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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Yeah, with all those warm hands, I can hardly wait to hear what I got to say.

Well, I'll tell you before I get up here, I make three damn good talks. The one I make before I get up. The one after I sit down.

The one you make for me. And I've got another one. My wife makes one.

She You should have said this and you should have said that. But hell, I can't remember. I'm like old Bob Smith there.

I can remember and tell you what happened 54 years ago when I came into AA, but I can't remember what I had for breakfast. At my age, I don't even buy green bananas. I'll tell you that you may get old some days though.

Don't worry. Thank you for being here. And uh I understand you hauled Bob Fifth around while back sometime back some 25 years ago and he as Bob said today he had an old Dodge broken down and now he got those big Lincoln.

And you talk about your tail laughing. Mine laughed all the way around. Yesterday we were driving us around.

Uh my name is Cersei and I'm an alcoholic. Hi sir. By the grace of God and the help of all of you people allott all in between I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since May 10th 1946.

And I'm deeply grateful. I can assure you the only race only reason I mention the length of my sobriety is because I'm damn proud of it. That's the only reason I it could have been a lot worse.

You know, I was raised out in West Texas and on a farm and uh we had a lot of old cows that I had to milk which I damn sure didn't like. I'll tell you that. But I had the milk and I remember those cold mornings and I'd go out at the milk and those old cows, one of them turned around and said, "Thank you for those warm hands and thank you for your warm hands today." Those of you who don't like baptismal service, you leave now.

We baptized a whole bunch of them over the country. Old Bob and I, we go around spreading the disease and and he carries the message and I spread the disease. Okay.

Uh thank you for being here, Bob. And uh and Bob getting around all over our local area. He used to worldwide.

He he spoke in Europe and Japan and everywhere else, you know, but he did a didn't do a lot of local speaking. And and years ago, I remember and nobody knew him because he came in 23 or four years ago. But since I started pimping for me, he picked another day and every night, you know, some important things that think about today is is our primary purpose.

And it is so important if we look at history and what Bob talked about this morning. Uh the history of alcoholic and the destiny of alcoholics depends upon our staying with the 12 traditions and and and carrying this man trust God clean house and help others. You know that was said a long time ago when Eie told Bill how he stands sober in the Oxford group.

He said we trust God clean house and help others and all the literature we have and all the knowledge we have and all everything we know through AA and our booklets and pamplets and all that. The the bottom line still is trust God, clean house and help others. Right.

And we have to keep it that way. If we don't, we'll uh we'll be dissolved one of these days like something like Bob talked about the Washingtonian movement where they had 300,000 members at one time and they started promoting their leaders and uh and some of them got into marriage counseling. We don't do that, you know.

Uh well we did some other things that might be up but they what they did was they didn't stay with their primary purpose and they went out of business and uh along came the Oxford group and they had four absolutes and Bob quoted you those four absolutes this morning absolute honesty absolute purity and all and Bill Wilson told me one time I asked him why didn't we have some four absolutes somewhere in the AA for he said alcoholic can't absolutely do anything. And I agree. I'm going to pull this coat off.

The only reason I wear it, I just wanted you to know I'm damn sure got one. that the uh Carl Sandberg said a long time whenever society or civilization perishes there is always one condition present they forgot where they came from and if we ever forget where we came from we'll perish and that's the reason when I sit I'm in the presence of Bob Smith there's something in my feeling that that of gratitude he's the only living person that it was there when it all started. The only one.

Can you imagine that in our fellowship that that come show me some oldtime organization where there's only one left that knows what happened? Not very many. But we know what happened and and and because Bob is able to give us that information and direct from the horse's mouth, that's exactly the way it happened.

That's the reason it's important. Uh there's a lot you know I'll tell you another thing. Uh I I I've got three important numbers in my life and these are not my measurements.

Uh I'm 90 years old. I've been married to the same woman 65 years and I've been sober 54 years. Yeah.

And I've won several. Yeah. Just recently I won a beauty contest.

It rained and nobody got there but me. Uh well, we got to if we don't have fun and so in sobriety and and we don't we're not going to stay sober. There has to be some way that we find happiness and content and joy and peace of mind without alcohol or we're not happy joyous and fruit.

Uh, but I'm I'm happy today and the sun shines bright for I'm everything is lovely and I want to thank you people for making it that way for all the wherever you live, wherever you come through. Each one of you and I want you to remember this. Each one you may think you're not important, but you damn sure are.

You are the only one that can help somebody and save their life. Each one of you, you or you or you. You say, "Well, I'm not important.

I if I don't stay sober, what things going to go on be the same? It's not." You are. You're the only one that somebody somewhere some way will meet you.

And if you have the message and you're still sober and you can tell them what happened to you, that contact and it makes sense and it happens. And that's the beauty. You know, I read I want to read what Bill said way back there.

Perhaps this is not the time or place to talk at length of my own recovery uh of our our AA program in detail or of our you know our stories are sacred to us because that's what happens and but but it doesn't mean a hell of a lot to you only I drank in one bar and you drank in another bar and you drank in another city and another city and this and that but we all wound up in the same vote powerless over alcohol lives unmanageable. So we wind we're all gathered here because we need to help each other and we need to carry this message to those who still suffer and there millions out there. There are millions out there on the street and walking around just like I was wondering what the hell would you do if you didn't drink and that's what I'm wondering.

How could you live without drinking? I couldn't I couldn't picture that because I lived in West Texas and everybody drank out there. preachers, all of everybody stayed drunk.

So I was raised on a farm out in Jones County out Anson and I saw a gal here last night from Hamlin Rotan. I'm sorry I mispron where you from but I'm sure you all know those places. there such large places some of them 15 or 20 population and big cities you know but I was raised in Funston that's 6 milesi east of answer it's right close to Holly and uh and nent and and several large cities like that and I was raised on a farm and there was uh we had seven in our family my father and mother were devout Baptist missionary married Baptist, I'll have you know, and I'm a recovering Baptist, too.

But on that farm, as bad as I hated it, and I hated every bit of it, I heard things from my dad that that after I recovered from my drinking that I remembered and and that and I never forgot him. And my dad used to on Sunday nights he would have a prayer meeting and he'd pray for his neighbors that I knew damn well he didn't like but he'd pray for him. God bless old so and so is that I know he's doing wrong but God bless him and he'd asked that that God take care of him and things like so later on in I'll call it synonymous I I I could visualize and I knew what he was talking about and uh and so I learned that and but it never meant anything to me as many other things until I found Alcoholics Anonymous.

Well, anyhow, I I I wanted My mother used to say that I was more of a planter than I was a farmer. I planted it and hope the hell it didn't grow. You know, that's the kind of a farmer I was.

I didn't care anything about. But finally, I I got off that farm, went up to Stanford, Texas. Now I'm getting in the big cities.

You know, hot here. It is. But I I went I the reason I did I had an old aunt that had a boarding house up in Stanford and she said come live with me and finish your high school and uh then that just suited me a boarding house and what the appetite I had was it was real good.

You know, I finished high school there in Stanford and the day I finished high school, I I had a contract to play semi-parole baseball in the old West Texas League in Midland. And at that time, big oil companies and various large institutions, many oil companies would sponsor baseball teams. And some of you have been along that line and these farm clubs and so forth.

And some of the the our players out there went on to the big leagues and not me, but they gave us a job. We were supposed to work some along with playing baseball and they gave us a salary and they gave me a job with a a big motor company there that uh that had the Dodge and Plymouth agency from Abalene to El Paso. And here's how you become an alcoholic the way I did.

Uh, I started drinking things and suddenly alcohol gave me some things that I I wanted. It gave me everything that I desired. I even got good looking drink.

Woo. Talk about improvement working. That's it.

And uh, so I followed that route. I uh but I never when I from the start time I started drinking I drank heavily and a lot of it and I stayed upright for most of the time for many years. Uh I always hated to to drink with a sorry drinker though.

Didn't you you know somebody take a drink or two and say I don't like the taste of that stuff. And like my wife does that, she'll buy one of those grasshoppers and we'll finish having dinner and the salt still on the top. It's just a waste of money.

Drink it up. Drink it up. Puke it up.

And and and drink some more. Get sick. Get sick and show them you can handle it.

You know the hell I can't handle it. Just watch it. Oh, anyhow, our baseball manager was a guy named Doc Ellis in Midland, and he had a funeral parlor, and that's a hell of a combination.

And the baseball manager and a funeral director. Well, every Sunday we'd go to the funeral parlor and celebrate, having lost most of the time. And this Sunday night, we we had a guy named Red Hill that played third base on our team.

And Red was a sorry drinker. And he drank a little bit and pass out, you know. And he was very degraded to our form of drinking and my idea of what an real drinker should be.

And anyhow, this night he had couple of beer. Home brew. We drank home brew.

And uh they're the homebrew face one or two back there. And it's made out of chili and cornbread and this that and you ferment it and it'll make you drunk. That's all I know about it.

But it sure will make you drunk. It'll make you lose all your problems and everything and damn sure lose you, you know, if you keep it up. Well, anyhow, Red passed out on the floor and we indignant people who were good drinkers decided we'd get even with him and we picked him up and put him in a casket and and we folded his arms and we stood back drinking, acting silly to wait what Red would have to say, if anything if he woke up.

And finally he wked up and he fell to the side of the casket and he looked all around, looked up and down. And then we heard him say, "If I'm not dead, why am I here?" And he said, "If I am dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?" I think Red came into the program later on. I think he's one of our early members.

you know, in the in the business they put me in, they made me general manager of this large company, and I did a lot of entertaining. Now, when you entertain, you've got to have a lot of whiskey, and you got to do a lot of entertaining if you want to get business. And that's the way I did.

I loaded that car up and and I entertained. Boy, did I entertain. And but what happens to you if you have that X factor in your life and you keep drinking alcohol in large doses?

Some of us somewhere down the line cross that line into compulsive pathological drinking. And that's the only kind of drinking that's a disease. Compulsive pathological drinking.

You have to drink to get away from the effects of drinking. And that's what I where I got. And the further I went down and then you wonder what the hell happened.

I used to handle alcohol. I used to entertain. I used to do that.

And now and you lose your self-esteem. You lose your family. You lose this and that and you keep and what I did then I got fired from that and I started for to working for a bunch of narrowminded employers.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of them narrowminded as hell.

You could drink and stay drunk for a week or so and come in. They won't know where you been. None of their business.

They're just paying you. That's all you know none of but but the degrading effects of of of uncontrolled drinking leads into a lot of things that we don't want to be but were there and the process of being there is all the same for all of us. We kept drinking for different reason but we kept adding al and we had to have more alcohol and the alcohol made a more dismal effect on our lives as we went along the way right and we developed alcoholism so I started uh taking the geographical cure that's unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and I went to Corpus Christie Texas.

They made me a credit manager. The the old Packard Motor Company. Many of you never saw a Packard, but they're long old.

Bob had one one time. He said they're about as half as long as this room and the S ones I had, the one we sold. And they made a six and an eight.

And they furnished me with an eight cylinder. And I'd load that thing up with whiskey, go out on the King Ranch. And you talk about being lonely.

you go out there and and drink. And the only way you can keep from being lonely and getting lost is to drink. But I was on a very strict diet.

I'd eat nothing but cheese and crackers. And you get a lot of vitamins out of that, you know. So I said, "I want you to go home and and you keep coming back as often as you can to our meetings and and then you'll get some groups organized out there." And so I went back and sure enough I had all kinds of problems.

Uh I'd lost everything. And uh but what he told me every time I think about taking a drink or going then that you can't take a drink today. You know that's a slick way we have.

If you don't drink today you never will drink because I thought well when tomorrow got here that's today. So I couldn't drink. So he had a slick way of moving me in that thing.

So after a while, to make a long story short, if that's possible, uh after a while, we we got some groups together. And first we started a little group in Lock in September of 1946. And then we helped start three or four little towns around there would be one or two people with that had gotten a big book or something and met and two, not over two or three in each one.

But we all came together and we kept working together and and and aa mushroomed in that country. It just grew like nobody's business from the start out there. And uh so in 1946 we had the first state conference of AA in Austin, Texas at St.

Edwards University. And I went down there and Bill Lois Wilson came down to that convention. It wasn't convention.

There was a big crowd there. We had about 25 people and uh and but but I I hung on to Bill and somehow he clung to me for some reason. I don't know why.

And we we had a form of friendship that lasted until he died. A very close friendship. And uh but he told me some things that and he asked if he said, "I'll be your sponsor if you'll let me." And uh I said, "My god, the guy that founded all this thing with he and the Dr.

Bob and he want to be my sponsor. That is something." So anyhow, uh he regretted it later, but he did. We made some mistakes in those days.

Like Bob was talking this morning, the early days of AA, the early workings of AA in and especially in West Texas. Uh we had a hard time out there because we we we did things wrong. We had a guy came down from uh Kansas City and we elected him uh secretary of our group and he ran off with the money and uh and Jim set up a deal here and he stole the money and and Jane was doing something wrong and this and that and the other.

We had problems and we were we were moving along along and this was our program. Let me read you how we were doing things then and these the 12 steps that we had before the real 12 steps the one we were practicing. We admitted we were powerless over nothing that we could manage our lives perfectly and those of anyone who would allow us to.

We came to believe there was no power greater than ourselves and the rest of the world's insight. We made a decision to have our loved ones and friends turn their will lives over our chair even though they couldn't understand us at all. We made a searching and fearless moral and immoral inventory of everybody we knew.

We admitted to the whole world at large the exact nature of everybody else is wrong. We were entirely ready to make others straighten up and do right. We demanded others to either shape up or ship out.

We made a list of all persons who had harmed us and became willing to go to any length to get even with all of them. We got direct revenge on such people where were possible except when to do so would it cost our lives and it lead to jail. We continued to take the inventory of others and when they were wrong we promptly and repeatedly told them about it.

We saw through bitching and nagging to improve our relations with others that we couldn't understand them at all, asking only if they knuckle down and do things our way. Having had a complete physical and emotional and spiritual breakdown as a result of this step, we tried to blame it on others and get sympathy and pity in all our prayers. That won't work.

that won't work. But here we had the early promises, too. And and we clung to these early promises and and they were so true.

And they're like this 12 of you'll know your full name and address. You'll be able to shave yourself. You'll be able to dress and undress yourself at the appropriate time and place.

You will at all time know the city, state, and conquer you're in. You would routinely be able to find matching socks. That helped me.

I used to wear a brown and blue sock drunk, you know, dressing in the dark. You know, you'll be able to smoke to be whis that burned holes in the clothes or the furniture. You'll lose the fear of food.

You'll spend less time in the bathroom. You'll be able to walk a straight line and pass the balloon test. You'll lose the fear of police cars in your rearview mirror.

You'll be able to answer the door without looking through the keyhole first. You'll realize what a mess you've been. And thank God for a lot.

Uh you know along those terrible thinking is you know I we got the serenity prayer. Well I I had the senility prayer. God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

But the real the real 12 rewards of the program of alcohol tonight are these. Faith instead of despair. Courage instead of fear.

Hope instead of desperation. Peace of mind instead of confusion. Real friendships instead of loneliness.

Selfrespect instead of self-contempt. Self-confidence instead of helplessness. A clean conscience instead of a sense of guilt.

The respect of others instead of their pity and contempt. A clean pattern of living instead of a purposeless existence. The love and understanding of our families instead of their doubts and fears.

The freedom of a happy life instead of the bondage of an alcoholic obsession. And those are the real rewards if we experience those 12 steps in order. How do I know from the beginning?

Dr. Bob and Bill put this thing together as best they could. And the Bill had a hundred drunks sober, the first hundred in a New York.

And 25 of those hundred were agnostics, some atheist. And and Bill told me that they met and every one of the agnostics for months and months and months, we admit we're powerless over alcohol. Our lives are unmanageable.

Yes. But where do we go from here? And they had the Oxford group, the history of that.

They had the Washington. But what and Bill had had researched all those to find out what happened. But when they kept meeting and they were said, "What do we do?

We we'll go to each other admit our faults and this that and the other and and but we couldn't couldn't clean house." So what happened? We wouldn't have a a if it weren't for the second step. came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore society and then we could experience those other steps and as a result it worked.

It worked from the beginning and if we look back at all these things that happened and and how grateful and how thankful I am for Dr. Bob, Bill and Ann and Lois and all the things they did. If you don't think it's lonely, try to have a meeting with just two of you guys together.

And you think about Bob and Bill back there when they didn't have any 12 steps. They didn't have a damn thing. But they met and you know the reason they stayed with it, they wanted to help somebody else.

And that's the reason it worked. Their bottom line was if we keep doing this is good and we know what didn't work. So let's do things that will work and the all the things they did they took out the things they knew would not work and they put what would work and and and they nobody sat down and wrote these 12 steps.

No, they did those things and as a result they stayed sober. They experienced those things and stayed sober. So it worked from the beginning and finally all those agnostics of the 25 there finally agreed there must be some kind of power greater than we are and I know we down the line the early days we use the group as our higher power and this and that and the other.

We had all kinds of higher power and and what happened is like Bob said today was that each one of us came to believe in a power greater than ourselves as you understand that power. Thank God. And there's not anybody in Al say I don't want to hear that God business.

Well, don't you don't hear if you want to but believe in some kind of power that's greater. And I see those examples that I know they're the power great as we are every day. And the one of the most prominent ones though in my memory is the is the birth of a little baby.

That little baby comes out of the the lady, the one womb and the doctor spatch it on the butt and it comes to life. Could we do that? No.

There's got to be some kind of power greater than we are that does these things. Look at a sunflower patch or whatever you want to out the same number of of roses on each bush this and that and look at those things and look at the sky and how the sun set the moon comes up all these I have examples every day and I have to look and see and be sure I know that there's a power greater than we are and that power is absolutely there all the day always there you know I make a commitment early in the morning not to drink just for 24 hours and I turn my will life over to the care of God in the morning at 7:00 and about 10:30 I take it back I get on the freeway and and a lot of signals out there you know about and I take my will and my life back and I also take the will and lives of other people back you know all spread the disease you know so Anyhow, in 1948, Bill Wilson came. We had a little group.

It started all over that West Texas. And Bill Lis came to to Lok to We had a big convention about 25 30 people. And I met Bill Lawrence and Amarillan.

We got on a plane, went on toward Lok. And those people wanted to see how Bill's wings flopped. You know, they they had never seen Bill.

So, Bill reached in his pocket on the way down and and pulled out a hand some handwritten note. And I want you to read these and see what you think about. Well, you know that I'd been in a couple of years and I knew damn well everything almost, not quite, but nearly everything.

And I looked them over carefully and I handed them back to Bill and I said, "Well, this is all right for you Yankees, but we don't need it down here." And he didn't say it. He just took it back. What it was was the 12 traditions.

Aren't you glad I didn't start this thing? Lord, the very thing that saved us and and the reason it saved is because Dr. Bob Bill researched all these what happened that they went out of business.

What happened that their their institution went out of business? They perished. Why?

Because they didn't stay with their primary purpose. And it'll happen to us and that's the reason we have the 12 traditions and out in the that western country. We're the we're the cause of needing the 12 traditions worse than anywhere else in the world.

We had we broke every kind of tradition you ever heard of if there had been any, you know, and that's the reason Bill started working on them. We had to make sure that these things don't happen to us. They will always have a a and that's the reason we have the 12 traditions.

It assures us that we will always have a a provided that we will adhere to those principles of the tradition. So it works. Anyhow down the line that long about that same time I asked Bill a lot of silly questions.

He I want to know about his spiritual experience. I want to know all about this and that and the other about is looking into these other organiz all this stuff. He said, 'Wh in the hell don't you go to Yale school on alcohol studies and learn all these things?

He said, 'You so inquisitive. I said, 'I'll go. How do I go?' He said, 'I'll send you.

And to get rid of me, he sent me up there. And uh you talk about knowledge. Oh, Dr.

Jelan was head of the Yale school in New Haven and they studied alcoholism from one end to the other and that's the reason we have alcoholism as a disease. Dr. Gel promoted that idea and that's absolutely true.

So anyhow, I went up there and uh and got baptized. I learned all about alcoholism and they gave me one project working with in the research department of working with mice. They gave me a cage of mice and uh and they said you can make alcoholics out of mice.

Now I I'd never heard of that. I never heard of an alcoholic mouse. And so anyhow, I took that project on and we started out with they had a shrill whistle in this cave.

There about 40 mice in there and and they they had water in there and those mice would be drinking out of the water. You could you could blow that whistle and they'd just tear that cage up. Just run on that do go crazy.

And we started giving them alcohol over dosage over here and kept giving it to it and finally down the end you could blow that damn whistle all you want to and that mouse sat there and just keep drinking just like we did you know and I found out that my should be alcoholic too. So, I'm real fortunate to have all that experience and knowledge. And I came back to to Dallas and uh uh uh a lot of things happened uh my experiences and uh and how these things happened and I thought I knew it all but I needed to learn a lot of things.

Well, anyhow, about a year later, Dr. Gelinac who was head of the Yale School on Alcohol Studies of was originally a banana scientist down in South America and they hired him up at Yale University to do research on alcoholism and he did a hell of a job as you know and I asked him one day how in the world did you go from bananas to alcoholics? He said they're just alike.

They get away from the bunch they get peeled. So in 1950, Dr. Garinck became ill and he had moved his school from New Haven to TCU at Fort Worth.

And another guy and I worked out of that institution there at TCU for a couple of years doing alcoholism studies and and alcoholism information. all of we we got out local committees on alcoholism and so forth. In 50 Dr.

Donac became ill and retired and he said Cersei the greatest need we have in this country is at hospitals where an alcoholic can go and sober up and where members of alcoholic economic come in and help them and take them to meetings and sponsor them and they can stay sober. And so we that's what we did. We established a hospital in in love and in Dallas and Houston.

Had one right here out on Westimer Street there and one in Carl Dad, New Mexico. 75% of those who and they were all just alcoholics then. And 75% of those stayed sober, not because of the hospital, because AAS came in there and helped them and took them to meet and sponsored them and told them how to stay sober on a daily basis.

And it worked. And those those AAs that helped that came in there and worked with, they're the ones that stayed sober. You know, now the treatment centers, they keep them 30 days and we don't go, they do our 12step work.

I need to see a fresh drunk. And I ask God every morning, show me somebody today that needs help as badly as I did. And a lot of days I'm showing that person.

Somebody like old Scott Dylan that talked about when we first met. And I need to see the that that live alcoholic. I need to see somebody practicing alcoholism and see and I can see myself and and and it's it's the greatest thing that ever happens to me is to know that maybe maybe some guy or gal that you talk to maybe they'll see the light and be able to sober up and stay sober.

So in that hospital in Dallas uh in 1953, Bill Wilson came to Dallas to visit. He wanted to see the hospital and we had a nice hospital and it had a lot of medical directors in there and people that help us, medical doctors and uh we and but Bill went in there and visited with every one of the patients who were about 15 and he talked with every one of them and we went to have lunch at the Melrose Hotel and another guy and Bill and I were there and I and I asked Bill I said Bill a lot of things have happened in AA over the last many years. What would you rather see happen than anything that's ever happened?

He said, without a doubt, he said, I'd like to see Ebie have a chance to get sober. Now, for the 40th time, Bill Wilson was in town's hospital for drunk alcoholism, and in came an old school buddy, old Ebie. And Bill said, Abby was in the Oxford group and Bill talking to Abby, he said, "What what's this religion you got?" Well, he said, "It's not religion.

What do you do?" And he quoted those four absolutes and those things. And then he said, "What's the bottom line?" Bill asked him. He said, "Trust God, clean house, and help others." Trust God, clean house, and help others.

So Bill that night got on his knees and said if there if there is a God show himself to me and he had that spiritual experience and God showed himself and he never took another drink and he's the cause of us being here alive today part of it he and Dr. Bob. So how those things happened to me is the grace of God.

And uh so we we start we we tried to get in touch with Ebie. Eie 6 months after he told Bill what to do. He went down on the Ber in New York and started drinking again and lived down there for nine years till 1953.

And so when Bill said that that he had an idea, he looked at me and said, "Take care of Eie." He might as well said that. I knew what he meant. Well, we got Ebie down there and he sobered up.

He stayed sober three and a half, four years at a time several times. And uh and uh and in the meantime, you know what we do, a lot of us, some of us, not very many, but we give up on somebody. And old Ebie had been in the hospital there and his room was right across from my office and every morning he'd come in and cuss me out.

Then the next morning he cut Dr. Bob and next one Bill. Bill A could been one of our co-founders.

He took the message to Bill what? Trust God, clean the house and help others. Then he went got drunk.

Bill got sober. That's the difference. But Bill always said that EIE was his sponsor because he told him what to do in the first place and how to get told what to do.

So he was his sponsor. Well, Ebie, I tell you, he uh he he was very bitter and I could understand he was very resentful and that he didn't stay in there and and be one of the co-founders with Dr. Bob Bill, but he didn't do it.

But he finally after about a month there I called Bill and Bill we had agreed to give him a roundtrip ticket if he didn't like it while he could go back to New York go back to the Ber and I called Bill and I said I I'm getting ready to ship Abby back cuz he's not improved. He's cussing me out and he running everybody crazy and Bill said hang on if you can and try to help you. And so I turned it over to somebody else.

And this is where I'm talking about. You're the only one. I can't do it.

But a nurse there, a registered nurse said, "Let me try to work with Ebie." And I said, "You can have the SO. I don't want you. Take it gladly." And she start and about a week later, she came in and said, "I see some changes in Ebie." And I said, "Well, I don't see any, but I haven't been around him lately, so I don't I don't know." And about a week later, he came in and said, "Where are you going?" I said, "I'm going over the group." "What group?" I said, "Hell, you know what group?

I'm going to AA." And he said, "Can I go with you?" And he went over and and he stayed all afternoon. The next day he went and stayed all day and uh and in a few days we went to Lok, Texas to a meeting out there and he got up and said, "My name is Ebie Thatcher and I'm an alcoholic. I'm damn glad to be back in AA.

Somebody I gave up on. Somebody I didn't think could make it. But the grace of God, the sunlight of the spirit shown in, not me, not us, but God's spirit.

If you're not as close to God as you once were, make no mistake about who moved. And if you never were close to God, make no mistake about who should move because he's always there. And our whole life and our program and our sobriety and everything about it is contingent upon our relationship with God as of today.

Right now, not yesterday, what happened in the past or anything about right now. And and and my sobriety is every day, every hour continued how if my relationship is good with God, I can get along with you. I can get along with every and have a happy, joyous, free way of living.

But it's contingent upon my willingness to turn my will over the care of God and leave it there, not take it back like I do a lot of times through the day. So the way these things all happened is it to me is amazing. But you can see the threads of spirituality woven through all the fabric of a look at Bill's experience and what Abby told him and he had the spiritual experience.

You know, I've had some hot flashes, but that could be my age. I don't. But a a spiritual awakening is something we can understand.

And like Bob said today, that's a change that we had in the program. Very few ever had a spiritual experience like that, a burning bush like Bill did. But it happened.

And it happens to us so long as we experience those steps of alcohol. And if we will always experience those steps as they're written because that's what they did. Those who stayed sober from the beginning and those who stay said alcoholic economy is a fellowship of many who share their experience, truth and hope with each other that they solve their common problem.

Some people may be uh not be able to have that program, but there the program is always there and we always need to be willing to help those that that don't make it to begin with and keep the doors of AA open. Uh keep the fellowship. If you know one of the greatest guys I've ever seen in AA and you might try it if you if you're looking for service work, whatever group you're in, go to that front door every night before the meeting and greet everybody and tell them you're glad they're there and if you can help them if you want to do some and that guy that I knew, Emry Richardson, he was later a delegate and went up to New York to our general service office.

But he was at that door every night and everybody that came in knew. Oh, he found out if they were new, if they wanted to stay sober, whatever. And and and he talked to them and a lot of them stayed sober and he was very happy and that that happened.

So those things that uh all of those things that happen that are good is is by the grace of God as far as I'm concerned. And that sunlight of the spirit will always shine on us if if we will observe and experience those 12 steps of altern. Now I want to say a word about the young folks.

You may think you're not important. You may think well I've just been in a short time. I'm I don't know what to do.

I'm not doing anything and I don't know. Get busy. Do something.

Get involved. And I want to tell you, I appreciate every one of you young people because before long, it's going to be in your hands. It's in there already.

But you need to to to take the responsibility and we're responsible to stay sober and to help other people. And I've heard Bob quote this poem several times of what happened. And this this this to me is is the same position that we're in in Alcoholics Anonymous today.

In World War II, there were 200,000 soldiers of ours killed in Flanders field. They were all murdered. But those they they wrote a poem somebody there that told about their feelings of having served their country and did their duty and did their job.

And I see the likeness now in the young people and alcoholic synonymous. And if you'll remember that poem, it goes something like the in Flanders field of poppies grow between the crosses row on row mark our places and in the skies the larks still bravely singing fly scarce herd amidst the guns below. We're the dead.

Short days ago we lived, felt, done, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved. But now we lie at Flanders field. Take up the quarrel with the foe.

To you with failing hands we throw the torch. Be it yours to hold high. If you break faith with us who die, you shall not sleep.

Though poppies grow in Flanders field. And to me that's exactly like we're standing today in our heart. You people take up the take up the the the thing and carry it on like you're doing now.

And you you've already doing it. And I appreciate it so much all of you who are doing that. Uh, I told you sometime back there uh a while back that uh I went to Stanford High School, finished high school and there was a guy in there uh in my finished high school the same time I did and he was the son of a Methodist minister and therefore I didn't think much of it.

He wasn't a Baptist, you know. So Steuart Hamlin was a guy's name and if you he wrote a lot of religious and a lot of spiritual songs and a lot of them are still around and two and a half years before he wrote all the religious song for religious movies and uh so I I talked to him many times and find he called me in I was his sponsor. He came into AA 2 and a half years before he died.

But he wrote that I told him I thought he wrote this song for Alcoholics Anonymous. And it if you'll remember it, it is no secret what God can do. And it go I'm not going to sing it, but but I'm going to quote the word and and this means a lot to me.

The chimes of time ring out the news. Another day is true. Someone slipped and fell.

Was that someone you? You may have longed for added strength, your courage to renew. Do not be disheartened cuz I've got news for you.

It is no secret what God can do. There is no night for any light. You'll never walk alone.

You'll always feel at home wherever you may roam. There is no power can conquer you while God is on your side. Just take him at his promise.

Don't run away and hide. It is no secret what God can do. What he's done for others, he'll do for you with arms wide open.

He'll pardon you. It is no secret what God can do. So that song is in my heart.

And every I I I that aa to me go go together. And I want to thank you folks here, the people who put this on. You did a hell of a job.

continue to do so. It's a great thing that you did here in bringing us all together for our primary purpose that we must stay with. Trust God, clean house, and help others and stay with our primary purpose always and we'll always have a so I challenge each and every one of you today that we abandon ourselves to God as we understand God.

clear away the records of the past, admit our faults to our fellows, and I have no doubt that all of us somewhere, some way, sometime will meet again. And until then, God bless all of you. And I love all of you.

Thanks so much. 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.