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. Thank you, Leaf.

And now it's time for me to introduce our speaker this morning. And thanks to all of you all for coming out on a Sunday morning. It's it's nice to see a a really nice crowd this morning.

And I know in my heart that you won't be disappointed by what Jay has to say. I didn't meet uh Jay until the Thursday night that he and his precious wife Adele came in when Van asked me to do the um presenting part. A little daunting at first, but again I have been taught you never say no.

So I accepted and I am so very grateful for the short period of time that I have known both Jay and Adele. Um already I have seen a difference in how I've been thinking and wanting to move forward in my program. Still a baby, but um one day I'll be grown up.

I'm praying that I will. Anyway, I I listened to do uh to uh some and I will say tapes. I know they're CDs, but they're still tapes to me on on his speaking.

And one of the things that was brought to my attention was um that he seems to be very a very spiritual person. And lo and behold um several people a couple of which I don't even know when they heard that I was going to introduce Jay said, "Oh, he's so spiritual." And I'm going, "Oh, and I'm working on this part." Okay. So the more I thought about it, I finally found something written on or a definition um per se that you might or for me it it made a little bit more sense as to what spirituality is.

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inseparably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives. And knowing that and the last thing that Jay said in many of his speaks speaking uh engagements is something that I hold to me every day and I say God is doing for me what I could not do for myself.

And here's Jay. >> Well after that definition we can just go home for you. Good morning, friends.

My name is Jay Stennet and I'm an alcoholic. >> God is doing for me what I couldn't do for myself cuz 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 till like 10:00 in the morning. 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've 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 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 mid70s, 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 old, my idea of a good time is to take a rack of reds, high-powered sedative schol, 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, you know, but 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 arrested 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 Natch.

So, I always, you know, I like to drink Romelar 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 robelar 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 vodka rocks 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," he 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 Elsagundo. 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 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 he's talking about himself and talking about himself and talking about himself.

Just want him to stop just 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 you 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 in 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 t 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 because 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 could tell that I spent a lot of money getting my hair styled.

Oh, six, 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 napalm strike's been cut called in. You know, I got the zupzups going cuz 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 inside 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 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 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 po.

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 Anonymous 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 spons, can I see your phone? Open your books and see if their big book, their 12 and 12, their language of the heart has come from 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 is Manhattan 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 the new man along for entertainment. And they taught me everything that I needed to know about Alcoholics Anonymous.

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-habit forming marijuana, sooner or later Pepsi is 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 Bombay 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." It 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's, 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 watch 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 screaming out of the meeting, jump into the Pinto that I'd been living in, and I go driving towards the Stickenstein. And I'm headed towards the Stickenstein, not to drink, but just to find a woman who understands. >> And on the way, the miracle of Alcoholics 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 has. 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, Alcoholics 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 wouldn't have used that language, but how did they know? little further.

You know, I wasn't interested in world that world war or that stock market crash or any of that stuff. You know, I I'm looking for a 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 stayed 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's 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 and my prayer was this. I don't know from Jesus or Buddha.

I don't know the Talmud, the Torah, the Upani stretch. 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'd 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 through. She's got bun in her hair and correct shoes on and black dresses.

She goes, "Oh, young man, you're new, aren't you? How can you tell?" She said, "I can tell you the secret of Alcoholics Anonymous 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 of Alcoholics Anonymous in four words. Find God and live. Live abundantly.

Live wondrously. Live 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," I'm talking to you about an experience that I've had in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

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. >> Good. 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 of 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 I 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 ask me to sponsor him. I call my sponsor up.

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 from?

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 a way 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 barbleblehead.

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 carpeting. 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 how to change.

When you get involved with just about any general philosophy, what happens is is that well, 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.

They 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 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 of my life. It's one of the lowest points of my life.

And I'm still making amends 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 rocketed 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 use.

Just try stuff and see where you end up. It's incredible. I'll give you an example.

Um, I'm living in Roondo 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 looks at me and she goes, "I knew that." And six 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 scriptter purse." Man, we don't know what's up next. Now, she's uh retired.

I'm undermployed. So, I mean, we did have a little flexibility, but I mean, we did it samurai style. We 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 ask, "If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?" Anything.

See, we have been 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 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 in 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 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 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 muks 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 old-timer that you that you admire and and ask them to launch 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 wh here we go. So what it is that that uh that we came up with was this idea that three minutes of meditation 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 surprising. 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 three 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 three minutes.

Okay. Oh, yeah. >> We do this before we meet with every spons.

We do three minutes of silence before and after the meeting. It will take suck all the drama out of your spons 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 >> and it is in dying that we find >> eternal life.

Thank you. >> Fabulous Adel Shay. If you have a primary relationship, treat it like such.

The reason we're a couple is because no, we're both aren't insane on the same morning. takes five 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 that moment and I ask 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 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 Anonymous. 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.