My Parakeet Died With Two Years Sobriety – AA Speaker – Jack H.
AA speaker Jack H. from San Jose shares his story of drinking with his parakeet, hitting bottom after 90 days sober, and finding lasting recovery through the Big Book and sponsorship.
Jack H. from San Jose is a Navy veteran who spent decades as a functional alcoholic, working hard and drinking harder until his disease progressed into full-blown chaos. In this AA speaker tape, he tells the remarkable story of his parakeet Petey—his drinking buddy who became a symbol of how far the disease had taken him—and how he eventually returned to the program after a nine-month relapse, found a sponsor who wouldn’t let him off the hook, and began studying the Big Book in a way that transformed his entire understanding of recovery and spiritual awakening.
Jack H., an AA speaker from San Jose, shares his 60+ year sobriety story beginning with his youth as the only alcoholic in a Tennessee farming family, his Navy service, and decades of active alcoholism where he even drank bourbon with his parakeet named Petey. After 90 days sober in AA, he relapsed for nine months before returning on March 6, 1958—the day that marked his real birthday in sobriety—and then devoted himself to Big Book study, sponsorship, and the 12 steps. The talk covers his detailed exploration of all 12 steps, the concept of pride as the root of alcoholic thinking, and how carrying the message through service work kept him engaged in the program for decades.
Episode Summary
Jack H. walks into the room with the energy of a man who’s lived a full life and isn’t afraid to tell you exactly what happened. He opens by acknowledging the newcomers—a kindness that sets the tone for what’s to come—then launches into his story with the directness of someone who’s been sober a very long time and has nothing left to hide.
His childhood in Tennessee was sober until age 14, when he discovered alcohol at a dance and felt “10 feet wide and 20 feet tall” for the first time. That transformation hooked him instantly. He tried to control it, promised himself he’d switch to homemade brew, but control never worked. By 15, he nearly died from poisoned liquor. By 18, he’d convinced his father to sign Navy papers to get him out of the house.
The Navy years took Jack to Hong Kong, the Philippines, through World War II, and onto the California coast—places where his drinking accelerated and deepened. He court-martialed three times before age 21, always for being drunk and taking too long to get somewhere. A captain once pulled him aside and said, “That’s where you’re going to be before you’re 25—sleeping in doorways on Third and Howard.” Jack went ashore and got drunk instead.
He met his wife in San Jose and convinced her he was a wealthy tobacco plantation owner. They married anyway—she’s a miracle, he says, because she stayed through everything. After the Navy, he worked for himself, made good money, and drank more the harder he worked until the equation reversed: the more he drank, the less he had. His wife would tie his shoelaces together and give him the “hot foot” with wooden matches. He’d come out of his chair and tear up the furniture. She’d say, “You fell down.” She loved him so much she nearly killed him.
Then came Petey—the parakeet. Jack let the bird have bourbon, and Petey became his drinking companion. The parakeet learned all the language of drunken poker games, chased the family dog when aroused by whiskey, and passed out on the floor beside Jack. One night Jack stepped on him—240 pounds on a parakeet—and thought he’d killed his best friend. But Petey fluffed back up, had a couple snorts of whiskey, and they continued their parties together. “You got to be pretty damn sick to drink with birds,” Jack says. He loved that bird, and that bird loved him.
By the early 1950s, the disease was progressing. Jack would come home and stand with his thumb on the doorbell and his head on the screen door, passed out. He’d wake thinking he had measles—the marks were from being shoved through the screen door down the stairs. His wife wasn’t leaving. His kids weren’t there—he’d send them to motels. His shadows and music that nobody was playing. Just him and Petey, drunk, the dog hiding under the bed.
On March 17, 1957—St. Patrick’s Day—the phone rang. A voice asked how he felt. Jack said, “Not too damn good.” The voice asked if he’d like to do something about his drinking. Jack said he’d try, but nothing too drastic. That man came over and picked him up. His sponsor, Al, had gotten sober in AA six years before, after Jack had discouraged him from going. Now Al was coming to get Jack.
Jack went to his first meeting that night, stone sober, feeling like he was lowering himself. He heard a man say, “If nothing else, stay sober 90 days and you’ll save enough money to get on a good drunk.” Perfect. Jack stayed sober 90 days dry on sheer willpower. On day 91, he drove to his sponsor and announced he’d never been an alcoholic and never would be. His sponsor said, “Try control drinking then.” Jack went to a bar and crashed his car on the way home.
He stayed out on the streets for nine months. Petey was happy—the bird had suffered through those 90 days with a big resentment. Now there were parties again, strange people coming through the house, yelling, hollering, sickness. Jack drove a car over a cliff in Mexico. Crawled out of three total wrecks. On March 5, 1958, he came to on a bar stool. Everything got clear as a bell. He turned to the man next to him and said, “This is my last drink. I’m going back to AA.” That man said he’d go too.
Jack called his sponsor. The sponsor said it was 10 p.m., there was no meeting, and besides, Jack hadn’t finished his drunk yet. Jack called his wife instead. She picked him up. He went to his sponsor’s house crying and slobbering. The sponsor said, “No problem, just come on back.” On March 6, 1958, Jack returned to AA. Four men walked into the old Pruneridge meeting like a squad of soldiers—four babies drunker than hell, sick. That’s Jack’s real birthday: March 6, 1958.
He heard things that night: “If you never take the first drink, you’ll never get drunk.” “One day at a time.” “First things first.” He decided to give it a real try. He started going to meetings every night.
Two weeks in, he got his first 12-step call. The man was laying on the concrete floor of a basement apartment on Vine Street, head hanging off the couch, tongue hanging out, eyes glazed and staring. Jack thought he was dead. But he heard a heartbeat. He picked the man up—he stunk so bad Jack couldn’t stand it—and washed him in a sink. Then he took him home, put him in the tub. Thirty minutes later, Jack realized something was wrong. Water was lapping over the edge, foam pouring out of the man’s mouth. There was an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol next to the tub.
Jack grabbed him, threw a blanket over his naked body, and ran to the doctor. “This guy’s dying,” Jack said. The doctor asked what made him think so. Jack said, “He drank the whole bottle of rubbing alcohol.” The doctor laughed. “He can drink a gallon of that. What else you been drinking, Johnny?” Johnny had been drinking shampoo and other things. Jack decided right then: “I’m going to sober you up so I can kill you myself.” He protected Johnny for 10 months. Last he heard, Johnny was in San Francisco jail. But Johnny taught him a lot.
Jack started making 12-step calls like his life depended on it. He’d pick up drunks and bring them home. Alcoholics everywhere—in the bathtub, the patio, the front yard, the backyard. His wife Alice kept saying, “Bring them home.” He was taking them to meetings in his pickup truck at night. They were getting drunk. He had 12 babies, and all of them relapsed.
At six months sober, Jack stood up in a meeting on Thursday night, tears running down his face, telling a sorrowful story about what a lousy sponsor he was. He was crying. When he finished, every one of his sponsees was drunk. A little man in the back stood up and said, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are. You’re not God. You can’t get anybody sober and you can’t keep anybody sober. But you missed the whole point of this program, you idiot. You stayed sober.” And Jack said, “I sure did.”
He kept 12-stepping. Got two more. That was the trick—keep the babies coming. They asked questions, he had to find answers. He stayed busy. He didn’t have time to drink. And his sponsees, though they all relapsed, kept him sober. They reminded him of where he came from.
At two years sober, Jack went to visit the little man who’d called him an idiot—the same man who’d told him about the Big Book. The man was in a wheelchair, maybe 4.5 feet tall, sick but still sharp. “Two years sober,” Jack announced. The man said, “For what?” Jack’s parakeet was laying on the floor. The man continued: “This is the greatest program ever written for mankind. You want the program? You got to go to the book. Nobody can give it to you. You got to go to the book and get it.”
From that moment, Jack studied the Big Book like his life depended on it. The more he studied, the more interesting it became. He learned about pride on page 25—how pride causes alcoholics to do things we don’t want to do and keeps us from doing things we should. The solution isn’t to kill pride, it’s to level it. Level your pride, and you’ll be rocketed into a fourth dimension of living you never knew existed. Jack testifies that he’s been living in that dimension ever since.
He goes through the 12 steps in detail, grounding each one in the Big Book. The first step admits powerlessness over alcohol and that life has become unmanageable. Life, he learned by looking it up, means thought. His thinking had become unmanageable. Step 2 comes to believe a power greater than himself could restore him to sanity. Step 3 is the decision—not a surrender, but a decision to turn his life over to the care of God as he understands him. If you make that decision, he argues, you’re able to work and play and have fun because your life and will are no longer your burden.
The fourth step is the great liberating step—a fearless and searching moral inventory. Write your own life story, don’t add anything, don’t take anything away. Don’t write anybody else’s story. The fifth step is confessing everything to another man. When Jack did his fifth step, he said, “It felt like a load had been lifted.” Steps 6 and 7 are about being ready to have God remove character defects and humbly asking him to do so. Jack still has every defect he was born with—pride, ego, anger, lust. He still gets mad, tells lies, cheats a little. He doesn’t believe in perfect humans. But he practices these principles rather than acting on them.
Steps 8 and 9 are about listing people he’s harmed and making amends. His sponsor said, “Clean off your side of the street, to hell with theirs.” The ninth step says to make direct amends except when it would injure them or someone else. “Don’t ever soak your own conscience at the expense of somebody else,” Jack says. Once he got through the ninth step, he was a free man. He’d walked through an arch to freedom. He can look back at his past—the dirty black swamp he came out of—and accept it. He can’t change an act, a word, or a deed, so he accepts Jack H., turns him over to God, and says, “He’s too damn much for me.”
Step 10 is the daily inventory—continue to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it. Promptly used to mean three months. Now it sometimes means three seconds. The 10th step pops into his mind throughout the day. Step 11 is prayer and meditation. Jack learned that you don’t have to say anything to pray—just think about God. Prayer is thinking about God. He looks for the result of God in his life and sees it. Step 12 has the word he searched for in the Big Book—the word “it” in “having had a spiritual awakening.” That spiritual awakening is the result of the steps. Now he carries the message to other alcoholics and practices these principles in all his affairs.
Jack talks about becoming a “rag picker”—someone who picks a human being off the dung heap of society and shakes them and says, “You’re worth something. You’re of value.” He sponsors addicts with dual problems, guys he loves even when he doesn’t like them. He tells them sobriety isn’t just staying sober—it’s life, real life. “We’ve been to hell and back several times. We’ve died a lot of times. And this program says you don’t have to do it anymore.”
He talks about carrying the message through action, not just words. “Faith without works is dead. Faith with works is alive right here in this place.” He quit blaming people, places, and circumstances. The responsibility is on him—for the first drink, and for staying sober. No one can take credit for his sobriety, which means no one can take it away from him. He has to throw it away.
The scale is balanced: on one side, an ounce of whiskey. On the other, his life, his wife, his kids, his job, his clothes. If he takes that drink, they all go down the sewer. That’s what recovery is about—dealing with alcohol, not just talking about it.
He ends with a story about a young Indian kicked off the reservation for getting drunk. Five years later, he shows up in a long black limousine, a chauffeur driving. The old chief raises his hand in salute. The young Indian says, “Chapter 5.” The chief asks how he did it. The young man says, “Chapter 5″—meaning he studied the Big Book, chapter 5, page 25 and beyond.
Jack H.’s message is clear: Study the book. Get a sponsor. Work the steps. Carry the message. Stay sober one day at a time. And remember—you don’t have to do it alone, and you don’t have to do it perfectly. Just stay sober and help someone else do the same.
Notable Quotes
I became a dancer. I never danced before in my life. I became a singer. I never sang before in my life. I became any damn thing you wanted me to be. And I never been anything before in my life. That’s what alcohol does to an alcoholic.
I’m damned if I know how we’ve been married 42 years. I’m married to a damn miracle.
If you never take the first drink, you’ll never get drunk.
You’re not God. You can’t get anybody sober and you can’t keep anybody sober. But you missed the whole point of this program, you idiot. You stayed sober.
If you will level your pride, you will be rocketed into a fourth dimension of living that you never knew existed.
The scale is balanced. As long as you leave that ounce of whiskey on one side and your life, your wife, your kids, your job, and everything else on the other, it’ll stay balanced.
Faith without works is dead. Faith with works is alive right here in this place.
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Big Book Study
Sponsorship
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Big Book Study
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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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. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.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. >> So now I'd like to proudly introduce Jack H from San Jose.
>> Hi everybody. I'm Jack Holton, an alcoholic. God, I'm glad to be here.
You guys got any prayers left? Same for me. But I'm up here by myself.
That's all right. Great Scott. What a crowd.
Beautiful. Beautiful. I'd like to welcome the newcomers myself.
You're in a You're a special group to us. All the new people and all the old people, too, you know. But the new and especially, you're among friends.
You're among people with deep understanding of your problem. if it's alcohol and if it wasn't, I doubt if you'd be here. Like I said, I'm an alcoholic and I can remember spending many years and countless vain attempts to control my alcohol and my drinking.
Any of you remember doing that? So I did that and naturally I wound up here. Anyone has to spend count years with countless vein of tips trying to control their alcohol.
wind up in a place like this or worse, you know, because that's just how it is. I came here a long time ago. In fact, there's a couple of my babies here tonight.
One of them said to me the other day, "You've been dry so damn long that you're a fire hazard." So, I didn't have anything to say to that. I just brushed it off lightly. Little bit of what I used to be like.
First nine years of my life, I was stone sober. I didn't have a drink. And the first time I ever got drunk, I got drunk helping my dad bottle home brerew.
I come from a family of Tennessee farmers and from no alcoholics any I know of. I'm the only alcoholic in my family. However, you know, farmers do make alcoholics, too.
Or alcoholics make farmers. I don't know which. But I'm here tonight to tell you that first nine years of my life, I was sober.
And I didn't have another drink after that cuz I got too damn sick until I was 14 years old. And I was at a dance and I was timid and I was bashful and I was all these kind of things that a young man is when he's 14 years old. So I had a couple of shots of white lightning.
Anybody don't know what that is? That's Tennessee terrapin spit. So I had some of that.
And I felt 10 ft wide and 20t tall. Things got to going then and I'll tell you right now, I became a dancer. I never danced before in my life.
I became a singer. I never sang before in my life. I became any damn thing you wanted me to be.
And I never been anything before in my life. That's what alcohol does to an alcoholic. So, you know how how early I was an alcoholic.
So, at the age of 15 years old, I was another one of these dances. Some more of that white lightning from a different bootleger. And I take two two or three stars of that and I damn near died.
I passed out right then and there. It was poison. And my dad come to get me because uh I was sick.
I was dying. And he went and got the doctor. And the doctor came out and they shoved and crammed pure lard down my throat till I vomited.
That's how in the way they had to get out of me because they didn't have stomach pumps in those days. So I don't like grease till today. Even right now.
No use for it at all. Hell yeah. You can take your lard and stick it.
I don't want it. But it never occurred to me to stop drinking. Not once.
I says, "I will not drink any hard liquor for 6 months. I shall drink Tennessee home brerew." Well, you take a cork bottle of Tennessee home brerew and blue smoke will curl the air four feet. Pour them all into that.
You're scratching your watch and whining your ass and wondering where you are. We're going to soar with the eagles tonight, kids. Not going to be any of that sewer crap.
We're going to ride to high places. See the good things. They're for us.
You're damn right they are. So I drank Tennessee home brew for 6 months and went back to hard liquor in both of them. Then I had two things to drink.
That was worse. At the age of 18 years old, I went to my dad said, "Dad, I'm going to join the Navy." He says, "Get the papers. I'll sign them." He didn't give me any argument at all.
He goes, "I had been an alcoholic then. I did all the things that you could do drinking." So I became a member of the Navy in 1939 on January the 25th. I went to Northark, Virginia for boot camp.
Anybody ever been to North, Virginia? I'll tell you right now, that's a hell of a place to be if you're if you're a sailor. By God, I'll tell you right now, in those days they had signs all over the place, sailors and dogs, stay off the grass.
Well, being a sailor and a rebel. I got on the grass, you know, and all I was born a rebel. I came into this world a rebel.
I'm still a rebel in spite of all the things that I've learned. So, I became a member of the United States Navy and I shipped around here to this great coast of California in 1939 and went to the World's Fair in 1939 on Treasure Island in San Francisco and I was introduced to your wine that you make here in this country and I found out you get just as drunk on that as anything else. So, I had three things to drink then.
Christ, I was getting better, you know. So, I was here for a year. I went to my executive office.
I said, "Sir, I'd like to transfer to China." He says, "The papers will be ready tomorrow." He didn't give me any argument at all. So in 1940, I landed in Hong Kong, China. The utopia of the alcoholic in those days.
You could buy good booze at a dollar a quant booze at 50 cents a gallon. And some of that Sam shoe whiskey that they that they uh pickle lizards in, you can get that for $4 for 15 gallons, I guess. I don't know.
But anyway, I used to buy that for my Rick Shaw kid. But any rate, that was the way I was. And out there, I'll tell you right now on the south coast of China, that was one hell of a place.
Fight, raise, hell, and drink. That's all we did. Discipline wasn't near as strict.
It was here in the States. I went all the way into Pekking, China all the way. And Ping, China in those days, they used to call it piping, pin, and all that.
It was a and every every nation had their Marine Corps there because the ambassadors were there while the colonel in the United States Marine Corps was a headman. So we had liberty every night. So I would drink one night with the Axis and the next night with the Allies.
So it didn't make any difference. We all got along just fine. Drunker in hell, you know, Russians, Japs.
Didn't make any difference. China. Next night I'd be with Englishmen, Irishman, and Scotsman and all that.
So everybody drunk raising hell doing the same thing. You know you see get rid of the goddamn politician wouldn't have any trouble. Turn all us people loose in the world.
We won't we won't fight. You'll find us loving necking bricking racing hell doing all those kind. We won't be fighting.
That's how we are. Especially the alcoholics. We might fight but we don't really mean it.
So I spent two and a half years on the south coast of China in the Philippine Islands and I was out there in the battles and all went on. I was out there when the war broke out. I fought under three different countries, three different flags, United States, Great Britain, and Holland.
And I can stand here tonight and tell you that my war record was the reason of my drinking. And that would be a damn lie because I was safer in a sea battle than I was on a beach with a fifth of whiskey. Cuz I was the kind of a guy to walk off in the dry docks.
with no water in them. Looking for my ship. I said, "Where's the USS Gillespie?" The guy said, "You're standing under it." See, I got no minutes being here.
I'm here on somebody else's time, God's time, not mine. I didn't do a damn thing about keeping me alive. But I'll tell you one thing, I'm sure glad I am.
So, I stayed out there until the war broke out. Like I said, I got back here to the States in 1942. And in those days, you know, they used to court marshall guys for taking a long time to travel short distances.
That was my trouble. So, I was court marshal three times before I was 21 years old, get drunk, you know, take me a long time to get somewhere. Fact, when we got back from China the first time, they said, "You boys are going to have 30 days leave.
You're brave heroes." We got into San Francisco and said, "Sorry, fellas. You're only going to have five." Well, I had a resentment right there. So I got I went off on a drop.
Well, I managed to wind my way somehow down to San Jose. It took me 5 days to get down to San Jose and 5 days to get back to San Francisco. Why this that's takes they do that.
And so long came a time, you know, and I'd had to get transferred to New Construction and they didn't ask me if I wanted to go the exact says Hulk. Yes, sir. Says, "Your papers are ready.
Get off this ship." So I went to New Construction out into Gold Island. Well, from San Francisco to to Goat Island is right out in the middle of the bay. Took me five days to get around the bay to get there.
A lot of bars along the way, a lot of people to talk to. So the court marshal for those kind of things. So I was court marshal three times.
Last court mar, you know, last time I second time I was court marshal, captain called me down to his captain says, "Hulk, I want to talk to you like a father." Pull the shade down. You know what you do when somebody wants to talk to you like a father? You pull the shade down.
You don't listen to him. So he talked to me like a father. But I remember him saying one thing.
Hope I want you to go ashore. I'm going to give you a 72-hour leave Liberty. I want you to go ashore in San Francisco.
I want you to go down third and Howard. So I want you to pay particular attention to people that are sleeping in the doorways and sleeping in a gutter with a head on the curb. That's where you're going to be before you're 25.
I'm going to help put you there. You don't stop this drinking. I said, "Thank you, sir.
Took the three days liberty, went ashore and got drunk. What the hell else you do? Don't know where I went.
Went back shipped to one time. Don't mind my trip to San to San Jose. I met a lady there.
She was with me tonight. My wife Alice. We've been married 42 years.
Somebody said, "How in the hell do you do that?" I said, "I'm damned if I know. It was her fault, not mine." But I didn't want to leave her hanging out someplace. She's sitting right here in the front row watching me.
In fact, there's a lot of people sitting these front rows watching me. I got to be honest tonight, at least partially. We have developed something so called functional dishonesty.
You know, that's all right, I guess. So, her and I we met and I convinced her that I was a $2 million tobaca plantation owner in the state of Tennessee and ask her to marry me and she did. Hell, I didn't have $15.
had to buy had to borrow $15 from her sister to get married. We drove all the way to Reno. Well, halfway to Reno.
Car broke up in San Francisco in Sacramento and we came up to Reno and we were married here in Reno. And it was the first guy got married that day and they always gave a service man. The first guy married that give it to marriage license was free.
So they married me for nothing. But I got hung together though 42 years. I'll tell you that woman's a goddamn miracle.
I don't know how. So anyway, I met her. So her and I got married and you know during the war years what so forth so forth.
I was away a lot. So we didn't fight a hell of a lot. I was away a lot.
But then after the war I got out of I got out of service 1945 and um went to work and like all alcoholics I worked hard and drank hard and played hard and so I worked for another guy for a year and a half and decided he was making too much money on my labor so went to work for me that sometimes isn't too good you know for an alcoholic could have worked for himself but I did and I made good dough and the harder I worked and the more money I made well the more I drank until finally turned around the other way. the more money I made, the more I drank, the less I had. See, so finally her and I, you know, we were sitting there and and I got all this stuff was taking place.
But she was a kind of a girl, she went along with me a lot. A lot of ways she didn't. But I go home at night and I remember I went home one night and I was standing.
I was a kind of a guy when I got drunk, I would I could walk forward. I never staggered sideways, but I'd run backwards for three miles, you know. I don't know why everything was tilted backwards.
And I could walk around for hours and never know where in the hell I was like a zombie. I went home one night and I was standing, you know, my thumb up on the doorbell and my head up on the screen door. Passed out right there in that position.
So I get up the next morning. I went I looked at the mirror and I said, "Damn it, I got the measles. I had all these little tiny pimples all over my head." I said, "Honey, I got them damn measles against you.
You haven't got the measles. I hit you through that screen door last night. Down the stairs I I guess roll out the lawn." She loved me, you know.
And I go home and I lay back in my big chair and I'd tie across my feet. You know, we have shoelaces in those days. She tie my shoelaces together.
Give me the hot foot with these big old wooden matches. I'd come out of that chair and I'd tear up all the furniture in the goddamn living room. Coffee tables would be splintered.
I'd have bruises all over. I said, "What the hell happened last night?" She said, "You fell down." But like I said, you know, she loved me. She damn near killed me, THOUGH.
I ALWAYS HAD BRUISES ALL OVER ME. She didn't have any. But anyway, as the pain went on, this drinking went on, I got meaner, and I got bigger and I got meaner and I got tougher.
I got everything. God damn it. You know, I time I go home, I tell him, "Now, you leave.
Take these kids and get the hell out of here." So, we had two, a boy and a girl. Cuz you know something, when a guy gets big and he's mean, he's getting in his last stages of his drinking, his wife and his kids got no business at the house. So, I didn't like drinking alone too much in those days.
I always like to have people around, at least somebody with me. I had a parakeet called Pety. And Pety, you know, he loved bourbon.
One day I let him have a sip of bourbon and by God, you know, he was like me. The first shot I ever had, man, he just ruffled up and became a real hero. So he'd start I'd sit down sit there whiskey on the dining room table.
He'd drink out of the and I'd drink on the bottle. Well, Pete and I get on these big drunks together cuz he was quite a linguish though. He used to hang over my poker table.
He learned all the all the languages of a drunken poker game. you know, son of a bashed, raised, tie, tin, flush, and all this kind of stuff. Some of the stuff he learned, I won't even repeat here tonight, but he and I drank together.
And one day, you know, he was passed out on the floor and I stepped on him and I weighed 250 lbs. 240 lb. Take that back.
You always stretch a little bit, you get older or something. 240 lb. And old Peter was as flat as a pancake.
I said, "Thank God." You know, I've killed my best friend. And I was crying. I remember I picked him up and I was petting him and crying.
I said, "Pey, Pety, what's the matter? Come on, buddy." I took him over and I set him down on the table about 12 in from that whiskey. And god damn, he began to fluff up a little bit.
He went over there. had a couple of snorts out of that whiskey, you know, around the Ruby W, you know, flying, you know, and he'd take three or four drinks, you know, he'd get real amorous and he start chasing the female dog. I had a female dog.
When Alice and the kids were out of the house, that dog on the bed all the time with old Pety, he was hornier in hell all the time going around chasing that dog all the time. He was a real AI and I loved him and he loved me and we drank together. We raised hell together.
I'm telling you right now, we have some of the damnest parties you ever seen. You got to be pretty damn sick to drink with birds. Even drunks don't do that most of the time.
I want to tell this right now. Pety died with two years sobriety. We go on.
We go on. He's in the early 50s. Disease getting worse.
The disease getting worse. the disease progressing, me getting sicker, my wife's getting madder, feuding out the attorney all the time trying to get divorced. I said, "I'm not going to sign them damn papers to get divorced." Well, the attorney, he'd call me up, you know, say, "Jack, don't come down sign papers." I wondered why.
I never didn't know until after I sobered up and his wife had died in a bed drunk in Honolulu. And this attorney of ours kept us together cuz he never never tried to get me to sign those papers. I never knew this until after I sobered up.
But Alice would go down just ranting and ra you know getting divorce papers going and you know and John would say Jack you don't have to sign them. We never knew this till after sobered up. His wife had died.
She was an alcoholic. See so many things you never know where health's going to come from. So on the drinking went though after that.
But I never did get divorced. We never did get divorced. She stayed with me.
She damn near killed me but she stayed with me. See, I wasn't leaving all the time. I never was one who wanted to leave home.
I was trying to go to my house. Said, "God damn it, this is my house. You get out." You know, that's kind of an egotistical idiot I was here.
I No wonder why I had so many bruises. That was whining. She said, "Well, I'm not leaving." But then when I got mean and all this stuff, but I can remember sitting in my house in my big chair and I can remember shadows passing through that house talking to me and I'd talk back.
I couldn't find anybody. I can remember music playing. No telephone, no radios on or TVs on.
It was all playing anyway. And I was having a party in there. Me and that damn bird all by myself.
Nothing on but this weird thing going on in my head. So, as I went on this program, the the disease getting worseer and worse all the time, but I wasn't paying any attention to that. It seemed to me like I was just getting better.
I guess I was passed out more. But god damn, you know, after a while, you begin to kind of wonder. So it was on in 1950 early 50s why these things was going on you know and so I can remember as Pety and I drank and I got sicker I can remember in 1957 on March the 17th St.
Patrick's Day, I came too and I had a horse by the leg holling. Whoa, you son of a Hold him by the leg. I had a piano by the leg.
I lay on the piano. That horse is trying to stop me to death. I had that piano by the leg.
No clothes on. Pety laying over on the floor, passed out, dog hiding on the bed. That was our routine, you know.
Pety and I passed out and the dog hiding under the bed and the kids out in the motel. Well, I paid a lot of motel bills in those days. But then the phone rang.
The voice on the other end of the line says, "How do you feel?" You know, kind of spnickity. Quiet. It kind of drives you nuts.
I said, "It's not too damn good." He said, "How do you like to do something about your drinking?" I said, "Well, I'd like to do a little something about it, but not not too drastic." So, on March the 17th, 1957, a man came over to my house, picked me up, and we went down. We talked to another man from Alcoholics Anonymous, and I went to my first AA meeting, St. Patrick's Day, 1957.
I remember going into that meeting that night. Oh, I'll tell the story about my sponsor. This the guy to picked me up was my sponsor, Ali.
And I made a call on him 6 years prior because he had called me up. He and I was drinking together and building together and doing work together and doing business together. He called me up to come over to his house, talk to him about his drinking.
So I did, went over there, me and a drunken lawyer, read no, you know, fellow by the name of Bean went over to this guy's house, Al, my sponsor's house to talk to him about his drinking. So I told him, I said, "Al," and this guy Bean says, "Well, you could call AA. You know, those boys do you pretty good sometimes." I said, "Al, that's too damn drastic.
You know, those bastards don't drink at all." Now, that you want to do that. I sat there and drank his whiskey and told him he should, you know, he should cool it, not go that far, but he did. He went to Alcoholics Anonymous on that day.
that I went over to his house 6 years prior and he had another drink and he's over 33 years right now coming up on 34. So I went to his his house to listen to him. But that's that's how this thing work.
But when he came over to talk to me, I was I was all different. Well, I'll go with you. I had some booze to drink.
So I drank some. I couldn't go down to that bunch of drunks, you know, stone sober after all. felt like I was lowering myself, you know, pompous ass.
So, I went to my first meeting. I went to that meeting that night and I met a guy I knew. He knew me, but we didn't know we was alcoholics, either one of us.
He was carrying the meeting. So, I heard him say one thing that night. He said, "If nothing else, stay sober 90 days and you'll save enough money to get on a good drunk." I said, "Sounds just right." You know, just exactly right.
So I went back and I drew godamn willpower and absolute. I stayed sober 90 days dry. And on the 91st day I drove to Selenus to tell Al, my sponsor, by God, Al, I never have been an alcoholic.
I never will be and hell with it. I'm going to quit this damn fit. And I spent two hours telling him why I wasn't an alcoholic.
After that, he said, "Well, Jack, if that's the way you really feel about, just step over there to that bar across the street and try some control drinking." I said, "Thank you, Al." And I did. Of course, on the way home, I hit a car. That's how fast you get going, you know.
So, out back out on the streets I went. And I stayed out there for 9 months. Now, old Pety was happy cuz I had him shut off.
You know, he had a big resentment while he was dry, but he was happy in hell. Back again drinking. You know, me and him on the floor and the dog hiding on the bed.
All that stuff. Come back again. You know, these strange people coming through my living room.
All things going on, yelling at him, hollering, all this stuff going on again. Sick, sick, sick. So that's the way it was.
I drank and I drank and I drank and I never did any harder drinking in my life. It seemed like I was trying to catch up for those 90 days trying to make up for it. I controlled it a little bit for about first 60 days.
But you know something after that just seemed like everything went to hell in the hand basket. God darn everything went bad. I remember turning off of San Carlo Street left onto my street.
The guy had his car parked in front of his house. I pushed it right up on his front porch. I never did straighten out.
I just kept turning, you know, around 360°. Never had a car parked on that street since in my corner. I drove a car over a cliff in Mexico.
I've crawled out of three wrecks, total wrecks in my life. And I got no business being here tonight. I've done all those kind of things that alcoholics do.
Wreck car, did all this kind of stuff. But I'll tell you that nine months I spent out there drinking, that was the most terrible goddamn time I ever spent in my life. It was absolutely just sick.
Sick. On March the 5th of 1958, I came to on a bar stool. I came to and I was sitting there, you know, and all everything was just as clear as a bell.
I don't know why everything got clear as a bell. I didn't know then, but I know now. And I turned to the guy sitting next to me.
I says, "Charlie, this is my last drink. I'm going back to AA." He says, "By God, I'm going with you, Jack." Cuz he met with me on that drunk, you know, he was sick. So on March the 5th, I went in.
I got up and I went in. I called up this guy in AA. said, "Hey, I want to go to an AA meeting." I didn't know it was 10:00 at night.
He said, "Jack, there's no meeting at 10:00 at night, and besides that, you haven't finished your drunk. After all, you're still at the bar. Go ahead and finish it now.
Get it over with." But I had I called my wife, Alice, says, "Come get me." And she did. Went over my sponsor's house, you know, crying, slobbering. You know how an old slob is.
He said, "Well, what the hell? Just come on back. No problem." So on March the 6th, 1958, I returned to alcohol synonymous.
Four of us, there was four guys followed me in AA that time. I didn't know I had that much uh power over them. But you know how.
So four of us, four sponsors walked into the old Prunidge meeting. Still going on today. We walked in there like a squad of soldiers.
Four little babies drunker than hell. sick. But I had my last drink on March the 5th, 1958.
So my birthday is March the 6th, 1958. That's my birthday. But I heard different things that night.
I heard things like, "If you never take the first drink, you'll never get drunk." And I said, "Well, I'll be damned." Who in the hell ever heard of that? Any idiot would know that. But I'd lived 38 years and hadn't found it out yet and spent 90 days in AA cuz see my first 90 days I hid behind a post, didn't talk, wouldn't read, wouldn't do go to one meeting a week and sit there my ears closed.
But I heard different things. I heard these guys talking about if you never take your first drink, you'll never get drunk. I heard him say you only have to do it a day at a time.
And I heard him talk about all these kind of things. First things first and easy does it. He said participate.
Get busy. I said go to meetings every day, every night. I did.
I said, "Okay, I'm going to give this thing a real try." So, I started going to meetings every night. Had two weeks in the program. Got my first 12step call.
And this guy was laying on Vine Street down in San Jose and he was down the basement in an apartment basement. Well, it was just a room down there on the concrete floor. All he had was a wash tray.
He was laying down on the couch. His head was hanging off the couch. His tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth.
His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, glazed. I said, "This guy's dead. Hell, he's not drunk." But I went over, I could hear his heartbeat.
So, I picked him up cuz he stunk so bad I couldn't stand him. And I took him up and I put him down in this wash tray and turned the water on him, wash him off cuz he stunk so bad, you know, he just really he'd let go from everything. So I stick him out that wash and slung him over my shoulder and took him home with me.
Walked through the front door and said, "Honey, I got a sick one." She says, "Shoo, you sure have." Said, "Take his clothes off of him, take him in the bathroom, set him in the tub, and I'll wash his clothes." So glad I did. went back out, you know, sitting in the living room and just I was in there soaking in about 30 minutes, you know, a thought just seemed to hit me upside the head. Something's wrong.
Bing. You know, I go in there and I look and here he is. Water lapping right up here, you know, foam pouring out of his mouth.
I look down alongside the tub and there was an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol that skull and crossbones. Well, he drank the whole damn thing in a half an hour. I said, "Thy god, he's dead." this time for sure.
So I pick him up, send him over my shoulder, throw a blanket over his naked butt, and head for the doctor. Run in the doctor's office and I said, "Doc, this guy's dying." He said, "What makes you think so?" He said, "Is this empty bottle here?" "Hell, he drank the whole thing." He said, "Oh, hell, he can drink a gallon of that." What else you been drinking, Johnny? He knew him.
And Johnny said, "I've been drinking shampoo. tampon blowing bubbles, you know. Here I thought he was dying.
So I said, "Well, by God, I'll start a vendetta right now. I'm going to sober you up to kill you, man." And you know something, I will protect him 10 months. And he's in San Francisco jail right now for drinking.
But boy, he taught me a lot. I'm telling you, during his time, he taught me a lot. The last time Johnny called me, I went and got him, took him home with me, and threw him in my swimming pool in January with no heat in it.
And every time he'd come up, I'd shove him back under shove him back under. When he turned blue, I pulled him out. I took him in, I set him on the couch.
I said, "Now, by God, you stay there." He said, "I'm going to get out of this damn place. I can stay here long." So, I went and got my 30 odd six gear rifle. I said, "Johnny, if you cross that back fizz, I'll blow both your damn legs off.
You stay on that couch." He stayed there three days. Said, "Can I go now?" I said, "Yes." He's never called me again. That was my first 12step call during that time.
And I was working with him though. You know why? I was beginning, you know, I said, "Well, hell, I'll just go out and make 12step calls.
That's all you got to do." So, hell, I was out making another 12step calls. I made a 12step call on a tile set in Santa Clara and he was trying to he was out trying to shoot his wife with a 12 gauge shotgun. He was out, you know, this is way back in those days.
Now, we had prune orchards. She was running through the prune or HE WAS BEHIND HER. BOOY BOOY booing all the prunes off the trees.
So I caught the little bastard, you know, took the gun away from him. Called Alice, said, "What the hell am I going to do? This wife of five kids out here said, "Bring them home.
Bring them home." Hell, I had alcoholics all over the place. In the bathtub, out in the patio, in the front yard, in the backyard, everywhere. But boy, we was mobileing.
I'm telling you. God damn. I was going to taking them to meetings at night in my pickup truck.
They was getting drunk. Had six months in the program. I was standing up in the meeting on Thursday night again, tears running down my eyes.
And I was telling this sorrowful story of what a lousy sponsor I was. And boy, I mean, I was crying. And I got through with this 5minute tearjerker.
Every damn one of them was drunk. And I was telling everybody what a loud sponsor I was. And I got all through and sat down.
A little man got up in the back says, "I don't know who in the hell you think you are." Says, "You're not God. You can't get anybody sober and you can't keep anybody sober, but you missed the whole point of this program, you idiot. You stayed sober." And I said, "I don't sure did." That's what it is.
That's what it goes. So, I kept right on 12 stepping. Right on 12 stepping.
The hell with those 12. Got to go 12 more. That's what you do.
One gets drunk, we'll get two more. You want You want to know how to grow fast in this program? Get a whole bunch of babies.
They keep asking you questions. You got to go find out. So, I've always been a 12steper.
So, I had 12 babies. They was all drunk, but I was sober. But there's no difference now.
I knew what was happening. I knew why I was sober. These guys had kept me so damn busy.
I didn't even have time to drink. And that was good. That was good.
That was good for me. Cuz see, I was an egotistical son of a gun. I'll tell you.
Proud egotistical rebel. You know, nothing like a southern gentleman with a rebel. Might not know who I was, but I was a gentleman.
That's it. But anyway, I kept on stepping as I piled these guys up. I don't know how many babies I got.
I wouldn't even stop to count. I really don't doesn't make any difference. What I'm really thankful for though is that they were all there when I needed them.
So, as I step and kept on in this program was on now. I had I remember my second birthday. I went running into this little guy N's house that told me I wasn't God.
I said, "No today. I've been sober two years." He says, "For what?" So was my damn cat laying over in the floor. Hell of a guy.
Really? Here he was. He was 4 and 1/2 ft tall.
I think he used to be a Catholic priest, Jesuit at that. They threw him out of the place being a drunk, you know. So he used to talk to me and he talked to me and he was sick in a wheelchair.
Well, in this so I couldn't hit him. I weigh 250 lb. I made more.
I weighed more in this damn wheelchair and this old lady and everything else put together. But he'd say those things to me, "Shut up and listen and sit down." I invite him to my house when I was in I knew him about a month in my living room. I said, "I started telling him my story." He said, "Nobody wants to listen to your crap.
Shut up and listen." But on this date, I had two years. I did. I sat down.
I listened. He started talking to me about things. Started talking to me about our programs.
said, "Jackis, you know, this is the greatest program's ever been written for mankind." And I said, "You're right." As far as I knew at that time. He started talking to me about things called self honesty and different things like this. He told me, he says, "You know, Jack, if you want the program, you got to go to the book.
Nobody can give it to you. You got to go to the book and get it." So he talked to me for about 4 hours that afternoon about our book, about our program and he piqued my interest in this book. So I went home, I started studying this book, this book called Alcoholics Anonymous.
And the more I studied it, the more interesting it's got. And if you haven't studied, it's about time you started cuz it's it is the program. And some of those things I learned out of this big book I want to share with you tonight.
One of the first things that I learned was on page 25. It's called pride. Anybody here having trouble with pride?
It says in there, you know, there is a solution. And the solution is, and none of us like it. The solution is a leveling of the pride.
Doesn't say kill it or destroy it, says level it. How in the hell you level your pride? Well, just ask yourself two questions sometime.
Where has pride caused me to do things I didn't want to do? And where's pride kept me from doing things that I should do? That covered my whole damn life.
Pride is something that's caused me more trouble in my life than any other and all other things put together. Why do you think an alcoholic says, "Hell, I'm not going to give up drinking." You because you're so damn smart. We know that.
No. Even though we are intelligent people, we wonder why though. But it says that in there, but it says if you will level your pride, which means you don't let it drive you up the wall any longer.
You drive it up the wall. But if you level your pride, then you will be rocketed into a fourth dimension of living that you never knew existed. That I can testify to cuz I've been living in.
Every once in a while I run out of it, but I get back into it pretty quick. But this is all on page 25 in chapter 2 of the big book of alcoholism. So one thing unless we learn it.
It says this is required for the successful consummation of the rest of this program. Well, I don't know about you, but required to me means must. Now you're here in a hey, we got no must in alcoholics anonymous.
But I'm going to tell you right now, we got some damn world bettererss. And I'm going to tell you, you better get on them. And on chapter three, more about alcoholism.
You learn, you meet yourself right there. You eyeball to eyeball that drunk, that alcoholic. And you wonder, said, "How come I didn't solve this damn thing into the gates of insanity or death?
Why? Why are some of us picked? Why have some some of us chosen?
Why are some of us here tonight and millions out there and countless others are not? I don't know. Oh, don't ask me that.
That's God's business. But we're here in chapter 4, the old agnostics, they taught us on page 25 or page 55, they taught us, they teach us right there. They said they could get all the way up to the shore, but they couldn't get out of the boat until they looked deep within themselves, and they found this thing.
Police turned to side two of this cassette to continue the program. >> But they couldn't get out of the boat until they looked deep within themselves and they found this thing and they called it the great reality. Then called God called the great reality means God.
But they couldn't use God. They were agnostics. So they found this thing called the great reality.
And when they got in touch with that, see, they got to where they they couldn't trust their own logic. They couldn't trust their own reasoning. So when you can't trust those two things, then you got to go someplace else.
So you look deep within yourself. We find this thing called God, this great reality. The difference between getting in touch with that and not getting in touch with that is just like having a television set not plugged in and one that is plugged in.
That's the difference. In chapter five, it says, "Rarely have we seen a person fail our path." Doesn't say paths. It's not plural.
Just says path. Path. Now, you know, they build highways across this great nation of ours from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.
Some of them are eight lanes wide and that's easy softer way to get across this country. But not the alcoholic. Hell no.
Got to be another way. So down in the gulch as we are down in the bra patches looking for another way. One of my babies called me 5 years ago and says yes sir.
He says you know somebody wrote this damn book 45 years ago and it's out of date. I said, "I'll see you when you get back." So he did the only thing an aliy does, you know, when he says the book's out of date, he goes and gets drunk trying to change it. Well, there we are down in the gulches, down in the Bri patches, brain at the moon like a jackass, you know.
Got to be another way. Got to be another way. Can't accept this one that's here.
You know, the one that's been proven, the one that we know works, not too long ago, one of my one of the guys I'm not his sponsor, but he called me and he says, "Hey, Jack, my program isn't working." I said, "Who in the hell ever told you your damn stupid program would ever work?" So, your program won't work. Why don't you try the program, the one that works for everybody? Your program and my program ain't worth a thinker's damn.
You listen to my program, I'll tell you right now, you get drunk on hell. Cuz I'm a proud egotistical vain alcoholic. The program, the one that's in the book.
And I always tell my babies, read the black lines, the black letters. DON'T READ THOSE WHITE ONES IN THE MIDDLE. THOSE DAMN THINGS are anemic.
THEY GOT NO POWER AT ALL. READ the black lines where it says there's only two kinds of people that come here that do not succeed in this program and they're the ones who cannot accept these simple teachings or the ones who will not right there you got to make a decision or you're blabbering idiot or an egotistical jackass or if you're smart if you're blabbering idiot I don't know what I mean you know if you're a cannot god damn it I don't know what the hell we can do for you. But if you're a babber idiot, I know egotistical jackass.
That's what we are. Or I can carry that a little further, but I won't. But the only two kinds of people that the book talks about come here that doesn't make this program successfully, the cannot or the will not.
What do you want to be? A cannot or a will not? Make up your mind.
Easy. And he goes on to say, you know, that some of us come even though we have grave emotional and mental disorders, you can be a damn nut and stay sober. And I'll tell you right now, you got to be a nut to be an alcoholic.
We're not noted for our I don't know what, but isn't it funny? We don't mind being called nuts, but nobody We don't want nobody to call us crazy. Nuts is fine.
That's okay. One day I was reading this first page on chapter 5 and a little word jumped off of this page at me. Little word, little two-letter word called it.
I scam. If you have decided you want what we have and you're willing to go to any length to get it. There's a little hyphen right there.
What the hell's it? Well, they don't tell you anymore about it. So, I started on a search for it.
God, what a search that's been. Four years ago, a young lady called me one night on my phone home said, "Mr. Hul," I said, "Yes." She says, "Have you found it?" I said, "Yes." She says, "How?" She says, "How come you found it?" "Well, you belong to a member of our church." I said, "No." She said, "Well, have you seen these bumper stickers?
Have you found it?" Some of you probably see them. Okay. So, I says, "No." She said, "Well, how did you find it?
We only been in We only been here just a few years. I said, "Well, we found it. I found it 19 years ago." 19 years ago.
Where at? I said, "An aa. We couldn't wait for you guys.
It's too damn slow." But a little word like it. If you have decided you want what we have, not if you want what we have, you know, we could place 20 drunks right up here in the row, right in front of us. And I don't know how many is in here tonight.
Maybe 500, 600, I don't know how many doesn't make any difference. We stand up here. Everyone will stand up in our chair and says, "We have decided it is time for you to stay sober and quit drinking." Wouldn't mean a damn thing, would it?
Until he decides or she decides. If you have decided you want what we have, not if you want it. Hell, there's millions that want it.
But you got to make that decision. If you decided you want what we have, you're willing to go to any length to get in, then you're ready to take certain steps. Anybody in here binging at the steps?
And some of these we says, great Scott. Hell, that's the alcoholic's pastime. When the first coming I came here, I was called a two- stepper.
First step and a 12step. Everything in the middle was somebody else, not me. Really?
I'm not kidding you. Till that old man got a hold of me that told me, you know, his damn cat's over there in the floor. But that's what happens.
Then you go on in the book says, you know, many of us try to hold on to old ideas. Anybody here trying to hang on to old ideas, huh? That's what's talking about bulking the steps to hang on to old ideas.
That one has all power. That one is God. May you find him now.
Who stood the turning point? God almighty. How many times I call stood at the turning point.
But that one important time he stands that turning point. Says, "I'm going to go. I'm going to go with the sober ones for a change.
We ask his protection and care with complete abandon. That means by jingo you let her go. You know when you let her go that's when it starts working.
The first step says admitted we were powerless over alcohol. Our life had become unmanageable. Admitted I'm powerless over alcohol.
You have to admit you're powerless over alcohol. If you make your pers over anything, you're not very have to go out and attack it. If there's a goddamn female polar bear out there in that for a dam if I'm going out in the packet, if I know who she is, I ain't going out trying to rape her.
I'll tell you that. Unless I was drunk, I might. But we're sober.
And when you try to rape that polar bear when you're sober, I'll tell you right now, it don't work. admit we're powerless over alcohol. That separates the men from the boys damn quick.
Doesn't say anything about being an alcoholic. Alcoholic is a label. I used to sit on a bar stool.
If you was an Indian chief, I was an Indian chief. If you was a doctor, I knew something about doctoring. If you was a horse wrangler, I knew something about cowboying.
It didn't make any difference. But when you admit your power is over alcohol, you admit that your life has become unmanageable. I used to look at the word life and I say, "God almighty, that's what is that?" Till one day I got smart and I looked in the dictionary.
You know what life says in the dictionary and know the definition of life is thought. My thinking had become unmanageable. Simple.
Anybody in here that think their thinking is manageable when they're drinking? Huh? Do you you do?
Why hell you're in shape? Bad shape. So the first step, admit empires over alcohol.
My life would become But you see the reason why it was hard to do that is because it's hard to admit something like that for the agotistical, proud, vain, alcoholic. No, we're like uh General Kuster, you know, ALCOHOLIC. AN ALCOHOLIC.
I I tell you, I just get the damnest kick out of this because I can just see myself. You've heard of the four horsemen in the big book. Frustration, uh I don't know what the hell the other three are.
One's fear, frustration, whatever they are. I can't memorize them all. But anyway, you know what the four horsemen are, okay?
An alcoholic. Anybody else will ride one horse at a time, but not now. You see us coming down the road on all four horses at once.
No saddles on them, you know. My god, just going straight, eyes blazing, you know, alcohol. His eyes, fires come out of his nose.
He's got his saber headed OUT LIKE GENERAL KUSTER. FIRE CHARGE GO out all the way. That's the way an alcoholic is.
Self will run riot. God almighty. Self will run riot.
You admit your powers over alcohol. Your life is unmanageable. Good thing they made this program the way they did.
They brought the second step right into play. Gave us something to give us something to believe in. So I came to believe that a power greater than we are could restore to sanity.
I came I came to and I came to believe that a power greater than we are could restore to sanity. If you're standing in a bucket of crap, stand still. Don't start jumping up and down.
Think your way out of it. That's being restored to sanity. See a lot of people he said I may not believe there's such thing as a god.
That's okay. He don't mind. Never seem to bother him when I was running around said I don't know whe there's a god or not.
But I tell you one thing he looked out on this planet one day and he says you know there's a gang of people on that planet that don't believe that they won't listen to nobody. They won't listen to my preachers or my priests or my doctors or my psychiatrists or ain't nobody. So hell with them or turn them loose on one another.
And he started aa that's how we were here. So I learned to admit in the first step I came to believe in the second step. You should be ready for the third step if you've done those two.
Made a decision and turn my life more careful of God's understanding. Why in the hell they say made made a decision? You probably go to a church or something like that and say go turn your life over to God.
Give your life to God. Not here. Hell no.
Made a decision to turn your life over to care of God as you understand him. It's so that you think about what he's going to do. Cuz when you do it, and I believe this, I don't believe you drink again.
And I'll tell you why. Stop. Think about what you've just done.
You made a decision to turn your life with the care of God as you understand him. I don't believe God's going to direct you down to a bar to get a drink. I don't believe he's going to direct you down to a liquor store to get a bottle either.
I don't believe he's going to direct you to go to anything and do anything wrong. I don't think he's going to tell you to go out doing to hurt your fellow man in any way. I don't think he's going to do that.
So if you make that decision, turn your life over to the care of God as you understand him, then you're able to go out and work and play and have fun, do all the things because your life and your will, you don't have to worry about anymore. Willpower is something that I heard a man say one time. Guy asked him why don't you use your willpower connection with alcohol he said alcohol becomes soluble willpower becomes soluble in alcohol just like sugar and water will power become soluble in alcohol how many times have you ever said to yourself I will not drink again promised everybody you can drink again but I believe once a man turns his life over the care of guys stand then he's got a head start.
You think that'd be enough but it isn't. No. They bring a forep.
Made a fearless and searching moral inventory of myself. Fearless and searching. I've heard many guys say had to go back and do it again.
Well, that's when you stand in the middle of the room. You know round circle. Don't get into the corners.
But fearless and searching means just that. It doesn't mean fearful and search less. Fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves.
Remember the fourth step is the great liberating step. That's the one that brings you eyeball to eyeball with yourself. Well, the guy say, "Well, I I don't want to learn this about myself.
I don't want to learn these things I don't know." I said, "You're not going to find a damn thing in the fourth step you don't already know. You're going to find a lot of things that I've been refusing to admit. The fourth step, how you take it.
Write your own life story and don't write anybody else's and don't flower it up. Just write yours. Don't add anything to it.
Don't take anything away. And then you go to the fifth step. Go to some browneyed old man.
Tell him all about it. But you're already twothirds of the way through the fifth step when you do the fourth. you've already told yourself and God.
And the fifth step, you just go tell another man. A lot of people say, "I don't want to do that." I don't know of anybody that does, but this is part of clearing away the wreckage of the past. So, when I done my fifth step, I'll tell you right now, it felt like a load had been lifted.
And I think anybody else ever done their fifth step feels the same way. And the sixth step says we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
That means we can't remove them anyway. You know what you found out in the fourth step and you did it in the fifth step. That's what you're doing.
What are the defects of character? Hell are very simple. Pride number one, ego, lust, anger, all these kind of things that we find in our fourth step.
A lot of people says you're never supposed to be angry if you're an alcoholic. Well, I'll tell you something. If you don't want to blow the ears off the side of your head, you'd better once in a while.
You keep on stuffing it and I'll tell you right now, ain't going to be no skin on your head and no ears either. In fact, as you know, even in the Bible, it shows that God talks about getting angry. You don't believe so, look what he told Sodom and Gomorrah said, "Either clean up your act, I'll blow your ass off." And he did.
Yeah. How about the time the carpenter was on the road to Damascus and old St. Paul was riding along on his horse.
He slapped him off his horse and blind him for three days. Says, "Listen, you idiot. as I'm talking you know science St.
Paul did. He became a hell of a message carrier. Remember that?
He carried a message from then on. Yeah. So, all of these emotions that we have, all of these defects of character, all of these shortcomings, I've still got every damn one I've ever had.
And I was born with them. I guess I've had them ever since I remember. I get mad, tell lies, cheat a little bit here and there.
I don't know of any perfect human being. Lust. A lot of people get all tangled up in lust.
A lot of people get tangled up in anger. A lot of people get tangled up in envy. You know, we all get tangled up in all these things.
One or the other, something or other. So, this is what it all talks about. Have God remove them.
Seven steps. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. I had to go find out what shortcomings were.
I found out what they were too. lying, cheating, all these kind of things that lead you back into defects of character and then finally back into a drunk. These are the things that we're talking about.
This is the program. Alcoholics and homes has made a list of all the people that harm become willing to make amends with them all. That's all it does.
They become willing and make the list. I used to sit down with that list. I had some little dirty rats on there.
I did me more harm than I'd ever done them. I said, but a what my sponsor said. Look, you clean off your side of the street to hell with theirs.
So, you make the list. And the ninth step says, "Go out and make direct demands to such people wherever possible except when to do so to injure them or others. Go out and make direct amends." That means eyeball to eyeball where you can where it makes sense.
unless it's going to hurt them or somebody else. Don't ever s your own conscious at the expense of somebody else. If you do, you're going to be living with it.
The ninth step is very simple step. Just go out and make the amends. Cuz this is part of clearing away the wreckage of the past that we've been talking about.
See, once I got through that ninth step, then I was a free man. I'd walk through that arch to freedom. I look back at my past now and the swamp that I came out of.
I never have to go back. It's there. It's a dirty black past, but it's mine.
It's my history. And what do you do about something that you can't change? I can't change an act, a word, or a deed.
What do you do about something you can't change? You accept it. So, I accepted Jack Hold.
Turn him over to God. Here, take him, father. He's too damn much for me.
That's what we do. Now, I'm free of that past, but I'm not ashamed of it anymore. It doesn't bother me anymore.
You hear a lot of people talk about guilt. How in the name of God do you get rid of guilt? They say, I said, forgive yourself for what you've already done and quit doing the things that make you feel guilty.
Oh, the darn. Hell of a deal, huh? Yeah.
Quit doing the things that make you feel guilty. That's the only way that I know. Why is the guilt?
How you think God's going to get your attention? I have never yet since I've been in this program went out and did anything wrong that I wasn't first warned about it. And I'll tell you right now, that's what guilts are all about.
You warn about immediately. And the minute the minute you commit it, immediately you got guilt. You pay the price right there standing on the spot and you keep on praying it, paying it until you get rid of it.
And the 10th step seems like this program says, "Well, now we've got them nine steps. Now they got them all cleaned up, but we got to keep these alies busy. We don't, they'll be drunk again." So they gave us a 10th step.
Continue to take personal inventory. And when I'm wrong, promptly admit it. And the word continue is like a circle.
You won't find a beginning and you won't find an ending. But it means the rest of my life. And thank God that I've got the rest of my life.
Continue to take my personal inventory. When I'm wrong, promptly admit it. Promptly to me used to be 3 months.
Then it became 3 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours. Now sometimes I can do it in 3 seconds just like that. And that's great when I can do that.
Sometimes with Alice, I got to ponder it for a while. Don't know why, but I got to ponder it with her for a while. Strangers, a lot of most of the time I just wham.
Hey, look, I'm fine. I goofed. I'm sorry.
No big deal. Because as you learn in this program, you know, you stay in the engine of your train. You get out of the damn caboose.
You get up in the engine, you know where the action is. That's what we talk about action. Action alcohol synonymous.
So the 10th step will I never never have to go back and do the things I had used to have to do. But I can take that 10 step and use it every day. And I do every night, every night, and every morning, and every day at noon, every day, that 10 step pops into my mind.
Have I heard anybody? Have I said anything bad about anybody? Have I criticized anybody?
Have we been out gossiping about anybody? Hey, he's a hell of a gossiper. You know, we don't watch ourselves.
Really? We're a hell of a family. You do something, somebody's going to know about it real quick.
So, damn it. Tell Steph tell us not to do those things. Read in the 12 betrayal where it talks about criticism, all this kind of stuff.
So they give us a 10th step. So we stay busy taking our inventory. 11 steps is seek through prayer and meditation for closer conscious contact with God's understanding.
Praying only for knowledge of the will for me and the power to carry that out. Prayer. I used to have a hell of a time with prayer because it seemed like take me a long time to talk to God.
I had all kinds of prayers and I said them by wrote, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. He must have got tired. I don't know.
Listen to me. But I come to find out, you know, you don't have to say a damn thing to pray. All you got to do is think about God.
That is prayer. Thinking about God is prayer. So if you don't know how to pray, think about God.
Think about the word God. think about the word. A lot of guys said, "How am I going to think about something I can't think?
I can't see. I can't hear. I can't smell.
I can't touch." I said, "Well, there's a lot of things that you can't do that with. One of them is the wind." You ever see the wind blowing through a tree? See the leaves rustling around, shaking up there?
Do you see the wind? Hell no. But you see the result of it, don't you?
So, what do you look for? You look for the result of God in your life. And you see it.
And better yet, you see it in somebody else's life a lot quicker. You see the way it works. By the grace of God, there go I.
If you ever see a drunk laying on the street, by the grace of God, there could be me. But for the grace of God, there could be me. Meditation.
How do you meditate? Think about God. That's all you got to do.
I guarantee if you thinking about him, you got to be thinking about think you got to be thinking about anything else. He's a little bit too big. And he's a the kind of guy that I come to understand is he's a good one.
I know he gets amused at me a lot of times cuz I like to say I like to talk to him just like I talk to you. I have a hell of a conversation in my car a lot of times, especially if some driver isn't acting just right. But he is always around.
You see, he's always there. I don't have to go out. You hear people say, "Well, I got to go find God." Or, "Where the hell you going to find him at?" Well, I don't know.
But you can climb. You can go up into the mountains. You can go out on the sea.
You can go any place you want to go. Was like the guy who wrote the poem, you know. He says, "I sailed the broadest seas and I climbed the highest mountain.
I even climbed the highest steeple. When I got all the way to the top, I found out that God was still down with the people. That's where he's at all the time inside of you and I.
So if you hurt another one of your human being friends, you're hurting your God. You hurt him, you hurt them. Next time you're about ready to hurt somebody, think about what you're going to do.
Think about who you're going to hurt. and practically every time you won't do it. Seek through prayer and meditation for a closer conscious contact.
I've always had an unconscious contact with God because he kept me alive. If you don't believe there's a God just when you go to sleep at night, what happens? I don't know.
But he keeps my skin growing, my hair growing, my eyes seeing, my nails growing. You know, it keeps my bowels moving. All this what the hell's going on?
Tells me to get up when I got to go, you know, in the night in the middle OF THE NIGHT. WHO DOES ALL THIS? I SURE AS HELL DON'T.
I'M UNCONSCIOUS. I DON'T KNOW NOTHING. SO, who's going to do it?
And we say there's no God. Jeez. It's okay.
I don't care if you want to believe that way. But I used to think, you know, WHAT'S GOING ON ALL that time when I'm asleep? What was going on all that time when I was drunk, passed out, walking around like a zomb, you know?
How I was ah the love of this program, the greatness of this program, and the greatness of the people that belong to it. You and I, we're great people at Alcoholics. Let me tell you.
So as a non-alcoholics, any of you here tonight have a great admiration for non-alcoholics called Alanons. Wasn't you, we wouldn't even be around. I'm married to one.
Tough. Tough. She has to be tough.
You got to be tough to stay with an AI. But we lead you through strange places. The 12th step.
Remember the little word yet I was talking about. The answer is a little word is in the first sentence of the 12th step. Having had a spiritual awakening.
That's it. As a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs. Every one of you and I here tonight are message carriers.
We became rag pickers a long time ago. The one that's been here a long time. You know what a rag picker is?
You've read the book, some of you. Some of you haven't. He's a guy that'll pick a human being off of the dung heap.
Society has tossed him on the dung heap. He takes him up. He shakes him.
He says, "You're worth something. You're of value. Wake up.
Here's a way you can live without the use of alcohol or drugs. I don't like to have addicts get away with it either. I'm not an addict.
I mean, I'm not a drug addict. I mean, I what the hell I'm not. But I'm going to tell you one thing right now.
You damned addicts are just as idiotic as we are. I know. But I sponsor some of these guys who got what YOU CALL A DUAL PROBLEM.
And screw you in hell. All of them. Goofy.
But I love them. You see, because they're part of us. I'm an ali lush.
I don't know what I don't know anything about that other stuff except for one thing. It makes you crazy. But now, you can tell him a long ways away.
You know, he stinks and he's usually obnoxious. He's yelling, yelling, and bellering, screaming, and he smells bad. All this kind of stuff, you know, he'll walk up to you, you know, and puke on you.
So, we have a mark. We have a great distinction. in the alky does when he's in his cups.
You can see him and hear him a long ways away. But I see you other people. I'm telling you, I love you.
And I know that you're looking for the same thing that we are sobbriety. And soy isn't just staying sober. Man, I'm going to tell you right now, it is a hell of a lot more than that.
If all I was in this program for was to stay sober, the hell would I'd have left a long time ago. But man, this is life. We're living.
We've been to hell and back several times. We've died a lot of times. And this program says you don't have to do it anymore.
You never have to take another drink as long as you live a day at a time. You can carry this message to other people. Come on, follow me.
Be a rag picker. Pick one up. Get one under each arm.
With a drunk under each arm, I'll guarantee you won't take a drink cuz you can't build your elbows. And they will always remind you of where you come from. I always stay.
I always keep some new ones around me cuz I'm still 12 stepping. And I love them. I really do.
Some of them I don't like, but I love them. That's a fact. Practice these principles to all of my affairs.
Never have I been able to. Never will I be able to, I don't think. And if I ever do, then what the hell?
I'll be out walking on the water. But you know something? I don't really want to get that good yet.
I'm like old St. Augustine says, "God, give me grace, but not right now. I want to live.
I want to be out in this life of ours. I want to live and want to live good." We're among the living. You've heard it.
Faith without works is dead. I'm going to tell you right now tonight, faith with works is alive right here in this place. Faith with works is alive.
You know what faith is? Faith is just evidence of something you can't see. That's all it is.
You can't even see the back of your head, you idiot. You know, we really can't even see your butt without a mirror. Yeah.
Can't see, touch. Wow. What the hell?
You know, I'm facing a hell of a lot of things I can't see. You're damn right. Going to get better.
Jeez, this is great. Really spiritual progress. That's what you and I are doing.
Progressing spiritually. Progressing spiritually. And this is what I want to do.
Continue to progress spiritually. I quit blaming people. places and circumstances a long time ago for what happens to me.
I know the responsibility has been placed right where it belongs. Right here on my pinpointed little head right there. I'm responsible for the first drink.
I always will be. Not God, not society, not the cops, not the doctors, not your wife, not your job. Right up here that responsibility is right there.
And don't ever take it off from there either. If you ever do, you'll be drunk. Cuz no one no one can take credit for your sobriety.
No one can take credit for it. That's why no one can take it away from you. You can't lose it.
You got to throw it away. And the longer I'm sober, the more I want to keep it. And the more I want to learn about it, the more I want to learn about living.
And the way I learn about living is going to meetings, mingling with the people from the top to the bottom. I don't give a damn where you come from. You put every one of us in a in a in a bar room and go back in 3 weeks, you wouldn't be able to tell the ones that had any money, the ones that didn't.
You wouldn't be able to tell a Buddhist from a monk. You wouldn't be able to know. We'd all be drunk, stinking, and that'd be the way it' be.
So you see, we are a great people. We are lovely people. We are of value.
If you're here tonight, you don't put any value on yourself, I feel sorry for you. But if you walk up to a bar and you look in the back bar and just before you take that drink, just stop and remember the scale is balanced. As long as you leave that ounce of whiskey on one side and your life, your wife, your kids, your clothes, your job, and everything else on the other, it'll stay balanced.
If you don't take that ounce of booze, if you take it, they all go down the sewer and you will it. That's what we're dealing with. Cunning, baffling, powerful.
We deal with alcohol in aa. We deal with it. We don't just talk about it.
We deal with it. we deal with. You ever notice you don't deal with your problems how quick they deal with you?
You ever notice that? HEAR SOMEBODY CRYING ME GOD ALMIGHTY SAY you know I I haven't got any money. Well, when you worked last you don't get jobs and sitting at home by the phone waiting for it to ring.
pick it up and ring somebody else. You got to be on the attack side in this life. You got to be on the AGGRESSIVE SIDE.
GO OUT AND get them. Anytime you feel bad, just go out someplace, pick up a couple of drunks. They'll make you feel better real quick.
They really will. And then they'll love you for it afterwards or hate you. I don't know which.
Wow. It's getting better. I'm going to tell you right now.
I had one story to tell. I'm going to shut this off. There was an Indian lived on the reservation and he kept on getting drunk and he was a young Indian.
And the old chief told him, "I'm going to kick you off this reservation. You don't quit getting drunk." Being an alcoholic, he got drunk again in two weeks. So, he kicked him off.
The old chief was sitting out in front of his teepee. About 5 years later, looked down the trail. He saw this dust coming up the trail.
As he drew closer, he noticed an automobile in front of the dust. He drew right up and parked right in front of his tepee. And the old Indian sitting out there cross-legged, his arms folded.
It was a big long black limousine Cadillac and the rear door opened. It was chauffeer driven. Rear door open.
This young buck stepped out that he kicked off a reservation 5 years before. The old Indian chief raised his hand in a normal engine salutation. He says, "How young guy says chapter 5." Thank you.
God bless you and I'm glad with you and I love you. Keep >> 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.