A Drunk Pilot’s Spiritual Awakening: AA Speaker – Scott L. – Nashville, TN
Scott L., a former Air Force pilot, shares his spiritual awakening in treatment and how working the 12 Steps transformed his life. An AA speaker talk on recovery and Step work.
Scott L. from Nashville, Tennessee spent decades flying high-performance military aircraft while drinking himself toward death. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his decades as a functional alcoholic, his moment of spiritual awakening in a treatment center bed, and how surrendering to the 12 Steps—particularly working them with a sponsor—became the difference between living free and staying trapped in the disease.
Scott L., an Air Force pilot and functional alcoholic, describes his spiritual awakening during treatment when God’s forgiveness lifted decades of shame and guilt from his soul. This AA speaker emphasizes that spiritual experience alone doesn’t keep people sober—the real recovery happens through working the 12 Steps thoroughly with a sponsor who has already done the work. Scott’s talk covers the critical role of sponsorship, the difference between intention and action, and how Step work cleaned out character defects and allowed him to receive blessings in sobriety, including his marriage and the ability to stay present during his daughter’s suicide attempt.
Episode Summary
Scott L. opens with humility and gratitude, quoting Lois Wilson—co-founder of Al-Anon—to set the spiritual tone. He’s not a polished speaker, he tells us, just “a puking drunk from down south” here to share what worked.
His story begins at 18, when he discovered alcohol and the “magic” it offered. Suddenly he was taller, better-looking, brilliant, a fantastic dancer, an expert on everything—and most importantly, he belonged. That feeling of belonging, the antidote to his lifelong conviction that he was defective, became the thing he’d chase for the next 43 years.
Scott became an Air Force pilot, flying T-38 jets capable of breaking the sound barrier. He describes in vivid detail the thrill and danger of high-performance flying—loops, afterburners, G-forces—then pivots to paint a portrait of alcoholic insanity: coming down from a day of flying, planning to have one or two beers, blacking out, waking in a car with a hand over one eye, going to work in a hangover so severe his eyelids hurt on the inside. And doing it again the next day. And the next.
He flew drunk. He taxied an aircraft off a runway while intoxicated—a felony that should have ended his life or his freedom. By grace, another plane wasn’t behind him. He woke up in the psychiatric ward of a hospital in Vietnam, hallucinating, in a rubber room. He had every external marker of success—military career, college degree, his own business, no arrests, no DUI—yet none of it mattered. He couldn’t stop drinking.
By June 1984, his business partner staged an intervention. Scott checked into treatment at Ridge View, convinced he wasn’t really an alcoholic and that sobriety would be “stupid, boring, and glum.”
On his fourth night in treatment, unable to sleep, something extraordinary happened. A review of his life arose unbidden—not a near-death experience but a vision that lasted hours. His intentions evaporated. He was left only with his actions. He came face-to-face with the worst thing he’d ever done, something he’d always numbed with alcohol, and this time there was no escape.
He reached bottom—not physical, but spiritual. “Bottom was when I couldn’t stand me anymore,” he says. Something in his spirit screamed out to a God he didn’t believe in: “God, forgive me.” And in that instant, he felt a weight lift from him—like a lead apron being pulled away. He lay bathed in a golden-white light, and he knew, beyond doubt, that God loved him, had the power to forgive him, and had forgiven him. He believes he took the first three steps in that moment.
But here’s where Scott’s talk pivots to something harder and more useful than spiritual experience: he emphasizes that the moment of grace alone would not have kept him sober. Bill W. himself said the sense of God’s presence was eventually “blotted out by worldly clamors.” Scott needed more. He needed a sponsor.
Back in Nashville, armed with an aftercare plan, Scott looked for a sponsor he could “relate to”—a classic newcomer mistake. He needed a winner, someone who would tell him the truth. He found his sponsor, Jerry, who assigned him work immediately and gave him the framework that shaped his recovery: the 12 Steps aren’t optional. Willingness isn’t about feeling like it; it’s about doing what you’re told whether you feel like it or not.
Jerry explained it with the garbage-can metaphor: the steps would dump him out, scrub him clean, throw away the poison, and keep only the good. “Alcohol wasn’t your problem,” Jerry said. “Alcohol was your answer. Your problem is sobriety. You don’t know how to do it.”
Scott walks through his experience with the Fourth Step—the one that terrified him most. He emphasizes that the real Fourth Step isn’t a “psychobabble” workbook; it’s the one in the Big Book, read sentence by sentence, with prayers and observations woven through. He did his Fifth Step with Bernie, a counselor at treatment who had years of sobriety.
He talks about sponsorship—how he now sponsors others, how that relationship became the backbone of his recovery. He speaks directly to newcomers about letting people with more sobriety sponsor them, even if it feels like you’re dead weight. “We need you,” he says. “We need you bad.”
The core of his talk isn’t pyrotechnics; it’s the daily work. He describes his spiritual barometers—profanity, lying, attitude—and how he learned these aren’t character defects to white-knuckle away. Instead, when he notices himself angry or cursing, he inventories his spiritual program: prayer, meditation, meetings, talking to his sponsor, reading, service work. If there’s a hole there, he fills it. The darkness can’t exist in the light, and his job is to shine God’s light into his life.
Then Scott tells a story that illustrates why this work matters. His daughter, years into his sobriety, put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. She didn’t die—she lived, severely injured. For four days he sat by her bedside while she lay conscious but unable to speak, squeezing his hand once for yes, twice for no.
“I couldn’t have done it,” he says. “I don’t believe I could have done it without having done the work out of this book. Without knowing how to reach up and take the Master’s hand.”
He spent 60 days at Vanderbilt Hospital while the AA fellowship kept a 24-hour watch, not to stop him from drinking but so that when he needed to cry, someone would be there to hold him.
His daughter lived. She’s dating someone he approves of. When he talks about “an entire psychic change,” he’s talking about serious business—about becoming the kind of man who can stay present at the mountain, who can receive love, who can sponsor others and watch the light come on in their eyes.
Scott closes with vulnerability: “I belong here. I’m one of you. It’s the most fantastic feeling I’ve ever had.” He steps out of his shoes when he speaks because he means it when he invites God into the room. “I’d rather be despised for who I am than loved for who I’m not.”
Notable Quotes
Alcohol gave me the illusion of belonging. Today I belong. I’m one of you.
Willingness is when I do what I’m told, whether I feel like it or not. It’s not about what I feel like.
My problem wasn’t alcohol. Alcohol was my answer. My problem is sobriety. I don’t know how to do it.
I don’t have any power over my defects of character. When I work on my defects of character, I am living in the problem.
I’d rather be despised for who I am than loved for who I’m not.
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. That’s the deal.
Step 3 – Surrender
Sponsorship
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Spiritual Awakening
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Spiritual Awakening
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Good evening.
My name is Scott Lee and I am an alcoholic. Very moved and honored to be here. Uh actually to be anything that this fellowship's doing because I owe my life and my freedom and you know everything is valuable to me.
Just the usual stuff. And uh I'm from Nashville, Tennessee. My home group is called the Back Room.
And uh I love them just like I love you. And I'd like to thank Bob and Julie for hosting us and inviting us to come. And uh wow, what a friendly place.
Are you all aware of that? >> I don't know whether you know it or not. Uh but you've got a a tremendously friendly thing going on here.
And I think it's one of the critical pieces. I u I'd like to quote Lois Wilson a couple of times as I as I start my meeting. She was co-founder of Alanon.
And uh I owe owe my life to her. Maybe if you're an alcoholic, you do too. Cuz Bill went to her one time, young and sobbri, and he said uh he said, "I'm working with all of these guys, and none of them are staying sober." See, my life hung by that thread.
And Lois said, "Bill, you are." And I think that's why we're all here. So if Are there any Alanons in the room? Can I see your hands?
I know there a few. Thank you for coming. I'm honored by your presence.
Y'all do some tremendous work. I think there's a lot of sober alcoholics who got that way when Alanant helped one of you get too healthy to continue to help one of us stay sick. Did I say that right?
Okay. Good. Uh and I'm excited about all the newcomers.
Wow. Wow. Cuz I sat there hovering one time at my first speaker meeting, too.
I didn't actually sit in the chair. I was about eight inches above it just vibrating. And so if that's what you're doing, just sit on your hands if you need to.
We're really glad you're here. Um, I quote Lois again and see if I can get settled in. This is a big deal for me and I'm just a puking drunk from down south and I'm not a professional public speaker, but uh, someone asked Lois Wilson what she did in that moment of silence before the serenity prayer, which is the way we open the meetings in our part of the country.
And she said, "I invite God to the meeting." That was powerful for me. I started doing that and uh meetings got better everywhere. Okay?
And uh what I'd like to do is I'd like to have another moment of silence here shortly. And uh not that I don't believe God isn't here all the time. I do believe that.
But there's something for me when I invite him in. I guess is an acknowledgement of the truth. And so I don't completely believe what I'm about to say, but but almost my God's a gentleman.
He doesn't go where he's not invited. He doesn't stay where he's not made welcome. and saying, "I don't completely believe that, but in large measure, I do.
I think it's part of why the 11 steps are important." And I actually I mean the step out of the book, not the one off the wall where it talks about how to open and close my day. So, uh, in a few moments here when I call for another moment of silence, what I'd like to do is to invite you to please invite the God of your understanding to join us here. Fill this room with love and bless you with an open heart that you might hear through it.
And what I'm going to do is ask him to fill the room with love and bless me with an open heart that he might speak through it. or in the worst case that I might speak through it. We talk about the language of the heart here and for me I'm learning to lay down the language of the gutter.
Pick up the language of the heart. It's part of my recovery and it's incomplete but I can report progress. If in case there's somebody here if you don't have a god or you're you got one you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley or you know you got some that's not working for you.
Let me inv this time that we're together. He does great work. He's been keeping me sober for a long time.
He has a great sense of humor. If you don't think so, look around the room. Aren't we funny?
I think we're hilarious. So, uh, so borrow mine if you need to. Just you address him as the god of Scots limited understanding because that's the truth.
And, uh, just invite him to open your heart and we'll do it for an scientific experiment just kind of see what happens. So, let's have a few moments and invite the master to join us. I'll meet you back here.
Amen. Thanks. That takes the heat off of me, doesn't it?
This is a bad talk. We know whose fault it was. Okay.
Yeah. Anything to dodge responsibility, right? I deserve to be here.
Um, I didn't start drinking until I was 18. I have an excuse. U is I didn't know what it would do.
I needed to drink way before then. Um, and one of the reasons I didn't drink is I suspect my dad was one of us and he told me when I was a small boy, maybe 10 or 11, he said, "There's beer in the refrigerator. Get you one when you want it." And he said, "One of these days you're going to want to get drunk for your first time.
And when that day comes, come to me, tell me what you want to drink. I will buy it and we will sit in the living room and get drunk together for your first time." And that offer was good, and I knew it. So, as you can see, it wasn't against the rules for me to drink.
Therefore, I didn't have to drink. You understand that, don't you? Don't try that on the earth, people.
They don't get it, right? But I went away to college the summer. I turned 18 and I got out with the boys the first time and we started drinking sterling beer.
Do they had did they have that over here? Sterling beer. It's one of my definitions of willpower.
It was awful. It was the Oh, bad stuff. It was a dollar a gallon.
Hey, it really was. You you get this mayonnaise jar from the chow hall. I was at a men's school.
Get the mayonnaise jar and they run it through the dishwasher. And down at Clara's saloon, they'd fill that baby for a dollar with sterling beer. I'm going to tell you the rest of the story in two sentences.
Are you ready? I'm going to tell you when that was. With tax, it was a dollar2.
Whoa. Yeah. Huh.
Budweiser was $112. We drank the Sterling. It's the rest of the story.
And somewhere between the first sip of the first beer and the bottom of I think maybe the second one, the magic happened for me. You're an alcoholic. You know what I'm talking about.
The magic happened. I was suddenly taller. Did anybody Anybody get taller when they drank?
Come on. Where are you? All right.
A little taller. Yep. Clean up my uh my complexion, too.
I was better looking. Did you get better looking when you drank? Come on.
Come on. Where are you? Okay.
Better looking. Mhm. Brilliant conversationalist, huh?
Do you have a lot to say? Yes. Two hand.
I got two hands from Bob here. Here's yours coming. You ready?
Fantastic dancer. All right. Let's see a dancers.
All right. Yes, Lord. Yes, Sarah.
How's the dancer? Possibly. Well, one of my I think my second favorite is this one.
Expert on many subjects. Let's see the experts. Where are you?
Yes. Here we are. Expert on many subjects.
Oh yeah. I think however I think the biggest thing that it did for me is it made me feel like I belonged. When I was a little guy, I became convinced that I was defective.
There was something wrong with me that could not be repaired and that I wasn't as good as everybody else. And and anything that I ever did could not possibly ever measure up. And if you all knew who I really was, you wouldn't want me around.
And I became an act. And my act was that I pretended to be whoever I thought you wanted me to be. You being defined as whoever's immediately in front of me.
That's the way I live my life. And when I got my blood alcohol mixture just perfect that first time that went away. And from that I had an entire psychic change.
And the entire psychic change was all of a sudden y'all was pretty lucky I was there. Now that is a change. That is a change.
and uh to to kind of I normally I've got a 12-h hour story and they've asked me to cut it back slightly. So, I'm going skip just a little bit. And let me tell you, I was just sick that we didn't get to hear more.
Weren't the 10-minute speakers fantastic tonight? I was sorry we didn't get to hear a lot more from both of them. You guys were grand.
Y'all were grand. So, anyway, I discovered the elixir of life at 18 as a freshman in college. And to kind of just sort of zip through it, I uh I ex I I was in the accelerated class and I zipped through a four-year college in five years and two summer schools.
Some hands on that a few. Okay. All right.
The United States Air Force was taking you if you were warm and breathing and uh and I was commissioned a second lieutenant. I went to Valdasta, Georgia to Air Force pilot training. I'm going to talk a little bit about what that was like.
We flew uh an airplane called the T38. Did you see Top Gun? see the movie Top Gun, but everybody did.
In the beginning and in the end of that movie, they're having these dog fights with these MiGs. I have a news flash for you from Hollywood. You ready?
The Russian government didn't loan him any MiGs to make a movie. Okay, that black airplane was a T38. I flew that airplane for about 6 months.
And I'll tell you a little bit about what that was like. It's a high performance aircraft, which means it will fly faster than the speed of sound. It has after burning jet engines.
It's stressed for seven and a half positive G's and about four and a half negative. I'll try to tell you what that means. You take the the runway in this thing and uh you lock the brakes, you lock the canopy, you run the power up to what they call military power.
It's everything short of afterburner. You release the brakes and you light the burners and you get a little kick. You like that kick, didn't you?
That's how you got here. And uh you know the ones that like to kick, they don't get here. We don't get them.
We don't. And uh anyway, about a mile later, you're doing about 165 or 70 mph. And you which is quick for a tricycle, only has three wheels, you know, and uh you pick that nose up and she flies right off and you raise the gear and at 1,000 ft you raise the flaps and you begin to push on the stick because this airplane wants to climb like a homesick angel and you're running in maximum afterburner.
And at 1,000 ft, you accelerate to 600 knots, which is about 660 mph. Rough rough figure. pull her up and you level at 40,000 ft 3 and a half minutes from when you release the brakes back on the other end of the runway.
All right. Um, this aircraft has a roll rate that's this way. If you just lay the stick against your leg, it has a roll rate in excess of 420° per second.
Yes, that's more than once around every second. And let me tell you a secret. Your eyeballs won't keep up with that.
Sober, right? I tried it both ways. You ain't watching 420.
you're just not going to see it. Um, a loop, which is a 360° turn through the vertical plane, pulling positive G's. At 10,000 ft, the entry air speeds 500 knots, about 550 mph, and you pull up at 5 G's.
Now, now a G is a force of gravity. You're pulling one G right now. So, at 5 G's, a 200lb man weighs 1,000 lb.
Everything on you weighs times five. If you've ridden the big roller coaster, when you're at the bottom of that first hill and everything feels like you're kind of sagging down, that's about 2 G's. You pull five in a loop.
It takes 10,000 ft to pull this airplane over on its back. You'd be wings level inverted at 20,000 ft. Now you can look at the world like this.
You'd love it. I really recommend it. And then if you get a chance, you ought to try that.
And u and you lose about 8,000 ft coming down the back side of the circle. And the total elapse time on that 25 seconds. It's actually less than 25 seconds.
And I tell you all about that uh about the airplane for two two obvious reasons. Uh the first one of course is to impress you. You got that?
Okay. The other one is to tell the story of my alcoholism. I come home from a day, come down from a day of flying that airplane.
They release us from the flight line about 5:30 and I go into the officer's club and I do not plan to get drunk. Now I used to go get drunk intentionally a lot. I would celebrate Arbor Day.
I mean any right any any excuse really but I used to just sort of take drunk you know what I mean it just sort of hit me kind of like a sinus infection just boom there it is. I didn't really felt like I did anything and uh so this particular evening I'm going to the club and I do not plan to get drunk. Um let me tell you a secret.
We have we all have the same story. Would y'all be willing to do audience participation with me? Let's try that again.
Would you be willing to do audience participation with me? Yes. Thank you.
When I point at you, I want you to fill in the blank. Okay? Are you ready?
Walk into the club at 5:30 and I'm planning to have one beer. No more than >> two. Come on.
You remember that? You know, just one or two, right? >> Okay.
You Allanons, by the way, you can play also. Okay. All right.
going to have one beer no more than >> I should be home by 6:30, no later than >> 7. No, we're not planning to get drunk tonight. No, no, it's not the plan.
All right. No, the plan No, the plan is we're a straight shooter tonight. But what happens is the magic happens and somewhere between the first sip of the first sip, first beer, and the bottom of the second one, I get this phenomenon of craving that Dr.
Silkworth talks about in the book. And uh and I don't get home by 7. As a matter of fact, I leave the club at exactly 1:00 in the morning because they can there be another reason.
And uh I drive home with a hand over one eye. Let me see you show hands. Who knows why?
Okay. Yeah, these are my people here. And uh and then my favorite part of the drunk is I would get home and I would get a chance to listen to her.
Boy, really love that. And then uh at the risk of being indelicate in such a really nice surrounding, what a great place for an AA meeting. Uh could I see a show of the hands of the pukers?
These are my people. How the rest of you got here, I don't know. Um, I thought I thought the two most important inventions of the 20th century were that little half moon shape of carpet that they put around a commode for you to kneel on.
That was invented by one of our boys, you know. And that soft commode seat you could rest your head on you kind of in between heaves cuz I am in there doing it. Okay.
Oh yeah. And for those of you who are new, I'm from out of state. I'm leaving on Monday.
Okay? But I'm going to tell you the truth. They're going to lie to you.
They're going to tell you you cannot quit forever. It is not true. I have personally quit forever over 2,000 times.
Okay? Now, it never worked, of course, but boy, I could do it. So, I've been there quitting forever.
And uh right, you pukeers, huh? Didn't you quit forever when you puked? I always did.
>> Yeah. And uh and then I would pray what I call the prea prayer. Okay, we'll do it together.
I do the first line, you do the second. You ready? God, get me out of this.
>> Yeah, prea prayer. If you're new, they got one of these things, 18 questions or something to see if you belong here. I have a one question test.
Did you know the prayer? Stick around. And uh brush my teeth and go to bed.
And it's now 2:00, 2:30 in the morning. I get up at 6:00 in that magic place between drunk and hung over. Remember that one?
I really miss that. Don't you? And uh I I get a shower.
If Mr. Gillette had not invented the safety razor, somebody else be talking tonight. I'd be dead at my own hand, I'm sure.
And uh flight suit and boots, sunglasses, and hat. I'm in a car out to the Air Force base at 7:30 this morning. I'm I'm in that airplane I was telling you about and we just taxied out and today we are in a two ship formation.
Been to the air show. Seen what they did? We did that.
And just after liftoff, I tuck in behind the leader tail in what we call a close trail. And if I could stand up in my cockpit and lean forward, I could touch his afterburners. We're doing 500 knots pulling 5gs going over the top like this.
And I'm dying with that hangover. I am absolutely dying. The I the the butcher knife is stuck in here.
It comes out the back. I'm surprised my helmet will fit. My eyelids hurt on the inside, right?
Toenails hurt, fingernails hurt. Uh the throat and the sinus cavity is ripped raw from throwing up all that acid the night before. I've thrown the oxygen selector lever to 100%.
That will not cure a hangover. I don't care what they tell you. I I field tested that hundreds of times.
All right. It will not cure a hangover, right? I got booze coming out of every pore.
And the only thing that keeps me going is the sure and certain knowledge that I will never feel this way in a plane again cuz I quit last night forever. And I meant it with all my heart. Right.
>> Right. And I'm hanging. And you know what?
You know what I've just defined for you? You know what that is? That's willpower.
That's willpower. I I think I think a functional alcoholic has got a phenomenal amount of willpower. And it's no defense against this disease.
I think it's the reason that the earth people don't become alcoholics is they don't have the willpower for it. At the risk of taking their inventory, they don't. I mean, the guy goes out on prom night, right?
He drinks a pint of Jack Daniels. He pukes on his date's prom dress. He wrecks his car.
He goes to jail. He gets up in the morning. He says, "I'm never doing that again." And he never does.
Obvious lack of willpower. They couldn't hang with it like you could, right? That's fact.
So, I'm dying in this airplane. Okay. Dying.
And by 5:30 when they release us from the flight line, I am not well yet. But I'm a young man and my body is resilient and I'm better. I'm a lot better.
I'm good enough to have feel like maybe I could drop by the club and have maybe maybe one beer. No more than should be home by 6:30. No later than I leave the club at exactly 1 because they I drive home with a hand over one.
>> Listen to >> God get me out of this. You must very well very good class. All right.
Don't we have the same story though? Isn't it amazing? And and you know my problem was I'm tempted sometimes to introduce myself and say my name is Scott and I have a learning disability known as alcoholism.
I was unable to look into the past all the way to yesterday and say, "Didn't you do this yesterday? Weren't you in this same airplane, the same cockpit, same time yesterday, dying of a hangover? And by the way, the day before and by the way, five days last week and 22 days last month.
I was powerless over alcohol. And I was ignorant of the fact that I was powerless over alcohol. Ignorance and powerlessness is a rough combination, as you may recall.
Uh I graduated from pilot training. I uh most of my flying time is in a 4 engine jet transport. I flew all over the world.
I had been drunk on five islands and or five continents and don't have a guess how many islands. And uh I missed a lot. I mean I I really had a chance to see the world and I saw the bars.
Um I went to Vietnam in ' 69 and uh I was stationed for a while at Fukcat Air Force Base, South Vietnam. And I was drinking tequila there one night. Anybody ever drinking tequila?
Traveling juice. You know what I mean? I mean I need to be somewhere else if I'm drinking tequila.
And I woke up at an unusual place. Anybody ever do that? You ever wake up at an unusual place?
Yeah, I woke up at an unusual place. Fortunately enough, I was still on the Air Force base and uh I collected my belongings and I'm in my my boots and flight suit, sunglasses and hat. I'm a captain, right?
Two silver bars. And I'm walking across the Air Force base from this unusual place where I awaken to my trailer that I live in. and six o'clock in the morning with about a force five hangover, you know, just sort of an average one.
And u I passed 12, 15, 20 people, I guess, on my walk across the Air Force base, outranked them all. They were, you know, one or two at a time going to breakfast or whatever. And they all saluted, but they gave me the funniest looks as they did so.
And I thought, man, does the whole world know I hung my butt out at the club last night? How can they possibly know? And I walked into my trailer and walked into the bathroom without changing anything and looked in the in the mirror and I'm listen missing the lens out of one side of my sunglasses.
Okay. And I don't know that. And that eyeball hanging out there is the color of this lady's dress right back here.
Looks like a rough cut Australian fire opal. You know, I I was eventually flying a uh an intelligence mission, very highly classified. And um at 4:00 one morning, I was taxiing my aircraft out and I was exceptionally drunk by my standards.
I wouldn't have ridden in an automobile with me. And um and I had my window as I was taxiing out, I had my window open just in case I threw up. I threw out out the window.
And I thought I was smart. Does that sound smart to you? I'm fixing to ride with a very drunk pilot.
Does that seem intelligent to you? It did to me at the time. And uh as we're taxi, typical runways about 2 miles long.
the towers in the middle and we taxi all the way down to the far end of it and my co-pilot's running this checklist and everybody's doing what they're supposed to do and I'm trying to drive this thing as smoothly as I can so I don't make myself throw up and you drove that way, didn't you? And uh I get this thing to the end of the taxi way and and say my co-pilot is doing what he's supposed to do. His head's in the cockpit.
He's throwing switches and doing the stuff he's supposed to do. He's not watching me drive this thing. And I applied the brake so smoothly that I taxied that beast right off into the grass off of the end of the taxi way.
Couldn't keep it on the pavement. Possibly some of you have had that experience with other types of vehicles. Mhm.
I thought so. Yeah. And uh we got there and you know what?
If it had been four o'clock in the afternoon or if or if there had been another airplane taxiing behind mine, somebody else would be speaking to you tonight and I'd be serving the rest of my natural life in the military president living cuz that was a felony. I was real drunk. I would have probably belong a 225 something like that.
And uh it's only by the grace of God that I'm not in prison. And uh so I go to prisons and I Does anybody here take meetings into jails and prisons regularly? I see your hands.
God bless you and congratulations. For those of you who are not doing that, um do yourself a favor and see one of these people and go try it once. Boy, I get a lift out of that.
I love to do that. It is such a joy. But uh so there are other places I could have been in here tonight.
I could have been serving the rest of my life in prison where I richly deserve to be. I could have been dead by this disease any I don't think it impress you. We all got big numbers on that, don't we?
Um, I've been to the insane asylum. I woke up on the in the rubber room, no doororknob, in my underwear in in hallucinations. I think they saved my life.
My my other option to live happy, joyous, and free at peace in my own skin by living what's in this book. I was 41 years old. Took me a long time to get there.
People have asked me, "How in the world do you fly an airplane drunk?" I like to help you with that a little bit. It's a big sky. I mean, take a look next time you're out.
There isn't much up there. The ground is the problem. You had all your wrecks on the ground, didn't you?
Just keep it away from the ground. See, so many answers are simpler than you would have thought, aren't they? You guys are great.
Anyway, I um I got an honorable discharge and uh got a job as a traveling salesman. For those of you who are new, if you're not serious about staying sober, before you order your next drink, I'd like to recommend that you interview and get yourself a job as a traveling salesman. It'd bring you back to AA faster than any other form of work that I know of.
Uh, I became a manufacturers's rep and in the summer of 1984, my business partner knew I was in trouble and uh, he had an intervention on me and my choices were to go to treatment as fast as he could put me in or we were going to get what he called a business divorce and he was carrying me then and I knew it. And on June the 28th of 84, which was my belly button birthday and still is. Uh, by the way, that's uh, it's the only thing I haven't had to change is the reason I I make the point on that.
Um, I was signed into the Ridge View School of Charm just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. And uh, they told me later that I was one of the saddest looking people that ever came through the door and and one of the earlier speakers talked beautifully about it because when they told me that I couldn't drink Miller Light or Beef Eater martinis um, or use some of the alcohol substitutes that I was using in pretty good quantities by that time, I didn't think I was ever going to have any fun again. Never thought I was even going to smile, enjoy a ball game, uh, have a good time of any kind.
I think the book says stupid, boring, and glum. That's what I thought my life was going to be. I'm here to report that has not been the case.
Although it was for about the next 60 days. I mean, it took me a while to get kind of squared away in this thing. I'm living an astonishing life.
Uh absolutely astonishing life. People ask me how I'm doing and I say I've been blessed beyond my capacity to receive. I think that's true.
True. I think that's part of what y'all have taught me here is that I got here like this locked up. And what y'all have taught me to do is to open up to receive the blessings that have always been here.
It hasn't been God's unwillingness or inability to give. It's been my inability to receive. That's been the problem.
And uh one of the greatest things I've received, I am currently uh married to my now and forever wife, one of the most exciting and interesting women I've ever known. I'd like for you to say hi to Miss Linda. Would you stand?
She just hates this. Would you stand up? Hi, Miss Linda.
I'll pay for that later, but I wanted you all to meet her. She is such a gem. But anyway, so I signed into this treatment center and I'm not happy about being there because I don't want to quit in the first place.
I wasn't an alcoholic. I'd never been arrested. Uh I'd never been fired from a job.
U I had a good military career. I'm a college graduate. Owned my own business.
Hadn't been in a fight since I was 12 years old. I didn't drink every day. I didn't get drunk every time I drank.
I didn't drink in the morning. Uh, never had a DUI, never wrecked a car. It's hard to find alcoholism in there.
At least it was for me. And uh, but they got me here in this book on page 44 where it said, "If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic." I am probably alcoholic because that's my story. And in another place it was read tonight this thing about control and enjoy his drinking.
It was one or the other, right? I could either control it or I could enjoy it, but I couldn't do both. I think those are the things that make me an alcoholic.
Anyway, uh I was not happy to be there. And I didn't sleep well. As a matter of fact, I don't think I slept at all the first three nights.
I'm just laying there in that bed. And u what happened what I'm about to describe to you happened the fourth night that I was in treatment. And uh I'm laying there in that bed and lights out at 10:30 or 11 and you can't leave the room until like 6:30 the next morning.
And I'm laying there and I know I ain't going to sleep again. And uh let me tell you something. If and some of you are aware of it, I'm sure.
But u if you don't sleep and you don't drink at night time, it stays dark a long time. Well, it does. It does down south anyway.
And uh So, I'm laying there and this review of my life happened to me. I did not do what I'm about to describe to you. This happened to me.
And it's not like a near-death experience. I've talked to a lot of people had those words instantaneous. This one lasted several hours where a review of my life happened.
And I had always given myself credit for my intentions always in the past. And u my favorite intention. I used to be an amateur magician and I intended to get a clown suit and carry it in the car with me.
And when I was on the road, instead of running the saloons to get into the clown suit and go to the children's hospital, take my magic kit in and do a magic show for the kids. And I intended to do that for over 20 years. Thought I was one great guy, you know, because one of these days I was going to do that and I was taking full credit for it.
Our third step talks about a decision. And I've learned the difference between the decision and the intention. An intention is followed by more intentions.
a decision. Now that is followed by action. That's the difference.
And this night as I'm laying in this bed and this review happens, the intentions evaporated and I could not see them anymore. And I was stuck with just the actions. It's not as pretty a story that way.
And um I got to the point where I began to to think about the worst thing I've ever done. And maybe you don't have one. I got a single thing that stands alone.
And u I'd always been able to stop that. Three fast scotches, believe me, will knock that out. I'm laying in a treatment center.
I got no access to chemical assist and I can't get the thought stopped. And I don't know how long I lay there thinking about this thing that I had done in my early 20s. And uh I hated myself.
And I was so ashamed and I was so sick at soul. Um that I reached what I call bottom. I I hear the term, but I don't see it defined in my literature.
For me, bottom wasn't on the physical plane. I mean, I've flown with a lot of hangovers. Um I'd puked blood a few times.
I've been in all kinds of trouble. It wasn't bottom. Bottom was in here.
Bottom was when I couldn't stand me anymore. And when I was willing to pay any price and do anything not to be the kind of man who did the kinds of things that I had done. That for me was bottom.
And at that point, something in here, I believe it was my spirit, screamed. And I mean, it was really loud. This didn't come out of my throat.
Didn't come out of my mouth. Did not happen in my head. Something in here screamed very loudly to a God that I don't think I believed in and screamed out, "God, forgive me." And I received the forgiveness in that moment.
And I'll describe it to you. If you've been in a dentist chair and they've taken X-rays, when they finish, there's this lead uh apron laying on you. It's when they lift that off of you.
That's what it felt like. Something heavy left me from head to toe. All parts of my body.
It just like it flew off of me. It's like it was on chains. It was just snatched off of me.
And I thought I might float up off of the bed. I felt so light and I lay in the presence of this magnificent light. U and with my eyes closed I could see the whole room and this golden white light was shining only on me and on my bed.
And I knew in in that instant that there was a God that he loved me beyond my capacity to receive love that that God had the power to forgive me and that I was forgiven. And that all happened for me in a moment. And I think I took the first three steps in that moment.
And I used to say he forgave me then. And and it occurred to me that that I'm not happy saying that because I don't speak for God and I'm not happy. I'm not comfortable around people that do.
So I don't know if he forgave me in that moment or if he never judged me and I was just able to receive the forgiveness then. And I'm very comfortable not knowing. That's one of the things that my sobriety's brought me is I'm comfortable not knowing.
It's okay with me. I don't need to know anymore. And uh I lay there in his presence for a while to the best.
I mean I I don't know of any other exchange that happened, but I don't know that you can lay in the master's presence and not have something happen. And I don't know how much longer I lay there in his presence, whether it was a few seconds or an hour or two. I really do not know.
And uh and after that, I slept a little for the first time. And I awaken the next morning wanting to be one of his guys. And that was my first cornerstone.
And I believe it was given to me because I I was a last gasper. If I if I didn't get it that time, I wasn't going to get another chance. And I think that's why that was given to me.
And I'd like to tell you that I believe with all of my heart that that event alone would not have kept me sober to today. I don't believe it. I don't believe it at all.
U Bill talks about his own at the bottom of page 12 in the book. But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. it was necessary for me to go further.
So I waken the next morning wanting recovery for the first time and uh and I started doing what they told me pretty much and and a few weeks later I walked into my counselor's office at 11:00 one morning. He was a member of Alanon. I'd like to honor you again.
And um I went in there and he was working on my afterare plan and I knew that. And what I went in there to do was to assist him with his work. Old-timers thinks that's funny.
I think so, too. And uh so I explained to him that I was not going to go to a halfway house, that I wasn't going to take an abuse, and that they had a 28-day program, and I wasn't staying a minute longer to try to help him. I just lay out the parameters so the man could do his work, trying to be helpful.
And he said, "You've left out something you aren't going to do." And I said, "What?" And he said, "Well, you're going to make it. I'm not a violent man by nature. I make exceptions.
made a verbal one and in some pretty rough language asked him generally, "Why'd you say that to me? It's not exactly the way I said it." And uh and he asked me this fabulous question. He said, "If you already know how to run a program to keep yourself sober, how is it you happen to be a patient here?" And I said, "And nothing came out that had never happened to me before." I got an answer, don't you?
I don't think it's happened to me since. I do have an answer, right? Couldn't answer the man's question.
Don't know how much longer I sat in his office. I know. I left there and went to lunch and I ate lunch, but I couldn't quit thinking about his his question.
And after that, my body went where it was supposed to be, you know, to group and coping skills and the movie and physic all they had on. My body was there. My mind is back in that man's office trying to answer the unanswerable question.
It was dusk about 9:00 at night and the answer hit the same place the bottom did. Right here. Did not show up in my head.
It showed up in here and I was I could show you where I was at that treatment center. I show you right where I was standing and it it was like that hit. I may have taken a step backwards.
And the answer was and is I do not know how to run a program to keep myself sober. And if I am going to be one of the very few that make it, I'm going to have to do it all. This is not smorgus board for me.
I do not get to take what I want and leave the rest. I have too much wagered here. I talked about it before.
I have bet my freedom. I have bet my sanity. I have bet my very life.
I have bet everything in my my life that's important to me on this. I don't get to take what I want the rest. I need it all.
And at that point, I surrendered to what I lovingly call step one, section B. Okay? My life's unmanageable.
That means I'm not going to be in charge anymore. That was not easy for me. I uh I zipped through that 28-day treatment center in six weeks flat.
And uh I went back to Nashville where the only guy I knew in the entire city that was in recovery owned one of the businesses that I called on and I didn't want him to know. You understand, right? Newcomer thinking, just real solid.
And u I set out to follow this afterare plan to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I think I went to 87 because you see I thought if you missed, you just missed. I didn't know you could go to two meetings in a day.
Newcomer thinking. And um I finished a uh a what I call a psycho bababel fourstep guide. The uh you know, do you do you still hate your mother?
Do you look in the toilet before you flush kind of, you know, fill in the blanks four-step guide. And I'd like to report that I did get some relief from that. It got me to the fifth step.
I'd like to recommend the actual fourstep. The real one, the one and only. Sure enough, real life change your life fourstep.
First time I ever looked at the steps, they looked me like they'd been written by a hanging judge. I was having a very bad day, didn't they? Didn't they look that way to you?
Huh? They look like they were designed to punish me. I was wrong about that.
I was wrong about a lot of things. Now, that makes sense because if everything I know for sure is right, how'd I get to AA? So, some of what I know for sure must be wrong.
And when I looked at those things, I thought I was going to be punished. And and that wasn't the case at all. The steps enabled me to lay down my burden.
But anyway, I finished that psycho babble thing. And uh the actual fourth step, by the way, if you'll take a look through this chapter, I'll tell you how to find it. You read it one sentence at a time.
And when you finish that sentence, stop and ask yourself a question. Can I do what they just described? Can I observe it?
Is it something for me to write or is it a prayer? Ask those questions after each sentence in the four-step reading in here. And I think you'll discover about 26 directions.
And you'll discover the four steps a series of lists, observations, and prayers. And for me, it was the observations and prayers that changed my life that I have seen changed the lives of so many people. That's what the fourstep was about.
If you don't know what I was talking about, please find someone that just nodded like this or get through this book a sentence at a time and ask yourself those questions. But anyway, I finished the thing. I called back down to the treatment center.
There was a counselor down there named Bernie. He hadn't been my counselor, but I after I'd had my big spiritual experience, I realized that I was actually going to have to do these steps. And um and I had some pretty bad stuff in my fistep.
And I I I selected Bernie and he agreed to it. The reason I asked him if he'd hear my fist is because you could look at him until he was stoned, right? You know that look, the real face.
You know what it looks like when somebody's stoned. And I thought this junkie 3 days later won't even know if I came down and did it, much less what I said. So he'd be a perfect choice.
So I called him. He said, "Sure." I drove from Nashville to Atlanta about four hours, took my fistep with Bernie. Um I, as an aside, by the way, Bernie was not stoned.
Uh he was sober over 20 years. That was serenity. I didn't know what it looked like.
I hadn't seen it before. Newcomer thinking, you know, came back to Nashville and the only thing I hadn't done on my afterare plan was get a sponsor. And the thing that was blocking me was that I was looking for a sponsor I could relate to.
Huh? Isn't that stupid? Have you ever heard anything more insane in your life?
I can't figure out you can go to two meetings in a day. Who can I relate to? I can relate to the squirrel on the next branch.
That's who I can relate to. Some other idiot that doesn't know what he's doing. And I didn't need a squirrel or an idiot for a sponsor.
And I didn't need a sponsor I could relate to. And I don't today. What I needed was a winner for a sponsor.
What I needed was a sponsor I would obey. Concept I didn't have. Anyway, there's this particular guy and I saw him in his meetings and he's all lit up and I went up to him and I and I knew he was sober over five years and he was having a fun.
You could see it was written on him and that's why I drank. Is that why you drank? Feel good.
He was feeling good. And I said, "Jerry, would you sponsor me?" He said, "Yeah, here's an assignment." Jerry sponsored by assignment. He gave assignments.
That's how I sponsor. And he gave me one. And I'll be glad to tell somebody later.
It takes too long. I don't have the time tonight. I came back in a few days and I said, "Yeah, I did what you said.
Sponsor me." He said, "Sure. My way." I said, "Okay." What's that? He said, "You are too sick to stay sober on the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
You will need the program also. I had my $15,000 Big Book, right?" And I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. He was so over 20 years when we buried him a couple of years ago.
He touched a lot of lives. And he said to the end he thought the very best kept secret. Our second best kept secrets how to do a four step.
You know it's in the book. The very best kept secret in our fellowship is the definition of our program. How do we keep it secret?
We read it at every meeting. It's a sentence before the first step. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery.
No steps. No program. Steps are not part of the program.
Steps are the program. Not talking about the steps on the wall. I'm told if you take the steps off the wall, you get off the-wall program talking.
Okay, talking about the the expanded version. Okay, that's the cliff notes, right? That's that's the half measure section.
I needed the full shot out of here. And I needed a coach who'd already done them. So anyway, he told me I was going to have to do the 12 steps.
And I said, uh I said, Jerry, I don't want to do the 12 steps. He said, "Oh, that's okay." I said, "Good." He said, "Long as you do them." I said, "I don't think we're communicating, man." He said, "Sure we are." That's the definition of willingness. Willingness is when I do what I'm told, whether I feel like it or not.
It's not about what I feel like. If doing what I felt like doing would have got me sober, I'd have been sober. He and I would have never met.
So, one of the things I know for sure is I'm going to do some things I don't want to do. That's part of getting into recovery. So, I asked him why.
Cuz you know, when I ask why, I'm not looking for an answer. I'm looking for a fight. Tell me why.
I'll show you where you're confused. Right? you don't have all the pieces, right?
Something wrong with what you're doing here. I am not looking for an answer when I ask why. And Jerry did not answer why questions for the minute he sponsored.
I don't either because the why questions all have the same answer. You know what the answer is? You don't need to know.
Step one, section B says, "You ain't in management. Why is a management question? You don't need to know." That's important stuff.
I always thought it was not knowing that made me crazy. You know, it wasn't. It was needing to know that made me crazy.
Once I stopped needing to know, I can be at peace and not know. That's a pretty neat place. So, I said, "Why do I have to work the 12 steps?" That that why question he didn't answer.
And he said, "Think of yourself as a garbage can." Easy enough. What we're going to do with these 12 steps is we're going to dump you out. We're going to scrub the can.
We're going to stand it back upright. We're going to fish through your through your life. And most of it's garbage.
We're going to throw it away. Ah, but some of it is good. Some of it is very good.
That portion we will keep. He gave two examples. He said, ' Do you love your children?
I said with all my heart, he said, great, we'll keep that. He got smart with me. He said, when you go to work, you do a good job, don't you?
I said, yeah. He said, well, we'll keep some of that. When we get finished with these steps, you're going to be a great big clean can with only about that much really good stuff in the bottom.
Because you see, our program is kind of like going to the dentist. We got to drill before we can fill. We've got to dig this poison out of you.
Because if we just fill with the good stuff on top, the poison's still in there. It gets sicker. It'll blow out.
So, you got you got to do that. But the good news is we got Novacane. We call it home group.
We call it sponsorship. Okay. And whistles like us have done it.
You can. He said, "The reason you have to do that is because see, alcohol wasn't your problem. had my first drink in the summer of ' 61.
I had my most recent one on the 27th of June of ' 84. Neither one of those two, nor any drink in between is alcohol ever my problem. Not one stinking time.
Alcohol was my answer, right? It worked for me. So, makes me an alcoholic.
So, when they told me I had to quit drinking, I wasn't laying down a problem. I was laying down an answer. I needed a new answer.
And the answer was I needed to be changed. And I don't have the power to change me. But I have the power to change what I do this day.
And that's enough. Particularly if I'm doing it by being coached by a sponsor who knows what he's doing because he's already done the work in this book. In 16 years and a few months, I have not seen a single person in and out of the program.
I haven't seen a single one. I bet there's not one in here. In and out of the fellowship.
Yeah, I see that every day. I have not seen one individual actually do the work in this book while being coached by a sponsor who's already done the work in this book and then stay active in our fellowship and drink. Have you?
I ain't seen it. I stand by the first line in chapter 5. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
That's the deal. That's what I've seen. So, uh, he said, "You got to be that big clean can with about this much good stuff in the bottom for a reason." He said, "Something heavy is just going to slam into your heart one of these days." And the example he gave, he said, "Your father's going to die when that day comes.
If you haven't done this work and you don't have that big clean can with a little bit of good stuff in the bottom, that empty space and that clean can to store that pain in. While we love you back into spiritual health, you will escape, which is what you're addicted to. Alcohol is not your problem, but your answer.
Your problem is sobriety. You don't know how to do it. And if you don't have a place to store that pain while we love you back, you'll escape.
And the only escapes you know are killing you and they're devastating everybody around you. And that's why you have to do that. And I believe Jerry saved my life.
Um I want to tell you that uh this daughter's doing just fine. Uh on uh she's doing just fine right now. Uh she is blind in one eye and has lost coordination.
And on July the 4th um six years ago, she put a pistol in her mouth, pulled the trigger. And uh I found her about seven hours later. And uh by the time we'd been at Vanderbilt Hospital 30 minutes, uh the lobby looked like this right here.
By the time we'd been there 2 hours, it looked like this. They told us for the first four days that she would not live. And I didn't say May.
They said this suicide was successful. She's just not dead yet. Y'all need to plan you a funeral for just a little bit later this week.
Your baby's going to die. I'm going to tell you something, folks. 4 days is a long time to sit by your baby's side.
And she's conscious laying in that bed. She can't talk. She got all these tubes stuck in her.
But she can hold your hand and squeeze you once for yes and twice for no. Four days is a long time. I couldn't have done it.
I don't believe I could have done it. It's my belief that we're all going to be asked to go to the mountain alone one of these days. And if you haven't done the work out of this book and you don't know how to reach up and take the master's hand, you're not going to be able to go.
That's what I believe. Because I've seen people have had to go to the mountain alone. It hadn't been that we're unavailable.
It's that they were unable to receive it. And that's kind of a little editorial. I apologize for the opinion.
4 days is a long time. You guys were fantastic. Uh I lived in the Vanderbilt Hospital for 60 days.
I don't I don't know that I walked outside 10 times. And y'all were fantastic. You put a 24-hour day watch on me for about 60 days, I guess.
And I don't think it occurred to anybody that they'd stop me from drinking. I don't think you could stop me to you. That wasn't it.
They had a 24-hour watch on me so that if I needed to cry, one of my people would be there to hold me. I know who you are. I saw what you did.
I love your words. I saw your actions. I'm so proud of you.
I'm so proud to be one of you. I watch what you do. I've seen you touch lives.
I've seen lives change. You've changed mine. I'm so grateful to be the man that I am today.
You gave that to me as a free and clear gift. I owe a debt I can't repay. That's why I'm here.
I owe a debt I can't repay. And it seems like every time I try to go and give some back, I get a little bit further in debt. I'm just here to try to make a payment.
That's all. My daughter lived. She's doing just fine.
I thank everybody for their prayers and everything y'all have done for me. I'm going to tell you how well she's doing. This will scare you if you got a daughter this age.
She's dating a guy I approve of and she knows it. When you talk about an entire psychic change, I'm going to tell you right now, that's some serious business. U when I got to that first clubhouse, it's I started going to clubhouse meetings before I got out into some other things that worked a little bit better for me.
But they had these slogans on wall. They had one up there that said, "Easy does it." I understood that. I wasn't doing it, of course.
I was newcomer, but uh I understood it. And uh they had one said, "Let go and let God." I had the faintest notion what that meant. And they had one that said, "One day at a time." And I knew for sure that meant don't drink today.
And if you're new, that's what it means. But to me today, it also means that I've used the first 10 steps to clean up my past. So there ain't nothing gaining on me.
With steps 11 and 12, I'm developing this relationship with the God to the point where I'm excited that my future's in his hands instead of mine. Future's past is clean. Future's in the hands of a loving God.
Those two facts combined to free me to live one day at a time in this day. That's why I had to do the steps. I heard a guy in uh in a meeting in Atlanta 10 years ago define freedom.
He said, "Freedom is when I accept full responsibility for all of my own actions. At that point, I am free. I am free to do anything.
thing I'm willing to live with the results of. Up until then, I may have been at large, but I ain't free. And as some of us know, at large can be temporary, right?
Freedom is when I accept responsibility. I stand by page 46 in the text. It says, "God does not make two hard terms to those who seek him." Those steps weren't that hard.
I think the two hardest things I've done since I got to recovery were think about doing a fourep and think about doing a ninestep. Actually, doing them was nowhere near as difficult as thinking about them. So, if you haven't done them, I'd like to tell you that was my experience with them.
So, I'm reading the slogans on the wall and I got one up there that just terrifies me because I think it's the biggest problem I got. And there it says says up there in the wall for me to do it. You know what it said, right?
Think think think. That's what's going on. My head is the busiest place on the North American continent.
I got a friend that calls his his head his home entertainment center. Says it's got everything it needs but off switch. That's the problem I had.
And and I want to tell you right now, if you're new, if you believe what I'm about to tell you, it should impress you. I only have one thought at a time. Now, sometimes there's a space between them.
I would have paid everything I had for just one space when I was new as a direct result of doing this work. But anyway, think, think, think. I can't find that in the literature.
So, I figured out what it means all by myself. Are you ready? What that means is three things is the limit.
Okay, that's the maximum. Whatever it is, I can think about it once. That's okay.
I can think about it the second time. When I think about it the third time, I must lay it down. For if I were going to outthink it, I would have outthun it in three things.
You know, that's right. If I go to the fourth think, I got a problem with step one, section B, I'm trying to manage it. Okay, that that's how that works for me.
And uh so I don't have to chase it all around. I stopped praying for God's guidance when I was sober two years because it occurred to me that his guidance was here every day as a free and clear gift and I didn't have to ask for what was given. And what I ask for now is that I might be open to his guidance because I think maybe all the all the blocks in the channel between me and God are at my end.
I think his end's clear. Don't you? That might be right.
Um I've got three things I call my spiritual barometers. And uh when I was newly sober, I used to beat myself up over them. And they are profanity, lying, not actually lies, improvements, really, right?
And my attitude toward those of you who got your driver's licenses out of Cracker Jackacks boxes. And if one of those was out of whack, if I would take a look, they were all out. And the answer, my sponsor told me that I don't have any power over my defects of character.
And the steps don't say anything at all about me working on my defects of character. When I work on my defects of character, I am living in the problem. Classic example of living in the problem.
And so when I discover that I'm swearing or lying um angry with you in traffic, what I do is I inventory my spiritual program. See, my spirit's like my body. It requires a varied diet.
I need prayer, meditation, meetings, uh talk to the men I sponsor, take meetings into jails, read spiritual literature, talk to Ice Cream Steve. It's my sponsor, right? Say please and thank you.
I have to do those things. And if I hear me swearing at you in traffic, if I'll inventory the last few days, guess what? There's holes in that.
See, my priority is not what I say it is. My priorities is what I do. You want to know what your priorities are.
If I want to know what mine are, I look over the last few days and see what got done. What got done was a priority. What did not get done wasn't a priority.
And anything I'm saying to the contrary is a lie that I'm telling me. Those are dangerous. So, if I'm swearing or lying or or unhappy with you in traffic, I take a look and see what's going on.
I've got a hole in my spiritual program. And what I do is I heal that hole. My sponsor said that that myself can't push self out of the center.
And self-centeredness, all my character defects are self-centered by definition. Self doesn't have the power to push self out of the center. And if it did, that would leave a vacuum.
The answer to my self-centeredness, the answer to my character defects isn't for me to work on. is to attempt to be God- centered by doing those things that I was talking about. And I go back to doing all those things and three days later you can cut me off in traffic.
I will smile at you from my heart and say, "Father, go with that when he needs some help today." And I'll mean that. And I don't have the power to change me from the raving maniac to that guy. And all I can tell you is that uh the darkness can't exist in the light.
It's my job to shine the light of God's will into my life and into the things that I'm doing. Um, I was in a meeting in I got so much more that I'd like to say because I love you all and I'd like to dump the whole bucket. Um, on my last flight on a high performance aircraft, I cheated a little bit.
That was back before Adar would tell them what my altitude was and I broke all the rules and went almost to 10 miles above the Earth. I was supposed to be above 45,000 ft. I went to 52 in small change and uh I saw the curvature of the earth.
It's a magnificent time. This thing's a ball. I saw it just huge bend in the horizon.
It's magnificent. And I'm planning to see that again while I'm here. I serve a big God.
I'm learning to dream big. I hope you're dreaming big. I hope you're dreaming big.
I asked God for an open heart here and I got one. I hope you did. If you did and you borrowed my God or it was your first try with him and it worked for you, maybe you thank him instead of me tonight when you go to bed and maybe do some more business with him.
I'd sure recommend that. Could I see the hands, by the way, the people who are sober over a year who would be not willing but eager to sponsor a newcomer. Where are you?
We mean that. Thank you. We mean that.
I wish I'd known when I was new that they needed to sponsor me. I said I thought I was a dead weight somebody's going to have to drag. It's not the deal.
That is not the deal. If you're new, that's not it. We need you.
We need you bad. What I've been given is magnificent and it's under pressure. I have a need to give it.
I'm sponsoring a couple of new guys right now and I'm just having the best time with them because you see, I get a chance to be a tool in the master's hand. I get to watch the light come on in somebody's eyes and realize I participated in that. It's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me.
Do one of these old-timers a favor. Let them sponsor you. Do me a favor.
Let one of the guys I sponsor sponsor you. The easiest guys in AA to sponsor. The guys that are sponsoring newcomer, all their issues vanish.
Right. Right. They call you twice a week after that.
Once they ask a sponsor question, wants to tell you something absolutely hilarious. This rookie is either said or done. They become very, very easy to sponsor at that point.
I belong. I belong here. I'm a member here.
Alcohol gave me the illusion of belonging. Today I belong. I'm one of you.
It's the most fantastic feeling I've ever had. I stand here in stock and feet. By the way, I step out of my shoes when I speak because I mean it when I invite God here.
And I figure this many people do that. He might come and I could be standing on holy ground. I've tried to carry that my heart up here.
I've learned to cry since I got sober. I'm so proud of it. I worked hard to do that because you see, I'm not an act anymore.
The old boy named Cherry Carpenter was one of the deans in Nashville, AA when I got sober. And Cherry used to say, "I'd rather be despised for who I am than loved for who I'm not." And I couldn't have said that when I got here. Thank you.
>> 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.