Why the Fifth Step Is the Greatest Single Event in His Life – Johnny H.

My name is Johnny and I'm still an alcoholic. I thought if I could have listened to my own tape there, that hour I could've been healed by now. You know it's amazing, I've had the privilege of sponsoring a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous And it's amazing how many people tell you that, God, I'm really afraid of step five. I tell them, have you written the fourth yet? Well, no, but I'm scared of five. I think it's kind of hard for you to do anything if you haven't done it. if by some strange hook or crook you've established the first three steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I believe that the first three steps of the Program of Alcoholic Anonymous are just basically decision steps I believe you make a decision there to close the third step to turn your will and your life over to the care of God if you understand him but But the next step, Alcoholics Anonymous, is probably the first time in Alcoholics Anonymous you're asked to do anything except sit around and think about it. And that's when you have to really take some type of an action that requires more than just a simple process of thought. And it says we made a searching in the fearless moral inventory. It says here on page 63 at the bottom, after we've taken that step, it says, Next, we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first of which is a personal house cleaning, which many of us have never attempted. Now, this is very dangerous to a lot of people, particularly people like me, and you get very many different reactions behind the fourth step. it said that though our decision was vital and a crucial step it could have little permanent effect unless followed at once by strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which had been blocking us our liquor was but a symptom so we had to get down to causes and conditions therefore we started on a personal inventory this was step four now when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't know about all this stuff but one of the greatest things that I've learned about Alcoholics Anonymous is that if you sit around here long enough and try to pay attention to what goes on and keep your eyes open somebody will always prove to you what this program is really all about by their actions it's necessary for you to have to experiment on anything I mean all you you've got to do is just sit still long enough and somebody will experiment for you and prove to you whether your thought process is right or wrong. Whether it's I don't have to do it, or I have to it, I don t have to or I h ave to do it. The group that I attend in California feel that if you don't this inventory taken and this fifth step taken by your first step, your sponsor won't give you a cake. That s in the first year. They give you whole whole year to get around to doing this i personally i get them started as quick as i can i mean because i've always believed like i told you before and guys said when you want me to do this when you want to start getting well i mean if you don't know what's wrong with you can't find out what's wrong with it i said in a penitentiary when i came to alcoholics anonymous and there was four guys in this institution and i used to watch them all the time and these four guys were people who who'd been in the penitentiary, got sober in there and alcoholic synonymous, and went outside and got drunk and come back again. And I watched them all the time because somehow or other, even though I didn't realize it at that time, I knew that this was a very vital thing, that my life was hanging on a thread here because, you know, I had just returned from insanity and death. And so I realized there's a very critical thing. I watched these people. And one day I was sitting in a meeting on Sunday. I was sitting back there, well, I leaned up against the wall trying to be cool. You know, if I'd had a hat, I'd have had it on backwards. But that was before you were hip when you wore your hat with the bill out. But I was standing back there and I'm watching these three guys. And a guy came in on the panel at that meeting we had and he asked a question. He said, I would like to ask some questions to people here. He said I want to know how many of you people have tried Alcoholics Anonymous before and failed and came back. and I watched these guys, their hands went all four of them, they were kind of proud they looked around to see who was watching them like a big badge of honor to blow it you know what I mean like some of these people who make heroes out of slippers oh you wonderful thing leave that old fool alone he's been sober a while anyhow he asked another question he said I want to know how many of you people wrote your fourth and fifth step it in its entirety. And not one of those hands went up, not one, not one of the four. And it wasn't very much longer after that that I started to write my inventory. And I don't think that's cute. I know some people do, but I don' t think children in meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous that disrupt meetings are cute. commute. I think children belong where they belong, but not in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous where they're descriptive. But we love you. I knew it. And I'll tell you, I got run out of San Jose last week because I was talking too much about Alcoholics Anonymous. This program of Alcoholic Anonymous is a very, very debilitating thing. When I started to write my inventory, I started put things down there that I had never told my therapist I tried to write things down there that I never said anything about on a psychiatrist couch I put things down here that I had thought about and tried to hide all my life and by the time I got to the point where I couldn't stand myself or I was afraid to even shave myself anymore because of the madness that was about me I had to do something about it and what I have come come to understand what that was is that I was absolutely and totally dying from a disease called alcoholism, and I didn't know it was being an untreated illness. Now I had been going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'd been doing a lot of things in meetings. I'd be picking up ashtrays and I've been picking up cups and I had smiling at people from time time to time, but I did not have any idea that that's all I was doing was sitting there. But I didn't have any ideas that I was not treating my alcoholism. The treatment of alcoholism is a very serious thing and you do not treat the means of alcohol by just showing up here. All you're doing is just showing it up. The disease of alcohol, as I understand it, is only settled by some type of spiritual spiritual experience, some type of a spiritual awakening within yourself, which I said before. And when I wrote my inventory, I was dangerous. When I got my inventory written, I wrote it. I don't know how long I wrote or who I wrote to or what I wrote about really, but I do know that it was terrible. I would just almost insane because I did a lot of things before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't just show up there because my wristwatch went backwards or I took a little light wine at my high school prom. You know, I had committed just about every every crime against man and nature that there was to commit before I got here. And I paid the price for it because I'd been literally driven insane and I was dead on arrival at my last time out in the Los Angeles County Jail. So I didn't come here, an alcoholic's anonymous, because I had a little trouble in my high school class or because Mama was going to throw me out of the house if I didn' t do something about my drinking. And so when I started to write this inventory, it was a debilitating thing it's almost like therapy you know you get so deep into that therapy sometimes you get to the point so far into your head about all the crap that you've done you've got to have something to set you free you know what I mean medication seems to be a good thing but I wasn't at that point I was at the point that most alcoholics of my type enter into when we get sick and tired of ourselves and so full of ourselves we can't stand ourselves anymore we either have to do something about it or blow our brains out or take a drink For me, thank God, I was locked up in a place where I couldn't get anything sharp or I couldn t get a drink at that time. So I did the only thing that people like me could do. I took this nonsense that I had and I walked around the corner and I knocked on a man's door and sat down and started to tell him about me. I tried to read what was written in his inventory. and somewhere during the presentation of this fifth step to this man probably the greatest single event that's ever happened to me in my life happened to bar none i don't i don'T put anything above it i DON'T put ANYTHING around it it'S THE GREATEST SINGLE EVENT THAT'S EVER HAPPENED IN MY LIFE YOU SEE I DON'T BELIEVE THAT COMING TO ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS IS THE GREatEST Single Event That'S Ever Happened TO ME IN MY Life AND I DONT BELieve THAT GETTING SOBER IS THE the greatest single event that ever happened to me in my life because I was sober a lot of times before I got here. I don't believe that my children being born or my grandchildren being born or the good life of mine today is the greatest single thing that's ever happened To me in My Life. The greatest single thing That ever happened To me In My Life Happened To Me When I Was Doing This Fifth Step With This Man. I Heard Myself Say To That Man That I Was An Alcoholic. And As Far As I Can Perceive That In My Own Case, that's the first step in recovery I admitted to my innermost self at that day and from that moment to this moment has never been a doubt in my mind what's wrong with me me I'm an alcoholic and I suffer from a disease called alcoholism from that to this I have never been an alcoholic and anything I never was and anything anyhow I was just something but i wasn't this other one and everything in this program of recovery called alcoholics anonymous is something that i just wanted to do and had to do knew i had to it had to do it it's just saying i mean it's a tremendous thing that at the age of 27 years old when you've died gone insane and blew everything in the world that you'd ever been given the talent that god gave you everything that you give you come to a point in your life into this terrible debilitating thing. All your life you've been searching for this tremendous answer of, my God, what's wrong with me? Why do I keep ending up like this all the time for Christ's sake? What's wrong with me, the alcoholic theme song? Jesus Christ, what is wrong? I don't know. That's hard to say. So we have a chapter that says, well, we try everything to control and enjoy our drinking. We drink beer only. We drink wine. We read health farms and sanitariums. People do that after they come day a i take physical exercise read spiritual books make a spiritual breakthrough go to health farms and sanitariums we've been reached with that in finance says my sponsor says you were at infinitum whatever that was i discovered what was wrong with me sitting down doing the stiff step i discovered i had this terrible debilitating disease and i was going to die or go nuts But if I didn't do it, I had to. It's the most tremendous thing I've ever known. There was no big boom. You know what I mean? I remember getting up and walking out the door that day, and the guy said to me, Jesus, Johnny, didn't you ever do anything decent in your entire life? I couldn't think of a thing. I couldn'T think of A thing in my life as I walked out that door because I walked over and sat underneath a tree that day and thought about it. I couldn't think of a single unselfish act that I had ever committed in my entire life. I had never one time in my life ever thought about somebody else before me, ever. It took me a long time to understand that that is the glaring killer instinct of an alcoholic of my type, the selfishness and self-centeredness. That's the way I lived my entire lifetime before I got here and didn't know it. i didn't know i was living that way i mean it was as natural to me as breathing in and out to be selfish and self-centered i wasn't interested in the world or people about me i was interested in me no wonder i was caught into this trap of disillusionment and despair and needed a drink and once i took a drink i'm gone again i didn' t understand what was going on i didn''t know i had this phenomenon of craving once i took a drank i didn ''t know that i was drinking to satisfy a craving which beyond all human help and understand i didn't know that because they didn't what was wrong with me for christ's sake i discovered in that thing that this is not an alcohol problem this is about taking drugs this is a spiritual soul sickness a disease of such proportion that nobody's ever been able to figure out where it came from nobody has ever been all the geniuses and all the years the four thousand years it's been recorded history of alcoholism nobody ever understood or has ever been able to come up with the reason why my body does not react to alcohol the way other people's body reacts to it that this terrible disease of mine alcoholism kills kills more people than anything that's been known to man, and it has the exact same proportions as cancer. It's amazing. The opposite thing between this and cancer is this, is when you have cancer, you have a tumor, and the body feeds the tumor. Now, the mind knows it has cancer. The body doesn't. It just feeds it. And it gets bigger and bigger and big, and finally you die from it. Because of malignancy, you die. That's what it does. that. Alcoholism is almost in a reverse situation, this thing. The body knows it has it, but the mind says it doesn't. I mean, do you ever remember your first drink? Blah! I don't want that in me, the body's saying. Mind says, oh, how'd it make you feel? Oh, try it again. Blah. I means, what is that? The body is rejecting this thing, the mind says, hold it! Good boy. That's where the mind sits. Mind, mind, that's where the first drink is. But I can't know that I'm caught in this trap if I don't know what's wrong with me. If I think the only problem I have is a drinky-poo every now and then, and so I get out of control every once in a while, end up with a 502, or in the treatment center one more time. If that's the only problem I have, then all I have to do is put this aside. But if I have this terrible killer illness that being sober, being without liquid in my system or spirit within my system, isn't it amazing that they call alcohol a spirit? Why would we have to have spirit put in when we have spirit within. The spirit within is trying to get out, so we put a spirit in to kill the spirit within Oh! How do you like that one for simplicity? But that's the way it works. I don't understand. I didn't understand that, but I understand it today. Thank God I understood that. Thank God, I come to understand the very nature of my illness, that I have this terrible malady that I have to do what this program of recovery says to do and the people who have gone before me do and the People Who Are Staying Sober Before Me Do. You ask anybody who's been sober any length of time and they will all tell you the same course of action that they take to obtain and maintain this degree of stability so the mind doesn't trick them into taking a drink. That's what it's all about. To get rid of me long enough, If I can sit around in my room, spiritual as I am and as close to God as I am, and read all sorts of spiritual intoxicating books and get thirstier and thirstier and thirstrier and thirstyer and thirstlier because I know what takes the big herd away that quick. all I got to do pick this up and drink it and I don't care how much knowledge I have learned about the crippling effect of alcohol on my system if I don t do something to keep a permanent bridge between me and that first drink I m going to drink again because I know even in the back of my head today after 36 years of sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and doing what I'm asked to do here I do know today way in the back in my mind what takes the big hurt away alcohol will still work in my life still work you ever been not well it's the time of the year when you go out to some of these Christmas parties and company parties have any of you how How many people in this room have ever mistakenly put one of those malt balls or put a drink of alcohol in their mouth since they've been sober? Lots of you, huh? What did you do with it? Huh? Did you get a little tingling feeling, though? I did. That proves me alcohol works. You're funny about that. God damn. I mean, I went into the office one day. I'm in the office. How are you? It's Christmas time. You walk by the old girl's desk. You got candy there. You grab one of them things. spit right on her desk. She said, what's the matter with you? I said, God, what is that? She said it's a rum ball. Oh, shit. Boss, boss, what? I took a bite of rum ball How many did you eat? I said I didn't even eat that one I threw it away He said, well, thank God He said why? He said if you had sat down and feasted at her desk it would have been a different story So, you see, I hear people in Alcoholics Anonymous all the time. I go to a lot of meetings, so I hear a lot things. You know, if you go to meetings, you hear a whole lot of things. If you listen, I mean, if your busy, I'm in an AA meeting, you know, like getting coffee and being cute, whatever it is. You don't hear nothing. I mean you're just listening. I mean trying to be showed up there. But if you're going to meetings and sit around and listen, you'll hear that thing. I hear people say all the time, alcohol just quit working in my life. My answer to that is, what the hell are you doing here? If alcohol don't work, what are you going to do? What's that? If alcohol doesn't work what's the reason for this inventory and this humiliating fifth step? You've got to admit to God and somebody else the exact nature of wrong. What's the business of doing all this crap and talking to people you don't even like? What's reason for all this nonsense? If alcohol doesn't work anymore, then you have to worry about drinking it. I mean, well, it don't work. I don't think I'll drink it anymore. Work back here. the reason that is I under believe this is that you can forget the memory of pain very shortly for a moment's pleasure for a moment's relief we can forget the agony of a lifetime and if you don't believe that no woman would ever have her second child out that's how simple it is really i mean you're i mean that's you know i mean that's kind of an abstract thing but that's just the basic what we're talking about the humiliation and the degradation and the pitiful incomprehensible demoralization of yesterday is but a memory but a member but a memory is gone i've almost forgot what brought it about and if i am not hanging around people like you and keeping a constant effort into these program recovery and the memory of new people in my life solidifying the idea of what happens to me when i drink i'll forget it and then I'll hang out with somebody and the book says in the doctor's opinion I become restless and irritable and discontent unless I can have a few drinks which I see other people taking with impunity and by this time I've already thought myself into a state of unreasonableness where just a phase I was going through anyhow you know know, thirty-some years. I may not have been an alcoholic anyhow. Probably a dope fiend. I'll just drink, you know. And I don't believe the first drink is the thought process. I believe the First Drink is a reaction. I believe that for me to drink, all I'd have to do would be in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong set of circumstances and somebody hand me a drink and all the years of sobriety's gone. Could I take it? Because I do know that since I've been sober, there have been times when I have been so upset with myself or the situations that I have created or the things around me or I have felt so guilty about the things that I've done or whatever it may be that drove me into that simple fact that I was just absolutely and totally insane and if I was in the wrong place, somebody handed me a drink, I'd have probably taken it. This is the way I take a drink of water when my throat gets dry. Automatically reach for something. and so I admitted to my innermost self I was alcoholic that day and I went out and sat underneath this tree and for the first time in my life probably it was about well, it was like well, there's about Easter time when there's new life springing up all around you and we were up in the mountains in this penitentiary and I was sitting out looking at all these things and the flowers were blooming and the birds were singing And I was 29 years old. And that's probably the first time in my life I had ever experienced those type of things. Now, I don't know whether that's a spiritual experience or what that is. I think it's just an awakening. That's what I believe. The sad part about this fifth step is so many people make such a big deal out of it It's such a big deal, they think that's the end of it. Now that I know what's wrong with me, and now that I have explained to people what's wrong with my business, I just go on about my business. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. What happens now is you have to repair the damage of the past. From now on, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous gets real, real tough because you ain't talking about one person and another person. Now you got to go out and do something. So many people get stuck right here, right here. this is where we lose a lot of people to other outside agencies not being funny this is a deadly thing right here it's because now I know all this crap about me as much as I knew about me in therapy maybe and more so now I no all this stuff what do I do now well you hear people all the time say well I just got all bets I went back wrote another inventory yep another inventory another Another fifth step, yep, another inventory, another fifth step. What do you think about that? And I said, God damn people who sell those papers must just love you. And pencils in stationary stores must just can't wait. You must have an open line down there or something, a line of credit. Wow, you don't think that's good? Nope, I don't. Why not? It says it's awfully easy to go back and redo something than it is to go forward into something you don' t know. To step out there on uncharted ground is not something that every alcoholic I ever met is looking forward to, I'll tell you that. Oh, I think I'll go over there and tell them people I sold $10,000 from them. I'm willing to pay it back. Think about that, guy. Yo, I just can't hardly wait to get that done tomorrow. So what do we do? Ha! Go back and write an inventory. Think of writing another inventory. Think about that. You're going to take another fifth step, ha-ha-ha! If you're lucky, you go to some of these group therapy sessions and they call AA meetings. You run into one of the gurus who'd been sober about 15 days back there, maybe two years now. You know, you can always spot him. When I was in that position, I got lucky. I wanted to kill myself. What did you do? Luckily, my friend introduced me to their therapist. Or I found out that I was in conflict with my inner child. You may talk as funny, but a lot of alcoholics die right there. Alcoholics of my type are right there at the turning point again. And for me to break off from this program of recovery when I've just scratched the surface and found out what's wrong with me, I have not taken the steps necessary to repair the things that have driven me back to the bottle time and time and times again, the nightmares in the past. So for me, to bounce off and go back and rehash this crap again, I'm doing the same thing. You might as well just stay here and keep writing inventories. You might As well. I mean, because that's all therapy is. Let me think more about that. Oh, I can't stand that. Oh, that's better. Thanks, doctor. That's all it is. Self-help? No. Selflessness is what our program is all about. Getting rid of me. Getting rid OF the things that are driving me crazy. Getting rid Of the nightmares of my past. Now, I cannot do that just because I know about them. I have always known about them! How do you think I wrote them down on a piece of paper if I didn't know about them? I mean, they're not spiritual breakthroughs, for Christ's sake, that I thought about one day when I had nothing better to do. I knew all about this stuff. It's what drove me crazy when it was described to me in a courtroom. My brain snapped. I know about all this stuff, the little itsy-bitsy details and stuff, taking care of my fifth step. See, it said in the book that we went back to our life, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. Now, about sex. It's on page 69. There's a lot of foresight here, I'll tell you about. We don't talk much about sex in Alcoholics Anonymous. We talk a lot about relationships. I was telling them last night that I have a new answering machine thing. You know, these automatic secretary things you can answer now? You call up my house and the voice comes comes on and says, This is Johnny Harris. If you want to talk about alcoholism, press one. If you want to talk about the recovery from such, press two. If you want to talk about relationships, hang up. It says down here on the bottom of page 69 god alone can judge our sex situation you know and yet i hear alcoholics all the time trying to help each other with their relationship problems i mean i don't know anything about it i'm not very good at it selfish self-centered people aren't very good relationship program problems i just they're just not i mean too deeply into ourselves most the time and so somehow or other before anything to work continually for a basis between me and another human being where it's a female or a male between Earl and I are my sponsor and I we have to have some type of selflessness there has to be some type give-and-take situation there so I have to establish some type or relationship with the human being and what better than somebody who'd been sober while knows but you know in steps In chapter 6, it tells more about getting into action. Isn't it amazing that there's this chapter in this book, chapter 6? It says, Into Action. I've looked all the way through here, and I keep looking for a chapter, Into Thinking. I could really get into that. You know what I mean? Any time you get into deep psychological thoughts, go into the closet and take your pistol with you. It really helps a great deal. Gives you kind of comfort. You rub the barrel on your cheek, back and forth, on your forehead kind of. You get great spiritual breakthroughs. I just can't hardly wait to see how it tastes I get another kick a lot of things that they talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous people seem to think the only way you can stay sober now is to go to dances many think an AA meeting is just something to keep them occupied until the music starts And so our rule is not to avoid places where there's drinking if we have a legitimate reason for being there. I also believe that being completely lost in it has nothing to do with it. I'm not against dancing, just particularly down here in the South, you know, I mean, in the Baptist country them people no they don't think you should be dancing they think you're probably trying to make love standing up or something I don't really know what it is I think that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life depends on my being alert at all times and the thing that's going to kill me now I can't do anything about the thing that's killing me if I don' t know what's going on in my live I have been through about all the fourth and fifth step I can be through if you ain't been there there's not much I can do for you but if you haven't been there I suggest that you get with it right away another thing that I want to say about the fourth in fifth step it seems It seems to me today that a lot of people who are coming out of these treatment facilities have been given a line of crap in there. They think, well, they've taken this inventory and they've done all this stuff in there and then come out 30 days later with three or four years equivalent of sobriety. I uh I think the inventory and the fifth step should be taken and given freely and without threat of anything I think everything in Alcoholics Anonymous should be done just because you feel you have to do it for sobriety and for sobrietal love not because some counselor who's getting paid thinks you ought to or because that's part of some program that you paid money to go sit into with some authority to tell you. I think that the only reason you should do any of these things in Alcoholics Anonymous is to stay sober. That's what I believe. I believe sobriety is the key to the whole ballgame. It's kind of hard to be sober if you're not sober. Another spiritual breakthrough. But that really was vision felt about you when i love when i get when i got a newcomer i say to him he said did you hear the phone did you here girl oh i did anybody else hear the the phone? Thanks, Johnny. Where was I? The Lord's phone rang. Huh? You go look through through your notes. Where was I? Oh. Well, it's like all spiritual breakthrough with the alcoholic is just a fleeting thing. He was here a while ago. But I really believe, my first thing I tell people that I sponsor with, I sponsor them. I say to people, I say, you know, I tell them, you know after they've been sober a while, it depends on whether they're slippers or whatever they are, just new people in Alcoholics Anonymous who've never been here before and the first thing thing I tell them is you got to get into these steps right away. You know, I tell them, you know, a period of time and look at them and I say well you better start writing on your fourth step. And then they say well I'm on my fourth step and I said fine. Well when are we gonna take my fifth? I said I'll tell you. Keep them kind on three times a week. They, I'm writing. Good. When are we going to take my fifth step well i'll tell you just calm and quiet and wonderful they're just god he's gonna say it someday and so someday i'll walk up to him on a monday night and i say thursday after the meeting down by the bay we're going to go sit on a bench and i'm going to listen to your fifth step oh The first thing I ever say to them, the first thing I ever said when they get down before I spend an hour or however long it takes 10 o'clock at night on whenever it was I'll say to him why you want to do this why do you want and seem like the people I get because most of them are losers anyhow I mean they've tried all this other crap none None of it seems to work. Invariably, the thing that I get that really makes my evening a little easy, after they say this, if they give me this answer, I could sit there until dawn and listen to them. I just want to stay sober. I just want to stay sober sober. Well, because Seth's a do-it or I think I ought to do it or Willie's doing it or Billy's. I just love when they tell me I just want to stay sober because that's all I do. I just want to be sober. sober today. That's all. Today is my day. This is my day. I don't got any yesterdays or no tomorrows. This is it. I can't even guarantee you that I'm going to make it back to the room tonight. I can guarantee I'm going to make it through lunch. I can't guarantee I'm going to make it anywhere but I can I do know this that I want to stay sober that's all only chance I got the only chance I've got a being a father of being a grandfather of being a good employee of being an employer being a good citizen in the world or been a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous if I stay sober I can stay stay sober that's the point i'm trying to get across i can't stay sober i can drink and live and of myself i can keep from drinking so how come i'm sober 36 years very simple i have found a design for living not a workbench or a chore I have found a delightful design for living that puts me in a place where it is necessary for me to have a drink that all started when I discovered what was wrong with me that I had this disease killer disease called alcoholism not alcohol alcohol, a disease called alcoholism, and I was smack dab in the solution. But all I had to do was these things, and it wouldn't have to drink no more. It doesn't mean I'm going to be a perfect human being. It doesn'T mean I'M GOING TO RISE INTO THEIR HEIGHTS AND BE ONE OF GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE. it's just going to mean that i'm going to be one of those rare rare things in the history of mankind call a sober alcoholic who doesn't drink alcohol anymore and lives with some degree of comfort that's what i found here and that's as much as i know about the fourth and fifth step and Alice snuck some more of these sneaky things in here on you people so here we go how many times do you do each step every day with my life this is a this is an absolute fact every day of my life i do the third step prayer the sixth and seventh step prayer and the 10th 11th and 12th step before i ever have a cup of coffee it's right here in this book page 62 is the third-step prayer the first two paragraphs on page 76 are the six and seven step prayer and on page 84 of our book it says this thought brings us to step 10 I read all the way through the rest of that chapter and then I read the last paragraph of a vision for you and somehow or other I'm in some type of condition to start my day now the rest of these steps I go through them all the time I go through them with the people I sponsor sponsor. When I have somebody that I listen to as the fifth step, I share some of my fifth step with them. It kind of takes the edge off me to find out there's somebody in the world sicker than they are. I mean, you ever wonder, one of the funniest things I ever heard about, you know, amazing, people said, I didn't write my inventory, I just took my fifth step the way it was. And I said, that's fine. I don't know how you are, but there's There's something that happens between me and my right hand, it just flows out here and comes out here. And when it gets to that paper, it's entirely different than what it was up here. I mean, it goes through some transformation of thought process, you know what I mean? It's like that beautiful blue-eyed blonde that I was with in Norfolk has turned into to a little helpless sheep in Montana when it got down to the paper. Now, it's not really true. But that is an illustration on how my mind can trick me and just that quick just my mind is not my friend it really isn't i look at my face in the mirror it's almost as like how am i going to trick you today slick yeah just it's really not i mean i've told you before that my mind my mind has never had anybody else's concerned in it ever just not filled with thoughts of other folks full of thoughts of me and mine and what i want how i I need. I'm like them little eagles with sticks on them, you know. So that's it. That's the way I take these steps. I do those steps. In the book, they're here. Basically, Alcoholics Anonymous and the third step and the sixth and seventh step are prayers. Now we have another one. Is what your view on the idea that all you have to do is don't drink and go to meetings? Well, that's a good start don't drink and go to meetings that is a great start but i i know what i've told you before but i've been trying to tell you for the last couple hours that all that will do for a guy like me is make me tired of the meetings and make my life so damned unbearable that i can't stand it when i was when i would doing this when i knew when all i did was not drink i sober i was coming to meetings and i picked up asher i took my fifth step it's a good start but it's like i don't know who maybe clancy did this one time but alcoholics anonymous is the last house on the block whether you know it or not if you have options you won't even you know you won t even be near the block that it's on for christ sakes and a lot of people think that they come here and they don't drink and they're in the house no they're not hell they're not even on the sidewalk yet in the House when you drink you don't quit drinking all you do is get on the porch but that doesn't mean you're sitting by the fireplace and being warmed that just means you're standing on the floor you go out stand outside out there see how warm you are I know there's something going on in there i'm not quite sure what it is but they're laughing and giggling and i'm standing out here cold in hell same idea you got to come in now you gotta come in it's awful hard to get out of something you're in real easy to get off of something you're on that's the treatment center they They get you off the stuff you're on. It's awful hard to get out of Alcoholics Anonymous once you get in it. Once, who was he? Great oratory. Great man, Martin Luther King. He said in one of his stirring speeches, I have been to the top of the mountain and I have looked at paradise. I ain't going back in the valley. That's what happens here in AlcoholicsAnonymous. when you come to believe when you come to believe that this is the answer from your problem and this is a solution for what's been killing me all my life this is solution that's killed thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people after they've come here this is the solution because it can't seem to buy this you're so wrapped up in that word i ain't drinking you don't have to tell me that pal out nothing's changed either once you've been here once you have had this thing once you experience the great joy of life it's something that you want over and over again 41 years for me if this wasn't best what do you think I've been there 36 years if this ain't better not out there running the streets and being hit, running in broads and dealing that dough and being tough, man. This is better. This was much better. If it wasn't, maybe Gene would come down from Chicago and enlighten you with him, whatever it is that you have in Chicago. I tried real hard. Gene flew down to try to make a connection on my flight to Dallas yesterday He wasn't there, and I told him, close the door. Close the door, close the door! They closed the door he made them open it. Here he come. Do you have a seat beside you? Put down my paper. You ever just want to read a sport page? But I love you. What is your experience with multiple sponsors? I don't have any. I don'T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE WITH MULTIPLE SPONSORS. I HAVE ONE. I'VE ONLY HAD ONE. ONE. ONE. THE FIRST ONE I HAD WOULD STILL BE MY SPONsOR IF HE LIVED. I HAT AN OLD MAN WHO WAS LIKE A FATHER TO HIM. HIS NAME WAS CHUCK. HE WASN'T MY SPONSOR. HE ONLY SPONSIED ONE MAN. And that guy is now my sponsor. But I've come to understand something, why that's necessary for some people. If I asked all these people in this row the same question, I would get five different answers. And if I kept going down the row far enough, I would give them five different questions. I would ask the answer that would suit my little psyche. I would guess the answer I wanted in the first place. but I have to go through the motions of acting like I'm really interested in some other point of view but my own so I have to keep asking different people until I find my own point of vue I think I'll try that thank you you guys don't know what the hell you're talking about he's has a spiritual breakthrough such as a necessity asked you ask enough questions around here and get the right answer it may be your death sentence but you'll get the write-up there's a number of people sitting around here England do a goddamn thing but sit around and execute people sorry I fancy calls them the outriders of death they just circle a me me. Circle. I've been sober ten years, for Christ's sakes. I ain't never taken no goddamned inventory and ain't going to. All you got to do is look at them and say, that's what you want to be when you're ten years sober. Be my guest. If you make it. But they they just circle. Alcoholics not. They hang out in discussion meetings where they can be heard with their philosophical nonsense. And they suck these little alcoholics out there and execute them. But they don't die. They just suck around out here. And and they say, hey, there's nothing in that book. Do you know what this book says? I'm going to read you something. Most alcoholics want to know. I want to weigh out of this dilemma, okay? We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this work. And then you go sit in some of these discussion groups where these idiots sit around and think they're group therapy sessions talk about your problems my problems death my i had a bad day couldn't put gas in my car never stopped to think you ought to be grateful he's got a goddamn car it's amazing you know i ain't never been to a discussion meeting where i heard anything you know why i'm always trying to figure out what i'm going to say True. And when I sit down and get through, I'm always worried about what I didn't say. And if they don't call on me, I'm pissed off all night. So it's really necessary for me to listen. But I have to go listen to the music of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want people to talk to me about how they'll recover from what they're doing here. What are you doing? How have you come How have you built that bridge from a newcomer to you from an understanding? How do I get from total depression and chaos to some area of sunshine in my life? How do i walk and be warm in the sun? What do i do? How do l get into the fellowship of the spirit? I don't want to hear about god damn boss today. My woman, my man, and my kids not acting correctly. I just don't seem to understand what's going on, and I come to Alhawks, and now I'm gonna get sober. Not all this crap. That's what you hear. And the other thing you hear in Alhaws now? It's all one big disease, you know. You know who the guy that started it? The guy that owned the treatment center with only one van. Take them all down there. Dump them in there. how does that make you feel to think there's some genius who's making money off the people suffering think this is a place to dump books how does it make you peel think that you're an a meeting in some type of damn dump ground some junkyard that people discard here because they haven't got any way to entertain them that evening how does THAT make you FEEL spiritual doesn't make me feel spiritual. Doesn't make me feel spiritually to think your people sitting in an alcoholic anonymous got no business being here. Not at all. We're not the panacea for all things. Doesn' t make me feel spirituality. It saddens me because if you're not alcoholic, you'll never understand what we do here. You don't care how much spiritual breakthrough you got. If If you're not an alcoholic, for God's sake, find some place where you can find help. The 12 steps are available to everybody with every type of a program, but Alcoholics Anonymous is one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic to get them to take action they don't believe in, to do things. It's not a panacea for all things. We don't do anybody any favors by letting, oh, just come in here and be a part of our deal. We're not doing anybody a favor doing that to them. We're doing them more harm than good. That's what alcoholic phenomenon is all about, being sober and one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic to get them to take action they don't believe in. These things that are outlined in this book, the things that I've been talking about, are not things we normally do. Alcoholics just don't run around surrendering on every street corner out there. Just can't wait to surrender tomorrow. Just can'T wait to get over there and sweep that damn floor on Saturday night. I just can't wait to call up that sponsor and have him call me a crap head. I just cannot wait. I don't get up in the morning and say, oh God. Another day. Now I got to go to the... I'll tell you, because it wasn't for some people here, it wouldn't have been a great delight for me to get up at 4 o'clock yesterday morning, drive an hour to the airport get on an airplane fly to Dallas see Gene come aboard fly here to wherever we're at have him say we're in Richmond we drive by Richmond he says that's it I haven't seen it since and go down and have an overpriced dinner of course I didn't pay for it so it didn't bother me but it's not my idea of a weekend, particularly when they're having football playoffs. But if it wasn't for the people that I knew I would see when I got here, I wouldn't even want to come. Isn't that amazing? There are a lot of things I don't want to do, but a lot place i'd rather be than wherever we're at really i really would i mean just i mean i really you know it's uh that's the truth i do a lot of things in alcoholics anonymous i don't want to do when i did what i wanted to do all the time you know what happened to me 27 years old i ended up crawling around a cell in solitary confinement drifting in and out of total insanity sanity. That's my way, baby. Do it my way? Yes. I just can't hardly wait for you to get your brain exploding. My way don't work. My way never works, never will work, never works. So I have to come here and find out if it will work. Now, unless you have any more questions, Al, I haven't got anything Anything more to say? I'm getting hungry, so let's have a little lunch break.