He Made the Step 3 Decision but Never Executed It Until He Did Four Through Nine – Martin B.

Good morning my name is Martin Brooks and I'm an alcoholic. I want to thank Russ for giving us such a fine send-off this morning and he reminded me as I had heard before that you know they say Adam had the best of all of it because when he said something you could be pretty sure it had never been said before but I I certainly want to thank the committee and the convention for inviting me here again. I was sitting in the room yesterday afternoon looking at that beautiful basket of fruit. I said to my wife, I said, you know, a little story just came to mind, and I don't know exactly why, but it's something I ran across years ago. ago, it seems as though this preacher was calling on one of his parishioners, Brother John. Brother John, in the habit of making a little wine for his own consumption, while they were talking he poured the preacher a little thimble full and he sipped it. I said, my goodness, that tastes good. And the preacher started just raving about the wine. He says, we don't mind to have just a little more of that. So he gave him some more, and he kept talking about that wine. Well, the gentleman said, well, I made it myself. He says... Now tell you what I'll do, preacher. I'll give you a half a gallon of it if you'll thank me for it from the pulpit next Sunday. Well, The Preacher said, Well, that's a deal. so he gave him a half gallon and Sunday morning when the preacher got up he comes to the time when he knows it's now time to thank Brother John for the wine he says my wife and I want to thank Brother John for the basket of fruit and we want to thank him especially for the spirit in which it was given so I thank you for the biscuit of fruit and especially for this spirit it in which it was given. You know, in the introduction when I said to you that my name is Martin Brooks and I'm an alcoholic, I told you who I am and what I am. And you know, for a long, long time, each morning when I'd awaken or come to, the who would say to the the what we ain't going to drink today. The what would say to the who who said so. Who would say, well, I say so. And the what would says, well we'll see about that. And you know what would happen. The what will get drunk and the who would have a hangover. And you now that's the way it was for a long, long time. Time after time after time. But then something happened. and the telling of that happening is the heart of every recovered a story you know Bill oftentimes said there are moments and for these moments we give our lives so today when I awaken in the who says to the what we ain't gonna drink today and what says to them who said so the the who says me and my higher power, which is God, say so. And we haven't had a drink all day long. And you know that's the way it's been now for quite some time, one day at a time. You know each morning when I awaken now, I become consciously aware that this day, this day that I am now in that I, the Martin Brooks self of me cannot manage my life this day I also become consciously aware that I cannot successfully fulfill the conditions I have committed myself to on a continuing basis but then I came to believe again this day that there is a power greater than myself that can and will do for me everything I need done for me this day I came not only to believe it but I entered into the experience of it and that belief became an exciting freeing experience for me at that moment you know I believe this morning and I believed every time this day that I thought about it unless in a number of times that the same intelligence the same power that sustains this universe is working through me for good now that may sound presumptuous to you but I believe it because I've experienced it in ways that are tangible valuable and meaningful to me but I want a step farther I turned my will in my life everything that I am over to the care of this power again this morning with feeling. And while I was in the process of doing this, I became aware of a very important aspect in my life and my living that I had been trying to manage, I'd been trying run, I've been trying to solve myself. And then that life-saving negative feedback stored in my subjective mind from the many inventories I'd taken began to nudge to my conscience and say, Martin, no wonder you haven't found the answer to that. You've been trying to do it yourself. You're taking over again. You are getting back in the driver's seat. You trying to play God again. And you know that was marvelous because right then and there I turned that aspect of my living over to the care of that power greater than to myself, and I knew instantly the solution would unfold. And I knew it absolutely and completely at that moment. And that's the way this program works, to see where we're making mistakes. Mistakes of omission as well as mistakes of commission and make the a correction, not at the end of the error, not at the ending of the mistake, but to catch ourselves in process and make the correction so that his will may be done rather than our will. Now early on in my journey into wellness, began at the same point in my life as yours did with the last drink. There came some lines my way which addressed my contents and they've continued to have increasing meaning for me since that time. These lines were penned by a man named Peter Marshall. Now, Peter Marshall may well not have been an alcoholic but these lines were certainly meant for this alcoholic of the years to hear. Peter Marshall says, I know, Father, that I must come to you just as I am, but I also know that I dare not go away just as I came. Often I've known failure—failure in the moral realm, failure in ethics, failure in my attitude, failure and my disposition. I have confessed all these things to you, and you have graciously forgiven me. But I know, Father, that merely to forgive me will not suffice. For unless I am changed, I'll do these same things again. So at last I realize that only you can correct that which is in me that makes me do wrong. So where I'm blind, you must do something about my sight. when I fail to heed your voice you must do something about my deafness and father when I deliberately choose to do that which I know is wrong you must be do something about my will so I acknowledge my total dependence upon you so make me over in the person you want me to be so that I might find that destiny for which you did give me birth and for your help and the help of my many wonderful friends who are plenteous in their mercies I give you my gratitude so now I trust that your higher power and mine will take what follows and use it to enhance your sobriety and mine and when I say to you that I'm an alcoholic I mean in short simple terms I can't drink liquor and live. For with me, life and sobriety are synonymous. But in a more spiritual sense, I mean that of myself, I cannot keep from drinking liquor, and my life is unmanageable by me. And that's just as true right this morning as it was when I woke up in AA some some 10 years ago, and nowhere in this blessed program of ours have I found that if I stay sober 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50, or even 53 years, and continue to go to meetings, will my life ever be manageable by me again, or will I ever be powerful over alcohol? You see, since I've gotten hooked up with this AA fellowship and this AA program, I've I've come to know that my real problem as an untreated alcoholic human being was conscious separation from God. And I've also come to note that my real solution, and the only solution to my life problem was conscious awareness of the presence of God. You know, conscious separation from God is the only separation there is from God. There's no line in The Grapevine a few years ago that says this alcoholic writes to God he says I have a problem in his eye and God writes back and he says, I have an answer it is I. You know it's become apparent to me since I've gotten hooked up with this fellowship in this program that the primary problems factors in my My alcoholism are me and alcohol. And the only difference between the effect of my untreated alcoholic condition and my general human condition is that with my untreatable alcoholic condition there was repetition and worsening of my destructive thinking, feeling, and action. the self-deceit, the self conceit and the self delusion became pathologic in its proportion as it does with all other chemical dependencies or addictions you know our dependent life swallows up all of our individual differences and we're ultimately all alike a universal dependent profile is produced by our addiction addiction. Our addictive life is a diseased life. But, you know, I'm so grateful this morning that we can all recover the same way. And it seems to make little difference whether we drink our booze or chew our boozes. Now, that didn't become apparent to me. And I didn't begin to realize these things until after I'd gotten physically sober and had been physically sober for some time. So I hope that I'm never guilty of belittling physical sobriety. Well, you know, when you and I was practicing in untreated alcoholics, puts the plug in the jug for four or five days, we find ourselves stark raving sober. sober. Now that's the lowest, most painful form of sobriety there is. But it's the basis of all that's to come later. It's the bases of our recovery. Now this lowest, painful form sobrietry is intimately related to the higher forms of of sobriety, and unless we move on to the higher forms of sobriet,y we can't stay sober. And the highest and ultimate form of sobrierty, and the only one that will work for me, is spiritual sobriet,y that's sobriet with God's help. You know until until sobriety became top man on the totem pole for me, I couldn't have it. Unless it remains top man on the Totem Pole for me I can't keep it. You know one of our co-founders he had a lot of trouble getting sober and staying sober. For two and a half years before Dr. Bob met Bill Wilson he attended the Oxford group meetings on a weekly basis. He read their spiritual literature And he went through their emotional exercises, but he kept on drinking, getting tired almost every night. One morning after such a night, he said to his good friend Henrietta, says, you know, I think I'm just one of those wanna-wanna guys. Henrietta says, no, Dr. Bob, I'm sure you want to get sober and you want to stay sober you just haven't found a way to work it yet and i can identify with that i desperately wanted to get sober and i wanted to stay sober but until i got hooked up with you folks i hadn't found the way to work at you and i'm so grateful for this i thank you for it one night the story goes that father bob was asked by a relative of the newcomers dr bob do you think dr bob not father bob do you think you'll ever drink again he says well i don't i may drink again but i don' t intend to he went on to say he says you know as long as i'm doing the things i'm doing right now, and feeling like I'm feeling inside right now. I'm quite sure I won't drink again. The best sobriety is continuous sobriete. So let me hasten to add if there's anyone here who has come into AA and they're finding themselves still getting drunk. Do not be discouraged, but be of good courage. Why? Because you know if we'll just keep coming back and keep on seeking continuous sobriety, we'll find it. For man, you and I, we always find what we we diligently seek. You recall the divine commandment says, seek and ye shall find. So when I say to you that I am a recovering alcoholic, I'm saying to you that the way out of my untreated alcoholic condition and into my recovered condition, the way-out of conscious separation from God and into to conscious awareness of the presence of God is the most important thing in my life I'm saying to you that my God is alive and that my God is my higher power and that I'm seeking him now that didn't begin to happen to me until after I'd gotten sober and had been sober for some time so now when I say to you that I am a recovered alcoholic alcoholic. I'm not identifying with a problem, for you see the problem no longer exists. The problem has been removed. But I'm identifying with the solution. A solution which is a conscious contact with God, a spiritual awakening, a rebirth. You know, a few months ago my wife and i were watching this very popular program called dallas and as many of you know there's a lady on there called sue ellen who portrays a part of an alcoholic in this particular scene which addressed my attention sue ellin and one of her lady friends are seated in a very plush restaurant and the waiter comes by and sue ellens lady friend orders a cup of coffee Sue Ellen orders an alcoholic drink. And when the waiter brings the drinks, Sue Ellen quickly consumes a goodly portion of her drink. You know, it's often times said we alcoholics don't drink, we consume. Sue Ellen's lady friend says, Sue Ellen, when are you going to stop drinking? Sue Ellen says, well, if I ever stop drinking, it'll be because something else becomes more important to me than my need for alcohol. Now I can identify with that. That's exactly why I'm not drunk this morning. Something else has become more important to me than my needs for alcohol, and that something else is that spiritual awakeness, that rebirth. You know, there's a step between our untreated alcoholic condition and our recovered condition, a step between our conscious separation from God and our returning conscious awareness of the presence of God which we seem to little understand. It's really the step of rebirth. Now the first 100 understood this and they so stated it in our chapter entitled How It Works. They said as we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, As we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn. Now that's what the first 100 said, but you know, it's possible to float passively past this most important issue in the program and therefore miss the enormous privileges that extends to us you know if you do nothing about it to be careless and nonchalant is not only to miss recovery in the fullness of life but without this conscious contact without this rebirth then we have to live on the crumbs of the program live their earth-bound lives with no joy, no peace, no rest, and no victory. Now many give intellectual assent to this truth and then be nonchalant or careless or even turn away altogether. A few years ago I was invited to share at the 33rd anniversary of AA in one of our larger northern cities, and that city is Invor. on the thursday afternoon when my wife and i got into the airport this very fine a couple met us at the airport man and wife both members of the fellowship for 11 years they'd both picked up their 11 year chip they drove us over to the hotel where the weekend meeting was to be held and where we were staying after we got in our room and were settled down the husband said now Now, Martin, we don't like to hear much about this God stuff up here. I said, well, what do you do about the line in our book that says we were reborn? He looked at me rather blank and he says, the book doesn't say that, does it? So as was my habit then and still is, particularly when I travel out of state, I'd like to take at least three things with me, my wife, my Bible, and my big book. I usually like to say them in that order, particularly when she's in the audience. So I opened my briefcase and I took out my big book and I handed it to her. I says, now let's start at the top of page 63 and see what we find. And as you know, when we got down about 11 or 12 lines, we came to the line, we were reborn. And he says, you know I didn't know that was in the book. You know, it's oftentimes said if you want to keep something from the membership of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, all you've got to do is put it between the pages of the big book and it'll remain a secret forever. But even though this conscious contact, this rebirth, is a sine qua non of our recovery, it hasn't ever been so with me for you see I love darkness rather than light but I'm so grateful that we do not extinguish that light by turning on the darkness now that light may be diminished to a wee wee flicker but it never, never, ever goes out you see I've attempted to sophisticate many truths that is I've tried to alter them deceptively to fit my own mentality such great truths as the Ten Commandments and especially the Great Commandment the Law of Love the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous my true state of being I've gone to great lengths in an attempt to evade and to disprove certain great and eternal truths such as the allness and the availability of God you see at one time I had a limited God he could help me with some things but not others, I thought. For instance, he could help me with my salvation, but not my alcoholism. And he was available to me in certain places and at certain times, such as when I was in church or when Iwas talking to a minister. Well, I've tried to hide frommy alcoholism in church and I'vetried to hidefrom my God in AA. Both were equal impossibilities for me. You see, I've learned and now know just as the Sadducees of old had to learn that it's possible to be intellectual, logical, rational, and wrong. You know, I have nursed many delusions and I've allowed many fears. But I'm so grateful this morning as I stand here before you and say to you that by the mercy and the grace of God And the fellowship with this wonderful program and its people, I no longer love darkness. I no long attempt to sophisticate the truth, but I now admit, accept, and surrender to the truth. For it's only by admitting, accepting, and surrendering to the truth can I know the truth—the that truth which sets free. But you know, the truth can't set us free unless we know it. That's the essence of our steps four and five. You know, the delusions that I nurse now are few and the fears I admit are fleeting now. So the good news you see I bring to us today is miracles still happen. It happened to me. you see I am a miracle called alcoholic just as each and every one of you who has recovered from this hopeless condition of mind and body is also a miracle called alcoholic by a miracle I mean that having called upon God out of my depths I am different now than I would have been had I not called upon God just as each and every one of you in your turn cried out of your depths God help me now when it comes to provocation to drink some of us think we had greater provocation to drink than anyone else some of us even blame God for our drinking and the troubles attendant to our drinking but you know those of us who drink some of us become alcoholic and those of us who become alcoholic we develop an obsession of the mind which forces us to drink against our will and so to die unless we change recall this event with me if you will which is so important to alcoholics everywhere whether they be recovered or not and remember as we go through it that many want to stop drinking but cannot the time is 1934 the place is a town's hospital new york city in new yark the setting bill wilson's upstairs drunk his beloved wife lois and dr silkworth are downstairs talking and the dialogue between them goes something like this lois says to dr silkwood Bill wants to quit drinking. Why can't he? Dr. Silkworth says, well, now, Bill's drinking habit has now become an obsession with him. His will can't do it. Royce says, Well, what next? What am I to look forward to? Dr. silkworth says well, if you want to keep bill alive You'll either have to lock him up or hire a bodyguard to look after him 24 hours a day Otherwise, it all probably ends in heart failure during the Lear and Clemens, or he'll develop a wet brain. You'll have to either hand him over to the undertaker or the asylum. He says the only help for Bill now would be an entire psychic change. So you see here, the god of science has spoken doom on Bill, this hopeless and helpless alcoholic. alcoholic. And we know that hopelessness kills. We're saved by hope, but in AA there is hope for the hopeless and help for the helpless. We all know now and are grateful for it that an all-knowing Father God gave the answer. A vital spiritual experience gave this answer to a practicing psychiatrist in Burkhurst, the sanitarium of Zurich, Switzerland named Carl Jung. And Carl gave this answer to a patient of his name Roland Hazard. And Roland brought this answer back to the United States and he gave it to a man named Ebi Thatcher and Ebi took the answer to Bill Wilson. And Bill had his vital spiritual experience, his entire psychic change. He said when he had it he felt like he was a messiah. he felt that he had to get this message to all the drunks in the world and I say thank God he did for if he hadn't have felt that way enough sacrifice to have made it a reality you and I wouldn't be here today you know it's often times said that the most important thing in the world is an idea whose time has come and people who will sacrifice to make that idea a reality Well, that idea's time has still come And now it's up to you and me To sacrifice To make that idea a reality You know, when I was being made ready for recovery Recovery from self And those things which had grown out of self There were a number of things Which I had to face up to I had the ability To admit, accept, and surrender to For instance, I had to admit, accept, and surrender to the fact that I can't drink liquor. And I did this with much fear and trepidation. I had face up to the act that I'm mentally indifferent, bodily different from other people. The delusion that I am like other people or presently may be had to be smashed. I was so much like the little wino, you know, who steps into the alley after he pounded handle is enough to get him a half pint and he walks into the alley and he pulls that half pint out of his pocket seal is still unbroken he's looking at it and the thoughts are going through his mind he says i know you killed my best friend john you caused my family to turn against me you caused him to foreclose on the mortgage on my house you made him repossess my car and i know my wife would divorce me if she could just get up with me but i'm going to give you one one more chance. So down the hatchet goes, you see. See, all reasons for not taking that first drink are easily pushed to one side with a foolish idea that it'll be different this time. You see, my alcoholism markedly impaired my ability to think and cause and affect relationships. And no matter how intelligent I was in other respects where alcohol was involved are strangely insane. And then when I wanted to quit entirely, I found I couldn't do it on my own. I had to have help. And this brought me to you. And for this, I'm grateful. Because you see, my sobriety and recovery has been obtained by and is maintained by the help of others. We have done together what I couldnít do alone. You know, there's an old hymn that says, I know the Lord will make a way for me. And we're told in that inspired word in 1 Corinthians 10 and 13, There is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but who will with the temptation also make away to escape. now that means to me the fact that I'm an admitted alcoholic step one that gives me a means wherewith to combat this malady for to know ourselves diseased is half our cure I certainly don't mean to preach, that would be fate because I've never studied narrow theology in my life but I'm simply attempting to establish the supremacy and the superiority of this blessed program of ours and I think we come, for me at least, to the real roots of this program in the book of Psalms, Psalm 68, verse 11, which says, The Lord gave the word, and great was the company of those who published it. Just think of it. Just 53 short years ago, the total membership of this fellowship was made up of two people, Bob Smith and Bill Wilson. And here just 53 short ears later, The membership is well upwards over two million. The Lord gave the word, and great was the company of those who published it. If I compare this program to Moses going up on the mountain and bringing down the ten tables of the law, I don't think it's the first time Moses ever thought of a need of the Ten Commandments. I'm sure glad he went up there and got them and brought them down and gave them to us, just as I'm glad that Bill got still for that 40 minutes or so and wrote down these 12 steps as our way of escape. I think it is one of the instances of direct inspiration which you and I know of. Inspiration which not only brought information straight down out of heaven, straight from God, but inspiration which brought to Bill the ability to take human experiences and distill it down into transmissible principles. Well, you know we're told in that forward of our 12 and 12. A.A.'s Twelve Steps are a group of principles spiritual in their nature which, if practiced as a way of life can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole Joy of living is a theme but action is the key If practiced as the way of light and it's like the young fellow who asks how do I get to Carnegie Hall and the answer came back practice, practice, practice. The only thing we have of this program is what we practice There's an old parable of the schoolmaster which says greeting his class the school master said what would you learn of me and the reply came teach us how we shall live together and teach us for what ends we shall live in the parable ends by saying schoolmaster dropped his head and turned away with sorrow in his heart because his own learning is touched not these things our book reminds us where obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got so no fellow were my way he says it this way says you can't no more teach what you ain't learned and and you can come back from where you ain't been. But, you see, our learnings individually and collectively do touch such things, and the founders of this program widely suggested that we share our experience, strengths, and hope with each other that we may solve our common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. But, You see, we're all on the same boat. Whether you be AA, ALA, non-ALA, teen ALA or simply ALA human being, and we're all on the same boat. And there's one indisputable fact about any boat. You can't sink half of it. We know that personal recovery depends upon unity. Now, my experience is in the past, and I do not regret in the fast, nor wish to shut the door on it, for if I do, I may forget what I am, and if I forget what i am, I may drink again. And for me, to drink is to die. My strength is the love and the will of the God of my understanding, for his will is my peace. My hope is that I'll remain in a God-dependent status and help others to find the God over there, understanding that they may bear witness to the truth. Now, I was born the oldest of eight sons, the apple of my father's eye, and a family of 14 children. I wasborn in Detroit, Michigan, enforced by the Great Depression. My parents had to move back to their home in Robeson County, North Carolina In 1932 when I was aged five years old My dad owned an old flatbed 1929 Model T truck and he packed mom and us four kids at the time and all earthly belongings on that old flat bed and Looking much like the Beverly Hillbillies. We finally made it to North Carolina. We settled on a small farm in Robleson County Well, the gasoline tank in this old truck was on the inside right behind the driver's seat. Now I had already become my dad's shadow and that became my seat. I'd sit on that old gas tank and I would count the kids as they got on and off the bus and I'd show them where to sit. Now mind you all these kids were older than me and for the most part bigger. But for two years I was law and order on that school bus. You see what an ego builder that was right from the beginning. You see, I was a boss. And my mother said many a time when circumstances were such that I couldn't follow my dad, I'd throw a temper tantrum the likes of which she'd never seen. She said I'd thrown myself on the floor, batting my head against the floor. Kicking and screaming either until he came back or I fell asleep. She said she'd just let me kick and scream it out. Now you know, I think she'd have made a great Al-Anon member because... but I now know that she was just demonstrating that rare balance between intelligence and love which is wisdom because she allowed me to accept the results the consequence of my own action you see these temper tantrums were entirely equivalent to my blackout drunks which were to come later and they'd happen because I hadn't gotten my way my self-will had been thwarted now early on I had perfect attendance in Sunday school for many years in the Southern Baptist Church I won many a Bible sword drill learned to quote much scripture and when the Sunday school teacher was absent I'd get to teach the Sunday school class remember when I was about age six my mother had had another baby she'd had this baby at home two or three days after the baby was born and the doctor came by to check on mom and the new baby and as he was finishing up he gave my mother a shot and then he turned and he squirted something in a smoldering fire there and it blazed up and I said in amazement what was that? He said oh that's Dr. Magic he gave no further explanation but I made up my mind right then and there that someday I was going to know what Dr. magic was now I'll tell you I'm still looking for it but if any of you here know about it after the meeting I would certainly like to hear about it. But my self-drive continued on through elementary and high school. In the seventh grade, there were six awards that would be given to the class, and I received all six of those awards. By the time I finished high school, I'd come to believe that if I took a decision and put in the effort, I'd get the results hoped for, and most often I did. I'd be right. right i'd be number one i didn't have to say i don't know so you see by the time i graduated from high school i had come to have faith in myself and all this was doing my dad and others proud but it was doing something to me that was later to become my undoing because you see i was becoming selfish self-centered and self-sufficient in all their obnoxious splendor. And each time I moved that tassel over to the left-hand side of my cap, I became more selfish, self-centered, and self sufficient. Much later on, I was to learn that the first 100 found and said, Selfishness, self centeredness, that we think is the root of our problem. For barely 18 years of age, I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Michigan along with some 20,000 other students. Now that didn't bother me at all because I knew I had the power to master anything they had there. So after three and a half years I received a B.S. degree from that institution. But it was here during my sophomore year that I met the Lady Backus in the form of a case of slits. A case of slips which I had won from a fellow student while playing blackjack. I came into my dorm room one night and he had brought this case of slip up to my room. Now that was against university regulation And when I got there, he and another student had started in on my beer. Well, you see, I had to play catch-up in order to get my share. Well, that was a memorable night for them, but not for me. They said to me the next day, they said, You better never do to us again what you did last night. They said I would get out in the hallway stark naked, and they had to spend the rest of the night putting my pajamas back on me and keeping me hid from the house mother who lived on the same floor right around the corner or she'd become privy to what was going on, we'd all been kicked out of school. So you see, I blacked out with my first drinking experience. Now, I suppose that would make me a primary alcoholic for whatever that's worth. You know, I nowadays hear people go into quite some extended dialogue trying to decide whether they're primary or secondary alcoholics. Now, we've all got a good old friend, and he's told me, who don't mind breaking my anonymity, named Father Hillary. He says it don't make no darn difference how the jackass got in the ditch. The trick is to get him out. But it was now time for me to execute that decision and learn about doctor magic, so I applied to the University of Michigan Medical School and was accepted, and after four years, I graduated number two in the class of 182 doctors. After I finished my hospital training there, I came back to North Carolina to practice medicine, bringing with me a wife, four children, three daughters and a son. A tremendous amount of synthetic knowledge of medicine, a towering ego, convinced of my superiority and my self-sufficiency. But you know the great tragedy of my life during this time was that during the pursuit of my studies, is. I had allowed the God of my childhood, the God of creation, my living creator to become in effect replaced by the God of intellect, by the god of achievement and you see that conscious separation between me and my God increased and my god became a distant possibility rather than an inner reality and I began to sow the wind and weak the whirlwind because my priorities were out of order. First things had gotten pushed way down the line and first things first for the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic alike is seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added into you i now know that is objectively scientifically true well the first ego trip i was to tackle and fix after getting to robertson county with the tackling fix the robinson county school system well i armed myself with a lot of information from people like dr colin mortimer adler and others and i made a decision what had to be done to save the roberton county school school system and you know when a decision is made then execution is the order of the day so i went straight ahead way to the superintendent of public instruction of robertson county i called him one wednesday morning and i said i'd like to come over and talk with you he said well dr brooks we'd like talking to you at any time i said what about this afternoon he said that'll be fine so at two o'clock i was in his office and i started talking after i talked for about an hour and a half he called in his assistant superintendent to join us and i continued to talk until 7 that evening. Well, that conversation ended with the superintendent saying, well, Dr. Brooks, what you say might be what we ought to do, but that's impossible. The people won't stand for it. Well I hastened to remind them that the people didn't know what should be done and it was their duty to do what was best. So you see, I left that meeting in the words of the Rolling Stones, I ain't got no satisfaction. And I resented that and I allowed myself to refill and relive that afternoon until I became so restless irritable and discontent until I pulled my first blackout drunk in Robeson County but when I came to from that blackout I saw that for my decision to be carried out it had to have social sanction that meant the Board of Education had to say so so I went to each of the five members of the board individually and I explained to them in some detail what had to be done save the robertson county school system through that endeavor i had five blackout drunks but when i came to from that last blackout i saw that roberton county had to have a new school board so i announced my candidates for the board and i ran well you know on election day when the votes were counted it was obvious that the majority of those people who voted that day were of the same persuasion as the superintendent the assistant superintendent and the five members to their school board. When I came to from that blackout, I saw the true magnitude of my problem. I saw that I had to convince the majority of the voting public of Robeson County what had to be done to save their school system. So over the next two and a half to three years I set about organizing voter registration drives, and through that effort we added a few over 5,000 new names to the voting books in Robesons County. Well, I knew now the sleeping giant had been awakened. It'd just be a matter of time, and and I'd be elected, and everything would fall in place. So I announced my candidacy, and I ran again. But you know, on Election Day, the majority of those people who understood so well yesterday what had to be done to save their school system didn't even go to the polls and vote. Now, I came to again, but by now, my elixir of oblivion was beginning to play tricks on me. Well, I'd been taken drunk right in the middle of a bank board meeting. You know, out on the highway driving my automobile before going to work in the middle of seeing a patient down at the funeral home holding an inquest. Well, the day before my oldest son graduated from high school, I took a few drinks and I came to the day after he graduated. Now, I have no more idea than any person sitting in this room why I started to drink that day except that I was alcoholic at that time. You see, this boy had done everything I expected of him during his high school years. He'd gone to a military academy for his high-school years. He had won most of the awards and honors the school gave. He was valedictorian of his class. And I'm told he gave quite a speech for the valedictionary address, but I didn't hear it. I pulled a repeat performance for President Carter's inauguration, to which I had a VIP invitation. I had bought him new tux, round-trip Amtrak tickets and an adequate amount of cashier's checks or traveler's checks for the three days. But again that insidious insanity of the first drink preempted the whole show. When I came to, Mr. Carter had been President Carter for two days. Now, I call that plain insanity. I think that's the insanity we talk about in here. It's my insane thinking while I'm sober that allows me as an alcoholic to pick up that first drink. And it behooves all of us to remember, whether we've been here just a short time or a longer time, it's the first drink that gets us. And so you see then there's only two danger periods in our sobriety. One is when we first get sober. And one is all the rest of the time after that, otherwise it's a piece of cake. Since I've come into this fellowship and gotten sober, my children have been an unending resource of my insane behavior while I was drinking. My daughters tell me I would come in at 2 a.m. and get them up and give them detailed lectures on the menstrual cycle and reproduction when they were ages 6 and 7 years old. my oldest son tells me he had to mow the lawn many a morning at 3 a.m you see i was having a romance with the lady bacchus and romanticism knows no time or place at times i thought i'd literally shake loose from that courtship but you know a few sips of her mighty elixir and that courtshape had smooth sailing again You see, I had become addicted to her cunning, baffling, and powerful nature. Sometimes I wonder now where such people as Freddie Prynn, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, William Holden, where they might be if they could have recognized that they were on a self-destruct course or even more so, as it was in my case, someone else recognized that I was on a self-destruct course and brought me to a program tailor-made for my situation and helped me seek redirection in my life. And I'll be forever grateful for those people who did that. and some of those people knew very little about AA but they knew how to love you know as Dr. Bob said so often when our twelve steps are simmered down to the last they resolve themselves into two words love and service he says we all know what love is and we all knew what service is so lest don't louse this thing up and I'll be forever grateful for those who brought me here and I will be grateful for you for being here when I got here you know the last the great 10 strike came from me one September morning in 1978 I was sitting in the loafing room of the mental health division of the Moore County General Hospital And Dr. Ted Clark walked up to me and said, Martin, how do you feel? And I said almost by echo, totally hopeless, Ted. You see, the last two times I had come to, he was staring me in the face with a grin on his face that I thought needed a little fixing, saying, Martin what happened? It don't have to be this way. It don' t have to b e this way . . . But this time when he said, How do you fee l? I knew at that moment I was powerless to improve my life. the last bit of my own defiant personality was snuffed out. I stood at the turning point we talk about in here. And there's a line in our book that described me most aptly at that point. It says, We had ceased fighting anything or anybody, even alcohol. So you see, I surrendered. And that was victory for me because I became teachable. I became open to suggestion. Now, while I was there, they suggested several things that I might do, and I might find the help I needed. One of the things they suggested was that I enter a 28-day program for the treatment of alcoholism. So with an open mind, as much mind as I could muster, I entered a 28 day program for The Treatment of Alcoholism and there I came face to face with here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. So I hadn't been there very long when I began to realize that my cross in this life was the cross of alcoholism. And I recall vaguely that verse that I had repeated so many times as a child. It says, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now each day that I live now, I become more and more convinced that this program of Alcoholics Anonymous is the finest formula ever conceived in the mind of man through the grace of God for the alcoholic to take up his cross and follow the Christ within. Now they began to tell me that now, Martin, you're physically sick. I was aware of that because I was demonstrating it at the time they were telling me. I was even aware of the fact that when they told me I was mentally ill because I'd find myself, say, re-reading an article and think I was reading it for the first time and I would get down and find where I had written some notes in the margin. Then I knew I had read that article before. And I'll tell you, that haunted me and it was a fear that I dare not talk with you about because I was sure that I was really going insane, that I wasn't really going to be able to do it. That I was losing my mind. Then they told me, they said, now Martin, if you're an alcoholic and you want to recover, there's two things you've got to do. They said, one is you've got to get sober and you've got to stay sober. Now they knew and I was to learn later that sobriety is to recovery as fire is to burning. You see, where there's no fire there's not burning. And where there is no sobrietry there's nobody covering. And then they said the second thing you've gotta do is you gotta accept help. And I hasten to remind them that now you're talking to somebody who graduated way up in a class I said, Doctor, and I've received the Distinguished Service Award and all these things. But they admitted all these Things were true. But then they said to me, Just why didn't you attend your son's graduation? Why didn't You attend President Carter's inauguration? Why were you in a blackout? Well, you see, it was becoming even clear to me now that lack of power was my dilemma. You know, by reading Bill's story in the front of the book and listening to other people talk from podiums just like this one began to give me hope. That little desire that I had began to fester into hope because each person was saying to a man and to a woman how their lives had ended up on the human junk pile and how their wives had been recycled and resurrected back to a happy, useful whole life. And each one was saying it had happened because and only because they had come to believe in a power greater than themselves, which they called God as they understood him. So my problem really resolved into finding this power, this God of my understanding. So I entered, in effect, the spiritual kindergarten. I took a belief that you believed that there is a power bigger than myself that could and would solve my problem. As I began to act on that belief, I began to feel better. As I continued to act on that belief, the better I felt. And as I continued to act upon that belief I drew nearer to him and when I drew close enough he disclosed himself to me and then I knew. Now that's the archway through which I walked to freedom. You see then I realized that I believed in a God all the time but my spiritual life had been sterile because I had not acted on my belief. You see, I'd gone to this treatment center looking for the finite and found the infinite, looking for a way to regain my self-esteem, my credibility, and had found a God of my understanding, a God I could trust, a god personal to me. Now you see, with this kind of God, I can do what is called for in step three. I can turn my will and my life over to this God. But I can do something more. I can make a decision and do the rest of the steps. So you see, we make the decision in step three. But we execute that decision by doing the rest of the Steps, and most especially Steps 4 through 9. I hear people sometimes say, now I've been in AA now for seven years, and my wife still is screwed up as Hogan's goat. And I say, well, what are you doing about step three? Oh, I made that decision six months after I got into AA. They made the decision, yes, but they didn't execute it. You know, I like to think of that step four sort of like the surgeon who is about to operate on the patient who is riddled with cancer. You know he first hopefully goes through and identifies all the diseased tissue And then with the skill of his training and the aid of his scalpel, he comes back and he dissects out and cuts away and removes all the diseased tissue. Then after that operation, if the patient doesn't ask certainly, one of their loved ones will, Doctor, did you get it all? Now we should ask ourselves that same question and with the same degree of sincerity when we finish our fourth step. Did I get it All? for with us this is a life and death operation now if I continue to the best of my ability on through step 9 when I finish step 9 I'm on the spiritual path and do not shrink from self-crucifixion but you know as I get on the spirit on the path new and more subtle temptations await me on this path ever ready to hurl me down if I'm not watchful the temptation to work for self-aggrandizement for self glory rather than for God the temptation to allow personal preference to hold sway in those that I would counsel with and those that I would 12 step with when it's our sacred responsibility to deal with all men in perfect impartiality but the most dangerous were all pitfalls lurks here and that's that pitfall of complacency spiritual pride and self-righteousness because many a brave soul has surmounted all other hurdles and then get to this point and allow something else to become more important to them than the maintenance and growth of their own spiritual life they forget to do the simple things we learn we must do in this program and that falls like a curtain of steel between them and their God and we have to watch them die lest they suffer the humiliation of coming to the point again of not my will but thy will be done so you see then when I get to step 10 I've got to do exactly what that first word said it says continued, continued what? I've gotta keep on doing what I've been doing for you see I'm never so insecure as when I think I'm secure that he who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall pride goeth before destruction and a hotter spirit before the fall but now that he is my director and I am his agent you see he gives me a way of knowing what his directions are for me through prayer and meditation in answering my prayers he teaches me the difference between my needs and my wants always satisfying my needs my wants are never satisfied I like to think of this 11th step as the step of communication you know that open door which no man can shut you know when a newcomer comes in we like to tell them if your thinking is getting a little stinking get to a meeting call your sponsor talk it over with another AA member now that's all well and good but in the event that is not possible at that time there's always step 11 there's no office hours no intermediaries no limit how lucky can we be now that which has been so freely given to me i must share but i think i must show you the truth in a particular way recall the time when the mob brought the group the lady and threw at christ's feet the lady who had been caught in adultery the thought was we will give a report about this lady's life and then under the old mosaic law we'll get the bruise of life out over with the stone but you know christ didn't need a report of this lady's life he knew the life she had lived he knew what she had become but he knew something more he knew What she could yet become so you know that they didn't tell the report of the lady's life but instead they took their own inventories and the words of the scripture says they were convicted in their own consciences and that's what you and i do when we take a searching and fearless moral inventory we convict ourselves in our own consciencies and then you know jesus being the gentleman that he was he didn't even really look at the lady for fear that she might misunderstand the inflection in his voice but he kind of doodled him to sand and he says go and and don't do it anymore. He pointed a way and not a finger. Now there are those of us here today who are not without blame because there are those back in our communities that we've turned our backs on and we've walked away. We've come and given our reports about them yet but we haven't cared enough to point a way and not the finger. You know, there's somebody out there needs us in what we found because we who have recovered we have something that medicine doesn't have we have something that religion doesn't have we have a guarantee of a better way of life for the still suffering alcoholic so let's all rededicate ourselves to carrying this message to the alcoholic who still suffers by pointing away and not a finger well you know as long as grain and fruit juices will ferment old John Bollycorn is going to be out there recruiting people just like you and me and it's my sincere hope that there will be people like you and me around to help those new recruits find their way through the archway through which we walk to freedom ever being mindful that freedom is a fruit and faith in God is the root and if we want the fruit we've got to look to the roots and I came to this meeting for the same reason that I go to every AA meeting. That's to get a treatment for my disease of alcoholism. And I've indeed had that treatment here. But I've also had a treat, and that treat is that as I stand here and look each one of you in the face as I know that each oneofyou is an individualized expression of God. But more than that, to know that we're normally people who would not mix. but to know that there exists among us a friendliness, a fellowship an understanding which is indescribably wonderful but even more than that to know that we have all found a way to escape upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action and for this I am grateful so as I bid us Godspeed as we leave this meeting today day, I would ask that we go in true pride. True pride is he is a father, I am the child. For true pride has its beginning in God. It has its continuance in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and its fulfillment in man when man is reborn a son of God. So the charge to all of us is this. And this is the formula for sobriety. It's the formula voor recovery. is the formula for the good life not just that short span on our headstone between date of birth and date of death but eternal life and we all know what it is it says abandon yourself to God as you understand God admit your faults to him and to your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us and we will be with you in the fellowship of the spirit it. And surely you'll meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. Thank you. God bless.