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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. I am just so thrilled to introduce him.

I met him the other day, well yesterday, Friday afternoon, and he's just just a pleasure and I'm so excited to hear him speak. Please welcome Bob from Ohio. Wow.

My name's Alcoholic and my problem is Bob. Hi everybody. Um, I'm nervous and um I saw that there was an exit door there and I have been talking to Bob for the last two days and tell him to wear a tie just in case and uh because I sometimes I just don't feel like I'm connected enough to God to carry his message and I don't want to carry my mess.

I want to deliver the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's just how some of our meetings are a little different and that always helps to try to get me out of the way. But before I get out of the way, I do have some pertinent information that I have to offer to you before I allow God to talk and uh to let you know that my name is Bob Clark and then my phone number has changed.

And the reason I let you know who I am and where my what my phone number is is if you're ever in the Akran area and you want somebody to take you on the tour or you've got a friend or a family member in that area that needs help, it's hard to find Bob C in the phone book. And if you've got my phone number, you don't even need to worry about a phone book. Dr.

Bob talked about that anonymity statement that it is just a large a violation of that anonymity statement to be so anonymous at a meeting that God don't even know you're here as it is to take it to the level of press radio and film and in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous I have been taught that there is no anonymity in here we have to know who we are and what we are or we can't help each other so you need to know who I am and please remember who I am when I leave here. You're welcome to tell anybody that I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and that you saw me here because that might be the person that needs help. I am not ashamed to be an alcoholic.

All right. I also need to let you know that I have a sobriety date and it's November the 8th of 1989. I thank you.

And I know some of you are here out of treatment and just so you don't have to do the math, uh, I've got about 17 and a half years and that's through a grace of a loving God and good sponsorship in a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. It's also important for you to know that I have a sponsor who has a sponsor who has a sponsor. And it's just important for you to know that I do sponsor people and I talked to almost every one of them today.

I picked up the phone and called them just to see how they were doing. And that's important for you to know because this book has very little to do with about my drinking and it has a lot to do with working with other people. I I have a home group.

We meet on Friday nights. It's a speaker meeting and it's in Kyogre Falls and you're all welcome there. It's open.

And I live in Akran, Ohio now. And if you don't know why Akran Ohio is so important, Alcoholics Anonymous, I suggest you call your sponsor and uh find out. But it's a it's a neat place to be from.

I was talking to somebody earlier and I give you that phone number because I've done it in the past and and I've ended up with phone calls and said, "Hey, yeah, I heard you in Buffalo. I heard you in Vegas or I heard you here and uh I'm coming through Akan. I'd love to stop and and see the sites." And it's a neat deal to take people around.

I have learned so much about our history because of you people coming in and taught me that that you know I'm not a good book reader so I I never picked up Dr. Bob and the good old-timers but you've taught me a lot about our history and it's neat to watch you light up when you see some of this the sites in Akran. I'm on the uh board of founders day uh which is uh probably the largest conference that happens every year.

We have just over just under 11,000 people there in Akran every year right around Founders Day and I've been on that committee for eight years and that's some of the service work that I do and that's a neat deal. If you've never made it to Founders Day, save your pennies. We have a good time.

We really have a good time and it's usually right around June the 10th. And if you're not so sure why June the 10th is so important, call your sponsor and uh you'll find out why. Uh, and that's enough of the important stuff for me.

Oh, there are a couple other things I want to thank the group for bringing me here. Man, I've been looking forward to this. I got a call from John Gez 13, 14 months ago.

And he says, "Hey, heard your talk and I'd like you to come speak at our home group in July." And I says, "Man, July is really booked." And and but I'll see what I can do. And he says, "Well, we're not talking this July. We're talking July 2007." And like, "Wow." And I says, "Well, I think I can make that." And I says, where is it?

And he told me and I went, "You got to be kidding me." And uh so I've been I've been anxiously looking forward to this for a long time. You know, they say that Alcoholics Anonymous is something that you have to want for yourself and you you've got to have the desire to be here. But folks, I I'm going to tell you the real truth about it.

There have been times I have stayed sober because I have responsibilities for Alcoholics Anonymous. I've got a disease in a brain that says you don't want to be sober today and it's going to be different. So sometimes I have used outside things to keep me sober.

Now that might sound strange but I have because left to my own thinking I'm screwed. So there have been times in the last year that my responsibilities to Alcoholics Anonymous has has kept me on the right track, kept me involved and kept me wanting to do things, do the next right thing so that I could be here today. Um, brought me out here.

You set me up in a hotel room and right off the bat I thought that was interesting. I got a handicap room and uh that was that was interesting. But uh um I am very handicapped but it's nothing to do with anything physical.

And uh but I fit right in in there. You know, the bathroom is very large and I guess I'm old enough I need those handrails on the side to get up every once in a while. I caught myself once in a handrail in the bathtub already.

So I guess I'll have to think about that. Um I had a couple of young men that took me around to a meeting yesterday, Jason, and he lent his car to me and uh that was really neat because I was able to to tour around town. And Elliot, if you happen to hear this buddy, I'm missing you.

wished you was here. I know we don't have a timekeeper tonight, so I guess I'm blessed in that way, Elliot. Um, but if you if you hear this CD later, Elliot, I I miss you and I appreciate you and my wife, too.

It was it was a great deal. And John got me to made sure I got to at least three meetings yesterday so he knew what I would what Alcoholics Anonymous was and that I knew what it was and how you guys did it here so I wouldn't screw it up. And uh that was neat.

We've got some great meetings here. It's nice to see that Alcoholics Anonymous is is alive and well in Aberdeene, South Dakota. Enough of the that stuff.

Let's get to why I'm here. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "I'm supposed to tell you what we were like, what happened, and what we are like today." It does not say what it was like. I was guilty from saying that from the podium for years.

It does not say what it was like. It says what we were like. And I don't know what all of you were like, but I know what I was like.

So, I'm going to tell you what I was like to be part of the Wii and I have to keep it that way so that I stay a part of. The instant that I say what it was like, I try to separate myself and be different, you know, and well, that's that and this is me and that's not part of me. So, I'm going to tell you what I was like, not what it was like.

I have no idea what it was like, you know. Need to talk to my family to find out what it was like. I didn't live much through it, you know.

The book says what we were like. Um, I'm from a family of four. I was the oldest kid, grew up at Akran, Ohio, and that's where I was rubber capital of the world.

And dad had a great job at one of the rubber factories. He worked six days a week there. He also worked six days a week uh during the day as a carpenter and uh to keep food on the table for the family that he had.

And he was a hardworking man. He had he was a man of trust and honest and dignity. And he he lived those four absolutes to a tea and never knew what they were.

He just came from a hardworking family and and he taught me those values and I had a good mom and I saw my dad drunk once. Dad was the kind of guy that would bring a six-ack of Genesee beer home. And that's back when beer were still in steel cans.

And he would drink half a beer and he'd set the rest of them in the ice box. And 6 months later, mom's cussing at him because the cans have literally rusted and the scene broke and it's spraying beer all over the refrigerator, you know, and I consider that real alcohol abuse in my family. And uh I saw my mom get drunk a couple of times on a half a glass of wine and she'd set the other half glass down and say, "I'm done.

You know, I'm starting to feel it. So, I'm telling you those things. And and there was no divorce in my family.

There was no abuse in my family. It was kind. It was loving.

I got everything I ever needed, not everything I ever wanted, but I always had, you know, food on the table and clothes on my back. And we were able to go on vacations as a family. And and and I wasn't beaten as a child or locked in a closet or put on the potty backwards or anything strange, you know.

And uh and the reason I tell you those things is because many times I hear people come to the podium and try to blame their alcoholism on all that stuff. And you know what? I tried for years too and it just didn't work.

I don't know if I was born an alcoholic. I don't know if I crossed an invisible line and became an alcoholic. I don't know if I was an alcoholic and waiting.

I don't know. And it doesn't matter. What matters is that I know I have a disease called alcoholism and that I have got a daily reprieve contingent on my spiritual beliefs and and understanding of God and I've got a way out today and it's called the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's what's important for me to know. Doesn't matter how I got it. It's important to know that I do have it because if I'm always trying to figure out, well, why do I have it?

It's always because I'm trying to figure out, well, they're to blame and so therefore it's not my fault, you know? Doesn't matter. I was I was brought up in a neat family.

We had good time together. I was the oldest of four kids and mom taught me how to wash and and cook and clean and and help raise the siblings and and that was a good thing. I always looked at that as a bad thing for years, but it was a good thing.

I I'm on my own again and I can take care of myself pretty well. Um, and uh, dad was hardworking and I was this tall when I was in high school and I weighed about 30 lbs less. I weighed about 100 pounds less and uh, maybe about 120 lbs less to come to think of it after this weekend.

And I was just tall lanky kid and I just didn't seem to fit in in anything I did. I I wasn't good in sports. I didn't I didn't fit in well on the basketball team and you know I didn't fit in well with the brains in school and stuff and and I was always the tallest kid right from the get-go, you know, and um I just never seemed to fit in.

I just never seemed to be comfortable in my own skin for a lot of years. And and I don't remember my first drunk or my first drink. I didn't know it was going to be important when I got here or maybe I would have tried a little bit harder.

But I do remember my mom and my dad talking about when I was six or seven years old and I was at an oldfashioned Polish Oompa wedding, you know, where they had a Oompa band upstairs and downstairs all the the family was cooking meals and stuff and you'd go upstairs and and and there was dancing going on and there was a pretty girl in the center of the room in a white dress and you know, you walked over and you gave her a dollar and then you danced with her real quick and then you walked off to the side and an old man standing there with a big ball of something, you know, And I don't know, it was old granddad or crow or something and you'd take a swig off of that and it tasted nasty, but everybody was doing it and giggling. So I went back to my mom and got another dollar and went back to my dad and said, "Can I have $5?" And somewhere during that whole evening, I ended up under a table and passed out. That's what I heard.

Well, I can tell you that the rest of my drinking was just like that. I like to dance with pretty women in a bar. I'd give him a couple of bucks and we'd get drunk and I would usually pass out someplace.

So, I really don't remember, you know, when I first got drunk, but I do remember that there was a funny feeling that happened inside of me. And I was a late bloomer. I really don't really don't remember intentionally getting drunk until I was almost a senior in high school, folks.

You know, I know that's late these days, but my god, I think I was 14 or 15 years old before I I had control of alcohol in my life. And and like I says, I was tall and lanky in school and I just didn't seem to fit in. And some kid says, "Well, let's go out for lunch." And they handed me a Schlitz tall boy.

And I had an old church key. And and we would shot down a beer back then. And that's for some of you people that don't understand what that is.

Is you take that church key and you poke a couple of holes in the bottom of that beer can and start sucking on it real hard. Then pull the top off. And all that beer would just slide right out of that can, right down your throat, all the way to your toes, and come right back up through your stomach and out your nose, you know.

And that's exactly what happened the first time I did it. You laughed and guess what? I fit in.

All of a sudden, I was accepted by a group of people that was like, "Well, this is kind of neat." You know, you laughed and you, "Hey, have another one." I says, "Great." And I, you know, and I tried it and I tried it again. And about the third or fourth one, there was enough that stayed inside of me that I do remember that certain peace and ease and comfort coming over me. You know, the big book of alcoholics anonymous says we drank essentially for the effect produced.

And that's exactly why I drank that beer. First of all, I was accepted and about the third or fourth one went down inside of me. I start to feel that peace and ease and comfort come over me.

And all of a sudden, I was comfortable who I was and what I was and where I was at. And I went back to Elliot. Good to see you, man.

>> You can make amends to work later. And uh uh I went back to class and I passed out. You know, I did that for a little while and but man, I didn't like the taste of Schlitchmalt liquor beer.

And it was usually warm because, you know, somebody had stolen it out of dad's ice box and it had been buried in the backyard for a couple of days or hidden under a pile of leaves, you know, just nasty tasting stuff. And somebody handed me something that became a love of my life for quite a few years after that. And what they handed me was a bottle of Boone Farm Apple Wine.

That always brings a few tears to a few people's eyes. And there's one of a little wineette. And uh I became a connoisseur of fine wines when I was in high school.

I could tell a fine wine by how many screw threads were on the caps. And I was able to turn that bottle up and I was able to drink it straight down and I got the same peace and ease and comfort from that Boon Farm that I did the beer, but I didn't have the after effects. The taste was okay.

It didn't come back on me like beer. It went down a lot easier and it was a heck of a lot cheaper. I was buying Boone Farm Apple wine for 98 cents a bottle, folks, when I was drinking.

Now, I'll let you know right off the bat, just so you don't have to guess. 52 years old, graduated in 1973. I live that era, you know, uh, and if you want to know what that era is, watch the 70 shows, you know, this the 70 show.

That's that's what I grew up with. And it was a neat time to be a kid. And it was a neat time to grow up.

It really was. There was a lot of freedoms that were going on at that point in in in the world and and drinking was accepted. It really was.

And I fell in love with Boon Farm Apple Wine. And um I I grew up right next door to Kent State University and that was drawing a lot of other things were going on over there. And I remember my my dad says, "Don't ever do drugs.

You'll get hooked on them." And I says, "Okay, Dad. Hell, I had Boone Farm. I didn't give it I didn't need that stuff, you know.

I was in love with Boone Farm, but there was a lot of that going on just right next door at Kent State University, and that's where the kids were shot. And I lived through all that era. And I spent a lot of time on that campus and never went to a class.

I'll tell you that. I did a lot of drinking in that community. And every place out there served Boon Farm Apple Wine, you know, and I'm 15 years old and running around the streets of Kent buying wine and drinking it.

And then I got a car and everything changed. And I got a 64 Chrysler Newport four-door with a push button torqued flight transmission on this on the panel over here. I had an eighttrack stereo strapped up underneath the the dashboard and it had a Craig Power Play booster in it and four speakers.

It was quadrophonic and that means four for some of you folks. And I had a car that went boom long before this stuff of this this day, man. You know, you'd crank it up just right and that power booster would kick on and the light would flicker on, you know, and you knew you had it going on and man, you'd slam in Iron Butterfly and listen to Inagata Devita and drink Apple Farm Booze Farm Apple wine and cruise.

Gas was 30 cents a gallon and for five bucks you could cruise for six days, you know. It was great. It was a neat time to grow up.

It really was. And drinking back then did a lot of things for me. It really did.

But eventually it started doing things to me. Because if drinking still was doing things for me, you'd have a different speaker tonight. It brought me out of me back then.

It allowed me to have a social life. It allowed me to be free. It allowed me to be comfortable in my skin.

It allowed me to have friends. It allowed me to do things and go places I would never dream of and probably would never want to do again. I run around in the bars of Kent, Ohio, and that was the kind of the bars.

Shag carpet was in style back then. You remember that? And shag carpet in a bar just never seemed to work well, but they always put it in there.

And you'd walk into this bar and you'd get halfway across the shag carpet and your shoes would stick to the floor and you'd walk right out of them, you know, and you really had to be drunk before you went in and use the bathroom, if you know what I mean. And you sat in in wooden booths and they served beer in in plastic cups and out of plastic pitchers. And the taps never had handles on them.

They always had a pair of vice grips on them instead, you know. And I was growing up in the era when anybody know who Joe Walsh is, you know, from the He was just starting. I've seen Joe long time ago.

I drank with him, you know, in those rundown stinky lovely bars that I hung out in, you know, and I was smoking Marboral cigarettes and just having a good time as a kid. and um all this other stuff was going on in Kent and and um we didn't like that other stuff going on, you know. We just those those bad kids, you know, we called them ptheads back then, okay?

And we didn't like them and we didn't want them in our school. So, we became narcs or wannabe narcs. We never quite turned anybody in, but we always made plans and schemes and we was trying to get those kids caught.

And you knew who they were. You know, they always wore an army coat and big bell-bottom pants that you never saw their shoes, you know, and raggedy long hair, you know, and they usually had a peace sign on somewhere. And they always had a bulge in their pocket.

That's because back then a nickel bag was a real nickel bag, you know, and that's the ones we don't want them in school. Blah blah blah blah blah. And we would make these plans to try to get rid of these kids in school when I was selling wine from the trunk of my car.

See, I learned how to use you guys early on. You know, like I said, it was a connoisseur fine wine. You'd open up the trunk of my car and I'd have it on ice or I'd have it warm.

Man, they came out with Annie Greensp Springs. They came out with Strawberry Hill. Little jug wine was was real popular with some of the kids, you know.

And if if you really wanted to get crazy, we had Mad Dog Deucey Deucey in there. And move some greasy rags and lift up the spare tire and you might find a ball of Thunderbird rolling around in there. And it's good stuff, man.

you know, and and I would buy it in Kent and I would sell it in a parking lot at the high school for twice the price. If you needed a place to drink, give me a couple of 50 cents or so, jump in the car, we'll slam in and got a Devita and we're going to cruise it, you know. And it was that was good.

I was a pusher. Look at it. I was a pusher and we wanted to get rid of these other people, you know, and here I am dealing out of the trunk of my car in high school and I did it quite well for about a year and a half, you know, made a good living at it.

had a good time. There was a kid I drank with every every lunch break for my senior year and we'd go get drunk together. I never charged him for the booze.

I never charged him to ride in a car. And he could listen to something different if he didn't want to listen to Iron Butterfly. And then we'd go back to school and you know to this day I don't know remember what his name was because I used him.

Because when I'd go back to school and I would pass out in my class, his mom was my teacher. And see, if I got in trouble, that means he got in trouble. And if he got in trouble, it didn't look good on her.

So, I learned how to use people early on so that I didn't get the consequences. And I'd pass out my my sixth period class and sleep for an hour and wake up and it was time to go home, you know. And I had a lot of fun in my drinking.

I really did. I didn't have any consequences. you know, I got out of high school and um um the day after I got out of high school, I started working my first full-time job.

I had a high school sweetheart and I wanted to go in the military. I was the first kids going through through a high school when the the draft was abolished. It was the end of the Vietnam era and I had plans of going into the military enjoying my time.

I mean, that was just the thing you did, you know. It was it was the honorable thing to do and and I was the first one to come through without the draft. So, I was that close to being in the military and a woman stepped in and she says, "Well, if you had a job here, would you stay home?" And I says, "Well, yeah, but I hadn't been looking." And I knew I wasn't going to do college.

That should have been a sign way back then because I didn't want to go to college because I knew all I was going to do was drink. I knew that, you know, I just knew that. And so, I didn't go to co I, like I said, I spent a lot of time at Kent State, but I never went to a class.

And um she says, "Well, they're hiring down where my dad works. If you had a job, would you stay and not go to the military?" And I says, "Okay." And so my little Alanon got me my first job. And I stayed at that that job for 17 years.

Uh I married my high school sweetheart a year after she she was a year under me in school. And we got married a year after she got out of school. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to.

I bought my first home when I was 17 years old, and I'm working a full-time job. I'm married by the time I'm 19, making real good money for uh the early 70s. And I was given a company vehicle and put out on the road and I worked in the vending business.

And uh that vending business took me into a lot of places I hadn't been into like restaurants and office buildings and hotels and bars and gas stations. It took me out of my comfort zone of where I had grew up and took me into different places and it took me to a community called Barberton, Ohio. And the reason I mention that is Barbington, Ohio was in the Guinness Book of World Records at one time for more bars per square mile than any other city in this nation, you know, and I spent a lot of time there.

Um, I think I got every one of them before they closed them up. But that opened up a new era for me. And at 17 years old and 18 years old, I'm going in and out of places I hadn't been before.

And I'd go in and fix on a vending work on a vending machine and get it fixed. And the the bartender says, "Well, do you would you like something to drink?" And I says, "Well, sure." And uh after about 6 months, I got tired of drinking Cokes. And I thought, "Well, I'm going to try something different." And the next time they says, "What do you want something to drink?" And I said, "Yeah, I'll have a draft." Now, mind you, I'm 17.

I'm just getting ready to turn 18. Legal drinking age for 32 beer was 18. I still wasn't even legal drinking age.

Been drinking really good for two years. Now I'm in a full-fledged 21 bar and he asked me if I want something to drink and I go out on a limb and say, "Yeah, I'll have a draft beer." Well, the magic started because I sat down behind something I thought was a a beer tap, but it was different. It didn't have vice grips on top.

It had real handles up there. It said like Michelob or Jenny or something, you know? It was really nice.

And he reached into this magic chest behind that and he pulled out the magic goblet. And this magic goblet was all frosted up and thick, you know, and a big tall thick stem on it, you know, and and he he he did this magic act and he stuck it under this nozzle here and he pulled on his handle and this liquid started flowing out of this tap and into this glass and swirling up and swirling up and man, it was just beautiful, you know. and he turned it up at just the right instant and this white stuff went up on the top of it and it started to run down the side of it and it froze and Oh, I'm sorry.

I know I can't make you drink, but I can make you thirsty, can I? But what he was doing was pouring a draft beer. you know, a real draft beer in a real glass that was all frosted and it ran down the side and he set it in front of me and he slid it over and here, thanks.

He gave it to me and said, "Thanks." And man, I tasted that magic of liquor and it was all I was done with wine. I I had never seen beer look that good before. Like I told you, I drank in Ken.

It was all 32. Came in plastic cups. It was always flatter in a pancake, usually warm because they go through so many cakes, they couldn't keep it cold.

You didn't care. You know, you're getting being you're served at 15 and 16. You didn't care what you was drinking.

You know, it was a dollar a pitcher. What the heck? We were drinking for a fat, folks, not flavor.

Well, I got to let you know that I like to draft beer coming out of a tap that way. And after about a couple of months of that, there was a young man like this guy sitting here sitting down in the bar from Yahoo. And he showed me something really interesting.

He had a shot glass next to that frosted mug. And he had a something in there. It wasn't it looked like that old granddad stuff I drank and he dropped it in that that mug and then he drank it real well real crooked.

I went, "Whoa." I learned all about slammers and boiler makers from guys like you. And uh I appreciate that because that set a set a pattern for about the next 20 25 years of my drinking. I became a barroom drinker.

Shot and a beer was my was my drink. You know, I loved it. Shot in a beer.

Shot in a beer. Alcohol was still doing things for me at that point. I got married.

I told you I had my first child. Second kids's on the way. I bought my second home.

We moved back into the community where I was raised as a kid. bought a nice little home and starting a family and I'm the the bread winner. I'm the the head of the household and you know and I got responsibilities and and I really don't know what to do with all that.

You know, I really don't know how to handle some of the stuff that's coming up. Some of the fatherly stuff, some of the husbandly stuff. There's pressure.

I'm I'm responsible for three other human beings. You know, it's that and I found when I would stop and have a shot and a beer with you, everything was okay. It took the edge off, you know.

It took the edge off. It was my solution to my problems back then, you know. And I I was raised in an era of John Wayneism, and a lot of you guys know what that is.

That you never asked for help. You didn't care. You did you just you you BS your way through anything.

But by golly, you weren't going to show feelings or emotions. You weren't going to act as if you didn't know because that made you look weak. And forget crying.

Oh my gosh. Forget crying. You know, we grew up with that.

I remember as a kid one time, and you boys will know what I'm talking about. We used to have those old banana bikes, you know, with the banana seats, you know, and man, we'd build ramps and, you know, long before BMX was in style. I mean, you know, these and we didn't wear safety equipment.

Huh? We didn't even have seat belts in a car back then, you know, let alone safety equipment on these bicycles. And and you'd jump off about a 15t ramp and as you came down, your feet weren't on the pedal.

And you would tumble end over end and all of a sudden you had bloody elbows and bloody knees and you know scarred up nose and that was not the worst of your problems. And you're laying there in pain and agony you know and the first thing that mom does is come over and what does she do? She says, "Oh, don't worry.

Don't cry. It'll be okay. Don't cry.

It'll be okay. It's okay. Don't cry.

You don't need to cry. I'm sorry, folks. I was hurting." You know, but that's okay.

Don't cry. don't cry. And God love her.

She's just doing what a mom would do. But I learned how not to cry and not how to show feelings and emotions early on. And that carried right through into my adulthood.

Here I am, a family of family of a wife and two kids and and a family and a house and and I've got emotions and feelings that I don't know what to do with and and I'm scared and I can't ask you. So my solution was to sit and have a shot in a beer. And it and it went away.

The problems went away. And that started and then it went from one night a week to two nights a week to maybe three nights a week to maybe four or five nights a week to maybe four or five shots in a beer. And and and that disease of alcoholism crept up on me slowly.

And it didn't come through the front door with DUIs and and wrecked marriages and abuse and and and divorce and all that. It snuck in the back door of our family. It snuck in very subtly and quietly.

And you know the book says cunning, baffling and powerful, you know, and it is cunning and baffling and it sneaks up on the family very quietly sometimes, very very quietly and over a period of years, you know, and it infected the whole family to the point to, you know, it was unbelievable. My problem, folks, was never that I was drunk ever. I never had a problem when I was drunk.

my problems always were when I were sober. The guilt, the shame, the remorse of what I had done or what I had failed to do was overpowering and overwhelming to the point that the only way I knew how to get rid of it. Go get drunk.

Go wash it away. Let's go take the edge off. That's all I want to do is just take the edge off, you know?

And I tried for years just to take the edge off, just to get mellow, you know. And I was able to do that for my first few years of drinking. I would just get mellow.

And then somewhere along the line, I always started overshooting the mark and I would get drunk and do things that I didn't mean to do and wake up in places I didn't wake up want to wake up and be with people that I didn't want to be with. And that still didn't bother me when I was drunk. But the next morning when I'm sitting at the breakfast table and the kids would look at me and say, "Dad, where were you last night?" I thought we were going to go to the You were supposed to be there for the school play.

Dad, where were you last night? It was open house at school and all the other parents were there and mom was there, but you weren't. Dad, where were you last night?

We were supposed to leave on vacation and the camper's not even pulled out of the backyard yet. Dad, why are we sitting around and candles at the breakfast table? Why can't we just turn on the lights not knowing that the electricity had been shut off again?

That the phone was shut off again, that the gas bill was behind and was probably going to be shut off too, and now they're going to be taking cold baths. That was my problem, folks. And my solution was to drink.

The solution was always to go get drunk. I couldn't handle the guilt, the shame, and the remorse. And maybe if I would have had some wreck cars and DUIses and divorces, maybe I wouldn't have had to go the road I did.

But you know what? I had to do everything I did to be where I'm at today. And I am just tickle pink to be here in Aberdine, South Dakota.

I would not go back and change anything that I did. Because if I was to go back and change anything, I would not be here. And I'm happy to be here.

I'm happy to be a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know what? I can even say that I'm proud to be a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

There's nothing wrong with that. So, I wouldn't go back and change that. But I was talking to a friend back home today and they said, and she says, "Just always remember where you came from." And so, I have to tell you some of those things so that I don't go back and repeat those things.

That's what it was like for me. That's what my drinking was like. It wasn't ugly and horrible, but it was ugly and horrible on the inside.

You know, it snuck up on the family and it did some ugly things to them. It got us, you know, we lost two homes due to my drinking. The electric was off more than it was on.

You know, it made my wife a liar and a cheat and she never got drunk a day in her life, but she always had to lie to cover up for for why I wasn't at the family picnic or she had to lie to the kids why I wasn't home in time for dinner. And she had to lie to the family why she had to borrow money to pay the electric bill. You know, she had to lie to the family on why we were moving again.

She had to do all those things and that's her story. It's not mine. But that's what I did.

That's what the disease of alcoholism did to my family. And it's interesting that the only time the word disease appears in our big book, it's preceded by the word spiritual. What I have is a spiritual disease.

I have a spiritual malady and I always drank spirits to try to cure it. Interesting. Today I don't drink those spirits but I have a spirit in my heart that is completely different.

It was something I'd always looked for and I got it because of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what my drinking was like. What happened?

Well, many people had that moment of clarity or, you know, got a nudge from the judge and showed up here and, you know, and and coming here to, you know, get the law off their back or their wife off their back or their parents off their back or or just trying to get, you know, some pressures relieved there. You might be here on on some papers and that's great. You know, we sign getwell letters at every meeting at back home that I go to.

We call them certificates of sobriety. Keep them. you know, they're going to be worth something someday to you.

And uh whatever gets you here doesn't matter. Just stay while you're here. You know, what happened to me was I had moved out of that family.

I had manipulated my wife for one whole year. One solid year. I manipulated and twist and conned and and I wasn't a violent person on the outside, but I always I lashed out with you my tongue.

We were talking about sarcasm just the other day and and a friend of mine talks about where that word sarcasm come from. And I was a very sarcastic person. And it comes from a Latin word.

When it's all broken down, it means the tearing of flesh. And I was very sarcastic with my family. I beat them down so that they couldn't get me, you know, and I left scars on their soul that will take decades to to to cure.

I would have been better off slapping them every once in a while because what I did to their spirit, I destroyed their spirit from the inside. And that's a hard thing to rebuild. I know cuz I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, a broken spirit, you know, and I'm still working to fix that.

And I broke those those kids spirit and I broke my wife's spirit down to the point where she finally says, "Move out. I can't handle this anymore." And I went, "Yes." Because see, I didn't have the nerve to move out. So she had to throw me out and and I drank on that one for a while and I already knew where I was going and who I was going to move in with.

And I moved in with him and for the next three months the party was on 24/7. The only thing in our refrigerator was Miller Miller Light and we had a bottle of Rumpman Schnops in the freezer and somehow a bottle of Tabasco sauce got snuck in there and we still don't know how that got in there, you know. And uh for the next three months I was living seven miles from my family and didn't send money home to them for for uh groceries or for the mortgage payment or anything like that.

I was just on my own to heck with the family. And I told you what kind of family I came from. I was taught every moral and and ethic and proper ethic and and everything that I ever needed to succeed in life.

I was taught that by my mother and my father. And alcohol removed all of that and gave me some things that I did not know even existed, you know. And that's what I had become.

A liar, a cheat, a thief, an adulteress, everything. Everything. And I never wanted to be that.

I looked down on other people. I became. And I don't know how people do the drugs that they do because I tell you what, folks, I was drinking and I couldn't afford it the way I was drinking.

And I was stealing and conning and manipulating people just so I could keep drinking the way I wanted to drink. You know, that was unbelievable. You know, I'd get my paycheck on Wednesday, it was gone by Friday, and and the weekend wasn't even here.

I'm screwed. So, what happened was my wife called me one day and uh she says, "Our kids are really having a tough time with this separation. Do you think you'd go to some family counseling?" Well, a miracle occurred that day because I said, 'Well, sure.' And it was a miracle because I hadn't agreed to anything that my wife said for a long, long time.

And uh she says, "Well, I'd like to pick you up and uh take you." And I says, "Okay." And that was a miracle because now I was given the control to her. And I hadn't done that in a long long long time. And I told you I really don't remember my first drink or my my first drunk.

But I do remember my last drink up to this point in my life. And that was on November the 7th of 1989. It was about 9:30 in the evening.

And I was at my headquarters bar. And I was drinking a Miller out of a glass bottle. And I was taking that bottle and I was making those little wet rings on the top of the bar.

You can do with a beer bottle. I was sitting there peeling the label off, you know, without tearing it. just just getting it off just perfectly.

And then, you know, so you can smatter it on the top of the bar. And I was taking my spare change and I was lining it perfectly center right in the center of those wet rings. And I was just tracing those wet rings with my fingers, you know, making little designs.

You know, the fun stuff we do in our drinking days. I was having a blast that day, you know, just sitting there all by myself just really having a good old time. And the thought in my brain was, what is wrong with my life?

Why am I separated from my wife? Why is my boss starting to give me a hard time at work? Why don't my kids love me?

Why are my friends starting to not hang around? And I remember taking that beer ball and slamming it on top of the bar saying, "What is my problem?" I wished I knew what my problem was. I didn't know that the problem was in my hand because, see, for years it was always, always my solution.

I always turned to that for the answer to every problem I ever had. I did not know that it had become the problem. And a miracle happened and I'm ashamed to say it because I got up from that bar that night and that was the first beer I had.

I drank half of it and I walked out of that bar and left half a beer sitting there. Now folks, I'm ashamed to say that because if I would have known that was my last drink, I would have drank it all. Okay?

And I walked away from a half a beer that night. And I hadn't done that in a long time. And don't you ever walk away from a half of your beer because by the time you got back, it wasn't there.

Where's my beer? Well, you drank it, man. Right before you went to the restroom.

Oh, okay. Can I get you one? No, that's all right.

Let me buy you one. Okay. You know, I just got done drinking.

Probably stole the money you left sitting there, too, and manipulated to a point where you're buying me a drink. I like this. I had to do that.

That's how much I was drinking. So, my wife picked me up on November the 8th, 1989. And I use that as my sobriety date.

That's because the f that was the first day for me that I didn't take a drink. Some people use it the last day they took a drink. It don't matter to me.

I don't care. But I know I sure wasn't sober that day. I was still on a three-day hangover.

You know, I didn't need to be drunk the night before Tuesday night because I was still drunk from the day before, you know. All I had to do was add water. Man, it was all right back there, you know.

And um we ended up in this hospital called Masselin City Hospital. And I knew where that was at. And we walked into a room and as I looked around the room, there's my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my sister-in-law, somebody I didn't know sitting at the far end of the table.

And I says, "My god, my kids do need help. They got the whole family here." You know, some of you know what happened and some of you are going, "What is this?" They call in an intervention and I had no idea. And I sat down where I knew I should be and that was at the head of the table.

And uh they all surrounded me at this big table, you know, and and my mom pulled a letter out of her purse and she started reading it to me and and here it was a letter to me about she wanted to know what had happened and where what happened to her oldest son and you know where did she go wrong and all this other stuff you know and then my dad he pulled out something and and it was a it was only the second time I ever saw my dad start to cry and he started crying so hard that he couldn't even read his letter. It was only the second time in my entire life I'd ever seen him cry. The first time was at my wedding.

And the second time was when was on that day. My dad was a big man. My dad was Native American Indian and he was taller than me.

He was about six times across the shoulders and he had hands of a giant, you know, but he was a gentle giant. And here's this man that I looked at, you know, always admired all my life and he's crying and and I knew something was up. And I had no idea what was going on.

But a change came over me because I started crying. And that was the first time I had ever cried in front of another human being. You know, I'd learned how to choke those tears back for a lot of years.

And the emotions started to pour out and and other people read things. And I don't know what anybody said. I h I don't remember anything until it got to the very last person who happened to be sitting on my right hand side and it was my 10-year-old daughter.

Now, my wife was told, "Don't bring the children to this because it's too dramatic." And she says, "My God, they've lived through his drinking. They're going to live through this, too." And thank God, she went against the advice of the family and she brought him there because the one that registered with me was my 10-year-old daughter. And she wrote, "Oh, daddy, where have you gone?

You've been gone oh so long. I miss you dearly. And this isn't merely a pain that will go away until you are home to stay.

Do you still love us? I really must know cuz there's a pain in my heart and it's starting to grow. I listened what she wrote down.

I felt the feelings because you know what? That's what was been going on in my life for a lot of years. There was a pain inside of me and it was killing me and I had no idea what it was.

Love, that's all I wanted. I'll do anything you want me to do. I'll say anything you want me to say, but please just don't throw me away, you know.

And so November the 8th of 1989, I walked through the doors of Blenway Treatment Facility and and that's what happened. Now, I spent only spent four days in there. That was the time of of the time that insurance companies were starting to back off on how much they were going to pay and and um I only got to spend four days there, but some miracles happened in four days.

I didn't listen to the counselors. The counselors were told, they were paid to tell me the things they were telling me. They were they were, you know, they read it in a book.

But in the evenings, the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous happened because you folks came in. You came in and sat in the smokers with me and you brought in real coffee because I knew the crap they were serving me there was decaf, you know, cuz I couldn't get rid of the shakes all day long. It was because they were serving me decaf coffee.

And you folks would sit there and you didn't tell me anything. But you told me something about you. You carried the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Just like the chapter working with others. You dangled a carrot in front of my face is what you did. You attracted me as opposed to promoting it.

And there was something there that that attracted me and you told me to keep coming back. I says, "I ain't going nowhere. I'm in treatment.

Just keep coming back. You'll be all right." I only spent four days there. And um just to let you know, Elliot doesn't have his time cards.

So, if you get done listening before I'm done talking and want to leave, that's quite all right. But I still got a few minutes. And uh I got to I got to get into my recovery some, too.

I'll be done before the 80-minute CD is done. I'll guarantee you that because I'm a taper back home and uh but you guys brought in the message of Alcoholics Anonymous and you brought in this little blue book and you started reading things out of this book and some of that made sense and some of it didn't. Some of it applied and some of it didn't.

But I saw something in your eyes that caught my eye and so I listened to what you said and you'd leave and you'd leave me an extra cup of coffee and maybe a pack of cigarettes, you know. And I'd go back to my room and I'd think about what was going on. And I just didn't know.

But something was clicking. Something was clicking. And I got out of there four days later and I was supposed to meet a friend of mine.

Now, let me back up. I I want to tell you this one story in that happened to treatment because it's pretty amazing. And now that I put the disclaimer in about time, um, you won't believe when I get into what it's like today, you'll see why I need this, folks.

You'll see exactly why I'm here. I know exactly why John called me 13 months ago. God had a plan for me to be here right now.

While I was in treatment, there was a neighborhood. I lived in this I lived in a very tight neighborhood, you know. I lived in the same neighborhood all my life and there was always one dad that was always around, you know, and this guy's name was Homer.

Most of our dads worked nights, you know, and Homer was a carpenter during the day and he was home at night and he was the neighborhood dad. He always fixed our bicycles. He built a treehouse for us.

We'd all jump in his pickup truck and he'd take us down to Dairy Queen, you know, and he would break up the fights or he would instigate the fights or whatever, you know. He was the neighborhood dad. He was the dad that was around when the rest were working.

And we we loved Homer. And um Homer went into the hospital the same day I did. And he was diagnosed with um leukemia.

And uh my mom come in to see me. I went in treatment on Wednesday and she come to see me on Sunday. And she says that Homer is so worried about you.

He just wants to get well enough to come see you. That's all he keeps asking is how's Bob doing? How's Bob doing?

Is I want to get out before he gets out so I can go see him. you know, he was a good man. He he was he was humble.

He wanted to do something for somebody else even though he was diagnosed with leukemia, you know, and so I thought mom was just being mom. And she says, "No, really, he he's just so concerned about you." And there he wants to do something for you and he doesn't know what to do. And so I went down to the the um gift shop and I got a get well card for Homer and then one of those floating balloons, you know, and I sent it home with my mom and and uh I says she said she was going to stop and see Homer on the way back and I says, "Well, you giving this to Homer, you know, and cuz I knew that this isn't good.

Leukemia is not a good thing." And she called me later that evening and she says, "Homer never got to see the card that he had a brain aneurysm and died before she got there. you know, he didn't have to suffer with leukemia, that he was dead, 48 years old, family of four kids, and died. And I remember going back to my room that evening, and I I cried for the second time in four days, you know, and I'm sitting in my in my and I haven't stopped, folks, okay?

Uh, and I'm sitting in my room and I'm crying my eyes out thinking about the loss that I just had of this this this second dad, you know, the dad that, you know, was always there and thinking about his kids and, you know, my gosh, it's not going to be the same. and and I remember crying uncontrollably, you know, and then somebody walked into the room and that that John Wayneism kicked in and I'm choking back the tears and I'm trying to hide my feelings and my emotions and I never saw the person sitting there and I know that person was an angel but I felt this arm come around me and for the first time in my life somebody told me it was okay to cry. This voice says it's okay to cry and I haven't stopped since.

It's okay to have emotions. I don't want to hide them anymore. You know, sometimes I have to cuz I'm driving a car.

That can be dangerous. Just as dangerous as driving drunk sometimes when the emotions come on. Laughter is a sign of identification.

Okay. And uh I got out of there and I went to Homer's funeral and I thought my mom was just being a mom. You know, when she told me how much Homer was concerned about me.

You know what? Everybody at that funeral home come over to me and says, you know, all Homer talked about why he was in the hospital was you. He wanted to do something for you.

And his concern was always about you the whole time he was in there. And as he took his last breath, he says, "I wish there was something I could do for Bob." I know that man did something for me because as I look back on it, the compulsion, that drive, that that thing that pushes us out there every time, that compulsion to drink was lifted that day for me. Homer took that when he passed away.

Now folks, the thought of drink has been there a lot. that that compulsion, that over driving thing that the the hamster that just won't shut up in your head that says go get drunk was lifted that day. And I know and nobody's ever going to convince me any different that Homer in his prayers took it with him because I have not had it since November the 10th of 1989, the day he died.

The thought of drink has been there, don't get me wrong, but the compulsion has been lifted for me. You tell me what to do with the thoughts. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous shows me what to do with the thoughts because the book says that the problem has been removed.

See, I hear people from the podium say, "Today I choose not to drink and that's BS." If that's your case, if that's how really what you believe in, what are you doing in AA? Our book says we have no choice in that. Our book says that we have lost the choice.

Well, today I choose not to drink. The book says the problem has been removed. If you do these steps, the problem is just removed.

It does not exist. You don't need to have a choice. You know, I give that up.

I believe what the book says. There's a lot of misinformation that comes into our rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous every once in a while. And I'm guilty just as guilty as so many other people of saying things like that.

So that started my journey of recovery. I'd like to tell you I got home and Ed McMahon called and said that you won and we're sending you $2 million. And I'd like to tell you that the bank, the mortgage company called and says, "Don't worry about being 10 months behind.

You know, we'll take care of that." and that my love life with my f with my wife just sprouted and the kids just jumped up on my lap and said, "Don't worry about all that other stuff, Dad." You know, and if you believe that, we can go ahead and say the Lord's Prayer. Nobody's standing up. So, we got about five or 10 more minutes and and I I'll tell you what it's like today.

What happened since then is that in my first year of recovery, I I worked my program to the best of my ability. How many times have we said that? Been guilty.

And after about a year and a half of being sober, working my program to the best of my ability, I was laying on a kitchen floor now divorced from that wife because they they say don't do anything. No major decision in your first year of recovery, right? Who are they?

You ever gone to the they meeting and to find all this wisdom? You know, I'm I I looked in your directory. I can't find the day meeting.

But by golly, they're smart people because they got all the answers. They say no major decision in your first year of recovery. You know, me getting up in my first year of recovery and not going to the bar and going to a meeting.

That was a major decision. There really was. There was a lot of major decisions I made in my first year of sobriety.

Folks, there better be. Now, I did learn to run a lot of those thoughts by somebody called a sponsor, but you know, there's a lot of major decisions that need to be made. No relationships in the first year of recovery.

I'm married. You know, the only problem I've ever had and I will always continue to have is a relationship problem. I don't have a problem.

I wake up in the morning, my relationship starts with me, with God. And I get out of bed, it starts with you and other people in my life. All my problems stem from relationships, don't they?

If I didn't have a relationship problem, everything would be okay. So, I'm having a relationship in my first year of recovery. They say 90 meetings in 90 days.

Can't find that one in the book. Well, they said don't make any major decision in your first year of recovery. So, I didn't.

I waited till I was 13 months sober and told my wife I didn't want to be married. I waited. Listen to what they said.

I got divorced by the time I was 18 months sober. And by the time I was 24 months sober, working my program to the best of my ability, I was on my kitchen floor, curled up in a fetal position, wanting to die. Dying was an option.

Drinking was not. Don't drink even if your butt falls off. That's what they say.

And the book says try control drinking. Let me know how it works out for you. But they say, the book says try control drinking.

Doesn't say don't drink. Says it works better if you don't. Total absence.

abstinence is pretty good. Well, my butt was falling off and I didn't know what to do with it. I finally went to my sponsor and he says, "Well, you know, I know that you've been working your program to the best of your ability for about almost two years and how's that working out for you?" I said, "Well, as you can see, not too well." He says, "Why don't we try working the program and allow me and God to help you and maybe you're going to have some better luck." And I says, "Okay." He says, "And I don't ever want to hear you say that you're working your program to the best of your ability.

Your program damn near killed you." That's the truth. Can't say that anymore. My program will kill me.

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous is outlined in this book is what saved my life. So, I got involved in the big book called Alcoholics Anonymous. I found out that fellowship wasn't going to keep me sober.

This is Fellowship. this isn't going to keep me sober, but it adds to my sobriety. And actually, the program is not going to keep me sober.

The two combined, and if you read the book, you'll find out how Bill talks about the fellowship and the program and how vital they both are to our recovery. They truly are. I was guilty of standing at the podium and saying, "I came to the program on November the 8th of 1989, and that's a lie.

I came to the fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous on November the 7th. It took me about a year and a half to really find out what the program was. And it's called the program I've out outlined in here.

It's the 12 steps and everything else in this book. It's not my stuff, folks. It's what's here.

You know, I believe in this thing. So, he's had me go through the steps in a way I hadn't before because I just kind of skimmed through them before and did what I thought needed to be done. And he was a kind and loving sponsor, you know, and says, "Well, just let me know how that works out for you and I'll be here when you need me." And finally I needed him at about almost two years sober and I started to get involved in Alcoholics Anonymous the way that I should be involved in Alcoholics Anonymous.

He says, "You know, if you lay in the center of the bed, it's really tough to fall out, but you've been laying on the on the edge for a long, long time and it's only going to take one little bump and you're out." So I got in the center of the bed of Alcoholics Anonymous and and and my life changed rapidly and I worked the steps to the be the best of his ability, my ability and God worked in there too, you know. And it was amazing. It was amazing.

I found out that there was a lot more than eight promises or 12 promises or whatever that stuff is that they read that's not true. The very first page says precisely how a hundred men have recovered from this disease called alcoholism. I mean from alcoholism.

That's a promise. That's on the title page. My gosh.

Any statement in there that gives me hope is a promise. You know, it really is. Don't believe me?

Go in a book. I'm not making this up. I started working the program.

I started living the program. My sponsor says, "Why don't you quit working the program?" John and I were talking about this. He says, ' Quit working the program.

I says, 'Why?' He says, 'Well, work is a four-letter word to you. He says, 'I know you always want a vacation from work. You skip out of work early sometimes.

You get a paycheck from it. You expect a paycheck from it, and when you're done with work, you go home and you go away and you leave it, don't you? And I says, "Yeah." He says, "Well, the book says this is a way of life.

It doesn't says it's work. It says a way of life. Why don't you start living the program?

Why don't you start living this way of life that the book talks about?" And I went, "Oh." He says, "And practice all these principles in all your affairs. It's not what I do between the serenity prayer and the Lord's prayer that's important. It's what I do after the Lord's Prayer and before I say the serenity prayer again is my gauge on how well I'm living this way of life.

I can be real good in here. It's what do I do when I go out there and I'm in that traffic?" Well, you guys don't know what traffic is here. Okay, so you come up on a herd of cattle standing in the road.

Okay, I love you. I'm not putting you down. It's just, oh god, it's so laid-back around here.

But you come up in traffic, you know, it's like, oh, you know, and then I realized I got a sticker with a circle and triangle on the back of my car. So I started living this way of life and miracles started happening and my sponsor died after 13 years of being my sponsor. He at 52 years old had a brain aneurysm.

sat up in bed one morning, that was it. Gone. At his funeral, I found another man that I called my sponsor for the next three years.

But I didn't have anybody I was accountable to. I didn't have anybody I'd sit down over coffee with and really tell them what was really on my mind and my heart. I didn't have that person that I was current with.

I didn't have an open line of communication with another person in Alcoholics Anonymous because my sponsor was the one that I always did and he was gone. And I started to go on a downward spiral about three years ago, 3 to four years ago. I was still going to meetings.

I was still praying, but I wasn't involved the way I was, and I wasn't current with what was going on in my life with any human being. and and I found myself out in California. I went out to visit my daughter and uh I was a mess.

I was back in that fetal position wanting to die again in sobriety. And folks, I'm 14 years sober and I'm wanting to die. It's ugly inside my head.

And I'm sitting on this mountain in in u Joshua Park outside of 29 Palms, California, looking down into Palm Springs. And 90 miles away, you can see a mountain in Mexico. And that's where I want to be because nobody knows me there.

I'm wanting to run. I'm wanting to get away from me. I can't stand me again.

And I'm sober. And I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm active.

I'm involved in Founders Day. I'm doing taping. I'm sponsoring people.

And I'm wanting to die. because I don't have somebody I'm accountable to in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm working my program to the best of my ability again is what it come down to.

And I'm wanting to die. And all day long, I'd been trying to make phone calls and I didn't have a cell signal. And I tried my cell phone one more time and I got a signal all of a sudden.

And I picked up the phone and I called another alcoholic. And I wasn't calling to whine and complain on how I was doing. I just wanted to call and talk.

And I really hadn't talked much to this person at all. And she answered the phone. And my God, we sat there and talked about God and steps and Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and a lot of different things.

Okay, you guys heard that, right? Okay. And it was it was it was unbelievable that that the change that came over me just from one simple phone call to another alcoholic, you know, is unbelievable.

and it set me back on that path again. And so if you think that your phone call is putting somebody at a discon or an inconvenience, let me tell you something, folks. Your phone call might be saving their butt.

Pick up the phone and call them because in her story, she will tell you that she had just come out of the woods and prayed to God that something different would happen in her life. And another member of Alcoholics Anonymous called because see she was at that jumping off point too. It got me involved in the back into the big book.

It got me involved in the steps. And it wasn't because of her. It was because a little aa math.

Me plus nobody else equals zero. But me plus another member of Alcoholics Anonymous equals three. because that's when God steps in.

I need that other person for God to be there because by myself I don't see God often. I need the third that other person and then 1 + 1 is three. God stepped back in my life and it's been a it's been an interesting journey to bring you current real rapidly.

uh a marriage of 31 years is is ending by my choice because things just aren't really up to what they need to be and and I've done a long hard inventory and all that and I'm okay with that. I'm I'm very okay with that. It's not an ugly divorce and it's not over money and it's not over any of this.

It's just sometimes people grow together and sometimes they grow apart and 30 years of no communication you have you happen to grow apart, you know. Uh I'm on my own and and uh and that's interesting to spend time alone with me and uh but it's all okay. Uh I do big book workshops with people.

I take them through this big book line by line, page by page and I keep my opinion out of it and we and we do what the book says and and when those people do that, they get on the other side and they've had that spiritual experience that the book talks about. We don't go through the 12 steps together. We go through the big book together.

Because if you do the steps off the wall, you end up with off-the-wall promises. You know, that is the short version of our 12 steps. I stand corrected.

That's the short version. You want to know what the long version is? It's in the rest of the book.

That's where they're at. I'm going to close again. I want to thank John for inviting me and for the home group for for taking care of me while I'm here and for your patience for putting up with me tonight.

I said I'm going through some some big changes in my life right now. Last year at this time I did not know that a marriage of 30ome years was going to be ending. I've only been out on my own for about two months now.

God had a plan to get me here. God had a plan to say stay to keep me involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. you know and um I want to end with two very quick things and again thank the group for having me and your patience for having me here and stuff.

I live in Akran Ohio and and I want to tell you how I want to show you how a God works my God works in my life at the right time and how he appears in different ways. You know, I wanted the burning bush God and I never quite got that. But I have taken God as I see him today in different lights.

And I live in Akran and I was sitting at Dr. Bob's house one day and I was doing some step review with a guy I sponsor on the front steps on the front porch. It's a neat place.

And then you go upstairs and you do the third step in Dr. Bob's bedroom and you just you can't help but feel something. You just can't help it, you know.

And we're sitting on the front porch and and um the home there is an older home, not unlike the the yellow house here, but it's much smaller, but it's an older home and and it sets up on a little knob of a hill and out in front there's a rock to and a memorial to Dr. Bob and Annie and there's a little stone wall out in the sidewalk and and I noticed that there was a little little seven or eight year old boy that stepped up onto the off the sidewalk and into the yard over to the rock and I looked at my sponsian. I says, "I wonder what's doing, you know, cuz my thoughts going one way and he says, "Well, I think he's praying." I says, "He's six or seven.

He's not praying. He's over there, you know, colored on a rock or something." He says, "No, Bob. He blessed himself and knelt down in his hands together." And so I turned around and we watched.

And a couple minutes later, this little boy, six or seven, little little color boy about that tall, stood up, blessed himself, and I stepped off the porch and onto the yard. And I says, "What are you doing over there, son? Praying?" He says, "Yeah." And he stepped down to the sidewalk.

And I says, "Well, why are you praying here?" He says, "Well, I got somebody that needs some help and I know this is a neat place to pray." And I says, "Really?" I says, "Well, what's wrong with your friend?" He says, "Well, he drinks too much." And I says, 'You got a friend that drinks too much? Yeah, his wife died and he's smoking and drinking too much and and and he needs some help. And I says, 'Well, why would you want to pray here?

He says, "Well, I know that there was a man that lived here that gave new lives to people that drank too much." And I says, "Really?" He says, "Yeah, yeah." So, I'm I'm here praying for him. And I says, "Well, would you do me a favor?" I says, "Would you come up here and lead me and my friend in a prayer?" And he said, "Sure." And so this little color boy, six or seven years old, about this tall, comes up and he he reaches up and he grabs our hands and he pulls us to our knees at the rock at Dr. Bob's and he looks up at this guy and he says, "God," and and Dr.

Bob, too. He says, "I got a friend named Steve and his wife died and he's smoking and drinking too much and he needs a new life. Would you please give him one?" Wow.

And he started to get up and I says, "Wait a minute." I says, "Can I say a prayer?" And he said, "Sure." And so I looked up at this guy and I says, "God, Dr. Bob, too." I says, "You get Steve to Alcoholics Anonymous and we'll take care of him. That's our job." And the little boy stepped onto the sidewalk and he thanked us for praying with him.

And he says, and I told him, I says, "You you come back here and pray anytime. This is a very safe place to pray." And he says, "Yeah, I know." He says, "I pray here every once in a while." He says, "You know, my mommy don't even pray." And I says, "That's okay, son. you you keep praying.

You'll be all right." He says, "Okay." And he walked off down the sidewalk and I get up on the porch and I open my big book up and I look at my sponsor spons and I look at my book. I look at my sponsor. I look at my book and I go, "I think we're done." He says, "What?" And I says, "I can't top that." And he says, "Okay." And the greeter that day at Dr.

Bob's come out of the house and he says, "Who was that?" And without skipping a beat, I says, "I know exactly who that was. That was either God or one of God's angels. And if you don't believe me, look down the street because you will not see that little boy anywhere.

None of us looked. That's how my God appears to me. He came to me and he says, "Keep alcoholics anonymous.

Alcoholics anonymous. Keep it the way that Dr. Bob and Bill gave it to us so that when a seven-year-old boy has a friend that's drinking too much, he knows where to go with that problem.

and we pray to a God of our own understanding for that still suffering alcoholic and we pray together. That's how my God appears to me. We have a responsibility in Alcoholics Anonymous to do exactly what Bill and Bob did and that is to carry the message.

Thank God that they didn't sit around and say if you want what we have and are willing to go to any length then you call me. No, they went out to the hospital and they found the drunk, didn't they? And they carried the message to the alcoholic.

They didn't sit on their butt waiting to give somebody the message if they walked through the door. Carry the message to the alcoholic. We have a responsibility.

The book talks about helping others and working with others constantly. They wrote a whole chapter called working with others. It doesn't say sit at home and wait till the phone rings, does it?

says, "Work with them." And I'm going to close with that. We have a responsibility for our own sobriety to do that with other people. I see an active home group here that's doing some things that I'm I'm just tickled to death to see that they're doing.

You know, feel happy and proud that you're doing that, that you've got solid AA here. I want to close with one line here. We always talk about the 12 promises.

They always say that there's 12 promises. I want to read with with two paragraphs here and then I'm going to sit down. And I again I want to thank you so much for allowing me to ramble.

I folks, you don't know how much I needed this. I really did. But this is from the chapter called working with others.

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. That's a pretty good promise. It works when other activities fail.

This is our 12th suggestion. Carry this message to other alcoholics. You can help when no one else can.

You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember, they are very ill. Listen, just see if maybe some of these might be promises.

They are to me. Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover.

To see them help others. To watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends. This is an experience you must not miss.

We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with each other and newcomers is the bright spot of our life. I want to thank each and every one of you for being a bright spot in my life tonight.

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day.