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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. >> So, I want you to help me welcome uh a friend, a mentor, a member of good standing of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a member of good standing of the Preston Group of Dallas, Texas, David A.

Hi everybody. My name is David A and I'm an alcoholic and only because of God's grace and miracle of alcoholics anonymous. I have not found it necessary to nor have I taken a drink of an alcoholic nature since April the 20th, 1967.

And for this I am so thankful. My role this afternoon will be to share AA's experience in our 12 steps of recovery. and this member of Alcoholics Anonymous experienced in the recovery program.

We need to remind ourselves at all time that no human being in Alcoholics Anonymous speaks for a as a whole. No one has been so designated, no one has been so appointed, no one has been so elected, no one has been so chosen. All we have is to talk about what it used to be like, what happened, what it's like now.

Also in Alcoholics Anonymous, we're asked to share our experiences, not our opinions, because we find as a result of our experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous that opinions in many, many instances have a tendency to make sick people sicker and in some instances to physically kill people. No one in Alcoholics Anonymous has the right to monkey with anybody's emotions, anybody's head, anybody's sex life, or anything else. financial, legal, doesn't that make a bit of difference.

And if we are willing to do that, then that puts the burden on those who come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And we have to remember that when they read a portion of chapter 5 when he says if you decide you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it and you're ready to take certain steps not necessarily what we have us members right here in this meeting but if you decide you want what the drunks put in the book of alcoholics and honor period then you're ready to take certain steps. Now we come to find out that the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous for us in AA not for any other recovery program for an alcoholic but for us in AA are the logical process by which an alcoholic finds a way to live sober.

Alcoholics anonymous does not get anybody sober. A problem drinker gets sober by stopping drinking. Stopping drinking there was my problem.

Starting again. We used to hear it all the time. I put the plug in the jug.

I put the plug in the jug hundreds of times for come to Alcoholics Anonymous. Pulling it out was my problem. Kind of like sex.

When you're doing it, you're not having too much trouble. Is when you're not doing it is when the trouble starts. So, it's been the principle of a that any alcoholic who follows our program without deviation has been able to remain sober.

Those of us who have cut corners, skipped over steps, eventually find themselves in trouble. And this has been the principle rather than exception. Now, upon being asked which is the most important of the 12 steps, one of our early members once replied which is the most important spoke of a wheel.

If a wheel has 12 spokes and one of the spokes is removed, the wheel will probably still continue to support the vehicle, but it will have lost strength. Removal of another spoke weakens it more and eventually the wheel will collapse. And so we find in aa the removal of any of the steps, refusal to take them in sequence will usually result into a collapse unless we can come to see the nature of that problem.

I'm one of these that believes that when you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous or been around for a while or a little while longer, a little while, particularly new, that the new ones be introduced to the 12 steps as soon as possible. Now this fellowshipping and this hugging and this kissing and this rubbing up against and scratching and laughing is good stuff. It started more groups now you can shake stick at.

But it will not stand up when conditions and things in our individual lives feel it's too big a mountain for us to climb. If one feels that the steps are a bit complicated at first, they can be introduced to oneself in a simplified form and I do not believe it takes away from any meaningful steps. Now when this member of Alcoholics not asked to share the 12 steps to recovery the introduction to each of the steps I used what started with Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 group one in a still being used in group one and all of it has been later incorporated as they begin to write the book of alcoholics and on within the book and so we admitted we were powerless over alcohol.

But more important, we want to do something about it. When I come to you people, I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol, but I didn't need to do anything about it. If my wife would straighten up, them two rotten kids would straighten up, my girlfriends would straighten up, the police would straighten up, the bankers would straighten up, and society would straighten up.

Or in other words, when we get here, what is the admission that we're whipped in the business of living sober? This is what it's all about in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then we have a desire to stop drinking alcohol, not quit.

Then we ask and receive help from a power greater than ourselves. And here comes the ingredient that has made alcoholics anonymous as the most precious, finest recovery program and fellowship for an alcoholic that the world has seen, has seen, and probably ever will see. And that is human beings who are alcoholic, who are sober at Alcoholics Anonymous.

Now, someone can be sent to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't care how you get here. It's what we do after we get here.

They come in, they'll find maybe they've been told where to go to a group. They come in, no one's there. They start looking around and they see all those signs on the the walls and my god, I must be in a kindergarten.

Then they see the 12 steps on the wall and what's the first word that every one of us see when we get here? The word god that uhoh, this must be some sort of a kooky religion. And then he foots around and he finds a blue covered book.

He opens up the book. What's the first word he sees in the book? God.

Well, this must be their Bible. And while this is going on, the door opens and another human being comes in. The brand new one turns around.

He walks over and he asked the one just came in. He said, "Who are you?" And he says, "I am an alcoholic and I'm a member of this group." The new one walks around him, looks him over, smells him like a new dog in the neighborhood, and says, "If you're an alcoholic, how come you're not drinking alcohol?" The member says, "I am a sober alcoholic." The new one says, "How many kinds of alcoholics are there?" If the member has any experience whatsoever, the member says, "Three." The new one says, "Three," the member says, "Yes, there's a drinking alcoholic and there's a sober alcoholic and there's a dead alcoholic. We are the ones that put conditions on our own selves.

You know, an alcoholic can't just be an alcoholic. You got to be an alcoholic and a diesel mechanic, an alcoholic and a glue sniffer, an alcoholic and this and that. An alcoholic.

Our common welfare. We're society of equals. And then the new one says, "Well, what's those steps in that word God and what's this book?" Now, if the member has any experience working with drunks, says, "Come here.

We got a coffee pot over here. Let's make some coffee. They make some coffee and he sits down.

The new one says, "I asked you about." The member says, "Let me tell you my story." The member is not well into the story and the new one says, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you sure my family didn't send you here?

My employer didn't send you here? My counselor didn't send you here? The correctional people didn't send you here?

Why? Remember the new one said because it sounds exactly like my story. Now, if we'll listen to the stories and quit worrying about the differences, all of our stories say the same thing.

We couldn't stay sober, we couldn't stay drunk, we couldn't kill ourselves, we couldn't laugh. In other words, we couldn't live sober. That's the uniqueness of Alcoholics Anonymous in the recovery program.

And so it is a human being that is the attraction. Now in all cases this power is called God. Now Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't duck it.

It's not your God, my God, that God, what God, he, she, he, God, she, God. It's God is each of us have the freedom to understand God. That was the 10 strike in alcoholics and honors.

That's what made alcoholics and honors because in aa we have atheists that are sober. That's God as they understand him. We have agnostics that are sober.

That's God as they understand him. We have true believers that are sober and alcoholics and arms. That's God as they understand him.

And if you don't understand God, that's how you understand him. Now, wiggle out of that one. But for the purpose of simplification, the word I'll use in the next couple hours meaning whatever power greater than oneself that one chooses to accept.

In the case of the agnostic or the atheist or any unbeliever, it's only necessary that he or she remove believe in some power in the universe greater than he or she is. You can call it God. You can call it Ali.

You can call it Jehovah. You can call it the son. You can call it Confucious.

You can call it a cosmic force or whatever one choose to accept as long it's an comfortable honest conception. Because certainly we admit we live in a world where night follows day, where spring follows winter, and where crops ripen at the certain times of the year. And when the heavenly planets, the the heavenly bodies and planets maintain an orderly course, if they didn't, gravity would sling us off of this earth.

I don't know about you. I have never read about nor ever met any of the descendants of a human being that invented Earth. Earth was here when man got dropped on it.

and all the elements that we enjoy right this tick of time. Food, energy, water, clothing, synthetics, lumber, everything in this martyr, bricks, concrete, everything was here. The elements to produce them were here when man got here.

All man has done is create has harness man's creative intelligence. And I love what Alva Edison said when he was congratulated as being the world's greatest inventor. He says, "No, I am not the world's greatest inventor.

I never invented anything. All I did was take other people's mistakes and make them work." And this is what Alcoholics Anonymous has done. has taken all the mistakes that previous programs for an alcoholic failed because of property, prestige, glory, ego, but no maintenance program.

The dependency was still on man's outside and inside of man himself, human willpower. And this is the reason that a is so successful. So when we look at the heavenly bodies and they don't sling us off the earth because of lack of gravity.

So it's only logical that there is some power greater behind all this artlessness and such an admission basically is all that any of us need. Then we cleaned up our lives, paid our debts, writed our wrongs, and we carried this new way of life to those who are desperately in need of it. And so the 12 steps follow a logical sequence.

One that has been used by a successful sober member of an alcoholics anonymous. Now in the early days and age, a drunk would come in and he get sober. He was continuously sober when he died.

Some came in, got sober, went out and got drunk again, came back in and got sober again, and were continually sober when he died. Some came in, got sober, went out and got drunk, never made it back, and died drunk. AA is still the same today.

Still the same. That's how little we know about stopping drinking alcohol. You know, and so they follow logical sequence.

These steps were carefully thought out. They were argued over. They fought our order and they're just as true and necessary to successful recovery from our illness today as when they were written.

And step one, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that allowed become unmanageable. Now without the first step, there is no chance to recover. Why?

It's been demonstrated over and over and over and over again that I become become sober and stay sober only when he or she is doing him doing it for himself or for herself alone. Now, we may become sober temporarily for the sake of another human being. Fear of some sort, afraid they're going to lose their job, afraid they're going to lose their family, some afraid they're not going to lose them.

But unless we are sincerely and genuinely determined to sober up for ourselves and for ourselves only, then our days of sobriety become numbered. This is the most difficult step to take in Alcoholics Anonymous. There is not another step as difficult to take because this step requires a heck of a lot of preparation in order to take it.

The first thing is you got to drink alcohol. Drink alcohol to the point to where it totally dominates the obsession to drink and to fight it right down the wire. Sometimes you have to listen to ugly things that are said about us.

that we're unreliable. We can't be trusted. We cannot be dependent upon.

We get drunk at the wrong time. You smell bad. Why were you ever born into this family?

Why weren't you born into the family across the alley? And we don't live in a vacuum. We hear these things and sometimes we begin to believe it because a prospect must make it alone.

Now someone can bring to us the nature of our problem. But unless we accept it and are willing to do it for ourselves and for ourselves only, not for family, not for the world, not for anything or anybody else, but only to please a power greater than ourselves. Because it's not easy to admit defeat.

For years, we said, "I can stop drinking anytime I want to." And then some knows the individual would stick his nose in my business and say, "Yeah, but when do you want to?" For years, we believe that sobriety was just around the corner. And tragically enough, we never rounded a corner. And suddenly discovered, much to our disgust, that we cannot stop.

I don't know how many of y'all watched professional football, but last Sunday when the Dallas Cowboys played the New York Giants and there were millions of fans all over the world watching on satellite television and in the stadiums and at home who absolutely believed that the Cowboys were going to score enough points in the last second and a half, last one and a half seconds of that game and beat the Giants and the Cowboys boys didn't even have the ball. I don't know. I don't know if you know what it is.

When they find you, they capture you and they bring you home. They take all your clothes off and your money and they throw you in a bedroom and the windows are barred and they lock the door and there's not one door knob and it wasn't on my side of the bedroom. And then they have a convention of all the in-laws, the outlaws, all the religious leaders, everybody else in the neighborhood knows it was everything else.

And they hold a convention. The theme of the convention was what to do with one David. And as the voices got louder, they're moving to the hall to that bedroom.

And I never will forget one of Grace's brothers. He said, "Why do you stay with him? Why do you live with?

She said, "But you don't know him when he's sober." And he said, "Well, when is he sober?" Then he said, "If I was married to him, I'd poison him." My wife couldn't understand later on why I wouldn't come home and eat her food. And I'm laying there and and ugly things. It's just like sticking a hot knife in a wound full of salt.

And I say to myself, if they think I'm drunk now, by God, I'll get out of here. money or no money, clothes or no clothes. I'll show them what drunk really is.

But I had I had to get sober to realize that they were doing the best they knew how what to do with me. They didn't know any different. So when we come to Alcoholics, we finally come to the fork in the road where we either admitted that we had a problem or continued to sink deeper and deeper into the mire of active alcoholism.

And here comes old AA. I mean, the best kind of alcoholics anonymous. We used to hear it all the time at every speaker meeting and every they'd get up behind the podium and they'd pound on it.

If you continue to drink, you're going to go crazy. They're going to lock you up in a maximum security nut or they going to lock you up in a penitentiary or you'll be murdered or electrocuted. Yeah.

And we used to hear a lot of things like that until the admissions made to ourselves for ourselves only that our alcoholic problem has gone out of control not our drinking problem. You know when you have a drinking problem when you run out of alcohol when you're drinking that's when you got a drinking problem but our alcohol alcoholic problem is has gone out of control. Yeah.

Until then we'll have no inspiration to want to stop drinking. But once that admission has been made, then the way is clear and it is at this point that the experienced sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous can step in and lend a helping hand. And then the remaining steps are automatically made easier if they were made harder.

None of us would stay in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, it's utterly amazing. Alcoholics Anonymous has no definition of alcoholism.

We have descriptions of an alcoholic with the exception of Dr. Silfor's description of a doctor opinion. Here they come.

We're many women who have lost the ability to control the drinking. It doesn't say you're an alcoholic if you've gotten DWIs. It doesn't say you're an alcoholic if you've written hot checks to stay drunk.

It doesn't say you're an alcoholic if you've lost your family, gotten somebody else's family. It doesn't say you're an alcoholic you because you lost job. Uh there are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking.

The great obsession of every abnormal drinker is to somehow someday be able to control and enjoy his drinking. A normal drinker does not have to control his drinking. the abnormal drinker.

Then the next one that if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount that you take. Once again doesn't say anything about checks, DWIs, jail time, nut time, anything else. And then the next one the first step we admitted we were powerless over alcohol physical that our lives become unmanageable metal and so a came up with the illness.

Now aa the the disease concept came outside of alcoholics anonymous. Alcoholics and on calls us a malady or an illness. A two-fold illness of mind and body.

A mental obsession so powerful that condemns us to drink against our own will. No matter how many promises we make, we mean it. But we don't know that we are suffering to something that's condemning us to drink.

And the physical nature of the illness condemns us to die if we continue to drink. And so the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous came up with a solution, a power greater than ourselves. Now I like to talk about because anytime this member of Alcoholics Nom is asked to share a's experience and this member's experience in the recovery program, this member spends quite a bit of time on step one.

very simply because here as we find out what's wrong with us and until we're willing to find out what's wrong with us we'll never be able to find out what can get right with us and like to talk about some of the our kind the inability to stop drinking after taking one drink the necessity for a drink in the morning now I never did start drinking in the morning I was already up drinking when morning came around getting drunk at the wrong time. That is when the occasion calls for one to be sober. I'll share an experience.

We were living in this little town in the Panama, West Texas. And the richest of the most influential man in the town died. And that man loved me dearly because he had an active alcoholic daughter that was an encourageable drinking drunk.

And they put her barefooted with no teeth on a bus with a one-way ticket from Memphis, Texas to Vancouver, Canada. And he saw a lot of her and me and he died. And the family asked me to be a paw bear.

Now, it's an honor to be a paw bear. Well, it's one of them cold, rainy days in the panhandle of West Texas. Not quite cold enough to sleep.

And I'm home getting all juiced up to be a paw bear. Put on my right boot, take a drink of whiskey. Put on my left boot, take a drink.

Every button on my shirt, I'd button, I take a drink. Put my pants on, my tie on, take a drink. Finally, pitch what was left of that half pith underneath the front seat of that old station where I can go church house.

Now, I don't know how many y'all lived in a small country town with those oldfashioned churches. They didn't dig a cellar. The ground floor was a sellar.

They just our basement, right? They just build a church right over. And you climb up those steps like climbing up Pikes Peak.

And you open up them big oak doors and they got them curved pews. And to get down on that front row, which called hopeless row, it's like skiing down Pikes Peak. And I'm in there and all I'm thinking about is the drink.

And the host minister starts the services. And I knew who all the eulogizers were. Well, after the eulogizers got through, I'm saying about now I'm going to get me a good drink of alcohol.

And that's not sanity. But they tricked me. They had augmented the choir.

And the choir started to sing. They sang every hymn in the Methodist himnel and half out the Baptist himn. Wondering child, please come home.

We'll all gather down by the river at the foot of the cross. And Jesus loves you. And here's a hymn I do not like.

It's amazing grace because I'm married to a gal. Her name is Grace. and she ain't amazing.

And finally they get through and you know the paw bears got the wheel the deceased up while the congregation files by takes a look before they close the box and then they go down the steps and line up on either side of the steps leading to the hearse. And I knew I could never hold the northeast corner of that coffin up without a drug wish. One of the funeral house assistants came by and I nailed him and I said, "I'm sick.

Take my place." And I scooted out the side door, got in that station wagon, went about three blocks, pulled that bottle out, peel that sack down like a banana, knocked the cap off, took the drink, all begin to smooth out, took another, my hair laid back down, my underwear loosened up, my feet felt more comfortable than boots and thanking it took another and another. And thank God I had enough sanity not to try to crawl in with the rest of the pawbears drinking and drunk or to try to drive in a funeral procession at 5 mph and drunk. Well, the cemetery is about 5 miles out in the country.

I said, "Well, I'll gauge my speed and I'll get out there when the hear gets out there, the process." So I started I'm drinking with one hand and driving and I turn on my radio and I love country western music and my favorite radio station in those days was Del Rio, Texas where they sold Bibles and crosses and chains and rejuvenation powders and posters and lotions post office box. They sold everything under the sun. Get your cupy dollar Jesus.

You can love him. You can hug him. You can kiss him.

He's with you 365 days out of the year. And he glows in the dark, you know. And they play those fine country western tunes.

Don't wink them bloodshot eyes at me. And here's what is good for 11 months of drinking and 14 months of crying. Only God made honky tonk angels.

And I'm a singing and I'm drinking. I get out to the cemetery. There's nobody there.

I climb up the wet hill. The false grass had been laid. Chairs over it.

10 over that the graveyard been dug stansion each end and a sling for the coffin. Nobody shows up. I get behind the little lectern.

Make about a twominute eulogy. Nobody shows up. See a couple of chairs outline.

Straighten them up. Slide back down the hill. Take about eight more honks on that juice.

I'm coming up that wet slick hill. Now I'm not seeing double. I'm seeing quadruple.

And I'm seeing four whole rows of chairs that are out of line, crooked. I got to straighten them chairs up. Well, is there anything our kind don't want?

We don't want anybody to know we've been around and messed up. So, I'm aiming for four chairs that ate out of line. And I hit that old false grass.

It gets slicker than you know what. And one of the tips of my booth catches a seam on that thing. And the next thing you know, I'm sliding.

And next thing you know, I'm grabbing two chairs. Next thing you know, me and two chairs, we're down in the bottom of that hole down there. And you know, when you're extremely drunk and you're flat on your back and you can't get up, it's the most helpless feeling in the world.

Here comes the preacher. Here comes Grace, my wife. Here comes the pawbears with the deceased.

And the son of the deceased hears all that scratching and squealing down at the bottom of that hole. And he sticks his long turkey neck down there and he sees me and he asked me this brilliant question. What are you doing down there?

And I gave him a drinking drunk's best shot. I said, "I'm trying to get out." That's what I'm doing. They hauled me out and I'm drunk and I'm wet and I'm muddy and every eye is looking at me and I could see the looks in the eyes of the people who I love the most, who love me the most.

I could see the tears, the shame, the disgust, the befuddlement, the utter disbelief and disgrace. But I also saw something in those eyes that every alcoholic has seen in the eyes of the people who love us the most and who love us the most. Not only when drinking unfortunately sometimes after we get sober in alcoholics and not although those eyes do not audibly say these words those eyes look these words and those words are oh no not again and I'm saying get these services over with so I can obliterate from my innermost consciousness the guilt the shame and the remarks and the looks and eyes of the people I love the most who love me the When those services were over with, I didn't go out and take me a drink of alcohol.

I went out and got a box of alcohol. And I didn't come back to that town for 3 and 1/2 months. But the ridicule and the shame that my wife and our two young boys had to endure was almost too much for their sanity.

That's what you call getting drunk at the wrong time. But after I got sober, I realized that I had at that time no defense. No defense.

Not getting drunk. Then neither did you. Yeah, that's a tremendous gift we've been given.

The inability to sleep without the use of alcohol, loss of a memory during a drunk, and the deadening. We hear these in the personal story. And you know once our kind become an alcoholic and sadly we do not recognize it when we cross over the borderline invisible line whatever you want to call it we are an alcoholic for life.

We may go years and years without drinking yet when we go back we're back in the old squirrel cage again. It is never better it's worse. So it's not only important that we admit that we are alcoholic, but we continue to bear in mind that as alcoholics only complete sobriety will keep us reasonably normal and sane.

And what is total sobriety in alcoholic night? Four-fold mental, physical, emotional, and soul. If there's one area in a human being's life that our recovery program did not cover, us drunks would have eaten this program up alive.

program is the principles are too powerful us too powerful for us. So if you're new or if you've been around or if you're wondering is it really worth it can say to them and say yes I have an alcoholic problem. I'm certain that I'm an alcoholic but more important I have to continue to live sober.

Then half the battle is won. And now the mind is open to listen to the experience by the sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous as they explain to us in their own lives how they're living. If you decide you want what we have and are willing to go to lake to get it that our lives become unmanageable.

Many come to alcoholics and believe their lives are unmanageable when they're drinking. No. When we're drinking, we're drunk.

It's in between drunks. My life right this very tick of time living a lifestyle on David's own terms is just as unmanageable as it was before I got here period no more no less and I believe it with every fiber of my being a tells us exactly when we're going to get drunk again when it tells us we do not know when the obsession to drink will return but we know that it will and if we're not on solid spiritual grounds at that time then it may be too late. Read our book.

Listen to the stories that go back to drinking. All the stories in the book that went back to drinking and even those that are not in that are in AA or were in AA and not members today that went back to drinking. They all say the same thing.

They failed to enlarge and develop their spiritual life. And so as a result of it, anyone just stop and examine one of their drunks should not have a difficult time in admitting that we drift away from Norman. Normal drinking for me would get you a pine of cheap whiskey or a pine of wine, knock the cap off, suck her down in one swallow, to empty away, and go get a n.

Many of us, we admitted, you know, that we tried any method to live, think, and try to drink normally to control it, but always failed. Many of us tried medicine. Many of us tried psychiatry, drying out farters, nutous, hospitals.

When I say hospitals, I do not mean treatment modalities. Caves, tents, witch doctors, horoscopes, bio rhythm charts, acupuncture, hypnosis, anything. So now when we come to the point in the managing of our lives, we're a complete failure.

Our kind. Because if I could manage my life, I could have managed my drinking. Step two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore sanity.

Step two, step six, step seven by age's experience are three of the most sloughed over steps in alcoholic anonym. You'll hear a member say, "Yes, I know I was insane. I was treated for shocks treatment." now has nothing to do with whether one has been legally declared insane, psychotically declared insane, medically declared insane or anyway has nothing to do with it.

sanity and alcoholic came to believe that a power could restore us to have sense enough one day at a time to realize that we have a two-fold illness of mind and body that unless we're willing to have sense enough to realize the seriousness of the nature, we will continue to drink and not get sober and stay sober. sanity for our kind of people begins when we don't take that first break one day at a time and then begin to grow. And so as a result of it, if we take the first step, then we want to know how we're going to receive assistance.

Looking into our own past lives, we discover that our attempts to give up alcohol through our own willpower fail. It's comforting to know, however, that many great minds are agreed that trying to use willpower in this business of trying to stay sober is like trying to lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The sincere efforts of our families and friends to help us.

In most instances, we're totally unsuccessful. Many of us fancied ourselves as rugged individualism. We like to say, you know, I like to think I'm the master of my fate and I'm the captain of my soul.

That sounds real good when you're sitting in the bar and you're beating on and say, "I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul." And the phone rings and you say, "Hey, bartender, tell her I ain't here." You know, but we live to a little thinking that we've been miserable failures in the business of living sober. Many of us tried medicine. We tried hospitals.

We tried treatment modalities in some religion. We found a lot of deep sympathy in many instances. They took our morning but we couldn't find sobriety.

So willpower, help from family, friends, medicine, farm religion have failed. There were a group of people such as us who had exhausted all the alternatives and they finally found what we now know as our recovery program, Alcoholics Anonymous. And they found there was not but one place to turn to and that was a power greater than ourselves.

Sanity begins to us. It starts the sanity and believing in this power greater than ourselves that can do to and with and for what we cannot possibly do to and with ourselves. We'll pick it up later.

That the great fact that the obsession to drink has been removed. Sanity has been returned. That's the kind of sanity aa talks about.

Yeah. And so there's not one place, and this is not difficult as it may seem. We are not asked to go to a house of worship to find this power greater than ourselves.

We're not even asked to seek the advice of a clergyman. We've got herds of clergymen that are sober members of alcoholics, not know more about clergy, and they are just as suffer from the two-fold illness of mind and body as anybody else. We've got herds of psychiatrists that are members of AA that know more about psychiatrists that are in the same situation.

We're only asked to quit trying to run our own life our own way and making such a sorry mess of it and then with an open mind listen to and then begin to accept the experience of people such as us when we come here who have ironed out the same problem that brings every one of us to Alcoholics Anonymous. the inability to live sober as a problem drinker. And I'm one of these kind.

I like to keep it as simple as I can. If we remember back when we were little kids and we'd go out, we'd stump our toe or somebody would steal our little scooter or our rope and our ball and our jacks and a little tricycle and our toys. And we come running in the house just balling away.

And we put our head in nanny's lap. And some about nannies, they always had a handkerchief in the bosom. They'd pull that handkerchief out, say, "Blow your nose, child." And then they start rubbing our rump in the back of our neck and her neck.

Tell me, tell me your troubles, child. Tell me all about. And we pour our little hearts out.

And they say, "Everything going to be all right, child." And we believed it because we trusted when we were naive little children. So, and then they pat us on the back, say, "Go dive spot. Give us some money.

Go down to the store and get some candy or something or ice cream." And so, when we leave, that's like a goose in a new world, you know. And so if we can believe as when we were naive little children in this universal father ready to listen to our troubles ready to give us the same understanding and love that we received from someone whom we trusted that was older than us when we were little children. Look around at at your friends and say hey you know their troubles were as great as anybody else's.

Some, not all, were down and outers morally and in many cases physically. Yet by beginning to live the same set of principles, they have managed to live sober. It's just a matter of wanting to listen to the experience and then put it into practice.

Live the program as it's laid out for us. But more important, have faith in that program. It's working for us and it'll work for any alcoholic.

You can we cannot work these steps. The steps have to work us. The minute we put our hands on it with our innate substance self, we begin to bend it.

We begin to twist it. So what was the dilemma? Why do we need to be restored to sanity?

What was our problem before we got here? not drinking but in between drunks. Why is it that we had everything in this world to live for yet we returned to drinking?

Where was this power? Why couldn't willpower do it right now? Willpower.

Oh, there may be somebody say, "Well, look at me. I'm using my willpower and I don't live steps this." They ain't dead yet. Lack of power was our dilemma.

And we had to find a power by which we could live. And it had to be a power greater than ourselves. Obviously, but where and how do we find this power?

Our book says the main object book is enable you to find a power greater self that'll solve your problems. You ain't my problem. David is David's problem.

Then they wrote a line in that book, two lines, greatest lines I've ever read in any book, any place anywhere from the time since I could read to right now. We believe that we have written a book that is both moral and spiritual, which has been to me and means to me right now if I'm willing to do what was put in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, they tell you how they did it, but they don't tell you when they did it.

The time factor in each of our lives is when we it's time for us to do it. That's all. If I'm willing to do it, then I no longer have to be concerned whether I have a spiritual or moral life.

As long as I'm living sober, I have one. And no one can tell me I am wrong. That is a tremendous gift and a tremendous feeling.

We all have it. We may not express in the way that I just got through expressing it. Now, as soon as any of us believes or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him or her that he or she is on the way.

And it's been a it's been repeatedly proven among us that upon this very simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. If one reads the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and reads Bill's story, it was just a matter of Bill being willing to believe in a power greater than himself. No further requirement was necessary for him to make a step three.

Now if you look at the 12 steps, the first step is a diagnosis. The second step is a prescription. The third step is taking a medicine.

The fourth step is a diagnosis. The fifth step is a prescription. Step six and seven is taking a medicine.

All but the last line of the eighth step is a diagnosis. The last line of the A step is a prescription. The ninth step is taking the medicine.

The 10th step is a diagnosis. The 11th step is a prescription. The 12th step is taking the medicine.

Now, if a gets more complicated than that, I'm going to have to go get me another deal. Now step three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood him. Now if we've come to believe that there's a power greater than ourselves, you see a had a chance to blow itself out of the tub when it got started by trying to define God in the second step.

It didn't. Didn't even name it. Believing believing in a power greater than ourselves.

This opens the door for the agnostics and the atheists. Whatever they believe in, it's their honest conception and a lot of them are staying sober. Now, if once we've come to believe there is a power greater than ourselves and we want to stay sober and live the awave recovery program in life more than anything else in this world, but we confine it to one day at a time.

Then if we want it more than anything in the world, it's not too difficult to turn the thing that run power and that's us. As I said in the second step that is rugged individ individuals, we are ranked failures individ sober always looking in the future always disappointed. It is it is at this point that one day at a time day by day or the 24-hour plan comes to our system.

And what is one day at a time living? And our co-founder Bill owns words as Bill sees it or the a way of life. It's our emotional being one day at a time.

Our emotions break us or make us when we're sober. Now we found it by giving up planning. I got up this morning and we let each day take care of itself.

When I got up this morning, I didn't say, "David, you're going to stay sober for David and David's going to keep David sober." Uh-uh. No. I lost that fire power of choice long ago.

I got up this morning. I said, "Good morning, Heavenly Father." I called it heavenly father God. I don't call it the eye in the sky hermit, the brown paper bag, or the velvetine rabbit.

I said, "Good morning, Heavenly Father God. My name is David A and I'm an alcoholic and I'm reporting in and only with your help can I stay sober this day. And here is my jug and you keep it for me this day." And since I've been doing that, God has not poured me a drink of alcohol.

Said, "Drink it, David." Now, I'm one of them kind that I ain't going to sit by the bed and meditate 10 minutes. I'll fall back asleep. I get up and get to going.

Then when I'm driving to my office, that's when I'm I don't listen to the radio, read the newspapers, nothing. I just talk to God. And so we found up each day take care of said did when we were drinking.

Yeah. And if we're doing the best we know how with whatever experience we have, we're doing the best we know how. Yeah.

And I ask God to stay sober to stay sober this day with only with his help and the next and the next and the next. And then when the day ends, I thank you. This is a first step in turning our will and our lives over to care of God as we understand him.

Now when we come to Alcoholics Anonymous, we come in, we stop drinking one day at a time. They give desire chips, some don't. You get a 30-day winner, you get 3 months or 6 months or 9 months.

It's already happened. It's already happened because next thing you know, we're saying the serenity prayer. It's got God in it.

We're saying the Lord's prayer. That's God in it. It's already be to happen.

The key is let it keep on happening. I was talking to a young member not long ago. He says, "I'm having trouble with the third step.

What do you think?" I said, "I believe you haven't still don't believe the second step." I said, "I'd like to ask you some questions." He said, "What's that?" I said, "How long you been sober?" He said, "3 years." I said, 'How was it the next the last day you got sober three years ago? He said, 'It was horrible.' I said, 'Well, you you you got on some nice looking shoes, pants, shirt, eye. What was your clothing situation next day you got sober three years ago?

He said, I was barefooted. I was in an old pair of khaki britches that I'd been in for about 11 months, no underwear. I said, "Uh, you got a job?" He said, "It's the best little job I've ever had in my life." I said, "Well, how was what was your job situation next last day when you got sober three years ago?" He said, "I was unemployed and had been unemployed for two years." I said, "You married?" He says, "You know, nine months ago, the little wife and the our two children returned.

We're living under one roof again." I said, "What was your wife and children's situation?" Next last day, when you got sober 3 years ago, he said 5 years before that, he was stood up in front of a judge and told he was never to see his children again. nothing to do with him and nothing to do with his spouse. I said, "You got a house?" He says, "You know, we just closed the contract two weeks ago.

It's the first house that we're going to own." We paid for it. I said, "Well, what was your housing situation next to last three years ago? We got sold." He says, "I was sleeping in alleys over steam grates and cardboard boxes." I said, "You got a car?" He says, "Best little car we've ever had.

What was your transportation next last day when you got over three years ago?" He says, "I was a foot and had been a foot four years." I said, "Dummy, it's already happening. Just keep on doing what you're doing. That's all.

It's happening to every one of us, but our own selfish and self-centered ways get into it. I'm just as guilty as anybody else, you know. You bet you.

And so, this is the first step in turning our will and our life over the care of God. We understood him. And we develop to we find we are no longer headstrong.

We're no longer trying to run our own life our own way and make a sorry mess of it. Now, we hear it a lot of times in a that it's at the third step. It's a third step prayer.

Well, when I got sober, y'all were saying praying strange prayers. And I didn't know. And I went to my sponsor and I said, "They're praying strange prayers." And I don't can't pray that way.

He said, "There are three prayers in the big book. Gummy. Read them.

See if you can find them." Well, I found the first one. Y'all called it. I didn't call it prayer.

Y'all did. It said, "Many of us said to our maker." You notice it didn't say any uh all of them in the book. Many of them said they are maker.

as we understood him. We don't hear those words, do we? As we understood him.

God, I offer myself to thee who build with me and do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those that help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life.

May I do thy will always. Now, right now, right this very sick second of time, it means far more to me than it did when I read it when I was only about 10 days sober over 30 years ago. Yeah.

God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou will. Not how my sponsor wants me, not how you want me, not how my family wants me, not how my patients wants me, not how society wants me, but how God wants me. Then I ask him to relieve me of the bondage of me that I better do his will.

Now comes God's will for us and that is to let God take away my difficulty that victory over them bear witness to those that I would help of thy power thy love and their way of life. May I do thy will always and always for us is let him take away our difficulties self from self one day at a time and it culminates in the 12 step having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps that's God's will for us in aa I was at a meeting not long ago and they were talking about God's will and one of our little members said it's God's Well, that I buy a Ford Escort. Now, God's not interested in what kind of car I'm driving.

You know what God's interested in? If I can't afford it and they repossess it, what's my attitude? Yeah.

Now it said we thought well before taking this step making sure we're ready that we could last abandon ourselves utterly to him. Now you don't have to have very many big book seminars and study group on the word utterly. Now I very seldom read from the book of alcoholics and I do but this portion right here I read I cannot get through it without cracking up laughing.

It's the funniest lines to me. It's in the book. He said, "We found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person such as our wife, best friend, or spiritual advisor." The only three that were married were Bill and Bob and Bill Dodson.

The rest of them, they didn't have any wives and they didn't have any friends and they didn't have any spiritual advisors. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's better to meet God alone than with what one who might misunderstand. You know, the little drunk comes in. He comes and he gets all excited and he gets flushed with his spiritual enema and he's out to save the world and he runs into his minister and the minister says, "God, it's good to see you, but we don't I haven't seen you in Sunday school.

I am seen you at the Wednesday night prayer meeting. I am seen to Sunday morning services. I am seeing you at the revivals of the encampments of the cemetery cleaning detail.

Where you been, little drunk be Mr. Preacher? I'm now a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And you know what? I found God. And the preacher, the minister, and it's a logical question for them to ask.

Well, why'd you have to go down there with them old drunks to find God? Why don't you come to the church where they call it the house of God where God is and a little drunk they had an experience Mr. Preacher, I'm a member of your church and you said, "Don't you belong to no other church.

Only God's in this church." I went with a friend of mine. His sister got married in a Catholic church. And they introduced me to the priest.

And the priest says, "Where do you go?" Well, I will. Don't go back over there. Come here.

Only God's here. Mr. preacher.

I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and you know what you call them old drunks at that God's everywhere. That's the reason why I'm comfortable, Mr. Preacher, at Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I'd be more comfortable. I'm coming back to your church, your services. Then I can understand something for the first time in my life.

But it can never be a substitute nor a replacement for my recovery program in Alcoholics and Honor. And so therefore, sometimes we take it a best of spiritual divider, but it's better to meet God alone than with one who might misunderstand. That's what I was talking about.

and the wording was optional but once expressed a great feeling will begin to take place. Step four made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Now this is a step that requires something that none of us have the right kind before we get here and that's courage.

You say what kind of courage me? God grant me the strength to accept the things I can courage to change things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Now one of the reasons for drinking was to escape from ourselves.

It's just like putting our shoes on backwards. We kept walking into ourselves and didn't want ourselves and couldn't get rid of ourselves. And we knew that we were afraid to face packs.

It's the reason that we're afraid to face facts. We're afraid to face the consequences of the facts. We're afraid of families and all these other things and we're afraid of thinking about them.

But if we fortified ourselves by taking the major hurdles in the first three steps, the time now comes where we're going to have to do something about living sober. Up to now, we're just dry. And the sooner we do something about living sober, our chances of staying sober increase and increase and increase and increase, the longer we put it off, the chances to return to drinking or maybe mentally going crazy emotionally increases, increases, increases, increases.

That's not inventory. that that's aa's experience and not opinion. Now we find the time now comes I said there's something definite about our problem and what is the problem?

Lack of power to change the effects of our defects of character in our life. We don't know this now. Not in the fourth step.

We don't yet. No. Now when we get into our fork that way, we find we've been dishonest with our own selves.

If I've been dishonest with David, I've been dishonest with you and everything about me. We've lied about the true nature of our drinking. We've broken hearts.

We've cheated the ones who love us the most to have a good night's sleep and not to have to get up when the phone rings at 2 3:00 in the morning or the doorbell rings. Who is it? Is it the drunk?

Is it the coroner? Is it the sheriff? Is it the district attorney's office?

Is it drunk drunk and d brought some drunken playmates home? You know, we've let down employers. Some, not all, have indulged in extra marital curricular activities, broken faith.

And all we find that when we get physically sober and look at ourselves with so much guilt, shame, and remorse that we've been miserable individuals in the business of living sober. And this is where the great news that alcoholics not brought to the world. It can if one has is an alcoholic can be traced back to alcohol.

You see a also brought to the world that ours was not a moral illness. How can it be moral if it's self-inflicted and we don't want it and we can't get rid of it? Moral and alcoholics anonymous has nothing to do with immorality.

Many come and look at that word borrowed in the fourth step right away. Immor had nothing to do with it. We got to go into our recovery program and to another step to find out that those defects of character, those defects, those moral defects that made our lives unmanageable.

Defects of character that tear down the fiber of a human being. And so if we continue our inventory, we consider our physical selves. Our health has been impaired.

Money is faulty. Appearances become careless and slances for some at a low e. I made a call on a drunk in a drying out joint.

It wasn't a treatment center. I walked in. I looked at him.

Johnny looked at me. He said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I come here to visit with you." He said, "David, do you know your reputation in alcoholic nons?" I said, "No." He said, "Your reputation is that when you come and visit a drunk in a place like this, the next one comes in the undertaker." I said, "I saw him turning the corner about two blocks away. He hops out of bed, got on one of them shark kimonas, you know, come halfway between the hip and the knees and wearing them joints.

One tie is always untie in the back. And he slips his feet in them half moon paper shoes, toes and no heel, and comes towards me doing that thorazine shuffle that they do in that place. And he looks at me and he said, "What I need to do?" I said, "Bail yourself out.

Put your clothes on and come with me." He said, "Back to Alcoholics and Honor." I said, "Back to Alcoholics and Honor. You never went AA. You just visited AA.

You criticize the people in there. They didn't have any money, the kind of cheap cars they were driving and their clothes and their education and their political. No, we're going to, you know, I looked at said, "Johnny, how much money you got on your hip?" He said, "900 million." I said, "What'd you have when you started?" He said, "A billion and a quarter." And that's true.

Now, I could understand that. I didn't file to pay income tax for 18 years. And I turned myself into the federal government, IRS.

And they estimated no stocks, no bonds, no real estate, nothing that I made with my eyes, my hands, my feet, a million and 700 some odd thousand. And when I come to Alcoholics, all I had was a quarter in a nickel, 30 cents. And that was all left.

the last blood I sold to blood bank to buy wine. Now he came down from a billion and a quarter to 900 million and I came down from a million $700,000 to 30. I could understand that just like he got $2 end of $1.

No difference. You got 2 million end of 1 million. That's relative.

That's all. Yeah. And so once we have taken ourselves apart, we wonder how on this world people put up with us in the bin begin with.

Now it's a brave act to dissect oneself, but we're conse uh we're compensated by the great feeling of satisfaction that we at last fairly faced an issue. And no one in their right senses wants to continue living in a manner in which we used to when we find out what's wrong with us. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Now searching and fearless means to search for having no fear. Of course we're going to find a lot of rotten stuff. Well, what do we expect to find after months, weeks, sometimes years of abnormal living and drinking?

Some of it's going to be not so nice, but it's in the inventory. That's the basic reason we're taking it in order to know what has to be eliminated in the next step of ourselves. We in no way permit the faults of others to enter in our inventory.

We assume full responsibility. It's an inventory of ourselves, ourselves only, our faults, not of our loved ones, not of the names will be in there. Sure, it's going to come in handy now because A is a self-contained recovery program for our ASEP list only of ourselves.

And so now we're down to the causes and conditions of our behavior, which is meant to me and means to me the condition of my mind that caused me to do the things I did in between drunks that triggered off the next one. It is in this step that we find how we grow spiritually in alcoholics and online in the book that is that resentment is the number one offender. It's common alcoholics.

It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. And from it stems all spiritual illness. What do we mean?

First we resent, then we get mad, then we get angry, then we get frustrated, then we feel sorry ourselves. Yeah. And until we overcome the spiritual malady, only then will we straighten out mentally and physically, which means we will never overcome the spiritual malady.

We grow along spiritual lines. All that's been put in our book. Yeah.

You bet you. One day at a time. Which means that once we physically stop drinking, we'll never activate the physical.

That will be with us the rest of our lives. Cannot be changed. That will be But as long as we don't drop it.

So where is the problem now living sober? Up here. Up here in our stinking thinking that leads to stinking drinking.

Yeah. So what are the 12 steps all about? that it's sober.

But as a problem drinker, we've got to stop drinking alcohol physically one day. And we have to remember this now. Without physical sobriety, there is no sobriety.

It is the base of all sobriety. And so it is suggested that we write this inventory. I've seen them on floppy discs.

I've seen them on computer printouts. I've seen them on match covers. I've seen them on toilet tissue.

Any place that is some of the most unusual things, you know. And I was 43 days sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. my sponsor come and got me and he said to me, "You be down at my office next Wednesday morning at 8:00." I said, "What for?" He said, "To take your fifth step." I said, "I ain't read my fourth step yet." He said, "You will." And I turned to all them hermits that got sober when Coolage was president.

And I said, "But they said I ain't been alcoholic long enough." He grabbed me by my arm. He took me to the secretary's office. We have a large group, huge group.

Group I belong to has got over 2,000 members, but it wasn't that group. There's another one had about 500 members, aid secretary. And we we have our sobriety cards, and they're alphabetically fine uh filed, not by the first letter of your last name, but the first letter of your first name.

And he says, "Sexy, give him his sobriety card." And he did. Then he said, "Give him a pencil with an eraser on it." And he did. I said, "What do you want me to do with this card and his pencil?" He says, "You take the eraser and you erase my name at the bottom of your card as your sponsor and put down.

I'm not going to do it." Nobody Everybody asked responsibly. They said no. When I got here, you're the only one that took me on.

I believe because you respected my father so much. He says, "All right, if you are going to run around here, tell everybody that I'm your sponsor. You going to do exactly as I tell you to do or get somebody else?" I said, "Yes, sir." Then I said, "Well, how do you write the fourth step?" He said, "I've been waiting two weeks for you to ask me that.

You've been in them closed discussion meetings and you've been memorizing snatches from the big book, the 1212, AA comes with age, and landers column, National Geographic. If you've been reading the big book, you know exactly how to write it. If it's good enough for Bill and Dr.

Bob and those boys, it's good enough for you. I say yes. And so I began to write self-pity.

What's self-pity? Where we resent the fact that once again we're in a trap that we promised God and ourselves and everything and everybody. We weren't going to do it again.

Yet we did it again and again and again. We resent the fact that once again we've let our own self down. Lack of power was our dilemma.

jealousy, intolerance, and here comes one. Fear. Now, I'm going to read again from the book.

It's the finest writing of fear I've ever read any place. Fear. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.

It was an evil and corroding thread. The fabric of our existence will shot through with it. It set in motion train.

It set in motion trades of circumstances which caused us misfortune. We felt we did not deserve. But did not we ourselves set the ball rolling?

Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble. And then you know sex.

Every alcoholic who comes to alcoholics now I don't care how old or how young everyone have a sex problem. Either we want to and can't or we can't. We want to.

And that's not going to cost you $28,000 to find that out. That's how simple it is. Yeah.

But they do put some things in there. Really? They really do.

And it it can apply to anything in a you know because you can get way out in left field in one of these things. You one certainly can. We put each relationship to this very simple but powerful test.

Was it selfish or was it not? And the answer is usually yes. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, a woman, a man will promise her anything in this world, and a woman would let him hoping she's going to get what he promises.

Show a lot of frustrated women today, aren't they? Yeah. Uh-huh.

That again is being a human being. Yeah. And so then we start to say shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life.

You know, and here is the thing. If if we're sorry what we have done and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, then we in aa believe we will be forgiven and we'll learn our lesson. But if we're not sorry and our sex behavior continues to harm others, if our financial behavior continues to harm others, if our cander behavior, no matter what it is, continue to harm others, we're quite sure to drink again.

And the human being that this member of Alcoholics Anonymous can least afford to harm is David. Is David. Yeah.

And so now we've got our And I done done wrote my inventory and now I got to go tell it somebody. Now the fourth step is not fair. You got to write down how darn phony you are.

What if somebody reads it? When we've been lying to everybody, we're not phony. And so this brings us log to the fifth step.

Admit it to God to ourselves and other human beings the exact nature of our wrong. This is the first step that puts God in the first slot. Now we're above all else trying to establish a new attitude and a relationship with our creator and discover the obstacle in our path.

And then AA tells us if we do not take and use this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. And then being alone with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as talking over another human being, we find the same old egoism is with us. And if we're going to live a reasonably comfortable, happy and serene, sober life, the time now comes where we have to be honest with another human being.

So once again we find a logical sequence. If we've looked at ourselves as a suggested we look at ourselves and now it makes sense to do something about what we have found wrong. Now if we've already taken the fourth step we've already fulfilled the first and second requirements of the fifth step.

So now we come to one of the oldest truths in the world. A trouble shared is a trouble cut in half. Now to admit our wrongs to another human being may sound like an insurmountable obstacle but actually it is really simple if we do it a way and want to stay sober more than anything else in this world.

Now any member of alcoholics and taking the fifth step in life can usually show the way. doesn't mean that we formally sit down with someone and say I've done wrong in the following manner and et first I've been this that and that if that were the method used AA would not be the great recovery program and fellowship that is today. Now the sponsor if the sponsor has taken a fifth step in their life.

One is always safe in Alcoholics Anonymous when one asks one to be their sponsor. If the one who needs a sponsor asks who he has chosen, tell me how you are living all 12 steps. Sit down and tell me.

Yeah. Very difficult to give away something we don't possess ourselves. This is why I'm talking about opinions, not experience.

Well, now because here's the thing. A member will pave the way by first what? Telling his or her story.

And then the newcomer is amazed at the frankness and at the ease in which the member tells a usually unmentioned escapades. How they'll talk some of them how rotten they acted maybe towards their families or some not all spend a little time in jails or institutions of dishonesties lies a substitute the whole sorry picture and one or two conversations like this and the newcomer will begin to unburden himself and things that the newcomer thought they would never tell a living soul begin to come out and as they share these innermost secrets their mind now becomes was unburdened by the terrific weight they've been carrying. Or in other words, you literally get your troubles off your chest.

And one of the chief reasons for drinking was drink to forget. And it starts to begin to disappear. And it is this point that real sobriety begins.

And I'm firmly believe that no alcoholic can be safe unless we have unburdened ourselves. And then once we do, we feel that we belong. You bet you.

and begin to chair a meeting, begin to talk a little bit, and they now feel they're becoming a full-fledged member because this is the first step in our book into action. Into action. Now, I told you I was 43 days sober.

My sponsor said, "You be down there the next Wednesday." I'm 51 days sober and alcoholics anonymous. I go down there. He says to me, "Have you taken the first two parts of the fifth step before you've got down here?" And he knew that I wasn't experienced enough to know what he was talking about.

He knew that I didn't know that I already admitted to God in the third step and to myself in the fourth step. And now I'm going to come down to him in the fifth step. He knew that.

Then he says to me, "You're going to do it." I said, "What are you talking about? You're going to do it." He said, "Now you go into the men's room and you lock the door and then you go into the commode and lock the door to commode. Get between the commode and the wall.

Look up at the ceilings. Admit the exact nature of your wrongs to God. And then come back and come to the sink and right above the sink there's a mirror.

admit the exact match your wrongs to you and unlock the door to the men's room coming there and telling it to me. And I thought he's nuts. Gone.

I get there. He said, "Now, don't you stay in that men's room 3 days telling God who, when, for how much, and for how long. You tell God what your defects of character have done to your life that you wrote.

If you wrote I am seeing your four step, but I'm fixing to find out if you wrote it." the effects of what your defect is, not while you're drinking. Because if you don't do anything now while you're not drinking, they're going to drive you right back to that bottle and you'll have no mental defense against that first drink. Period.

Because your mind is unmanageable. That's where your thinking is. Well, I went in the men's room, locked the door, went the commode, felt like a fool.

It's just a one holder. Who going to be in there? But I afraid not to do what he told me.

He'd like to have a hole in the ceiling to be up there peeking through. See if I'm doing it. So I get between the commode and I look up.

I admit the exact nature my wrongs to me. Unlock the commode, come around the sink, look in the mirror, admit the exact nature of my wrongs to me. And guess what?

I caught me not telling me what I told God in the corner. I said, "Well, I've tell God one thing, me one thing. What am I going to tell him?" So, I run back into the commote and get it over again.

Come back to the sink and it sounded about the same. Before I could change it, I unlocked the door, ran in there. He said, "Are you ready?" I said, "I'm ready." Told the secretary, "Cut the cars off." Then he said to me, "How many times did you go in the corner?" I said, "Two times." He said, "I went three." He said, "Now, I didn't tell you to do that because my sponsor did it to me." David, the reason I told you to do that is you go around here and you tell this one a part of your rotten story and that one a part of your rotten story and that one a part of your rotten story.

That's what you call spreading the dirty linen. That's what you call spreading the disease. And then you're allowed to run into somebody said, "Ah, David, I don't even believe you're that bad." And then you're allowed to run into somebody.

David, I don't even believe you're an alcoholic. Well, God's here. You're here.

I'm here. Let's get with it. And I did.

When he got through, he said, "How do you feel?" I said, "I feel better than I ever have in my life." It's the first time that I ever told another human being without fear or shame or guilt. And folks, some of the things that I did was not not nice nice. I'm talking about manslaughter.

I'm talking about things like that. Well, and I says, you know, you laughed with me, you cried with me, you didn't pick up the phone and call the police and say, I've got it. You didn't call somebody to come get me with a butterfly net.

You nodded your head. Do you understand? And then he said to me, "Well, what are you going to do about it?

All you've done is talk about it when you leave here. The effects of of your life and everything you talked about is going with you out the door. What are you going to do with it?" I said, "That's what I have you for sponsor." This is what I meant a while ago.

He said, 'I'll tell you what you do. You go home. You get the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You get the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and you turn to the last paragraph of the fifth step in the sixth chapter, do exactly what it said. Then turn the page, read the next two short paragraphs, and if it takes you more than 10 minutes to take steps six and seven, you ain't ready to let aa, which is nothing more than God is going to do for you what you can't do for yourself. You still want to play games.

Now he said, we're talking about living and we're dying. To drink is to die and to stay sober is to live. And so I start going out the door.

He comes ask me again. He said, "Now you be back down there next Wednesday at 8:00." I said, "What for? To take the fifth step over?" He says, "No, no, with your eighstep list." Now, I'll tell you, if you've got a sponsor like that in Alcoholics Anonymous, feed them, fan them, pray they don't die prematurely or get drunk.

It'll be the greatest experience you ever had in your life. Yeah. He cared that much about me.

I went home. I got my big book down. This is one step.

Tells us exactly what to do after we've talked over another human being. Yeah. And said, "Returning home, we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour.

Carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better. Remember I said we're above all else trying to establish a new attitude and a new relationship with our creator.

How many have come to aa raised in some sort of belief that God is a punishing God? I told him all these ugly things. God didn't come down and smoke me with lightning.

I found out something that God was working through my sponsor and the only reason he was there for for his sobriety and the next reason he was there for my welfare unselfish. a tremendous busy baby that I know him better. And how did I begin to know God better?

You need to change the tape. Ask me. Yeah, it's about that.

>> Huh? >> Four minutes. All right.

And so and how to understand God through you people. You had the experience. Yeah.

It's through people. Through people. And so it says, "Taking the book down from the shelf, we turn to the pages containing the 12 steps.

Carefully reading the first five proposals, we ask ourselves, have we omitted anything? For we are building an art through which we shall walk a free man at last. Now it helps if you're not drinking alcohol when you take the fifth step in alcoholic knowledge.

But building an art to be what? Free of our own stinking selves. This is what we're doing.

Then we ask, is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put in the foundation?

Have we tried to make martyr without sin? If we can answer to our satisfaction, then we can look at step six. Step six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

I wonder how many in a when they read the steps, look at it, realize that the sixth step is the only step of the 12 that's in the present tense, which means we do it every day. these defects of character. Not those, but these.

Now, what is the sixth step? Quality of our willingness. Are we now willing to let God remove from us all the things that we have found that are objectionable?

Can he take them all? If we still cling and hold on to something and we'll not let go, we simply ask him to make us willing to let go. There isn't one of us in this meeting right this very second right here.

every one of us know what we still cling to and won't quite let go. It'll be the only thing that causes lack of peace of mind on any one given day and serenity. So, it's a quality of our willingness.

Now, before I come to you people, I would pray, "God, get me out of this jam." And I promise you, I'll never do it again. But never did I say, "God, get me out of this jam. But please show me a way to stay out of this jam." I never did that.

The seventh step is the way. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. when we're ready to let God do it to them with and for us and maintain sanity that we don't want to live the way we used to live but we're condemned to live the way we used to live unless we don't go on the seventh step is to wait I'm asking to remove our shortcomings when we're ready to let God do it to us with and maintain sanity that we don't want to live the way we used to live.

But we're condemned to live the way we used to live unless we don't go on. They get the spiritual courage by practical experience in living the steps in our own lives to where we get to the point to there's no situation too difficult and no happiness too great that cannot be overcome and that a drink of alcohol will never make it any better, make it worse. And when we're ready, we say, "My creator, I'm now willing that you shall have all of me, good and bad.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go forth to do your bidding." Now, step six and seven, that's the anchor in the glue of the recovery programs alcoholics. The true test of our willingness to let God do it is the next two steps, the amend steps.

Every one of us here in this meeting right now, if we've got something that we have to let go, I don't know about you, but I'm going to tell you the only problem I have one day at a time. People are not doing what I want them to do. That's all.

Okay. Insurmountable obstacle. But we'll have to try to remember that no matter how well we perform, this is one step that will never really complete or finish.

And if there's anyone foolish enough in Alcoholics Anonymous who believe that we only make a list of the person we harm cold before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous, leave plenty of room down at the bottom because if one thinks they're not going to harm another human being after we get sober, you're nuts. No. Now, if we made a searching in fairly small inventory of ourselves, the time now comes we need to redouble our see how and how many people we have hurt.

Re-examining and reopening these emotional scars. Some we have forgotten. Some will look very painful at first and some too useless, without any purpose, whatever.

But here once again, the key requirement is willingness. The most difficult obstacle will start right up front and that is forgiveness. And our emotions start to run on the fences just remembering our broken relationships with another human being or human beings.

And a lot of times our finding excuse for looking and searching for the wrongs we have done in others. We'll automatically start resenting the wrongs he or she has done. Look well look what they did to me.

So with enthusiasm, we'll jump on his or her behavior as a perfect excuse excuse to slough over and not do anything on our own. And this is where I believe we need to bring ourselves up and stop and realize one thing and always remember that when dealing with other people. Us alcoholics are not the only ones that are handed by sick emotions and screwy behavior.

We have two cooperating fellowships that are handed by sick emotions and screwy behavior. And many of them didn't even drink alcohol. We're not the only ones in this world.

But we'll use it as a hammer on our head. I'm supposed to act that way after all. I'm an alcoholic.

You bet you. There are millions of people running around Tennessee and in Georgia and Arkansas and southern Missouri and northern part of Louisiana and Mississippi with a bunch of little problems and no way to solve them. Ours is too big to hide.

We have time after time strain the patience of our best friends and snapping point and brought out the worst. And though some of them didn't think much of us to start with, many times we brought out and when dealing with other our people, people whose troubles we've increased. So we're now about to ask for forgiveness for ourselves.

Why then should we begin by forgiving them one and all? Now, when we start to list the people whom we've harmed, we're going to run into another obstacle because we're going to get a rather stiff shock or awakening when we realize that we're getting ready to make face to face admission of our stinking conduct to those who hurt. Sure, it was embarrassing when in conference we admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and other humor.

But now the thought of facing face to face or even writing those people concerned certainly doesn't look like the most pleasant thing to do when many of them despise them. They despise me. I had to put people down on my list who told me don't you ever show up in front of me again.

Never. If you do and I don't have a gun or poison or atomic bomb or knife or something, I'm I'm going to kill you. I've had people tell me if I'm crossing the street and they're in a car and they see me, they're going to run over me.

I've had one of them told me, "If you're walking on the sidewalk and I'm driving down the street and I see you, I'm going to run over you." I went to my sponsor and I said, "I cannot go make an amend to him." He said, "Why?" He said, "Cuz he said if I showed up, he's going to kill me." He said, "You're going to make the amend." I said, "Did you hear what I said?" He said, "He's going to kill me." You know what my sponsor said? That's okay. At least he'll be sober when he does.

A good sponsor's got an answer for everything. I don't mind telling you. And so as a result of, you know, yeah, these are other ways in which fear combined by our pride box away and making a list of all persons that it would harm.

You know, you know, some rationalize, well, you know, they never did drink at home, paid their bills, family didn't suffer because they were at work, were on their job, their businesses didn't suffer. Some of us even foolish enough to really believe that our personal reputation didn't suffer. You know, only a few knew about our drinking.

on our alcoholic playmates. And surely they wouldn't squeal on us. They're the first ones to squeal.

Any good, respectful drinking alcoholic knows that if you can get another human being to believe what you tell them, you haven't got a problem. And there's enough suckers running around the world that'll try to believe an alcoholic. And if you don't believe what I'm telling is the truth, ask any member of ALA.

They are experts in believing the unbelievable. You bet you. Although making restitutions to others is our prime importance, it's just as necessary to dig out from this examination ourselves every scrap of information about ourselves and understand the fundamental difficulties arising from our personal relations with others.

Unmanageable relations with other human beings have nearly been you know one of the immediate causes of our problems including alcoholism and no area of investigation will give us a more valuable and satisfying reward. Now, why does AA do this? We are condemned to relive our lives as it affected others after we get sober.

Unless we have got a way to get rid of the fear and the shame and the ones that we dread to go see the most. Because now we have the opportunity to go far beyond those things that always appear to be ugly on the surface. Now, what do we mean when people harm each other?

What kind of harm do people do to one another? Well, if you define harm in a practical sense, we might cause the result of instincts and collision which cause physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual damage to people. If our tempers are consistently mean, we arouse the anger in others.

If we lie and we cheat, we not only deprive others of the worldly possessions but of their emotional security, peace of mind, and this usually brings about revenge, physical violence in some instances, in some instances legal action. If our sex behavior is selfish, we usually invite jealousy, misery, and in many instances a strong desire of the opposite sex to retaliate and kind. That's just some of the more prominent harm.

But I like to talk about some of the less obvious, very damaging harm. How about our relations with our blood tenny, emotionally attached, and families when we're miserers, cold, hard, callous, and irresponsible? How about when we're full of that nitpicking criticism, irritable, impatient, and humorous?

What happens when we constantly play favorites with only one member of the family and neglect the others? Particularly when our family's favorite member is not one of the children, the dog or the cat or the canary or the parake or the bird dog or the horse. I've been in drunk homes, you know, you walk in favorite member of the family, the poodle guy, they'll take that poodle down to poodle house and they have it shampooed, plum tail, plum head.

They don't go down and get a heart collar to get one of them diamond collars. Then they have all them little nails painted orange and purple and striped and green and red and brown. And they go to the butcher shop and get this finest of meat and have all the fat trimmed away.

And the kids come running in the house. Hey mama, what we got for supper tonight? Mama says, "Here's $5.

Go down to Pizza Hut." Kids said, "We don't want to eat the Pizza Hut. We want to eat what the fool's eating." No. And what happens when you line your family up by military law and order, minute directions, demanding how each individual member, I used to line them up like a drill sergeant in the Marine Corps.

I'd line them up and I didn't like their hair and I didn't like what they did. And I got mad at my wife because she's putting things away on layaway. I had to get sober to find out that's the only way she could buy anything and put it away on layaways.

I told her one day, I said,"Woman, if you don't quit doing all those things, I'm going to take your car away." She reached in her apron and pitched me the keys and said, "Here are the kids car. You might as well have them. The bank's getting ready to repossess it anyway." you know, now.

And so, no wonder, you know, the kind that makes dating living with us as active alcoholics and in many instances sober members of alcoholics around sober, unbearable, and sometimes very unbearable. Yeah. Yeah.

And usually very difficult. Shoot. No wonder our families, our friends want it out.

And this list could go on from now until doomsday as a result of having such a constant and daily way of life as active alcoholics and sometimes sober members of AA. No wonder we took and take such personality defects into our offices into society in which we live where they then do the damage and harm almost devastating as we've caused at home. Now stop and think is it only ourselves we harm?

You bet. It is suggested each individual should be thought over. Now this step is a great mental conditioner and willingness is the main key.

Learning to live with others is not only a necessity but can and will become a pleasure. We must always take the objective view for step 8 is the beginning and the end of isolation. And when in doubt call upon what AA's experience and wisdom clearly shows us by remembering what this step has meant and is meaning to others.

And I one of the list I had to put on the list was our oldest son. He was going to kill me when he was 15 years of age. Because you see whatever success and their tremendous successes today both sons their father didn't have anything to do with it.

I didn't have anything. It was their mother. Their mother was their mother.

Their mother was her father. Their mother was their Santa Claus. Their mother took them on vacations.

Their mother took them on little band trips and football trips. Their mother took them to Cub Scouts, later on Boy Scouts, their mother. And the oldest son was going to kill me one day because their mother was the only link to sanity those two boys had.

And they couldn't stand to see what was happen. Their mother, her emotional being because of me. The wildness left his eyes and he spat in my face and he said, "You're no longer my father and I'm no longer your son." And he walked out of my life.

And I had no real communication with it for a number of years. Now I'm sober three for years and he came home one weekend from the university and we had one of those knockdown drag out verbal battles. I didn't like the kind of courses he was taking down there and I didn't like the way he looked and I didn't like the way he acted.

Blah blah blah blah this. And he says the he says words that'll hurt you more when you're sober than anything else. When the blood can look you in the eye and say you're just like you were when you're drinking except you're not drinking.

I'm not coming home anymore. I don't want to waste my time with you. And he went in the room, locked the door.

Now here, I used to lay in wine hotels and I'd be in jail or I'd be somewhere. Why can't I be if I just had the opportunity to be the kind of a father I really want to be? And here I have the opportunity in AA, but I'm not letting step six and seven work in my life on a daily basis.

And I'm running away the ones that I want to love, not drinking. not drink doesn't mean you could call my sponsor. I don't care what you call what time of the day.

He gives you the same answer. Don't drink. Read the big book.

Go to business and work with drunk. I don't know about you, but every time I open up the big book, it's right where I need to read. I opened it up guess where I was.

the family afterwards and he said when you have a breakdown in relationship one is demanding too much and the other is accused of not giving enough. I said oh I fit on both sides of the coin. I said thank you God for allowing me to live to find people who put this book and now people who are in aa that are trying to live it.

It makes more sense than anything I've ever when you have a breakdown in a relationship. One is demanding too much and the other is accused of not getting enough. And the next morning I knocked on his bedroom door said, "Who is it?" I said, "It's your father." He opened the door.

"What do you want?" "His name is David also." So I said, "David, I need to talk with you. I do not do not know how to talk with you. Will you help me talk with you?" Now, those were not my words.

I learned that sitting in coffee tables and in hospitality rooms, at conferences and conventions, in groups, and people's homes, and in coffee shops, and over ice cream. Up to that time with him, it was David. I need to talk to you, at you, and about you.

But never was it I needed to talk with you. And then I said, "Will you help? Help me so we can both talk." Made him a part of the solution.

Then he looked at me and he said, "Daddy, you bring the drunks home and y'all go places and they give you the freedom for you to tell them about you and you give them the freedom to tell for them to tell you about them. But when it comes to brother and me, it's you, you, you, you, you. There are things that we want to tell you that is churning within us that other little boys get to tell their daddies, but you won't let us.

Daddy, we won't love you. But you turn your back on it. And from that time on, these last 27 years, we have not had one cross word between son one and son two.

And I darn near missed the deal. He was absolutely correct that my ego in deflation had run out of air and it needed a lot of patching and it certainly did. Now you see step eight and nine is a true test of our spiritual growth because what is there?

There's God, you and me. That's all that in this world. That's all.

God, you're in and that's it. And it's when we're honest with another human being and how we get along with people that's doesn't it wonderful how well it makes the day go. Why?

Because the spirit of the human being that comes with each mother's birth is pleased with the flesh and the bones and the hair and the veins that cover that one magnificent thing that comes with each and every one of us at birth. That still small but powerful silent voice. Yeah.

A conscious. And so as a result, we going to make these amends. Step nine made direct amendments to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.

This business of making amends may take a a long time. It may even take years. But it is serves it's not haste that counts because many of us in a will agree to the effectiveness of the aa way of life, but many of us feel fail to receive the true benefit from it.

Because why? We've not properly evaluated our alcohol illness. We have them come in, you know, well, you know, I I I never been in jail and I never got in a DWI and I never divorced and still have my business and I still have money in the bank.

Still belong to the country club. still got a fishing camp, still got all this and all that, you know. So, they don't believe themselves to be as sick as him.

Look where he come from. Yeah. The nutouse.

Okay. Right there. And then, the member that judges somebody else in Alcoholics is the sickest member of AA.

You bet you. Because why? You start to rise.

They don't have to inconvenience themselves to get well. That's all. Now, we don't want to arrest our our alcoholism or gain recovery by just merely agreeing with the principle of the program.

We're going to have to live with them. But how many of us stop and realize and face the fact honestly that our own names had the list of those whom we have wronged. And by living the program on a daily basis our way of life we make daily amends to ourselves to our bodies to our confused minds and a troubled spirit.

Now, it's not too difficult to list the names of the people who suffered because we drank or suffered because in between drunks. Our real damage is to arrive at a state of mind that accepts the damage that we have done and they're willing to amend it because step a roadblock in making amends. And I'm going to talk about making some amends.

I'm talking about making amends to friends, people who we should be friendly with, but we've severed our relations with them because of resentment, pride, imaginary wrongs. Some we've treated with unjustly, with rough and harsh words and ugly behavior, and with whom indebtedness is not or has not been a factor. In today's modern electronics, you can go to any of the Bureau of Credit and Services, give them your social security number.

They'll have a print out for you how who you owe, how much you owe, what the delinquency is, and how long it is. And if one wants to get it, start paying it off. tell even where you can go to have it done.

They won't charge you anything. And get your ducks in order. Period.

And I couldn't tell you this unless I experienced it in my own life. It may mean that one will have to do without some things they think they really need to do. But but it doesn't do any good just to foolishly think in one's head that just because we're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and you get one of those letters in the mail say if you'll put up a $500 deposit, we'll give you a corresponding $500 credit on a credit card because if the same old defects of character overspend the next letter you get, please cut that card up and send the pieces back to us.

you overextended. You hadn't paid your bill. There's something about squeezing and paying that bill.

It does something to one's fiscal well-being. Now, I want to talk about making amend. friend.

Before I do that, I always say a little prayer before I go see him face to face. As long as I'm not writing them, the writing is another story. And I said, "God, give me the strength to do what you got to do." And I go in.

I'm going to tell you about one I made recently. I went in and I told him I had seen him in a long time. He cared very little for me.

He looked at me and he says, "You're not drinking alcohol, are you?" I says, "No." He said, "Well, how long have you been sober?" I said, "Ever since I found out how." You see, when I make an amend to a non-member of AA, I don't tell them I'm in AA if they're AA. That's another story. They know it.

But I don't I'm not there to to ride on AA's coattails and to ride on AA's good principles. is because I'm an AA. I really honestly mean business.

I'm there because David means business. Period. And then I've had him ask me and this last one asked me.

He said, "Uh, well u uh religion, church?" "No." He said, "Hypnosis?" I said, "No." He said, "Accupuncture?" He said, "No." He says anti abuse. I said no. He said aa.

When he said aa then I said yes. Then he asked me. He said well what is alcoholics anonymous?

And I just simply said that alcoholics anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience strength and hope with each other to make solve their common problem and help others recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership and desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees paid membership.

We're self-supporting their own contributions. A is allied with any sect. Not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.

Does not wish to engage in any controversy. Neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

You know what he said? The heck. And then now look, you know nothing about a A.

Well, that's what a A is. That's why it works. That allows the how to work.

Now you know nothing about A. And I owe you every one of you in a minute. I come to you and I put this on you.

Brother and sister, I'm here because I'm now a member of Alcoholics and all. And ever since I've made the decision to give my will, my life, whole care of God, I've come to find out that we're all God's children. And I've got to be good to you.

And I've lied to you. And I've cheated you. And I come here to make amend.

And two weeks later, you see my picture on the morning edition of the newspaper, me being pulled out of a car drunk and running through a school zone running from old children. Now, what would you think about Alcoholics Anonymous? And what would you think about this God in Alcoholics Anonymous?

You know what you'd always say? Oh, I should have called it one of David's another one of David's con games. Because when we go to someone and we mention that now we're an AA and I'm doing this for my sobriety.

We cannot guarantee any human being including our own self that we'll be sober tomorrow, next week, next month, 6 months from now, a year from now, 5 years, 10 years from now. Can't do it. And they don't understand the one day at a time.

They don't understand I'm a recovering alcoholic. They think it's recovered. They don't.

And in some instances, our sincere attempts will be rejected. I had them rejected. I went the first one.

I told him I was sorry and got away with it. Second one, I told him I was sorry. I got away with it.

I went to third one. I said, "I'm sorry." He said, "Just a minute. You're darn right.

you're good and sorry. And I got mad and I ran to my sponsor and I said I went to him and I told him I was sorry and he said, "You darn right you're good and sorry, David. Now get out." You know what my sponsor said?

You are sorry. He said, "David, how many times have you gone to people and said, "You're sorry." And you did it again to them over and over and over. I said, "Every time." But how many have you gone to and tell them I have been wrong?

I said never. Well, you have to. Just tell them you've been wrong.

Well, I went to an old contankerous bird that was on that list and I walked in there and I just want you to know I've been wrong. And he was so speechless he had no defense. He's had so many tell him how sorry he was, you know.

Yeah. Amen. families to the deceased.

Yeah. All of those good things. You bet you.

Because you know our problem with deceased will not be as difficult. But we make amends to the living relatives. Yeah.

Yeah. I won't say about a man made that gentleman. He was almost like a father to me.

And I was ugly to it when drinking and I was so embarrassed and ashamed. But I went to he's one of the early amends and a few years ago, quite a few years ago, he called me and he said, "Are you still interested in Alcoholics Anonymous?" And I says, "Yes, I'm in. Not only interested, still sober." He said, "We have a problem, but I want to ask you first.

I don't know whether you you people could help us or not." He said, "But we I have a we have a granddaughter that's been on alcohol and drugs and everything else, and she's been in and out of adolescent units, and she's such a grave concern to my wife and myself and our son and our daughter-in-law, their her parents, causing nothing but trouble. Do you think maybe you can Well, we have to find her first." He said, "Where is she?" and he gave me a rough area where she would be. I said, "We'll see what you do." So, I called two members of Alcoholics Anonymous in that area.

The kind that will go out in a blizzard, in a flood, or if it's 180 in the sun. They know where people are, whether they're in penous or in outouses. That'll make a big difference.

About two hours they called me back said they found they found that little daughter and I said where is she? She's in jail in this town. What should we do?

I said keep her there. I'll call her grandfather. I called her grandfather.

I said grandfather we found your little daughter. Where? And I said she's in jail.

What town? I said why? He said, "Well, I'm going to call our son and daughter-in-law and my wife and the four of us were going to charter a jet and we're going to go get her." I said, "Uh, grandpa, how many times have you uh gone after her?" He said, "Oh, this will be about the 14th, 15th, 16th." I said, "All you doing is killing her." Why don't you let the pros take over?

Then he said, "Well, how did you find her so fast?" We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the finest of private detectives. We had the FBI looking for I said uh I didn't tell him that a has a pipeline faster in Western Union. He said, "How'd you find her?" I said, "Well, let me put it this way, Grandpa.

If you ever want to find a lost dog, you send another dog to find her." Because a dog knows how a dog barks. A dog knows how a dog smells. And a dog a dog knows how a dog lives.

I he went over his head. I said, "Now when we hang up in about not more than 45 minutes, there will be some people will call you and your wife and your son and your daughter-in-law. They will identify themselves as members of Allenon and they will make some suggestions how you can release with love." And now let the pros take over.

Calling them back said, "Get her out of jail." I was doing an all day service meeting in Amarillo a few years ago and about six years ago. This beautiful young lady came up to me. And she says, "I know you and you know me, but we've never met." And she told me, "Sure." I said, "What are you doing?" She says she's going to this university out there in West Texas.

And she says, "I have a part-time job, part-time self-supporting through my own contributions." And she says, "The nice thing about it is this, that grandpa and grandma and daddy and mama are not contributing one penny to my education. They don't need to." She says, "I found the freedom in aa that if I was ever going to grow up and quit being dependent for people to bail me out, I had to start standing on my own two feet and start doing something with my wife." Yeah. And and two years ago, she called me.

She calls me grandpa. She said, "Would you come out to San Francisco? I'm graduating law school and I want you to be there.

Now, that's not an unusual story. It happens all the time in alcoholic. Our kind, we don't need charity.

We need an opportunity. That's all. Just an opportunity.

Every one of us are given an opportunity for our lives once again when we come to Alcoholics. You bet you. And it's a tremendous thing.

It certainly is. you make amends, you know, and you hear a lot of things in a, you know, all these promises, you know, well, you know, if we're painstaking about this phase of our development, and it is painful. Yeah.

We're going to be amazed before we're halfway through. We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it.

We will comprehend the word serenity and we'll know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we'll see now see how our experience can benefit us. When does this come about?

Steps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 halfway through the ninth step. That's how it comes about. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

It doesn't say run off and hide. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Yeah.

Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.

People will never leave us. We live in a people centered orientated society. But the fear of people will leave us.

The most beautiful members of AA are those who have been sober many many many years 40 45 years retired when when you used to see this retire you can retire on $295 a month and they stand by a golf court and here's a palm tree $245 a month in those days and you look at them and say well all you got is a little social security and a little retirement with inflation and everything. How do you do it? They're also the first ones that always have a little gift for the little children at Christmas time.

Whoever they sponsor, you bet. When you have a eating meeting, they're always They don't bring any Kentucky fried chicken, man. They make that kind you put in a paper sack and dust it in flour.

Yeah. Lard fried. Yeah.

Mhm. They don't care nothing about cholesterol. Smells too good.

Yeah. And every kind of bean salad and freezer ice cream with peaches, plum pudding, all them good things, buttermilk biscuits, and they look at you. How do you live on such a limited income?

They look at you and they give you that beautiful smile and they say, "God has brought us this far. How far will he really take us? And that's the answer.

It certainly is. So, you know, we will intuitively know how to handle things that used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

That is the measure of our spiritual being. One day at a time. Sometimes it can get so simple it scares you.

Yeah, it scares you. Step 10. Continue to take personal inventory.

When we were wrong, promptly admitted after we've been sober for a few days, sometimes weeks, hours and alcohol. Alcohol's not alcohol is completely out of our system. I'm one of these in a I'm not going to argue with you 100th of a second.

How long it takes alcohol to get out of your system when you stop drinking and a if we're not taking the first drink of alcohol one day at a time, you can't get any better in the not drinking department. It's likely that the psychic quirk started us on our drinking careers in the first place. We hear it all the time in the personal stories of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You hear about the youngster who said, "I come from a fine Christian home, had a fine Christian upbringing, went to Sunday school, revival, encampments, and everything. And when I went into the army, I promised the preacher, the preachers's wife, and all the deacons in the churches, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, my mother, my father, my cousins, the neighbors, that I never was going to drink whiskey, smoke cigarettes, and run around with loose girls. And he said, "I went into the service and every morning I'd read my prayer book, my meditation book, and I'd sing a little hymn and I'd do the same thing at night before I went to bed while the rest of my down to slop shooting drunk.

And he used to call me little Jesus and John the Baptist." And he says, "You know, it's lonesome when you're doing the work of the Lord and no one's paying attention to you." And one night I decided to go down to that slop through tent and show them by God what a real Christian you were. And I went in there. They have an old saying in there.

Once you let the head of the camel in the tent, the body soon to follow. And I went in there and I grabbed something brown bottle drank and I spat it out. And I said, "What's that?" Said, "Beer.

Got anything any stronger?" "Yeah, I drank this." I drank it, but it went down and I didn't spit it out. I took another one, trickled down in my chest. Took another one, got in my tummy, run around my navel about four or five times.

Took another one, started going down the right and left leg, heading for them toenails on each foot. Took another one, start coming back up. God, it felt good.

Took another one, be sure to come all the way back up. And that's the first time I drank alcohol and the first time I got drunk. And that and I left there and went to my cot.

reached under, got my foot locker, took my Bible, hymn book, prayer book, meditation book, and threw it away and hadn't hit church since. We hear it all the time in the personal stories of the members of Alcoholics and we hear about the youngster. He was crosseyed, not neat, tongue tied, pigeon toaded, had titumps all over his face, and he stuttered and he stammered, and he was uncomfortable.

and he'd go to a high school dance and his feet like they're nailed to the gymnasium floor and a beautiful girl would come by and said we'd like to boogie with you wet his and everything else. He said one night during intermission I went out to a bunch of fellas they were to their car and they're drinking some out of a sack and he said what are you doing here? Have a drink of this.

I took a drink and he said I had to hit two of them in the head to get the second and third drink but let me tell you what happened. I felt my face. The kid bumps were gone.

My eyes straighten out. My knees went out. My toes went out.

I quit stammering stuttering. I ran in there and grabbed that gal and I boogieed like Michael Jackson all night long. That thing that does something for us.

The greatest thing when it happens. Yeah, you better. And as a result of it, you know, a as long as we're going to think straight, we're going to remain sober.

It it's important that we continue to take first. Perhaps we find ourselves criticizing some other members method of staying sober instead congratulating for doing a fine job. I don't care how anybody stands sober.

I don't care if they're an alcoholic and they're not drinking. The greatest thing in the world to happen to them. But for us in AA, it is the only way.

We have to remember that a lot of alcoholics don't want sobriety in alcoholics anonymous. They're not willing to go through this process of squeezing self out of self, deflation of ego in death because it is painful. They want an easier softer way.

And there's nothing easier or softer than going to make an amend the kind that you hate more than anything in the world. It's important that we continue to take personal inventory. Perhaps you may resent something I have said, am saying, or going to say forget it.

One day they're going to ask you to talk and you'll probably offend somebody yourself. And aa, if you're going to develop the capacity to put it out, you got to develop the capacity to take it. Yeah.

Perhaps maybe you don't think the family is congratulating you. Or if you're working to Boston cuz you're an AA or your grandchildren are not congratulating grandma cuz she ain't spaced out all the time. She's sober.

Forget it. I don't deserve to be sober. I do not deserve to be alive.

I do not deserve to be running loose in this world. If I'd have gotten exactly what I deserved, I would have been murdered or electrocuted long ago or locked up one of them gooni roots running up and down them cages with my toes and fingers babbling like a baboon the rest of my life. I've been given an unmmerited, undeserved gift.

So take time off, check up. If we're doing the best you can, don't worry about it. You're doing the best you can.

We continue. Now, it's in this step we find that we're not cured of alcoholism. All we have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

So as we come through the ninth step right here and then, that's the true nature of our spiritual being. So now we're going to have to maintain it. And those defects that we refuse to recognize as moral, those defects that made our lives unimaginable, resentment, selfishness, dishonesty, and fear are still very daily dangerous to our sobriety.

That's the reason for continue to take personal inventory. And when we're wrong, time forbid. And so now this brings us to step 11.

sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him. Praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Well, you say, "Well, when you get here, what have I got to meditate about?" Well, it'll be answered within a few days.

And after we've just become associated with alcoholics and others, for the first time in our life, we're giving of ourselves. And the first time of our life, we're receiving something that's good. You wake in the morning with a clear head and clear eye.

I had the greatest spiritual awakening. Every morning I wake up sober than any member of Alcoholics Anonymous any place anywhere in this world. I had a tremendous one this morning.

When I woke up, I was on the pot instead of in it. And that's a tremendous spiritual awakening for a drunk like me. And I can smell them cooking bacon or ham or frying and not get sick.

And I looked under my bed the other morning, my bed, my shoes were there. And I looked up on the wall and the pictures of those children were my grandchildren and somebody not not somebody else's. That's a spiritual awakening, a physical one.

Anyway, you bet you. And you don't have to worry about your money is in your pants pocket. Then look like somebody shot you with a buckshot scattered all over everywhere.

You don't have to run out to see if you came back on three rims in a tire. You don't have to run out to see if anybody's in the back seat. Yeah.

If the windshield is still on, you know, happiness begins to shine in the faces of our loved ones. And we're going to have some sort of desire, some sort of a they want to, some sort of an untapped power to help others. Surely we have much to meditate on.

And when we meditate on this new way of living, we cannot realize, yes, there is a God above guiding us through each successive day and life. And we become more conscious of this guiding power. We'll soon be able to better understand his guiding power.

And before long, we find it easy to pray, but easy don't let it bother you. I talk to God just like I talk to you. I clean up the language a lot.

I certainly do. And so we give thanks for his help. Now, in the 10th step, it's thy will, not mine be done.

And the 10th step knocks you out of away from me so I can turn in the 11th step with a clear channel to this power greater than myself and communicate with him because it is vitally necessary. I cannot talk with God with honesty. You see, you can't love and hate at the same time.

You can't steal and be honest at the same time. And if I have a resentment against you and I'm not willing to put it down and get ready to make it and then turn to the God of my understanding, I'm so thankful for you. You've given me this desire now and I can talk to the God of my understanding oneonone.

So it goes from thy will not minded done to the third prayer in the book, thy will be done. Period. Yeah.

And I'll tell you, if you're having trouble staying sober, I suggest you get you another God. You I suggest you get you a sober God. A God that you know that wants you not only to live sober more than anything else in the world, but also I'm going to add something.

I want you to be a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous one day at a time. You bet you. And stay.

You hear it all the time. And they keep coming back. Well, why don't we just stay and we don't have to worry about keep coming back.

Yeah. Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening result of these steps, we cried to care this messed out to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Well, if it gone through the first 11 steps, we've come far and now we got to have to continue the work. You're going to be asked to talk to some a prospective member. We suggest you don't lose any time in doing so.

You say, "What?" I tell them story, our own personal story. What it used to be like, what? What it's like now?

Yeah. Even if you're new, remember you're older than they are as far as sobriety. And you go to a lot of meetings, somebody walk up to you.

Won't be long you'll have somebody that you'll be a sponsor. Then you have something to live for. You worry about them.

You'll hover over them. You'll guide them to the best of one's ability and suffer with them as they come out of their alcoholic fog. But in doing this, we're giving of ourselves and we'll find new joy in living.

And we have to remember that the more we put into AA, the more we're going to get out of it. And bear in mind that our alcoholic problem is the first thing that needs to be tended to one day at a time. It comes before everything else.

For without sobriety, we'll have nothing. No family, no friends, no sanity. And we may loss of life itself.

And we have to share this life with others. And it pays thousands and thousands over and over. And as an alcoholic, if we take that one drink of alcohol, that's it.

At that time, if I go insane and take a drink of alcohol, at that time I take that drink, at that time I am not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with no assurance I'll ever be one again. And I'm not thinking drinking. I'm thinking sober.

I'm thinking sober because I'll tell you I had all I could take and when you get there half dead. Uh-uh. It's too great a gift.

If anytime one feels uncertain of oneself, read the steps carefully. If you're having problems, usually we never have to get past the last half of the first step. An unmanageable life is trying to manage a situation that unmanageable life can't manage.

Don't be thrown by the word spiritual experience or awakening. If we can remember this simple thing, the entire structure of alcoholics and arms is built on something that we see when the laughter and we see in the eyes is built on love. The word love has many synonyms such as charity, grace, goodwill, tenderness, generosity, kindness, tolerance, sympathy, mercy, and many, many others.

When we help a fellow human being, when we are kind to one another, we are performing a completely spiritual act. Spirituality is just simply the act of being selflessly helpful with no expectation of a reward or gain whatsoever. And if we can start with a simple explanation, I believe the green light will be flash on.

After all, they're now but two great commandments to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Now, I want to tell you, how do you learn to love yourself? If you don't love God, you don't love your neighbor.

If you don't love God and you don't love your neighbor, how you ever going to love yourself? There ain't no way. That's what makes Harry so great.

We may not like each other, but we love each other. That's what's so important. Yeah.

And what you don't understand, don't worry about it. Now where is this awakening and come by steps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 and then we try to carry this message to alcoholic. Now with your permission I'm going to talk about making some 12step calls on a wet drunk.

I'm going to talk about the highlights of some of them. Now I have a drunk. This has been going on 20 years.

20 years. He calls up. David, do you know all you know that hook rug in my den?

Yeah. David, there are millions of black worms dancing out of it. What should I do?

I said, "Turn the rug over." He drops the phone. You can hear him huffing, puffing. He turned the rug over and he come, "David, it's a miracle.

The worms have disappeared. Where'd they go?" I said, "Well, you turned them over. They're dancing into the floor." "Oh, David, you're so smart." Grace said, "Are you going to the meeting?" I said, "Well, knowing him and he thinks like I think in about 40 minutes he'll call me back." But it wasn't 40.

It was 30 minutes. crazy. There are millions of black worms dancing out of my rug.

I said, "You turned the rug back over, didn't you?" He said, "How'd you know?" I said, "Because I'm I'm an alcoholic and I can't leave nothing alone. That's the reason why every cake I bake, it falls. I can't keep my hands off of it." Then he says to me, "David, when the go when the worms going to quit dancing?" I said, "When they get soaked." Get soaked.

I said, "Yeah, they're your worms." Oh, David, you're so smart. And hangs up now. This been going on for 20 years.

God, has he helped me? He has helped me more than anything in this God's world. I made a call on a on a husband and wife.

I rang the doorbell and this was a huge lady. She wasn't fat. She said big bone about 6'3.

She weighed over 300 and some odd pounds. Big arms. She looked down at me.

Who are you? I said I am David A and I'm from Alcoholics. And her big arm went out.

He's in there. And I went in there and he's in the living room sitting in his lazy boy in his kimona. He's drunk.

His face looks like a center cut piece of baloney. hair running out all ends. He's sweating and he's grunting like a root hole.

And she said, "Look at that sorry, no good truck. Look at him. He's no good." And I knew exactly how he's feeling because she'd been gnawing on him like that for 3 days.

And if you ever had ever been on like that, you don't know what is. And I said to him, "Would you like to stop drinking?" She said, "He's a liar." Every time I asked him a question, she wouldn't let him answer. She'd put it in.

And I knew what was going through his mind. If he wasn't so drunk, he'd get out and kill it. And I was going to fix show him a way that he could do it.

And take a couple months. But anyway, she went. So, finally after 15 minutes, I had lady, do you have a phone?

She said, "Yes, it's in the hall." I said, "I'd like to use it." I got on the phone and called my wife. I said, "Grace, I got one for you." I come back out. I said, "Lady, you wanted on the phone." She said, "Who me?" Yeah.

She left. And then she left the room. You should have seen the eyes on that drunk guy.

His chin came up. His eyes opened up. As drunk as he was, he's trying to get out of that lazy boy.

He said, "Mister, I don't know your name. I do not know who you are. I don't know what you're here for.

I do not know what you represent. But I'll tell you one thing. If you can get rid of that back that quick, what I have to do to join you." Now he thought he thought she was the problem.

But in order to get down oneonone to the nature, I had to we have to divert the distraction and let her find her problem with the blood most catch or the family and the drunk. Now I made a call on a drunk. the largest house I've ever been in my life under roof for me about almost 40,000 square feet and you went to the doorbell and it's one of those deals with a speaker phone out in front in a bush and I said where are you and I went in the living room digging play basketball with this expensive furniture.

I went in the dining room and had a banquet table for 13,4 with a chandelier down low break front with expensive china and said, "Where are you?" I opened up these doors in his den and his den's about the half a size that room over there. They cut that. And there he was and he's laying on a big leather couch rolled up in his sheet.

And when I came in there, he got out of that couch. He's drunk and the sheets start unraveling and he start naked and he had a car being in his hand. He said, "You stand right there." Now, what happens if you ever asked to go on a 12step call and they're drunk and they're a gun freak and they got a a loaded gun in their hand and that's where you got outward surrendered and inward coward.

Then he said to me, "Who are you?" And I says, "I'm David a from Alcoholics Anonymous." At the last question from him, I answered. I just let him start answering his own question. Then he can't put any blame on anybody.

He said to me, "You mean I am that drunk that I would call Alcoholics Anonymous?" I didn't say, "Yes, you are." Oh, he's got that gun, right? Boom. Head here, body here.

I'll show you how drunk I am. Bloom. He said, "You mean I'm that drunk that I would call alcoholics tonight?" I didn't say one word.

He said, "God, I must be that drunk. Are you sure?" I didn't say one word. And until they tell you to sit out, you stand.

He answered his own question. Well, I tell you about that one. He come to AA, sober about 6 months, went back to drinking.

Came back, stayed sober 3 months, went back to drinking. He went to Europe under the finest of psychiatrist, every sort of aura thing you could think of. Tremendously, extremely wealthy human being.

The family had all they could do. They took all the money away from him, put it in trust funds for his children and grandchildren and he ended up in the alcohol recovery unit at the state hospital saying about 30 miles from Dallas. We go see and he was eligible to release and he we bring him back to AA and he stayed sober 7 months failed to enlarge his develop his spiritual life.

He got drunk and on his last run he took that carbine and stuck it in the roof of his mouth and blew his head off. So in aa you win some, you lose some. You understand baseball, the ones that get rained out, they're the toughest to make up.

But now I'm going to tell you about the 12step call that for me still tugs at my heart. You go into a house that's no longer a home. And if the utilities have been paid, everything that's on is on.

Little children, some in diapers. Some of them five, six, seven years old. They have to fend for themselves.

They come, they grab you by the leg, the ones that can talk there. Are you here to fix daddy or mother? The animals have their cages haven't been cleaned out.

They haven't been fed. There's not a clean glass, plate, dish. No food in the refrigerator, in the pantries, the non-alcoholic spouse or maybe a single spouse.

They're usually in the bedroom. It's a nightmare. This is not the way it's supposed to be when we got married.

And the drunk drunk is somewhere always carry me a list. They're the best because they've been through that. And they'll take them out and they'll roast weenies for them and marshmallows and they'll get toys for them, play with them.

You get the alines over there for the non-alcoholic parent and you don't ask any questions are they live in live out married notm human lives are involved and then the drunks can go work on the drunk and then you go off to a meeting someplace about 3 years or four years later off away from the area and you walk in and it has to be birthday night and a beautifully dressed lady will come up to you and said, "David, do you remember me?" And you look at him and you don't remember him. And then she starts to tell about the night. He said, "David, you and some of the members of your group, you came and y'all helped clean the house." And he said, "You got Grace and the other ladies to come over and talk to me.

You got some youngsters over there. Y'all cleaned up the house. You got milk for the kids?

Got cat food and dog food. And she said, "You see him over there? He's celebrating 3 years tonight." You look at him, got his hair all blowed out, got out of one of them three-piece Taiwan knit suits on, brand new pair of unborn lenolium shoes, you know.

Got one them ties on. Looks like somebody threw up all over it, you know. and he's grinning just like a jackass eating brier, you know.

And here come these little kids and kids grow like weeds and they got on their party dresses and they got ice cream and cake on their face and in their hair. Folks, that's alcoholic smile. You're not going to see that on as the world turns and you're not going to see it on television on birthday night and alcoholic.

What a joy it is to see in this meeting here all these little youngsters. They had one here last night. Yesterday he was 7 days old.

His mama carried in his crib. Yeah. That's our call.

That's alcohol. to practice these principles in all my affairs. Well, when I I went to my sponsor and I told him, I said, "I'm having trouble practicing these principles in all my affairs." And he said, "David, you will always have trouble practicing these principles all your affairs until you cut out some of your affairs and it made practicing the ones that needed to because we restore ourselves to sane living, you know.

Yeah. We admit we get help from God as we understand him. We rely on the 12 steps to inspire us with worthy emotions and power.

And we admit and accept the injury or drinking illness inflicted upon others and not duck it and dodge it. Ask God's forgiveness for these acts and make amends to personal harm. share the experience of our recovery with alcoholics who need our help and continue to live the area way of life and you know and giving giving in all of our lives.

One final give, you know, one final example, you know, joyou, honor sobriety, fun sobriety, loving sobriety, ever using all the principles that are given to each and every one of us. And we have some paradoxes in AA. What we give away, we retain, and what we lose, we gain.

And I'll add a third one. And when we die, all we're going to have left is that which we have given away. I want to thank you for your attention and your attendance.

God bless you and I love you and thank you. 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.