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. >> My name is James.

I'm an alcoholic. >> Hi, James. >> It's been a great roundup so far.

You familiar with Smart Water here in Minnesota? I brought some Smart Water. Hope it helps you with my talk.

>> I get sidetracked sometimes, so I drink some of this. The first time somebody gave me this, one of my sponses gave me a bottle of this and I couldn't get the lid open. It was a It's a really tricky lid.

I guess you have to drink it first. Just out of curiosity, uh, how many people here tonight have sponsors? All right, fantastic.

How many people here tonight have sponsors who are with them here tonight? Notice my hand is up. I brought one of my sponsies from California with me.

I don't like to leave home without him. Fantastic. A little while ago, I went to a conference and uh I had a problem with a plane connection and uh I didn't know if I was going to make it to the conference.

Kind of what's happening with Adam, but he's you'll be okay because it's tomorrow. But this was on the I was going to speak on the day that I was flying. And uh I called my host to ask him what I should do.

I was uh I I was in fear. Didn't know what to do. and he said, "Uh, read page 449 and go to a meeting." I knew I was in good hands.

I'm in good hands, too, because I Nelly's has been showing me around in my spons. So, I felt like I've really been in good hands here in Duth. So, I've only been talking for like a minute, maybe two, and maybe I've said the two most important things that I'm going to say.

If you want to stay sober, have sponses. That's what the book says. Nothing so much ensures immunity from drinking as active work intensive work with other alcoholics.

And if you have a problem, there's a spiritual solution. So, I'm going to go another hour or so, but I wanted to get those two things out of the way in case in case you stop listening before I stop talking. So, I got to thinking about this smart water and I thought it would be really a good idea.

I used to be in advertising a long long time ago. It would be a really good idea if you could go into the liquor store and buy some smart whiskey. I loved uh I loved having uh some whiskey and trying to solve my problems and you know taking a lot of notes and then trying to read them the next day.

But the problem is that liquor or whiskey is not labeled properly. So when you go into the liquor store, you don't know what you're going to get. You might get some of that uh you might get smart whiskey.

That's possible, I guess. Or you might get some of that u conviviiality with friends or colorful imagination. You may get some of that stuff.

Or you may get some of that dialing whiskey. You ever had that? Well, it's about it's about 4 in the morning and you're just dialing people that don't want to hear from you.

You ever have any that traveling whiskey? You have to get up and uh look at a newspaper to see where you are. I thought it was a girl.

I really did. I mean, I you know, I was I really did. I was very drunk.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. That's kind of a fifth story. Um, but what happened for me is is I started getting things like um quicksand whiskey and uh Dr.

Jackekal and Mr. Hyde whiskey and rapacious creditor whiskey and had it could have had the skull and crossbones on it whiskey and then I had drank a lot of that stuff called pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. So that's kind of my drinking.

That kind of covers my drinking. never knew what I was going to get, but more and more towards the end, it was not colorful imagination with friends. So, but I that's, you know, drinking isn't my only problem.

I've got a problem called thinking as well. I don't know if you've seen the 20 questions for drinking. Have you ever asked the 20 questions for thinking?

Is thinking causing you problems at home? you you uh like to think alone. I'm driving down the street having this argument with about three other people and I look around.

I'm the only one in the car. And uh I like something that Einstein says. He says, "None of your current problems can be solved by the thinking that created them.

I created my problems as a result of my thinking. and I cannot fix my problems as a result of my thinking. And what I've learned in aa is to not spend time thinking about things that thinking is not going to help.

So, but I need help. So, I have a sponsor. I'm on my second sponsor.

Now, that my first I had a woman sponsor to start with. I didn't know that was uh potentially u controversial, but I had a woman sponsor and I'll tell you how I found her later on. But u her name was Donna and she died when I had uh 18 years of sobriety.

And uh the last thing I remember Donna saying to me is sobriety is no fun when you can't breathe. She was a really heavy smoker. So, let's all take a deep breath in in memory of Donna and the fact that we're we we're here breathing and we have this wonderful gift of sobriety.

So, let's bring oursel present here. So, there's a there's a saying in a be nice to the newcomer who may be your sponsor someday. So, I was nice to Jack when he was new and now he's my sponsor.

And Jack, he retired recently uh as an air traffic controller. And I retired recently from the I taugh I was a teacher in a prison and it was called the department of corrections. So corrections and control.

Jack and I have issues. So but I heard a good outside of a meeting a little while ago. I heard a a a good reason to have a sponsor because somebody was asking this this guy that he appeared to be relatively new what his sobriety date was.

And he said, "Which one?" And um that was already a clue. He said, "I have I got out of prison about 3 years ago. So my sobriety date from meth is is three I have three years off meth.

And I quit pot about six months ago. So my sobriety date from marijuana is six months ago. And I I celebrated yesterday.

I celebrated 90 days without drinking, but I had a beer last night, so I guess I have 89 days today. So, it's called newcomer math. So, I only have one sobriety day.

It's the first one I've ever had, and it's the only one I've ever had. And uh it's said around here that if uh either you change or your sobriety date, it will. So, I'm here to share with you how I've changed because my sobriety day has not changed.

It's December the 6, 1982, and uh it's the last time I smoked marijuana. Thank you. I'm I'm coming up on 33 years and uh clapping for an alcoholic who quits drinking is like clapping for a cowboy with hemorrhoids who stops riding his horse.

So, thank you for that recognition there. I was smoking marijuana because I had determined myself that uh I I was having a problem with alcohol. I'm not sure if I wanted to quit drinking or not, but I wanted to quit having the consequences of drinking.

And so I didn't I didn't really know how to quit drinking because I hadn't found you yet. So what I decided that I would do is I would smoke pot because my problem according to me was alcohol. So as long as I wasn't drinking, I thought that I would be okay.

So I quit drinking. I tried, you know, thousands of times like most of us have to quit drinking. But this one time uh because of the the availability of shopping bags full of marijuana because I was a grower.

I love this theme. Um I'm quite a good gardener, I must say. So, I quit drinking and I smoked non-addictive marijuana before I got out of bed in the morning for about a year or so.

And uh during that time, my sister came to AA and she invited me and she encouraged me to come. She knew what my drinking was like and I kept reminding her that I was not drinking. I was putting a lot of visi in my eyes when I saw her.

But I finally ended up in AA as a visitor. I actually introduced myself as an existentialist. Um I was not an alcoholic.

I I hadn't even had a drink for I don't know a year maybe. So I'm in aa as a visitor guest and uh I'm listening. I I could hear what you I was able to listen.

I didn't agree with a lot of things, but I heard what you were saying and I went to meetings and you know, I could ask myself the question, if you're not alcoholic, why do you keep going to those meetings? And what I know now that I didn't know then is there was something very powerful going on in the rooms of AA that was very attractive to me. Uh, and it was I felt love.

I felt love here. And I my head was telling me don't this is crazy. Don't don't do this.

This is nuts. You don't need this. But my heart kept bringing me back or my feet kept bringing me back and I kept coming back.

I kept coming and what happened for me is I caught this damn disease from you guys. It's like alcoholism is contagious and I caught it from you. I remember when I finally raised my hand said I was alcoholic and someone said, "Oh, it's finally unanimous." I mean, everybody everybody else knew.

There's a there's a speaker named Father Terry who says, "You can't change something you can't name. You have to know what the name is in order to do something about it." And I knew that I was damaged goods. There was something really wrong with me.

I I used to like to buy a carton of Marlboro, a bottle of scotch, and a self-help book and just try to try to figure out what was wrong with me. It's like, you know, there was such a disconnect between what I thought about myself and and where my life ended up. And I know now there's a word for that.

It's called alcoholism. I have alcoholism. I didn't ask for it.

I didn't want it, but I have it. And I'm here tonight to treat my alcoholism. I need you way more than you need me.

I remember saying early on this, oh, this a is a bunch of brainwashing. And I thought, you know, my my brain needs a good scrub. So, I'm going to meetings and somebody says, uh, you have an allergy to alcohol and you have to go to meetings for the rest of your life.

I got to thinking about that and said, "My dad had an allergy to bananas. He never went to a meeting in his life. There is no such thing as BA." But what I know is that bananas did not do for my father what alcohol did for me.

There's bananas didn't talk to him. He got a rash from them and he quit eating them. I get these rashes from alcohol and I just keep drinking it.

It's a very different thing. So, I mentioned that my sobriety day is uh do we have is uh when I last smoked marijuana. Do do we have any other marijuana smokers here?

>> That's a trick question. It's ex marijuana smokers. Okay.

We don't smoke a we don't smoke marijuana in AA. We don't do that. It's a mindaltering chemical.

But I started hearing all these stories about people that what people did to control their drinking, other things that they tried or um I know a guy whose sobriety days the last time he did freon. I mean that's got to be really nasty. But I sponsor a guy.

You can't make this up. He he went to Amway one time to help him control his drinking. >> Yeah.

He thought it would that would help his drinking. You know, some people get divorced and get help drinking or they get married to help their drinking or they go in the army to help their drinking or they go to Oprah or they go to Chopra or, you know, we do all kinds of things and then hopefully we end up in AA. So, I'm going to AA and I start meeting these characters and I'm thinking, how in the world are these people going to help me?

There's a guy named Boxcar Bill and uh Dumpster Don and uh SWAT team Ron, Booger John, Machine Gun Tony. A lot of the names have kind of weapons involved with them for some reason. Shotgun Nancy Ped inappropriate Dave.

Dave, that's inappropriate. Oh, Dave, don't don't say that. So all these people I think, oh well, you know, maybe they can help me.

So I'm going to meetings and uh I'm not doing much else, just going to meetings. And this guy, this old-timer, you know, you know how they are. They comes up and he kind of pokes me in the chest.

I was a 39year-old bachelor at the time. I wasn't a kid. And he said, "Uh, you're working the steps, boy?" And I said, "I don't really like your 12 commandments.

You are you reading the book?" Said, 'N no, no, I don't even know, Mr. Brown. I'm not reading the book.

Are you praying? Nah, I don't really believe in God. Are you meditating?

Uh, my head's too busy for that. And then he asked me the kicker. He says, "Well, how's it going?" It wasn't going very well.

I wasn't doing good because all I was doing was coming to the meetings. And as I see it, my experience, and I think a lot of other people see, there's only a window of time between putting down the drink and putting down the drugs and starting to work this program. And I was coming to the place where I was very close to the to the end of being able to hold it together myself.

And then I looked at this how it works that part of what was read today. And I started I asked myself I wonder I wonder if I have the skill set to do this. Am I not am I clever enough but am I uh can I do this?

And then the first thing is okay um I have to thoroughly follow a path. I got to thinking about my drinking like well I know how to follow a path. I had a rut going between me and the liquor store.

I mowed a lot of lawns in my day and when you walk on a lawn, it pops right back up again. If you look behind you, you can't even see your footsteps. In order to create a path, you have to go over that lawn over and over and over, hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times, and you create a path.

So, I know how to create a path because I've done it before in my drinking. And this says something about um people who do not recover or people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to the simple program. Well, I completely gave myself to alcohol.

I know how to do that. That shouldn't be too hard. Then it says something about being honest.

I think oh that's a tough one. I because I had lied to myself for so long. And I really wasn't able to tell the truth from I believe my own stuff in my head.

And I don't remember ever reading a book to explain to me how to be honest. But I could hear it in your voice. When you shared about yourself, I knew you were telling the truth about yourself.

And I believe that I could learn how to do that by watching you do it. So I Okay, I can learn how to be honest. Then it says something about um what else does it say?

Half measures avail. And what does that mean? Well, as I understand it, it means quitting drinking and not working the steps.

So only doing half of what we need to do as alcoholics. We need to do two things. We need to quit quit drinking and we need to work the steps.

Then it says something about getting rid of our old ideas. And I I didn't know that I had old ideas, but I knew that the ideas that I had were killing me. I needed to change my mind.

And I It's not a It's more than a bumper sticker to say change your mind, change your life. And I needed to do that. Then it says something about uh without help, it's too much.

I understood that if I get in the ring with alcohol, put your money on alcohol. Don't put your money on me because alcohol is going to kick my ass. That's what it does.

So I think I need help. I cannot beat this by myself. Then it says something about finding God.

I think, oh, does it have to come to that? I studied philosophy in college and uh again one of my old ideas. I had some ideas about that and uh they were not serving me well.

And then it says something about going to any lengths. And I thought that one bothered me because I wasn't sure what that was going to mean. Are you going to splash water on my face?

Are you going to have me go to the airport and hand out literature in a white robe? I I didn't know what was going to happen. Um I just had these crazy thoughts in my head.

But I think I know what it means. I know what it means today for me. It means today I will go to any lengths to not have a drink today.

Today's the day that counts and I'm not going to take a drink today. So I and I also knew that I've been to I was a bar drinker and I never went into a bar and watch somebody else drink and think that I'm going to cop a buzz off of it. I knew you had to drink it yourself to to have it to get the buzz.

And that's kind of what AA is too. I can't watch you be sober and it's going to rub off on me. I've got to do it myself.

So, with all this kind of reflection, I was ready to to to start doing something, but I wasn't too sure what. And what ended up happening for me is I went to a a counselor. His name was Howard, and he was he's a member of AA, but he also had a family practice.

And for the first time that I could ever recall, I told somebody else the truth about me. I'd never done that before. I'd gone to shrinks and psychiatrists and stuff, but I always lied to them.

I heard somebody say that a people in a really ought to go to veterinarians instead of psychiatrists because vetinarians always have to guess what's wrong with their patients, you know, because we never we never say. But I told Howard the truth. I cried.

It's not raining down my face. And my drinking I would characterize it. I would describe my drinking as being sleazy and secretive.

I had this I'm in the book. If you're new, find yourself in that book. I'm in that book all over that book.

But the Dr. Jackekal and Mr. Hyde, the one kind of personality here and another kind of personality here and the two of them don't get together.

That was very me. I wore a tie in the daytime and I had these sleazy places I went to at night. So, I was very secretive and I pushed people away from me.

So after an hour of being in Howard's office, he got out a piece of paper and he wrote prescription at the top. Get on your knees and pray. And I paid him $50 for that.

It was like a $50 fifth step, I guess. Uh no four step, but it was it was, you know, um I did that. And I think for some reason I was going to I started to do that.

It's like the the menu is not the meal and the map is not the journey and the prescription is not the medicine. Okay, this this how it works is like the menu or more like the map. But I have to take the journey.

And I started to take the journey by asking God that I didn't believe in to help me. I said, God, what do you want me to do and give me the power to do it? Which is what the literature says.

and and at night I'd say thank you for another day of sobriety. And through Howard, I got a phone number of a woman, Donna, and I called Donna and asked her to be my sponsor. I've never met her before, never seen her before, knew nothing about her.

And she agreed to do that as long as I would go to four meetings a week, write in a journal, and work the steps with her, and then see her once a week and share my journal. And I started to do that. And about that same time, I bought a new car.

I had a uh alcoholic truck prior to that. Seen those? I didn't look in the parking lot too carefully, but usually there's one at an AA club.

It's uh windshield's cracked. Um springs are coming through the upholstery. Tires are bald.

Uh doors are different panel. You know, the panels a different color. Uh somebody else's tags are on the back.

a lot of r a lot of rust on it and a lot of bumps, a lot of drunk bumps on it. And uh this truck was so ugly that I uh I had a date in about 5 years cuz I would not have wanted to go out with any woman to get in that truck with me. That's how bad it was.

So, I was really lonely and I bought this nice new sports car and I called this my sobriety car because it was really a gift uh for starting to get my life on track again. And so, I started to go to a lot of meetings. I was trolling.

Um I didn't know how lonely I was till I stopped being so lonely. But um I don't know if anybody's planning on using AA as a dating service, but I will say this about it that the the uh the odds are very good, but the goods are very odd. So, it was one of my this is one of my early uh I guess you could call it a a little bit of a miniature spiritual awakening where I had this realization that I was doing a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense to me that I really didn't believe in and my life was getting a lot better.

So it started to give me some encouragement uh and some hope of me being able to change. So I launched out on this uh on doing what you did and uh I went back to step one and I looked back over my life and it was real clear to me that when I took a drink I couldn't stop and when I wasn't doing that I didn't know I forgot that which is really what alcoholism is. And I had done an experiment.

I didn't want to be alcoholic. So I had I did this experiments to prove to myself that I wasn't alcoholic. And so I thought, okay, I didn't even know what an alcoholic was.

But I an alcoholic could not not drink for 30 days. I know that for a fact if a person is alcoholic, they couldn't not drink for 30 days. So I decided to do that.

So I didn't drink for 30 days. and I had a glass of wine to celebrate not drinking for 30 days um at lunchtime and I was in jail at midnight that night and I thought that that was proof that I wasn't alcoholic. Turn out it's proof I am alcoholic.

So I, you know, I had it completely backwards. That's a real good sign of being alcoholic. So that's kind of the first part of step one.

But I call it step one part B that because I did not understand that I was power that I didn't have the power over alcohol my life became unmanageable. So I could see clearly that I was a very poor manager of my own life because I didn't understand what power over alcohol meant. And what I've come to understand about it now is that that I'm not in charge.

I need a new manager. My life looks pretty good today is because I'm not trying to manage it. I've got a new manager.

And for sake of simplicity in AA, we call that manager God. And one of the things that I do to remind myself that I'm not in management is I don't ask the question why. Why is a management question.

I'm in footwork. So the question that I ask myself is what am I going to do about it? I used to get really hung up on things like, you know, why am I alcoholic?

Not a good question. It's asking for an argument with God. The question I ask is, what am I going to do about it?

And I ask that in all questions rather than why questions. It really suits me well. And a visual that I like to remind myself that I'm not in management is that I'm at a circus and I got a bucket and a shovel and I'm not in charge of how many elephants are in the parade.

Okay? I just I just do what my job is. I'm not in charge of that stuff because and what I also found out is that when I fight reality, when I when I'm not accepting something that's going on, I lose.

But only a 100% of the time. So I I make a real effort to not fight that, not fight reality. And the the and the me and the and the biggest thing I could fight or the most obvious thing I could fight is being an alcoholic.

I accept that. And then I can move on when I do that. So I'm at step two already.

Only been an AA for probably nine months by now. Moving right along. And we all have crazy stories of stuff we've done when we're drinking.

I'm sure we go around the room. Everybody's got a crazy story. At least one, two, maybe 10.

Um, but I realized that the craziest thing I ever did, I did sober. I picked up another drink. For a guy like me to pick up a drink is crazy.

So, I'm insane. I need to be restored to sanity. Uh, I mentioned that I worked in the prison system for quite a while.

I worked as a teacher. I taught landscaping. Back to our theme again here.

Pot grower teaching landscaping in a prison. God's got a sense of humor. I can assure you.

And I got the job doing H&I at at Falsam Prison and which you probably heard of out here. Um, so anyway, I asked my students in this prison where I worked and I had the same students for quite a while. Usually they didn't turn over that fast.

I had like a lot of Yeah, a lot of them are there for quite a while. um maybe out of 30, maybe 20 of them committed murder and maybe the rest were drug addicts and burglars and that kind of stuff. Um but I asked them if they'd ever heard of AA and as you can well imagine most of them had and then I asked them some more questions.

I said, "Have you ever had a sponsor in AA? Have you ever worked the steps in AA? Have you ever had a service commitment in AA?

Have you ever had more than a year of sobriety in AA?" And in 15 years, probably 25 guys answered yes to all those questions. I asked him one more question. What are you doing in prison?

You know what the answer was? Everybody knows what the answer was. They stopped going to meetings.

So the way that I see it is if you stop going to meetings, you go crazy because you have to go crazy first to have a drink if you've been restored to sanity. So I go to meetings so I won't go crazy. And I get to see what happens to people that don't go to the meetings.

They go crazy. So I'm already up at step three. And I go to my sponsor and say, "That's about as far as I can go.

I don't I don't believe in God still." And uh I said, "Aa is just full of these these silly contradictions. It doesn't make any sense." I was trying to make sense out of it. And uh she said, "What are you talking about?" I said, 'Well, you know, you you uh you go to the meeting and on the wall there there's a sign that says, "Think, think, think think." You look at the book, it says, "The problem with the alcoholics in his mind." I don't think that's a good idea.

Or someone says you have to surrender to win. Tell that to your military friends. Give it away to keep it.

Sure, the bank managers like to hear that. Recovered, recovering, taking a trip, not taking a trip. Um, someone will say, "Uh, keep it simple, stupid.

This isn't rocket science." And someone else says, "Yeah, it's way more complicated than that." Or someone says, "Don't make any major decisions in the first year." I said, "I think quitting drinking is a pretty major decision." Or, "You if you haven't if you don't remember your last drink, you haven't had it." The book says, "You can't remember the misery and suffering of a couple of weeks ago." And you know, we're not bad people trying to get good. We're sick people trying to get well. Why do we have to do a moral inventory?

People with cancer don't do moral inventories. Oh, I'm so glad it's only suggestions. How come there's a hundred musts in the book?

Oh, don't you don't worry. You just hurt yourself. How come I have to make so many amends?

>> >> Uh don't uh don't get in a relationship the first year, but get a sponsor and tell him all your Don't make any major decisions in the first year, but turn your will in your life over to the care of God. That's a major decision. My favorite one is half measures avail.

You'd be amazed before you're halfway through. So, so I go to my sponsor. I'm telling her all this and she says, "How how about you?

You got any contradictions in your life?" I thought back of a time not that not that distant future in the past rather where I just graduated from UCLA and I took this trip to Europe and somebody had loaned me $200 a friend of mine and they they they wired me the money. I was out of money and I asked them and they wired it to me. I was in Germany someplace and I got the money.

I got noon and I woke up the next morning and it was gone. And $200 in the 60s was a lot of money. I don't know what happened, but all the money was gone.

And that's a little bit of a disconnect from from the life that I thought I was living. I thought I was just traveling through Europe. I was actually homeless.

That night I went into a mission and I got sprayed with all this life spray and stuff. And I still had 10 more years of drinking. And there's a line in the literature about in a lot of ways we're normal except when it comes to alcohol.

And I thought, you know, I've never gone into a grocery store and say, "Hey, can I buy everybody a loaf of bread?" But I was doing that. I was always a big shot when I was drinking. So what I decided and this for step three this was key to me is I focused on that word decision.

I made a decision to try to stop changing AA and let AA change me and I made a decision to work steps four through nine. I still had a very unclear concept of this power. And uh I was praying to the power, but I wasn't really chummy with the power, but I was able to take step three to move forward and say, "Okay, I'm going to work this program.

I'm going to believe that you're not all lying to me at the same time and that you're my life will get better when I do the things that you said that you did." And I see I can look back at it and I see it's a lot like uh it's a lot like gravity. Gravity uh doesn't just let some people down. Gravity lets everybody down.

And aa these principles spiritual in nature work for everybody that works them. It's not that I got lucky and they work for me and they won't work for you. They work for everybody who works them.

So our job is just to get willing enough to do it. And so I got to that point where I was willing to do that. So, I got out a piece of paper and uh I I have a bad memory and and my wife calls it purposeful forgetting, but I can barely remember being in high school.

And I don't want to remember, I guess. I don't know what it is. And I didn't think I had a lot of resentments, but I I knew I had a lot of hate in my heart for my father.

I hated him. And uh I spent years not even talking to him and he was an alcoholic. So anyway, I uh I started I put his name at the top of a paper and I started to write about the hurt that I felt and I started to cry and I called my sister and I called in to work.

I couldn't work that day and I just cried and talked and cried and and something happened that day. those tears just washed away that that anger that I had towards him and I could see how spiritually sick he was from where he came from and uh my relationship healed that day. It's the weirdest thing and the the literature says something about that.

And um my fears list I I had uh God and women on my fears list which is two two key relationships in my life and if they're based on fear they can't be good relationships. And then all my secrets were around my sexual inventory. And I and then I went and did my fifth step with my sponsor.

It was kind of a rainy day in November when I did it. And uh we drove out into the country where I used to raise uh pot. And um she saw a lot of trash along the side of the road.

It must have been the day that you put the garbage cans by the street and it gets picked up and maybe some dogs have gotten into or not. But she was talking about having to change her focus because she was focused on this trash. and I do my fifth step and uh we're driving back to her house and there's a rainbow.

It just touched me deeply that that I had my my life to me was like a garbage can and I tip this garbage can out and I just I felt wonderful and the book talks about that and page 75 there's some wonderful promises that happen when we do a fifth step and it's like why did I wait so long to do it? because it I just felt a closeness to my creator and I felt that I was a solid member of AA like I was doing what you were doing like I'm a member and the fifth step was crucial to me. So I go to do six and seven.

In the meantime this this uh this sobriety car thing worked out really well. I go to a meeting and this woman says, "You want to step outside and I'll see if I can work you into my story and uh I end up getting married to her and you know I'd take her our idea of a date. we go to a meeting and uh I'd take her home and I didn't know whether to kiss her or say the Lord's Prayer, you know, but we got married and uh I had about two years of sobriety at the time and she had a couple children.

So, uh I got to be a father and a husband on the same day and she had uh her sister had children nearby. So, I got to be a father and an uncle and a husband on the same day. And I didn't know how to do any of this stuff.

Just prior to getting sober, I was living on this property and my best thinking was to put barb wire around the outside of it to protect my marijuana from the teenagers in the neighborhood. And I had a case of vitamin C and some brewer yeast. And I was just going to drink and smoke myself to death, but be healthy when I was doing it.

And I realized much later that the worst punishment we have in America is solitary confinement. That's the worst thing we do to anybody in this country. And I was doing that to myself in my disease.

That's where I ended up. And now I'm getting sober. I'm working this program and I'm a husband and a father and an uncle and I don't know how to do it.

But I'm doing six and seven. And what I find out is that I'm a faultfinder. That you're not going to do it right.

I'm going to point it out to you because I know all the internationally accepted standards way of doing things and then you're going to I'm going to push you out of my life in the so I can drink the way that I like to drink. And that doesn't work when you're when you have those relationships. And uh I wanted so much to be better at it.

And one of the problems was that nobody knew how to do the dishes properly. So I thought, well, what's the solution to this? I thought, well, I'll start doing the dishes.

So I would get to the the sink and I would I didn't want to do the dishes angrily. I wanted to do the dishes peacefully, and I'd stand at the sink until I could get peaceful enough to just do the dishes. Doing the dishes is very spiritual when you're just doing the dishes.

Um, and then Angela, my seven, she was seven when I became her stepdad. She her she starts off saying, "Well, you're not the boss of me." And she had a dalmatation, which is like a dog from hell. And uh, just couldn't be trained.

And I'd be driving home from work and I'd get I could see myself getting madder and matter and matter as I got closer to home, knowing that I have to step over that stuff when I got home. Sometimes I turn around, go back to my sponsor's house, and just say, "Just step over it." And I I what I started to do with Angela is I started to treat her like a newcomer, like you treated me, like be kind to her, encourage her. Uh don't don't criticize her all the time.

The very things that you did to me, be loving and kind and supportive. And I started writing her notes telling her how happy I was to be her her stepdad. And the relationship just started to get a whole lot better.

And many years later, she asked me to walk her down the aisle. I'm the stepdad. And her father was at the wedding, and he thanked me for raising his daughter.

You taught me how to do that. I don't know how to do that. I'm a faultfinder.

I push people away. I learned how to do that by treating her the way you treated me. Thank you for that.

You taught me how to do that. Uh so, and I got to pay for that wedding, too. I got to write the checks for that wedding.

I had a good job and I went to work every day. I was thankful for that. Uh, I made a list, ate.

I moved around a lot. I was sober a couple years before I realized you can move in the daytime. So, a lot of people I, you know, I was drinking, they were drinking.

I mean, I I'm more than willing to make amends uh wherever possible. Uh but the when I got to nine, the the main damage I did was to my mother and my father. I have two sisters, but I didn't I don't think I did u any detrimental things to them that that I required, you know, formal ninestep work on.

But my father definitely and uh many years later, I invited my father to come and live with us. He moved into our house and uh I had a lot of love in my heart for him. He hadn't changed, but I had a lot of love for him.

He was there about 30 days and somebody said something he didn't like and he said, "I'm out of here." And he left. He was a faultfinder. He's buried someplace about 50 or 60 miles from here, I think.

A lonely man who died by himself. My mother um she died when I had five years of sobriety and uh I was able to be a good son. You taught me how to do that.

I thank you for that. In my and the but the amends that that touched me the most were a couple of financial amends. One was for $5 and one was for $10.

Not a lot of money. the the $10 one. I had uh I used to go to this restaurant.

I was I was the secretary of the step study meeting. Went to this restaurant at lunchtime and I got $10 too much and change one day and I thought, well, if you can't count, it's not my job to tell you. And I put it in my pocket.

But I felt badly about it. We were probably on step nine at the meeting. And a couple weeks later, the woman came up who owned the place and said she was selling it.

And I'm thinking, if I'm going to make this amend, I need to do it today. So I said, "Could I talk to you for a minute?" And took her aside and said, "I was here a couple weeks ago and I got $10 too much in change. I want to give it back." And she said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Lady, I would not be giving you this $10 if I wasn't sure." And I started to cry.

I'm in this restaurant with all these people. I'm crying. Tears streaming down my face.

It was the best $10 high I ever had. The $5 a mend, my stepson Shawn, was 13 when I came into his life. And I didn't know this at the time, but he was just starting off in his addiction.

And when he was 17, the year I had five years of sobriety, he borrowed my sobriety car. He didn't have my permission, but he had my wife's permission, which was fine. And he got drunk and he smashed it and he almost killed his passenger.

He hit a oak tree uh at some kind of high rate of speed and and his passenger was in a coma for a week and he was arrested. Um peed in the back of the cop car. Ruined my car.

My car was ruined and I was not feeling very spiritual about it because it was my sobriety car and how dare he and we had a a house call from some Alanons. They do house calls where we live and two Alanon ladies came over and I'm complaining to them about my sobriety car. And surely the one lady says, "Well, maybe it's not your sobriety car.

Maybe it's Sean's sobriety car." That was his last drink. He was 17 years old. He got 28 years of sobriety.

28 years. You can you can get sober and stay sober when you're young and alcoholic synonymous. And the the um recovery is progressive as well.

The disease is progressive, but recovery is progressive. I know that that Betty and I, the woman of my the love of my life, my wife, uh, is that we're better parents than our parents were, but our children are better parents than we are. It's getting better in our family.

So, a little while later, Sean calls me. He's going to San Diego State to study to be an engineer. And, uh, he calls me and wants, he said he was stealing money from me, wanted to pay it back.

And, uh, I had a jar. I was a waiter back in those days and I had a jar. It was full of money and I looked at it and it was only pennies and nickels and he taken all the dimes and quarters out of it and you know bought beer with it or whatever he done and he wanted to start paying me back.

So he's a real poor student. So he sends me $5 and I was so excited about it cuz I know this thing comes alive with step nine. That's when the that's when the promises are.

So I sent him back a hundred bucks. So I didn't I just you know I wanted him to somehow I didn't tell him it was because he sent me the five but I wanted him just to get an idea of the flow of the spirit of the universe. So I sent him a hundred and a little while goes by and he sent me another five and I sent him another 100.

All of a sudden the five start coming really fast. Yeah. I think step 10 is my favorite step because it's the step that allows me to identify what the problem is.

It's not the Lutheran. It It's not the Muslims. It's not the Republicans.

It's it's me. It's me and my attitudes. That's what the problem is.

And I have the tools that I've learned from you to quiet that disturbance inside of me so I don't have this disease. Let's try another deep breath. >> >> We're all alive here together.

And you know, right outside here, not in this corner of not that far, there's a there's a traffic light that goes green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red. That's what it does all day long. I pull up to it and I have an agenda.

I don't want it to be red. I want it to be green. So, I'm telling I got this story that I'm telling about about things and it it causes me to not be peaceful.

I have this sign on my desk that says, "You're right." But what do you want to be right about? I heard a story about a a guy that's going to move to this new town. And he goes to the town and there's a guy sitting on a park bench and he asks him, "What are people like in this town?" And he says, "Well, what do they like where you live?" He says, "Ah, they're terrible.

That's why I'm moving. They're they're they gossip and they they tell lies and they're backstabbing and nobody helps anybody. It's it's a miserable place." The guy says, "Well, I'm afraid people are a lot like that here." And then uh a little while later, some other guy that's going to move to this town sees the same guy on the park bench and says, "What are people like here?

I'm thinking about moving here." He says, "What do they like where you live?" He says, "Oh, they're kind and loving and helpful. They're wonderful people. I'm going to miss them terribly." He says, "Well, people are a lot like that here." So, it's it's not out there.

It's here. It's like when I change the way I look at things, the things I look at change. The whole world has changed because I've changed.

My my view of the world has changed. And I understand how important it is to be the gatekeeper of my thoughts because thoughts just come at me crazy. All all of us all the time they're coming.

But what I do about them, I have some say. In the past, I know that a lot of the misery that I caused myself was believing in things that weren't true. So, I've learned to to to look at my thoughts more carefully and say, "Okay, it's it's not true that I'm a piece of junk." That's not true.

I maybe thought that for a long time, and that's not true. I have a lot of love in my heart now. And I can look at thoughts as they come in and decide whether they're true or not, and then not have the ones that are false cause me any misery.

I love what Buddha has a story. He says he used to go barefoot all the time. He'd stub his toe a lot and he he thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if there was enough cows to put rawhide all over the earth, make it soft, but he knew there weren't enough cows to do that?" So, he put leather on his feet and the whole world changed.

Step 11. I read someplace that where it says sought through prayer and meditation to I changed that to say sought by paying attention. When I pay attention, when I'm right here, right now with you, I'm where the power is.

This is where God is right here, right now. Yesterday's ashes, tomorrow's wood, the fire burns today, right now. And when I pay attention, I'm where the power is.

I love it at meetings. We we have a lot of topic meetings in California. And every meeting I go to, someone says, "What's the topic?" I always say, "It's paying attention under my breath." For prayers, I got it down to three that I like.

Help, thanks, and wow. Step 12. I believe that as a result of of working this program that I'm a better customer, that I'm a better driver on the freeway, that I'm a better uncle, father, brother.

All those relationships are a lot better as a result of practicing these principles in my affairs. Um, I make an effort to be of service. I love I love what Roger does for service and uh Steve, my sponsy and my road dog.

We we make a lot of CDs and we share them with people. It's a great way to carry the message. A lot of I think people nowadays don't read as much, but they certainly listen to CDs.

So, I would I would hope that we we would support Roger in the effort he does and and that um we can keep carrying this message to people. And but I think the main part about the 12step that that I like is that I've woke up. I was a walking dead person.

I was uh I just wasn't nobody was home. And the the work that I've done has allowed me to wake up. And I think I didn't mention when I was talking about 10 about when we're wrong, admit it.

But I can see that a lot of my awakening is seeing where I was wrong about things. I was wrong about God. I was wrong about the book.

That book is a fabulous book. A couple page 30 31. It's a fabulous book.

Nobody I think has ever understood alcohol in the way Phil W did. It's fabulous book. You are fabulous.

I thought people in AA were like, "Oh jeez, AA has it come to this?" And I love the people in AA. You are fabulous. Every one of you, thank you.

I was a I was a taker. I took and took and took and everything was gone. And now I'm a giver and I have more than I can ever imagine.

My cup runth over. I thought I couldn't trust you. No, I couldn't trust me.

The list goes on and on about the things that I was wrong about. And I wonder what I'm still wrong about. I love the set aside prayer.

Let me set aside what I think I know about you, what I know about God, what I know about the book. Let me have a new experience here today with you because I don't know what I don't know. Looking back on my time in AA, I see sobriety a lot like an escalator.

So there's an escalator and it's going the escalator is going down. But I'm on the escalator and I want to go up. So I have to keep moving or I'll there's co there's no coasting in AA.

If you're coasting, you're heading towards a drink. So, in order for me to stay sober and grow, I've got to keep going and moving even though the escalator is going down. And what I see a lot of people do is they work the steps backwards.

So, I just want to give you a little idea what I think that would look like. Step 12. I have a principle in my life.

It's a doggy dog world and I got to get mine before you get it because there's not enough to go around. 11. I pray me me.

More, more, more. Now, no, now. Amen.

10. I take inventory. Yours.

I don't know how you stay sober doing the stuff you do. And you don't dress very well. And you're a lousy driver.

Eight. I got a list. Oh.

Oh, I missed nine. Oh, I'm not going to pay. I'm not going to pay the money back.

I'm gonna skip nine. Eight. I got a list.

It's a list. Your name's on it. Seven.

Humility is not one of my faults, but if it was, I'd take humility. Six. I like that Frank Sinatra song.

I did it my way. Five, I'm not copying anything, even if you have pictures. Four, I can never get a break.

It's like this fairy follows me around. It's always dumping on my head. I live in this place called Pityville, population one.

If I fell in a barrel of tits, I'd come out sucking my thumb. Three, turn my will over to God. What if you screws my life up?

I'm not going to do that. Two, I have all this wonderful information now, and I'm sure that I'm armed with enough uh self-nowledge that I will never take a drink again. One, I saw a sign the other day for some cherry vodka.

I wonder what that tastes like. You know, I think maybe I was too young when I got sober. Maybe I just overreacted.

I think I'll have a drink. Well, you know what happens to me when I have a drink? I told you a story about it.

Click, click. I get arrested. You go to jail.

They say, "Empty your pockets. Take off your jewelry." So, I keep my money and my sobriety coin together because I don't have any money when I don't have any sobriety. Uh, it says, "To thy known self be true on my chip." Um, I won't need that anymore.

I'm going to I'll be lying to myself so fast it won't matter. If I had a watch, I'd take that off, but I don't. I got a chip in my pocket.

Says, "I seek strength, not so much to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy, myself." Uh, my wedding ring. I would take that off, but I gained about 20 pounds since I quit smoking. Let's make it 50 lbs.

Okay, let's be truthful. Okay, 50 lb. Wallet, driver's license, that's gone.

Credit cards, they're gone. I didn't have any credit cards when I got sober. I have a picture of my granddaughter.

I don't have it with me, but I won't be able to see my grandchildren. I could put my teeth out here, too, but that's inappropriate. I had a watch to put that out here, too.

But I know it's time to have a drink, so I don't really need that. So, everything good in my life, absolutely everything that's good in my life is a direct result of being an alcoholic synonymous. Everything that's good in my life.

Am I going to give that up? No, I'm not going to give that up. These steps are designed so beautifully.

Uh, you know, 1 2 3 gets me right with God. Four, five, six gets me right with me. 7 8 9 gets me right with you.

10 keeps me right with me. 11 keeps me right with God. 12 keeps me right with you.

1 2 3 give up. 4 5 6 clean up. 7 8 9 Make up.

10 11 12 grow up. It's a set of spiritual principles that allow a person like me to be free of alcohol and live a happy and joyous and useful life. What a beautiful gift.

You know, at sometimes I I used to drink and listen to We're All Dust in the Wind. Remember that old song from way back when? Think, what's the point?

I've asked myself, what's the point in sobriety as well as when I was drinking? We have an answer in the literature for that. The point is to be willing to grow along spiritual lines.

What does that mean? Well, I've been reading. I've been in my search, in my seeking, in my uh growing uh in the the theme of just starting and always getting better.

I've been looking at ways to grow spiritually. And I see I see the same thing a lot. It's the best thing we can do is be kind to each other.

Now, if you can't be kind to us, I hope you can be kind to yourself. Because if you can be kind to yourself, then you can't help but be kind to us. Thanks 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.