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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Good morning. My name is Bart.

I'm a recovered alcoholic. >> And my home group is the Jaywalkers group as Dick said in Sedona. And uh we meet on Wednesday nights at 6:00.

We are also a big book study group. um very small group about 20 members and we can spend an entire hour on one paragraph. Um that's the way we like to go through it.

Cross talk is um encouraged at our meeting um and we do a lot of it. Um but we do it in a loving spirit. Um want to um this is a very difficult thing for me to do.

It doesn't it doesn't come naturally. Um, and it blows my mind that I that I get the opportunity to to do this on on an occasional basis and and do service for Alcoholics Anonymous. And um I'm very clear on on why why it happens.

And it is because that in around June 12th of 1995, I started a journey that started with um asking God to remove me of the bondage of self so that I could do his will and to take away my difficulty so that victory over that can bear witness to those I could help of his power, his love, and his way of life. And soon following after that, I asked him if he would um give me the strength to go out and do his bidding. And I meant that from the bottom of my heart.

And I believe that's why I get to do this and I'm able to do this. Um so I want to thank all of you for um participating in in in God's plan for us this morning in doing this. And um I really want to thank um the people that put this together and asked me to come here and took me out for an amazing dinner last night and some laughs and met new friends.

You know, we're all family and friends. And I have to say this is the third time that I've gotten to speak in this area and it's my favorite place to come to speak when they talk about um and I just heard it for the first time this weekend. Minnesota friendliness or something like that.

Well, I'm an advocate for that. you guys hold true to that. Um because I have always felt very comfortable and welcomed when when I come to this area.

Um and Dick has been an amazing host and not only amazing host, but he's got a new job as a travel agent because I had no idea that my flight was cancelled to leave at 7:00 tonight and that they changed it to 2:00 this afternoon. So, I was going to hang around and and and hang out with you guys and I got to rush right to the airport as soon as I'm done with the talk. So, I apologize for that.

You could thank the airlines for that though. Um but but Dick was the one that realized that. So, or I would have just been hanging around.

I forgot to set my timer here. Um, so I was I was in case you didn't I I live in Sedona, Arizona, but I was born in New York City and I've only been in Arizona for uh about 6 years now. And um my parents were an alcoholic.

I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home. Um I was the only alcoholic there. Um I had a father who was as cold as the coldest day here in Minnesota.

and and a mother that was the complete opposite. Um she was a very loving, fragile, neurotic woman. Um so so it was an interesting mix and um and and I picked up my first drink in about fifth grade.

Um I was very early in getting started in in my drinking career, if you want to call it a career. Um, and I would go to school in fifth grade and there was a big schoolyard that we would go out for lunch and the teacher would say, you know, stay on this side of the schoolyard. Do not go on the other side of the schoolyard where those people are.

And as soon as she would turn her head, I would beline it for hang out with the older guys that were drinking over there. And um, my hero was a guy who lived in a building around the corner from me, Roger, and he died of a heroin overdose. And even after he died, he was one of my heroes.

Um, so there was something wrong with my thinking. Alcohol did something for me. Um, my my personality is to be extremely shy.

Um, a liar, a cheater, a thief. Um, and alcohol helped me do those things and helped me socialize a little bit. Um, fifth grade I was I was already getting left back because I wasn't going to school anymore.

and my parents were moving to another neighborhood and they um decided to have a meeting about me before they moved and they and they promoted me and I and I went to the new I I was supposed to go into the new school and but that summer I spent every single day riding my bicycle from Thank you. from the new neighborhood to the old neighborhood because I didn't really want to go out in the street and meet kids just I didn't know how to do that. Um, so I would go back to the old neighborhood and and learn how to, you know, drink some more and and and that was it.

And the the the first day of school came and I was scared to death. Um, I didn't I didn't want to go to school where I knew nobody. And my parents had a little closet at the front door and there was liquor kept in that closet.

and I went to that closet and I guzzled down some booze and uh I felt okay to go to school and it worked. So I continued to do that every day. And then I met the kids that were drinking and smoking pot and um and I did it very different than than they did.

And so I started getting in a lot of trouble. I started getting caught. I was keeping alcohol in my locker.

I was getting caught doing things in the in the bathroom or behind the handball courts. And there was a woman who came from a a program called Project 25 and she came every single week uh one day a week and and I had to start going to see her in instead of going to one particular class. and and she started giving me this the next threat which was that if I continued to get in trouble with alcohol in school that I was going to be taken out of regular school and put into project 25 and that really scared me because that meant that I would have to meet new friends and I didn't want to do that but I didn't want to quit drinking either and I became a full-time student of Project 25.

Um, at Project 25, I'm really warm if you don't mind. At at Project 25, um, they educated my family very well about, you know, I continued to get into trouble and they educated my family very well about not putting up with me. when I came home drunk and and my family would um try to recommend reprimand me for that, things would start flying, furniture would fall down or I would go and leave and live on the street and live in friends garages or um apartment building staircases so that I could drink cuz that's really all I wanted to do.

I found alcohol and and I felt it worked for me and I didn't want to give it up. So my parents provided a beautiful home but I preferred to live elsewhere so that I can continue to drink. And then in New York there's something called a pins petition.

Person in need of supervision and they send you to the courts as a person in need of supervision. And uh judges started telling me where I had to live. And so I spent a lot of my youth in and out of um juvenile detention centers, juvenile prisons.

um under the supervision of New York State and and I would get in a lot of trouble in those places. Um a lot of the waiting time they would have me sleeping in shelters in New York and in the shelters I would sneak out and I would start drinking night train with the with the bums on the street like and then sneak back in and then they would put me on clothes restrictions. So I would just go live on the street until I had to show up for court and then I would go to court and then they put me into a detention and I thought that was a normal life.

Um in 1977 1978 I was away in a place upstate New York for 18 months. And at that place the the counselors there were telling me the same thing that every place that I went to that actually had counselors would tell me that you seem like a good kid and if you just didn't drink you would be okay. And I wouldn't hear another word they said after that because the only time that I felt okay was when I drank.

So therefore, what they had to say to me had absolutely no depth and weight whatsoever. Um, but I started thinking being away for 18 months and realizing that a lot of my friends are graduating. A lot of my friends, you know, have regular girlfriends.

A lot of my friends are working. They're living normal lives. They're home with their family for Christmas.

They're celebrating their birthdays with their friends and family. You know, they're having this normal life and I'm not. And so I made a decision that when I got out of this place, I wasn't going to drink the way I was drinking.

And um I came home and I went to the high school for the first day and I was called out of the home room class and I was called into the dean's office and the dean sat me down and he opened up my records and he started looking at my records and he said, "We don't want your trouble here and we're going to be watching you and if you get into any trouble here, you're out." Well, I knew that I didn't want to drink the way I was drinking and I but I didn't feel that I was going to be a saint and you know I really hadn't had any real education since fifth grade because things started to go downhill from there with education from my drinking. So, I got up and I walked out and I went home and my parents had divorced by this time and um I went home and my my dad was a fairly successful businessman and and I asked my mother if she would call my father and if they would agree on signing me out of school and if I can go work for my father at one of his stores. And so they had that discussion and they agreed that that would probably be what's best for me.

And so they signed me out of school and I was going to go to work for my dad. And the first day of work came and it was a a cold morning in October, the week of my birthday. And I woke up feeling like I had arrived.

Um I'm going to be a working man. I'm finally going to make my family proud because my whole family, you know, really had no I don't know if the word respect, but um no hope for me. and I was going to change that.

And I was standing at the bus stop waiting to go to work for the first day and really feeling alive. And a friend of mine came over and he gave me a little bottle of Jack Daniels as a birthday present. And I said, "This week I'm going to c this weekend I'm going to celebrate that I'm a working man and my birthday." And it started getting kind of cold at the bus stop, I guess.

So, I took a little sip to warm up. And then I was on the bus on the way to work and I started getting really scared about going to work. Um, so I polished off that little bottle of Jack Daniels and I walked in to work for the first day and I made a complete fool of myself and of my father who worked very hard in talking to his business partners about getting me to work there and made a complete fool of all of them.

And that wasn't my intention that morning. I woke up with the clear intention of making my family proud. And I didn't understand why that happened.

I understand today why it happened because I'm an alcoholic and I can't control how much I drink. and I had that insane idea of warming up and calming my nerves and instead I got loaded. Um that continued for years.

Um and you know the war stories of the things that I did aren't really that important but the the things got worse. Um what do I want to move on to? Um, many years later, um, another attempt of trying to get sober, I I I I met a woman who was a detox nurse and she was 10 years older than me.

I met her out in California and I decided to come back with her here and marry her and I figured I married to a detox nurse. This will work. That'll keep me sober.

And, uh, needless to say, my sober date isn't, you know, 1982 when I met her. So, it didn't work. Um, and she had a son that was 10 years, she was 10 years older than me, she had a son that was like nine or 10 years younger than me.

Um, and that was an interesting relationship. If she was sitting in this room in the front row, I I wouldn't recognize her today. I have no idea who that woman was.

Um, when I I when I get into about the amends, it was an interesting amends there. Um, so things still got a lot worse with that. I I started hanging out with her friends.

Um she wasn't allowed in the bar that we drank in. Um if she w if she opened the door, I would throw her out immediately. Um and eventually we had gotten divorced.

And and then I was hanging out at a house that really nobody in the neighborhood would go anywhere near. They would cross the street before they walked near us. We all owned motorcycles.

None of them ever left the garage because we were too busy drinking. So, we owned bikes, but none of us rode them. Um, and and the house was owned by four brothers.

And one of the brothers, Warren, um, he wasn't like coming out into the yard anymore and drinking with us. And he, so, a bunch of guys would pull up every afternoon and um, he'd go into the garage and get his bike and and he would take off with them. And one day I said, "Warren, where you been going?" and he says, "I I just couldn't live the way I was living and and I decided I wanted to get sober and I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous." I went, "That's nice." You know, now I had never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous really.

Like all those treatments everywhere I had ever been. They really never talked to me about being an alcoholic. They never talked to me about Alcoholics Anonymous.

Um but I guess I had some kind of idea, but not enough to ask more questions. And I just said, "That's nice." Um, but eventually sometime in 1987, I gave Warren a call and I said, you know, I think I really want to go to one of those meetings you're going to. And he he told me he was going to work and that he wasn't going to a meeting that night.

And he told me where there was a meeting and he said, "If you go there, you know, you'll see what it's all about and see if that's what you want to do and and people will be real friendly to you. Go ahead. You'll be okay.

Just go." So, I was a mess. I mean, obviously, if I finally decided I wanted to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, I must be a real mess. So, so I I went there and I went there really early and it was at a big school and I and I got there real early and I was just walking around the block, you know, I parked my car and I was walking around the school and around and around and around and really thinking about, do I want to do this?

And then it was getting close to the time. I have no idea where the entrance is to get in for the meeting. And I'm just like, "Oh, maybe I won't find it." And you know, that'll be all right.

And and a guy comes over to me at that timing and he says, "Are you looking for the AA meeting?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "Follow me. I'm setting it up." So I followed him into the room and I watched him setting up the chairs a little different and putting little signs up and pamphlets up. And he hands me this little blue card and he says, "Do you want to read this?" I went, "Yeah, sure." So now lots of people are starting to walk into the room.

So I was so glad I had this little blue card cuz I'm just sitting there reading it and reading it and reading it cuz I couldn't look anybody in the eye and and they opened up the meeting and you know he opened up the meeting. He said to read the open the closed statement we have Bart. And I went what?

And my heart jumped out of my toes. I had no idea he gave me something to read out loud. I thought he was just being nice and say, "Do you want to read this?" And I spent what I swear to God was no more than 5 minutes, but felt like 5 hours planning my escape.

And I left the meeting cuz if that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is about is reading out loud, it ain't for me. And I and I left and I got lost in the school. I couldn't find my way out.

I had no idea how we got in there. and and I and things are running through my head that I'm going to get arrested for trespassing and you know and this is like going to be a really bad night and I just need to get the hell out of here and get drunk and um I found my way back to you guys where the meeting was and I leaned on the wall outside and I figured when you guys leave I'll just follow you out and I'll go drink myself to death. And the meeting ended and a bunch of guys came over to me and said, "Oh, where'd you go?

You know, come with us. were going to the diner and I was like, "Oh, I got so much to do. I can't go with you to the diner." I I had a million excuses and you guys they wouldn't take one of them.

And and I ended up going to the diner with them and and I met a whole lot of really good friends in Alcoholics Anonymous and um I didn't participate in it. Um I became a hangaround of Alcoholics Anonymous. I smoke cigarettes outside.

People would say, um, why don't you raise your hand and just say your name? And I wouldn't do it. Um, I had people I had friends, my friend Ralph used to say, "Bart, I'll give you 20 bucks.

Just raise your hand and say your name. I'll give you 20 bucks." And I was like, "Nope." Today, there's a lot of people that'll give me 500 bucks to shut up. Um, But I also couldn't get any better.

You know, I I learned that sobriety is not my solution. Sobriety is my problem. I get worse, not better, when you take alcohol away from me.

Um, I ended up in in that dry time, I ended up marrying a wonderful woman and having a beautiful daughter and and getting good jobs that I could actually keep because the bosses didn't suck anymore. Um, and those things happen when you just don't drink. But inside I was dying and I would have given anything to get drunk.

And um, and I would sneak little things, you know, like and and still say I'm sober. She would smoke pot every once in a while and and I I would say, "Oh, let me give you a shotgun, you know, and like so I get a little buzz and still say I'm sober." or I go into the supermarkets and empty all the nitrous cans and you know all the the whipped cream cans and what's the harm in that you know as long as I'm not drinking and and and eventually in the end of 1994 it was all over and and I went on a mad tear and that was actually after um my wife and daughter had come home from a vacation that they went on a loan put their suitcases down and I said I'm leaving and ended that marriage I didn't know how to keep anything that was good sober because I would were not drinking cuz I was so miserable with me when he took the alcohol away and replaced it with nothing. Um, so I went out on that mad tear and and and I don't know um I guess emotionally I hit a bottom of all bottoms.

Um but it wasn't I didn't get into the troubles that I had gotten into when I was younger. Um some troubles but not not nearly what had happened in the past. So it wasn't that that drove me back.

I I think I got a taste of what AA probably could be. And so I so it kind of ruined my drinking and stuff, but I but I couldn't I couldn't live with it all without it was the bottom line. You know, the book talks about that and a vision for you and and that was my deal.

I I didn't know how to live with it or without it. And and I was at the jumping off place. And you know, and I would try and come back and people would say if you just didn't drink, you'd be okay.

And I'm like, man, I'm not drinking. And I'm not okay. So there's no truth to that, you know, and and and a whole lot of these real catchy phrases in Alcoholics Anonymous that has absolutely nothing to do with our program.

And if you're an alcoholic like me, what it actually does is drives you very close to suicide. Um cuz I saw people that were getting better by just not drinking and going to meetings and putting the plug in the jug and calling their sponsor and saying, "I'm having a rough day. I want to drink." drink and their sponsor talks to them and they just don't pick up a drink.

And I'm like, I'm trying all this and it ain't working. I'm just getting worse. There's something else wrong with me more than alcoholism.

I might as well just blow my brains out because I'm never going to be able to live this life. You know, this thing they call life. And um in the midst of all of that, I was got involved back in some outside issue that I go to another fellowship for as well.

And and I was at what's called a bodega. It's like a Spanish deli in New York. And you know, there's nothing on the shelves that is not expired, but there's some stuff behind the counter that you can buy.

And um and they didn't want to sell it to me. And and I went absolutely ballistic. And I was lucky that this these people didn't cut me up and throw me in the dumpster cuz I needed something.

You won't give it to me. And I got really irate that night and somehow and I know today, thank you God. Um I don't remember going from that bodega back to you guys, but I was in a meeting that night and I really had no idea driving there and I was in a meeting I had never been to before and I was at every meeting in Queens, New York, I thought.

And this was called the Utopia Young People's Group. And there were some young people there that were absolutely enjoying life and talking about things that I had no idea what the hell they were talking about that was in this book and and I didn't know what what they were doing. And um one of them was celebrating a one-year anniversary.

I mean, these guys were go young young guys and they were and girls and they were going out to clubs after a Friday night beginners meeting in Manhattan and and dancing and having fun and getting in the mosh pit and and just like really digging life and not seeing that they were in a bar and I didn't get it. And of course, my mind was saying, "Ah, they're just not alcoholic like I am, you know, that's why they can do this, you know." But that wasn't the truth because one night Audi was celebrating his oneyear anniversary and his sponsor Eric was speaking for him and Eric was hysterical when he was describing what it was like um very animated rolling around on the floor pretending to stretch for the phone like when he was dialing 911 for himself. Then he started talking about being recovered and going anywhere where any other person can go without danger and and being happy, joyous and free and and absolutely loving life and the problem of alcoholism being removed.

And the more he talked about that, the more my blood started boiling. And I turned around to Arty and I said, "That's your sponsor up there speaking, right?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, 'I think tonight you should find a new one. And he said,"Wh I said,"Cuz I am going to kill him." And Arty looked at me with a big grin on his face and he said, "I'm sure he would love to talk to you, boy." And so after that meeting, I guess him and Arty had a little visit and they discussed me going to talk to Eric.

And Eric owned a a little recovery store that sold coins and books and clocks and, you know, all kinds of recovery stuff. So, he had a pretty free life to talk about recovery. So, audience said, "Go see Eric tomorrow at at at his store." I said, "You got it.

I'm going to kill him." And so, I woke up real early that morning to go kill this man because I was still boiling. like you know the nerve of him to lie to a bunch of people who are suffering and tell them that you can live this great life like he has no right doing this and he needs to be like disposed of. So I so I pulled up across the street from his store and he was standing outside waiting for me and he saw me coming.

So he went back in the store and went behind the counter and cuz he knew I was coming to kill him. He was warned, but but he wanted to see me. And and Eric spent Eric spent no less than two hours talking about the war stories, talking about his alcoholism, talking about his alcoholic mind, talking about how bad he didn't want to drink and he would drink.

And I was going, "Shit, that's me. That's me." And and after over two hours of him talking and me listening and identifying, I said, "If you were really like that, how the hell can you be talking about life being so good today?" And he said, "I'm glad you finally asked." He said, ' If you follow the directions that are in the first 164 pages of our big book and live it as a way of life and be willing to give it back to others, you could have the same freedom I talk about." And I said, "You know what? I have pretty much a fifth grade education.

I've never read a book in my life. I heard that's really shitty reading and and I guess I'm doomed. Thanks anyway." And I started to leave.

and he came really quickly around that counter and he grabbed me at the shoulder and he said, "I'll tell you what, I'll read that book to you. The only stupid question you can have is the one you don't ask. Let's go through it together." I said, "Deal?" And I started to learn about what you meant when you said, "Don't pick up the first drink.

You won't get drunk." I thought you were just being a bunch of wise guys. I had no idea about the physical allergy. And it made a lot of sense, you know, from that first time going to work for the first day to hundreds of other times that I wanted to control my drinking and couldn't because I really did want to not be a drunk.

I really liked drinking, but I didn't want to be a drunk. So, I would try to control it and I didn't understand why I couldn't. And that doctor's opinion really explained it well.

More about alcoholism was the first time reading that chapter was the first time I cried in front of another man. Um, talking about the alcoholic mind, talking about not being able to play back the old tapes, talking about, you know, not having the the force. Um, I unders, you know, I came in here, we agnostics was also a great chapter for me because I came in here not believing in God and and I would have fought you tooth to nail that there is no God.

Um, and I would have even went to fist with you over it because I just didn't believe it and I thought you were a fool if you believed it. Um, and that really opened me up to it. But what really opened me up to believing in we agnostics was this thing about the al alcoholic mind that if I can't fix myself, there better be something.

Um because I understand today what it's like to bang my head against the wall, to crawl into a corner and cry and say, "I can't live like this anymore." To want to not drink with every single fiber of my existence and yet find myself drinking. I understand what that's like. You know, there's a there's two words that are used very lightly in Alcoholics Anonymous today that I hold very close to me because they help me with my continuous um first step experience.

And one is where we say the only requirement for membership is a desire not to drink. And if you look up in the dictionary, desire has many ways of being used. And there's a way that's described in the dictionary that says a strong urge or feeling to do something that you cannot do.

That was me. You know, I didn't just want to stop. I had a strong urge and desire to stop and couldn't.

And the other thing that keeps me seeking God more and more and more is the definition of obsession, which we don't use anymore, but I looked it up in the 1930s Webster's dictionary, and it said to be to be vexed or besieged by an evil power outside of yourself. That makes a lot of sense to me because everything in my body, everything in my mind didn't want to drink. So why did I do it?

Because there was something outside of me that was making me do it. And if there's something outside of me that's making me do it, then I need a power greater than that to not. And that was hard for somebody that doesn't believe in in God or religion.

But I needed to try and find figure this out. So, I became willing. That second step for me is I'm willing to be willing because otherwise look at the life I'm living.

So, when we got to the third step with Eric, um we talked about that and he he asked me, you know, to um if if there was a God, what would I want that God to to look like? and I wanted to impress him. So I said, "God is love." And he started laughing.

I was like, "What's so funny about that? I've heard other people say that, and that sounds like a good idea." He goes, "Well, I've gotten to know you, bot. And you're married and separated from your wife.

You're living with this little girl that's 10 years younger than you, and you're sleeping with a girl who's 12steping you, and you're in love with all of them. if your definition of of love is that you better find some other god. So I said well then I don't know.

He said perfect. God as you understand them and you don't know what that is. And that's where I started.

God as I understand them and I don't understand them. And I got to tell you, you know, next month I'll be 20 years sober and I still don't understand God. But God is everything to me.

I love God. I know God loves me. Um I believe he is in everything.

And how could I understand that ever. Um but that's where I started. God as I understand him and I don't and and we said that third step prayer and and and I said it with meaning it with everything.

You know if if if God removes if there is a God and God removes these problems from me, you bet I will bear witness of his love, his power, and his way of life. if if it works, and I don't believe it's going to work, but if it works, I will absolutely spend my life bearing witness. And we got down and we we said that prayer and we stayed quiet for a little while and and he handed me a pen and a paper and he said, "Write everybody that pisses you off." He says, "A matter of fact, just write everybody you know and then we'll figure out why they piss you off.

my world was pretty small, so it wasn't like a huge list, but but it it was long enough. And then he said, "I'm sure you hate all the rules and regulations, so write them all down." And so I just started writing all this stuff down and why and you know, and I did that pretty quickly, you know. Um I wanted to get free, so I just wrote all this stuff down.

And I wrote the fear inventory. And it was amazing how I thought I had absolutely no fears. Like I thought I was this tough guy who had no fear.

And you know I was you know even my little thing here on my clock says uh seek truth without fear because it's the hardest thing for me to do you know is to seek truth without fear. But I devote my life today to seeking truth and try and do it without fear. But you know finding the truth is not easy.

Um and and that's what I believe that fourth step was for. It it showed me a lot of truth. It showed me that I wasn't God.

Even though I didn't think I was. I acted as if I did, but it showed me what God was. It showed me that there really is a God.

As I as I boiled down, as I said, you know, I'm afraid of this. And he said, "Why are you afraid of that? What are you afraid will happen?" And I came up with another fear.

And he said, "Well, why are you afraid of that?" And I boiled down these fears. And I had millions of fears. And today, when I write inventory, because I am a step worker, and you know, I do a lot of inventories.

I can't stay sober on the one that I did 20 years ago because I want to keep getting freer. This is this program is not about relief. It's about freedom and it and it takes a lot of spiritual work.

But so what what's wrong with that? You know, it took a hell of a lot more work to stay drunk. So um and then doing the sex inventory.

But I really, you know, I really started to have this experience of that there probably is a God, you know, and after this really long talk of the fifth step with him and and a lot of him seeing the truth that I couldn't see. And I think that's so important even for me today when I write inventory. It's so important to share it with other people because my perception of things is so off when I'm writing it down.

If I'm in a resentment, chances are my perception is pretty off. So, I need somebody else to sit with me and say, "Is it possible that we can look at it this way?" Like our book says, we're prepared to look at it from a different angle. Well, sometimes I can't just look at it from a different angle on my own.

So, I need somebody to help me. And so, I I love the fifth step. Not why I'm doing it, but when I return home, I do.

and a and then you know returning home and and thanking God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better. You read that in words you go how I just wrote a whole thing about myself. How the hell am I going to know God better?

But when you go home and you experience it. I know for me and for you know tons of people that I worked with, it's the experience that we have that we don't get to know ourselves better. I knew myself liar, cheater, thief, drunk junkie.

I didn't need to write inventory to know that. I got to know God better and and that was important. Um and I was the first time I went through the steps.

The sixth step was really easy. My life is a mess. There's nothing good about me.

God, you could have all of me whatever good there is and bad. And you know, and it was interesting because you know, I didn't leave him much to work with. You know, I really destroyed my life.

And it's amazing the life that God has given me even though I didn't leave him much left to work with. And and I've got a very rich life today. Um so it says a lot for Alcoholics Anonymous cuz I was a very low bottom.

Um and if if I have this rich life, anybody in here could have it. Um but the sixth step, I was I was all of it. And I then I I had some tangible stuff to offer him in that seventh step.

That's what that fourth and you know it's amazing how the third through seventh step works you know a decision to get rid of the garbage in our life but I don't know what it is so I'll write some inventory and share it with somebody else to discover what it is and then I have some tangible stuff to say here it is God this is what's not working for me you know take it away and I was willing to go out and make all those amends and and I didn't know how and I asked God for help and I started hearing some really strange sounds me knocking on people's doors saying I'm here to set wrongs some some rights I mean some rights some wrongs old habits are hard to die I'm here to set them right and some amazing experiences happened in the ninth step um a lot of them didn't work out the way I wanted. But, you know, an amazing thing happened through the night that um we have those promises that definitely come true for us, but I had an interesting experience and I know lots of people that have the same experience that those promises don't only come true for us, but they come true for the people we're going to. You know, I got here and you couldn't get much more selfish and self-centered.

And I had a good teacher, my father, who, you know, you couldn't get much more selfish and self-centered than that man. And um less than halfway through the the ninth step, I realized that I got free in the eighth step. Those promises came true for me.

It doesn't say they're the ninth step promises. If we read the book, it says, "Now let's look at steps eight and nine." And then the promises are there. That tells me that they might be able to come true in the eighth, not necessarily the ninth.

And my experience is they did. When I was willing to set right the wrongs, I got free. I didn't have to hide in the streets.

I didn't have to dodge my creditors. And I didn't have that many creditors because I suited my life to suit me. So, if I had no money, but I needed to do what I needed to do.

I just lived in the streets. So, I didn't have to owe anybody any money. If if I had a little bit of money and I was working and I could afford to live somewhere, then I would get a little shitty apartment and still have enough money to do.

So I didn't have like those kind of financial amends and I never really worked honestly. So I didn't have any taxes that I needed to pay. They didn't want that money.

So but I had a lot of people that I really hurt and to go to them. It just started feeling wrong to me to go to them after I had hurt them horribly so that I could feel better. The shift happened that I realized I need to go to them so they can feel better.

And I watched that start happening. I There was there was a girl when I was a when we were young that I was horrible to. And you know, she was she had that I guess now I know today she had like that bad boy thing where you know like she was a good girl but loved me and I get locked up and she'd come visit me and I'd get out and abuse her again.

And and I saw her in the street one day. She had gotten married, changed her name. There was no way that I was going to be able to find her.

I didn't think. And so she was on that I'm willing if I if God ever puts her in my life. I was actually working in a store and and she came walking into the store one day and I recognized her immediately.

My heart dropped. She was walking with her little son. I was like, "Oh what do I do now?" You know, I didn't know how to approach this one because I really I I developed a conscience which I never had had.

And Alcoholics Anonymous gave me this conscience and I ran out of the store and stopped in my tracks and said, "God, help me. What do I do here? You're giving me an opportunity here and I'm running.

What do I do?" And he said, "Go back in there. Set it right." and and I did and I and I started to talk to her and she started laughing and she goes, "You may have been the first dirt bag, but you weren't the last. Don't worry about it." But then she also said, "But I do have to tell you that not all the time, but pretty often you pop into my mind, whatever happened to Bart?

Is he alive? Is he like locked up somewhere for the rest of his life? Whatever happened to him?

I don't ever have to wonder that anymore. >> >> that's setting people free, you know. Um, my father was was a really interesting amend.

Um, I had taken my wife to the Bahamas um, my second wife and um, we left my daughter who was, you know, a young child with my mother in Florida so that we can go have a trip in the Bahamas. And this was like I was I think about a year just over a year sober. And um when we were in the Bahamas, I I my plan was that both of my parents who were divorced both lived in Florida that when we got back to Florida, we were going to be staying there a while that it's time to make the amends to them because I had to do it in person.

You know, I couldn't do it over the phone. This was the first opportunity I was going to be in the same state as them. And while we were in the Bahamas, I got a phone call that my mom had died of a massive heart attack and she was like in her early 50s and my daughter was with her.

And um so I blew that amends and my father was a man who I couldn't stand. I mean, my father was a man who left me and my mother who the day he walked out for good. All he said was, "Son, grab my suitcase and bring it to the car." Like, "Dad, you're leaving and that's what you're asking me to do." You know, um, he had some money and I would go to his house to visit and he would show the slideshows of the places that he traveled the world with his girlfriend to see why me and my mom had a bookmaker working at the house so we could pay bills, you know, like that's who he was.

Um but many years later um when I was getting when now I'm now I'm I'm divorced from from that wife and and I met an amazing woman who who's in our fellowship. Um she's got 28 years sober and has the same passion for this program as I do and you know we're thinking about getting married. were living together and um she's got an amazing daughter and um we got a call from my father that he was dying of pancreatic cancer and let me back up.

You know when when I get lost in this part in this story sometimes. Um when my mom died and I had to go back to Florida you know early I went to my father who also lived there and you know he was he was as comforting as he could be and you know I'll drive you to your mother's house see what you could do there you know and she had married a man who was was also another horrible man my mother didn't have good picker I guess >> >> um um and you know like when when my mom when when when my wife got pregnant and my mother I had a do my I had a sister who died real young and my mother couldn't wait for my wife to get pregnant and when it was a girl she was like this is it you know like she gets to spoil what she didn't get to spoil cuz she had lost her daughter and this guy said we're moving to Florida like just took her right out of New York so she couldn't see this daughter grow up so when I went to make this amends to my father while I was there for my mom's funeral and stuff. Um, this is after going to, I guess, my stepfather, for lack of a better word, um, to his house and, you know, trying to be a sober man and say, you know, I'm sorry for your loss and, you know, we'll get through this.

He kind of stood at the door. He gave me a little bag. He said, this is what your mother had.

That was your sister's. That's what's yours. Get out of here.

I may be sober, but I wasn't like 100% better. Well, my foot went through that door and and I pretty much smashed up his house. U my father ran across the the parking lot of the building complex screaming, "Bart, please don't kill him." And I got down on my hands and knees and prayed to God to not let me kill this man.

And I didn't. So, my prayers were answered. I heard him a little, but I didn't kill him.

So, my prayers were answered. Um, and I needed to make amends to that man for what I had done cuz he just lost his wife and you know and I did. I I offered to pay for everything I broke and you know had a sit down talk with him and you know and he just kind of listened and said don't worry about it and then married like his eighth wife.

That's who he was. You know um lots of things that were promised to my daughter that were my mother's we never saw but that's okay. I did what I was supposed to do.

But while I was there, I got to speak to my father about all the horrible things that I had done. And this is a man who I couldn't stand and I needed to, you know, I I still put him through hell, you know, um and and cost him a lot of money in court fees and stuff when I was younger and, you know, whatever it was. He he he he he buried a daughter and was getting ready to, you know, his whole life to bury a son.

So, I needed to clean that stuff up and even though I hated him. So, while I'm explaining it, I started to talk about, you know, how bad I felt for my mother. And I don't know why this came out to my father, but how bad I felt for my mother having to live the life that she did with this guy.

And he looked at me and he said, "You know, Danny probably loved your mother with all of his heart." And he put his fingers really close together and said, "But maybe his heart is only this big. I looked at my father and I said to myself, "I've got it. You've loved me your whole life, but your heart's only this big." I knew he was never capable of being the father I wanted to have.

And from that day on, I called him on a regular basis and I said, "Hey, Dad, I'm doing good." So, he didn't get the call. He didn't think it was a call like, "Dad, can you bail me out?" Or it was, "Hey, Dad, I'm doing good. how are you?

And then listen to him talk about himself for an hour or two and never ask how I'm doing, how's his granddaughter, nothing ever. But that was okay. I was the son that God intended me to be whether he could be a good father or not.

So when we got the call that he was dying of pancreatic, I I really hope that you're clapping for God because because that's who did that honestly. Um when I got the call that he was dying of pancreatic cancer, um my first intention was my first reaction was so what? you know.

Um, but then I knew I needed to be a sober son and my wife was very supportive or my wife to be who's also like I said in this fellow she was very supportive and then her daughter said why doesn't he come live with us? I was like, so we were still living in New York and and I went there and we discussed that and and he agreed to come live with us. So he did.

He came to live with us in New York and he was doing really good and I was kind of happy. I was getting to spend time with him. He was getting to know a sober son.

He had the opportunity to get to know what I hoped he had the opportunity to get to know his his granddaughter and and the woman that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. And he came down the stairs one day and he said, "You know, I'm feeling really good. I don't feel sick at all.

So, I'm going to go back to Florida and I'll give you a call when I feel sick." I said, "Typical of you, Dad." But I couldn't help it. You know, I got quiet and I asked God what to do cuz I really wanted to just ring his neck. And I said, "God, what do I do with this situation and and it was as clear as day.

The man's dying and he's got no God in his life. It's your job to try, right? It says we bear witness to everybody, not just alcoholics." So I said, "Dad, is it possible?" Good words I was taught.

Is it possible? Right? Is it possible that God is giving you some healthy time so you can get to know your sober son, your granddaughter who who who loves you to death and doesn't even know you and the woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with.

And he said, "I got to go pack." So he was. So he went home and we went upstairs and packed. Went back to Florida.

Now we had bought a house in Arizona. I'm going on with my life. This is the way the man wants to live.

I'm there for you, but I'm going on with my life. And um when he got sick, we were moving Arizona. So, we we got him to New York and packed him and and and brought him to Arizona with us.

He got really deathly ill on the plane and went directly off the plane into hospice for a week in the hospital, a week at our house, and he was gone. I did what I could because you people taught me how to depend on God and be a sober son, you know. Um, and I understand today that there's no resentment for who he was.

He just had a heart that big, you know, and and I try to, you know, I know that I got here to you people with a heart this big. But with God, it can grow, you know, and mine keeps stretching more and more, and I learn how to do this love thing, you know. I'm not great at it.

Um, uh, what's it? Uh, what's the word? Uh, I'm not intimate.

I I That's my wife's biggest complaint. I just don't know how to do it, but I ask God to help me with it. And I know someday maybe he will.

Um, I do the best I can, you know, with with what I've got and and and I let God use what I've left them. Um, I have so many more amazing amazing stories. And of course there's ones that you know like like my first wife was just like just stay the hell away from and actually you know her son I got to make an amazing amends to and and we were Facebook friends you know and and like and like you know I was abusive to to that kid and and it's not like that but his mom was very clear just stay the hell out of my life and so that's you know there was quite a few of those just stay the hell out of my life and if that's what it takes to make it better then that's what I do.

I even have family members that, you know, never said it, but you know, when my grandma died, I didn't get a call. You know, your grandmother died, you know, you want to come to the funeral. That's okay.

I I understand. I understand. I caused a lot of harm.

Um, I started practicing that 10step while I was out cleaning up the the past. And talk about an amazing anger management program. There's nothing better than a 10step when you're about to ring somebody's neck and just pause say God what would you have me be in this situation you know to be awake all through the day cuz I was asleep my whole life and that's why I made so many mistakes so to learn to slow down to to do that decision that we made to bring God into all our thoughts and all our actions 10step is where we get to do that decision you know don't just be lying through life Ask God, "What would you have me be in this situation?" You know, make an amends at on point when when when you when you screw up because we do.

It's not if we screw up, it's when we screw up. And I do that regularly, you know. But something happens to me when I step back and just say, "God, I'm not angry anymore." You know, I don't have to be right in the situation.

A lot of people laugh at me in Arizona. They're not used to that, like at our big book study or business meetings. You know, I'm a New Yorker.

I I talk like it is. And and it sounds like I'm mad or it sounds like, you know, I have to be right, but I don't. And I just keep explaining to them, I know it's coming out passionate.

It's just passion. I don't have to be right. Um, and the 11th step, you know, is is is an amazing journey to think about the mistakes that I made through the day and ask God to take me to a better place tomorrow and, you know, do I owe an apology somewhere, you know, and I have in almost 20 years, I haven't gotten like a hundred on the test yet.

You know, I mess up every day and but I don't fall into pity, you know. I'm I'm having I've recovered from alcoholism. I haven't recovered from being a human being cuz we're not perfect.

So, actually, I have recovered from being a human being. I'm just as imperfect as the rest of you, you know. Um that's just the human experience.

So, but the alcoholism problem has been taken away. I don't see alcohol. I don't fight alcohol or anything else that was bad for me.

Um, I can go anywhere anybody else can as long as I keep reviewing those things and ask God to help me with them, you know. And then in the morning, you know, planning my day and asking God to direct my thinking because if I direct my thinking, you would have had a different speaker tonight or a different story if I made it here. Um, so to ask God to direct my thinking and um, you know, last night I I I saw I messed up in these areas.

has helped me today as I go out to do a 10st step on them and watch that I don't do it again today to help me to be awake that I don't make the same mistake today that I made yesterday and it's such a great intertwining step and um the 12th step I was a little less than 3 months sober and Eric had never come back to the Utopia young people's group again after he spoke at that meeting. It wasn't his home group. And I was sitting down with him reading the instructions for the 12step and he said, "You know what, B?

It's Friday night. I'm going to go with you over to Utopia tonight." I said, "Cool." You know, so we went and it was a a meeting where you had a 20 minute share of experience, strength, and hope. And it was a beginner's meeting.

So then you had anybody new, anybody just coming back 30, 60, 90. So, the first guy to raise his hand after the speaker was a guy who was well over 6 feet tall, completely tattooed, shaved head, no teeth, young kid, and he only had one thing to share. I hate all you MFS.

You're all full of I want to kill all you. The judge told me to go to the Creedmore treatment center or to jail, and I'm not an idiot. I took the treatment center, but you're all full of it.

And Eric turned around to me and he said, "Bart, after this meeting, I'd like you to go over to that guy." And I said, "What the hell do I got to offer that guy?" I wasn't scared of the way he looked or what he had to say. What I was scared of is what can I possibly do for him? What can I possibly do for him?

And Eric opened up to a vision for you. and he opened up to where it talks about you're one man with this book in your hand and you've just tapped into a power greater than yourself. It's been three months and I loved being sober or almost 3 months and I loved being sober.

All these promises had come true. Maybe that one's true too. So I said, "God, what do we do here?" And the thought came that when everybody closes up to do the closing prayer, go outside to the van and wait for him.

Guess what? He didn't want to pray either. So it was just me and him.

And I said, "God, what do I say?" And I said, "You know, you're over at the Creedmore Rehab. They got visitors day on Sunday, right?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "How'd you like a visitor?" He said, 'For what? I said, 'Well, you know, and I started to talk about me and and how I had been in places like that.

And you know, and I said, and I found a solution to it. My life was pretty good. He said, you can come visit me if you bring me a sandwich every Sunday.

And I said, you got it. And I showed up every Sunday with a sandwich and my big book. He got out of that place and he had a girlfriend.

I I I can't remember and I I always try to remember your heart, but it's not really important. He had a girlfriend that was living either in Pennsylvania or Ohio on the street, still act in active addiction and um and a kid there in foster care. And I watched this young man who wanted to kill everybody go back and forth for supervised visits for this little boy who was in foster care and eventually get him out and bring him home and be a sober dad.

And then I got to watch him show other people our beautiful way of life. And there are so many people today in in Queens, New York who that man has sponsored. We've lost him since he he he didn't stay sober.

He struggled on and off, but he eventually ended up dying of um cancer. This didn't take him, but cancer did. Um but there's a lot of people that he sponsored that are still sober today.

That's the miracle of this program. Just don't drink and go to meetings. Selling yourself short, man.

There's there's so much more beautiful stuff that happens in Alcoholics Anonymous than not drinking and going to meetings. Not drinking is just the beginning of an amazing journey. If you're bored in AA, then you ain't doing AA.

Cuz I got to tell you, I have never been bored since I made that third step decision ever. Um when my sponsor Eric was was was dying um he was going for uh dial kidney dialysis three times a week. He was getting parts of his feet amputated.

Um he was living in the living room of a woman's house on a cot and people were still going to his house and he was reading this book to them. Um there was a his anniversary was coming up and Eric had a huge ego but but sometimes he was a little strange about himself and his anniversary was coming up and and and we wanted to have a big party for his AA anniversary or birthday. I'm not sure which you call it here.

Um you're in the middle. What do you say? Anniversary or birthday?

>> Oh, okay. I like that. New York it's anniversary.

in Arizona. His birthday. Um anyway, so it was his and he didn't he was too sick to go, but we said, "Eric, the group is having an anniversary and we want you to be the speaker for the group's oneyear anniversary." And he said, "I could do that." So he no, he said, "Can you carry me down in my wheelchair down the stairs?" And we said, "Yeah." And we got him there and our friend Louise started the meeting by saying it was the room was packed.

Could everybody that's been sponsored by Eric please stand up? Bunch of us stood up. He said remain standing.

Can everybody who's been sponsored by the people who just stood up please stand up? And a bunch of people stood up. And he continued to do that until almost everybody in the room was standing.

Where did it all start? From one person, Eric. Every one of us in this room can be Bill Wilson or Dr.

Bob. Build the fellowship you crave >> by carrying this message. It just starts with one drunk and a message.

My heroes are different today. You know, it it's not Roger and the kids that were the guy older kids that were on the other side of the schoolyard. Today, my heroes are Eric who was carrying the message when he was dying.

um my grand sponsor Don Pritz who you know carried the message to the you know to the day he died he he spoken you know he knew he was going home that night to die but had a speaking commitment in Colorado and went and spoke and carried that message. Um and you people who come out on you know a morning and are willing to listen to a message so that you can carry one. Those are my heroes today.

So God bless you and thank you so 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.