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

Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. I'd like to introduce tonight's main speaker, Howard P.

from Arizona. >> Thank you. My name is Howard and I'm an alcoholic.

>> Hi, Michael. Thank you. Invite me to come and talk tonight.

It's an honor to be here. Got I want to thank Brian for talking. Appreciate that.

Brian gave a better talk than I'm going to give, but I'm going to take longer. I'm going to make up of it in quality for quantity. Uh, congratulations to the guys and gals that took the chips.

That's a very, you know, celebrating these milestones is a a big deal for me and and uh I hope it is for you. I uh I have a good life. I feel good about my life and uh I expect I expect to feel good about speaking here tonight.

Uh there's a couple things I'd like to say for those of you that don't know me. First, for the newcomers, speakers are not authorities in Alcoholics Anonymous. The big book is our primary authority.

Uh we have only one primary authority that is God as he speaks to us through the group conscience. But the big book is approved as our basic textbook by the group conscience. So that's our authority and speakers aren't.

And in recognition of that, when I'm asked to speak, I make up stuff and say that it's in the big book in order to add credibility to my talk. I make up page numbers and nobody ever checks. I get through I hear people say, "Well, he's not much of a speaker, but damn, he sure knew that big book, didn't he?" I also, even though that's the main clock up there, I will from time to time look at my watch.

I do not look at my watch to see what time it is. I look at my watch to give those of you that are worried about it a sense of optimism that I care what time it is. Life is good.

On page 45 in the big book, it says, "Lack of power is our dilemma." And that is certainly among many, many, many other instances in my life. I know in and of myself, I always lack the power to feel good. I felt bad.

Well, the best I felt I think was just kind of a state of low-grade alert about what the hell's going to go bad. And then when it went bad, I went, you know, off the chart with badness. But uh uh I I I can look back at my life now.

I have a good life thanks to the program and stuff. And I feel good about my life. And I feel good enough now about my life.

I can look back and see my life was always good, but I lacked the power to feel the goodness, to see the goodness. Lack of power was certainly my dilemma. I was I was born in Alhamra, California, but I was raised in this little farm community about 45 miles southwest of Witchah, Kansas, right there in what we called the Bible belt.

Now, we called it the Bible belt because that's what we thought it was. But after I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I called the Bible belt. And then I heard people from South Dotas say they they lived in the Bible belt and people in Arkansas, people all over the country.

Well, except in California. In California, hell, we know we ain't in the Bible belt. But every place else they they claim they're in the Bible belt.

And so nobody knows where the Bible belt is. But we know at Buckles about 45 miles southwest of Witchah, Kansas in the Methodist church. And uh that's where I found out about that be in the Bible belt.

That's where I learned that I was separate from God. I was told that God was up in heaven and I knew I wasn't in heaven. So I knew I was separate from God.

And I felt separate from everything. I felt like I was by myself. And I was told when I was a little kid that we were responsible for making our own lives work.

We had to do it. you know, and uh I I wasn't optimistic about being able to do it. I was also told that if I would do what God wanted me to do and then if I got my life into trouble, I could beseech God in prayer to help me.

And if I had been good, God would help me. But if I wasn't, I out of luck. That was the way they said it in the Methodist church.

Uh and maybe they said so, but we knew what that was. under any circumstances, I didn't have any optimism. I couldn't make that work.

I I remember the first time that I prayed and knew who I was praying to and what I was praying for. And I was about four years old. And we all prayed in the Methodist church for it not to rain because they're going to start wheat harvest that next day.

So, we didn't want it to rain till after wheat harvest. And I'm telling you, it rained that day. It hailed that day.

The wind blew that day. It destroyed all the wheat in Sar County, Kansas. And while nobody pointed the finger at me, I knew whose fault it was.

I knew who wasn't doing what you have to do to have God answer your prayers. And I kind of believed everybody else was doing it. So I knew I was responsible for wiping out the wheat crop.

Now, if you're four or five years old and you've assumed the entire responsibility for wiping out the wheat crop, you have an ego problem. And I had the ego problem. I still have the ego problem, but I really had the ego problem.

Then I assumed responsibility for stuff like the wheat crop. I didn't feel good about wiping out the wheat crop. I didn't feel good about my relationship with God.

I lacked the power to feel good. I was raised by a a German family. The whole family were German.

My my mom's maid name was Stu Miller. My dad was Poland's. They were not happy golucky Bavarian beer garden Germans.

They were Prussian Germans. They were stern, disciplinarian, rigid. And you did what you was told or you'd get a whippon.

They had another theory and they'd whip you anyway on the theory that you should have by God known better. Or they had whip you on another theory. I god you'll know better the next time.

I had another theory. Don't cry when you get whipped. Well, I never got the hang of that.

You whip me, I'm going to cry. And and then dad get mad some, you know. And I got beaten several times.

I mean, just just really beaten beaten. And that didn't make me an alcoholic, but I want to tell you, I never got where I like being beaten. I understand that some people do, you know, but I'm not one of those.

I don't even understand those people. I didn't feel good about the kind of kid I was. I didn't feel good about being whipped.

I didn't feel good about the kind of student I was. I wasn't I was a good student, but I wasn't as good as I could have been. You know, if I got good grades, I could have always done better or I should have been doing that good all the time.

So, you know, and that's no big deal. It's just that I didn't feel good about myself or about my life. And it didn't make any difference about the circumstances in my life.

My feeling good thing was broke. I think you know uh I also make up stuff about the grapevine in the October 1967 grapevine. There's an article called the pharmarmacological approach to alcoholism and in that article there's a doctor wrote it and he describes kind of a mechanism in the central nervous system which responds to the perception of a threat by releasing adrenaline and and steroids and and other chemicals out in your body for additional strength.

And he proposes that the alcoholic has a biochemical defect in his system. so that he feels a state of lowrade alert even when there's not a threat to perceive. he feels like there is so then he looks for it and if you look for it let me tell you you'll find it and uh uh and then you know there's uh Murphy's law nothing is as easy as it looks something can go wrong it will go wrong and at the worst man I when I heard that I remember saying tell me that again man that's the truth that is a fundamental feature of my life.

After I came to AA, it dawned on me Murphy's law works if you work it. And I had worked Murphy's Law even before I heard about it. When I was 12 years old, I drank whiskey for the first time.

I drank about a half of a half a pint of whiskey. And it did for me what it did for nearly every alcoholic that I've talked about. It made me feel good.

And I'm telling you, I did not I had never had I had never felt good before. Now, many of you don't know this maybe, but other people feel good without drinking. I feel good now from time to time, lots of times without drinking.

I never felt that before. And uh and and and I I later found out that that is a spiritual experience that feeling good feeling. And how I found it out was from the big book on page 569.

They describe a spiritual experience and the language they use in describing the experience is a change in consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Is that a half of a half a pint of whiskey? You bet.

A change in consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. And for me, I have further verification of this being a spir a spiritual experience from that same page where it says this experience is frequently accompanied by a sudden spectacular upheaval. Mine always were.

Always I would drink. I'd have that wonderful change of consciousness and then a little bit would have an upheaval. And I, you know, I drank that way.

I drank not to throw up, but I drank to have fun, be somebody special, have a good time, and never could do that, you know, without the drinking. I never liked the throwing up. When I was in the Navy, I asked some of the guys I ran with who didn't throw up, or if they did, I didn't see them.

And I said, "How do you not throw up?" Oh, they had answers. One guy said, 'Well, the problem is, he said, now I don't throw up, but if I did, the answer to not throwing up is eat a quarter of a pound of butter before you go on Liberty and that'll coat your stomach. All right.

All right. But I believed it and I tried it and I threw up butter like you wouldn't believe. Then I asked somebody else and the guy said, "Forget the butter.

Putters in your booth. If you put bitters, then it's going to get the hiccup just like that. Man, I put bitters in it.

I threw up bitters just the way I threw up butter. Now, I was in Alcoholics Anonymous for a little while. And I heard Norm Alfie talk.

And Norm Alfie talked about throwing up Seven High. And it dawned on me, hell, I haven't thrown up since I stopped drinking whiskey. It was the goddamn whiskey that was making me throw up.

Drinking whiskey made me throw up. But I couldn't believe I could. Whiskey was the solution.

Whiskey cannot be the problem. And otherwise a guy as smart as we think we are would stop. No, it was the lack of butter.

It was the lack of bitter or it was something other than whiskey. Whiskey was the solution and it was the solution. Uh getting married wasn't the solution.

That certainly wasn't the solution. Although I was sure it would be. I fell in love with my the lady that was going to be my wife when we were in the seventh grade.

There were 21 of us in this little class in Argon, Kansas. And we went through the seventh grade on through high school together. She was my girlfriend.

I was her boyfriend in seventh grade. But after we got into high school, she decided to go with more mature boys. And uh God, I'll tell you, I sure I she was my dream girl.

And I never liked the fact that but but I never told her I loved her but I knew I did. And then I came home in the Navy and when we was 20 and man I quartered her. I'd learned some Shakespeare and some other stuff and and uh uh so we got married was 20.

I had a monk yet to do in the Navy and then we were married 20 years. Had three children. One of them is here tonight.

And uh we were married about 20 years when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm telling you, she needed Alanon when we were in the seventh grade. And she never heard of Alanon till I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

So I'm telling you, she did not understand my drinking. And she didn't want to understand it. I tried to tell her.

I told her one time, you know, I had one of those deep penetrating thoughts where you had insight into the foundation of the universe. And I was going to tell her and I forgot what the hell I was going to say about halfway into the sentence. And she said, "You're drunk again." Oh, God.

I hated that. You know, she I bet you a thousand times, more than a thousand times, she would say, "Don't you think you had enough?" And the fact was, "No, I didn't think I had enough. If I could still think, I think I'll have another drink." I got a job in the 60s actually 1959 as an entry- levelvel engineer and I was a process analyst and I was good at at analysis and I knew the processes that I was responsible for.

So I was good process analyst but one of the things they require in that work assignment was to write reports and and I did not know what the hell they wanted in the report for some reason and any and if I didn't know then I was just shut down. I could not I couldn't do it. And then I was immobilized and and it would get worse and my boss criticized me for my report writing.

And uh I didn't like that. I had to have this one report done on Friday and it was Wednesday quitting time and I hadn't even started the report and I took it home to work on it at home. And I never drank during the week back then.

I drank on weekends. I was the captain of the patio party to make sure we had enough beer and stuff there, but I didn't drink during the weekends. During the week, but this night there was a about a half a pint of whiskey in the refrigerator, and I drank about half of that.

And whatever had kept me from knowing how to write technical reports went away. And the pieces just came to I knew I knew how to describe as an introduction the analysis that I had performed and then I went through step by step through the analysis and the results and then in conclusion recommended corrective action and I knew it was a good report and I had a technical vocabulary that I didn't know I had and uh I got this report typed up and circulated ready for approval. Everybody signed it.

And my boss's boss came up to me a couple days later and said, "Did you write this report?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I knew you could do it if you just give us the effort." And I remember thinking, "Effort your ass? I gave you effort. It wasn't effort.

It was whiskey." But I thought that. But I knew, don't tell him that. Let him think effort.

They'll give you a raise for effort. They won't give you anything for whiskey. The important thing is I know it was the whiskey and I'm telling you it was the whiskey and from then on and I wrote good reports and I know and I know many of you know I was in fact smarter after I had about a half of a half a pint of whiskey and and I could and I did have a better better vocabulary and they were good reports and I went from a process analyst to an engineer to a senior engineer.

And I left General Dynamics Astronautics 1966 and and and moved to Hughes in Culver City as kind of a senior senior engineer. And then I was an engineering supervisor. And the only reason I ever got only way I kept the job I had or got any promotion because I drank whiskey and I I had discovered you don't have to wait till Wednesday night to drink whiskey.

Hell, you can start any day at lunch. Then I had found out you can start any time of any day. It's four o'clock in the afternoon someplace and it worked up until about well there was a lot of trouble with it too.

There was some trouble not with the drinking but just there's a lot of trouble. Good thing I drank or I couldn't have spit it. But uh having I'm having trouble with my wife now.

I'm having trouble with my boss. I can't explain to him that I have to drink whiskey in order to write reports. We know that I can't do that.

And uh I got drunk one day at lunch. And uh uh he talked to me about it the next night. He told me about a guy that worked for him who came back from lunch drunk and he said, "I fire I I demoted him and he'll never get another promotion." So I got the message.

I hadn't just fallen off the turnup truck. I mean I got the message. Then next time I got drunk at lunch, I didn't come back.

And then the next time, now he's telling me about about a guy that worked for him that would get drunk at lunch and not come back. And he said, "I fired him." Jesus, you can't please some people. How unreasonable can they be?

Well, in January of 1972, he demoted me, took me out of my supervisor job and said, "You've lost credibility with me and with the people that you were supervising." Now, he didn't fire me. He put me on cut me back to engineering and gave me uh assignment to do special assignments for him, but he didn't fire me. See, those are what I call bottoms.

And when I hit bottom, I got well again and drank. And uh soon after that, I had told my wife I was going to quit forever. I said, I I know it.

And and my wife was always for the last 20 years ever let a whipstitch. She was going to leave me. And I did not want her to leave me.

So I would promise to do better. And I'll tell you, I would sweet talk her. I'd do Shakespeare.

Whatever the hell it took so that she would stay. And then and I would stop drinking and I would mean it, but then some some I'd have to have a drink and then I'd be right down the tube and she's going to leave. Well, I told her I was going to stop drinking in January of 1972 and I didn't last very long.

I don't even know if I made it today, but I know I didn't last very long. And then the next I went home after not even going to work, but sitting in the tattletail drinking all day. Then I went home and I said, "Pat, some people are born to drink." And I'm one of those.

And if the only way you'll stay with me is for me to stop drinking, you're going to have to go because I am not going to stop drinking. It's It's too important to me. That's too much for me.

Now, you can go to a lawyer. Get everything put in your name. Uh whatever you need to do.

I I want you to stay. I don't want you to leave. But I am not and I'm going to I'm not going to drink as much, but I'm going to drink.

And uh the next morning when I woke up, I thought, Jesus Christ, why did you say that to her? You know, now you got yourself You got to just shut up. You keep getting yourself in more trouble.

All day long I sweat this. I came home and quit in time and I said, "Did you go see the lawyer?" She said, "Yes, I did." I said, "You going to get stuff put in your name?" She said, "The lawyer says we don't have any stuff except a mortgage and we're going to leave that in your name." But she said, "The lawyer says that you sound like you're an alcoholic and why don't I ask you to go to Alcoholics Anonymous?" I said, "Pat, Alcoholics Anonymous is for people whose life is in trouble because of their drinking. our life isn't in trouble.

If we get in trouble, I'll stop drinking. But we're not in any trouble. Not too long after that after a weekend's drinking.

A lot of drinking. I couldn't My right leg didn't work when I Well, it would work, but not every time. And I didn't know when it wasn't going to work.

And when it didn't work, it would just double up, you know, and I'd do, I suppose, what a ballet dancer would call a pirouette kind of face first into the wall. And I was seeing double. When I woke up, I still seeing double.

And and a little while later, I'm seeing double. I could not focus my eyes together. So, they're just one of anything.

And at three days of that was going on and then my son my oldest son took me to the doctor Pat of course uh I don't know if any of you guys have ever been to an Allenon meeting but I've heard my wife speak at an alenon meeting and when she gets to this one place she says and all at once I realized that the only solution for my kids and I was going to be that Howard had to die. Everybody applauds. I mean, there's identification here.

That seems to be a characteristic of people who belong at Alanon. Now, when we get to this place where I'm doing all of this stuff and I have a convulsive seizure, Pat sees this as a mixed blessing. One, in a way, she's going to hate to lose me, but she's not going to have to kill me because it looks like I'm going to kill myself.

So, that was her confusing. Uh uh I told the doctor when he asked me I said I don't drink at all. He said my god if you drank I'd know what's wrong.

I said well that's not it. And little bit he said are you sure you don't drink? I said Garrett godamn you don't question my integrity.

I went back after I was in the program a while to make amends. He showed up on my amends list. I said, "I used to really drink a lot.

I was really drinking a lot when I came to see you that time." And then he showed me what he had written in my record. He said, "This man is acutely intoxicated with probable alcoholic neuropathy." And uh so I had him fooled. I had during this period of time got us hopelessly in debt.

I say hopelessly in debt, but I got out of debt when I got sober. But I felt hopeless at the time. I had a a credit card my wife didn't know about.

And I was double the limit on the credit card. So I borrowed money, which she didn't know about it, from the credit union so I could pay the credit card down. And first thing you know, you guys won't believe this, but I'm double the limit on the credit card again.

So I have to buy more money from the credit union. Now there's a lot of pressure on you know, I mean, god damn, there's enough stress anyway without this stuff. And I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't own.

Equipment that I found right before Hughes lost it. And I gave it to this fence to sell. And we're going to split the money.

Nine days later, I'm in the tattletail. It's Sunday. I had just paid my tab Friday.

Now I'm broke and I'm further into the tab on Sunday than I had been into the tab when I paid it off Friday. And I don't have any money or any hope for any money until next Friday, if I make it till next Friday. And I thought, I think I'll sell these industrial entrepreneurs here in the Tattletail some electronic test equipment that they might use in their factories.

I think whiskey had stopped making me smart. The next morning when I by the way I didn't sell any test equipment but when I came to the next morning I you know and the little paragraph on page eight no one no words can express the loneliness and despair I found in this bitter morass of self-pity quicksand stretched all around me. There was no bottom to this quicksand.

You see, there were bottoms to all this other stuff. And I'd stop long enough to get well and then I'd start again. But I'm telling you, there's no bottom here.

The equipment is not there. The equipment is test equipment that has been calibrated in a test lab to standards and is scheduled for recalibration. And when it comes up to recalibrate, they're going to send somebody else to get it.

Well, let me tell you, that guy ain't going to find the equipment. And when he can't find equipment, he's got to fill out a letter of report. Security comes, huge security comes looking for the equipment.

When they can't find it, they have to send a report in to the federal government who send out agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to find out what the hell happened to the government's property. And I experienced the feeling having realized this of as described on page 30 of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. And I think god and and my kids are candidates for the disgrace of that.

And every father wants their kids respect and and I didn't have it didn't deserve it. And now I was going to disgrace him. And I saw I'm going to have to stop drinking until this blows over.

Then I remembered what Pat said about AA and I thought if I call AA that'll get me off the hook with her. This will be a good place to hide out. I will stop drinking or I'll cut down to beat hell until this blows over.

And and uh and so I I I I went to I started to go to work. I stopped by the quickstop liquor store, got a half a pint of whiskey, and I drank it. Then I went to work and I called the guy that I knew was the president of Alcoholics Anonymous Worldwide, a guy named Kenny Sixburgh.

Used to drink in the Tattletail. He left the Tattletail, apparently went to Alcoholics Anonymous and now been elected president. me and those other entrepreneurs got our facts pretty straight and that was the facts that we saw him in the tattletail and uh so I got his phone number and called him and I asked him if he was in AA and if he'd take me to an AA meeting and he said uh yeah are you drinking now and I said no which is the truth I had drank a half a pint but right now I'm not drinking he said try not to drink anymore four.

Well, I drank more. I drank three more half a pints. And I was taking a lethal dose of pennies every day.

And I took uh my bunch of pennies. And by 6:00 in the evening, I did not know why I had called Alcoholics Anonymous. Things things aren't really that bad.

I hope this guy don't show up. But he showed up driving a pickup truck, which was just what I thought the president of Alcoholics Anonymous would be driving. And uh uh I got in the truck and I said, "I am not an alcoholic." He smiled.

He still has a great smile. He smiled and said, "I don't know if you're an alcoholic or not, but we're going to the right place." And he took me to the Culver City Studio Group, which just celebrated its 60th anniversary. It's an old group.

It was a big book based group, bunch of old-timers. And uh they they I was warmly welcomed and uh I'd made feel at home and and I was telling each person I wasn't an alcoholic. And each person was saying, "That's all right.

You're in the right place." Except one guy. One guy named Charlie Pit. I said, "I am not an alcoholic." And Charlie said, "You don't have to be an alcoholic to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous or the Cover City Studio Group.

You don't have to think you're an alcoholic. You don't have to say you're an alcoholic. He said, "What is the requirement to become a member is a desire to stop drinking." And if you were drinking earlier today and you have a desire to stop drinking now, that's all that's required.

And if you decide you want to be a member, then you are a member. If you have a desire to stop drinking, you want to be a member, that's the only nomination and that's the only vote you're in. He said, ' That's how everybody here got in.

He said, 'W whether you're here or not, your place will always be here. Nobody can take your place and Alcoholics Anonymous. And what a hell of a nice thing to say to somebody that hasn't had that many nice things said to them and shouldn't have, but I'm welcome here.

And uh in the book on Roman numeral page 8, it says something about we are 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And I know today that it is a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body only because Alcoholics Anonymous exists. If Alcoholics Anonymous did not exist, it is a hopeless state of mind and body for me because no place else in our culture is anybody doing anything or saying anything that could possibly have helped me and the Alcoholics Anonymous has.

And one of the things about you guys that made the whole difference for me was whenever else in my life people tried to help me, right before they could tell me the answer to my problem, they had to tell me what I was doing wrong. God, I don't care how much I like you and you tell me I'm wrong. I hate you and I don't want to listen to you and you have no credibility.

Just get the hell away from me. I don't want to be that way. I didn't I was that way and it was all right with me to be that way, but I hadn't started out to be that way.

That's just the way I was. And uh I had become a person where it was important to me to be right. And after a while, it was important for me that you know I'm right.

And if you happen to see things different than I do, then it's important to me that you know you're wrong. And that was just kind of the way I was. Also didn't want to be that way, but that's the way I was.

Did not want to be that way either because I didn't know I was that way. I just knew I was right and you were wrong and you should know it. I come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Nobody's ever told me I was wrong. Nobody ever told me I was full of People told me that all my life, but you guys never have. What you've told me is what's wrong with you.

You have told me what you used to be like, what happened to what you're like now. You told me about not having the power to feel good in and of yourself. Having a knot in your gut, having a hole in your gut where the wind blows through.

You see, I I know about that and I don't know anybody else knows about that. But you say that about you and I know you and I have something in common. And then you talk about the obsession of the mind that somehow someway this time I'm just going to drink a half a pint through the day.

I'm going to baby the half a pint through the day. And man, I was going to do that every day. Every day I just I wasn't going to drink any more than a half a pint.

God damn it. I drink more than that. And I get I'm just going to drink a half a pint.

When I was drinking just a half a pint, I got promotions. I could think. back at work.

Brilliant. That's all I'm going to do today. Of course, that half a pint's gone by 10:00 in the morning, and I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking, well, I don't mean just exactly a half a pint.

I'm going to average a half a pint. I won't want a full half a pint tomorrow. I think I'll go get tomorrow's half a pint at lunch and have a drink out of it at lunch.

And I won't I won't mind tomorrow. Tomorrow, half a pint gone by 2:00 in the afternoon. And it should get off my back.

I'll drink if I goddamn want to. I hurting anybody. Then I stopped and did another half a pint on the way home so that when I opened it in front of my wife and took a drink out of it, she would see why I smelled like I'd been drinking because she just saw me take my first drink.

And she knew I couldn't drink very much because by the time I finished that half a pint, I'd be sleeping on the floor and everybody be relaxed. They'd be glad he's asleep, you know. Then I get up the next morning, you won't guess what an intelligent person like myself would think in any other area of my life.

If it hadn't have been the booze, if it had been something else, I would have thought, I can't have any more of that until Friday because if Monday I used it all up, you know, now I'm into Friday. Not 10. Tuesday morning I get up, I go by the quick stop liquor store.

Why? cuz I'm going to get a half a pint of whiskey and that's all I'm going to drink today. That's insane.

That is an insane obsession. And coupled with that is a physical reaction that manifests itself in for me not a craving but in me wanting to have another drink and having it and then having another and then wanting another and wanting another and taking them. I told that to my sponsor.

I never craved to drink. He said, 'Well, there's a kind of alcoholic who once they start drinking, they keep slugging them down so fast that the craving doesn't have an opportunity to set in. I'm one of those.

Now, I can look back and see I had a lot of cravings and anyway, it was a wonderful experience for me and I was warmly welcomed. And uh after the meeting, I told Kenny that I was an alcoholic. I said, "I'm an alcoholic, but they won't work for me because of all that stuff about God, and I'm not going to work the steps." He smiled and said, "When you got in the truck to come to the meeting, the first thing you said is, "You are not an alcoholic." Now, after one meeting, you get in the truck and you say, "You are an alcoholic, but you're not going to work the steps, and it won't work for you because of God.

He said, "You don't know it, but on page 30 of our big book, it says, "When we fully concede to our innermost selves that we are an alcoholic, that's the first step in recovery." And so there you're already taking the steps, but you don't know it. He said, "What has worked for me and what I would suggest to you is to not drink. Don't take bies." I had even told him I took Benny's.

Don't know how he noticed unless Unless you noticed I said the same things over and over really fast. Go to meetings sober and listen like someone would who wants to learn some new answers for how to live their life. And he said, "I did that." And time and time and time and time again, I would hear somebody describe a solution to a problem that I didn't know I had until I heard them describe that solution and my head would say, "If I would do that in that same situation, my life would be better." And he said, "In those situation, I would do that and my life has gotten better." So don't drink.

Don't worry about the steps. just don't drink and go to meetings. And uh and I did that and I got laughed.

I'd never laughed before in my life. I remember Jo who some of you guys would know from years and years ago. She lived in this area and she's wonderful gal.

>> She brought laughter to me like nobody ever had. And she talked about shaking her fist in God's face and saying, "Why me?" She said a booming voice came to me here and said, "Because flo there's something about you that pisses me off." Now, I knew she hadn't heard that, but I loved her. I loved her for saying it.

I heard Tommy Omera say, "If you make one mistake and brood about having made that mistake, you've made two mistakes." And the brooding is probably the worst consequence of the first mistake. I knew that I'd made my mistakes like that too at the time all my life. I heard Ski from San Diego say he was 36 years and learning that all the people dedicated didn't feel it.

Guy named Archie Johnson who you'd recognize if you saw Archie passed away. He was an actor. I loved Archie.

Archie said one night when he was speaking, "I'm so busy today wanting what I was getting that I didn't have time to worry about getting what I wanted." And na we learn to live in the now right now. And whatever's happening right now, love that because that's what's going to happen anyway. And not liking it makes the situation worse.

I thought, let's jab Archie in the eye with a sharp stick. Let's put his theory to test because that's the way I am and that's the way I think. I know it all and I'm right.

But I go outside and it's raining and I've hated the rain since I wiped out the wheat crop for Christ's sake. And I say it's going to rain anyway. That's what Archie me and I I'm going to love the rain.

And it's that easy. I'm telling you, it's that easy. There's nothing complicated about it.

It I just love the rain because I decided I was going to love the rain. And then when it stopped raining, I had to adjust my attitude. Went to a meeting one day.

I wasn't ever going to go to a meeting again. And there was many nights, many days I was not going to go a meeting cuz the day was bad. And I would say, "Aa, don't work.

I am not going to go shake hands, grin like a baboon, and say, "Isn't this wonderful? It is not wonderful, and I'm not going to the meeting. I'm not going to drink, but I'm not going to the meeting." Every night that I said that, every day that I said that, that night, I forgot I wasn't going to the meeting.

And I went to the meeting. And this night, it was the Malibu meeting on Saturday night, and Don Gates was the speaker. And Don Gates said that night in a wonderful talk.

He said, "If you're new in AA and you're not working the steps, AA will stop being fun and you'll decide that AA doesn't work. And you decide you're not going to meetings anymore. You're not going to drink, but you're not going to go to those damn meetings." He said, "You don't go to meetings for a while, then you'll go to the bar and order a drink.

And if you do that, the bartender says, "What's the matter? I thought you was going to AA. Don't AA work?" Said, "If you're not working the steps, be honest with him and tell him you don't know if AA works or not because you wouldn't try.

There's nothing in my head to pop off about that. I knew that that was true. And I made a commitment to myself that I was going to work the steps.

Not that I expected anything to happen. But if they then I could say it don't work, but I cannot say it don't work if I won't do it. And I did a fourth step.

And I discovered in the fourth step that my dad is not my problem. My dad whipping me is not my problem. My problem is I am afraid and because I'm afraid I cannot get out of my own way unless I'm pissed off.

That's the only way my only source of strength. That and dishonesty and other selfish and self-seeking things. That's the problem.

I don't know what the hell I'm going to do about it, but I do a fifth step and a sixth step and seventh step. in the in in the eighth and ninth step, my my sponsor tracked down the equipment that I'd stolen and sold and and uh my wife and I went to the bank and borrowed the money and bought the damned equipment and took it back to Hughes. I started to tell my boss I stole I was bringing it back.

He said, "Just go home. I'll see you in the morning." When I come in next morning, called me into his office. He said, "I had that equipment recalibrated.

It's in perfect working order. I don't know where it's been, but I know it wasn't stolen. Cuz if it was stolen, I wouldn't have it.

And I have it. Ain't that right, Howard? I said, "That's right, K." He said, "I read the procedures last night, company procedures on this, and it said we have to fire anybody that steals from us." And I couldn't find any provisions for bringing this back.

So, if I was you, I'd never say anything to anybody about this. I said, "I won't." And I haven't. I'm quitting.

I'm quitting. My time's passed up. I'm quitting.

But I'm going to quit with this for the newcomer. Now, the other guys here that have some time have had this experience. So, they know they'll vouch for me.

When I woke up the next now, any time from when I took the equipment until after I took it back, I would have told you as honestly as I can, I do not care that I stole the equipment. I just don't want to get caught. I do not want the consequences.

And that's the reason I don't want to take it back. I mean, this is insane to take it back. But the next morning after I took it back, I woke up and the weight of the world was off my back when I had no idea the weight was there and I felt good and I hadn't drank and I hadn't used and I had goosebumps and I don't know how long the goodness lasted but it embedded itself in my mind.

So lots of times when I'm telling about it I feel it again. Lots of times when I think about it, I feel it again. And I keep doing this thing and these good things happen and I feel it and I remember it.

So that this morning when I woke up, I knew I was going to have a good day and I have had a good day. I could have never had a good day except for Alcoholics Anonymous. Without you, it is the hopeless state of mind and body for me.

I was reading the book on meditation. Read a ton of them. The best thing written on meditation alcohol and non step 11 and quotequote in my opinion the best thing for me that's it.

This other book said if you can find God through an intellectual exercise and be convinced that God is there then that's the way for you to do it. Or if you just feel the presence of God in your life and know that that is God then that's the way for you to do it. But whatever way you find God, mark that spot and go sit in that window again.

This is my window right here in this place with you guys. I'm very, very grateful for it. Thank you for letting me share.

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.