How AA General Service Works and Why It Matters – Don M.

Apparently, I have that ability to make 12 hours seem like an entire week. My name is Don. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is August 8, 1994, and my home group is a responsibility group in Metairie, Louisiana. My sponsor once told me pretty early on in recovery that every single person on the planet, in his view, but particularly in AA, has a purpose, even if that purpose is only to be the bad example. And I thought about it and wanted to know if I wanted to be the bad example. And I'm very nervous. I don't really feel real comfortable getting up and telling my story unless it's with a guy across the table from me. But I do if I'm asked to do it. And I thought the best way to handle the possibility of me being below watermark for this whole event is to possibly have a 45-minute, very short moment of silence and reflection. Actually, I want to first thank Kathy, who I just love. Everybody who's on this committee and who I've interacted with has been wonderful. It's a wonderful event, and it's just particularly the way that folks have embraced us and taken us in. I want to thank you very much. This has been a lot of fun. And there are some really good speakers that you're going to see. You're going to hear later on and before, so just hang on. It's going to work out. A lot of times, I don't really know where to get started. I want to tell you, if you walk out of here knowing anything, this guy, Don, is wired in such a way that he's powerless over alcohol, and his life was and pretty much can be a train wreck. It really is. And I found a solution that I didn't know about, where my compulsion to drink has been relieved. And I have found something in my life that is remarkably better than I ever thought it would be. And to be real candid with you, I've got great things going on in my life. But I still have character defects, and as I sit here, I'm fearful of all kinds of things going on in my life. And I've got ego that's not in check in a lot of places, you know. I mean, I'm very, very imperfect. Our steps work great. I don't work them the best all of the time. And I know, for me, that solution, for me, always, always involves me getting back to working with another alcoholic. And, you know, I am involved in our general service structure, and I'll probably talk a little bit about that. But for me, service and AA, and this is kind of, I hope it's a takeaway if you know anything about me, service and Alcoholics Anonymous is simply doing something toward the end of trying to carry the message, that we're still suffering alcoholic. It may be making coffee. I will tell you, my home group does not allow me to make coffee. I've not been allowed to make coffee in my group for almost 16 years. I was a month sober. I was, we have a position called the coffee czar in my group. I mean, there's some control people there. I was coffee czar for about, really, it was two meetings. And the coffee was really bad the first time, and it was really bad the second time, and they just gave me something else to do. And I've never been making, I haven't made coffee since then. But the point I make is, it is just for me about carrying that message of the alcoholic who still suffers. The magic happens when I'm not up in the middle of me, and I'm trying to offer you what I have. So I'm going to do my best to offer something about my experience, strength, and health. What it was like for me, what happened, and what it's like today. I'll start off in a place I kind of, the last few times I told my story, I kind of started off here, and it's just because it's something that I've been doing for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. It's something that happened in my life. I'm going to start off when I was, it was in 1975, and I was just about 15 years old. I was very fortunate to have been asked to go to a boarding school. It was a great academic place, supposedly, but the truth is, it was close to my house, and some juvenile judges, and some probation people. And my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to find some other place to go to school than any of these schools in the city that I lived in. So I was in a boarding school at 14, 15 years old. And this boarding school at the time, it was a Catholic boarding school. It was kind of the last stop before you went off into the formal state system for kids that were in trouble. And it was expensive, and my parents were definitely not rich people. And I'll tell you, my mama and daddy are two of the finest people I've ever known. Not just because they're my mama and daddy. They're good people. And they're not alcoholic. I remember seeing my parents, the few times I ever saw them drink, drink half a glass of wine or two-thirds of a martini or something. And it's just not ever the way I ever drank. But they did not revolve their lives around alcohol or substances that altered their thinking or their way of doing things. My daddy. Was a kind man. My daddy's passed. And he passed since I got in recovery. And my mom. My mom is an honest to God. This is the truth. She is a Mensa member. She's a literal genius. She's got a lot of advanced degrees. And just super, super smart. And a kind person who goes to church a whole bunch. My mama is on every single committee in her church. And actually, I think they have a women's committee that talks about the other women's committee that she started. And. I have a younger brother who, I was thinking of him today for a lot of reasons. But he is not a person who drinks alcoholically. He is smart like my mom. Went to Ivy League schools on full scholarships. He's a physician. And on and on. I mean, he has just everything that you would want a kid to have. But I brought exactly the opposite to my family. I was disruptive. Out of control. And. When I discovered alcohol. And the first time I discovered alcohol, I was a student at that boarding school. I was allowed to come home for a long weekend. And a fella named Stoney. And this is a beautiful thing about being from Louisiana. There were actually people named Stonewall in my state. So Stoney, who was my best friend at the time. My very best friend forever and ever. Me and Stoney were hanging out. And Stoney's sister's boyfriend. Had a bottle of like some kind of whiskey. Old granddad, old geezer, whatever. And we went on a November night. On the other side of the Mississippi River levee. In a little town called Harahan, Louisiana. And the Mississippi River has a batch or just an area that's land. And you know, we go play there as kids. And you know, make fires. You know, bonfires or whatever. In the winter months. And we. We ended up making a bonfire. I took a sip of this whiskey. And I love listening to Bob last night. Because I didn't have the exact experience. But I wanted to be cool. And I never had anything to drink that I remember. Maybe I might have had a sip of beer or something as a kid. But I don't really remember that. I remember this is the first time I ever really drank. And it went down. And I thought I was going to throw it up. And I would have been embarrassed around Stoney's sister's boyfriend. Who was this really cool guy. Who had a green army jacket. And really long hair. And peace symbols. And had everything I wanted. He had a girlfriend. And coolness. You know. And I eventually thought I drank a bunch of this little bottle of old granddad. But I think I probably had four or five sips. It was enough to change the way I felt. And I remember running through the fire. And just getting. You know, I was cool. And I just felt different. By the time I got to Stoney's. I started throwing up. I threw up on Stoney's sister. I threw up all over the house. I threw up on me. And I woke up the next morning. And I felt awful. But I felt great. And I thought this is a really cool thing. I'm going to have to do a lot more of this. And I did. But by this little time. And around March or April of 1975. What was going on then at this boarding school. I was getting thrown out. And I had been called. And I had been called to the principal's office. Told to pack my bags. And the principal was a man named Brother David. And Brother David. I got. I knew Brother David as well as any single student on that campus. Because I was always, always in trouble. And I met the end of his rope. And I was being thrown out. And they had my mama and my daddy sitting in there. And my mother was crying. And she's not a person who cries. She was weeping. Because I was going off to freaking jail basically. I mean that was my next stop. And my daddy was just in a state of remorse. And it was awful. And like one of those suspended animations things. This principal Brother David just stopped. Kind of in mid-sentence. And it was one of those really quiet things. I'm like, what more can they do to me? He's thinking of some other consequence. And he reversed himself. He said, I'm not sure why I'm going to do this. I'm going to give you another chance. I'm going to give you another chance. Nobody, nobody thinks that you deserve another chance. But I'm going to give you one more. And you need to get it right this time. There are no more chances. But I think you'll make something of yourself. Other people don't. I do. And he believed in me. He really did. And I'm not going to tell you that suddenly my love for alcohol went away. And I had a love for some outside substances as well. You know, outside issues. But the thing is, I really started trying hard. I had a life plan. And I know some of you all have heard this. But my life plan at that time, when I was a sophomore in high school, was to go work on the Alaska pipeline as a welder. That was my big dream. Now, I don't have any welders in my family. I didn't know much about it. Nobody in my family, to my knowledge, had ever stepped foot at that time in Alaska. What I knew about it, what I had been told by somebody, and I wish I could remember who, that on this Alaska pipeline, the money and whiskey flowed freely and the women were loose. I'm like, that's where I should go. Alaska's heaven. It's nirvana. And that was going to be my career. I was going to work on this pipeline that was going to last forever. And this same principal, Brother David, in the fall of 1976, called me in his office. And I'm not going to mention my last name. Many of you know it, but I know we're being taped. He called me and said, You know, you heard the good news, didn't you? What good news? They finished the Alaska pipeline. Isn't that great? You're probably going to have to figure something else to do. And I walked around for weeks, months, devastated. It was like that knot in my stomach that just came back. I had no plan. I didn't know what to do with my life. And I literally bumbled into a college in New Orleans, where I'm from. I went to a state college because I could afford it. I could work and go. It was $212 a semester to go to this school. And I scraped together the $212. My daddy helped me buy some books. They helped me get a motorcycle. And I was off to school. And I did pretty well. I had some problems with police officers pretty frequently. I'd get arrested every once in a while. And I came in contact with some people that I grew to really respect and think were some of the most useful people in our society. I started interacting with lawyers. Have y'all ever interacted with lawyers? These can be some wonderful people. They say things like, Not guilty. He didn't do it. Give him another chance. Deferred adjudication. And I had some lawyers that said these things for me. And I thought, Oh my God, I admire this person. I want to be like him. And I didn't have a plan coming out of college. And I bumbled into law school. And I will tell you, hang out with me for about 20 minutes. You'll figure out. The guy is not the brightest light bulb you ever met. But I did work really hard. And I did real well in law school. And I drank really hard in law school. I was arrested several times for DUI. And I was convicted of one DUI. And I remember going to an alcohol education program. Y'all ever been to an alcohol education program before AA? I was educated about alcohol. And what I remember them telling me is, The one thing that stands out for the 20 classes I had to go to to pay 10 bucks a piece, and sit there and listen to somebody drone on and on. There's probably even an AA speaker there that I just refused to listen to. What I remember was that a real alcoholic can't have half a drink. So I spent a lot of time, really the next 12 or so years after that, trying to figure out a way to have half a drink. I've never had a half a drink successfully. I've left a couple on at bars for the purpose of having half a drink. And I remember what bar I left them on and where I was sitting. Maybe they're still there. But I do remember that. I got out of law school and I got a job with what at the time was a really big law firm. We had 40 lawyers. And I never felt like I fit. I didn't feel like I fit in law school or college. I felt out of place. And the alcohol helped me kind of feel like I fit in. It's just how it worked for me. I didn't drink every day in college or law school or when I started working. But when I drank, I drank like our big book describes, like our speaker last night describes. I had a compulsion to have more. And I swore off alcohol many times. I remember a fellow who I've known for 30 years and next to my wife was my best friend when I quit drinking. I remember he, and I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but my second marriage, my bachelor party, I was sober. My second marriage, bachelor party. He's still mad about this. I told him we were going up to this thing in North Louisiana that was going to just be totally whack. He was going to love it. Turns out I was a speaker at an Indian center in Gino, Louisiana that night. It was great. The food was awesome. But he was thinking strip club and some really whacked out stuff. And he was, it's a five hour drive into the middle of the woods. And I remember him telling me after I told my story, he goes, man, you got it all wrong. Like, really? What did I get wrong? He goes, don't you remember? We used to quit drinking all the time. I thought, yeah, we used to quit drinking all the time and I'd start back all the time. You know, that's, and that's the way I drank. I would swear it off, try to stop drinking and I was never successful stopping. Ever. And with one little exception, but I started back. In short, I ended up getting married. I met this lady on a, on a Monday in New Orleans. If you're from New Orleans, Monday is big red beans and rice day. And I went with a lawyer that I work with, a lady lawyer, who's meeting a friend. Her friend and I, I hit it off with her right away. So we stayed out in the French Quarter for two days. I didn't go back to work. And this is before they really had karaoke. You'd go until, there's a place where you could drink and go into these little sound recording booths and make a little cassette tape of yourself singing. We sang on the dock of the bay about 300 times in a period of two days. Didn't come home. She got to ride a horse that a policeman was riding in the French Quarter and didn't go to jail because her daddy was a judge. And it was just a, you know, just a match made in heaven, right? And we ended up getting married, having a baby, not in that order, really. We're kind of, sort of in that order. And it was a marriage of at least one person who was very much insane and out of control. And it didn't last. But I have a daughter from that marriage. Her name's Alex. She's 21 years old and she's a wonderful kid. And thanks to you, we actually talk, you know. I just celebrated my 16th AA anniversary this past Sunday. My daughter came to my home. She had a little banner that said Sweet 16 Princess, but stapled the ES back so it'd be Sweet 16 Prince and had a little flashy 16 badge that I refused to wear out of the house. But we took pictures and then she took me to a meeting to instruct me. And she picked a meeting for me to go to so I could get a chip. So, and she's been around us a lot. I don't know if she's gonna have a problem with alcohol or not, but she knows where we are if she does and she knows to look for you ladies if she does. The thing is, after this marriage that I got in initially didn't work out, I felt very sorry for myself. I was wrapped up in a lot of litigation. I'm a lawyer. And I'm a bad person to be a client. And I was dealing with somebody that, for whatever reasons, this was litigation that lasted many, many, many, many years and was very difficult on everybody in it, specifically including my daughter. I'm not proud of it, but that's just what happened and it continued into sobriety. What happened? I got hooked up. I should say, I was an awful person to be in relationships with. I remember my first four-step that I really did, honest to goodness, consistent with what our suggestions are and a fifth step I started to do. Well, there were a bunch of ladies on this fifth step and every one of them I was calling a this and that and a this and that. And I'm not gonna use the language, but every one of them was to blame. And a person I was doing this fifth step with stopped me and pointed out, you have a mother and you have a daughter, don't you? Yes, of course. Unless it's okay for me to publicly use those words and call it and then referencing your mother and your daughter, don't ever talk that way about anybody on the list. They're either a woman, a lady, or something else that's appropriate. And that really was a change in my thinking. And you know what? Not all of them were at fault. Not all of them were at fault. Nobody's perfect, but the common thread that all these folks had is they were in relationships with me. You know? Like, hmm, could I possibly have had a role in all of this, you know? But I was a bad person to relate with. I was a real bad person to date. I dated just about everybody in New Orleans and nobody felt good about it. You know? And the fact is, by the time I got to the point I was ready to quit drinking, I'd been living with a lady who I picked because I wanted you to think I was okay. She was an honest to goodness woman. She was an honest to goodness beauty queen. Had won a bunch of beauty pageants. Just absolutely drop dead good looking. And it was a perfect relationship to catapult me to AA. And I haven't seen this woman for many years. But one thing she would do, I would pass out on our front doorstep every once in a while or on the floor. I'd get sick on myself. And she would shove me or kick me. I'd come to and she'd be reading AA stuff to me. Like, oh woman, get away with the cult. Get away with the cult. You know? And some other people had suggested that this Alcoholics Anonymous thing might be good. And I really related to Bob last night when he talked about his perceptions. My perception was exactly, it's either a cult or it's an Amway pyramid scam. You know? Folks are so darn interested in me getting in, it's like you're going to make money off of me or you're going to have me recruit cult members. You know? I had no interest in it. I ended up quitting drinking. Drinking on my own for a short time. It was in 1993. I started off with a client in New Orleans and I woke up somewhere covered in vomit and pee and felt like I was dying. And I wasn't sure where I was. But it wasn't the first time that had happened to me and I already had a strategy. I'm going to tell you, if you're new and you have a strategy for that problem, you may consider Alcoholics Anonymous. You know? You end up in strange places and you don't know where you are and you've got a strategy for figuring out where you are. Think about this. But I looked at the phone and I couldn't read it because it was blurry. Knew how to handle that. Dial zero. See what happens. An operator answered, Hampton Inn. Hi. I need to get a cab. Can you tell me exactly the address here? He said, we'll call you one. Oh, no, no. Just need the address. I've got a special cab company. And it turns out I was in Houston, Texas. And I love to ask this question because I was stunned. I started fishing through my wallet. I had a receipt for right at $1,000. It's something called the Texas International Barbecue Club. You ever been to the Texas International? Has anybody had $1,000 of barbecue before? I was like, how did this happen to me? I've never had that much barbecue. It's got to have caused this problem. It's a strip club. I have no recollection of it. And I got to tell you that I'm pretty cheap. In fact, I'm very cheap. I negotiate like if I'm buying a suit, we're going to negotiate it. And I'm thinking, $1,000, what happened? That probably made the biggest impact on me. So I swore off alcohol. That was early July of 1993. And I swore off alcohol and didn't have anything whatsoever to drink from July until December of 1993. And the only reason I had anything in December because I knew I was right at that point. It had worked its way out of my system. My system had metabolized. I'd gone to church a bunch. I mean, I'm not even Catholic. But I was going to church at least once a day, every single day. And praying that I'd be made right. And I still felt worse and worse. I felt worse and worse not drinking because I felt more and more like I didn't belong. Something was wrong with me. And I was miserable. I started drinking again. And within a week, I was at the point of taking bottles of Absolute from my law firm. Perfect firm for me. We actually have an attorney's lounge in my New Orleans office, literally, that's stocked with all this great alcohol. And I was directly responsible for seeing that it was properly stocked. So I went to the firm, my administrative role, to take care of the attorney's lounge. And it was my personal little fiefdom. So I had a freezer full. I took every bit of everything out of my freezer when I started drinking again in December 1993 and filled it with Absolute vodka. And I filled it with Absolute because it was clear. And my brain had convinced me that clear alcohol doesn't have impurities in it that are causing me consequences. And I had an exception for tequila. I won't go into it, but there was something about the molecular structure of tequila that made it weird. But all the other clear alcohol was going to work out. And I'll tell you, it didn't. And I got to the point by August of 1994, I was working in Greensboro, North Carolina. And I was working there just about every week. And I was working with a dear friend who had five years of sobriety named Tom S. And Tom gently, you know, he was a wonderful example that AA can work miracles. And he never shoved me into AA, but he answered my questions about AA. And Tom made me absolutely insane and miserable because he was not drinking and I couldn't not drink. And this went on every night. I ended up waking up under an overpass in Greensboro, beat up physically, mentally, physically. spiritually. And I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I didn't understand how come God could have done this to me. Because I was going to church, at this point, twice a day. I was going to Catholic Mass twice a day. And if I missed twice a day, I would go through the communion line twice. And take the hose twice. There were a couple of priests who realized what I was doing. Try that sometime. Go through the line and the priest catches it the first time. Say something to them and then go back and get through. And see the look on their face. They don't know how to deal with that. But I figured if I got this inside of me it would take away the problems I was having with alcohol. And it didn't work. And I was so upset. I got back to New Orleans after I woke up under this overpass. And I called the Catholic Church and the priest I got on the phone and told me to call him back when I wasn't drunk and hung up on me. And I was so furious. I literally tore my house up. I tore my upstairs bedroom up by throwing junk. I was throwing stuff at God. And I laugh at this to this day. It's like, you know, I don't know what I was thinking but God's a pretty quick fella. I've ruined a bunch of stuff and a bunch of walls but I never did manage to strike God with a thing. And I had a real brief moment of clarity and called Alcoholics Anonymous. And the man named John L. called me back and brought me to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that night. And I'm very grateful for AA Hotlines as a result of that. I'd had a .357 revolver to my head and I wanted to blow my head off. And I was scared to do it and scared not to do it. And I wish I could tell you that miraculous white lights came down and I had God dust sprinkled all over me. I saw a guy at this meeting that was in the same business I am and works in the same building as I do and I was terrified that he was going to report me and I'd lose my professional license. You know, I know now if I'm seeing somebody in an AA meeting possibly they too may have a problem with alcohol. But I didn't know that then. I wasn't born with knowledge of anything that was going on in this AA meeting. I didn't feel comfortable with myself. I felt about this big. I felt like I was nothing inside and I had this competing ego that wanted to be the entire universe. It's awfully hard to be the smallest and the largest thing in the universe at the same time. And I've just had that constant tension in my life. And I do remember at Responsibility Group a bunch of people telling me thank you for coming you're the most important person here. And I went home and the lady was my fiancé at the time. Well, how was it? It's like, it's a pretty smart group of people. And they have never again ever told me I'm the most important person at anything. I've never heard that again. But I remember that night and oddly enough it probably made a difference in me showing up to my second meeting. And I didn't understand the babble people were talking about. I really didn't. But I saw people seem genuinely at peace. Genuinely happy and joyous and free. Those aren't words I would have used but that's what I was seeing. And they had what I wanted. And I hung around people that had what I wanted. And I've said this before but the fellow that just stood out to me the most was this old prodigy old guy, Jerry W. who had 20 something years about 25 years of sobriety at the time and described his drinking the way I drank. And described the way he was feeling very much like I felt inside. Just in a way I could have never put words to. And I really related to the way he was sharing it because I really thought Jerry was lying about not drinking. I knew he had been drinking on the side but he was the best liar I had ever seen. I'm like, man in my business I can learn how to lie like that. So I really wanted to know okay tell me when I get to start drinking. Telling people I'm not and show me how to do it. That's the truth. I wanted to know how I could start drinking again and just not have all those problems. And Jerry was a guy who was raised Jewish in the Bronx has two PhDs and you never know it just looking at him. And he's an agnostic and an atheist. Very different from me. And I remember going to his house for the first time and he's got this very large needle point of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. I'm like, what is that? That's a Christian Catholic prayer. No, that's my design for living. That's the tools I use to live my life. And it's worked really well for me. I learned a lot from Jerry. I ended up I ended up I ended up getting a lady spiritual advisor. She would never sponsor a man. And she has 34 years of sobriety today. And her husband has 33 years of Al-Anon. And I met her, Trudy, at a group called the I-10 West group. And at the time I was hanging out with this sweet young thing. I'd like to call it dating, but it doesn't rise to the dating level exactly. But I was helping her with her program because she had 15 minutes of sobriety. And Trudy pulled me aside at one meeting and said, I see you're hanging out with Lisa. Yeah, that's right. Don, we're glad you're coming to this meeting. Lisa belongs to me. In fact, every woman in this group belongs to me. And if you see Trudy, she's ill now, but she's physically a very beautiful, very powerful woman. And I said, Don, don't ever touch another woman in AA. They belong to the women in AA. And if you do, I'm going to cut your head off. That's not exactly what you said. I'm going to stitch it back on, and then I'm going to drag you in front of the group and cut it off again to make an example of you. Do you understand me? And Trudy has become my spiritual advisor ever since then. In fact, Trudy and Richard, her husband, lived with us after Katrina for about a year, or less than a year. And it was a great year for me. The thing is, I wish I could tell you I got perfect in recovery when I got in. The relationship I was in cratered immediately. This, quote, beautiful lady. And it cratered because it was supposed to. I was devastated, but it put me to the point where I was willing to do some more work. I had a string of relationships I was getting in, and they didn't work because I was in them relating. And I really hadn't done a good, thorough housecleaning. I hadn't really done our suggestions like they're suggested. And I eventually did one, but in the interim, I started sponsoring people. And I wish I could tell you I'm the best sponsor in the world. I love sponsoring guys. It really is the great, if not the greatest joy in my life, it's the co-greatest joy in my life. It really is. I'm not the best sponsor in the world. The privilege I have, I've got guys that I have sponsored and I do sponsor who are some of the best sponsors I've ever seen. They've seen the things that I don't do well, and they've improved on them. And they've taken the little bit that I have to offer, and they do that well. And the fact is, I get so much out of it because it takes me out of me. It's the truth. And it puts me in a position where I've got to be brutally honest and say, man, I screwed up some fourth steps. I held stuff back. The ninth step amends I made basically involved you paying me something. You know? It's like, I really screwed you over, but you still owe me some money, you know? And I wasn't doing our steps according to suggestion for a while. And it took me a while to become willing. And it took me being miserable primarily because my relationships weren't working well to be willing to do that. I got involved in general service. Ain't everybody familiar with general service? I'll tell you, I didn't come by it honestly or willingly. And if you've heard this, I apologize, but it's just the way my story goes. I went to a home group meeting for Responsibility Group kind of by accident. I didn't know it was a business meeting. John L., my sponsor at the time, had told me, stay away from that AA politics. And I got to this meeting and they were picking officers for the group. And they were looking for something called the GSR. And this fellow, Rick, Rick, Don could be a good GSR. Yeah, yeah, Don, you'll be our GSR. Congratulations. And I'm like, what is that? Well, it's a general service representative. It's no big deal. And this guy, Rick, told me you go to Alexandria, Louisiana for something called an area assembly. Alexandria is three hours from New Orleans and a lot of people think it's really probably right there with purgatory, maybe a little bit under that. I don't. I love Alexandria. Now, but I wasn't looking forward to the single trip to Alexandria a year for an area assembly annually or the once every six months district meeting. And as it turns out, Rick tells me they're having a district meeting tomorrow, Saturday afternoon. Why don't you go and find out? So I went to this district meeting and found out there are 12 district meetings a year. There are committees that you're supposed to get on that meet in addition to the district meetings. And then there are four area assemblies in Alexandria. And no, it's not a one-day trip up. It's a Friday through a Sunday. And I came out literally fuming mad. And I had one of those big old flip phones I remember swinging it around, screaming at my sponsor, I'm kicking Rick's ass. He works a dishonest program. He lied to me. I'm going to make an example of him for the group. And I literally, I was just, I saw I was so furious that entire week from that Saturday to that Friday, I went to responsibility to pull Rick out of the meeting. And you should, if you were going to bet, bet on me because Rick was going to get a beating. And I went to that meeting ready to fight in loose clothes. I'm not kidding. I'm telling you. And Rick, the God's truth is, Rick moved. He's a professor of something and he moved back to the Dakotas where he's from. And I've never laid eyes on Rick again. That's the truth. If you know Rick who's a professor from one of the Dakotas, I want to hug him and kiss him. He did something that changed my life. And I wish I could tell you I went to my first area assembly and wanted what they had. I was furious and I looked for people that were just as mad about being there as me. And I found a couple and we sat in the back row and literally, I was a guy for two years that heckled people at the microphone. That's the truth. I hated it. And they would say I didn't, I was furious that I had to be there. I liked the district stuff because I met people that I related with. And I really got into doing some of that service stuff. But the areas of the assembly, it seemed to me it was a bunch of egomaniacs. I'm going to tell you Alcoholics Anonymous at first seemed like it was a bunch of egomaniacs because all people talk about is themselves. Let's talk about me, you know. But it turns out, you know, and I try to point that out, it's like the only reason I'm talking about me is because that's all I've got to offer you. If I'm talking beyond me, I'm BSing you. You know, all I've got is my own experience. Good and bad, you know. It's got warts on it. It's got, look, if you can look in this thing, my wife would be mortified. I'm 50 years old and I've got a pimple on my nose, you know. Spiritually, I've got pimples and warts. I'm real imperfect. But as we, as I got through this area, this area assembly thing, I started to learn a little bit because people would get up and talk about traditions. And I'd catch them lying about the concepts or traditions. I would sit there, I studied the concepts because I heard people talking about them. And I'd want to shove, I mean, I'm a lawyer and I want to get up at that mic and shove a concept down your throat. If you're an area officer saying something, I'm going to confront you with this. And I learned a lot about the concepts, not honestly, because I wanted to use them to shove them down somebody's throat. But I did read them and they were really interesting. It was hard reading, but the essays were really good. A guy named Charlie B., who's a past trustee at large from Louisiana, had suggested to me that I read the essay on leadership and concept 9. If you've never looked at it, if you ever read anything beyond the big book in 12 and 12 that Bill Wilson wrote, it's a wonderful essay about leadership in AA. It says what I believe is true. The most important role that I have in any leadership function in AA is to be a sponsor of another man. That's it. But it's well written and it talks about things that I really value. I ended up doing some other service roles in AA. And if you know anything about our service structure, understand it's exactly the opposite of a Microsoft. If you think of Microsoft, Bill Gates is up at the tippity, tippity top of this thing. Or somebody like Bill Gates is at the tippity top. And then you come down this pyramid of this big inverted triangle, and you've got the peons on the bottom. Well, we are the peons in AA, but we're on the top. All of us, our groups, are at the very top of this. We are AA. Not some boss somewhere is AA. The groups are AA. And you make the decisions about who we are, where we are, who we're going to be, and where we're going to be. And if you walk out of here knowing anything about our service structure, that's how I see it. Your group is at the top of this. And then it drills down. And the people in the service structure, and I'm in it right now, are supposed to be of service. The purpose of the service structure, it's got multiple purposes, but one of the most important things that this inverted triangle that goes down from GSR, General Service Representative, to geographies, or if you think of districts, it's usually a geographic area. And there's some exceptions. We have linguistic districts that are great that may not just be in one part of town or one part of a state or area. But then we go down to areas. That's moving down, right? And we ultimately drill down to a specific area. I was a delegate in Louisiana, and I'll tell you, it's not a glorious position. It shouldn't be. It's not about me if I'm doing it right. If I'm doing that position right, it's about you. It's about your groups, and it's about me passing on to you, here's what's going on in AA as a whole, and more importantly, becoming informed. Why become informed? In order to bring it back annually to a conference of all of the other delegates and the United States and Canada, and make decisions about where are we going as AA. Who are we going to be as AA? And I'll talk about that in a second, because I really want your guidance. Well, it goes down a little further. We have what's called the General Service Board. If you remember the beginnings of AA, you had Bill and Bob, of course, right? And then you had these non-alcoholic trustees, a bunch of whom we got to through John Rockefeller. He didn't give us money, but one of the things he did for us is help us think through how to put a structure together where we don't self-destruct. And the people on this original board, and I know you see it in the big book, it's called the Alcoholic Foundation originally. They were not alcoholics. So you had Bill and Bob, who were in touch with the groups, and then you had the Alcoholic Foundation. They're kind of in an ivory tower, and they're people, we now call them Class A trustees, non-alcoholics, that were really doing a lot of the, for want of a better term, the business of AA. And as we all know, when Bill realized that Bob was dying, and he realized he had his own mortality, he thought, you know, we've got such a great solution to an awful problem, and if it were to die because Bill died, how reckless and irresponsible would that be? He wanted to give the fellowship to the fellowship. And he came up with this conference process, with this structure. It was effectively Bill's legacy. Bill's passing it on to us, giving the fellowship to the fellowship. But the way, instead of having a bill out there, we're much larger, to communicate with one another, to make responsible decisions about our future. We have this conference process that brings a delegate from every area to the conference to pass on what you want. Think about trying to get a couple of million of us stuffed in a room to make decisions. I'd love to be there, but I don't think much would get decided that way. We've got to delegate it. And this conference process, it's bumpy, it can be rocky and contentious sometimes, but having witnesses that are really honest to goodness works. The solutions and the tools are there to really do cool things for us. I'll say this about the conference process. Everybody's familiar with Coca-Cola, right? I mean, how could you not be? If you drink a Coca-Cola here in Miami, I promise you it's going to taste pretty much like the Coca-Cola in Beijing tastes. And that one's going to taste like the one in Buenos Aires tastes. And it'll taste like the one in New Orleans and over in Paris and then down in Australia and over in Dallas and up in New York. Because Coca-Cola spends an enormous amount of time and energy assuring that their quality control exists. Our conference process is kind of like that. It's quality control. You don't want the crazy message of Don M being our message. You don't. You want our message to be our message. And what the process does, what our conference does, is it's that vehicle where we make it our message. When it comes out of that conference, there have been so many eyes of very passionate people who represent all of our groups throughout the United States and Canada who've eyeballed it, thought about it, prayed on it, and it comes out, presumably, to be our message. And the good news is, if it isn't and you look at it and you say, that's insanity. Sounds like that crazy God Don M wrote this. Well, you get rid of it the next year. You can change it. Nothing's carved in stone. Our board is at the bottom of the pyramid. I serve on that board. There's nothing special about me. Believe me. But the special thing is about me is you. I represent you. And I've been charged with some responsibility. It's not glorious. And it's not all happy, joyous, and free. Service, I'm going to tell you for me, doesn't necessarily equal recovery. I go to meetings that are service meetings. I've got to get into a meeting of my people in AA to get back in recovery. But it's important. And I'm really glad somebody did it before me. Because if somebody didn't do some kind of service before me, when I ended up calling the AA hotline around August 8, 1994, there wouldn't have been one. There wouldn't have been a phone. There wouldn't have been a meeting list. There wouldn't have been a big book. There would have been no coffee. There would have been no responsibility group. Our message would have been lost. Thankfully, somebody thought enough of us. To do it before I got there. Well, my role is a pretty small role in some senses. I'm one of 21 trustees. My role is to do something called the trustee at large for the United States. I'm a class B trustee. I didn't know what that meant. And the fact is, none of us come in here presumably knowing what any of this verbiage means. We've got our general service board is like a board of directors. Unlike Microsoft, it's at the bottom. It's at the bottom of the pyramid. We are supposed to be responsive ultimately to the groups, to AA as a whole. We have 14 class Bs, 14 alcoholics, and 7 class As, non-alcoholics. If you ever get a chance to meet a class A, they're remarkable people. We also have a number of folks that work with us. They are paid workers from general service office. If you've not met any of these folks, please do. I will tell you, I have been so impressed. I'm talking about a life impression with these people. They are incredible servants of our fellowship. They are indeed paid servants. We have them, but the realm of knowledge collectively in that office is phenomenal. And it truly dates back to the very, very essence and founding of our fellowship. It's remarkable history and remarkable people. What the board is charged to do is make decisions that are prudent. Good stewards of the fellowship. The trustee at large. I do some international travel for AA in addition to being a board member. I can go into that. There's not enough time. I have a chance to share for another 20 minutes later on this weekend, and I will talk some about that. But I would like to share this message, if I could, about AA here and abroad. Bill Wilson was intent that we would establish beachheads of AA around the world. That we wouldn't limit it to the United States exclusively. Makes sense. I mean, if you let me at my own devices, we're not expanding this beyond the responsibility group in Metairie, Louisiana. I mean, I'm pretty limited in my thinking. But if you think of our responsibility statement, it talks in terms of anyone, anywhere. I'm responsible anyone, anywhere. What I can tell you, and what the message resonated with me as a home group member, is that AA has spread literally to the four corners of the globe. There are a bunch of blank spots in between where we've got a lot of opportunity to carry the message. But what I can share with you from my personal knowledge is that there are people who get sober in countries where members walk through war zones to go to meetings. I can tell you of my personal knowledge that people get sober in communist countries with oppression that you cannot possibly imagine. Some of you may be able to, actually. The there are people that get sober in environments that are challenging beyond our belief. That to meet with other people requires the tundra to be frozen over so you can cross it. They get sober and stay sober using the same steps and tools and legacies that we use. There are people, there are ladies in countries who are stoned to death if they are raped, who get sober and stay sober using the same stuff we use. Our fellowship really is a lot of wrenches fitting all nuts, as was said last night. It works. It's a question for me of are we being attractive? You know, we've got some real questions that are being put to me. I mean, my experience, some of the things, you know, I've been here for eight months as a trustee. I'm going to rotate out and gladly be back to sponsor. I sponsor some guys now. I'm going to be, if I stay sober and I do what I'm doing now, I hope I'm sponsoring guys when I roll out. And I'll be happy, hopefully, as I was before I was a trustee, many more so. But while I'm doing it, I'm supposed to be thinking about are we attractive? Are we taking our principles as principles and making them attractive for people in Iran, in Iraq, for example? I'll tell you, if I go to a meeting in Iraq and I want to end it with the Lord's Prayer, I'm not very attractive. I'm not knocking the Lord's Prayer, I'm not picking on it, but where are you? Who are the people that we're reaching out to? How are we communicating? I'll probably try to end with this because I know I'm getting close to time. I've got an iPhone. You can get the big book on the iPhone. Did you know that? The problem is, you can't get the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous from us on the iPhone. For no real fault, certainly nobody that's alive today, we don't have the copyrights to two of our books. The first and second edition. We have a third and fourth edition and I clearly use the fourth edition in sponsoring people. But if I want to get the big book on an iPhone, I can go buy it because it's free game. We eventually will, I believe, move as a fellowship. We have aggressive and competent leadership at our General Service Office, at our AA World Services Board. We are going to move in this direction eventually. But we need your guidance. We need your input. I want a frickin' big book on my iPhone. But I'm hanging on to it until I can get one from us. Just that simple. Do you want one? More importantly, how do you think your children are going to be communicating with each other and receive communication in 20 years? I do the service I'm doing because I've got a 21 year old who, God forbid, may very well need us. And I've got, and I want to end my story with this, one of the miracles of my recovery, I've got a 3 month old 2 day baby. I do. And I'm going to end with this. I've got this new baby. I don't know how she's going to be. If she needs us, I need you ladies to be here for her. My wife, and I'll end, I do want to end with this because it's one of the greatest gifts I've ever received. My wife and I, Amanda, my wife is my best friend. I met her in sobriety. I played with her as crazy as I've been in and out of sobriety. It took work with our tools. It took me doing our recovery legacy, for example. It took some unity. It took some service. But I have my best friend in my life. And as corny as it is, she is my soul mate. That's my person. We have tried everything you can think of. If it costs money and embarrasses you to have a baby, I've spent the money and it wasn't happening. And just one of those coincidences, we got picked by a young lady back at the beginning of this year to be adoptive parents. And this lady, and I have no position on what people do with their bodies, you know, it's not my thing. I can tell you what I'm doing with my body, but I'm not competent to tell you what to do with yours. I will tell you, I am so grateful this young lady decided to have this baby. It was the biggest gift. For me, it was the biggest gift I've ever gotten. Not just so much for me, my wife was devastated. It was horrible for her. She's not a member of our fellowship. She seems to be healthy normally, but this hurt her soul. And to see this lady pick us and my wife's soul be filled back up, it was like God came and said, thank you. It was the best gift. And we have a little baby. It's just remarkable. I'm 50 years old. Honestly, I think I look pretty good for 50, but I'm still 50. And I'm scared to death. I'm going to be 67, 68 years old when this little girl rolls out of high school. Am I doing the right thing by her? But it's not my place to say that. I'm going to do it today and I'm going to hopefully wake up tomorrow and try to do the same thing tomorrow that I'm doing today. And it works that way with my recovery and it works that way with my life. I'm practicing these principles in all of my affairs. I love you guys. Have a great rest of the convention. Thank you.