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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's Tom Loverin and I'm an alcoholic.

Now, I guess I would have said Tom L, but I've been walking around four days with it written on the front of me. You can read across this room. I also thank for Chuck and my sake.

We ought to remind you that I know doctors that lost patients permanently and we didn't lose this one. The treatment took a little longer. I bet many of you also know that I am a member of the clergy of the Methodist Church.

And I want to assure you that I am a part of the ministry because of AA and I am a member of this blessed fellowship because I belong here and need to be here. I certainly want to express my appreciation to Mo and to all of the lovely people here who have made possible this wonderful three or four days for Gay my wife who is my lenley from heaven and myself. I I I I feel some resentments and I feel like I ought to get rid of them before you talk about a spiritual program.

many of you. Give me a couple of minutes. I'll do a quick inventory and we'll try to get rid of them.

One of the resentments you have nothing to do with. I've been a part of the ministry for almost 22 years and I don't ever recall having a congregation this big. And habit alone makes me want to preach and take up an offering.

All right, man. We were fortunate enough to be invited here on Thursday. And we had a marvelous little dinner party Thursday evening.

And a and at which time we who were new to this marvelous thing you do here at Palm Springs were acquainted with some of your traditions that have grown in these 11 years. I I was just flabbergasted with the beauty of the hostess. I've been to so many AA affairs over the last 22 or more years and I never seen anything quite like this.

And as we sat out there this evening, the hostess Gail said for the hostess said, "Now, you know, our job is to look for people who seem lonely and and don't know people, and we're going to do something to make them happy." And I just got my conference started off great on Friday morning until Gabe caught me standing around in the halls looking lonely all the time. and you get yourself invited to a thing like this and and and they didn't tell me Lanne was going to proceed me on this program. I've been through this at Miami last July and she destroyed me there.

But but they walk around all weekend with the arm about your shoulder and they pat you on the back and and and then they bring in these blunt busters from everywhere, you know, and you you sit for three days and listen to them make your speech and then when it's all said and everybody's had about all they can handle, they come around and say, "Well, Tom, you can talk this morning." And I I kind of resent this, but I I I think it'll be all right. I think you're going to make it all right. And I tell you something else, I resent it a little bit.

Ever since I got here, they've made a big thing about the fact they've never had a Protestant clergyman here before for 11 years. Just Catholics. If I could just remember what you teach me about patience with my resentments, I wouldn't have had to care this one until last night.

I I this was solved last night for me. I I want you to know you brought your first Protestant drunk here and your attendance increased by 600. Now, I quickly want to share one one thought with you about this attire.

This is the first time in 22 years I've worn a p sport coat on Sunday morning. It feels good, huh? and all fairness to my friends and how I love them, Father Fred and so many others.

I said to Gay last night as we were talking about this program as we do so often as our day finishes. I have been privileged to sit on ecumenical councils at colleges of concern for the need to bring people of various religious leanings together for a good many years. And I said to Gay last night, you know how strange and how simply beautiful.

The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous brought Jew, Catholic, and Protestant to a common ground of prayer 35 years ago. So what new now? This is a spiritual meeting and I I I don't know how to how to make it that except to tell you what God revealed through you has done in my life and is doing this day.

I I I felt a sense of loss for how we ought to get into this. It's it's a a little bit like an experience of some years ago in our home and a parsonage uh where we have lived all these years. You you you have certain things you just have to do.

It's hard on children because it's hard to make them understand this is not really your home. We have been loaned this and especially on Sunday morning we were at this time about which I share with you for a moment serving a church in one of the eight original sh of America in Charles City County, Virginia down in the James Little Basin and our parsonage was located next door to the church. And on Sunday morning, we went through some rather hectic time gay trying to get four little boys ready and the preacher over at the church before the first parishioners arrived.

It it doesn't do for you to be second. And this morning was not unlike others. We were busily engaged in what everybody had to do.

And since there are no girls in our household, our four sons were were taught to do some household things. And and on this morning, they they they were doing the things they were supposed to do. the twin boys.

Our oldest son of course had reached the age where he accepted as graciously as a teenager can his responsibility. Our our little twin boys about seven or eight or nine years old were finding it a little more difficult. And on this morning, they were cleaning their room and and painstakingly making their beds and and our youngest son, Mike, the little fella, and and and well, he's the best way to describe Mike, he's got every stinking attribute I ever had.

Cleanliness to Mike is, if you can't see it, it's clean. It was then. And he's reached the age now where they take eight baths a day, though you.

So, so on this day, he had kicked everything that he had to under the bed where it couldn't be seen. He he stood in his the room with his twin brothers and he watched them working so hard to make these beds. And when they had gotten things where they thought presumable, he couldn't stand such order anymore.

He he walked in between the beds as he went to the room and pulled the spreads off of both beds. He reached the old cat in a rocking chair and threw her out. His brothers by then had something to say about his actions and he kicked one of them in the shin and came down the steps piously singing, "Yes, Jesus loves me.

I said, you know, I wonder I don't have any great revelations this morning for you who are part of this fellowship. I don't know but one kind of AA in my part of the country we call it big book AA. Now if you found another way to work there fine but you go somewhere else and work it.

Don't hang around me with it. I at my age don't have time to experiment with new ways. I found a successful way and my life and my story is not unlike yours.

It's a it's a story of darkness and it's a story that had a period of the first glimmer of light, a a faint grrey coming out of the blackness and then because of you it is for me this day a story of great light. But the darkest hours of my life came after my introduction to AIA. I don't think I need to qualify.

Nobody asked me 25 years ago to qualify to be in here. When I walked in my first meeting, they said, "Welcome." And they had to say it a lot of times over the next three and a half years. I went to a my first time, not because of any personal desire at all.

I went to save my wife, my children, and my job. I loved my wife and then one child as much as an alcoholic is capable of loving anybody. And I had an appreciation for my employment because I had been educated as an engineer.

It gave me a sense of belonging and a sense of some achievement. And there had been some in spite of my then alcoholism. I was traveling pretty much over the eastern part of the country for the National Bureau of Insurance Underwriters as a fuel engineer.

And I already had deep troubles, publicly unrecognized, privately admitted once in a while. some hours spent alone in hotel rooms a bit concerned about me but not about to discuss it with anybody else. We were living in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the time and I remember on a Wednesday of the week and I can remember well days up until that Wednesday because strangely I had gone through from Monday to Wednesday without drinking.

Sometimes you just had to work and and and and I remembered on a Wednesday afternoon that we were about to celebrate an anniversary at my house and I I called home from over in Nashville, Tennessee and called Gay and Chattanooga and I I I reminded her of the anniversary. Of course, she already remembered, but she was rather related because I now remembered and I made her quite happy that day because I called home sober. Now, I don't know about you, Gay could smell liquor 300 miles over the telephone.

And I told her that I would hurry to finish my work and come as early as possible on Friday and to prepare whatever was necessary. And and she and our son would go away for the weekend and celebrate in some way. And and I hung up the phone, leaving her just very happy.

And I sat there in my room a few minutes and I thought, you know, you have been unnecessarily concerned about your condition. I mean, a man that's in much trouble is not going to be this gracious to his family and his wife. He's not going to be this uh concerned, and he's not going to remember such days as a marriage anniversary.

And I really think, Tom, you you're overdoing the concern bit a little. And you you probably are really entitled to just a drink to help you hurry and get through this week. and I had it and I got home on Friday of the following week and this had then become a pattern.

I had my first prolonged blackout. It went 5 days. But I remember awakening again in Nashville, not in the same hotel.

And it was as though one comes out of a a period of loss. And and and I was frightened. And then I realized when finding out that I had lost a week that I I had to go home and and and and I was fearful of what I'd say of what could happen or what I might find.

And I I started home as best I could. And I remember not being too sick. And all the way home I I tried to think of another lie to tell Gay.

And I I just didn't have anymore. They were gone. Now, this might have been the right clue, but it wasn't.

And I I I found this source of arrogance that the alcoholic can dig dig way down, you know, and get when everything else is gone, he can get this. And I thought, well, now here, uh uh this is my house. and it's my money and I have provided well and I I really don't have to take a whole lot of gruff about that.

In fact, if it's too bad, I'll just grab a bag of clean clothes until I got a call I got to go. And I came home sort of stealed for the storm that was going to hit. And I opened the door and saw the brace for it and gazed out very quietly.

And she in fact didn't say a word. And I'm going tell you something. This is terrible when you're expecting the other.

Finally, she said to me, "Your boss said, your boss said, right away I know we're in trouble. when and if you came home, you were not to move from this place till you called him. So I went back to the office that we had in the house and I all the way back I thought this woman's ruined me now.

He he she's been talking with him and they have been talking about me and he's just going to fire me and I'm not going to let him fire me. I'll call up and quit before he can open his mouth. And I dialed his number and and he came on and before I could say anything to him, he he he said, "Tom, where in the world have you been?" Said, "You your wife and I have been frantic.

We have looked all over the Southeast for you. You've been nowhere supposed to be. We've checked hospitals, police.

What happened to you?" And I had a stroke of genius. I said, "Lee, you know, in all the years I've worked for you, I've never lied to you. I said, "I have been drunk for five days." And I left him speechless.

And I I had this great feeling of power, you know, what a discovery. You hit a guy with the truth and you don't know what to do with it. and he didn't he he fumbled around a bit and he said, "I I think you've been working too hard." Now, he said, "I appreciate you sharing this with me and and I don't want you to say a thing about it in Tennessee, and I'm not going to say anything about it here in New York.

We're just going to take this week out of your vacation, and nobody's ever going to know. I thought, "What a marvelous learning." And I was ready to say goodbye. And he said, "Just a minute." He said, "Have you ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous?" And I had to admit I had.

You see, Gay had papered our house with the reprints of the Jack Alexander. So I I I said, "Yes, I I' I've heard of this." I I even remembered the day I finally read the the article because she she desperately This woman already knew what was destroying us and and anything. And she she put them everywhere.

It didn't matter where I went in the house, they were there. Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen. and and I had finally read it in a kind of sense of self-defense and and she waited with rather baited breath while I read it.

What do you think of that, Tommy? And I said, "That's, you know, that's a sign. We know anybody that needs this." And I said, "Yes to my boss.

I I I'd heard of a" And he said, "Then your wife and I have been talking about this at times during the past week, and we have decided you need to go. And then he destroyed my power just fine. He said, "If you want to be working for me Monday morning, there is a meeting in Chattanooga tonight, Friday night, and your wife will call the people we have already talked with and they're going to take you." And I hung up the phone and Gay said, "Big boy, if you want me here to send you to work Monday morning, you're going to the meeting and I went to my first day a meeting.

Now we met up over Singer Sewing Machine Store in downtown Chattanooga. I wouldn't even drive my car downtown that night. They weren't going to see me down in town if you were meeting on Friday night." and and I got nothing because it it it I didn't want anything.

I thought you were Bible thumpers and drum beaters and you weren't about to get me on any caration kick and I I wouldn't have anything to do with this, but if it would save my wife, my child, my job, I'd play along. I wanted these. And I went to a meetings in Chattanooga when I had to.

Now, I began stretching the trip to two and three weeks so I didn't have to go often. I did learn one little thing there and I'm great for perverting good things. I learned why I was having trouble.

Now, now this is not a real revelation. I don't know today why I'm an alcoholic, unlike some of my friends who say they know why. I I have a friend in upstate New York that said he didn't really know why he drank and neither did I.

He he he talked about the time he went into college and joined a fraternity and he said every weekend they all got drunk and he wasn't very good at it before they got started good. He'd either be in the men's room or out back being sick. And one day he stopped the fraternity brother and he said, "Look, I know this is a splendid thing we're doing every weekend, but why are we doing it?" My present sponsor said he found out why he was an alcoholic.

He lives in Lule, Virginia, too. And incidentally, I want you to know that Lule happens to be one, I'm going to say one because I could get argument of the garden spots of the world. It's in the northern Shannondor Valley.

And at our house, we look out the front windows at the Blue Ridge Mountains and we look out the back at the Masanut Mountains. And my sponsor lives there in this little place and he grew up in this little town. this is one of the reasons we're living there today.

And he said he found out why he became a drunk very early. He'd lay out on his front porch over in the holla trying to sober up and across the ridge he could hear the railroad trains running on the main line. He said, "Every day they ran three trains south and two north and he became a drunk wor what they did with the third train.

And my my sponsor happens to be Julian who was mentioned here last night. And I'm going to tell you something. You'll miss one of the greatest AAS that God ever put into this program if you don't have him here someday.

And he won't appreciate me promoting him. He didn't like to go much. I did learn a thing that that that sort of solved a lot of problems for me.

I I learned that I drank because I was sick and I enjoyed it. I stayed drunk three more years being sick. I could come home and stop gay right in the tracks.

I could come in a day or two late drunk and and and and and she would meet me and I'd say, "G, just just a minute." It seems to me I'd say to her, "You're just never going to quite grasp what they've been trying to tell you down at day eight." Now, she didn't even belong. I I say, "Don't you realize that I can't help this? I'm sick." Or or the killer, you know, and don't get me upset.

They say that's the worst thing you can do. Some years later, Gay came home from one of her periodic examinations at the doctor and she was all smile. She she called her then four sons and me together said, "I have some words for you." The doctor said for me to tell you all for you all never to get me upset again.

That's the worst thing you could do. Now, I didn't make it in AA, of course, but we flew my employer and and I I finally was moved to the city of New Orleans as supervising engineer of that whole area and was the youngest supervising engineer ever appointed by the National Bureau of Insurance Underwriters. And this in spite of being in the worst stages of my drinking, I moved in on Migra Eve.

on the 4th of July. I was sitting on a bench in a little park called Jackson Square in the midst of UK. My wife and child were gone.

My job was on. I'd even been told not to come back in their office building. And two men came in the park on this holiday.

They could have gone somewhere else. They could have spent the morning with their family, but I was fortunate. I was only about a block and a half away from the LA Club on Charter Street.

And they came in and sat out, one on either side. I for the moment was just rum dumb enough not to know whether they were police or who. Didn't matter because I never loathed a man more than I loathed me that day.

So often in clergy workshops and other places, churchmen will say to me, "Well, if if you knew this was going to happen, or could you tell it was going to Yes, I could tell. I could have almost told you the day it was going to happen. I knew he was going to lose G and the son.

I I knew I was going to lose a job. I knew I was going to lose our home. I knew I was going to lose everything." Oh god, I didn't know how to stop it and was too stinking plow tags.

And these two fellas said to me, "Come, have you had enough?" I knew then who they were. You see, back in Virginia, there was this woman, God's gift to me, who had not stopped praying, who had not stopped calling a New Orleans and saying, "Please see if he's all right. And up in Chattanooga, there was a little man now dead, and I break no anonymity.

Little Bob Islands was one of seven men who stayed sober in the whole city of Chattanooga in my first year around AA. And little Bob was calling AA in New Orleans and bugging them good and saying, "Come look, I know it's not the way you do it, but just go see if you'll have a cup of coffee with you." And on this holiday, these two men met at the club room for a quick cup of coffee. And before they went their day for the holiday, they said, "Let's see if we can find talk." Well, in a little while, I was back in Virginia.

Our home was restored through the new found friends of AA. I had a better engineering job than I had been relieved of in a monetary way. And I had everything going for me except one thing.

And this is the dark curtain of refusal. And my life over the next two and a half years or a little more than two years became the darkest it's ever been. I never had a slip in a from that day on the park bench in New Orleans.

I was drunk five times. I don't know anything about slips. I have been very grateful.

I don't think I've heard the word here this weekend. I just don't think you can slip off something you ain't got. I went to my newfound friends in Virginia immediately in AA and I said to them, "Look, I don't want to drink.

I I it it's destroying me. I I don't want to be what I've been and I want to do this program." And they said, "Fine." But I said, "There's a little thing in it that bothers me." Well, upon I was told the biggest lie I've ever been told in my life. Now, I don't think they meant to lie to me.

I guess they hadn't grown much evil. The guy said to me, "Look, this is one of those programs, Tom, where you don't take that unless you want it. I mean, what you don't like in this program, throw out the window.

You just take what you like." Well, it's a good deal. I went home that night and I got a set of the 12 steps and I was sitting on the bed reading them and step one, no problem. I'm I'm here now.

I was admitting to anybody that would listen that I was an alcoholic. Now, accepting it was another thing. Step two, I got into the business about God.

And this is the thing I didn't like. They said, "Throw it out the window. Threw the next 11 steps out the window.

They're all about God. If you haven't read them, Catholic ghouls, but do before you end this day. This is one step about alcoholism.

The rest of it alcohol and his relationship to Tom. Well, you know what happened? I got drunk.

I ain't nowhere to go back to like Hal said except a hey. I I'm running out of drying out places and and and and quick cures back to a I got me some new sponsors. I had five sets.

If they didn't agree with me, I I didn't keep them. Well, let's wind it up. Then you set where were where the neo group therapist.

You know the group's going to do it for you. Just sit down in the group and get immersed in the therapy of this untrained bunch of idiots like me. If they were so smart, they wouldn't be here.

And I was therapeutized as few people have been therapeutized. And and I might have made it, but my therapist got drunk and I got drunk with him five times. But the small silent too often unseen hand of God that is the bo of this whole fellowship was quiet at work all five times.

At the end of the fifth time, I didn't like me anymore. And I took my first inventory 3 years after it. And what I found was horrible.

I couldn't live with that. But another beautiful thing had been happening for me in AA2. I I I had begun to notice people and and and all around there there were folks who were a little different.

I they had made a great impression, but these little sightes and memories that become little precious tidbits that you stick away and someday God finds a way for you to use them. I I I came now at this point to the realization that there were AAS and there were AAS that's a group in within my group who had something kind of special. I've heard my dear friend Walter say the look in the eyes.

I've heard Shel call it the piece of life. I've heard men call it all manner of things. We commonly call it serenity.

And you never mistake it. When it's there, it shows. And I've seen that.

It might have been in the fellow who was making leads all over the place trying to help in this way. It might have been in the quiet little guy who comes in early and sets out the ashtrays and stays after everybody's gone and picks them up. Never says a word.

You got one in your group. Someday if you want to shop, find out how many people are sitting there because of that quad little guy. It might be in a one of the lovely women alcoholics.

It might be in a youngster or one of the elders who came earlier late. But they were and there was one in particular and where I use names rest assured these men have already passed from this earthly life and are now enjoying fellowship in the celestial group. There was one named Jack White who was the first AA in the state of Virginia.

And never have I seen such peace in the twinkle of a man's eyes. And I finally called him and I went to him and sat down with him and I said, "Jack, I' I've made a horrible mess of this whole thing and and I need help. Would you sponsor me?" I'll never forget that saintly old man.

He said, "I've been watching you, boy, and I I was kind of hoping you'd come around someday. And he said, "I'll help you. My blackness got some little hints of light." Now, now, now that little bit of light didn't come all brilliance at one time.

It it it it chased away a few shadows here and there. It it it would get very bright for moments and and and and then will fade a bit, but this is the way it ought to be for me. I I I I am not equipped to handle the brilliance of a spotlight so quickly out of the darkness from which I came.

And it it the light began to stay longer though because I was one who was agnostic. I believed there was a God but believed I forfeited all my rights to God. Now I didn't like it and I didn't want to be reminded of it.

This dear old man said to me in sponsorship, "I know but one way. Until I think you know as much about this program as I do, you going to do it my way or get out and we began his way. I recognized right away that this while saintly was profane old man and he cursed me out.

But he began to make me aware that there was a God who cared about me and that I'd just been looking in the wrong places. God had been hidden in a maze of theology and religion for me. I I I' I'd come out of a very good church home.

I I remember at the shop few years ago several of you in here who know this mutual friend of ours Isaac down in North Virginia. Isaac is one of the dearest Jews I know on the face of the earth. And I remember early his first experience in a he said he he sat around in his early a meetings and he'd hear one speaker after another get up and say, "I came out of a Christian home." And Isaac said, "I thought about this and I thought I don't really believe I belong in here.

I I I I just was afraid of God and I had uh found my fear in not being able to find him in any sense. And I I can assure you in honesty today in the darkest hours of my life, there were times when I looked for God. I just didn't look in the right places.

But this dear old sponsor began to open the whole way for me to look. And let me let me just and I don't have but so much more time but let me just share with you a few places I found God in these years since. He comes unexpectedly but only when a door is open.

You don't kick any doors down to get in. You just have to crack it though. I remember the night that I played myself into the ministry of the church.

I'd gone back to church playing golf with the minister and I was going through that why don't others do this and that stage that we aa go through. I was bugging this man do good. Why don't the church do this?

Why don't the church do that? The church failed. They never failed us.

You realize they kept in trust the truths with which we lived for 2,000 years till we got ready to use them? Well, he got tired of me and he said, "Why don't you come in ministry and do it?" And for the next week, I couldn't sleep, eat, work. This was the most absurd thing I had ever heard of.

I tried to get drunk deliberately four days and couldn't. And a man would tell me there's no God. He's foolish.

And I called my minister and I told him the shape I was in. I said, "Come to my house. I got to talk to you." And he came and I told him what would happen.

I said, "I'm torn up. you know, I don't belong there. I I can't do a thing like this.

And inside I was thinking, is it possible? And he was very happy. He's happy and I'm dying.

He said, I don't know the one way to you to do this now, Tom. You you've been giving me this bit about AA and your dependence on God. I mean, don't you think he'd talk to you about this, too?

He said, "I know the one way for you to do it. You go off by yourself and whatever way you pray, pray." And I had not yet learned to pray much. And I just went and got on my knees and told him in my own room, "God, I I I don't know what you're doing to me, but I am willing." and you never saw a brighter sunshine in your life.

And I came down and told my wife I I had made my decision and there was never a question in her mind. We ended I went over and saw my minister that day and talked to him. He said, "How are you going to do?" I said, "Oh, no.

You have to guide me but whatever we have to do." and we checked my educational requirements and I didn't have enough and I had to go back to college and take courses that had never been prescribed in my engineering degree and I had to go to seminary. Gay went back to work and I went up to a little college in Virginia and and I sat in the president's office and I some few weeks had passed and I told him of my intentions and I needed his classes and he said, "How are you going to finance this?" I said, "I don't have any idea how I'm going to finance this." I said, "In fact, I'd still got $5,000 worth of bad checks floating all over the Southeast." Well, I was doing something about him. I'd gone to the domestic relations court in Richmond at the urging of my new sponsor, and I'd placed myself in a voluntary receiverhip, and every dime I made went to the courts to pay off these debts.

And this man sat at his desk, and he said, "You know, I'd already heard you were coming here to talk to me." And this was a surprise. I thought, man, the whole world knows Tom loven. He said there were two friends of yours here.

And they said if you came here on your own and made application to study for the ministry that you and your family would have everything you needed as long as you were here. You don't stand any closer to God than that. I said, "Who are they?" He said, "I can't tell you." Later years from my own parish, I was called back to Richmond twice to bury men.

And I stood in the presence of the body of my sponsor Jack and his sister told me one was Jack and his family told me of another turnup who felt a sense of pride in what God had done with me. You you you don't ever find God any better than this. I sit in the hospital room one afternoon and Gay had gone through a painful surgery and the doctor just come in and there was great excitement in the room and they ran out and I followed him out.

I knew something was wrong. She had hemorrhaged horribly for two days and and he he he I got them in the hall and I couldn't catch him but I got a nurse and I said, "What's wrong in here?" said, she said, "Mrs. Loveven has a blood clot up behind her eyes, and we're afraid it's about to get loose, and if it does, it could kill her." On the hill behind the hospital, almost automatically, and it was drizzling rain, and I stood amid some pine trees, and I said, "God, Gay and I've asked you an awful lot for other people.

We've used up most of our requests, but I got one more. I'm going to have to claim your promise. This woman can't stand any more of this.

And I went back to her room and I held her in my hands and we prayed a little bit together like you told us to pray. I put her on a stretcher and took her to surgery and brought her back 20 minutes later with a doctor following. and he walked around the room and he'd pick up a book and lay it down and look at her and look at me and he says, "Reverend lover, I don't make that kind of mistake.

No blood clot." You don't stand any closer to God than this. My oldest son of whom I have spoken was the one boy who remembered my drinking. Thank God the twins, no Mike, my youngest, ever saw me or the twins were too young to remember.

Though I was a part of the ministry and I know there was a certain amount of pride in the life of this young man, my oldest son, somehow we'd never reached a a a total communication as father and son. And I I desperately wanted that. We we had respect for one another and we had love for one another and and I know he was rather proud of me, his family and and but what I wanted wasn't quite there.

And I thought too many years had passed and maybe it was never coming. We were living in Florida at the time and I took him away to school up in Ohio and I spent a day or two with him and got up before daylight one morning to start my trip home. And we sit in the darkness of his room and I am reminded so often how I can stand so many times in darkness and find light.

And as I started to tell him goodbye, I I I wanted to go and put my arms around this boy and maybe kiss his cheek and and tell him how sorry I was for for that little bit of his life that I ruined and and and ask him, "Please forgive me." I hesitated, maybe a bit embarrassed because he's bigger than me. And as I hesitated, suddenly that big fell walked across the room and put his arms around me and kissed my cheek and told me how proud he was of me. You won't ever stand any closer to God than this.

Just practical. Maybe this is egotistical, but it's a part of our family. Our son Mike who was the youngest and I guess because I've seen in Mike all the long thoughts that I've had has become a little bit the apple of my owe no more love than for the other boys.

At the age of seven or eight, Mike developed leg purses disease of the hip and he was in a wheelchair and uncutches for about 15 months. We were told first that he might never walk again and probably would be crippled the rest of his life. Well, it was not because all over the world as Gay and I continued our journey in this way of life, there were hundreds like you who helped us carry our luggage.

Mike got well. And over the years, we had him checked and were assured he was well, that there was never going to be any more trouble. And it's one of those things men can't know.

About three months ago, he was brought in to interview with the Kansas City Royals. He's had a fantastic year as a pitcher in college. And they had offered to sign him now, educate him for the rest of his college education, pay him a salary and expenses, and look after him if he'd signed.

And in the midst of all this elation, Mike came home that weekend and he said to his mother, "I need to see a doctor. We haven't discussed it yet. He'll have to tell us in good time.

I strongly suspect that there was a physical somewhere along the line and it was found. We took him over to an orthopedic man and got a diagnosis and immediately back to the man who tended him as a child and said yes. There had been progression of the disease and within 2 to 10 years he'd have to have an artificial hip and his career ended.

He's bitter. This 19year-old worked hard for this. And yet I weren't quite communicating and I don't know what to say to it.

I'm trying to say what you taught me, but he's not hearing good. We called home last night and Gay talked with him and she said, "I think he said fine." and he was all interested in what you were doing here and how many people were here. Finally, Gay told him about the marvelous programs and everything that was going on.

And I tell you, she told him that she ate dinner with Donald Trump, too, on Thursday night. She's going to be a little hard to live with for a few days. And she said to her, "Mike, your daddy is going to speak to about 3,000 people Sunday morning." and they've had these marvelous speakers and pilgrims here.

Mike said to his mama, "They ain't heard daddy yet. I I I know God's just bridged the communication gap. I can't wait to get home.

We're going to handle this one, too." And finally, this old sponsor said, "Open every avenue." But a man's story in here, I think, has to be the story of the sponsor. And I'm a man who needs a sponsor. When Jack died, I sought another sponsor.

And I asked Dutch, who happened to be a Methodist minister and a member of the fellowship of about the same years as my own, if he would sponsor me. And then Dutch was taken away and I went to Julian and asked him for sponsorship. And each of these sponsors has taught me in a spiritual way some one thing among many that must make me different.

My sponsor Jack taught me what I've heard so often said in this place. I love you. And I didn't know what this meant or how to take it.

Know how to give it. And it was hard for me to learn. I I knew inside our I loved, but I didn't know how to tell people.

I'd been in the ministry several years. On a Palm Sunday afternoon, a young woman came to our parage and she said to me, "Roan Loving, you don't know us, but my husband sent me. Would you please come and see him?

He's not been out of his bed 5 days drunk." and I went with her and we suggested that I follow her in my car since it was the Palm Sunday and there were special services in my church in the evening hours. And and as I drove up the road behind her, I I I began to get a little resentful at this guy calling me on Palm Sunday, he ought to know how busy I am. I I was thinking if he in 5 days, he could wait till tomorrow.

But I I I said I can hurry now. So I canned my little talk as I went. I'm going to give him a quick pitch.

Tell him I'll see him tomorrow if he wants it. Well, we got to his house and upstairs and she opened the door and I lost my canned heart. She forgot to tell me he was a hopeless Sitting against the foot of his bed were these cool metal contraptions with which he walked.

I walked across the room speechless. And this poor Rex looked at me and said, "Why did you come?" And my sponsor said through Tom Lover, "Because I love you." A few Sundays later, we got him in the hospital. By the way, was badly dehydrated and was agreed that when he got back, he was a veteran and they had to carry him away some miles.

And we stayed indirectly in touch and was agreed as soon as he got home, we were going to spend time together and work this out. And on a Sunday morning, I was already in the pull pit of my church. and and we're singing the opening hymn and to my amazement this man struggled in the back door with his lovely wife and was helped into a seat and it was communion Sunday and I I thought I I wish he hadn't come today.

I don't get to preach on the day of holy communion. There's a lot of things I could tell him from right here, but I bring my own darkness. We finished the ritual of the service and invited people to the altar for holy communion.

And I saw out of the corner of my eyes he was being helped out of the pew. And I thought he's had too much and they're going to help him out. But again, to my amazement, he was helped down the center aisle all the way, noisily, painfully, and he got to the altar in front and he couldn't kneel, but he propped himself on these things and his lovely wife knelt beside him.

I came down the chancel with the communion elements. And when I reached him and reached across the element, the the chancel with the elements to dig, he looked me in the face and he said, "And I love you." I spent last Palm Sunday with him, 14 years sober. He has done more good for parapolgics in the veterans hospitals than any one single man I know on the face of the earth.

My sponsor taught me how to say and feel I love you. And quickly, just another minute, my sponsor, Dutch, I love this man. We We were kind of like brothers.

Gay and I got caught in a snowstorm over in Eastern Virginia 3 days after Christmas. and we were not too far from home and we got into his place and spent two days with he and Elsa and we had a marvelous time in front of the fire the four of us enjoying this love things cleared out and we left for home and the next morning they called me and said Tom you'll have to come back Dutch died last night of a heart attack and I went back and I met Ellison we went up to the mortuary and we sat at the man's desk and he began to fill out the great list of vital statist statistics and he got a few things and he came to this question and he looked at Elsa and he said who were his parents. We couldn't tell him because Dutch didn't know who he was.

He was an Austrian orphan who stowed away aboard a ship having run away from an orphanage farm at the age of 13 jump ship in New York City. And that's the name he bore to his death. And as I sat in that place and left with Elsie, I thought, how terribly sad for a man like this to mean so much to so many thousands of people and he passes from this life and we don't even know who he is.

Couple of days later, I stood by quit. We offered to Elsa and she was very happy about it. She let us bury Dutch in our own family crying as a place for her.

We were about most family he had. As I stood in the cold winter of sunlight that afternoon conducting his services that thought occurred to me like great light. It's not important whether or not I knew who Dutch Whitley was.

I know what he was. I know what he was. This sponsor taught me that it's more important what you are than who you are.

My sponsor today, he's a man of absolute honesty. He will not allow you to discuss AA or anything else in his presence if he thinks there is the first sign of dishonesty involved. And from him I am learning that I must be honest with Tom Leven in the face of everything.

It makes no difference. It may hurt. It may not be the most popular thing to do.

And in that honesty, I have become full aware of my responsibility to this fellowship. I've got four sons. I've got five grandsons and three little granddaughters.

And I pray God not a one of my children or grandchildren will ever have to come here. But if they do, I pray every day of my life, oh God, don't let me leave this any less than was offered me. And the only way I know to do it is to be honest with me, with God, and with this program.

And it cannot die. I never end the day of my life that I don't stop to thank God for a for all of you all over the world because without you I wouldn't be having any more days of life. I never go in my home and see this angelic woman whose love and whose patience and whose kindness has made my life so rich and see my children and now my grandchildren and these lovely girls my sons have brought into the family that I don't get so choked up inside and I just have to stop and thank God for AA and for all of you everywhere for these are my most precious possessions and without you I would have lost them and I never go into the pull pit of my church on the Sabbath morning and except for about four rare occasions like this I am there on every Sabbath day at the hour of 11 I stop and I kneel at the altar and I pray not to meet any ritual or creed of my denomin ation, but to spend a personal moment with God and to thank him for Alcoholics Anonymous and to ask his very special blessing on every one of you wherever you are.

Well, you see, without you, I wouldn't even have this privilege. And I thank God for you today. And I thank him real good for you.

So without you, Gay and I could not have come this way. And now call you friend, too. Thank you.

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.

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