Grow Higher Power, Shrink Ralph

Good afternoon. My name is Tyler and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is November 13th, 2023. I'm from Gainesville, Florida. My home group is called A New Freedom, which is at 1215 Monday through Friday at Westminster Church. I have the privilege to introduce Ralph from Los Angeles, who will share his experience, strength and hope on step two. My name is Ralph White. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, Tyler. Coming up on a year. It's impressive. uh i want to thank you guys for the invitation to come out and share uh a little bit of my experience strength and hope around the second step step one uh and i wantto thank chris for starting us off somebody stuck something up here i wanttothank chris for starting this off and um and then i wanto thank ryan for a wonderful talk on step one so now I don't have to replow that ground and I can go right into our second step. The interesting for both of the speakers, when Chris was sharing about his vertigo experience in South Carolina, I was at that conference and the aftermath of that conference still has one of the strangest memories of Alcoholics Anonymous that I've had to date. The speaker that filled in for him, that was a very interesting meeting that night. Um, and, uh, and Ryan was sharing about coming to Los Angeles and going to a meeting. I don't know what meeting he went to. I suspect this one I'm pretty familiar with. I'm in Los Angeles, California, been here all my life. My sobriety date is October the 11th, 1986. Been with you guys over 37 years. Like Chris, I'm 70 years old and I seem to be at my very best when I'm with you. Those 37 years by no means make me an expert on the 12 steps of recovery, does not make me an authority on our program of recovery or on our big book, does Not Make Me a Spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous. Got a friend, Josie, out of Florida and I steal it all the time. It does make me a satisfied customer and I like to talk about it. It seems to me that a hallmark a spiritual experience or of being awake. What we get, all of us are promised one thing. And I don't know if we have, I would assume out of 300 some odd people in the squares, we got to have some new friends here. And for our new friends, I cannot guarantee you if you take this ride with us, none of us can guarantee you, if you're going to get a pocket full of money, can't guarantee you, you're going to get the girl or the guy back. Can't guarantee you a happy marriage. Cannot guarantee you what kind of job you're gonna have. Can guarantee you what kind house you gonna buy if you ever find one. But me and you can both guarantee you whats gonna happen if you don't give us a try. And I took a chance on Alcoholics Anonymous, October 11th, 1986. We listened to a couple of our, we've heard a couple of people share already this morning. I'm going to stay and really try to talk, speak to that second step. Step one is the problem. Admittedly, you know, I'm an alcoholic and my life has become unmanageable. And that's the problem, and Ryan went through that. Chris and his talk did a lot of covering of that. That's the problem, step one. Step two is pretty much the solution. Came to believe that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity. Three through 12, which the rest of the speakers will talk about over the course of this conference, 10-step program action to actualize that solution we talked about in the second step. just a preview second step is not consummated at step two you know this coming to believe is a start it's a touch point it's an entryway into this brand new way of living and what would make me want to do that anyway what happens well i've listened you know um a lot of times you guys when i was new i used to think it was the longer i've been around the more i'm convinced the gift of surrender. I didn't use to think of it as a gift. I used to think of it is a choice. I use to share it. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. How come you ain't tired yet? What happened for me, you guys, on October the 11th, 1986. I didn't surrender. I'm not the surrendering kind. I don't give up my stuff. I don' t give it back. I do it momentarily until you turn your back. Then I jump up and see if I can work in a different way, throw a rock at the back of you and do something. But I'm not the surrendering kind. I'm also not the surrendering time in the other sense of the word, which is surrender my own ideas, surrender my, I don't, I won't give up. So something happened to your boy the night of October the 10th of 1986. And it's important that I remember that and it happened as a result of that step one experience. You know, when, when you've been doing this and I promise I'm going to stay right around step two, but I'm a jump ahead a little bit right now just for the sake of setting the stage for talking about what we're going to talk about. When you've been doing this and thank you Hunter for those kind words. And from a lot of you guys that have been sober for a while, this business of grace is not an unfamiliar concept, right? You used to call it luck, and we used to call it coincidence. And we used to just think, wow, that was a that's interesting timing. But now, as you go through this thing of recovery, and through life, we know grace, we see it, we recognize it, we call it by name. You know, I talk about it all the time when you go to that preschool graduation, and you see your preschooler at the program for their 30 seconds, and you got to be there two hours. You sit there with the other parents and maybe you start crying or maybe that feeling comes over you because, you know, you're sitting in grace, right? At the high school graduation or the college graduation, you get overcome because you know what you're experiencing is grace. You might take that girl up to the dorms for the first time and you move a man. And when you getting back in the car after you get the last piece of furniture up in that dorm room. You sit in the car before you take off and you pinch yourself. Is this me? I know it's grace. I know this is of, not of me. This is bigger than me. I've tapped into something, you know, many years ago. But when you're unfamiliar and when you in the street and when you were in the life and you, it's been a long time since anything good has come your way, You know, grace don't look so graceful. And for most of us on what I like to call that best worst day, October the 10th, 1986 was the best worst day of my life. And who would have thought that I would encounter grace in the form of two youngsters with sagging pants? How grace going to show up with pants sagging? But that's what happened for me. And it ended up with me dodging a black truck the next morning, headed to my mom's house, which ended up with me being in the Harbor Light Program, Harbor Light Center, Salvation Army Program on Skid Row downtown. I had never been to Skid Rock. Had never been down there, you know, getting loaded, drinking never. But that's where I got sober, treatment facility there. And I got introduced to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And i'm a guy that fell in love with the fellowship before I fell in love with program. I got a couple of blind spots you guys and one of them is this. I think that my experience you know I think if it ain't my experience you're lying about it being yours. And I think That my experience is the experience. So I tend to craft everything I say and do around what happened for me? Well, I'm not the only person in the room. You know, sometimes you'll hear somebody, you know, you'll be sitting in a meeting and you'll be sitting up and a speaker is speaking and you'd be like, damn, this dude is missing me. He ain't, I don't hear. And the person next to you was nine or he's like, hey, let me share my story. And you'd Be like, you know, I guess I'm the only one, you You know, I'm the only one that the politically correct thing to say is there are no bad speakers in Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, there are bad listeners. I'm a bad listener. And so sometimes somebody is saying that. And one time I heard a speaker share that he was in a meeting with his sponsee brother sitting next to the sponsor and the sponseee brother said, man, I don't know what you're not getting nothing out of this speaker. And the sponsor looked at him and said, maybe he's not talking to you. you mean somebody else is at the meeting? Yeah, Ralph, somebody else is at The Meeting. And that speaker is speaking to whoever. So sometimes I get so caught up in all this message. That message ain't for you. And if you've been doing this long enough, you guys, now I can hear from probably anybody. But it's an art to listen in an alcoholics synonymous. And one of the reasons storytelling is at the heart of what it is we do, what we're built on is one alcoholic sharing with another. That's our call. That'S our mandate. You know, and we hope that nobody, and we say it in our book, we hope nobody's feet, you know, finds these self-revealing accounts. ThatS what we do. We share, we share our stuff. Nobody shares to feel these self revealing accounts are in bad taste. It'S only by fully disclosing us and our problems that somebody's going, damn, I was just like that. Now, I'm not just like the school. If just the school teacher got it, I mean, now you're missing me. So that's the reason. The other reason we share, you guys, is not because we're here to just try to, oh, there's a primer on drinking. Sometimes you hear people say, I am not going to share along drunk a lot. Everybody know how to drink. That's crazy. We are clearly a society of people who don't know how to drink. So that's number one. And number two, what, that's where we see the power of Alcoholics Anonymous, you guys. You know, on a day like today, when you get people to come out and share on the steps and share from them, you know, we can get caught up. Me, I put a big neon sign over Ralph's head. A lot of opinion right now, but I try not to, I try to temper it. You You know, I really don't want to burden you guys with a lot of that. But one of the things for me, you know, the information is cool. But what's kept me here for 37 years is the transformation. I have a confession, you Know, I love when I was listening to Ryan and for our new friends, I have, I got to confess, I came here out of desperation. I've not been here out of desperation in a long time. I got to tell you guys, I'm not as desperate now as I was that October in 1986. I came out of aspiration. I've stayed out of inspiration. And I am a guy who still gets inspired. When the guy didn't introduce me, Tyler, and I don't know him, but he's doing the deal. He gets to introduce a speaker that feels so important. He's coming up on a year. The lights are coming back on. Some hope is coming back. Maybe, just maybe, you know, people are starting to look at him a little bit differently. And Tyler, we see something in you before you'll see it in you. The power of alcohol is anonymous. And so what we get from our storytelling, you guys, that's our mugshot. That's the best way we see transformation. We don't know another way to see it. you know, it's powerful. You know, when we get people in here and they share their stories, you know. And it's the before and the after. And you can't appreciate where I am now if you don't know where I come from. And so that's one of the reasons that we do that. It's powerful, you know? It is so powerful to me, you know when I listen to people. I was listening to Ryan and And when Chris was here and I sit back and I try to imagine them in the life, you know what I'm saying? The power of our fellowship is check this out. Isn't it amazing that the person that's in the story is not the person That's telling the story. That blows me away, especially with the ladies. I'll see some of you and you look like models and you looked like divas and you Look Like Housewives and you'd look like, and I'll say, what the hell are you doing up in here with us? And then you start telling that story and I'd be like, oh baby, please don't you leave us. You know, power of the power. So I'm going to 9604 South Figueroa. I'm new, I'm knew to this. None of us come to alcoholism. It's not like any place else I've ever been. It's a different operation. I've come from, you know, I was working in a law department of a major utility company. I used to manage a bunch of people. I had had some things. I'm a high achieving young guy, first kid off my block to go to college, come from a real poor background. My mom was a domestic. She was on welfare. She put herself back through school, just, you know, and it's the 60s and you needed to grow up in the 60S if you missed that you just did. It was a hopeful time. It was an optimistic time. It was a time of possibility. And I've always been a young brother that felt like I would leave footprints. And I'm a high-achieving guy, and so it seemed possible. And so I started drinking late, you guys. I'm late to the game. And I started in 1971, and 18 years old, headed off to UCLA, living in the dorms. When Chris talked about Boone's Farm, that was in the early group of beverages. Boone'S Farm, Annie Greensprings, Tyrolia, Yago Sangria, you know, just what youngsters drink. And it did what it is that it does because it's progressive. And by 1986, when I stumbled into the rooms, it had its way with me. And I came in here and I was surrendered under the lash of alcoholism. And I was surrendered real well. Bill Wilson and his story, for those and most of you probably know the story, in Towns Hospital in December of 1934, he found himself in there for the third time that year. And he had an experience in that hospital. And he would later describe you, Bill, when he talked about this white light experience of his, he would say something like this. He would say God comes to most men gradually, but his impact on me was sudden and profound. And I used to think, wow, that's deep because he came to me gradually. I started drinking, you guys, in the summer after high school. I took my first drink at 16. I started drinking in earnest in 1971. And by 19, and I am the classic description of the progression of the disease of alcoholism. That's why our stories are all over the place. I'm not out of the chute like there are other speakers. I did not come out of the chutes as an alcoholic. I came out as a moderate drinker. I used to drink on the weekends. I remember putting it down. I remember going to class during the week. Then I remember when the weekend started on Thursday and ended on Monday. Then I remember when the weekend started on Wednesday and ended all Tuesday, then you know, and so by 1972, I'm a year into the game, you guys, and I'm going hard in the paint. I'm doing hard. And you couldn't have told. So in 71, social drinker, moderate drinker could put it down. By the end of 72, going into 73, when I started at it. Now I'm hard. I'm going hard in it. And from that point until October the 10th, 1986, I couldn't put it down. Could not, would not put it done. So from 1971 to October the 10th, 1986, could not, would not put it down. Something happened on October the 11th, 1986, and I have not picked it up. On the day of October the 10ths, 1986 all day, you could not have told me that the next day I'd be stepping through the looking glass into a right into a brand new world. No way you could have told me that. I submit to you guys, the God's impact on me was sudden and profound. I just didn't know it. But he came to me gradually. And that's what I'm going to talk about in the second step. His impact was sudden. Sudden and profound one day. can't shake it. Next day, new life. What? That happens for everybody sitting in one of these squares. I guarantee you nobody here knew the day before that they'd be in another life the next day. Isn't that amazing? This business of grace, this power that we've tapped into. so I start going to the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous you guys one of my great gifts is I fell in love with the fellowship before I fell in luck with the program and and I'm a three legacy guy and and i'm a fellowship i'm all in you know i'm an all-in guy and so I started going and I started going I was raised in Baptist church so our first step um you know I I don't have to go back through it. Ryan, I'm going to touch on a couple of things. You know, in that first step, I had come in totally convinced based on my experience that it ain't a good idea, Ralph, if you take one, you know, when I read the doctor's opinion and it talked about this allergy at about, I don't talk like that, this phenomenal grape, how do I know I have that? You know? I asked myself a couple of questions, you know, how many times throughout, don't look at the times that you set out to get tow up. Don't look At the time you set off together. Look at the time that you said, I'm just gonna spend 20. What happened? Whole paycheck. Look At the times that you said I told my own lady, I will be home at eight or nine o'clock. When you went out the happy hour, your boy said,I told my old lady,I'm gonna be home At eight or Nine o'Clock. Eight o'clock comes. He says, okay, I got to leave. The waitress says, last call for happy hour. I say, bring me nine gin gimlets. I thought I changed my mind. So look at the times that you say, Ralph, did it happen once? Did it happen twice? If your name is Ralph, every two weeks from 1979 to 1985, whole paycheck. My experience, not yours, not my sponsors, not the oldest old timer in the group my experience abundantly confirms for me when I take one anything no matter where I have to go what I have to do who I have to see no matter how great the wish or the necessity my body seems to take over and I have to have another strange part of that is the second piece though stone sober my car seemed to drive to the LIQ on payday so we come in here and I get introduced to this thing, you know? And the biggest impediment for me, you guys, to that second step is I already thought I knew about God. And you guys can't fool me when you talk about higher power. You can't fooled me when you couch in another language. I grew up in Baptist church. My mama used to walk us up the street because we didn't have a car in my family. And it's six of us, six boys and moms is an old Southern Baptist sister. And we were raised in church. The first church we went to, my granddaddy was one of the co-founders that he was a deacon at that church. And, and we used to go there on Sunday mornings. Then we moved to this bigger, you know, church that was closer to the house. And We walked every Sunday morning, You know, and I remember my earliest goal being when I turned 16 years old, you won't have to worry about Ralph White darkening the doors of anybody else's church. Said it, did it, meant it. Church felt like myths and fables to me. I got a friend, you know, Steve L. And Steve says sitting in church, you know, reading about Daniel and the lions, Dan Jonah in the whale's belly, you know Moses part of the Red Sea, Jack and the beanstalk, all of them were equally just stories, fables, tales, you know. And so I would be if you go to Baptist Church, you guys, it's a little bit different than this than the Catholic Church experience. I experienced Catholic churches since I've been sober, buried a couple of spines. And Catholic church is a solemn experience, up, down, up down, kind of majestic, awe-inspiring. The Baptist experience is a high energy experience, you know, and it's a lot of singing. And apparently at some point in the proceedings, this thing called the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost runs through the church. Allegedly It never hit me, but I would see it hitting other folk and they might jump up. And I was eight years old sitting next to my mom in church. And I'd look at her off the side and I'd be thinking, you better not jump up in here and embarrass me. I've been selfish and self-centered all my life, you know? And so that business of churches and growing up, it's myths, it'S fables, itS stories. You know what? A smart ass like me every now and then accidentally stumbles on a truth. because it turns out that I was exactly right about this business of it being stories. You know what? That's the language of spirituality, is storytelling. You don't approach that for which there are no words with words. The we found and the mystics and the teachers and all the spiritualists, mostly that's how we describe. how do you describe grace? You don't put it in words. How do you describe this power that we approach? We do it through storytelling and the stories were never meant to be literal. Did not know that, you guys. Did not know. And so I was, so me growing up in church, hitting our second step when I came to you guys, this is what came to Alcoholics Anonymous the scoffer, the cynic, the skeptic. You gave me another name. You call me agnostic and you send me to a chapter. And in our chapter, we agnostics, that's where much of our second step, much of what we talk about and write about and give directions about is in our chapter, We Agnostics. I sometimes think that chapter should be subtitled Mental States to proceed. I sometimes think I was getting ready to talk about chapter three. Let's go to chapter four. I think that chapter four should be subtitled, Overcoming Objections. I used to do some sales and anybody in here that does sales, sometimes they do seminars and workshops with the sales team and they would have these overcoming objections. Let us do this role play. The customer is going to say this, this is the objection. This is the overcoming objections. Well, I don't believe like granddaddy believes. Overcoming objections. Well, I grew up thinking that this God is, but how can I, I Don't have the ability to have faith. I can't believe Like this other person believed in that chapter. We agnostic that talks about Ralph. You're a logical guy. You think that you was, but it's going to talk about, and here's what I like, why it makes more sense to believe than not to believe. I used to think that this business of spiritual life and spirituality was this virtuous kind of deal you got to earn. No, no, no, if it ain't practical, it probably ain't spiritual. What? You mean there's a practicality? There's a pragmatism involved? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in that chapter, there's two question tests alcoholism at the front, when we get ready to talk about the second step, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore sanity. In the first paragraph of the chapter, we acknowledge it. It says, if when I start drinking, I can't control the amount I drink, that's me. If when you honestly want to, you find you can't quit on your own, that's me too. I never knew that was me though, because I never tried to quit. A lot of people share. And that's why we share again in Alcoholics Anonymous, because my story is mine. I don't care if you stick to your story and stop trying to teach them, stick to yourself. Can nobody dispute that? My story is fine. So a lot of people and many people, the other speakers here tried hard. Most of the people I know had tried all kinds. I never tried to quit until I got to Alcoholics synonymous. You know, I'm a drinker. I started smoking herb when I was 18 years old. I thought herb was a food group. You Know, I thought I'd be smoking weed, sitting in a rocking chair with my kids, with the cool old men. I had a partner and when we were in college, his dad would smoke weed. Ooh, he's a cool dad. And I thought, I'd cool like that when I as old. You Now, I had started Like Chris said, I'm from the cocaine. So when you have a lot of other stuff, you start thinking, I want to slow it down over here. And I never thought of quitting nothing. I thought of slowing down and dodging consequences, but I never taught. So this business of this obsession was deep. It was a, I had to wrap my head around it, you guys. When Bill Wilson talks about alcohol was my master. And sometimes when I read that, I don't really know the depths of that. And I hadn't experienced it. The waters must have been a little calm at this time, 1985 and maybe early 86. And my mom, my five brothers and me all ended up in my mom's house in 1985. And we almost killed we were all in the life right and so anyway this particular day we were standing on my mom's from just me and her with the house must have been a little calm because I was there and my mom said Ralph would you go across the street and buy this melon off this truck and the truck was right across the stream from the house and she gave me ten dollars and I'm 32 years old at the time. And I go across the street. I suffer from a condition nobody else in your sufferance realm. The condition I suffer for is if I don't see you, you don't see me. So when I'm going across the street with this $10, 32 years old, I go on the other side of the truck. My mom can't see me then. And i come out the side of the truck headed up the street and walking fast And I could hear my mom hollering, Ralph, I don't see you. You don't seem me. Ten dollars. Ten dollars, I was operating with something that was bigger than me. I wasn't in the grips of of I wasn t in the phenomenon of craving. I hadn't taken one yet, but I was in the obsession. i was in the obsession money loaded and it was bigger than me you guys 10 chicken shit dollars i know i gotta come back and see my mom i know I'm better than that i'm not trying ten dollars i didn't have any choice i didn' t have it it was b gger than me so the physical part if when you take one you can't just you can control the amount and if when you sincerely want to stop you find you can that stay with me right and so that's the two question test for alcoholism new friends we have pamphlets they'll do 20 question tests you'll do 40 questions we have a two question task if that be the case ralph you may be suffering from an illness. Oh, there's the diagnosis. I'm suffering from an illness called alcoholism. What's the prescription? You go to the doctor, he gives you the diagnosis, you got this, you got nothing, you gotta go. Here's the prescription that only a spiritual experience of conflict. Oh my God. And it talks about, you know, to be doomed to die an alcoholic. I love this part or to live life on a spiritual basis. Now, how come that's not easy alternatives alcohol you know alcoholic death or life those should be a no-brainer well they stuck that other piece on them or to live life on a spiritual basis oh i need door number three what's going on i do not want to say how come those are not easy alternatives the face alcoholic death are lived like when are alternatives not easy anywhere when they look equally distasteful or they look just alike. In spiritual life and alcoholic death, they look suspiciously alike to me. You know, why is that? Because I don't know what spiritual life looked like and I think that I do. The medicine is spiritual life for a condition that if you suffer from this disease of alcoholism, what we have to offer in Alcoholics anonymous and we don't have a monopoly, but it's all that we got off. That's all we got. And so what we have is this spiritual experience. And sort of medicine and spiritual experience and check this out. I don't like the way it looked like the medicine tastes. I didn't taste that the medicine. I Don't like The Way It Looks Like Spiritual Life Taste. Spiritual life look like it's sour looks like it's dull looks like a square looks like is everything I don't want to do ain't no chasing ain't know cussing and no fun you know in Bill Wilson story because you know builds a drama queen so when he talks he talks like that he said here I was to join the endless procession of socks well when I signed up for Alcoholics Anonymous and I signed it for sobriety that's how that felt to me at first here i was to join the endless procession of squares here i Was to join The endless processional people who didn't gave up their ticket on like here. I was the dude Yeah, I can't drink but damn it's gonna be a hard way to go, you know And so spiritually I thought I knew what so I didn't like the way it looked like the medicine taste I never tried it spiritual sometimes also looks to me like holier than thou looks like pious looks like condescending looks like patronizing looks like the way I try not to present sometimes these days I try Not To Be Mr. 37 years sober on this no no no you know what I'm gonna just sidebar right here for a minute. I run from people who can't laugh at themselves. I don't care nothing about you telling me how much knowledge and information that you have. A hallmark of spiritually grounded people, I think, is the ability to know to get the joke. Bill C talks about that. Life is to be lived. Life has to be live. You know what I'm saying? You guys, You know, the more that I'm here, the more convinced I am that what me and you get the opportunity to do, the way we get to touch, the way we get to heal, the way we get to shine our light, the more convinced I am. This is not about the acquisition of knowledge and information. It's about, you know, my sponsor who is Bob B out of St. Paul, Minnesota. And Bob talks about the language of love. And the older I get, the more convinced. I leave with that, you know, but so I don't like the way it looked like the medicine taste. Check this out. Here's the second piece about the medicine, the spiritual life. Plus I know I can't take the medicine as prescribed. Some of you guys can, cause you like it. No, I don'T like the Way It Looked Like, and who taking medicine for taste anyway? Me, I'm on cherry flavor, you know. And some of y'all look like, yeah, you could do it. Granddaddy and grandma, they could do what you know, but I ain't trying to live like that. I'm not trying. And here's the deal, you guys, on the second step for me. One of the reasons why, and I'm trying not to, but I'm going to step on it anyway. I'm a step on a soapbox for a minute, you guy. Stop share shaming. stop it. Tell them folk how they need to share, what they need to do and stop that. Why do I say? Because I come from that before and you know this business of sharing my experience, I think I can do that quite effectively without making you think that your experience is wrong. I don't think you have to be wrong for me to share the truth or the reality of my experience. You know, so when I first got introduced to the book, I was like Christopher Columbus, you know, even though Christopher Columbus discovered a land that when he got there, folk was waving at him, you Know, but he discovered it right. And that's the way I was with the big book when I discovered it, nobody else. So I started showing up in meetings, and 30 people who were 30 years sober will be sure that ain't a fourth step up in here killing people, killing people. I got my little 18 months, now they've been killing me. Really? You know, and I'm bashing on people for sure. I don't think anything is wasted in God's economy. I think in this big chorus of ours, everybody's voice is valuable. Sing your song. Sing your song and it's got value and don't take it out of context everything has context Ralph what are you talking about I remember going through the phase of you know well you know uh meeting makers making you and bashing that meat makers make me make well I went to see uh Bruno Mars last year me and Leslie went in and when we went and it was a hell of a thing. And I got tickets and got us in, and we were sitting up close. And so we got our tickets, you guys, and мы went in to see Bruno. And when we went in, some people were at the front and we showed them our tickets and they had a flashlight and they showed us to our seats. And their job was to get the people in the seats. And there are members here who share go to 90 meetings in 90 days or they share meeting makers make it and they are ushering those who have some and that might be all they got to say right now they may have something later different they may help some you know so i want to tell them what not to share with the share what you share and they not and when they get you in the seats now those of you who have a song to sing, sing your song. Don't spend time bashing the ushers, sing your song, sing your song that got and the reason I say is there is so much that goes on in our meetings that we don't know about this second step. Do you know the way that I came to the second step? The way that looking back was the primary feature because I grew up in church. I grew UP thinking I had a relationship, not a relationship with God. I never wanted a relationship. I thought I knew an understanding of and I thought that I knew, you know, I knew enough to bash the people. Religion is opiate or the people I'd rather smoke mine. Thank you very much. I'm trying to be clever and glib and all that. And so I knew enough to bash. I knew enough to bash the preacher for driving a brand new car. How do you want my mama to be tithing and she's on welfare, and you in a new car, and we walk in the church. I'm doing all that, you guys, right? And then I went in the book, and it talks about be quick to see where religious people are right. L063992. Now, L063992, what are you talking about, Mr. Speaker? Some of you old folk remember when phone numbers had letter prefixes. L063992 was my grandparents' phone number, and that was their only phone number my entire life. Both of my grandparents are dead now, and they were married 56 years. You know, one phone number, 1726 East 107th Street. That's their address. I don't know how many cell phone numbers I've had. I'm not sure. I don't have any addresses I've heard. My grandmama and granddaddy were in one address, and they went one phone member. Be quick to see where religious people are right. And I used to think to myself when I was working in corporate now, and I first started work and I'm making a lot of money. And I'd be thinking to myself, I make more money than a year that my granddaddy would make in 10 years. And it dawned on me when I hit that paragraph and somebody illuminated it for me. They said, yeah, but granddaddie never asked me for bail money. Be quick to see where religious people are right. They were exhibiting a degree of usefulness, stability, and happiness that you should have been looking for for yourself. I come from a background, and my mama, you know, I look back, you guys, on this business of what are you talking about? I'm talking about this businessof power greater than me that's been pouring in me. A lot of times we talk about thisbusiness of grace being an unearned gift and unmerited. I've done a lot of thinking, you guys. And because we think inside of, let me talk about me. Because I think inside of the human construct, I think the way people think. I think that the cash and prizes are earned. I don't know when I talk about this business of grace being unearned. That's because I'm trying to understand God and that ain't my job. There's no such thing as earning or not earning grace. That's all God do, and that's all he got. And it is, how many parents we got on here? We got a gang of parents on here. When your babies come out, they don't earn the bottle they don't earn. That's their birthright. That is what they have. That's what we get. I was six months sober and I was walking up to a meeting and a cat saw me rolling up and he was like, Ralph, what you into? I said, oh, I'm just doing God's work. He said, what do you think you can do for God that God can't do for himself floored me, right? Because I'm the right answer guy. And I thought, what? What are you talking about? Dude, I thought I gave the right answers. But I'm also well schooled in Alcoholics Anonymous. I respect my elders. I don't care. You know, I'm not one of these people that talk about worthless. No, no, no. You kept the light on for me. Period. That's enough. And so I asked John, I said, so John, talk to me. What's going on? He said, Ralph, you know, God's job is your job is to do for God's kids. God's Job is to Do For You. God gave you something he didn't even reserve for himself. I said I have something God don't have that that you got to be playing. What do I have that God don't have? He said, God gave you the choice over whether or not you're going to return his love. God has no choice. God is love. Bam. That's what we have. That's who we do. That stuff, right? So slow walked into this, going back to my point about not bashing. So this thing about going to meetings, you guys, is huge it's bigger it's more than just sitting at a meeting listening no no no as i sat at meetings of alcoholics anonymous in my early days and i don't know when the foot training's going on it's kind of like karate kid you guys remember when karate kid was doing wax on wax off he didn't know he was getting ready for the tournament you know and so when i'm going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm sitting in them, and I'm hearing the same person share, and I'm thinking, oh my God, or I'm doing this. But every meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous that I went to, and I'm in Los Angeles, California, we're a hotbed, got over 3,000 meetings a week, you know, we go. And every meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I go to, I go to a meeting, and Debbie might be over here on this side of town, and Debbie will say, my name is Debbie, you know I'm alcoholic, alcohol had its way with me. I found a power bigger than me. I ain't had a drink in six months. Richard would say my name is Richard. Alcohol had its weight with me I found the power bigger to me. I haven't had to drink in two years. I go to another part of town at another meeting and Robert was set up to say my name was Robert. Alcohol has its weight with me, I find a power big it in me. I go another meeting at another time in another part of town and Tina would stand up and say My name is Tina. I'm an alcoholic. Alcohol had its way with me. I found a power bigger than me. And not that many of you could be lying. And the evidence piled up on a smart ass guy like me because I'm smart and I'm stubborn and I're arrogant, but I ain't stupid. Not that many OFU will be lying and I slow off into the second step based on your references. based on your referral, and I came in, and I like to argue, and I like to debate. I want to encourage anybody that's new that's having problems with this second step. There were a couple of things. What's in it for me? That there is no God. See, I used to like to debate that. My boy, the late great Leon Strange used to say, you know, he's agnostic. He said, I don't want to be an atheist because an atheist, you have to hold up your end of the argument. That's too much study. So I don't want to have to really get involved like that. But Ralph, what's your vested interest? What's your vested interest. You came here 33 years old and celebrated Christmas in a long time. Hadn't seen a birthday for that little girl of yours. My daughter was two and a half when I made it to you guys, beat down, tore up, no key to anybody's house, didn't have a driver's license. And I came to you guys, and you guys started saying this deal about this power, and I had no vested interest in there not being a power bigger than me. Took me to a couple of places, showed me why makes more sense to believe than not to believe. And I was like, okay, I understand why my granddaddy can get this. He was built like that. Granddaddy is built for following directions. He's built for following rules. I don't listen to any and everybody. You know, when we read that part, God as we understood him, me and my sponsees are doing something now and we're reading a new pair glasses. And Chuck C was talking about, and I'm going to jump ahead just a tad in the third step when he talks about God as we understood him. And Chucky was saying, Ralph, the way to read that is not put the emphasis on understood. I'm not going to understand God. If God is small enough for me to understand, he ain't going to be big enough for me trust. That ain't our deal, you guys. We're not in the business of trying to understand. Put the emphasis is on God as I put the emphasis on you, the emphasis as Ralph, a personal relationship with a power. Really? I've never wanted a personal partnership and what this deal is really about you guys. Let me give you the formula for it. And it's a real short formula for the second step, you know, because it says, you know I suffer from an illness that only a spiritual experience to conquer later on in that chapter, it's going to say something like, well, the purpose of this book, its main object is to introduce you to a power that'll do what? Solve your problem. What problem? Name one, you know, and so this deal is big, but here's the formula for finding, because we're seekers, right? Not seekers, you don't get that confused, but the seeking the relationship, you You know, and so here's the formula for seeking the real. It's real easy and it's real quick. Grow God, shrink Ralph, hold him. Grow God. Shrink Ralph. Hold him. Y'all ain't got to shrink Ralph. You shrink. Teresa was going around saying she was always shrinking. No, T, you shrink you. You know. I'm small. Grow God shrink Ralph? Well, Ralph, how do I do this shrinking? I'm not going to step on the other people's set, but that's what the rest of this process is designed to do. These ego-reducing series of spiritual exercises, it's too much me in between me and this power. It's too many blocking me off from you. Bro guy, shrink Ralph, whole deal. I got a lot of objections to how that's supposed to work. I don't know how that looks. Granddaddy, you know, if I believe like Brandon, do I now believe or am I willing? It's hard, Ralph. I'm not built that way. I wasn't raised in church. Well, you probably got a head start on a lot of us because I came in here with a lot OF stuff that I thought was my, that wasn't mine. That was some, most of us, one of the reasons why we talk about getting the concept with a power you got, most OF us don't come in the world with a concept of what this power is, of what God is. Most of us get it from our family, our community. If we are members of a church group or a religious organization, they tell us what this entity, this power is supposed to be. They tell us the characteristics. They tells us what it's supposed to look like. They told us what we're supposed to do to get in his good graces. They've told us a lot of stuff, but I've never looked at, well, what is it for me? And what stands in the way of me having this relationship with this power? Well, I think that I'm handicapped because I'm present. Okay, Ralph, here's the formula. Let go all that stuff you think you know about this power. Let go all the stuff you think you don't know about religion. Ask yourself some questions. When you bristle at something, sometimes when I'm in a meeting, sometimes you guys and somebody is doing too much specific religious references, which is your right. One of the things we encourage though is I want to be effective, but it's your right to do whatever you want. When I bristle, that's one of the touchstones for me getting in touch with this power. I ask myself, Ralph, why are you tripping? What's that bringing up in you? What is that making you think of? well that's making me think of hypocrisy okay okay um that's making me thing okay so what does that mean for you i come to god just like i am i come dressed in my clothes i come not bringing over okay so whats that mean for you okay he's not but okay all right and as a result you guys of, I'll preview the benefits of this second step experience, this coming to believe experience. One of the big benefits of it is it's the launching point to go into our program of action. That's the first benefit. If I come to believe in this power, I need to operate on that. So it sends me into this third step and that third step is going to propel me into the program of action. That program of action is going to end up with me down the line when we come out of our ninth step and go in our 10th. It's going to say, for by now sanity has returned. So this second step came to lead that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity. Something's going to happen as a result of our program ofaction that's going restore me in the right thinking when it comes to that decision about picking one up when I'm stone sober. Really? Really? I'm not going to think about it. If you're new and you wonder it, and you'd like to ask a guy with 37 years of recovery, why God? Why try it? You know, I know what you're thinking about, you know, what does that look like for you these days? I almost want to walk into that next step and I'm not going to you guys but this business of coming to believe it has been evolutionary for me over my time with you guys it started with me believing that it started with it first propelling me into doing a third step and that third step has propelled me into cleaning up looking at myself, walking with my head up because I'm a secret keeper. And so you guys put me in action there, cleaning stuff up, walking like a grown ass man, as a result of doing eighth and a ninth step. One of the things that is that I like the most that I've discovered as a result of finding this power is I'm not a self-propelled guy, you guys. I really do believe that there is something that happens for people like us that only happens through us, with us, that we bring to the table. We're not unique. grace is grace, but we are uniquely qualified to open that door for each other. We are uniquely qualified to provide that channel for each another. We have the other speakers who talked about drink. I drink no matter what I drink, no matter why tell you something as a result of this second step, this coming to believe in a power greater than me and putting that into action. Got a spine C that just buried her mom last week. She don't drink, did not drink. Had another member of our group I was a part of lost her daughter, 16 years old to a drunk driver, did not pick up a drink. Had the IRS come after me for $80,000, did not pick up any drink no matter what. So it seems that as a result of having a program of action that a society of men and women who drink no matter what have been put in touch with a power that allows me to stand on. I don't drink no matter what. What? Somebody will say, that sounds like a miracle. A group of men and women who drink no mater what, who do not drink no matter what. Got to take a miracle." My name is Ralph White. I am an alcoholic. Thank you, Ralph. Let's give Ralph a big round of applause. Your story was amazing. I'm very grateful to be here today to hear what you had to share, your experience, strengths and hope.