AA Speaker – Don L. – Bend, OR – 2021
AA speaker Don L. from Bend, OR shares 29 years of sobriety built on sponsorship, service work, and the power of staying active in the fellowship. A story about recovery fundamentals.
Don L. from Bend, OR got sober on September 16th, 1991, and in this AA speaker tape, he spends nearly three decades explaining why sponsorship and service work became the backbone of his recovery. Walking in on his second night of AA ready to leave, two members named Lou and Mark made a choice to welcome him—a moment that changed everything. Don walks through how an active sponsor taught him to stay connected to the program, work with others, and find freedom through carrying the message.
AA speaker Don L. describes how sponsorship saved his life on his second night in the program and became the foundation of 29 years of sobriety. He emphasizes that an active sponsor provides accountability, connection to the fellowship, and the spiritual tools necessary to stay sober—not through force, but through invitation and example. Don details how sponsoring others became his greatest asset in recovery, breaking the cycle of self-centeredness and keeping him spiritually fit.
Episode Summary
Don L. opens by reflecting on what makes a good day in sobriety: approach and attitude. After 29 years sober, he’s learned that what you focus on grows—if you focus on resentments and problems, your day suffers. But there’s a tool that cuts through that spiral: a sponsor who doesn’t share your emotional investment in your life.
Don was 31 years old and “more dead than alive” when he came to AA. He’d been drinking for ten years, was living at his sister’s house, had warrants for his arrest, and was certain the program wouldn’t work for him. He came to buy time and figure his next move. On his second night, 48 hours sober, sitting in the Seami Valley Alano Club, his mind—the very thing the Big Book says is the problem—started telling him to leave. He didn’t belong. Nobody wanted him there. He was heading for the door.
That’s when two members, Lou and Mark, noticed him. They didn’t know him. They had no obligation. But they walked 30 feet across that room and invited him to sit with them. Mark became his sponsor—not by choice, but by assignment—and that decision became the most important moment of Don’s life.
Don’s sponsor was everything he wasn’t: softspoken, cleancut, thoughtful. But he had something Don didn’t recognize at the time: reverence. Not for AA or his sponsor, but for what had happened in his own life. He was a real alcoholic who didn’t drink anymore. He’d been saved from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Don saw that reverence and it planted a seed.
His sponsor gave him one simple direction: don’t make any major decisions without talking to him first. Two heads are better than one. It’s an ancient spiritual principle. And then the sponsor got Don moving—through the steps, into service, into sponsoring others right away. Don learned quickly that when your sponsor is active in AA (home group, commitments, literature study, Big Book work), you inherit all those things too. You get their friends. You get their tether to the program. You get their spiritual tools.
The power of invitation changed everything for Don. His sponsor didn’t tell him what to do. He invited him. “Hey, Don, tomorrow night I’m setting up this meeting. I could really use your help. Can you show up early?” When Don showed up, his sponsor shook his hand and said, “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” Don had burned his life to the ground. He thought he was finished. But when someone in AA was kind to him, when someone said thank you—it conspired to produce a feeling that maybe he was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t finished. Maybe he had a little life left in him.
Don walks through his early sobriety: going to business meetings, sponsoring a man named Donnie six months into his own recovery, learning that you can’t kill an alcoholic and it’s “monkey see, monkey do”—but you have to pick the right monkeys. When Don sponsored Donnie, he didn’t know what he was doing. But he had six months of being sponsored by an active member, so he did what his sponsor told him to do. Donnie did what Don told him. And Donnie got sober.
Don shares the story of teaching Donnie to read using the Big Book—reading together in front of his sister’s house under the streetlight, helping him pronounce words, explaining what they meant. Donnie learned to read reading the Big Book. That’s what AA does—it doesn’t care what you’ve got or what you think your problem is.
He talks about his sponsor’s response to his self-pity. When Don was new and complained about all his troubles—living at his sister’s house at 31, no car, $80,000 owed to the IRS, warrants for arrest—his sponsor laughed. “Of course you do. Why would you have a car? You’re an overachiever.” He was gleeful at Don’s wreckage. His sponsor told him he only had one problem: alcoholism. Everything else was just details. And then his sponsor took those facts and turned them into ammunition to help other newcomers feel better about their own situations.
The heart of Don’s message is sponsorship and service. After 29 years, he says if he had to pick one thing that served him most, it’s sponsoring men. And why? Because they don’t care. They’re an interruption to his constant thought about himself. When he’s in the middle of his own drama, his phone rings—it’s a guy he sponsored with a problem Don doesn’t care about. It’s a vacation from self. That’s the point of sponsorship. It’s not about being a savior. It’s about being interrupted from yourself.
Don shares a story from his tenth year sober. He got really sick—sick for a year—and the self-pity was intense. He was in bed in the fetal position, worst pain of his life, convinced God had abandoned him. His phone rang. It was a guy he sponsored. “How you feeling?” Usually Don would say, “Tough day, but God will help.” But that day, he let it fly. He told the guy everything: the pain, the self-pity, the anger at God, the feeling that he was dying and his wife was getting tired of him.
Dead silence. Then the guy said, “Oh man, I’m so sorry to hear that. But listen, I met this girl…”
Don laughed when he told that story. That’s why we sponsor people—because they don’t care about us. And that’s the asset. Sponsorship breaks the spell of self-centeredness. It forces you to be helpful. And when you’re trying to be helpful to another alcoholic, you help yourself.
Don finishes by talking about keeping the message pure. We don’t have to be afraid of scaring off alcoholics. And all the work we do—inventory, prayer, meditation—it spiritually gets us in shape to be of service. The goal is to ask God one question with nothing between us and the answer: “What would God have me do?” Not what will happen to me, but what can I do for God and his kids.
He’s had almost three decades of “more fun than a barrel of monkeys.” His life wasn’t over when he got sober. It began. And he’s not done yet.
Notable Quotes
My sponsor doesn’t have my emotions about my life. That is the keys to the kingdom.
I’m an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so.
If I’m open-minded and transparent, they will point out things to me that I can’t get to on my own.
The moment I got a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous at the low point of my existence, knowing in my heart I was never going to stay sober—that’s when I was given the keys to the kingdom and my life changed.
I’ve had more fun than a barrel of monkeys for almost three decades. I was so wrong about AA. I thought my life was over and this would be boring.
What would God have me do? And I am waiting for the day that I ask God that question and he gives me an answer that’s about me.
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Service Work
Hitting Bottom
Early Sobriety
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Service Work
- Hitting Bottom
- Early Sobriety
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
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. Well, thanks Pete.
I'm Don. I'm an alcoholic. If you can hear me, thumbs up.
Wonderful. Nice to be uh with this fine group of activists. And I want to thank my dear friend Carrie for the kind invitation to come and participate uh today.
I'm having a good day. That's not unusual uh for me. I have a sobriety date of September 16th, 1991.
That puts me at the 29-year mark. And if Alcoholics Anonymous is what it claims to be, which can take somebody from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to a continuous state practically of happy, joyous, and free, then most of my day should be pretty good. But I want to point something out to you at this point.
uh so much of what determines what kind of day I have has to do with approach and attitude. The approach I take to my day and that attitude that's developed by the approach will really decide whether I have a good day or not. It seems that my mind is more powerful.
I've always underestimated my thoughts and whatever I seem to focus on gets larger. Dr. Paul in his story referred to it as his magic magnifying mind.
So if I focus on what's right with my life, what's right with the picture, what's right with my sobriety, I have a good day. But no life is perfect. And if I focus on the problems and what's wrong and you know, I'm alcoholic and that doesn't mean that I'm my thinking is different than other human beings.
It just means I'm prone to certain things. I'm prone to fear. I'm prone to resentment.
Uh I'll tell you this morning I decided I was going to uh detail out my wife's SUV and it's the dog car. So I mean it's, you know, takes a while to unload everything and and I put about two and a half hours into it. I was I want to let you know I was very proud of myself and uh I made sure she came out and looked at her car before she left and she said, "Oh, thank you, honey.
It looks great." And then I waited because there had to be more than that, isn't there? You know, perhaps she was inside composing a siloquy for me and uh writing a sonnet about how lucky she is to be married to a man of my caliber. And I was laughing at myself that even at this point of the game, can I just do something for somebody expecting nothing in return?
not even acknow can I just do well I guess I couldn't this morning which is uh I laugh at myself and I think it's so important that as we walk this path of recovery please we need to develop a sense of humor and not about others about ourself about our thinking about our relationship with the world and the people in it and our relationship with God and I'm delighted I'm so happy that I get to talk about our 12th suggestion and I'll focus on sponsorship a little bit during this talk too. But I want to tell you I identified as an alcoholic and I'd like to think I know what that means today. But I want to be clear although I would have told anybody in the bar I was drinking at that I was alcoholic.
Uh I really didn't understand what that meant. I didn't understand the trouble I was in. I didn't realize the strength of the talons that had me in their grip.
I suffered, as most alcoholics do before they get to AA and many of us after we come to AA, a classic case of underestimation. And what else could we use to explain why people come to AA in the condition I did? And I see them all the time arrive in AA washed up on the shores of AA, you know, driven in by consequence, failure, and heartache.
this inability to get traction in their life and stop drinking themselves to death and make a good beginning in Alcoholics Anonymous and mistake relief for recovery and go back to the very grinder that drove them into AA to begin with. What could we label that other than underestimation? I don't want to underestimate what I'm up against here.
And I think one of the prime object objectives of good sponsorship is a consistent reminding with the people we work with exactly what we're up against. And that's what my sponsor does for me. My sponsor says the darnest things to me.
You know, I mean, I'm I'm sober a long time. I've been active in AA for almost three decades. You know, I I've read the book for God's sakes.
I've worked the steps I don't know how many times. I've sponsored half of North America. That's the ego.
And what my sponsor says to me when I call him up and talk about how I'm feeling about something, he'll go, "Well, sounds like you got a little untreated alcoholism going up there." And immediately my walls go up. That's not it. And I've learned to listen to my sponsor's voice rather than my own voice in my head.
And I'll tell you why sponsorship works so well for a guy like me and works so well for so many of us. And it's it's such a simple component that we overlook it. And here it is.
My sponsor doesn't have my emotions about my life. I'm telling you that is the keys to the kingdom. If you can become open-minded to the idea that perhaps your wants, your fears, your desires, your need to be right, understood, approved of, all of these things in the human condition that seem to be magnified with alcoholics because it says I'm an extreme example of self-willrun riot.
I'm just like most people running by self-propulsion. Alcoholics aren't the only ones that run by self-propulsion, but I'm an extreme example. And uh if I ever have an AA t-shirt, this is what's going to go on it.
The next line in the book after it says I'm an extreme example of self-willrun riot, though he usually doesn't think so. That would be my t-shirt. I should wear that every day because there are things about myself that I need a sponsor to point out.
I need friends to point out. I need my spiritual advisors to point out. If I'm open-minded and transparent and I have given spiritual consent and I'm openminded that I could be wrong, they will point out things to me that I can't get to on my own.
But I'm an alcoholic. I'm not a social drinker. I don't understand social drinking.
I've seen it. I I understand that pe some people can take it or leave it. I can take it, but never leave it.
You know, if I take it, we're not leaving it. We're going to the finish line. You know what I mean?
And I'm I'm not a heavy drinker. And uh I've known heavy drinkers and you give a heavy drinker a sufficient reason to stop drinking, they'll stop. Here here's where I look like a heavy drinker, but don't act like one.
You give a heavy drinker a reason to stop. You give them consequence. You give him heartache.
You give him failure. And that heavy drinker will say, "I don't want to live this way." And will actually stop. Won't go have won't have to go to AA.
Won't have to work 12 steps, sponsor people that don't listen to him. None of it. Just stop.
Where I'm confusing to the world, my family, my employer, is I have the same emotional reaction that the heavy drinker has to impending loss of a job, a marriage, health. I don't want to lose my job, my marriage, my health. But the heavy drinker has the power and I don't I don't have the power.
I don't want to live this life. I have a front row seat for the destruction of my life. I'm not enjoying it.
Do you think I was raised this way? You think my wanted my life to turn out this way? But the needed power isn't there.
In fact, I've done all my research on the first step before I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's contained in my story. I just need to look at it honestly and I will see the powerlessness all over the place.
So, I'm an alcoholic. I'm a real alcoholic at some point in my drinking career. And I can't tell you the day it happened.
Maybe it was the third time I drank. Maybe it was the 30th. I don't know.
But I lost all control over the amount I take. I could not predict with any accuracy what was going to happen to me when I put alcohol into my system. And I want to be clear, I love the effect produced by alcohol.
I've got no grudges against alcohol. It saved my sanity until I could come to you good people. It transported me to the land of I don't care and that's where I want to live.
I want my mail delivered there. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous at age 31, more dead than alive, at the end of a 10-year losing streak, and all the good was gone. And I knew that AA would not work for a guy like me in a million years.
I was here really to buy some time, figure out my next move, and get the heat off. That's the only reason I came to AA. I had already proven to myself, I may want to be sober.
I may have every reason in the world to be sober. It's no fun anymore. I don't want to do this.
Yet, I always drink. I wake up every day and it's in the room with me. That thought, not tonight, God.
Please, not tonight. I'm dying here. Yet, I'm drunk every night.
So, why would AA work for me? And I am a product of the 12step of Alcoholics Anonymous in its purest form. my second night in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I do not remember my first night. I guarantee you. Uh but my second night in Alcoholics Anonymous, I had attended the six o'clock meeting at a place called the Seami Valley Alano Club.
Don't remember anything about that meeting. There was a half an hour break. Meeting was an hour and a half.
It ended at 7:30. And then at 8:00 there was another meeting that I was going to stay for. And so it's 7:30 in the Seami Valley Alano Club.
And I do not look that night the way I look today. You know what I mean? I got hair down the middle of my back and it's filthy cuz I don't shower anymore.
I got a full beard with food stuck in it. I'm wearing my sunglasses at night, my arms folded across my chest with my tough guy radar out. I'm 6'5, 280 pounds of lost humanity.
And I'm angry and I'm terrified simultaneously. And I'm coming up. I'm 48 hours without a drink of alcohol.
And I have underestimated this thing called alcoholism from the day I started drinking. And I'm underestimating it that night because I think I'm in some type of decision-making equation where I'm deciding whether or not I'm going to stay for that meeting. And my head's talking to me.
The very mind that the big book says the the problem of the alcoholic resides mainly in his mind rather than his body. My mind's talking to me about all the people in AA and how happy you look and how clean you look and how you couldn't possibly be like me and no one's coming and saying hello to me and I know you don't want me there and why did I think AA would work for me anywhere? You know, I always do this, don't I?
How many times have I quit drinking? A hundred times and then what do I do? I take the pain for two days, five days, a month, two months, and then what do I do?
I drink anyway. You know what? Let's bypass the pain.
Let's go get drunk. And I'm leaving Alcoholics Anonymous on my second night. Not because AA doesn't work or the steps aren't a miracle or God doesn't exist.
None of those. I'm leaving because I've lost the power of choice where drink is concerned. You see, I think I'm making a decision to go get drunk, but the decision's already been made.
If I could have stopped drinking and stayed sober, if I could have got so I'd have done it years before I got to AA, I've been trying and fighting this thing forever and I'm going to go and leave Alcoholics Anonymous and get drunk and it's going to cost me everything. You know, I haven't worked in a year and I'm living at my sister's house. So, I know I'm going to get thrown out there.
I've got no car. I got no money. So, I'm going to be homeless.
More than likely, it's going to cost me my life. But, I'll tell you what, it's a small price to pay, isn't it? if you can make the madness in my head stop for a couple of hours.
And I've always been willing to pay that price. My own experience shows that. And I caught a break because over in the corner were two good members of Alcoholics Anonymous named Lou and Mark.
And it's the most important moment of my life. Whether I live or die is going to be decided in the next few minutes. But for Lou and Mark, it was Tuesday.
You know what I mean? And these guys were where they were every Tuesday night between the six o'clock and the 8:00 meeting at the Seami Valley Alana Club. They hung out together.
They drank that AA coffee and they told those AA war stories. But most importantly, they had their eyes trained on the room and they had their eyes trained on the door and they were looking for men in the 12step. And the way they tell the story is they saw me.
And Lou looked at Mark and said, "Whoa." And Mark looked at Lou and went, "Yeah." And they took what I believe is the most important action we'll ever take in a meeting setting of Alcoholics Anonymous. These two good men took a 30-foot journey across an AA clubhouse to cordially welcome a man to Alcoholics Anonymous who was dying from the disease of alcoholism. And they did it in the kind, unassuming way that we did it.
Hi, my name is Lou. This is Mark. We don't think we've met you.
Why don't you come sit with us? and they invited me to a new life. They pulled me into their sober living.
And without that, without somebody caring, nothing happens around here. Now, I sat down with these guys and Lou announced to me that Mark would be my sponsor. I had no idea what that meant.
Now, I want to be clear. I know that's not done in Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't assign sponsors to people, but I'm talking today.
So, I'm just going to share a little opinion about that. Let's think about what we do in AA. And I'm not saying we change anything, just observational.
I'm at the low point of my existence. I've made a series of stupendously ignorant, idiotic decisions for years, and now you're going to let me pick the captain of the ship. I wouldn't know good sobriety if it fell out of the sky and hit me in the head.
What do we say to our new friends? Oh, get a sponsor. Get a sponsor.
Find somebody that has what you want. Oh, I wonder what I want my second night of recovery. Right.
Like what? A a a pharmaceutical rep with a spare Cadillac, you know? Cuz I would have never picked the weeny boy they assigned to me because he's everything I'm not, right?
He's softspoken. He's cleancut, wire rim glasses, bald of head, slide of frame, and he's got something for God and AA that I don't have for anything in the universe. He's got reverence.
You could feel it coming off of him, the respect he had for what had happened in his life. You see, it's not the respect he had for AA, but he demonstrated that or the respect he had for his sponsor, but he demonstrated that he had respect for what had happened in his life. You see, he was a real alcoholic, yet he didn't drink anymore.
He had been saved from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And he had reverence for that. He thought Alcoholics Anonymous was magnificent and he was excited about it.
He was armed with facts about himself and just as important spiritual enthusiasm. And the moment I got a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous at the low point of my existence, knowing in my heart of hearts I was never going to stay sober, that's when I was given the keys to the kingdom and my life changed. You know, my friend Bob be from Minnesota says, "Life is lived forward but understood backwards." So today I understood I understand what happened.
You see what happened is I got an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous as a sponsor, which meant what? Because he's active, he has a home group, which means what? I will have a home group if I'm willing to have it.
He has commitments in Alcoholics Anonymous, little tethers that tie him to the program and keep him from floating away on the winds of alcoholism. Right? So, I'll have those little commitments, those things that tie me to the program and keep me from floating away if I'm willing to have it.
He's entrenched in the literature and the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, living the steps, teaching the steps in his daily living, which I will have those things in my life if I'm willing to have them. He has a zillion friends, right? He knows all of you.
And which means what? I will have a zillion friends. I didn't understand that when you get a sponsor, you inherit all their friends.
Now, I want to be clear. When you're new, this does not feel like an asset. What it feels like is there's a bunch of strangers up in your business and you're wondering, "Why are these people so damn interested in me?
You know, I'm dying here. Can you just leave me alone?" But think of it this way. I'm at the low point of my existence.
The whole world is done with me. Nobody wants to talk to me. You know what I mean?
I burned every bridge and I join AA and suddenly I meet this strange assorted new crowd of people. And in a very short amount of time you find out everything there is to know about me, good and bad, that you still loved me, accepted me, encouraged me, and brought me into your life. Where do you get that kind of compassion anywhere on the planet if you're a drink and drunk?
Well, I'll tell you. It's happening all over the world in Alcoholics Anonymous today. Ain't that remarkable?
You can go anywhere in the world, you're going to be hardressed not to find an AA meeting with that kind of compassion. And so what my sponsor used, and I want to be clear about this, without my permission, because he didn't feel like he needed my permission, he figured that alcoholism, if it had done its job, had beat me into a state of reasonleness, which meant I should be desperate. And if I'm desperate, that should produce some willingness and some open-mindedness.
So what he started to do was tell me what he did in Alcoholics Anonymous and suggest that I do the same. You see, he took me through all three sides of the triangle simultaneously without ever telling me that's what he was doing. Unity, service, and recovery.
You see, but he used the ancient spiritual tool, the ancient spiritual principle of the invitation to save my life. You see, that's what we do in AA. We don't dominate.
We don't order people around. What we do is we invite. And so he invited me into his AA life.
And the wonderful thing about invitation is it leaves the sufferer, the new man like myself with a little bit of dignity and a little bit of self-esteem of the right type. See, he'd say, "Hey, Don, tomorrow night I'm showing up early to set up this meeting. I could really use your help.
Can you show up early?" And I'd think, "Wow, he's been here a while, man. And he's asking for my help." And I go, "Yeah, man. Sure.
Absolutely." And I'd show up early. He'd set up some little meeting and at the end of it he'd shake my hand and he'd say, "Hey, thanks, man. I appreciate it." I want to be clear.
I've done some things in my life before AA, you know what I mean? I was 23 years old, office secretary, two assistants, hiring and firing a crew of 100 people. I was a boy wonder, right?
I I don't know why that meant more to me than all of it. The fact that he saw me. You see, when you burn your life to the ground and you think you stayed in the water too long and yeah, you maybe you had a shot at a good life once, but you know that's in the rearview mirror and then somebody in AA is kind to you.
Somebody in AA says, "Thank you." It conspires to produce a feeling in a guy like me like maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's not over yet. Maybe I got a little life left in me yet.
And what happens without my permission almost organically because you allow me to join you and move with you. You include me is I start to stand up a little straighter. My eyes get off of my shoes and I start looking people in the eye and I start to feel like maybe I found a place I belong.
And so that's in the beginning. That's early sobriety. And so what happens is I have a sponsor that now is in my corner that I now and he gave me a very simple direction.
He said, ' Don, I just suggest you don't make any major decisions in your life until you discuss them with me. He didn't tell me he was going to run my life. He didn't tell me he was going to veto things about he just says two heads are better than one.
He goes, it's an ancient spiritual principle. He goes, people have been talking to other people about their life since mankind began. And they've been doing that because it works.
You've been living alone for too long. You've joined AA. You're not alone anymore.
We're here to help. What an offer. And if you've been shooting your foot off with your best thinking for years, it sounds like a good deal.
And my sponsor got me moving quickly quickly through the steps into the service structure into sponsoring other people immediately. And this is why it turns out that this desperation that all newcomers have because you don't get to AA without desperation. Nobody's having a good life and goes, you know, things are going pretty good.
Drinking a little too much whiskey, but other than that, I'm knocking it out of the park. Maybe I'll go check that AA thing out. Nobody does that.
Nobody gets here on a winning streak. All of us come here desperate and we're thinking, "Oh my god, it's come to this. I can't believe it.
I'm in AA. This is awful. Hope nobody sees me." Right?
Turns out that that desperation is the propellant that takes a new guy like me through the steps. Takes a new guy like me and teaches me how to be an AA member. teaches me how to be open-minded about living a different type of life.
So, from the beginning, I'm going to the business meetings. From the beginning, you know, he would say to me, "There's a business meeting tonight. We're staying for it." And I'd say, "Yes." I didn't know what that meant.
And I remember one time I was going this I was like maybe 25 days sober. We're going to this business meeting after the meeting. And this old-timer goes, "I'm not staying for that business meeting.
just a bunch of people arguing and oh, they'd fight over a dollar and oh, you know, gives the control freaks something to do and really negative stuff. And I'll tell you what, man, be careful what you say. There's new people around.
You could kill somebody. You know that stuff. Thank God I had a sponsor that put me straight.
Thank god I had a sponsor that expected me to be there. If I had just been some guy going to AA and that guy, some guy with 30 years is bad mouthing the business. Maybe maybe I think he knows what he's talking about.
Don't deprive somebody of what was really here. So, I go to my business meeting, right? And I think it's going to be terrible because the old-timer says how terrible they are, right?
Oh my god. I I have never seen entertainment like that. For a buck in the basket, you get a donut and a cup of coffee and watch the show.
It was unbelievable. They're arguing. They're passionate.
They're pounding tables. I don't know what they're talking about, but it's fascinating. I saw these two guys, right?
And they obviously knew each other and they got in an argument about this one point. They're going back and forth and back and forth and and I know that sound, right? I've heard it in bars my whole life.
I know what's going to happen. Someone's going over a table. I know it.
But they don't go over a table, but I know what's going to happen when that business meeting's over. They're going to go outside and they're going to settle it. They're going to get this thing clear, right?
And I'm I can't wait for that. Oh, there's going to be a fist fight cuz I'm new, right? That's exciting when you're new.
Business meeting ends. These guys walk out of the room. They got their arms around each other's shoulder and they're laughing.
They're going, "Oh my god, you really got me going in there. That was really something." You know what? I'm glad you brought that up, though.
I didn't see it that way. And I go, "What bizarro world did I just enter where people can be passionate and speak from their heart and disagree and still love each other?" I'd never seen anything like it. never.
I started to fall in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. I started to do the things that people do in AA. I showed up early.
I stayed late. I set up. I cleaned up.
I read the big book. I worked the steps. I wrote an inventory.
I did all the things that were suggested of me. But I want to be clear about why I did it. I had a good life once and I lost it due to my drinking.
I wasn't trying to get my good life back. I had been in some great relationships and I'd burned them to the ground because of my drinking. I wasn't looking for a relationship.
I wasn't looking for a car. I wasn't looking for a career because that's not what AA promised me. You see, I wanted freedom.
Freedom from the bottle. You see, you talked about how you didn't drink and I believed you, but I've not drank before, right? I didn't drink when I was in jail and things like that.
But then you said you didn't drink and you didn't miss it. And I couldn't believe it. I knew you were lying.
I knew you'd drink if you could get away with it because that's what I'm like when I'm new because I haven't had the psychic change yet. So I go to AA and I'm thirsty a lot. Right.
I used to think I was doing something wrong. It's important if you're new and you still want to drink. You're not doing anything wrong.
Thank God I had a sponsor because I go to my sponsor and I go, "Man, nobody ever wants to drink. Everybody's happy. Everybody's got a relationship with God.
Nobody yells at their wife. Nobody smacks their kid. Nobody steals.
The boy scout union here. This is life. And I'm just And I tell him, I go, "Man, I go to meetings and if there's a good drunkalogue, I get thirsty." You know what I mean?
And he's like, "Ah, that's podium chatter." He goes, "Don, we share our experience, strength, and hope. We don't share our experience, strength, and mope." He goes, "You just got here. If you didn't want to drink, we would think you weren't one of us." That's one of the ways you can tell you're an alcoholic.
You separate us from the booze. We miss it desperately. Doesn't matter if it was killing us.
And he said, "It's not that you're doing anything wrong. Maybe you haven't been here long enough to do enough right." And that made sense. And he says, "You know that feeling you have that it's always going to be like this, gray and dull and boring and you're going to miss the booze?" He goes, "I promise you that's the biggest lie your disease will ever tell you.
It drives more alcoholics back to the drink than anything because they feel like it's going to be forever." And it's a lie. The truth is, if you come with us and you go with us and you do what we do and go where we go, I promise you it's temporary. And you'll come to a point in your life where you wouldn't drink if you could get away with it.
Where it won't even be a part of your life. it won't even be a part of your mind. And I thought to myself, God, that's a great speech.
I know he's lying. And I remember the day when I thought to myself, I wouldn't drink if I could get away with it. And I realized I hadn't thought about drinking in a very long time.
And I realized I had been placed where the 10step promises tell me would happen to me, a position of neutrality, safe, and protected. That this new attitude towards liquor had been given to me freely. I don't remember when God removed it.
I don't remember when that changed in my mind. I don't remember where suddenly it wasn't necessary for me to be drunk to take a deep breath. But AA did that for me and I owe I'm 6 months sober and I go on a 12step call and I went on the 12step call with another guy with six months and a guy with 14 years.
And uh the guy that we 12step that night was a guy named Donnie. And we show up and Donniey's drinking Jim Beam. And the first thing Donnie announces to us is don't try to take my whiskey.
And we said, "Donnie, we're we don't do that. And besides, you called us, remember?" And so the other guy with six months talked to him and hit him with his six month stuff, which was really good. And then the guy with 14 years hit him with his 14-year stuff, which was phenomenal.
And then I hit him with my six month stuff, which sounded like this. Uh, I'm 6 months sober. I haven't had a drink in six months.
Um, I have a tyrannical figure in my life I call a sponsor. I'm pretty sure I don't like him. Uh, I still live at my sister's house.
I'm hopelessly in debt. I don't have a car. I work construction for minimum wage with taxes taken out.
And I'm really not any good at the job. I have a nickname at the job site. They call me the bleeder.
Uh, I can't say I'm really happy often, but I am happy that I'm not drinking. But, uh, if you want what I have and you're willing to go to any length to get it, you know, and I mean, what do you I mean, I was honest, you know, that's where I was at 6 months. And so, we leave and Donniey's still drinking and and I had learned it doesn't matter if the drunk's still drinking, you know, if you leave sober, it's a successful 12step call, right?
So, I go the next day to work to this job I bleed at every day and I get off and I come home to my sister's house where I'm still living, getting sober, you know, or I'm si sober six months now. And the phone rings, this guy, Donnie, and he goes, "Hey, man, where's that meeting tonight?" I couldn't believe it. He was he was drunk as Cter Brown the night before, man.
Now he's asking me where the meeting's at. So, I tell him where the meeting's at. I give him directions and I ask him, "Do we need to come pick you up?" And he goes, "No, man.
I got a car." And I thought, "He's doing better than I am, right? So now I got to rush down to the clubhouse to beat the newcomer there so I could cordially welcome him to AA. So I rush down there and Donnie shows up and I cordially welcome him to the meeting.
I'm introducing him to people. I'm talking about AA. We sit down with a half a cup of coffee and that's what you do.
And and he says, "Listen, that stuff you said about your sponsor made sense to me. Would you be willing to sponsor me?" And I told Donnie, I said, "I'll get right back to you." And I ran away and I went and found my sponsor and I told him the story. I go, "That 12step call last night." He goes, "Yeah." I go, "The guy's here tonight." He goes, "Oh, that's great." I go, "Yeah, you asked me to sponsor him." He goes, "Beautiful.
What'd you say?" Well, I told him I get back to him. Sponsor's face changed. He said, "Let me get this straight.
The guy's drinking last night." I go, "Yeah." And somehow he made it to AA. Uh-huh. And he took whatever strength he had left and asked you for help.
Yeah. And you said you'd get back to him? Yeah.
Go say yes, you selfish bastard. and he walked away because that's what my sponsor did. He would get the last word in and then I'd see his bald head going off in the distance and I yelled at his bald head as he's walking away.
Hey man, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to kill him. He didn't even turn around.
He just waved me off. He said, "Ah, you got to kill a couple before you get the hang of it." Oh my god. Aa, we care.
No, we don't. But here's what my sponsor knew. You can't kill an alcoholic.
You can't get them drunk. You can't get them sober. You don't have the power.
It's tough to kill alcoholics, man. Look at your own story. Sometimes I see people get all emotional about sponsoring people like, "Oh my god, I hope they don't drink.
I hope they'll be okay. Oh my god." Look at your own story. We're hard to kill.
We are like cockroaches. You know what I mean? We are just like when they drop the bomb, who's going to be left?
You know, the cockroaches and alcoholics, you know? It's like I don't know, man. there was a big boom and then there was fire and everybody's gone but I'm here and you know we're just tough to kill and I went back to Donnie and I said I'd sponsor him and I don't know what I'm doing but I found out I did because I had had six months of being sponsored by an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I found out the truth about Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's monkey see monkey do. But you got to pick the right monkeys, right? And I had a great monkey as a sponsor.
So I just did what that monkey told me. I told Donnie to do it. And when Donnie did what my sponsor told me to do, which I did, guess what happened?
Donnie got sober. It was shocking. Shocking.
And Donnie thought I did something. He thought I did something. He thought I had something to do with it.
I took credit. And I never said no. You know what I mean?
Hey man, you're really helping me a lot. Yeah, Donnie, I'm here for you. It's God's work, but I love you.
You know what I mean? I'm six months sober. I'm an egoomaniac.
He's going to stay sober. Trust me. You know what I mean?
Oh my god. I had my teeth in that poor newcomer. Cuz you know, I'm new.
We're going to meetings together every night. And we're going to every kind of meeting you can go to, right? We're going to book studies.
We're going to literature studies. We're going to speaker meetings. We're going to big book 12 and 12.
everything, right? And when we're at literature studies, man, we're I got sober, you know, we pass, we take turns reading, man, and every time it's Donniey's turn to read, I notice he passes. I think to myself, oh no, we don't do that in AA because my sponsor taught me.
We participate in our own sobriety. So now I got to talk to Donnie like my sponsor talked to me. And I pull him outside after the meeting.
I go, "Listen, man. I notice it's your turn to read, you pass. We don't do that in AA.
When it's your turn to read, you got to read." And Donnie got all sheepish, looked at his feet, and he said, 'You know, man, here's the thing. I don't read so good. Truth is, I don't really read at all.
If you made a mistake like that in polite society, man, you'd be so embarrassed, wouldn't you? Like, oh my god, I didn't know. Please accept my apology.
We're in AA. We don't care about that crap. Right?
What came out of my mouth was intuitive. I didn't even have to think about it. I go, Donnie, this is not a big deal.
I know how to read. And for the next, I don't know, six months, Donnie would give me a ride home after a because he had the car and we would sit in front of my sister's house under the street light. I'd have my big book and Donnie would have his and we'd read the big book back and forth and I'd help him pronounce words and I'd explain what they meant.
And Donnie learned to read reading the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you heard him read in a meeting today, you wouldn't think he went to Yale, but you wouldn't know that he came to AA with that impediment. You see, that's the thing about AA.
We don't care what you got, and we don't care what you think your problem is. There's no trouble we haven't seen before. And there's nothing that we can't overcome.
Get over it. You're not the first one with whatever it is that's eating you alive at night, not allowing you to sleep. You can't believe your life's come to the It's not new.
It's just alcoholism. We've been there. We've seen it.
And there's a way out. You see, in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it describes the propulsion system for untreated alcoholism. Right?
Says, "I'm driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-seeking, self-d delusion, and self-pity." Any one of those things can kill an alco. You put them together, it's a dangerous cocktail. But I'm telling you, man, that self-pity kills a lot of us, right?
Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another drink.
We will not tolerate self-pity in Alcoholics Anonymous. Is that because we're not compassionate? Come on.
We're the most compassionate people in the world because we've been in each other's shoes. We are each other, right? You're me and I am you.
The reason we won't tolerate self-pity is it destroys alcoholics. And so, what how do we do how do we deal with that? Well, this is the way my sponsor dealt with it.
My sponsor laughed at my trouble until I learned to. He was not impressed with my trouble. I remember feeling so bad about the facts of my life.
And as I told my sponsor when I was new all the trouble in my life, this is what he said. He goes, "Oh, you live at home with your sister and you're 31 years old. Of course you do.
You don't have a car. Why would you? Oh, you have warrants for your arrest in two counties.
You're an overachiever. You owe the IRS $80,000. Good for you.
Why would you pay taxes? He was laughing. He was gleeful at my I started to feel better about my wreckage.
I got to be honest with you. And he told me those things weren't trouble. He said, "You only got one problem.
You got a thing called alcoholism that wants to kill you slowly and take a large bite out of anyone that has misfortune caring about a guy like you. And we'll let you know when those other things are problems." And what I heard is I didn't have to pay back the IRS, right? But I found out I was wrong about that.
But what my sponsor did is he took those facts of my life and this is what we do. Our stories become the ammo that we use to fight alcoholism. Our experience, strength, and hope turns out to be the most valuable thing we have.
And we're not united in our success. We're united in our our failure. We're united in our humanity, our perfect imperfection.
That when we're willing to be honest about where we haven't hit the mark, the mistakes that we make and we continue to make as we stay sober, that's of more benefit to anyone than telling you how we're doing it right. Tell me how you're doing it wrong and how you spiritually got an answer for that. And so my sponsor took these facts.
He put God if any new guy had the audacity to complain to my sponsor about this little thousand IRS debt. My sponsor would go, "Hold that thought, Jimmy. Hey, Don, you got a minute?" And I'd come over like some goob walk over to my sponsor.
My sponsor would say, "Hey, Don, tell Jimmy how much you owe the IRS?" And I'd look at Jimmy, I go, "I owe the IRS $80,000." And Jimmy would go, "Oh my god." And my sponsor would laugh. and Jimmy would feel better and my sponsor would be laughing and I learned to laugh at my trouble that we all got trouble and it's nothing to be embarrassed about. As the late great Clancy said, making mistakes is not the problem.
Defending those mistakes, that's where the trouble lies. And so now I got a sponsy and I'll tell you what man. I believe in alcoholics anonymous and I believe in all of it right unity service and recovery.
I don't think you can stay sober and be happy joy and free unless you're doing it all right. But having said that if I had to say the one reason what's the one pick one thing that's served you the most of all the things you've done in alcoholics I would say sponsoring men. And why is that?
Well, I gotta tell you, they just don't care. And that is the most important thing. I cannot tell you, man, because I got, you know what, I'm sober a long time.
I got a career. I got a real job. I got real life problems and real life.
You know, I wake up every day like most of us do, thinking about me. You know what I mean? And Bill Wilson knew that.
What's the first direction in the 11 step upon awakening? What's the first direction? We ask God to direct our thinking that it be divorced from self-seeking or selfish motives.
How did Bill know I'd wake up every day thinking about myself? Because Bill did, right? But that's my default setting self.
I'm not much, but I'm all I think about default setting. Sponsoring people is a guaranteed interruption to your constant thought of self. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the middle of a real day.
You know, I'm out there in the real world. Darn it, slaying dragons, you know what I mean? And it's all about me and I'm in battle.
I got my armor on and they're going to say this and I'm going to and the phone rings and it's some guy's sponsor who could care less about my trouble. I want to be clear about that. And it's an wedge into my constant thought of self.
It's an interruption and it's a vacation, small as it may be, from myself. You know, the problem is how am I going to get me off of me? Well, nothing works better than working with another alcoholic.
And so, I love that sponsorship does that. Here's my favorite story about that. I was 10 years sober.
I got really sick. I wasn't sick for a week or a month. I was sick for a year.
They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. It wasn't fun. And some things happen in that year, you know what I mean?
Grinds you down a little bit. Man, I went to work every day. I went to aa, you know, didn't miss anything.
But I didn't feel good. Some days were worse than others. And finally, they put me on some experimental medication.
The doctor told me, he said, "Listen, man. This is either going to work like a charm or you're going to have some really adverse side effects, and you'll know pretty quickly." So, I took this stuff on a Monday morning, man, and I got the adverse side effects. You know, 20 minutes later, I had to leave work.
I'm at home, curled up in bed in a fetal position. I'm in the worst pain I've ever been in in my life. And I'm thinking, "God deserted me." I'm thinking, "I'm 10 years sober.
This shouldn't be happening to me. The self-pity is dripping off of the walls." And I'm thinking about how unfair this is and how my wife's getting tired of being married to the sick guy. you know, on and on and on that, you know, that's that morass of self-pity they talk about in the big book.
And then my phone rings, right? I look down, it's a guy I sponsored. I don't want to answer it, but I got good training in AA, right?
I answer the phone and uh I go, "Hey, man. What's going on?" And the guy I sponsored goes, "Hey, sponsor. How you feeling?" Because everybody knows I'm sick.
And usually I lie in that situation. I'm telling you the truth. I would go, "Well, you know, I'm having a tough day, but with God, I'll be all right." But for whatever reason that morning, I let it fly.
You know what I said? You want to know how I'm doing? Let me tell you how I'm doing.
I'm laying in bed in the fetal position, the worst pain I've ever been in in my life. And you know what? I think God deserted me.
And I'm really pissed off at God right now. And I feel so sorry for myself. I can't even tell.
The self-pity is dripping off the walls. And I hate how sorry I feel for myself. And I don't see a way out.
And I think I'm going to die. And guess what, Slick? I don't want to die.
And my wife, well, that's not going too slick there because she's getting a little tired of being compassionate to the same person a hundred times over. You want to know how I'm doing? That's how I'm doing it.
dead quiet on the other line for a couple of seconds and he says this. Oh my god, spots. I am so sorry to hear that.
But listen, I met this girl and that is why we sponsor people because they just don't care about us. Baby bird, baby bird, feed me, feed me. Let me tell you, it is the greatest asset I have in my recovery is I sponsor all these guys that understand the terms of engagement.
They're bringing it to me and that's their job and my job is to take it in and help them with it in any way that I can. And I love that it has happened to me a thousand times. a thousand times in my sobriety where I have been off the beam, you know what I mean?
And I'm in self and I'm disconnected from my higher power. And then through active sponsorship, being sponsored and sponsoring others, that has set me on my feet. Something happens when you're simply trying to be helpful.
You see, we think or I think I'm carrying the message to the alcoholic. I will never know for sure if I've done that successfully. That will be between the alcoholic and God.
But I know this. I cannot make that attempt without hearing it. And every time I talk to another alcoholic and I'm trying to be helpful, I help myself every single time.
You know, everyone that sponsors knows this, man. You're having a conversation with a guy, right? And out of your mouth comes these words, and you've never thought it before.
You don't know where it came from, but you know where it came from. And you think to yourself, "Wow, I should write that down. That was pretty damn good." And then you think, "And you know what?
If that direction doesn't kill him, I might try it myself." You know what I mean? And it's just that equation. So, but you see, and I I only got two minutes.
I want to just finish saying this. I think it's important we keep our message pure. And what I mean by that is I think that we're we don't have to be afraid of scaring off alcoholics, right?
If what happened to them before AA wasn't scary enough, there's nothing I'm going to do that's going to scare them anymore. And I'm glad my sponsor told me what all the steps were about. You see all this work we do, all this preparation, all this inventory, all this prayer, all this meditation, all it does is spiritually get me in shape to be of service to God and his kids.
That really all this work allows me the honor and privilege of asking my creator one question and on one question only with nothing between me and the answer. And if you're spiritually fit, you'll really want the answer, which is this. What would God have me do?
And it turns out that being able to ask that question of our creator is the keys to the kingdom. And I am waiting for the day that I ask God that question and he gives me an answer that's about me because I don't think that's the nature of my relationship with God. You see, I believe God is management and I'm labor.
I think that I need to work for him and his kids. And God has created recovery for me because I feel the best when I'm not thinking about me. And that's what AA allows you to do.
It is a life of service. And when you say that in your new life of ser it just you go, "Oh my god. Oh, it's awful.
It just sounds terrible. What about me? What will happen to me?" Let me tell you what.
I've had more fun than a barrel of monkeys for almost three decades. I was so wrong about AA. I thought my life was over and this would be boring.
I got stories on top of stories on top of stories that are about happy, joyous, and free. I've had an exciting, wonderful time in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I ain't done yet. I'm better when I'm with you.
I'm happier when I'm with you. I'm more purposeful when I'm with you. You bring out the best in me.
I think we bring out the best in each other. I think the God in me sees the God in you. And something special happens when we're together.
And I hope we stay sober forever. I really do. And uh I'll see you on the broad highway.
That's all I got. Thanks. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
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