Clarence S. on the Big Book, the 12 Steps, and the First Nine Steps as a Cleanup

Well, good afternoon everyone. I am Clarence Snyder and I'm the last one on my feet here. I happen to have better than 43 years. Some people, when they meet me, they're rather shocked. They felt it's over 43 years and they expect to find an old man in a wheelchair with a hot water bottle on his lap and a nurse in attendance, but I'll tell you the truth, I get younger every year, and it's great. While we're all here together, I was looking at this sign back here and I was quite impressed with it. And I was trying to figure out what that 4 was up there so I just deduced that I'm allowed to speak for four hours today. So get comfortable. Today I would like to speak to you about alcoholics, alcoholism, and a few more things that have to do with it. You know, alcoholics are a breed of cats all their own. Everyone cannot be an alcoholic or a lot of people just could never make it no matter how hard they try, because they're not put together properly. And we are exceptional people and don't you ever forget it. You know one of the first things that I ever have to do when I'm working with a person who's in despair is to try to sell this person the idea that he really is something and he's something special because he's always felt he's been talked down to, he's been cussed, he has been discussed. He's been thrown in, he has been thrown out and everyone's been telling him what a loser he is and we are not. Alcoholics as a class are different than people. Let me put it that way. All those civilians out there have things that they should be proud of, of course, but the alcoholic has something beyond what they have. I've looked at this for a long time and I found out that the alcoholic is different than people. His characteristics are different. I don't say that some civilians don't have some of these characteristics, but they don't have them all. An alcoholic to me I've never met one worthy the name. It was not a high-strung individual. I never met who was not very impulsive. He can never wait for tomorrow for anything he has to have it done yesterday. He's not a deep thinker. Sometimes you walk in these AA groups, you find this sign, THINK. That's an insult. If we could think we wouldn't come here. We don't think, we emote. We are emotional people. We never do anything until we feel a certain way. When we hurt badly enough, we'll take this program on. Until that time comes, all the king's horses are not going to do anything about it. We have to come down and hit that bottom whatever our bottom is and we have to hurt. It's not by any mental decision or mental acrobatics that we get into this program and progress in it. It is by how we feel. So we are emotional people. I've never met one that was not lonely. He's alone in a crowd. He is lonesome in a crowd. I've never met one that was not a very sensitive person. He's always going around looking for someone to hurt his feelings. This is the Alki. I have never met anyone that didn't have what these bright psychiatrists refer to as an inferiority complex. We don't have a a really belief in what we are. We feel we're inferior and we're not, believe me. I've never met an alcoholic that wasn't the greatest liar in the world. He lies, he lies for practice. He lives when he don't have to. Well that's a defensive mechanism we've had all of our life. If we ever told the truth on on ourselves during our drinking career, we'd have never arrived here, believe me. So Lyon brought us here. I've never met one who was not full of self-justification. An alcoholic can justify anything. It was never my fault that I got in this mess. There was always some bunch of circumstances that came up and some other person got me into this deal. It was never my fault, so I always find self-justification. The alcoholic has a terrific imagination, terrific. It knows no bounds. How could we survive in the shape that we got into? I remember when I was on the bum, I was a member of a very clannish family, and this family, my first wife, and she always had three or four of her sisters and brother and her old lady there at my house. And they used to have family conferences, but I was never invited at these conferences. I was usually the subject of their discussion. And these conferences always went along the lines of whether they're going to throw me out of my own house again or let me back in. Well, this bunch finally thought they had the problem solved my wife's brother had a big tractor trailer outfit and he hauled merchandise from Cleveland to New York and back and they got the idea it was just a good idea, it was good thinking it was no emotion, this is thinking this is what thinking will do to you they thought that if my brother-in-law would take me on and teach me to drive this truck two things would be accomplished He could ride a herd on me and see that I didn't drink. And also, I would be doing something worthwhile as far as work and income was concerned because I'd been between jobs for several years at that time. So the thinking was good but it didn't work out like most thinking when it comes to thinking with an alcoholic, it's a loss. I got away from him on the way to New York and I don't have to tell you what happened. But he took me into New York City and threw me out, and told me this is the end of the line and don't ever come back to Cleveland. You'll never come back home again. You're done. Now this was in winter time and I didn't have any clothes. They had been sold long since. Any clothes that were anywhere decent. I had no overcoat even. So he dumped me there, and there I am without any money. And I know nobody but another sister of his out in Yonkers. I made it out to her house, but she threw me out too and took me back to the downtown where he'd throw me out, and she did likewise. I only tell you this story for a reason. It has a big impact on how I got here. I existed in New York City for a long time. I don't can't tell you how long but I know the calendar went around because it was winter again when I left and let me say this I existed there and I never had to pay any room rent I never to buy a meal I never had to buy any clothes now you talk about a rummy's imagination you figure that one out and I didn't eat in these missions either tried that once and believe me kids don't ever do it because if they're like they used to be I can remember this mission food these bakeries would get buns and bread and rolls back that they couldn't sell they hand them to some mission and they'd sit there and all you smell in a mission is bug juice and they spray this stuff all around and on everybody that comes in and naturally this food gets the that bug juice smell and odor and the juice itself permeates their buns and biscuits and so forth. And they sit there for days and if they can't no one eats them, they take them down to another mission. This is why I was against eating in missions. But I ate good food when I ate and I didn't eat too much. Food wasn't my long suit. But you have to have some to exist. but I'm not going to go in and tell you how I did all this, but I did it. But it takes the imagination and the ingenuity and the brass of a rummy to do this. I was sleeping, I slept in these trucks. These men would drive there, they would leave their tractor there and they'd want to go into a cheap room where they had a bath and they could have a night on the town before they got to load back to wherever they were going. And they wanted someone to watch these tractors so I became a watchman. So I would sleep in these tractors, a nice, clean, warm place to sleep and they paid me for this. Fifty cents a night I got paid. In those days I was drinking rail. I bought my booze in a wallpaper store or a hardware store and I paid seven cents a pint for it. Now at fifty cents a day you can't drink that much and I'm saving money. I'm becoming a capitalist when I left New York I had some money in my pocket because I never spent any for anything only a rummy can do these things so I'm talking about the imagination of a rumy these characteristics we have do something for us I have noticed over the years that alcoholics are tops in their line whatever they're doing if they're a mechanic if theyre a salesman if they re a teacher a doctor a lawyer an Indian chief or what have you you'll always find the alcoholic is in the top ten he's ahead of everyone I've always noticed that an alcoholic I've come to this conclusion years ago that an alcohol the real alcoholic I'm not talking about the stupid drunk there are a lot of drugs that are not alcoholics but every alcoholic is a drunk there's a distinction there a lot of these drunks can quit drinking tomorrow today if they get a new hobby but the alcoholic can't do that but I have found that alcoholics can operate on about 40% of their efficiency and beat the socks off of other people they're operating on 80% of theirs and they'll do it every time. I know this and I've seen it, I had to go in a different line of work when I came into this fellowship because I was blackballed in my old one and I didn't want to go into it anyway and I became a salesman. I never sold anything in my life before I got here and I got a job selling automobiles and let me tell you something i know nothing about selling and i was a top salesman in three months time i was selling as many cars as the rest of these guys put together now only around me can do this i don't claim to be any different than you are we can do it i've worked with salesmen i've seen them and i work and i've trained men i've been sales managers couple outfits and those alcoholics are the best buddy salesman you can get. They have that imagination, the ingenuity, and the brass. And believe it any person sitting here as a rummy can accomplish anything. There's nothing beyond our reach really. So much for the rummy. What is alcoholism? This is something that's so widely misunderstood and has been for centuries. Alcoholism is probably the oldest malady that afflicts the human race. You'll read about alcoholism in ancient history, you'll read it in mythology and you'll about it in the Bible. There's a lot of good rummy stories in the bible. I don't know if any of you people here read the bible but if you don't get into it then you'll some great stories about some of your compatriots there and our ancestors. Boy, rummies. You don't have to go any further than the first book of the Bible to meet the first rummy. You read in Genesis the story of old Noah and the ark. Boy, he was one of us. That old boy, nobody would pull a stunt that he did or stand up and accept this order that he got unless he was a rummy. He would never take such a challenge. Well, when God told him what he wanted to do, just picture this fellow. Just look at this fellow, he's your neighbor. God told them that the world had gotten in such a shape it's gotten about like it is today. Everything going downhill, everybody morally irresponsible and so God couldn't do the change so he decided to wipe the whole bloody thing out and start all over again. but he wanted seed to start again so he goes to his friend noah who was a god-fearing man and he says no my friend he says i want you should do something for me he said yes lord anything see he got his head in it right away and he says I want you to build a big boat an ark and he gave him the dimensions and he told him what he wants to do with this And he said, I want you to put two of everything living in there and your family. He says, because I'm going to flood this world out and wipe everything off and start all over again. Well, Nola starts to work on this ark. He got his kids and his family sawing logs and cutting boards and hammering away. And the neighbors come by and say, what are you doing, Nolo? I'm building a big boat. you're building a boat here out in the middle of a desert they know old Noah has had it he's playing with his short deck but they laugh at old Noah and go on their way but he and the family keep going they finally get the boat done and they do as the Lord told them to do fill it up and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and that boat starts to come up and it starts floating away and it floated for several months and finally it came to rest on top of a mountain there and the water receded and the ground came up what was the first thing our friend Noah did just look at this boy you'll recognize this he runs out there he plants a vineyard he raises some grapes he made some wine and he got drunk he had his mind on this all the time he's in that boat well that's you know there's some great stories about guys like guys and gals like us in the bible I like that story of the two boys the prodigal son I like this story get this way here's these two boys they worked him for their father on a farm they're Jewish people and the farmer has a big spread there, he has all kinds of cows and goats and sheep but you don't have any hogs but he has all the rest of this stuff big spread and he has these two boys and they're out there working the farm well in Jewish tradition when the father dies the kids or the boys are supposed to inherit the estate and get their share of it you know well this one kid he works he's an avid worker he's always out there working he does more than is expected of him he's the Al-Anon kid but the other guy the young one guess who he isn't happy with this working for his father and waiting for his dad for his mother to die to get all this loot so he keeps bothering his father all the time and he wants his share of the loot right now. That's a rummy, right now, not tomorrow. He wants it yesterday. So he keeps bugging his father and bugging him for his share until the father can't take it anymore. He says, okay, here it is. You take your share and be gone. And boy, he was begone. What does it say in the good book where he went? It says he went into a far country and he squandered his substance in riotous living. Did you ever hear of a thing like that? He squandering, he blew the whole bundle. Yeah, he had a time. And what happened to this kid? He's way out in this far country, far, far from home and a famine sets in. Oh boy. and he's in a strange country there's nothing to eat he can't find any work and finally he did get a job now remember this kid's a Jew so what job did he get? he got a job on a hog farm tending a bunch of hogs this is great, see so did he eat what the hogs ate? not by a jugful he ate what of the husks of the hog He ate what the hogs wouldn't eat. See, that's what he got to eat. I'd say this kid pretty well hit his bottom, wouldn't you say? So finally, he says, here's what it says next in the good book. He says, he came to himself. This is exactly what you and I had to do. We came to ourselves. And he says I starve. my father has much and his servants eat well then he said this this is important because we had to do the same thing every one of us he says I will arise and go to my father and tell him I am unworthy and I will work as one of his servants see so he got off his duff and we had to do the same thing and he moved and he started back that long torturous trip home and he was sick he was hungry he was whipped completely beaten but he went there back to throw himself on the mercy of his father now what did his father do did he throw him out no it says he saw him coming afar down the road and he ran through me his son and he fell on his neck and kissed him he He says, my son who is dead is alive. He says put a ring on his finger, shoes on his feet, a cloak on his back. My son has returned. Let us make merry. Let us have a party. Let us kill the fatted calf and have a feast. My son is coming home. He was dead and he's alive. Great story of the forgiveness in the second life. Now, meantime, they're having this party and boy, they're havin' music and they're dancin' and havin', great old time. up at the house. Meantime, this Al-Anon kid, he's still out there working like he should, you know. And he hears all this ruckus up at the house and a servant came by and says, hey, what's all that ruckuss going on? Music and everything up atthe house. He says, haven't you heard? He says heard what? He said your brother came home. He said, oh, that dirty no good. So he drops his tools and went up and confronted his father. Now this is a very human thing he goes into his dad his father says father I have been a good son to you I've always done more than you asked he says my brother here there's no good brother goes out and blows everything on a wildlife and he comes here home when you have a party for him yet he says you've never had a party from me now isn't that human so the father had straighten him out on why this was. This is a great story of the coming to your father and getting the forgiveness, and you and I all had to do this in our own way. AA showed us how to do this. We were lost as bad as that kid was, every one of us or we wouldn't be here tonight, see? Oh there's great stories in the Bible, those rummy stories they get me. that kid there's one more Rummy story I want to tell you since this is Sunday we can have a Sunday school lesson the story of the Good Samaritan now this is a Rummy story that beats them all here is this dude lying out there alongside of a road he's stripped naked he's all beat up and bleeding and he's half dead see and along comes this priest and he sees them lying there and this priest is a man of the world and he's seen this kind of thing before. You know what happened to this dude? He got drunk and he got rolled, is what happened. I don't know if any of you ever got rolled but he did. So this priest recognizes the earmarks of this thing and so he looks at him and he says the same thing that people are saying today. He says a dirty, stinking, drunken bum He got himself in that shape, let him get himself out of it the best way he can. So he passed by on this other side and left the guy lying there in all his misery. Along come this Levite, and he saw this fellow, and he's also a man of the world, and she repeated what the priest did. Turned over there and went on the other side. It's none of my affair, I won't get involved, he said. This getting involved, people never got involved, so he wouldn't do it. so then along comes this Samaritan fellow well the Samaritans were not the chosen people at that age but this fellow was a traveling salesman now I'll prove that to you he's a traveling saleman so he's coming along on his form of conveyance it certainly wasn't a Chevrolet, it was probably a mule and he sees this fellow lying there and what did he do? Did he pass him by? No he got down off of his form of conveyance and he ministered to him it tells you plainly in the Bible he gave him some wine he not only gave it to him but he rubbed it in his wounds he gave them the medicine he needed that guy was a rummy that did this service that was a first 12 step tall on record so what did he still even lay there nope he picked this bird up and put him on his farm of conveyance and he took him to the holiday inn well he took them to an inn anyway that's what it says in the bible and here's how i know they're all rummies he says that this innkeeper he says here mr innkeeper take care of this fellow and here is some money you see he gave money to the innkeeper not the rummy he says and if there be any more do i will pay you on the next time i come by so that means he's a traveling salesman making that territory as simple as that so there's a rummy story a story and it's as true then as it is today we find them lying there by the road today in various means in different ways but everybody we find is lying there as hopeless as that guy was and as helpless so we are the people you know they talk about the Jews being the chosen people I think we are the chosen People you know a Jew is a chosen People he may be but if he's a Rumi he's chosen twice but we have something that other people do not have and you and I have a responsibility and we have ministry and our responsibility in ministry is to work with other people whom we can work with and that's the alcoholic there's a lot of other people to fix all these other people that have offensive things wrong with them but this is alcoholics anonymous that were in and it says that on the book this is not fat so anonymous this is not dopes anonymous this This is not Gamblers Anonymous, this is not Nosepickers Anonymous. This is Alcoholics Anonymous and these are the people that we are to put our effort with and we have a talent to help these people where other people don't. Alcoholism has an old, old malady and only in about the last 40 years has there been solution found for the alcoholic all through these centuries alcoholics have stumbled across the face of this earth and they've existed and died in alcoholism and in misery and in many instances they carried their own family and friends down with them the alcoholic at that all through those years only had two options the alcoholic could go crazy or die or both a little over 40 years ago this plan of ours came along through the grace of God and now the alcoholic has a third option he can go crazy he can die or he can get well and the very evidence of all these people have been standing up here one year two years 30 40 36 and 40 and what-have-you here that's evidence that this thing works there never was anything like this before I have a book at home it's about this thick a big book that is printed back in the 1800s on a history of alcoholism and what people tried to do down through the years to try to modify people's drinking nothing ever worked now you want to think about that and remember that you and i had put something on us well so much for that the alcoholics are very smart people, they're sharp. They're not deep thinkers but they'll do something, they act. You know these people are different kind of people in this world and a lot of people have to study everything before they do it. Alcoholics never do that. You just put a problem in up till they'll do something. Don't waste time thinking about it, do it! So we do. So people have not understood what alcoholism is. A lot of people think it's a matter of taste. It's not taste at all. In fact, most rummies I know never like the taste of booze. I didn't drink for the taste because if you think so, you try some of that seven cents a pint stuff that I used to drink. You have to learn how to drink that. You'd have to get educated into it. I know when I first drag rail, I had to take what they call an itchy bitch, they called it. You put salt on your hand, lick the salt, drink this stuff and lick it right quick and you don't feel it going down. And it has a good chance of staying down if you do that. If you don t, you're in trouble. So that's how you learn how to drink that stuff. So it's not a matter of taste. If it was just a matter a taste we could all have quit drinking a long time ago. We could cultivate a taste for something different like apples or bananas. I don't know who wants to eat 40 apples a day, but we can cultivate a taste much better than some of this rot gutter we've drank. And other people talk about it's a habit. It's not a habit! We might have had the habit pattern, but if it were a habit it would simple because there's no habit we have that we cannot break but a little willpower and a little persuasion, a little this and that. A person can stop any habit. This habit of smoking that most people indulge in so vociferously. If a doctor came along and told you that if you didn't quit smoking you'd be dead in 30 days, there isn't a person sitting here that wouldn't quit in three have it over with that's that's a strong habit it's a tough one and it hurts to quit and we're afraid of that hurt we don't like to hurt so we won't clip okay it's not a habit drinking to an alcoholic is an obsession and that's something entirely different that controls us when I was a drinking alcoholic I would never do anything engage in anything without first considering the liquor situation. Didn't make any difference if I was going to a party, a funeral, a wedding, a business conference, a vacation or what have you. First, I had to consider the liquor situation. Is there gonna be booze there? How much and how quick can I get it? No booze, no clearance. I had a very simple life. Now that's something entirely different than a habit or a taste. The only way I I've ever found is through this program it takes care of our obsession because it changes us inside. This is a life-changing program. Now, I get around AA Coudille at different places and I hear an awful lot of gaff about this program and I don't know where some people get some of this stuff that they recite at meetings. And you listen to some of these mental acrobatics going around in some of the meetings where they're discussing things, they have discussion groups and they're all discussing something they don't know what they're talking about. And it makes for a good hour but it's you don't get anywhere we have a formula for getting well we are sick people and this is a terminal illness now let me give you an example supposing you get sick you feel rotten this the silent one came home the other day with a big bellyache he felt real bad I never saw him without busting off about something he gets so sick he couldn't talk you want to put that on the calendar well we we are alcoholism is a terminal illness it'll kill you and you've seen it happen to people don't kid me that you have it if you've been around roomies long enough you've see some of them die and died at some horrible deaths really it is a killer they talk about TB being a killer and cancer so is alcoholism now suppose you feel real bad someday you have that bellyache like he had and you don't know what's wrong so you go to the doctor and he looks you over he taps you here and taps you there and takes a picture here and he pulls your tongue out and he shakes his head he says I can't go any further I'm going to have to put you in the hospital and give you a real going over. So he puts you in a hospital, and you're laying in that hospital, and the doctors have a union, you know. You don't get one, you get a whole bevy of them by the way when you get in a hospital. I've had a lot of experience in the last couple of years with my wife in the hospital. So I know, I've been getting bills from doctors I never saw or heard of. Anyway, they get to work on you, and they tap you, and they turn you upside down and they make you jump up and down. They do all kinds of things and each one has his thing that he puts to you and you get all these things done and you're laying there wondering what's going to happen so after a couple days you're lying in that bed and your doctor finally comes in and you say to him, well doc what about it? What have I got? Tell me the news and what do I have to do? And he has that long face this time. He's not happy and this bothers me too you know, this bothers a person. So he shakes his head like this, you know what's the matter doc? He says I don't like to tell you this but he says you have a terminal illness. Terminal? Terminal means the end on it. Yeah. He says you mean I'm going to die? Yes, you're going to die. Oh doc, I'm too young to die. I have family responsibilities, I have a job, I I have this, I have that. How, how, I just can't do it. I can't die. Isn't there something you can do now? Well, he says, I tell you, you have this terminal illness, but I will give you a prescription. And if you take this medicine the way I give it to you, you have a chance of adding some time onto your life. Oh boy, are you ever relieved you don't have to die right now. You can put that off again. This is that procrastination again. I don't have to die now. I've got another, I've gotta leave here. I'm getting free time. He says, give me that prescription, doc. So he sits down and writes out this stuff, this hand scratching that's peculiar to doctors and he hands you this prescription and says, now you go to the drugstore here and have the druggist fill this prescription as I have it here and you take it and you have a chance of living for some time yet Oh, are you relieved. You grab that prescription and you start off to the drugstore. As soon as you get out of the doctor's office, you look at it. Now you've been in school and you have some smarts, see? So you start reading this stuff and you'll start deciphering these things that the doctors put on there and you can read, you know, understand what these ingredients are in there, see. So you have 12 ingredients there and you look them down, you're looking, this one's all right, this one's all right. Then you get down to one here, oh that stuff is sour and I don't like sour stuff. I'm a sweet kid so I put that, pile that away in the blubber up here. I go down here a little ways with another thing down here. This ingredient here, every time I take that stuff it makes me itch. I am allergic to it. I scratch all the time and I do not like to scratch in public so i put that in my blubber and i go on down further away here there's another thing down here that every time i take that it gives me gas and i keep burping all the time i don't like to burp in people's faces so i file that one away up here in the blubberg so i go down to the drugstore and i hand i say to this druggist mr druggis i have a terminal illness he says that's too bad. He says, I say my doctor gave me a prescription he says if you fill it for me I'll have a chance of adding some time on to my life will you fill it for me please? He says I will be glad to do it give me the prescription. So you had the prescription wait a minute doc so you take it back you don't give it to him. Say listen Mr. Druggist this item down here this sour stuff I don't like sour stuff. I'm a sweet kid. Will you just leave that out, please?" He looks at you. You mean that? Yeah. And this thing down here always gives me the itch. I am allergic to it. Will leave that one out too? Then he takes a second good look at you and says, you really mean it? Yeah, and this one down here, oh this stuff down here gives me gas and I burp all the time. He said, will you leave that out too? He said really do you mean this? Yes, I mean it. So he leaves this out and he fills the prescription according to your orders. Do you think you're going to get well? And that doctor just got through telling you if you take this the way he gives it to you, you're gonna get well. Well, do you know something kids? We come to AA and we have a prescription with 12 ingredients. And the way some people take this one out because it's sour, and this one because it itches, and this is because it has something else. And they start to make up their own program. Do you think they're going to get well? That's why we have all the problem with these nitwits. they are prescribing for themselves. We have a foolproof program except for the damn fools. Now, let's talk about this program because this is what we live by. Remember kids when I came here we didn't have this program so if I speak with authority about this believe me I probably have a pretty good right to do it, because I was in when this program was put together. We took the six steps of the Oxford group and expanded them into 12 steps. We figured that if rummage can screw up six steps they can screw up twelve much better. So we have twelve which makes it very easy for us. But you know people don't do this. They won't, they don't they just they just won't do it a lot of people won't and they have to pay for it too believe me now listen what this is our program is divided into four phases the first phase of our program is the first step that's the phase of admission I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable do you know something that I noticed in AA, many many people read the first part of that step and they never see the second part. The first part says that I'm powerless over alcohol so forever and a day these monkeys are talking about alcohol and drinking and not drinking and drinking some more. And you know there's 200 steps or 200 words in our 12 steps alcohol is mentioned once and nothing has ever said about alcohol again after that but that second part of the step is the most important the fact that we're alcoholics it's what gets us here this is our ticket in here but here now how do we get well we're not quite drinking alcohol so we get rid of that alcohol now how do we do it the second thing second part of that step says my life is unmanageable well if my life has been year after year I'd better hire a manager I can't manage it myself I'm powerless and my life's unmanagable so I hire a managers the second step says this it says I came to believe I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Some of these brethren start to get a little itchy when you talk about sanity. Believe me kids, if you're not nuts you don't belong here. This is the greatest collection of nuts in the world so be proud of it. Everybody can't be this nuts. Some people here have papers to prove it. So it says, I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. How did I come to believe this? I didn't believe this when I arrived here but when these few men who had preceded me down in Akron came and told me their stories These are all older men than I was. I was only 35 years old when these men were 10, 15, 20 years older than I was and they told me the stories of their lives, what happened to them through booze and man, they'd been through it, see? The power of example of those men, they told me this power had helped them and it would help me if I'd accept it. That's as simple as it was. So the power of example of these people who preceded me was what gave me the courage to accept this power. so the third step is where we start the ball rolling says in that third step I made a decision now that's something for a rummy to do we're the most indecisive people in the world I made a decision what was this momentous decision think of this to turn my will and my life over to the care of God hey that's a big order kid now if I don't hurt badly enough I'm not about to do that I should turn my will and my life over this preacher way out in the blue yonder that's way beyond where I can even see it just imagination and here's this guy I'm afraid of him anyway because I always had a picture of God being some guys sitting up there with a a long white beard and a long white nightgown, sitting there writing dirty things in a book about me. That was my conception of him. I should turn my world and life over to a character like that? Bad mission in the first step. Then we have submission. This is where I submit myself completely to God. The fourth step is that we've made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. I don't think there's any alcoholic worthy of the name that has a capacity to do that by himself. I find in working and talking and meeting people all through the years that most people in AA get hung up on the third or fourth step, or both of them. They never get to them, they never do. And they misunderstand step four. You know in the later years, these last years, our place in this fellowship changes. Our ministry changes. When I started out, I was all the big promoter. I promoted everything. I started the first AA group in the world and got all the advertising and all the publicity and all of abuse. And I still get it. I have a lot of friends, however, and I have lot of enemies, but I have a lot of friends and I'm thankful. I'm thankful for my enemies, the poor buggers. Well anyway they have to be and we have to have difference of opinion. I know that. But this fourth step what I do now, I get people coming to my home from all over the country I don't get them from where I live because they think I'm a jerk down there. A prophet is without honor in his own hometown. I read that in the Bible and I so believe it. So anyway, these people hear about some nut down in Castleberry, Florida that has some fandangled way of fixing drunks and they've been in AA and they're not. And they've gone in and out of AA and what have you. Some of these people have been dry for some years and some of them haven't. They've been In-N-Out and they are miserable. They know they're getting anything out of this life. so they call me and they want it they want to come down see me well I try to qualify them on the telephone to save them a trip but I won't mess with every person that comes from my house or calls me because I know the futility of it I have a qualification before I'll work with anyone anymore that comes to my home. And here it is, it's very simple. I have to know you're an alcoholic, you have to admit it. That's first. The second thing I ask the fellow or gal, what do you want to do about it? Well you know there's some people don't want to a bloody thing about it. They want to live like a pig the rest of their life. Really that's what it amounts to. Or they think they can run things themselves yet and eventually they'll become a pig then they'll wake up. We'll make a lamb out of them so they can't. Anyway, I ask them what they want to do and they tell me they want it quit. Well that's fine. A lot of people will quit if I'll quit for them. So the next question I ask is the one that puts them in a spin and believe me I get some funny answers to this one. I say then what are you willing to do to quit drinking forever? Oh boy you know forever is a long time. And some dough head that hasn't had sobriety for a week in his life, he'd tell him about it forever. This upsets him. But I only want one answer and he must tell me he's willing to do anything. Where do I get the authority for that? I didn't make this up, it's in the book. It says in our fifth chapter, and you have it read probably every meeting you attend, says if you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it you are now ready to take certain steps. Now that's as plain as the nose on your face, see? That's a qualification. Now if this bird doesn't tell me that he's willing to do any lengths I have nothing for him. You see he's coming to see me to get what I have. I don't want what he has, I'm not looking for him so if he wants what I have I'll give it to him on my terms period and nobody else's so I'll sit down and takes me two days take this this person through this 12-step program two days I take him through the first seven steps the first day then I gave him a bunch of papers to write on tell him to go to his room that night and write down everything about restitution that he has to tend to all right the first seven steps on this on this fourth step this is where people get hung up girls especially come to my place and they have a whole sheaf of papers but they have they have written out how they work themselves into a sweat day after day writing all this garbage if they've ever done during their life and they bring it to me all about their bed crawl and all this crap. I'm not interested in that, that is not the fourth step calls for at all. I don't know how they remember all these things. Really. I existed too many too long in blackouts, I couldn't remember anything. Some of the most interesting things I ever did somebody told me about. So, that isn't what this step calls for. It says I made a searching and fearless moral inventory. I have 20 questions I ask them about their moral makeup. About resentments and hates and all this sort of thing and lying and cheating and stealing and all these different things. And I have a sheet of paper there. I have it written out on the paper, these things. And then as they tell me they have this, they have resentments or they have or they have this and they have that, I check them. Well usually most people have 10 or 12 of these nefarious things in their character. I've only met one person in my life that had all 20 of them. Yeah, and this guy, believe it or not, this guy I must tell you about it just to show you. This fella came down from Tennessee to see me and he was a vice president of a big manufacturing company up there. He had a $65,000-a-year job plus bonuses and all the stuff that goes with it. He was a big shot and well educated as a man of letters. And he'd been in AA 11 years, dry, and the most miserable creature you ever want to meet. He was dry but he was miserable! And he came down and he had all 20 of the questions. He had every moral deficiency there was, see? I said to him, boy you're the worst screwed up bird I ever met. And he admitted he was. Well that fella after two days he went back to Tennessee and a different man, a different person. I've got some beautiful letters from him over the months since he's been here. So it finally got through to him but took that guy 11 years for someone to tell him what this program is. What in the world kind of AA do they have up that way, you know? We need teachers in this thing. I met a... I had one girl down from South Carolina one time she had 20, she had 19 of them. She almost made a perfect score. Oh, she was a bird. But that's what we're looking for, what we have to remove from ourselves are these moral deficiencies. So then it says admitted to God, ourselves, and to another human being. What did we admit? The exact nature of our wrongs, not the wrongs themselves, the exact nature of our wrong. That is what this is all about. This is where people get messed up on that fourth step. They think it's the details, the transgressions. There's not at all. It's the nature of them. All right, next step says we were entirely ready. Did you get that word, entirely ready? Alcoholics are extremists. They never do anything by halfway measures. When we work, we work hard, we play, we play out the heart and when we drink we make a career out of it. This is the rummy, everything in extreme. So here we're entirely ready, ready for what? Can I remove this? No. I admitted that right off the bat as I'm helpless. So I'm entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. It says all of them too, all. See it's all or nothing at all with a rummy. There's some defects of character I'd prefer to keep. They're fun things but our program does not give us that option. This is all or not you know if you want the best out of this program okay so I'm entirely ready so then since I'm ready what do I go about it I've hired this manager back in step three so I humbly asked him to remove my shortcomings so we do this on our knees just like we did step three we're on underneath you do this at step seven and we enumerate mentioned every one of of those defects the person has and ask God to remove those. And he removes them like that. Get this now, this might sound a little strange to a lot of people around here. This is what a nut does after 43 years. But I've been doing this for several years. I can only go on results. I don't go, this isn't a lot to talk. I show you the results, what happens of people. So he humbly asked him, after a person takes the seventh step I tell them every one of this same thing. I said now you are the cleanest person in the world. You haven't had a chance to do anything else yet. Right now you're clean and I said you know when you were born there's been a record of everything you ever did. I like to put it like a tape recorder. When you're born, a tape recorder starts and records everything in your life, good, bad, and otherwise. After that seventh step, you've asked all this stuff to be removed, that tape is erased. You know how to erase the tape. We all know how to do that. So your tapes erased. Your starting clean. Now you're going to keep it clean. That's our job is to keep it clean all of this stuff up through the seventh step is getting ourselves prepared for this. So now our life's clean and we learn how to keep it clean. Now in order not to have a lot of things jump in front of us that we've stumbled over due to past situations that we had, we have the eighth and ninth step. That's the third phase of our program is restitution. So we have admission, submission and restitution. So I give them a list, some papers to write down and I tell them who to put on that list. You've got to tell them everything. I mean, an alcoholic will go over his head like an airship. He's dreaming of something else when you're talking to him. I tell him, you write down there any apologies you owe your mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles, your neighbors, and so forth. I name them out. The people you work with, the people you do business with, the people your gypped. put it down there on a paper and bring it to me in the morning so they bring it in and I look the paper over and I tell them what to do in every instance obviously there are some people we can't make restitution to they're dead or they're moved out of our orbit we don't know where they are and it's impossible to make apologies or anything to those people so what do we do in a case like that that's what we have a manager for let George do it let him do it Ask him to take care of that for us and he'll do it. So we get our skirts clean without hurting anyone else. So we start off in a clean life after our nine steps of restitution. Now we learn how to live. After we have taken nine steps, now get this. This may shock you a little bit. After we've taken nine step, forget them. They're done. You never have to mess with them anymore. The only time you ever have to miss those steps is when you're trying to explain them to someone like I'm trying to do now and you have to know what they're all about. So you don't have to use them anymore, you've done them. You don't eat your breakfast twice so you don' t take these steps twice, you do them once. Every time you take one of these steps something happens for you and it prepares you for something. It prepares you for the last three steps. I live on the last 3. I don't need to worry myself about 12 steps. I hear people in AA say I'm having an awful time on step 3, step 5, stuff. You're having an awful time. How long you been around here? Oh, I've been around here four years. Boy, you've never been into it at all yet. See? This is a big problem. Let's get with it kids. This is the prescription that we have. Don't stumble and just take part of it. All right. After this restitution, I tell him what to do. And some of these people have some things to do that they sure don't want to do. I had the same thing, but not as bad as some of them I've met since then. So oh boy. Well anyway they do it. So their life is clean. You live on three steps. You don't have to live on 12 anymore, three. And that's the last three steps is what I call construction steps. This is where we construct our life. We live our life here. The tenth step is another step that has to do with inventory but it has nothing whatever to do is step four. Step four says we took a searching and fearless moral inventories, but it doesn't say that in this tenth step. It says I continued see there's a continuance there continue to take personal inventory that's entirely different than a moral inventory and it says something else and when I was wrong I promptly admitted it boy that's a sucker for you. Get an alcoholic to admit anything is doing something, but to admit we're wrong to forget it. We never admit anything. It might, we wouldn't admit it's raining outside. It might involve us in something. Go to court. I don't suppose any of you ever been in court. First thing is don't admit anything, lie, do anything, don't admit it. Well, here we're admitting things. This is a new deal for us. So I continue to take personal inventory. What does that mean? Let me put it, I have to have a very simple program because I'm not smart enough to have a complicated program so I have to keep it simple. So here I'll tell you how I do do my tenth step. At night, when I'm finished with my day, I'm in bed. Grace and I always have a prayer time together, and I have one by myself and she has one by herself. After this is concluded, I lay there in bed and I think about my day. Where have I been today? What have I done? Who have I met? What has transpired? Have I done anything good today? Have I done anything right? If so, I give myself a pat on the back and say, boy, you'd get a medal for that one. On the other hand, maybe I've insulted you or hurt you or hurt your feelings. And I haven't been anything but kind to you. I have to go take care of that right away. It says we have to do it promptly, immediately if not sooner. Why? If we let those things go on, it's easier to do it the next time and the next time. Those things will start building up on us. It's the little things in our life that make or break us, not the big things. How many big things ever happen to you anyway in a lifetime? Did you ever figure out how many big things happen to you? You can count them on your fingers and have a few fingers left over. Let's check them out. First of all, you're born. That's a big event because you had nothing do, but come out and let out a yell when you got here. But that was important that you got there. Well maybe you had the advantage of a good education. Well I'd consider that a very important thing. Well, maybe you were successful in business or your profession or whatever you're in, and you got advancements. I'd consider that very important. Every time you get married it's a big deal. It's a lovable lifetime. Big deals. Have a family, that's very important. See you've still got some fingers left. Well, you go along and you die. Well, what happens when you die? Well, some friends and relatives come and they express their condolences to your family family and there's some tears shed, a little bellowing going on. And you have a service they take you out to the cemetery and they plant you there. They fill up that hole, put the grass over it, and they all leave. People leave and the world goes on. See? The world goes on and the wind is blowing across that grass out in that lonely grave. You're down in that hole. That's the end there, see? As far as we know. But there's something else. We're going somewhere else. Those old bones are down there but where are we headed when that old ghost leaves us? See? That's what you got to think about. I am very much convinced we are only here on a journey and we're here preparing for something else and we have choices that we can make. We can wind up in one of two places. And it's awful easy to wind up in the wrong place, because an awful lot of people have given us opportunities due to that. And it takes some moral courage and it takes some backing and it takes some sticking together of our society here to avoid a lot of this stuff. You and I should associate with people who are going someplace you ask people go to church tomorrow and ask somebody are you gonna go to heaven when you die you know what you get for an answer oh I hope so I hope so hope so be damned tell them yes stupid I am I know I'm gone and I hope I see you there hey now that's the way this program has taught me. So that's the way I feel. I make no apologies how I feel about what's going to happen to me later on. I have had a chance, a second chance in this life. I was a bum and I lost everything. I've given a second chance and that second chance was given to me for a purpose. The miracles that brought me here, I look back on them and I think about them. I think about what happened to me. And I'm in New York City. I'm broke, I'm alone, and I made it there. And what happened? I had gone out to my sister-in-law's place in Yonkers to try to get a nest in there, and she threw me out, of course. But here's what happened. Get this now, and you tell me what this is. If you can get a better word for it than I have you let me know. Sometime later Virginia, that was my sister-in-law's name in Yonkers, she had her doctor out there for one of the kids. I probably infected the kids rolling around on the floor with them. She had two little girls two or three years old babies and I'm having a great time, I'm drunk as a skunk, rolling around these kids and she took a dim view of this performance and she put me in her car and took me downtown threw me out where her brother had well sometime later she had the doctor over and the doctor was a family friend and they got to talking about drinking and she related the story of my visit there at her home and what a nice guy I used to be her favorite brother-in-law and what are no good stinking dirty drunken bum I am now Listen to this. Now remember, this is way back, probably 45 years ago. This doctor said to her, he says, you know that's odd. He said I had a brother-in-law who was a lush here in New York and he met some strange cult of people down at Calvary House in New york and since he met this strange cult he don't drink anymore and he runs all over New York trying to fix drunks and he brings them home and they smash up his furniture and all this sort of thing. He says, and there's a doctor, a medical doctor, Dr. Robert Smith down in Akron Ohio who also belongs to this strange cult and he spends all of his time fixing drunks down there in Akran. Akron is only 35-40 miles from Cleveland. He says if your brother-in-law ever gets back to Cleveland maybe you can get down to Akron and see this doctor and this doctor can fix him. We used to call it fixing in those days. Of course I don't know this is going on, and I'm in New York a long time but the homing instinct gets us you know we go home why we're not welcome where we go anyway. And one trucker took me as far as the area another one took me into the outskirts of Cleveland where I lived and I tried to get in the house and I didn't make it. Dorothy wouldn't let me in, but Virginia had written Dorothy about this Dr. Smith in Akron who spent all his time fixing drunks and she asked me if I would like to go down and meet him. Well I see that I'm not getting a house and i can transact my business in Akrons just as well as I can in Cleveland. So she put me in her car, took me on to the depot and she bought me a one-way bus ticket to Akron and goodbye. And that's how I met my sponsor. Now get this, you tell me what this is. I'm a bum, I'm alone, I know nobody in New York but this gal and her family. And this man in New York she's talking about was Bill Wilson and the doctor in action was Dr. Bob, the two guys who were accredited with starting this whole ball of wax. And the bowl of wax hadn't even started yet, forget that. Now if that isn't a miracle you give me another word for it, okay? So I believe in miracles. I think every one of us is a miracle. Well I finally met my sponsor and this is how I got here now this gets back to this program I continue to take personal inventory and I told you how I do this and this is every night and I don't fail in this it become a habit I don t think I go to sleep unless I check my day out today really all right then the 11th step listen to this one here's one for you. Lots of words in this. It says we're seeking something. It says, I sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. It says I'm seeking something through prayer and meditation. Now what is prayer and what is meditation? It's very simple. Prayer is talking to my new manager meditation is listening to him the good lord gave me two ears and one mouth that ought to suggest something to us we all do a lot of talking but we are a little bit short on the listening bit see so it says i seeking through talking to him and listening to what am i seeking to improve my conscious contact with him now what does that mean praise pray tell well that means that I have to know and sell myself the idea, keep selling myself the idea that he's right here, he's as close to me as Frank is here. I can talk to him, I can listen to him. I can feel what he does. I can get my orders from him. He isn't way up here in the blue yonder beyond my reach. Do you remember when those astronauts landed on the moon? Remember what the first thing they did when they got up there? They talked to him on the Moon. And you and I are down here talking to him down here. that's how long ways apart but he is there and he's here he's everywhere don't ever forget that when things get tough with you he's always there if he was there at that moon I don't think he'd get too far away from us here okay alright I sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious content now tell me what I'm praying for you ask most dodo's in AA what they pray for every day they say oh I pray for sobriety don't ever do that if you ever go through these steps don't never pray for sobriety you have sobriery thank him for it that's enough you've got it you've gotta other things to pray for and other people to pray before spend your time doing that get acquainted with him he will help in anything you ask him a young man came here to me a while ago before the meeting and asked me to pray for his sister who is terminally ill tonight when I have my prayer time which I'll do and this is what we're supposed to do you and I we have powers that we don't realize we have power that we can use that we all realize let's use it don't abuse it let's waste it this is the message I want to bring to you now it says I'm praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry it out. What do you want me to do, boss? What's your will for me today? I'm your boy. Send me. Tell me what to do and put me there. Put the person in front of me that I'm supposed to be working with. Do whatever you have for me. I'll do it and give me the power to do it. I am a firm believer that he'll never put anything on me that he won't give methe power to execute. And it tells me that in the good book. I always say if it isn't the big book or the good book it ain't but forget it that's right that's what i live by so he i ask for his direction and his strength in his and his and what he wants to be doing where he'll send me i've had some of the rarest experiences over my life where i have a day all planned that i'm going to do this that and the other thing and i'm gonna be such and such a place at such in such a time. I'm going to be at 9th and 8th Street at 11 o'clock, and I find myself at 11o'clock on 199th and Z Street someplace. Why? Why? I didn't plan it. I had other plans, but he had plans. So he had me out there, and then I look back in retrospect on these occurrences and I can always see that there was a real reason for it and there was something had to be done. Well, I've been sold this idea. I believe I get sold on this more every day. This didn't happen to me overnight. I've had a lot of years to watch this work and to get believing all this myself. But I think it's paid off for me. And if you can get what I have experienced, I just want to share it with you. So now the 12th step. Listen to this one. this is one that I'm telling you people really clown around on this one they're always talking about twelve stepping what does it mean what's a twelve step mean it says something happened to us it says having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps not because we go to meetings not because we read the book because it's because having had a spiritual experience we had a change that's that change we had having had a spiritual experience as the result of taking these steps. As we took these steps, it changes us entirely. We're different people. I had a fella give me something one day, one night at a meeting when I was very young in this fellowship and it was still the Oxford Movement. This old boy, Bill Van Horn, he's a great big rough tough guy and I was half scared of this guy. And Doc, this fella had some kind of little pension he got once a month. And every time he got this money, he was a disaster down there in Akron and Kent where he lived. And he had a peculiar hobby. He used to like to fight policemen. Well, that's a losing game, kids. Don't get involved in that. But he did. And they wrapped him so many times in those clubs of theirs his family finally thought well for the good of him and the community they probated him and put him in a funny farm out at the Massillon State Insane Asylum in Massillon, Ohio. And they threw the key away on him. Well Doc Smith my sponsor got him out of there and put them in the old Oxford group and put him in this group. And this guy for some unknown reason he took an awful shine to me. Every time I come down there, he'd get me in a corner and talk to me. And he was a moose. This guy was towered over me like this, you know. And I was half scared of this bird, I really was, knowing that he came out of this funny farm. And what he used to do, he used get me behind T. Henry's library table, the T.Henry's home there where we had our meetings, and he would talk and talk, and I couldn't get away from him. So one night said this to me and he did something that had a great effect on the change of my life. Really, I'll never forget it. He says to me, Clarence I'm going to give you the answer to this whole ball of wax. He said I'm gonna give you something. I want you to read it, I want to memorize it, don't you ever forget it! This is how they gave us suggestions in those days. So he takes his billfold out and he starts unloading this billfold, all this debris in there. There's all kinds of cards and pictures and stuff no money but everything else and he's unloading it on the table and he finally comes to where he wants and he finds it, he hands it to me and I look at it and lo and behold it's a Bible verse and I looked at that Bible verse I looked at this big gorilla in front of me and thought hey maybe they did let him out too soon you know I was pretty new then but I did what Bill told me to do and it has become perhaps my favorite verse in the good book I have a number of them but I think this is my favorite one it's from the second Corinthians the fifth chapter and the 17th verse which you heard mentioned a while ago it reads this way therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are passed away behold all things are become new any man being Christ he's a new creature whole things are past the way all things are becoming isn't that our experience. All that garbage, all that stuff is gone. That's behind us. Don't ever go back and pick it up anymore. Everything's new. You have a new life. I sit here look at you folks sitting out here. You're all dressed up because your ears wash, your faces wash, you're clean, you smell good. And what do you think this bunch looked like a few years ago? Just consider, the guy or the gal you're sitting next to, you'd move over. This is a change where new creatures are new. That old stuff's gone. It's past. Everything's new. We have so much to look forward to. Well, that's our program. had this spiritual awakening this change this spiritual experience we're different people you know I look around at things today and I watch what's going on in this world and I see one thing that disturbs me and I think one of our greatest sins today is that we're inclined to deify man humanize God and minimize sin think about that deify a man set some guy up as an example worship him or something humanize God he's my buddy, God's my buddy God's not your buddy, he's your father and this thing of minimizing sin today so many people and say, well, if it feels good, do it. No, there's moral laws. They're as good the same today as they were many years ago. Because people don't want to obey them or go along with them, that doesn't change the fact that they're still there. I'll tell you a little story. I'm not much for telling stories. But I like this story about Moses. You know, the Jews were, they were an erratic bunch. and they never did anything God told them to do they always rebelled they wandered 40 years in the wilderness he gave them food, their shoes never wore out, their clothes never wore off 40 years they were wandering around there to get to the promised land and they didn't make it because they wouldn't obey well they got to so far Moses decided to leave them, he thought he had them in pretty good order, so we left them for quite a while and he went up to talk to God and get some orders from him. So in the meantime when he went, believe me they had a ball. They took all their jewelry and melded it up and made a golden calf and they were this was sleeping with that and that and so on. It was great you know. Some fun. So when he came down with those tablets in his hands and he sees what's going on down there there. He got so disgusted he threw them on the ground and broke them, see? Well Moses finally he got these people under control again and he thought they would be all right for a while so he went back up to get some new tablets. So he went up and he finally came back with the two tablets. They called them all together. He says, folks, he says, I have some good news and I have some bad news. He said, the good news is, I've got them cut down to ten now. But the bad news, adultery is still in it. So there you are. Now that's been going on a long time. As far as I'm concerned, we must reach up to God, not try to bring him down to our level. That's the big thing people are trying to do today. That's too bad. Well, we have to learn some things. That's what we come here for. You know, God deals with us, not in groups, but one by one. And this is the greatest one by one situation there is. groups are great and we should be here to meet together and share but after all is said and done it's a one on one situation that's what AA is all about you know I find this vast numbers of people are practical atheists they intellectually believe there's a God but they can't get it into their heads or that that they can't believe that God will take a hand in their affairs personally. They always think it's somebody else. God takes a hand on our affairs, and we better believe it. And we better depend on it, andwe better ask him to, and back him up. He has something for all of us to do, you know? But we hear so much stuff, so much propaganda about this new morality and all this crap. There's nothing new about this. people were that way back when the Jews were going, headed for the promised land it's nothing new but people think this is a new morality it's the same old crap but there's the same rules that are supposed to be followed also you know we hear all this stuff and they keep dinging at us propaganda makes mindless sheep out of us don't listen don't believe everything you hear that's what we got noodles for and we're supposed to use them so you and I have to do something right wrong or otherwise I always say that the men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better off than those who do nothing and succeed remember that so you are supposed to be busy and do things who were servants. Now people will, I get a lot of criticism for what I believe that's their business if they want to criticize me but I found out this over the years that minds of moderate caliber ordinarily condemn everything which is beyond their range. If they can't absorb it, they're going to condemn it. So this is tough, but that's the way the cookies crumble. We have to stand for something. If we don't stand for something, we're very apt to fall for most anything. There are a lot of people trying to make us fall for stuff and we're going have to have to and stand fast. I don't like to say these things about AA. I have been, I've been to a lot of places in AA around this country and out of this country, and I've seen it, and I see how a lot of it is getting so watered down, and people are not sticking to these real principles of love and service that we're supposed to stick with. They get all infused with a lot of propaganda, they get dressed up they get a few bucks in their pocket and they start getting more than independent again we will always I will always be dependent upon my father and he has promised me certain things he says my father has good things and he wants to share them with me see this program as Frank mentioned a while ago emanates from the Sermon on the Mount and the book of James if you want to know where this program came from. Read the 5th, 6th, 7th chapter of Matthew and study it over and over and you'll see the whole program in there. The book of James is a healing ministry. It tells us what to do when we're sick and we're a sick people. And it tells us this also that faith without works is dead. People say well I don't have any faith. How do you get it? Everyone has faith. We're all given a measure of faith. it's up to us to get that strengthened and the more we seek after things that we should be seeking after the stronger that's going to be that's why we have these last three steps we have our conversation with our manager every night that's what strengthens our faith we keep selling ourselves this is the right idea and he's the one to follow see people say oh you're talking religion I'm not talking religion at all I'm talking about spirituality we don't need religion we need redemption that's what we need absolutely so I know this that if I do what I'm supposed to do I'll be taken care of and I've proven that in my own life I came here with nothing less than nothing when I went to my first meeting I walked into that millionaire's home in Akron, Ohio where the meetings were held and I didn't have an overcoat and this was in February, there was zero weather and I had on one black shoe and one brown shoe that was my wardrobe since that time I now have several suits I have a place to live I have good home life I have lots of friends I have many enemies God bless them all but I have a good life I have the life that I would have undreamed of way back there it was impossible that these things could ever happen to me