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

>> Hi, Peter. >> It's a It's an honor and a privilege to be here. I'd like to ask uh thank the committee and Rob for uh for asking me to speak and uh Eli for the for the watch >> and uh Adam for the water and uh Lee for helping me put this flower on.

It's been a long time since I went to a prom and I was drunk. Uh I used to drink >> a lot and uh just waiting for God to catch up with me here. I called my sponsor uh this afternoon a little while ago and I told him I said Jimmy they asked me to speak at this uh at this convention and uh he's a good sponsor for me.

He's been my oh let me tell you my sobriety date is July 23rd 1998. Uh I have a home group. It's the big book group in Raleigh, North Carolina.

We will be celebrating our 40th anniversary this Sunday. And uh you know we're going to have a fantastic speaker, one of the guys who helped start the group. And uh we get together on Tuesday nights.

We got a beginner's meeting at 7:00. At 8 o'clock we study the big book and a speaker meeting on Thursdays at 8. And uh Greg P just came down and spoke for us.

It was fantastic. So uh if you're ever down that way uh come find us. Um it's another pocket of enthusiasm and uh it's good to be here tonight.

So I called Jimmy and I said, "Jimmy, I got to I got to speak at this conference and I'm a little nervous and uh I don't know what I'm going to say." And uh he's a good sponsor because he makes he's straight to the point with me. He said, "Do you have diarrhea? >> >> And I said, "No, Jimmy, I don't have diarrhea." He said, "Well, you're not too nervous.

You'll be fine." That's the only advice he gave me. So, I had to go to the book. And it says here on page 29, and there's a solution.

It says, "Each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God." We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women desperately in need will see these pages or hear me. And we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, "Yes, I'm one of them, too.

I must have this thing." So, that makes it pretty clear uh what I'm supposed to do here tonight. I took my first drink. I was um well, my first drunk.

Um, I had probably prior to prior to 14 or or however old I was, I I'm sure that I tasted alcohol. There was always alcohol in my family, you know, and the holidays and the birthdays and there was drinking and uh you know, my folks that had a drink, they'd get home from work and they'd drink and they'd have a beer or wine with dinner and uh so I'm sure that at some point in there I I had tried alcohol, but it uh you know, as JP says, I'm going to I'm going to stop giving credit because I pretty much everything I'm going to say tonight has been stolen from somebody. Uh a lot of them are sitting in this room.

You know, I I got to hear uh Jack Max speak earlier this afternoon and this guy Patrick and uh and Greg and then we heard Pat Quinn and the whole thing has been, you know, it's been fantastic. It's been phenomenal. So, uh you know, anything I say, actually, if it doesn't sound familiar, if anything I say sounds real original and you've been here longer than two weeks, ignore it cuz it's it's probably bad advice.

Uh but I learned by repetition, you know, just like uh just like when I was drinking, I told some of these lies and some of these stories. I told them so many times that I really I started to believe in myself and some of them even made it into my inventory. And it wasn't until I've been sober a while and uh and some people corrected me that I realized that never really happened or it happened to a friend of mine or and AA works the same way for me.

It's all it's all repetition. I read this book and uh you know, don't let it fool you. It's it I'll tell you where some of the other wear came from.

It's not just from me reading it, but I come here and I hear the same stories and the same message over and over again. And I I get to go to fantastic groups and I hear the same basic message over and over again. And uh and the more I read this book and the more I hear your stories, the more I start to identify with them.

And the more I read this book and the more I hear your stories, the more I start to look at my life uh from the perspective of Alcoholics Anonymous and from the perspective of this book and uh you know, I got a disease of perception, you know, and and so you know, it helps get my mind right and uh and who cares if that's the truth or not because it works. And that's what I like about this program. It's pragmatic.

Where was I? I'm getting all I'mma I'mma jump around a little bit. I hope you can follow me.

Um, so I had had alcohol prior to this point, but it didn't do anything for me. And my family was a drinking family, but they're not alcoholics. My sister, she drank a lot and uh but not not a lot like us, but uh she did some things she didn't like cuz she was drunk.

So, she stopped drinking. Simple. My father uh didn't drink a lot, but he drank every day with dinner or whatever when he got home from work.

And he uh he had a stroke a few years ago, and the doctor said, "You shouldn't drink anymore." So he said, "Okay." Hadn't had a drink. You know, it's been like 10 years. And a little while after that, I got sober and my mom said, "Well, if they're not drinking, I guess I won't drink either." It was that simple.

It was that easy for her to walk away from. So, I don't come from a family of alcoholics. But that night when I was hanging out with these guys and I was nervous and I was awkward just a little bit like I am now.

And uh and I didn't know these guys real well and uh but we had five cases of Milwaukeee's Best I've always been a high class drunk. You've now seen my suit. Um, when my sponsor says suit up and show up, he means wear a suit.

But you've now seen it, so I can Thanks, Steve. Uh, so I didn't know these guys, but somewhere about the the sixth or the seventh beer, it happened. um all of that, you know, and the same stuff every, you know, people talk about, but it it it didn't make me an alcoholic, but it did make me uncomfortable.

And maybe everybody's uncomfortable at 14. I don't know. I don't know a whole lot of normies real well.

Maybe everybody is kind of insecure and awkward and lonely and uncomfortable at 14, but I definitely was. And uh but what what is not true for everybody is that is that Milwaukeekey's best solves all of their problems. And that was true for me cuz somewhere about that sixth or seventh beer I felt I felt like I thought you all felt all the time.

I had that perfect sense of ease and comfort. I uh I could talk to these guys, man. I felt like I'd known them my whole life.

and that girl that I had a crush on since about the third grade, I could talk to her and there was no problem. And uh and it was awesome for about half an hour. And uh somehow I uh I I I you know, I did what drunks do on a Tuesday night.

I uh I threw up and I I blacked out and I wrapped myself up in toilet paper and got caught on fire and uh you know, and I got hosed down in the front yard and all that stuff. But I uh I woke up the next morning or afternoon and and I wasn't worried about any of that stuff. All I was thinking about was that little period between like beer 6 and nine that I felt like like I'd never felt, you know, and I needed that feeling.

and uh and and and and if alcohol still did for me today and did for me tonight, what it did for me that night, I would still be drinking it. I never would have found what I found in this program. I never would have made the the friends that I've got in this room.

I never would have wanted you or needed you because I had a solution that worked, man. However briefly, it worked. And uh and right from there, my life started to change.

You know, I wasn't I wasn't consciously thinking that uh that I'm going to go out and get a job so I can get money to drink. Well, maybe I was. So, I went out and I got a job so I could get money to drink.

And uh and I'd been a pretty good student. You know, life a lot of things have kind of come easily to me. It looks like from the outside.

you know, I I I went through school and I made pretty good grades and uh and I got along with people pretty well and I had a house and a family and and uh you know, they they looked after me, but it certainly didn't feel easy on the inside. Uh life was always kind of awkward and and painful and anxious and uncomfortable and uh and uh but when I when I get together with these guys or or by myself, I started drinking by myself. I'd go to these parties and there you the next uh morning where I'd wake up if there was anything left over I'd take it with me.

And so I'm I'm 15 years old. I'm in high school and I got bottles of you know warm bottles of beer and rum and whatever else hidden up on the closet shelf behind the baseball cards cuz uh you know it was just easier to study that way and I didn't have to worry about talking to anybody. And um so I drank through high school.

It worked. It was great. You know had a great you know it was what it was.

The booze worked. I uh I had some consequences, but they weren't, you know, earthshattering. You know, I'd disappear for a few days and the folks would call the highway patrol and yeah, you can drink without a car.

We know that. Um they the highway patrol would come and find the car that I'd left parked somewhere and they'd take it and that was okay, you know. And uh I ended up going up to school up here in Connecticut.

I got into I got into a real fine school. until I got into Yale and um you know I mistakes happen or God can do amazing things or I don't know what happened but I ended up up here and I didn't want to come cuz after high school I got this great job roofing down at the beach and uh you laugh you haven't heard about it yet I didn't know how to roof I'm down there I'm passed out I I get woken up somebody is hammering on the roof I go out and yell at him and he offers me a cuz the hurricane had come through and there was a lot of money to be made putting shingles on houses and and I said, "Uh, can you roof?" I said, "No." He said, "I can teach you in 20 minutes." And I was a roofer. I wasn't a good roofer, but I could I could hammer a hammer and put some shingles up.

And I was doing that and I was working 10 hours a day and I'd get off work and I'd go to this tavern. Best name for a tavern ever. It was the Someplace Else Tavern, you know, in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

It was I mean, that's that's the whole point, right? I can't deal with right here, right now. I want to be someplace else, you know.

And uh I'd go down to the someplace else tavern and they'd serve me because I had cash in my pocket. And man, I didn't want I didn't want to come up here and go to school, but I was real glad I did real quick cuz uh I found out the liquor stores up here are not run by the government. And uh and they are in North Carolina.

And uh and some of them didn't care too much that the name on the credit card didn't match the name on the ID. And neither one looked like me. wasn't a problem.

And uh especially Broadway Liquor on Dixwell Avenue. I don't know if any of you are familiar with that particular uh New Haven establishment, but they were good to me. Well, they gave me what I wanted.

And uh it doesn't take long to talk about my college career. Uh I was here for uh three semesters. Uh I was hospitalized.

Well, before college started, we went on this camping trip. It was like a freshman orientation thing and you go out in the woods for four or five or six or seven days. I don't remember.

And um what I do remember it was more than 3 days because on day three they went to go hang the food up in the trees so the bears didn't get it. And they came back and I'm lying on the ground shaking and they said, "What's going on?" And they said, I said, "I don't know." you know, and it went away and uh and they got me back to New Haven and I got some booze in me and I didn't think about it much. And uh a week later I went to the the one of the uh big parties.

It was a night of 10,000 jello shots. And uh you know, I I got enough in me to you know, I was passed out in my own puke in the backyard of this house somewhere. And the cops were on the way.

So they said they better get me out of there. And the second they woke me up, now I don't I don't I don't remember thinking anything. All I remember is the second they woke me up, I was headed back to that table.

They had this big table with these little Dixie cups full of jello shots. And the second I was conscious, man, I had I had three frat brothers on one arm and a couple on the other arm. And I had this field jacket, this old army field jacket.

And I'm just stuffing these things into my pockets fast as I can. And when I woke up in the hospital covered in, you know, vodka, jello- of all different colors, I didn't worry about it. Three semesters, four trips to the hospital later, couple of arrests.

Uh, you know, and when you're young and in trouble like that, or at least for me, that you got a lot of helpers is I heard a speaker, I don't remember what speaker said that, but it stuck. So, uh, I had a lot of helpers. cuz I had deans and and and people in the hospital and and uh judges and lawyers and police officers and EMTs and teachers and parents and friends and everybody's trying to tell me that I got a problem with alcohol, that I drink too much.

Obviously, they didn't know me. Never occurred to me that I might have a problem with alcohol. Now, I'm I'm somebody's paying a lot of money for me to uh try to get a degree in physics from Yale University.

My days didn't look a whole lot like you'd think. I'd wake up uh whenever my drinking buddy, she'd come and she'd start yelling out the window, you know, to somebody to let her in. And somebody'd let her in and we'd do whatever was in her little bag and and we'd go and we'd borrow some of this uh stuff from this guy and we'd break it up into little short bags of stuff and we'd sell them and we'd work all day long to get $20 to pay for a half a gallon of Kamchatka vodka and two boxes of Jack cigarettes or jokers or whatever.

They don't even make them anymore. They were so cheap. you know, worked all day.

You get a half a gallon of vodka and uh and two boxes of cigarettes. And uh and somewhere in here, this is what's important is somewhere, I don't know when, because I was a blackout drinker. Somewhere in that in that three semesters, something happened that was real significant.

And it wasn't any of the arrests or the uh overdoses or the alcohol poisoning or the or the anything like that, but somewhere in there, the alcohol stopped working for me. And uh and I mean I still got sick and I still threw up and I still did tragic and bizarre things but they were becoming mean things and uh and all that but it didn't take away the insecurity like it used to and it didn't take away the fear like it used to and it didn't take the anger away. Definitely didn't take the anger away.

And I'm doing things. I mean, I had to, you know, I'm breaking stuff now. And uh I'm breaking stuff and I'm breaking me.

And I I I drink. And instead of bringing it closer to people and feeling like they were my best friends in the world, I I I didn't go out of my room cuz uh cuz I was terrified of who I'd become and what I was and the things that I did to you when you when I was out and I was drunk. Um and uh I started drinking in New York uh the weekend before Halloween.

And uh I woke up sometime a couple days before Christmas in Yale New Haven Hospital again and uh you know I'd missed my exams and my flight home, all that stuff. I wasn't worried about it. And uh and they let me out and um and I went home.

I was in my mama's house. Had a drinking buddy. Drove up from North Carolina, picked me up, turned around and drove back.

And uh and I was in my mama's house for about 20 minutes. You know, I'm three days late for Christmas. I'm all bloody.

I weighed uh I weighed 45 pounds less than I do right now. And uh I was uh I wasn't I I I was pretty. And uh I was in my mama's house for about 20 minutes and she's standing at the top of the stairs and I said, "Mom, I got to go.

I got to meet my friends down at the jackpot." Another great name for a bar. And uh and she said, "No, you're not going." And without a thought, I just pushed her down the stairs, went right out of that house, and went to the bar. Not a thought in my head.

I love my mother. There wasn't a thought in my head. Somewhere that spring, and I don't I'm a little foggy on the details.

Three things happened. I got my first DWI. I went to uh the county run outpatient treatment center.

And I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And uh I think I went to my first meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous before the other two things happened, but I can't swear to it because I went to that meeting drunk. Well, I went to that meeting drunk by their standards.

I was not anywhere close to drunk by my standards or your standards. And uh and I used to think it was some kind of magic, some kind of mystery of Alcoholics Anonymous, some kind of magical thing that happened that when I went to that meeting, a little tipsy. Uh I felt comfortable.

Well, a little more comfortable than I than I than I usually felt. And uh and I felt kind of okay. And I was able to to hold a cup of coffee and drink it.

I I mean I spilled a little on the jeans, but nobody noticed because they were pretty dirty. And um and I used to think that was some kind of magical thing about AA. And it it's there's no magic to it.

There's no magic in this program. You know, you do A and B and you get C. That's what I've been taught.

And it wasn't magical. I I saw the woman I I hadn't seen her in a long time. this scary looking I mean about man she worked at UPS in between going to the gym and she was looked like Chaz and had a crew cut and as a friend of mine said looked like she got her face caught in a tackle box you know and Kelly came up to me and she gave me this book and she gave me this book and she gave me a meeting schedule and she said you're going to go to these seven meetings or I'm going to come find you.

Kelly got sober in Baltimore, I think, in a in a in a in a men's recovery house in Baltimore. And uh she's still sober. I heard her speak.

She spoke for me about a month ago down at my home group. See, it wasn't any magic. It wasn't any mystery.

People in the non-smoking group in Raleigh, North Carolina, came up to me and they gave me a book. Nobody had given me anything. I'd had to take it for a long time.

And they were smiling and they were shaking my hand and they were saying, "Welcome. We're glad you're here." and I don't know where you drank, but there weren't a whole lot of people at someplace else or Jackpot or anywhere else coming up to me and smiling and shaking my hand and saying, "We're glad you're here." So, that's important. I I mean, I remember I remember for I remember Ed when I ended up getting sober out in New Haven.

Ed was the first guy in Alcoholics Anonymous who remembered my name. Ed may not remember me for nothing, but I will not forget Kelly and Ed for as long as I live, you know. So if you're a greeter, thank you.

You know, most important job in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I came to AA and real quickly I found out I wasn't an alcoholic. I knew that already, but I I cuz uh you know cuz I was 19 years old.

Obviously I was not an alcoholic and uh you know I just I I don't know. I didn't want to be, but I kept coming back. They said, "Keep coming back." And they and they every time I'd come back, they used to at at that group, you come up to the front and they give you a little white poker chip and everybody claps for you and comes up to you afterwards and says, "Congratulations and welcome." And man, I love that.

So, I kept coming back. I still have a ton of white chips. I lose a lot of stuff, but I had so many of these that I just can't lose them all.

I had pockets full of them. I went to one meeting and this old guy in the front row, he didn't clap for me. I picked up a white chip and he said, "What are you trying to do, kid?

Get sober or tile a bathroom." Man, I hated him. He was not nice to me. But I remember what he said to me.

Longest I made it sober and alcoholics anonymous was 27 days. And uh I know when it started because I wrote it in this book that my sobriety date was going to be March 7th of 1998. And I wrote it down because I knew that I was going to stay sober because I came in and I got a sponsor and I was going to meetings every day.

Day 27, I went and picked up a 30-day chip. Cuz by 27 days without a drink and without a God, I knew I wasn't going to make it till day 30. And I wanted one of them pretty little silver chips cuz I was tired of these white chips.

Sure enough, I I went and got drunk after that meeting. And I didn't come in here to waste your time. And I didn't come in here for the coffee.

And I didn't come in here for the donuts. I came in here cuz something had gotten through in those 27 days of a very patient sponsor sitting down and reading the doctor's opinion over and over and over and over with me till something sunk through my thick skull. And I remember being in a meeting and they're reading the the 12 and 12 and it's got this line in there about how the third step is not something mysterious like relativity or a proposition in nuclear physics and man I understood relativity pretty good and and I had taken some classes in nuclear physics and I what a god had to do with not drinking was beyond me.

Didn't make any sense. I thought I had a problem with the second step. I couldn't see what I couldn't see what this was all about.

But I came here and you're talking about God and being a nicer person and character defects and I couldn't see what this had to do with staying sober Friday night. Thought I had a problem with the uh with the second step and the third step and God and everything else. Turns out I what I really had a problem with was the first step is I didn't and it wasn't because it wasn't explained to me and it wasn't because the message wasn't there.

It's just for whatever reason I wasn't ready to hear it and I didn't understand that my problem has very little to do with alcohol. I know that I am a alcoholic because when I stop drinking things don't get better, they get worse. When you take away alcohol, which is I mean by the end, it wasn't taking away my fear like it used to and it wasn't bringing me closer to other people like it used to, but it did two things for me.

It kept me out of the DTS and that's worth it enough. And uh and it let me not remember because not being conscious, being in a blackout or passed out somewhere was better than being conscious because I hated myself so much and I had so much guilt and shame and all that stuff. And I was so terrified of the world that being anywhere but sober and looking at who I was was better than where I was.

And I was a blackout drinker. I was lucky. So what happened?

And so I gave up on AA. It didn't work. You know, up until that point, I had done everything that you all told me to do that I thought would help me.

You know, you told me to get a sponsor. I could see we're talking to somebody might help me. You told me to read this book.

I didn't know what was in it. I started reading it. Then it became a coaster.

Uh you told me you told me to go to meetings. Well, you know, group therapy. Sure, maybe that'll help.

That's what I thought it was. I'd come and I'd whine to you. And uh and some guy my sponsor told me to get on my knees and say thanks for uh keeping me sober at night and in the morning get on my knees and say please help me to stay sober today.

And that wasn't going to help me cuz there wasn't a god and that was simple. So I didn't do it. You know I didn't know there was another way to live.

I didn't know there was any I thought how else do you make decisions except you do what you think is the best thing for you to do. Right? Everybody lives that way.

Right? You make a decision based off what you think is the best thing to do. How else are you going to make decisions?

Never occurred to me that I could make decisions based off what Jimmy tells me to do or make decisions based off what I think God wants me to do. Never occurred to me. I made decisions based off what I thought was best for me.

Selfish and self-centered. Gave up on AA. Went back to drinking.

My days at this point, I had a mattress that was a futon that uh the girl I met in detox had given me because it had been on her back porch and all the neighborhood cats had been pissing on it for years. I had a piece of stone sitting on two rusty paint cans. That was my table.

And I had garbage bags and garbage bags and garbage bags full of empty Milwaukey's Best and PBR cans. That's what I had. Had a job sort of.

I mean, I worked at this pizza place. The girl I met in Detox got me that job. And uh I remember the boss coming up to me saying, "Uh, I don't mind you coming to work drunk.

Just don't come to work too drunk to work. Perfect job for me. Couldn't even take that suggestion.

I uh my last drunk I went out drinking. I, you know, I got robbed at gunpoint and uh I uh you know, got caught in bed with a married woman and I uh I lost where I was living and uh you know, hey, you know, it's what we do on a Tuesday. And uh and I showed up at work the next day.

I was only half an hour late, you know, which is early for me. And uh I walked in, I clocked in, I put my apron on, I heard something outside, I walked outside to smoke a cigarette, and I passed out in uh in the street. And uh you know, the employee assistance program at that particular pizza shop consisted of the owner picking me up out of the gutter and carrying me to the hospital.

They signed the commitment papers on my mother's birthday. My first higher power was the state of North Carolina. Did for me what I could not do for myself.

separated me physically from alcohol and uh they held me there in the hospital and then they moved me into the uh well I had a point47 blood alcohol when they brought me into the hospital and uh state of North Carolina separated me from alcohol and uh I came to on July 23rd 1998 and I went to the AA meeting in the cafeteria of the psychord and uh I knew that I would drink again. I knew it as sure as I've ever known anything in my life because that's what happened. That's what happens to a guy like me.

I drink. After a while, maybe it's a day, a week, an hour, a month, a year, you capture me. I'm captured.

Somebody separates me from alcohol. They hold me for a little while. They let me out.

I drink again. Simple. Not because I wanted to drink or needed to drink.

I didn't have a choice. I was going to drink. I knew that.

They explained to me real simple for an alcoholic or an alcoholic like me to stay sober, it's like holding your breath if I really want to hold my breath, I can do it for a while. You know, some people longer than others. But eventually something in the back of my mind takes over and I breathe.

Not because I want to or I make a decision to or anything like I just breathe. That's the way drinking is for me. If I really want to, I can stay sober for a while.

27 days apparently is my record. And then I drink, want to or not. So they locked me up.

I knew they might hold me for a little bit longer than before, but they were I they were going to let me out. And I they held me in institutions uh of various kinds, the treatment center, the psych ward, the halfway house, the sober house, the this until I was a year sober. And uh I cannot tell you why I did what I did.

Certainly not drunk, but either in my year sober either, first year sober either or even now really, you know, I can tell you what I did. That's my experience. Um, I got on my knees and I said those words and uh, and I didn't feel any different and I got back up and uh, you know, didn't think about it too much and that night I got on my knees and I said those words and I don't know if there's anything magical about getting on your knees or saying those words.

But what it was for me, conscious or not, was I was doing something just cuz I was told to and because I didn't know what else to do because I didn't have anywhere else to go. You know, I had two alternatives. The book tells me I could go on blotting out the intolerable situation as best I could or I could accept the simple kit of spiritual tools that was laid at my feet.

I don't know if you've tried that blotting out the consciousness of your intolerable situation, but that's tough work. You know, like I said, a month and a half was my best record at that. You know, black out blacked out a month and a best record.

Um, let me talk a little bit about AA. So, what happened? I'll tell you what happened.

I kept sort of going to meetings mindlessly. Ed got hold of me and he taught me how to stay sober on Saturdays. You come over to the AA club and you tear up the old carpet and you tear up the old tiles and you put down carpet and you know he kept me busy on the weekends.

During the week I got a stupid job. Went to that. Went to meetings at night.

Didn't drink. Had a couple of different sponsors. One guy told me don't drink and sleep in the nude.

That was his wisdom. I have heard it said in AA that uh if you want to stop drinking bad enough, a monkey can get you sober. And uh I disagree with that statement cuz I wanted to stay sober.

You know, not might not have thought I could, but I wanted to. Six months sober, I was in more pain than I ever remember being in drinking. six months sober, the girl that I was madly in love with, so I thought, um, called me up and said, "Uh, doesn't seem like you're going to come back to drinking, so uh, I'm gonna leave you for the booze." At least she was honest.

She was upfront about it. The only other woman, only other person I've ever met who would drink the, uh, 200 proof ethanol that I stole from the labs. Um, so we were we were a perfect match.

And man, I was destroyed. She was my higher power. In fact, the guys in my sober house weren't even subtle.

When she called, they'd write on the whiteboard, "Pete, your higher power called." I didn't get it. I was crushed. I'm standing outside of some bar next to the AA club after the AA meet and I'm standing in six feet of snow because it's January in St.

Paul, Minnesota. And the snow might have been my higher power that night. And somehow I didn't drink.

Made it back to the sober house. I man, I wanted to drink. And the next night I was in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Uh, I got to make a correction. The group in New Haven is called the New Haven Pacific Group. There is a group called the Pacific Group that's in Los Angeles.

We're sort of connected. Some guys from that group started one in Minnesota where I got sober and then we started the one in New Haven and so there's some connection, but one in New Haven is the New Haven Pacific Group. Anyway, I was at a meeting of the Central Pacific Group in Minneapolis and I'd never been to before and a guy comes up to me and he says, "My name's Jimmy and uh do you have a sponsor?" And I said, "Well, I had this guy, but I think he moved.

I don't know." And I had this other guy and I I hadn't called him in a couple of months. And he said, "I'll be your sponsor." Didn't ask me what I thought about it. In fact, in the last seven years, he's never asked me what I thought about anything.

smart guy and he gave me this solution. I already had the book. I hadn't read much of it, but he sat down with me and we worked the 12 steps as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And uh I'm not going to take up the whole evening telling you every little action that I've taken. By the way, the reason the big book is so beat up is not because I've read it so much, but there's a line in there that says, "Lend him your copy of this book." That's one of the hardest directions I ever had to take cuz I'm personally attached to this book, but I I took it. And so, this book has been through more detoxes and jails and everything else than anybody else I know.

So, one guy had it for a year and a half. You know, the police were after him. He ran down to Florida.

You know, figured I'd lost the book. Year and a half goes by, I get a call out of the blue from this guy. He's like, "I got your book." There are too many coincidences in this program for me to believe in coincidence anymore.

I mean, I was up uh I uh I had the privilege I was in New York a couple of summers ago and I went to this group and and this guy Steve was speaking. Blew the top of my head off. It was fantastic.

A week later, I'm in Boston going to a meeting with Jack Mack and they introduced me to some guy named Johnny. Turns out Johnny, we get this whole connection. Now we got guys coming down from Boston to New Haven and New Haven to Boston and all over.

And it's incredible. You know, God's way of standing anonymous, I guess. What's it like today?

I couldn't ask for a better deal. I don't even know. Looking out at at at a at a room full of dead people.

Um cuz I I know some of your stories and a lot of them are a lot worse than mine and uh and the pain and the loneliness and the despair and the bewilderment and the terror. I mean I I see these guys coming in and I see them walking in the door for the first time and I know that they are as scared and angry and alone as I know that I was when I was first carried into these rooms. And then, you know, hardly any time later, some guy with that glow gets a hold of him with one of these books and hardly any time later, a couple of months maybe, you know, a few months later, different people.

Just different people just I mean, and to get to watch that over and over and over again is the most amazing thing that I could have ever possibly asked for. I mean, to get to see Todd sitting here tonight, if you had seen Todd the first day I met Todd, my life today, I I have the privilege of sponsoring guys. I have the privilege of uh, you know, I went back to school.

I finished school. I uh I'm applying to some more school now. I mean, I I I own two vans, two station wagons, a Suburban, and I mean, none of them run, but you know, I was speaking at at a meeting about a month ago, and this guy comes up to me after the meeting, he said, "You're the best educated redneck I've ever met." I said, "That's about right.

But I get to be me in this program." You all gave me that. You gave me a solution to show me how to establish a relationship with a God. to have this vital spiritual experience that is the result of these steps.

That is the only known thing. I mean, we've known this for a while. Young knew this talking to Mr.

Hazard. The only known thing to bring about the vital spiritual experience, which I can't tell you why, but for whatever reason, is the only thing that can keep a guy like me sober a day at a time. You gave me that.

And in giving me that, God, you gave me me. He gave me true independence and true freedom, you know, to go to, you know, Venezuela and Cuba and Canada and all these places. I've gotten to go to meetings and and to to meet all these amazing people and to to just, you know, waste my money on broke down cars if I want to or whatever I want to do.

It's it's the most I used to hate life. I used to hate life so much. Life was painful every day.

And now it's not. Thank you for my God and alcoholics anonymous. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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