The Agnostic’s Guide to Studying the First 164 Pages – Bill S.

good morning my name is Bill Sanders and I'm an alcoholic by the grace of God I'm sober this morning and that's the single most important thing that I will share with you today that It is by the grace of a loving God and the tender, loving care of people like you in rooms like this that I have awakened for the last 2,237 mornings without a hangover. No, it's more than that. It's like 6,000. I have not had a drink by the Grace of God since July 26, 1982, and for that I am eternally grateful. I'm glad it impresses you because it really impresses me I did not plan to stay sober this long As my late sponsor says This is the longest I've ever gone between drinks And it's fun And I didn't expect it to be fun And I think Sunday morning is always supposed to the talk is supposed to be somewhat spiritual and I think the most spiritual thing I can tell you today is I'm sober now the most spiritual thing is not that I didn't take a drink the spiritual thing to me in the miracle is I didnít want one and I havenít wanted one for a lot of 24 hours you know when I heard it said and I like to repeat it that you know the natural thing for us as alcoholics is to drink. That's what we do. That's what we did. When I went for 30 days without a drink, that was most unnatural. But when I put together the kind of sobriety that I have and that you have, many of you have, it becomes supernatural. And it is just that. Because left to my own devices, I would not be here. But for the grace of God, I would not be here but for the fact that a broken down stockbroker and a has-been doctor sat in a gatehouse in Akron 67 years ago next month or actually this month is when they first got together on Mother's Day weekend. None of us would probably be here The natural state for this alcoholic by this time in my life would have been long dead. I believe with all my heart that a loving and compassionate God in his infinite wisdom and compassion and love looked down in the spring of 1935 and said, the lowly alcoholic has suffered for long enough. He's been the outcast of the world for long enough. I have to give him a way out. And what a way he gave us. He could have declared that all of us be locked away in cells and the keys thrown away as many of us were and probably should have remained. He could have said that we should be put off in colonies like lepers so that we couldn't contaminate the world as we did. He could've simply willed us to death, as most of us were on our way. but instead he gave us each other and more love and more laughter and more joy and more happiness than most of us could have ever dreamed of in a thousand lifetimes. You'll never convince this alcoholic that he didn't top it off with one more thing. I believe he topped it off with a one-on-one face-to-face relationship with him that few people on this earth will ever know. I love Alcoholics Anonymous I truly love it which is rather ironic because I can assure you as a kid growing up in the hills of North Georgia making a list of the organizations, clubs country clubs, groups that I wanted to join AA was not in the hot 100 it may come as a surprise to you but I never planned to be an alcoholic You know, I had friends that made plans for their lives at a very young age. One classmate of mine wanted to be a doctor. And he announced he was going to be doctor when he was about 12. And today, he set his goals and worked toward them. and today he is one of the top surgeons at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. A young lady who came along just a few years after me in my high school said she was going to become an actress. Everybody laughed at her. But she set her goals, and she went about them, and sie worked hard. And today the world knows her as Kim Basinger. When I was a kid, I set my goals. And I worked hard at becoming an alcoholic. And I was a little like our speaker last night. My story was not in the annual Christmas newsletter that went out to family because they had a hard time coming up with what accomplishments I had made during the year. I had lofty goals, always have had, but somehow I always hit a detour. Somehow I never quite made it. I started on a lot of direct courses going towards some lofty goal, but I never finished, never really finished anything. When I came to AA, you could put me on a lie detector and say, Bill, how long do you think you've been an alcoholic? And I would say, well, at least the last six months. Maybe eight months. You know, it's funny, the longer you stay around here, it sort of keeps creeping back on you. I can tell you today, I believe with all my heart that I was born an alcoholic. At the age of 15, when I took my first drink, I mixed booze into the formula and I became a drunk. And I was to live in that state for more than 20 years. When I looked at the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, when I looked at them through my own eyes that I arrived with, I interpreted them to my own liking. I looked At The First Step and said, I'm powerless over alcohol, but if I stop drinking, my life will be manageable. that's not what it says you know there I had the assumption though that if the fact that I was powerless over alcohol had become self-evident no question about it again I thought it had been about the last six or eight months that it had been that way I now realize that the first beer I picked up at the age of 15 that I was powerless over alcohol. Because the very first night I drank, I got drunk. The very first night I drink, I had a blackout. And it went downhill from there. So my powerlessness over alcohol was not something that was debatable. My life was unmanageable. Yes, it was, but I really didn't understand what that had to do with drinking. If my wife would only straighten up and if the people that work with me would only do what I ask them to do. And if, well, as a matter of fact, if the whole world would shape up the way I wanted it to, my life wouldn't be unmanageable. Still couldn't figure out why they tacked that on to the alcohol thing. But as I said, later on, I interpreted it simply to mean that if I stopped drinking, life is going to be great. Now, it didn't occur to me that if that were true, the next 11 steps that followed would be unnecessary. Admit it, we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. Quit drinking, everything's fine. Go home, don't come back to meetings. But as Clancy says, if your problem is alcohol, then the answer is very simple. Don't drink and we'll be fine. but my problem was not alcohol my problem was alcohol ism three tiny little letters but the heart of what ails me and always has and simply removing the alcohol from the formula did nothing to the ism except make it worse because not only was I powerless over alcohol, I was powerless over people, places, things. And alcohol had become my best friend. It gave me release and relief. It glossed over the obvious. It glosses over the pain. It gave my rose-colored glasses. It allowed me to see what I wanted to see and to block out what I didn't. And it worked for a long, long time. Alcohol was my best friend until it became my worst enemy. I was sharing with Karen yesterday the words of my good friend Polly P. If you have not heard her, I hope you have the opportunity to. Polly has a wonderful quote that says The chains of alcoholism Were too soft to be felt Until they were too strong To be broken I didn't feel the chains of Alcoholism in the early days of drinking It was fun You know I hear people say My worst day sober is better than My best day drinking I think that's how it goes I'm not sure I can say that I had some great times drinking Now unfortunately today I also realize that I have a very selective memory When I began to romance a drink And when the thought pops into my head Of a drink would be good Nowhere in that thought And in that romance Is there me Hanging on to a parking meter Puking into the gutter Nowhere in that daydream is my face pressed against the commode seat And he's right, it felt so cool on the side of the face See, my selective memory only remembers the tinkling of the glasses And the music of the bars and the romance and the class And the camaraderie My disease Elects to make me forget That I drank up all my fun bottles There were no more In the last months Even probably a year or more Of my drinking It was not fun It was maintenance I would try to recapture that good old high That Everything's right with the world That warm fuzzy feeling Where all problems just kind of melt away, and everything is just right. And in those last months or years of drinking, I'd see that warm, fuzzy feeling coming. Here it is. There it went, blackout. Could not capture that good old high and hold on to it anymore. It was elusive. It was gone. And even worse than that, I don't know how many of you experienced this horrible phenomenon of two or three o'clock in the morning drinking yourself sober. Oh God, what a feeling. At two or four o' clock in the afternoon at two or five o' time in the evening at two o' three o´clock inthe morning you've been drinking all of the night and all of a sudden you are stone cold sober. Grab another drink, get another drink pour it down, no good. No good. Go in the bathroom, throw up for a while come back and drink some more. Didn't help. And by the way all of this was why we were having fun. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought, well, my fun days are over. Thank God the fun days were over with my definition of fun. I love Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't plan to when I got here. I remember the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I walked into. I was convinced that I was in a room full of total loonies. The first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I walked into, of course I wasn't an alcoholic, I was merely observing. And your sense of humor was sick. You know a guy raises his hand in the meeting and says, my name's Joe and I'm an alcoholic. In the first place I'm thinking, I don't think I'd have told that if I'd been him. And then he announced to the group that he had gotten three DUIs. I don't know what you call them here in Canada, DUIs, DWIs, what do you call them? Drunk driving awards, you know what I'm talking about. Well, I expected everybody to go, oh. They didn't. They busted out laughing. Hmm. Next guy said he had gotten six DUIs and been arrested for indecent exposure. They came unglued. And the thought that was going through my mind, I never want to forget it. The thought that went through my mine is, what are they laughing for? Don't they know what they are? They're alcoholics. They've got nothing to laugh about. I say that because I can tell you today I thank God every day of my life For the laughter that we share in these rooms Because if you newcomers haven't figured it out There's magic And there's power And there is healing in that laughter And I like to tell people If you don't have a home group that laughs a lot Go find one that does I also like to warn newcomers Don't laugh all the time or they'll come get you It puts you in a little padded room I got married in 1966 And I had dated this woman for a few months And when I first met her It was sort of a love at first sight thing And then I thought well I probably need to clean up my act a little bit and cut down on my drinking if I wanted her to be a part of my life. It took me about three dates to discover I didn't need to do any such thing. That woman liked to drink just as much as I did and a few months after that we were married and we were a pair she would go to her job every morning as a bookkeeper with a large firm and I would go to my job at a radio station and we would do our jobs all day And then she would come home at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and wait for me. And I would, as soon as I finished my 6 o' clock newscast, I would out of the studio, go home, pick her up, and head for the local club and we'd start to drink. And we would drink until the club closed at 1, 1.30, 2 o' lock in the morning. Go home, pass out, get up the next day and repeat the same pattern. Now I should tell you that, you know, for most people when you get up early in the morning and you've tied one on the last night. The person across the hall from you or at the next desk might be able to look at you and tell that, you know, you had a rough night the night before. With me it was different. I sat alone in a little studio with just me and a microphone. But if you want to know what hell is, hell is trying to sound cheerful At 6 o'clock in the morning, when your mouth tastes like the bottom of a birdcage and your head feels like the Russian army did maneuvers on it the night before. My early morning radio audiences never knew how many newscasts they heard me do early in the mornin', lying flat on my back on the floor, microphone pulled down over my face, readin' the news. It was the only way I could get the room to quit goin', zoom, zoom, Zoom! Insane. I can tell you a lot of crazy experiences that I had around in front of the microphone. I'll just share one. In the 1960s, I was in the newsroom of a radio TV station in Atlanta that I worked for, and the news director came in and said, grab a tape recorder, go downtown, you've got to go do an interview. Everybody else is out. I said, okay I grabbed the tape recorder, keys to the mobile unit I said who am I going to interview He said you're going to go interview Lyndon Johnson Mmm So he handed me my credentials And the information I would need I jumped in the mobile union I start downtown to the big downtown Atlanta hotel Where he was staying And I'm thinking all the way down there I need some fortification for this So I stopped at one of my neighborhood bars Went in, had a couple of quick shooters Went down, got on the elevator, went up to the floor they had cordoned off and was met, of course, by the Secret Service and was frisked and checked and went over my credentials and they escorted me into a room where a parlor of a suite where a giant of a man came over and engulfed my hand in his and said, come on in, boy, and have a seat. I went inside there and set the tape recorder down and I'm sitting on one sofa and the president's sitting on another sofa. We're facing each other over a coffee table And I can't help but noticing on the coffee table there's a tray, there's a little bucket of ice, and there was a bottle of Jack Daniels. And Mr. Johnson said, before we get started with this thing, let's have us a little bourbon. Sounded good to me. So he poured me a glass and poured him a glass. I should tell you at this point that back in those days, it's different today, but back in Those Days, you did not just walk in and sit down and interview the president. You had to do what was known as the pre-interview interview. That's where you tell him what you're going to ask him, and he'll tell you whether or not he's going to answer it. And we're doing the pre-'interview' interview, and I'm sipping away at my bourbon, and every time I take about three swallows, he picks the bottle up and fills my glass up again. Takes a few sips himself, picks the bottled up, fills his glass up against me. We're going along there handsomely until suddenly it hits me. Number one, it's getting warm in here. But more importantly than that, it hit me, dear God, this man is drunker than you are. Finally he said, let's do it, roll it. And he said roll it, I hit the button on the tape recorder and started the interview. And I tell you, it was a pretty darn good interview. There's a tape of it, still exists today. And I asked intelligent questions, he gave very succinct answers. And I did fine until I got down to a point in the interview where I asked him a question about his wife Ladybug. Thank God he thought it was funnier than y'all did That's just one of my war stories There are a lot of others In the course of my wife's and my marriage And about three years of marriage We had a beautiful little blue eyed blonde haired girl Come into our lives My wife and I said we need to cut down on our drinking We need to become responsible parents And we did We became completely responsible parents Doing 2 a.m. feedings And diaper changes And all those other good parental things And we became model parents For I don't know Two, three weeks and we discovered the great American institution of the babysitter and we were off back in the bars again I've always been a traveling drunk since I got out of the day to day operation of a radio station in another part of the business it involved among other things something called public relations which was interesting because I didn't even know what public relations was I came from a little bitty town in the hills of North Georgia where people didn't have relations in public so I didn' t know what it was but it paid a lot of money so I took the job. And I had to travel a lot. But I didn't like flying, still don't all that much. I do a lot of it but I don't really like it. And I would go out to Hartsville International Airport in Atlanta and of course I would always get to the airport a couple hours early so I could have a few drinks before I got on that plane. The only problem is sometimes I'd forget to get on the plane. They had a series of commercials That ran for a number of years For Delta Airlines As a matter of fact I did some of those commercials That said very simply Delta is ready when you are Uh uh That was a lie They go off and leave you So I did what any alcoholic could do. I'd just get on another plane and go somewhere else. Called home that night, how's the convention in New York? No, no, no. I'm not in Newark. Where are you? I'm in New Orleans. New Orleans? You know how I knew I was in New Orleans? Because I opened the nightstand drawer of that dump motel I was in and pulled out the phone book and said right on the cover of New Orleans, that's the only way I knew where I was. and how many times I woke up in strange cities strange beds strange people you know how great it was to wake up this morning on a Sunday morning you know for years and years I never saw this end of Sunday morning saw the other end of it like 2, 3, 4 o'clock Sunday morning but never this end of Sunday morning and I woke up early this morning and I opened the drapes and the sun was just coming up and I remembered everything that happened last night. I remembered where I was last night I remembered who I was with last night and when I woke up this morning I didn't have to look over and see if there was anybody over here on this side of the bed there wasn't and I knew there wasnít thatís spiritual people for us thatís spiritual you know itís been a long, long time since I've had to go look in the garage in the morning to see if my car is there. And if it's not, try to piece together where it might be. I've often said the only thing worse than looking out and it's no longer there is looking out and part of your car is still there. Your car is always there. Those rose-colored glasses of alcoholism, how magic they were. They allowed me to see what I wanted to see. They made the world have a wonderful glow. But over and beyond that, they supplied me with a set of blinders. Those blinders did not allow me to see what was going on around me. And I think most every alcoholic is outfitted with those blinders and I think Most Al-Anons would attest to that because we think we're victimless get away from me my drinking is not affecting anybody but me get out of my face what a lie those blinders didn't allow me to see that my beautiful little blue-eyed blonde haired girl who by now is five or six years old never invites friends over to spend the night because she never knows when dad's gonna come home in the middle of the night and a drunken rage smashing furniture throwing televisions through plate glass windows or dragging her out of bed at 2 a.m., 3 a.n., demanding that she clean up a drop of milk or on the cabinet or some other insane demand. Those blinders didn't allow me to see that the only look that was ever in that little girl's eyes was one of fear and hate and disgust. It didn't even penetrate when changing the mattress on my little girl under the mattress there was a little book and I realized that it was a diary and as I shouldn't have, I opened it. And I read in there, I wish my daddy was dead and maybe there would be some peace at home. Those blinders were incredibly effective. I drank in a lot of fancy places in Atlanta and New York and Los Angeles and Chicago and I would find the fanciest, most plush lounges that there were because I knew that that was classy. I had loungES in Atlanta that I could walk into and as I'd walk in the front door, I'd be greeted by the maitre d' in his tuxedo and his Portuguese accent or whatever it was. Good day, Mr. Sanders. Welcome, Mr., Sanders. And he would show me toward the door of the bar and by the time I would step through the door of the bartender would call me by name. before I reached the bar would set my drink in front of my usual seat. Didn't have to even order it. And I used to take people with me to go see that because I knew that made a statement. Uh-huh, it made a statement all right, it's just not the one I thought it was making. And I was a snob too. I could tell you in a heartbeat that the optimum temperature for drinking vodka is 31.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Found out later I was wrong about that. The optimum temperature for drinking vodka is 108 degrees. That was the temperature underneath the front seat of my car where I kept that bottle stashed. I was classy. I would meet lovely women in the bars. Around 11.30 to 1 a.m. is when they were their loveliest. and I would think up some very, very probing, intelligent question to ask her in order to get her attention and to get here to immediately attach herself to my vibrant personality. And I would sit and think for a long time and finally come up with the perfect come on. And I'd go over and stand beside her, tap her on the shoulder, and she'd turn around and I would look into her eyes and say, Classy. But I'm telling you folks there is nothing classy about it when you wake up in the morning and you blink your eyes and realize that there's dew all over your clothes and you bling again and realize you're looking up the nostrils of a policeman's horse from a downtown Atlanta city park. There's no good answer to the question, what are you doing here? All I could think of was where is here? There's not class when you're pulled from a car that you've planted into a steel post on the side of an Atlanta city street. Totaled. And I was pulled out of the car and frisked and handcuffed by a cop tucked into the cage in the back of the police car and all the way to the police station. I'm telling them I have only had two beers. I am not drunk. I am convinced that there is a school that they take us to when we're in a blackout. And at that school, I don't remember going, but I know I must have because everybody else has. At that school they tell you if ever stopped by the cops never admit to more than two beers You ever watch these cop shows on TV? They pull this guy out, and he's falling all over the place. I don't know if they had two bears. The cop said, uh-huh. Took me into the police station, put me on the breathalyzer. It registered .28. I informed him that that was absolutely impossible. There'd be no way on the face of this earth that I could be registering .28 on two bears The cop agreed with me. It was the only thing we agreed on that night. Classy. I can tell you it is not classy, nor is it smart to go to court for a DUI drunk. If you've never done that, let me inform you now, judges frown on that. They don't like it. In Georgia back then, and this is my first DUI Back then in Georgia 25 years ago You could go into court on your first DUIs And you could plead nolo contendere No contest They would give you about a $500 fine Suspend your license for 30 days And that would be the end of it I am so drunk in court that Monday morning there is no way I could say NOLO contendery they said guilty or not guilty guilty six months suspension $2,000 fine and yet the blinders were firmly in place and I couldn't see the obvious by now my wife is off drinking in her places and I'm off drinking in my places and we're hardly ever seeing each other, we would meet about every week or ten days just to have a good knock-down, drag-out fight and then go our merry ways. She no longer asked where I was when I didn't come home for two or three nights. She didn't care. I no longer ask where she was when she left because I didn' t care. But there was a beautiful little blue-eyed blonde girl by now who was 10 or 11 years old who cared. This little girl had memorized the numbers of a couple dozen bars and she would go down the list dialing, is my mom there? Is my dad there? The phone would ring. The bartender would answer it and say, it's your kid. I would take the phone and on the other end of the line there was a trembling little voice said, Daddy please come home. I'm scared. Where's your mom? I don't know daddy please come on. The answer was always the same. I'll be home just as soon as I have one more drink and I don' t need to tell most of you the rest of the story. Many hours and many drinks later I would stumble into that little apartment. And there cowering in the corner of the bed, tears streaming down her face is a trembling little girl. But the blinders were firmly in place. One night my wife disappeared. I was sitting in my recliner chair in the living room staring at the television and she disappeared and was gone for a couple of hours and she came back I'm still sitting in the same recliner chair with the same bottle in my hand staring at the television probably trying to decide whether to turn it on or not and um my wife stood in front of me and said guess where I've been and I said who gives a who who cares and she did something really weird. She flipped a white poker chip into my lap and I looked down at it and I look back at her and I Look back at it, and I don't know where you've been but if that's all you won you had a lousy night. I happened to notice that chip had two little A's on it and she told me she'd been to an A&A meeting and I went into an absolute blind, perfect rage because I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt there was no way on the face of this earth that that woman was an alcoholic because if that woman was an alcohol then there just wasn't any way she could be an alcoholic it just that's all there was to it but it didn't stop her she started going to meetings and going to meetings some fool nonsense about 90 90 and 90 something and I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall I kept waitin' for her to say you need this a whole lot worse than I do you're a bigger drunken neb didn't do it didn'd do it just kept going to meetings ain't going to meetings ain't goin' to meetings there were a few little hints left around the house like I'd lift the toilet seat and there's how it works taped to the lid. Finally, the other shoe fell. She said, I'm going to pick up a 90-day trip tonight and I'd like for you to be there. Uh-uh, ain't gonna happen, not in this lifetime. Please, no, maybe, a deal, a few tears, and I'm following her down the road to a meeting at a little place called The 81-11 Club. Now, this is a pretty little house sitting up in a grove of trees off of one of Atlanta's main thoroughfares. And I thought it was weird as I followed her up this little driveway to this little house that had been converted into a club because I'd passed that house lots of times on the way home from the bar. And I would look up there at all those cars and say, Bill, you know what? You ought to get to know the guy that lives there because he obviously has a party every night. Well that night old Bill went to the party And I slipped into the back of the room You remember those posts in the back Of the room there I slipped behind those posts and I sat down And for the next hour witnessed the biggest bunch of weirdos I'd ever seen in my life That meeting I described a little bit earlier The end of the meeting they finally got up And said the only thing that sounded familiar to me And that was the Lord's Prayer And I was out the door and headed across the parking lot And I almost made it to my car and something grabbed me by the shoulder that felt like a steel vice, spun me around, and I found myself looking up into the face of a man 7 feet 11 inches tall. I tell you now he's only 6'6", but he looked a hell of a lot taller that night. I remembered him from the meeting. He was a little different from the rest of them. He'd said, other people said, my name's Joe, I'm an alcoholic. My name's Mike, I'M an alcoholic My name is Karen, I am an alcoholic This guy was different. He introduced himself, my name's Floyd and I'm a grateful hillbilly drunk. Give me a break. And this guy standing in that parking lot starts talking to me about drinking moonshine up in the mountains and about the DUI he got driving the school bus. And I'm thinking, why is he telling me all this? That God don't even know who I am. Found out later he knew exactly who I was because she'd been talking about me in those meetings. Remember now, I went in my own car, followed my wife so I could get away from this loony bird bunch. People come out and get in their cars and leave and Floyd's going on. Finally, my wife comes out, goes by, gets in her car and leaves and it's me and Floyd. And he talks about getting drunk out in the woods in the wintertime and falling down on the ground and his face freezing to the ground. And they had to pour coffee on him to get him up. And I'm not hearing most of this because I'm busy making a deal with God. Well, Floyd talked on there for, I don't know, three, four days. I finally broke away from him, got in the car, went home, walked in the house. My wife started to say something. I said, don't open your mouth. Don't you ever try to get me back To that nut bin again And she didn't And the roller coaster ride continued Downward The loneliness Got worse The pain of the Isolation got worse The feeling of not fitting in Or belonging anywhere Got worse I would drive the streets of Atlanta at 3, 4, 5 o'clock in the morning looking for a bar that was open and somebody sitting at the bar so I could buy a drink and just get somebody to listen. Just don't leave me alone. Please don't leaves me alone." If there was nobody at the bartender I would sit in front of where the bartendor was washing glasses and trying to close up for the day just so I wouldn't be alone. It occurred to me a few years ago something that was a little clue that God dropped in front of most of us that we missed. Any of you ever remember hearing a bartender say you keep coming back now and it'll get better. They didn't say that. On the evening of July 26, 1982 I came out of a week long blackout drunk. Whole week missing. When I came out of that blackout I looked down and in my left hand there's an empty bottle. In my right hand is a fully loaded and cocked .22 pistol and I had not remembered picking up either one of them. And the thought that was going through my head was, is this all there is? Is this really all there is? Because if it is, you can have it. I got up out of my chair, walked into the bathroom, cleaned myself up as best I could, gargled about a half a bottle of Listerine, drank the rest got up and got in my car and drove back to that little house on the hill and walked in and sat down once again behind that post. I don't know about the God of your understanding but the God in my understanding has a sense of humor because I peeked around that post at the front of the room and sitting there chairing the meeting was my wife. She didn't see me until the end of the meeting when a man got up and explained that the white chip was a surrender chip. It means you're sick and tired of being sick and tired and want to join the AA way of life one day at a time. And I got up out of my seat, and I took the longest walk I've ever taken in my life to the front of that room. And a man pressed that white poker chip into my trembling, sweating hand, and I walked back and sat down. I choose to believe that an old Bill Sanders walked to the font of that roon that night and died. and that a new one walked away because by the grace of God and the tender loving care of people like you in rooms like this, I haven't had a drink since that night. You told me very early I needed to get a sponsor, which I thought was very weird. I, you know, I've been in broadcasting all my life. And Taylor, you don't understand this. I had lots of sponsors. I didn't need to get an sponsor. You explained to me that wasn't the kind of sponsor you were talking about. As I shared yesterday in the sponsorship meeting I decided to do that scientifically I looked around for the sweetest, kindest, roly-poly-est White haired old granddaddy That I could find One who was just like a Santa Claus Took me a few weeks and I found just the right man Snow white hair A smile a mile wide And I asked a man named Doc Crandall To be my sponsor Biggest mistake I ever made In my life Within five minutes he went from looking like Santa Claus to the Grinch in person The minute I asked him to be my sponsor He said sure thing we'll do let's discuss the rules Rules what rules Oh he said very simple When you wake up every morning you're going to roll out of your bed onto your knees And you're gonna ask the God of your understanding to keep you sober today And the last thing you're doing is The last thing your gonna do at night is to get back down there and say thank you I said, Doc, I grew up Southern Baptist Every time a church door was open We were there I got a long way away from it But I know prayer is important But I just gotta tell you I'm not comfortable with this knee business He said, I don't remember saying a damn thing About you being comfortable And then I got really cocky I said doc I thought this was a program of suggestion He says, it is I suggest you do it Or get you another sponsor That's how we began our relationship Then he gave me this book He said I want you to take this book home And I want to read the first 164 No wait a minute I want for you to study the first 164 pages I want your to spend several weeks studying that Especially chapter 5 and those 12 principles there And after you've done that you come back and sit down And we're going to talk about how you can make them work in your life I said alright I can get into that So I went by the office supply place and got a couple of legal pads, some highlighters and some number two pencils and went home, cleaned off my desk spread it all out and I went to work and I highlighted and I underlined and I made notes in the margins and I wrote into that book I struck through the steps it didn't have anything to do with me and I jotted down a few I'd thought of that you people hadn't and after about two weeks I called him and said Doc I'm ready to talk he said hot dog come on over I went over to his house he reared back in his big old recliner I spread it all out on the coffee table and he said, lay it on me. And I picked up the book and flipped it over to chapter 5 and I said, okay, doc look in here at this first step. As I interpret, and that's as far as I got. He said, son, that step don't need your interpreting. That step needs your doing. Yeah, but what I think it means is, doc, he said son, it's in English. It says exactly what it means. And if you'll look even closer, you'll notice they put little numbers by those steps so smart college boys like you can follow along. God, he was tough. And he was a fanatic about those steps in this book. I remember having a personnel problem at work one day and I called him and said, could you get to the meeting a little early? I want to chat with you a minute. He said, sure. Got there, I grabbed a cup of coffee and he did too and we walked out under a tree. I said, Doc, I got a personnel problems at work. You've had a lot more business experience and meat. Let me lay out the situation to you. He said, hang on one second. Let me ask you a question. What step you're using on this? What? No, no, no. I'm talking about something at work, doc. I'm talking about some real life stuff, not step stuff. He says, son, go home and look again. So I went home. I got the book open. I went down through the steps. Of course there wasn't anything about personnel problem in there. Went back next night and said, doc, I looked. There's nothing in those 12 about a personnel problem let me lay out the situation go look again I'm driving home thinking he's a crazy old bastard but I'll do it and I opened a book up went to chapter 5 start down through the steps again but there was there was the answer over and over and over and over again, he sent me back to that book and back to those steps until finally the bell went off in this thick skull that said, Bill, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that is going to happen in your life that the answer is in this book and in those steps. Now we've made a big whoop-dee-doo over the fact that we've got a fourth edition of the big book that just came out. I said big whoop-dee-doo because I am now currently on the 26th edition of the Big Book. You people are lagging behind. And the reason I know it's the 26rd edition is because that's how many times I've read the Big Books from cover to cover. And every time I read it, they have rewritten that sucker. There is stuff that was not in there the last time I read it. Now, I know that because, as I said, I'm a highlighter and an underliner. Now, there's some over here that's highlighted. I don't know who did that. That's no big deal. But this over here, wow! That wasn't in there the last times I read this book. And that keeps happening. I had a newcomer come up to me. He was about a month and a half sober a while back, I was sharing one weekend, he said, do you really believe that? So I've had to add to it since then that I do believe that God speaks to me through this book. And I believe that he shows me what I need to see when I need the same thing. He reveals himself to me in his will through the words of this book and through the people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I asked my sponsor one time, I said, do you think maybe God speaks to us through people? He rolled his eyes and said, Bill, what do you know? Do you think he speaks through Frisbees? So I pray for God's will, go to a meeting, find out what it is. Doc used to talk about the meetings that he would go to. He said, man, you missed a great meeting last night. I heard something last night that's just what I needed to hear. I said what, Doc? He said, I don't know what you needed to hear. I heard what I needed to here. You weren't there. So I go to a lot of meetings and I read the book a lot because I don' t want to miss a message that God might have for me through the book or through you people. Doc was a believer in working those steps, not reading them, not memorizing them, working them. And he went from step one to step two. You finish step two, you go to step three. Just zipping right along. I was in a step meeting, and it was a room full of newcomers. And it was about the fourth step, and when do you write a fourth step? Well, you'll know when it's time to write a forth step. You just know. You're just going to know when its time to right a forth step. Boy, that sounded good to me. I went back and told Doc I was at a meeting, and I learned something. I learned that I'm going to now when it is time to write a forth step. Doc said, yeah, damn right you will know, because I'll tell you. And he did. And we did the fourth step, then the fifth step, then the sixth step, then the seventh step, eight, nine. And it occurs to me, we're going to be through here before you know it. And I walked into his favorite trap. I said, Doc, what do you do when you get through working the steps? He didn't bat an eye. He said, Son, you lay real still because you're dead. Think about that. On November 25th, 1985, my sponsor, Doc, went on a 12-step call and never came home. As he and another man struggled to take a shotgun from a suicidal young man that Doc had been trying to help, the gun accidentally discharged and Doc caught the blast full in the stomach and died before reaching the hospital. In the stillness of that evening in his den, I had a loneliness and a fear come over me I hadn't felt in a long time. How can I go on? How can i stay sober without the man who planted me in this program? who guided me through these steps, who kicked my behind when I needed it, who put his arms around my shoulder when I need it. And it didn't take long until the answer came. It was one by one and two by two. Those snot-nosed little jerks that I sponsored came wandering into the room, sitting down beside me, putting their arms around me. And for the next weeks and months, they dragged me to meetings when I didn't want to go. they made me share when I wanted to isolate and they loved for me and cared for me until I could walk the walk again and I love them forever for it as I said yesterday in the sponsorship meeting I don't recommend what I did, I went for a year and a half without getting another sponsor I tie myself to this guy, I would spend time with this guy I would glean from this person and that person which is fine but I didn't have a sponsor And I realize today what I was doing was trying to fix this sick thing with this sick thing. And that doesn't work. When I'm sponsoring me, I have a fool for a sponsor and a bigger fool for a sponsee. I don't recommend it. In my early sobriety, my sponsor Doc had talked about my other disease. He called it my terminal uniqueness, guilty. And he used to make me go read a couple of pages in the big book out loud every day for a month. And he did it about three different times. And those pages were 448 and 449. I thought if I heard the words acceptance is the answer to all my problems today one more time I was going to puke. I did decide if I ever meet the sucker that wrote that I'm gonna punch his lights out well Dick and Peggy invited me to come in 1990 to the Cornhusker Roundup and I hadn't didn't know who the other speakers were when I got there and I got they and got the program and picked it up and going down through there and a name jumped off the page dr. Paul Oh I'll turn to my wife said that's him that's Him I met him that weekend didn't punch him fell in love with him. Three weeks later, we're at another conference in the hill country of northern Pennsylvania. The speakers all had to share one cottage. Guess who was there? Dr. Paulo and Max. A month after that, I'm at another conference in Texas. Guess Who's There? Yep. And at that one in Texas, Paul said, in a few months we're having an anniversary of my home group in Laguna Beach, California. How about you coming out and sharing? And I looked up and kind of shook my head at God and I said okay on one condition will you be my sponsor? And for the last ten years of his life he was a wonderful and dear sponsor. it was two years ago today and as he packed to leave the hospital after having a heart bypass surgery that he had a massive aneurysm and died and two years ago today I felt that loneliness come over me that I hadn't felt in a long time but this time I knew what the answers were and I called a couple of my guys and in less than an hour they were gathering at my house. I intuitively knew what I had to do so I quickly it was either before the end of the day that day or the very next day that I picked up the phone and I said, I called Dick over here and I need a sponsor. Will you be my sponsor? See this program has taught me to intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me. You know, matching socks in the morning used to baffle me. Today, by the grace of God and this program, I'm learning to deal with life on life's terms. A few years ago, my beautiful little blue-eyed blonde-haired girl was in her late teens and she fell ill to a a very difficult-to-control disease for which there is no cure. And for several days, she lay in a hospital, and the doctors would not tell her mother and me that she would live. They were not sure. My mother-in-law turned to my wife and said, Do you think Bill's going to get drunk over this? And my wife's mouth fell open, and she turned and looked at me. And we both realized the thought had never entered our mind to drink. That's a miracle. That's spiritual. She got well, and life has gone on, and it's been great. I can tell you today that God has been so good to me in this program and in this life my first sponsor used to say if all you want to do is quit drinking we can handle that for you big deal no problem just like that we can take care of that and if that's all you won't that's fine but that's not good enough for me I want all the goodies that AA's got to offer Every one of them. We read the promises at a lot of the meetings in Georgia. I don't know if you do that here, but they read what is called the promises. And it's those after step nine. Folks, if you read this book, it's full of promises. Chuck, full of them! How many of you have ever read the fifth step promises? The fifth step promises to say once we've taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we're on the broad highway Walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe What a promise My grand sponsor used to be fond of saying Work the steps and you can't stop the promises You can't drop them Stop them, they're coming Get ready, brace yourself, fasten your seatbelt They're coming And they've come for this alcoholic I'll give you a quick example I had a young man That came into my life When he was 15 About to turn 16 years old This kid came up to me Had long hair down on his shoulders Walked up to him and said Hey dude can I talk to you a minute Oh jeez I need a sponsor Yeah you sound like it How about you being my sponsor No I'm overloaded check him, him or him I don't want him, him or Him I want you let me think about it okay 20 minutes later he's back hey I want sponsors you think about it I look up at God and said why I became his sponsor some months later it became apparent this young man had a problem his dad had died a drunken automobile accident that killed a woman and her two children and he had tried to get sober and never could. This young man, Scott, had been coming to meetings and going home every night to a mother who was stoned out of her mind, drunk, who two or three nights a week would say, Don't come home tonight. I'm having a friend over. And he'd end up sleeping on our sofa. After this went on for about five or six months, my wife and daughter and I finally had a family group conscience and decided to ask Scott just to come live with us. And so we added a bedroom and a bath to our home. It became the Scott wing of the house, and he came to live with us, and he lived with us for five years. We helped him start a little landscaping company that grew to a pretty large company before it was sold. As Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story is this. In October of this year, I'll give Scott his 16-year chip, and he's going to have there with him one of his last remaining grandmothers, both of whom his grandmother said don't waste your time on it. He's not worth it. One of the grandmathers died and when she died it was revealed that she had made Scott the executor of her estate. And this other grandmother every year has come to every one of His birthdays and sits back and beams that's my boy up there. He now owns his own tile laying company in Atlanta. He is getting very close to being able to support me so I can quit. Although he kind of frowns when I say that. And the rest of the story is this. His mother for years and years damned me because Bill took away my son. Three years ago she came in through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous and she got sober. And she asked me to speak at her first birthday. and as she introduced me she said this is the man that I thought took away my son I realized today that he was saving him from me and for me and today it's a joy to watch a mother and son rebuild a relationship God has a sense of humor because my wife is now his mother's sponsor I've quit trying to second guess God most of the time because it's fun to find out what he has in store. I said my grand sponsor was fond of saying it's still getting better every day. I talked to him on the day of his 40th birthday in Alcoholics Anonymous and those are the last words he said, Bill don't ever forget it's all good. It's still getting better every day and nine days later he died. what a promise that no matter how long I'm sober God's still got more goodies and more things to give my wife and I used to sit in the offices of counselors and scream at each other and we had one counselor tell us that he had few couples, and this was after we had gotten sober and were having lunch with him one day, he said I had few couple that I considered the marriage to be utterly and totally hopeless in my 40 years of counseling. You two were one of those handful. He said, the only reason I continued to take your money and to see you is I was convinced somebody had to referee you two or somebody was going to get killed. I can tell you today that that woman is my best friend, my pal, my soulmate, and my buddy. I love her more than anything in the face of this earth. She often goes with me when I go to share but she's at home right now and I can tells you She's in Atlanta, Georgia, thinking about me, sharing with you. And she knows I'm thinking about her. A few years ago, I got to walk my little girl down the aisle of a church. And I cried all the way down the aisles. I took her. She looked like a princess in the long white flowing gown. I looked like I'm a penguin in that monkey suit. and I took her hand and I placed it into the hand of another man and he and she turned to face the same minister who had married her mother and me 25 years earlier and they began their life together I love my son-in-law he's a great young fellow. I worried the first night that we took them out to dinner the night we met him. We sat down in the restaurant and the first thing he did was to order a beer and he sat there and nursed that thing for two hours I don't understand him anymore than what the speaker was talking about last night never have understood those people never will do any of you understand the person that says no more for me I'm beginning to feel it that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life no one's my limit huh one I never had one of anything and especially one drink I mean better be a real big drink the greatest tears though didn't come at the wedding the greatest fears came at the reception that followed there's my little girl that said daddy I'm going to have the first dance with Paul but I want to have the second dance with you and I said oh Karen And, honey, you better tell me what we're going to dance to because I need to practice with your mom a little bit because I don't dance as well today as I never did. And she said, no, I'm not going to tell you. She had her dance. And then my little girl came and stood in front of me and reached out her hands. And I looked into her eyes, and instead of fear and hate and disgust, i saw love and i saw respect and she took me by the hands and we waltzed out onto the dance floor and the music began and the words of the song were did you ever know that you're my hero and everything i want to be i can fly higher than an eagle you're the wind beneath my wings dear God what a miracle had been worked in the lives of this family that had been ripped and shredded and torn apart by the insidious unrelenting disease called alcoholism and yet meeting by meeting sponsor by sponsor step-by-step in prayer by prayer you God and AA had put this family back together again I think I'm one of the luckiest men on the face of this earth I've had wonderful sponsors I made such wonderful friends from one end of this country to the other and I think back of how I almost missed every bit of this but for the grace of God the journey has been fun and it's getting funner and funner I've had a lot of funny bumps along the road like I remember the day when dr. Paul called me on the phone and said I didn't email you this morning because my computer is disconnected and sitting out in the middle of the floor see they're putting down new carpet in our house and And everything is absolutely crazy. They've ripped everything out of the walls. Max is running around fussing at the tile people in the kitchen and the carpet people in the living room. Our little blind dog is running about bumping into everything because he can't figure out where anything is. And while he's talking, my head is saying, Bill, don't miss this chance. And out of my mouth came the words, Paul, maybe you need to read page 449. that felt good. It's a great journey. For those of you who are new, don't quit before the miracle happens. The first miracle. Because they're going to keep coming and keep coming and keep comeing and keep comming. You can't stop them. I'll end this morning by saying what shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you did you ever know that you are my heroes you're everything I've ever searched for yearned for or wanted to be and I believe with all my heart that all of us together can soar like eagles because he's the wind beneath our wings God bless us all Thank you.