AA Speaker – James T. – Sacramento, CA – 2010
James T. from Sacramento shares his journey from denial to working all 12 steps in AA. A recovering alcoholic who quit drinking and found a sponsor, he explains how step work changed his life and relationships.
James T. from Sacramento got sober on December 6, 1982, but didn’t actually join AA until months later—he was still convinced he wasn’t alcoholic despite quitting drinking and smoking pot instead. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his full recovery story: arriving at meetings as a skeptical existentialist philosopher, finding a sponsor named Donna, and working through all 12 steps while rebuilding a life he’d spent years destroying with selfishness and isolation. His talk is packed with practical wisdom about step work, character defects, amends, and the daily actions that keep recovery solid.
James T. describes his 40+ years sober, beginning with his denial about being alcoholic and moving through his relationship with a sponsor who pushed him to work the steps. He details how step work—particularly the Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth steps—transformed his ability to build relationships, raise a stepfamily, and find purpose in service. James illustrates how taking action on the principles of AA, even when he didn’t believe in them, produced real spiritual results and freedom from resentment.
Episode Summary
James T. arrived at AA meetings not as a newcomer desperate for help, but as a guy who already had it all figured out. He’d quit drinking back in 1982 by switching to pot instead—a clever solution in his mind, since his “problem was alcohol.” His sister had gotten sober in AA and kept inviting him, telling him he’d like the people and the people would like him. What he didn’t expect was that he’d walk into a room and feel less alone than he’d ever been.
For the first months, James sat in meetings as what he calls an “existentialist.” He didn’t believe he was alcoholic. He listened to people’s stories, identified with parts of them, but kept one hand on the exit. It took several months before he raised his hand and admitted he was alcoholic—and got a round of applause that shocked him.
Around the six-month mark without drinking, James started to unravel. He wasn’t working the steps, didn’t have a sponsor, didn’t believe in God. He was just white-knuckling it, and that only works so long. His sister connected him with a man named Howard in Sacramento, and James sat in his office for an hour and told the complete truth about himself—his shameful past, his secrets, the sleazy things he’d done. Howard handed him a yellow legal pad with one prescription: “Get on your knees and pray.”
James didn’t believe it would work. But something in him was willing to try. He called a woman named Donna and asked her to be his sponsor. She said yes, but only if he’d go to four meetings a week, journal daily, see her weekly, and work the steps. He agreed. Around the same time, he bought a new sports car—partly because his old truck was literally falling apart, and partly because he wanted to troll for dates at meetings. He was lonely. Deeply lonely.
The strange thing happened: he started praying every day, even though he didn’t believe. He started seeing his sponsor, journaling, taking actions. And without changing his mind, his feelings changed. He describes it like going to the gym—your opinion about the gym doesn’t matter if you do the work. The results come anyway.
When James got to Step One, he could point to one crystal-clear example. Years back, as a bartender trying to prove he didn’t have a problem, he quit drinking for 30 days. At the end of that 30 days, he celebrated with a single glass of wine at noon. By midnight, he was in jail. One drink led to another and another. He couldn’t predict or control what happened after the first drink. That was powerlessness.
Step Two tripped him up at first. He didn’t believe in God. But reading carefully, he realized the step didn’t ask him to believe in the power—just that a power *could* restore him to sanity if he’d lost it. He’d done crazy things while drinking, sure, but the craziest thing he ever did was sober: pick up another drink. So sanity had been restored. He moved forward.
Step Three asked him to turn his will over to God, but James focused on one word: *decision*. He decided to work the rest of the steps. As a result of that decision, a power showed up in his life that was working for him. He got a relationship with God not through belief, but through action.
The Fourth Step brought him to his knees—literally. Journaling, he unearthed memories he’d been running from his whole life. He wrote down his father’s name and started listing resentments. Then tears came. Hours of tears. His sister came over and he sobbed about his lost childhood, his hurt. And when he was willing to see his father as sick rather than mean, the hatred washed away. That Fifth Step—sitting with his sponsor on a rainy November afternoon, dumping out all his secrets like garbage—ended with a rainbow. The promises became real.
Step Six and Seven seemed deceptively simple in the literature, but James discovered they’d be a lifetime of work. He met a woman named Betty at a meeting. She became his wife. She had two children—a 7-year-old and a 13-year-old. Suddenly James wasn’t just a lonely bachelor; he was a husband, a stepfather, an uncle. And he had to learn how to love people instead of criticizing them for every perceived fault.
He calls his biggest character defect “fault-finding.” He’d spend his whole life spotting everything wrong with everyone else, then pushing them away so he could be alone with his bottle. In his stepfamily, that nearly cost him everything. But he started treating his stepchildren the way the fellowship had treated him when he arrived—with unconditional love and no criticism. He did dishes peacefully instead of full of resentment. He left notes for his stepdaughter about how much he loved being her dad, instead of criticizing her messy room. Years later, she asked him to walk her down the aisle.
His stepson, Shawn, crashed James’s sobriety car while drunk at 17. James was furious—that car was his symbol of recovery. But a woman from Al-Anon told him, “Maybe it’s his sobriety car.” Shawn got sober that day and has been sober 23 years. Years later, Shawn called and confessed he’d been stealing quarters from James’s change jar to buy pot. He wanted to repay him $5 at a time. James started sending him $100 for every $5 he received, teaching him the spiritual power of making amends.
Step Ten became the backbone of James’s recovery. It taught him that he’s the problem—not his circumstances, not other people, not the world. When he gets upset in traffic, that’s not about the traffic; it’s about his attitude. When he gets home and his stepdaughter’s dog is in the way, the anger isn’t about the dog; it’s about him not getting his way. If he can identify that selfishness, dishonesty, fear, or resentment, he can quiet that disturbance and live in peace.
Step Eleven shifted his understanding of prayer. Rather than formal asking, he learned it as “seeking by paying attention.” When he gardens, when he pulls weeds on his knees, he’s in the present moment—and that’s where God is. When he’s here now with you, that’s where the power is.
Step Twelve is about carrying the message, not cramming it. James spent 15 years working in the prison system as a landscaping teacher, sharing speaker tapes with men who wanted sobriety but had no one to give them hope. He talks about gratitude and forgiveness—two practices he does partly for selfish reasons, because that’s how he stays free. He learned through a story about a woman at the airport that he often gets things backward. What he thought was bad (becoming alcoholic) turned out to be the best thing that happened to him, because it brought him to AA.
He closes with a powerful bit of comedy: he walks through what recovery would look like if someone worked the steps backward. Step Twelve backward is “it’s a dog-eat-dog world.” Step One backward is “I’m the captain of my fate.” And when you have a drink after that? You lose everything—your watch, your wallet, your wedding ring, your teeth, your granddaughter’s picture. Everything good in his life came from Alcoholics Anonymous. Why would he trade that for a drink?
James T. is 40+ years sober. His marriage is 25+ years. His stepson has 23+ years. His talk is a masterclass in what happens when a skeptic gets willing, finds a sponsor, and does the footwork—even when his brain is screaming that it won’t work.
Notable Quotes
Today is the day I don’t drink. When I was drinking, I used to think I could quit tomorrow, but never today. What I learned is I may drink tomorrow, but today is the day I don’t drink.
If you go to the gym and work with weights, it doesn’t matter what you think about it. You can have any opinion you want, but if you take the actions, you get the results.
When I took a drink, I couldn’t predict what was going to happen other than I was going to want another drink. And when I wasn’t drinking, I was thinking about drinking. That’s all alcoholism is.
If you’re the problem, there’s no solution for me. I’m the problem. It’s me and my attitudes. When I can take an inventory of that, I can do something about it.
Everything good in my life, everything good in my life comes from Alcoholics Anonymous. You think I want to give that up for a drink?
Step 5 – Admission
Steps 6 & 7 – Character Defects
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Step 10 – Daily Inventory
Sponsorship
Family & Relationships
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Step 5 – Admission
- Steps 6 & 7 – Character Defects
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Step 10 – Daily Inventory
- Sponsorship
- Family & Relationships
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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.
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker to the rooms. Please uh give a warm welcome to James T from Auburn. >> Thank you, >> James.
Alcoholic. >> I'm in good company here tonight. Happy birthday to everybody.
Thank you, Ingred, for inviting me. It's a real important day in my life today. Today's the day I don't drink.
When I was drinking, I used to always think that I could quit drinking, but it was always tomorrow that I was going to quit drinking. It was never today. I could quit maybe on a bet on my birthday or maybe on Saturday or maybe at Christmas time, but to quit today, I couldn't do that.
What I've learned in AA is that uh I just kind of switch those things around. I may drink tomorrow, but today is the day I don't drink. It's a very gentle shift in my perception.
So, today I'm going to do whatever I need to do to not drink. And I think that I'm going to be okay today just standing up in front of all of you. My sobriety date is December the 6th, 1982.
It's the last time I smoked pot. I was smoking pot because I had a problem with alcohol. Oh, >> you relate to that, huh?
>> It um I got to a place in my life where I just didn't want to drink anymore, but I didn't know how to not drink because I hadn't found you yet. So, best idea I could come up with is I know what I'll do. I'll smoke pot and I won't drink because my problem is alcohol.
I had clearly identified my problem as alcohol. Um, and I happened to be a gardener and I was growing some nice organic pot and uh, so I quit drinking and I did that for quite a while. And during this time that I was not drinking, my sister came to AA.
We have a family disease and uh, I' every time I was going to see her, I would take a bunch of visine and and a bunch of Listerine and I'd tell her how good I was doing because I wasn't drinking. And uh she would tell me how good she was doing because she was an AA. And she finally uh she kept inviting me to come and all she ever said about it was that I would like the people and the people would like me.
Boy, was she ever right. She nailed me. I was so lonely when I found you.
The book talks a lot about the alcoholic loneliness and I identified with it completely. I didn't have to ask anybody what incomprehensible demoralization was. I was just like a walking dead man when I found you.
So I come to AA and uh I'm not alcoholic. I'm not even drinking. If I had to describe my drinking, I would say I I would certainly not say I was alcoholic because I wasn't.
Uh I could take a lie detector test and I wasn't an alcoholic. I was a heavy drinker with a lot of problems when I was drinking. So I I come to AA and uh I I introduced myself as an existentialist >> uh which I was and uh I sit around the meetings and I listen.
I was able to listen. I could hear what you were saying. I didn't agree with you.
I didn't really believe you, but I I could hear what you were saying. And I started to identify with your stories and I started to realize very slowly that uh that I drank like you drank. And it took me several months, but finally I raised my hand one day and said, "I'm alcoholic." And I got a round of applause.
Um I'm kind of a slow study. So what happened to me is I I end up catching this damn disease from you guys. So, if you're here tonight and you're not alcoholic, don't sit next to me because it's uh it's contagious.
I'd love to give you a case of it. So, I thought, you know, I wonder if the book mentions anything about marijuana. And uh I thought it must be in there someplace because uh my understanding is if you're smoking pot, anybody here smoking pot tonight is not sober with the people that I hang out with.
We don't do anything. We don't do any mind-altering chemicals. But out of curiosity, I wanted to just kind of I wanted to find out if the book ever talked about that.
So, I'm looking through the book and I'm looking through the book and I can never find anything about it. And then one day, I find something buried on page one. Here lies a Hampshire grenadier who caught his death drinking small cold beer.
A good soldier near forgot whether he died by musket or by pot. They don't talk about hard drugs till page seven. I sponsor a guy named Steve in Auburn whose sobriety date is the last time he did nutmeg.
His name is Nutmeg Steve. When when you do that kind of thing, you get a name in AA. So I'm I'm and you know I'm I'm meeting all these people like box car Bill and SWAT team Ron and Too Tall Steve and Machine Gun Tony and a lot of guns are involved in these things and and 30-day Bob and and what I kind of heard is like uh there's good news and there's bad news here.
The good news is it works and the bad news is this is it. So, here we are on a Saturday night and we get to not drink because we're willing to do this work. I'm here in AA about uh I don't I don't have the timelines exactly right, but uh I was in I was going to meetings regularly, not drinking and obviously not smoking pot and uh but I didn't have a sponsor.
I didn't have a god. I' I'd given up on him a long time ago. Uh, I didn't think the book is very well written.
Uh, and I and I didn't I had I was doing nothing. I wasn't doing the steps. I was just not using and drinking and going to meetings.
We only could do that for so long and and you unravel eventually. And so I I'm about I think it's around six months and uh I got to do something. It's like u blow my brains out, get drunk or work the steps.
And uh at this point in my life, I went to my sister and I talked to her and I and I just told her a little bit about, you know, how uh crazy I was getting if she couldn't tell already. And uh she said she knew somebody in Sacramento that I could go see, man named Howard. A lot of people know Howard and have uh talked about him tonight.
And I went to see Howard and I' I'd been to psychiatrists before and I'd been to shrinks before and counselors and I just lied to them, paid them money and left. and nothing ever changed. And uh I got to Howard and I sat in his office for an hour and I told him the truth about me.
I kind of snot cried for an hour, you know, chron. And I and I shared all these secrets that I had my my drinking career. Uh and my perception of my drinking career was it was I was very sleazy.
I did a lot of sleazy things with a lot of sleazy people. And I was a I was I was the sleazy person in a lot of that. And uh I looked at my life like a garbage can and I had a lot of just I was very secretive about it.
And I didn't I had a perception of what I wanted you to believe I was like. And then I had another persona that I had. The book talks about that quite a bit too.
The Dr. Jackekal and Mr. Hyde.
I wear a a suit in the daytime and then go drinking these places where your stick your feet stick on the floor. And uh so I I had and I was afraid. This was a real fear that I had.
If I shared who I was with you, you would ask me to leave. That's how little I felt about myself. And I told Howard the truth.
And at the end of the hour, he got out a piece of paper. Uh this is a yellow legal pad. And he wrote prescription to the top.
He's not a doctor. He just wrote prescription to the top. And and he wrote, "Get on your knees and pray." And he handed me this and I handed him $50.
He charged 125 just I think more recently before he died. But it was a $50 fifth step is what it was. I had but I didn't have four steps.
It wasn't really a good fifth step. But uh and I I don't know why I did this but I started to get on my knees and pray. I I didn't even believe in God.
I knew it wasn't going to work. But I was at a point in my life where I just somehow I I got some willingness to try something, I guess. And I Howard had given me a number of a woman named Anna who gave me another number of another woman named Donna.
And uh I called Donna and ask her to be my sponsor. I've never met her before. And uh she agreed to do that if I'd go to four meetings a week.
I'd write in a journal and see her once a week and I'd work the steps. And I agreed to do that. Also about the same time I bought a new car.
Um, prior to that, I had an alcoholic truck. I I don't know if there's any out in the parking lot tonight, but you know what they look like? They're like the the one of the door panels is a different color.
Uh, the tires are bald. Somebody's tags are on the back that aren't yours. Windshield's cracked.
The springs are popping up through the upholstery. And I bought a new sports car and it was the nicest car that I ever have. I never had a car that nice.
And I started going to a lot of meetings. I was kind of uh trolling for a date. I hadn't had a date in about 5 years because if if I could have found a woman who would have gotten in this truck with me, I wouldn't have wanted to go out with her.
It was it was bad. So, that was a lot of the loneliness, too. I was I was a 40-year-old bachelor and uh I I I had no relationships with really anybody at that point.
And so I'm going to a lot of meetings mostly to show my car off with the hope of maybe uh getting a date with somebody. And I'm starting to see Donna and journal. And I'm praying every day for the will of God in my life and the power to carry it out.
And I'm starting to feel better. And it was one of my early uh spiritual awakenings where I was doing something that I didn't believe in. I didn't agree with it.
And I knew it wouldn't work, but I was feeling better. And I kind of like equated to like uh going to the gym. If you go to the gym and you work with the weights, it doesn't matter what you think about it.
You can have any opinion you want about going to the gym, but if you take the actions, you get the results. And I was taking these actions and I was getting the results. So, never ask me about what I think about something because my opinion of it doesn't really matter.
It's that I was willing to take the actions. So, I'm starting to see my sponsor and I'm I'm seeing now that there's little numbers in front of the steps. So, I have to go back to the beginning to one and uh do them in order because I'd done this $50 fifth step and that's about all I'd done.
So, I look back over my drinking and I and I I could see very clearly that that when I took a drink, I couldn't predict what was going to happen other than I was going to want another drink. And when I wasn't drinking, I was thinking about drinking. And that's all alcoholism is.
I thought it was like somehow it was a moral issue or something, but it's just that I can't I have an allergic reaction to alcohol. And I had one example that stuck out in my mind particularly is one of the times just prior to quitting drinking, I was a bartender, which seemed like a good job for a person like me. And I decided to quit drinking for 30 days so I could prove that I didn't have a problem because people who can't quit have a problem.
And I didn't want to have a problem. So I was going to quit to prove to myself I was okay. So I quit drinking for 30 days and I and I did.
I might have been smoking pot. I'm not sure. But I I didn't drink for 30 days.
At the end of 30 days, I decided to have a glass of wine to celebrate not drinking. You understand that? I had a glass of wine at the Pepper Mill on Sunrise at noon and I was in jail at midnight.
When I take a drink, it went so well. That glass of wine went so well, I decided to have another glass of wine. And so it went.
So I was I was able to understand that I was powerless over alcohol in my and and then that's that's part one that's actually uh step one part A and then there's step step one part B that my life is unmanageable. Now I thought my life was still manageable because I had a job. I had an alcoholic truck and a bad job and that meant my life was manageable.
What I've come to realize, it's taken me a while to do this, but I I understand it down to my gut now that my life is that my life is that I'm not the manager. And I don't ask the question why. Why is a management question?
Uh when I when I want to ask why about something, I ask instead what can I do about it? Because I'm a footwork guy. I'm not in management.
I'm in footwork. And I had I had a chance to to walk my talk about that recently because I just retired from work a few months ago. Um didn't really want to, but I did.
And I decided I was going to join the Peace Corps because I I like adventure and I thought it'd be I'd like I like to be of service. And so I talked my wife into it and we're going to join the Peace Corp. And we got as far into the process as we were going to go to Africa in August.
And uh I I did some blood work and it turned out that they didn't want me for medical reasons. And I was really okay with it because I'm not in management. It's like uh I walk I knock on I knock on doors and I go through the ones that open and that door didn't open.
And I realized shortly after that I don't have to go to Africa to be of service. There's plenty of things to do in Auburn. And I and I got two new sponses within a week of that.
So, I'm not going to Africa. So, um, step two, I thought, well, I'm I'm not crazy. I found a little loophole in step two.
I'm I'm always looking for I'm a loophole kind of guy. And it says when I first read it, I thought that you had to believe in God to take the second step because at that point in my life, I still didn't really believe in God. And it's it but it says uh came to believe that a power greater than yourself restores your standardity.
But you don't have to believe in the power, just that the power would restore you if if it was if you were insane. It's I studied philosophy in college. So, I mean, I'm always trying to, you know, think my way into a better living.
And but what I realized when I when I took step two is that I did a lot of crazy things drinking. And we all we all have stories of what we did when we were drinking. There's we all have lots of stories.
Some are funny, some are tragic. But the most insane thing that I ever did, I did when I was sober. I picked up another drink.
I would have to go crazy first to drink again. I've been restored to sanity. So, I'd have to first go nuts before I'd pick up another drink.
So, that got me through step two. Step three, I'm still still struggling with this God thing. Um, you know, I I just had a lot and and you you said, uh, you know, it's underlined on the steps, God as you understand it.
Well, I I had trouble believing you when you told me that I could do that. because I had this idea that God was just this mean old man and he's going to poke your eye out and turn you into salt and and you can't do anything about it. But you kept telling me it's God as I understand it.
And so when I was taking step three, the word that I focused on the most was the word decision. And what I did is I decided to work the rest of the steps. And I and then what was happened for me as a result of doing that, I end up having this power in my life that's working for me.
So I I got a relationship with the power as a result of making the decision to work the program. But at the time I thought I kept saying this stuff is too confusing. You know it says in the literature someplace we have to we have to resign ourselves from the debating society.
But I wanted to argue about things. I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to argue it.
And you you hear things in a like uh one person will say uh uh let go and other person say hang in there. Well do you hang in there or do you let go? And then then they say, you know, you have to surrender to win.
What in the world does that mean? Or you have to give it away to keep it. Now, that doesn't make any sense at all.
Don't make any major decisions in the first year. Decide to turn your will and life over to the care of God. That sounds like a major decision.
Don't uh don't get any relationships the first year, but get a sponsor and tell them everything. That sounds like a relationship. or someone say think.
And I like that one a lot. Where's the chapter about think? Well, my my two favorite hobbies were thinking and drinking.
Think, think, think, drink, drink, drink, think, drink, drink, think, drink. The chapter is called into action. It's not called into thinking.
You ever seen the smart water? I got this. One of my sponsors gave me this smart water the other day.
I couldn't get it open. You have to you have to uh drink it to get smart. I guess the one I like the best is uh half measures avail.
Turn the page a couple pages. You'll be amazed before you're halfway through. There's another one on one page.
In one page it says uh there is a power there is one power. May you find him now. Oh that power is God.
May you find him now. Turn the page. God could and would have sought.
We have to find him or you have to look for him. This is the kind of stuff that I want to think about. So I go to my sponsor and say I'm confused.
She says good. That means maybe you don't have all the answers. Maybe you're maybe this is showing you some open-mindedness.
So, I got open-minded and I had some willingness because I was talking to her about it and then the honesty came later. So, those are the essentials of recovery. Honesty, open-mindedness and willingness.
So, I get to my fourth step and I'm doing this journaling. So, I'm really I'm learning how to do the 10th step and I had and I look at this blank piece of paper and I'm trying to do this fourth step and I can barely remember being in high school. I I have a what's called purposeful forgetting.
I don't want to remember a lot of stuff. And so I thought, how am I going to do this? I can't remember anything.
And but as I was doing this journaling, I started to I go to my sponsor with this journal and I was amazed at the things that I was writing down there because I write it down without thinking about sharing it. And I I found out a I was so out of touch with with me. I had no idea that I I thought I was just a really nice guy who had a little bit of a wee drinking problem.
And when you don't have relationships with people in your life, you don't have any reality checks. And I'm out by myself all the time. And I I I I really didn't know me at all.
And this journaling process started to let me know about myself. And I put my I I had uh I hated my father. Uh he was what I think was the designated problem in our family.
Uh and I hated alcohol. As a kid, I remember working in a grocery store in high school and I'd shake the beer up so that when people would open it, it would blow up in their face. And I thought I was doing my part.
But that was before I had a drink. But I I hated alcohol and I hated my father. And so I I put his name on a piece of paper on my forstep and I started to write about uh how I was victimized by him, how mean he was to me and how how much hurt I had and and I I just started to feel this and started I started to cry and these tears just washed over me and I couldn't even write anymore and I ended up calling into work sick that day and I called my sister and I was sobbing on the phone with her and and I just pretty much spent spent the whole day just kind of crying and sobbing and and and feeling all this this hurt over this lost childhood or whatever it was.
And I stopped hating him that day. And it's like it was when I was willing to to try to put my part on things. Uh this it I saw the thing in the book it talks about, you know, we treat him like sick.
We wouldn't treat sick people that way. So we treat him like he's sick and and and he was and uh it just washed away when I did that. Uh, God was on my fears list.
I still had a problems with God at that point. Uh, women was on my fears list. I was I heard a guy in a meeting say he was afraid of women out loud in front of a crowd of people.
Whoa. I didn't realize that. I'd still be a virgin if it wasn't for alcohol.
Gave me courage. So, I I I didn't have a lot I didn't have a lot of resentments other than really my father particularly, but I didn't didn't have a lot more. Uh I I finally got my fourth step done and I went to do my fifth step and it was kind of a rainy November night uh afternoon rather and uh on the way I I went out to we did my fifth step out of a place I lived out in uh Lincoln.
I had some property out there and my sponsor was commenting on the way out there that she's seen a lot of trash strewning around the on the street and she said she needed to change her attitude because she realized that when she focused on something, you know, that's what she's going to see. And I did my fifth step and it was like dumping a garbage can. And on the way back from that, we saw a rainbow.
And it was like the the book talks about some promises when you do the fifth step. And those promises came came true for me. the drink thing seemed to go away and I felt like I was uh I was really I felt like I really belonged in aa I was I was doing the deal.
I it's like it's like paying my dues somehow to be with you. I was willing to do what you did. And uh I that talks about walking through this arch and there's it's uh I I had those feelings when I did that.
Six and seven. I I did those the the uh that night and I thought, "Wow, this is I'm really moving along now." And there's a like a little paragraph or two about six and seven. It's very misleading.
Um that that seems like it's uh Oh, that's easy. Yeah. Okay.
Well, it's not. It's a It's like a lifetime. And when I was doing this trolling with this car, this sports car that I had, which I call my sobriety car, had a teddy bear in the back and box of Kleenex and I met I met Betty sitting over along the wall and I started dating Betty and we we'd go on a date and a date for us was going to a meeting.
I was I was scared still. Okay. And that was, you know, I hold hands and I don't know if I should kiss her or say the Lord's Prayer afterwards, but I wasn't too sure what, but um we we date for a while and we decided to get married.
So, I have an AA marriage and uh we just celebrated 25 years of marriage not that long ago. So, she's the love of my life, my best teacher, too. I got a little package in the deal.
Betty had two children. She had a a a seven-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy. So, when I married Betty, I got a family.
So, I'm a husband and I'm a dad and she had a sister who had some kids. So, I'm a uncle and I'm all these things that I've never been before. And I got to work six and seven, you know, a lot.
I had all these great teachers and I I have this I've been blessed with this skill to know how to do things and I call it the internationally accepted standards. I there's internationally accepted standards ways to do things and I know what those are and it's amazing how many people don't know what they are or don't do them the way that I think that they ought to do them. And what I learned from from uh doing a lot of inventory work is I was able to put a name on what I think is my biggest character defect.
And what I call it is faultf finding. I'm going to find something that you're doing is wrong. I'm going to find a lot of things that you're doing wrong and I'm going to push you out of my life.
I've done that all my life. That's how I ended up as alone as I was. My best thinking before I came to you is I had a little piece of property where I'm growing pot and uh I I wanted to Is that for me?
>> My best thinking was to to build a barb wire fence around this property that I had to keep the teenagers in the neighborhood out of my pot. Uh and I was going to just be in the middle of this little chunk of land. I was in a bucket calling it composting.
I didn't have any I didn't have any plumbing where I was. And I'm going to uh get a I got a case of brewer's yeast and uh a case of vitamin C and a bunch of wine and I'm just going to live my life inside this compound loaded. And later on in in many years of sobriety, I end up going to work for the uh state of California in the prison system as a teacher, a landscaping teacher, pot grower, landscaping teacher.
And uh God has a sense of humor. And I realized that the worst punishment we have in America is we put somebody by themselves. That's the worst thing we can do to anybody in America.
We put them alone. And I did that to myself in my disease. So, and and a lot of that had to do with my character defect of finding fault with you.
So, I could push you away so I could be by myself and then I could be with my bottle. And that doesn't work well as a stepdad or a husband or an uncle. And I had to start learning how to have these relationships with these people.
And what I started to do is I I remembered how you treated me when I came as a newcomer that I I felt this sense of love and it was a love that you you showered on me that I had no defense against. There's no defense against the love that you feel here. And so I started treating my stepchildren like newcomers and started thinking of my wife as a new I tried everybody people on the highway.
I thought if everybody's a newcomer, how would I treat them? Well, I treat them with love and respect and I wouldn't criticize them because you didn't criticize me when I got here. So, I started doing that and I one of the places where I learned a lot of these lessons was doing the dishes because I got so tired of everybody not doing them the way that I thought they should be doing them and me criticizing them, I decided to do them myself.
So, I'd stand at the sink and I wanted to do them peacefully, too. I did not want to do them full of resentment and anger. So, I'd stand at the sink until I could get peaceful to do the dishes.
Just do the dishes. And I read sometimes later on there's over 60 ways to do the dishes. I thought there was only my way to do the dishes.
And and Angela, my daughter, she had a Dalmatian, which is like a dog from hell. Uh they have no brains whatsoever. And I could see myself as I was coming home, I get madder and madder and madder until I drove into the re into the driveway and I was like fuming and I hadn't got out of the truck yet because I knew there was going to be dog I have to step over or step through or to get into the house.
And a couple times I turned back around, went back to my sponsor's house, just step over it. Okay, I'll step over it. And and and what I started doing with her is I started leaving her little notes about how much I loved her and how happy I was to be her dad.
And I stopped criticizing her completely. Her room was messy. I just closed the door.
Many, many years later, she came to me and wanted me to walk her down the aisle. How do you get from there to there? And I got to um when when at the wedding her her natural father came up to me and thanked me for raising her daughter.
I got to write the checks for that too because I had a good job and I wanted to do that because I I raised her. I was her dad and I I was proud to be able to do that. I'll talk about the boy in a minute.
Um step eight seemed like it was easy. Just a list. wasn't a long list really for me.
Um, the people I hurt the most were my mom and dad. Uh, I was 37 years old when I said, "Hi, mom. I'm home." I hadn't seen her for, you know, 10 years.
Wasn't on a winning streak again. I got to be a son for her and and see her. She wasn't the most fun person to be with, but I got to to show up at her place and and take her places and do things and be a son for the last few years of her life.
She died of cancer um when I had about five years of sobriety. My dad I uh he was married to my mom for like 20 years and he had another 20-y year marriage and he was not on a winning streak and and I invited him to come and live with us. He he was living in Arizona.
He moved all his stuff. He came up to Lincoln. He moved in with us and I I was willing for him to live the rest of his life with us and I had a lot of love in my heart for him and about 30 days later he got mad at something and said I'm out of here and off he went and he died a very lonely man but you taught me how to be a good son and how to how to make a amends to him by trying to make it right by doing the right thing in sobriety.
Um, but the amends that there that touched me the deepest were a couple of financial amends. And one was a $5 amend and one was a $10 amend. Doesn't have to be a lot of money.
Um, the $10 amend uh was at a restaurant uh after the noon meeting in Auburn one day and I got $10 too much in change. And my opinion has always been if you can't count, it's not my job to tell you how to count. So I just took it and put it in my pocket.
And uh we were probably on step nine at the time. I don't know. And I go to the restaurant a couple weeks later and the woman says she's selling the restaurant.
And I'm thinking, "Oh, if I'm going to give the money back, I've got to give it back today." And I said, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" And and she says, "Sure." And I said, "Uh, I was here a couple weeks ago and I got too much money and I wanted to give it back to you." She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "I wouldn't be I would not be giving you this money if I wasn't sure." And I hand her the $10 and I started to cry. Wow, that's the best $10 high I ever had. And I just felt like I was getting right with the world.
And it gave me a lot of courage to pay the IRS back. So, I owed some other money, but that that that $10 one just really helped get me going on the path. The $5 one um I mentioned my sobriety car.
Well, it was several years after marrying Betty. Uh Shawn was 17 at the time. Uh he got drunk.
He he was in his disease and borrowed my car and he smashed it and almost killed his passenger. And he was uh his passenger was in a coma for a week. And we got a call like 1:00 in the morning, 1:30 in the morning.
And Sean was in the hospital. And uh we went to the hospital. He he peed in the back of the cop car.
He was a mess. And I was mad. I was I wasn't feeling very spiritual that day because he had he had uh smashed my sobriety car and I I was upset.
And the next day we had a house call from Allenon. Uh they do house calls. I didn't know that.
And one of the women from Alenon said to me, "Maybe it's his sobriety car." That was when he had his last drink and he just celebrated. He'll be celebrating 23 years of sobriety this year. Yeah.
uh he got sober at 17 and he has a wonderful life. He met a girl in A got sober at 16 and they've been married a long time and they have master's degrees and their life's fabulous. So if you're young here today, you can get sober young and stay sober young.
It's possible. And Sean went down to school in San Diego and he called me up one day and told me he'd been stealing money from me. And I had a I was a waiter when I got sober and I had a jar I had a pottery jar full of money all my change I threw in there.
A lot of money in there. And I looked in the jar and it was all nickels. He taken all the quarters out and all the dimes out and he' been smoking pot with it or drinking or whatever and he wanted to pay me back.
He he asked me if he could send me five bucks. Like wow, he's got it. And we talk a lot nay about how it works.
That's the steps and why it works, the traditions. And then when it works is step nine. And when he started sending me that $5, I thought he's got a hold of this thing.
And I wanted him to kind of uh get a sense of the spiritual power of that. So I started sending him a hundred bucks every time he sent me five. And the five started coming fast.
You're not. Um, step 10 is one of the steps that's been probably the most instrumental in my sobriety because I've I really uh I've internalized this concept that that if you're the problem, there's no solution for me. I'm I'm the problem.
It's me and my attitudes. And when I could take an inventory of that and I can see that I can do something about that, it's not the Lutheran's fault. It's not Obama's fault.
It's not Bush's fault. It's not it's it's me. I need to concentrate not what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with me and my attitudes.
And the the 10th step, it talks about uh if I have to watch out for selfishness, dishonesty, fear, and resentment. Well, all of those things, I mean, fear is something that I don't not getting my way in the future, I don't think. And u dishonesty is I'm not getting my way now.
And resentment I didn't get my way yesterday. It's all selfish. It's all about me me.
And when I can when I can identify that, I can I can quiet that disturbance inside of me and I can live in a peaceful place. Uh I have not looked driving down the freeway to see how many people are in the car poolool lane for a long time. But I mean that's a concern of mine, you know, is there two people in every car?
Um, it's like it I think the most misqued line in the literature is what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. That's not what it says. It's what we were like, would happen, what we're like now.
If you go out there on the corner, there's a stop light out there and it goes green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red. Does it all day and all night, every day, and it go That's all it ever does. Green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red.
If I pull up into it and it's red, that's because I got a story about it. And if I don't like it red, I'm fighting reality. And if I'm fighting reality, I lose.
But only 100% of the time. I always lose when I fight reality. So what I try to learn to do is embrace reality.
I I've heard a couple people talk about red lights, and one guy says when he gets to a red light, he um thanks God for his sobriety. So instead of thinking a red light's negative, it's a pos it's a way to make it positive. uh guys that have these court cards.
Uh you can look at that as a gift certificate. You can look at it as a get well card. I came here as a result of DUI and it's it's been a a get well card for me.
Uh somebody else I know uh he closes his eyes for a moment and gets in touch with his higher power. He says, "Somebody will always let you know when it's green." Yeah. Um, step 11.
Uh, I've come to uh find this power in my life that's that works for me. Uh, I read something that I liked a lot. It said rather than saying sought through prayer and meditation, it's sought by paying attention.
When I pay attention, when I'm right here, right now with you, that's where God is. And when I can pay attention, no matter where I am, I can be where the power is. And so I I make an effort to do that.
I do a lot of gardening and being when you're on your knees pulling weeds and stuff, it's it you're really in the present moment. And when I was drinking, I was always about two drinks from where I wanted to be. It's like one more bar and I'd meet Miss Wright or whatever.
And when I was working, I was thinking about being at home. And when I was at home, I was thinking about being at working. I was never where I was.
And I've learned in sobriety to be here. Now, this is a very good place to be. It's where God is.
Um, step 12. I I I love the carrying the message. And I It says carry the message.
It doesn't say cram the message. Um, just carry the message. One of the things that I've done, one of a little passion I have is is uh uh sharing speaker CDs with people.
uh working in a prison for 15 years, there's a lot of guys in prison that that want to be sober that that uh they want to have a better life, but there's not a lot of people there to give them a lot of hope and and sharing speaker CDs with people is a awesome way to to to share the message of recovery. So, I try to do that a lot. Uh practicing the principles in all my affairs.
Um I'm pretty good at that. I think I work hard at it. I admit my faults and uh I've woken up.
I've woken up as a result of doing this work. And a couple things I think that that have that that are important to me in this waking up process or I see the uh the beauty of them is two things particular I want to talk about real quickly is gratitude and forgiveness. And both of them uh I I do them for probably selfish reasons.
Uh I I like to forgive because that's the way I can be forgiven. and gratitude. I used to have a two piles of gratitude.
I have a h I like this. I'm I'm grateful for this, but I don't like this. I don't I'm not grateful for this.
And I heard a story that I like. It's a poem, but I I can't recite the poem, but I'll tell you the story of the poem. It's a woman who is at the airport reading a novel waiting for her plane to come.
And she has a bag of cookies in the chair next to her that she's eating. And there's another guy sitting in the chair past the cookies. And she eats a cookie.
She's reading. She looks over and the guy is eating a cookie, one of her cookies. She looks at him kind of funny.
She's kind of shy. She doesn't say anything. And she has a cookie and then he has another cookie.
They're waiting for the plane to come and finally down to one cookie and he breaks it in half, gives her half of it. She thinks, "My, this guy's got a lot of nerve." She gets on the plane, gets settled in her seat, gets her bag out, get her book out, and there's her bag of cookies. she was eating his cookies.
And that's that's been a lot of my life is where I think it's one way, but it's really another way. And that's been true of gratitude. I I thought the worst thing that could happen to me was to be alcoholic.
That's in the bad pile. There's no way in the world I could be grateful for that. But it turns out that's in the good pile.
I mean, I get to be with you. What? It's the best thing that ever happened to me was be alcoholic when I found you.
So I don't know which pile to put things in. So I have one pile and it's a pile for which I'm thankful. So I can just say thank you God.
I don't have to sort it out because I don't know. So I see a lot of people in AA and you've seen them too. I mean we call it the passing parade.
A lot of people in AA that don't stay in AA for whatever reason. And uh I I equate it to be wanting to be sober is not enough to keep you sober. Wanting to be drunk doesn't keep you drunk.
You got to drink to stay drunk. Well, you got to do something to stay sober, too. So, it's more than just desire.
It's action. So, what I see sobriety a lot is it's a lot like a it's like a escalator. And it's the escalator is going down and I'm walking up the down escalator.
So I have to keep walking in order to not go down. There's no coasting in a coasting is going backwards in a coasting is that way down. So I've got to keep walking on this escalator.
If I don't keep walking, I I'll have the results going backwards. So, what I wanted to, and I thought about this a lot, and I I just I I wanted to describe to you what I think it would look like if somebody worked the steps backwards. Just going to do this real quick.
12. I There's a principle that I abide by. I live by.
It's called It's a doggy dog world. I got to get mine before you get it. There's not enough to go around.
11. I got two prayers. God, get me out of this.
And me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me. M more more more more. Now now now amen.
10. I take inventory. Yours.
You're a lousy driver. You work a bad program. You're not a good dresser.
And you're probably bad in bed. Eight. Nine.
Nine. Sorry. Uh nine.
I you know I it's like I've never plead guilty to anything. So if you don't ever make any if you're never wrong, you never have to say you're sorry. Eight, I got a list.
It's a list and your name's on it. Seven, humility is not one of my faults. If I had one, I'd choose humility.
Six, willingness. I love that Frank Sinatra song. I did it my way.
I'm willing to do it my way. Five, I'm not going to cop to it. Even if you have pictures, I'm I'm taking all my little sick secrets to the grave.
Thank you very much. Four, I I'm I'm a good uh inventory taker. Well, the I can never get a break and the world's picking on me and it's like this fairy follows me around.
It's dumping on me all the time. It's awful. Uh, three, uh, I'm not going to like turn my will over to God.
What if he messes up my life? >> Two, now that I know the profound inner workings of my mind and I have all this information that you've shared with me, it would be impossible for me to relapse. One, I'm the captain of my fate.
I'm the I'm in charge. Tarzan, I think I'll have a drink. When I have a drink, very shortly thereafter, click click.
That means you can't even be trusted with your own hands. Empty your pockets, sir. Take my watch off.
I don't need my watch anymore because it's time to have a drink. Right. When I was drinking, I was one of those guys that always would lift my pockets up in the morning.
Never had any money left. So, I have my sobriety corn with my money. And uh it says on there, "To thy own self be true." Well, I don't need that anymore cuz I'm going to be lying here in a second.
And I don't need any money either because I mean that's all going to go. Car keys that goes. Wallet.
Picture of my granddaughter. I won't be able to see her. Driver's license.
That's going to go. Credit cards. Didn't have any of those when I got sober.
Wedding ring. I'm a little chubby now, but I'll be hawking that pretty soon. I won't have a marriage.
I can put my teeth out here, too, cuz I didn't have another when I got here either. But everything good in my life, everything good in my life comes from Alcoholics Anonymous. You think I want to give that up for a drink?
I'm going to work the steps. I'm going to keep working the steps. Forward.
I love the life that I have and I love Alcoholics Anonymous. 1 2 3 Wake Up. 4 5 6 Clean up.
7 8 9 Makeup. 10 11 12 grow up. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.