Sober Sunrise – Jay S. – New Orleans, LA – 2016
AA speaker Jay S. from New Orleans shares his journey from living in a car and multiple DUIs to finding sobriety through the Big Book, sponsorship, and spiritual practice. A story about transformation and living in the fourth dimension.
Jay S. from New Orleans spent his early drinking years living in his car, accumulating DUIs, and convinced he was simply a bad person getting what he deserved. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his first few days in the program—a chance meeting with a no-nonsense sponsor, reading the Big Book at his grandmother’s house, and the moment he got down on his knees and prayed. Thirty-seven years later, Jay describes what it looks like to actually live the promises and help others find their way out.
Jay S. is an AA speaker from New Orleans who got sober in 1979 after years of blackouts, arrests, and homelessness. He describes his early recovery process—finding AA at a beach meeting, reading the Big Book, working the steps quickly with his sponsor, and the spiritual experiences that followed. The talk covers how sponsorship works, the inventory process, meditation practice, and living in what Bill Wilson called “the fourth dimension” of sobriety.
Episode Summary
Jay S. walks into a noon AA meeting in Manhattan Beach, California in May 1979 as a desperate 24-year-old with a Pinto he’s been living in. He’s spent years trying to outrun the fact that he’s an alcoholic—convinced instead that he’s just a bad guy getting what he deserves. What he didn’t understand at the time was that he had an abnormal reaction to alcohol from early adolescence: by age 16, his idea of a good time was sedatives and wine, while everyone else would end up in a hospital bed. The blackouts, the stolen cars looking for a drink, the arrests—none of it made sense to him until his father, after bailing him out of jail again, connected him with someone in the program.
That first sponsor didn’t coddle him. The man talked about himself for a while, then told Jay point-blank: if he wanted sobriety, he’d have to go after it the way he’d gone after alcohol. Find it in the white pages. No hand-holding. Jay drove to that first meeting ready to drink again that night—and he did, a full water glass of bourbon. But something happened on Friday when he almost drove to a bar to find a woman who’d understand him. A still small voice told him to turn the car around. He’d never heard that voice before. He went back, grabbed his new acquaintance, and asked him to talk program to him.
This is where the real story unfolds. Jay got a copy of the Big Book that night and couldn’t put it down. He wasn’t interested in world wars or stock markets—he was looking for a solution. When he read about Fitz M., a preacher’s son who heard a voice asking, “Who are you to say there is no God?”—Jay got down on his knees and prayed. Not a religious prayer. A desperate one: “I don’t know from Jesus or Buddha. Just please help me not to drink, and I’ll do whatever these dried up old guys say.” He believes that prayer was his Third Step, finished on day three of sobriety.
The next morning, a woman at the Alano Club scared him half to death by saying, “Find God or die.” Thirty-seven years later, he’d revise that: Find God and live. Live abundantly, wonderously, in dimensions you can only dream about right now.
What makes Jay’s talk distinctive is his honesty about the early steps. He talks about how his sponsor gave him two pieces of paper and a simple assignment: write down who you hate, who you’re afraid of, the sexual stuff we all have, and who you owe money to. Not a fearless and thorough fourth step on day one—the greatest hits. The stuff that keeps you awake when your head hits the pillow. He got sober at 24 days and had his first request to sponsor someone. He called his sponsor in a panic. The answer: “If they’re sick enough to ask you for help, you can’t hurt them.”
Jay spends considerable time on what happened after sobriety took—the business he couldn’t manage, having to send the keys back to a landlord, still making amends 20 years later with monthly checks. He talks about Debtors Anonymous, about recognizing that the suffering around money and clutter wasn’t insanity but a diagnosable problem with a solution. This is Jay’s larger point: the program isn’t just about not drinking. It’s an expansive way of life that extends into every corner of a person’s existence.
The second half of his talk pivots to what he calls living in the “fourth dimension”—a place beyond the first three. He describes his sponsor’s question: “If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?” That question sparked a journey from Redondo Beach to Sedona, from unemployment to running a retreat house, from a rocky marriage to co-authoring a book on loving sober with his wife. He emphasizes that this didn’t happen by accident—it happened through meditation, prayer, service work, and what he calls “cracking open the book and doing stuff.”
Jay’s talk includes a live three-minute meditation with his wife, demonstrating the practice he credits with deepening his marriage and his sobriety. Every 22 minutes, he takes a moment to check in with himself: Am I coming from the highest possible place? Is this conversation happening at the highest level it can be? He talks about killing his television 25 years ago, about paying attention to the life given to him, and about the greatest love he’s ever known—found in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Throughout, Jay uses humor and blunt honesty—joking about short guys who can’t throw far, about smart cars being flammable just like their occupants, about the difference between alcoholics and drug addicts and their relationship with carpeting. But underneath the humor is a man grateful for a program that took him from homelessness to a life of purpose, creativity, and genuine transformation.
Notable Quotes
You don’t ever have to feel the way that you feel about yourself ever again if you’re willing to do what I’ve done.
This is AA kid. We don’t use no dope here. If it leads you to the first drink, you got to stay away from it.
We actually show people how to change. That’s what separates AA from any other spiritual movement.
If they’re sick enough to ask you for help, you can’t hurt them.
Find God and live. Live abundantly, live wondrously, live in dimensions that right now you may only be able to dream about.
The greatest love that I have ever been given is in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Early Sobriety
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Sponsorship
Spiritual Awakening
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Hitting Bottom
- Early Sobriety
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Sponsorship
- Spiritual Awakening
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe 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 good morning friends my name is Jay stennet I’m an alcoholic God is doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself CU it’s uh 11 something in the morning on a Sunday I’m in New Orleans and I haven’t had anything to drink yet today which for an alcoholic of my variety is an amazing miraculous thing I mean we should all be drunk right and I mean it’s late in the day that’s the nice thing about New Orleans you guys understand morning drinking you go places you know people don’t even start drinking until like 10:00 in the morning it’s it’s rude rude so anyway um you know I want to uh thank everyone who had anything to do with uh getting my wife and I here uh van Lisa Judy you been incredibly sweet there’s a term and it’s beloved and it means something that is very dear to the heart and your AA Community here is very very dear to my heart because you’ve been so incredibly loving and uh engaged with myself and I I bring you greetings from uh Bill and Karen Cleveland and uh Matthew and pip Mitchell and uh you know the the uh the weird AA family that I’m part of we feel at home here and I want you to know that you’re part of our Consciousness and so thank you very much for for all the kindness that you’ve extended to all of us over the years um you know I was living in my pinto and for the younger people here a pinto was a smart car that the Ford Motor Company crafted in the mid 70s was highly flammable just like the uh the occupants and uh I had no idea why I was living in a car um I didn’t realize that what I was was alcoholic now I was the short guy in school you all you guys all remember the short guy I can’t throw the ball as far I can’t run as fast but when I hit fifth grade I find something that I can do better than guys that are bigger tougher and stronger than me metabolize beverage alcohol obviously this is a gift from God and when one is gifted you know one approaches it with enthusiasm and uh I had no idea that what I was was I was having an abnormal reaction to a substance that this was not how most people people function now I don’t know you know how it is that you figured it out but i’ I’d like to suggest that that if you want to figure out whether you’re alcoholic or not take what it is that you used to do for recreation and then compare it to what happens when 90% of the population does the same behavior for example by the time I’m 16 years years old my idea of a good time is to take a rack of Reds high-powered sedative seol and wash it down with a quart of spinata wine 90% of the population when they exhibit that behavior what happens is is they end up in a coma at the hospital with me I’m looking for car keys and to make short-term romantic commitments right which brings me to another another portion of this this disease this this that I I didn’t suffer from but a lot of other people suffered from it um is is a thing called blackouts now blackouts isn’t something that you ever hear about in you know junior high school health class you know it’s kind of like time travel you know you just wake up in other places and um you know I’d like to submit to you that if you wake up with a life form with which you were unfamiliar when you left the house in the morning you may be suffering from something a little different now most people if they woke up you know next to something they’d go I don’t think I’ll do this again I just come up with coping mechanisms I start calling myself a social sleeper but you so it’s just it’s just odd so I just kept coming up with different ways to rationalize my behavior and what happened is is that I reached the point where um I could no longer justify what was going on to myself my people hadn’t raised me that way and uh I violated the trust of anybody that ever put any in me and I couldn’t stand it and I ended up I’m 24 years old and I’m running around stealing alcohol and and gasoline and going from one place to another because I’m like a cat and I don’t want anybody to see how bad I’ve gotten and I know it’s going to get worse and I got rested again for driving Under the Influence I was always Under the Influence by the time I was 13 years old my Consciousness was only lames do it on the natch the worst thing that can ever happen to somebody is to be a lame therefore I’m never going to do anything on the NCH so I always you know I like to drink ralar before I went to seventh grade it was a wonderful way to get ready for school and uh you know I knew that snack or nutrition break I knew what kind of nutrition I needed because it went with the Robble art really well and uh so anyway that’s that’s just the way that I was and and and at 24 years old I’d been arrested like and and I I don’t want it to seem like I’m a criminal you know I mean it’s like let’s be clear about this we had criminal Behavior described last night okay me it’s public napping drunk in public you know it’s just you know but somebody was always going get in the car get in the car get in the car and uh so anyway I’m baffled I’m absolutely baffled about why it is that I can’t control and enjoy my drinking I can’t understand why it is that I can’t keep an apartment keep a relationship keep a job I think that what I am is I’m just a bad guy getting what I deserved and my father um bailed me out of jail and over a vodar roo at a at a hotel he said do you think you have the disease and I thought well I don’t know but maybe he’ll pay for the lawyer so I said um and he said look said I got a buddy I want you to talk to give him a call you can stay with my my uh my mother down in elando so I drove down to my grandmother’s house where all great criminals end up right grandma’s or Ma you know whenever you meet a gangster and Alcoholics Anonymous ask them where do you live mother with my mother she’s awful um uh so I’m I’m I’m at my grandmother’s house I give this guy a call he says meet me at the Howard Johnson’s uh tomorrow morning at 7:30 don’t have anything to drink and don’t smoke any of that crap either how did he know so I meet this guy he sits down he starts talking about himself and talking about himself and talking about himself how he had problems in his life and then he met Alcoholics Anonymous and then he didn’t have any problems anymore and talking about himself and talking about himself talking about himself just want him to stop just stand and so he’s not stopping so I figure I’ll prompt him I say hey look do I need psychiatric treatment do I require religion how about hospitalization and he looked right at me and he said listen trick he said if you or your family can get the $3,000 that it’s going to cost for you to go to treatment go out and drink that money up and when you’re done call Alcoholics Anonymous they do it for fun and for free and then this angel of Mercy this caring nurturer got up and he said if you want sobriety you’re going to have to go after it the way he went after your drugs and alcohol kid find it in the white pages goodbye and he left he didn’t even buy me breakfast he didn’t take me by the hand and walk me into sobriety he said go find it so I went home to my grandmother’s house and I poured myself a water glass full of Davies County old-fashioned Kentucky bourbon with three ice cubes and I knocked it down and I called Alcoholics Anonymous that was on the second day of May 1979 and although I found it necessary on a number of occasions I haven’t taken the front drink sniffed any glue or done any of those other things that I found to be so consoling so my story is that you don’t have to drink or use one minute at a time from your first contact with the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous now that’s not all our stories and there’s no hierarchy about it or anything else but this is just my story I was invited that’s what you get okay so anyway I call AA up and this woman goes Alcoholics Anonymous can we help you she says are do you have a problem drinking and I said uh she says um are you drinking now now I don’t know about you guys but I get really literal when I’m talk I I didn’t have it pouring down my throat so I was able to say no I’m not drinking she said we got a noon meeting happening down here in Manhattan Beach why don’t you go down there and so I ended up at this noon meeting I showed up fashionably late cuz if you’re not invited to the pre party why show up on time right and uh so I walk into this coffee bar and the woman uh behind the coffee bar goes you upstairs and I walked up these 12 steps into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and everybody started talking at me and I can’t understand why are they talking at me but you see when I’ve been out busy you can tell that I spent a lot of money getting my hair styled oh 6 eight months ago and when my hair is long I kind of look like the Sphinx my fingernails are out to here when I light a cigarette it looks like a Napal strike’s been cut called in you know I got the zup zups going because I haven’t had enough to drink yet today and uh and everybody’s talking at me and uh the third guy that talked was a guy by the name of butcher Joe now you can always tell butcher Joe Joe Hacker I kid you not a butcher named hacker you can’t make the anyway and and Joe looks at me and he talks about crying the big crocodile tears when the family left and in side he’s going yes now we can drink and there isn’t anybody that’s going to get in our way I understood that and he talked about knowing just exactly how deeply to cut himself so that they’d have to take him to the hospital and he could get the drink that he needed on the way and he looked right through me and he said you don’t ever have to feel the way that you feel about yourself ever again if if you’re willing to do what I’ve done and I bought the package right there and the reason that I came here from Sedona is to tell you that you never have to feel the way that you feel about yourself ever again if you’re willing to do what I’ve done now this is a this is a a large group there’s a lot of time in this meting meeting but I have been privileged over the years to come up against different things in my life where I’ve needed to turn around and go a different way and go to groups like The allenon Family groups and ask for help you may be getting your ass kicked by something other than alcohol this is not just about not drinking this is a way of life that becomes more and more expansive and the longer that we are are are separated from a drink the longer that we are involved with spiritual principles the more and more our Behavior come becomes aligned with a more spiritual way of life but sometimes we need a little help with the food we might need a little help with the gambling we might need a little help with the i don’t know what it is that you may be suffering from but if you are suffering there are groups of women and men that can help you get out of that and get free from that and they have a language particular to the problem example I end up in a meeting of Debtors Anonymous called men and money I wonder if I qualified um and uh money in my in my family of or origin was was violence absolute violence that’s what happened at the first and the 15th of the month things just got weird and they got weirder and I never got any training at all and um I’m sitting in this meeting and a guy talks about hiding in clutter I had every receipt for my business but it was all stuffed in boxes and places all over and I thought I was just insane and these people actually knew about that and they were able to show me a way out so and and the suffering was alleviated so I want you to know that my experience is that no matter what you may think is your secret thing that’s kicking your butt you don’t have to suffer from it anymore just an opinion it’s mine it’s a really good one and it should be yours another thing about um just because I somehow I’ve gone down this Wormhole about money um alcoholics anonimus is the only organization in the world that doesn’t ask other people for money and we are also one of the largest Publishers in the world and a large part of what we do with our money is that we take money from the sale of books and we use it for our operations and we’ve been doing that from the gate and people aren’t buying books the way that they used to now if you’re working with others there are these things called smartphones that people more and more are using to get their AA literature ask your spony can I see your phone open your book and see if their big book their 12 and 12 their language of the heart has come from a AWS or if it’s a bootleg and if it’s not get them to download it it’s a way that you can support Alcoholics Anonymous World Services just a a little aside there um yeah so I’m in this meeting of AA and this guy has just convicted me and the meeting is done and something miraculous happened there were four guys this man hon Beach California there were four guys that were going down to the beach to play cards and watch girls go by on roller skates and they brought them new manal for entertainment and they taught me everything that I needed to know about alcoholics and onymous that morning they said this is AA kid we don’t use no dope here I was horrified but they said I’d gotten at that that meeting that if I be alcoholic that I had to stay away from the front drink it’s the first one that gets me and that anything that leads me to the first one I got to stay away from so I if I’m smoking a little non- Abit forming marijuana sooner or later Pepsi’s not going to cut it I’m going to need a beard to take care of it right they said that was drinking who knew I thought it was cutting the cotton mouth and if you’re doing a little of that Peruvian marching powder you need a double BMB on the rocks with a Twist just to take the edge off they said that was drinking and if you’re being spiritual you know and you’re dropping a little LSD I love chandeliers they you need a gallon of wine just to settle through the experience and they said that was drinking who knew who knew and so they told me we don’t drink we don’t use we don’t go with girls who do what an order I can’t go through with it so anyway and they they they uh they demonstrated to me they demonstrated to me compassion for the alcoholic we went back to the clubhouse my car had been towed they said it’s a new guy don’t give him any money was um and uh so anyway so I came in on a Wednesday don’t drink anything on Wednesday don’t drink anything on Thursday on Friday I uh I I go to a couple of meetings and then there was an AA dance so when I came to AA I had a good t-shirt a bad t-shirt pair of Levis and some bowling shoes and uh my full wardrobe and um and so I got the good t-shirt on borrowed an extra $2 from my grandmother I go sliding into the dance you know and I and I and the women they’re like the women here this morning you know they took showers they’ve got perfume on they’re swinging their hips they’re snapping their fingers I realize I’m 24 years old I’m never going to get laid again in my life and I go streaming out of the meeting jump into the pinto that I’d been living in and I go driving towards the sticken Stein and I’m headed towards the sticken Stein not to drink but just to find a woman who understands and on the way the miracle of Alcoholic Anonymous happened for me that still small voice inside of me said this is not a good idea turn the car around and I did see I’d never done that before I’d never followed that still Small Voice that voice that each and every one of us had so I went back and Larry was standing at the door and I grabbed him and I said talk program to me please and he got me a copy of the book Alcoholic Anonymous I’d been too busy to pick up a copy I didn’t want to look like I was going to Bible study and he talked to me about the book a little bit and he shot you know and then I shot home to my grandmother’s house I wasn’t sleeping yet it’s only day three I’m just walking and sweating and smoking and walking and sweating and smoking start reading the book and you know I got hooked when silkworth talks about the sense of ease and comfort that comes with a few drinks how did they know I would not use that language but how did they know a little further you know I wasn’t interested in world that world war that stock market crash or any of that stuff you know I I’m looking for solution and I I’m not able to pick any of it up but at the end of chapter 4 there’s a story about a guy Fitz Mayo who’s the third guy who stays sober in New York and Fitz uh was a Preacher’s Son and he had an a he was he was coming off a bad drunk and and and his family is religious and he just hates anything that’s got anything to do with God and he’s and he’s in this crisis and he hears this voice say who are you to say that there is no God and he gets down on his knees and he has an experience and and he didn’t drink I understood that story so I got down on my knees and I said my prayer pray and my prayer was this I don’t know from Jesus or Buddha I don’t know the tal the Torah the upani just please get me the top I’ll do whatever these dried up old Geeks say to do just please help me not to drink and I believe at that moment I finished the third step of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that prayer was perfect I’m with you today I went to the Alano Club the next morning I got the bad t-shirt on I’m stuck to a nagahide couch smoking waiting for the noon meeting 10:00 in the morning this woman walks she’s got bun in her hair and cck shoes on and black dress she goes oh young man you’re new aren’t you how can get down she said I can tell you the secret of alcoholic synonymous in four words what are they find God or die not that oh no not that 37 years later I can tell you the secret Alcoholics Anonymous in four words find God and live live abundantly live wondrously live in in in in Dimensions that right now you may only be able to dream about and when I say God please please don’t hang something on me that’s yours your I’m talking to you about an experience that I’ve had in the fellowship of Alcoholics synonymous and it’s a short word and I’ll drop it here or there but it means absolutely nothing except something that has happened in the interior of my heart and uh and that I have been able to experience with lots of people but it doesn’t need a definition doesn’t need a definition so this woman scared me to death so I ran into the to the meeting and I got a sponsor at that meeting I needed protection and uh and I started reading the big book now we could read the big book in the 70s unsupervised could and uh so one day I’m I’m I’m reading uh I’m reading with a buddy and uh and I see where it says that if you don’t do an inventory you’re going to drink so I run to my sponsor and I go I’m going to drink and he goes what and I said well I haven’t done an inventory yet so he gave me my uh my uh four-step kit was two pieces of paper and he lined down the middle of each and he said okay kid this is what I want you to do I said he said I want you to go home and I want you to get really jacked up on coffee now this is before Starbucks so it took a while he had to brew it up and he says and I want you to look at the door at the kitchen and he said I want you to write down who you hate who you’re afraid of the sexual weirdness uh we all got it who you owe money to he said we’ll get after it now there’s a lot of people you’ll meet that act like an inventory is something really difficult you know that first inventory that it did was it a fearless and thorough moral inventory using all four columns no it was the greatest hits what needs to be on that first inventory is the stuff that when you put your head on the pillow that goes around and around and around and around and around and around you know this is not brain surgery it’s designed for alcoholics there are people who act like you know oh we’re so glad you’ve come to Alcoholics Anonymous Welcome to our way of life please here’s the jelly donuts um you know it’s it’s like but watch out for the inventory look all we’re asking any alcoholic woman or man to do is go home and make a list of who you hate you do this every night anyway I mean come on her her mother her sister um you know it’s it’s not it’s for alcoholics we’re about this deep Sam Shoemaker the guy who was Bill Wilson’s spiritual advisor said that there’s only one sin what is it um what is it he said it’s thinking that you’re different from your fellows now the reason that I believe that alcoholism is more a disease today than I did 37 years ago is that I’ve heard a lot of fifth steps and they’re all the same some of us may be a little more flamboyant than others but I mean we’re alcoholic males there’s only so many things we can do to destroy ourselves we’re not that creative right so my sponsor comes over I I I I read it to him we burn it we say a couple prayers and then he sends me off to make amends I’m 28 days sober and I’m a fully vested member of Alcoholics Anonymous um I had the first or I was 24 days sober 28 days sober um I have the first guy asked me to sponsor him I call my sponsor up it was a very odd thing for you young people we both had to be standing next to walls at the same time I said this guy asked me to sponsor him what do I say he said Jay you say yes I said really he said Jay if they’re sick enough to ask you for help you can’t hurt them there is nothing more dangerous than an alcoholic woman or man sitting at home trying to solve their own problems you can’t hurt them you can’t well I’m not good at it nobody is Bill Wilson worked with hundreds of people trying to help them get sober before he came across that Proctologist That Shook a lot um why should it be any different for you and I why should it be any different for you and I but there is one person that you are designed to help save their life and if you aren’t available what will happen when they pass through the room they’ll run screaming from me so I I launch out into this this amazing way of life that we call Alcoholics Anonymous and it has been an adventure it has been an adventure now every AA group is a is a spiritual entity so what I’d like to do is ramp this one up a little bit if you just be kind enough to just close your eyes for a minute and just consider that 82 years ago drug addiction and alcoholism is a death sentence there is no way out and then something happened and one sufferer said you don’t have to live like this anymore and we’ve been shown away out 80 years ago having this many people sober in a room was impossible and yet we’re running around this place free range think about your first sponsor and their family and the sacrifice that family made for you to have time with them and those first people that you ran with when you were getting sober and we get to do this for fun and for free thank you I got a I got a tape of a guy by the name of Al latch who Dr Bob sponsored in the Oxford Group and then later on after he got loaded and came back Bob sponsored him in AA and he talked about being at Bob’s office and there being a big thing of pills behind Bob’s desk and he talked about all the different ones he ate to get him through the day but his favorite were what they called goofballs barbituates how did Bob get get through the day so he could drink at night he was a barble head and uh you know there’s there’s there’s sometimes there’s uh questions about alcoholics and addicts in AA and I’m here to tell you that I’ve come up with a really good way of describing the difference because there is one and it’s our relationship with carpeting when an alcoholic’s been out drinking they come home after five or six days they end up on the floor and it’s warm and it’s soft and it’s carpet for drug addicts carpeting is a NeverEnding source of Hope and inspiration the thing that separates AA from any other spiritual movement is that we actually show people people how to change when you get involved with just about any general philosophy what happens is is that will people will say you shouldn’t be sleeping with your niece quit it or they’ll say don’t steal money anymore or they’ll talk about some problem you’ll share a problem and say don’t do that anymore don’t do that but what they don’t show is what it is that we have which is immense we actually show people how to change and if you haven’t had that process of walking another person through showing how them how to change it’s the greatest gift in the world it’s the greatest gift in the world we know what it feels like when you say I had to send the keys back to the landlord my my uh my experience I had I had I had a beautiful business and I didn’t know how to run the money and I didn’t know how to ask for help and by the time I asked for help it was too late and uh and I didn’t know how to get out of that mess but there was a man that I was able to go to who said okay this is what you do you go and you look at him and you say I don’t here you go and you walk away from it and uh it was one of the lowest points in my life it’s one of the lowest points of my life and I’m still making amend for that I’m still sending checks every month you know and it’s been 20 years and uh and that’s how I get to live free that’s how I get to live free there is a dimension Beyond three that bill talks about he’s talks talked about being rocket into the fourth dimension and we get to live there and we get to we get to visit the fifth what do you mean by that we get to live on the plane of inspiration well how do we do that well we pray and we meditate and we help others you know I I’m a big fan of meditation I really believe you know pray and meditate the way you drink and used just try stuff and see where you end up it’s incredible I’ll give you an example um I’m living in Redondo Beach California I got the trophy wife um and I get invited to Sedona to go give a talk great so I go give the talk Sedona and while I’m up there when I get done with the talk as I’m as I’m getting down the voice says to me move here now now the reason I meditate is to distinguish The Voice from the voices and um I I sit down next to my girl and I say I just got told to move here and she looked at me and she goes I knew that and 6 weeks later we’re living in Sedona we went back gave our keys to realtor said make the place vanilla sell it and we’re in Sedona without script or purse man we don’t know what’s up next now she’s uh retired I’m underemployed so I mean we did have a little flexibility but I mean we did it Samurai style we put put our stuff in a container and we’re there going what’s up next and we ended up having a a huge blow up I mean This Woman’s my muse and uh and we uh we had a huge blow up and and um and I end up looking on the internet and finding a job that is as the program director of a Retreat House in Sedona and it ends up being the best job that I’ve ever had and I get to invite people to come and put on spiritual programs and it’s a it’s it’s every day it’s like I live in Oz it’s incredible you know there’s balloons and all kinds of stuff and and uh and my heart has become open further and further and further see I don’t know what your dreams are I don’t know what they are about 15 years ago my sponsor uh was having a a a party at his house on on New Year’s and I started doing this thing where I I every year I asked if you could do anything in the world what would you do anything see we have been raised raised from the dead literally we have been called forth from a self-inflicted grave and you have a purpose you have the ability to save lives and you have a creativity in your spirit that no one else has you are a reflection of what is in a way that is beyond what what anybody else has ever done and all you have to do is open your heart and ask to be shown and how do you do that well you just you know follow it I mean I’m best described in the book Alcoholics Anonymous as a queer chap with a strange idea of fun I’m a historian so I have been able to make the applications and I’m currently I’m writing a a spiritual biography of Bill Wilson but I’ve been able to create a symposium where all the historians and Alcoholics Anonymous get together and we spend a weekend together I really like girls and I got this wife that’s completely off the hook and we have um because of the processes that we’ve had as you know I mean I was raised by wolves I I didn’t have any dating chops but we actually wrote a book on loving sober and it’s for free you can get it on iTunes and uh and and and it talks about we um you know I’ve I’ve been all kinds of different places on the planet working with refugees doing all and and there is no limit we’re sober we can do anything anything in the beginning you know it was just put the plug in The Jug I like to call that first edition sobriety just put the plug in The Jug everything’s all right second edition well we got problems we got problems other than alcohol we can work with those by the Third Edition people are finding out that they can have lives Way Beyond any anything that the Pioneers in AA thought and now we have the children of the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous and you get to go back to school and you get to have business and you get to have beautiful children you get to love in Dimensions that people have never been able to love before and all you got to do is just keep the first thing first keep going to the meetings keep working with others because it’s in the sponsorship that we continue to change there is nothing Beyond it it’s the greatest greatest gift that’s available and if you haven’t done it all you need to do is just get a book and crack it open and read what’s there and do stuff um or you can do what I did I wanted to get better at being a sponsor I was three years sober the mukes that I was working with they were you know all running around but none of them seemed to have the fire so I took out four guys jack pros and Fred Ellis and Kenny O’Brien and and asked them um uh uh what their sponsors did with them and I cobbled a thing together you know take an Oldtimer that you that you admire and and ask them to lunch and then ask them a question about themselves they’ll talk forever and they can teach you some stuff to do now again the other thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is is that we we show people here and uh and one of the dearest things that’s happened in my life is having a meditative practice with my wife so I’m going to ask my fabulous wife Adele to come up here I want to give you my very best I want to give you my very best and that’s what we get to do in Alcoholics Anonymous um so come on up here baby now here we go so what it is that that uh that we came up with was this idea that three minutes of meditation will will change your life and uh hi baby and so I want to show you what we do anybody can do this in in in our book it says if circumstances warrant anybody ever had a warrant before I mean it’s fairly fairly we invite our wives or friends so if you’ve got a uh a roommate situation um you know when my daughter was was young she’d come and hold the timer and we just sit together for 3 minutes so what we’re going to do is is is show you exactly we’re going to so let’s all just meditate together for 3 minutes okay oh yeah we do this before we meet with every spony we do three minutes of silence before and after the meeting it will take suck all the drama out of your sponsy meetings and if it’ll do it with them just think what it’ll do at home um so anyway um so we’re going to we’re going to sit here together for three minutes and then we’ll uh show you how we uh we say a prayer uh after we’re done okay so let’s just uh if you just be kind enough to close your eyes that where there is injury pardon where there is doubt Faith where there is despair hope where there is Darkness light where there is sadness Joy oh Divine Master grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand to be loved as to love for it is giving that we receive it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is UND dying that we B eternal life thank you fabulous ad Del if you have a primary relationship treat it like such the reason we’re a couple is because no we both aren’t insane on the same morning takes five minutes minutes make an experiment all spiritual stuff just make an experiment just try it and see what happens but if you try that for 30 days you will find what it is that Adele and I have found which is that we never forget who the other person is I don’t treat her like someone else on the days that we do that dream deeply you have a place in your heart that no one else has and it is waiting to be opened and it is waiting to be shared this is the gift of sobriety it’s a really good time it’s fun I mean come on we’ve been raised from the dead you want to just be a better consumer huh Adele mentioned yesterday that every 22 minutes we’ve got a timer that goes off and we we what I do is is that I take a look and I and I and I and I get in touch with my innocence and I say I love you I love you please forgive me no one showed me how to love you and then I take a look at what it is that I’m doing at at that moment and I asked myself the question am I coming from the highest possible place is the conversation that I’m happening at the highest level that it can be or am I just talking about somebody else I killed my television set 25 years ago I don’t let other people tell me what I’m supposed to to be thinking I pay attention to the life that’s been given to me and the love that is presented to me each day and the greatest love that I have ever been given is in Alcoholics synonymous God bless you all 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