AA Speaker – Ralph W. – Oslo, Norway – 2015
AA speaker Ralph W. from Los Angeles shares his story of hitting bottom as a “creature of the night” and how working the 12 steps and forming a spiritual relationship transformed his life and led to service work.
Ralph W. from Los Angeles came into AA in October 1986 as a broken man—a business executive by day who’d become a street-dwelling creature of the night, fired from his dream job and living in the wreckage of addiction. In this AA speaker tape recorded in Oslo, Norway, he walks through his understanding of the 12 steps, his journey from desperation to spiritual awakening, and how the program shifted him from self-sufficiency to surrender.
Ralph W. describes hitting bottom after years of double-living as a successful businessman and active alcoholic, leading to his recovery in 1986. He breaks down the first three steps—admitting powerlessness, coming to believe in a power greater than himself, and turning his will and life over—using practical stories and the language of the Big Book. He emphasizes that the 12-step program is a manner of living that produces spiritual awakening, which leads naturally into service work and carrying the message to others.
Episode Summary
Ralph W. brings raw honesty and practical wisdom to his AA speaker share, grounding the recovery message in real life rather than theory. He opens by acknowledging the fellowship in Oslo and reflecting on how the program works across cultures and languages—when heart speaks to heart, the message translates without perfect understanding.
Ralph’s bottom story hits hard. He was the classic double-life guy: a rising business executive by day, but the “vampire”—as he calls it—who came alive at night. By 1986, he’d been fired from his dream job and spent the last year of his drinking as what he calls “a creature of the night,” walking the streets of Los Angeles with nowhere to go. He was 33 years old and convinced his life was finished.
What makes Ralph’s talk compelling is how he unpacks the first three steps using his own experience, not as homework but as a manner of living. On Step 1, he distinguishes between what he thought (that he had high capacity for alcohol) and what his experience actually showed him (that his body and mind reacted abnormally to alcohol every single time). He uses the “allergy” concept from the Big Book—not the physical kind, but the mental obsession that convinced him, again and again, that “someday I’ll control this.” He walked out of happy hour with a full paycheck gone, lied to his wife, made promises he couldn’t keep, and the pattern repeated every two weeks from 1979 to 1985.
Step 2 is where Ralph addresses the God problem directly. He grew up in a Baptist church, rejected religion at 16, and came into AA as an agnostic with genuine resistance to spiritual ideas. The book’s “We Agnostics” chapter became his lifeline because it didn’t ask him to believe first—it asked him to notice what wasn’t working. When he looked at the evidence (hands raised from people who’d gotten sober), he couldn’t deny the results, even if he couldn’t see the power. He compares it to electricity: you can’t see it, but you see the lights. He took Step 2 out of desperation—a drowning man doesn’t ask what hand is reaching out.
Step 3 is where the real shift happened. Ralph walks through his concept of a Higher Power not as a religious figure imposing rules, but as a force that wants to make him the best version of himself—not transform him into someone else. He describes praying the Third Step prayer while still lying, gambling, and stealing, but offering himself anyway. Something happened in that surrender. Eighteen months sober, living at his mother’s house, broke and unemployed, he got down on his knees with a group and said, “God, do something with me in this condition.” And God did.
From that surrender came service. Ralph describes how he and his brother, both newly sober, invited people to study the Big Book at their mother’s house on Sunday mornings in 1987. Twelve people showed up. A year later, more came. By the third year, 50 people were packed into the living room. Eventually they outgrew the house. Today—and he’s speaking in 2015—that Sunday morning workshop has 250 people and has been running continuously since 1987.
This is Ralph’s central message: the 12 steps aren’t a sidebar to life; they’re a manner of living. The disease centers in thinking; recovery centers in action and feet. When he works the steps, a spiritual awakening happens. When a spiritual awakening happens, service follows naturally. And service—what he calls the “shadow soldiers” who work in kitchens, open halls, drive newcomers, sponsor people—is where the real work of the program lives.
He challenges the newcomers in the room: if you think recovery is just about not drinking, you’re missing it. The players in this game want their families back, want to stand up in their own lives, want to own their mistakes and keep moving. He ends with a reminder that the program is one of attraction and action, not words. Make it attractive. Stay enthusiastic. Because the spiritual experience can’t be described—only lived and offered to someone else who’s desperate enough to want their own.
Notable Quotes
The disease centers in my thinking. Recovery centers in my feet. This is a program of action. It ain’t important so much what I think. What’s important is what I do.
I came here and I found out that I was in the grips of something that I was powerless to control. Alcohol decided that for me, thank you very much.
When my behind is raw, my mouth closes and my ears open. When my ass starts healing, my mouth starts running and my ears start closing.
I ran to it out of desperation and the kind of desperation of a drowning man. When you’re drowning, you don’t look to see what hand it is that’s coming out there. If a popsicle stick is floating across the water, you’ll grab it.
The ego has one job and one job only. Its job is to separate me from you and me from God. This 12-step process is an ego-reducing exercise. When I reduce me, he’ll be what’s left.
I got on my knees and did that with a group of people and a miracle happened. I offer myself to you just like that, still lying, still gambling, still stealing, still doing all the stuff I do. God did something with me in that condition.
If you want to be a player in recovery and in doing life, the players want to be fathers and mothers. The players want to have families back intact. The players are going to stand up in their own life no matter what and say, ‘Yeah, that’s me. I did it. I own it. And I keep moving.’
Step 2 – Higher Power
Step 3 – Surrender
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Spiritual Awakening
Big Book Study
Service Work
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 2 – Higher Power
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Spiritual Awakening
- Big Book Study
- Service Work
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. 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. >> My name is Ralph White and I'm an alcoholic >> and I sincerely want to thank your fellowship for inviting me out uh for the warm welcome, for putting me at ease.
you know, I'm over here and I was and all the way over, you know, for the last week I'm like because I usually talk really really fast, you know, even at home, you know, you know, I'm like, you got to speed listen, you know, I'm but at home people tell me. So you right there feel free to be like, "Dude, slow down. Don't don't trip.
Just tell them." Um, and I've been thinking, you know, I got to go over here and people probably won't be able to understand. And so I've been engaged in conversation and you guys put me at ease, you know, because I've been wondering, are they going to be able to understand me? Is anybody going to know what I'm talking?
And I come over uh, you know, I've been over across the pond as they say in the UK a few times, but I've been in England and even though they don't speak English, right? You know what I mean? And I'm always speak English, you know, all my, you know, so so I've been over there and uh then I've been in Amsterdam a couple of times and but I've never been here, you know, and I really want to thank you guys for making me feel so welcome.
If I don't know if we have anybody that's new to Alcoholics Anonymous, but I want to let you know what I can tell you from my own experience. You know, you probably don't know what you signed up for. And it doesn't matter where it is I go, I feel comfortable in making that statement.
You know, you think you came into a place and you think, uh, I don't know if I fit in here. I don't know if I even want to be doing this. And and you know, this this deal that they talk about.
Do I have to sign up for being this robot or this clone or this person that's in this sect or this, you know, whatever it is that you thinking. You don't even know what you're in for. You don't even know what you're in for.
You know, you just signed up. You just got a new family. You know, and and I'll tell you for myself, you know what I learned.
Brand new family, brand new lifestyle. First name, your name, last name, alcoholic. You'll never walk alone anywhere you go in this world.
I talked to a lot of people before. A lot of people have done a lot of traveling and they can tell you, you know, that's one thing that we haven't got to find a meeting to go to. And so I've been comfortable.
I got real comfortable with the 10-minute speakers. I want to thank you, Jim. Thank you.
You know, it's I got a friend at home and I call it anonymous, you know, it's not so much about the transformation of information, you know, we we do a lot of talking about information, you know, and we give information at the meetings and a lot. I'm going to give some tonight. You know, I'm going to give some information, but it doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't mean anything at all if you didn't come here to witness the transformation. Don't get hung up on the information. There transformational things that take place in rooms like this.
There are transformational things that take place in the lives of men and women like us. Thank you, Han. you know, I really want to thank you, you know, for your spirit, you know, for coming up here and sharing.
He talked I talked to him beforehand, too, you know, and and when Jim was talking, didn't understand a words she was saying, but I felt the spirit. And thank you. You know, Ruben is uh I'm going to talk about what this man, you know, embodies because what I'm going to talk about tonight, um I think I'm going to talk about the theme of of of the convention, spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
But what I really want to talk about is the whole package in Alcoholics Anonymous. So, I'm going to talk about our 12 steps and I'm also going to talk about our legacies. We have three legacies.
I don't know if that word translates for you guys. So, there are three parts to our program and if you really want to get the whole benefit of the program of Alcoholics Anonyms, the whole package is what I'm going to talk about. So, I'm going to talk about the 12 steps and I'm going to talk about unity, recovery, and service.
And I'm going to talk about really what has happened, the transformation that's happened in this man's life, you know, because like I say, the information is meaningless if you don't get this experience, the transformation and it's transformational things that take place. So anyway, when I was I was going with that, Jim was up here talking and Ruben was in he was translating some of the high points for me, you know, which was cool because I was able to then follow, but I was able to follow on another level without the translation. I have a friend at home that talks about when heart speaks, heart hears.
And in Alcoholics Anonymous, what we do is we speak the language of the heart. Don't listen with your head. only with the head.
In fact, the disease centers are my thinking. Recovery centers are my feet. The disease centers are my thinking recovery centers and my feet.
You train your feet in alcoholics anonymous. What I mean by training my feet, this is a program of action. You know, it ain't important so much what I think.
It is really not so much important what I know. What's important is what I do. So, I train my feet in alcoholics and briefly and tomorrow night you'll get my whole story.
So, you know, it's it's it's when you get to go out somewhere and they ask you to go out and you you put in a situation like this where you're going to talk one night and then you got to talk another night, too. You be like, "Damn, I don't want to shoot my whole I don't want to shoot all my bullets, you know. You guys got to hear me tomorrow night, you know, but it won't make sense if you don't know the guy that's standing in front of you, you So I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, October the 11th of 1986 and I was in a real bad place and I was in a real dark place and my life had done what if you read Bill's story in our big book of alcoholics and violence.
Uh he talks about how dark it is before the dawn and it had gotten very dark for me. You know, I had had a lot of successes. I had uh I had a little I had a family at the time that I didn't know where they were, you know.
I had been in business and not in my own business, but I had risen in my career, you know, and I'm the real Dr. Jackekal and Mr. High that they talk about in the big book, you know.
I'm a business guy by day, but I'm a vampire by night, you know. And the thing about being the business, the double life is what he describes it as. The thing about being the double life guy, the business guy by day and the vampire by night, is the vampire always outgrows the businessman.
The vampire always outgrows the housewife. So, the vampire starts showing up at work. Well, the vampire doesn't work at work and they don't pay the vampire to come to work.
And so, they one day called the vampire in and said, "You got to go and take dude with you." And so I was fired from my dream job. And for the last year of my drinking and using, that's what I did. That's all I did.
That's all I did. I was a creature of the night. I was one of the ones that you'll find walking the streets.
You know, you guys can walk the streets here in Oslo like I could walk the streets of Los Angeles, California. In the day of the winter, you still middle of the night walking the street. You don't need a jacket on.
It was a, you know, that was a cold place to be. And I found you guys October 1986. I went into a treatment facility and it was my fourth one.
And I started going and in that treatment facility, they started taking us to meetings of alcoholics and I learned some things that have stuck with me ever since, you know. So when I started going into treatment, you know, and I and I I made some I was 33 years old and I was tired of losing. I was 33 years old and I was tired of the course my life was on.
And so when I went that treatment program, I made some what I later knew was some shortterm goals, you know, self-esteem building task. And one of the first things I said was, "I'm in this program. I'm not going to leave early.
I'm going to do whatever they tell me to do up in here, you know, because I'm the kind of guy that, you know, yeah, I'm dying. I'm dying out there in the streets and in the life. But when you bring me up into a program for after 2 weeks, I want to run their place.
I want to tell them what to do. You can't talk to me like that. You need to know who you talking to." They already did, you know, and I'm I'm I'm that guy.
I'm the I'm I'm the I know guy, right? And so this time though, I learned some anatomical facts about a guy named Real. You know, some things about my anatomy may not be about yours.
Doesn't come from the big book alcoholics anonymous comes from the big book of my experience. First thing I learned was this. When my behind is raw, my mouth closes and my ears open.
It's just that when my ass starts healing, my mouth starts running and my ears start closing. This last time, my behind was tenderized long enough, well enough to hear the music and alcoholics and so I was in a real bad condition. So I came in and I was all ears.
Brand new deal. Brand new deal. I started going in this treatment program and I started looking at my experience.
Now, in our first step in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step admitted that I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become a man. And I did the work in the first step before I got here. I don't do the first step.
I don't come to you guys. I guess I'm going to decide I'm powerless over alcohol. No, alcohol decided that for me, thank you very much.
You know, I came here and I was able to give it a name. I didn't know that's what it was. I thought that the reason I drank so much was cuz I wanted to.
I thought the reason that I drank so much, I suspected that I was physically different, but I had it wrong. I thought that I had I thought my physical difference, I had high capacity. That's why I dream so much.
The rest of you guys, you lightweights, you you can't keep up with the big boys. And so that's why I thought that I did it, you know. And I came here and I found out that I was under the last in the grips of something that I was powerless to control.
How do I know that? That's first step that I'm powerless of alcohol. And our first step for any of you guys that are new in our big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, the first chapter that's really devoted to our first step is the doctor's opinion.
And in the doctor's opinion, he says a couple of things. And I don't say it's true because it's in the doctor's opinion. My mom reads the doctor's opinion and it's not true for her because she's not alcoholic.
It's not It's not true because it's in the big book. It's in the big book cuz it's true. It's not true cuz it's Oh, it's in the book so it's No, no, no, no, no.
It's true. That's why it's in the book. But it's true for a guy like me.
And the doctor says for somebody like me, he suggested you suffer from something I'm going to call an allergy. Now, I know we'll lose some stuff in translation, so bear with me, and I hope we don't, you know, but he called this thing an out. First thing I had a problem with.
What the hell do you mean an allergy? I had an allergy when I was a kid for a time, oranges. And oranges would make me break out.
Trust me, I didn't go looking for oranges. How the hell you I I'm staying away from oranges. Well, how do you tell me I have an allergy to alcohol?
I go looking for alcohol any chance I get. And I didn't understand. And some people had to help me with a definition.
An allergy is an abnormal reaction to a food or a substance. And the average typical reaction to alcohol, drink some alcohol, get a warm tipsy feeling, and stop. I'm cool.
I didn't even know till I came to the program alcoholic synonymous that bottles came with lids on them. I didn't know they came with tops. I don't know nothing about stopping, you know.
I don't Why would you want to? And that's another reason why I didn't understand that I was powerless about alcohol. I never wanted to sip.
I'm not a sipper, you know. I I don't do sipping. I'm all out.
I'm I'm all out guy. I want my all the way. I've never been interested in getting a buzz.
Now, I I wasn't all I wasn't trying to be throwing up all over your shoe. I didn't want to go there, you know, but so I didn't I didn't have a regulator, so I needed some help. So I looked at my experience, you know, I looked at my experience and I started finding out, damn.
Every time I said, I'm just going to go to happy hour. And I told my wife, I'll be home 8:00, 9:00, they come around. At home, we have happy hours on Fridays.
And at happy hour, the drinks are about a dollar. I don't know what that translate to, but the drinks are cheap. And then at a certain time, happy hour cuts off and the drinks go to their regular price.
I told my wife I won't be home at 8 or 9:00. They will walk around and say, "It's the last call for happy hour." I said, "Bring me nine Gen Gimlets." Now, I'm supposed to be going home, right? Bring me nine Jen Gimlets.
And I'm there. And I can't tell you when I get home. And I did, Ralph.
Did you do that once? Did you do that twice? every two weeks from 1979 to 1985.
My whole paycheck. My whole paycheck. I'd say I'm just going to go spend 20.
What happened? My whole paycheck every two weeks. My experience, not yours, not yours, not yours, not anybody else's in this room.
My experience abundantly shows me when I take on anything, no matter where I have to go, what I have to do, who I have to see, no matter how great the wish, no matter how great the necessity, my body seems to take over and I got to have another. I ask myself over and over and ask yourself, how many times did you say I'm just going to spend 20? How many times did you say I'll be right back?
How many times did you ask your mom, tell your mom, just watch the baby, I'll be back together? Yeah, I said I'll be back on Thursday. I just didn't say what Thursday, right?
And that's over and over. So, did I ever stay longer than I said I would stay? Spend more than I said I would spend, go somewhere I said I'd never go, do something I said I never do all the time.
My experience shows me first that something bodily different about me. Okay. If it's just my body, how do you explain, Mr.
Speaker, stone sober? My car drives to the liquor store on payday. Wow.
The second part of this disease that I suffer from, the mental obsession, the idea that somehow someday I'll be able to control and enjoy this magic potion. I discovered because alcohol had never been my problem. Alcohol was always my solution.
I'm a little guy. I'm a shy guy. Never been scared to dance with girls.
I'm scared of girls. Alcohol made me somebody I wasn't. No.
You know, you'll hear a lot of speakers talk about alcohol made to me what alcohol seemed to do for me. It seemed to make me who I really was. You guys didn't recognize that underneath this shy square.
I always felt like it was this guy waiting to break out, but I'm scared. And alcohol let him come out and play. Alcohol let him do that.
So, alcohol had been a solution for me for a long time. And when I start when I started having problems, there's a line in the doctor's opinion. It says, "Even though I might admit it's injurious, even though I might admit I'm having a problem and it's hurt me a little bit, after a time I can't tell the truth from the false." Ain't the alcohol, it's you.
It's them people. No, my problem ain't drinking. My problem is you make you giving me problems about my drinking.
My problem ain't my drinking. My problem is you getting in my face about my drinking. You nagging me about my drinking.
That's my problem. And so when my wife left me, wanted to be a father, wanted to be a family man, wanted to be a husband. This was a this was my sweetheart from college.
And when she I kind of did a side relief like now I can do it like I really want to. Cuz when that happened in the mid80s, by now I'm drinking and I'm using cuz my drinking, you know, progressed. And I came up, I'm a little older than I might look.
And I came up in the late 60s and early 70s, you know, so I'm drinking and I'm smoking weed. I'm using other drugs and I'm doing it real hard. Real hard.
So I can't drink because so now you know my car seemed to drive over there you know because my idea the idea that somehow someday I'll be able to control and enjoy. Talk about the great obsession. I just knew those days will come back.
I knew I was just in a phase and I'd outgrow that phase. And that phase started lasting a long ass time you know and I'm like damn. And then one day it finally dawned on me I'm like this and I guess I'm just going to be like this.
That's the way it is. Ralph surrender, you know, and so I'm tore up and I'm beat up and I can't drink because of my body. I cannot because my mind refuses to accept that fact.
I'm powerless. Third part of our disease and this is called a spiritual malady. Big book alcoholics anonymous says Ralph if you work on the spiritual, the mental and the physical a lot of problems with the second step.
Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity because I grew up in Baptist church. I got a mom. You'll hear about her tomorrow night.
And she raised these six boys. She was a single mom. She raised six boys by herself.
She had been on welfare. She was a remarkable lady. She had put herself back with some things and built herself up and taken send her boys off to college.
Remarkable lady, you know, and raised us in church. Go to church every But I'm I'm not built that way. I'm not built um like some folk.
I'm built the way I'm built. And I went to church and they'd say things and they'd say things like, you know, the pardon of the Red Sea. I'm not feel that's a myth.
Daniel and the that's a myth. You know, I could recite the stories and the rest of that. I'm not feeling any of it.
Right. And I said when I turned 16 years old, you never have to worry about Ralph Whiteing the doors of anybody's church. Said it, did it, meant it.
I told you I'm a kid of the 60s. I said religion is a opiate of the people. I rather smoke mine.
Thank you very much. And that's how I did it. And I left and I thought in the chapter, our second step, you know, our second step, if you really want to find it, our spiritual kindergarten, I call it in the big book, Alcoholics and I, we have a chapter in there called We Agnostics.
Now, a lot of people feel like they're atheists. That's cool. Atheists take a lot of work cuz you got to be able to prove something.
And it takes a lot of work to hold up that end of the argument. I want to argue that I can prove that there is no God. Too much work.
Too much work. True believer on the other hand already feels like you can't tell me there ain't a God. I don't need no proof or evidence.
I just believe that. Atheist, I believe that I can prove the non-existence. Believer, I believe I can prove the existence.
Agnostic, somewhere in the middle. I don't know if there is or there ain't, but I sure live like there ain't one. I might believe there's a God, but he don't work in my life.
I might believe there's a God, but he don't have nothing to do with me. Agnostic temperament is what we call that. Put my life right next to a person who don't believe you can't tell the difference.
So, I came in here agnostic. Second step, came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And we talk about that being the solution.
In our chapter, we agnostics, it talks about I ask myself two questions. One, when I'm drinking, can I control the amount I drink? Nope, that's me.
Two, when I honestly want to quit on my own, I find I can't quit entirely. Yep, that's me. Then you're probably alcoholic.
You ain't got to take a 20 question test. You ain't got to take a 40 question test. Two question test for alcoholism.
When I take one, can I tell you when I'm going to stop? Nope. When I tell you I'm not going to do it again, do I do it again anyway?
Yep. Two question test. If that be the case, you're probably suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience of conqueror.
Oh no, here they go. Why they take me to one of them conventions where they got to come up with the G word. I'm not feeling that.
I'm not feeling it. You can call it higher power. You can call it spirit of the universe.
You can call it creative intelligence. You can call it all that. But I know what you're coming to, Mr.
Speaker. And I'm not feeling that, you know, and the book talks about that, you know, to be doomed to die an alcoholic death or to live life on a spiritual basis are not always easy alter. Why is that an easy alternative?
I don't know. You you may not have read that in the book. So I'm bringing some to be doomed to die alcoholic, slow death, ugly death, people talking about you death.
Don't nobody want to see you coming death. The death where you don't want to look at yourself in the mirror for about a year. That kind of death.
that dead man walking kind of death. Not an easy one. No, it's an ugly one.
It's a painful one. It's a slow one. And it's torturous.
So to be doomed to die that death or to live, how come that's not easy alternative? Cuz they put that other little piece to it. Or to live life on a spiritual basis are not always easy.
No, I'm looking for door number three. Is there another choice in you know what? You know, cuz that's me.
Why is it not al when are alternatives not easy? When I was a kid, and I don't know if you guys have them, when you were sick, they could My mom used to say, "There's castor oil or there's cod liver oil." Really? That's my choices?
Okay, Reuben, you can go the gas chamber or the electric chamber. Which one do you want? I'mma cut you or I'mma shoot you.
Which one? Well, alternatives are not easy when they look equally distasteful or they both look the same. And dying the alcoholic death and living life on a spiritual look the same to me.
Why do they look the same to me? Because I think I know what spiritual basis is and I don't. I think I know what a spiritual basis looks like and I don't.
I think spiritual basis means no chasing women, no cussing, no doing any of the stuff I like doing. Might as well just lay it down and be dead anyway. What?
So I think spiritual basis is something I don't want. A and B is something I can't do anyway. Plus, I can't do it anyway.
I'm not trying to be like that. I'm not trying to go there. I understand that I suffer from an illness, but I don't want to take that medicine cuz that medicine look like it don't taste good.
That's a cold one right there too on a couple of levels. It looks like it doesn't taste good. I suffer from an illness.
This is the medicine, the spiritual basis of living. And it look like it don't taste good. And only people like us are going to find that sentence right there making sense.
Cuz who takes medicine for taste anyway? Damn, I had thought of that. The medicine don't look like it tastes good.
Don't matter that people are recovering as a result of taking the medicine. Don't matter that people are coming back from the dead as a result of taking the medicine. Don't matter that people are coming up off the ground and standing upright as a result of taking the medicine.
Don't matter that people have what I want is it don't look like it tastes good cuz I'm a taste guy. I'm a to the head guy. I'm an effect guy.
I'm not a process guy. I'm an event guy. So this whole deal and the whole thing about it is a number one medicine ain't designed for taste and number two I don't know what it tastes like anyway.
I think I do. So that whole second step experience I'm telling you if you're struggling with it, if you're struggling with the God idea in that chapter it says a couple of things. I asked myself, do I now believe or am I even willing to believe in a power greater than me?
Check this out. For those who have problems believing in a power greater, I had already come to believe in a power greater than me. We called it alcohol.
I needed a power greater than it. I needed a power greater than it. I took the second step out of desperation and I took it out of what do I have to lose?
I took it out of desperation and I took it out of what do I have to lose? In that chapter, we agnostic. It does some things for a guy like me because I'm not the virtuous guy.
I'm not here and the word God slides right out of my mouth now like it's nothing. It didn't always used to come like that. And I'm not here to talk about I came here out of virtue.
I'm not the virtuous God. I didn't run to God. I didn't run to the God idea out of virtue.
I ran to it out of desperation. And I ran to it out of the kind of desperation of a drowning man. And when you drowning, you don't look to see what hand it is that's coming out there.
If a popsicle stick is floating across the water, you'll grab it. And I was drowning. And I ain't going down for the third time.
And I was desperate. And alcohol was beating up on me and beating up on me and beating up on me. And it's like if you have a big brother and if somebody was bullying you and whenever the bully was bullying you, he'd get up off you when your big brother came or when your daddy came around.
I needed somebody to get it up off me. I needed a power bigger than that. And then in that chapter, we acknowledge it.
See, this whole 12step process, I'm going to distill it for you. I'm I'm going to break it down in a couple of ways to make it real easy. We do these 12 steps.
And sometime people look at it like it's homework. Sometime people look at it like it's something I do when I go to those meetings. It's something I do when I go to a convention.
It's something I do. I had a spons that I was working with one time and he said, "Man, I haven't had a chance to get around to my steps. I've been too busy.
What else do you have to do?" That is what it is. What these steps are is not a sidebar to my life. When I enter the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I walk up into this society, this fellowship of men and women that we're all a part of right now, what I've walked into is a manner of living.
It's the way that I live that really works because I come from a place that really didn't. The God idea worked, mine didn't. Keep it real simple.
I'm a practical guy. My idea don't work. The God idea does.
How do I know that? So, in that chapter, it go to great pains to show why it makes more sense to believe than not to believe. Somebody out there that's still resistant to this guy.
Yeah, I hear you, but I'm not feeling it. Why it makes more sense to believe that? cuz I'm not that guy.
I'm not the guy that you just tell something to and I could. No, that chapter talks about we share this honest doubt and believe. So here's the deal.
Here's the deal. I had already taken the negative second step cuz there's a negative se step. I the second step is came to believe and the power of greater myself could restore me to sanity.
The negative second step in the book says this. I had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as I had been living it. I had come to believe that on Friday night you would find me walking the streets on my block with nowhere to go at about 3:00 a.m.
in the morning. You find me walking. I had come to believe that I would spend a whole paycheck every two weeks no matter what.
I had come to believe that I would never be welcome in my own house or in my mother's house anymore. I had come to believe that this guy who grew up with dreams, goals, hopes, and ambitions would no longer ever entertain them anymore. I had come to believe that I would never see a birthday for my daughter again.
I had come to believe there would be no more Christmases. I had come to believe that cuz that's the way I was living. And so I took second step.
What do I have to lose? Why am I holding on to this hostility about this power? The book talks about the Wright brothers.
You know, people were looking at them and saying self-sufficiency still works for me. They were looking out on flying and saying that ain't flight. Today if we looked down on flying and the Wright brothers were the people who c you know invented the airplane people said they'll never fly.
looked at airplanes that that ain't if we saw that today we say, "Oh, no, that's Photoshop. That ain't happening." It's people sitting in the program right now still suck on self-sufficiency telling them, "I ain't seeing what I'm seeing. I'm looking at you flying.
That's special effects. She ain't flying. I'm looking at you soaring.
That ain't happening. They're not really doing that. They're faking up in those memes.
They're not Nobody's real up in those memes. They're not really rising above their problems. They're not really coming up in here happy.
They're not really coming from the dark place and now they got light in their eyes. Then I'm not really seeing what I'm seeing. I'm not stupid.
So, we talk about the evidence. How many people in here believe the electricity is on in this room right now? How many of you believe the electricity is on?
You know, why do you believe? Can you see the electricity? Somebody said they can.
Where are the electricians at? Please tell them they can't see electricity. But why do you believe the electricity is on?
Somebody help me. Why do you believe the electricity is on right now? >> Cuz of the lights.
Cuz of the lights. I don't know if we got anybody in here that's new. How many people in this room right now have been sober for more than a year?
Raise your hands. Newcomers, the lights. I can't see the electricity, but I can see the results.
I can't see the power. I can see the results. The lights.
The lights. I don't believe that any of those hands went up had any more power to keep themselves sober than I did. And I knew I could.
Tried all the time. Came in here wholeheartedly gave myself to this deal. this deal that we do, this 12step program, this 12step process.
It's more than just some steps on the wall. It's a manner of living and it's the way that I live my life now. And the reason I do it is cuz it really works and cuz it's fun.
Do it for fun and for free cuz it really works. And it puts me in a place that I've always wanted to be. Standing up as a grown ass man in my own skin, standing up in my own life, showing up.
That's what we do. And so this 12step program I already st one is a conclusion I draw based on my experience. I ain't got to do a whole lot of work when I come in here.
I look back on my experience and it shows me I'm powerless about alcohol. Step two is also a conclusion I draw based on my experience. I couldn't keep me sober.
You couldn't keep me sober. It better be a power bigger than me who could keep me sober. There's somebody in here right now that had kids when they were drinking and wanted to stay sober for those kids bad.
Did it work? Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it.
Wanted to stay sober for that wife. Couldn't do it. Wanted to stay sober for those parents.
I couldn't do it. Boss told me if you come up in here like this again, don't even bother. Couldn't do it.
Judge says couldn't do it. If I couldn't keep me sober and you couldn't keep me sober, it better be a power bigger than me. I took it out of desperation and I took it out of what do I have to lose?
this this this 12step process. I listened to him when he was sharing and he talked about this ego deal. And I'm going tell you something.
The ego has one job and one job only. The ego that deal that theme, its job is to separate me from you and me from God. It separates me from you.
It tells me I'm different. I'm special. My case is unique.
You don't understand me. You know, y'all don't know who I am. That's what my ego does.
It job is to separate me. This 12step process is a ego reducing exercise. I'm going to tell you the quick way to get to this.
Don't worry about somebody up here, even this guy right now, trying to give you a a a really quick primer on how to get to God. The power will improve your understanding of the power quick way. This is what I do and this is what I did with the second step.
Second step is summarized like this in my life. Grow God shrink wrath. You want to feel God grow and you want to feel the power of God grow and you want to feel grow God shrink wrath.
That's the recipe. When I reduce me, he'll be what's left. When I reduce me, he'll be what's Don't go looking all over and searching all over.
And then the book talks about we have to first search fearlessly where deep down inside you know but don't don't even trip off that. Don't trip off having to go to all these places and go to these grow shrink. I was working with a sponsor one morning.
We were breakfast. She was talking to me. She said damn sponsor.
She said I really want to get into these steps cuz I just think there's so much more to me. I said no baby. We need less of you.
We need less of you. Spiritual life unlike regular life, spiritual life is measured differently. Spiritual life is not measured by acquisition.
It's not measured by how much I'm adding. When you read the big book all anonymous, all it talks about is relinquishing, letting go of, riding myself, abandoning myself. You know, it's all about, man, just getting rid of the excess.
And that takes me to that third step. So, so that second step is talking about the Okay. Okay.
Cuz you don't do the second step in the second step. Second step came to believe that's process, right? Don't say the second step.
Believe in power. And the thing that I'm looking for in the second step, new friends, old friends, knowledge of God is okay, but it ain't the answer. I need relationship.
And it's way different than religion. I me been talking. I'm not a religious guy even to this day.
You know, I don't have there's not somebody who tells me cuz religions will tell you, look, if you come into this place of worship, this is how we do it. This is how our deity looks. This is the rules we follow.
This is how we get down. Do you accept this to come up in here? And that is not I'm not built like that.
And so the way that I first started forming relationship, the way that I first started forming relationship, anybody in here ever see a girl or a guy and you saw him and you wanted to get to know, you wanted to maybe think about getting in a relation. You don't know if you want a relationship with but they interest you, right? Anybody ever have that?
What's the first thing you do? You pursue it. So, I don't know if I want to have this relationship with this, but it interests me because there's something in it for me.
My life is on the line. My life is on the line. And what makes it something in it for me?
Because I saw those hands go up and I saw the light. And I'm not stupid. I don't believe it's coincidence.
I had to stop doubting the power when that many people could throw their hands up and say, "I came in around here and I felt just like you. And now I've come to believe in this power and I've gotten these the lights. That's what made me interested.
So I'm interested. So what do I do when I'm interested? I start pursuing.
I start seeking. Be a seeker. Don't trip off.
Find be a secret. And what do I do when I pursue him? When I find out what it is, what are your characteristics about you?
What is it I like about you? I get in conversation. I get in proximity.
I've never gotten in relationship with somebody that I was interested in by staying away from I've never got in relationship by not some kind of pursuit. I've never got in relationship right without disclosing some of me. I'm a fraud and I'm a charlatan.
So I usually disclose the parts of you that I want. Don't trip about that guy. I ain't tripping.
So what? So I go to the third step cuz I'm interested. Second step don't mean I found I'm interested.
Third step made a decision to turn my will which is my thinking and my life which is my actions over to the care of this power. That should scare somebody. I'm going to turn my will and my life over to the care of this power.
My will which is my thinking and my life which is my actions over to the care of this. Why would I do that? Why would I turn that over?
That's all I got. That's me. Why would I turn it over to something?
Cuz I ain't doing too good a job with it. Being convinced that my life run on my will could already be a success. I turn it over to him cuz I'm a train wreck waiting to happen and I have the experience to show up.
Now we're talking about more than just the drinking. Now we're talking about real life. I was talking to somebody before who told me, Ralph, the reason I'm really here is because of the life results I get.
made a decision to turn my will in my life over to the care of God. Okay. What if God wants to do something with me I don't want him to do?
What if he want to turn me into something I don't want him to turn me into? What if he wants to put me in a white polyester suit and put me on a street corner preaching? What if he has that in store for me?
I got a friend at home that said, "Where you come from?" That ain't I don't even know why you tripping. That would be an improvement. But still, you know how many people in here I I have to do this because this is what works for me.
I'm talking about how I went through this process. And sometimes this God thing is unseeable and it's unknowable. That's why we have to form a concept.
That's why we have to form a concept. I don't need a concept of Ruben. All of us can look at it and generally speaking, we can agree on some things.
Distinguished looking gentleman, you know, looks a little trustworthy. He's not that tall. He's, you know, medium size.
You see now, you know, there are some but this God that they talk can't see him, can't feel him, can't touch him, don't know if he's out there. Most of us have never had our own concept of a higher power anyway. It's either what society imposed on us, what our family imposed on us.
So this whole idea is is new and it's revolutionary. What about your own concept? And the way that I start that concept is by what it is that he's not.
And so this this this third step made a decision to turn this will in my life over right big deal. It's a big deal. How many people in here are parents?
Where where the parents at who has more than one kid. I have two daughters. Rain is my oldest daughter.
She's a she's an attorney. She's a she's a defense she's a criminal defense attorney and all. And Rain is the love of my I love her with everything in me.
You'll hear more about her tomorrow night. And she's a criminal defense attorney. Then my youngest daughter, River, is in college right now.
Rain's an attorney. River's an actress as a dad. As a dad, because I'm proud of Rain for being an attorney.
Should I be drilling on River while she's in college? What's wrong with you? Would I be a good dad if I'm saying, "How come you not like your sister?" Would I be a good dad or if or am I a good dad if I'm at every performance of Rivers?
Is that the good is that the dad? I I'm at every performance. I show up and I fly in if I have to.
I go to every rehearsal. I took at every rehearsal. What sounds like the good dad?
The one that did that or the one that was like, "How come you're not like your sister?" I believe that God or this power is like that for me. I believe that this power wants to make me the best me. It's not going to turn me into somebody else.
Wow. Started forming a concept of the power for myself when I got to the third step. I believe he's going to make Ralph the best Ralph Ralph can be.
Wow. Interesting. Interesting.
And then in the third step, we have a prayer in the third step. God, I offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as you will. Everybody in here come from different places, different walks of life.
You know the thing about surrender um is personal and what brings about the kind of desperation that is required for a real surrender and I'll call it anonymous. I you know I don't like to be crude but I don't I don't know a lot of ways and I don't know if it translates well but for me the only thing I know that brings about real surrender is a well whooped ass that I can't put it another way and it's got to be the thing about that behind it's got to be personal and customized for you don't look at somebody else's and say oh I didn't get that but it's yours bad enough for And so I came in here in that condition and I said, "God, offer me." I said, "Bill, do something with me. I'm 33 years old and I thought my life was over.
Do something with your boy. Relieve me of the bondage of self. What defeats me more than anything else is not you guys, not even alcohol.
My own thinking, my own beliefs, my own controlling, my own judgments. the bondage of self. The longer you're sober, the more you'll find out what the real enemy, the bondage of me.
I keep running into my own self. I keep colliding with other people because of my own goddamn control, because of my own belief system, because of my own need to judge, because of my own self-righteousness, because of my own over criticism, because of my own oversensitivity, because of my own stuff. Anybody can't get out their own way over and over and over again.
Relieve me of the bondage of self. Why? So I can better do your will.
Take away my difficulties. Not cuz I don't like them, though I don't. But so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would thy power, thy love, and thy way of life.
May I do thy will always. That's what we do. And that's how we're useful.
We are useful in here because of what we go through. FE phases of spiritual development. I'm going to go all over for you and then come back to this.
Phases of fe spiritual development. Phase one, track it with my prayer life record. Phase one, help me.
Almost all of us come in here on that phase, that's the earliest prayer. Whether you religious, spiritual, or not, some variation of that theme. Help me.
Phase two, give me, grant me, grant me thesis. I go from here. Grant me the serenity.
Grant me, give me. Phase three, highest phase. Use me.
Use me. And we get purposefilled lives. And I walk out of here and I pick up my beds.
And I'm of use. And the way I'm of use is through my adversity. I'm not used to my successes.
I'm used to my adversities. Somebody in here might be going through something right now. Don't trip off that guy getting ready to use you for something big.
And the more you go through, the more useful you'll be. The more you go through, the more responses you can help. The more you go through, the more valuable you'll be to somebody else.
You know, so I go through that. Here's the deal. In the third step, I offer myself to you.
And I told you with religious affiliations, I don't know if they said this. This is what Ralph always heard. I always heard this is what you're supposed to believe.
This is who you supposed to believe in. This is how he looks. This is what he do.
This is how you got to act. If you going to get down in our club, this is how you got these are the rules. This is what we do.
And before you get in the club, you got to already say, "Okay, I'm down. I'm I'm I'm going to do that. You already got to be right to get right.
Well, in here in Alcoholics Anonymous, you don't have to be right to get right. You come as you are to the third step. I went to the third step just like I was.
I offer myself to you. I'm still lying. I offer myself to you.
still gambling and still steal and still home and still trick still doing all the stuff I do. Just like that, God do something with me in that condition. Just like that miracle at 18 months sober when I first got on my knees and did that with a group of people that 18 months I didn't have any money.
I wasn't working yet. I was still staying at my mom's house. I was not a vision for you.
If I walked up to any lady in here and said, "Baby, I offer myself to you." You'd have been like, "Keep it moving." But God didn't do that. I said, "I offer myself to you." He did something with me. Did something with me.
Amazing to me. Amazing. Put something in me before I knew that.
what was happening. He doesn't need my permission to change me, but he does need my cooperation. And so I took that third step.
And that third step, I did it with a group of people, you know, and this this deal we talk about unity, recovery, and service, three parts of our program. And the unity part is the fellowship. Bring my body to the fellowship.
It's what we're doing right now. We have we you know you guys will have a weekend like this and people will come from all over and it's a high point you know people will hug and people will see each other and we'll regenerate. We'll rejuvenate and we will get recharged and we will recommitted to this deal.
It's the high point. It's when I see my people. I get with my people on a weekly basis and I go to the meets and I go to the meets and I go to the meets and it's the only place that I go when you're new that people give me a pat on the back for doing what I'm supposed to do anyway.
If I go home when I'm newly sober and say mom I got seven days sober. She be like I got 60 years of what you want to you know you you really want a pat on the back. Well we'll give you a pat on the back for that.
We understand it's a big deal and my blessing is a gift to me. It's not virtuous. I can't take credit.
So I don't look down on people who struggle with going to meetings. But my blessing is I've always loved memes. I just I just I slapped the thing.
Okay. Be scared. I've I get excited, you know.
I've always loved memes. I've always loved memes. Love hanging out with you guys, you know.
Uh something bent a little a little offkilter with me, you know. I like going to a place where I hear God and and in the same sentence. What?
I like that. You know, I'm not the guy that likes to go to a church where the and thou. No, I you guys are my kind of people, you know, doing what it is that we do, coming from the places we come from with the stories that we have.
I just I've always loved that. And so I started going to meetings and going to meetings and going to meetings and going to meetings and going to meet and in my neck of the woods when you go to another meeting. I listened to two ladies from Iceland today and they were talking about how when they first came it was a whole different spin on the meetings.
Don't talk about the book. Don't talk. Well, in my neck of the woods, from the day I came, we talk about the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and we talk about the 12 steps of recovery as being the basis for our program.
And so, when you go to enough meetings, you'll hear some common themes. And one of the common themes was the 12 steps in the book. And I'm like, wow, why be in a 12step program and not know what the 12 steps are?
And I'm an alcoholic who don't like a lot of, you know, I don't like mine cut. I don't like I like mine straight, no chaser. I like it strong and I like it so I like my recovery like that.
I don't like to have a lot of distilled rec. I don't like it to be going through three or four. I go straight to the book.
So, I have been in the program for about a year and a half. And my brother and I, you know, who who are really close, he's a year younger than me and 3 months older than me in recovery. My brother and me and and one of my best friends had been at a at a um we have marathon meetings at holidays in LA and they meetings over the whole holiday and this group had come in and they talked about the big book alcoholics anonymous in a way that was so interesting and so exciting.
not that dry. Uh it seemed way over there, too heavy for me and but they made it so interesting and so enticing and they had something about them. They had something about them and we asked two of the members of that group, would you take us through this book like that?
And my brother and I were new in recovery. Neither one, we both were a little over a year. And we asked our mom, we would stand back at my mom's house and we asked my mom if we could ask some people, have some people over on Sunday mornings.
And on a Sunday morning in November of 1987, we had about 12 people over to our house and we opened up these blue books and we started going through the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, page by page, line by line. And we went through chapter seven. We didn't go past that where the 12 step is.
And it took us about that first year it took us a year to go through those 12 steps as a group. When it said write, we wrote. When it said pray, we prayed.
You know, whatever actions did that we did it as a group. Took us about a year to go through that, you know, and wow, some people had heard about it and they said, "Wow, we want to do that." And so we took off about a month. We said, "Okay, we'll do it again." And we did it again and we opened up my mom's house and more people came and we went in about 13 or 14 months and went through the 12 steps and some more people heard and they said, "We like to come." And that third year, my mom's house probably had about 50 people on Sunday mornings, you know, and we did it again and we liked it.
And in about two more years time, we outgrew my mom's house. People were standing outside looking in the windows. And so now Sunday morning, that workshop that we started at my mother's house with 12 people in 1987, they'll be meeting in a hall this Sunday.
We've been meeting continuously since 1987 and never too early workshop. And we'll be meeting with about 250 people. And when we opened the door to my mom's house back in 1987, we didn't know.
We didn't know. But something happened as a result of those 12 steps. And what happens as a result of those 12 steps happened for us and it happened for people in here and it happens to anybody that goes through that process.
What happens as a result of that 12 step is I get a spiritual awakening as a result of those steps. What do you do with a woke up spirit? You get this spiritual.
What do you do with an awakened spirit? Well, you put it in the service. The third part of our triangle, unity.
I go to meetings recovery the 12 steps service that's the people that know the secret that's the people when you want your recovery to go to another level that's the secret they are the secret keepers but they don't keep it a secret matter of fact they try to bellow it out all the time but folk don't hear them those are the people that stood up a little while ago and they asked who are the people responsible for helping put this thing on. Those are the people I grew and that reached out to me through countless emails on the phone, made the arrangements. He took out of his day and he came to the airport and got me.
Those are the people who stood in the kitchen and they did the food and they laid it out on the table and they opened up the doors. Those are the people who on a Wednesday night or Thursday night, they get out of their beds and it's warm and out here they go out in the cold and they open up the hall and they fire up the coffee pot and they wait for Ralph White to show up. I don't care if it's the last game of the World Series at home.
I don't care if it's the seventh game of the NBA Finals. They get out of the bed. They go to the hall.
They open up the door and they wait for Ralph White to show up. They go in our jails. They go in our treatment facilities.
They go in our institutions and they look for Ralph White. I'm glad that I call them. You know, I'm doing the spotlight work in Alcoholics Analytics.
Everybody's looking at me. I'm out front. People will congratulate me and they'll come thank me.
But I call them the shadow soldiers. They work in the back. And what they usually get is, "How come you didn't do it like that?
Why you got to do it like this?" You know, that's the pay they get in Alcoholics and But they really get the highest pay. They're the ones you'll see here next year. If you one of the ones that can't keep showing up, getting service.
If you one of the ones that's having a problem with this, getting service. See, I'm allin guy. I don't know anything about sideline.
Never have been. Never have been a spectator in my life. I don't know how many people in here sponsor people.
You know, I sponsor a lot of men and I sponsor a lot of women. You know, I don't really trip off that. I got the kind of sponsor that Israel.
I know who it is that I'm sponsoring and I know what I'm working with. I don't expect more from people than the people are willing to give. You know, not everybody's gonna be a player.
It's people here and everybody here probably knows somebody else who you wish was here or you thinking to yourself they should be here. Everybody ain't a player. Everybody ain't a player.
Don't trip off that. We need fans. We need spectators.
and the fans and the spectators if they look at the way you doing it they might want to play too. Don't worry about talking to people and the rest. Let my action what you do to me for a while I can't hear what you say.
This is a program of attraction and it's a program of action and the men and women in here. If you want to be a player in this thing, you want to be a player in this thing in recovery. If you want to be a player in doing life and see the players are not the ones that's just coming up here and learning the steps and no, the players want to be fathers and the players want to be mothers.
The players want to have families back intact. the players going to be able to stand up in their own life no matter what goes down the pipe and say yeah even if it's some yeah that's me I did it I own it and I keep it moving and I keep moving through life that's what the players do you know that's what the play if you're sitting in here right now and you think the recovery is this deal to this oh man I'm not trying to do that that stuff right there that ain't for me I was listening to Jen at the beginning I so appreciate you coming in here it never looks like it's for anybody body at first. This is the only club where people where membership is comprised all of people who didn't want to be here.
And I caught alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous. Imagine that. A lot of people do.
Can't imagine. This is the only disease you can suffer from where once you get in recovery from it, you better than if you never had it. I never would have got on a spiritual quest.
I needed to. I never would have got on it. I'm a self-propelled man.
I'm a self-propelled guy. Got up off my knees. God offered myself to you.
And that third step is a turning it over, you know, to this power. Somebody tell me how much time I have. And so cuz I can talk, you know, I can talk about this power and I can talk about this program all day long.
If God had brought you from he brought me, you talk about him all night long, too. You know, I I get excited. And you know, I was on a panel.
four guys. Hm. >> Five more.
I was on a panel with a guy and wow. And I thought I was going to get through all 12. I was on a panel with a guy 55 years old, right?
55 years old and we were on a question and answer panel and they asked Tom ID. They said, "Tom, you know what is the most important thing you found in your 55 years of recovery?" And he didn't say conscious contact with a god of my understanding. He didn't say anything flowery like that, you know.
He said a one word. He said enthusiasm. Enthusiasm.
If this is supposed to be a program of attraction, damn it. Make it attractive. Sponsors this up in here.
Don't be up in here. Oh, there ain't no easier soft. No.
If this wasn't the easier soft way, you got another speaker. You know, I am still excited about my life. Every day I wake up, I get up out to bed, roll up.
Holly son used to say it all the time. I stole it from him. Ralph White reporting for duty.
Excited. Yeah, this program, you know, I'm dead serious about recovery, but I'm seldom serious in recovery. If you ain't laughing in this program, you ain't taking this program serious enough.
and and you'll hear more about why it is that I'm so excited to be out here with you guys. I'm so excited. You know, you asked me to come out and really it's an impossible task that you ask me, the 10-minute speakers, the speakers on Sun.
It's an impossible task when you call people out to come out and talk. You know, in in a way what we have and and and and the book is instructive in a couple of places. It says our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like what happened when we like them.
That's one thing. And then it says every speaker in his own language and from his own point of view tells how he formed this relationship with this problem. and the and the difficulty all I have and it's really difficult in a setting like this with different languages as first languages and the rest but all we have is words that's what I'm armed with that's our communication device right is words and by definition it's very limiting because what I came to talk to you guys about tonight and what I came to talk to you about tomorrow night is a limit limitless power that ain't contained by words.
But I have to put words to it cuz that's what that's all we have. That's our medium. That that's our form of communication.
I got a friend at home and he always says, "You can't describe the taste of a banana. You can't describe the spiritual experience. You can't describe the goosebumps when you had a aha moments in your life.
You can't describe My mom has six boys, all in this disease under her roof. Four of them in recovery right now. The other two don't need to be.
You can't describe the end of the night on the 75th birthday party, the surprise party me and my brothers gave for all in recovery now. And at the end of the night, my mom says, "Ralph, this is the first time I ever had a party. >> Alcohol, you can't describe.
You can describe the scene." So what we do when we come to events like this and you put us up here, what we do as best we can, what I do as best I can is try to make my experience with the banana so appealing and so tantalizing that you want to get your own banana. I'm Ralph White. I'm an alcoholic.
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