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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. >> Hi everybody.

My name's Johnny and I'm an alcoholic. >> You tell I'm a good drunk. I got a drink in my hand.

I uh before I get I didn't offend you, did I? Yeah. Sorry.

If you'd had as many shock treatments as I had, you wouldn't touch anything that had electricity in it. I want to thank uh the committee and all the people who've been uh extremely kind and generous in their time and efforts to uh walk me half to death, make me step over horse poop, and do all kinds of things like that. But uh the hospitality of uh of these people, these fine people in the Stockholm has just absolutely blown my mind.

And uh and if you're new here in Alcoholics Anonymous today, uh I want to let you know before I ever get started that I'm not a consultant, a counselor, or authority on a program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm an example, good, bad, or indifferent, that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works. that it hasn't been necessary for me to drink anything, smoke anything, stick anything in my arm, have any anti-depressant drugs, no near beer, nothing in my system stronger than an aspirin since sometime before the 4th day of November, 1959.

Now, that's a long time between drinks. Sometimes I'm so dry I think I'm a fire hazard for Christ's sake. You ought to see the candles on my birthday cake.

I mean, the last time Clancy gave me a cake, I thought I was going to sing my eyebrows off or something. But I got to stay sober for all this period of time because of a number of reasons. Uh last night I went into great deal great detail about what I was like and what had happened to me, what I'm trying to be like today.

But there's some very very important things that have happened to me in my journey in alcoholics anonymous. Most of you know I I took a drink of alcohol when I was 9 years old and I didn't realize then that it had a special effect in me. It does something for me that it doesn't do for maybe nine and now the other 10 people who drink.

And I pursued that illusion that they talk about in our book into the gates of insanity and death and beyond because I went insane one day standing in front of a superior court judge in Los Angeles, California on my second sentencing to a state penitentiary. And what that judge said to me was that I was a blood sucking parasite in society and that I had no right being around decent people. He told a woman who was sitting in the courtroom who was pregnant with my oldest child that if she cared anything about that child at all, she would never let me lay eyes on it.

Now, he didn't say anything to me or anything to that courtroom that I hadn't said to myself time and time and time and time again. But the first time I ever heard it in an open courtroom, it did what to an alcoholic what an alcoholic will do when he's overburdened with the truth about himself. And the exposure of the truth to a room full of people, my brain exploded.

And I spent the next eight or nine months of my life crawling around in a cell in solitary confinement in a maximum security penitentiary. That's what it finally left. See, that's what being sober for a period of time and facing up with the truth did to me.

That's what sobriety was to me. Sobriety was a nightmare. Sobriety was the the reoccurrent nightmares of the tragedies and the atrocities that I had committed.

on my selfish, self-centered journey through this thing called life. And I didn't know what we're doing. And and it had driven me right up into maybe into a a depth of hell that very few people would probably ever understand.

And if it had been in my depth moment standing in front of that judge, if he'd have said to me, "You need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous," I'd have thrown something at him because there was no reason for me to go because I knew what my answer was. My answer was that sooner or later somebody's going to blow my brains out in one of those street alleys that I lived in or I was going to spend the rest of my life locked up in some type of an institution somewhere because that had been my prognosis. That had been my evaluation from the psychiatrists and the therapists and the penologists and the criminologists and the lawyers and the teachers and the preachers and the coaches for as far back as I could ever remember.

There was a psychiatrist in in the San Quinton State Penitentiary in 1951 who tried to talk me into a lobotomy because he said, "Son, you're going to die in a penitentiary. People like you going to die in a penitentiary." Now, I don't know what kind of grace that was looking over me. I do know that my little grandmother prayed for me every day of her life.

And I do know that some of her grace hept over me. But on a deathbed in the old Los Angeles County Jail, I uttered out the only prayer I'd ever said in my life. I said, "Oh God, help me." I can see from the utterance of that prayer to this very moment, my journey through life, how it's taken a different direction and how it's went into a different type of direction.

Now, I didn't There's one thing that I have come to understand in the almost 45 years that I've been hanging around you. My little grandmother's prayers may have been some type of a protective agent that helped me till I got here. But I know as well as I'm standing here that if I hadn't asked God for help, I would have never gotten it.

I had to ask for it. I had to ask, "Oh, please God, help me." Not even knowing what I'm looking for, not even knowing what I'm asking about, not even knowing what I'm searching for. I just want God to help me.

I thought for a long time I was praying for death. But in short order, it what it did, it brought me life because it brought me to you on that faithful day of November 1959. And what happened to me is a story all its own.

It's the story of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not my story. It's the story of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A man walked into a penitentiary one day and told me I didn't have to live like that anymore if I didn't want to. And that is the secret and the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. People have been telling me all my life that I shouldn't do certain things.

I shouldn't act certain ways and I shouldn't do this and I shouldn't do that. But this man told me that I didn't have to live like that anymore. And none of those people who had diagnosed me and shocked me and hit me with high pressure fire hoses and tried to get me to commit to a lobbotomy and all these other kind of miracle things to cure for people they don't understand.

This man made more sense to me. A little guy that did 23 flat years in the penitentiary who was my baseball coach when I was a starse second baseman for the San Quinton Pirates. Now, I don't understand why this is, but I've come to understand what it is.

This man, through God's grace and his actions and his dedication to service in Alcoholics Anonymous, was so busy trying to give away what he found that he was the essence, the package that Alcoholics Anonymous came to me in. And what he said was, "You don't have to live like this anymore." He didn't say, "I know what's wrong with you." In essence, he said the magic word to an alcoholic of my type. I know how you feel and you don't have to do it like this no more.

And he gave me the magic ingredient. He he brought a singleness of purpose to me that uh and these people who came with him brought a singleness of purpose which is the essence of what alcoholics anonymous is really all about tonight. One alcoholic talks to another alcoholic and even though they don't know the words, they understand.

We understand one another. Not maybe by the word. Maybe we talk different languages.

Maybe we talk different dial. We understand this magic language of the heart. And we know more than anything else when somebody from the depth of their soul tells you another alcoholic.

If an alcoholic tells you this, I know exactly how you feel. And if anybody's ever said that to you in the depths of your despair, you're hooked. There's no way to get around it.

That is the message of alcoholics anonymous. The singleness of purpose of alcoholic anonymous is what separates us from everything else in the world. Now, in the 7,000 years of recorded history, my sponsor tells me there's only been a couple answers for the disease of alcoholism.

One of them happened in the 1840s. A group of five little guys got together in a little bar in Baltimore, Maryland, and decided that they should talk to one another. If they tried to help one another, they could stay sober.

And people thought they were nuts. They thought, "What do you mean? You're all drunks for Christ's sake.

How are you ever going to stay sober? You're all crazy drunk. All you're going to do is drink with one another." Well, they took the name of the president, first president of the United States, the Washington, called themselves the Washingtonian movement.

And they grew in numbers in the first two or three years of existence, faster than any spiritual movement in the history of mankind. They stretched out over the east coast of the United States without the benefits of television, communication, just word of mouth, word by word, one alcoholic cup. Now, somebody estimates some of the numbers of this thing of over 300,000 people in a short period of time, short period of time.

But somewhere along the line, one of these geniuses who was an alcoholic who was in the thing called the Washingtonian group got the bright idea that if we could help alcoholics, why can't we help everybody? Why can't we just go out and save the world and save all the pitiful, incomprehensible immoralization of the world? Why can't we help opium addicts?

Why can't we help all these people? So they started on a tirade and they got into politics. They got into public speaking.

They got their names put in newspapers. They got the viney for speaking engagement. They let this alcoholism, this seemingly selfish, egotism driven thing that I have carry them into heights and depravity that we can't even dream about.

And in three, four, four short years, they completely extinguished themselves from the face of the earth. And what they did in a small is they lost their singleness of purpose. They got the singleness of purpose and they lost it because they they got some type of a it's not a bad idea.

It's a very it's a very thoughtful idea. But the thing that alcoholics get sober for in Alcoholics Anonymous is what that man said to me. I understand how you feel.

I understand. I recognize your dilemma. Yeah, I'm like that.

What have you done? What should you do for me? The signal is the purpose.

The purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is I've come to understand it. The purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous, any gathering of Alcoholics Anonymous is I understand it. It's to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

Now, the alcoholic who still suffers doesn't necessarily mean it's the guy is not here. There's probably people in this room who are suffering from the disease of alcoholism and they have some type of a knowledge of idea that just because they're not drinking they got it whipped. If that was the case, we wouldn't need alcoholics knowledge.

But we have a single list of purpose. The singlest of purpose, my single of purpose, my book tells me, is to stay sober and carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffer. to build a some type of a a bridge of understanding between me and some other person.

That's why Bill and his infinite wisdom wrote to us in our book. We share our experience, strength, and hope here because the experience is what we were like. And the newcomers got to know what we were like.

They got to know what happened to us and what's what we're like today. What are we doing about that today? They don't want to know what I used to be like.

What I used to be like, what I used to be like, what I used to be like, what I used to be like. They'd like to know what happened. For God's sake, I remember one time there's this friend of mine, uh, he was new and in in my part of the world, every once in a while they asked me to go out and talk.

And I I take one of these jackasses that I'm sponsoring and I drag this goof and put him in the car with me. And I told him, "When you get there, you're going to do a 10-minute talk." He said, "Okay." Well, he got up there and he went 20 minutes or so of what he was like, "What he was like, what he was like, and what he was like, and what he was like, and what he was like." And he sat down. He says, "Geez, Vonce, I didn't get to tell them what I'm like today." I said, "They know it's true.

I mean, if you're like what you were like what you were like, not much has changed." The man introduced me to uh the tool that allows you and I to sit in this room tonight without a garbled message of what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is. And don't you believe for a single moment that it's not being garbled in various places around the world. And the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is in a book called Alcoholics Anonymous, at least in the first 164 pages.

And it spells out very specifically what happens to us and what we're supposed to be doing here. It was written by a man called Bill Wilson. And a lot of people, maybe a lot of people in Stockholm understand and believe that Bill Wilson had a spiritual experience through no experience of his own.

He just had one because God thought he ought to have it so he could write it in a book. Nothing could be further from the truth than that. If you were to read Bill's story, you would find out that before Bill had what he called his hot flash.

That's what he called it. I didn't pick it out of there. He just called it a hot flash.

A lot of people have had hot flashes. If they are having spiritual experiences, my wife has them from time to time. She's not having a spiritual experience.

She's just having a hot flesh. It's her time in the world, I guess. I don't he essentially in his story worked the first nine steps of our program of recovery before he had his spiritual awakening.

And when Bill first got sober and started carrying the message, for the first six months he was sober, everybody he drugg into his house didn't get sober. None of them got sober. I mean, one guy committed suicide in his living room.

Another guy stole furniture and sold it for Musketel wine. And Bill was getting ready to go find AA number two down in Akran, Ohio. And Dr.

Silkward, one of AA's dearest friends, said to him, "Why don't you quit preaching this spiritual experience business and start talking to people about the the physical allergy of alcoholism?" And Dr. Bob was the first guy he tried that on. first guy first.

And there's an interesting story about Dr. Bob because they became a wei instead of an I. And so for the first time in the history of mankind, there were two people in Alcoholics None.

Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson. But Dr.

Bob was kind of a rebel kind of guy like me. And Dr. Bob told Bill Wilson, your sponsor, I'm not going to work those amen steps.

I'm not going to work 89 because I've lived in this town all my life and I'm still practicing medicine here and I'm not going to let lay my dirty linen out in front of these people to see and Bill like any good sp just shrugged his shoulders tell them I guess your case is different you don't have to do this which seems to be the theme song of everybody who dies drunk here and a couple of weeks later Dr. Bob went to Atlantic City on a medical convention and fell off the Trump train when he got back in Akan dead drunk. And the next day, Bill did something that from time to time I wanted my sponsor to do for me, but he never would cuz Dr.

Bob was going to have to go have an operation. He was doing the shakes and the whippies, and Bill gave him a beer. Now, I've tried to talk my sponsor into that from time to time.

He doesn't think that's a good idea for me. But he went out and and and Bob left and went out somewhere and and after the operation, he was missing. He was gone all day and way late into the evening.

He finally showed up and people said, "Where were you? We were worried about you. Thought maybe we drink." He said, "I was out mending fences." In other words, he had finally got beat into a state of reasonable enough when he was ready to go out and clean up the wreckage of his past, which is another singleness of purpose here.

>> And from that, he lived until the day he would die. And in his last talk in Alcoholics Anonymous, he voiced a word of caution to us way back there in 1950, which is 50 some 50ome years ago. He voiced a word of caution.

He says, "Let's not louse this thing up with fruity and that has no earthly use to anything but the mind." Let's remember that Alcoholics Anonymous has always been broke down into two simple words, love and service. And you got to remember that somebody took the time out of their life to carry the message to you. So let's just keep it that simple.

It's basically that simple. One alcoholic talks to another alcoholic and gets them to create and do actions that they never have any idea about doing. It don't seem right to me.

My sponsor told me to do things that I said didn't have anything to do with alcoholism. He told me to do things that were not written in that book. See, I knew the book cuz I studied it for 19 months.

I went through those steps sitting in a penitentiary all by myself with the help of a couple of other guys. But I he gave me action. He told me that I should I should go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous all the time.

He told me that I should have a job in every meeting that I go to. He said, "You know, you got to do this. You got to get there early.

You got to stay there late. And you got to sit down and shut up." I said, "Why? I may want to visit with old Martin over there.

Why should I shut up? He says, "Johnny, have you ever stopped to think that maybe somebody else wants to listen?" I said, "No, I haven't." He said, "I didn't think so." Selfishy, self-centered people, you don't think about anybody but yourself. Why don't you just shut up?

Pay attention. Well, I didn't like that. When you're new, you don't want to shut up.

You want people to notice you. I was telling some people at coffee this morning. I I was a year or so out of the penitentiary and some guy asked me to go give a talk, one of those 10-minute talks with the speaker, and I'm all excited about that.

I went out and bought me a necktie even. I just really going to make a splash, my debut in Alcoholics Anonymous. I call my sponsor up and I said, "Norm, Norm," he says, "What do you want, jackass?" I said, "Oh, so and so has asked me to go give a little 10-minute talk with him.

He's given the main talk. What do you think about that, Norm? He said, "Oh, that's okay, Johnny." I said, "What do you think I ought to tell him, Norm?" He said, "Why don't you tell him your name and your sobriety date?

You don't know anything else." Which is true. Which is absolutely true. What do you know at one year sober?

What I was like, what I was like, what I was like, what I was like, and what I was like. Today we got people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous. They've been told, "You got to go TO A AND SHARE.

YOU GOT TO SHARE." YEAH. GET IT OUT. Guy walked up to me the other day and said that.

I want to share. I said, "Mop the floor. You saw the look on his face.

What has that got to do with sharing?" I said, "That's about the best sharing I know of. Grab a mop." It's all relevant about what service is in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not everybody gets to talk, but there's a job if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous or old or medium and Alcoholics Anonymous.

There's a job in Alcoholics Anonymous for you to do. It's your job. And if you don't do it, it will never get done.

I don't know what it is. So, if you're wondering what it is, I suggest you try everything once. I suggest you try central service, general service, sweeping floors, setting up meetings, leading meetings, reading the book, do all this stuff around here that that's essential to keep your mind off yourself.

And sooner or later, you'll fall into a pattern of whatever your job is, you're supposed to do around here. I'm a coffee maker by trade. That's what I do.

I make coffee for 800 or,000 people every Wednesday night. You know, they never say that's good coffee. They never walk in and pat me on the back and say, "What a wonderful job you're doing back here, young man." Now, when I was new and doing things, they did that.

When I was new, I'd back there in the kitchen washing cups, sweeping the floor. Old-timers would walk up and tap me on the back and say, "Oh, you're doing a good job, newcomer. Keep it up." Pat me on the back.

Now I'm 40ome years sober and I'm still picking up chairs at my home group and making coffee. And you know what they say? Look at that old son of a gun.

He's still trying to run everything around here. It's just the nature of the beast. It It's an absolute necessity.

My sponsor I I have a a sponsor I had a sponsor who was probably the meanest man who ever lived, but he loved me more than I can possibly ever imagine loving anybody. He cared more about saving my life than he did about hurting my feelings. He did.

I'd caught I used to call him up in the middle of the night because I just wanted to see if he'd answer the phone. Well, I didn't want anything. I'd have to make something up as I on the phone and I'd say things to him like, "Norm to what do you want, jackass?

Some of us have to work tomorrow." Well, that hurt. But that didn't deter me from my journey. Norm, I'd say to him, he'd say, "What do you want?" And I'd say, "Norm, my program ain't working, Norm." He'd say, "Why don't you try ours?" And hang up.

Jesus. He then call him back. Try to get him to You know what he say to me?

Jackass, your program never did work. You know what my program is? My program at the ripe old age 26 to 27 years old got me crawling around in a cell in solitary confinement at a maximum security penitentiary drifting in and out of total insanity.

That's my program. That's my best program now on a part-time basis trying to incorporate our program into my life. I'm a happy, joyous, free individual.

I'm of service. I got a purpose and a direction for being. I got a a direction for God.

I got a thing to do. I've got people to see and places to go. I got a lovely family.

I got a couple of beautiful daughters. I got four great grandkids. I got a lovely wife.

I love death living in my home waiting for me and a little dog. You got to see me sometime. I got a little gray dog.

She's about that tall. She wears purple leash. Got a purple halter.

Got little purple things in her hair when I get her done. And I take her down to a store called Petco Code, California. You can take your dogs in there.

I take her down, let her pick out her toys. She grabs one, hangs on to it, looks at me, and I go buy it. And all the time I'm doing that, I'm singing to myself, "If they could see me now, that old gang of mine." It's a funny thing, but I can't imagine ever walking back into the penitentiary and saying, "You ought to have seen me walking my little gray dog down there at the Petco Saturday." Yeah.

But life was a wonderful thing. You know what? I tell you, I had I had a great experience about two months ago.

Two months ago, I was invited to go back and talk in the in the state penitentiary at Folsam, where I was a visitor there for a period of time, 46 years ago. And I got to go there. I was going to talk to the to the inmates or the convict, whatever you want to do.

And when we got there, we were a little ahead of schedule and we couldn't get through the one place to get to the other place. And so we stopped right outside of the old mess hall I used to eat in 46 years ago. And right down the hall from that place was a cell block that I lived in 46 years ago.

I walked down to that cell block and walked three cells down on the left to the cell that I lived in 46 years ago. And I walked across that messaul that I ate in to a cafeteria where they fed the free people and sit down and spend 4 hours with 300 convicts. People just like me.

And all I could tell them was, you don't have to live like this no more if you don't want to. Because I used to sit in that back row just like you did. I was as full as much skepticism and criticism and doubtfulness as anybody who lived upon the face of the earth.

Well, one day a man who was dedicated to Alcoholics Anonymous, to the service of it, who had fulfilled the conditions of sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous, was willing to give up his time and his effort and come to a penitentiary and tell me that I didn't have to live like that anymore. So I did it for you. And I don't know, it gave me a funny feeling.

One of the free people said to me, "What's it like after all these years?" And I said, "Same. Hasn't changed. Smells the same." She said, "What do you mean the smell?" I said, "You can smell the fear.

It's gripped in fear. Everybody's afraid that everybody's going to find out that they're afraid. And if that's not my entire story, I don't know what it is.

I've had opportunities. I know sometimes sometimes I almost get to thinking that I never had a break, that I was doomed from time, but it's not true. I've had people come into institutions where I was at and offer me scholarship to universities.

I had a a talent to play baseball that's beyond belief. Sometimes an arm that could throw a ball through a wall, a bat, a baseball that I could hit no matter how hard they threw it. I could run like a deer.

I could do a lot of things. And scouts from universities came in to see me at reform schools and offered me scholarship to go to the university. But I walked out of an institution as physically sober as I am right now and took a drink.

And then the drink took a drink. And then the drink took me. and playing baseball in a penitentiary against Major League Baseball players.

A scout from the St. Louis Cardinals came in there and offered me a trial at their training camp when I got out of the penitentiary with St. Louis Cardinal.

But I walked out of there and took a drink and then the drink took a drink and then the drink took me and I never got to St. Louis. See, I never went anywhere when I drank.

I have never stopped drinking. My sponsor is probably a great a great great reason that I'm standing here tonight because even though I was armed with the knowledge of what Alcoholics Anonymous is and I had incorporate the program of recovery into my life, I didn't know how to behave around you. I didn't know that my actions may affect a newcomer sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I didn't know that my doubtfulness and my criticism and my the way I dressed and the way I acted, the way I behaved and my snobbishness and my self-centerness was going to affect the newcomer. I never realized that my purpose in life is to install some type of hope and some type of message to the newcomer because I've come to understand that the real payoff in Alcoholics Anonymous is not staying sober. That's not the payoff.

If you don't get the payoff, you're never going to stay sober anyhow if you're an alcoholic. The payoff is to watch somebody get this thing that was given to you and watch it come out of them. Watch this light come on in your eyes.

My papa used to say to return from the land of the living dead to the land of the living. That's the payoff in alcohol. And it doesn't make any difference whether you sponsor them, whether you know them, or whether you don't know them.

You can sit over there in that chair where I sit there and watch these two fine people get up here and talk about what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for them. And something happens to me because I understand what's happened to them. And I'm able to transpose what's happened to me to them and them to me, which is what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about.

That's the singleness of purpose. One alcoholic talks to another alcoholic. And that's the way it worked.

My sponsor taught me that. And the second thing he taught me more than anything else is the importance of a home group. It's important for me to be somewhere all the time where I say I'm going to be.

It's important for me to sit in the same chair in my home group. I've sit in the same chair on Monday nights for the last 33 years. Every single Monday.

I can count on my hand the number of times I've missed that meeting. And it's never been because of a business thing. It's never been because of a family obligation.

It's never been any other excuse. The only time I've ever missed that thing is when I was in the hospital with an operation. That's the only time I've missed that meeting.

I can't understand why I can't be there. My sponsor told me. And it's another thing.

Where am I going to tell the guys I sponsored? come on over here and get in this group and do these things. My sponsor took me down by the hand and sat me down and said, "This is it.

Be here. Wash them cups and sweep these floors and pick up them chairs." I told him, "I want to do something here." He gave me something to do. See, I didn't know when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I'm like all people who come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I come here seeking something. I come to Alcoholics Anonymous to get something. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a getting program.

No matter how far down a scale you've gone, if you came into this room tonight, you brought every single thing you need in here with you. All you got to do is uncover and discover and discard the situation. It's what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is really all about.

It's what our book is all about. And in a home group, what I have found, I have found people there who know me better than I know myself. I've had people that I sponsor walk up to me and say, "What's wrong with you?" What do you mean?

What's wrong with me? Well, you look like you're mad at something. You look like swallow something.

Look like you ate a pimmen or something. What's the matter with you, sponsor? Jesus, you're not supposed to talk to your sponsor like that.

Only only if you know that your sponsor is a human being. And all human beings have feet of play. All the people that I sponsor have ever done for me just make me be better than I really am.

At least behave better than I am. So when somebody walks up to me and I sponsor, I I got to straighten up. After all, I am the sponsor.

I guess that's where the o ego takes over. That's the importance of a home group. It's very important.

I guess there's a there's a thing that they do in my home group. I don't know where it started, but it started now and the people are picking up. It's almost like it's almost like a thing that they do.

We have basically the same format on Monday night that you have here. And every single person who gets up there and gives a talk always says, "The three most important things in my life is a sobriety date, a home group, and a sponsor." In that order. Isn't it amazing?

Think about it. If you don't have a sobriety date, it can't be very important. If you don't have a home group, nobody will ever get to know you.

If you don't have a sponsor, you'll never have anybody to lead you down the path. It's a very simple thing. singleness of purpose, a home group, sponsorship, they're all very wonderful things.

But you know to be a sponsor I suppose requires a lot of time and a lot of effort you know and if you don't know this I'm going to tell you there is a big difference between saying you have a sponsor and being sponsored. And if you don't know the difference with that you may be in a lot of trouble. A lot of people I bet I'd tell them today having coffee.

I have people call me from somewhere across the country and say, "Oh, so and so was by here and said you're a sponsor." I don't even know who old so and so was. I haven't got the clue who he was. I've never sponsored him and don't know him.

No, but I guess he thought it was important to say, "Yeah, Johnny Harris is my sponsor." Like that's going to give him something. I have people do that all the time with my sponsors. Yeah.

Clancy is my sponsor. I said, "Well, why don't you do what Clancy does then?" Oh, what do you mean? Answers my question.

I just turn and walk away and leave him pondering that. I'm got a little cruel speak to me. Every once in a while, I just bring it out there.

Sometimes the devil just gets a hold of me and just kind of hangs in there on me. I usually take it out on the people I sponsor if they're handy. it.

It's a magic thing. Alcoholics not. There's another thing I want to talk to you about.

It's in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. In our book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, R. Bill Wilson, the guy who wrote our book, who shares his experience, strength, and hope with us, talks repeatedly about alcoholics of our type.

Alcoholics of our type. He talks about he wrote the book and the program of recovery for alcoholics of our type. It's been my experience to understand that he wrote about it in the book alcoholics anonymous.

He says there's a type of alcoholic I suppose who is really nothing more than a heavy drinker that given any type of reasonable excuse he can quit drinking and never drink again. The only requirement is you just quit drinking. he's not going to lose his job or his wife or kids or any of this kind of stuff.

So, he just quit drinking. He just knocks it off. Then there's another type of alcoholic he talks about who may become physically addicted to alcohol.

He may even have to be hospitalized. That's where they make treatment centers for. That's where these treatment centers who boast this great success story come out with this kind of stuff.

These are the type of people that they rack up as success stories. They can give you names and addresses and phone numbers where these people are. But then B talks about the real alcoholic.

Talked about the alcoholic of my type who may get sober given any type of reasonable excuse like getting arrested. But sooner or later, left unchecked, I will always drink again. So I must find some type of a spiritual way of life that will afford me some degree of comfort where I never have to pick up a drink of alcohol to get that sense of ease and comfort it takes between a few drinks ever again.

And based on my experience that's what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me. It's afforded me the opportunity to live comfortable enough for almost 45 years so I haven't had to take a drink of alcohol or use any mindaltering chemicals whatsoever and to live the good life and to be able to walk through the tragedy. The mother of my children committed suicide when I was almost six years sober.

You know, I don't understand all that kind of stuff. My mother drank herself to death after 30 years of me being an AA. I've been through business failures.

I've had divorces. I've had bankrupty, not bankruptcy, but business failures and financial troubles. And my youngest daughter went crazy in her senior year in high school and ran the streets for years and years and years.

But all I've ever done, one of those things that hit me, just go to other meeting. Just go to more meeting. call up my sponsor and tell him I'm going through all these things.

Okay, I'll see you at the meeting. How many newcomers you working with? When's the last time you were on a panel somewhere?

When's the last time you went into an institution try to carry the message? Why don't you do this? Every single setback that I've had is an amazing thing to me.

And you know why there's a God? I know there's a God of my very own because in every single one of those setbacks and the depressions that they brought about. I didn't have to swallow anything to ease the pain.

I know there's a God. I know because I couldn't do it by myself and I couldn't do it without you. And today, like I told you before, I uh I live a life beyond my wildest imagination.

I just absolutely believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter what my problem may be, if I come here and try to stick out my hand to an alcoholic and do what I'm asked to do in Alcoholics Anonymous, sooner or later it'll go away. When I was a young man in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was very close well to Chuck, my papa. Chuck, he was probably the only father that I've ever known.

He called me pop. He called me son. I called him papa.

And I loved him dearly. And one time I was very troubled about something. I don't know what it was, but I know it was real monumental at that moment.

And so, like I always did, I was going to go home and talk to my papa about that. And I went down to see him and he was down in Lagouna Beach. He was down there on the lawn bowling on the lawn down there.

They wear white suits and they throw little balls down the thing and knock little balls around. Kind of a goofy thing, but he got great pleasure out of it. So he finished his game.

We sit down. We're having some iced tea. It was a nice day.

We're out looking over the ocean. And I laid this big monumental problem on my papa and I said to him, "What do you think about that?" He looked at me and he said, "Look out there." And and I what? He look out there at the ocean.

I said we're looking at the ocean. You know, I I want some answers. I don't want this philosophical nonsense from you.

I want some. I didn't say that. That's what I was thinking.

And he said, "How far can you see?" I said, "What?" He said, "How far can you see?" I said, "I can see the ocean." What do you mean? He said, "No, you don't understand, do you?" And I said, "No, I don't. What are you talking about?" He said, "It's 7 milesi to the horizon." I said, "Really?" I drove.

The old man's been in the sun too long. That's what I'm thinking. He's goof.

He's foolish. His iced tea hadn't hit yet. About an hour later, we're sitting up at his house up on a hill and we got these two big chairs.

I'm sitting in one. He said, "The other got a big picture window, looked out over the ocean." I thought, "Well, I'm ask him now. He's out of the sun." So, I said to him, "Papa," I gave him this big deal again.

and he laughed at me and he looked out at the window and he said, "How far can you see?" And I thought, "Oh my god." So I gave him an answer. I said, "Seven miles." He said, "You don't understand, do you?" And I said, "I don't even know what you're talking about." He said, "From that point to that point is 120 miles." I said, "Really?" He said, "You really still don't understand, do you?" And I said, "No, I don't." He says, "The higher you go, the further you see, and the further you see, the more there is to see." And if you could see Alcoholics Anonymous in the 12 steps of our program, recovery in its entirety, it would blind you. It would be like looking into the sun.

It's my experience. It's true. That's why they say in our book, we grow along spiritual lines.

What I see today, I couldn't have seen yesterday. What I saw the day before yesterday, I couldn't see yesterday. As long as I stay active and close to this program of Alcoholics Anonymous, my book promises me that more will be revealed to me.

It promises me that. And I'm here to tell you that the promises in Alcoholics Anonymous are true, but they will only come if you work for them. They only materialize after the ninth step of our program recovery.

Before the ninth step of our program recovery, there is an awful lot of promises that you don't want to happen into your life will happen to you if you don't do these things. One of them says, "If you skip this vital step, you may drink. That's a promise.

It also says it's easy to let up on a spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels, but we're headed for trouble if we do because alcohol is a subtle foe. A subtle fo just waits there. All it does is wait for me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong set of circumstances.

It won't matter. Alcohol won't matter to me that I've been sober 40 some odd years. It won't matter to me that I sponsor a host of people.

It won't matter to me that I have a sponsor. It won't matter to me that Chuck and Norm are such a great influence in my life as well as Clancy is. It won't matter to me that I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful home and a little dog and two gorgeous daughters and three grandchildren.

It won't matter at all if I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong set of circumstances and I'm just as apt to get squirly tomorrow as anybody else here and somebody hands me to drink, I'll take it. I have been in that condition sober. I have been so dark and so into myself and so guiltridden about my actions being sober that I was in the wrong place in the wrong time.

Somebody handed me a drink. You'd have another speaker here tonight. I know that without a doubt.

But my safe haven is with you. When I am troubled, I am not home dreaming about my solutions. When I am troubled about anything, when my selfishness and my self-centeredness is dominating my life, when I do not have the ability to drop down on my knees and start saying prayers, when I don't have the prayer to say, "God, grant me the serenity.

This too will pass." When I'm goofy, I'm goofy. And it doesn't make any difference how long I've been sober. But I'd rather be goofy with you than I would goofy by myself.

Because by myself, I'm very dangerous. By myself, I think I got it all together. Here, I'm safe harbor.

Being with you is a great thing. I hear people say all the time, I had to learn to love me before I could love you. That's not my experience.

I don't even like me sometimes. So, how in the world could I possibly ever love me? But I want to tell you one thing.

I have never not loved you. I've loved you from the moment I sit in your meetings. Even though I didn't know what it was I was feeling for you today, with the actions I've taken, surrounded by the people I've been taken with, I realize how much I really, really love Alcoholics Anonymous and you people.

And as long as I'm able to stand and move around, I'll be sitting with you. I know it's a it's a terrible thing, but uh alcoholism killed many people. Killed my mother.

It killed a lot of people. Killed everybody in my family except my daughters and I. But I'm here to tell you if anything I could possibly do, I'd like to stand here tonight and thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous.

But I think even more than that, what I'd really like to do is I'd like to thank Alcoholics Anonymous for my God. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.

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