He Supplies the Maps — You Still Have to Get Off Your Knees and Do the Driving – Father M.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Father Martin, as perhaps most of you know, and if you have seen that film and did not guess that I am an alcoholic, you still need a little attention. I am indeed, like most of you, an alcoholic, and I am home here. I really like to begin every AA meeting by recalling the slogan that, in my opinion, is the most telling and the most accurate and the most beautiful in all of AA. We're all here because we're not all there. Now, if we keep remembering that, we'll keep coming back. AA lays down guidelines for us as to how to conduct ourselves at an AA meeting. Actually, we learn from each other. We are therefore perhaps as good as our teachers are. And knowing that we are human and fallible, Bill and Dr. Bob and a few others wrote the big book, simply to spell it out. Just in case. We are instructed as to how, exactly how, to tell our stories when we are asked to do so at an AA meeting. In the fifth chapter of the big book, there is the one sentence, our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. And using that as a guideline, I have adopted a principle, the principle of my own, I say nothing without a purpose. I will therefore tell you just enough about my drinking to let you and me know that I belong here. I, uh, so that's all you'll hear about my drinking, by the way. If any of you showed up tonight to hear the lurid details of the drinking priest's past, you may as well go home. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha. just wasn't that good at being that bad. Neither were you. Now, seriously, I feel quite strongly about this. Every time I go to a speaker's meeting, I clock the amount of time that the speaker dedicates to his sick years and the amount of time he dedicates to his well years, and I have a pretty good idea of his general present condition. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not against the drunk-a-log. That's what we used to be. All I beg of you is, don't just tell me how sick you got without telling me how well you're getting, because that's why I come to these rooms, to learn how to get sober and stay that way. I really believe that I should be able to tell you as much about AA as about my drunkenness. I also believe that if a man or woman cannot talk to me for at least one half hour about AA and what it means to them, well, no comment. I remember one time when I was patient in the rehab center where I got well, we went to a meeting in Friendly, Ferndale, Michigan. So I went on down to Old Friendly this evening, and the speaker that night happened to be a 42-year-old novelist. At the end of one hour and ten minutes when we had to leave, he was up to age 35. He may still be talking. I have yet to hear one syllable about recovery. I'm sure he spoke of it as the year wore on. I was ordained in 1948, and I was sent to Mountain View, California, where I spent the first seven years of my life. I was ordained in 1948, and I was sent to Mountain View, California, where I spent the first seven years of my life. years my priesthood. I taught. I taught English and history and religion and Greek. Anybody that teaches Greek ought to drink. I have nothing against Greek, it's just that I wasn't a native and I had to learn it first. I believe that an alcoholic is somebody whose drinking is different from that of normal people, and that's not a very difficult concept to grasp. Let me show you what I mean. In rooms around the country, AA people gathered a whole meeting. Every now and then we talk about the gigantic problems that we faced when drinking. This one is a biggie. How to get rid of empty bottles. That was a very real problem for many people. A little kid looked at you and said, throw them out. It's too simple. It's just too simple. We have to take each bottle, wrap it in Christmas paper, and stuff it to the bottom of the garbage can so the garbage man won't know we drink as much as we do. I had no problem with empties. In a closet out there, I had two suitcases that I used to hold empty bottles with. Why I saved them in suitcases, I don't know. But when they got full, and they were all between 40 and 50 empty fist bottles together, I would empty them. Now, we had our own dump down there at the college, and it was way, way back behind a barn. To get to it, you left the building by the side, passed by all the athletic facilities, crossed the stream, by the ball fields, and then to the barn behind it was the dump. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. I was smart. And I waited till the kids were in class. Then I set out with my suitcases. You know what never dawned on me that all they had to do was look out the window? What they would have seen was Mrs. Martin's little boy dressed in a flowing black cassock, carrying two suitcases, heading into the hills. They never dawned on me that they would have thought that was a little weird. But then when I got to the dump and took the suitcases, it was a little strange. I was so smart. I to burying these dead soldiers one at a time, I was consoled by the fact that every one of them had a priest with him when he died. Ladies and gentlemen, that was about the only funny part of my drinking. It began from there to get sad and then sadder. I didn't drink very long. I drank for ten years. The last five were pretty serious. My drinking, by the way, was not very spectacular. You won't hear anything unusual or bizarre. I never once showed up in a classroom in my shorts. I never once roller skated down the center aisle of any church. But alcohol nearly destroyed me. I was hospitalized once for three weeks because I was sick. Because of drinking. I knew drinking had something to do with it. All I knew was I had nerves. I was about to fall apart. And they hospitalized me. The night I got out, I started to drink with absolutely no more thought that this shouldn't be done than nothing. Two weeks later, they had put me on an airplane to fly me back to Baltimore. Ladies and gentlemen, this was in April. This was in April. This was in April. This was in April. This meant that three priests had to fill in on my courses, give final exams, and figure up the marks. No one mentioned alcoholism to me. They spoke of my drinking, but no one mentioned it. The phenomenon of alcoholism. And yet when I got home that summer, my sister told me that when she called out there to find out what was wrong, they said, diagnosis, acute alcoholism. I then was sent to St. Charles College in Baltimore, Maryland, where I studied for a year. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I spent the two most miserable years of my life. I tried to stop drinking and could not. Every alcoholic in this room knows what that is. Ladies and gentlemen, this does not happen to normal drinkers. I've never once been transferred 3,000 miles on account of my abuse of string beans. Alcohol. Alcohol. I was invited out of my favorite sister's home until my self-respect returned. My friends, this does not happen to normal drinkers. I spent 20 minutes on my knees one afternoon in St. Francis of Assisi Church in Baltimore taking a pledge never to drink again and a half hour later I had a drink in my hand. This does not happen to normal drinkers. I used to help out in a little parish near the college and the pastor there called my superior and said, please remove this man. He's causing scandal among the people. There's no need to mention anything else, ladies and gentlemen. You've all been there. The only thing different between my drinking and yours is details. I honestly believe that if I were to drink, I would drink a lot. If any alcoholic tells his story right, every other alcoholic in the world should be able to identify with him. My drinking indicated two things. Loss of control and pain. When I drank, I couldn't control it. It controlled me and problems resulted. Face it, my friends, if we could drink in a controlled way with no trouble, we'd be drinking tonight and would not be sitting here. I had a superior who had no intellectual understanding of alcoholism at all. I remember his coming to see me one day and with tears in his eyes, he said, what do you want? Name it. If it is available and will help you to stop drinking, it's yours. Name it. What could I say? He didn't know and I didn't know. But he had the love of the human heart. He had the milk of human kindness. He cared about me. If ever a man deserved the epithet father, he did. He came to see me one afternoon and said, and boy, what a beautiful confrontation. There were no questions. He simply told me, we are sending you away this summer to a place just for alcoholic priests. It's called Guest House in Lake Orion, Michigan. Father McDonald was a very sick man. He could have told me this on the phone, but he drove from his house out to the college just to reassure me. He said, now son, this is not punitive at all. We want you to get well. And so on June 15, 1958, I left for Guest House. I was 34 years old. And that day, I was in the hospital. And that day, for the first time in my 34 years, I missed Sunday Mass. I had drunk my last drink the night before I was in my sister's house. I was simply too shaky to do anything. They allowed me to preserve an inch of dignity. Father McDonald told me to tell them that I was simply being sent to Detroit on an assignment for the summer. They knew where I was going. They knew where I was going. But they let me believe that they believed what I told them. When I entered Guest House, I was a shell. You know, it's one thing to read about despair. It's another thing to feel it and live it. Our disease, my friends, teaches us one thing. How to be scared to death. How to be scared to death. And even in AA, we still say, well, I'm not going to help him until he asks for help. The alcoholic would rather die first. And that's what alcoholics usually do. They die first. How many of you popped next door, rang the doorbell, said, hi there, can you help me with my drinking? It's ridiculous. Well, anyways, I arrived at Guest House, and my life changed that day. And I'll tell you why. Hey, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, everything I say tonight comes from me. All right? They are my convictions. If they help you, wonderful. Use them. If you don't like them, just brush them aside. For God's sake, don't argue with me about them. They are mine. I've had 17 years to mull over these things. So if you can't use them, just brush them aside. But don't come up after and say, I disagree with you about. I don't care what you disagree with. These are my opinions. I have a right to express them as you do when you're up here. Face it, I got to listen to you, too. Number one, the absolute essential nature of the phenomenon of health. The phenomenon of having a sponsor. No one is judge in his own case. My friends, every one of us was an island of loneliness when we drank. You know what happens to a lot of us? We get sober four months. We got the whole world by the short hairs. And suddenly, we are everyone else's sponsor. Somebody says, who's yours? Hmm? Say, who's your sponsor? And then you get these magnificent answers. God is my sponsor. What? Is it a lotty-tighty everybody? Or this beauty? The group is my sponsor. I tell you something. I mean, you know, if that's what you want as a sponsor, fine. I simply believe this because I've learned it the hard way. Two heads are better than one. 32 ain't. Bring an intimate problem to an AA group of 30 people, you're going to get a better life. I'm not saying that you're going to get a better life. I'm saying, if you're going to take the problem out of the people, you're going to get about seven answers, and guess which one you're going to pick. One of them read the carry-on answer. And the workshop. Now, there's always such an amazing person like that. AndGo動画. And even with all the 4 million-官 bin water��els, they're alreadymos chaîne flasң I believe that they can work out the best routes and things from Dios and other regards. Don't suffocate by taking 10 minutes. The last man we need is us. What happens to us depends on quando we get theisse las cosas done. Let's sit down with the next one and find out what causes that problem. Then you're not going to make it happen unless you really do this. than 10 minutes and I wanted to be just like him. I wanted everything he had. And for those two reasons, I would have died to please him. Had he told me to sleep on the floor, I would have done it. I'm not joking. I would have done it. You see, I had supreme confidence in that man's judgment because he read me like a book and he had never met me. But he knew exactly what was going on inside of me. My friends, it wasn't the 12 steps of AA printed on a sheet of paper that saved my life. I could have read them in my room and died drunk. It was 12 steps carved in his life that saved mine. It was a man who saved my life. The name of the organization? Alcoholics Anonymous. The influence of one human being on another. That's what does the job. How many of these are you? You can give me that when we discuss the power of example. That's it. Now please, this is what he told me. Gave me the finest piece of advice I ever had in my life. I'd like to pass it on. I walked in. He said, Father, I know all about your degrees, your education, your brains. He said, your brains didn't help the death. I said, no. He said, leave me outside the door. You love what we've got. You do what we did. Then we'll talk about it. And I used to tell people, for God's sake, in the beginning, shut up, learn to listen, and then listen to learn, and then talk. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, you know, the beauty of simplicity, try this one off for size. When the good God fashioned the human animal, listen closely. He gave him two ears and one mouth. I wonder if he wasn't trying to tell us something. Two ears, one mouth. That's what he told me to do. He said, if you want what we've got, then you do what we did. I said, what'd you do? He said, 12 things. I said, oh. The minimal stay at Guest House was three months. I was there seven. It took me a while. But see, I was there twice as long as most people, and I heard twice as much from Rip's lips than most. And then he told me about the 12 steps. I'd like to share them with you. Please, for God's sake, don't talk about my interpretation of the 12 steps. I hope to heavens I've never interpreted them. I trust that I have done them or am still doing them. The steps were not written to be interpreted. They're meant to be done. They're written in the past tense. And you don't need brains to get well. You need desire. You're up for open heart surgery. You don't need brains to get through it. You need a surgeon who has brain. You need brains to get through it. That's what sponsorship is all about, my friends. Find somebody you would like to be like and get with it. I hope to God that I die a hero worshiper. If you don't have a hero, I bleed for you. I really do. Get some ideal. Someone you want to be like and then set out doing it. Because you see, the day I stop being a hero worshiper, you can bury me. I'll be dead. I used to tell this to kids in second year high school. If I can't look up to you, I don't want to look at you. I don't want you down here where I am. The human being is built to look up and to reach up. And that's what recovery is all about. That's what recovery is all about. When the good God allows us to get something, we're so far down in the pit, ladies and gentlemen, where we have to jump to touch bottom, where the only way you can claw is up, we've got it made. Austin Ripley saved my life and he told me to do these 12 things. To start with, you want to get well? I said, yeah. He says, admit you're sick. I said, oh. Step one, give him. Or you'll cave in. That's what step one says. You want to play the game some more? You've proven to yourself hundreds of times that you are powerless over alcohol. You want to try for another one? I said, no, thank you. I'm ready. Well, you know what we're like, you and I, when we drink? We're like men and women who climb into a boxing ring every day of our lives and get beat up. We climb in the next day. Sixteen and a half years later, we're crawling. Falling out of bed, black and blue, all muddled up, hands and knees heading for the ring. Guess what's going on up here? Why, this is a brilliant question from a searching soul. By the way, how can I not get beat up today? And we're climbing in the ring. And I ate these over at Thomas's. Don't get in the ring. Good. We climb in. Well, it may have been Hannibal said it to the elephants before he slid them over the Alps. He said, gentlemen, if you don't take a drink, you can't get drunk. That's what AA tells us. Simple, isn't it? But you see, we're compelled to climb in the ring and try again and again. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something, what I believe about it, about step one. It's not just something I take and then go on. Step one is a realization of my condition. And I've got to deepen that every day of my life. Because this is a gut level feeling in me. The depth and the seriousness with which you work the rest of this program depends directly on the depth and the seriousness with which you accept the fact you're an alcoholic. I don't know about you. I don't know you. I know me. I am an alcoholic. I cannot drink alcohol. Therefore, I do not drink alcohol. It's that simple. Now, please, in order to maintain that, I became willing to do everything that was necessary. I was willing to do everything that was necessary to maintain that. He ushered me the following night into a room full of about 25 people. They admitted they were powerless over alcohol, but this one was sober 15 years, this one was sober 12, and my last drink was two days before. I said, how'd you do it? The power to not drink isn't in you? They said, no. I said, where'd you get it? They said, outside of us. I said, oh. He said, ain't in? It's out. That's easy, isn't it? If it's not in me, I've got to reach outside of me to something bigger than me. I'm dead serious about this because the rest of your life depends on it. This whole business of the higher power. I've heard it said in AA, well, if you don't have a God, try the coffee cup. Try the doorknob. They tell me here in Texas it's a fence post. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something. I think, personally, that no coffee cup on Earth ever got an alcoholic sober. Did you ever know of an alcoholic who knelt down at night and prayed to your coffee cup? Please keep me sober. And if it's a styrofoam one, be careful, somebody's about to throw it out and you have to say, here goes the sparsely. I don't know the organization you belong to, but this is the one I belong to. Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, coffee cups Coffee cups synonymous. Alcoholics. Let me tell you something bluntly, ladies and gentlemen. If coffee cups could get us sober, we wouldn't need each other. Alcoholics get alcoholics sober. Now, the only power that I suggest to people who don't have a gut... Hey, I'm not a fierce Catholic priest shoving Catholic gobs down your throat at all. I'm just saying that if you have no concept of a God, why not try the power of the group? You know AA's slogan? We. We can do what I can. The power of the group is something bigger than you. When all the intellectualizing is done, you've got to come to this. If you don't believe, make believe. You've got to start somewhere. If you don't believe, make believe. I know a lot of people who did that. They trusted the sponsor to such a degree. He said, look, just say these words. I don't care if you mean them. I don't care if you feel them. Do them. We say action is the magic word, and most of us confuse activity with action. We spin wheels, go nowhere, and think we're acting. Ah, action is in the human heart. Do. If you have no higher power, try mine. He's worked for me for over 17 years. Something works. You've got to come to believe. Something. If you see sober people. I don't care what it is you believe. Just make it something bigger than you and grab it. If you still have trouble with a higher power, try mirror therapy. Buy a cheap 10-cent mirror and look at it. It should take you about four seconds. And if in that time you cannot come to the conclusion that somewhere, someplace, there's got to be something bigger than what you're looking at, you are sick. Step three. How does one go about turning his life and will over to the care of some God that he understands? And again, my friends, I can only pass on to you what I've picked up over the years. I have a very definite impression of a God-man relationship. I'd just like to share it with you if it helps fine. We have marvelous slogans in AA. One of them is, let go and let God. That's wonderful if you understand what it means. But what I have seen is some guy drunk 31 years. He comes in. His life is gone. His family is gone. His job is gone. Everything else. Somebody says, let go and let God. And he sits there for the next 58 minutes thinking, let God what? Nobody has explained it to him. You know. I'll tell you exactly the way it would have sounded to me with my background. You got a drinking problem, father? Yeah. Can't stop by yourself? No. Let go and let God. I would have done just that. I would have quit. I would have let go. And I said, all right, God. Get it done. Make me sober. But see, I have come to learn that in the God-man relationship, he has a role and I have a role. He doesn't take my part. I don't take his. Somebody once said, pray as if it all depended on God, but act as if it depended on you. Sure, faith moves mountains. Just bring a shovel in case. Now, have you ever heard this in AA? Here's the guy. No, no, don't do that. Here's the guy in AA. Comes in on me to some night. He says, good heavens, drinking is not my problem. I got 14 years of sobriety. Holy smoke, is my life becoming unmanageable? And then this quote. I've got to get out of the driver's seat and let God take over. Don't do that. You'll have a wreck. Ladies and gentlemen, God doesn't come down and take over steering wheel. What do you do? Get in the back seat? Sit on the wheel? What I've come to learn is God Almighty supplies maps. We do the driving. We do the driving. I'm the one who makes choices in my life. But I should make them according to the guidelines God gives us. You know what we do with maps, don't we? Open a glove compartment, put them in, shut it, and then go down the road. And we wonder why we're... Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. This is a story I've used for years. It makes sense to me. There's a little kid living on a farm. Nobody knew this, but he's afraid of the dark. Deathly afraid of the dark. The mailbox is about 400 yards from the house. And one night, somebody forgot to bring the evening paper up. His mother said, Georgie, go get the paper. He starts crying. She said, what's wrong with you? He said, I'm afraid of the dark. She sat him down, put her arms around him. She said, honey, I didn't know that. But she said, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of out there because the only thing we're afraid of is the unknown. But see, God's everywhere. God's out there. There's nothing to be afraid of. Kid went up like a Christmas tree, ran up the door, opened it, stuck his arm out and asked God to hand him a newspaper. Ladies and gentlemen, God doesn't do that. I gave you legs. Walk. That's the way we get newspapers. And my friend, that's the way we get sober. He says, I gave you steps. Use them. God supplies two things. The power to not drink and then the means to exercise that power. The steps. Step one, I can't handle it. Step two, God can. Step three, I believe I'll let him. So we join. We join up. You notice how we're growing up now? Step two says, power greater than ourselves. Step three says, God as we understood him. Now watch as the steps go on. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith found out that half measures availed them to the most of their lives. They were not enough. And that's what we got when we did it our way. We wound up drinking. I want to do everything except quit drinking. So I moved myself. I changed the brand. I changed the kind. I do everything except stop drinking. Half measures availed us nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, the easiest thing on God's earth is to get sober. When you've drunk all you can hold and you can't drink anymore, you get sober. The problem is to stay that way. Now please, Bill Wilson found out that the essence of recovery is a spiritual thing rather than physical. And that there are no holds barred. We are asked to change ourselves completely. In fact, he says, to judge quality sobriety, look for a profound change in personality. That's nothing but a synonym for a spiritual awakening. Now, my friend, you get nothing for nothing and damn little for two cents. You want the best, you pay the price. And it's very dear. I know some people who stay sober on two steps. Four steps. Nine steps. It can be done. But you will stay sober on twelve. It depends on what you think you're worth. We don't do these steps because they're nice. We do them because they're necessary. I would love to share this incident with you because I think that the only thing that's going to push us to do it all is a sense of our own worth. Of our own value. A friend of mine in St. Louis by the name of Joe Golden met me one night, took me to an AA meeting that they had asked me to speak at. We finished speaking. I went back to Joe's home, slept over, and the next morning drove him to the airport to fly home. On the way to the airport, he shared this story with me. Ladies and gentlemen, it takes a lot to impress a priest. I have a hundred dollars cash in my desk drawer at home for anybody who can tell me one I haven't heard before. You can believe this or not, I've gone to sleep hearing confessions. You are just not that good at being that bad. But this impressed me. He was in Chicago one time. He went to the central office to find out where meetings were and he said a beautiful black girl told him she'd take him to a meeting. He met her that night and she said, very agitated, he said, what's the trouble? She said, I promise to take you to a meeting and I also got a call from a brand new girl that I'm working with and she insists on seeing me right now. Joe said, no problem, we will go see her. They met in a very cheap bar on the south side of the city and this is what they met. 23-year-old black girl, sober three months. And this was her problem. From about age 11, she had lived as a whore and a prostitute on the streets in order to survive and she drank to do it. This kid lived most of her life all drugged. She's now sober and can't stand it. She had been made to feel, however, that she was so dirty and so evil and she believed it three times over that she had become so afraid that she was going to die. of God. She just said, there is no God, so don't talk to me about this God stuff. Her sponsor said, it's the only thing I know of to talk about. And old Joe sat there while the two of them went around the mulberry bush for over an hour. And nothing but antagonism between the two of them was arising. Joe still sitting there listening until they kind of ran out of gas. And when there was a tiny period of silence, wanting to go, wanting, a definite reaction, he injected this. He said, what do you want out of it for? It's the only life you know. He said she bolted out of that chair. She said, because I'm worth too much. She knew that. She was worth more than a pig black. I don't know what you're worth, but I know what I'm worth. I'm worth the best and I'm going to have it. And if you don't have it, I'm going to walk right around you to somebody that does. My friend, life is too short. I've seen some people sell themselves short. I know some sober slobs. I wouldn't give you a dime for their sobriety. I know that's judgmental. But, my friends, we make judgment. I want Austin Ripley's sobriety. And as close as I can come to it, I'm going to claw my way there. What are you worth? Are you worth the price of these steps? Or do you just talk about them? My God, ladies and gentlemen, an atheist can give a talk on faith. All he's got to do is read a book. I know some verbal experts in AA. But anybody can talk the talk. It's can you walk the walk. Rip used to say, it's so bluntly and a thousand times over, and we've all used the expression, put the money where the mouth is, and I'll listen to you. Bluntly, your words don't mean much, and mine shouldn't. I'd rather see a sermon than hear one. Ladies and gentlemen, AA is not what we snow each other with at these meetings. It's the way we live it in between them. And you, out there, haven't the vaguest notion of what I live. You just have to take my word for it, as I have to take your word for it. But if this program makes us honest, then you can believe me, and I can believe you. You know what we're asked to do? Take an inventory of self. Self. You know, every one of us is three. I am who I think I am. I am who you think I am, and then there's me. Many of us are three. We just go through life not knowing ourself. Do you ever notice that each of us is most oblivious to our own worst fault? The inventory is meant to make us see the real self. And let me just tell us at Guesthouse, don't you ever get up at an AA meeting and talk about anything you haven't done yourself or are willing to do. Steps four and five were the single most difficult things I have ever done in my life. They cost me blood. I went to rip with my fifth son, and I'm not going to do that again. I went to rip with my fifth son, and I was convinced that his estimation of me would plummet until I found out that if I hadn't done it, it would have plummeted. You know what step four shows us? What we've got, what we haven't got, and what ought to go. We've got a whole lot of rebuilding to do. We'd better get at it. And so he made us, by strong suggestion, do those steps. Before we left Guesthouse. What we've got. Forevermore, my friends, I think we had best drop the phony humility that parades itself in the words of self-deprecation. I'm not very good at this, and I'm not very good at that, and all that. You know, most of us don't know how to accept a compliment. We really don't. I can tell you this, though. I remember one time somebody said to a little nun who worked for 52 years in a kitchen cooking and serving food, the man said, well, sister, I'm one of those bad priests. I'm on the road. She was registered a little bit of shock at what this man had said. And she looked at him and said, ah, but father, God never created a nothing. And he didn't know what to say. I've heard men get up at an AA meeting and say, when I drank, I was a drunken son of a bitch, and now after 15 years of sobriety, I have nothing to show for it. I'm still the same old me, but at least I'm a sobriety. I'm sober, son of a bitch, and everybody laughs. Isn't that hilarious? Next time you hear that, just go up to him after a meeting and say, you know, I've noticed your lack of progress. You know what that says to me? It says that after 15 years of trying and there's no improvement except you don't drink whiskey anymore, either something's wrong with the program or something's wrong with you, and I know there ain't nothing wrong with a program, and I don't want to hear that. Now, I mean, you know, I'm not creaming the guy at all. That's him. But it's not the type of sobriety I want. Ladies and gentlemen, to deny the talents that God Almighty gave you is a lie. It is dishonest. I frankly believe this. Every alcoholic in this room and in the world is capable of saving another drunk that no one else will be able to touch. My friends, whether I will it or not, I'm known around the world, for that film. It has touched lives. I accept that, and I thank God for it. But you know that there are some drunks I'll never be able to get near. There's an old guy back in Baltimore that came into AA on the public inebriate program. That man never enjoyed more than six consecutive days of sobriety in his entire adult life. They gave him a home where he could die in dignity. And old Hambone, that's his name. I don't even know the man's last name. Hambone got well. He will save lives that I'll never get near. You better know or find out what your talent is. Because you're going to be asked to use it someday to save a life. And if you don't know what it is, you're liable not to be able to use it. I would suggest a strong inventory step to find out just who you are and what you've got. And forevermore, let's stop knocking ourselves when we don't mean it. That is dishonest. Listen, next time somebody gives a good talk, you go up to them and you say, gee, Harry, that was a beautiful talk. It did a whole lot for me. And he says, something like, oh, it wasn't very good. Next time you hear him say, you know, on second thought, it wasn't. And see how honest it is. And you know what? I have a lot of fun staying up here saying, he says, I don't have guts enough to do them, but I like to talk about them. Step five, we admitted to God that's easy. He knows anyway. To ourselves, that's tough. To another human being, that's impossible. You know, Rip used to tell us over and over and over again, fathers, you will never know the value of step five until you have done it. You know, we're not asked to do this thing because it's reasonable. We're asked to do it because it ought to be done. We're asked to take things now in the faith of other human beings on whom we have long since given up. We are asked to rejoin the human race and have trust in other people. They say, you have to do this if you want contented, happy, effective, peaceful, serene sobriety. So you do it because you're told to do it. And after a while, you kind of enjoy doing things on the words of others. What has to go? You know, well, before we get into that, there's tremendous therapy in the realization that one other human being knows the real me. One other human being. Ladies and gentlemen, if you really knew me, you wouldn't talk to me. I wouldn't want more than one person to know the entire real me. Who of you would want any 24-hour segment of your life shown to the rest of us on a screen up here? Good God, I wouldn't want you to see my best day. And you know what we're asked to do in AA? Bear it all that constitutes mine. I could have kissed him. AA is tough, friends. And I always suspect the talker whose talk remains the same forevermore. Jimmery, have you ever run into the slogan, quote, or, God, they're beautiful. No matter what you come up with, there's a slogan. Guy tears into an AA me, he said, good, cheesy, said my wife just blew her head off an hour and a half ago. My 14 kids were picked up on drug charges and my grandmother died in childbirth and some jerk looks at him and says, easy does it. And how we justify anything with, well, at least I'm sober today. Well, la-dee-da. Next time you hear that one say, geez, I forgot to bring my Congressional Medals of Honor to Penn. Ladies and gentlemen, nobody gets medals for doing what he's supposed to do. In AA, we've been given the opportunity to stay sober. We ought to be. We ought to be. You don't go around waving them, I'm sober today. You know what I mean? To me, the most difficult part of AA is six and seven because it demands discipline. Let me tell you something that I've learned in a few years in AA. Self-discipline becomes more difficult. As you grow older in AA. And I become almost fearfully aware of that daily. I live with books for 21 years I've taught. I have lost the discipline of reading. I have a shelf full of all the National Geographic specials. I have a shelf full of Agatha Christie. I would die to read them. I get home and I do nothing. I can't read a Time magazine for more than 20 minutes at a crack on an airplane. But you know what I've learned about this very, very, very, very slowly. Very slowly. You know, we've been in an AA meeting and it's a discussion meeting. Now, I don't know what you're like at AA meetings, but this is me. The chairman comes in and he says, all right, tonight let's talk about step 10. The continuing inventory. I said, okay. And he gives an opening paragraph to allow us to collect our thoughts and begins with the first verse. I said, Harry, what thoughts do you have on step 10? Harry says, my name's Harry and I'm an alcoholic. I had my first drink when I was two and a half and I puked all over my mother's shoulder and she smashed me in the head with a skillet and I haven't been the same. Fifteen minutes later, he hadn't mentioned one word about step 10. And then he turns to Mary and he says, Mary, how about you? And she says, my name's Mary and I had a horrible day today and this, that, and the other. Eight minutes later, I haven't heard a word about step 10. Now, I don't know what you're like at AA meetings, but this is me. I'm sitting over on the other end of the table just, you know, drumming the fingers saying, wait a minute, guess what, I'm going to straighten this whole thing out. See, I think I'm over time. Over time. I'm going to straighten this meeting out. I mean, you know, first of all, what they have to understand is the meaning of the word inventory. I'm going to bing, bing, bing, bing. And then they have, and I'm getting more and more excited as it comes along. Jeez, I can't wait for my opportunity. See, when it comes. My name's Phil Martin. I'm an alcoholic and I pass. I was like, I was like, I was like cutting your tongue off. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it takes unbelievable discipline to do that. And I do it about once every 400 meetings. That's tough. Seriously, though, I have done that and only I know the nights that I do it. But I can tell you this if you want a little motivation. I have received more therapy than I have ever received. I have received more therapy than I have ever received. I have received more therapy than I have ever received. From saying two words, I pass. And from straightening out a whole lot of meetings. Just try it sometime. I mean, wait for the opportunity when this is the one meeting in 1976 that I have got to put my stamp on. Just say, I pass. Cut your tongue off and see what you get from it. You get a bloody mouth. I pass. You know what we alcoholics were like when we were drinking? There's a marvelous little story that really does illustrate it. An Alitalia airplane took off from New York headed for Rome and it was in the air about an hour when the voice came over the intercom. It said, this is your pilot. It said, if you miss the pretty story she's going to come and serve you lunch and we hope you enjoy but before lunch I'm going to have two announcements. One's the good news and one's the bad news. I tell you what I do. I give you the bad news the first time. Announcement of number one he says, we lost. I ain't got no idea what it could be. Hold on for the good news. Announcement of number two he says, we're making a damn good time. Now, that is a perfect picture of the alcoholic when he drinks. We haven't the faintest notion where we're going but we're getting there quick. Now please watch the second part of this. The second part is the therapy of growing up. AA has nothing but twelve psychological principles to grow up by. We now prepare and then execute. We prepare and then execute. You notice steps coming in pairs? You notice the beautiful logic of them? You admit you're sick and then you try to get well. You make a decision to turn your life and then you do it. You take an inventory and then you bear it. You become ready to have God remove you. If you're like me, your defects have character and as you're asking to do it, all right. I learned something from my alcoholism. You know, AA tries to teach us that simple little things like if it works for this, it might work for that. Guess how I got rid of my alcoholism problem, my drinking problem? I turned to an outside power above me for help. I couldn't do it myself. I needed help and I got it. Same way with defects of character. I've been working with them all my life. I haven't gotten too far with them. I reach out for help and I'll get it. But you know what he's going to do? He's going to give me the help exactly the way he gave me the help for the alcoholism. He's going to give me the power to get rid of the defects and then the opportunities to exercise the power. But I always pray as if he's just going to do it, as if he's going to drive my car. Dear Lord, please make... I think one of the failings of all of human nature is impatience. And I'm positive that we've all prayed for patience. Dear Lord, please make me patient. And I think we expect him just to do it. And he doesn't work that way. He gives us the power to be patient and the opportunity to exercise the power. Case in point. Guy shows up at 825 for an 830 meeting. Holy smoke, what a day. Worst day of my life. I had a flat going to work. I got balled out by the boss for something or other. I had a fight with a family member. I was late coming home so she burned dinner. Blame me. I got an excedrin headache and heartburn from a lousy meal. I burned myself showering and cut myself shaving. It was the worst day of my life. And some old prose says to me, like God gave you 19 opportunities to grow and you blew them all. And that's exactly the way we're asked to grow. In other words, this is the way we operate as followers. God is concerned. Age 21. All right, dear Lord, please make me a little bit more patient. 39. Dear Lord, a little more patience, please. 52. All right, Lord, a little more patience. 67. Dear God, please. 78. All right, Lord, win. And he's the best man I've tried. He gets nowhere. Get nowhere. And I continue to do that. I continue to ask God to do the job that I'm supposed to do. I pick up on maybe, I'm serious now, I pick up on maybe two out of 20 opportunities to grow. Let me give you a for instance. Rip is dead now. My sponsors are a man and a woman. I'm a man and a woman. When they talk, I listen. You see, I've learned over the years of associating with them that they love me so much that everything they offer me is just that I might grow to be better than I am. And I know that. Sometimes I'm a little slow, but I know that. And if you tell me something because you love me, I'll do two things. I'll thank you for it and I'll act on it. It took me about 15 years of sobriety to learn that. But boy, does it pay off. You see, in my opinion, that's God acting through others to help me grow. Some, some of my defects of character are waning. But you know the trouble with these two steps, why they are so unbearably difficult? Most of us are attached to our defects and don't want to get rid of them. I am, anyway. Eight and nine, we are asked to do what nobody else can now. We're asked to pick up our own tab. Made a list of people we had harmed, became willing to make amends to them all. Ladies and gentlemen, here is what I mean by don't just tell me how sick you got, tell me how well you're getting. I've been to AA meetings where a guy would turn an entire audience into a mass of tears by building up to a crescendo. Well, he builds up this crescendo of degradation, you know, the old can you top this drinking tale. And he winds up by saying, and when I hit, when I hit the depths, I actually stole pennies from my little four year old girl's piggy bank. And the rest of her is down there saying, my God, ain't he wonderful. I'm waiting for him to tell me he put it back. That's AA. That's AA. That's AA. Every time I talk about this, something comes up whereby I have to make a completely embarrassing amend. I remember one time I was sober eight years and I had to get down to that same priest that talked me out of his parish. We're great friends now. I owed him 30 bucks for a case of this wine that I drank over the third of the week. He was embarrassed and I was embarrassed. He said, I don't want that. I said, John, I'll take it. It may not be important for you to accept this, but it's important for me to give it. Step 10, we continue to take personal inventory so that there will no longer be any backlog of guilt. Ladies and gentlemen, unresolved remorse will destroy you. Without step five, we cannot face sober what we could do drunk. How many of us in this room drank in order to do things we would never dream of sober? It's impossible to live without resolving it somehow. These men knew what they were talking about. Please believe this. If we could get sober on 10 steps, that's all there'd be. Unresolved remorse will destroy you. I honestly believe this. Have you ever been around a guy in AA, you know, and everybody's happy and bounce around. He's sitting there, I'm sober 20 years. I'm sober 22 years. Where's all this serenity I've been in? Jeez, you find out he's holding all of his misery inside and AA's telling him to get rid of it. He says, I love it too much. Step 11, prayer. Ladies and gentlemen, I used to spend a lot of time on this thing about prayer, trying to put a philosophical basis under it just to show that it's a reasonable human thing to do. I quit. You know why we ought to pray? It's fitting. It's fitting. To have a relationship with the one who made us sober. I don't know how else that can be explained. I just don't know. Well, you know what we do in AA, every one of us, well, we get sober about four and a half days and we're all spiritual experts. Well, now, when I was drunk, I used to bargain with God. Get me over this, then we'll drink again. Ha, ha, ha. And everybody laughs with us. But I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. And everybody laughs with us. But now, I talk to my buddy. Oh. Hey, you know, ladies and gentlemen, we don't talk to him. We talk at him. We talk him to death. Did you ever wonder what a Sunday morning is like up in heaven? All I see is a dear Lord looking through our closet. Here I come again. You see? Well, then why have you come home? Gloomy! Obviously, you're a duper friend, but, oh, I can tell you one thing, mama, this sh Adup outletこと Ini Auto Aunque accepted that I ceadas Qu iç Nâng baru Lâm kızım drunk to all the verbiage that we cream him with now. You know, ladies and gentlemen, we spend a lot of time philosophizing about prayer, and all the while we're talking about it, ain't nobody praying. For two years of my life, I was so scared of God, I was afraid to go near the altar except on Sundays. Well, that phenomenon for a period of about four months. I was saying Mass only on Sundays because I was too terrified during the week. The only thing that bound me to heaven was what some morons call the prayer of the moron. We Catholics have a thing called the rosary, 50 Hail Mary. It was the only chain that bound me to heaven for two years because that's all I was capable of. Don't knock the little prayers you memorized as a child. Hopefully you'll be saying them on your deathbed. You know, the organization of priests that I used to belong to were founded in France. A lot of the old French fathers came over. One man, even before he was ordained, he was ordained over here. He lived to be in his 80s. He never again spoke French except when a French-speaking person wanted to go to confession. And yet when it came time for him to die and he was in a coma, you could hear him just murmuring the little prayers that he learned from his mother when he was a baby. Please believe this, friends. We have different kinds of prayer because they fulfill different needs. Don't compare prayer. There will come a day in which you are incapable of meditation and meditation. And conversation with your buddy. And sometimes there will come a time when the only thing you can reach out to him with is a formula, a memorized formula. And God, it'll taste like water to a man dying of thirst. Prayer I consider to be like clothing. We have different kinds for different needs. No one wears a bikini to a banquet nor a tuxedo. It's a very simple way to get to the beach. It's that simple. To get practical about it, prayer has nothing to do with the volume of it. It has to do with consistency. It's like meetings. You don't go to a hundred during the first hundred days of 1976 and then say, I've taken care of this year. You go to two or three or four a week or whatever is necessary for you and that's the way we pray. Why not just try a minute a day? Now we come to the point where we say, to the crowning glory of our magnificent fellowship. It's why all of us are together in this room. Step 12. Bill Wilson said, I wonder if I might not survive by trying to help another drunk. Dr. Silpworth said, I don't know, why don't you try? AA's 12th step is its crowning glory. We could speak forever, my friends, about gratitude because it is the golden hinge on which the sober life swings. Without it, no sobriety. I've heard people say, if you do this, you get drunk. And by the way, a lot of sponsors threaten you, do this, you get drunk. Don't do that, you get drunk. Forget that garbage. Hold up the example of your life. Show them what to do instead of condemning what not to do. I know a lot of people who do it all and stay sober. I wouldn't give you a nickel for their sobriety, but it's so. I can only say this infallibly, if you are not grateful for your sobriety, it is impossible to keep it. I look at the beauty of gratitude by glancing first at the ugliness of ingratitude. Ingratitude is the halitosis of the human soul. It is the only thing that makes God Almighty turn his face away from us. It stinks. And gratitude, my friends, is not talking about it. God, don't tell me you're grateful. Show me. You don't have to feel grateful. You have to be grateful. Tell me when you get up here the things you do so that I might do them too. You know, ladies and gentlemen, they say act. Do the things. And yet everything I do, I love. I don't know whether I get too much credit for the things I do. I love it. There's only one thing in my sober life that costs me a great deal. Talking in prisons. They're the most depressing place on earth. And every time somebody calls me and says, how about talking at the prison on December the 4th? I get out the schedule book and say, I'm all booked up. Call me next June. And they do. Well, now I gotta go. You know. But I get there. And the other thing, oddly enough, you know, ladies and gentlemen, I live on airplanes. I go all over the place. I lecture professionals. That's the way I make my living. And one of the beauties that does cost me a little bit is a positive answer to the question, Father, would you like to see our facility? The only thing you mean is, no, I don't want to see your facility. You know, you go around on the tours, and this is a conference room. And you say, hmm. Here is a bathroom. And telephone. But then I know that they want me to see it, and so I do. And then I get great enjoyment from it. There are very few things that cost me. You know what step 12 is, my friends? Gratitude in action. Gratitude, according to Austin Ripley, is the golden tray on which I offer to others what I want. And that is what God has given me. And so having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Now, I don't know the big book that you read. I don't know the cards on which the steps are printed that you read. But the one that I have does not say, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics who picked up the telephone, called the central office, and asked us to. You know how, how AA began? Dr. Bob Smith did not call Bill Wilson. Bill called him. And he was drunk. I know AAs who say, I'll help you get well if you show me you already are. I know AAs who try to use reason with an irrational, drugged mind. Here's some poor old alcoholic screaming for help, all drunked up at two in the morning. Call me when you're sober. Boom! What would you think of a doctor who answered the phone in the middle of the night and the guy said, Doctor, I think I'm having a heart attack. My left arm's nearly killing me. My chest seems to be ready to explode. It hurts me so bad I can hardly... I can hardly breathe. I can hardly talk. What would you think of the doctor if he said, call me when the symptoms disappear? Ladies and gentlemen, I realize step 12 is a judgmental thing. I realize you don't let the same drunk plague you night after night and he doesn't respond. Sometimes, the seemingly cruel may be the kindest thing that you must do, but I hope that forevermore the horrible language of the world will be the language of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. of the world. You've got to be cruel to be kind will forever disappear from our lips. How can we be cruel to sick people? God in heaven. How we play God with the sick alcoholic. That son of a bitch doesn't want to get sober. Isn't that beautiful language from those of us who scream that we have a disease? and we wish the world understood us? Isn't that beautiful? Somebody once asked Austin Ripley how far do you go with a drunk? And his answer was as far as you can. And then one step more. I have seen him live that and save lives that everybody else gave up on. Ladies and gentlemen how many of you have ever been to meetings? It's about every fifth speaker. I'm here tonight he says ladies and gentlemen because my sponsor was the only one who didn't give up. I don't do 12 step work ladies and gentlemen calling on drunks. Thank God I live on airplanes. I find it easy to talk about. Most of you are out there on the vomit line where it is. But God fits the back for the burden and he doesn't ask of us jobs that we're incapable of. I'm not good at it it scares me to death. So glibly do we play with the sickest of the sick. Friends you know what gets people sober? The example of your own sobriety. You can talk forever. It was Rip's life not his words that got me well. Bill Wilson was the man who dreamed the impossible dream. He fought the unbeatable foe. He bore with unbearable sorrow and ran where the brave dared not go. But he knew if he'd only be true to his glorious quest that his heart would lie peaceful and calm when laid to his rest. And the world has been better for this. One man one man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage. He reached the unreachable star and he held within the arms of his heart this blinding brilliant jewel that we call sobriety. The elusive holy grail that men and women had searched for from the beginning of the discovery of a grape and this man found it. But you see he went through the lonely path all alone of shredding himself and then rebuilding himself and when he got to the top of the mountain his humanity had been completely restored to him and he stood there a complete man. And man, my friends, is a creature composed in the image of God. And when he reached that point he acted like God. Goodness, which is God, tends to diffuse itself and to diffuse itself. And that's just what he did with sobriety. He gave it to you and me and that's why this room is filled tonight. Because he gave it. He laid down no conditions. He went after the drinking drunk and brought him in. And we dare to lay down conditions. I saw a movie, Patton, five times. As you know, for the first time in a movie the word bastard was used. It was the opening speech that Patton gave to his troops the night before the invasion of Europe. He was a master of dramatics. And he went into his troops and he began this way. He told them to be seated and then he said no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You win wars by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his. Then he gave a talk on war and bloodshed and killing. It was a brilliant thing. Somewhere in those words there was something wrangling around in my head. That they could be applied to us alcoholics. After the third time seeing that movie I was reading a breviary one night and this one line from a psalm struck me. See if it rings a bell in your head. My neighbors stand afar off because of my affliction. My neighbors stand afar off because of my affliction. And then it dawned on me our affliction, our alcoholism renders us the bastardized children of humanity. We are the illegitimate children of the human race and we are pushed afar off from them. And the next time I heard Patton speak this is what I heard. No alcoholic bastard ever won the war against this disease by dying. We will win the war by helping some other poor alcoholic live. To know that you have had a hand in the war and in saving another life is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. To watch a human being transformed in front of your face and to know that you've had a part in it is a fantastic experience. Ladies and gentlemen, do you know what my life is like now in the past four years since the Navy filmed a talk that I had been giving for years and years and years? It's a black lady in Braintree, Massachusetts in the auditorium of a junior high school who as I passed stood up and said my name is Edna. Thank you for saving my life. It's a 22-year-old sailor in Norfolk, Virginia who after an AA meeting one night shook my hand and said I just had to touch you. He put his arms around me and said I think I'm going to cry. So of course I did. It's New Orleans last year after a year and a half after a Sunday morning talk a strikingly handsome man walked up to me. People were saying hello after the meeting. If they had told me he was one of the senators from the state I would have believed them. Snow white hair, tall, handsome, beautifully dressed. And he said alcohol put me behind bars for 11 years of my life. I never dreamed that I would ever in my life look a man straight in the eye and tell him that I love him. But I love you. It's a million things ladies and gentlemen what my life is like now. It's coming to Galveston and meeting and falling in love with 500 new friends. By opening your hearts to me you've captured mine. And it is yours. Our sobriety came through the pain of our drinking years. And I think that you and I know something of pain that the non-alcoholic doesn't. Unless he's lucky to have learned it in another way. And that is that God gives his goodness through pain as well as through pleasure. And so I do not wish you joy without a sorrow. Nor endless day without the healing dark. Nor brilliant sun without the restful shadow. Nor tides that never turn against your bark. I wish you faith and strength and love and wisdom. Goods gold enough to help you some needy one. I wish you songs but also blessed silence. And God's sweet peace when every day is done. I'm positive that there is great wealth in this room brought about through sobriety. But I can say this in faith. yourselves. I am the rich man in the eyes of God. A recoated soul and the pianist that thearetra and theavia works above all else. You don't know why the world has been designed way ahead of you. So, I've come now to the end, and I have to go. I leave tomorrow morning to go back home, Sunday to Atlanta, the following week to Nebraska, the following week to Colorado Springs. The most difficult thing on the face of the earth is to meet people and love them and have to go. I hate goodbye. So I do what the Latins do. They don't say goodbye. They commend you to God. Adieu, adios, adio. And always they look forward to meeting again. Auf Wiedersehen. Au revoir. In Italy, unto the seeing again, arriveder, except in Rome. Rome is the hub of the world. There's nowhere on earth where there is such pride of origin. The world twirls around Rome. They never say till we meet again. And they say till we meet again here, arrivederci. I commend you. To God. Adieu. Till hopefully, someday we meet again here. Arrivederci.