Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.

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. >> Wow.

Thank you, Donna. Uh, I'm an alcoholic. My name is Ditcher, >> and I tell you, when I first came in this fellowship, I never thought I'd be standing up here today with a 22-year chip.

But thank you very much. Uh, I I don't know what I'm going to do tonight. I've got to I I just my head's been rolling around all day long and and I think, you know, uh but my my regular birthday is Monday, May the 5th.

My sobriety day is 1981. Uh my home group is this this meeting here, Saturday night open door speakers meeting. And my sponsor is Tommy Hicks from Crawfordville, Florida.

And we've been together since 1995 when Tom Duffy died, who was Carl's sponsor as well as mine. And uh and when uh when Donna touched about the teacher will appear, uh you know, I thought about Tom Duffing awful lot because he gave an awful lot of his time to to h to Carl and I. And maybe if for whatever we are today, maybe maybe Tom Duffy had an awful lot to do with that.

Uh I would always like to thank Alicia for being here. I don't know where she left or not, did she? She always says, "Well, if it's Derby Day, it's D's birthday." And that's the way she remembers it.

And so the first Saturday in May is always Derby Day. And usually that's my birthday except this year it's two days early. And let me tell you, there is a significance there.

Those of you that watch the Derby today may have heard the song they played before the running of the Kentucky Derby. Anybody know what the song was? >> Oh Kentucky Home.

You know who that was written by? >> Steven Foster. Do you know what Steven Foster died of?

alcoholism. Isn't that a crazy connection? But uh I'm not going to go there.

I just I just I just thought I'd just reminisce for a little while and then at the last uh maybe the last half hour I'd tell you how I got sober. But uh there's an awful lot of people that I'm indebted to that have uh helped me an awful lot. And uh I was hoping one of them would be here, but then Donna I mean Donna Donna is Donna's my poster girl.

Uh Holly told me that Kathy wasn't going to be here. Kathy Schoffer was one of the first women that I got the opportunity to sit down with and we was answering the phones up in Intergroup and uh I would come in a half an hour earlier than what my scheduled time was to answer the phone so we could just talk a little while and she'd stay over a half an hour so we could even talk some more. Kathy uh told me about all her about her drunker log and about her sobriety.

And then uh after she got to know me a little bit, she told me about her cancer, being a victim, and also about being a survivor. And I think when you can get that personal within a man and a woman, that's aa that's the way I feel. I always I read this book every year, cover to cover.

I've done it for 22 years now. U my grandponsor did that and uh because he did it I thought I should do it too and I always find something new in there. This past year has been one of the best learning years I've ever had.

And a lot of times when I find some stuff in this book I call usually call Joe because I can get a hold of him real quick or I call Doug because I can get a hold of Doug real quick and I'll I'll run something by him that I've seen. And this past year, uh NY's ex-husband uh was found dead uh in his home up in North Carolina uh in early December. And he he had died uh on Thanksgiving Day supposedly.

And uh the uh cause of death was chronic alcoholism. His he had a blood alcohol content of something like 2.28 or something. And uh We have I have four stepchildren and Nancy there's NY's kids of course and I thought a lot of time I I kind of laid back whenever talking about their father because I didn't feel I could I should really interfere in that.

I was always just supportive of what Nancy was doing with her kids and I never put my two cents worth in about this disease. And I got a lot of secondhand information from Nancy mostly about talking with her daughter basically. And uh and of course there should there was many red flags that popped up, you know.

Uh he had lost his job at the place where he had been working for about 15 years. And that was a big red flag. And the and the other thing is he uh he was uh was engaged to a lady and and the engage engagement broke off.

There's another red flag. Uh he started isolating himself and not answering the phone. There's another red flag.

And u as I always do whenever something like that happens, I used to come I come back and I'd start reading the book. I just I want to find something just to make me comfortable to kind of calm me down a little bit. And and all of a sudden I was reading the book and and this popped up on page 20.

It says uh our very lives as ex-prop and drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. And I didn't say alcoholics. And I got to thinking, I called Joe and I read that to him and I said, "Do I understand that to mean that we're supposed to help people outside this fellowship and be available to them?" And Joe says, "Yes, as individuals." And I think sometimes we're maybe too secretive and we don't really let people know that we suffer from this disease and we may be of help to them.

Uh, I don't worry about my anonymity. if if I don't break it myself, Nancy does. And uh but I think she does it because she she really thinks that I'll be helpful to people.

She don't break it just because to be breaking it. And uh and then you know there's everybody quotes at page 77 and it also makes says a lot of things. It says our real purpose, our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be a maximum service to God and the people about us.

Didn't say alcoholics. It said the people about us. And there again, it got me thinking that maybe maybe I'm not doing what this book really tells me to do.

And I believe in this book. I've had a love affair for this book for about 21 years. I was telling somebody my soriety day is May the 5th, 1981.

recovery date is September 1982. U and the reason for that is because I came in here and I started working this program, walking the steps off the wall and all I ever had was an off-the-wall program, you know, and I did that for 14 months, you know, so I was still a sick individual. Uh, so I think I I've been trying to be helpful to more people, not just alcoholics.

And uh, and I'd like to just kind of encourage you maybe to read this book and find out if that's what you're supposed to do, too. And then, uh, like I say, it's been a learning year for me. Uh, I think God uh, really wanted me to get a master's degree in education about working with others.

And this past week, he uh he allowed me to go up to Thomasville, uh Georgia, and sit with NY's grandson, Jake, who had his tonsils out last Friday, and he's three years old. And uh he had kind of a hard time. They they reduced they had him out on Friday, they sent him home on Saturday.

He wouldn't eat or take his medicine to put him back in on Sunday and kept him Monday and Tuesday. And I really got kind of angry. I really had to say some prayers for those people who I thought was mistreating him, you know, and I knew I got three-year-olds I think should be, you know, helped a little bit more along the lines.

It was some other people, especially when it comes to having their tonsils out or something that traumatic. But anyway, I got up there at 7:00 in the morning and his mother left. She started a new job so she couldn't take off to be with him.

And the first thing we got to do is watch Scooby-Doo. And I sat there and thoroughly enjoyed it. And then uh after Scooby-Doo was off, he grabbed me by the hand and said, "Come on, D." And uh he went out, we opened the door and we went outside and we went to his sand pal or his sandbox.

And in his sandbox, we got to dig holes. We got to build mountains, you know. We got to move dirt sand from here to there.

And then later on we moved it from there back to here. And you know as all the time it's always the two of us. He gave me his shovel and he went and got another shovel.

He gave me his bucket and he went got another bucket. And then after that he says it's hot. And we went back inside and says need drink.

And he goes to refrigerator 3 years old. and he reaches up and he gets this blue Pepsi and he, you know, takes the cap off and he's got a great big cup that he got from the hospital on and I had a little cup that he probably normally uses, but he filled up his cup with all that blue pepsin and filled me up about a mouthful, you know, and he said, "Hot and I said, yeah." So, I don't I just went ahead and drank it, you know. And then he looked over and saw I didn't have it.

He said, "Need some more." And he took his cup and filled my cup up again. And then after we drank that, he said, "Come on, Dis." And he allowed me to sit on his chair and he reached over and he got two coloring brushes. He gave me one and he kept the other one and he said, "We're going to paint." We painted an airplane.

We painted stars. We painted houses. We painted about eight or nine different things until he got tired of it.

And then we went back out to the sandbox, you know, and went through that routine again. Uh he entertained me the best way he possibly could and he shared with me every single thing that he had. And I think God's telling me that sometimes we don't do that in working with others.

we don't share. I came back and I Les is one of my I always share with her and so I I remember there was a uh something I read one time on the internet about everything I know I learned in kindergarten. And I went in, I found that and I sent it to Lee and then we got to talk about it.

Uh Thursday we sit down and talked a little bit about, you know, what we could really learn to help other people with. But I really think that God really put me in Jake's day that day just just for me to have a good time. And I did.

I came home at I left at 10 minutes till 600. I'd been there almost 11 hours. And I wasn't tired.

I just had a really good time. And I came home and I' I'd probably gone up the next day if anybody had wanted me to because it was so good. But I had other things to do.

So, uh, I stayed here. But I I really appreciate that day and I thank God for giving that day to me. Uh couple of things that popped up in my head I I wanted to I wanted to say because u uh I sponsored some people and there's a couple people that that uh the past couple years have uh that I've uh worked with that I really think has done a really good job.

And I'm not going to mention anybody's name, but uh one guy came to me about oh probably a year and a half ago. He had about three months so asked me if I'd sponsor him and that he said he hadn't had much success at at getting sober at all. He probably had about 26 or 28 white chips.

And I said, "Well, yes, if you want to, if you're just willing to follow a few simple rules." I said, "That's all I ask." And I said, "If that's it, we'll go ahead and work together." >> And we did. And uh he he did good four steps, good fifth step, and went on along and getting to his amends and and uh pretty much I thought was going along pretty good. And one day he called me up on the telephone and he said, "I think I need to talk to you." And I said, "Well, uh why don't you come on over?" and uh we'll go downstairs and talk.

And I said, "All right." I thought maybe it's about something else. I didn't really know what it was about. So when he came over to the house, we got a cup of coffee and went downstairs.

That's where my office is. Nancy moved me down there two years ago. And that's why I think she got rid of me.

Uh but he came in, he said, "I'm having troubles making an amend." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Well, back when I was drinking and using." And he said, "I uh I was dating this girl and I and he said, "Everything was going pretty good." And said, "And then she ODed." And he said, "Uh, I'm just having a hard time trying to figure out what I'm going to do." And I said, "Well, there's the the step itself says to make direct amends." And he said, "So?" And I said, "So come Monday, come Sunday morning, I want you to put a lawn chair in your truck and I want you to drive over to cemetery and I want you to get out and I want you to plop that lawn chair down beside her grave and I want you to tell her everything that you need to tell her." And it's the first time that ever happened. And I don't know where it came from. I'm sure that I heard along the line somewhere that happened.

And uh I think two days later uh I bumped into him and he said uh he said I really feel good. He said I've all that burden I had on my heart is not around anymore. And he said I really feel like this program is going to work for me this time.

And he said uh I think I think making amends is the best thing I could possibly do in order to straighten out my life. And he's coming up on two years pretty soon. Some of you might know who he is.

Uh, the other thing I'd like to get, I get get some emails every now and then and people want to know where is it and in the big book or or or ask me some questions. And one of them very interesting this week said, uh, every time I go to a meeting, the chairperson said, "We're going to have a moment of silence followed by the serenity prayer." By the time I start doing something in a moment of silence, they start the surrender prayer. And uh I started laughing.

I said, "I thought that was funny." And I said, "What are you trying to do in a moment of silence?" And she said, "She was trying to set some prayers for herself." And uh I said, "Well, I don't think that's really what AA meant to do with the moment of silence." And she sent back, she said, "What are we supposed to do?" And I said, "My sponsor always told me to use the moment of silence to ask God to be into this meeting." And I very simply she sent me back she said I knew it had to be something simple you know and uh she's got six years so sbiety so she she you know she's pretty good at doing that and then a lot of times you know they'll get and ask me who wrote this or who wrote that and u uh I think if there was anything that I wanted to change in the big book uh I think it'd be the chapter too wise because I think there's been a misprint there. I think it should be TWWO, Two Wives, because everybody's got mostly two wives. Uh maybe more people would read it if it was titled Two Wives.

Uh one lady asked me one time, she said, uh I get all these great questions. She said, "Diz, is there any song that's actually related to Alcoholics Anonymous?" I said, "I don't know." And she said, 'Well, what song would you think it to be?' And I said, ' Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. There's the land that we thought of Once Upon a Lullabi.

And she said, "Thank you." And I don't know where all this stuff comes from, but I just I just love this fellowship so good. I think that I, you know, when they ask me and you know what my opinion is and I'm going to tell you and uh Carl says I can have opinions if you all listen to his 12step program. Uh I did I I am I do give my opinion a lot of time.

One of them I did this year I think uh the people that was in the uh my last big book workshop was somebody asked me what was my favorite book outside of the big book of alcoholics anonymous and I said it's a book that was written by a former presidential candidate Jordan McGovern about his daughter Terry and a lot of you have gone out and read that book and uh I I think it's probably gives us the best lesson of uh what to do with people and how to work with them and what not to do because George McGovern did everything the experts told him to do and it still failed. His daughter still died of alcoholism. It's a great book and I think it it there's a good lesson there if somebody uh ever wants to read it.

uh asked me one time if what what changes in meetings would I like to have? And uh I thought of one the other day and and I also heard this from somebody else that uh I think when we tell newcomers to get phone numbers, I think that ought to be a two-way street. I think we ought to give them our phone number and we get their phone number.

And if we get a newcomer's phone number, I think we ought to call them at least three times to encourage them to come back. Sometimes we leave these newcomers out there and just like a fishing water, you know, every now and you got to throw them a hook and get them in. And I think uh I think we need to pay more attention to our newcomers.

We're getting an awful lot of them in here and a lot of them pick up some wrong things to say. And I remember Carl was in a meeting one time and and we talked down on the front porch at C and some one of the young people in there had said, you know, just work these steps to best your ability. And boy, you don't say that to an oldtimer.

And Carl Carl said, "No, you work the steps thoroughly, precisely, and completely. You don't do them to the best of your ability." That's not in this book. And you know, that's some of the things I think we get should get around to the newcomers because I know it's we can't teach them all.

I know that, you know, it's it's kind of crazy. I guess CR and I were lucky. We had some really Nazis for teachers.

And uh, of course, most of you heard about my first sponsor, Slick. And Slick was as tough on me as any drill sergeant is on any new soldier. I mean, he really was.

And you know, he would every time I did something bad, he'd call me a dumbass hillbilly. And and then even if I did something good, he'd still call me a hillbilly. Uh, and I really didn't think he liked me.

I really didn't think he liked me. And yet when I found he finished all the steps in the program, that was one of the best times I ever had. I'd be able I'd go over to his house one Sunday afternoon and we'd sit there and drink a pot of coffee and just talk, you know, and I tell you the things you can learn from old-timers.

And I think uh I think that's what you all the youngst people ought to do is take advantage of the old-timers. Carl told me one time he wasn't going to do the the 12step anymore. And I said that's not true.

You got to do it. And he does. he has to continue doing it because there's there's nobody else that's come around that's going to do it like he does it and he does it very well and he uh I'm hard on him too by the way.

I don't know whether he told you or not, but I gave him a birthday card when he celebrated 25 years. And that card I wrote, you've got 15 minutes to enjoy this, then you got to get started on the next 25. And he said, "You're a tough man." And uh I do lovingly because I do appreciate I love him what he does for this fellowship.

And I think we should take advantage of him more often. We should take advantage of uh uh of the old-timers. I I'm very very lucky.

I've got a lot of people that call me and uh people I can call on John is good. John work is very good. Doug Joe, you know, I go around here and just talk about Keith Anne will blow me out someday.

Kathy Schoffer. So I get a lot of telephone calls and believe me, you don't know how important those phone calls are to us. You know, as we get older, we lose more of our friends that we were in this fellowship with.

And, you know, it's a dying kind of a dying breed. And so, we don't have contact with those like we used to. So, we depend upon you young people, you know, maybe calling us up and checking on us or finding out something.

And we do appreciate it. Believe me, I never thought I'd be talking like this as an old-timer. I didn't know I was an old-timer until Nancy one time.

We went to a meeting. I had 10 years sobriety and uh and there was this meeting and uh and na I don't drink coffee. Nancy does.

She went and got a cup of coffee and came back and she said uh see those two girls over there and I said yeah and you know was getting a cup of coffee. I said I know who they are. He said well he said Dave one this one was telling the other said that's D over there.

He's an old-timer and I knew I finally had it made. You know, I was an old-timer and I could be recognized as an old-timer. Uh, I wrote this statement down because I believe it's really true.

I said, uh, many people say that AA is believing in God. I don't think that's true at all. Uh, I think it's more believing that you're not God.

Sinks in a little while, doesn't it? Uh, and that's what it says in the big book, too. First of all, we had to quit playing God.

Uh, the other thing I talked about one time was anonymity down at CAS. And, and you know, sometimes we take that anonymity statement too far and we think we have to be very protective of it. And, and that's not true.

You know, NA there's no anonymity. My name's Diz Titer. That's Doug Bags.

That's Car Armstrong. That's Donna Duffy. We should let people know who we are.

A lot of times people go around say, "Well, I know a guy named Tim." Uh, Tim Tim, they don't know his last name. So, don't be scared if you're an NAA meeting to uh to tell people who you are. Uh, I I don't watch TV too much.

Sometimes Nancy and I like certain shows, but it was miserable TV last night. And uh she went to took a bath and went to bed. And so for some reason or another, I turned it over and watch uh Larry King.

I do watch him occasionally. I haven't too much lately because I'm I was getting tired of watching War, but uh last night I had on Dick Van Dijk and Mary Tyler Moore. They're going to be in a movie tomorrow night on uh on uh public television.

But at the end of the show, you know what they both declared? They both were members. So alcoholics anonymous and they both gave praise to the fellowship and they thanked AA for all the help that they've given millions of people.

Ain't that amazing? They didn't protect their anonymity. You know, it's pretty good.

Uh I had uh like I said, I'd stumbled around for 14 months in Alcoholics Anonymous and uh uh there would be many times when some I'd be sitting at a table and somebody would walk by the table and point down and just like this to me because I wouldn't get anywhere at all. And I went to a meeting one night and and uh felt a tap on my shoulder and what I did, I turned around and looked and there was this old man standing there and he said, "Your name D?" And I said, "Yeah." He said, "My name's Slick." And he said, "I'm your new sponsor." And I said, "Uh, who said so?" and he turned around and he pointed and there was three guys standing over there and he said, "Uh, those three guys over there," he said, "we drew straws and I lost." And the, uh, I later found out that those three guys over there, one was Earl Dominic had 38 years, Red Davis had 33 years, and Carl uh, um, not Carl, Clarence Pritchard had 29 years. So there was over a hundred years sobriety in those three guys over there.

And I don't know why I I didn't get arrogant like I probably would any other time. I something just came over me. I thought maybe I better pay attention to what this man's doing.

And I really don't know why, but I I said, "Well, okay." And he said, "Well," he said, "I live at so and so and so and so." And he said, "I want you over at that house on this Sunday at 2:00." I said, "Okay." I had to look it up on a map to find out where he lived and uh at 2:00 I was over there and I parked in front of his house and he came out and opened met me at the front door and he opened the door and uh we went in the kitchen. He had a pot of coffee on but he had an old porcelain kitchen table. Must have been 70 years old then.

And uh so that's where we sat at that porcelain table. And that man at that time had 22 years sobriety. And he started spoonfeeding me this book and everything in this book on that Sunday afternoon.

And probably for the next year. We met him every other Sunday and he would spoon feed me this uh everything in this book. the uh he started taking me through the steps and along the steps he would explain everything to me and he was an old newspaper man.

He worked uh for the Winston Salem Journal and his notoriety was that he covered one of the largest murder trials in North Carolina history and that's the the Smith uh Camel cigarettes Smith Reynolds death he was he was murdered and they had a big trial and he covered it for the AP and thei up. So, one of the things he used to do, he used to really just stand over top of me, but he had because he newspaper man, he always had ink on his hands. So, he had a habit of standing and he would stand like this and he'd stand like that when I was out sitting at the kids' table and just look at me and I that was just, you know, very demeaning, especially, you know, alcoholics are sensitive and I certainly was.

Uh but we talked about step one, you know, said we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. And I learned this from Ian too, by the way, afterwards because he Ian broke down the word emit. You know what the word emit means?

To let in. He said if you go to a theater and buy a ticket, it says emit one. So that ticket will let you into the whole theater.

Don't put you in a projection booth. Don't put you anywhere else. put you in a whole theater.

Uh when Abby called on Bill Wilson, you know, to try to give him his program, Bill was just couldn't believe it because he, you know, he that Ebie was sober. He just couldn't believe it because Ebie was the worst kind of drunk. He was a lot like us, especially me.

And uh but as Ebie was given trying to give Bill the program, Bill noticed one thing about him and it's on page 11. It's always in this book. Everything is in this book.

It said here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. You know, it didn't say that he was doing all this in his head intellectually. He said it here at something in a human heart.

And then uh if you really read what the first step says, it says that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. There's no definition of innermost in the dictionary. You know, the only thing I could even think about that had the word inner in it with the like was inner tube.

And you know, an inner tube goes around the whole tire. Just don't go in a portion of the tire. And I said, 'Okay.' And then there's another statement in here on page 25 that says, 'The central fact of our lives today is that is the absolute certainty that our creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.

And so Slick said, you don't work this step, first step in your head. That's where intellect is and that's where self-will is. And self-will won't keep you sober.

He said, "You got to work this first step from your heart. That's where your emotions are and that's where you can accept things. If you accept this program in a in your heart, there's another positive thing that may happen to you.

Something traumatic might happen to you. Could be the death of a loved one, could be a divorce or something like that. If that happens in your life, you can accept it because you can accept it from your heart.

If you try to do it intellectually, you might go get drunk over it. And so I believe that you got to work the first step in your heart. And I want to thank Slick for giving me that.

Cameain to believe that a power greater myself could restore us to sanity. I had a lot of tough with that. I mean, I had a lot of tough time with that.

I had uh attended church regularly as a Presbyterian. uh fairly regular. I don't mean every every day.

Uh I was uh a Sunday school teacher. I was an adult advisor to the senior fellowship. I sang in a chorus.

And one year I served a three-year period as a trustee. And I did every single one of those things. And you know, I never got any closer to God than what anybody else would in that situation.

And I look back on it today and I think the reason for that is because I wanted to I thought I should get something in return for all that I was doing. And that's not the way this program worked. You know, I didn't have any kind of relationship with the God because I wouldn't allow it to to happen.

I wanted something else out of it. And so I had a lot of problem uh with step two and but I told Slick I said okay uh I'm going to believe there is a higher power and I'm going to believe that that higher power is going to restore me to sanity at least. I was about 60% that way.

Uh and I was a traveling salesman at that time. And uh one time I traveled uh I should tell y'all I got sober in North Carolina. So that's why I keep saying there.

Uh and I had to travel back uh to Ohio and I was going through West Virginia and uh traveling through West Virginia. I got a good friend named George Dy up there and he and I went to different schools together and uh so George has a meeting at 7:30 in the morning called the Mustard Seed Group. And uh I I said, "Okay, I'll be there." And and then that day I went and there was eight men there and we was just sitting around the circle and of course George opened the meeting everything and started out.

We started talking about different things and everybody went around the room until it got to a certain point in it and there was a stopped at this man. He introduced himself. His name is Ted and he said he was pretty worried and he said that the next day he had to go in the hospital for a three for a bypass operation and he just didn't wasn't feeling good about it and he he just kept talking about and you could just hear the fear in his voice.

And uh after he went ahead and told about all his fear and everything else, one of the guys sitting about two chairs over from him was a man that worked in a Ford garage. He was a mechanic because he had on that Ford uniform. And uh he said uh Ted, he says, "What time tomorrow are you going to be operated on?" And Ted said, "Well, they got me scheduled for 8:00 in the morning." And this mechanic looked over and he said, "Ted, I tell you what I'm going to do." He said, "Tomorrow at 8:00, I'm going to ask my higher power to be with you and help you through that operation." I knew right then and there that step two was exactly the way it was written.

I believe more than anything in the world that that higher power was with Ted the next day to help him get through the operation. I couldn't hardly stand it because I went to Ohio and worked. I was over there about five days for a trade show and I had to come right back and the reason I had to come right back and go to that meeting had to find out what happened to Ted.

And when I did, they said Ted had came through the operation very well and was doing doing super. And I convinced myself then that uh that higher power can restore me to sanity too. uh made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to care of God as we understood him.

Make a decision. That's all it asked us to do. Make a decision.

And I had known about making decisions because when I was in college on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there was a we had a break from 10 to 11 that we could do anything we wanted to. And a couple of the guys that I ran around with like we'd like to go downtown and and have a cup of coffee or a cup of hot chocolate at at uh at McCory's because they had a doughnut machine and we'd never seen one of those doughnut machines. But you'd fill this thing up with dough and it'd pop out a little circle in this hot grease and it' go around and it would turn that doughut over and it cook on the other grease.

Then it kick it out. Then a girl would either put vanilla icing, chocolate icing, or powdered sugar or something on it. And you know, we could go down there for 10 cents and have two donuts in a cup of coffee.

That also tells you how old I am. And we were sitting there one day and we said, "You know what we ought to do? We ought to put in a doughnut shop.

And we ought to sell all kinds of donuts. Jelly donuts, all chocolate covered, powdered sugar, every kind of doughut there is. We ought to sell every kind of drink there is.

Orange juice, lemonade, hot chocolate, everything. And we said, you know, we could get a lot of people here in Charleston come through and buying that. We could be real successful.

We all agreed that was a great idea. We went back to school and two years later, Mr. Donut came to town.

See, we made a decision, but we didn't take any action on it. And that's what happens to decisions. If you leave them laying there long enough, nothing's going to happen to them.

And so I always say that what it asked me to do is I had to do what's I refer to as a twin steps. And the twin steps are four and five, six and seven, eight and nine. And in one of those steps I prepare and the other step I execute.

So we're preparing one and executing the other. And so that's what I had to do. Instead, I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of herself.

And the first thing we had to look at as our common manifestations was resentment. And the first resentment I ever had, and I want you to listen to this story. First resentment I ever had was against my father.

I was about 10 years old and one day going to school. He said, "After you get home from school, I want you to call cut Mrs. Robinson's grass and I don't want you to take any money for it.

And I got real resentful at it because my brother, three years older, he just went to school. And Mrs. Robinson had four grandsons that were could have been available to come and cut that grass.

And I got really really upset with my dad because I had to do that after I got off from school. I couldn't go do what I wanted to do. Today I'm doing the same thing, aren't I?

I'm helping other people without any getting anything in my I did not heed a lesson that my father tried to give to me. That's a long time ago. Uh admitted to God to ourselves and another human being the exact nature of a wrong.

Uh, Slick uh said, "I want you to go home and I want you to find a quiet place outside." And I said, "All right." And he said, "I want you to admit all these things to God that you have put on these paper." And I said, "Okay." By the way, I wrote 38 pages. I I'm trying to hurry. Probably shouldn't do it.

And so I had a lot to get rid of. And I said, "Okay." And so, uh, I never ever asked him why he wanted me to do it outside, but I did. I sat outside on the patio and the nice light and everything.

And uh, so I admitted all those things to God. As soon as I got finished, of course, I I called him up the next day and I told him that I had done that. And he said, "Fine." He said, "Come back over." over and I went back over to his house and I I said, "Uh, by the way," I said, "How come I had to do that outside?" He said, "Well, I" He said, "I want you to do that under God's roof, not man's roof." Makes a lot of sense to me.

So, he said, "Well, what I want you to do now, I want you to go back to that same place that you admitted all these things to God, and I want you to admit all these things to yourself, but this time, I want you to say them out loud so you can hear them. And I said, "Okay." So I went back to that same place where I sat and I admitted all those things to myself out loud. Uh so I could hear what they really was about.

And after I completed, I called him up and told him. He said, "Well, fine. Come over.

Let's talk." And then when I went back over, he told me, he said, "I want you to call Clarence." That was his sponsor. And he said, "I want you to go up and see him, and I want you to admit all these things to him." And uh I said, "Okay." So I called Clarence, made an appointment, and would you believe the first thing that Clarence wanted to do was go out and sit on a bench outside under God's roof, not under man's roof. And I was able to admit all those things to him.

And as I admitted them, he was making a list of all the character defects that he heard. And which there's quite a few. And uh and after uh I admitted everything to him, we sit there and talked a little bit and it it really was a lot of times a two-way street because there was a lot of things when I would say he said, "Yeah." He said, "You know, the same thing happened to me." And so it was really really good thing that that I felt really felt good about it.

And then he said, "Well, here's some of the character defects I heard." He said, "I I hope uh you know, you're going to make a list of them, so this might help you along the way." So, uh, I did and and, uh, of course, Slick sooner, you know, found out that I'd completed my fifth step and I called him up and told him about, too. And he said, "Well, come over a certain certain time and we'll talk about some more." So, we might go to his house and and he said, "Now," he said, "I want you to get entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." And I just looked at him because, you know, I'd had the list of defects in my hand and I had my copy and I had, you know, Clarence's copy and I kind of was holding him up and he said, "No, no, no." He said, "I'm you can't just have a list that you're going to ask God to get rid of. You got to know why you have those.

That's getting entirely ready." He said, "Hell, anybody can get a list and turn it over to God." But he said, "What? You've got to tell God why you have each one of these character defects." And so I had to go back home and I had to work at it and and find out why I had these character defects. And I had to be very serious about it.

And uh so when I went back and talked to Slick about and I started telling him why I had some of these character defects, he said, "Now," he said, "Okay, now you can ask him to remove all these shortcomings." And they said, "By the way," he said, 'd do you think God's going to remove all these things from you? And of course, I'm getting real cocky now cuz I, you know, I haven't been talking back for a while, but I start saying, "Well, the books refer says that." And he said, "Ah, don't say it." It says, "Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings." Don't say he does. And uh he said, "Do you think we have an Oral Roberts in AA?" And uh I said, "No." He said, "Well, don't think God's going to remove these from you." He said, "If you spent all those years developing them, you might had to spend that many years getting rid of them." Of course, I guess I I kind of look went like that, you know.

And he said, well, he said, I tell you what you have to do to make this step work. He said, as you go out in life and as these things come up in your life, that's when you work on them. And that's when you ask God's help to to work on this character defect.

And he said, when you do that, he said, you'll find out pretty soon that they'll be gone. And he was exactly right. The only character defect I have today is probably road rage.

Uh there's a lot of times Nancy gets mad at me because I scream at people in cars. They just won't go when a red when the green light turn comes on, you know, and especially it's it's terrible. I mean, if I'm the third car back and they just won't go and I get caught by that light again.

But but anyway, I can live with that if that's the only one I got. uh made a list of p made a list of of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Uh we made a list when we made our im inventory and so slick said the best way to do it is to just uh go through my inventory and put down people that I can get to right now, you know.

And he said, "Then you know uh what you want to do is maybe make columns up there. And then if some come to somebody's name you can't get to them right now, but you can get to them next, then put them over in the next column. And if there's somebody that you really can't get to now and you can't get to next, we put them over here in the later column." And then uh he said, "If there's somebody you're going to really have a hard time making amends to, just put them over in that fourth column." And that's what I did.

I had everybody down in columns and I went around and I started making the amends. Now, I made up the list and I took it over to Slick and I he looked at it and when he looked at it, he tore it up. And I said, "What are you doing?" And he said, "Well, from what I know about you," he said, "you left a couple important people off that list." And I said, "No, I didn't." He said, "Yes, you did." And you know, that's when he called me a dumbass hill building again.

And then he I guess he felt sorry for me and they said, "Well, you did. You left two people off there." He said, "You left God's name off there and you left your name off there." And he said, "If you can't make amends of those two people, all those other amends aren't going to mean a damn thing." And he was absolutely right because that is the two people that I had to make amends to. And so, uh, I got to do those, but don't get ahead of me now because I did do God first.

All right. Uh, but you know, Slick was a good one for always showing up when I needed to do something. And as I say, I went pretty much that now list was gone.

And then the next list kind of jumped over there and I started making amends to them and I finished those. Then the later lists move over and made amends to those and I was doing real good and finally he showed up in a meeting one night. He said how you doing with your men?

I said pretty good. He said how about that guy you got on your never list? You made amends to him?

And I said no. And he said well when you going to get around doing that? I said I don't know a couple weeks or so.

He said, "Uh-uh." He said, "I want to know right now when you're going to make amends to him." And he know he never acted like this before, but I felt like, "Well, uh, I better do what he says." I said, "Well, I'll make that amend next week." He said, "Fine. When?" Next week. And I said, "Uh, I'll I'll do it next Wednesday." He said, "Fine.

What time? Next Wednesday." And I said, 'Well, I'll I'll do it at 9:00 in the morning.' He said, 'Fine. Where are you going to make the Amen?

And I said, 'Well, I'll go to I'll go to his office. He said, fine. And you're going to make this man next Wednesday at 9:00 in the morning over to his office.

And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Fine." Uh, I said that because he was a traveling salesman and mostly traveling salesman are never in on Wednesday. And I really thought I had a lock on it. See?

Uh, so I'm really worried about it anyway. You know, I have to go over there because this is an amendment that really I'd done a lot of harm to this individual and also to his family. It was one of those tough things that you just never wanted to really face.

That was the kind of individual if he was walking down the street, I crossed the street. That's the way I was. Uh, so as Wednesday came, I got in my car and I drove over to where his business place was.

I was pulled in on the street. I looked. He had a parking place right beside his office and his car wasn't there.

And I just kind of said, "Well, see there, he's not there. I'll get out. I'll go in and I'll say hello to his secretary." I stopped in.

I'll leave. And that way, you know, I made an attempt. And uh so I didn't want to go in until exactly 9:00 because I knew Slick would figure out what time I got there.

So uh as I got about 2 minutes till I got out my car and I got up and I stood on the on the sidewalk there and he pulled in. He gets out of his car and goes in his office. I said, "Oh my gosh." You know, so I started trying to figure out what I was going to say now.

And about that time he comes back out of his office. So I stopped again because I thought maybe get in his car and he'd leave, but he didn't. He looked that way and he looked this way and he found he looked over and he saw me and started walking towards me.

I said, "Oh my god, now here this is going to, you know, this is not going to come out very good at all. Th this because this is just going to end up in a big fight or something else." And he got about three steps from it. He reached his hand out and he said, "Diz, how are you?" And I said very pretty good.

He said, 'What are you doing over here? And I said, 'Well, I was coming over to see you. And he said, well, why don't you come on in?

Let's have a cup of coffee. We went in have a said hi to his secretary. We said I got a cup of coffee, went in, sat down at his desk.

We started chit cchatting a little while. And pretty soon when there was an opportunity for me to go in, I I said, "Well, one of the reasons I'm over here is cuz I want you to know that several years ago when we had that big disagreement, I want I just want you to know I'm taking full responsibility for that. And and I don't mean to blame you or anybody else for that at all." And u he paused for a little while and he looked up and he said, "Well, there's a funny thing." He said, "My wife and I have been talking about that." And he said, "We feel like that we had just as much to do with that as you did.

and I didn't know what was going on. You know, we talked for a while longer. He invited me over to his house for dinner and I walked out of there and I just could not believe it.

Here was a an amend that I wasn't even going to make. That was going to be disturbing to me the rest of my life. And yet it turned out to be the easiest amend that I ever made.

One of the things we like to do after uh going to a meeting is uh we'd like to go down to Swinson's ice cream. We get sundas and sodas and everything like that. And so one night Slick was u at the meeting and we was going down to get some ice cream with Swinson's.

There was about six of us going and Jimmy Brown who's a good friend of mine too had this new uh sponsy with him and believe it or not they was working on the the uh making amends the nice step and as we got our Sundays and everything and started eating them and Jimmy was talking about suggesting some of the things to your new sponsor what to do and then Slick said hey Jimmy he said if you want to know how to make direct amends what you ought to do is let Diaz tell you how he made amends. And I said, "Slick, be quiet. Be quiet.

Don't you know what? Be quiet." And he said, "No." He said, "Oh, D." He said, "He had a guy on his list that he was never going to make amends to." And he said, "I caught him at a meeting one time." He said, "I just put him in the corner and I said, "Okay, when you going to make this amend?" And I made Dez tell me the day he was going to do it, the time he was going to do it, and where he was going to do it. And he said once Diz admitted that he was going to accepted the fact that he was going to do that then I said okay and I went home and I called that guy up and I told him that D was coming over to see sometimes we need sponsors help to get things done and I'm I'm ever grateful for that because that man that man and I today are pretty good friends.

uh continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong properly admitted it. Uh this is one of those things that just I need to say because I think it's it's also educational for all of you all. My son was a little league manager.

Uh, and he had a pretty good baseball team. And uh, he was also very supportive of me being an alcoholic synonymous. And uh, he called me one night and he said, "Uh, dad, when are you coming up?" The, you know, my grandson was playing.

He said, "When are you coming up to see Drew play?" And also his twin sister Ashley played softball. So I said, "Well, I don't know." I said, "I'll talk to Nancy. we'll see when we get away.

And uh he said, "There's something else I want you to do, too." And he said, "Why?" He said, "Well, one of my little league fathers just lost his job and he also he and his wife are separated and he's drinking an awful lot and he comes around to ball games and he's got whiskey on his breath and everything else." And he said the other night I was talking to him and I said uh you know my father's been in AA for a lot of years and he said uh pretty soon he's going to come up here and he said I wonder if you would talk to him and the man said oh I'd like to and my that's what my son so that was really why we went up there and Nancy and I cleared our schedule and we we drove up there and soon as we got in I asked Andy what the phone number what that man was and he told me what it was and I called I dialed the phone number and it just rang and rang and rang. And then that night I tried it several times and and there was no answer. Uh the next morning I got up and I tried that phone number again.

No answer. We went to some softball games and and baseball games and watched the Twins play and and in between I'd get go to a phone and I'd call and there'd be no answer. So, uh, Saturday night I called again.

There was no answer. And even on Sunday morning when we left to come back, I I made two attempts to call and there was there was not an answer at the phone at all. And so Nancy and I left, came back to Tallahassee and I never I never really thought too much about it after that.

And about two weeks later, my son called me up and was talking about a few things. He said, "Well, Dad, by the way, remember that man? and I wanted you to go see.

And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, he committed suicide." And you know, this book don't say anything about calling people up on the telephone. It says we're supposed to go see them. And I didn't do that.

You know, I might have been the only opportunity that man had a chance to get sober. I'll never know. That's a burden I got to carry around for the rest of my life.

But then again, no one among us makes anything like perfect adherence to this program. I don't want you all to make mistakes. So that's why I'm willing to share them with you.

Don't use the telephone to help other alcoholics. Go see him. Uh 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. Uh for a time I lived in Virginia Beach and uh during this time I lived in Virginia Beach, there was a meeting I used to love to go to on Monday nights and it was in a church uh one of the church rooms and when I went in there, this place was just set up evacuant. I mean all the chairs were in a row.

The coffee table had a tablecloth on it. There was napkins, doilies, everything was out in sugar ball, uh, cream ball. Uh, it just a beautiful setting.

All the books were out. Everything you wanted to do. And I said, "Wow, boy, this is something else." And I just looked forward to going to that meeting.

I didn't get a chance to go to it a lot because sometimes on Monday nights, I had to travel and after I'd attended it for about six or seven months, I had to go out of town for almost a month. And so when I come back, I was just real anxious to go. So when I go to this meeting, as soon as I walk in the door, I can't believe it's the same place because every one of the chairs are just scattered everywhere.

You know, there's a coffee pot on an old tabletop just perking. No napkins out. No cream pitcher, no sugar pitcher out, no spoons, just, you know, everybody heat for themsel it looks like.

And I was kind of disappointed. And that night before the meeting, I noticed there's some new faces in there. And and the chairperson said that there's a gentleman that wanted to say something.

And so the uh young man spoke up and he says, "My mother used to be in charge of this meeting uh for about two years." And she came over and she got this room prepared every time the meeting for Monday night. She made the coffee and she set everything up. And uh he said last Saturday she died.

She had cancer all those years that she was doing all that work. And he said she was really a remarkable woman. But it just got so that she just didn't have the energy to do anything anymore and she couldn't even go upstairs to her bedroom.

So her husband got her a dayb bed and moved it into the dining room and moved that furniture around so she could sleep in there. And so that's where she spent probably the last four weeks of her life. And this one night, her husband went in to say good night to her and she looked at him and she said, "Would you do me a big favor?" And he said, "Anything that you want?" He said, "Would you get me a double shot of whiskey and a cigarette and a lighter and put it on that table?" And he said, "Yes, I will." and he went and got her a double shot of whiskey and a cigarette and a lighter and left it on that table and he kissed her good night and he went off to bed.

And the next morning when he came down, of course, he didn't, you know, see anything going on in the dining room. So, he just went ahead and kind of turned lights on and opened up the blinds and everything else. Then after about 20 minutes, he went in to check on her and she wasn't moving.

He went over to and uh and filled her and she had died during the night. And he couldn't help it but look over on that table and there was still that double shot of whiskey and that cigarette and that lighter. And I often wonder what the moral of that story was until I sat down one night and I said that lady in her dying day wanted to exercise her choice towards drink and she chose not to do it.

Every morning I get up, I have the same choice. I can choose not to drink or I can choose to go out in this world and just raise all kinds of holy hell. And I think I'm glad that lady made that decision.

Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. The 12th step of Alcoholics Anonymous is our crowning glory.

It's been around longer than any other step. And you know, and I think we all use it well. There was a man that was walking down the street.

It was kind of dark. And what he did, he fell in this big hole. And he started screaming like crazy for somebody to come by and help him out.

And finally, a doctor came by and said, "Yes, I can help you." And he wrote him a prescription and threw it down to him. And the man said, "This ain't going to work. I got to get out of here.

Somebody help me." And he kept screaming and screaming and screaming. And pretty soon another man walked by. He was a minister and he said, "Well, my son, I'll help you." And he said a prayer for him.

And then he got up and he started going his way. The man was getting desperate now. And he started screaming through the top of his voice, "Please, somebody help me." Pretty soon, this other guy come walking down.

He heard this guy's plea for help and he jumped down in the hole. And this guy looked and said, "Now you've done it. There's two of us down here." How crazy can you be?

He said, 'D don't worry.' He said, 'I'm an alcoholic.' He said, 'I've been here before. Give me your hand and I'll show you the way out. That's our 12th step.

Uh I think you know uh when it comes around to responsibility, I think each of us have a responsibility this fellowship and I think it's very simple. I think when I'm gone from this earth, I think the one responsibility I have to do is to leave this fellowship exactly the way I found it. It doesn't need any fian complexes that I might want to do into it.

You know, it works the way that the first 100 gave it to us. And I think that's the way we should continue to work in. And I like to say this that God offers us his grace to come out of the darkness of alcoholism into the light of sobriety.

I'm grateful I made that decision. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day. >>