Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.

Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> I knew it was going too well.

And then he repeats that Budweiser slogan, I love you, man. They got that from us, you know. You say, "What do they do after they quit drinking?" Let's do a billboard.

Oh, yeah. I love you, man. Hi, everybody.

I know so many of your faces. I've seen them a thousand times thinking back to my trips to Abalene. Just great, great memories and I'm so grateful to be here again.

My name is Marty Jeffrey and I am an alcoholic and my fellow Canadians and uh Texans and all the rest. I'm just so grateful for this program of Alcoholics Anonymous going to talk a bit about that tonight, but I just wanted to thank the other speakers. Uh G, you know, it's amazing thing that Gar and I have some mutual friends in in Winnipeg where he lives.

And for years I've seen him and 20 years probably I've seen him. I've never heard the man talk before. I should have shut up.

He's He's pretty good. It's And then uh Bo Today, you know, uh what killer Eleanon just an excellent story. And then Shirley uh you know, just drove it home for me today.

So, somebody was trying to put some pressure on me. Said, "Aren't you nervous? I mean, there's all those people.

I mean, what if you really screw up? They'll all be drunk." So, And I told him, "You can't I couldn't do anything to mess this conference up. It doesn't matter what I say because all they'd say was Saturday night was weak, but the rest of the weekend was really good.

So, I'm okay. I'm just going to be okay." I guess you know in this journey and I see again you know Bill and RL and Altus and so many faces and Pat and uh you know some of us have been up and some of us have been down and we go up and down a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous and that's that's the way this thing goes cuz when you go down you learn right you know no pain you know very little gain sometimes and sometimes some of us take some terrible lickens and I'd like you newcomers to understand that that that's That's that's no big deal as long as you understand that that it it comes out okay. And every one of these crusty old-timers that's that's telling you the truth has been up and down several times theirelves.

That's what gives them the the ability to say these kinds of things to you. And if you're like me when you got to Alcoholics Anonymous, you got a bunch of crazy thinking because that's really what's wrong with me. And I was sober a long time.

And I finally heard somebody say, you know, I was crazier sober than I ever was drunk. And I went, "Yes, yes." Because what would happen to me because of the sober insanity is that the pressure will build up to such a place that I would have to break out and I would break out drunk. And and that wasn't really what was the drinking was going very well.

It was the living that was killing me. And I want everyone in the room to understand, I'm not saying that I have this mysterious 15 85% blend that they talk about sometimes in meetings. You know, 15% alcoholism, 85% living from.

I don't know where that comes from, but it doesn't come out of any literature that I've been able to find. Let me tell you what I suffer from. And and if you don't, that's okay.

I suffer from a 100% selfishness problem. And sometimes that makes me live like a poop. You know, and then and then when the when the living and the selfishness got to such a place that I could no longer resolve certain inconsistencies on the planet like world hunger and other big issues, then I would have to drink to go to oblivion because I couldn't stand the pain of reality.

And I don't know if that means anything to you, but when I came in here, what I found out is when I'm sober an extended period of time, and incidentally, sobriety is a condition brought on by a lack of alcohol. And when I have one of these extended periods that this selfishness seems to almost be like a dynamo in my life. It seems to sort of pick up speed.

I'm so humble when I'm down. And then someone's nice to me. I think, boy, you must really like me.

You must really like me. I'll get something out of you, you know, and that's the alcoholic selfishness and self-centerness starting to swell. And so, I got in here and I had a bunch of prejudice.

And I want to just talk a bit about that tonight. I'm not talking about skin color or bigotry or I'm talking about prejudice. Thinking that I understood what certain things meant.

And I don't know where I got these concepts from. I was brought up in a sort of like a semi-christian upbringing. Great breeding grounds for alcoholism.

You know, I had a mother that used to send me to church because that was a good place to go. I never got along real well in church. And that was one of the first prejudices I had.

You guys told me, well, here it is. You have to have faith. You see, faith to me equated to religion.

And religion equated to the time I got kicked out of Sunday school for selling condoms. I didn't know what they were for. I I guess I was probably in grade four or five.

And we got these things out of my my buddy's drugstore. His dad owned a drug store and they really got big when you fill them with water. And we thought they were car bombs.

And so the teacher told me I was a filthy little heathen and I was ejaculated out of Sunday school. And I mean, I don't know about you and the way you think of things, but every time someone would say faith, I'd think filthy little heathen. Condoms.

They pull over your head. You know, when you're young, it's one of those deals. You got that deal.

I mean, I was mad at God. I thought, you know, hey, if this is religion, I'm afraid not. You know, how many of the people in this room are looking through glasses that are covered with images that came from their childhood that you'll read in We Agnostics, Phil puts it so eloquently, as he does so often, that many of us are trying to base our spiritual experience upon images we created of some god that was forced upon us as a child.

And that's I mean faith has nothing at all to do with that experience. But that's what I heard. Now hope hope was for suckers.

And I come in with you all and you're all nice and clean and you you know God when I got here you were old though. You seem to be catching up. I mean my first meeting everybody was hundred.

I don't know about anybody else 100. And and we and I went to this meeting and they were drinking coffee like they were going to take coffee off the planet. That would be it.

coffee. You haven't had it by noon. It's over.

And as they're drinking this coffee, they're talking about going up and down some stairs. 12 stairs. And I'm thinking, "This is worse than Kinsman.

It's boring, right?" And then there's this one wrinkly one at the front who is screaming at one of the other ones about staying too long on the fifth stair and that if you don't get off that step, you're going to get drunk. And I thought, where's the fifth stair? That's what I wanted was to I I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous to get hope.

I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. And then this meeting went on and on.

It was the longest period of time I had ever had in my life. I hated every minute of it. And they were reading something that at the end just astounded me.

They said, "If you want what we have," I went, "I'm 24 years old. They got no hair." Oh, I know what you're thinking. You stay here this long and see what happens to your hair.

They had no hair. They I mean, terrible looking people as far as I could see. And they couldn't drink for the rest of their lives.

I do. I want what they have. Oh, let me think.

Oh, God. Well, here's the choices. He said, "If you don't want what we have, you either have to go to the insane asylum or you have to die or you have to stumble on into the alcoholic darkness." And I'm thinking, I'll take death.

It's a multiple choice question. And I meant it with all my if I could not drink, I could not possibly get any relief. I don't know if you know what I'm talking.

not a drinking alcoholic. If you never had that thing happen to you that it describes in the book that you get for a period of time this incredible release and feeling of being all in one place all at the same time. Boom.

You know, just it's just comforting. That's the only way I could It was the only time in my life I'd ever had that experience. And so I came out of that meeting and my my the guy that took me to the meeting said, "What did you think of the meeting?" And of course I'm an alcoholic.

I said, "I loved it. I really I'll tell you guys, I got something going there. I almost wish I was alcoholic.

I'm telling you. And if you ever need any money or if uh I could do anything to help you guys raise money, he said, "Shut up. Did you like the meeting or you didn't like the me?" I said, "I I hated the meeting." And he said, "That's okay." I said, "Well, I don't want to go anymore.

I'm glad I saw what I saw, and I wish you luck." And so, and was I ever surprised when this guy came and picked me up again at 8:00 that night for another meeting. See, I'm sober today since 1976, February the 8th, because I had a sponsor that did not understand the concept of rejection. And I know we got some pretty wimpy sponsors now when their baby kind of talk back.

They say, "Well, if you haven't had enough pain, maybe you just get another sponsor." Well, this guy didn't understand that cuz I told him I basically wished he was dead. I wished his dog was dead. He had a dog that was so old when you'd come to the door, it couldn't bark anymore.

This is the God's truth. He would you and you hear So, I figured this dog's an alcoholic synonymous, too. Everything in here is worn out.

I'm 24 years old. I want to get out there and die on my own. Thank you very much.

This dog, he used to say, "Smile, Tinker." And the dog would go, I figured Skye's this is what he's doing for fun. He's got a dog named Tinker. If you want what we have and you're willing to go to any lecture, I didn't have any hope.

Hope was for suckers. I learned that at the card tables. Hoping was ridiculous.

I knew because of my own character that everything I touched would eventually turn to stink. And it didn't matter. You I was the manager of a radio television station by the time I was 21 years old.

I was the the guy that everybody thought was going to succeed. I used to sit in countless pubs. No, I'm sorry.

We call them pubs, public houses, beer parlors. Beer parlors. No, bars.

And don't say Chesterfield. That's the other one that confuses hell out of you Texans. They always say, "What?

What's a Chesterfield?" You know, we smoke them. And I Well, we did, too. But they're a couch.

You know, just lay on there with your cigarette. Pretty soon it's on fire. You're you're smoking your Chesterfield.

I had I was the guy that everybody used to say, "Man, you are really going to be something." I think, "Yeah, I'm going to really be something by the end of tonight. Everything in which I believe, everything that I am, everything I stand for will be in the bottom of that bottle." That's what I used to think. And I couldn't stop it.

I had no concept until I met you. And I met your stupid book, The Big Book. I've been watching Sesame Street drinking.

Now we got big bird, big bird. If you want what we have, you know, big bird, big hello. I didn't want what you had.

I didn't know what you had. And if you'd have offered me hope, I would think, oh man, they they get stupider by the minute cuz I had a prejudice against the word hope. Don't talk to me about faith.

Don't talk to me about hope. And then this one here, love. Get out of here.

Love. Love is what they say to you just before they ask you to take the garbage out. I learned that at home.

I love you, dear. Take the garbage out, would you? Love was necessary.

If if I loved you, we had to get together and love one another for a period of time. So, I know so I knew you liked me. It was an acceptance thing.

I never understood the concept until I had a child about love. I'll tell you how bad it was. In my ninth month of sobriety, my wife went to an Alanon meeting and we couldn't get a babysitter and so I had to stay home with my little boy.

Okay, no big deal, right? He won't settle down. And so I pick him up and I'm holding him and all of a sudden I start feeling this sickening, sickening, fearful, almost disgusting feeling inside.

I set the kid down. I run to the telephone. I phon my sponsor.

I said, "Oh my god, I'm a child molester. I'm a pervert." And he said, "Why are you saying that?" I said, "Because I picked the kid up and I got all these weird feelings." And he said, "Marty, God, you're stupid." He said, "That is love. Have you never felt love in your whole life before?" And I said, "I guess I have." He said, "You're not a per, you know, there's nothing wrong.

Go hold your little boy, look into his face, enjoy him. You just love him, you stupid ass." That's a loving expression in Alcoholics Anonymous, but it's a term of endearment. And so I went, I mean, I I can't tell you how much I love that boy.

That boy today, by the way, is 21 years old. He's about 6' 3, hasn't never drank. I can't explain that to you.

I've never ever said to him, "Don't drink." He just decided not to drink. When when he was about nine, he said, "You know, uh, I want to get an alcoholic synonymous." And, uh, how much do I have to drink? And I I said, you don't I mean, if if you don't if the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinks, I mean, why are you asking this?

And he said, well, because I really want to get in. And I mean, I I said, Donovan, if you don't want to drink, just don't drink. and he never has.

And every once in a while he says to me, "I'm 6 months longer than you are sober, so don't don't tell me what to do." Like the the the thing that you guys do confused me. See, he kept coming to the house. See, it's alcoholics anonymous.

Love just for fun and for free. Yeah. And they used to say insane things like if you give something don't get caught or it doesn't count.

That's a little upside down when you've been out there, isn't it? It's like I mean you give to get. That's how the deal works.

And so a bunch of what you were doing I had all kinds of prejudice. And then you had this first step in which I had some big problems. First of all, you wanted me to admit something and he admits nothing.

like I would admit and concede to my innermost self that somehow I couldn't drink. I don't think so. Or that my life had become unmanageable.

First of all, life was an overstatement. I didn't have one. I lived like a rat.

One of the things that you will recognize quickly if you are among us is that your life has become very small. The longer you drink, the smaller your life gets until it's just you and a bottle and a light bulb. If you're lucky and you come into alcoholic synonym wellness and they start to explode your life back out, it's a little freaky.

They wanted me to go fishing. Last time I went fishing, we couldn't get the rods in the trunk cuz there was too much beer. So what?

Don't take the fishing rod. You know, I mean, everything was to do with drink. That's You know, you're in this room tonight.

You're new. You're wondering if you're an alcoholic. Let me give you a couple of tips.

First of all, if when you start to drink, you can't stop drinking, that's a big indicator. And if you find you can't stop, period, get a group. You know, the thing that really tipped me off was I could not remember the last time I had ever socialized and drank.

I totally socialized to drink. See, at the end of the night, I could tell you how much liquor was there and how much I got and who got mine away from me, but I couldn't tell you who was at the party. I didn't care.

Everybody was just like sort of on my stage and everything with me was about alcohol and that's this disease that gets your world really really small. So when they start talking about a life, you know, unmanageability to me was a way of life. I did nothing I wanted to do.

I did everything I didn't want to do. One of the most penetrating lines in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous for me was when Bill talks about pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. Because if you're alcoholic, like I'm alcoholic, the reason you've got so many lousy things in your life is because as the alcoholism progresses, we start to pluck away from ourselves, demoralize everything in which we believe because you can't continue on in that madness and hold yourself together.

You start to violate the very things in which you have always trusted and you start crossing every moral line and it's like a limbo. I mean, you get to a place where you're starting to say, you know, if if I ever if I if I ever make love to a zebra, that's it. I'm quitting.

And eventually, if I ever make love to a non-female zebra, I mean it. That's it, man. I That's it.

I'm stopping, you know. And you go down and down and down until you could go under a snake wearing a top hat. And then you come to me and you talk to me of love.

I had no love left. I had not a nodding acquaintance with the word love. And then you started talking to me about go d.

Let me tell you a little bit about my dad because there is some sort of a relationship in my mind between my God and my dad. I can't tell you why that is. Perhaps it's like that for you.

See, my dad was a real nice guy when he was a real nice guy. And when he was a raging lunatic, you would hide under the bed because it was completely unpredictable. I remember my father pulling the cupboards off the wall.

He was a very powerful man. And so my concept of God was as long as you're doing what he wants, things are nice. You cross the line and he'll rip the cupboards off the wall.

And so I was sort of like this. If that's the way God is, then I don't want any God. And if I don't want any god, there is no god.

So there's nothing but blackness. And you're trying to get me to turn my life and will over to blackness. There's one worse.

I, you know, I had the privilege to go and talk in Amsterdam, Holland, and the Friday night kickoff speaker was from Russia. His name was Vladimir Zagurakov. I can break his anonymity because none of you remember it anyway.

Vladimir said, "You think you got troubles in America?" Alcoholics Anonymous. Turn your life and will over to care of God. In Russia, government's God.

Turn your life and will over to care of the government. He says, "I want to kill government." He says, "Aa in Russian is poop." You go to AA, not a good thing to go. you know the whole concept of everything in which we believe over there is secret society information and so it was tough for me tougher for them so I don't know where your concept of God is this night or or or over the next while but what I want to tell you the exciting thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is you don't have to hang on to the rock all the way to the bottom of the lake the interesting thing that happened to me was I had somebody come into my life by the name of Dwight And Dwayne took me to that meeting in the morning and I told him that I hated it.

And then he came back and took me to the meeting at night and we got to this meeting and there's a couple of girls in this meeting. They like that girls. Hookers.

I thought you see I had another little prejudice. It was against the word alcoholic. My conception of an alcoholic was somebody laying in front of a hotel in an old trench coat with vomit all over them.

A real bottom ender. the kind of a person who would hang around with ladies of the night and so on. And I mean, I didn't realize that at that time in 1976, most of the membership that was coming into Alcoholics Anonymous had a couple of cars in the garage.

They were working people. They were just like me. They were just out of control with alcohol.

Anyway, at the end of the meeting, they said, "Does the newcomer have anything he'd like to ask?" I thought, "Yeah, I'd like to ask something." So I said to this Ruth, "Are you a hooker?" And Drew said, "No, I was never a hooker, Marty. But I'll tell you what, every once in a while, I'd get real drunk and I'd pick up an anemic little guy like you in the bar and take him home." Yeah, Ruthless, thanks for sharing. So now I hate the women and Alcoholics Anonymous.

I hate the men and Alcoholics Anonymous. that I share with my sponsor so there can be absolutely no mistake that I have absolutely no intention of ever going to another meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous as long as I live. And he says, "Who cares what you think?" I said, "Excuse me, this is my life." He says, "It was until you went to an AA meeting.

You can't get out of it now." See, he didn't tell me it's it's a a suggested program. He just suggested I come. Or what he said was you you don't come, you'll drink.

and and if you drink, I'll tell you what. You call me and I'll bring you a beer and then I'm going to bust every bone in your body. I said, "Why do you say things like that?" And he said, "Because I love you." And he said, "If you drink, I know you're going to get beat up and I don't want anybody, you know, strange beating you up.

I will beat you up myself." And that was the journey. The the deal that we made was that I was going to not drink for 90 days and we were going to go to a meeting a day at least and sometimes we would go to two or three meetings. And I'll tell you, I had all kinds of reasons why I wasn't listening to you.

Again, prejudice. I had I had uh differences than you, you know. I mean, you had been in penitentiary.

I'd only been in the city jail and for murder. Nothing big, just one of those deals where they it was mismaken identity. I'd driven somebody home, they got killed, I got picked up.

That's what happened to me. Woke up in the morning with the police and and they they they interrogated me and they thought I'd murdered this girl. But I want you to know that we live with a just God.

About six years later, I got a call from central office. And I went on a 12step call. And this same person that had interrogated me and was so sure I was a murderer was the one that was was the recipient of that 12step call.

And I walked in the room and he went, "Oh no." And I said, "That's right, Frank. You are the unluckiest son of a that ever lived. I got a few things I suspect you of, Frank.

And uh very scary stuff happens to you when you're an alcoholic. Unc demoralizing, embarrassing stuff happens to you when you're an alcoholic. And so I had this guy in my life.

I could get rid of him. At 9:00 in the morning, there would be a knock on the back door and there it would be 6'4, heavy tummy used to hang over his belt called a Dunlop disease. You know, a real comedian.

And he would tell me stuff I didn't want to hear. And he would say to me, "You know, Marty, if you don't have more fun sober than you had when you were drinking, you will return to drinking. So, we are going to have fun." It sounded so much like school class.

We're going to have fun. Do you remember her? I had her in grade six.

In fact, that's where my drinking really begins is from this teacher. She handed around a form and it it was a it was just like a little registration form and it said on there, "What is your religion?" And I couldn't remember if we were we were I knew we weren't Catholics, but I couldn't remember if we were Protestants or prostitutes. You know, when you're a little boy, you get those words mixed up.

They were new words. And I wrote in there prostitute. And of course, she berated me in front of the class and humiliated me.

Started one of my early resentments. And it was not long after that that I was introduced to this magic elixir called Loganberry wine, which is the most incredible chemical on earth because it goes down a really dark purple and when it comes up it's pink. See, at 11 years old, at 11 years old, I had all of the qualifications to become one of you because the first time I drank, I could not stop drinking once I started to drink.

I changed my friends because they didn't they didn't like the taste of Logan Berry wine. I was thinking taste? Who cares about the taste?

I'm going home to beat my brother up. He's 4 years older than I am. I'm 11.

He's 15. Little size disparity there. On the way home, I fall off my bike.

In fact, I hit the tailgate of a truck and then I did a skin donation for about 50 yards. I'm drunk. I'm thinking this doesn't even hurt.

Good things are happening to me. How powerful. I get home and I mean my mother opens the back door and there it is.

The knees out of its pants, a little bit of blood, a little bit of that pinkberry stuff, you know, lying already. Just stopped off after school for a couple of drinks. I only had two, you know, and uh my mother was my my mother had no concept.

The only alcoholism we had in our in our family was not my father. I told you my father raged. My father rarely drank.

He was just a kind of a guy that ruled through fear. And I came to understand from him clearly that when I'm angry at you and I'm screaming at you, I am trying to control you. That's all that is going on.

It's just a real cheap control thing that I'm trying to manifest. And I learned that from my dad. But anyway, she threw me into the bathtub and I did the This is the other thing about Loganberry wine.

It floats on water when you barf. So, I got the pink dream whip thing going in there. Now, you would have thought that I would have been upset, but I wasn't.

I was in my ecstasy. And she brought my brothers and sisters through to see what happens to the you the evils of drinking. See, the only drunk we'd ever been near in our family was my uncle Sam.

And Sammy used to get drunk and then one eye would close, you know, and he'd get lip hanging drunk, you know, inevitably Sammy would tell you about his adventures in the Navy when he was drunk. Sam was in the army. Sam was never in the bloody navy.

This is another thing I had to learn about alcoholics. They will lie when the truth is exciting. They'll make up something else.

And I remember thinking, God, if I ever turned into anything, don't let me turn into Uncle Sam. Don't ever let my eye closed and my lip go like that. I was about 3 years sober and my wife said, you know, the thing I hated most when you were a drunk was when that eye would close.

I was a quick It was it was an incredible journey. And so I had I had this this release early in life. And then now here I am.

I'm I'm 23 years old and this thing ain't working anymore. You know, sometimes when earth people come to visit us and they listen to us talk and we're laughing about stuff. I mean, we're laughing when somebody's talking about wetting themselves because we're not doing that anymore.

That's why we laugh. and we're celebrating with that human being. Many of the the the disgusting and hurtful aspects of alcoholism, it is joyous to have those things gone.

It is from the stomach that you laugh. Do you remember your early first laugh, you know, na, you know, oh jeez, God, I don't want to do that again. I think I hurt something.

You know, haven't used those muscles cuz all the laughs in alcoholism come from the throat. You learn to laugh in French. That's where I was at 23.

At 23, I drank each and every time I drank to recreate the night that I got drunk on the Logan Berry wine, rode home on the bike, and got the pink dream whip. I drank to regain that elusive feeling that Dr. Silkworth talked about that tremendous release of being all in the same place all at the same time.

And the problem is for you people who are not alcoholics in this room tonight is is that as time goes on that experience becomes more and more elusive and and in fact it becomes totally unpredictable. I could not tell you at any given time where my mood would swing. I had no earthly idea.

Sometimes I could drink all night great volumes of alcohol. Other times I would have a couple of beer and I would flip out and I never knew and that's the really scary part of this thing. I never knew which was going to come out, jackal or hide.

I had no earthly idea and that's how they got me. And so Dwayne had this thing that he had to do which was first of all to get me quietened down long enough to get past all of my prejudice to get my heart and my head to finally hear the reality of what things were rather than what I had perceived as a child when I shut everything off around the age of 11 years old. That was his mission and he was clear on that.

He knew he had to hold me still long enough in order that I could hear. And so they did some incredible things to me. I remember one night they said, "You ever drive a a combine?

You know a combine for getting wheat?" Said, "No." They said, "Well, let's go steal this one." I said, "What about this rigorous honesty stuff?" They said, "Ah, we got step nine. We'll we'll apologize. We're in this little town driving this combine all over the place." I remember picking newcomers up in the back of Dwayne's van and there was only two seats and so they'd hunker down in the back and then about four miles out of town he'd start going up and down the ditches in the van until he'd admit that there was a God, showing them there's a little higher power in their life, you know, fun stuff.

We'd we'd plan sessions where, you know, if somebody's really windy at meetings and they're always talking, we would get up in the middle of their talk and say the Lord's Prayer, you know, all at the same time. We just we we had some fun going into a restaurant and and and he'd say to the waitress, "Do you know Marty?" And she'd say, "No." And he'd say, "Do you do you remember him at all?" She'd say, "Oh, yeah, I know you." And he say, "Would you like to see more of him?" And she'd say, "Yeah." And I take my shirt off. Just fun.

Just learning how to laugh and how to function without alcohol. Learned how to play baseball again. learned how to to to fit into a family to become maximum use inside that family.

I mean, these are the things of which sobriety is built, not staying sober, but sobriety. And I found myself at about year three or four or five in Alcoholics Anonymous, just in much better shape. I mean, we had some money and I had some position and I I really thought I was somebody, you know.

I remember I went from a drunk to a monk. I don't know if I've ever told you that. I left Alcoholics Anonymous and I went to the church.

I mean, I love churches. I think they're great places. And and I want you to know that I think that a lot of us have a ministry right here working with the people that nobody else wants to touch.

The pariah, the alcoholic that's in the gutter. This is what we do. And so, what we do is important, too.

But I wanted to go there. I didn't want to go there as a sort of like a bench sitting sort of amateur Christian. I was thinking more along the lines of assistant savior.

or I don't know, something bake, you know, fake. And I I'm in this church and uh I'm watching the choir girls. I don't know if you ever watched alcoholic male eyes when those choir girls are singing.

It's not healthy. Not healthy for a lot of us. I think I'm better with that now.

But boy, I'll tell you what, I was not well. And I remember that preacher taking me out in the hallway and saying to me, you know, when I'm out there preaching and you're in the audience, who do you think is the audience? And I said, 'Well, we are.

We're the people. I mean, we're the audience. And he said, "No, Marty.

God is the audience. We're all worshiping God. I'm saying the words, but together we're all praising God." And so, like, why why do you feel that it's all about us and not about his power?

He said, "You know, I really think this is an incredible story, by the way, cuz this guy is not not a member of Alcoholics, knew anonymous, knew nothing about us." He said, "I really I think you ought to go back to your own people." And so I went back to my meeting of Alcoholics at Otus. Sunday morning, humble old guys there, you know, 30 years sober. And I walked in and they said, "Hallelujah, the Lord is back among us." Uh and I remember one of them saying, "Hey there, but for the grace of God goes God." I had been laying, you know, all this my spiritual concept on them and telling them that my way was the only way and that they were all going to hell in a hand basket.

And one more time I had to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had to sit and I had to learn. And I had another couple of three years of growth.

And when you're green, you're grown. And when it gets brown, it's time to move on. Isn't it dying?

And I hit another one of these areas and I remember I was in in Winnipeg, Canada at a at a meeting and I had been the chairman of the meeting and I was down at one of the tables and there was a a real good speaker, Tommy. I many of you have heard Tommy and it's inspirational story and I'm thinking gee, you know, I hope this ends pretty soon cuz I'm really like to get out of here and I don't like the people I'm with. I don't like the way they're dressed and I really don't like the meal we had tonight.

I don't like the I don't like the way the the table sat and I mean just everything right wrong and he finished talking and everybody the nearest thing I had ever had sober to an LSD experience and I don't want to tell you I'm a drug addict cuz I'm not I'm an alcoholic but I took drugs and LSD if you never took it the wonder wonder drug you know the last laugh last Uh, throw your hand and it keeps going, you know. And I got this going sober and I'm thinking, "Oh man, somebody's drugged me." So I run across from the hall to the hotel where my wife and children are in bed and I slam open the door. I'm a lunatic.

I'm terrified. And my wife says, "What's wrong?" And I share with her like the unreovered alcoholic shares with his wife. I said, "Shut up." And I want to be real quick to add that I don't ever tell my wife, my partner, my friend, my supporter to shut up cuz we've got Alcoholics Anonymous operating in our home now, too.

She's become my business partner. This is really neat. You work all day, kiss all night.

You got to like this. And it's legal. Anyway, I'm out of out of control.

And I and I I get the big book, which I hadn't done in a long time, and I open it and it opens and it says, you know, have you ever seen your book where the letters literally rise up off the page? And it said in there, your sobriety is contingent on the maintenance of your spiritual condition like that. And I was calm and I went to bed and I started this journey.

Now, you see what I want to say to you tonight more than anything else. I mean, if you're an Alcoholics Anonymous and you you got a great big stone in your gut and you got fear and you suspect we're lying to you. You suspect that actually we all split out of town on the weekends and drink.

You know, you suspect that that you're never ever going to get this thing. I want you to know for some of us, we just got to hang around for a while to get past all the prejudice, to get past the rock head, to get back to the heart and get back to the truth. It just takes some time.

And the sooner you recognize that and relax, the quicker this thing will come to you. And I went I went on my I said to God, I want spirituality, but I don't know what it is. And I didn't know.

And so he took me to a big book study in my home group. I didn't know my home group had big book studies. But I knew they were doing it wrong if we were having them.

And so God said to me in a very eloquent sort of whisper and with my own voice in my head, "Go in there, sit down and shut up." And I did. I just took direct. I got at the back of my own group and they were reading about Bill Wilson being in that hospital bed and he had just really done a step five with Abby, you know, and at the end of that he and Abby were talking and Abby said, you know, you must do this with other alcoholics.

For if an alcoholic does not enlarge on their spiritual life, all of a sudden I knew with a certainty that for me, spirituality is action. It's doing those things and not getting caught. It's doing those things that I know the program of Alcoholics Anonymous would have me do, not tangible necessarily, rewards that are going to come back to me.

Quite different than that. These would be the things that I would do because I would love people. You see, and I was starting to understand by this time the concept of love.

And so spiritual growth is service. I'm not necessarily talking about the the GSO or or being your group intergroup rep. Some of us can do that.

Some of us can't. I'm talking about serving other alcoholics, sitting and drinking coffee. you know, the meetings after the meetings, the meetings before the meetings, the eating meetings, Franklin used to call them, cuz that's where the real alcoholic synonymous takes place.

And I mean, it's been incredible. I had about another five or six or seven years. And you know, I was like you perhaps if you're that that sobriety starting to suspect that this is all you get.

Sober is as high as you go and I had a bunch of money. That's you know, the second worst thing that can happen to you. Worst thing that can happen to you is you take a drink and nothing happens.

That's the worst because then you're going to take another drink and then when nothing happens, you take another one. The next thing you know, you're in the looney word, right? Second worst thing that can happen for an alcoholic is to succeed too soon.

You ever notice that we can handle the great big things, it's the little things that kill us. You know, as you're driving to work one day and somebody sticks their tongue out at you on the bus. I can't handle that.

Give me a crisis. I'll work it through. Catastrophic things happen to people in alcoholics synonyms.

If you think you're here and that somehow you're going to rubberize your life or you're going to get some guarantee that you'll have no more pain, you're in the wrong program. But I will guarantee you this that if you are willing to have this spirit of service to lay yourself down for spiritual growth, what will happen to you inside is that no later vicissitude. I like Bill cuz he kept everything simple.

No later problem will ever drive you to a place where you think you have to drink. You will be calm in the eye of a tornado. It's true.

You know, our our um Elanon speaker today talked about losing a child. I can't think of anything more devastating. And I want to tell you that that you remember that baby that I used to create a hold of Donovan.

I got this thing going in my head that if anything was going to go wrong in my life that God, the covered ripper offthe-wall guy was going to take my son Donovan. And I actually started to obsess on that. And out of the clear blue, I got invited to speak at a convention because one of the speakers, excuse me, couldn't come.

And at that convention, a woman talked about her child who got killed on a tractor. And I was I got really tight inside. I mean, it was just like my worst fear in my face.

And she said one year to the day that that child died, his younger brother, who could not ever stand that loss went down their basement, threw a rope over a pipe, and hung himself. And by the time they had called their mother and father to come home from holidays because they had to bury another son, his younger brother had gone downstairs to try and figure out how his brother had did it. And he had accidentally hung himself.

And so they had three dead children in one year. And I want to tell you that at some depth, I was completely destroyed. It was like three times the worst fear I had my entire life.

And I guess I must have looked it because this woman came up to me after and said, "You that didn't go well for you." And I said, "You couldn't have hit me any harder if you'd hit me with your fist." And she said, "Would you like to know how we survived?" And so we talked. And you see, this is the message. This is the service, the loss they had.

And yet she was willing to reach out to me. She said, "You know, God does not take your children. He just receives them at home.

They never were yours anyway. you just had the privilege of having them on your bus for a period of time. And so if he wants to call his kids kids home, I can't argue with that.

I'm busy thanking him for the time I had with them. And I was not totally okay, but I kept living with that. And you know, it wasn't a week.

Donovan went to a rock concert, you know, like one of the really dignified ones, Guns and Roses, you know, where they serve tea. The thing went out of control. The concert was so rowdy they locked all the auditorium doors and they would not let the kids out of the auditorium until the wreckage stopped.

My guy is in the middle of this melee. It's 6:00. It's 7:00.

I'm walking the floor and he walks. And I said, "Don, I you know, I just I told him about this story and I said, I've had one of the worst nights of my entire life. What happened?" He said, "You didn't have to worry." He said there was a bunch of so sober members of a bike gang and he said they surrounded us and we didn't have any problem all night.

He he asked God. See what I'm saying? Why why if if we truly have a power greater than ourselves that is that is active in our lives.

What would we fear? Problem is is that I don't want to surrender this terrible selfishness to him. I I really want things to turn out the way I want them to turn out.

And that night, I had to get down on my knees and I had to say to God, if you choose to take Donovan home, I will be obedient to that. And you know, I got to tell you, I'm released. And I can't tell you something won't happen, but I got to tell you, I'm released of that.

And that is the miracle of this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. The freedom is not about being able to go where you want and spend what you want. The freedom is from this thing called fear.

There isn't a thing in this world that I fear that isn't to do with page 62. And I don't know about your response, but they used to phone me and they used to say on every night about 7:00, sit down in the chair and read page 62. You know what it's on there?

It starts off in the second paragraph and it says selfishness, self-centeredness we think is the root of our problem. Then it describes me driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-d delusion, self-pity and self-seeking. We step on the toes of our fellows and then they retaliate seemingly without provocation.

But we invariably find that we have set that thing in motion. And so these troubles that I have today, this turmoil that I might have in my life, all I have to do at any given point is say, "How did you get this thing started, Marty?" And I invariably find that I have stepped on the toes of my fellows and that they have retaliated. And so the program of Alcoholics Anonymous after you've been around it for a while starts to get into you and you start having scary logical thoughts.

You start insane things like wondering how other people are. This is new. Just wonder how they are.

Wonder how you know how many times I've thought of you people in Abalene, Texas. Thousands. Thousands of times.

I can see your faces. I can close my eyes and you're there, Frank. Different people.

And so, Alcoholics Anonymous has taken me to another level as a human being. And so, I want to tell you what it's like today. This kid of mine goes to university.

He's doing really well. He's got a job. He makes a bunch of money.

He's a happy kid. I got another kid named Chad. I'm not saying he's an alcoholic.

He's never drank. But anybody that can get that mad and think about themselves that much has probably got some tendencies. Driving in the car with him one day, he said, "When I think about having a beer, I think about drinking 12.

Do you think I have a problem?" I said, "Let me ask you this. Do you think the Pope is Catholic?" And so I couldn't communicate with him. See, I couldn't talk to him because we're just like like that.

One day because of you, because of Alcoholics Anonymous, because of the things that you've brought into my life, I get this idea. My kid loves Oprah Winfrey. And I said to him, Chad, tell you what, we don't spend any time together.

How about you and I get on a plane, go to Chicago, and we'll go to the Oprah Winfrey show. He said, you can see it in his face, "Well, if I have to go with you, yeah, I'll I'll go. Coincidentally, by the way, I was speaking at a convention in Chicago, the We Are Not Saints convention.

It's one of the greatest little conventions if you can ever get there. I take the kid to Oprah. We go to the Planet Hollywood.

We do all this stuff and then the miracle happens. He goes to the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and he sits in those meetings. And on the way home in the aircraft, I said, "What did you think, man?

What did you think of Oprah?" He said, "She's okay, man." He said, "Those drugs are nice people. I really enjoyed that. I'd love to go again.

And you gave me my kid back. He started talking to me again. I phone him regularly.

He he emails me. He asks me my opinion. A miracle.

You know, all of a sudden, and just before you all start throwing up because I'm doing so well. I also had a daughter, Beasel Bob Lee. Lee on her 16th birthday smuggled a 26 of vodka into her bedroom.

We've never had alcohol in our home their entire lives. They've never seen me drink. Smuggle a 26 of vodka down the basement and got just knee walking drunk.

Just hammered. That's what's sitting there like that. You know how the Oh, your worst nightmare.

She ended up in a private girl school next year and she came home the other night. We're sitting at the supper table. I can't explain what goes on in alcoholics.

All I've been trying to do is carry this message. That's all I've been trying to do. I never talked to her about it.

Never said anything. Supper tale. She says, I want to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I went, yes, that would be acceptable, you know. I go to the meeting and this meeting is like usually old guys and there's all these young girls there and they talk in her language. I'm like hammered and I'm like lost and I'm like on the street and I'm all like upset and I'm all, you know, so like I'm I'm all scared and I'm like all lost and like I find God and that's all I have to say.

We get outside and Lee says, "Cool, that's cool." She says, "I got a lot of friends that should be in that." She got to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can't explain that to you. This is stuff that's going on.

I've got this wife and again, I don't know about you and how your program goes, but I had a terrible time bringing this program into my home. Boy, I'll tell you what. And I just didn't want to be here.

I was afraid of falling in love with her. I was really having trouble with that because it was going to stunt my growth. I figured out there in the world somewhere, Miss Wright is waiting for me.

Someone that could love me like I should be loved. Not the way she was doing it. We'd been together since we were 17 years old.

I was looking for something that was like maybe been to a few meetings, maybe understood me. You know, I'd been down in the States working for about 15 or 16 months. Shirley and I were separated and we actually came to the conclusion maybe we should just divorce.

And then one day she phoned me and she said, "You know, I'd like you to come home. I want to tell you something." And I uh I went home and she sat on the Chesterfield. And she cried and wept for about 6 hours.

Never ever said anything. So I thought to myself, my alcoholic head, I know what this is about. She's trying to shame me.

So I said to her, "If you're trying to shame me, you did a hell of a job. I'll see you." And I got on the aircraft and I went back to Florida. And when I got in my apartment, the phone was ringing and it worked surely.

And I've been saying the same prayer every night for many, many months in the bathroom. That's where I pray. That's where I can really get humble.

I look at that bowl and I figure if you're that hot, you can stop doing that function. Then you'll be really cool. Hasn't happened yet.

See, humble in the bathroom. I say to God every night, "Send me someone whom I can love that can love me like I need to be loved." And I should have ended it, you know, totally selfish. Not not make me a channel of your love and teach me how to love her and be a better No, no.

Send me someone that can love me the way I should be loved. And the phone was ringing. I walk in in the room and and it's Shirley.

And she says, "I want to tell you something." I said, "Sure. I can't do this anymore, baby. I I'll send a letter to the lawyer.

You can have the house, the car, the kids. All I want is my RX7. See you.

You know, let's" and she said, "No, get me a ticket. I want to come down. I want to tell you something.

I'm in a Florida airport. I've been there a thousand times. I used to travel many, many miles every month.

And I I I see the plane land. I see the spillway. And I'm sitting at the edge of this thing.

And I'm watching. And all of a sudden, I knew it was her. This woman that I'd been waiting for all my life.

This unbelievable the way she walked. You know, she was just floated through the air and her hair kind of flew back and she was she got close to me. It was my wife.

It was my wife. I had something happened there. And it was somewhere on my 13th or so aa birthday.

It was that day. and and surely never paid any attention to my AA birthdays. It was no big deal sort of somehow.

And I I said to her, you know, God, I'll tell you what, you are going to do okay when you get out of this marriage. You are absolutely beautiful. She said, I told you.

She said, I want to tell you something else. I can stop doing what I'm doing if you can stop doing what you're doing and let's get back together. That's all she wanted to say to me.

And so that night she said, "I want to get your present for your 14th birthday or 13th or whatever it was." And I said, "Good, cuz I want to go to the group. I want to be with the group." You know, Alcoholics Anonymous is a family. You go and you meet with that family so you can learn how to live with your relatives.

You understand that? So I I'm with my family and I tell them I got this relative in town and I got big trouble and they understand and they send me home and she's bought a big bottle like a hoarding and I'm thinking, "Oh man, this is the worst insult you could get." You know, she she's going to say, "Why don't you just get drunk, you pig?" or something like that, right? It isn't booze, it's chocolate.

It's solid chocolate in the big to. So we got that. We went to bed.

It looked like we'd messed the bed. We had it in our hair. It was like, "Woo!" It was just what a night.

I had I'd never seen this woman before. The woman from Nestle. Woo!

You know, it was like, "Yes, this is the one I've been waiting for." That was like six or seven years ago. I would love to stand here and tell you we've never had any arguments. We've had two or maybe three arguments since I've been home.

getting the alcoholics anonymous to the house very difficult for me. I remember saying to her about my second or third month home, what do you think about such and such? And she she said, I don't know.

She walked out of the room and and I followed her downstairs and I said, "Sure, I'd like to have your opinion." She said, "Marty, we both know what's going to happen. I'll give my opinion. You'll give your opinion.

I'll give my opinion and you'll debate me to the max and at the end of it you'll be right anyway. So what's the use of me giving my opinion? Oh man, I realized she's absolutely right.

Absolutely correct. And so I said, "Look, you tell me what you think." And we did it her way. Novel experience.

Now I I don't recommend this for all you guys cuz she's turned into an absolutely pushy woman. She's got an opinion on everything, you know, and you know, she she loves me the way I need to be loved. She won't baby me.

Otto was with me and I was telling him, "Man, I'm sick and my wife took off home to see your mother. She won't baby me. I don't like that." He says, "It's exactly what you need.

Be home sick by yourself. Why bother everybody else with it?" You know, she's so logical and and a couple of years ago, because of the way the tax structure is in Canada, I got to sell her these newspapers that we own and she runs those papers and they do better than they ever did when I own them. This is my partner and she's my friend.

We spend a lot of time together. We ride bicycle together. This is possible.

I'm not guaranteeing that this can happen in your relationship. But I'll guarantee you if you're having trouble. You have stepped on the toes of your fellow and they have retaliated seemingly without provocation.

Many of us are fighting battles that are many, many years old. Sometimes just putting the drinking episodes away is the start of recovery. I had some good advice when I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous.

There was a guy named Bob C and he took me for lunch one time and he said, "You know, your wife is so beautiful." I said, "Thank you." He said, "Yeah, I keep thinking, man, what a waste. What are you hinting at, Bob? He said, I keep looking at her and I keep thinking how selfish you are and I realize what a lousy lover you'd probably be.

I would probably think that out of everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous, you're probably the worst lover. I said, "Bob, I don't know what your point is, but if I were you, I would get to it really quick." And he said, "I don't have a point. I just think you'd be a lousy lover and I'd like to show you how to become a good lover.

I said, "Whoa, hold on here, Bobby, because I don't know what you're thinking." And I mean, I'm not against that sort of thing if that's what you want to do. I have no opinion on that. He said, "No, no." He said, "What I want you to do is learn how to treat your wife with respect." He said, "When I when you go home tonight, instead of being your usual self, bath, everybody would appreciate that.

Clean up." He said, "Shave and put on cologne and a nice robe." And then he said, "You get into bed with your wife." And he said, "I want you to slide your arm under her head." And then he said, "I want you just to lay there for a few minutes quietly." And then he said, "What I want you to do is I want you to tell her how miraculous it is that she stayed with you, that she is a fine mother, that what she's done with the children has been amazing, that you appreciate her, and then I just want you to lay there." And then he said, "I want you to just kind of roll over, give her a little kiss." And then he said, "I want you to go to sleep." I was thinking, "Have you seen Mission Impossible, Bob? Are you out of your mind?" I went home and I did it. Cleaned up.

I shaved. I got into that bed. I slid my arm under her head.

I said, "Oh, Lesa." And I laid there quietly. And Shirley said, "Are you having an affair?" Mhm. I just want to tell you that cuz if you start romancing your spouse, you may scare them.

They may not know where you're coming from. You know what I mean? And so we have many nights where we just lay there together and we just, you know, I'd love to tell you that that Alcoholics Anonymous is about getting rich and famous and all.

That's nothing at all to do with, but I won't tell you that that can happen to you in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not necessarily a bad thing. because of you and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I walked away on a business deal down in Florida that cost me a half a million dollars.

And I came home to find that the other money that I'd lent some friends was gone. And I lost almost a million dollars in 48 hours. Now, I don't know what that would do to most normal people, but I'll tell you what, I never lost a night's sleep.

I never lost a minute's sleep. I never got resentful over it and all I could think about was how to help my friends. That's the I swear that's the truth.

Because of you, because of what you've given me. And in the morning, I had a complete plan of how to help my friends get back on their feet. And we tried to set that in motion.

And as the result of that, God said, "Marty, you pass go. You can have it all back. You can have it all back many times, Marty.

There's not a problem with you." And that happened. And so now Shirley and I kind of live this dream life like we can just go anywhere we want and do anything we'd like. And we live on a golf course and we've got bicycles and bicycle trails and and I mean I'm a drunk.

I'm a gutter crawling Loganberry wine puking peeing in front of the wrong people saying the wrong thing to the wrong kind of person drunk. and you've you've given me my life back, my kids back, my wife back. And so, let me finish tonight by saying what I should have said at the very start.

Thank you. Good night. >> 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.