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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. I would like to introduce you to Don P from Aurora, Colorado.

Um, I don't know if he will tell you this, so I'm going to. Um, he has served as delegate for his state and also as a world trustee at large for Alcoholics Anonymous. and he has done a lot of a lot of good things for the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and for the people that have come in his path and I know he's touched a lot of people and he certainly touched my life in a very special way.

And with no further ado, um I will introduce you to Don and I will sit down. >> Don't make James mad, but I got to move this just a little bit. I'm fine.

I ain't messing with you. My name is Don and I am an alcoholic and I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing tonight. I haven't had a drink or a thought of a drink since uh December 26 of 1967.

And I say that to impress Danny, not with me, but with the fact that Danny, if you're an alcoholic, you don't ever have to drink again. Ever. If you hear that you have to stay sick forever, just turn around, walk away, cuz you don't.

Welcome, Diana. Uh, I'm touched. We're going to have a threehanky meeting tonight and bring your boxes of tissues tomorrow.

My home group is known as an AA group. That's our name. The long form of the third tradition says that any two or more alcoholics gathered for sobriety may call themselves an AA group.

So, we do. We meet at 6:00 every Friday morning in the basement of a community correction center. We gave up a lovely living room where we were meeting.

This is a bunch of big book fanatics who just tend to keep going through the steps and when we get new people, they just have to go through the steps because they don't know any better. And uh we were meeting in Marty's living room and it was really nice. They live in a loft in downtown Denver.

Great circumstances, but our conscience began to bother us because we can't carry our message if you have to be invited. So, we gave up our comfortable home, went into this crummy basement or this crummy place, and the group has grown. And we generally have 10 or 15 inmates every week.

And they don't have to come. They do have to get up real early. There's no dead weight in my home group.

Doesn't mean we're all models of mental health, but uh we are there because we believe in what we're doing. This is going to be an interesting weekend for me. I hope it'll be interesting for you.

I'm used to doing intensive weekend retreats and I'm used to giving talks. To combine them is a brand new experience. I've never done this before.

So, you're going to have to help me. Uh 15 or so of you have already told me what I'm supposed to do this weekend. I reported in about 20 minutes ago and uh we'll try.

I'm a living demonstration of the power of God. It's just very simple. There is no human power who could possibly have done anything that made it possible for me to be here tonight.

And I know because I tried most of them. I'm an alcoholic who did not know he was alcoholic. We're going to cover steps and I'm going to read the big book and I'm going to give you my view and my experience and I hope to get some of yours too.

We're going to cover traditions and the principles we live by along the way. If you don't hear what you came for tonight, come back tomorrow. Uh I want you to think about the fact that I have what is it six talks to give.

>> I've already told you everything I know. of any importance. Okay.

So, I'm going to share an awful lot with you. I appreciate that opportunity. About uh been now four and a half years ago or so.

Uh I came to the end of the road again physically. I'd contracted a viral infection that brought me to my knees. And uh they put me on stuff called interferon, which makes you really sick.

Uh which I really needed. I was already there. And in the midst of that, one of my messengers came by.

And Danny, a lot of what I'm going to say tonight is for you. Uh listen for the messengers. We each have messengers and I have to learn to listen to them because if I listen to everybody I'm going to be heading in too many directions and I know how to recognize my messengers because from day one they're the ones that showed up anyway.

One of my messengers came by and we'll talk about that and said, "Uh, would you like to come with me?" See, my messengers are always moving through. I'm always moving through. You need to understand I'm essentially on my way to Australia.

I'm just here for a while. They're busy people. They have been touched by the hand of God and they're about his business, but they're always willing to stop and have a cup of coffee or meal or even spend a couple days fishing, but they're on the way and they're doing things that uh are important.

And I'm an alcoholic. Just going to work every day is not possible for me. I'm a person that needs a cause at all times.

Okay. To get out of bed and go put in eight hours and get a paycheck is silly. I'd rather steal.

And I' I've done that. It didn't work too well either. I need a cause.

And anyway, Tom came by and said, "Uh, I'd like to have you come with me." So, four and a half years ago, in the midst of being told, if this doesn't work, you're dead. I was called to leave my home, my family, my group, everything that I knew and had and had worked for and believed in and go to North Carolina where they don't even speak English. They speak southern.

Okay. It saved my life. Okay.

When you're sick unto death, the only thing that will save your life, in my experience, is to get off your ass and go help somebody. That's what this is all about. I'm here tonight not for me.

I've been given a gift of life and sobriety, and it's not for me. The only way I get to keep it is to give it away. And that's why I'm here tonight.

Well, I went and in the midst of all of that, I had about a two-year sbatical in addition to everything else. And you're going to hear about that two years this weekend. Maybe not day by day, but the journey that I made when I first got here, the journey Danny's making, the journey we're all making.

We go from one surrender to another, and this was a major surrender. There were days down there in North Carolina where I said to God, "Take me home. If I'm going to die, I want to do it at home, not here." And uh anyway, so we'll hear a little bit about that.

Messengers, I'm a messenger tonight. I have a message for everybody in this room. If you are alcoholic, you don't ever have to drink again.

If you're not an alcoholic and you love one, they don't ever have to drink again. I am a recovered alcoholic. I'm no longer in recovery.

I was. Everybody has to be in recovery for a while. But you can only stay in recovery just so long.

Then you got to get about the business of living. Reovery is a terrible time. No kidding.

I mean, there's something going on all the time to remind you how sick you are. One of my dearest friends just had a hernia operation and he his experience is key to recovery from alcoholism. You know, they cut him open, sewed the muscles all back together and inside and now it's healing and it itches and he can't scratch it.

I mean, it's inside and he can't scratch it. That's what recovery is about. It itches and I can't scratch it.

It's a wonderful time because you never ever forget it. And when a new one comes along, it's your turn. I detoxed the last time in the Denver County Jail.

It was a six weeks detox. In addition to alcohol, I'm also one of the freaks that came out of Berkeley in the 60s screaming out, "Where there's dope, there's hope, burn down city hall." And I had been injecting amphetamines for about four and a half years. In addition to my drinking, I am not a drug addict.

Just taking drugs doesn't make you a drug addict anymore than just drinking alcohol makes you an alcoholic. Okay? And I say that only because the steps to God will work for anybody, but the foundation has to be truth.

So my job early on with new people is to help them find out the truth. That's what you did for me. You sat me down, helped me find out what the hell's wrong with me.

Once we know that, we can deal with it. But I didn't feel good. Six weeks of leg cramps and head cramps and headaches and pounding on my legs.

That went on for six years. But that six weeks was mean, and I don't want to ever forget it. Ever.

I don't believe for one second that remembering that detox will keep me sober. I've been through worse than that and drank. But what it's done is made me a pretty good sponsor.

See, you can come to me at five weeks going, "I'm going to die." And I can look you right in the eye and say, "Not yet. You still have a week to go." Okay. I drank alcoholically from my very first drink.

Some people catch alcoholism on a bar stool. Some of us were born with it and all it took was alcohol to set fire to it. And I say that based on my understanding of what alcoholism is.

It's real simple. If when you're drinking you find you are unable to control the amount you drink or if when you wish to stop you find out you cannot stop entirely, you're probably alcoholic. That's one of the simple ways it got to me.

We're going to go over the doctor's opinion and a lot of other stuff, but I sometimes have to find words other than the big book's words to communicate what it is. I sponsored a psychiatrist one time. He was a be.

He knew too much. And we're reading the doctor's opinion because that's the first thing I do. If I sponsor you, you come to my house, we sit down, I read to you.

Cuz I know the basic problem of most alcoholics is they can't read. So I will never say to somebody, "Go read the big book." That's a dangerous thing to put that in the hands of a newcomer without some guidance and attention. Anyway, we're reading the the doctor's opinion and I'm watching that information go in his head and disappear and get lost in everything he knows.

He ain't getting it. So, I started praying because that's what I do. The reason I like new people is they cause me to pray effectively.

Oh god, what am I going to do with this one? That's serious business. People who are on the edge of death or insanity put themselves their lives into my hands.

And I don't take that lightly. That's scary. If you work with very many of us, you know that each one of us is a challenge.

So anyway, I'm praying. What? How do I say this?

So he gets it and I heard it come out of my mouth. I said, "Don, what happens to you after the first drink?" He said, "Well, around the fourth or fifth or sixth drink, I start losing track of where I'm supposed to be next and what I'm supposed to do, and I end up getting drunk." And I said, "Well, Don, what happens to you after the first drink?" Oh, around the fourth or fifth drink, I I start losing control and figuring out where I'm supposed to be, and I end up getting drunk. What happens to me after the first drink is the second drink.

And that's all I need to know to define alcoholism in order to move forward. The doctor's opinion is very clear. It gives us a broader picture of it.

What happens to me after the first drink is the second drink. Alcoholism is not defined by my behavior. It is not defined by DUIs or jails or prisons or broken promises or broken dreams or broken windows or broken arms.

Alcoholism is defined by me not being able to control the amount I drink once I start and not being able to control an absolutely obsessive idea that somehow this time it's going to be different and I take another drink. Now, I've done all the dramatic stuff and we'll talk a lot about that this weekend because I love high drama and the fact is I almost hate to talk about penitentiies but that's where I've been. But I would remind everybody in this room, we have all been in our own prison.

I just happened to make mine real, that's all. I was imprisoned long before I got behind bars. I got free in a single cell penitentiary.

I tell you about that later. It was kind of a fun night. Alcohol changed me.

It was a transforming experience. It wasn't some little change of attitude. It changed me.

In the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the foremost psychiatrists that ever lived, describes a spiritual experience. In essence, he's saying that ideas and conceptions that used to rule the minds of these men are suddenly cast to one side and an entire new set of conceptions begins to dominate them. It's a transforming experience, an entire new mind.

Well, I can go back and remember my first drink. That's exactly what happened to me. I had what appeared to be a spiritual experience.

I went into the evening 15, 16 years old, frightened and angry. And when you've been frightened for 15 years, you're pissed. I can tell you the very moment that I got that kind of rage.

Can't give you the day and the date, but I can tell you the exact moment when I got really pissed. Somebody said no to me and made it stick. And I was angry from that moment on.

Okay. I was short and I was stupid that night. I knew that if we got in a conversation, you'd be brilliant and I'd belch.

I was not tightly wrapped. I was restless, irritable, discontented. And we got a bottle of whiskey and went out east to Denver to drink it and get drunk and have fun in that order.

That's what they said it would do for us. And I had a couple drinks of bonded bourbon. Oh my goodness.

And I was taller and my voice was deeper. And I was no longer afraid. And I wasn't even all that pissed.

And I wasn't stupid anymore. It was clear what my purpose in life would be. Suddenly, I had instead of reactions, I had plans.

Hey, that's a big deal when you've never really had one. There was a guy in my high school class that hadn't been treating me well at all. And I was going to meet him back at Bonsid's drive-in and whip him.

And I could have done it. This is the one that I used to when I'd see him coming, I'd go down another hallway cuz I didn't want him to see me. He might hurt me or embarrass me more probably.

And there was a little girl in my high school class who hadn't been treating me at all. And I was going to meet her and we were going to have a visit. And I could have done it.

I was a visiting fool that night. When I think about this, if that's all that alcohol did, I would buy everyone in this room a drink. There's absolutely nothing wrong with something that will take a misfit like that and make it okay for them for me to be me and you to be you.

That's a good deal. But it is in my nature down where I live, if one works, take 10. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

Period. That's just my nature. Okay.

So, I did. I drank until I was almost dead that night. Have acute alcohol poisoning.

The end result of that evening is instead of me whipping the bully and carrying the girl off into the sunset and being a hero for everybody is that the people at the drive-in saw my partners hauling me around by the elbows while I puked in the driveway. Now that's how I drank to excess every time. But that few moments of it being okay for be me to be me was worth any price I would have to pay for that I sold out.

I believe today that what I sold out to is that I have always known that my answer would be spiritual in nature because that's who I am. I'm not a human being trying to have a spiritual experience. I am a spiritual being having a human experience.

And since I've come to know that, it's been interesting. I've been really, really human because I'm not afraid of the human experience anymore. Right.

Bring it on. Okay. Some days life is fun.

Some days life isn't fun at all. Many, many, many days. And the one I think is toughest for me as an alcoholic to deal with are the days when it's just flat.

don't do flat well. I was three years sober and I hadn't had any real difficulties for three years. Struggles, yes, but no real difficulties.

And I'm hanging around the club and at the meetings, everybody's talking about how tough it is and all the trouble they're having. And I started feeling left out and went out and made up some difficulties. You know, that's who I am.

After a night like that where all my dreams were just shattered and I puked in the driveway and made a fool of myself. I understand that there are people who having done that quit. I don't know.

But I've heard that. Hardly anybody I know would quit after that. I found out though what caused that so it wouldn't happen to me again.

I didn't want that to happen. That being the consequence. And it was clear to me why I got sick and fell down and threw up.

bonded bourbon. So, I quit drinking bonded bourbon and quickly found other things I could drink that didn't do that to me. When we got to the part in the book about drinking for effect, I could identify with that.

And one of the things I hope you'll do this weekend is bring your own memories to this. The greatest gift my early sponsors gave me was that they forced me to bring my memories to what the big book said. I drank for effect.

And early on, the effects are very specific. If we were going to fight, I drank vodka because when I drink vodka, I get mean. And if you're going to fight, you might as well be mean.

If we were going to go out and there might be girls on the horizon, I drank dark bikardi rum. makes me sensitive and a great lover during the absolute dead times. And I think one of the greatest horrors of all for any human being and particularly alcoholics are times when I don't feel anything.

I could drink Kor's beer and listen to Jim Reeves and Ferland Husky. Four walls to hold me. Oh god.

cry like a baby. And then the time came when vodka made me drunk and rum made me drunk and the beer made me drunk. I used to like to drink tequila and then dance better.

Got sober and found out the reason I didn't dance well is I don't like dancing. I just don't dance well. But you give me some tequila and it looks like I do.

I'm I'm all over the place. I drank to feel taller and stronger and more certain of myself. I drank to stop pain.

I drank to get involved in pain. Sometimes pain's all you got. The main reason I drank as an alcoholic was no reason at all.

That's how serious this disease is. I believe today and on the 26th I'll celebrate 30 years of continuous sobriety. And I believe I'm in more danger today than I was then.

And what I'm in danger of is the truth, not lies. I had an experience on an airplane that brought that home to me. See it.

You all going to have to work real hard on any given day to come up with enough lies to convince me it's all right for me to take a drink. I'm going to have to stop doing a lot of things that I do over a period of weeks before I'll even listen to that crap. But I was flying home from somewhere down here.

It was an evening flight. It may have even been that thing in Mississippi. No, it wasn't cuz I was blind from the smoke that time.

But I'm flying home and United Airlines is very nice to me because I fly so much. If there's an empty first class seat, nobody's using it, they give it to me for $25, something like that. So, I'd upgraded.

Now, I'm fine. I've been to an AA conference. I'm spiritually fit.

I'm emotionally fit. I'm having a good time. I'm on my way home, which is where I want to be going.

I'm in first class. I wouldn't pay for it, but it's better than coach. An evening flight.

The lights are right. I'm reading a book that I've been waiting to read. I don't have time to read much except on the airplanes.

Everything's fine. And out of the corner of my eye, cuz they were serving dinner, I saw the flight attendant pour this dark burgundy stuff into my seatmate's glass. And I looked over because it really looked good.

And that's what my mind said. That really looks good. And it did.

That's the truth. It was not wine in here. It was just this burgundy stuff that looked good.

Then my mind said, "I bet that'll taste good." Of course it would. That's why she's giving it to him. No thought of alcohol.

That'll taste good. Then my mind said, I bet that'll make that whole dinner taste better. That's precisely why she's giving it to him.

It will. It cleans the pallet. Everything will taste better after wine.

I'm still not thinking and drinking. And suddenly, a prayer began in me. I did not begin praying.

A prayer began in me. I've learned over the years to pay very close attention to that. You see, the disease of alcoholism is so severe that there will be times when all of the information I have available, all the reasons that are available to me for not drinking will mean nothing because they won't show up.

They won't be there. So, I have to rely upon a power greater than myself to cover me during those times. You'll cover me during the meeting.

What happens on the way home? So the prayer began in me and I pulled in because what I do when that happens is pull in and start listening and I realized my very next thought would have been I probably ought to have one of those and still no thought of alcohol. That's a serious disease and I've got it.

But I'm standing here telling you I didn't drink that night. Whatever that power is, it took care of me that night. And it's taken care of me many times.

I wish I had more of those kind of stories for you. I'm sure that's happened more than once, but the scary thing is I didn't know it because the information didn't show up. None of the things I do in Alcoholics Anonymous keep me sober.

You need to know that none of the things I do keep me sober. I do the things I do in Alcoholics Anonymous because I am sober. There was a time when in order to be sober, I had to do all the things I do in Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's a really weird thing where Danny, you're you're falling in with a bunch of real loonies here. Okay. You want to know how to how to stay sober?

Don't drink. What causes alcoholism? I don't know.

Do you know? I don't I have any idea. Uh there's thiq's running around somewhere.

I haven't met any, but I understand I've got some. So what? Uh I come from a functional home.

I really do. If I am offending anybody, I apologize. But I do.

Doesn't mean we were problem free, but I come from a functional home. My family functioned. We lived in the same place.

When dad died in March, they had just celebrated 66 years of continuous marriage. That's a long bloody time to live with another human being in peace. And of course, it wasn't always at peace.

My mother sometimes has an attitude. My little brother, uh, I call him my little brother. He's 60ome years old now.

My little brother is one of the foremost synthesizer musicians in the world. And I say that knowing what I talk about. He just came back from Russia.

They took him to Moscow this summer for a month to teach in Moscow so they can find out what the hell it is he does. And then he went to Sweden for two weeks after that. He was writing music with Stan Kenton when he was 19 years old.

Does one symphony every year just for the hell of it. He is a musician. Judy Collins called him one night when she was just getting started.

Her guitar player had gotten sick and she asked my brother if he'd accompany her that night at a show. He said, "Sure." Went out and bought a cheap Stella guitar and a guitar book because he never touched a guitar in his life. And that night he accompanied Judy Collins on stage.

He grew up right down the hall from me. Next room over. Yeah.

My little sister, bless her heart, retired a while back from IBM. Big executive. Made good money and great babies.

Babies have been making babies. But we're we're having trouble finding husbands. The young people today are a little bit nuts.

But in my family, when one of those babies comes along, our attitude is good. There's another little prince baby. Let's raise it.

Okay? And that's where I come from. And apparently the environment does not cause alcoholism cuz neither of them has it.

My dad didn't have it. My mother didn't have it. The closest we can come in my family to another alcoholic is my uncle.

But after drinking himself into serious condition, his doctor said, "Walder, if you don't stop, you're going to die." So he quit for over 20 years. No heart for this business. You got They think we're weak.

You got to be tough to be an alcoholic. It takes a certain kind of toughness to sleep in gutters and to wreck cars and then go get another one and wreck it, too. You got to be tough to face down the people that you promised and they believed you that you're going to do certain things and then you crapped out on them because you were drunk.

It's hard to go home to that. You got to be tough. You got to be tough to wake up wrapped around the throne and everything in you saying, "I'm never going to do this again and get up from the throne and go have a drink." Because you have to.

You got to be tough. Well, I'm tough. I I I'm ranging a bit because I'm trying to establish some things here.

I keep realizing we have a whole weekend. Am I going to have some fun? Christmas week of 1967 was the week that I hope everybody has because it's what it took for me.

It's the week when and the only reason I'm here is cuz I finally ran out of lies. Truth did not get me sober. I just ran out of lies and all my toughness just went away.

I got too damn tired. I don't know what you listen for on a 12step call, but I listen hard for two magic words. I'm tired.

If I can hear that, I'll work with you. I don't care how convoluted the circumstance is. If you're tired, I've got an answer for you.

If you're not tired yet, I still got an answer for you, but you probably won't hear it. But I got tired. I was just plum out of steam.

I weighed 133 lbs. I was on federal parole for a little mistake I made in 1966. Uh in addition to drinking all the time, I was now shooting speed at an unholy rate just to be able to get up in the morning.

It wasn't fun anymore. I needed something to get up in the morning. We were on welfare.

I had these two little kids whose mother had abandoned ship years before. Well, I'd had them out on the road for four and a half years. We'll talk a bit about that this weekend cuz I some of you have had kids, too.

I was a single homeless parent before we even force fashionable. But I ran out of lies. Now, coming from a functional home, I know what Christmas is supposed to look like.

Looks like that in my home this week. I've got a son-in-law living in my house who's just manic about Christmas trees. God, he it's gorgeous.

But I just got out of the way and let him put it up. Where I grew up, we had a real tree came in from the outside. Big house, 8 10ft trees covered with lights and tinsel and we'd sew popcorn.

Do you ever sew popcorn? Wonderful. make long strings of popcorn, hang it on the tree, and there'd be presents underneath.

And I do remember clearly one of the things that I loved so much about my house, it made me feel I didn't belong there, but I loved it. Is for Christmas week, generally people came by. My folks were really loved in our town, and people would just drop in and visit for a while, and house would smell wonderful.

cider with cinnamon sticks, uh, hot chocolate with marshmallows on them. And I'm not talking about these fingernail sized marshmallows. Big ones covered the whole top of the thing.

You had to go suck them off of there just to get the chocolate. Christmas week in 1967, nobody visited our house. Even my parole officer wouldn't come out.

I had to go see him. We had no tree because we had no money. The welfare check hadn't gotten there yet.

And for whatever the reason, I think it's probably just the grace of God. My mind began to clear so I could see these things. One of my lies was just leave us alone.

The boys and I are doing fine. Family's intact. We're all right.

Well, the family was not intact. There was a crazy man and two frightened little boys living in this basement apartment. That was the truth.

Uh, good morning. Come on in. Always respect somebody that big.

So that lie began to become real to me. We spent a lot of time walking. I have sore feet and I sometimes think it must be a karmic condition because we walked so much.

And on the 24th, we took a walk. Uh, I'd gotten enough speed in me and enough booze in me to get up and go out and try to find something for Christmas Day for these kids. And on that walk, we found a dollar in the snow and took it to the Christmas tree place and found out that all them bastards out there weren't all that way.

They gave us the biggest tree on the lot for a dollar that day. And it was a big one. It was pitiful.

I keep the memory fresh. We had a 7ft ceiling and we brought home a 9 ft tree. Sold it over, right?

We decorated it with garbage. That's what people like me have to do. cut the bottom off of one of those little pint milk bottles and it looks like a bell and crumple up some aluminum foil and stuff.

Anyway, and uh I had managed there's a place on East Kfax called the Denver Merchandise Mart, public merchandise mart. And this guy gave me a pair of cowboy boots and a little shirt on credit $10.95. So each of my boys would have one present because I didn't have any money.

The welfare check wasn't there yet. Fully intended to pay for him as soon as the welfare check came. You know, my little boy was some neighborhood kid that I've been using as a runner had stolen a whole case of paper towels from the service station.

My little boys wrapped up everything in the house that would fit in blue paper towel and put it under the tree for me. And some more me broke. That's not right.

It's not the way it's supposed to be. Christmas day, we went down to my folks place because it would never occur to me not to go home for Christmas. And we got there and my dad met us at the door and he said, "Don, I'm sorry, but I can't let you in here anymore.

Your mother says she can't stand watching you die. And one of my lies blew up. The lie was simple.

I leave me alone. I'm not hurting anybody but me. And that was a lie.

I could see who I'd been hurting. Everybody. My parents, my kids, everybody who ever believed in me.

And then dad tore up my last life cuz he snuck us into the house. Anyway, it's a great big house. And he snuck us into the basement.

And I really believed that day that nobody loved us and nobody cared. And he made a lie out of that. And I didn't have any lies left.

When I got home, I had a lot of self-pity. Uh I encourage self-pity. Oh, I really do.

There's nothing like a good case of self-pity and a good sponsor to get you across the line into life. A poor baby. You don't feel good.

Oh, do you guys do that down here? Yeah. Yeah.

Saves lives. I love you dearly, but don't give me that crap. At that point of realizing there were no more lies, I stepped from the self-pity into the truth.

And the truth was I had become completely useless. And let's talk about that for a minute. The only thing that I can promise you, Danny, is if you'll stay sober and work on this path, you will become useful.

And I firmly believe that that's the difference between life and death. Particularly for alcoholics, we must be useful. And the promise of the big book is that I will become useful.

In fact, my wretched past is so useful that I'm not to forget it nor shut the door on it. I'm to share it freely so that you don't have to die. So that you don't have to think you're the only one on the planet that ever did something this stupid or thinks this weird.

I remember sitting at a meeting at York Street one time with my ticket to the grave piece. had one left and some jerk started talking about it out loud in a meeting just as if it wasn't important at all and set me free from that one. Okay, but I was useless.

The the fact was there was no reason for me to be here. Everybody would be better off if I wasn't here. My children would definitely be better off if I wasn't here.

My people would be better off. I couldn't think of anybody that could benefit from my being here. That's a terribly wonderful, painful place.

You either surrender or you die. We're facing a thing in Alcoholics Anonymous today that's frightening. I'm watching our old-timers, people with 30, 35, 40 years of sobriety, blow their brains out because they can't stand the pain anymore.

And I'm convinced that the pain is that they feel they have stopped being useful. And that's my fault. There comes a time in sobriety when I don't do things unless I'm asked.

I want to get rid of enough ego that I wait until I'm asked. I don't want to impose it on anybody with the exception of live 12step work. And if you don't ask me, pretty soon I'm going to dry up.

And I think that's what's happening to them. They feel useless. Now, that's partly their fault, too.

I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying I truly believe that's what causes me it caused me to die that night. I had nothing left to surrender to.

You have to surrender at that point. It's wonderful. We talk all about surrender.

We don't know what the hell we're talking about most of the time. Surrender is something that happens when you can't stand the current conditions and you have no choice in the matter. You just quit.

That's all I did was quit. Nothing left to surrender to. I try have tried everything imaginable along the line to find out what's wrong with me and fix it.

I was in my first federal penitentiary when I was 19 years old and came out and with a clear understanding that I want to do that again and whatever it is that caused that I want to fix that. So I joined Dionetics and uh part of the treatment at that time was that they gave us amphetamine so we could become uninhibited and talk freely. worked fine.

It's exactly what it did. So when I think back about insanity, I don't have to have any fancy definitions. At 19 years of age, a complete failure in my life, having just come out of a federal prison and Marine Briggs and a bad conduct discharge and my dreams are dead and gone, I turn my life in well over the care of a science fiction writer.

So much for my good thinking. I have been dunked and dipped and prayed over and prayed at and yelled at and cursed at. I've been to psychiatrist.

The last psychiatrist I went to was smoking marijuana 3 weeks later. I'm a I'm also a good salesman and he was ready. And I hate to pass up anybody who's ready.

on my own. I will not make the right decision. That's clear to me.

Every decision I make based on me is based on me. And at my very best, I got it. Don't move.

I just saw it droop. At my very very best, nine out of ten people might get helped. Somebody's going to get screwed.

It's just the way it is. And if I can get half of them taken care of, okay? I have found that living by God's way, this path, everybody benefits.

Even people just looking in from the outside benefits by the activities and actions. And we're going to talk a lot about actions this weekend. I am a big book Nazi, but I believe that if that's all you do, you're going to get sick.

And I believe that because I've watched it. I have to take the experience that the big book gives me, and part of the experience it gives me is saying, get involved with life, put your family back together, get a job. Profound spiritual message here for anybody who doesn't know this one yet.

This is one they gave me early on. If you want money, get a job. Oh, and while you're there, work.

And if you'll do that, at the end of a period of time that you mutually agreed upon, they'll give you money. And if you like it, go back next Monday and go to work again. and pretty soon I'll give you some more money.

It's a spiritual principle that I should be self-supporting by my own contributions, not only financially but emotionally my contributions. What goes around comes around. You know, while I was in North Carolina and I understand I have lived with a sense of the presence of God at that time for 26 years.

Every waking moment I've had a sense of the presence of God since I woke up. And I woke up at 6:00 one morning and it wasn't there. And I don't know why it didn't fright me.

It didn't. But I began to pray right away because I have built in a habit. Before I open my eyes in the morning, I begin to pray.

It's just a habit. I'm not taking any chances on even going to the bathroom until I'm on solid ground. Okay?

And my prayer that morning was, "Oh, dear God, I need to know you're here. I need to know you better. I need to be closer to you.

And my phone rang. It was Billy Pate. Billy said, "I got a problem.

I was seven years sober last week and I drank and Allen's 12 years sober and he drank." And we got another fell in our group who's just getting ready to drink. And we understand because Steve told us that every now and then you'll get together with some people over the weekend and go through the big book and show them what it is you did because you don't drink. Would you come do that for us?

And I've got another heaven. I said, "Sure, Billy." And we're back to praying. Where are you, God?

And the phone rang. Another request. Will you sponsor me?

Sure. Where are you, God? pretty soon I got it.

So God talks to me directly >> through you. He was saying if you want to get closer to me, get closer to my children. You want to know me better, get to know my kids better.

You want to hear my voice, quit whining and listen. And I've been all right since the sense is back. It has nothing to do with feeling.

Quite often I do not feel good. I've got a body that I beat up pretty good and and it and it's been used up some. It's hard to believe I'm 72 years old in it.

I'm not. It's just hard to believe. It may be all right the way it is.

He hasn't got it up yet. >> I can get up. >> Thank you, buddy.

When I first said the third step prayer, I wanted magic. I had the worst experience of my entire life. The first time I said the third step prayer, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do of his I will.

Cuz I waited for my flash of light. And it didn't happen. Nothing happened.

Absolutely nothing happened. I might as well not have said it. I'm alcoholic.

Start a fire. Give me an earthquake. Flashlight.

As long as there's drama with it, I'm cool. Nothing happened. And it frightened me.

I had come to believe that there was a power greater than myself. And I also believed that he was so interested in me that he'd give me my own way whenever I wanted it. And I wanted out.

I was in a penitentiary and I wanted out. And I just knew if I said this prayer just right and really meant it that the bars would swing open and they'd call my name and say, "Okay, Pritch, you can go home now. We don't need you anymore." And nothing happened.

I know just enough at that time about sponsorship because I've been paying attention to I'll give you a tip, Danny. If you do something your sponsor tells you to do here and you don't get the results you think you ought to get, go at him. I did.

I went to Bruce with the alcoholic war cry ringing from my lips. Where's mine? Where's mine?

He said, and I told him, I I I said the damn prayer. Nothing happened. I didn't No flash, no nothing.

He said, "You dummy, you ought to be grateful you didn't have a flash of light. They nearly killed you all your life." And we talked about flashes of light that I've had. And he was right.

He said, "God knows, Don, that you probably can't stand one more big shock in the shape you're in." Anyway, and he will probably come to you gently as he did for me. And he did what the people of Alcoholics Anonymous do better than anybody. He shared that experience with me.

He shared himself with me and he shared his time with me. So now I was willing to listen to him for one major reason. He had been changed.

I did not come to Alcoholics Anonymous to get sober. I had no idea I needed to be sober at the time you found me. And I didn't come to you.

You found me. I was certified the boxes already. We ain't even started yet.

>> I was certified by one government agency as a sociopath type two. Don't know what it is, but it is not good. Federal man said I was a psychopath.

Doctor said I was a manic depressive drug addict. I was tired. I was supposed to go to a federal hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.

When Christmas the 26th of December, 1967, the police arrested me again with nine charges. The first one called for three years to life. The DA promised he'd bring the others one at a time if I beat that.

But I was done. But I was done the night before. It didn't matter.

I'd already surrendered. I was wanting to go anywhere anybody said and do anything anybody said if it meant I didn't have to be me anymore. That's why I died.

I took a two-mon supply of amphetamines that night and shot them up my arm and drank everything in the house and laid down and died because I couldn't stand being me anymore. That was my surrender. So, Alcoholics Anonymous did not get me sober.

I didn't meet you for another five months. God got me sober, plain and simple, then brought me to you and that's why I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. Hand carried me to you.

Why am I blessed? If you look at it from the outside, this poor child who was supposed to go to a federal hospital and because of the love of God, that whole court order got changed and I was sent to a penitentiary. So, I plead guilty to a reduced charge in order to go to the hospital.

didn't work. The power of God went to work and instead of me going to the hospital, I went to the penitentiary and was just handcarried to you guys. I belong to you.

I do not depend on you. You don't know any more about this than I do. I bet enough minions to know that.

Well, how does it work? I don't know. Please tell me what is alcoholism.

I don't know. The people from Alcoholics Anonymous that showed up in my life on the day that I met you could be termed angels. They were definitely God's messengers.

They were on a crusade. They were inmates. They had numbers on their chests.

Did not look angelic to me. They called us down that day and said, "You people will come down and you will listen." And I didn't have anything else to do. So I went down and I listened.

The most important thing I have ever done in Alcoholics Anonymous then and now is to listen. I hope you're listening. I am.

My early sponsors made it clear to me. I want you to remember what said at meetings, but more importantly, remember what you say at meetings because that's what's going to save your life. The joy of getting up and giving a talk is that I get to hear where I'm at.

get to put the pieces together. So, we're there and I'm listening and these three guys got up with numbers on their chest and some folks here know that inmates in their own environment, in their own clothes are a little intimidating. Smiling inmates are frightening.

Have you ever seen them? There's that eatating grin that says, "I know something you don't know. And if you don't get it tonight, you may die in the morning." That's what that says.

I really do know something you don't know. And if you don't get it tonight, you may die in the morning. You don't have to.

Guy got up and said, "My name's Doc and I'm an alcoholic." And that means that I am powerless over alcohol and drugs and guards and all of the other circumstances of my life. And my life has become unmanageable. And if any of you smart bastards think you can still manage your lives, look at the reward the state just gave you for the nifty job you've been doing.

I heard him. That's a spiritual deal. I'd never heard anybody.

I heard him. Your very best thinking got you here. You're not doing too good, are you?

That could be considered cruel. It was just the truth. But we can show you a new way of thinking.

You know, the greatest promise in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And of course, it came to us from a non-alcoholic. Make no mistake about it.

We didn't invent it. Dr. Silk Works says, "Without an entire psychic change, there's very little hope of recovery." In plain street terms, that means until I get a new mind, I'm not going to recover.

And I'm promised I can have a new mind, a whole new way of looking at things. I still have an alcoholic mind in here. I never use it for myself.

It's useless. I I wouldn't trust it with anything except your life. I use it when I'm talking to you so that you can understand that I understand.

I understand something when people say to me, "Why did you do that?" That's when I began to build my base of lies. Cuz the truth is, I don't know. And I learned early on, if I say I don't know, you will say you should know.

You did it. Why in the world did you drink after you drank, wrecked the car, went to jail, threw up on grandmother's lap? Why are you drinking again?

I don't know. Well, I understand that. I don't know why you are either except you probably have alcoholism and don't have any choice in the matter.

And the best news I can give you if you're in that state is this. You are doomed. Ain't that good news?

I think it's wonderful news. You're doomed. There's no treatment for it.

No treatment at all for what's wrong. What's wrong with me that's untreatable is that I have a body that has a different reaction to alcohol than my mother. Let me tell you how my mother drinks.

It's wonderful. She loves peppermint schnaps, which is enough to make you sick. Anyway, I like Altoids, but not Schnops.

My mother really, really loves Schnops. You can tell on the day when she's getting ready, she gets that bottle down and she got a little tall skinny glass and she pours it in there and she's with it. She isn't wasting a drop.

Is that a disgusting sound for? She just loves every bit of it. And then she'll look at it for a little while longer and then she may do that twice and then I've heard her say to my disgust, "That's enough.

I'm beginning to feel it. That is not me. Okay, that is not me.

The sound of a non-alcoholic having a drink of alcohol is the sound of an alcoholic having a drink is it all happened right in here. She'll put it away. She won't have anymore.

She's beginning to feel it. I drink because I'm beginning to feel it. Okay.

Everything changes. Well, I don't want to keep you all up all night. I've been up here for about an hour.

We got a lot to talk about. With your permission, what I'm going to do this weekend, I'm going to read to you some. I've been asked to give you precisely how I go through this and how I see it and I'm going to do that.

There'll be some experience of that tonight. I just wanted to let let you kind of get to know me a little bit and to know that I believe that this is a transforming piece of business we're here. I, like Ebie, do not I'm just not inwardly reorganized.

My roots are in a different soil. I'm a different human being than the one that died Christmas night of 1967. Don't even look like him.

Don't think like him. I remember him well. Didn't have a chance from day one.

Today my life is useful. One of the neatest things in the world happened to me the other day. Now when they arrested me, they took my children away from me.

And the only thing in my life that had any meaning at all was my two little boys. I wanted more than anything in the world to be a good dad. Sicker.

Well, those kids came first. I used them, but they came first. I really wanted it to be right for them and they took them from me of course because I went to the penitentiary and for all they knew I was going back to the federal penitentiary.

I still owed them 5 years. My children went to a foster home and it was not a good one. I was told you will never see your children again.

Welfare man set me free. He said don't ever try to get them back. You're a lousy father.

I don't think you'll ever be a good father. Don't ever try to do anything to prove to me that you'll be a good father because you won't. It's done.

Just get your own life in order. If I ever think you're going to amount to anything, I'll bring them to you. Set me free.

But that's where it was when I started here. My baby four months ago had a baby. Get the Hankies out.

Now, as a result of all this stuff, the morning this occurred, I was in my best clothes. I had a suede jacket and a tie that I may wear this weekend just cuz I want you to see how classy I've become. And I'm on the way to visit a judge and straighten him out.

I work in corrections and he was causing doing some things that weren't quite right. And um I got an appointment with him. And on the way out the door, my daughter handed me the baby and the baby puked all over me.

Well, that's what ties are for. How would you feel if somebody you loved very much stood up and puked on you? Well, what went through my mind because of my new mind?

Isn't this wonderful? They trust me with their babies today, knowing if they puke on me, I will not throw them against the wall. I'll laugh and change clothes.

So, that's sort of both ends of this deal. I don't know what you want out of sobriety, but that did it for me. They trust me with their babies.

So, when are we going to get going? 10:00 in the morning. Another thing I would like you all to do, please, to help me, cuz I get really frustrated with this.

I've been walking hand in hand with with the spirit of God for nearly 30 years. And that means every single day, unusual, miraculous events have occurred. And I don't know what you need to hear about.

And if you won't tell me what you'd like to hear about this weekend, I'm just going to keep right on babbling. Okay, we're going to have a question and answer thing, I'm sure. We're going to read through this big book.

I want to show you some views cuz I have some from my own experience about the easier way to make this work. This is not rigorous. It's sometimes hard.

I love this particular group. You fit one of the descriptions of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. We laugh a lot.

If newcomers could see no laughter here, they wouldn't want to stay. We laugh a whole lot. We laugh mostly at us cuz we're really funny.

You know, one of my favorite people is old Tony Dillo cuz he spoke truth one time to a group of clerics. It's the same truth I got. You come here to listen to me for a weekend, you need to know something.

I'm an ass. Okay? You shouldn't expect anything better out of me than that.

Okay? And I know that this isn't over. I do not like standing behind this podium.

I'm hoping in the morning, particularly if there's no more of us than this, maybe we can rearrange this room a little bit and get together some circles or something. This is not my natural habitat. Uh, okay.

Anything at all you want for tonight? Cuz you got a meeting coming up at 10:00 and uh I'm going to go to bed. Got a lot to share with you.

I'll close out with a a random thought. Clint said I got to drop a bomb or two, so I will. It's just something to think about.

Someone asked me a couple months ago, do you believe that God is love? And I must tell you, I don't know for sure. I expect so.

But if I make a flat statement that God is love, it's going to be limited because it'll have to be based on my definition of love, which is woefully inadequate. I do believe this, however, if I will open myself up to that possibility, God will demonstrate through me what love really is, and then I can learn about it. So this weekend, I'm going to try to avoid making definitions like that.

Okay, if you need to believe that, that's cool. It's probably true, but I don't know for sure. We all done for the night.

Let's do it. What time? 10 o'clock in the morning.

>> 10:00 in the morning. >> Okay. >> Meeting at 10:00 tonight.

Call up meeting. >> Call up meeting at 10. The altar call will be about 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

I like this chair. Don't y'all wish you had one? >> I don't like this room though, the way it's set up.

I'm out here all by myself, and that is not what I'm here for. Uh, I'll get used to this thing. Uh, right now it's a distraction.

What I'd like to do, there's no no way to do a circle here, but you suppose we could rearrange this in some way so that we're more of a group rather than an audience. I sure appreciate it. Oh lord, they're ganging.

You must have been planning this move, huh? >> We warned him. As with real life, we do things and then we break up and go do other things, then get back together and do things together.

The spiritual experience is one is a unifying experience. Okay. So throughout this deal, if we're doing this right, when we take a break, y'all are going to break up and go talk to each other.

And uh when you come back in, half of you are going to keep talking to each other. We have a common purpose in this room and need to refocus on that each time. And I'm going to give you just a childish image that has helped me.

Please don't ritualize what I'm about to say. This image has just helped me get centered. Uh, and it's a simplistic view of pottery.

Any of you potters or no potters, it's a very simple thing they do and it's very spiritual. To cast a good pot, all you need to do is get the clay centered on the wheel. If the clay is properly centered, when the potter begins to spin the wheel, the natural forces of centrifugal force and gravity tend to throw it right straight up.

And all the potter has to do is kind of form it and encourage it a little bit. If it's the slightest little bit off and the more offc center it is, the more it tends to throw it out this way and you got to drag it back in. And it's a lot of hard work.

So >> done. >> Yes. >> Let's swap chairs.

Every time you move in that chair, we're gassing him. >> We'll take a vote. Who gets the chair?

>> There are several places in my experience that I can center. Right dead center in my head is a centering place. There's another one right here in my diaphragm.

The one the Chinese call the tanten, which is a power center, is right down in here. My spiritual center, when I close my eyes and think about going within and centering, is just right here. I don't know where yours is, but I'm going to suggest each time we get together, we just get quiet for a minute, get centered, empty our minds, and then we'll know what we're going to do next.

Does that suit everybody? However it is you do that. Okay.

We were doing a retreat in Santa Barbara in a monastery. It's a really good place to do a retreat by the way. uh with a group out of Los Angeles and uh it was really hard to get them quieted down again after each break and we had some singers with us.

It was their profession. So, one of them just went and her partner caught it and did a a harmonic counterpoint to it. It was so pretty.

It just split the room and got it quiet. So after the next break, she did the same thing he did it and pretty soon the group started doing and I got this horrible image of what was going to happen. They were going to go back to AA in the LA basin.

Say Don taught us to start meetings by going. Oh, I see a lot of you brought your guide books. Would you turn to page one, please, and read along with me?

you on page one. Okay. We of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the medical estimate of the plan.

I thought you were at page one. >> This is the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm on page one.

Oh, mine's a first edition. Okay. Now, there's a couple reasons I did this.

A lot of people don't know of the massive change that took place in 1955 in our book. The doctor's opinion is page one in all editions of the first edition. It's a part of the body of the recovery process.

Good morning, Danny. I was hoping here. Where's that chair?

That was for daddy. >> So I have to consider when I tell someone go read the big book, which one are we on the same page? Are we carrying the same message?

The message that got carried to me and the reason I'm here is because someone carried me through the doctor's opinion and it was so important because otherwise I could not have identified as an alcoholic. And there's a thing runs through a that I hear drives me crazy that the recovery process is in the first 164 pages that lays out the doctor's opinion and the forwards and the preface, but particularly the doctor's opinion. Now, I don't care why it happened.

I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And part of my job as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous by concept and by tradition and by the force of spirit is to pass on the entire AA message. And the reason I'm making a point of it is we've started working with a lot of people who had come to us and they drink again and then come back and they drink again.

Y'all call them slippers. I just don't think they ever quit drinking. Uh, and the common thread was that they started on page one like we had told them to do and read the first 164 pages and missed this piece entirely.

We don't miss it. I know you all don't. When you read with somebody, you read it.

But I've been guilty at one time of saying the first 164 pages till I thought about what I was saying. There's all kinds of stuff. I don't want to make an editorial out of this, but currently at the next general service conference, at the last one, they asked the literature committee to bring back the possibility for a fourth edition big book.

Just some changes in stories and all because nobody's going to change the body of the text. And I don't have any problem with that. I don't see any need for it, but I don't have any problem with it either.

But what a grand time it would be to restore the big book to its original condition. We now have a reason for a fourth edition. I think at least one to consider.

Just put it back the way it was. Now that'll really cause some confusion. You need to understand that.

It means that I will have to at every time I do big book work explain the difference. I'll have to start at the right place. I will have to become a better 12step and a better sponsor because if they get a third edition or in my case a second edition, we're not going to start on the same page unless we agree to.

We don't want to confuse Danny. We already have him baffled. What the hell have I fallen into here?

Okay, it's that important. Couple other other wonderful changes in this thing too. I work out of a second edition simply because when I when I came for the first five weeks we weren't allowed to talk.

We went through a 12step study school and at the first meeting they informed us that for five weeks we had nothing to say. If we knew anything at all, we wouldn't be where we were. That we should just shut up and listen.

And they then they read the big book to us and shared their experience of the big book with us. I'm doing what I was shown how to do 29 years ago. This is how it was brought to me and I just keep doing it.

And if there's one person in the room or 50, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. This is what I do. If this is all I do, I'm causing you a grave disservice.

We got to take what happens here to the street. That's what this weekend is about is talking about how that viewpoint attitude is critical in this deal. Here's a book.

Now, I would suggest to you, let me tell you how important this book is to me. I had a I've had some visions along the way without the peyote. I've seen I had them, too.

We were in Greenwich, Connecticut one night for a meeting and why it came over me, I don't know, but it came there were about 150 people in this room. And it struck me that there were more people in that room that night than there were in all of Alcoholics Anonymous the night they decided to put this book together. There were about 40 that night and it transformed my mind and I would suggest you there are more people in this room in Slidell, Louisiana this morning than were in all of Alcoholics Anonymous tonight.

Bill and Bob and the few that were there realized that what they had was so important that it rated a book. Not a bestseller, but a book where the integrity of this message could be carried forth when they were dead and gone. When I'm dead and gone, when all the interpretation is over, the message is intact.

That can either be great ego or great spiritual insight. 40 people. You want to write a book?

And you all know the story of the book. We almost didn't get it. Selling bonds at f 25 bucks in the bars.

Five bucks crack. If you don't have 25, we'll take whatever you got. It has been in the hands of millions of us, literally millions of us over the years.

And we haven't really changed a word. We change how the words are presented. times.

There are places that are now in italics that used to be in big bold print, but the integrity of our message has been kept intact. That must be a pretty important book because we're good at changing things. I have some minor concerns today because I've seen some changes that have taken place in our book that caused me great concern.

And it's not from the outside people who are now publishing our book, which they have every right to do. We don't have a copyright on this. Did you know that we lost the copyright to the big book in 1967?

It went into the public domain by a fluke. When we put out the second edition in 1955, we assumed that it uh renewed the copyright to the first edition, which it did in Canada, but by a strange twist of United States law, it didn't. So, in 1967, the first edition Big Book went into the public domain.

And we didn't even know it until 1985 when somebody came up with a well actually late ' 84 came up with a mockup of our first edition for 25 bucks to sell in Montreal. Uh which by the way still has our copyright so we couldn't sell it in Montreal but it woke us up. It hasn't hurt us any but what I'm concerned about is the changes we're making in our book.

I may be nitpicking, but I ask you to consider. We will read at least twice in this this book. We will make references to a group of stories in the back of this book.

And they'll tell us how really really important these stories are. And we now publish a version of our book that doesn't have any stories in it. It's about that big.

I don't care about the size. I'm concerned with the integrity of the message and it's my view. Here's the bomb, Clint.

We should either put the stories back in or take those references out of the text. I love it. Nobody wants that piece of it.

You and I are responsible for that. Not they. I'm personally responsible for that having happened.

I wasn't paying attention. Was it a knee-jerk reaction to somebody else putting out a little book without stories in it? You know why they couldn't put out the stories?

We still have the copyright on the stories. This one, it's just Alcoholics Anonymous, but it's not intact. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't start campaigns or go to war.

I've quit fighting anybody or anything, but I talk about that. You just heard me talk about that. I talk about that with my delegate and my DCM, my GSR, and anybody who will listen to me.

And I'm just saying, okay, don't you think we ought to do something? We're responsible. It happened while I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I didn't mean to start it that way. Well, yes, I did, too. Because we're gathered here.

If I'm going to use this as a guide for my life, and if I'm going to say to Danny, Danny, all of the answers to all of the life's problems that you will ever have can be found in this book, I better be sure that I'm giving him the right one. And it's it's intact. I don't want to lie to him.

If you'd lied to me or given me anything less than the whole message, I would not be here. See, when I came to you, I was certified as a sociopath, type two, a psychopath, and a manic depressive drug addict. And the whole idea of AA wasn't in my mind because nobody knew I was alcoholic.

My alcoholism was hidden behind madness. You know, it was such an integral part of my life. It was part of my life.

Nobody ever saw that. They saw the other high drama that I created. So by that surrender that I had made and by the way the elements of surrender not the definition of surrender.

The elements of surrender for me was I got tired bone weary absolutely so tired I could no longer stand even breathing one more second it couldn't be me. That's how tired I got. I died.

I woke up and when I woke up it was a new attitude. I was willing to go anywhere anyone said, do anything anyone said. Didn't make any difference as long as it didn't have to be me again ever.

That that me that had died. I was in a wonderful state, a complete failure at living and now a complete failure at dying. makes you really willing to listen to what they have ever anybody says.

Okay? Stuck in a body that won't die, carrying around with it, a mind that won't work, and still breathing. I told you last night that's my definition of doomed.

So when you talk to me, I listen to every single thing that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous have said to me from day one till now. The first thing you gave me was a sifter. It's a book called Alcoholics Anonymous.

Whatever else is heard in AA I think is wonderful. But if I can't check it here, I either don't I'm either too stupid or it just isn't so. And so I don't do anything about it.

And that includes my best ideas. This is my sifter. When I get charged with a really good idea, there's a couple things I do.

I talk to my wife first, okay? Because when I get charged, I do things. I don't know about you, but I'm a doer of things.

And everything I do affects her life. And one of the guides here is when I'm going to affect people's lives, ought to consult them anyway. Then I read this book out loud to somebody.

The richness of my life is not because I read the big book. It's because I read the big book out loud to somebody so I can hear what I'm saying. This is a a journey of discovery for me in this book.

My god. I was reading with one of my guys Tuesday morning and read something and got so excited. I've read it thousands of times.

And all of a sudden, I saw what it really said. And he thought I was brilliant. I had just discovered it.

Of course, I was brilliant. The lights went on. And I told him what I just found.

He's 20 years sober. He said, "My god, I didn't see that." We both got a little different experience out of the deal. It was talking about this vital six sense.

Remember that piece? Just before that, the sentence says, "This is God consciousness." And I've known that, but all of a sudden, it was clear to me, God consciousness is the vital sixth sense that we're going to develop here. Whoa.

I should have known that. Anyway, viewpoint. This is the message that made it possible for me to continue.

We of Alcoholics Anonymous and more than a hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I was 100% sick, I need 100% recovery. If you tell me I'm going to have to stay sick the rest of my life, I would rather die.

>> I really would. I'm not even interested in whatever you have in mind. You tell me you have a way I can learn to cope with alcoholism or whatever's wrong with me, I would rather die.

I coped for 34 years. The word cope means from the big dictionary to fight the good fight. I'm tired.

I won't fight anymore. We, Danny of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. What the hell does that mean?

Alcoholism has definable, recognizable symptoms. I do not suffer from any of those symptoms anymore. That's all recovered means.

Doesn't mean elevated, special means I don't suffer from the symptoms of alcoholism anymore. And what are those? One of them is an allergy to alcohol that causes me to need another drink if I take one.

Well, I don't drink. So, I don't suffer from that one. The other is an obsession with alcohol that causes me to take the first drink.

There hasn't been a thought of alcohol in my mind for 29 years. I don't know how it is with you, but it has been removed from me. It's gone.

Thank God. I've lost the power of choice and drink. It's gone.

I have no more choice today than I did when I quit. Every time I had a choice, I made the wrong one. Thank God I don't have to.

I did not get up this morning and choose to stay sober. It didn't occur to me that I wouldn't be sober today. My life's in God's hands.

Okay? There's no work to this. I can't cope with alcoholism.

I can't cope with anything. My god, I certainly can't cope with this world. I don't know about you, but that's too much for me.

I'm barely able to cope with the room clerk of the motel. I wanted to. So, there's a message that got to me.

You don't ever have to drink again. You don't ever have to feel the way you've been feeling ever again. That's a promise.

We don't promise a trouble-free or pain-free life, but you don't ever have to feel the way you've been feeling ever again. the shame and the mystification of why did I do that? What's wrong with me?

You don't ever have to feel that again. That's what I needed to hear. That's that's all it says.

Let me give you another viewpoint because I'm going to do some exploring this weekend, too. And there's some new things that happened for me. For years, I used this book to validate my experience.

Ain't nothing wrong with that. Today I must tell you my experience validates this book. I am one of we of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Everything that I have done that they did the way they said they did it, I've gotten exactly the same result. And there's only one result here. When I hear people say it's either working or not working, I don't know what the hell they're talking about.

I heard somebody say the other day, "I've learned to live life on life's terms." That's interesting. I didn't know life made terms. Only people makes terms.

I checked it. I don't find it anywhere in here. So, I just gonna ignore it.

I'm one of we and I'm sure you are too. I feel the warmth in the room. We of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What a great deal. On my own. I can't do it.

We can. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. That's all I need to do with for the rest of my life.

And I'm useful. Remember, I died because I was useless. All I have to do is show you precisely how I recovered.

And that's a broad broad scope. How I recovered is different than how you recovered because I recovered in a penitentiary. So, I didn't have the luxury of being able to call my sponsor when I felt bad.

He didn't have a phone. I didn't either. In fact, quite often we were sequestered.

And I use that word because that was one of the changes that took place for me. I started out in a prison cell. And as I awakened spiritually, it occurred to me one day sitting in that place, this 8×10 room with a bunk and a toilet and a sink, that this is how monks live.

In fact, they call themselves. They are sequestered in a safe place where they have time and place for solitude. Same kind of room and my cell changed from a punitive place to a place of solitude and safety.

That pl that took place in here. They didn't do a single damn thing to change it. Neither did I.

Didn't even move the pillow. It changed in here. in the first edition to show other alcoholics pre or the forward precisely how recover is in big bold black type.

It was a little more important then it is now apparently I don't know. Ain't that nice? I can be useful at my worst.

One of my dearest friends was old Jack Brennan. I don't know if any of you ever heard Jack. He's long dead now.

old wheelman for the New York mob. Got fired from that job, by the way. >> Uh Jack was a good driver, but he was a bad drunk.

And uh he'd call him the next morning after a big hold up and whatever else they did and say, "What' we do last night?" And the boys got a little nervous and thought maybe Jack, despite being a good driver, they probably couldn't use him because they didn't know for sure where he was going to take him during the night. Jack got thrown out of his apartment one time by the police and spent a number of years every time he got drunk doing battle with the police. And by the time he got sober, it was an eye gone, his tongue was chewed.

He uh he talked funny. Jack always talked a little funny cuz his tongue was all battered up and he uh he was in bad shape when he got here. Couldn't tie his own shoes.

Couldn't use fork and knife for about six months. He just kind of nursed him. Uh he used to laugh cuz he's a staunch Irish Catholic and God sent a little Jewish fellow out to 12step him sponsor.

And he used to tell him, "Jack, you're really important to this group. You really are important." And he said he was six months sober tying his shoe when it hit him that he was tying his own shoe. And it pissed him off because this little Jewish fellow has told him how important he was.

And he's aware for six months. I haven't even been able to tie my shoes. How important can I be?

And he went and complained. And his little sponsor says, "Oh, Jack, you have no idea the number of people you've helped. You're so important." When new people come here, we sit them next to you and tell them, "You keep drinking.

That's what you're going to be like." There is a place for everyone in Alcoholics Anonymous to be useful. My little friend Chuck was so useful to me because I had become big book bound. If you weren't doing it precisely this way and the timing and you've been here, everybody who has a big book gets there.

Chuck had been sober eight years and had actually become a counselor at Hazelton and was doing fine when he drank and he had two or three other times when they did that and he drank and when he got to me he hated everybody. When I asked him what he thought about God, he said, "I hate the son of a bitch." So I understand that we each get a couple seconds with him somewhere down the road and I can't wait for my turn. I'm going tell him what I think of this deal and I'm going to go on to hell whistling and happy.

And because of the way my mind works, my whole thought was, well, that's nice. He believes we we have an attitude problem, but okay. Chuck could look me right in the eye and tell me, "Get that thing away from me.

I tried the big book. It didn't work." That was the truth. He had and it didn't work.

What am I going to tell him? Hated aa reserved the right to drink one last time. That was the deal when he asked me to sponsor.

Well, he didn't ask me to sponsor. He hated sponsors. Wouldn't call me sponsor, but he's willing to work with me.

For a year and a half, I carried Chuck around in my truck every day while he vented this venom and healed. How useful to me. Everything I knew, all this grandiosity, this stuff you make me do here, like you think I know something, had caught me.

I thought I did. And with Chuck, there was nothing except right around the van. One day we came home and Jackie had made some chocolate chip cookies and uh we gave him one and he made the mistake of saying, "Well, that was good." Which to a cookie baker means, "Here, Chuck, have a bag.

Give him a whole sack of cookies." And we got to the car and he said, "Why would she do that? Why would she give me cookies?" And I was able to say to Chuck, "Well, Chuck, it's cuz she thinks you're a member of the family." And that's the day and that's the time his life changed. Nothing we had done to that point except he had been allowed to come and go in my house for a little over a year.

And when I identified that as being a member of the family, it was true. And when you belong to anything, you're no longer alone. The healing begins to take place.

So, our first job isn't to slam people with a big book. The first job is to touch them and say, "We're really glad you're here, you poor sick son bitch." Yeah. I really understand that you need a cookie.

So, new people are really, really useful because they keep me there. They keep me from getting smart. bring me back to just why we're here.

I might as well I've got I've got six more five more hours. I might as well tell you the rest of Chuck's story. >> Let me know.

>> We finally got through the steps the way they are in a big book. Chuck is a a big book fanatic these days. Clint knows him.

He's about 5'2 and mean as a snake and doesn't mind telling you. He really still has a bad attitude problem. Uh I love him dearly.

He won't hurt you anymore, but uh he's very picky as to who he likes and very opinionated about aa on the steps and not all together well. But we got through the steps. Chuck awakened.

There was a time he would not use the word God. He hated it. Now he'll he's in touch with God.

You did not dare touch Chuck. Been around those kind. You touch them and they will bite you.

This was a wounded animal. So we messed with him all the time. And he claimed to be dyslexic.

So we'd make him read the fifth chapter. and he loved a so much that he memorized it so he could do it right. And then I caught him one day.

I said, "If you memorized it, you had to read it to do that. Don't give me that shit." And he quit being dyslexic. Okay.

Venoy Shaw was in town for our convention. Veno is a big eleon out of Texas and she just loves everybody and hugs everybody. And I couldn't go to the convention, but I Chuck was at the time where we were not touching him and he he'd jump and all.

He'd tell you out of front. I don't hug. Don't do that.

So I said, "You be sure to hear Venoy talk because she gives the best AA talk I've heard in a long time." She's alone. Don't mean nothing. And when you're through, you be sure you go up and thank her.

And he follows directions. He does do that. And I and she told me later this nasty little person comes up to her to thank her and when I just threw a big bear hug on him.

That's what she does. And he looked up at her said, "Lady, I don't hug." And she said, "Tough Sunny, I do." His dad died. Chuck got a little money.

We got his financial amends taken care of, and he still had a couple grand a new car. and he came to me in uh in tears. God gave him back that gift.

He said, 'I got one last thing to tell you. I've never I haven't told anybody for years cuz everybody I ever told us laughed at me, but I have a dream and I'm afraid to tell you. And I said, "Well, tell me, Chuck." He said, "I want to be an actor." He was a good actor from the day I met him.

There no question about that. And I believe that people ought to chase their dreams. >> So I said, "Well, look, you also want to go to Disneyland." Because Chuck didn't know how to play.

And part of my sponsorship is you will learn how to play if you're around me. It's a suggestion in the big book. Each family play as much as little newcomers could see no fun about this.

They wouldn't want to stay. So we played and he wanted to go to Disneyland. So he said, "Look, you got two grand left.

You got the car. Disneyland's open. You just got fired from another job.

So you're not working. Why don't you go on out to Disneyland and while you're there, I'll make a couple calls because I know some people in the business and you can talk to a successful actor and he will be able to tell you what the price you have to pay will be to be an actor. See, there's a price for everything.

So, he went and I'd made the contact for him and my friend took him out to Warers and was showing him around Warers and just talking with him. uh took him on to the Murphy Brown set and they were fooling around and the producer of the Murphy Brown stopped and talked to my friend and uh in the introduction he says and this is Chuck and Chuck would like to be an actor and the producer says good we can use him and he became an extra on the Murphy Brown show that day less than two weeks out there and he's already on television got into acting school was doing fine his car was hit by a truck on the freeway in the next three years we're not good. He was badly hurt.

Went through his I hate God business. Why is God doing this to me business and all that anyway at 8 years he drank again. Thank God cuz he was off into pain pills and self-pity and hate and he was divorcing himself from everybody.

And he drank again. Thank God. He had one last reservation.

He had told me early on he reserved the right to drink one more time because if this didn't work, he was going to drink himself to death. Well, eight years a screwed that up. He tried.

He lasted three days. He just didn't have the heart for it. Came back and he's been sober ever since.

We worry way too much about people drinking. I hate to see it. It hurts me every time it happens.

But sometimes if they don't drink, they'll kill themselves. Sometimes if they do drink, they'll kill themselves, too. But who am I to make that judgment?

Heard from Chuck last week. He got married. Please pray for him.

But after the hospital stuff was all over and he got a little settlement, not enough to do much, but enough that he got back on his feet back into acting school. He just closed in one play and has opened on another one. He's on live stage in Los Angeles doing what he wanted to do.

sober back hanging around with the people he hates the most and sounding pretty good. And he was so useful to me because I got to watch this and be part of it and know beyond a shadow of a doubt nothing I did had anything to do except the one thing that this is all about. I let God demonstrate through me what sobriety is.

And when the time came, I showed him what I did. But I suggest this to you. Sobriety by itself is the most impossible condition of all for any alcoholic to live with.

And to recommend sobriety by itself is almost criminal. The reason we drink is because we can't stand living sober. It hurts too much.

It's too confusing. When when I'm filled with self, there's nothing but pain. When I was going through that business with the uh interferon and hepatitis and all that stuff, I got furious with the pain.

In fact, I inventoried the pain because I was so mad at it because when you're in pain, it forces you to be self-aware, self-centered. There's no way out. You just But by the grace of God, I found a way.

I'm still in pain. Always will be. That's part of the human condition, by the way.

But I no longer suffer from the pain. There's a difference. We have an an incurable disease, but we don't have to suffer from it.

I'm not cured of alcoholism. I'm recovered from it. I don't have the symptoms anymore.

One of the symptoms is self-centerness. And if I start getting self-centered, I'll start suffering. And when I'm suffering from self-centerness, I try to fix it.

If I'm suffering from loneliness, I go find another girlfriend. Well, the reason I'm lonely is cuz the last one couldn't stand me and left cuz I was too self-centered. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's go back to the big bug. I need to not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person.

As a sponsor, I need to continually be aware of that. That the people I'm working with, like myself, but particularly the new ones coming in are very sick people and I need to treat them that way. I have never yet heard a nurse yell at a patient.

Have you? >> That's all we are is nurses for sick people. >> We got to nurse them along for a while.

>> Huh? What you say, Clint? >> Bed pan Harry.

>> Bed Pan Harry. Okay. And I need to remember that because after I've been through the big book several times and gotten goddamn smart, I start instructing instead of nursing.

What do you mean you haven't got your four step done? You pick I I don't do it that way. I've got one right now in in inventory and we'll go over how I do that.

There's a step-by-step method and we meet every Wednesday morning at 7:30. She called Tuesday evening and said, "I haven't finished. Is there any read to meet reason to meet?" And I said, "No, there isn't.

We have nothing to talk about. We're in a process now where everything goes on the paper. And if you haven't finished that, we have nothing to talk about.

Finish it. That may go on for a while. If it goes on more than eight weeks, the chair is empty and someone else will fill the chair.

That's all. She just isn't able to do it. I don't know why.

I will continue to encourage, but I never try to force. How would you like to have been forced by that? I wouldn't.

It was imperative that I do it, but they didn't force me. Then it says, "Besides, we're sure our way of living has its advantages for all." Now, in my self-centered arrogance, I used to think that means that you ought to live the same way I do. It' be good for you.

What it means is that my being sober has its advantages for everybody around me. Okay? My way of living, it's much more advantageous to you to have me living the way I am than the way I used to.

Okay? Just another view. No, not that.

>> That's why we keep reading this over and over, Helen. >> Yeah. My children are better off because of this way of living.

My boss is much better off because of this way of living. My parents are better off because our way of living has its advantages for them. And then I learned some things about how to conduct myself as a member of Alcoholic Anonymous publicly because we're not a secret society.

We're an anonymous society. Simply means that we're equal and nobody speaks for AA. I speak for my experience of AA but not for AA.

So when it says when writing or speaking publicly about alcoholism we urge each of our members or each of our fellowship to admit his personal name I designating himself instead as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. So at open meetings like this one my name is Don and I am an alcoholic and I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. On a more personal level, you get my whole name.

But in a public level, I just comply with this. It's nothing fancy. Old Bob White, who was one of my heroes, said, "All we do here is comply with the conditions." So, you may not like that.

Comply doesn't fit well into the alcoholic makeup. That's all we have to do. Just comply with the conditions.

So, it says do that. That's what I do. People find great whimsy in my little group's name.

We not only find it whimsical, we're complying with the condition. Says any two or three alcoholics gathered for sobriety may call themselves an AA group. And that's the name of my group.

That's how it's registered, an AA group. Our central office spent three weeks trying to figure out telling us we can't do that. We said we are already doing it.

Just write it down somewhere. I was in my first federal penitentiary when I was 19 years old in Japan. And it was not because I was a big-time criminal.

I was a 19-year-old drunk. And I was baffled by that. I mean, when I joined the Navy, I really had it in my 17-year-old mind to come home a hero, having saved America from the communist menace.

Truth was, Denver was too small for me already. My head was too big. Nobody But I ran with some other guys who nobody else liked either.

We ran up and down Kfax drinking beer and looking for girls. Uh, I remember the night we found some. It was a terrible night.

All we knew was looking. We didn't know what to do when you found them. They didn't know either because it was a bad night.

So, I joined the Navy and I really loved the Navy. I loved the work. It was challenging.

I was a radar and radio omen on a destroyer. Uh at 17 and 18, war is exciting. We went to Korea and we'd blow them up during the day and they'd fix them up during the night and we go back and blow them up during the day.

I have no idea how many people we killed, but I do know we killed one whole herd of cows. They were where we were supposed to be shooting. So we somebody ate good that week.

I loved hanging out with the guys where you cuss and spit and chew and we drank everything. We drank some stuff that was just downright dangerous. Thank God we didn't ever have to fire our torpedoes because there weren't any fuel left in them.

There's there's a way of straining the lead out of that, mixing it with grape juice and it'll put you to the moon. One of our guys, I know today he was an alcoholic. As they were taking me off the ship in handcuffs, they were bringing him back on in handcuffs.

This guy had drank so much torpedo fuel that his stomach was rotted. And he would tell you, "If you mess with me, I'll puke on you." And he could just without even thinking about it. But they brought him aboard and I was listening to him tell the quarter deck watch while he'd been gone for 30 days.

Well, he'd been kidnapped by the communist Chinese and held in a shack tied to the midpole for 30 days. While they interrogated him for all this incredible information, secret stuff he knew. I thought, I like that.

It won't fly, but what a story. He's one of us. I hope to God he got sober somewhere.

It doesn't surprise any of you, does it? >> Of course. Someone important as me, they knew right away.

Kidnapped this one. I went on liberty and just kept getting back late. When I drink alcohol, I get lost and can't find my way home on time or at all.

So, I'd get a captain's mask cuz I was a couple hours late getting back. The last time that happened, I was 23 days late getting back. I've been given a 24-hour liberty in Long Beach.

And 22 days later, I'm still in Persian Square in Los Angeles mooching drinks, willing to do and having done anything as long as I can keep drinking. Lost and baffled and scared, but I got to keep drinking. I could not go back to that ship under any circumstances.

I couldn't even run away and go home. On day 23, whatever that was wasn't there anymore. The madness was gone.

And I turned myself in and returned to the ship as a sane human being to face the consequences of my act, which put me in a federal penitentiary and gave me a bad conduct discharge. But I was baffled. Why would that happen?

What's wrong with me that that would happen? cuz I love the Navy. Well, in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, in a portion called The Doctor's Opinion, it tells me precisely why I did that.

Since I'm the only one with the first edition, we'll go to Roman numeral number 27. That's XXXVI for those of you who are illiterate. When I first came upon this, I was a sociopath type two, a psychopath, a manic depressive drug addict, dog tired, and not knowing what in the hell's wrong with me.

And they read this out loud to me. I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I've had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date favorably to them.

They took a drink a day or two prior to the date and then the phenomenon of craving that once became paramount to all other interests, and the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape. They were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.

And there it was, my first duck feather. I took a drink in Long Beach and 24 hours later I was due back on the ship and it was 22 days before I could go back to the ship. Some kind of craving took over that became paramount to all other interests.

It wasn't that I didn't love the Navy or my family or my job or me. It had nothing to do with anything except when I take a drink, I must continue to drink. It's paramount to all other interests, including life, family, work, health.

This is serious business, and I've got it. That's what's wrong with me. What a wonderful thing.

Does that ever happen to you? There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than can continue to fight. They kill themselves.

They are unable to to go on my second duck feather. I had just done that. I thought it was because of the drugs.

See, I'm not a drug addict. For 14 years, I used amphetamines. For four and a half, I injected them.

massive amounts, but I was always able to stop or moderate, to not use them. I had some control over that. I misused them terribly, but if it was important, I could quit with the alcohol.

Once I take a drink, I can't find my way home. That's all. If that happens to you, you're probably alcoholic.

I've been all the other things that you read in there. I'm not going to read this whole book to you. I was never all these all at one time, but in some part of my drinking, I was the the psychopath, the planned the drinking.

We used to drink ourselves solely, my friend Jordy and I. You know, normal people don't do that. when when we'd get what I call kneew walking drunk, which means that's the only way you can walk is on your hands and knees and we weren't through.

I mean, getting drunk is not the mark of an alcoholic. A lot of people like to get drunk. That means they finally drink themselves to a place where there's enough and they go to sleep or pass out or whatever.

When we reached that place, we weren't through. I have memories of reaching that place and sticking my finger down my throat so I could chuck all that stuff out so I had room for more. That's not normal drinking.

That's That's not even unhealthy drinking. Okay. Then Jordy and I found one time that when we got to that place, there was a particular brand of domestic champagne.

I don't know what it was, some cheap crap. And if we'd start drinking that, we would drink ourselves sober, meaning we would drink ourselves back to where we could get off our knees and felt like we were back in control where we could start drinking again. Did you have one of a brand like that to do that for you?

Yeah. That's not just hard drinking. I maybe once if you're on a toot and want to finish the toot, but we're talking about a lifestyle here for me that I did not see that nobody saw.

My friend Angie Dill says the second name for alcoholism is I ain't got it. I do not see what's going on. I'm blind.

So he goes through the different types of alcoholics and this just viewpoint please and he says that all these and many others have one symptom in common and this is a doctor talking to us. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. Now I had to get straight in my mind.

That doesn't mean when I take a drink I sudden I go I do the in here but not out here. It simply means if I take a drink of alcohol I will take another drink of alcohol. There are no circumstances possible where I won't be able to get another drink of alcohol.

I've either done it or heard it. hospitals, jails, prisons, detox centers. You'll always have a friend like me.

We had a lot of our friends end up in the psychiatric ward of Colorado General Hospital. And good old Don would bring it in. You'll always have a friend like me.

If you're like me, I know what you need. The doctors think you need thorosine. I know you need a drink.

Now the doctors are really baffled. They had you pinned down till you mix the thorazine and and the booze and where the hell they go. The phenomenon non as we have suggested may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiate differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity.

Another duck feather. I have felt my whole life that I was different. And my sponsor now says that's because you're different.

Yeah. I am not like my mother when it comes to alcohol or any other way. I am different.

I'm not like the people I even hung out with. I'm different. Unless they happen to be alcoholic and then we're different in the same way.

What a lovely piece of information. I'm different because I'm different. And you're different because you're different.

Our body chemistry is different. I watch Jackie drink. It's disgusting.

About once every five, six years, she'll have a Kúa. And I know the night's over. About 30 minutes later, she goes to sleep.

I've even seen her have two Kuan cream that lasts 23 minutes. God, what would you do with a Kulu and cream? Now, let me out of here and get something good.

Party's on. >> It has never been by any treatment with which we're familiar permanently eradicated. If you got it, you're doomed.

You got it. You got it forever. There's no treatment possible for this aspect of alcoholism to this day.

And they have tried. My god, they've come up with some pills and some enzyme changes and all that. Alcoholics who drank still drink.

Nothing can be done. All we can suggest is entire accidents. Don't drink.

this will never happen if you don't drink. And and the identifier here is if if this phenomenon of craving does not happen to me, then all the bizarre behaviors that follow that first drink don't happen to me either. Since I've quit drinking, I can not only find my way home, I'm usually on time.

I've been living in the same house for coming up on what, my god, 21 years, over 20 years. And there hadn't been a single night that I got lost and couldn't find my way there. I can't say that I quit going to the penitentiary.

Uh I go a lot. In fact, I have the keys. I work in corrections.

for two years. I I I stood in front of a of a prison in North Carolina while they literally handed me the keys. And that thing ran through me.

I wonder if they know who they're giving these to. I supervised programs in 15 penitentiies. Came and went as I pleased.

And I thought, what a marvelous thing. What a change that is. Okay?

Because I never had liked penitentiies, but I had an experience in a maximum security penitentiary five years ago, four years ago. There was a burning bush kind of thing. I was, it was night.

We were in the center of a maximum security penitentiary surrounded by bad guys. And a sense of safety came over me. And the thought with it, I have never been any safer nor will I ever be any safer than I am at this moment.

completely at peace with that. Let me tell you while those thing those events are important. That's what I carry with me into that penitentiary.

If I'm going to go, here's an axiom for you. It's not in the big book, but it's here in different words. Large caged animals are nervous.

Minnesota farmers know that. That's why bulls have plenty of room to move. People who are responsible for keeping large caged animals caged are even more nervous.

Okay. New people who come to me because God sends me the psychopaths and the sociopaths are large caged animals and they are nervous. So, it behooves me not to make any sudden movements.

Do you ever watch somebody work big bulls? Easy does it. I never have had any trouble at all.

Ever. Including the psych wars of maximum security penitentiies. I've never had trouble with the inmates.

I have to be really careful of the keepers. They are nervous. So, if you're going to do this work, and you probably will, just remember, don't make any quick moves.

You'll be okay around Chuck. You didn't make any quick moves at all. Here, Chuck.

Yeah. Right. Oh, yeah.

Clint knows it. We got a guy 6'4 in one of our groups back home. Chuck's about 5 foot2.

And this guy made the mistake. What step are you working, Sunny? And Sunny just quietly informed me, said, "You big I can climb up one side of you, cross your head, and down the other side, and chew your ankles off before you can even take another breath.

Back off." And he did. So, I've got a disease, an illness, an actual physical allergy. If I had an allergy to tomatoes and I ate tomatoes, I break out with a rash.

The symptom of my disease, one of the symptoms of my disease is simply that I break out with an itch for another drink if I take a drink. That's the manifestation of my allergy. It will cause me to have to have another drink and it will be paramount to all of Can you think see what that does to the guilt in a human being?

I really love my family and my children, but I'd take a drink and they became secondary. And I don't know why. I just know if I have to make a choice between them and a drink, I'll take the drink.

And it just eats me alive. I don't want to be that way. And I'm powerless over it.

I can't stop it from happening. The only solution we have is don't drink. Well, that that leads to a problem, doesn't it?

Suck with must have been something. Smokers are getting restless. >> Hallelujah, brother.

The snakes come later. I need a smoke. What's your pleasure?

It's shortly after 11. We're going to run till about 11:30. We can keep running.

We can break now and come back at 1:00. We can come back at 12:30. This schedule is lovely.

Don't pay any attention to it. We get to do what we damn well please. What What's your pleasure?

I I really can tell that some of the smokers need to smoke. And we are at about a place where I want to start something that's going to take more than 15 minutes. >> 12:30.

>> Okay. Take a break. Back here at 12:30.

>> Good. >> Okay. >> Enough's enough.

>> That locked in. Thank you. Not everyone's here yet.

How long do you want to wait? >> We'll put you some more ice. >> Okay.

We don't have an opening. We We've pretty much done away with when you get my age things go. First thing is your memory.

Then uh uh ritual So at 6:00 in the morning, we gather and we get quiet. We've gone back to real basics. The originally as a was forming the first group activities of course came out of the customs of the Oxford group and that was simply be still until someone was inspired to say something.

That was the morning meaning at Henrietta's house and other places. So my little group does that. It's kind of interesting.

We got concerned with ritual because we began to see that we were ritualizing people to death. We were teaching them our lingo and not teaching them our principles. And uh I don't know if you've had the experience I have where I got my group did it right for so many years.

When I went to somebody else's group, you weren't doing it right. And it all had to do with the rituals. But anyway, we get still understand our core group in my group.

It's an autonomous AA group that meets in a correctional facility in a basement, but we are an autonomous outside AA group and that's just we pay rent and everything. We do that so the inmates have an opportunity to have access. We won't sign slips.

We won't do anything. They can come or not. And since they don't know our ritual, when they come, they get still with us.

So their first exposure to aa is be still and listen, which is what saved my life. I just realized that, by the way, we've been doing it. Most of the things that I tell you are things that I just realized that I've been doing for a long time, and I just finally realized it.

That's very nice. And if you will think about the power of God, the greatest demonstration of the power of God for us is to be in a room full of alcoholics who are being quiet. That takes a lot of power.

Okay. So, thank you. I'm reentered.

We're going to bounce along here. First time through Bill's story, I didn't identify with much because I was looking at what happened. That has changed.

I am Bill. He went to play golf. I went off to become a semi-pro bowler.

I didn't want to be a professional because you have to work too hard. As a semi-pro, I could drink a lot and get by, which is all I really wanted to do anyway. But I would suggest something.

So, this is just my experience and my viewpoint this weekend. Let me share something I found here. Bill is at a state where he has been to Dr.

Silk Wars twice. The last time Lois has been told, "You might as well get him a keeper." at this rate, maybe a year, and you're looking at a dead man or an insane man. Just there's nothing more we can do.

And he's sitting at home drinking gin. He is drunk. Looking forward to getting even drunker when Ebie shows up.

The awakenings that Bill talks about in Bill's story occurred while he was drinking and while he was drunk, not when he was sober. That's important for me. God doesn't have a rule that says you got to be drunk before I'll come visiting or you got to be sober before I come visiting.

It happened for Bill while he was drinking. Drinking to the point where right after he awakened and let me see if I if awakening is the right word. Huh.

It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. That sounds like an awakening to me.

Drunk. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make a beginning.

We're on page 12. I'm sorry. I thought I was the big book experts who knew the pages.

I saw the growth could start from that point. That sounds like an awakening to me. Drunk.

And it's important to me because I need to remember and not be so damned arrogant in my 12step work that I insist that you be sober before I'll talk to you. If that had been the case, none of us would be here. Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want him enough.

Drunk. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes.

A new world came into view. That sounds like an awakening to me. And in that state I went to the hospital where I was separated from alcohol for the last time.

Treatment scene wise for I showed signs of glarian tremors. Please God let me remember that always. The suggestion in 12step work is that a man's mind needs to be cleared before we present all this information to him.

Uh, but it doesn't have to have a very clear mind to have someone come and be a demonstration for you and put the hope and wake you up. And anyway, I love this piece. If we could just be Bill and go through this, we wouldn't need all the rest of it cuz here it is.

It's all right here. There. I humbly offered myself to God as I then understood him to do with me as he would.

I placed myself unreservedly under his care and direction. I admitted for the first time that in myself I was nothing, that without him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my newfound friend take them away.

Root and branch. I've not had a drink since. My goodness, that's a lot of stuff.

The conception of a new found friend is one that I can always deal with. At my worst, there's hope. When there's a new found friend, maybe this time it'll work.

Here's somebody who cares just enough about me that maybe this time it'll be okay. There's that sense of hope. Hopefulness.

There's a concept of God I can work with. It has to it shatters everything else I've ever thought about God. We means God's going to be my friend.

Anybody have any problem with that one? Lots of people do. I was brought up believing Jesus loves me.

This I know for the Bible tells me so. But if you do something wrong, you're done. Confused the hell out of me.

Okay. My schoolmate visited me and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies. We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment.

I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them. I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability.

I like that much better than amend. We're not talking about a lightweight apology here. Lightweight apologies will not take care of the sense of overwhelming guilt that I have.

Our message has depth and weight. I can tell you, Danny, there's some work ahead. You've done some that you got to go back and clean up and it's going to just eat your lunch.

Thank God. Because if it were any less than that, it wouldn't have any meaning to me. I get to really go back and set right the wrongs I've done.

Boy, oh boy. Oh boy. 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.