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>> Thanks, Joe. I'm Jez. I'm an alcoholic.

>> And I asked Joe if um if it was okay if we if we did the preamble so we know what kind of meeting this is. And he said it was okay. And um one of the things that we do back in uh New York City, we have a meeting at one o'clock on a Friday to which you're all invited on the 10th floor of the 475 uh Riverside Drive and it's called the language of the heart meeting.

And it we use that book, the language of the heart, and we do a little reading from that maybe or sharing from that, but it's kind of like a language of the heart workshop. But the thing we do there, I'm going to ask you to do tonight with me. And uh because uh I've been uh sober with the grace of God uh in this program since April 23rd, 1972.

And um I can't tell you how many times I've said the preamble in that time period. But I can tell you this that if I tried to say it now by myself, I will screw it up. But I can also tell you that if we say it together, we'll get it done.

So, let's try it. Alcoholic synonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership desire to stop drinking.

There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.

Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Thank you very much.

That was beautiful. It sounds beautiful too with everybody saying it. And um I want to thank Pat and Joe for that wonderful welcome.

Um it was great to meet Joe out there in Albuquerque and then again in in Austin. Uh I am particularly delighted that he understood my broken Spanish uh which I actually read from the podium because I'm not fluent enough yet to speak it uh with any fluency. But I do pretty well with um some of the bilingual employees that I have at the grapevine and they seem to enjoy correcting my Spanish and it's very helpful to be corrected by the employees because that way they get to know me better and I get to know them better and I also learn a little bit more Spanish each day as a matter of fact.

And um it's pretty uh remarkable to me to think about why we're here and to think about the fact that you guys spent all this time of your lives in electing the trusted servants that you've elected today. And um what an honor it is to have seen you do that and and the patience and the um and and the jockeying and the politicking and all that great stuff that goes on with drunks. I mean, it is a celebration of being alive here.

And that's really what we're all we're together and we're alive and we're doing it. And um that's what's happened to me over the past 30 years. I was dead and I was in the gutter and I was wandering and I was lying and I was doing all the things that drunks do, opening their mouths and you knew as soon as they opened their mouth they were lying.

That's what I was doing. And so AA came along to me and they said, you know, Dez, you're an alcoholic. And I said, I'm not an alcoholic.

I I wear a white shirt and I wear a tie. I can't be an alcoholic. I was saying that same thing, not wearing a white shirt and a tie when I was in St.

Vincent's Hospital uh in New York City when I was in there with a bleeding stomach and of course I was in there with with a bleeding stomach because um I had taken too much aspirin. Well, when you take aspirin on top of a quarter scotch for a few days in a row or for a month in a row, then it kind of gets to your stomach and makes your stomach bleed. And so, as I was walking down the corridor of St.

Vincent's Hospital with my green gown on and my paper slippers, trying desperately to hold the back of that green gown closed. This doctor who I was with says to me, Desmond, you're an alcoholic. And I said to him, boy, what kind of unintelligent remark is that?

I'm an alcoholic. He said, well, he said, you know, I said, you don't even know me. You've talked to me for five minutes.

You're supposed to be an intelligent man, and you say to me I'm an alcoholic. Well, this guy didn't even blink at that shot. What?

He comes back and he says to me, "Dees, I know thousands of people and they're just like you and you're a plain ordinary alcoholic. You know what I'm going to say next already, don't you? I'm not sure if I was more upset about alcoholic or plain ordinary." So that was the beginning.

The thing was I kept denying being alcoholic because I couldn't be alcoholic. I was too smart to be an alcoholic. I said to this guy, "Well, I'll do anything.

I'm not an alcoholic, but I I mean just to prove to you I won't. What do you want me to do?" He says, "Well, you're not to drink anymore." I said, "Consider it done." Well, PS, I said, "I will not go. I will do anything except I will not go to AA because that group of people I mean I knew what you were and what I knew you were was you used to go to the street corners and you would bring in these poor unsuspecting people who were not alcoholics but if you brought them into a meeting and you fill some more chairs in here you got extra points and you might get elected to be the DCM or the ABC or the CF because I didn't know any of those things at that time.

I didn't know all the structure, but I had it figured out. So, what happened to me was that, well, I didn't want to believe I was an alcoholic and I kept denying I was an alcoholic. And um I would deny it every morning as I got up and I looked in the mirror and I'd salute my eyes because they were red, white, and blue.

And there was nothing to get the red out at that particular point in time. What I would do is then I would get all dressed up in my white shirt and tie because I was not an alcoholic. And anybody who got dressed up in a white shirt and tie and suit and everything else and had a job couldn't possibly be an alcoholic because I was making money and I lived in a nice part of the city and I had a family and I couldn't be an alcoholic.

And so because I couldn't be an alcoholic, I would go to a different liquor store every morning as I went down to my office and I would sometimes open up that liquor store uh with the man who owned the liquor store, knocking on the door, having him pull up the shade, and I would walk in there um wanting him to know that I really wasn't an alcoholic. So I would say, "Do you have any of these tiny bottles of alcohol?" Because doesn't every suave deboner eider go into a liquor store at 7:30 in the morning for tiny bottles of alcohol knowing damn well that they were called miniatures. But see, I knew what I was doing by giving him that line was that he would think that I had this wall unit in my posh east side apartment filled with tiny bottles of alcohol from all over the world and he wouldn't think that I was an alcoholic.

And that's how I would start my day, putting those in my inside coat pocket so that I could begin my social drinking at about 11:45 behind the stall in the John. And that's how the day began. Now, the reason I had to drink in the stall in the John was that I had learned that I couldn't drink safely at lunch.

people were going to think I was an alcoholic and I didn't want them to think I was an alcoholic. So, because what happened to me once I was at lunch with my boss and some other person and um the I I drank a glass of water just like I picked it up like this and I put it to my lips and I took a drink. I ordered the vodka martini and as soon as that vodka martini arrived, my whole body tightened up.

I knew what was going to happen to me was I was going to have to reach for that and I my hands were going to shake. I was going to spill the vodka martini on me and I also knew that what I needed in order to stop the shakes was the vodka martini. So I looked into the front of the restaurant and there's a bar in the front of the restaurant.

But I saw that if I was at the bar getting my first vodka martini in order to drink my second vodka martini, they'd be able to see me. So, I couldn't do that. I left the restaurant.

I ran across the street. This is 42nd Street in Lexington Avenue in New York City to another restaurant, plowed my way through 20 deep at the bar, put the money down, got the vodka martini, all the while knowing that they're talking about me back at the restaurant where I just left. This is all taking place in about 90 seconds.

You know, back and forth across the street, my mind going, thousand miles an hour. I grab the second vodka martini and like that whip it down, dash back across the street and in the 30 seconds that that took and I sit down and I grabbed the second drink. No shakes, picked it up.

Now, wouldn't you buy tiny bottles of alcohol to drink in the john before you went out to lunch if that's how you solved the problem? And that's of course what I did. And so this went on and on and on, not being an alcoholic until one day uh not being an alcoholic took me to and then and then I would start home a after I got through my lunchtime drinking.

What I would do is I just want to give you kind of a feel for the days, you know, these really brilliant sunshiny days that I was living when I was coming to the end of my drinking. I didn't know, of course, it was the end of my drinking, but I was rapidly winding it up. I would come home from I would come back to my office at about 2:30 and then between 2:30 and 3:30 I would shuffle some papers and write some notes and do whatever I thought I needed to do to keep this job which was the source of my income for drinking and then about 3:30 I would go down the escal elevator in my building up the escalator in another building where this great restaurant called Charlie Browns and Charlie Browns would have two quick shooters to tide me over to cocktail time and then at cocktail time I would go to the bar in the building, have one drink because I didn't want anybody to think I was an alcoholic.

And then I would go home. I mean, I might leave office at 5:30, 6:00. I might get home by 8.

I might stop in five or six bars on the way home. I would only have one drink in each bar because I didn't want the bartender to think I was an alcoholic. And then I'd go home and I'd say to my wife, "Hey, let's have a drink." And so I'd make her a drink.

I'd make me a drink and then we'd have supper and we'd have some beer or some wine or something with supper. And then I would proceed to uh watch the television with another beer or wine or something until I would wind up at 2 or 3 in the morning with the there were patterns on the TV. There was not TV all night long at that time.

There were like X's and Y's and numbers and things like that. And I'd wake up in front of the TV and uh having passed out and then I would go to bed, sleep for a few hours, get up, sloop my eyes, and begin the whole thing again. Now, what God was doing for me that I couldn't do for myself was he got me really plastered one morning in my office.

And so what happened was my boss came in and the higher powers in the in the company came in and they said uh um there's something wrong with this man as he's lying supine on the floor when everybody else is out having lunch or they just come back from lunch and they didn't know they honestly didn't know that I was drunk. But I said to my boss, you know, I have an alcohol problem. And he said, you're telling me you got an alcohol problem?

You can never drink in this company again. So I saved my job and my cards were on the table. And so I came into AA because the best way to save my job was to go to AA.

But the fact was I couldn't get sober because like I said, I really wasn't an alcoholic. I had this little time. I used to go to meetings, you know, and I'd say to the people at the meetings, you know, I'm really not an alcoholic.

I just have this little problem that I get drunk sometimes when I drink. And they'd, you know, sort of put up with me and they'd smile a little bit and they'd say, "Oh, that's nice, Dez. why don't you just keep coming back, you know, hang around with us a little while, see how you feel, you know, a few months from now.

And um I just really couldn't get it, you know. I was trying uh to get it. I was trying uh I because see what happened, this was what happened to me.

It's what happens to me every single time I go to a meeting is that I fall in love with the people. The first time I walked into my first meeting, now I didn't know this at the time, but I know it today in hindsight. I fell in love with the people.

They just got me. I was listening to Pam tonight. I fell in love with Pam as she was talking.

I mean, there were tears coming down my eyes as I'm listening to her talking about her mom and everything else. And you know, when I came into that first meeting, I mean, I was really a hardened non-alcoholic, as I've described myself. But I went to that meeting because I was going to be fired from my job.

But when I walked in that room, here's what I thought. I thought that everybody in AA wore khaki. Now, why I thought that, I don't know, but that's just what I thought.

So, I walk in the room and, you know, everybody's wearing different colored clothes and I said, "Wow, geez, they're just they're kind of like ordinary people." And I met a guy there, Skip. They told me to I called up Intergroup, you know, and they told me, "Well, you go to the meeting and you go ask for Skip." Well, Skip was crazy. was absolutely crazy, you know, and I've met Skip since he's sober now 20 25 years.

And he says, you know, when I met you, Tz in that meeting, I was totally crazy because he's talking about I I don't even he's talking about his mother and his father and something else. And um you know, thank God I was well fortified for that meeting because I had stopped into Clansies and a few boiler makers before I walked in so I could handle Skip for that first meeting. And um then I saw the people there and they're dressed in this.

In fact, one guy had one of these madress jackets on, you know, multicolor technicolor dream coat kind of jacket. And this guy, he he took my he took this book, one of the one of the books of the meetings, and he began writing in it and and marking meetings. And I said, "Gee, that was kind of nice of me." But see, I was I was still like um behind so many walls, so many walls of denial.

And I didn't know this at the time. You understand? And I'm looking at this with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight.

And so I was I was behind these walls, but you guys had me from the first minute. I there was no question in my mind. I was finished.

I mean, I still had to drink some more, but I was done. And the reason I was done was alcoholics are so real. I mean that meeting I have I I don't remember a single thing that was said at that meeting.

But what I do remember was the people were real. I mean they were smiling, they were laughing. They were serious.

They were concerned. They were open. They were willing to talk to me.

They could smell the alcohol on my breath, I'm sure. But it didn't stop them. And they marked the book and they told me to come back again.

And so that began my first year in AA. And my first year in AA is not a story of a lot of successes. Um because I would kept denying I was an alcoholic.

And I've come to look at that phase of my life as the inability to turn it over. The inability to be powerless. And I'll talk about this in in a little while more about this idea of powerless.

how that first step is is so powerful in terms of everything in AA. Um I was a great analyzer, you know, and I used to try to figure out um how the steps fit together, you know, I'd be listening and the shades on the wall and I'm analyzing, I'm memorizing the steps and doing all this stuff just to keep my brain occupied, which was going in five different directions. And I'm figuring to myself, this word powerless boy, this permeates every single one of those steps is what I'm saying to myself.

And I mean, I didn't know how smart I was when I was doing it. I mean, don't misunderstand me. I was arrogant enough to think I was really smart, but I didn't really know just how smart this program is and what it does to you.

So, anyway, what happened to me was that I didn't want to stay sober. I didn't want to be a drunk. I I I didn't want anybody to think I was a drunk.

And so, you know, if you're not a drunk, well, then you can't get the program because the program is for people who are drunks and powers over alcohol. and I wasn't. And so the great thing about it was that I kept going to meetings and the people liked me and I and as I said, you had me from the first minute I walked in that room.

So I like them. I mean, they were really smart. But you know what I was doing?

I was writing a term paper on alcoholics and I was going to publish it in the New York Times. Or I was going to or I was going to rewrite the the the the big book. I was going to rewrite that and put it into real good English.

like it wasn't in good English because obviously it wasn't well written. And so all those kind of things I was going to do, but I'd sit there and I'd be amazed at these people who would come in. I used to go to this meeting called the Mustard Seed in New York City at 12:30 and I mean people from all over different businesses and man they were so smart.

I mean they'd quote this book and they quote Bill Wilson and they quote the philosophers and they I said boy oh boy these guys I got to I can do that. So anyway, I started quoting stuff, right? And people are writing down all this brilliant things that I'm quoting and saying, "They're staying sober on them.

I'm getting drunk on them because I couldn't admit it." But here's what happened. They said, "I kept coming back and and and here's how they here's how they handle me. They first time I came back, they were very sympathetic and they said, "Welcome back." And I of course said, "Well, of course they wanted me back.

I'm adding a little bit of life to this meeting. They want me here." And so I figured, well, of course they're going to say, "Welcome." Well, then I'm out again. You know, I'd be sober a week and drunk the next and I'd be be sober a month and then I might be drunk for two weeks, that kind of thing.

And so I come back the second time and they say, "Welcome back. How how was it?" I said, "What do you mean, how was it? You think I'd be back here if it was any good?" You know, what kind of what kind of stupid question is that?

So then then then we this this will go on, you know, but they still welcome me back. They said, "Well, look, it just keep coming. Just keep coming.

It's going to it's going to work out okay. And then and then they and then they say um oh next time they said well tell me what happened. So I I go through the whole thing, you know, like I lost the car, I fell through the coffee table and um and the cops came and I and I drove the car into a snowbank.

Uh or I had a taxi cab had to drive me around the neighborhood to find my car and I was very embarrassed by the whole thing and the taxi cab driver didn't seem to mind. I mean, apparently he had done this with a few other people in Manhattan before. And the cops almost put me in jail, but they didn't put me in jail because I knew some people in the neighborhood and blah blah blah blah blah.

And they said, "Uh, thanks a lot. You did it for me." Now, that really pissed me off. I got to tell you, I didn't like that idea of doing it for somebody else.

I thought that was a little bit too tacky. So anyhow, next time I come back, um we went through this whole thing and the same the same drill, you know, welcome uh go what was it like, you know, and then and tell us, you know, what it was like and you know, you did it for me the whole thing and um and then and then the coupigra that they came up on me and they said, uh uh you know, we knew you were coming back. Well, I really didn't like that because I hated being predictable.

and they really had my number down cold. And so this went on and on until there were various milestones that began to break down that wall of denial, that began to break down that wall of being powerful over alcohol. And one of the things that I remember so vividly and I still recall it many times uh even today.

I was sitting in this meeting in the mustard seed. It was a It was a It was a dimly lit, you know, downstairs seller in a brownstone on 37th Street in Lexington Avenue in New York City. And um it was a rainy Friday afternoon and I had been in my office that morning trying to write a marketing plan for a company uh that I had written the same marketing plan for the year before.

And I was in such great mental condition that I could not remember the words that were in front of me on this page long enough to change the date on this page when I tried to rewrite them and update the marketing plan for the ensuing year. And it was baffling me and it was frustrating me and I was absolutely going insane. And I knew, and this is what I told the group, just what I just told you.

And I told the group, you know, I know how to solve this problem. All I need is one drink. I wouldn't have five.

I would have one. And then I'd be able to write that marketing plan. And the whole meeting turned around to me, everybody in that meeting.

I mean, the next person shared about how their nerves were jangled. Somebody else said shared a similar experience to mine. And somebody talked about, you know, getting medical attention and, you know, what you have to do and now you have to take care of yourself and, you know, drink warm soups or whatever.

I don't know what they said. Even it was the it was the whole feeling of people just taking me in their arms and loving me right there. And again, I fell more deeply in love with the people.

And then and then the next thing that happened was that the meeting is over and I'm standing at the bulletin board reading the notices on the on the bulletin board and uh and I'm just really preoccupied and that and I kind of noticed there's a guy he was a New York City fireman. He's about 6'4. He's standing on this side of me and then and then I noticed there's another guy and he's about 6'3 and he might have been a New York City cop.

I don't know, but he looked like a New York City cop. And he's standing on that side of me. And they just started talking to me, Des, you know, how's it going?

And what's going on? Cuz I had said, you know, I know how to solve this. There's 10 bars between here and my office.

And all I knew is one drink. And I noticed as I'm leaving the leaving the room, these two guys are kind of like one on each side as we're walking down Lexington Avenue. And I'm talking to them, you know, and just very casually.

And but what it's dawning on me is that we're passing the first bar and the second bar and the third bar and the fourth bar. And I wind up standing in the vestibule of my office building and they said, "Uh, we noticed you didn't drink, did you? You didn't drink.

Uh, getting back to your office today." I said, "No, I didn't drink. Thank you." And so that began another phase of that love affair with with AA with the people in AA because I knew they really cared. And they'd come to my home and uh when I was out on a on a slip, they would come to my home and and try to talk to me.

They would do it, you know, five of them would come up with a 12step call. they come for to my apartment so that I knew they really loved me and they really cared about and they were getting nothing in return from this in any types of monetary way uh any praise there was nothing they were just there because they believed that sharing the gift they had been given was the way to live life and so that's what they did to me and so gradually what happened to me is that uh wall that I had placed between myself and people in Alcoholics Anonymous began to crumble, you know, because they punched it out with those gifts of love that they threw in there and slowly it came down. But then what was still there was this cellophane wrapper.

Do you know like I could see you and I could talk to you at meetings and I knew you were there. I knew you were listening and I knew you I was affecting you and you were affecting me, but there was some way I couldn't touch you and I didn't know what that was all about, but it was true. It was like I was behind the filter or something.

And so somebody said to me, you know, Dez, um there's these things called the promises in the book. And um one of the promises is um if that you'll be able to handle situations that used to baffle you. You'll be able to handle those situations intuitively.

And I said, "Oh man, I want that. I just want that thing." Because I'm I mean my you know the signs of you know the sun signs, you know, well I'm a Libra. There's the scales, right?

So the scales I mean it's like on the one hand you know the teavia thing on the one hand we should do this well I don't know let's try this over here and you know by the time I got finished figuring out the two scales well the whole day had gone and I hadn't done anything yet and I used to drive me absolutely bonkers because of living in my head getting ready to live all that kind of stuff I wanted to just do something so I said intuition's got to be the key and um I figured out uh and I know today that I figured it out because I had read it in the books it's just so all over the place. I thought that I had brilliantly deduced this from something else, but it's right in the big book. And the big book uh let you know that if you want to be intuitive, what you need to do is meditate.

You need to do our 11th step. So I said, "Okay." So I started to do the 11th step and um a number of things and I and believe me, it wasn't a a big- time thing. It may be 60-second 11st step, you know.

I can I can handle 60 seconds because I've got the tailor to go to and I got to go to the bank. Plus, I've got to get something from the from the from the from the laundry or bring my laundry in. There were a lot of important things I had to do in the course of a day and I could just about, you know, dole out 60 seconds for this 11 step, but I did it every single day.

And so gradually, I began to be able not to have to do this total analysis, paralysis, evaluation kind of thing. and I began to act. And gradually what I noticed was that I'd be in places and I'd be totally by myself.

I remember waking up one morning, I was in um California on a business. I used to have I hate to go off on business trips by myself because it was just a lonely type of thing. And I do the business part of it, but I was always feeling lonely.

And so I woke up one morning and there's nobody, no other human being in the room except me. And uh I woke up this morning and I knew positively that I was not alone. I knew there was another presence that was with me in that in that room that day.

And that was a that that's a milestone in the change in my change of attitude and my way of seeing things and my way of feeling about things. I thought that was the end of it. you know, I figured, well, I've arrived here at the mountain here, but you know, it keeps going on on and on and on.

So, there were other milestones. Um, another milestone I was I was in um uh and this is how pertains to getting a cellophane wrapper. It just because what happened to that cellophane wrapper, I got to tell you, is that you know when you take a cellophane wrapper and you put a cigarette in it, what happens?

It just goes Well, that's what happened. It just disappears. I mean I don't feel that tonight.

I don't think there's anything between us at all. You can touch me and I can touch you. I know that.

But the net one of the other other milestones in in in this process was that um I was up in Canada in Canada at a meeting and um here's what I was doing. I'm sitting at this meeting and the people there were about seven or eight business people at the meeting. So lovely venue looking over one of the great lakes and I'm sitting there and I'm saying what a stupid remark that guy just made.

I mean he's the president. This guy's the president of a multi-billion dollar company, right? I'm saying he's really stupid.

This other guy over here, look at that tie. I mean, he must have got that tie from some Bowery bum because it doesn't match anything else. The plaids don't go together.

The lines are the wrong direction. This other guy over here, I mean, he thinks he's smart. He's just a jerk.

And he hasn't said. And and so I'm going on like this with everybody, every single person, character assassination one by one by one by one by one. And I'm saying, "This is the most stupid, boring me.

This is like I've been at the meeting for 4 hours." And so a little voice in the back of my head says, "Dez, um, why don't you, uh, put yourself in the presence of your higher power?" Now, I I I didn't want to do that because I was convinced that if I put myself in the presence of my higher power, it would stop me from being present to those people that I was assassinating, you see. And because it was going to interfere with my being really there in the here and now and all this kind of stuff, right? So, but I suspended belief for a minute and I I could w I go, okay, to myself, this is conversation going on inside of my brain.

Okay. Okay. So, I put myself in the presence of my higher power and it's like because I saw what I was doing.

I saw that I was playing voyer. I saw that I was being ungrateful to those people who had asked me to come up and spend some time with them and who were actually paying me to come up there to spend some time with them. And what was I doing?

I was sitting there being a critique of the whole thing and not participating. So the voice said, "Well, look, it says, if you're going to be in the ring, keep the gloves on." So I started participating in the meeting. It turned out to be a fabulous meeting for me.

I don't know how they reacted to it, but I was making remarks. I was having fun. I was cracking jokes.

I was having a good time. I was making some intelligent comments about their business. It changed everything for me because I experienced for myself that being in the presence of my higher power, like it says in that 11th step, improve your conscious contact with God as you understand God.

Now, I could do that and not be separated from you and not be less available to you, which was my fear. I figured if I do that, I'm going to be in some mental stratosphere which is going to prevent me from being available. Not true.

It makes me totally available to you and to anybody else I'm with in the course of a day. And so this process of being more and more powerless, of turning it over more and more and more, which is the which is the the tremendously um therapeutic and healing healing principle I believe in our steps. This particular and the simple principle I mean it's as simple as if you don't drink you don't get drunk.

If you don't pick up a drink you can't get drunk. I mean, rocket science for an alcoholic. And so the same thing is true that if I spend more time meditating, if I spend more time in that 11th step, then I'm going to be more available to my fellow alcoholics and to everybody because our responsibility statement doesn't limit us to alcoholics.

says whenever anywhere anyone anywhere reaches out for help, they want the hand of AA to be available to them. So it it applies to anybody and I'm not afraid for it to apply to anybody. I don't care if they know I'm an alcoholic.

Not that I go around willy-nilly breaking my anonymity. They don't misunderstand me, but the fact is if somebody calls me and I'll say, "Yeah, yes, I am. I'm I'm I'm I'm recovering in this fabulous program of alcoholics anonymous." So what then happens to me is that AA again comes to the rescue with this trunk.

So this is about 12 years maybe I'm about 12 years sober or so and then they come up and they say hey would you would you uh be on one of our committees? You're involved in the public relations business. How about being on our public information committee?

So my sponsor had said to me um well if AA asks you to do something you just say yes. Don't even think about you just say yes. So I say yes.

So they say I'll take about an hour a month. I said that's fine. I can do an hour and a quarter.

I can do that. So then they come up a little while longer, a little while later, number of years later, and they say, "Oh, well, you know, would you let us put your name in to be a u uh director of the of uh AWS?" And I said, "What's AWS?" And they explained to me what AWS is. And they tell me what they do and so on.

And I just I said, "Well, like, yeah, fine. I don't understand what this is all about, but yes, do it. Do it.

So, uh, they go through the vote and then they show somebody else. So, I said, "Terrific. Damn it.

Terrific." You know, "Damn it, terrific." Both both things. I mean, I thought true. It's honest.

That's just the way it was. I felt good and I felt lousy. But then they came back the next week and they said, "Well, we got this opening on the on the grapevine board.

Can we put your name in to nominate for the grapevine board?" And I said, "Sure, you can do that." because I I used to read the graveine that the grapefine I knew something about. So I said, "Yeah." And um and so you know, typical AA fashion, I'll tell you how I got I got I got put on the Grapevine board. I walked into the to the meeting uh of with all the directors of the Grapevine.

And um this guy by the name of uh Stanley, Stanley Silverman was there. Now Stanley, and you can tell by his name, he's Jewish guy and I'm a Catholic guy. So Stanley looks at me and he says, "Oh, it's Jesus Christ." I said, "Excuse me, Stanley?" He says, "Yeah, well, Dez, you know, I used to think you were Jesus Christ.

Every time I heard you talk, you were so, you know, you had I didn't know what you were talking about, but you know, you just had this way about you that, you know, I said, "This guy is Jesus Christ." So I said, "I got to tell you this story." So I told him the story. You may have heard this, but it's about, you know, it's about Moses and Jesus. They're playing golf.

and there's a water hole. So Jesus gets up to the water hole and he says, you know, to Moses, he says, "Moses, it's a it's a uh um a seveniron shot just like Jack Nicholas." Moses says, "Jesus, it's 180 yards. It's a fiveiron shot." Moses Jesus says, "No, it's a it's a it's a seven." So of course, Jesus hits the shot plunkked right in the water.

Moses, you know, parts the water, gets the ball back, gives it to Jesus. And Jesus gets up again. He says, "It's a seven iron shot just like Jack Nicholas." And Moses, Jesus, it's a five.

Same result, except this time he hits the bank and bounces in. And Moses, look at I'm tired of this. You watch the water gets the ball back.

This is the last time, Jesus, I'm giving you the ball. He says, "So, so anyway, Jesus gets up, but he says, you know, it's a seven iron shot just like Jack Nicholas." And he of course right he just dribbles it off the tea. It's right in right into the to the water.

So Moses says tough luck Jesus. Jesus doesn't matter. He walks across the water.

He gets the ball. He's walking back over the water with that. There's a forsome coming up on the next tea and they see Moses and they see this guy on the water and they yell over to Moses.

They say, "Hey, hey buddy. Who's that guy think he is? Jesus Christ." Moses says, "No, he thinks he's Jack Nicholas.

So they asked me to serve on the board. I guess they thought I I could improve the caliber of the the humor in the grapevine. I don't know.

So um but that began that began a whole series of things and then and then they asked me to be a trustee to serve as a trustee and by that time I knew what a trustee was. I mean, after all, I've been serving for four years a director. You think I might have picked up a few things?

And I did. I said, "Yeah, I'd like to do that." And so, I had a wonderful time serving as a as a as a as a trustee uh on the Great Vine board. And um and then I rotated off that and I said, "Oh, God, thank God.

I'm out of here. I'm out of this thing. I I don't have to do this anymore." Because after the first year after I was I'd been a trustee, I could never figure out how I how I did it.

I I couldn't understand how I put that much time in. I was running a company and um and I said I don't know how but you know God provides us and lets us do that because it's important to do the whole service thing is so important in my life as part of my recovery story. I really I really do see the the the uh the legacies of recovery unity and service coming together in in my particular path.

And it's so appropriate right now tonight to be talking about that since so many of you have spent so much time in in electing trusted servants here for all of us. And um and so and I was telling Pat here before, you know, I run the Grapevine now, as I think Joe maybe mentioned, and um uh I used to sit at the Grapevine boards. Now, don't misunderstand me.

I was a very dedicated director and and and trustee and everything else and I did the best I could do with the job. But I'd be sitting at the grapevine meetings and I'd say I don't know how anybody could possibly work for this company. I mean it is an absolute dog.

I mean and I would try I would I would talk and this is just me talking. Now I'm not saying it really was. Don't misunderstand me, but this is my perception.

And so I'm saying I could I could never I could couldn't possibly work for this company. Well, here's what happens. Typical AA irony is that um 10 years later, I mean, I I hadn't been involved with the service structure except to go to uh uh you know, I go to meetings.

I I I was friendly with some of the trustees and I'd go to the dinners, you know, before the conference and things like that because I was always we were invited to that, which is a lovely thing. And I' and I' and I'd know I'd read the 459 and know who was serving and everything, but I was not really involved in the service structure at all. And uh so some people asked me to put my name in the hat.

And for the first time in my AA life, I said, "No, I said no, I'm not going to do that. I just retired. I just re I bought this home up in Nova Scotia and I we just spent all this money fixing it up and it's on the ocean and I've already gotten a agreement with one of the universities to teach a course up there.

I don't want to do that. And the guy looked at me. I mean, he just stared me down.

He said, "Well, you have to." I mean, he wasn't even talking about doing the job. He was just saying you got to put your resume in. I'm saying, "No, I'm not going to do that." He says, "You don't have any choice." Well, he was right.

You know, he was right. I had no choice. I mean, how could I say, could I live with myself, you know, 5 years from now if I didn't at least put my They might choose somebody else.

I'm saying to myself, they may choose somebody else to do this job, so I'm off the hook. But if I don't put the resume in, I'll never live with myself. Well, the rest is history.

But here's the important part about that is that I did say no, but then I I changed I I did change. So it's possible to change in AA as all of you know and I did it pretty fast and that was positive too. It didn't take me six months to do that.

But the point is that what happened as a result of that is that I was talking about the 11th step and what I've had to do is that I've had to totally change my priorities in terms of the 11th step. No more 60-second numbers because I was really clear about the importance of this message that we share with each other because that's all the great fun is. It's a medium as you know for people to share their stories and their recovery and their transformation.

Now what a sacred trust that is to be able to be in a position to help that to make it work better. And so I'm saying to myself, if I'm going to do that, boy, I got to get down into the silence because someone said to me, God is the silence from which the word is spoken. And I went, that's pretty powerful.

That means I've got to spend time in the silence if I'm going to be able to speak, if I'm going to be able to share, if I'm going to be able to evaluate, if I'm going to be able to be an instrument for this fellowship to grow and for those spires of service to still be around. Somebody said, you know, it was William James, by the way. You know, William J.

Bill says William James gave us the uh the 11 the 12 the 12th step about having had a spiritual the spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we try to carry this message to others he says I got that from William James because when I had my spiritual experience I didn't know what that was and so he read the varieties of religious experience and William James describes exactly what happened to Bill so he credits William James for that well the other thing William James says one of the great uses of life is to spend it on something that lives beyond your life. And so the privilege that I've been given is to spend my life, the time of my life on something that's going to live beyond me hopefully. And so the grape vine's going to go on and on and on and on.

But in order to do that, this is what I do, you know, and it's so simple. I'm just going to share it with you because it's like it's it's like if you don't pick up the first drink, you can't get drunk. And it's just as simple as God can do for us what we can't do for ourselves.

So somebody you know I had spent all this time in a 29 years I I I took the grape vine job on when I was 29 years sober and I had tried to find out different methods of meditation and I'd read all the books not all the books but I read a lot of books about it. I had I had I used to meditate like 20 minutes a day in the morning and 20 minutes at night because that's what I heard the gurus tell you to do. So I did that and I'm using all sorts of methods and all sorts of acts and I'm humming and I'm doing this and I'm going and I'm and I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor and all this kind of stuff and I'm doing it and life is getting really good really really better as I would do that.

But then you know when life gets really good what do you need that stuff for? So you drop that off for a while and you go do something else. But now I still know it's the 20 minutes.

But you know what? God can do for me what I can't do for myself. So all I got to do is show up.

I don't have to have any method. I mean if I get distracted the only thing I do is that somebody said choose some kind of word you know choose a word. I use the word vainy which means come in Latin and please come and uh but it doesn't matter what you could use love.

You could be use welcome. You could use shalom or whatever you want to use. Just pick up a word, say hello and use a word and that becomes like the, you know, you ever see that movie the conspiracy theory where this guy guy says a word and also something automatic happens.

Well, all that word does is signify my intention to be available to my higher power, to be present to my higher power. Now, I did that twice today for 20 minutes each day. You know how available I was to my higher power?

like about 3 seconds in the first 20 minutes and maybe five seconds in the in the in the second 20 minutes. But it it doesn't matter because God's going to do for me what I can't do for myself. All the methods in the world don't matter.

The only thing is my intention to be available to that higher power. And I can understand that because my intention in coming to these meetings whether I knew it or not from the very first day was not to drink. And a lot of times I didn't know that.

So the people caught me or something funny they said or their brilliance caught me or their their clarity or their insights and then the readings something caught me. And so I gradually came to love it in a different way. But the fact is that God was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself.

And so the program has forced me, and I really mean that. Just like the program and the people forced me not to drink, they didn't twist my arm, but they showed me another way. And so the program and service and all the things that the gifts that the program has given to me, the gift of you here tonight, the gift of having traveled the road that I've traveled with so many other drunks for so many years, all those gifts are doing for me what I could not do for myself.

And so now all I need to do is signify my intention to that higher power to allow that higher power to do for me what I can't do for myself in this time of meditation. And so that when my words are spoken, they come from a better place. They come from a place that's not filled with ego, not filled with self argrandisment or any of that stuff.

Maybe it's filled with more honesty than I even know about because I don't know how honest I am. It seems to grow and grow and grow and grow. I gotta tell you, I thought I was really honest 15 years ago.

But I know today that 15 years ago when I heard that statement which was praying only for the knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out, I didn't want that. I didn't want to hear that. What I wanted to hear was I didn't mind the idea of conscious connection with my higher power.

But this stuff about his will, I don't want that. I I knew what I want. I wanted intuition or I wanted to be sharp or I wanted to be clear or I wanted to be this or I wanted to be that.

I wanted some stuff for me. That's what I wanted. Well, today I probably want all those same things as a matter of fact.

But I'm willing to have my only intention be his will, her will, its will, whatever you want to call it, and the power to carry out that will. So the transformation that's taken place in this drunk over the 30 years as a result of the gifts of being open is that I've fallen deeper and deeper in love with you. Every time I meet you and you touch me in the most unexpected ways, I can feel somebody going to cry on the podium or something sad in in their being before they even say it.

my eyes start to burn and then they say it the my I begin to cross. So the the the um the the symphony of emotions that I had I had suppressed for so long are finally getting a chance to be orchestrated in life a day at a time and for that I am grateful to you. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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