Step 6 and the Act of Creation – John C.

My name is John. I am an alcoholic. I can fairly tell I'm at a closed men's meeting because as soon as he started talking about sex, everything got quiet instantly. I introduced myself as an alcoholic and I have to tell you that anything I know about the disease and my life today is all as the direct result of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, of a loving God that was so gracious and so kind. The God that I did not know, did not want to know when He sent somebody to me. because i couldn't find you all of my life i've been looking for something and i knew whatever it was that i had was not yet but i felt an emptiness inside of me and it was said earlier in the panel this evening that by one of the gentlemen he said that alcohol was not his problem alcohol was never my problem it was my wife's problem it wasn't my children's problem but it wasn t mine that s the thing that kept me alive that s a thing that i did to run and hide behind I was maladjusted to life, and I knew full well in all the years that I lived that the problem was mine. I was all powerful, all screw-up, and everything was my fault. That was one of those individuals. When I say this, that I'm sober by the grace of the loving God of Alcoholics Anonymous, is on the 11th of March on 1976. I was sitting in a saloon. I knew nothing about alcoholism. No one had ever accused me of being an alcoholic. I was sitting there doing some bourbon whiskey, Jack Daniels was my brand, and I was drinking on my fourth drink. And it was somewhere around 10.30 or 11 o'clock at night on the 11th of March, 76, and a young man came to me and sat down beside me. In the process of sitting down beside him, I knew him because I had had my last drunk with him. And I had bailed his little ass out of jail because I was always hanging around drunks who couldn't control their drinking, so he was one of those. And I wrote him off, because if you can't carry your drink like a man, for God's sake, don't call on me. And I didn't like drinking with anybody anyway, and I don't think anybody really liked to drink with me. But he sat down beside me and ordered a Coke, which is disgusting. What in God's name would anybody do in a saloon ordering a Coca-Cola? And what he did is he started talking to me, andI was on my fourth drink. And then he said these words. He said, I have found a place, and you will like the people. He had just come from a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous—it's called the guerrilla meeting and there are a number of you here who know what the guerilla meeting was. He had been in that meeting and he was so inspired and so enthused and so excited about the power of the program that he found he with his five days of sobriety came into where he should have never gone alone as he should've never done according to the rules of Alcoholic promise, sat down beside me, ordered a Coca-Cola and said, I found a place and you will like the people. And I wanted to throw his ass out, but he was far too big for me to do that. And who in the hell likes people anyway? That's why I drank, for Christ's sake, the most outrageous piece of crap I've ever heard in my life. So he said to this, he said, will you go to a meeting with me? And I'll be damned if my mouth didn't say yes. And I was screwed, because you see, I think it's true with almost every alcoholic. We are men of our word, and then we break it. But in this particular case, well, we all love to believe we are iron-brad character-wise and I'm a man of my word, go on, race and filly. But in this particular case, the reason I said it was my fourth drink I was drinking is that I'm not sure I finished it. Because when my mouth said yes, the compulsion to drink was lifted from me and I have not had a drink from that second to this. Any mind-altering drug or chemical has not been mine. And that's why I said I was sober for seven days, six months, and 26 years. The days are the important ones, because if you take care of today, you can get the years behind it. But it's always today's single most important thing in my life. That's the way I call it. Okay. I went to my first meeting. This guy... I love going to... I'm a lover of alcoholic synonymous, but that did not occur. I was stuck. The son-of-a-bitch had his car. I had to ride with him. He took me to a meeting and the first guy I met... I'm furious I'm fucked with this damn thing. I should have drove in my own car and I could have hauled away and not have to listen to this crap. And the first guy walked up to me, he's still sober now, he walked up and he said, so you've got a drinking problem? What a hellish question to ask somebody. And I said, well doesn't everyone? And the son of a bitch said no. I wanted to cold conk him but I didn't want to walk home. After the meeting, they called on me. They had the presence of mind to recognize that they had a future statement in Alcoholics Anonymous and they called upon me. And this is my contribution to sobriety on my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm here to see what the Crete do on Tuesday night. And they laughed at me which infuriated me and I too would have walked again. Then some miserable turd said said, I didn't have enough guts to stay sober for 90 days. And the rage and the anger that was in me boiled up. Then I vowed at that time, I'll see you drunk before I drink. Many of you came out from San Jose know who I'm speaking of. His name is Johnny Ong. Still sober. 33 years, I think, right now. Bless his heart. He made me mad enough to come back at you. Not because I wanted sobriety, because I didn't know what the hell sobriete was. They did say something in that meeting and I think it's vital because this is a program there is a solution we're talking about but in order to find the solution to any problem you've got to know the problem and I did not know the problems and that's what our problem is in Al-Khaliqs Ma'am. The people who go out do not truly understand the problem. Was discussed in the meeting before when the long timers were talking talking about. A true understanding, it's my absolutely irrevocable belief, a true understanding of the problem compels you to move through the 12 steps of recovery. You have no choice. Our book clearly states that. Clearly states that and I'll perhaps talk about that in a minute but this is how I fell in love with you and it was nothing I did. He got me so mad when my friend called me the following...I was on a Tuesday night, I was without a drink I think then, my sobriety date is the 12th of March and this was the 16th of March. I went to my first meeting and I still had not taken a drink. I have no idea why but that day I refused to take a drink because I didn't want to go to an AA meeting smelling of alcohol because you might think I were drinking. My friend called me the following Friday and he said do you want to go to a meeting? I said I don't want to go where those other bastards are. He said we'll go to a different place because I knew nothing about here. I had no idea there There were meetings all over town. So I went to there, and it's amazing on the other side of town that people were so much nicer. They treated me much more friendly, and I thought it was kind of cool. Then my friend called me the following Tuesday and said, Do you want to go to a meeting? I said, We're going to go back to that first place. He said, Yes. I said、Well, I've got to check and see if they're still sober. I went there,and it's AMAZING how those people changed in a week. It's amazing. They were gracious. They were kind. They were loving. And they even smiled at me. And my friend asked me to go do a meeting the following Friday, and I said I was looking forward to it. I went to that meeting and I fell in love. My soul recognized you, and I knew that I was home. I still did not know what the problem was, but the night of my first meeting they said these words and I will say them again, and I have no idea what you're going to hear, but I sure know what I heard that night. They said I will never have to drink again as long as I live if I don't want to. Now what you hear is what you heard. What I heard is they told me that I drank for the 30 years I drank because I had to. Good God! I've had a thousand, a hundred thousand different reasons for drinking. It's Tuesday, it's Friday, it hot, it cold, I'm hungry, I'm not hungry, I could go on and on, add in some items, I don't like that sucker, I'll have a drink for it, and on and one and on. The stuff that we do. The concept that if they were true in that statement, everything I knew about me was wrong. If I drank for 30 years because I had to. And so there was a curiosity there and I fell in love with you and I had stay here because, you see, you offered me what in my heart my soul recognized you, my soul seemed to have recognized the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and that moment to this I want so desperately to have what it is that is available in the rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous. And I'm one of those that I'm blessed. I am the richest man in the world because of the blessings first of all the knowledge that god loved me so much that he went out and sent somebody to me who should have never gone there and i heard the word my heart was touched i came to you i don't know that i would ever found you no young man never went on another 12-step call as a matter of fact once i asked him i said why how come you never go on any 12 step calls then a smart ass looked at me he said john i brought you in the first time could you imagine imagine I might bring in the second time? So dreadfully uncool. In falling in love with you, my life changed and as a matter of fact that was on a Friday night and I called my friend on Saturday and said do you want to go to a meeting? And he didn't want to. And I've been going to meetings ever since. I wanted this thing and I walked up to a man I was going to ask to be my sponsor and he announced he announced this, he said that he wasn't going to sponsor anybody who had less than 90 days of sobriety because everybody got under 90 days right and so I said oh Christ, I'm going to have to wait 90 days to ask this sucker to be a sponsor but you see, I was one of those, I couldn't talk that's amazing, I listened to you but I couldn'T talk in any meetings and I didn'T know the rules And I said, I went home to my wife and I said Honey, I think I like this thing My wife, the ice queen She's the one that occupied the ice palace Called the bedroom Okay, I got the couch on a good night I had been married for 15 and a half years With her And our relationship started gloriously And deteriorated into an absolute endurance contest That's all I was On a good day of endurance contest My children I have eight By the way I need to tell you something up front. I said it earlier. You're going to find out how great I am. And it's not that I brag, you understand? But I have eight children, 23 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. My oldest great- grandson is 18, and pretty damn soon I'm going to be a great-great-grandson. And on that basis, I'm probably the greatest person you've have ever met. Only by the grace of God. I wonder if it's only by God's grace and solely by God grace. I was 48 years old when I walked through the doors at Alkali Simons, or was escorted in, I would like to say. Escorted in by God angels, a band named Bob Flessy who brought me to the doors of Alkalei Simons. Okay? In my family, my last name is Carney That's why I've been a parent, and my anonymity was broken without my permission in the meeting over here just a minute ago. Okay, my last name is Carney, and according to the records of the family tree of the Carney family, no male Carney has lived past the age of 55. I am, tomorrow, I'm going to be 75. Now that's pretty goddamn good. good. And all you have to do is come here, fall in love, do the things that are suggested for you, and a whole new world opens up to you. I have no clue how long I'm going to live, but today's enough because I get to do it today because this is the day. The guy I say that one of the principles that I have, God lives in the moment and God lives in the truth. I am in the movement and I am now in the moments and I I am now seeking the truth, because I'm a truth seeker. I look and find truth, and when I find truth I've got a spiritual principle and I can live by that. And one of the things I did when I first got sober since I couldn't get a sponsor, I got the big book out because I thought there was some sort of formula by which you have to prove to the sponsor that you're willing to go to any length. And so I started reading the book to find out what the hell do I have to do? What's any length? I've gotta have a test coming up here. I couldn'T ask anybody because that would be too damn simple and I'm too smart for you anyway. So I started reading and the first thing I knew, first thing in the book that got me is this. I'm going to join Alcoholics Anonymous. I went home and told my wife, I'm gonna join Alcoholic Anonymous! And she said, well what does that mean? I said, Well, first of all, I am going to share. She said, What do you mean by that? I said Alcoholics and Oneness is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope. I read elsewhere in the book that a much more important demonstration of these principles lies at home and in respective affairs outside of AA. So I'm not going to have to tell you anything about what I know. I go to an amateur, my wife, who hasn't got a clue what the hell I'm talking about, and I can make sense. And I can do all the mistakes I want to. She's never going to know. You would. So I went to her and I said... I said to her, I am going to share. And I told her why. She said, what does that mean? and I say that it's simple. I'm going to speak on a topic that is really important to me. I'm gonna be as honest and open as I possibly can be, and your job is sit, listen, don't interrupt, and try to understand. And when I'm done, you can speak on my topic or a topic of your choice, and I will sit and listen, try to misunderstand, and not interrupt. The only thing wrong with her is that she knew how to share, and I didn't. And most of her sharing would start like, remember when. And the book screwed me. The big book about it is because there's some other things in there that got to me. You see, I read a lot. I still read a little bit. I read it a lot and the book just called my name. It still calls my name . It says that fault finding should be avoided like the plague. And what are you going to do? Because it says I have to avoid false signing like a slave. And it says that I avoid retaliation. Good God, she has just hurt me badly and I got to avoid retaliate so that I ran to an AA meeting. And I started whining and sniveling. You know what he said? Okay. I started praying immediately. Because you see, what I did in truth, I wanted this thing. I still did not know. The disease. Geez, I read it over and over and over again. I lied on my drunk alarm. There's somebody out here that's probably the same way. When people ask me questions, I would lie because I didn't know. Now, I should have known. It's inconceivable standing here today, and for most of you out there it's almost inconcevable to consider the fact that you could drink as long as you drank, do the disgusting filthy lotion things that you did, go to rotten places, do something that constantly brought out the very worst of you and you don't know you did it. Self-deception. By every form of self-deceptive, in and out of the room, I will try to prove myself exception to the rules. Because that's the greatest defect, in my opinion, as an alcoholic. My problem is not alcohol. My problem ist learning how to live life on spiritual terms which avoids the necessity of me ever having to take up a drink to fix the still. I'm just a drunk. That's all I know. And so when I embarked upon this program, my prayers started. I was at the podium talking about Chuck, my mentor, a man that gave me everything. Chuck Chamberlain, in case you know him. He did 1,000 Palo Mesa retreats in 1975 and I got his tapes in 1976. I have been mesmerized by his teachings ever since. And he told me a lot of things that I practiced today, and if anybody recognizes some of his terms, please understand that Chuck gave me permission that I can use anything as long as I gave him credit the first two times, and after that it's mine. Morning, noon, and night, I was listening to Chuck Chamberlain's tapes, and this is just a disgusting story that has no business being told here, but it's embarrassing to me, and I do not like to embarrass myself, but I was four months sober, and I heard Chuck for the very first time, and he was like a god to me. Standing up straight, he had a white suit off, and you'd think he was ascending. He was talking so well, and I couldn't breathe for the entire hour and a half. Chuck could never do it in an hour. He always said about an hour and a half, and my wife grabbed me, and she said, don't you want to go up and meet him? And I said, oh no, not me. I'm mere mortal, and that's God, and she walked up. My wife was a hussy. She had constantly embarrassed me in public. She walked up to Chuck and put her arms around him in front of us. And that's my wife doing that through that strange vent. And he put his arm around her. He was talking to somebody, and then he turned around and he kissed her. He kissed her, and dann my wife looked at him and said, Chuck, you don't know me, but I've been sleeping with you for the last four and a half months. And that old fart said, pretty good, wasn't I? In the process of choosing his own conception of God, I started praying. I got a book and I started reading. I didn't know I was going to pray. I wrote down in my book, I've become willing to become willing to become willingness to learn how to pray and that's what I wrote and that' s what I did and then soon the words that I was reading were no longer acceptable for me and I decided to pray my own prayers and I got permission to do that because the book says that the wording on our third step said, it gives you a wide open place. It says that the wording is quite optimal as long as you express your idea of voicing it without reservation. You see, I believe in prayer today because that's how God reveals himself to me and I believe a prayer is not a prayer unless you're obedient to the prayer and I'm very careful about the prayers that I offer because I am going to pray and I am gonna live as if I have prayed. I believe in that. Prayers are truth and I will and have the power because tested in me by the loving God but I can and will create the fellowship I enjoy by virtue of being surrounded by the loving members of our colleagues from Ireland. I had a spiritual awakening of an educational variety that occurred. Now, I've done all this thing. I'm even sponsoring people who know I haven't done crap, okay? Because I told them I don't. First guy asked me to sponsor, this is how well-known I was. First guy I sponsored, I said, I haven'T worked these steps yet, I'm trying to understand the first step. He said, but you've got a car, and I need a ride to a meeting. Not the only one. That's cool. I think that's grand, because you get in service even when you don't know what the hell you're doing. Okay? And I was in a saloon. I was in San Diego and I was—I was in San Diego at a tournament—a skate tournament—bowling. I was a bowler at that time. And I got in a place I should not have been. And this is is when the disease made it manifest itself all of the information that i had which was here settled from here to here this is a story i was in a saloon where i should not have been and we were waiting for dinner and the other people were drinking and i was not and then just suddenly the gates of hell seemed to have opened up and now i knew i knew I couldn't, I don't know how I knew, I knew suddenly God revealed to me that moment of clarity. How about this? When those grand times if you've ever been married, to lay in your bed with your wife beside you pretending to be asleep and she's fobbing her heart out and, you know, gobs damn well it's your fault and you haven't got a clue what you did to do it. That was one of those great moments of life. Why? How I could open the door and see my children and see them run when they saw me and I could couldn't understand that because I adored my children. Why were they afraid of me? Why had they left home? They'd all gone away the time I got here. I had an eight-year-old son when I got sober, okay? He, I had my last chance to be a decent father and I screwed it up. Somewhere around two or three or four years old, he started running and now I get sober and he's always in the other room. I knew it then. That night I knew that. And then I boldly, I'm screaming through, the only words that could come out of my mouth I said, God! That's all I needed. That was the prayer. The wording is awful as long as you express it. Voicing it without reservation. I couldn't even think of the serenity prayer. I just screamed God. I went back to my wife and I said out of all the bravado I'll tell you about this goddamn thing. I said do you want a drink? And she said yes I'd like a martini. And I like all the horses ass that I was. I said I'll get you one. I walked through the bar. I ordered a martinis. And the guy poured a martinis. Poured a perfect martinis! It's more in the glass than the glass will hold. The bubble on top? Now, if you ever drank any martinis, you know again, well, don't touch that sucker. You're going to go down and suck it out. These folks tell you, you want a filling? You don't want a fillings. And I was standing at the bar and looking at that martini. My hand was resting on the bar table just like this firmly. I was horrified, and while I'm screaming God again, my head started to bend down. to suck it up. And I didn't want to drink it. My body hit, I didn t. And then my hand shook. Oh and I was relieved and I picked the martini up and then I quickly reached behind me and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe my hand off because I ve done that before. That's how you do a martini when it spills on you. And i screamed with the God of my understanding any. If I live through this without hurting anybody, I have the information towards the 12th step to recovery. See, I've been a fighter all of my life. I thought I'd been fighting ever since I was three. My first drink occurred once a night somewhere in the middle of March 1946 in El Paso, Texas when I just won the Golden Gov Champions Championship and a whole bunch of people wanted to buy me a bar of booze that I'd never had a drink before when I'm 18 years old. And I got that night, all of the information theoretically, I needed to know about the disease of alcoholism, but I had 30 years to drink left. Because I got drunk, I made an ass of myself. They told me what a wonderful time I had, and I believed them. And that's the drunk story. A year later, I'm 19. I'm in Skid Row in Washington, that you see. It's a long ways to go. Three, four, five years later, I'm in the streets of Los Angeles. And somebody attempted to insult several people. Los Angeles and stiff. And somebody insulted me and insulted my wife and a couple of guys. And I put them both in the hospital and one of them died. On 21, I still got a lot of time to drink, 28 years left to drink. My lovely bride, my first wife, committed suicide at the age of 29. I come two in the nuthouse, the psychiatric wing of the Los Angeles General Hospital. I'm strapped down and in a straitjacket. And I hear them tell the story about this crazy, crazy son of a bitch who went absolutely insane. And it took six firemen, four policemen, and two civilians to get me in a chokehold so I could pass out. They can stuff me in the straitjacket. And when they got me in a straitjacket, I was still too violent and they strapped me down to a board. And I'm laying there in the psychiatric wing, and the doctor's looking down at me and I hear them talking about me and he sees that I'm awake and he looked at me and he said these things. He said, if I let you go because I'm bleeding in a lot of different places, a lot of people got hurt that day, and I'm leading a lot of places and he said we gotta sew you up, if If I let you go, you won't hurt me, will you? And I honestly thought I couldn't answer him because I didn't know. I got 18 years left to drink. 18 years left to drink and I didn' t know. Drunk a lot of stories. I had the line when I got here. I took a drink in a little town called Rivera. It's now Pico Rivera in Southern California. I came through and watched, looking down the barrel of a .38 by a big, big policeman who gave me the impression he really wanted to shoot it. I go to jail for armed robbery and it's a wonderful place when you're all decked up in a suit and tie and you're in jail too much. This is long before Miranda and you were the only white one there there. And they're in for armed robbery, and somebody apparently got shot up and they didn't know whether he was going to live or die, and you don't know whether you did it or not. And you have to wait until the line-up occurs so nobody identifies you, and it's the only way that anyone will line up. That's obscene, you know? You didn't get a fair shot. Somebody in a gabardine suit, and I had a gabordine suit on that day. Drunk story. Took me places I didn't want to go, made me do things I didn t want to do. Now this is an all-men s booth, and normally I prefer to tell this story when there are women present. And when I tell you the story, you will understand that. Somebody was talking here about Tresmo, which I happen to think is the asshole of creation. I bottomed out in Fresno. Nine years before I got sober, I'm in Fresco and I've lost everything again. I know that I'm a failure in every department of life. I know there's no hope for me and it's just going to get the same, the same forever. So I took a drink in Fresmo. If you lived there, who wouldn't? I came to in Chico. That's how bad Fresno is. You run to Chico! I came to in a crazy little motel that sucked five dollars a night. Didn't have a shower curtain, so you couldn't hardly get the shower. But the story is that I was woke up in this bed and I'm all alone. That's a good thing because I'm married. I've remarried. And I don't have any clothes on. Now it's suspicious because you see I always wore my jammies. And i didn't have my clothes on, I I didn't even have any pajamas. But the real thing that got me is that I looked at my body and I've got purple stripes all over it. They're an inch and a half long and about a quarter inch wide and they're all over me. They're in places I can't reach and I'll tell you, they were in places nobody else should have reached. Now, that sounds like a wonderful story. The only thing I can tell you is I went into the shower and the bastards both washed off. Now, I'm so grateful for that because that's going to be a tough one to explain to your wife when you come home with purple stripes. Now, the reason I tell that story is because it's in this kind of area, the valley, whatever the hell you call it, is that somewhere along the line, I'm going to pitch this story in hopes that somebody in the audience will know how those purple stripes come. And I sure as hell don't want to talk to anybody today. That's why women should be in the audio. God, I want to see a woman who comes up and says, Say, God, I do that for you. How can you do things like that? And I could go on and on. And we all got our own stories. They're all stupid. It didn't make no sense. You went places you didn't want to go. You did things you didn'T want to do. You violated your own trust. You broke your word. You did every damn thing that conceivable would be. That is loathsome and objectionable to you. And you had a damn good reason for it. And that's the story. I got here and I started doing the things that you asked me to do and I looked at the first step of recovery and I found out this, that in a line in the book it says really simply that God lost the power of choice and drink. Now don't tell me that you choose not to drink today because the book says you're going to drink unless you do something else. That's what my book says. You've lost the power of Choice and Drink and so you cannot no longer have the power of Choice & Drink. Some guy came to me and asked me as a sponsor a long time ago this is how the misunderstandings I believe that can occur in alcoholic synonymous that causes or allows some people to justify going out and drink because we have a disease of the mind. Alcohol is not the problem. Now we're in the mental phase of this thing. You put the plug in a jug, you will never have an alcoholic problem, but the mind says you will. And it's going to cause you... It has one function. The mind has one fonction and one function only and that is to get you to a point of mental incapacitation so you will believe the lie and the lie is that one more won't hurt. Whatever it is, it will make me feel better and it might for a second. And then you'll be on a rolling hill again and you will go to that same place of pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization and then you'll come back and you'll tell us it doesn't work. It gets worse, never better. So I lost the power of choice and I sponsored this guy and he got to the fourth step. I thought he had more time than I a lot. He'd been around a long time. And I said we're going to do a fourth step and he said what kind do you like? And I say what do you mean? He said I've done 17 fourth steps When I looked at that, I said, for God's sake, go home, write, and tell me what caused you to drink. He came back with one sentence. They told me I had a choice. He believed it. This peculiar mental twist of pre-seize the next drink, he chose to drink that day. The choice is already made. It says in our book that for reasons that obscure, the alcoholic has lost the power to first drink. things. If you understand that, you're condemned to, and once again the line says, we have passed beyond human age. You either believe the big book or you don't. You're either going to follow the big books' instructions or you won't. The half measure is, once again, screw you. Half measures avail you nothing. You've got to do it or you're not going to do anything. Now, Dr. Bob says that in his last talk, I love this one because it's It's my story that when we get in these things and we work these 12 steps, we all get the same thing in direct proportion to our enthusiasm, stick-to-it-ness, and zeal. It says on page 25, Almost no one likes the self-searching, the leveling of pride, the confession of our shortcomings, which the process requires for its successful consummation. You're going to have to do it. Wine, snivel, piss, or moose will put a smile on your face and go ahead and do it, but you're going do it if you get to stay here. At least that's what I just taught. now you may be the exception to the rule I'm not talking to you okay and the disease of the mind wants to tell me and want to tell you I'm different you don't understand I don't have to do this I've got other things they're far more important Chamberlain topic unless that's enough sobriety is the single most important thing in your life you were not going to get it and unless it remains the single most important thinking your life you are not going keep it now I'm going to keep it today I know damn well I am, because I'm on fire today because of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Monolith and after this is over I've got other things to do in the Fellowships of Alcoholic Monolith. And I've appointments tomorrow morning so I goddamn well better go to sleep tonight without any drinks, sticks or pills, because i am dedicated and I'm obedient to the prayer that I offer and I offered myself to the Father of my understanding and he gave me directions of what to do. It says in our book that we have but when we get here we have only two alternatives And actually, I think we only have one. We have two alternatives. One is to go to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could. That was me in Fresno, going on to the better end. A failure in every department of life. Blotting off the consciousness of my intolerable condition. I had drank, obviously because I had to. I couldn't stand me. I couldn' t stand the world. I was a failure. My kids hated me. My wife hated me, and I couldn''t make any money. My kids were going starving. Well, not starving. I always put food on the table, but God damn it, it wasn't good food. It was just enough to get fire in life. And that's no longer acceptable to me. It was never acceptable. That's what I was doing for nine months. It says we had but two alternatives, however. If you are an alcoholic and you're not in recovery, you get to go to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of your intolerable situation as best you could. The only choice that you have is or accept spiritual help. There is no spiritual side to this program. The only hope we have in recovery is the spiritual side of the program. Sure, it's a suggested program as I'll probably say. It's a suggested program. You can play that game any way you want to. Your mind is going to say, it only suggests I don't have to do it. Your disease of the mind are going to tell you that. Your disease of mind will say, well, I don' t have to go to 16 meetings a day. I'll go to two or one. I don''t have to pay attention to that guy and fool a sponsor your mind. I don't have to pay attention to him because I don' like it. Get another sponsor. I see what I'm saying, the disease of the mind will work on you. Because if you truly, I believe this with all my heart and soul, if you know you're condemned to die, if you KNOW you're CONDEMNED, you KNOW YOU'RE CONDAMNED TO GO INSANE, you KNOW that you're going to go to PRISON, and God damn it, I have sponsors! There's two of them on death row and three of them fifty to life who are a section to the rule. How many people if you've been here for any length of time how many people have we seen die going to the bitter end? So it's a serious goddamn deal and I believe it in all my heart and soul I want to see nobody die in ignorance that's the way I feel about recovery I want no man or woman or child to die in innocence by the contrary, a kid is 15 years He was 15 years old when he came in the door. And I looked at him and I said, You've got three good guys. Mommy, Daddy, and the big book of alcoholic moms. And he stayed sober for 18 years. Damn it, he had to drink again until he moved out of town. You know, little David, bless his heart. Oh, how sad. Now, I don't know if he's ever going to come back. He talks to me every once in a while. It's miserable where he's at. He hates it. But he can't stop. Can't stop." So, if you understand the first step, truly understand is that you have no choice. The choice is made to you. You're going to make the second choice, the second step. And the reason I say that, I can say that you can argue with me, but in the book it says these things, it says right before the ABCs, it said the description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic and our adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. If there are three ideas that follow or not perfectly clear, you go back and read the description of the alcoholics, the chapters, the agnostics, and we can talk about our adventures beforehand because they have to be clear. And why is that? after A, that we are all colleagues and cannot manage our own lives. B, that probably no human part could have relived their all-fellowship and see that God couldn't would if he had thought. Okay, the line after that, being convinced of this, we are at step three. That's the information you need. You take one, you've got to take two or you're going to die. Step one is the most loathsome, unbelievably disgusting because it says you're going to die that way. Now, can you take that and when you know there's a solution over here, you're forced to, willingly or unwillingly, or you will die. Now, if you choose, that's your choice. That's what's going to happen. Step three. When I got to my third step, you see, by the time I got here, God had revealed himself to me because it said when you draw close to him, he will reveal himself to you. And then I had a miracle. I had another miracle. just like my moment up there in the bar down in San Diego. I had a huge awareness, okay, and that God loved me. And I took him on my third step. I took my third steps with my wife, my daughter, and my son, and a witness because the kid who brought me to my first meeting was leaving. He didn't like us, and I wanted to inspire him to see a third step going. So I went through the Santa Cruz Mountains, and then I did a third set. I turned my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood it when my wife and I knelt down in a beautiful glance. The sun, the beautiful rays of God were streaming down through this little clearing that we were in and I turned my will and my life over to the care of my God my wife turned her will and life over to the chair of her God my daughter turned who was 17 at the time turned her Will and life over to care of God as she understood and my little son who was 8 years old pulled on his mommy hand and said Mommy will you do it for me and Peggy turned his life over to take care of God his will with his business now I'll tell you the only reason I'm telling you that is because my son was born with a learning disability of severe nature we caught it early and he was in treatment, okay? He was in a special schooling. Two weeks after our third step, the teacher called Peggy and said I need to talk about Daniel because something's happened. She goes down there and she says we no longer need him in this class because he's changed from some class and he no longer has a disability. We take him to the doctor. The doctor said we don't know what this is but it appears that there has been a spontaneous remission and you no longer need medication. Wow! What a coincidence! Isn't it amazing when you do the right thing? You do simple Now, what happened there? I came in the door. I was one of these. I make money, I lose it. I make money, I lose it. I make money. I got in the doors when I was making money just to put food on the table. I overshot my The reason I tell you the money story is that the doctor said that it's a spontaneous remission. We don't know if it will ever come back or not, but right now he doesn't have it. And I was stone-broke. It came back with a vengeance three years later. By then, I had started the company, the results were rather phenomenal, and I could put him into a special education schooling, the equivalent of Stanford University, and it gave him the best start he could possibly get what a wonderful coincidence that is so i knew that god loved me i knew the god loved my family and i know that anybody that was willing to turn their will in life over the care of god entered into a covenant i call it a covenant you can call it contract but you can follow the prayer i don't care i entered into covenant because i found out what god will do for me and i found that what i'm supposed to do for god you see i have a statement and it will appall some of you in here, but I believe it to be true. My God trusts me. My God admires me because I'm obedient. I fell to my knees. This is what I do and this is why I do it. I fell on my knees after that third step and I said these words. I didn't know I was praying. I really didn't. I came, why me? I don't know if you've ever asked that question. Why me? Why me me. Why have you given so much to somebody like me? Why? I don't know why you've given me, an evil, rotten bastard like I have been. Why has he given me so much? My wife is tolerating me. I'm in my bedroom. My children are calling me and talking to me. My life feels good. Why? Why do I deserve any of this? And of course, I didn't deserve any other. It's a forget that I heard the voice. And the voice was not in my head, ladies and gentlemen. It was not IN MY HEAD. It was in the room, it was loud, and it said these words, GIVE IT BACK! And I waited. I couldn't sleep that night. I asked my wife in the morning because she knew a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I did. She was not yet in Alamo. And she said you'd better do it. So I go down to central office and say I'm here, I'm four months sober and i'm going to save all the joints of the world give me a 12-step song and they said no go home because you don't have enough time and the phone rang and i grabbed it and they let me talk and i hammer their little butts every day two or three times a day i go down there i'd call them give me it's close that's all they finally got to the point where they were so disgusted with me they tried to get rid of rid of me at least that's the way i looked at it is one day a lady called me and said john we have a joint that nobody will take take. I said, I'll take it. But he's got a gun and he wants to shoot somebody. So I said I'm on my way. And I am almost there and I suddenly realized, Carney, you're in over your head. And so I went to the God of my understanding and the covenant that he and I have entered into. And he said that I can go to the most glorious place on earth with with this attitude, and my Heavenly Father will never let me down. That's what he said. I believed it. And I went there, and we unloaded his weapon. I took him to a hospital I didn't know existed. I got four months of sobriety. I did everything that was right. In fact, they said, does he have any insurance? I don't know, but you don't have any choice. That's why I told the hospital. And they believed me. He was in the hospital for three days before they found out he did have some insurance. I don' t know if they had come and gotten his. I don''t know. But that's what I'm saying. God will constantly do for you what he cannot do for yourself. He's still sober. He's Still Sober. Okay. Because I remember the kid that had five days of coming to me and telling me about you and I found a place where you were like the people. So I did a four-step. I did it the way my sponsor told me to do it and I wrote it and I remember it visibly because I had an injury to my hand as a result of my four-steps. Should have had surgery but at that time I didn't have the money. Okay. I never got around to it. It just soared. What happened is I wrote the inventory and defined the exact nature of my romp and as I read it, when I first of all I wrote a page and it was crap because I readit and I said oh it's disgusting I threw it away I went back to praying to the God of my understanding please reveal to me that which I need to know and he did when I finished that fourth step and I readitt because this time I knew it was from the well I wasn't even writing the damn thing I readand I said oh my God and I slammed like this on the table like that I was in the garage, in the table, smoking in there. It was 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and I said, No more! I don't have to live that way anymore. I have had the exact nature of my wrongs and I don'T have to lead that way any more. I went to my sponsor and waited until the office was open. I didn't go to sleep. Jack finally came in. He said, What do you want? I said I'm here to do the fourth step. He says, I'm dizzy. And I said. I'm not. And every hour he'd go sit down in his chair and he'd do his business. And then he'd say, Look up at the deck. John, are you still here? I said yes sir. He said. What are you doing? I said, I'm waiting to do my fifth step. And he says, I am dizzy. And I said I am not. Five hours later he said, oh shit, let's go. And there the inconsiderate dude took me to a restaurant. He sent me by the front door right across from the tank here Sherwood Inn on okay I pointed at a member of the alcoholics and I said and I'm telling him my horrific story story. You know, oh God, the exact nature of my wrongs and all the dirty, dastardly things that I've done. And I'm concerned about the people walking by. And then I got irritated. Here I am peeling my guts out. No son of a bitch wants to listen to me. They just went by as if I wasn't even talking. I was very disappointed. But he said these words to me, he said, John, he says, good work. That's all I needed. You did a good job i needed the affirmation i had it right as far as i was capable of doing and then he told me go home and do exactly what the book says because i've been doing exactly what the book said from that moment i'm preceding it into this moment as best i can and i'm getting better i will get better chamberlain has a story that i love infinite father infinite child infinite journey i've got just as far to go as i've come i'll come a long way i got a long ways to go, wow, it's the journey, not the goal. This is the action-adventure story. Hmm! Something special. So I went home and I carefully reviewed the first proposal, setting aside an hour. I don't know how long, how it took. A book says an hour? Okay. And when I was ready, I offered up my prayer. Now, my prayer is just this simple. It's that I knew there was no value, real or perceived. No value, real or conceived on anything I wrote. That means there was nothing that I wrote that I wanted to keep. At that moment, at that second, there was nothing. I was without any reservation. Once again, our third step prayer says voicing. You offer your prayer up, voicing it without reservation. So I did my sixth and seventh step. What had happened is an act of creation. Through the process of the first five steps, I was entirely ready. It's created. I didn't know what I know. I've been willing all of my life. I think all of us have been willing, all of our lives, to not do the stuff we do and have these six. But I was never ever ready. I had the tools of readiness. And on our sixth step, and then it talks about humility on step seven. Once again, an act of creation. First of all, humility, a true understanding of soul. I knew for the first time, this is what I did. This is not who I am. I am not a rotten Sophie's son of a bitch. I'm just a man who did rotten Sophie son of the bitch insane. If I was what I do, I would never be able to change. I would be condemned to be that person forever. But I'm not that person. I have a child of a loving creator that was given to me through the process of working these 12 steps. So I went to my father and I said, here are what I found. This is kind of what my prayer was. Look what I found. Oh God, I don't want it. I need help. And I know you will help me. So you tell me. You tell me when I'm screwing up and I'm going to stop. What a contract that is. What a covenant. AndI've been stopping all along. And there's very few get outside of this. That is my defective character. You're not going to see very many of them unless you just don't like me personally. And You will see when they appear that God is doing for me what I cannot do for myself. If I were to reflect it, what is perfection? Okay, when I got in the doors of Alkali Chronicles, I can tell you that I would have stopped doing anything in the first year of sobriety. Now, I'm still so far from perfection as you can possibly be. Chamberlain says perfection comes from removal of not addition. So take away my difficulty. Cooperate with God by understanding. was standing so i went and made a list of my eight steps and it was phenomenal when i got into my ninth step i was entirely remember that i'm full i'm roaring through these 12 steps because i had no choice i didn't have to sit down and wait boom boom just exactly the way book is written boom boom boom i wrote my eight step i immediately as soon as i had it down all hell broke loose and people coming into my life because that was my experience i would have had to hang up the telephone refuse to get in the car not call on anybody or answer the cell i could go on and on with things that I would have had to hibernate to avoid these people coming to my face. And I stand there and I'm, wow! Good God, I had a message that ran away and I am supposed to go down to court to keep the sucker from going to prison. And all of a sudden I make an appointment to the judge and the judge looks at me and he says, you have custody of your child. I didn't want the custody of my child. But God said I get to mend this way. I am a custody of the child. His father stood right there and I got custody of his nephew. You're a little bastard, and you've still got to cut to the end. He's 40, I think now. Some people never leave. But I tell this story about the ninth step because it's a beautiful story. And I see no reason why I am any different than anyone here. And I'll lay you on that there are a large number of you here who should identify your own stories parallel to mine. Okay, I'm saying this primarily for the newcomers. There should be no fear in recovery. the turkey and fearless means of course because on the other side there's a sacrifice and one of the dictionary definitions sacrifice is giving up something of real value for something to lead to be of greater value and that's what requires that's what this is all about i was willing to give it all up well surrender is just another word for having nothing else to lose i lost it all i had no value i didn't want anything back the book says but if you get it if the husband and wife could get back together it must be on new basis because the old basis didn't work my wife gave me a money clip i got money in it now And it says, as Money Clip says, all things are new. I adopted Chamberlain's philosophy. Chamberlian's philosophy, he woke up with a new woman every day. Yeah, went to bed with a New Woman every night. Yeah, that's cool. And if I couldn't see a New Women, I hadn't moved. I was failing to grow spiritually. And I did the same thing with my children. I was finished with my eighth step in my tenure and I told my wife, well, I'm finished with mine ninth step. She is not yet in the program, Valimo. Because I'm still in my fourth month of survival. And she said, oh you are? I said yes. She said well, I've got a couple names for you. And she says first of all David C. Now I hadn't heard of David for seven or eight years before I got sober. Now David wasn't on my list and he should have been but thank God the book is infallible. It says more will be revealed to you even if your wife tells you. I didn't leave it off. up. By now I'm communicating with my wife because the fall of hell broke loose when we started to share with each other, sharing. We had to listen to it no matter how painful and understand. We could go on with this but I don't have the time. It was fabulous. My wife and I and our people in this room that could attest to it, had the most fabulous, unbelievable loving relationship until the day she died, two years ago. We were Mr. and Mrs. Sobriety. She was five months into my sobriety, she said, this is the lady that I tried to kill me creatively. See there's another story. She looked at me and she said you got what I want And she went to the Fellowship of Al-Anon, and quite frankly, Al-Aman will never be the same. Most remarkable lady. She said, John, what about David C.? And I said, oh my God, I forgot him. And I knew that that's okay because more has been revealed to me. Now, David, I'll tell you about David. David injured my family in such a fashion that one day I loaded up a .38 and went to kill the son of a bitch. Now, I don't know whether I pulled the trigger or not, and I'm not really a badass that I know of, but certainly not today. But I went to kill that son of the bitch. Well, certainly just if not so. I do not know. That's what the gun was loaded for. And I went there and he wasn't there. And I'm so grateful for that. I talked to him on the telephone shortly after that. And this is what I told him. I said, look, you son of a bitch. You look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. If you don't see me first, you're dead. And he wasn' t on my list. And we were at the same bowling alley that morning when my wife said she had something on her list. and it's a bowling alley only 15 minutes away from where I live and I went home and the phone's ringing when I get into my house and it was my daughter my oldest daughter who lived at that time in Nebraska she's calling me can you believe this I'm only four months sober she's telling me I just turned five months I think she wants to talk to her daddy and I talked to her for a moment I said honey by the way do you ever know what happens day to day and she said yes daddy I do why because she knew it was not safe for David to be in my sight. And she said, well, honey, I owe him a ninth step just like I did with you. And he said, Daddy, oh, I'm so grateful. He's standing right beside me. Oh, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. He still is a rotten squaw and he can't come in my house. Well, he came in and I truly found him to buy you the rotten squawk. I told you, this is rehashing a little bit the panel that was here and did such an incredibly good job in talking about Al-Khalid Salman and the wisdom that they gave us from the years that they've been serving. It's absolutely incredible. My wife had never had a sick day of her in her entire life. Came down with cancer in some form of cancer. that she had a surgery uh huge massive surgery in order to stop because it's gone through the lymph nodes and spread into her steps their lungs and because chemotherapy was adverse here this crippler has virtually fried her inside she was a magnificent pain a healthy wonderful woman And I had the great joy of standing there sat here, giving her medicine, cleaning her wounds, inserting all sorts of obscene things into her body. She lost control of her bowels and so I did a lot of mopping and the like. This is the same guy that went insane when his first wife died and had to run away. We decided, she spoke a great deal, we both spoke a good deal, she and the Fellowship of Al-Anon, he and AA, and many times together, both in Al-Alan and AA when they wanted an Al-Alan speech. We were a very devoted couple. We decided that we would go to Wyoming because she knew essentially the time had come, she's now on oxygen. She had just finished speaking in Los Angeles. We went to Wyoming and the reason we went there was we had a couple of great-grandchildren we'd never met. And we drove there. I bought a van, and I modified the van which was out in front so she would be comfortable. And one night, she's been talking for three years. She's been talking about going through this with dignity and grace she said that she's going to be an example and this is my hero she will be an example of going through this with dignity and grace or an example of god's miraculous healing well she knew what her preference was but it didn't go that way anyway we were in wyoming we saw the great grandchildren we've not seen and she got dreadfully sick one night i I had to call 9-1-1 in a little town called Pinedale, Wyoming. And they had to rush her to the hospital in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, okay? They got in there and they were serious and they found out that much to their... The doctor had assured her that the cancer was moving very, very, Very slowly and she wasn't concerned about it. What had unknowingly spread through her liver they found that in the hospital and they said she'll never get out of the hospital alive. and then they said she's going to go any minute. We were in intensive care. I had the whole room, the whole intensive care ward was filled with my children, my grandchildren, and some of my great grandkids were in that place. And they said that she's gonna die any minute, she's got maybe five or ten more minutes to live. We're on the telephone talking to my children in Southern California, California, and they all wanted to come out. And there was only two tickets that they could get to fly out that night. And two of her first children, and the lady I married had two children when I married her, and a son that was a medical miracle that we had after seven years after we got married. There were two tickets. One of her children was in Wyoming and the two in California. Obviously the rest of it, that's besides for the two to fly out. So excuse me but it's an emotional thing because I'm talking about what was the greatest, greatest and most painful time of my entire life and all the stuff I've done because the program without calling someone else and loving God as I understand God allowed me to pick up my lady and talk to Christ and breathe for her the whole hospital was listening to me that's what I'm told breathe for her because she would not in this agreement no artificial nothing breathe for her for five five hours. The lady was only supposed to live for another five or ten minutes. The two children arrived. They all said goodbye, and I stopped holding her. We held hands, and she passed away. way. Now, I'll tell you why I tell that story. Because like I said, it's one of those three years, almost four years, was one of magnificent experience to be one of leaders in love and to be able to demonstrate that. My first wife died because not knowing how much I loved her. This did not happen. And the finish of this story is very simple. How can a man like me? How can a man like me become a man like me? How can the man like you, if you're in recovery, become a men like you? Through the power of the program of Alkaline Smile and a loving God who is more than willing to give us all the assistance we can possibly have. So see to it that your relationship with Him is right and great Great events will come to pass for you in countless others. And I want to thank you very much for your listening and not throwing anything at me. Have a good day.