Daily Reprieve and Spiritual Progress as Told by Sandy B.

I'm supposed to let you know that tapes and CDs of all speakers are available immediately following each session at the tape table for $5 per tape and $8 per CD. An album is available for $32 for tapes or $56 for CDs. Please order your sets in advance for easy pickup after the last session, which will be, of course, on Sunday. Speaking of which, the activities will take place where you are mostly, except for the banquet that is downstairs and except for Sunday. For those of us who are old Greeleyites, we'll have an adventure on Sunday. On Sunday, we get to go to the third floor of this building, which most of us have not been able to go since it used to be the Denver Dry Goods Department Store. In order to do that on Sunday, it's a little bit different. You take the elevator that is down by the swimming pool, The one that just goes right near here will not get you to that piece of the third floor, though you can try, but it won't work. Would those who care to join me in this serenity prayer? God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I'd like to remind us of a couple of our traditions. Tradition 10, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues, hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. And Tradition 11, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. Our names and pictures as AA members ought not be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Since this is the old-timers meeting, oh whoops, long-timERS meeting, I've been asked to read how it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, and powerful. Without help it is too much for us, but there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. 4. Made asserting and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed what an order I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. C, that God could and would if he were sought. While we're conducting this meeting, we'd like to get everybody who can have a chance to speak. So please limit your remarks to five minutes. I've got to watch. I'll help you. This is an honest program, so any of you who have more than 70 years, perhaps you might like to recheck that but we'll start say with 50 and up 45 up 40 up 39 Jack Benny's favorite age 38 so please come forward the elevators broke you got to take this thanks Wow my name is Bill I'm an alcoholic wonder where Ann W is she's usually ahead of me I'm not used to this what it was like, what happened, what I'm like now in four minutes and 30 seconds because I've been up here 30 seconds. What it was like was miserable. What happened, I guess, is I got sick and tired of being miserable. And what it's like now is I'm happy, joyous and free. Oh, my sobriety date is January 30th, 1964. So I just had 38. and that's kind of good and kind of bad. I was at a meeting the other day and naturally around your birthday time they always ask and I said, you know, I sobered up January 30th 1964 and I don't mind when people say, you know, I wasn't born until 10 years after that or 20 years that don't bother me anymore but there's one young snot said my parents were only 10 years old so I guess that's the downside of staying sober a long time but I'm just joking obviously it's been a great life and I can never repay what AA done for me and I never really truly express my gratitude and I'll yield the rest of my time to whoever needs it thank you Well, we're off and running. Anybody else with 38? 37. Good to see you. Oh, boy. Another year. Boy, I don't like this. This crowd's smaller every year. What's going on? I hope not too many are kicking off. I'm a real grateful alcoholic and I'm Norm you know this has been a heck of a year for me not many of you probably got a chance to experience what I have this year in February I have a home 28 days to reflect how it was like 38 years ago and how it was then I was putting a business together in Gillette, Wyoming moving siding patios and the works and I sold the first carport that was sold in Gillett and the first awnings in February in a snowstorm and you know my poor old dad had to put those things up because I wound up in the pokey in about 1.30 or 2 o'clock in the morning on March 1st in Buffalo. And I got news for you, that's no detox center. You guys are panty waste nowadays that go to detox centers, you know. You don't have a foggy as what the hell it's like. Cruddy old jail. I went through DTs and about the third day there was everything coming out of them walls and I seen pink elephants, striped elephants and every other damn thing. And you know my friend came to see me about three or four days after I was in there, somewhere around there. The old Barb, and some of you remember her, I hope. She's in a nursing home now. She's just given up on life, and I'm the lucky one. She come to see me, and she said, I got news for you. They've taken away your running shoes and your wheels, and you ain't going nowhere. I've been trying to get a lawyer and all that, get out and she knew all about that. And she said, you are going to go before that judge and you are gonna plead guilty by raising an insanity and you were gonna go down to that funny farm that I got out of and you're gonna find out whether you're crazy damn drunk or just plain crazy like me. And I knew her pattern. It was exactly like mine. She was a woman and I was a man and she was a traveling woman and she would wilder than hell. And And the only thing different with her, I was working on a second wife. And she already went through five husbands. So, you know, she was a little faster on that than me. And so anyway, I did what she told me. And thank God for that first contact of AA. I think that's the most important thing that there is, is your first identity, your first contact with AA. It's the Most Important Thing That Ever Happens to You. At least it was for me. And, you know, I'm more active in service work than I've ever been. I've been corrections chairman for our district for two years. Go to the jails, and I started with one meeting in jail. We got three now. I started a tape meeting on Saturday afternoon. We show my name, Bill W., Clean and Sober, Inside AA. We showed those, and we had a lot of good speaker tapes. I played old Fritz's tape from his 50th anniversary to some of the guys, and they really loved that. They just eat it up. They keep saying, well, what are we going to hear this week, Norm? And we must be doing something right because we varied the program from just an open discussion. We do step work some nights, and we just do an overall as much as we can. And we got them coming out of there, coming to meetings and staying sober. And that's the whole idea, you know. And it's nothing that I'm doing any more than anybody else. It's just that I am there, you now. And in the same way, we got two or three that came out of Rollins, and they're coming to the meetings. They told Ruth and I, we're going to come and call you when you get out. And, you know, I got a bone to pick with AA. I aired it in the meeting at 530. I'm telling you people, this is ridiculous. In the population of Cheyenne, I don't know what you got here, but I bet it ain't much different. I've been told Colorado's not much different, Ruth and I are the only people that go to prison and we've been the only one that does the jail meeting. and I've been begging and prodding and pleading and crying to get people involved in that work. And you know, the sad part of it is they have the funny attitude that they're doing those guys such a damn big favor. Bull crap. I'm the one that gets the favor and Ruth gets the favorite. We get recovery and we get good sobriety out of it. you know that's what this thing is about and I have another bone to pick that I hear around meeting tables these people come in and get their slip sign and they make bad remarks about that so what if I hadn't been put behind bars and trapped and caught and sent to treatment I wouldn't be alive today people and that's the way with every one of those people getting their slip signs They're sitting out here and meeting the hell of a lot of them, you know, because they got exposed. And exposure is the thing that gets alcoholics, keeps people and gets people going and alcoholics on. If they don't get exposed, how in the hell are they going to get anything, you now? I'm really upset about the results of 12-step work in AA. The same thing happened. I got a beautiful guy that's going to be here tomorrow night. I happened to get the A.A. call from the hospital I announced it in three meetings nobody but nobody would even call him or go to see him but me and Ruth and he's living with us now he's a first class mechanic and he goes to meetings every day and he played with this program for 20 years I tell you folks this is serious business it's serious You know, I'm known as an old griper and an old everything else. They call me everything. I don't care what the hell they call me, you know. I don'T give a damn what they call ME. But I'll tell you what, we need help. We need people in AA that will get off their duff and quit thinking that they can get sobriety to the rear end of something in that chair. It DON'T happen. It DONT happen. so you know I got to go back because of a speeding ticket that I got just out of Buffalo taking a guy the worst drunk in Wyoming to the fourth time in treatment that I know of and the second time in this same treatment center in Sheridan and I got the red lights so I go up had the luxury of going back sitting in that same courtroom just a month before 38 years ago that I sat in that same courtroom and pled guilty for reasons of insanity and went down there, and I've never had a drink since. You know, and I told the judge that. And I told him what I was doing. And I said, and I didn't watch the speedometer or watch the road or I wouldn't be sitting here. And you know what? He dropped my ticket from $120 to $75 and throwed out the court costs. You tell me AA don't work? Hey, hey, it works, baby. In spite of all my bitching, have a good and wonderful night and a wonderful three days here in Greeley because I always do. Love you all. Good night. Thank you. Let's see, that was 38? Okay, 37? Out of the 37s? 36? 35? Hey! Thanks, sir. Good evening, friends. My name is Bob Colley, and I am a real alcoholic. Part of the reason there's not a very big turnout here tonight is probably my fault because I spoke here a couple years ago and I sobered up everybody in this area. okay for our new fans i'm here tonight i'm sure just this example of the program works i can tell you i'm not an authority by no stretch of imagination on alcohol alcoholism or alcoholics anonymous by today's standards i have missed the better things in life i've never smoked a marijuana cigarette the only thing i ever had at my nose is my finger i uh i don't know about this stuff they talk about today. It's just another ball game. I don't know anything about it. I'm glad that I don'T. You know, when we're talking about the jails, you know, if you...I was in jail too long before they had the American Civil Liberties and it was another ballgame if you was in JLN, I can guarantee you that. But, you know, it takes what it takes. They took it out of the editions and I just say this for me, I'm speaking for me. It still says on page 14 the Roman numeral in the big book, the only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking i came to my first meeting in 1960 but i didn't drink wine i thought how the hell i could be an alcoholic i used to go in them skid rows look them guys over drinking on them paper sacks and what have you think that bad i quit drinking too but you see on chapter three in the third paragraph it tells you right there what an alcoholic is a men and women who have lost the ability control they're drinking and that damn sure was me i had my first drinking as a sophomore in high school, and that's over 60 years ago, and I know today I was in trouble and I was born with a broken drinker. But it takes what it takes. I could tell you drunk stories now this time next year. You don't have to go as far as some of us have had to go, but it's here if you want it. In chapter 3 in the bottom of the second page, it tells you right there, if you don't think you're an alcoholic, go out and try some controlled drinking. Try it more than once. I can tell you if you've never had delirium treatments, you have missed half the fun of drinking. But, you know, you don't have to go that far. The book talks about a higher power, and I'll tell you an experience in my life. I do believe that God speaks to us through people. I was never raised with any religious training whatsoever. I was in a meeting in Long Beach, California many years ago and heard a man tell a story that changed my life He said on his last drunk, he was 6'4", and his stocking feet. He had fell in the bathtub and fractured his skull and he weighed 117 pounds. And he said, the only way to get out of the bathtub he had a case of wine in his kitchen and he crawled on his hands and knees. I never drank that stupid wine but I could understand the desperation he was going through to crawl on his arms and knees He said he was shaking so bad he couldn't even screw the cap off the bottle he just busted the neck and took a hit out of that jug. I can understand that because I've been in that shape. Then he said something that changed my life. He said, I said, the only sincere prayer ever said in my life, he said, God help me and he said he asked him in mechanics talk and you might think I'm a brain surgeon but I'm not. And I went home that night and I got outside of my bed and I asked God in truck driver talk to help me and I can tell you standing here in Gritty, Colorado at night on whatever day I've not had a desire to take a drink since that day. But I do know like the book says we have the daily reprieve. That's all we've got. The last thing I say in my prayers in the morning, and part of it's an outside issue, but I said, God help me today not drink no whiskey and smoke no cigarettes. And if I make it through tonight, I thank him. But you know, sobriety puts you in touch with reality. I never had any children until I was 42 years old. And this little boy come along, I didn't even want any kids. And when I laid eyes on this little guy, I just fell in love with this little fella. I got custody when he was 10 years old and a divorce. And one of my defects of character then and now it's my standards on other people. And some of the things I tried to force down my sons, he didn't quite go for it. A good example, I like that old-time hillbilly music and he became a punk rocker. That's quite a thing. His behavior got so bad that I put him out. And I didn't see him for a couple of years and I had a chance to speak one night at a meeting up in Lancaster, California and I said about my son, he said, you'll see him. I got home that night My son was sitting out in front of the house. He said, Dad, can I come home? I said, yes, you can come home. But he said, the rules are still the same. Now it was tough living at my house too, you know. He came home one time with an earring. I said if I turn around and that's your new earring, the earring on my arm is coming off. Plus you had to have a haircut. And geez, you wouldn't want to live in a house like that. But anyway, his behavior was the same and I put him out. And a couple years later my wife, I got remarried. My wife and I went to Las Vegas to a convention and I got up the next morning to go to work and the phone rang about 6 o'clock and my wife come and said it was Elsie that's my son's mother and she said Elsie wants to talk to you and I went and picked up the phone and she says are you sitting down and I said no she said perhaps you had better our son's name was Harry she said Harry's dead so I can just tell you if you're monkeying around with that other crap that's out there on the streets today my son died as horrible death as a man could die from them damn drugs one thing if you drink old granddad whiskey There's quality control to it, but you meet some creep out there in the street and he gives you whatever that crap is and I don't know what or nothing about it, but it killed my son. If I'd been looking for an excuse to drink, that would have been a heck of a good one. But, you know, the desire to drink has been totally removed from me. One thing I hope today is that there's somebody in Southern California who can see with my son's eyes because that was the only thing we could salvage from his body. but you know a few years ago I got to be one of the speakers at Rock Springs at the convention and I told about losing my son a man came up to me after the meeting he said I don't know how you feel I thought how would you know how I felt then he darn sure told me he said my oldest son committed suicide he said i called his brother up to tell him his brother went out and got drunk and ran into a freight train he buried two the same day so if you're here tonight and you're new I don's care what you've done you stick around you'll find somebody who has outdone you You know, when I first come to AI, I used to hear people say, well, I got drunk and really lost my Volkswagen. I thought, Jesus, ain't nothing to that. I got a drunk one time in Winnemucca, Nevada, and I lost a truck and trailer 60 foot long in a house of ill repute. And that kind of held me up for a while in the stories. But I was at the convention one year in Bakersfield and met a man who'd lost a freight train. So, you know, we are not here to try to outdo one another. I just know the answers are here if you want it. And I can tell you today that I live a life beyond my wildest drunken dreams. Some of those situations I've had. My wife and I went to Australia last summer. And the meetings there was in Sydney, and Sydney's a huge town. We met some guy at the meeting there, and he took us on a four-hour trip around Sydney. And that was a neat thing. I told him, I said, you're driving on the wrong side of the road. He didn't agree with me. He said, no, you guys do it. But this is just some of the blessings. But I don't care. You know, we just have the day to reprieve. And I don' t want to ever forget from whence I came. So I certainly hope I haven' t offended any of you people. I just know that it's here if you want it. Stick around until the miracle happens. I think I used to probably say it too. What am I going to do for friends? Well, I can guarantee you this is where you make friends. I drank all over the United States, and there's two towns if you wanted to drink in. I used To have a hell of a resentment against Greedy because you couldn't drink anything but beer here. You had to go out to that little town on your first night if you could get a decent drink. But two towns that I drank in that I'll guarantee you don't take a back seat to none of them. One of them is Butte, Montana. It had 192 saloons in it. and Casper ain't no slouch either but you know when you pop out with a friend this is where you may used to be a bar in Casper at a sign and it said a stranger's a friend we've never met and I've certainly found that in Alcoholics Anonymous so I'm glad I'm here tonight and I do count you all as my friends and I hope there's nobody in this room or takes another drink but I ain't that stupid I guarantee there's people sitting here it could be me that's going to go out and It'll kill you. Thank you. Well, it remains to be seen if we'll find somebody who's lost maybe a jet or a satellite. But we're, let's see, at 35, 34, 33, a third of a century, 32, 31. All right. Hi, my name is Greg. I'm a grateful alcoholic. My sobriety date is July 7th, 1970. Haven't found it necessary to take a drink since that time. My program, you know, when I came into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was not easy. It was not simple. It was nothing. It was painful. A lot of misery, a lot of hate, a Lot of resentment, a Lot of fear, a A Lot of anger, a Lot of all that stuff. But you know what? I learned a long time ago that if I had a little bit of willingness, like it talks about in the 12 and 12, about the key to recovery is willingness. And if I Had The Willingness and I was willing to open the door just a little bit to let other things in, something was going to happen. I was going get rid of the bad things and the good things were going to come into place of the bad stuff. And that's what I became willing to do. I became willing to go to any lengths to get this program like it says in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. The more I was willing to open that door, the more I got. The more i was able to do with my life on each day that I came in the program of AA. The mor I was able do for with my life and the change what I had that I had ruined for 25-26 years before that time. You know coming off a skid row coming into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous Long Beach California they told me to try the program for 30 days and if I didn't like it, they'd refund the misery to me. And so I came up to them, and I said, look at me, I've got 30 days of sobriety. And they said, so what? Try for another 30 days. And that's the way it was for a long time. I had a lot of people that would take me, and we would go on 12-step calls, and we'd go to meetings, and Weed go to all different kinds of meetings around. They kept me so busy that I didn' t have time to think about going back out and drinking again. Didn' t Have time to Think about how sick I really was or how angry I was because I was always busy, constantly going out and making 12-step calls. And so the willingness brought me to a different level of my sobriety. It brought me trust. I learned how to trust the people that were around me in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned How to Trust the 12 Steps. I learnedhowtotrustthisbigbookofalcoholicsanonymous that tells us each and every one of us on how to stay sober one day at a time. So I learned how to trust my sponsor and trust in the God, something I didn't want because I was an atheist and an agnostic when I came into this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I learned what it was like to be a Christian. I learned to trust in something that was more powerful than myself by believing in my sponsor. He had sobriety. He was doing good. He believed in God. I didnít, but I believed in his God until I could believe in my own God, of my understanding of my choice. And what the trust did is it led me into another level of recovery. It brought me into faith, faith that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works, faith that my God works, that my power of my understanding will help me today and do for me what I can't do for myself. He will do for мне what I cannot do for oneself as long as I'm willing to turn it over to God like it says in the third step. We made a decision to turn our will in our lives over the care of God as we understood Him. Today, you know, I'm with 31 years of sobriety and coming in here, not a lot has changed. I'm learning more in the program. I'm learned more about myself. I'm learn that I don't have to be angry anymore. I'm learnt that I do not have to hostile. I'm lear how I don' t have to upset with stuff that's going on. I can learn how to take care of things that different way than I used to take care of them. Things have changed. And it's not something that is going to happen to me unless I'm willing to get off that chair, like somebody said, and go to an AA meeting and talk about what my life is like. I mean, some people think that because you have 31 years of sobriety, you're not going to have problems anymore. Well, I want to tell you something. I'm a human being, and I've got a lot of problems. You know? I work in a problem place. You know, I work for the Internal Revenue Service. Better yet, I work in the collection department. So I have fun every day. But you know, somebody said it in here, is that, you know I get out of the program what I put into the program. If I'm not willing to put something into the program, if I'm Not willing to work the 12 steps or call my sponsor. If I am not willing to work 12 steps, or call me sponsor. Somebody mentioned Fritz up here. Fritz is my sponsor and Fritz has been my sponsor for 17 years. And I was very grateful to go up there and I gave him his 50-year sobriety pin. 50 years. Now, some people may be in awe with these old-timers getting up here with 38 years of sobriete, and you only have a short period of sobrietie. But I'm at awe with my sponsor having 50 years of subrietie with me having 31 years of sopriety. And guess what? He has a sponsor, my sponsor does, that has 54 years of sobriety. So we have a long line of sobriete from 54 years down to one of my sponsees that I sponsor is sponsoring somebody that has four months in the program. You see how that works? It's one of the most fantastic things in this world. And I want to tell you something. I'm very grateful that I was willing to accept the miracle when the miracle appeared to allow me to come into this great program. Thank you. Do we have other people with 31? 30. Hi, my name's Bill Cruz and I'm an alcoholic. When I came into the program of AA, I had teeth. Hell of a deal. That's what happens to us with age, I guess. How many of you have had a light beer? Raise your hands, would you? I never have. I've never had 80-proof whiskey. It was 86-proof. See, when I quit drinking, they had to lower the proof, spread the stuff around. It was rationed. But I'm here by the grace of God, and I don't know why he would have picked me when he had some really nice people that came into this program about the time I did and died. And it doesn't make sense. It simply does not make sense, but I know that over the years a lot of things haven't made sense, and that's okay. I don't have to know how the atom works. I just need to know that it does and depend on it. And I'm reminded, the first time I got up here with a year's sobriety on my birthday, does anybody remember getting a little bit jittery when you had to talk to your group at a speaker's meeting on a birthday night? And you had this book of things, kind of like a sheet sheet, so you wouldn't forget, kind of like the things they use in school so you don't have to study. You know, you just get the little sheet and get it. And I think back to my first year, and everybody that I loved was at that meeting, and none of them were my drinking buddies, none of em'. They had all gone on to greener pastures and light beer and 80-proof booze and all of those things. And I stayed around with the dangest collection of, at that point, misfits. Just like this room is full of misfits, they wouldn't be people that I'd drink with. And we didn't fit. That's why we're misfits—at least I didn't. Maybe you fit real well in every place that you were and every group you were in, but I didnít. I could feel lonely in the middle of a room at a convention. With hundreds of people standing around, I could fill lonely. I knew what resentment and remorse and guilt meant, and I didn't fit out there. And I drank to make me fit, and it's kind of like, I guess, a metamorphosis. I'd fit for a while, and then this stuff, this alcohol would start to wear off, and I would be right back where I started from except that I didn' t feel as good as I did. And I kept shooting for this never-never land, and I know that we've all done it. You know, it's kind of like artillery, fire for effect. And the first shell is short and the next one is long. You say, stop, stop. I thought we had it right on. Now let's try it again. And you sight the sucker in again. And it was never the same place. No drunk ever got to the place I was getting. You know what I mean? You drink and just a little more. Yeah, honey, I'll be home in an hour or so. And hell, an hour comes. and we kind of forget to go home. I don't know if anyone out there has ever forgotten to go home, but there was always a guy at 150 that would remind me that it indeed is now time to find another place to sleep. There were even women at 150 that reminded me that it was time to go find a place. As I think about it, I've really been fortunate because I have been able to go to international conventions. I have gone to AA on all six continents. That's really a misstatement. On the sixth continent, I looked for AA, and it was so damned anonymous I couldn't find it. And I didn't need it, thank God. I was in Nairobi, Kenya, and I knew there was a guy there because when I got back to the States, he showed up in the grapevine and piss me off. Post office box whatever and I had called every priest, minister, cop, jail you name it and looking for a group they were anonymous alright I know he's still there I know he is I know his got to be ornery enough to be still sober unfortunately what happens as we get some time in the group is time starts to take its toll on us and my two fondest sponsors are dead. And as I look back, I have been privileged to do a lot of things with them that I would not have been priviledged to do with just plain friends. I have shared things about myself that I could never share with just friends. Just plain friends? My sponsors and those I sponsor know more about me than my wife my minister put together, and I wouldn't have it any other way. You know, when I walk into a room and I find out that a friend of Bill W. is on that room or on that cruise ship or that the person that I'm talking to is in Al-Anon and there's a connection to a meeting, I don't have to explain if I've got a problem. I don'T have to EXPLAIN the resentment that I may be building. I got a head of steam going. And people just know it's kind of this thing. It happens, I guess, between mothers-to-be. It's the same kind of thing. And if I'm not a mother-to‑be, I probably am not talking the same language. You know, I feel your pain like hell you do. You know? I feel the pain of the alcoholic that comes in because I've been there and you've all been there and we've all bene there. And I didn't catch some of the names here, but as you were talking, And the fellow that talked in Bakersfield also talked here, a guy named Joe L. from Tyler, Texas. And he's the one that lost the freight train. Sucker put one car at a time and lost the frickin' train. And I remember Joe L., because when he got up to talk to us, he didn't start with a normal drunk log. He started talking about two things that have stayed with me, and I presume that he's now dead, because if not, he's got about 108 years of sobriety. but joe talked about the first recorded history to his knowledge of a drunk the first recording and that he said was in a it was done by this guy named luke that writ one of four very important books and he said that the alky was known then as demoniac and that something about this carpenter fellow threw the demons into the pigs and they all went off the cliff and then the the guy now having been recovered said man I want to go with you and this carpenter fellow said no you don't go with me you stay here and tell them what happened does that sound familiar to any of us the geographical cure works but when it happens we have a message to carry and that message is that I did it you can too when I quit smoking I thought I was the only person in the entire world that wanted a cigarette that much. I was reminded by my AA friends who had quit smoking that they wanted it just as much. And I'm here because God loves me for reasons I can't explain. And the other thing Joel said when he was talking at the meeting that I'm remembering so well, he said you know a lot of people get up here and they say well they say to tell it like it was, you know, like it used to be what happened and like it was now. And it hasn't changed. The book says we uses, it says that our stories disclose in a general way what we used to me like, what happened and what we are like now. And he said it hasn t changed. Luke wrote about it. He alluded to the fact that he was the one, this fellow that was talking, Joe, that he is the one that originally stopped grapes. I don t think so but it has been around. Ethyl alcohol hasn't changed. She, I guess we give those names to everybody we love, the she, hasn't change. She still bites. She's still out there. You may have to take 80-proof whiskey instead of 86 to get your fill of her, but she is waiting for me. I am one lousy drink away from ethyl, and I don't want it, and there's no reason to have it. i guess when the aarp card comes then you know you've kind of got it made in one part of the life you survived but i've done more than survive i've had you know life has been good to me i've heard very little in my life happen that i couldn't handle in the sense of not drinking and when it got really bad i went to other people and i said you know I'm not doing very well in handling this and it's amazing what happens when you rub two alcoholics and a big book together. That's where sobriety is found in between the alcoholics and the big book. So it is indeed fun to be here tonight it's a pleasure to be her I'm hoping that some of these other people show up because they have some reporting in to do. One of my sponsorees is AWOL and I have no idea where she is and I sure as hell hope she shines up here tonight. So thanks very much. We do have some other speakers coming at 7, so 29, 28, 29, sorry. Okay, well done. Thank you. Thank you, sir. My name's Tony. I'm an alcoholic. Seems strange. Been coming here for years. Always starting to get pushed to the head of the line. I don't know. I am just very grateful to be here. My sobriety date is June 20, 72. I don' t know. I wasn't a real sweet, kissy, wonderful, happy-go-lucky guy When I showed up, I didn't really want to be at something like AA. I had been trying to stop drinking on my own, especially seriously for the last two years of my drinking. And when people on occasion suggested I might look into this AA thing, I did not think very much of that. I had no intention of going to something like AA, but that's kind of how my attitude much of my life was. I was 29 years old when I showed up at AA. Now I'm 29 years sober, so that gives me a little bit to think about. In my opinion, it's only by the grace of God that I am sober and it's only by the grace of God that I'm alive. I should have been dead 28 years or more ago, so this is all borrowed time. This is a gift. That's, I don't know. I can't say, well, I guess I did have some religious training in my youth. I wasn't listening a whole lot to it. and kind of had a bad attitude about religion and that type of thing when I showed up at AA. But, you know, fortunately, a bunch of guys grabbed hold of me, and they had all showed up ATAA as either atheists or agnostics. And, you Know, they're the guys who were helping me. Actually, oddly enough, my home group, which was a men's stag, There was about 40 guys, and among our members we had a Catholic priest, a Lutheran minister, a Presbyterian minister. They were always the first to point out that they sure as hell weren't there as our chaplain. They were there for the same reason, trying to stay away from the first drink. But yeah, this is just incredible. You know, in my opinion, it's a one-day-at-a-time program. No matter how many years you have, it just happens that when you put a whole bunch of one days at a time together end to end that they add up, you know. Just what a gift this has been. You know I don't know. I didn't do things in half measures drinking. We had to buy the Beatles anthology to find out what the hell was going on in the 60s. I'm kind of grateful that PBS keeps running all those things. I had no idea. After being sober a number of years, the guys I was in the Marine Corps with... And went and got a reunion together. And, you know, most of them, we hadn't seen each other for 33 years at that time, you know. And I don't know, I think, you know, my other fellow alcoholics from then are apparently either dead or in jail. You know, I looked around closely. There were two guys who had quit drinking, who used to drink heavily. So I eagerly cornered them. The one guy had quit drinking through religion, and the other guy had just simply quit drinking. I can't understand that. So we didn't have very much in common. But because I was the guy on a board ship the one time, I found myself lovingly reading the ingredients label on my aquavelva bottle. So, but I wasn't that bad, you know, then. I tasted it and I decided that wasn't, you know, years later in AA at a jail meeting I mentioned that and after the meeting one of the guys, you knows, stopped by and he said, well, you don't have to drink that. You know, that makes a really fine drink if you mix it with iced tea. So, you know, but I didn't know that at the time, you know, so I don't know. This is just such an incredible program and incredible life. I went to a little back-to-basics thing. Actually, I kind of like to roam around and hit meetings where nobody knows me and not tell anybody how long I've been sober. Because some days it can be embarrassing if you're all pissed off and all. They expect you to be spiritual or something. But this has just been such an incredible way of life, and to me that's what it is. I've been working with a new guy recently, and yeah, that just brings all those experiences back for me again. But, you know, in reality, it wouldn't matter if he stayed sober or not. You know, I'm the one who's receiving the gift. Fortunately, he is. And you see the lights come on and you see, you Know, that little bit of understanding. So anyway, I am happy to be here and hopefully get to meet a bunch of you over the weekend. It is an incredible program. I thank you for coming tonight. We have a speaker at 7, so if you would help me close the meeting now. I was told to end this at 7. If you could help me close with the Lord's Prayer. Amen. for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.