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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. My name is Tom Kerner and I'm an alcoholic and uh I'm happy to be one of Richie's sponsors that's still alive.

It's another reason to move to Florida. It's it's it's kind of weird. I we're loving being here.

I mean, I'm the replacement speaker for Bobby C, and I think if Bobby C knew I was going to replace him, he would have taken a hell of a lot better care of his health. But uh so if this flops, it's going out as Bobby C. That's uh that's a real pleasure for us to be here, and I want to uh thank the committee and and uh and all the folks on it.

Uh uh even Danielle who voted against me. But uh and Richie who has a nicer flower than I do. Uh but it's been so good to see uh to be here.

It's been about 2 years since Sue and I moved down to Florida. And uh what a treat this is for us to get back and and see all our our family of choice and all our loved ones. and uh uh once again to extend our thanks for everything that you've done for us and to let you know that we're still busy and active in uh the fellowship and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My sobriety date is September 15th, 1978. And I've been uh continuously active in the fellowship uh since that date. And the reason I tell you that date is for two reasons.

Number one, my sponsors told me to tell you that this works. And the other is to remind me that God could and would do for me what I couldn't do for myself. And uh it's been an interesting journey to say the least.

I also say I've been in the fellowship since then. I come in and I run I run into a lot of people that'll you know they'll say I've been around AA. I I the last night I went to my old home group and I I was talking to a guy there and he said, "Well, you know, how long you been sober?" He said, "Well, I've been around AA since such and such." I said, "How long you been sober?" Well, you know, it was just it was just a short period of time, but uh the point is is I've been around airports for some 50 years now.

Uh but I still don't know how to fly a plane. So, uh it really doesn't count if you need a pilot, how long I've been around. You know, I everything I've uh really learned about life and I've learned about how to live life, I've learned about uh relationships and who to be and what to be and everything.

I've learned from Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh it's uh you know, it's it's amazing. I'm not up here because I'm any great speaker by any shakes or any stretch of the imagination.

I'm up here tonight because hopefully uh maybe I can share with you a little bit and maybe you can get a taste of all the wonderful people that God's put in my life. Uh I used to think when I first came in here that God did miracles by a zap of lightning and everything was fixed. And uh of course I know better now and and uh it's it's you know through the people that God speaks to me and shows me and tells me what to do.

And uh a lot of the messages I get from people I don't like. So uh but uh that's okay. I'm you've taught me to listen to the message uh not the messenger.

When I first came around Alcoholics Anonymous, around Alcoholics Anonymous, not in it. Uh it was because uh I was getting into trouble at home and stuff like that and I'd make promises uh you know to my wife that uh yeah, okay, I'll do something about my drinking. And uh I got drugged to a few meetings and uh I saw what the deal was a little bit or I thought I knew what it was.

But I you know I had some questions in my mind and a lot of you have heard this example but I it rings so true to me I got to tell it again. And so when I finally came into Alcoholics Anonymous I had three basic questions in my mind and the first question I had is is what's an alcoholic? Now the reason I had that question is because as an active alcoholic I was a perfectionist and as a perfectionist uh everything had to be to the tea.

if if something went wrong or didn't go exactly right, it had to fit exactly within a certain pattern or it wasn't my fault. It had to be perfect. So, I figured if I asked you what an alcoholic was and you gave me a definition, I could find some loophole and I could escape it.

So, uh that's what we did. But the uh people that uh saw me come in and size me up. And by the way, I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in in 1978 in Portsouth, Ohio down on the Ohio River.

But they saw me and they looked at me and they said, 'Well, for you, they said, uh, we don't have a word definition. But they said, maybe you'll understand the picture definition. And they said, imagine a room about this size.

And the room's empty except for two chairs in the middle. And on one side there's a door and the other side there's a door. Now, in those two chairs, you sit you sit two people.

One's an alcoholic and one's a non-alcoholic. And outside that door in the uh right hand side of the room is happiness ever after. Outside the door on the left side of the room where Randy standing, I wonder why that is.

Uh there's an angry man with a baseball bat. And so in the two chairs sit the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. The non-alcoholic sits there, looks around the room a little bit, gets up, goes out the door in the left hand side of the room.

The angry guy with the baseball bats out there, clubs the non-alcoholic around the head a few times. The non-alcoholic comes in, sits down, thinks about it. The non-alcoholic gets up, goes outside the right side of the room.

Happiness ever after, not to be seen again. End the story. The alcoholic's sitting there and watching this.

So, the alcoholic now gets up, goes outside the left door where the angry guy is with the baseball bat. That guy clubs him around the head and shoulders a few times. The alcoholic comes back down to the middle of the room, sits down, and thinks about it.

The alcoholic thinks about it, gets up, goes back out the left side of the door there. And the guy's out there with the baseball bat. He's a little angrier now.

Now you're really starting to bug him. And he beats him around the head and shoulders a little harder, a little longer. The alcoholic comes back in, sits down, thinks about it.

The alcoholic thinks about it, gets up, goes back outside the left side of the room again. The guy is really angry and really clubs him and beats him for a while. And just the alcoholic comes staggering back into his chair, bloodied and beaten.

Sits down and thinks about it. The alcoholic thinks about it and thinks about it. gets up one more time, goes back out the left side of the room, but now the guy with the baseball bat is gone.

The alcoholic goes looking for him. Well, we just got to know, don't we? Yeah.

I said, "Okay." I said, "Uh, how did I become one then?" And they said, "You know, we really don't know. We don't know if it's in the genes, if it's in the water, if it's in your DNA, if we don't know if you you caught it from your grandfather or your uncle three times removed. Uh we really don't know how or why you became one.

The fact is once you are one, you are one. And they told me the story about the cucumber and the pickle. They said, you know, to make a pickle, you take a cucumber and you soak that cucumber in brine.

And after a period of time, that cucumber that's soaking in brine becomes a pickle. Now, the important thing isn't when it becomes a pickle. The important thing is once the cucumber becomes a pickle, it can't be a cucumber again.

I'm a pickle. I ain't going to be a cucumber again. That's all I needed to know.

And then the third question I had was, okay, if that's it, how do I get rid of it? And they said, we don't know. Alcoholics Anonymous is not about how to get rid of it.

It's about how to live with it. And you know, that's what they started sharing with me in those rooms from then on. And that's what uh you've been sharing with me ever since is how to live with it.

I was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and uh went to school in uh Ohio. I did a little drinking in my teenage years. Uh don't remember a lot about it.

But in Ohio, I immediately liked Ohio because in those days the drinking age in Pennsylvania was uh 21. In Ohio, you could drink uh 32 beer for at age 18. And I guess regular beer has 32 or has seven or six or 7% alcohol.

But uh just like a real alcoholic just because I could drink at 18 32 beer. I wanted to you know the higher stuff right away. I didn't even know why but you can get drunk with 32.

Believe me. Uh and I like the freedom there and I liked as it says in the big book men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol and I like the effect alcohol produced in me. And I don't know about you, but the effect alcohol produced in me is it began to almost immediately alter my perception of reality.

I wasn't any brighter. I wasn't any better looking. I wasn't any smarter.

I wasn't any quicker. I wasn't any more athletic. But I felt like I was.

And that was my perception of reality. And it went on from there. I met my wife to be Sue and fell in love with her immediately.

and uh we met in class and uh uh as important as she was to me, uh drinking was still more important. We uh dated in college, got engaged, and uh got married just before uh we graduated from college. But even while we were dating and engaged, I was lying to her about how much I was drinking.

A lot of times I'd miss class because I was just drinking. I just I just like I like the effect. Once again, I like the freedom.

I like what I could get away with. We got married and we moved to uh Cincinnati and and we had our first child there and we weren't there too long. I already was getting in job troubles because drinking was more important.

I started taking some of the company's money because I needed that. I was always going to pay it back. Every good embezzler is going to pay things back.

It never you know, you know, that was my first nasty life lesson is that people don't judge you on your intentions. It's uh it's your actions that really get you in trouble. And uh so we had our first child there and uh uh I had to get some other jobs and then we moved up to Columbus, Ohio.

And uh we had our second child up there. And you know all this time our life is already we had been married that long but our life has gone through a roller coaster from uh you know uh trouble to to good times to you know trouble depths of depression, synthetic highs back and forth again and and promises and lies and things like that. Didn't mean to be.

You know when I started out uh in this marriage in this life I I wanted to be the best husband I could be. I wanted to be the best provider, the best salesman, the best father, all of that stuff. and I was fast becoming the opposite of everything I wanted to be um in Columbus.

Uh and I'm not going to tell her story. A lot a lot of times Sue and I when uh uh we we're fortunate enough to to go to these things a few times a year as uh as AA and Allenon speakers. We both get to uh tell our stories like Dave and Denise will tomorrow.

At the Allenon function, Sue gets to uh go last and at the AA conventions, I get to go last. But this is a terrific weekend. Sue doesn't get to speak at all.

So by the time you find the real truth, it'll be too late. I want to tell you how good a man I was. Okay.

But anyhow, we we uh you know, we started on our path and then she discovered uh uh you know, she wanted to know what was wrong. Why was I uh you know, not keeping promises? Why wasn't I coming home sometimes?

Why was I coming home drunk? Why, you know, what what was wrong? And I really didn't know.

Uh but in desperation, I think one night she found uh some uh doctor in the yellow pages. And you got to remember back, this is in the mid70s and and there weren't a lot of ads on TV. Alcoholism was still a pretty big stigma.

Uh and uh not that it is today. I don't know what it is today. I don't care.

I've been sober long enough. It really doesn't make any difference. But you know, all of these things, but she she found a doctor that dealt with alcoholism and drinking problems.

And because I was a salesman and wore a coat and tie to work most of the time, uh, you know, and I I kind of showed up for work. We felt it was a drinking problem. We didn't know alcoholism.

We still had the old stereotypes. So, I had done something again and I had made a promise and I would go to her to see this psychiatrist or psychologist. And I remember we sat in his office in Columbus, Ohio.

And he asked us uh questions. And when they were directed at me, if I answered, I gave him tur one-word answers. if I answered at all.

And uh you know, she was trying to be helpful and what can I do to help and all this kind of stuff. And finally, in frustration, he looked at me and he said, "You're an alcoholic. You need to go to AA." And he suggested she needed to go to Alanon.

Well, I was kind of upset by the diagnosis. Um I wanted a second opinion, but I was afraid they told me I was ugly, too, so I didn't go. Uh so anyhow, he said to me, "I got a book I want you to look at." and and when you come back for the next session, we'll we'll talk about what's in the book.

And I thought that's a bunch of hoie because I'm not coming back for any next session. Uh but I wasn't out of the jackpot yet. So I agreed to take it.

And the book he handed me is Marty Man's primer on alcoholism. And I'm not here to advocate the book. I'm just telling you what it went on in my life.

And Marty man was the uh first female recovering alcoholic, I believe, in the New York area. Real old-timer. And uh this book Marty man was, you know, basically written uh to to introduce people, talk a little bit about AA and what it did.

But on the back of the jacket cover of this book was Marty man's picture. And Marty is a she. And I was about four years sober when I realized Marty was a she.

So, but I did look at the book somewhat, you know, and I went through the book and there was something in there as I remember the different chapters. I still have the book at home and uh I need to look at it again. But one of the chapters was like 20 questions.

You know, you can give yourself, we used to have a pamphlet on that. I don't know if we still have it, but you can give yourself a little quiz, 20 questions, ask yourself to see if if if you need help or if you're probably an alcoholic. And usually most of these pamphlets say if you answer three or more questions in the affirmative, you're probably an alcoholic and you need help.

Well, I went through and I took that test and I got like 10 or 11 affirmative out of 20 and I was cheating. And uh but you know, once again, I figured well it didn't really apply directly to me. So I moved on a little bit.

And then there was another chapter that described the alcoholic and it said alcoholics are old and they're young and they're tall and they're short and they're middle size and they're heavy and they're light and they're uh white and they're yellow and they're black and they're red and every color in between and they're intelligent and they're stupid and just a whole realm of things. And I looked at that stuff and I said, "Well, that doesn't that doesn't count me." And there somehow they missed me. Uh, and then the next chapter I got to, uh, it said something like, "If you're not sure you're an alcoholic, why don't you give yourself a test?" And I thought that was a brilliant idea.

Okay, I got to tell you, if you got to test yourself to see if you're an alcoholic, you are one. Normal people don't have to test themselves. Normal people don't have to give up drinking.

normal people don't have to worry about it, but uh we alcoholics do. And the funny thing is, and that's how I got into the Big Book, too. The Big Book says the same thing.

If you're not sure, try a little control drinking, try and stop abruptly. One guy said that at a meeting many, many years ago, and I thought he was nuts. And my sponsor said, "Why don't you read the big book?" And I did.

And uh to my strict grin, it was in there. So, but anyhow, I saw this at Marty Mans and said, "Give yourself a test to see if you're an alcoholic." And I said, "That's what I'll do. I'll take this test, this drinking test.

And it said basically the same thing the big book does. Try try a little bit. Try and stop abruptly.

And if you have a problem, you know, you're probably an alcoholic. So in my mind and what I heard, now I got to tell you something. As an alcoholic, what you say and what I hear, there's a short circuit in between.

Okay? So Sue will say to me, Tom, I love you. when I hear and I'm what did she mean by that?

You know, you know what's she leading up to? It's a nasty chore in here someplace. So, so that's that short circuit.

No matter who says it to me, something goes off in here. So, anyhow, as I'm hearing this and it goes through my filtering system, I understood it to be take one drink a day for seven days in a row and you prove once and for all you're not an alcoholic. So, I started out that following Monday and I went into my favorite watering hole uh and I ordered a drink and uh I specified the largest container you have cuz I'm not a fool.

Um so, I nursed that drink through and the container they had wasn't as large as I would have liked. Uh, and I nursed it through and at the end of that first drink, my face wasn't fuzzy, my speech wasn't slurred. I didn't fall off the bar stool and I thought, you know, this test is pretty ridiculously simple.

Uh, and there's no reason I need to wait a week to see the results. So, I thought what I'd do is I'd double up a little, you know, and I'll just cut the test in half. So, I said, "Well, give me another drink today and I'll have two drinks a And I had that second drink that day and I got to thinking, but somehow I said, "Well, no, I got to be honest." And, you know, I went home, much to the shock of my family.

Tuesday came along. I did the same thing. I ordered two drinks, but I'm pretty happy about it cuz now I'm halfway through.

That's four out of seven. Uh, I'm doing well. I didn't fall off the bar stool.

My speech wasn't slurred. My face wasn't fuzzy, so I know I'm doing well. Wednesday came along.

I'm really getting excited. We're getting close to the end of the test. I had two drinks.

Once again, Wednesday, that's the sixth drink. My face wasn't fuzzy, speech wasn't slurred. To any rational, intelligent human being, you know, there's not going to be a problem with one drink on Thursday.

So, I said, "Why don't you give me that now? We'll finish the test and get this over." So, I had that extra drink that day and that was seven. And I gave myself the face test and I was still on the bar stool and my speech wasn't slurred in my opinion.

And uh I declared myself I had passed the test. I'm not an alcoholic. Stay off my back.

Well, I stayed and gave myself one hell of a graduation party. Well, you know, we all should be pretty happy with that result. And uh and that's a true story.

And I you know, I I but something in the back of my mind kept saying, you know, there's something missing here. and uh honesty was starting to rear its ugly head. But you know what I started to learn was that they were they were watching me a little more closely and and uh you know I didn't like that.

And now you know somebody once said a drunk is somebody who drinks and their behavior bothers other people. Uh an alcoholic is is somebody who drinks and their behavior bothers other people and themselves. And that's the point I was finally starting to reach is that it was starting to bother me.

Fortunately, Sue was going to Alanon and Alanon is for the family, friends, and loved ones of alcoholics. And thank God they took care of my family for many years when I couldn't. In the midst of that, we took a geographic cure and we moved from Columbus, Ohio down to Portsmouth, Ohio.

new job, new opportunity. And uh we went down there, two young kids, you know, got a house and uh struggling along trying to uh uh you know, be a big fish in a small pound. It was a small town down there.

I had uh an executive position in an agency and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, my alcohol continued to increase. It's it's a it's an interesting thing.

The big book tells us too that we have an illness which is it's it's terminal, it's progressive and it's incurable and the progressiveness was starting to uh to really increase. Uh now I started to and I was a blackout drinker too. Fortunately S once again found Allen on down there and and there were AA meetings at the same time.

I got drugged to a few of the AA meetings. I remember going to an AA meeting in 1976, the bicesentennial year if any of you were born by then. And I thought and I listened to the speaker and I thought, you know, this will sound good in my story someday if I sober up in 1976.

Uh unfortunately the uh operative word was sober up and uh but that's what my thinking was at that time and it wasn't didn't have anything to do with being a better person or anything. It was still all that selfish motivation. You know, I got to the point I had another job and I was a an executive for a firm out of the West Coast.

I was flying around the uh country all week. Even in those days in in the uh uh mid to late 70s, I was living a country club life. I had a fancy title, big fancy car, expense account, uh nice office out there.

And my c my family was living back in Ohio. And they were living the welfare life if they were living that well. And I'm not suggesting that the welfare life is good, but they didn't know if the bills were paid.

They didn't know if the uh uh you know if the mortgage was paid. There was no money in the account and all that kind of stuff. And I didn't mean to be that way.

I loved them as best I could. But uh that's what alcohol allowed me to do. It was just you know trying to live from one drunk to the next.

Um you know the other thing I believe too is I believe that the non-alcoholics in our life have the worst end of this disease than we do many times. Because if you're there and you tell somebody often enough and frequently enough that they're stupid and they're no good and they're not doing things right and everything that's gone wrong is their fault, sooner or later they're going to start to believe it. And that wasn't true, but that's what alcohol helped me accomplish.

You know, there used to be an old song years ago, you always hurt the one you love. That's not true. You always hurt the ones that love you.

And uh once again, alcohol, alcoholism, it's a disease that tells you you don't have it. And uh on it went I finally got to the point, you know, everything when I was drinking, everything I despised, I became. I had to continually lower my sights.

And I said, if I ever got that bad, when I got that bad, I lowered them again and again and again. And finally, you know, when when it came time to come in, lying wasn't second nature to me. Lying was the only thing I knew.

I had no real friends. Nobody trusted me anymore. The only interaction we'd have as a family is when I'd come in drunk and I try to pick a fight with Sue so I could go back out.

Those sto Allen taught her to look me in the face and say, "You're sick and you need help." And she'd walk away. And I still don't have an answer for that today. Uh but you know, it got it got closer and closer and you know you uh we have or there's a pamphlet around it's not a conference approved but it's called the man in the glass or the gall in the glass.

It talks about looking at yourself in the mirror. And the one person you really can't fool is the person looking back at you. And I remember getting up in the morning and I remember looking in the mirror and I remember saying to that sorry face looking back to me at the end of my drinking that you're not going to get drunk again tonight.

And that day would go by and I'd do the best I could that day. And then the next morning would come and I'd look at that sorry face, that disgusting face, the face I had revulsion for my face and I'd say, "Why'd you get drunk again last night?" You know, it's one thing to lie to everybody you know, but when you can't even keep a promise to yourself that nobody else knows about, you sure don't have much use for yourself. There was a constant knot and a constant tension in my stomach.

I just knew the next shoe would drop. But being a good alcoholic, I was a runner and my final run was going to be suicide. You know, I got to think back and and uh we both work with people today.

I I have a sponsor. I sponsor people. were active in the program and we're very careful about anonymity of folks but you know recently Sue's been working with some with a family and they have a wife and small kids and it reminds me of when my family was small when my daughter was seven and my son was three two beautiful blondhaired kids and I loved them as best I could but if it came to buying shoes for them or making sure there was food in the house I would find some frivolous reason not to not not to do that it would booze or I had to take care of the booze or you know once again I'm not proud of that but I didn't you know once again a lot of times we don't see it when we're in it but we feel it I kept feeling that loneliness the things were narrowing in I had no place to go I finally got fired from that big fancy job I used to say I used to say I lost that job well I know exactly where the job was only problem was I wasn't welcome to be there with it.

So, so I they fired me for that because I was drunk and and now you know that was the end of it. Yeah. And I like to tell people remember your last couple of drunks you had before you sobered up because that's as good as it's going to get.

It keeps going downhill from there, you know. And we hopefully we'll talk about that a little bit more with the obsession. But anyhow, I got to that point.

I had lost that job. I was out of hope. My family had had enough.

They were leaving. The bank had had enough. They were taking a house back.

Everything was crumbling in. I had done some business with some people that were not nice people. And I owed them some money.

And they weren't the kind that was going to put it on terms. They wanted their money. And uh so it was all caving in on me.

So, uh suicide was going to be it. And I remember uh being in a bar. Columbus is about 90 mi direct north of Portsouth.

And uh I remember being in a bar in Columbus that afternoon. I was got as drunk as I could. I think I called home.

I had to be dramatic about it. And I really did love him and I wanted to say goodbye. I didn't realize the damage I was causing doing that.

I had the bridge abutment picked out. I started driving south and you know sobbing and crying and all that kind of stuff. And uh uh just crazy alies.

But when I got to that bridge abutton, I found out I couldn't do it. And now I was really scared because what do you do? Where do I run to?

And the only thing I could remember is those meetings I had gone to in Portsmouth. They said to me, "Keep coming back." And that's the last place in the world I wanted to be was in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But when you got no place else to go, it's not a bad place to be.

And so I remember on that Friday in September 15th, 1978, I went I didn't have a drink that day. That's that's uh that's why it's my sobriety day. And I probably didn't have a drink for a day or two before that either.

But I went to the meeting that Friday night and I walked in the door and one of my first sponsors looked at me and I said to him, I said, "Red, I need some help." And he asked me the allimp important question and the same question I asked people that asked me to sponsor them today. He said to me, Tom, he said, "What are you willing to do to stay sober?" And the answer I gave him that night is the same answer I'd give him tonight. It hasn't changed since.

I said, "Absolutely anything." And I think that's a commitment you have to have if you're going to make it in Alcoholics Anonymous. it has to be absolutely anything. And they said, "Okay, maybe you're teachable." And they told me right off the bat, "My sobriety has to come first.

If I don't have my sobriety, I don't have anything else anyhow." And they started teaching me about wants and needs and higher powers and things like that, you know. And they said, "Maybe you're teachable." And he said, "The first thing we got to do is we got to change your attitude." And I said, "What's wrong with my attitude?" And they said, "Your attitude's pretty crappy." And I said, 'You haven't been listening to me. My life's pretty crappy.

I said, 'My family's had enough. They're leaving me. The bank is taking a house back.

I'm deep in debt. I'm never going to get out. Uh I I'm, you know, unemployed.

I'm unemployable. I'm really, you know, I got nothing to look forward to. And they said, well, for starters, they said, you got two arms, two egg, two legs, two eyes, two ears.

You can walk, talk, and breathe, can't you? And I said, yeah. And they said, that's a lot more than a lot of people have.

And they said, "In addition to that, we've given you some hope, and that's a lot more than a lot of people have." And they were right. And they started teaching me the basic things about life. You know, they started teaching me that God will give me what I need.

May not necessarily be what I want, but I'll get what I need. You know, if you ask me what I wanted today, I'd say I wanted a lot of money in several banks. I'd want maybe several Rolls-Royces.

I'd like to have a nice vacation home up here. The biggest one around, obviously. Uh uh we live in Florida, but not on a beach.

I'd like to live on a beach, you know, in a house. Yeah. I Sue has given me the option from time to time, but uh I'd like to be in a house.

Um you know, and just other things you can think of. I' I'd even like a big yacht. I don't like boating, but I don't, you know, I think they look neat.

I think I'd one would look good on me. And obviously if you had one, I'd want one bigger than yours. Uh but you know, I didn't need any of that to stay sober today.

God gave me what I needed. But but I've gotten a lot of things in sobriety I've wanted, too. You know, and I had to learn about material things and how important they were because when I was drinking and and you know, my understanding was uh I like that saying, he who dies with the most wins or something like that.

Yeah. >> Yeah. That's written by an ale.

Did you write that? He who has the most toys wins. Alkey.

Uh you know, my sponsors taught me God just lends us things. God just lends us people. God just lends us material things.

God just lends us time. He lends us things like that. It's not ours to keep.

It's not ours to hold on to. We're just lent things. And when we go, none of us are taking any of it with us.

But what we have inside is the difference. So it comes down to this. 50 years from now, nobody's going to give a damn how much money you got in your wallet or purse tonight.

They told me that. And they said, you know, nobody's going to care 10 years from now what kind of car you drove here. And nobody's going to care 5 years from now what kind of house you lived in.

And nobody's going to care a year from now once again how much money you got or anything like that. And we and they said in the minute they got sad news for you. Probably nobody's going to care tomorrow.

But the fact is none of that's important. What you learn and what you take with you. Now they have a saying down there, one I run across recently.

It's not the meetings you make, it's the steps you take. And I got sober down there and those people the first thing they did was make me read the big book. And I went through it and I was early in sobriety and I really didn't understand it.

But it didn't make the difference whether I understood it or agreed with it or liked it or not because it set the tone for my sobriety. I was to go back to our basic textbook, the big book. And I'm sure all of you know we have four textbooks in a basic textbook, the big book.

If you don't know what the other three are, I do and you don't. So, I'm after progress, not perfection. Um, but the answers in the AA pamphlet out there, 44 questions.

So, we don't make this stuff up. We do read it. But they started teaching me that and then within a year, I was lucky enough to get offered a job with an old employer up in the Cleveland area and check with my sponsors and things like that.

And we moved up to the Cleveland area and they told me many things. They told me, you know, get get a home group up there. Get involved.

Get a sponsor. And uh we found a meeting up there. Our kids now were uh I guess Jen was about I don't know 11 or something like that.

Bill might have been about seven or eight. And we found a meeting with AA Allen and Alatine out in Seven Hills. We lived in Strongsville.

And so we started going there every Friday night. And that became my men's home group. Still have some wonderful friends there today.

And the one thing about a home group, uh, uh, they told me, you know, just that's that's a home group. You keep going. You're there every week, a mile or high water, and people get to know you and you get to know them.

I was about a year and a half sober. Now, we're living up there about a year and, uh, I got a registered letter in the mail. Uh, I don't know about you, I've never gotten anything good by registered mail.

And, uh, so I opened this thing up and it was from some of these people I owed a lot of money to. uh they were not only willing and anxious to press charges, but they were also willing and anxious to have me do some uh prison time, too. And so I got that letter like on a Wednesday and I was once again immobilized with fear.

And I stumbled around like a zombie, but I remember what I was taught. Don't drink, go to meetings. I went to a meeting that night, sat in the back of the room, you know, didn't really talk to anybody or anything, but you know, I I just just I was going through all these all this fear and all these whatifs in my mind.

I left the meeting and I went home, but I didn't take a drink. Thursday came along, same thing happened. I stumbled around like a zombie all day.

Went to a meeting that night. People asked, "How you doing?" I said, "Fine." Uh, sat in the back of the room, you know, really didn't talk to anybody. Didn't know how to bring it up.

After the meeting, went home, didn't take a drink. Friday came along and and you know, once again, going through like a zombie, fear. I can't get out of this.

See, no way out. No escape, no, you know, rhyme or reason. And I went to my home group that night and I no sooner walked through the door and one of the guys in the home group looked at me and said, "Jesus," he said, "you look like hell.

What's going on?" And that's all I needed to start to dump this tail of wool on them. You know, I owe this and these people and this and that and they're after me and this and I don't know, you know, when I owe, I owe I owe. But it wasn't off the work I go.

I just I owe I owe I owe. I was working at the time. And when I got done dumping his tail of woe, huge pile on the table, he looked at me and he said, "Wow." I was hoping for a lot more than that.

Uh he said to me, uh he said, "Are you praying?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm praying. I'm a year and a half sober for crying out loud. I know you got to pray." And he said, "Well, what are you saying?" And I said, "Well, God, get rid of this crap.

But you know, I was a year and a half sober. So that time you get polite. So I said, "God, get rid of this crap, please." And he said, "Well, that's not the way to do it." I said, "Must not be because it's not working." He said, "Why don't you try this when you got home tonight?" He said, "Why don't you get down on your knees?" That's a novel idea.

And say something to this effect. God, I'm not asking you to get rid of this crap. I am asking you to give me the strength to bear this burden.

little different tune on what I was thinking. And I went home that night and I did get down on my knees and I said something to that effect. I said, "God, I'm not asking you to get rid of it, but please give me the strength to bear this burden." And you know, I can't tell you how or when or where, but God gave us the strength and gave me the strength and gave our family the strength to get through those burdens and many other sins.

But you know, I learned an important lesson that time. I learned that God doesn't do it for me. That if I ask for the help, it'll always be there.

But I have to take the action. I take the action. God's responsible for the results.

But it was an important lesson to me because I always had this fairy tale thing, you know, where God's going to just zap me with a miracle, make it go away, and all things will be better. That's not reality. I don't learn anything from that when people do things for me.

I have to learn the hard way. So anyhow, we got through that and uh uh you know, life continued on and and I got very active in uh in the Cleveland area. I was fortunate enough to be on the uh intergroup oversight board.

Cleveland's got one of the over older intergroup officers in the country. We got involved uh uh you know in our groups and uh Sue was ended up being the delegate for Allen on from there and uh uh we had good times. We had a wonderful uh social set of friends.

We had you know there's two parts to AA okay and I I'd hate to see you miss either one of them. One part is the fellowship and that's what we see in this room and things like that tonight. The other parts of the program of recovery is listed in the big book and my sponsors taught me that early on and I wouldn't want to be without either one.

At times the fellowship carried me through things and at times this the uh the uh program carried me through things. As time went on, uh, we were in Cleveland, I think, for about eight or nine years, and then we had to make a career decision again, which affected all of us, and we, uh, ended up moving to New England. Uh, and we moved into, uh, New Hampshire.

Uh, looked around New England, and, uh, uh, this is where we ended up. And, uh, uh, things didn't go real well from the very beginning. Our son, who was in junior high, we prayed about this, we discussed it and everything.

And he became severely depressed when we moved here. He's a wonderful young man. He's a wonderful man today.

And our kids are both, we've been blessed, pretty good kids. And you know, once again, I learned another life's lesson that I couldn't talk anybody out of anything. I was powerless to change.

Uh uh there's nothing I could do except pray to God. So, you know, it takes uh takes a lot of courage to put one of your precious things in God's hands, you know, and say, "You take care of it." But that's what happened, you know, and God took care of it. And uh he's a wonderful man today and and uh but you know it took a lot of faith and uh and and I can't tell you I was 100% full of faith all the time.

You know you often wonder you think back in decisions and we go back and we say what were our motives and intentions and they were all good when we moved we had all the right things in mind. So if your motives and intentions were good you keep on the course and that's what happened. We both got very active in program here.

Uh uh I got active in uh uh you know through no choice of my own. I didn't go out and dance. They got I think I'll help out uh AA in New Hampshire.

Uh uh like Richie I got tricked into things. Uh they appeared to my weak side. I said to somebody, I don't like the way they're doing it.

And they said, why don't you fix it? And I said, I think by God I will. And uh so you know, we got involved and and uh it it's just been wonderful all along.

And this is such a wonderful state and and the uh the area is such a wonderful area and and uh uh I got involved in different things and I ended up as a chair and then finally I was lucky enough to represent you as delegate uh to uh panel 52 and uh in 53 uh down in uh New York the conference general service conference that's where our conference approved literature comes from you know and I'm here to tell you I wasn't uh delegate because I was the best person available I I was delegate because God wanted me to. Uh there's a lot more people in this area that know a lot more than I or a lot better than I. It's it's not a matter of who's the best.

It's a matter of where God wants you from time to time and what lessons we have to learn. That was a wonderful experience. It was a very humbling experience and uh uh you just wouldn't trade it for anything.

Uh we were here in New Hampshire for about 19 years and as things turned out we had more career decisions to make. Our only daughter uh and our only grandson were down in Florida. She was going through a very nasty divorce down there.

Uh Sue was the main bread winner at that time. I was just flopping around selling things from time to time and uh we had to make another career decision. So we ended up moving to Florida about two years ago.

And you know, once again, you you examine your motives and intentions and you see what's right and and and uh and how it works. And it really turned out good for us. Uh we're involved down there.

Our daughter's life's better. Our our grandson's life is better. Our lives are better.

Uh, we miss all of you, but you know, the ideal thing would be if I could take my all my AA family from the various places we lived and bring them all together and live happily ever after. It just couldn't get any better than that. We uh one of the reasons that I stay sober today is I I sponsor people.

I uh I have a sponsor. Uh I belong to two groups down there. I go to at least three meetings a week now.

us more than I did when I was here, I think. And uh uh it's kind of fun, but we're involved in the big book down there again, too, you know. Um it's it's kept by studying the steps out of the big book for the last I don't know 20 25 years.

It's kept uh this program fresh for me, you know, and I understand uh I was in a meeting the other night and somebody uh well, I guess it was last night, too. The guy said he's a chronic relapser. You know, I've been around AA 16 years and I'm a chronic relapser and I thought I don't even think you know what the hell that means.

Bal, but I've tried working these steps. Bull, when people go back out, the biggest problem they have is with step one. You know, it it's not because they did five wrong or they didn't do six quite right or eight or it's step one.

If you read chapter three in a big book, which is devoted to step one, it tells us that the one thing every abnormal drinker in this room has in common, everybody in this room that's an abnormal drinker, and looking at this group, I'd say that's most of you. Uh, except my lovely wife and a few of her friends. Some of them I'm not too sure about.

But uh but it says the one thing every abnormal drinker in this room has in common is the obsession that someday they will control and enjoy their drinking. And if somebody goes back out, whether you've been sober a day, a week, a year, a decade, 20, 30 years to me that says there's something in the back of your mind that said maybe this time it'll work. Now I don't know why that gets there or I don't know why it pops up again.

But I you know it's there. And then the second biggest problem I see is step two higher power. People like to gloss over that chapter to the agnostic and I don't blame it.

It's confusing and it's tough to read sometimes. But if you take it apart bit by bit. It really directs us to work and continue to work on our understanding and relationship with our higher power in developing that.

And it has to change. If you got the same higher power today that you came in with, unless you came in yesterday, you know, that's not really good. You need to keep developing that.

Isn't it interesting? Out of the first nine steps, which are the basic steps we do, which really lead us and get us in practice to do 10, 11, and 12, which which uh we, you know, are the steps we really need to do on a daily basis because step 10 tells us that we it's easy to rest on our spiritual laurels, but we're in trouble if we do because we are not cured of alcoholism. It says that in the big book.

It says what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. And the maintenance steps are 10, 11, and 12. And when you maintain something, it doesn't mean you wait till it breaks.

It means you're continually working on it. And if you look at step 10, everything we do in step 10, we learn in the first nine steps. You know, when we're wrong or we did something wrong, what could we have done better?

We learned that back in step four in the sex list in conduct list. you need to spend some more time on that if you think that's funny. OKAY, but you know there's three lessons in step four and and one is the sex of the conduct list.

We we would definitely avoid that if we didn't you know there's no other way. And isn't it funny on step 11 how that step directs us to meditate and continue to grow with our higher power. I was meeting with my sponsors, my both my first I I sponsor several people down there.

Most of them are transplants. It's hard to find a native Flidian. Uh but one found me and uh this guy lives a little distance from me and he's a wonderful man.

He's been about 5 years sober and he's just a ball of fire. Uh he's into the big book even heavier than I am and he he sponsors about eight people and just on the go all the time. So we were having our weekly meeting.

He drives over. he can afford the gas better than I can. And uh he drives over.

So we're sitting at a Starbucks down there and down there they're y'all Starbucks. And uh we're talking and he's sending me, "What kind of week did you have last week?" And I said, "Well, you know, I I've had better week." I was getting a little sad about this and about that and all that. He said, "Are you a negative person by uh uh you know?" I said, "No, I'm not usually.

I'm usually pretty upbeat." And uh he said, "Well, what' you do when you went to bed that night?" I said, "Well, you know, I kind of prayed." And he said, "Did you read page 86?" He said, "Wait a minute, pal. I'm the sponsor here." And then I had to say to him, "What's on page 86?" >> >> He looked at me like a gator with no teeth or something. I uh and he said, "Well, that's step 11." And I said, "No, I haven't read that.

I've been focusing a lot on the third step prayer, you know, God relieve me of a bondage of self, but I hadn't been reading." He said, "Well," he said, "I had an old fellow tell me, and I'm, you know," and I'm thinking, "Everybody's old to this guy." Uh but he said I had an old fellow tell me he said it's not good to memorize these things. He said you he said we need to read them every night. So I went home that night and I read page 86.

And you know it just it tells us as step 11 does. It tells us what to do all day. What to do at night we reflect on the day what to do in the morning.

What to do during the day when we get aggravated. And it's something I need. Once again it's the message that comes through to me.

And you know I kid about that. I I when God gives me somebody to sponsor, I have no illusions that it's for me to help them. And I mean that sincerely.

It's because God feels I need to help. And I've learned so much from people over the years. You know, if I all the people in this room, there's so many people in this room that have helped me in various ways.

You know, my good friend Richie, I remember Danielle when she came in. Hell, I remember her when she was in Alatine. uh must have been drinking then and I didn't know about it, you know.

And then there's Paul and Kevin and and uh uh Dave back there and a lot of people from my home group and I'm going to miss people so I don't want to start naming everybody and a lot of folks that weren't. But it it's the people that come into your life and and you know, you have to be available. I wouldn't have found people in Florida AA if I didn't go to meetings down there.

It would have been easy for me to when I came to New Hampshire, I was over 10 years or about 10 years sober to say, you know, I really don't need to go to meetings anymore. And I can tell you a lot of stories about stuff like that where my thinking starts to get out of whack. If I start Well, once again, it's not the meetings you make, it's the steps you take.

You know, I can go to all the meetings I want, but if I'm just claiming my seat, >> what the hell does that mean? Claiming your That's my seat there. Why?

Well, because I drank for 20 years. No, that's not why you claim a seat. You claim a seat because you're in recovery and you're doing something about it.

And you know, if you've been in recovery for more than a year, it's your responsibility to make sure that this AA thing continues on. And it's your responsibility as AA members, just as it is mine and has been. And we don't always like it.

We don't do it every day, but we got to know these traditions and what they're for and how we go about them. You know, that's the way it is. Uh people, you people have taught that to me.

I'm not lecturing you. I'm giving it back to you. So that's the difference.

You know, out of all the things you've taught me, uh, and and like I said, the big book is such a The other thing I I I do need to say this, uh, I I've sponsored various people, and I've always asked the people I sponsor to sponsor people. And if you're not sponsoring somebody, you're not working 12 steps. It's just simple as that.

Now, that sponsoring somebody doesn't mean you have to have a formal resolve. But if somebody's out there and they need the help, sponsoring means you're talking from your heart. You can hear a lot of people talk from their heads and you can tell, you've been an AA, you've been sober long enough, you know when somebody's talking from your heart or when they're talking from their head.

And if they're talking from their head, tell them talk to the hand. Okay? I remember when I was brand new, there was a new person came in and my sponsor said, "Go over and talk to that person." And I said, "Geez, I don't know what to say to them.

What if I say the wrong thing and they get drunk?" you know, like I was that powerful. Uh, and they said it doesn't really make any difference. You know, if they want to stay sober, you can't say anything wrong.

And if they want to get drunk, you can't say anything right if you're talking from your heart. And that's the key. We talk from our heart and that makes such a big difference.

You also taught me to keep it in now. I can't change anything that happened a year ago, a day ago, a week ago, a decade ago. And tomorrow never comes.

I get dried up. My final days of drinking, I was in a uh in Columbus, Ohio. I went to a bar up there was a new bar and uh I walked in and I saw the sign and it said free beer tomorrow.

And uh and I wasn't a praying man in those days, but I said thank you. And >> >> uh so uh I knew where I was going to be tomorrow. And the next day came and I I walked back in there and guy said, "What do you have?" I said, "I'll have some of that free beer." He said, "Read the sign." I said, "Free beer tomorrow." I said, "I must have had the wrong day." You know, and I don't know how stupid I was or how long I went back, but the fact was tomorrow never came.

Okay? And I find out today the most times I get in trouble when I get away from what's right in front of me. When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, my early sponsor said to me, "Can you stay sober?

Can you stay away from a drink for 24 hours?" And I said, "I doubt it." And I don't think I could have. And they said, "That's okay." They said, "We haven't either, but what we do do is I'm not going to have a drink for the next 5 minutes." He said, "Try that." I tried that. But I didn't have a drink for the next 5 minutes and next 5 minutes after that.

And that's been working for almost 30 years now. But I have to keep it in now. I can't quit for tomorrow.

And I can't quit for yesterday. You know, alls I have is now. But if I stay in now, if you focus on where you are now, you can be grateful now for what you have.

You got a lot of good things in your life right now. There's people here that care about us right now. There's people that aren't in these rooms that care about us and pray for us right now.

We are pretty lucky people and we're blessed. And and you know, once again, my blessing comes through people. And one of the biggest blessings we've had recently is this trip.

I'm sorry Bobby C is is is ill. I really am. But it's funny how, you know, God will take one misfortune and make another person fortunate out of it.

We just love being here. We we've got so much. Uh thank you for keeping me sober all these years.

And thank you for letting me share. God bless you. Thank you.

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Until next time, have a great day.