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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. >> Uh, but I I heard on from Dino and and and from from Jack that he does a real nice job and we were kind of wondering if he was going to make it tonight.

And somebody come running in there with a big book under their arm running like a windmill salesman or full of brush man. And I figured that must be him. And so so but he comes from a primary purpose group over in Dallas and I've heard a lot I've met some people from there and I've heard a lot of good things about that group and and I don't want to take any more time.

So John, if you'll come up here, let's give my east side welcome. That stool up there makes me nervous. I'll move you sit on it.

>> Yeah, I'm not going to sit on it. Be way too nervous for that. I'm going to move it to the other side, though.

For some reason, it feels better on this side than that side. My name is John Kelly. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic.

And my sobriety date is September the 4th, 1999. And for that, I am very, very grateful. And I just saw my sainted mother today, and she's pretty grateful, too.

She likes that because I sure put that woman through a lot of misery over the years. Um, some might call me fanatical. I don't know.

Some call me a big book dumper. That's the way I was brought up. Um, I'm not going to tell my story tonight.

I'm going to get right into the steps. But I got sober in in in September of 1999. And that wasn't my first goround in this rodeo.

I started trying to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous in July of 1988. And I've been to literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings all over the state of Texas, all over this great country and the Caribbean. Got piles and piles of desire chips.

And in the last five, six, seven years of my drinking, I did not want to drink anymore. Did not. I didn't want to go to jail anymore.

I didn't want to lose any more friends, lose any more jobs, lose any more freedom, lose any more of my dignity. And I had I had no iota. what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was all about.

See, I'm one of these cats that's pretty hip, slick, and cool. You get me sober for a few days and I can hear what these people say in these meetings and stuff and I can mimic and I can copy and I can come up with my stuff on my own and you'll be patting me on the behind after that meeting and I tell you I'm doing great and I always got drunk. I have no success doing it any other way.

So, we just go right by the book. And we are big book thumpers where I come from. So, I'm going to just kind of do it like I do when I do these treatment centers.

But, you know, I've had an Alcoholics Anonymous book since 1988 and I never read the darn thing, you know, and make I you know, or I'd read some stuff and it some would make some sense, some some of the stuff wouldn't make any sense. And it I just didn't it didn't ever really sink in. It didn't I didn't really identify with much.

I remember the first time I read Bill's story in 1988 and I'm thinking, man, that guy really needs to be sober, you know? I had no concept of what he was talking about because I hadn't done any of that stuff yet, you know. And I'm sure a lot more happened to Bill in Bill's life than what's in his story.

But, you know, when I got sober in 99, my story made his look like a walk in the park, you know. I mean, I I'm it was a tedious process to get me to to see what was in this book. and and I and I thank God every day that I made it to a group where the people in that group the lights are on, you know.

Um I won't mention the group, but my last home group before this group, I mean, I got so many desire chips there. I mean, they didn't even clap anymore when I get one. And they didn't have anything to offer me either.

And and um you know, I was convinced that I was just going to die drunk. And um that's what I tried to do on se in in the summer of 99 because I couldn't stay sober. I've been in five emergency rooms in about a 10 week period, all alcoholrelated.

And um I was just resigned to the fact that I was going to drink myself to death. And that's what I tried to do that entire summer. Drink as enough vodka, not the good stuff.

Skull. pop that little governor out of the top, you know, so you can drink it fast. And and somehow on Labor Day weekend for that Friday, I came to and blood all over me and I hadn't been stabbed, you know, and um I had one thought that crowded out all else is I don't want to die die die this way.

And um I detoxed myself not too far from here at my brother's house and and I made it to primary purpose on that Tuesday of September 99. And the first person I saw was this little old man who id met the year previous about 80 years old. I was shaking and vibrating and stunk to holy hell.

And and um that old man walked up to me and gave me a hug. And I looked at him and I said, "I need to talk to you." And he he looked back, you know, over the top of his glasses like your grandpa would do when he means business. And he says, "What the hell can I do for you?" And I said, "I'm scared and I don't want to drink anymore." And he said, "Come home." And we sat down in this little room before the meeting started.

And this little old man opened up his big book and he he must have done a marvelous do job 12ststepping me because it sunk sunk in. So we're going to we're going to do it the way the old man does it and it was passed on to him like this and this is the way we're going to roll. But if you have a big book, you open it up to the title page and it tells you right what this book is about right off the bat.

It says Alcoholics Anonymous is a story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. I can't tell you how many treatment centers I've been in that tells me I'm always going to be a recovering alcoholic. And when I think of that, I'm thinking of some sniveling, whining.

I'm always in recovery. That offers me no hope. That offers me no hope.

They're telling me I'm going to recover from alcoholism. This is a book on how they did it. So, let's see what the book says.

If you turn past the table of contents of the preface in the second paragraph, it says, "This book has become the basic text for our society. This is a textbook." What do you do with a textbook? We study it, right?

When we got to first grade in math class, they little math teacher passed out math books to everybody. Unless you were a freaking genius, you didn't go to the end of the book, start working big problems, did you? >> No.

We had a teacher who was there to guide each one of us students through the work so that we could learn the principles of mathematics. This is a textbook. I'm going to refer back to it over and over.

It's all marked up. Notes in the margin, pages falling apart. I'm going to study it.

Why on earth, you ask, do I study the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous? If you flip the page, it tells you right there. Four to the first edition.

This is how we open up our meetings. We don't read how it works. That's granted.

We were granted that right in the fourth tradition. But it says and as it was written in 1939, it says, "We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than a 100 men and women who have recovered." There's that word again. Hadn't even got to the real number pages yet.

And they mentioned recovered twice. And it says, "We've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body." A hopeless state of mind. Here's my definition.

Back in the day when I was drinking, in order for me to get through the day, I had to drink no matter what. And it was killing me. In order for me to live, I had to drink, but it was killing me.

That sounds like a conundrum. I don't know. I couldn't live with the booze, and I sure as heck couldn't live without the booze, but I had to drink.

A hopeless state of mind and body. Now, here's another great line. It's probably one of my favorite lines.

It says, "To show other alcoholics precisely how we recovered is the purpose of this book. So, they're telling me that the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous is giving you and me precise instructions on how to recover from the deadliest illness known to mankind, alcoholism. Alcoholism kills people that ain't even alcoholics.

Precise. What does precise mean? Means exact.

No gray area. The big book, the textbook tells us how to take the steps, when to take the steps, with whom to take the steps. There's prayers and promises all along the way.

promises of what happens when you follow the directions in the big book. And there's some promises that'll come true if you don't follow directions in the big book. And I have experienced all those promises at one time or another, you know, but precise telling me to put the plug in the jug and keep coming back.

That sounds good. They don't mean me any harm by it, but if I could not drink and go to meetings, I'd be out there not drinking and going to meetings. I have no successful experience in that.

I'm a chronic end of the line street level alcoholic of the hopeless variety. Me sitting around a meeting and hearing about your divorce one more time is not is not a program of action for me. Says for them we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary.

This is the only book where we have instructions on the steps. There's lots of great books put out by Alcoholics Anonymous. I have them all.

I encourage you to get them all and read them all. They're awesome. The 12 and 12 is an awesome book.

There's no instructions in the 12 and 12. It's written by a guy who was 20 years sober at the time. And that that's like me showing up September the 4th, 1999.

And my sponsor that night instead of 12 stepping me, he told me what his life was like today. Great. How in the heck do you get there from where I'm at?

That's why we have this book. And if that rubs you the wrong way, read page 17 of the 12 and 12. It'll tell you that this book is where the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is.

Says, "We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. So, we're going to have chapters called doctor's opinion.

They're going to explain this illness. We've got chapter to the wives, to uh the family afterward, to employers. Why?

To let those folks out there know what's killing us. See, their solution for us drinking is totally different than what our solution is. You know, they get hurt, they stop.

I get hurt. Oh, it wasn't that bad. I keep going.

You know, and it says, "And besides, we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all." So obviously we get sober, our lives improve, our famil family's lives improve, we're better employees, we're better taxpayers, yada yada yada. But since these 12 steps were adopted, there's over like 280 other groups that use the same darn 12 steps. Cocaine anonymous, narcotics anonymous, gamblers anonymous, you name it, anonymous.

There's one called Messy's Anonymous for people that I guess are too messy or not messy. I don't know. They'd have a relapse if they came to my house.

That's for sure. The basic thought on that is the 12 steps work when applied to whatever is killing you out there. Right.

Next part of the book is forward to the second edition written in 1955. It tells about how AA grew, how it was started, how it grew. Grew real slow in the first.

It's all word of mouth. Bill met Dr. Bob, they got Bill Dodson.

slow, slow, slow until some articles were written. Jack Alexander in particular and AA blew up, right? And it grew incrementally year after year after year after year until a little bit later on.

And we'll get to that in just a second. The part I want to work out talk about here is I know I'm doing the steps, but I got to get ramped up before while I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

Okay. But if you look in the forward to the second edition on Roman numeral 20, five lines down from the top, they give you some statistics. Now, these aren't empirical statistics.

They didn't talk to every single member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but they the Home Office contacted the groups that were in existence at the time and asked them some general questions about their membership. This is what they generally found to be true. Says of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way.

All right. So back in the day, early half got sober, stayed sober. It's pretty darn good.

Real good. There's not a treatment center on this planet that can sniff 50%. Says out of 25% of those returned as time passed, right?

So they had 25% out of that other 50% they had to go do some more drinking. Knuckleheads like me, you know, weren't willing to get a sponsor, weren't willing to help anybody, weren't willing to make amends, whatever the case may be. weren't convinced of step one, whatever.

They went out and did some more drink and 25% of them made it back. It says out of the remainder of those, two out of three returned as time passed. There's groups in existence still today with documentation from way back in the early days that were knocking out 75% 85%.

All right. AA in the year 2000 estimated less than 5% of the folks coming into Alcoholics Anonymous are going to achieve five years of sobriety. I don't know about you, but that sucks.

Well, how could you go from at least 50% to less than 5% in a matter of 50 years? How how can that happen? I mean, alcohol is alcohol, right?

boozes. 100 proof is 100 proof. Rotten nagging spouses are still rotten nagging spouses.

Crappy jobs are crappy jobs. Problems are problems. Well, what changed?

Well, I'm going to lay out how it did, how it worked back in the day and see if this matches up to your little experience today. Back in the day, we got this guy here. We'll use a guy.

Got this guy here. He's in the hospital detoxing one more time. His family has thrown more money at his disease than I mean, he's been on the Dr.

Phil show. He's been to the best treatment centers and this guy's in the hospital detoxing, dying one more time. Back in early AA, the guys would come visit this cat in the hospital and we sit down with this cat and we tell him our stories.

We identify him. We find out all we can about this young man. And then we leave.

And then we come back the next day and we sit down with this young man again and we go through that same old spiel one more time. Find out a little bit more about him. We identify with him.

We tell them our story. We tell them what it was like when we were trying to stop drinking and drinking. And then we leave.

And we do this for a couple three or four days. This guy's getting a little more clear-headed while he's in the hospital. We come back to visit him and he knows one thing.

I drink as much booze or more than he ever dreamed of drinking and he's dying and I ain't. And he says, "You're just like me. How do you stay sober?" Now I got him.

Now I get to lay out this program, the spiritual program of action. I become that man's sponsor. We go through the steps as outlined in this book.

This man recovers and now he is helping this man. That's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Folks, not once did I say it was sitting around a table talking about our days, the IRS, any of that stuff.

I mean, if your doctor diagnosed you with cancer, you wouldn't go to a meeting talk about cancer for 90 days, would you? Nope. I don't think so.

So, let's find out what it means to be a real alcoholic because if we don't understand step one, all the rest aren't going to make a difference. We're going to go to the doctor's opinion. Do this doctor's opinion was written by William D.

Silkworth. Worked at Town's Hospital in New York City, a little hospital right off Central Park in New York. Worked with over 50,000 of us alcoholics and drug addicts during his tenure at Towns Hospital.

All right. He was an expert on us. He loved us.

But he couldn't figure out why is it that guy or that gal that comes to his hospital that that's drinking to excess. Maybe they're going through a divorce or maybe they that just they're going through a period of their life where they're just drinking way too much and they end up in his hospital and they counsel them. They nurse them back to health.

They give them some hydrotherapy. What? I don't know what that I guess that means we're really clean when we leave there.

I don't know what that means. They shoot water at us. I don't know.

But they do all they can. And this person's scared to death that they're going to lose the rest of their family or they're standing in society or whatever the case may be. And this person leaves the hospital never to return, right?

They learn their lesson. And then you got guys like me go to the same hospital, get the same treatment, knowing full well when I leave there, I cannot so much as take one drink of alcohol or I'm going to lose my job, my house, my car, my kids, my freedom, my dignity, knowing all that, and I leave that hospital in high hopes, in a short amount of time, I'm right back to drinking. Man's been trying to answer that riddle since booze was invented.

Hell, they've been praying on us, moving us from here to there, giving us hobbies. They tried everything. They finally they just come up with a solution.

They just lock us up from for it, you know. So, this doctor came up with a theory. And when this book came out, it was just that aory.

If you can ever get a hold of a first edition, you'll notice he don't even sign his name in the first edition, right? It's just anonymous doctor, I think, or I've seen it, but I don't I don't remember what it says. Since then, science has proven his theory to be 100% accurate.

Step one says, "We admitted we are powerless over alcohol, now a completely different thought, a hyphen, that our lives have become unmanageable." All right, so let's what the do let's see what the doctor says. He says, "We believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of allergy." Right? So he's saying if you're a real alcoholic, a chronic alcoholic, your body reacts differently to booze than 90% of the world's population.

They estimate about one in 10 of us have what it takes to be an alcoholic, right? An allergy. An allergy is just an abnormal reaction to something you eat or drink.

Who's allergic to penicellin in here? Always. Susanna, what's up?

What happens when you have um >> Right. I've heard I I asked that to a lady a couple days ago and she says I die and I like she went straight past the hives and throwing up and thro straight into die. You know, she just had a flare for the dramatic.

See, isn't that ain't that odd? If I get an infection or something like that, I can go to my doctor. He gives me penicellin and it cures me.

It fixes me. Susanna can get this very same infection and go to her doctor and they give her penicellin and she swells up, you know, throat constricts, has a hard time breathing and and maybe if they gave her enough pill penicellin she would die, right? She has the allergic reaction, right?

Um that's just the way she is. That's the way I am. Doesn't matter.

He's saying if you're an alcoholic, you have an allergic reaction to alcohol, right? And he says that the ph this is how the allergic I don't break out into like hives and I've broken into some stuff on alcohol but I hadn't broken out of anything but um this this is this is what I got Dino in the back. I I like making him laugh you know.

Um this is what the allergy does in a real alcoholic. He says that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in those other people. The phenomenon of craving.

It's one of the things that sets me apart. those normal drinkers or those hard drinkers. See, I get the thought in my head, I'm going to take a drink and I take the drink and I trigger this out.

Is there anything that she can do other than getting an antihistamine or something or, you know, whatever they do to counteract is if she takes penicellin, once she takes it, she's going to have the reaction, right? There's nothing she can do except go to the doctor and get a get the antidote or whatever, right? I take a drink of alcohol, I trigger this allergy.

Bam. My brain says, "Let's have another and another and another." And it was just my intention. You know, it's Friday night.

I just got paid my boss's birthday and everybody's going to a little pool hall to to sing happy birthday to my boss, right? And I call my girlfriend and she says, "Hey, I'm making your special dinner." And I have the Wonder Woman costume all lined up, right? It'll be ready at 8:00, you know?

And I'm like, "It's my boss's birthday. I I'll be home by 8, right?" And it's my intentions. I I love the Wonder Woman costume.

You know, it's my intentions, but I get to this place, everybody's having a good time, and I take that first drink, and bam, I trigger that allergy. Now my brain says, "I'll have another and another." Now I'm doing shots. Now I'm at a bar where the girls don't have any clothes on.

Now I'm here. Now I'm there. I Who knows when I make it home, right?

The phenomenon of craving. See, it happens to alcoholics. It don't happen to those other people.

I mean, did you ever get to a point where you said, "No, I I I'm too drunk tonight." I didn't I didn't utter those words. I drank till I passed out and I drank as soon as I came, too. That's how I do the this thing, right?

I'm powerless. I've lost control once I start. I cannot control how much I drink.

Right? That makes sense. It's my job in the beginning when I sit down with a newcomer to lay this out.

And it ain't my job to pat him on the behind and tell him I'm going to love him in the sobriety. My job is to paint the picture. And I'm going to paint the picture as dark as I can.

Why? Because that's my experience. I drink.

I can't control how much I drink. If this was my only problem, because I know there's been many, many times where I woke up after one of those bad nights and I thought, "This has got to stop. I've drank too much again.

I've just got to stop because I think alcohol is the problem. Well, if this was the problem, what would be my solution? Don't drink.

Makes perfect sense to a normal person. Oh, you drink too much, so don't drink. Well, that doesn't work out for me.

Why? Because of the second half of step one. My life is unmanageable.

Why is that? Because my mind always leads me back to the drink. Always.

It always leads me back to the drink. I'll read the rest of this paragraph here. It says these allergic types can and the reason I read this because I remember in one like my first or second treatment center and I still have the big book because I have in mind here, you know, powerless and all this stuff, you know, all my little notes and everything.

But on this one particular big book that I got this treatment center, this part that I'm going to read to you, they that they told me that's why my life is unmanageable, right? So, I'm going to read what they say. It says, "These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all.

Once having formed the habit, found they can't break it. Once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them, they become astonishingly difficult to solve." And I'm just listening to what they said and they said, "That's why your life's so manageable." Made perfect sense to me. Right?

No, that's not the right answer. Those are consequences. Hell, you drink from the time you get up till the time you pass out.

Life becomes increasingly difficult to handle. Problems pile up. Those are consequences.

Has nothing to do with why my life's unmanageable. Second half of step one. The reason my life is unmanageable, to save my life, to keep that job, to keep my freedom, to keep my girlfriend, to keep my kids.

I am I am unable to manage the decision to stay away from the drink. Cannot do it on my own power. I've tried it over and over and over.

That is why my life has become unmanageable. Has nothing to do with those consequences. Nothing.

The circumstances of my life don't make me an alcoholic. Down at the bottom of that page, they say men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. It's pretty true statement.

Let's make it a real true statement. Alcoholic men and women drink essentially because we love the effect produced by alcohol. I mean, come on.

Did you let Don't tell me you just drink just for the taste. I've drank some nasty stuff in my day, including rubbing alcohol. Hey, if you're stuck out in the country and you ain't got no wheels and all they got is rubbing alcohol and you need a drink, you'll drink it.

Or I did at least. I don't I don't recommend that to anyone. And I hear you can go blind or whatever.

I don't know. I was in Iceland. You should see the stuff day drink.

Anyway, I want the effect. I mean, think, see, I went through life before I ever took a drink. I didn't know this until, you know, now that I'm sober and all this stuff, looking back, reflecting upon my life, but I needed a drink long before I had a drink.

I needed a drink. My girlfriend had it right. She drank when she was eight.

You know, she she held out as long as she could, man. She needed a drink when she was eight. You know, I held out till I was 15, right?

But see, you know, I'm the first kid. There's two sets of twins behind me. I'm the first grandkid.

Granddad was pretty well off in West Texas. I had the best shoes, the best clothes. My family loved me.

There's no alcohol in my direct family. I had everything looking for uh, you know, the future looked bright. I played every sport.

I was great at every sport. I made great grades, you know what I'm saying? Everybody pat me on the butt telling me how great I'm going to be when I grow up, you know?

And I dreamed that I was going to go to UT and and be a lawyer like my uncle and and work at his law firm. I'd be retired by now, you know? Except I had this little voice in my head.

You're telling me I'm great, but I had a little voice in my head going, "You're a freaking loser." You know what I'm saying? I was like, we moved around a lot. I was self-conscious.

I was real shy. I'd meet some friends and then we'd move. Right?

I had but I had that little voice in my head. You know, I'd walk into this room and I'd think, "You're all staring at me. What did I do?

I just I just didn't fit. The twins below me, they bond and you know, I'm just I don't fit until I was 15 at tennis camp in Florida and I took my first drink and then I fit. All the dots were connected.

The keys to the universe were in my possession. Those chicks that I was with, they wanted me. You know what I'm saying?

I was hip, slick, and cool. You know, I want that effect. I want that effect.

Right? It says this sensation is so elusive. See, I had that effect for years and years and years until the tables turned and I couldn't quite keep that effect.

Oh, I just drink right on past it. It was fleeting. You know what I'm saying?

I don't know if it was the third drink or the fifth martini or whatever, but I'd get that effect, but I have already triggered the and I'm gone. I overshoot the effect over and over. The sensation is elusive.

You know, it's like trying to catch a a a greased up balloon or a pig or something. It's elusive. I can't I can't just get to that sense of ease and comfort and stop.

Why? Because I got this allergy telling me to drink another and another and another. It says that while they admit is injurious, oh, I got some injuries.

Now, the injuries don't make me an alcoholic, but I got plenty of injuries. Oh, I've been to jails only two times. I've been to jail twice.

I mean, it's not like I'm a hardened veteran, you know, of jail. I I can't stand up here and like, oh, I could do jail time standing on my head, you know, that's nothing. I've wrecked cars.

Most of the wrecks that I've had in cars were not my cars. They were your cars. You know, I was always driving them.

been to five treatment centers. I don't know how many hospitals. I don't know how many friends I've lost.

How many great jobs I've lost, family members I've lost. How about dignity? I lost some dignity, too.

Alcohol took me to places I never dreamed I'd go. Took me with people I never dreamed. Hell, I'd go home with Bo Derek, wake up with Bo Diddley, you know.

I've used that joke for like six years now and it always gets a laugh. Um, but yeah, I had some injuries. I mean, that's the truth.

I leave this I leave this building today and I go have a drink, that stuff starts to happen and in a hurry. I mean, before a little bit before I got sober, I left one day be before I'd ever had a drink. had a little like two months of sobriety and I left this little halfway house.

All I was going to do is look for an apartment and I ended up in in in jail with a felony possession PI and kicking a cop in the chest who was trying to pull me out of a cab. I mean, that's that's how my that's where my drinking took me to, right? That's the truth about my drinking.

But what does my brain tell me? It's not that bad. Just a little bad luck.

I I had bad luck for the 90s, you know. It was all bad. Everything was bad.

I had a psychiatrist when I was like 19 years old was telling me, you know, list all the bad things in your life. And even at 19, all the bad things that I considered bad in my life were all a direct result of alcohol. I drank 17 more years.

You know, it was a tedious process. He says to them, "Well, I'm going to hold my finger on that page. I'm going to go to see I'm going to give you the bad news of step one.

You go over here to there's a solution page 24. It's in italics. This is the bad news of step one.

Says the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. They're saying if you're a real alcoholic, you ain't got no choice in the matter. You're going to It's not It's not a matter of if you're going to drink, it's when you're going to drink.

It says our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. Now, here's the tricky part. This is the part we I like to ram home all the time in little treatment centers because this is the part that I never understood.

It says, "We're unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. Welcome to your life being unmanageable." They're saying that the day that I take my last drink within a certain amount of time, and it varies.

For me, my life unravels quickly when I'm not drinking. So, the time frame is very, very short. But they're saying the day I take that last drink, I get removed from that last drink.

My little brain is unable to come up with a solution to not drink. I can't remember it. Well, let's do a little test.

Close your eyes and think of the worst, most painful, degrading experience you had as a direct result of drinking like that. So, what were you doing 24, 48 hours later? Oh, drinking.

Ain't that amazing? Amazing. First time I got thrown in jail.

God, I prayed all day long and I had I'd been kind of 12step a little bit and I kind of knew a little bit more than I had done in previous times. And I'm praying all day long in loose there. God, if you'll get me out of this, I'll do anything.

I'll call Frank back. I'll I'll get the best lawyer I can get and I'll get out of this. And I'll go back to my meetings and you know, and I'm just praying all day long.

And I'm in bad shape. Bad bad shape. Shaking it out.

And I mean, it's horrible. My little boss at the time bonded me out that day. It was on a I got thrown in jail on Sunday night sometime.

I bonneted out Monday evening and I'm walking out Lucer and I'm putting my watch on my wrist and my watch says 8:47 and I ran across the street and bought me another bottle of vodka. You think that I walked into the the liquor store and put that vodka up there and said, "Hey, I just got the hell kicked out of me and I got a felony possession of PI kicking the cop in the chest. Give me another bottle of this stuff, man." No, but I had to drink.

I drink no matter what. See, left to my own devices, I'm unable to manage the decision to stay away from booze. I've lost the power to choose.

Those are the only two questions you need to answer in your little heart of hearts for step one. I know they've got little pamphlets that say 20 questions or 40 questions. Hey, if you answer those two questions, you're going to answer all the rest of those other questions.

I think. I don't know. I've answered them all.

Hell, drink in the morning, drink at night. Yeah, I mean, you name it. Lost jobs, lost I mean, come up with a hundred questions.

They're all going to be check. True, true, true. It doesn't matter.

I've lost the power to control it. I've lost the power to choose. Welcome to step one.

But let's look what Bill says more about step one. Go over to page 30. And I love the way he writes.

This is why we do a big book study all the time in my group. Why? So we can learn what's in here.

He look what he says. He says, "Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics." See, when I was in college, I'd be proud to tell you I was an alcoholic. Why?

Because it was fun. I drank better than most people. I didn't get sloppy back then.

I didn't slur my words. I could drive better, dance better. You name it, man.

It was good. I was proud of it. But it towards the end now I'm hiding booze and I lived alone.

>> >> Go figure. I don't know. Don't know what I was thinking.

We cleaned up my apartment when I sobered up. There was, you know, y'all been through it. There's booze everywhere.

All right. I didn't want to admit that I was a real alcoholic. See, I I went through like most of the 90s trying to still prove that you were the reason why I was an alcoholic.

That's why I moved to Puerto Rico. Drunker. And you know what?

I just had to get away from Dallas. Tried to blame it on my family for a while. Trying to wish upon I mean I'm not making light of this, but wishing that I was like, you know, abused as a kid.

That that must be why I must have been abused as a kid. That's why I'm an alcoholic. You know, I didn't want to admit I was a real alcoholic.

Says no person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Bodily different from the allergy. Mentally different because I have a mind that leads me to the drink.

See, my mental obsession is subtle. They call it cunning, baffling, powerful. See, I go to the little meeting, get a desire chip, and and and and make a go at AA, and I they tell me to keep coming back.

They tell me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I do that. And because I'm an alcoholic, I think, well, I'll do that and and and I'll join the I'll even join the sober softball team, you know, and I'll get some Tony Robbins books and I'll start running five miles a day, doing push-ups, doing good deeds for my mama, you know.

You see me at a meeting, I tell you. You ask me how I'm doing, I tell you I'm doing great. Doing great.

Feel better. Sleep better. Everything is great.

God is wonderful. Right? But inside it ain't that great because I'm like an actor.

See, little by slowly I'm unraveling on the inside. And maybe somebody at my group tells me, "Man, maybe you just need to double up on your meeting." Okay, maybe you just need to make out a gratitude list. Okay.

And the days go by and I unravel a little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more.

And I don't like feeling that way. Start feeling a little self-pity. Start feeling some fear.

Start feeling that that feeling of uselessness. Why me? You know, but you ask me how I'm doing, I tell you I'm doing good.

And see, I feel that way long enough. That spiritual malady. I feel that way long enough.

I don't like feeling that way. My little mind says, I don't know why the world treats you so poorly. You're a good guy.

You look a little stressed, John Kelly. Stress is very, very dangerous. I'm here to help you.

I love you. It'll be different this time. What you and I need to do is we need to go on down to Centennial and just get us a little pint of vodka.

I know you're an Alcoholics Anonymous. This is just between me and you. No one will know.

That's the mental obsession. And that is a death sentence for an alcoholic because the mental obsession condemns an alcoholic left to his own devices to drink to the bitter end. Tells me when I work with others to stress the hopelessness of the situation.

So I hope I'm doing a good job. Says, "Therefore, it's not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like other people." I bet there's some provers in this room trying to prove, hoping against all hope that the previous 1,000 experiences of of my drinking, tonight I'm going to be a miracle of control. Tonight, I'm just going to have a couple, enjoy the evening, and call it a night.

I'm going to prove maybe I'll I'm not going to drink tequila. I I'm a vodka and rumplemen's type of person, you know. The higher the proof, the better for me, you know, so I'm not gonna do that.

I'm just gonna drink beer. I swell up, you know, to prove that. Now, here we go.

The idea that somehow someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. See, my brain tells me that I can control and enjoy it. Now, I don't know about you, if you if I ever tried to control it, I sure as heck wasn't enjoying it.

Anybody ever tried to control your drinks for you? I went to a party with a girl one time and and it was like a cash bar at this party and so I gave her my money, right? And so she was buying the drinks and she was because we had had some runins, you know?

So, she's buying the drinks, right? After the first couple of drinks, I'm trying to figure out a way that I can kill her so I can get my money back, you know, cuz I was not having a good time. And we ended up having to leave that place.

I can't control and enjoy it. And if I'm enjoying, I sure as heck ain't controlling it, right? But my mind, I mean, think about it.

Think not not this time. I know you're all big book thumpers in here and everybody's rocking and rolling. But think back to one of those other times when you swore you're never going to do it again, right?

You were given sufficient reason, right? Maybe it was a job, maybe it was your relationship, maybe it was just you looking in the mirror and you swore you were never ever going to do it again, right? Maybe you went to church more, maybe you did more good deeds, maybe you went to AA, right?

But you didn't drink. My question is is how free were you? Cuz if you were like me, I wasn't even drinking.

But you know what? I was thinking about not drinking. I ain't even drinking back then.

And booze still owns me. Hell, they're telling me to to stay away from my playmates, play things. The mental obsession is a killer.

See, they call it an obsession. And look at this next one. The persistence of this illusion.

And what's the illusion? That I can control and enjoy it. That I can drink like a gentleman.

That I can drink like a normal person. That is an illusion. Well, what what's an illusion?

If I turn this book into a parakeet, did I really do it or did I trick you? That's what an illusionist does. He makes us see things that aren't there.

My illusion back in the day was that somehow I'll be able to drink normally. I have no exper although I have no experience drinking normally. Never done that.

Got drunk the first time out and damn near every time thereafter. But my illusion is that I can drink normally. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.

Many pursue it to the gates of insanity or death. I don't know about y'all when I started drinking, but going insane from it or dying from it were not on the horizon. But that's where alcoholism took me too.

You know, that's just the ugly truth. And it says we had to learn we we we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step.

I got to concede in my heart of hearts, right? No lurking notion. At my group, we call it the Holy Trinity.

I know there's a real holy trinity, so I don't mean to be blasphemous, but or we'll just call it the trinity. The alcoholics trinity, right? The job, the car, and the girl.

If I can just get the job, the car, and the girl, my life will be okay. See, I was under that illusion a long time, too, that if I can get these external circumstances in my life situated, I wouldn't drink. That's not a step one.

If you can get sober that way, more power to you. My hats off to you. I cannot do that.

I have no experience doing that. I just had a I had a talk with a treatment center in Dallas the other day. And that's what they're telling these guys.

You don't need to work the steps right now. You need to get your job situation squared away and get this stuff. You know, that's pretty scary, folks.

You know, I'm thankful that we get to go carry the message there, but good God, that's a that's a real uphill battle because I'm telling the exact opposite. The big book is telling the exact opposite. You know, I got to know in my heart of hearts that I am a in fact an alcoholic.

You know, I got to know here. I knew up here for a long time. But see, I could never I could never admit that I was a real alcoholic because I didn't know what a real alcoholic was.

You know, I finally I I thank God I started going to jail and started having some more car wrecks and started ending up in hospitals. I've gone through DT twice. You know, I've had some seizure seizures, you know.

So, in some people's eyes, oh, you're an alcoholic, right? I still was drinking. I mean, Bill Bill puts it real good in his story.

No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. Uh, I lost my I had met my match.

I was overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master. And that was like all that's that's how I felt n 1998 1999.

I had no other option except to drink, you know, drink for the end. Drink for the end. Because I was convinced because of what I was told, what I thought I knew about this program.

I was convinced that I didn't have a shot. I was convinced. I I remember the day.

I don't know what day it was because these days were I kind of black out among blackout, but I remember this one little conversation I had with my boss and I quit this job. It's kind of towards the tail end of summer of 99 because I'd called he he got this guy was kind of irrational. He got kind of pissed off at me because I called in sick on Monday and then Tuesday and I was calling sick on Wednesday and it's like the 50th time I've done that.

So, he got a little upset with me. kind of unreasonable. But anyway, so I I I fired myself and and and started drinking real heavily, you know, just to try to die.

And I just remember thinking to myself, you know, God, I'm not mad at you. I'm not pissed off. I'm just going to be one of these guys that's going to have to die drunk, and I'm okay with that, but please make it hurry.

I felt just like Bill did on page eight that I just read. just in that morass of self-pity, that morass of self-involvement, that morass, you know, that's how I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous. stinking, vibrating, shaking, not a hope in the I don't there must have been a little angel with me that day cuz that Tuesday that I got my last desire check was a long day.

Long day. I'm three days after my last drink. I can barely walk.

My brother drops me off at my place in Oakliff. He went through and we got all the bottles that we could find and threw them away and I'm supposed to go to the our meeting that night and I had a sponsor, another sponsor at the time and he called me. He'd call me a couple times during the day.

You going to make it tonight? I said I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it.

I'm not telling that. My brain is saying drink. I've got $22 to my name.

I believe 22 23 something like that. all I had. And my brain is telling me to drink.

And he calls me at 5:00 or 5:30 that day and says, "Look, my wife is giving birth. I'm not going to be there tonight. So, you talk to Cliff." I said, "Okay." Somehow, I made it there.

And I already told you, he gave me a hug and we went to a little side room before the meeting started. and he sat me down before that meeting started and he blew my mind on alcoholism. He disturbed me greatly about alcoholism.

He gave me a good case of alcoholism. Why? Because he's been he's recovered and been given the power to help me.

He drank as much booze as I ever did. And I was the one dying and he's not. He was free.

You could see it in his little eyes. the little sparkle in his eye, the twinkle in his eye. This guy had the power, and he painted me into a corner.

And then he asked me the question, "Are you a real alcoholic?" And I'm crying and snotting all over myself, and I'm, "Yes, sir, I am." And he said, "John Kelly, you're screwed." He used another word for screw you. I'll let you use your own imagination. And I'd thought that for years about my own situation, but for the first time in my life, that sunk home.

I'm going to die drunk. He tells me that and then he looks at me. He g he says, "Do you think it works for me?" And I said, "I know it works for you." He says, 'Well, how well is your way working?

And I said, 'It's not.' He says, 'What the hell do you have to lose except your life? And that's when he informed me that he was now my sponsor. And I was going to call him when he told me to call him.

I was going to read what he told me to read. I was going to show up where he told me to show up. And we were going to take these steps the way it's outlined in this book.

Or else. And the or else for my sponsor is go away. Don't waste my time.

That's that was my last entrance to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'll I'll finish up there next week, but and I'll end here tonight. But all I did in that little meeting, that little brief meeting with that old man is I took steps one and two.

I came to two conclusions. I'm screwed and I hope. Welcome to steps one and two.

And I'll go into step two more detail. That's it. I meet people all the time that are telling me, "Well, I'm still working on step two.

I've been been working on step two for like a year." What's there to work on? You hope it works or it don't, you know? I mean, you know, I mean, anyway, so it's very, very good to be here.

Um, I had a great time when I was here in the summer and I spoke. Um, I don't know. I I remember a lot of your faces and and I I just want to thank you because I mean I love seeing all of your smiles.

I mean if if any of you go to other groups I mean sometimes it's like speaking to a hostile environment you know and I and I love you people and I and I've told I've told everybody I can tell about you know if they're ever in Fort Worth to come by here because I was treated so nicely the last time I was here and so far tonight. So don't screw it up. Okay.

Thank you for having me. You still got Becky around? >> Pardon?

>> You still got Becky around? >> Becky, what you talking to? >> Debbie?

>> No, she's not around. >> Long gone. If anybody knows her, I need to make an amend, you know.

Wow, that was Thank you, Walter, for that introduction. I'll probably lay a dud here tonight, you know. Uh, my name is John Kelly.

I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic. >> And my sobriety date is September the 4th, 1999. And for that, I am very, very grateful.

And um you know, I'm not just one of these dudes that walk around going, "Oh, I got me a little job today. I'm you know, God is so good. You know, I got me a car today.

Look what God's doing for me. I got me a girlfriend today. Look what God's doing for me." God don't want to hear that from me.

He wants to see me in action. So, what better way for me to thank the God of my understanding than I get off my rear end and take this message to somebody who was dying just like I was. That's how I show God I'm grateful cuz for without this I would not be here tonight.

That's for sure. Um, so we're doing the steps. I spent all last week, in case you missed it last week, I spent all last week dwelling on the hopelessness of the situation.

The hopelessness of the situation. That's what the big book tells me. If I'm a sponsor, it tells me, you know, pages 92 through 96, it tells me exactly lays it out, how I'm supposed to take people through the steps, what I'm supposed to talk about, when I'm supposed to talk about it.

And you notice when I dwelt on the hopelessness of the situation, I didn't offer you an inkling of what the solution was, right? And that's what I'm supposed to do as a sponsor, right? And um you know if you if you look at the history of it, you know, Bill got sober and and and he was like for like for five and a half months he was going around the bowies of New York City going up to every drunk he knew, tell them about his hot flash experience in town's hospital, right?

Can you imagine him sitting down? He's sober. He's got the little twinkle in his eye and he's sitting down with a with a drunk, right?

And he's telling them, "Wow." And he tells about this hot flash, right? And not a one of them stayed. sober and legend has it that he was at home kind of frustrated and talking to Lois and she's like, you know, like you dope, you're sober, you know.

So then he goes back to Silkworth and talks to Silkworth and Silkworth says, "Hey man, you're putting the cart before the horse. Lay out the hopelessness of the situation. Lay out this allergy to alcohol.

Give them the scientific facts about alcoholism. Then if they identify with you and they ask you how you stay sober, then you can lay out the solution. But not before, right?

So that's my girlfriend says I do a pretty good job dwelling on the hopelessness of the situation. Um, so what did I learn last week? I learned, you know, I learned in step one that I'm screwed.

That's the short that's the short form of step one. I'm screwed. You know, but who better to explain that to me was was someone who was at one time dying just like I was and he has recovered and been given the power to help me.

He is properly armed with the facts about himself, right? He's been where I was at and he knows the way out. And so he painted that picture for me that first night, September the 4th, 1999.

Now, that wasn't my first night in AA. That was like my 37th or 38th desire chip that night. I've been trying I was trying to get sober since 1988.

Been to hundreds and hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Listened to all the stories, you know. But that man that night disturbed me greatly on the problem of alcoholism.

And he did it in masterful. I mean, it was like in just a couple of minutes, as near as I can remember. I was in pretty bad shape that night.

Um he kind of painted me into a corner a corner and he he shared with me some of his experiences. He asked me some questions about mine. He talked about the allergy that loss of control that once I start drinking I am powerless to control how much I drink.

It doesn't matter what my intentions are. My intentions were that I was going to drink like a normal person. Now that's a that's a crazy thought in itself since I never have any experience of drinking like a normal person.

But you know, I spent years and years trying to drink, thinking I was going to drink like a normal person. Once I start, I cannot control how much I drink. And that's some bad news, right?

But that's not the bad news of step one. The bad news of step one is that my life has become unmanageable. The bad news of step one is that left to my own devices, on my own power, I am unable to manage the decision to stay away from the very first drink.

Can't do it. Tried tried every trick. tried every self-help.

You should see the my you should see my library at home and I got everything and I got I can hook you up if you want to try some of that Tony Robbins Taichi you know I can I can show it's just in case you haven't tried Tai Chi it's it's hard to do when you're hung over to get in those 44 positions you know it's hard and so he painted me into a corner and he asked me the question am I a real alcoholic if you look on page 44 if you have a big They ask you there's a little test. It says if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Well, I quit hundreds of times.

I desperately didn't want to end up the places that I was ending up. I quit, but I couldn't stay quit. So, I failed that one.

Or it says, or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take. Well, once I started, it's damn near impossible for me to stop. And at the end of the time, at the end of my drinking career, the only time I did stop is when I winded up in jail or in the hospital.

Well, that's how I stopped. You know, it says you're probably an alcoholic. If that's the case, you're suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.

Now, there may be some people in this room going, you know, I've been around an AA and I think it sucks and I don't believe in this spiritual experience crap. Really? Well, remember back when you were drinking when you were having one of those bad days?

I mean, the bad days where like the the job's not working out, the relationship's not working out, the family stuff's not working out, the kids are screaming, your puppy's sick, the car don't start, you got to catch the dart bus, the dart bus sucks, nobody loves you. Remember having one of those days? How'd you feel when you took a couple of drinks?

Changed the way I thought and felt, didn't it? didn't fix any of my problems, but I had a psychic change. Right?

So, now we know one exists. We know it exists. All right?

And it says later on, it says to be doomed to an alcoholic death or live life on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face. So, there I was. I was going to drink myself to death or have this experience.

Those are my two choices. That's where I was at, you know, and I love page 45 in the big book. Now, you'll have to pardon me.

I could sit up here and I'm not like some of these speakers that go around and and pontificate on my great wisdom, on my great insight on the steps. All right? My sponsor is pretty cut and dry.

He says, "Read the damn book. You can't screw it up." So, if you have a problem with what I say, contact the author, you know, because I'm coming straight out of this book, right? But I love what it says at the end of the first paragraph on 45.

It says, "Our human resources as marshal by the will were not sufficient. They failed utterly." That means each and every time me trying to fix a situation fails utterly. Always happens.

I always drink. So, now they give us a a real lightning bolt here. It says, "Lack of power." That's our dilemma.

Step one says we're powerless. That's my dilemma. Lack of power.

I ain't got no power on this. And it says we had to find a power by which we could live. And it had to be a power greater than ourselves.

So let's break that down. Maybe sitting there thinking, I don't believe in this higher power. I don't believe in this stuff.

Well, let's put it to let me put it to you this way. How about booze? Was that a power greater than you?

Did booze get you to do some things you never dreamed you'd do? End up with people you never dreamed you'd end up with? End up in Did anybody ever wake up in a different town or a different state thinking where in the heck am I?

You know, I read that book Million Little Pieces, you know, the opening p the open. Anybody's read it, you know, the guy wakes up on an airplane, comes to and he's bleeding and stuff and I'm thinking, who hadn't done that? You know, you know, so now we know that there is a power greater than me.

Booze was a power greater than me. Some people say, "Hey, hit a cop. You'll find out a power greater than you." You know, but now it says, it says we had to find a power by which we could live.

So we already know booze is a power greater than me, but it says I had to find a power by which I could live. Could I live by booze anymore? No.

Booze was killing me. So, I know a power exists and it ain't booze, right? So, I got to find another power.

And it says, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves. So, I got to find another power and it ain't me. I'm not the power.

I can't fix the situation. It says, obviously, but where and how are we going to find this power? That's what this book is about.

Its main object is to enable us to find a power greater than ourselves that will solve our problem. Why do you think they wrote the book? Why do you think there's 12 steps lead us somewhere?

Steps lead us from one point to another point, right? I'm powerless over here in step one. I'm going to take these steps that are guaranteed to get me to the power.

I said a guarantee last week and I I'm going to show it to you this week. There's a couple of them in here, but that's why they wrote the book. The steps, the precise instructions in this book tell us how to get to the power that's going to save our life.

Now, we got to get to the power, right? And they talk about that's why they it goes on the rest of this page. They talk about why they wrote this book, right?

It's to give us instructions. And I love I love this part. You I mean, don't be a dope like me.

The first time I was first time I got my first big book and I started thumbming through the chapters and stuff because I like to read a lot. I got to we agnostics and I thought, well, I'm not agnostic and I just blew right through it. You know, I didn't read it, you know, don't do that.

But what they're going to talk about in this chapter is, you know, there's lots of stuff that blocked us from this power. There's lots of stuff that blocked me from getting sober all those years. I had prejudices.

You know, I had fixed ideas of what I thought AA was, what I thought higher power was, what I thought God was, what I thought this book was about, what I thought the program was about. I had all sorts of ideas and prejudices. And Bill goes to great length in this chapter to talk about why is it that we've done so much in this last century when it took all those many, many centuries to get us to that point.

Were we that much smarter? No. I mean, think about Columbus, you know, but he sailed sailed east to go west or sailed west to go east, right?

You know, there were some suckers back in in Italy when when or Portugal or wherever he took off from, you know, they were sitting there on the beach going as soon as that sun so gets across the horizon, he's off the edge of the earth. You know, they had prejudices, right? I had lots of prejudices blocking me.

But I was convinced on that first night back in AA in in 99, I knew the seriousness of the situation. My sponsor told me I was screwed, right? And then he asked me another question.

He says, "Do you believe that it works for me?" And I can remember looking him right in the eye and his little eyes sparkle and stuff and I knew it worked for him. I'd heard his story several times before. this was a bottom of the barrel drunk and something worked in his life and he says, "Does it work for the rest of those people out there in that meeting?" And I'm like, "Well, yeah, I know it works." He says, "Well, then what the hell do you have to lose except your life?" And that's when he informed me that he was going to be my become my sponsor.

And I was supposed to call him at 8:00 every morning. He was going to tell me where to be, what to read, and where to show up to. And it was my job to to follow his lead.

If I want what he's got, I got to do what he does, right? He gave me some instructions that first night. And he told me to when I got home that night, we didn't talk about God that first night.

We didn't talk about higher power or anything like that. But he told me when I got home to look up at my ceiling and say thanks and and you know, tell my ceiling if I had to, thanks that I have another another shot. Thanks that I met a Big Book Thumper who is awake.

Thank you, God, for giving me another shot. He said, "You'll sleep like a baby." And I doubted that very seriously. I got home that night and I had to call my sainted mother, you know, and I called her on my little cell phone and and I I don't know if I told y'all this story last night, but I'll tell it again.

And you know, my mom, like we do, you know, I put my family through all sorts of stuff. They hit their all-time lows as a direct result of me and my actions and my alcoholism. And they don't even drink.

And she's heard every con, every lie in the book. And she knew I was going to that meeting that night. And she knew I was supposed to meet my other sp my older sponsor.

And um I called her and she says, "Did you go to the meeting?" I said, "Yes, ma'am, I did." And she goes, "Was Matthew there?" And I said, "No, he wasn't." And you could just hear her little voice sink on the phone. And I said, "Well, his wife is having a baby tonight, so he couldn't be there, but I got another sponsor." And she said, "Who is that?" And I said, "Cliff Bishop." And she started crying. And I said, "Well, why are you crying?" And she says, "Cuz I've been praying." And I said, "Well, I'm scared of the old man.

And he told me to read some stuff and and and I need to say a prayer and and I I just got to follow his directions." All right. Now, look what it says here. And I followed those directions, right?

And right in the middle of page 46, because this is a huge promise. Right in the middle of the page, it says, "We found that as soon as we're able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe and a power greater than ourselves, here's the promise. We commence to get results, even though it's impossible for us to fully define or comprehend that power, which is God." It's a whole mouthful.

I didn't read that that night. I came across this a few days later or a few weeks later. But that night after I said that prayer and talked to my mom and all that stuff and I laid down on my little sofa that I that's the only piece of furniture I had in that house.

I knew one thing and I remember this is clear as day. That first night back in AA desire chip number 38 or whatever it was. I knew one thing.

It crowded out all other thoughts. I don't ever have to have another drink. Ever.

Didn't know how that was going to work. But I had that feeling, you know, seems like I laid aside prejudice and expressed even a willingness to believe that what worked for him could work for me. I had no more bargaining chips.

I had nothing else to to no more plan B's. You know, I was convinced for all those years that if I just got the right job, the right car, the right girl, that everything would be okay. If I just got the heat off my back, it would be okay.

And I'm one of these that, you know, if you read on the on the bottom of 47, I like this. It says, "Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we found ourselves handicapped by obstinency, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spirit spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism." Ooh, man.

I used to go to those meetings and I hear people talking about spiritual this, spiritual that, and it was like somebody with their hands on the chalkboard. You know why? Because I figured, you know, I've done so much crap in my life and I've told so many lies and I've hurt so many people that there is no way for me to get out from under.

Had some prejudice. says this sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings.

You want to know why? Read on. It says, "Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open-minded on spiritual matters as we tried to be on other questions.

In this respect, alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonleness. I'm one of those knuckleheads.

I had to go to the bitter end. You know, I had to I had to have alcohol beat my brains in before I was willing to accept your help because I always had a plan. Always, you know, and for years and years, my plans worked to some extent.

But as alcoholism took its toll, my plans quit working and I kept trying. You know, it's all I got to know for step two. I just got to hope.

You know, I'm going to backtrack a little bit. If you go back to page 25, it says there is a solution. And I'll skip on a couple lines and it says, "But we saw that it really worked in others.

There is a solution. It works for you. Whatever I'm trying ain't working." And it says, "And we'd come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we'd been living it.

When therefore we approached by those with whom the problem had been solved, there's nothing left for us but to pick up this simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. That's some pretty cool stuff. It's pretty easy.

Now, we're going to flip on. I mean, there's some great stuff in here. A guy pointed out to me a long time ago.

He goes, "You probably know what the solution is already, but you just are too boneheaded to believe it." And he walked away. And I didn't really get that at that time. And he didn't explain the deep spiritual significance of what he just said.

And I kind of left it at that. But if you read on into we agnostics on page 55 the second paragraph it says actually we're fooling ourselves for deep down in every man woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. And if you don't like me talking about God I'll talk about higher power but they're saying that every one of us has this fundamental idea.

So let's take a test. Let's I love tests. Y'all know that from last week.

I love test. So everybody think of a situation in your life where you screwed up. I mean, screwed up.

You got caught stealing from work. You got caught with the flash that the cops are behind you and you got a trunk load of outside issues or you were cheating on your little relationship or whatever it is, right? You look over at your corner courtappointed attorney looking at that and thinking he ain't going to get me out.

You know, we've been in those situations to some extent, right? Did anybody in this room ever kind of just do a little timeout in your mind and say, "If you will get me out of this, I swear I will never do this again." Right? Anybody ever do that?

Who are you talking to? Ah, I got you. Oh, I get you on this one, too.

More importantly, who taught you how to do that? Nobody. My mama didn't pull me aside when I was 5 years old and says, "Hey, when S hits the fan, look up and say if you get me out." Nobody told me that.

I instinctively knew. Why did I know that? Because I was desperate.

They weren't going to get me out of it. They weren't going to get me out of it. And I sure as heck wasn't going to get me out of it.

My back was against the wall. I had nothing else to turn to. So, I pleaded to the emptiness of the air.

Please get me out of this and I'll never do it again. Most of the time that worked. I got out of it to some extent in some cases.

Did I hold up my end of the bargain? No. Why?

Because the heat was off. As soon as the heat's off, I go back doing what I always do. Right.

Alcohol beat me into a state of and it says we found the great reality deep down within us. I searched out there all over the country and all over the Caribbean. I looked for something out there to fix what was wrong in here.

More jobs, more cars, more girls, more money, more this, more that. You should see how much how many Nikes I have. I got every freaking pair.

Why? Cuz they make me feel good. You know, I searched out there.

He's saying, I'm going to find the power in here. Huh. It says we can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps sweep away prejudice.

They mention the word prejudice over and over and over in this chapter. Enables you to think honestly. Encourages you to search diligently within yourself.

Then if you wish you can join us on the broad highway. Now here's the guarantee. Says with this attitude you cannot fail.

Sounds like a guarantee. Hey look, there ain't no treatment center on this planet offering a guarantee. Hey, come to Betty Vard.

We'll cure you. They ain't offering that. They're telling me if I go here with no prejudice, go here with an open mind, I cannot fail.

Sounds like a guarantee to me. And I'd go out I'd go as far to say as you can bet your life on that. I did.

It seems to work. I love reading how it works. So, I've come to two conclusions at this point.

I'm screwed and I hope says now we're at the turning point. All right. And it says tells us in how it works.

Walter just read it says rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path right you look at the statistics from old old time EA they were doing at least 50% for years and years and years there's groups today still doing 90 Dr. Bob's group today still meets one night a week they still do 90% or better. Why?

Because they are good sponsors. They qualify them. If you ain't willing to do the work go away.

Don't waste our time. Right? They're 90% successful.

All the guys that I've sponsored, all the guys who are thoroughly following the path, guess what? They're sober today. The guys who didn't thoroughly follow the path, all bets are off.

So, it's still a pretty true statement. Then it tells us who's not going to get it. Those who do not recover, people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.

Cannot and will nots. I know a heck of a lot of will nots. know a ton of those.

I was a will not for years. Would not see your way of life. Would not get a sponsor.

Would not read the book. Would not follow directions. Would not cannot those people.

I don't know. Go to ter. Go to Souls Harbor.

You know, men and women look just like us. Went to the bottle that one last time. And they ain't never coming back.

Never. Ever. you know, and it says constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself.

In the preface, it says that inside this book, this is a textbook. In the four to the first edition, it says there's precise instructions on how to recover. If I'm convinced of step one 100% and I hope it works in step two and I've got a prescription for a miracle right here, the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous today, if I'm being honest with myself, I will do absolutely anything to follow these principles to the best of my ability.

That's being honest with myself. I wake up tomorrow and I choose not to pray and I choose not to call my sponsor and I choose not to help another junk and I choose to run the show myself. Guess what?

I ain't being very honest with myself and the clock starts ticking. And with a hopeless chronic relapser like me, the clock don't have to tick very long before I pick up a drink. It says our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we're like now.

Now, that's how you tell your story, right? Bill's story is a great example of how you tell your story. And here's a little condition here for taking the step.

It says, "If you decided you want what we have, right, I want what you got." I was never willing to because here's the next part. And you're willing to go to any length to get it. There's always got me for those years.

Oh, I wonder what you got. I ain't willing to do anything about it. I'll just try to get it by osmosis.

I'll just come to a bunch of meetings. I'll just go to meeting after meeting. I'll be a meeting maker.

They say meeting makers make it. All right. So, there's a condition.

If you want what we got and you're willing to go to any link to get it, then you're ready to take the steps. All right. I'm not going to read that whole part, but I like that.

I like that part. Um says, "Half measures of veil us." Well, it says we stand at the turning point, right? We stood at the turning point.

And here's the mother of all prayers. We ask his protection and care with complete abandon. The mother of all prayers.

I don't know how it's going to work. I just hope it works. Please help me.

I'm at the turning point. What am I going to do? Am I going to do what I always did?

Be a little meeting maker. Hang on for dear life. I'm just glad to be sober today.

you know, be miserable or am I going to follow these directions, right? ABC's gives you a short recap of steps one and two that we're alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. Check.

B that no human power could relieve my alcoholism. My mom couldn't fix it. The judge couldn't.

You know, I mean, I know you guys aren't in I mean, I speak at a lot of treatment centers and stuff, so I always ask them say, "How many of y'all have given you a dirty UA?" And all these hands go up. I said, "Well, hell, the judge couldn't keep you sober either. No human power could keep me away from the bottle." And it says that God could and would if he were sought.

If you're sought in something, that means you're taking some actions, right? You're looking, right? And it says, "Being convinced of those, we're now at step three.

Two conclusions." And now I'm at step three. It's not rocket science we're performing here, folks. Says, "Which is that we decide to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood them." Got the little steps on the wall there.

I used to think it was like a first cafeteria. Step one, yeah, I'm an alcoholic. Step two, sure, I believe in God.

Step, God, you can have my will in my life. Right? If I knew how to turn my will in my life over to the care of this God, I would have done that years and years ago.

I have no idea how to do that. That's why they're going to explain to us how to do that. That's what the steps are for.

The steps are in place to get us to turn our will and our life over to this God. Right? And he talks about being he says he says the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.

My life was no success running it on my own. I'd lost every job I had. Lost every friend I ever had.

Pissed off every family member I had. Did things I knew I shouldn't. Ended up places I knew I'd never be in my right mind.

My life was not successful. So, Bill goes on to use an analogy. He says that an alcoholic is like an actor who wants to direct a movie, right?

He says, 'I' like a little actor who's got one line in a movie and I show up the first day of shooting, right? And I start telling Martin Scorsesei how to do the lights, the scenery, the ballet, the caterers, right? Cuz see, I'm convinced if my mama would do this and get off my back and and this girlfriend would do this and get off my back and the boss would ease up on me and I can get the heat off me, I'm convinced if I can get all these things put in place in my life, I would be very, very happy and so would you.

Well, that's pretty arrogant, don't you think? You don't need me bossing you around. Finally, see, in order for me to get my way, to get you to do what the way I can be very, very nice to you.

I can pay you a compliment, flash you a little smile. I can do that. And if that don't work, f you.

I'm going to get what I need to get. Why? Because I'm convinced if I get these things that I'm going to be okay.

Well, in trying to make these arrangements, I piss you off. You don't need me bossing you around all the time. Now, you're going to retaliate against me.

Now, I hate you. See how simple that is? That's me running the show.

I am very very self-centered left to m I'm self-centered now you know but that's me running the show and that's what he's saying to us little alcoholics are we're self-wwellrun riot arrangements the bottom of page 61s he calls us egoentric right it's a kind of flowery word if you flip to page of 62 he just cuts right to the chase he says selfishness self-centerness that is the root of our trouble troubles. Wait a second. I thought alcohol was the root of my troubles.

No, no, no, no. Alcohol is a symptom. My problems go a little deeper than the bottle of booze.

Well, let's see if that's true. I'm going to hold my finger on that page. I'm going to flip back to page 52, right in the middle of the page.

Stone cold sober back in the day, left to my own devices. Here's what I feel like. I'm having trouble with my personal relationships.

Any y'all have some of those? says, "I can't control my emotional natures." Now, that doesn't mean I cry when I see a little Easter Bunny and stuff. How do I react when it don't go my way?

I get pissed. I'm happy one minute and I'm yelling at you the next, right? Can't control my emotional natures.

Says, "I'm a prey to misery and depression. Poor me. Why does my mama love my sister more than she loves me?

I don't have a good job. I got a record now. I don't have a car.

I got to catch the dart bus. The dart bus sucks. Pray to misery and depression.

Couldn't make a living. Had a feeling of uselessness. Full of fear.

Unhappy. Stone cold. Sober.

Spiritual malady. That's me left to my own devices. Untreated alcoholism right there.

Selfishness. Self-c center. There ain't nothing I just read on page 52 that's not selfish.

Any of you guys go to treatment centers and carry the message that you see those little things on the wall says on the beam off the beam. I challenge you to find one of those things that are off the beam that ain't selfish. They're all selfish.

Selfishness, self-centerness that we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by 100 forms of fear, self-d delusion, self-seeking, self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Fear is selfish.

Anybody think of the last time you had a bunch of fear heaped on you, right? Maybe it was about the job or the relationship or somebody sick. Well, maybe not somebody's sick, but the job, something personal, right?

What were you thinking about you? I was thinking about me. I make horrible decisions based on fear.

Thought my way way way back in the day thought this one girlfriend was cheating on me, right? Just knew it. Knew it in my heart.

It just tore me up, you know, tore me up. Just knew she was cheating on me. So, I went out with her best friend.

Bad decision based on fear. cuz she wasn't cheating on me. She retaliated.

Bad decision based on self-seeking. Oh, I may do you a favor, but it ain't really a favor. I'm doing you a favor because maybe you'll think you'll I'll think you'll like me better.

Or I may do you a favor, but I'm going to hold that favor that I do for you in escrow to be collected at a later date. self-seeking, self-pity. Poor me.

Next paragraph, he says, "So our troubles we think are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves." And the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run, right? Though he usually doesn't think so.

I didn't think so. Oh, I as chaos in my wake. And I'm like the guy coming up after the tornado.

Look, it ain't blowing. It's great. You know, it's crazy.

It says, "Now, I don't know about y'all. I'm sure y'all don't say that at this group, but I have all those hundreds and hundreds of AA meetings all over the place. They used to always tell me that there ain't no must in the big book." I'm going to read you two musts followed by a promise that'll kill you.

So, if anybody ever throws that at you, tell them to read the damn book. There's 67 of them in here. All right.

But it says, "Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us." There's two must followed by a problem. I got to get rid of this selfishness.

But guess what? I can't fix my selfishness. I can't do that.

That's like throwing more me at the problem. I can't fix it. I got to have God's help.

And they're going to go on to explain that, right? God's going to be my director. I'm just the actor, right?

God's going to be the father. I'm just the kid. The kid gets his instructions for his father.

God's the principal. I'm the agent. The agent works for the principal, right?

Follows their lead. Some pretty good concepts of a higher power right there. This is some pretty cool stuff.

In the middle of page 63, we got the third step prayer. And it says it's it's very very simple. Says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt.

Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, thy way of life. May I do thy will always exclamation point.

So that's the third step prayer. Pretty simple. So I'm a few days sober and I go over to my sponsor's house and he'd give me stuff to read and we sat down in his office at his house and we went over in detail doctor's opinion and all that stuff again.

And we went over and we talked about this this higher power concept, this God thing. Do I got a problem? Do I got do I got God stuck sideways in my crawl?

You know, do I got anything that might be blocking me? So, we talked about all that and we read up to page 62 and we talked about all that. And he says, "You ready to do the third step prayer?" And I said, "I'm ready to do anything." And he says, "Well, we'll see about that." And we said, "Come on, get your big book." and we went got my big book and we went into another part of his house and we got he said we're going to his prayer bench and looked like a little coffee table to me but I didn't dare say anything to him and um we got down on our knees and we opened our book to this page and just like I'd done it in the previous attempts we got on our knees and we opened the book to page 63 and we're getting ready to do a third step prayer and I've done it before.

It's aa Waltz. Step one, yeah. Step two, yeah.

Step three, say the prayer, go get drunk, you know. It's pretty simple. But this guy is leading me on.

And I mean, lead me to this point, you know, and and I believed in what he said, you know, and and I was willing to do whatever he said. And so, we open the book to this page and we get on our knees and we put our arms around each other. And I'm still I still kind of got the shakes cuz I'm a few days still off from my last drink.

And I'm still kind of shaking a little bit. And we bowed our heads and he says, "Before you do your third step prayer, I'm going to say a little something to God. Make sure God's with us and then you can do your prayer." I said, "All right." So I got my arms around him and the old man starts to praying.

I have no earthly idea what he says because in my head I'm praying like my life depends on it. And I guess there was an uncomfortable pause when you know after stop praying and I'm sitting there like a dope still praying in my head and finally he nudges me and he says I need to hear what you're saying to God. And this is my third step prayer.

This is what I said. And I said, "Dear God, I've tried to get sober since 1988 and I'm scared and I don't want to die drunk. I need your help.

Please give me the willingness to do whatever I got to do to get what's in this book. Amen. And Clifford said, "Stand up." I thought I screwed up, you know, and I stood up and he gave me a hug and he says, "You just did the third step prayer." See, I followed directions.

I voiced it without any reservation. You know, I had no more lurking notions. It was either this is going to work or I was going to drink.

No more bargaining chips or they call it ego deflation. You know, from the bottom of my heart, I asked a supreme being for help and I meant it. You look at the top of page 63 and this is some cool cool stuff.

It says when we sincerely took such a position all sorts of remarkable things followed. It's a promise. Says we have a new employer.

Being all powerful, he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. And the old man said, "Underline that sentence." He goes, "There's your job description till the day you die. What's my job description?

My job is to stay close to God and perform his work. Well, what does the book say that God's going to provide me? Everything I need.

He says, John, if God's providing you everything you need, what else do you need? Nothing. He says, great.

This is pretty simple, ain't it? Say, yeah, I've since added a little on to that. I don't want to rewrite the big book.

This is what I tell my guys today. My job today is to stay close to God and perform his work well today, no matter what. That's my job.

You know, that's my job. I got a purpose and to stay close to God and do this work no matter what happens. If I do that, God provides me with everything I need.

And if God's given me everything I need, I don't need anything else. I want a hell of a lot of things. I want so many things, you know.

I want a fast car so I can get to the meetings faster, you know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I want a lot of things, you know. But um I got everything I need today.

Everything I need. If you saw my bank account, you'd think you're on you're nuts. You know, my bank account is looking pretty slim today.

But I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I have everything that I need today. You know, I spent years and years and years trying to get out from where I was right at this moment, trying to get somewhere else. And I can be right here, right now, perfect peace and ease.

I'm cool. I don't know what the hell is going to happen 10 minutes from now, but I'm okay right now. And that's good.

And it says, let's read the rest of these promises. It says established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.

Me a contributor, I spent all those years trying to suck everything I could out of you, out of my family, out of the meetings, right? And now they're telling me what I can contribute. What can I contribute?

I asked my sponsor that. He says, "Get a dollar. Get your big book.

Go to 24-hour club. Get a cup of coffee and talk to every son of a gun that walks in that door. Stay there for a couple hours.

Call me when you get home." Click. Got something to offer. Don't know.

Didn't really know what that was, but I got something to offer. Right. As we felt new power flow, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully.

There's a concept. As we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, the hereafter. We are reborn.

He said, "You get a big doover and you don't got to move. Just get to get a fresh start, you know, but I got a job to do. I just made a commitment with God." See, we spend a heck of a lot of time or at least in in in from my ancient memories of what I used to hear in discussion meetings about, you know, step three is made a decision.

We talk about the three frogs on a log and all that stuff. And that's all great stuff, right? All I've done in step three is I've made a commitment with my sponsor and the God of my understanding that I'm going to get off my rear end and take these actions.

It's a commitment. When you were sitting back when you were still back in your drinking days and you were sitting on your couch and you needed some beer, you made a decision to get beer. You made a commitment to go get beer.

You didn't just think it. You thought it and then you did it. Right?

Same thing with this. I make a commitment in step three with my sponsor that I'm going to follow these directions, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna do whatever I got to do to get what they got.

It's pretty specific. It's pretty plain. It's not all flowery.

I ran into a guy at a treatment center the other day, and I kid you not, this is honest to God's truth. This guy is employed by a treatment center. And he says, "If a man needs to work on his step three, his third step for a year, that's quite all right with us." And these people have a lot of alcoholics come through their place and they got a boatload of crack addicts.

And that crap like that is annihilating those those men and women. The big book is very very specific on how to take the steps, when to take the steps, with whom to take the steps. gives me prayers and promises all along the way.

If you got another idea, go do it. I don't care. But if you want what I got, we're going to do what they did.

It's pretty simple. It was a very tedious process to get me to that point, but once I was there, there ain't no turning back. says, "We found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person such as our wife, best friend, spiritual adviser.

Who better to do my third step than my sponsor? He's been where I'm at and he's where I want to get to. So, he's going to hear my third step.

He's going to be the judge, you know, right? I got to tell you a little story about that. I've done I've done boatloads boatloads and boatloads of third step prayer since I've been sober.

and they're just they still blow me away. It's an awesome thing, you know. It's an awesome thing to hear.

And most of the knuckleheads that I sponsor are guys that are just like me. Guys that have been in and out of treatment centers, in and out of AA groups all over the place. They've tried.

They've got their butts kicked. They're desperate. They're dying.

They're hopeless. And they hear us talk and they hear they they they they see a little hope and they get to this stuff. But I I just talked to this cat today.

is one a good friend of mine. He lives down in Austin now. He moved he moved away a few months ago and I'll never forget he was at 24-hour club a couple years ago and I do a meeting there every Sunday at six o'clock big book study and this guy came up after one of the meetings.

It was just like his first Sunday night there. And he came up to me afterwards and he says, "God, you've got to help me." He goes, "I like what you had to say. You've got to help me." And we went outside and we talked for a little while and I found out all I could about him and he'd been around aa his brother's a you know pretty big speaker in his own right and goes around and he had heard it he tried it and he you know been in the church done everything under the sun this guy was just hopeless.

He had a Winnebago, an old Winnebago, not a nice one, like a real old timey one. It was like beat. I mean, it was, we joke about it now, but it was trashy.

That's like parked in the 24-hour club parking lot. That is all he had in the world, right? Got a couple kids, his wife left them.

I mean, they just couldn't stand him. And this guy was living there. He had like a dollar to his name.

And I started to work with him. And I gave him some stuff to read. told him I'd come up there to see him in a day or two and D.

Well, long story short, I come up a few days after that after our first after our first contact and and we went to this little coffee shop that's right by Baylor Hospital down there and you get there in the afternoon. No one's in there and we go way in the back so you're not bothered and everything and we've each got a big book and we start going through this information because I he he had read some stuff and I'm going through the doctor's opinion and there's a solution and more about alcoholism and we agnostics and we're going over this stuff that I just read and he's asking questions along the way and then he gets quiet and I'm looking at my book and I'm talking to him and he looks up and he's got tears rolling down his face and he says, "My god, I've been an Alcoholics Anonymous for 15 years and nobody ever explained this stuff to me. Nobody." That's how we did his third set prayer.

We did it a couple minutes after that. That man's life changed like that. Like that.

Had nothing to do with me. I just read the damn book. You know, but it's stuff like that I don't want to miss.

You know, another little third step story. I wasn't sober too long. I wasn't sober too long.

I spent years and years and years of my other attempts at AA sitting on the back row trying to think of something witty to say so you'd like me, right? Literally dying in Alcoholics Anonymous, miserable, right? So, I get this little sponsor and we we start going through the steps and my life changes like that and I'm doing this work and I'm at Homeware Bound listening to Meyers and Curt and those guys do the meeting on Friday nights and it was I'm like three weeks sober, right?

Like my third Friday night to be at this little meeting and I worked late that night and I in and out outside all day long. It was kind of cool and kind of rainy and I was starting to get a little cranky and my throat hurt and I had a headache. I didn't feel good.

And I got home at like seven. The meeting's at 8:00. And I'm thinking, man, I just need to take a shower and eat some soup and lay on the couch and relax so I don't get sick and everything.

And I remembered while I was taking a shower, I remembered that that Tuesday previous, I had met some guys from Homerbound. I had talked to him and I'd give him some little red books and I asked him to read some stuff and I told him that I'd be there Friday to work with him. And I mean I'm like cursing myself in the shower like I don't feel good.

Come on, God. I think I'm getting like the flu or something. Ebola or something, you know?

It's got it's bad. It's bad. And I remember getting out of the shower, throwing on some clothes, putting on a hat, getting on my knees, and asking God, say, "God, please, I don't feel good.

Make this hour go by quick so I can come home and rest so I don't get sick." And I left and I went up to that meeting and I get out of get out of my car and my buddy Kurt comes running up to me and he goes, "Dude, I just got off the cell phone with Meyers. They're coming in from Lewisville. There's like a 18-wheeler jack knife.

They ain't they're not going to make it. You and I got to do the meeting. And I said, ' Man, I can't do the meeting.

I've got to work with these two guys right here. And Kurt said, "Oh my god." He goes, "I got these three guys right here." He says, "I know what you can do. You sit down.

You work with all five of these guys and I'll go do the meeting." I said, "Kurt, I've done this one time before." He says, "Well, we better pray." And so Kurt Kurt said a little prayer and he said he said, "Just do steps one, two, and three like we do." I said, "All right." And his guys were mean, man. They're like gangbangers. I mean, they were like mean and tall and kind of snarled and stuff.

And I'm like, "Oh my god." They didn't have a smile one. And we sat down. Men who normally wouldn't mix.

Normally wouldn't mix. Sat down. They all got big books.

They all got them already started getting highlighted and stuff. And I open my big book and I started to lay out steps one, two, and three. And I did it in under an hour.

And the hour's winding up and we get to the part of the third step prayer and I tell them how me and my sponsor had just done my third step prayer a couple weeks previous and these guys that hour these guys that normally wouldn't mix that had a snarl. They're marking in their books and they're uh and they're asking questions and they're they're hookline and sinker and they're the real deal. And I asked these guys, "Are y'all ready to do a third-step prayer?" And they said, "You betcha." I know y'all probably hadn't been to Homeware Bound, but the concrete is pretty filthy.

Cigarette butts everywhere. And these five guys plus me make six. Six guys that normally wouldn't mix got on our knees and put our arms around each other and bowed our heads.

And I said a little prayer to make sure God was with us. And then to a man, it went around the horn. And each man did his third step prayer.

There wasn't a dry eye in the house. We commenced the hugging, cheerful, little sparkles in their eyes. And I ain't telling you that story to brag.

I'm telling you a story for one important reason. My job is to get off my rear and take this message to someone who is dying. Left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't have drank that night.

I could have stayed home, taken a shower, had some soup, and got into bed, and made it to my meeting the next night. The moral of that story is is my job is to help drunks. My job is to get off my rear end and take a message of recovery to somebody who was dying just like I was.

And for that, I got an experience that I will never ever forget. And it happens a lot. Thank you for having me.

>> >> 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.