miller. We all knew, not all, but many of you knew these guys or some of them individually. Uh without them, I and many of you I don't think would be here.

And so with that, I want to say thanks to all of you for being here tonight, to Paul and to the guys I mentioned here. And there's many, many more that I didn't mention. Thanks a lot.

I can attest that Jack uh has done a lot to in this program. when he done it about two years about 20 years ago, two years after I'd come up here and done the deal from Indianapolis, I get a call from Jack and he's in Indianapolis and he shared a fifth step with me and I'm sure I was discussing it with him earlier tonight that there is an ex volleyball coach of his daughters that's still alive purely because of that fist. >> >> Ron Ron do.

>> Hi, my name is Ron Dobin. I'm an alcoholic. >> I appreciate uh Paul number one being in my life and number two asking me to to do this.

Um it's an honor. It's it's really an honor to be here. I feel humbled though.

I I I'm sober almost 31 years and I'm by far the baby of this group. I mean, it's not even close. There are people here with a lot of sobriety.

Um, and I got the same marching orders. Talk for 5 minutes and don't talk a lot about you talk talk a lot about the program. Uh, I will say though, Paul's been my sponsor for for the last eight years of my sobriety.

And um, and they've been good years. Uh, you're you're a great sponsor and a good friend. Um, my story in Alcoholics Anonymous, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous on September 21st, 1976.

I've been sober ever since. And um uh cuz I only got 5 minutes. I'm just going to skip to four years of sobriety.

At four years of sobriety, the best description I can give of me sober is that emotionally I'm the same man sober I am drunk. And I can't understand why. I am as active as you can be in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I go to five, six, seven, eight meetings a week. I'm secretarian meetings. I'm on service.

I'm doing all this stuff. And I come into meetings and I learn to talk the talk real well while I'm here because as well as being an alcoholic, I'm a copycat. So what I do is I listen to the guys that are sober a while.

They say something, I copy it. I got no idea what it means, how to do it, but I can say it. And um and meetings would end day after day after day.

And I'd walk out of the room and I walk right back to the same world I left where I'm angry all the time, especially at my wife. You know, we were talking about having good marriages. Well, I'll tell you what.

Uh, first four years of my sobriety, my wife and I had what's called an in-n-out relationship. And, uh, that's a kind of relationship where you call a house, one day I'm living in the house, you call the next day, I'm moving out. And, >> >> um, you know, uh, you know, and and I just can't get along with people.

I'm not sleeping at night and I have no idea what's wrong with me. I have no idea what's wrong with me because I'm not new anymore in Alcoholic synonymous and I can't figure it out. And um finally a little over four years of sobriety, my world just came crashing down around me and uh and I ran into into a man I heard a man at a meeting because it was the one thing I always did right in Alcoholics Anonymous and and his name was Bob.

Bob Anderson and I heard him talk in a meeting and I went up to him after that meeting and I said, "I'm in a lot of trouble." I said, 'I'm sober for four years and I don't know what's going on. I don't know if I'm coming or going. I just don't know what's wrong with me.

Can you help me? And he invited me to his place of business the next day. And and and he said, "Tell me tell me what's wrong.

Tell me what's going on." And I did. And uh and he looked at me and he said the same words every other speaker said that they that they got from Paul. I I got those same words from Bob.

He said to me, he said, "Do you know what's wrong?" I said, "No." He said, "You're suffering from untreated alcoholism." And I looked at him and I said, "You're nuts, Bob." I said, "You missed the part." I said, "I'm sober four years." And he said, "Bob," he said, "Ron," he said, "Alcoholism has nothing to do with drinking except drinking treats it." And I asked him where he got that information. And he told me in the big book, and he opened the big book and he showed me things in the big book that I'd never seen before. things like the doctor's opinion where it says that I drink for the effect of alcohol that I'm restless, irritable, discontented unless I can again experience a sense of ease and comfort that come at once by taking a few drinks.

He said, "You haven't had a drink in four years. Are you restless, irritable, and discontented?" You know, I was man was I uh and then and then what Bob did for me is is the same thing that Paul has done for me for the last eight years. He took me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Roy and I were talking about it at dinner. You know, I think it's one thing to have a sponsor. I think it's another thing to have a sponsor that's worked the steps.

And this guy took me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he had the same message Paul did. And in that in that he said, "It's not going through them once, it's learning to apply them and then going through them over and over and over and over and over." And Bob was my sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous for uh uh 17 years.

And at 17 years of sobriety, he pa when when I was uh 21 years sober, I guess it was, he passed away. And I had another sponsor for a year who didn't do this repeated work on the steps. And when he passed away, I asked I I I had had a tape that Bob had given me the first week of my relationship with him that Paul had done.

And uh on this tape, Paul spoke about swapping fifth steps. And I'd done that ever since since four years of sobriety. And and my friend Leo uh uh had Paul's phone number.

I called him a few times and and and I said, you know, would you sponsor me? And uh and the funny thing is he said to me first when I asked him to sponsor me, he said he said, "Okay, Ron." He said, "When was the last time you did a feral fourth and fifth step?" Now, none of you I know have ever heard that before from, you know, and uh I thought I'd impress him, right? And I said, "Paul," I said, "What I do is I take the 12 steps every summer at depth.

All 12 steps." Then I asked him the first of many. He'll tell you many, many dumb questions since. I said, "When was the last time you did mistake?" He said about 3 weeks ago.

He said, "Why don't you write one and come to Chicago?" And uh and the funny thing is there's guys here that that uh that I've done fifth steps with and and and it's good to see. Uh but you know I have a good life today. Okay.

I have a good life today and it's because of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's because of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and a God that I found through these 12 steps. So thanks thanks for being in my life. You think after these years Paul would find a new script, wouldn't you?

Matt man Matt Andrea >> >> My name is Matt. I'm an alcoholic. >> I don't care who knows it as long as I don't forget it.

And that's one of the reasons I go to four meetings a week after 44 years of sobriety. This is my spiritual life. It's all based on the a program.

I was asked to speak here not because I have something special to say. I guess he asked me to speak because to prove that this program is international so to speak, you know, speak to and so I have had many I've heard many speakers on this program. I heard Paul speak many times.

I was very impressed with his ability to give the message to the people and I try to sometimes to imitate him and I try to grow in my ability to speak and I try to say some funny jokes. But in my case what happens is that anytime I say funny joke I start laughing myself before getting to the and that kills the joke and nobody else is laughing except me. Now the other thing is now I also heard speakers that you know make the audience cry.

I myself when I get the sad story of my life I start crying myself and I become a sad part of the whole story. That's the way it is with me. And uh I never was able to speak very well and I not really concerned about it.

Paul told me that I maybe I should write something down or you know get little cards or something. I can't do that. I tried it once didn't work.

I just even makes it worse for me. I don't know why. Not because I can't read.

I can't read I guess but just I can't do it. And uh I first met Paul some 1960 and I heard him talk at the young people's group. So you know that's a long time and I was very impressed with this talk because he talked about different things and kind of impressed me that was mysticism talking about oriental philosophies talking about Buddha talking about yoga talking about I thought this is the guy that I have to talk to and I have to ask him to be my sponsor which I eventually did and now he's my sponsor for over 40 years and I two years ago I went to this Akran Ohio founders day and you know the 10,000 people nobody had even noticed me but then again I mentioned I mentioned that my sponsor was Paul Martin I became a celebrity immediately so that's what happened to me really and I learned from him a lot through many years I never I not always took his advice is but in retrospect I know it's al advice was always good I can tell you a few examples maybe one that it sticks in my mind I heard him talk of that young people's group at that time and I was still kind of agnostic that was 1961 or 62 I didn't so 63 so and he mentioned that in some Hindu scriptures there are saying that God is help for helpless only and somehow open the door for You always thought maybe as long as I try to help myself, he's not going to interfere the higher power.

I have to be come back and first step tells me I have to be completely helpless and submit to his power and that's what they open the door for me for the rest of the program. Then I when I asked him to be my sponsor and he told me that I should take that you know fourth and fifth step like they all heard that before and uh he told me that at the beginning of Christianity it was done publicly the you know fifth step of confession. So because now I wanted to gain some respect from him.

So I said okay now get a few people and I do it you know I mean I don't want to big I don't want to do with one person I with three people the first time and this when I really experience some relief from myself all of a sudden I took the fifth step they I don't know the two of these other people got drunk though I don't know this one but I stayed sober and I see some some immediate benefits and that's when I began to see that this program really works. It's not only it's not to be talked about, discussed, analyzed is to be actually worked. And these principles that are written in our 12 steps are the guidelines for our life and I have been doing this ever since and I to some to some success.

I still have some problems and one biggest problem I have is math and I have to deal with it every day and this is the most difficult part. And at one time I thought that everybody else's fault, but now I know that it starts with me and not what people do to me, my reaction that hurts me. I learned that all from Paul.

And uh he gave me so much advice. I I wish I taken it more maybe, but most he thinks that I'm a Lithuanian. You know, Lithuanians don't listen to anybody because we already know everything.

And so that's the problem with our nationality. And I know that. I noticed that.

I since then I have seen some other of my my compatriots that they know everything and so they just cannot stop. They argue all the time and Paul tells me argue a lot and I try not to but you know somehow in my nature is to somehow or other you know I still have that lack of humility maybe still try to prove the point somehow or other I don't know and I don't know how long am I speaking now could my wife is also on the program if she was here by now she would say Matt but she she's she's not here. So therefore I am going to thank Paul for everything.

Where is he? This is this is this is part of me. It's not that I say funny jokes.

I'm funny to begin with. Laugh at me. I don't know why.

Anyway, thank you a lot for for all the help you gave me through the years and I'm so to my surprise is based on his understanding of the program and I follow the principles of the program every day as much as I can. Thank you very much. That's great.

same sponsor for 44 years. I had to go through a bunch of them before I got to wore them out. G.

Garrett. >> Hi, my name's G and I'm an alcoholic. >> And uh thanks everybody.

Uh I I I also uh had to uh put a couple of notes down. Uh not uh for the 5 minute reason, although I'll do that. It's just that I can't remember a damn thing from one moment to the next.

So uh I was also given the same instructions about not talking about uh my sponsor, but that's impossible not to mention him. Um I met him in 1974 when he came to uh Manitoba and uh after his meeting I I I spoke to him about uh u an article he had written in the grape vine on prayer and meditation and then he spoke to me about uh working the the steps and uh at that time I wasn't prepared to do anything about it although I was sober about nine years then and active in AA Hey, uh he tried to convince me that if I would work the steps, I could have, you know, some some sanity uh in my life, in my sobriety. And uh my answer to him was no.

Like I just said, no, I I at least silently that's what I said. I'm not going to do that. He came back 6 months later to speak in Winnipeg and I was also there and my last uh line of defense uh was Paul I'll tell you what when I come to know uh uh my Christ better then I'll work your steps and of course you you know right away I just got myself into a trap there because he said maybe if you work the steps then you'll come to know your God.

So, so that uh was a surrender uh for me and uh I made a decision to do that and I came here uh just before coming here though and right after his meeting I I think maybe this impressed me more than anything that he said. It was an action. When he finished his meeting, there was about a thousand people there and, you know, they were coming forward to to shake his hand and and and and give him the credits.

He only had so much time uh to get to the airport and he had to make a decision. Was he going to stand there and and receive the credits or was he going to spend the time with me to listen to my step five? We snuck out the back door and uh he uh this impressed me and and we drove to the airport and I did my my first fifth step uh with him and I remember when I got finished I was holding my gut and saying thank God that's over with and he said it that's good but in your case I would suggest another five or six right away wouldn't be too many you know and that's what happened.

Uh so the the the repeating of the of the the steps all of the steps became part of my life and I was asked to to uh it was suggested that I might mention this about the same time uh Paul had introduced uh my wife to this uh this message and she started doing uh as an Allenon member the same thing. uh when she came back to when we came back to Winnipeg, we were well, we've been together a long time. Tomorrow we're celebrating 42 years of marriage.

So, and uh last night we had a fight. There you go. Anyway, it's all fixed up now.

So, uh where was I? Oh yeah. Uh uh what here's here's what happened.

She she she was working with some some Alanon women. She was taking them through the steps the way you do them here, right? And then it was one woman and then it was two, then it was three, then it was four, then it was five, there was about 20.

And she couldn't handle that many. So she started a thing called step experience meaning 15 or 20 people would get together once or twice a year and they would go through the steps together and the whole emphasis was on experiencing the steps. Now since that time in 1975 we've been doing that in our area and every year twice or once a year about 15 or 20 of us in AA will do the same thing.

uh and we put the the focus this way. Uh when we come back, let's say we're on step three, for instance, and we uh we uh we all agree in the beginning, we're going to do the steps and uh we we we go home, go to our various places, wherever that is, and we do our third step with somebody of our choice, our sponsor, our wife or daughter or whatever the case may be. And then when we come back the following week, we take twothirds of the meeting time to share the experience that we had with that step that week.

Not what I did 10 years ago or 20 years ago, but that week. Now, if I didn't do the step with another person that week, then I just say pass because you see I have nothing to share. I can do catchup next week.

And we do the same thing all the way through. We get to the sixth step. For instance, we would say, uh, let's, uh, take a look at some of the things that we discovered in four and we talked about in five, and what did we do about it this week?

Every day, pay special attention, see what we did that week. When we come back again, we would share that experience. And then for the last 15 minutes of the meeting, we discuss the upcoming step just as we would at any AA meeting.

Uh, if we're at any other step, say the the amends, we all agree. All right. We will this week make a couple of amends and when we come back people will share their experience with those amends.

Again if I didn't make the amends then I just say pass cuz I have nothing to share. So it's a it's an experience, a step experience and we start each meeting uh every week with a period of a quiet time and uh we increase it just a couple of minutes each week and by the time we get to this 11th step now we're having a 20 minute meditation. It's not long but it's not short for some people.

So we do that and then we share that experience that we just had you know 20 minutes ago. So that's what we do. And then when people leave after the 12th step, we encourage them to and some of them come from other groups.

They go back to their group. People see a change in them or we encourage them to tell people maybe this is the message that they might want to try. If there's a changes that they're they're they're hurting and they want to do something, try this.

So it's it's an ongoing thing. And the the the idea of repeating this uh came from Paul. Uh, so I'm very grateful for that.

Um, I'm not real disappointed that my time's up. Not really. Um, I was here 10 years ago when Paul was sober 50 years.

And uh uh I did say that uh if there was uh one word that would describe him and he's been my sponsor for 30 uh what's nine from 42. Uh whatever that is. I didn't write that down.

So hey financial people here. Uh that's how long he's been my sponsor. And um I said one one one name that would describe him would be Mr.

consistency cuz I I just haven't heard him uh do it any differently. He's been consistent with this message of truth. Uh and it's impacted on so many of us.

Uh and I'm sure we're all grateful. So Paul uh if we measure success uh by the number of lives uh we touch and the way uh we reach out to others uh truly making a difference, then it's hard to imagine a richer life than yours. THANKS, PAUL.

>> >> WELL, NOW GUESS WHO? Our honore of the evening. He uh he told me when I called him about 22 years ago and and I said, "Is there any possibility that a 44 year old alcoholic grandfather with 22 20 years of sobriety could be going through male menopause?" And he said, "Well, maybe." And he says, "But if you write an inventory, you know what it is, right?

Come up here and take some fifth steps." And I wasn't listening. He said, "Take some fifth steps. Make your men your life may change." And and I was in so much trouble, even though I'd been sober such a long time, I did exactly that.

And I've done for the most part exactly what he has told me since. And if I don't do something, he tells me I've probably lied to him. But I can't remember any of those.

I can't honestly say that I did. So Paul saved my life like he did most of your Paul. Thank you all.

I suppose you wonder why I called this meeting. I've been in AA a long time. You can tell I've been someplace for a long time.

A while back, I stayed in a motel that had a mirror on the ceiling. I got woke up in the morning and looked up. I thought I was being attacked by a giant prune.

My name is Paul Martin. I'm a young alcoholic in an old container. For years, I was worried about dying young, and now it's too late.

My thanks to uh Bruce and uh Jean for putting this together. It was a lot of work and I appreciate it. My thanks to the six gentlemen who talked right before me.

You did forget some of the things I told you to say. You know Jack Ryan when he was younger, he studied to be an artist, but he gave it up. He gave it up because he wanted to paint this beautiful model in the nude and she wouldn't let him.

She made him put on his bathrobe. >> >> I'm an adult child of an Amway salesman. Friend of mine years ago when he's trying to do something about his drinking, he went to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist said, "I've never seen you before.

Tell me about yourself. Start at the beginning." The alcoholic said, "In the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth." I ended up doing a lot of things for a living. Years ago, a guy I've known for a long time said, "You've done many things in your life." But he said, "None of them will." But I ended up writing for a living.

Some years ago, I was at the Galopagus Islands off the coast of Ecuador where Darwin got the idea from for the theory of evolution from the finches and the giant tortoises. And I learned that during mating season, the male tortoises get so excited they try to mate with large rocks. It's pretty much like your average AA picnic.

Don't encourage me. I don't have to be home till Tuesday. >> >> I feel like Paris Hilton's next boyfriend.

I know it's expected of me, but I can't figure out how to make it interesting. 1951, I I sobered up on uh August 15th, 1947. Always wanted to be an old-timer.

I just didn't want to look like this. But it's too late to do anything about that. 1951, Bill talked at the Madina Temple in Chicago in the spring.

And in the course of his remarks, he said, "Suppose each of us here not found a until 10 years after he did." And then he paused. And there wasn't a sound as each of us remembered despair that filled our souls that we came to AA. And he said we have an obligation to be here and pass on to that man or woman who hasn't come here yet what we have shared.

AA is a sacred community. I had a long time figuring that out. It's the most sacred community I have ever been in touch with.

I knew that some of us were destined for greater spiritual growth than others. And obviously I was one of those so destined. So I looked in every possible direction for spiritual growth.

Read Link and Sipfink and Yung and everybody else and bored my friends into terminal oblivion when I talk about things way way beyond my condition and experience. AA is a sacred community and here I have found not just sobriety but a way to live that holds me steady no matter what's happening in my life. I always wanted to be somewhere else somebody else.

I work I spent a number of years working out of the country in the 50s and >> >> uh in the spring of 51 I was waiting or 60 56 I was waiting to go up to Greenland to work not Alaska I'll get this straight was waiting to go up to Point Barrow Alaska to work. I was painting the back fence on a Saturday and some little boys about nine or 10 years old from the neighborhood came over and they were wearing six guns and cowboy hats and cowboy boots and one of them said, "We're Texas Rangers." So we talked and I worked and every time I had something to say to him, I addressed him as Ranger. And after a few minutes, one of the boys said, "You know, we're not really Texas Rangers.

We're kids. Well, I spent years trying to be somebody else. I didn't know who I was, but I knew whoever it was wasn't good enough.

And what the AA program showed me was a way to know who I am and understand that this is all who I have to be. The reality I I get through working the steps, through working steps four through eight and nine in particular, takes me away from fantasy into the truth. The truth will set us free only if we know the truth.

And we find the truth through working the steps. I grew up in a little town down in South Georgia. The town was too small to have a village idiot.

We all just took turns. Was a very dull. It was so dull if you took LSD and have visions of Lawrence Welk.

But I discovered when I was quite young that if I drank the right amount, I don't know when I became an alcoholic, but when I was seven or eight and somebody left some beer or wine in a glass and I could get a hold of it, I'd take a gulp. When I was 12, I used to pick the lock on the liquor closet and take a drink out of the booze bottle and then add some water. When I was 14, I got drunk for the first time and something registered.

I knew that this is all I needed. I didn't have to get smart. I didn't have to take any courses.

I got a friend who said he never could remember names till he took that Dale Carmichael course. But I knew that alcohol was my answer. And alcohol did something for you and me that it doesn't do for other people.

It changed my consciousness in a way that was very real at that time. And when it no longer worked, I kept trying to do it. And of course, it didn't work.

And you have that that great obsession. Once again, it will be like it was. And it never is.

I drank my way out of high school. I always wanted to be a good athlete. And I played a lot of sports with limited skill.

I was a running back on the football team. Every time I carried the ball, we got penalized for delay of the game. >> >> I was a boxer.

I had one bad h handicap. I couldn't whip anybody. I had my nose broken in three places, Georgia, Illinois, and California.

So, I drank my way out of high school. I drank my way into a college. I My parents split up.

I ended up down in South Georgia with my father. And I came back when I was 19 to Oak Park where my brother and mother, brother, and sister were. And I started another college.

I've been to a lot of colleges. I would have made five beta cap if it hadn't been for my grades, but I uh drank my way out of college and ended up in the Navy becoming a pilot. I had this act that I put together.

Was the lover, it was the pilot, it was the athlete, it was the genius. I went into service to become a pilot in the Navy. I flew with single engine sea planes that were catapulted off cruisers and battleships.

He went from 0 to 60 m an hour in the space of about 40 ft. It wouldn't cure a hangover, but it really took your mind off of it for a little while. As I've said many times, I destroyed two aircraft in World War II, both of which belong to the US Navy.

Friend of mine said, if I got three more, I would have been a Japanese ace. Summer of uh 1945, I was 23. I went into a Navy hospital with pneumonia, which went into DTS.

And I was in the hospital for four weeks. I got drunk nine of the last 10 nights in the hospital. I used to be drunk every morning when I flew.

I got out and started drinking some more. I ended up at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk in the fall of 1945. The war was over.

They said, "You want to stay in or get out?" I said, "Well, let me think it over." So about 3 weeks later, I got lost. They sent for me and they said, "Boy, I think you ought to get out." I said, "I think I ought to get out." So I went to Great Lakes to get separated in December of 45. I traveled for three days and three nights.

Got to Oak Park where I was living. And uh over New Year's I decided to go to Milwaukee and get drunk. And I got drunk for three days up there.

I had kind of a shocking experience. I ended up with what had to be the ugliest woman in the Middle East. She frightened me into three weeks of sobriety.

>> >> She looked like a million dollars. And the only reason I say that is because I've never seen a million dollars. And she looked like something I never saw before.

So I began to make all the experiments. And when I worked, if I took more than half an hour for lunch, they had to retrain me. I was always losing my car.

There's nothing more beautiful than an alcoholic who was reuni reunited with his lost automobile. Let's see. I say my car and I drive off and run into something.

I began to make experiments on quitting drinking and of course I read all the books. There are a lot of great books out there and we they keep writing of a lot of great therapy movements and I think they're all good unless you really need help. read link and think and peel and seal and you name it.

I read Rabbi Leeman's peace of mind and I thought this will change my life. Then I found out that Leeman committed suicide and I thought that's too much change. So I bought another book, Dorothia Bry's Wake Up and Live.

She said act as if it's impossible to fail. Do you ever try that with the dry heaves? I had a regular routine.

and I get up and take my gagging exercises and then stumble on around the the day in the in January of 1947. I knew I was an alcoholic. I went on the wagon and I stayed sober for 3 months.

I knew that the first drink got me drunk. I went to a party and they gave me a drink. So, I said, "Well, I'll drink it tomorrow.

I'll drink it tonight. Tomorrow, I'll jump back on the wagon." And the next day, the wagon had left. I chased it around Chicago until August of 1947.

But a wonderful thing happened. I could no longer lie. Somehow or other, the ability to deceive myself of the reality of my life was gone.

That was a big gift. The gift of honesty. If I could have retained that honesty, I would have stayed away from a lot of trouble I've created by dishonesty in my life.

Sober. Sober a week in 1947, I called AA and I talked to a lady downtown office and she gave me the name of a guy who or a man called me. I went to see him that afternoon.

I come from a long line of Lutheran ministers as I've said. In spite of that fact, I believe in God today. The way I was brought up, they said, "If you don't believe this way, you're going to be part of an eternal marshmallow roast, and you're liable to be one of the marshmallows." And when I would ask why, they would say, "That's because God loves you." And I gradually concluded I could live better with less cosmic affection.

And I tried being an atheist, which didn't work well at all. But I talked to that man and he talked about a higher power. He said, "God as we understand him." Which is what Ebie Thatcher said to Bill when he went to see Bill in in Town's hospital in 1934.

Tremendous idea. I'd never heard of that. And we have I don't know how many million AAS in probably 150 countries around the world believing in God on the basis of their own understanding.

And that's really what led me into AA. And I started going to meetings and I learned the language and in about nine months I had become a genius. So I borrowed some money and I went into business out in Rock Island, Illinois.

And 3 months later I was broke, out of work, bankrupt, in trouble and I had to stay there and close down the business. So I was working at anything I could find. And I one Saturday morning I was 26 years old.

In many ways my life was worse than it had been when I quit drinking because of my own stupidity. I didn't realize that I could be that dumb and not drink. I remember I was const I was afraid I was going to drink and I used to go to a lot of meetings for two reasons.

One to stay sober and another because they served refreshments. I didn't have a lot of money for food. I was living on cake, strawberry, tarts.

It's wonder where I didn't get diabetes. Remember one night I was at the uh Brady Street Club in uh Davenport Saturday night meeting and everybody's there and then everybody's leaving. And I thought, I'm going to be all by myself.

What do I do now? And a man and his wife came up and they said, "We'd like you to come home with us tonight and stay at our house. Get up in the morning and we'll have breakfast and then go to the meeting.

Would you like to do that?" And I said, "Boy, would I." We've been helped over and over and over by people that we forget, and we need to remember them. And we need to remember also that we're sober because of all the people that preceded us in AA. There was a place for you and me to go when we called for help because people were still going to meetings.

Well, time went I I I became a professional wrestler. I was a lot bigger then. And uh I wrestled in Chicago sometimes at Rainbow Arena, Lawrence and Clark.

They these were televised out in the east co east coast around the middle west. And I went over in the spring of 19 I was a guest in Bill Wilson's home several times and with him in small groups a couple of other times. And uh the first time I was over there, it was during my wrestling career in the 1951.

And Lois, it turned out, was a great wrestling fan. She used to watch those shows out of Rainbow. And she kept asking me over and over the question everybody asks, "Are they fixed?" Well, of course they are.

But I kept trying to not tell her the truth and not actually lie, which was very difficult. But I think we don't we don't appreciate Bill Wilson enough. If you look at what he did, you and I came in, it was all laid out for us, the steps, the meetings, the whole thing.

And he ran around there for months and months and actually years trying to put together this program. I'm sober a long time. I could not write anything as good as that big book.

Certainly nothing as good as those 12 steps which speak to my condition wherever I am in sobriety and in my life. So I started working on overseas construction. I worked in Tuli Greenland in 19 51 2 3 and 4.

I worked in Keflick Iceland in 1955. I worked in uh Point Barrel Alaska 1956 and 7. Most of the time my AA came out of the big book.

We had an AA up in uh Point Barrel, Nick Gray. Nick's father was Jewish and his mother was Eskimo. He always said he thought he was a AA's only juice.

And I think that's correct. But I read the big book. I did a lot of meditation.

And I came back to Chicago then in 58. I went to work for a trade association, worked for PR agency. In 1966, I started my own PR business and started writing magazine articles and a couple of books.

But by the time I found out I wasn't any good, I was making a living and it was too late to quit. But I I I I got into something that a lot of people do in AA. I became one of AA's leaders.

I uh ran everything I could find. I did the banquetss and I did the uh I did the the became a delegate to New York and all kinds of things like that and uh I became a famous AA speaker and uh if you ever see anybody doing that and you ask him why he does it and he gives you any reason but pride, ego and self-importance, you want to watch him because he will lie to you about other things too. >> >> But I uh about 1963 I grew up in an AA area that they said you work the first nine steps once then you live on 10 11 and 12.

I didn't know any better. And about 1963 I met a man who was a research professor of psychology at Illinois Dr. Hbert Mau well known around the world.

And he said, "There is benefit in opening up with many people because if everybody knows the truth about us, we're free. You don't have any secrets and you don't fear getting found out because everybody knows." So I started trying to do that in my own life and working with others and I found that that was absolutely correct. It it transformed my working with others in my own AA program.

And we've done a lot of that through the years. We've had people come from all over the US and Canada for weekends to do that. People in terrible shape and in a just a weekend of swapping fifth steps.

And by swap, I mean when somebody takes one with me, I take a thorough one with him. And they may do eight or nine in the weekend. We've had people terribly depressed who go home without any depression.

And they have not made any amends. They go home with an eightstep list and they make amends and and everything changes. And of course that's the AA message which sometimes has gotten lost.

I spent a lot of time in prayer and meditation through the years and I never understood for a long time what it says in step 11. Praying only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that out. There are a lot of books around that show you how to use prayer to get your own way, which is something I was very interested in until I got my own way and then I thought, how do I get rid of this?

But step 11 says praying only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that out. Meister Echard knew something about meditation. And he said when I pray for something I do not pray.

When I pray for nothing I really pray. And I think that's true. Only sitting in in God's presence asking for nothing.

The more time I put in the more change I get. Praying only for knowledge of God's will. And what I find is that this message with many people at any stage of sobriety, I spent a lot of time trying to be smarter than I actually am, and I still do.

But I thought there was something beyond AA that would take me further in the spiritual life. I don't believe that anymore. This is the most sacred community I have ever found.

NAA I have I when I heard uh Paul Stanley talk in the spring of 48 he was the number five AAA Stanley said over and over AA is of itself sufficient in my experience that's correct but not so self sufficient if all I do is go to meetings going to meetings and not drinking do not treat my alcoholism working the 12 steps on a continuing basis treats my alcoholism. If I were in a plane flying at 30,000 ft, they caught on fire, somebody rushed up to me with a parachute, said, "Put this on, go out that escape hatch, pull the rip cord, and save your life." What do you think I would do? Say, "Let's discuss our feelings." Or, "Nobody's going to tell me what to do." Or would I go through the hatch without a shoot, hovering, "This is an individual program.

Well, you know what I would do? I would put on the shoot and hope it opened. The forward to the 12 and 12 says, "Aa's 12 steps are a group of principles spiritual in their nature which if practiced as a way of life can remove the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole." And that's my experience.

I have found it through you people. I'm with you because I would forget it without your help. Thank you very much.

Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.