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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. And now, please help me welcome our main speaker for this morning, Bob D from Las Vegas, Nevada on the topic of ending loneliness using the 12 traditions.

It's a dumb topic, I'll tell you. Blame Kent. Um, I'm Bob Daryl and I am alcoholic >> and I am a member of the connect the dots group in Las Vegas.

And if you would ever go to that group, the other people there know that that's my home group by my actions. And that's very important. If you have a if you tell people you have a home group and the people there don't know it's your home group, it's not.

I have a sponsor and he knows he's my sponsor by my actions. And if you have a sponsor that doesn't not sure if they're your sponsor, they're not. Um, and I have a sobriety date, which is October 31st, 1978.

A a day in my life that felt like the worst day of my life. And if you would have told me on that day that I would spend the next 38 years celebrating that day every year, I would have thought you were crazy. And it is exemplary of this thing that I don't know.

And in 1978 when I got sober, I I finally was, as the book said, we're beaten into a state of reasonleness. And I I was always the I know guy. I'd worked in therapy.

I I was a I read a lot. I was a smart guy. I I was the I know guy.

And in 1978, I only knew one thing for sure. I don't know. And that saved my life.

It brought me into Alcoholics Anonymous where I could hear you. Um, and I I was thinking about this uh I I have a my ego even though I don't most of the time even recognize that it's there. It's so strong within me that it creates a resistance to anything that threatens its control.

Right? And it's an unconscious resistance. And and I experienced that with AA.

I I sitting as a as a guy that was a perpetual newcomer for several years in and out. My I would sit there as my head would pick you apart. It because there's something in me that doesn't want that resists what you have, right?

It doesn't want to get better. It doesn't want to lose its control. And then even after failing uh and just horrible horrible uh relapses uh I was step resistant.

I do and I'm not I'm not alone in this. Do you ever notice how you'll go to what the great length you'll go to rather than write your fourth step? Right.

I'll wash my car. I go tell my my sponsor, you writing anything? I've been doubling up on my meetings.

You know, I mean that cuz that's good. But I want to throw something that looks good at the at the vacancy, right? And so like maybe I'll get credit for that.

That's like that's like going to the gym, killing yourself for 2 hours, and then coming leaving and eating a whole cheesecake. I mean, it's, you know, it's you don't ne one good action doesn't negate, you know, it's it doesn't work that way. Um, so I was very step resistant and and the the pain of untreated alcoholism in a a a prolonged period of abstinence drove me to my knees in Alcoholics Anonymous and where all of a sudden you I got to this place where I'm going to have to do this.

I know I've done two BS inventories, but I'm going have to do what it says in the book because I got to do something here because I ain't right. And I don't know how long I can weather my not rightness in abstinence before picking up a drink will start seeming like a good idea. And so my it was driven by my alcoholism.

But well well into sobriety long time into sobriety decades I was personally tradition resistant. Now in the beginning it was it was very adamant in the beginning. It was just like I was the guy if if I went to a 12 by 12 and 12 study group and they were on a tradition I would all of a sudden realize I was needed at a different meeting across town you know cuz I don't want it's it it just they were squirmy to me.

I don't even like I don't I don't want to hear that. That's just boring. Boring.

And then, you know, I got my first sponsor was a a past delegate. He was a he was a he was a doer, man. He was a doer.

I met him because he brought meetings into the detox. I was in twice a week. Sponsored a lot of guys.

Very serviceoriented. He didn't come from a big book consciousness. In the 70s and even up into the early 80s, the the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous was big book conscious barren.

I even I my I was a member of a home group that was a big book group. We'd read the big book and then people tell their story. They'd read the big book, talk about their day.

But nobody really had that laser-like focus that developed after Joe and Charlie uh on the big book that we we developed. And uh so I didn't come from an era of big book consciousness. I came from an era where the people the the real solid members of AA they were really big into amends and they meant pay everybody back.

I mean, I I had I I I remember having a conversation with my sponsor about a drug dealer I owed money to, and he I said, "You know, I don't have to pay him. He's a drug dealer." He said, "You owe him money?" "Yeah, we have to pay him." I mean, there was no compromise. And and he was there was no compromise on service, right?

There was they they would not stand up against my justifications and rationalizations. They were very principled people and they wanted me to do service and 12step work and and it saved my life and I got I ended up a GSR by default at about a year sober. Uh, I was a co-SR and the GSR got drunk and I ended up a year sober as a GSR and I went to my first assembly and something it got something inside me going and um when I was a couple years sober, I got tasked by my service sponsor who was a at that time was a delegate and later one of the a legendary trustee Ruth.

and Ruth tasked me with uh doing a two hours every Sunday afternoon a 12 concepts and service manual study group which is a crowd-pleaser. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, I just I'd go in there to be a couple browbeating newcomers in there, you know, new GSRs. Two, three of them I'd sponsor and the other two they don't know why they're there, you know. But I did that for two years.

And it's funny how see stuff percolates into your unconscious, your subconscious like, and then all of a sudden 20 years later, it comes back because that's when you need it. I think God works like that, doesn't he? It's It's a funny thing there.

I've had things out of for years ago I've never thought about. Then all of a sudden I'm in a situation in my life and this great reality deep down within me sort of percolate something out and all it's like it becomes you the things that I just I did it but I didn't really think it was useful become useful and uh a lot of things have been that way in my life and uh you know I I started to honor the 12 traditions uh when I was in general service I went to a lot of tradition workshops, uh, area, district, a lot of stuff like that. I started, but I got to tell you, I if you're an egoomaniac with an inferiority complex like mine, it it's like I don't initially gravitate to this stuff because I'm a good soul.

I gravitate it because it it I see opportunity in learning about the traditions to go to meetings and lord it over the deficient ones. Right. I I am embarrassed to tell you that I there was a period of time when I was armed with knowledge of the traditions in the service manual.

I would go to meetings hopefully looking for tradition breaks, right? So I could rise to the occasion. and uh and feel that smoke superiority.

And isn't it is I think it's bizarre that the that my alcoholic ego would take principles that are designed to connect me to life and God's kids and use them to separate me from life and God's kids. It's it's an iron. There's no there's no end to my ego's deviousness.

And it's in its it's continual squirming for spotlight, prestige, all for all all that, all of it. And so I and I don't I'm not aware of it, but it's happening. It's funny.

I get in hindsight, I get a better view of me in hindsight than I ever had in the moment. I think maybe maybe that's a blessing from God. Maybe there were times when I was so selfish and self-centered.

If I'd have seen it in the moment, I'd have killed myself. I don't know. I you know I don't know maybe it's a blessing who knows and well I was uh I was sober a long time and and alcoholic synonym and I doing a lot of step work taking a lot of guys through the steps hearing a lot of inventories and I I've always since day one had service commitments here I still have several a week but Aa, do you know your name is on this clock?

But AA started to pale. It's It started No, it is really. It started to pale.

There's a several of us up here. it started to pale and uh I started you know those subtle those subtle little feelings like where you're now you're all the things that you one time lit you up that you're doing and now you're making yourself do them right uh having feelings in meetings like I don't fit but I don't recognize it as that because internally for me it doesn't look like I don't fit it looks like I've outgrown all of you and you're stupid, right? No.

Do you know what I'm saying, right? It doesn't look See, it doesn't I don't I I can't even admit to myself that I have those squirmy little pathetic feelings, you know? I go to my sponsor.

I just feel lonely, you know? I don't say that, right? I just I'm lonely because you're stupid and I'm the only one here that gets this, you know, right?

That kind of thing. And I found myself uh and this has happened to me a couple times in my sobriety. Uh literally I I never left AA and I never left my stopped doing service.

I never have done that. And that's probably saved my life because it's kept me tethered here long enough and solid enough for God to do his magic here through the group conscience and and but but I would I was I'd get toward emotionally and experientially I'd get to the edge of AA looking in never left. But I and I did that and I'm moving towards the edge one judgment at a time, right?

And I've I've uh I guess uh I guess God has restored me to some small level of sanity because there's something that's occurred in my sobriety that was never true for me before. Not only have I been able to learn occasionally from my own painful experience, I've watched you and learned from yours. And I've watched people leave AA and they leave it one judgment at a time, one compromised action at a time.

And they don't know they're leaving, right? That's the deviousness of this alcoholic ego that I have. It's out to kill me, but it it doesn't manifest that way inside me.

And I there's a a paragraph from step four in the 12 steps in 12 traditions that I I just stumbled across it and it was just me and this is me with a lot of years of sobriety. And it says it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We have been especially stupid and stubborn about them.

The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our ego mania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either I insist upon dominating the people I know and it's for their best interest or I depend upon them far too much.

If I lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail me and disappoint me. It's like everybody's just, you know what, the human race is a funny place. I have high hopes for all of you individually and you always let me down, right?

They will uh if we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us for they are human too and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way, our insecurity grows and fers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt and resist us heavily.

Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution. You know that feeling that they're just out to get me because I know the truth, right? That sense of persecution and a desire to retaliate.

As we redouble our efforts at control and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant. We have not once, not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always I've tried to struggle to the top of the heap or to hide underneath it.

This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any of those about us. of true brotherhood. I had small comprehension.

I remember reading that and almost being sick to my stomach because it was true. Because it was true. And this is a and this is not because I'm a newcomer.

This is how deviously and unconsciously my ego squirmed back into position again. And at one time I think I I really was surrendered in for a short period of time and then the as as Harry Tibo talks about this amazing recuperative powers of the alcoholic ego. And um there came a point I I was I traveled with Joe and Charlie for a number of years and did the traditions with them.

did the big book, did a bunch of stuff, and somewhere in there, I think it was when I started to wake up to the 12 traditions and what they would mean to for personal application. As if what if we didn't have the steps and the only thing I had to to change and save my life was the spiritual principles of the 12 traditions? What would that look like?

What would it look like if if truly the common welfare you how you're doing and what you if everybody else came first and I was last. If I really position myself through my actions and my approach to life, that thing they talk about in the prayer of St. Francis that self-forgetting, what would that look like?

Wouldn't look like Bob. What would that look like? Th this this idea that my personal recovery and that's the hook because Bill's brilliant.

He's got to give you a he knows how self-centered we are. So, he's got to give you a little self-interest to get you to to do things that are you're resistant to. So, my personal recovery depends upon a unity.

In other words, I have to be one with you and one with here in order to survive. Bob and and unity is is a is always unconsciously been a big piece of business with me and I didn't know it. I drank alcohol for unity.

I drank alcohol because I'm the lonely guy that can't talk to people. I can't fit. I can't talk to girls.

I can't make good friendships. I don't know how to fit. And I could go into a bar and I God, I'd just be so lonely is because I'd go in there sober and four drinks in, oh, these are my best lifelong friends.

I mean, you know, eight drinks in, I'm saying things like, "I love you, bro." You know, I mean, just feel that connectedness and and and when you when you've suffered the the the pangs of anxious apartness that Wilson talks about when you've suffered the loneliness of alcoholism and you're you're unc unconscious of it yet you suffer from it. My abstinence would always be I love the feeling of connection that I got when I drank. And and not to this not an AA sentiment necessarily, but I'll tell you the truth.

If if alcohol would have continued to do that for me, I would have never got sober. I'd have been willing to pay the price. I'd been willing to go I' I'd be willing to spend six months out of every year in jail if I could get high like I got high when I was 18, right?

because I didn't think that AA could do that for me. I thought AA was just going to get me to quit drinking. Wow.

Whoopee. And so I didn't understand how how important unity is here. There's there's there comes a time, I think, in some of us where we realize that the most important thing we have in our life, it's more important than your than your husband or wife.

It's more important than your kids. It's more important than your house, your job. It's your seat in Alcoholics Anonymous.

That your chair here is the most important thing you have because without that, you're going to lose everything else anyway. Right now, if you're a problem drinker, that might not be true. If you're a hard problem drinker, the the person who drinks horrifically and and dangerously and destroys their life, but when they get sober, they're good, then that might not apply.

But I I am the chronic alcoholic. I I don't just have an abnormal reaction to alcohol. I have an abnormal reaction to abstinence.

And and and it's your fault somehow. And I haven't I can't always figure that out. But it's always seems to be your fault.

You know, our common welfare should come first. My personal recovery. I have to be connected here and have to do that means that you know what that means sometimes?

That means sometimes I'll have to make amends to people when when I I didn't even I didn't even do anything but they think I did. And Sandy used to say, "The person with the most tools gets to do the work." Right? So I' I've had many many conversations with people in AA where I watch them and they act like I've hurt them.

They've act now. I don't know what I did. But I also understand that I am very capable of stepping on people's toes and not realizing it cuz I just got me right here and I don't even know I'm stepping on your toes.

I'm just trying to get to the next thing that's important to Bob and I don't even know it. So, I've gone up to people and I say, "Listen, I want you to know something. I I've always liked you.

I love you, but I have a feeling like I did something. Maybe I don't unconsciously stepped on your toes." And if that's the case, please tell me what it is, man. I I don't want to be like this with you.

Tell me what it is. I'd like to make it right. And um because nothing's more important than being one with here.

Because if you left unchecked, what happens is I don't I'm only around him. I'm gonna be around and him. He's an idiot, too.

I'm not gonna be around him. And and I resent by if I just think you don't like me, I'm gonna not like you first. And not only am I going to resent you, I'll resent by default everyone who you know and likes you, which I'm telling you something.

Alcoholics and can become a lonely business like that. So nothing's more important than than my my chair here, you know. Uh and that's not that's not just true that's true in in uh everything in every area of my life.

It's true in my all my friendships, interactions with people. It's true. It was true in my business.

I I ran my company for a lot of years on the 12 traditions. I they didn't the the non-alcoholic people who worked for me didn't know they were the 12 traditions. They just But they It's funny.

We resist these principles. Normal people go, "Oh, yeah, that's a good idea." No, really. They do.

I mean, it's like I've had to I had to blunge in my sponses with a big book for weeks to get them to go to just even No, they just Oh, unity. Yes, that's good. Group conscience.

Group. Oh, nice. That's great.

That's very nice of you to think of that. Well, I'm telling you, you know, not only for my group con purpose, but for my personal purpose. There is an ultimate authority here.

I mean, it's it's it's the it's the turning point. It's the crux of aa it's it's where we begin to live our life on a different basis. It's a third-step prayer.

It's the intention of surrender. Even though we may not that just saying the prayer doesn't surrender you it's the intention of surrender. I'm on a different basis now the basis of trusting and relying upon God and there is this ulti this ultimate authority the book the tradition says expresses himself in our group conscience.

I think there's a covenant in alcoholic synonymous that when two or more of us come together for the purpose of recovery, God's in the midst. And I think that's true on a one-on-one individual, one alcoholic talking to another. I think it's true with my sponsor.

I It's been true with the people I sponsor. I I mean, if you How many people in here sponsor people? All right, I'm preaching to the choir here.

Uh you guys know this. If you sponsor people, you know that God will he'll do stuff in you. You you'll be you'll be with someone who's struggling and suffering and the truth is you have nothing to give them.

And it's a funny dynamic. It's like a portal opens up inside of me and and stuff comes out that I don't even I I've had this I've had this experience where I've catch myself saying something to a guy and it's blowing my mind what I'm saying to the guy, right? It's like, I should write this down.

I think I'm going to need this, right? You know, we we don't just keep this thing by giving it away. I think sometimes we get this thing by giving it away.

And I tell you, you know, they made the announcement about the cell phones and Carl Young talked about the collective the collective unconscious. And and I think that to me that I think what he's talking about is the same thing it talks about in in the book, the great reality or the same thing they talk about in tradition. Number two, the way God will express himself.

And he God talks to us continually in meetings, but you got to show up where God in the in the venues where God speaks the loudest. And he's I hundreds hundreds of times he's talked to me in AA meetings. hundreds of times where I'm sitting there and I'm not doing well or I got some unresolved stuff in my life or an unmade amends or something going on and there'll be some stranger there and he's just at the moment when I can hear it starts talking about what's going on with me and the reason that in my home group and and a lot of the a lot of groups that I have a lot of respect for and alcoholics times we discourage anything that's a distraction in the meeting like your cell phones.

And I know I I I believe me I' I'd learned this the hard way by having my cell phone on in a meeting. And it's it's a sometimes it's it's an innocent thing. You forget.

But what happens when it goes off? There could be people sitting around you that God's talking to through the people that are sharing the meeting. And now there's like a minute and a half of blank spot in the meeting because of the cell phone.

Well, that's not that bad. Here's what's really bad. It's when it's your cell phone and it goes off.

Now you don't hear anything the rest of the meeting because everyone who turned and glared at you when your cell phone off, you're going to have a conversation in your head with them for the rest of the meeting. Right. And and besides, I know I know you you you hope this, but trust me, your ex is not going to come to their senses and be properly ashamed of themselves during the meeting.

It's not going to happen. God doesn't work that way. What who's going to call you as a telemarketer is going to call you?

I mean, for Oh, God. So, I don't want to do anything in alcoholic synonymous. try to sit quietly.

Sometimes if I drink a lot of tea or stuff, sometimes I got to get I hate it. I hate to do this. Sometimes I have to get up and go to the bathroom.

Beyond my control. It's It's a It's a lesser of two evils of sitting there and Yeah. No, it's it would be bad.

It would be bad. But I don't like to do that. I because I and I try to do it.

I try to get almost be like a mouse when I do it. be small and and not disruptive because if I have to do that because I don't want I want God I want you to be able to hear hear what's God's talking to you here for God's sakes open your ears listen be present here that's why texting is such a horrific thing we we we I make an announcement my home group no cell phones no texting because not not only are you not hearing God when you're texting or hearing anything else you're you're consumed up in your head with you and the phone, but the people next to you the lights on and they're and they just it it's it bright lights just that's why they tell you in movie theaters don't have it on because it's a distraction right now. You can you can choose to come here and not hear anything.

You can choose to come here and think we're all full of crap. You can choose to not do none of this. That is your right.

But don't interfere with someone else who's trying to struggle towards the light. Don't get between them and the light. Don't do that.

You know, you could be you. You just never know. Billy said something last night I really liked.

I I too have been and I've thought this for a long time. I wished we would have, you know, I wish Wilson would have held his ground on the on the long form. But, you know, he couldn't get he he there's letters in our arch.

He couldn't get people he couldn't get groups. They don't even want to read them because they're long. I mean, my old my old home group, we used to read them and and oh, I just you watch the newcomers who have the attention span of a gnat, you know, sitting there and it's just like, oh, make it stop.

Let's get back to the important stuff that has to do with me. You know, it's it's right. It's like, and I get it.

I'm that way. I'm wired like that. I get it.

I don't I don't condemn people for being that way. U But I and I understand Wilson's frustration. So, when Earl Treat, and I got this information just recently from Gail.

When Earl Treat wrote the short form, I always knew it wasn't Wilson. I just didn't know who until until Gail told me and Dr. Bob had sort of sponsored Earl I guess from a guy from Chicago and and uh the pressure was on Wilson and AA has fallen apart.

he conceded to adopt those and that's the one those are the mo there's most members of AA don't even know the long form exists but in the third tradition the long form really nails it for me and I think that the ad adaptation of the short form changed Alcoholics Anonymous and I I I can look at this from both sides of the street it's brought a lot of people into AA then it's helped them and enriched their lives but it's also brought a lot of people into Alcohol Autonomous who just have a desire ire not to drink and they don't suffer from alcoholism. So it everything that every positive thing that may have come about as a result of it, I think there's an equal, if not greater negative thing that's happened to us as a result of it. See, I am I am not an everyday member of AA because I have a desire not to drink.

I'll tell you that isn't even a piece of business in my life. I I everything it talks about in step 10 has happened for me. I've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected from alcohol and it I through little effort on my part except I just if you treat your alcoholism your drinking takes care of itself, right?

So, I'm not an everyday member of Alcoholics Anonymous because I have a desire not to drink. I mean, I do if I stop and think about it. Oh, yeah.

I don't know. I I love my sobriety. Yeah.

But I am an everyday member of Alcoholics Anonymous because I suffer from alcoholism in sobriety in those feelings that from that are intermittent for me of restless irritable discontent. The feelings of anxious apartness and separation, the depression that that so many of us in from Bill Wilson on have been plagued with all of that. And so I come to Alcoholics Exonus.

I work these steps. I sponsor guys. I do service here.

I do all of this because I suffer from alcoholism. I don't do it because I'm a good guy. I don't do it so people walk around and say I touched the hem of his garment.

I mean, I don't do that. I do it because I suffer cuz I have a horrid horrid case of alcoholism. I I am a highmaintenance alcoholic.

Oh my god. I am a high me I I wish there's not not everybody in A is like me. There there are people that can just they're fine.

They go to a one meeting a week and when they're really want to amp up their spirituality, they might go to two. Uh they might even say hi to a newcomer once in a while. I mean, you know, they they've made every amends that that was coming at them and they couldn't duck.

Um, but they're and and they're fine. And they're fine. I used to resent those people.

I remember going to my sponsor and just I was angry cuz I'm at meetings. I'm doing all this service. I'm doing all this crap.

I'm paying every They won't let me. They want me to pay everybody back. And I'm going to I'm going to my sponsor and I'm complaining, you know, and he just and he said, "You have to play the hand you're dealt, >> not the hand they're dealt.

You got to find your alcoholism here." And I mean beyond the drinking. You got to find your alcoholism here. Beyond the drinking and bring that to Alcoholics Anonymous because that's what we're about.

Alcoholics is not designed to treat your drinking problem. That's a a a benefit from it. That's a But we're really designed to treat your abstinence problem.

To treat everything that happens to you that makes you subtly alone and depressed and separate in your abstinence. And that's what we do here. And that's and we do it very effectively.

Very it's a magical thing that happens here. The way God works through all this stuff. And so I I'm an everyday member of Alcoholics Anonymous because of that.

And this I love what God I I I really liked Billy's talk last night. The thing about autonomy um autonom the tradition of autonomy the principle of autonomy without an awakening and and a consciousness of the other traditions and the welfare of others is is just it's a wild card to be rebellious and crazy and self-serving it. But autonomy gives us an an amazing amount of freedom.

But freedom without consciousness of responsibility is anarchy. It's destructive. And so we, you know, and this is not true just of us.

This is built into the consciousness of the human race. One of the the the great I I would one of the great things God has given us and sometimes the most hard thing he's given us is free will. free will.

We We're the only creatures on the planet that have the ability to go against your very instincts and your very nature to the point of self-destruction. You'll never walk through a forest and see a a deer smoking a crackpipe, right, and and drinking a bottle of wine. You'll never It doesn't happen because matter of fact, the deer's going to go, "Nah, no." Right.

But God's given us free will. We can actually choose, not only, we can choose to go against him to the point where we're we're we're killing people, we're hurting people, and even possibly kill ourselves, that we can actually go against that to that degree. And the same thing is true in alcoholic times.

There's there's no enforcement here of the 12 traditions. My sponsor tells he says something funny. He says he said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had AA police, right?

You've broken the traditions, you know, we're to take you away to a re-education camp, you know, I mean, but it it doesn't happen. It's not happening here. We are we are granted a tremendous amount of freedom, but wake up." And and that's my sponsor has been brilliant with me to to get me to look at every action I take and what does it speak to the newer people, right?

What does it speak to the newer people? You want to text in a meeting? Great.

You have the freedom to do that. But what you're you you only get one vote and it's your actions. What you're really saying I think I think everybody should be doing this.

Do you want everybody to do that? No. No.

But my case is different. is I understand the rules. I just secretly think I'm above them or they don't apply to me.

They apply to everybody else. Is it funny? I'm I think the rules should apply to everyone except me.

Like the handicap parking thing. Oh, that's important. Handicap people need easy access, but I'm only going to be a minute.

Right. Above the rules. That's the That's my alcoholic ego.

I'm above the rules. And so we hope that this tremendous tremendous freedom that we're given here, this autonomy uh that that you also develop a consciousness of others. There's a lot of things there's a lot of things I don't do.

I I'm a selfish guy by nature. I'm a self-gratifying I'm all of that. Everything we all are I'm that.

But there's a lot of things I do not do because I don't want to put that. I don't want to speak that to the newer people and give them the green light on that stuff. Right.

I don't want to do it. You're you're more important than me. How did that happen, man?

Tradition number five has been uh crucial in my life. I don't know. I don't know at what point in my innermost self I really got this but when I did it changed everything that you know I came to Alcoholics Anonymous like all of us my primary purpose is me and my feelings and my relief and and what you think of me and my comfort and my finances and my sex and me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me and to get a level some a small tiny level of self-abandonment where uh my primary purpose is no longer me and I'm given a an alternate primary purpose and that's to help God's kids to help other alcoholics.

That that really is why I'm placed here on earth. That is why I've survived this this fatal fatal illness called alcoholism. It's not not to be have a big house and not to have money, not to have friends, not to it it really has nothing to do with me.

I am given a a purpose that is greater than me. And I'll tell you something, when you claim that and you understand at a gut level that your life is not is not your own, that you've been that you've been saved from the abyss for one reason, one reason only, is to take all that pain, all that struggle, all those defects, all of that, and make it useful in God's hands. All of a sudden, life makes sense.

All of a sudden, there's a rightness about everything. When it was about me, nothing's right. Nothing's right.

But when I claim my primary purpose, man, even the worst things about me, the things that were the the deepest, darkest secrets become useful here in God's hands. and to claim to start rather than serving myself to start to serve a principle and a set of principles and a purpose and ultimately a power and a people that I've made of greater importance than myself. I I had a nun in Catholic school.

She used to say something I thought was the stupidest thing I ever heard. She said, "God first, other people second, me always last." I thought, "No, it's me first, me second, and just me. That's all it is.

It's just me." Um I I I suffered a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous because I my I 19 years sober, I started I got into a depression because my primary purpose, unbeknownst to me, started being bled away by the the abundance and the toys and the the money and the prestige until I had become my primary purpose and I started getting depressed. A person wrapped up in themselves makes a very small package. No matter how good you get it out here, if it ain't no good in here, if you're not if you're not aligned with your purpose and God's will in your life, there's nothing none of it means anything truthfully.

And so I I I I that's where I really started to claim my primary purpose. I was like almost 20 years sober now. I was taking the actions, but I'm in my innermost self.

Not so much. And you know what? One of the great things about having a home group and a sponsor and and sponsoring people is that you will take actions you don't feel like because you don't want to look bad.

A is the one of the few places on the planet I know of that'll take my my hyper concern with what you think of me and use it to make me better or to tether me here. Right? I mean, I don't know any other place on the planet that'll do that.

Wilson's Wilson was brilliant when he talks about um money, property, and prestige. If he if he could add one more thing in there that would divert you from your primary purpose, it's probably sex. And these are the things that and and and you know there's there's a I've shied away from a few people in Alcoholics Anonymous because they're prestige predators.

I I had a friend and he I found out that he gets every talk he's ever made and he he he puts it on YouTube and sends it to recovery websites. I said, "Are you kidding me?" He said, "Oh, no. My my message is important.

That's creepy to me, right? I mean, if selfishness and self-centerness is the root of our trouble, isn't that like self-promotion is like arming the al-Qaeda, isn't it? I mean, or or ISIS.

I mean, it's it's don't feed the things in you that should be starved. And that I'll tell you, I don't know about you guys, that's my natural tendency is to feed the things that should be starved. And I will, unbeknownst to me, starve the things that should be fed.

That's why I have a sponsor. That's why I sponsor guys. There's a lot of accountability in spons in sponsoring people because you you wake up one day, they're the primary example of how to live their how to be an AA member.

You're the primary example to them how to be an AA member, how to live your life, and how to exist on spiritual principles. And let me tell you something, your sponses watch you more than you could ever imagine. They watch you.

You know how you know that? Do some selfs serving out of line crap and see how many of them join you within two weeks. All right.

They watch you. Oh, this tradition seven. I be self-supporting.

I don't I I thought when I first got sober, I thought step one was get a job. I mean, it was Jesus. I had a chance.

I was a year sober and I'd been working as a as a counselor in treatment, which against my against my sponsor's wishes, you know, but I'm I'm I have enough ego is returned that I think I'm smarter than he is, you know. I think he's just jealous cuz I found a way to do 12step work and get paid for it. And he never figured that out.

Um, that wasn't the case at all. And I lost that job. Thank God.

God has done for me consistently what I couldn't do for myself. And I lost that job. And I was in a position to get $120 a week in unemployment.

Now, back in this in the 70s, that's that's a fair I could have lived on it. Wasn't nice, but I could have lived on it. He made me take a job where after taxes, I only made between 96 and $97 a week, and I had to work 40 hours for the $96.

I could have got the 120 for free. And sometimes you just know he's he's never he doesn't know about arithmetic, does he? He just doesn't, you know, but he was so right because it I'm a taker.

I've been a taker all my life. I've been a user of people, a taker. I'm a me me.

I'm like the black hole of life. Just I'll suck everything I can out of life and out of you. and they want me to take the actions of a giver and and they don't even care if I feel like it.

Just do it. And so I started becoming so I would they wouldn't let me take the free money. I to this I look back and sometimes I even look back to this day and go but it was free money.

That free money might have killed me. Would have done something to my sense of myself and my spirit for sure. And it's brilliant.

I want to talk a little bit about tradition 8. And I want to read it in the long form. I think it's very important.

Alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional. We define professionalism as the occupation of counseling alcohol alcoholics for fees or higher. We may employ alcoholics where they're going to perform those services for which we might otherwise have to engage non-alcoholics.

But our a our usual aa 12step work is never never to be paid for. We hire a lot of people to do a lot of clerical administrative stuff. That's not 12step work.

That's there's that's right. If you go to GSO, you'll meet a whole bunch of people that work hard there to serve alcoholics anonymous, but they're not getting paid for 12step work. our our I know central office managers that answer the phones and if if they take a call rather than ref refer it out and start working with the guy they take themselves off the clock they will not get paid for that time that's right and yet we live we you know when I got I came into alcoholics anonymous and I I was a relapser from the early 70s uh until 78 from the time I was like 19 to I finally got sober And one of the things that I didn't understand, I thought it was lame, but it impressed me is you nobody was making money here off of nobody.

And I live in a world where everybody's got an angle, right? And nobody here's trying to charge me for nothing. No, nothing.

And that impressed me. I think that altruism is the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I get I'll tell you I get scared sometimes because there's more selfserving in Alcoholics Anonymous today than I I think that's ever existed.

I'm talking in the fellowship. Now there's some argument is well they're not really AA. Yeah, but they present themselves as AA and the new people don't know any difference.

We got we got sober coaches now that that charge rich people. They pray on rich famous people and get huge amounts of money. I've run I ran into a a very very famous guy in in one of the treatment centers I take a meeting into every week.

And when he found out that when he marched in with all the new people when he found out that it was an AA meeting, he stormed out because he'd had a recovery coach who got a lot of money from him. He got a house from him on the beach. He got a lot of stuff from and then he got thrown under the bus.

Now he's he's an idiot newcomer, but he doesn't know that that's not AA. He doesn't know. See to him he won't go to AA anymore because that's because of that right and I see a lot of that there there's there's people writing books to grandise themselves and promote themselves there's members of AA that have their own websites where you can go on there and buy and buy talks of them or their workbook right I mean what the hell's happened to us here this was the altruistic spiritual movement of all time at once.

I Billy Graham said it. He said he thought it was the greatest spir he he said this in 19 early ' 80s. The greatest spiritual movement of the 20th century.

They're not nobody's saying that about us today. And I know that there are pockets of principle in Alcoholics Anonymous. I I believe my home group is for the most part.

You can't control the some of the newer people and the and the rim runners that go around the edge of groups, you know, but in the solid the solid people in my home group are very principled and very into the traditions and they try to be servants of AA. But that's for every group like that, there's probably 20 where you go to the meeting and you don't even know if it's alcoholic synonymous or not. I went to I I heard one speaker talk for 10 15 minutes about their addiction to chewing ice cubes and it was at a detox and I sitting there these new people are just their eyes are glazing over I don't know what does right what are they doing there right the traditions are are being primary purpose it's being thrown under the bus it's I love what the way Billy puts that the importance of that and is that if if alcoholics if we let other people into alcoholics anonymous and they don't have alcoholism if if they have alcoholism you can have a whole bunch of other problems.

We don't care. We don't care if you did crack or heroin or pills or you gambled or you watched porno till you ended up in the burn unit. We don't we don't care.

We don't we don't care what you did. It's it's in it's immaterial. It's immaterial.

It but but you got to have alcoholism because if you don't have alcoholism, here's the problem is that we'll have a substantial percentage of our fellowship who can drink. And I'll tell you something that's that's scary. Some of them do and they don't tell anybody.

And they do and they can get away with it because they don't have the allergy to alcohol. I I had a horrific experience when I right two weeks before I was 30 years sober. So this would have been almost nine years ago.

I was doing a workshop in Tucant and we were doing it the first part of it was on the doctor's opinion and before I started this woman with 30 years, she showed me her 30-year chip. She came up and showed me a 30-year chip. It's older gal.

She's got a whole row of people that she sponsors in their first year or two sitting there. All these gals. And I was excited.

Said, "Oh, great. got 30. I said, you know, if I make it to the end of the month, I'll have that.

And I started the workshop and after the workshop, she comes up to me and does the weirdest thing I've ever ever seen or heard yet. She comes, she's making sure nobody can hear it. And she says, "I don't have that thing you're talking about." I said, "What thing?" I said, "I don't have that allergy, that phenomena craving." Well, she's 30 years sober, I think.

And I think, well, she just doesn't remember cuz you know how alcoholism the craving hits you. It uses your own mind against you. You can't see it's a craving.

You just know you need another drink. I mean, no. So, right.

Right. So, I just said to her, I said, "Well, it's been 30 years since you've had a drink. You just can't see it that far back." And then she does this is so weird.

She looks to the left and then she looks to the right and she whispers, "Well, actually, I have a drink once in a while." My face evidently falls because she starts backpedaling going, "But I don't get drunk. I don't get drunk. Really?

I don't get drunk. >> I said, "You took a 30-year chip. Didn't you feel bad taking it?" "Well, I don't get drunk.

I just have a glass of wine once in a while." And we talked a little bit. And she came 30 years prior to Alcoholics Anonymous with her husband who was an alcoholic. He sent her to Alanon.

She did not like Alanon, but she liked Alcoholics Anonymous. Because if you're an untreated Alanon, it's a room full of your drug of choice here, right? You know, you know what I'm saying, right?

So, she loved a she loved a Oh, so many people to help. Oh, you know, she loved a So, so we had this conversation and she I don't know if she did this. She agreed to change her sobriety date and go to Alanon.

I don't know if she did or not. I've been down there many times since and I haven't seen her. So, may I don't know.

But I had this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. And the bad feeling is all those new people she sponsored. You see, the first thing the first thing that I trust here is that you're like me.

What would have happened to me if I would have been at a a year sober, still on very shaky ground? If I would have found out that my sponsor never was an alcoholic and he drank or he could drink anytime he wanted to with impunity, it would have rattled the very foundation I have here. There's a guy in a halfway house in intermittently in Vegas.

He can't get sober because he hates AA because his sponsor returned to drinking after 5 years sober and he drinks with impunity. He had a little bit of a coke problem, but he never had the allergy to alcohol. And now he doesn't trust anything about he thinks we're all phony.

So alcoholics, the singleness of purpose here makes a like a laser. You take a laser and you focus it tightly, you can cut a steel beam. There's so much power in that laser.

and our singleness of purpose when it comes to the problem and our singleness of purpose when it comes to the solution make Alcoholics Anonymous like a laser. But if you spread that beam out of a w over a wide enough surface, I'll tell you get to a point where you can't even read a newspaper by it. So Alcoholics Anonymous is the only thing that's ever happened in the course of human events that's done for me and for us.

I believe what A has done for us. I would hate to be like one of those guys that wondered what happened to the Washingtonians, right? My daughter is not an alcoholic.

Thank God. But in my family, alcoholism, hopscotches. It's almost like every other generation.

Now, my daughter's in a very serious relationship. She's talk, they're talking a little bit about marriage, and it means I could be a granddad. And I'm telling you, I will be very good at that.

I'll load her up load the kids up with sugar and return them to their mom. I just But here's here's my fear. Chances are genetically there's a high probability that my grandkids, who I know I'm going to love, could have alcoholism.

And if I hope that Alcoholics Anonymous, as I found it here, this altruistic movement of love and service, this this nudging each other into self-forgetting and serving. >> 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.