Maintaining a Fit Spiritual Condition to Stay Sober – Phil C.

Thank you. My name is Phil Clayton, I'm an alcoholic. I was asked to do Alcoholics Anonymous Sponsorship and I got my understanding. I've been sober since the 13th of November 1978 and I'm very grateful for that opportunity. It was a long time coming and I am glad that it got here. So I can get a little comfortable in here I shared with Dick before the meeting that this is a first for me over 25 years of going to Alcoholics Anonymous, I have never attended a men's meeting before. This is the first time for me. And I've been in meetings where there's been only men, but it's because the women didn't show up. But I've never attended any men's meetings. And he told me a little bit about the history of this and I think he might be going to share a little Bit of that with you before it comes. But I want to let you know that the 13th of November 1978 is not the first time that I come to Alcoholic Anonymous. I started coming to Alcoholics Anonymous somewhere around August of 1968. And I'd come in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, and come in out of treatment centers, and come into and out the Knoxville Nuthouse, and places like that, jailhouses. And never was able to taste sober until the 13th of November 1978. And I had never seen a big book. I asked him what I should talk about, and he said, well, it's a big-book study group, so I ought to mention the big book in here somewhere along the way, so I'll do that. But I didn't know in all of those times, all those six treatment centers and all of those times running out and coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and even when I got sober the last time, a lot of the groups that I went to never, there wasn't even a big book at the groups. That's just the way it was at that time in the area that I come from. And so I'm not gonna say that there were people that stayed sober that way, there were a lot of old timers and there's still a lot old-timers over there that were sober at that time are still sober today but and I'm not going to say that's the reason I went and got drunk the reason i went got drunk all times because I'm alcoholic and wasn't ready to give up but when I went into the hospital the last time and I didn't know any different because every time I'd been to AA I went to hospital first I didn't I guess I didn' t know you could just go to A&A to start with I went the hospital and I went to AA and I walked in and they didn't think I was gonna live and she brought in a bunch of these books, and they put me in pajamas. And I said, well, what are them? And she handed me a big book. And she said, son, she said that's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what AlcoholicsAnonymous is. And, I had never seen one before. And he said, you better read it and find something of you in there or you're not going to make it in this life, you know. And that was my first experience, and that was the 13th of November, 1978. That's my first experiment with the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous . I believe it's the book that saved my life. I have read it. I'm not going tell you every day since then, I have read it a lot, I've been through it many times and I continue to find things in there that I didn't think that I'd read before. I also am not the brightest person in the world either but she gave me that book and my journey this time began in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know where to tie this together other than the fact that in the doctor's opinion and I don�t know where you guys take newcomers but when I give the newcomer the big book of Alcoholics anonymous I give them the doctor�s opinion and ask them if they don't identify there maybe they don't belong here and there's one sentence in there that grabs me clear back to childhood and it says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol and i uh i agree with that today but i didn't agree with it when i was youngster i can remember very young see my father never started drinking until he was 33 years old uh i was born when he was 36 years old, and by the time I started having a memory, alcoholism was full-blown, I think, in my family. Not only with my father, but with my older brothers and sisters. I come from a very large family. There were 14 of us, and I'm number 11. My father had a dance band, and just made up within the family. It was my sisters and him and my mom, and they played the banjos and guitars and fiddles and played dance music and dance halls and stuff. And I can remember them tuning up the instruments and getting ready to go off to play dances. And it was happy and fun, and everybody was having a good time, and they was cleaning up and getting ready, and the girls were putting on their pretty little band uniforms. But then I always remember when they come home at night, there would be arguing and fighting, and for some reason or other, Mom and Dad wasn't getting along. And for a long time, I couldn't figure out what that was. And I remember one night, I was about eight years old, and I remember going at it just terrible. It was about two, three o'clock in the morning and we lived in a big old farmhouse and I come down the stairs and I was just sneaking down watching watching Margie a little bit they was banding back and forth and back and forth and finally my mom said told my dad said kiss my ass and my dad said bear it and my mom jumped up on the couch and up wearing her skirt and down with her pants and I came running around the corner saying don't do it dad don't do it. He said, don't worry, I won't. And that was the end of the argument. That was just the end of The Argument. And the next morning, I remember getting up and they was down sitting around the stove and each had a cup of coffee and they were sitting there just quiet and envisioning like nothing had ever happened at all. And it started putting together. It seemed to me when these people got off to drinking, you know, and then my brothers would come home from the military on leaving, when they would get off to drinking. It always seemed like when they was heading out things was good but when there was a coming back things was bad and I put that together and I said I don't like the effect produced by alcohol. I'm not going to do that. I said if alcohol affects me like it affects those people then I'm just not never gonna drink it and I can remember that I didn't want nothing to do with it. When there was drinking around I'd always find the barn to play in or I would go somewhere else because I just couldn't stand to be around it. I stole my first pint of whiskey when I was 12 years old and there's a bunch of people we lived on this little acreage and there was two houses of people and and they had a big party and one guy brought a case of pints and there were a lot of liquor and partying and stuff going on and just made me sick to my stomach at 12 years old and I stole the pint to get the drinking over with quicker and I hit it up above the Raptors down the basement well later on in the afternoon somebody discovered that a pint was stolen and the big fight broke out and they thought my dad had stole it and of course he didn't and just one thing led to another but the party broke up and it was over with later that evening my dad come to me and he said Petey did you take that pint and I said yeah I did he said how come I said because I was tired of the crap and he commended me for doing that and glad that I'd done it and he says where'd you put it I said up above the rafters he said you just leave it there so we just left it there and it way into the winter sometime when we was poor folks and my dad was never I don't know why but every time he drank liquor it was really bad and he just never did drink it much you know on his way into the winter before we broke out that pint and they got it you know. But that's the way I was, that was my reaction to alcohol then you know I didn't drink it because I liked the effect. I absolutely hated the effect And when I got about 15 years old, I, like all my brothers and sisters before me, got out on the highway, and I stuck up my thumb, and they took off. It seemed like things was better out there. They had left home, and when they come back, it seemed like they got treated different than we did, those of us that stayed at home, and they was glad to see them and happy and everything. And it just seemed like that was the thing to do. When I got old enough, I was going out on The Road. And so I got out and I hitchhiked to Des Moines, Iowa, where my brother was living at the time. And he just went nuts. And he was so sorry that he had done that earlier in his life. And he really tried to teach me. And he said, if you'll go back to school. He said, the one thing I miss most in my life or regret most in My life is not having an education. He said if you go back school, he said I'll let you live here. So I went back to School and I lasted just about two weeks. But once you leave, the wanderlust is just there. and I spent a couple weeks with him and then I hitchhiked to my brother who was my real idol he was on parole from the penitentiary lived down in a little town in Oskaloosa and he was just everything to me all for the wrong reasons I guess blind and stupid was the most important thing I wanted to be just like him he treated women terribly he never kept a job he ran in and out of jail houses and he got a bad discharge in the Army, and that's the only thing like him I didn't become. But I come exactly like him, and after I got like him I could not stand myself. But anyway, I just kept drinking and drinking because I didn' t know anything else. And I don' t want to say that my family taught me that or I don't want to see that I grew up under those conditions or it was their fault or anything like that. But the first time I drank was when I went to Brother Larry's. And after he talked me into staying and Ronnie was home, He was AWOL from the Marine Corps, and they got done with supper, and they went down to the corner. We only lived about a block and a half from the bar, and they used to bet one another, and Ronnie was the smaller of the two, and Larry said, I'll carry you down there on my shoulders. We'll get a case of courts. You carry me back. So Ronnie would carry Larry down, and then Larry would carry Ronnie back with a case de courts, and they'd get back up on the porch with a piece of courts, and Brother Larry opened up a court, and Johnny opened up the court, and they threw me a court. And that's the first time I'd ever drank in my life. I'm 15 years old and about halfway into that court something happened now I'm not gonna say I've got alcoholic that night I really don't believe I got alcoholics at night but something happened that night and I we got giggly you know we told a lot of dirty stories you know and I swore them big swear words that she doesn't mom washed my mouth out if I'd say him at home you know and we got to cuss and swear and tell them dirty stories and just laugh and joke, and my brother's wife was there, and ah, you know, and I just got drunker than crap on a half quart of beer, you know. And I went to bed, and the next morning I got up, they were gone to work, and his wife Vi, who was a lady among ladies, and always was, and she said, Petey, she said how would you like your eggs? And you see, something that happened that day, and through most of my drinking career, although I had one or two, I never was blessed being a blackout drinker. And I could remember, I could remember all the dirty words that I'd said and all of those things. And she was there and she had to listen to that and I just felt guilty and dirty and ashamed. And then I just said I don't care for anything by it and I went out and I wandered the neighborhood all day until Brother Larry and Brother Ronnie got home. We had supper. One of them carried one of them down the street and they got a case of courts. Come back got up on the porch and Larry opened up a court and Ronnie opened up a court and they threw me a court. And about half way into that court then come I think it was the second time I drank I become alcoholic because halfway into that court that remorse and that guilt and that shame and all of that stuff and we told them same dirty stories all over again we swore for them big same old swear words and the chest puffs out like you are when you're a real man you know at 15 and that was my answer now I never drank every day from then on I went back to school and they didn't let me drink that much and then for a couple weeks He said, I went over to Brother Dick's and I lasted there for a while and got sick and went back home and he got thrown back in the penitentiary and I just sort of wandered around for a couple of years until I went into the Army and that's where my drinking really began and maybe should have ended. I got in a lot of trouble in the Army when I was drinking and I'm not going to give you a bunch of history. I got into a lot more trouble after I got out of the Army and I don't think that's a qualification for Alcoholics Anonymous But I do have one. I've been arrested for everything from peeing on the sidewalk to initial charges of attempted murder and a lot of crap in between. And to me, it's absolutely all meaningless as far as coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and getting sober and staying sober. When I started coming to alcoholics anonymous, the cops took me, picked me up off the street in Marshalltown. I was sitting in the middle of Main Street in Marshall town with my back to the traffic. it's a one-way street drinking a bottle of beer and the cops pulled up beside me said Phil what are you doing I said by God I'm drinking the bottle of beer and they said well get in the car and so I took my beer and I got in the car and they took me down to City Hall and they said if you'll talk with this guy maybe we won't have to maybe we want to have to take you to jail tonight and so they called this fella and I sit there on their desk and I said my bottle of Beer with me and and this guy by the name of Dean elder he's dead now he got on the phone and he called me every dirty rotten no good thing you could think of and I was less than the man and I'm in my belligerent stage. And I said, and you old bastard, the only reason you're doing that is because you're on there at the end of the phone. If he's here, I'd smack you. And he said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do by golly. He said, if you let them boys, if You'll Be Good, let them boys take you home. You come up to my office in the morning. He Said, I'll Tell You The Same Thing. And I Said, and I'll smack you then. And He Said That's A Deal. You got a deal. And so they took me home. My wife didn't like it, but they took me home and as we was getting off the phone, he said oh by the way he said bring your wife with you and so we went up there and I walked into his office the next morning he sold real estate and I stood up he took off his glasses and he laid him down and he stood up and he said failure and he gave me every line that he give me the night before and I just hung my head and I said you're right you're right and I don't know how to do any different his version of a 12-step call was he talked me in the end deputy sheriff come and the deputy sheriff took me down to a treatment center. Didn't take me there, they took me to a treatment center, now I needed it probably at that time and it got me off the streets for a little while, I was supposed to stay six weeks I only stayed three, I only staid sober four and was back drinking again I've come to find out that a 12 step call is not picking somebody up and taking them to a treatment center but all of this stuff just goes on and on and through three or four more treatment centers until the fact that I got to one to give me the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. They beat on me long enough there that I come to understand that every time I went back to ANA, some of these old boys were still there. Some of these old boys was still there, they were still sober, they was still doing okay. And I wasn't. And one more time we have to start over. I have to stand at the door and say well haven't we seen you before? Didn't you come here last month for a while or wasn't you here last year. I think the only good I did is I made some good 12-steppers out of a lot of people, because some people think that, gee, you've been around AA that long, you must have learned a lot between then and now. And I said, no, them 10 years was just all they was was teaching other people. I don't think it had anything to do with helping me. And when I got here, the last time I got a hold of an old boy that had come back here from New York, and he still had no big book. There was no big books in that group that night but he done something to me that most anybody else would have done I probably would have smacked except he caught me in the right moment always when you catch him in that right moment and all you can do is hang your head and he said haven't I seen you somewhere before and I said yeah I come here back in May for a little while and he said then I went down the other side of the fence he said well did you learn anything and I said yeah thanks so he said good because do you know damn good to come back here if you didn't. You're just taking up somebody else's chair. So, if you learned something, you're welcome. And then later on in the meeting that night, because there was only six or seven and I'm the newcomer and they direct all the attention to the newcomers, once again he let me have it, you know, and he said, and if you want what we have and are willing to go any length to get it. He talked big book, never seen one, but he talked big book and if we want what you have and want to go any length together, he said we'll go out of our way to help you, but if you think we're going to run after you, you're just crazier than hell. It just made me mad all over again, you don't like, you You know, if you're new here tonight, I want to tell you that if you want what we have and are willing to go to anything to get it, we'll go out of our way to help you, but we're not going to run after you. And that makes people mad sometimes when I say that, but that's what was brought to me. And the big book started to come, and it was sorely, we got sorely involved in service. I wantto talk about how I found out what Alcoholics Anonymous is really about before I get into anything I know about the big book, which is very little. Because I was the only newcomer from November until about March of 79. And every meeting at that time—they're discussion meetings and they were always focused to the newcomers so I got everybody's attention. Every meeting I got somebody's attention, all of their knowledge was being passed on to the new comer, everybody's knowledge. And so it come to me time and time again. And about March in comes this gal named Marge and Little Jack. And they quit talking to me, and they started talking to Marge and Little Jack." Now I didn't mind them talking to Marge because she was a good looking lady, but I didn t think the guys should spend all their attention with Little Jack because after all I'm still here and he's not going to stay sober anyway, and I told him so. And I said, He'll never make it. You got to spend too much time with him. He'll never make it in about three weeks little jack got drunk and i went to him and i just laughed ha i told you so by god how sick was i you know how sick wasn't really happy that another man got drunk so the attention could come back to me you know well jack drank for about three weeks and then he called aa again and they called me to go on that 12-step call and we went to little jack's house and i found out how alcoholics anonymous works I knew very little about AA, I knew very little about anything and they took me to Lil' Jack's house and there he is standing at the kitchen. He's got snot all over him and he's running down and he crying and whining and I didn't see Lil'Jack, I seen me. That's the way I used to be and the house was dirty and unkempt because his wife left because she couldn't stand to be there and the kids didn't want to be there just like me. Kids used to say mom go down the street and play we don't want our friends to see our drunken dad, you see. And we talked to little Jack into coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous. And he's been sober ever since. Now he don't do it like I do it or maybe like we do it and in fact I don't even know if he's even been to a meeting probably in ten years but little Jack by God is still sober. And he got active for a while. And I found out that that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is really about. It's not about me, it's not Phil. This is not a self-help program is a help others program and the quicker I can get around to maybe trying to help somebody else whether it's setting up a meeting or making coffee going on 12-step call or just sticking out my hand and saying hi or being a friend then the quicker i'm gonna get well and I think that's what the big book teaches us we eventually get there we only have to work 11 steps before we get to do that you know we have to give up and then we have to clean up a little bit then we'd have to give up more we have to take a lot of inventories now colleagues anonymous that's what the big book has taught me and a lot people disagree with me they talk about back in there and in the action where it talks about the tenth step it says on awakening in the morning or and when we retire at night they talked about that as being part of the 10th step has nothing to do with 10 step 10 step quits after the 10 step and it says this this thought brings us to step 11 and then step 11, and it says when we retire at night. And that's a whole new inventory. I think that's the inventory between me and my God. You see, I've done several inventories. I've had an inventory with my sponsor at 4 and 5. I've done an inventory with my sponsor at 6 and 7 because we had to find out what my character defects was even though I didn't think I had all that many. And we had to find out what the offices were. I had to do another little inventory in 8 and 9 because I had to make a list about the people that I had harmed and how I was going to go about doing them. So that's the inventory. And 10 asked us do an inventory spot check all of the time even daily sometimes more often than daily you know do we stop and and uh the 11th step i think is inventory at the end of the day is it's inventory with just me and my god just me in my god that's when i lay my head on the pillow when i retire at night and i review the day i'm not reviewing i can lie to this guy down here have before ain't gonna say that i won't again he knows it i'm telling him anything he don't know but when I lay down my head on the pillow you see and I happen to believe that the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous takes us, and it says that's what it's designed for the big books of Alcoholic Anonymous are designed to help us find a power greater than ourselves that can relieve me of my obsession with alcohol and lead me to a better life and believe me it has and that's the one that I take at night and I think that's most important inventory that I like to take that one every day when i retire at night what in the hell did i do wrong what could i have at least done better not necessarily wrong i don't do everything wrong every day even the clock that don't work is right twice a day it's just so i'm oh i'm not completely not completely stupid and and i like to use that sometime dick don't let me get away with it but i liketo use my lack of education as as you know well i'mnot very smart i'mnotvery bright yeah i am you know and uh but when i retire at night and i take that inventory with my god you know i can fool everybody i can even fool me in the mirror if i want you know we can put on that face and we can you know but you can't when you're taking the inventory with just you and god you can do that and what can i try to do better tomorrow i send the guys that i sponsored and phil and i were talking about that just a little bit before the meeting i sent the guys through the through the book a new pair of glasses every once in a while because i like the way chuck chamberlain talks about his relationship with his god and it's just simply if it's a good day he walks in he opens up the closet and he walks and he says thank you god for a good day and if he's screwed up he walks into cost and he sees gc what i asked to made out of myself today god help me do better tomorrow and it is just about that simple you know I'm not the very a very heady person I'm not a very very I think an awful lot but it always goes nowhere you know I don't know if I've always done the big book like it says I don't if I'd done the inventory like I was supposed to do that but I do know that I've done several inventories and the one that made sense to me is the one I've been with the fellow by the name of Richard Peake and I drove down to Missouri he was my sponsor at the time and he had moved down there, a little acreage, and had a little pond. And we went out, and we sat around that little pond one afternoon. And I got to tell him every dirty, rotten, corruptful thing I'd ever done. Not necessarily just I resented so-and-so because this is what I'd done. And I Got to Hear All the Rotten Crap That He Had Done in His Life. And that is supposed to, the big book says, if you go back and then after you've done the fifth step and if you review the first five proposals and if you're done, you can do the 6th and 7th and then you can feel pretty good about yourself. And I called him and I said, I don't feel very good about myself. He said, of course you won't. He said a dummy like you can't do that. And he said, you've got to do the sixth and the seventh step. And so we'd done the sixth or seventh step and we found the character defects and we'd found opposites and all that stuff and we did a seven-step prayer and I still, I said I don' t necessarily feel good about myself. And he says, of coarse you won' t. He said the dummy like, you cant. He said, the only way you're going to feel good is when you get into 8 and 9 and start putting back. And I think that's the magic. And I Think That's What the Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Is All About, is Putting Back. See what we can pack into the stream of life instead of take out. I've been a taker all my damn life. Didn't even know it. Had no intentions of being that way. It's just something that just... And I've got to watch myself today because I can still be a takER today. I can let you do for me what I ought to be doing for myself. And so I have to spot check that an awful lot. What I like the most is the fact that that when I was able to do a few of those amends, just get started. A few of the simple, the basic ones. When I got to stand with Brother Larry. Brother Larry and I run down the alley one day with knives going to stick each other and his wife jumped in the middle. Vi that I talked about jumped inthe middle or otherwise we probably would have stuck one another. And it was out of both of our respect for her that I just threw my knife down and just walked away. It just was not worth it. I just loved her too much. And so I had to stand him outside his house and tell him what kind of a brother I really was and the harm that I'd done and the way that I reacted and the crap that I caused him and his family and I was trying to live a different life and at that time he was attending a bar in Skid Row as you can get in Marshalltown, Iowa and he still got to be the big old tough guy and I got to tell him that I loved him and what can I do to make it better and he said I feel the same way but I just can't talk like that you see and that's the best we could do but I made those amends and when I sat mama down on the bed and God I hurt her so bad just making amends that i had to make amends all over again you know and said i know mom i said i know for years i blamed you and dad for the way that i was but i know today oh she said she just busted down crying she said you didn't blame us did you you didn's blame us we're people with it's great educations we've never had no money nothing to do with we tried to provide what we could and we want you to just be happy that's all we ever wanted for you and you know so we got through that and i asked her what i could do to make it right? And she said, just be happy. And this is the mama. This is the mama that told me one time she was so sick of me and my actions that she was just thinking about committing suicide. And I went to the kitchen cupboard and I got a butcher knife and I laid it on the arm of her chair and said, I'll watch. That's the kind of guy that I am. That'sthe kind ofguy that come to Alcoholics Anonymous. That' the kindof guy that got into this big book. Not proud of that. Really, I even hate to say that. But I want you to know this. Before Mama died, she was in a home for about 12 years, and we'd get to get her out. She was on oxygen and medicine the last time we had her, and medicine several times a day, and on oxygen. And we got her home, and she spent the weekend, and I took her back on Sunday. And before we got back to the home, we got a phone call, and it was Mama. And I thought, well, what was wrong? And she says, oh, Petey, when can I come again? And I said, I don't know, Mama. I said we're all out of vacation now, but as soon as one of us can be with you all the time, we'll get you out again. And she said, I just want to let you know that I've never lived in a house where there was so much love. You can just feel it. Now, where does that come from? It doesn't come from a guy like me. It doesn' t come from a guy lke me. It comes from I don' t know. I' ll try. It comes from you people. It comes from doing somebody else's way in life instead of your own, whether it be Dick's or Dick's sponsor or somewhere down the line. Somebody has handed some stuff down the way here and it's written through a book of the experiences of other people and to make use of other peoples' experiences that's given me a better life that some people can like me by God. And I never had a friend in the end, not even my children. I told you how they felt about me. They thought I was going to die when I went to hospital the 13th of November 1978 and they asked my wife if she'd bring some clothes and will participate if I did live and she didn't have nothing to do with it and she brought me in some clothes and she threw them on the edge of the bed and she said they tell me that you ain't going to live long enough to wear these maybe but there they are in case you do and she turned around and walked out she was done we have now been married a little over 35 years and I just cannot where do I give credit to it has to come from right here this book and the people that have handed it to me piece by piece everything I have today is a result of that everything I have is as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous I had nothing when I got here absolutely nothing I didn't have two nickels I could rub together and call my own it was something my wife had picked up she'd always done that every time I'd go off to jail or every time i'd run out of town or skip off to Texas she would have to pick up the hot checks and take care of the kids and go to welfare and do all of that kind of stuff and pick up The Pieces and she picked up The Piece why that old woman stayed with me all this time I don't know and you'd think now she'd be getting even but I don' t know she just loves me to death and i her she's my life's companion and there's just nobody they care about anymore the big book give me some promises after give me some bad stuff you know it says on page 52 that we were having trouble with personal relationships we couldn't control our emotional natures we were preyed to misery and depression we couldn'd make a living we had a feeling of uselessness we were full of fear we were unhappy we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people does that describe me i think does that describe me I just I'm the only I have to say it's simpler than that I was just a goddamn scumbag I just i just I just was I was worthless if it wasn't good for me or if there wasn't something for me good in it I didn't have nothing to do with it I was just a scumbag there's just there's no other way to put it you know and then how can you go from that from that there to we're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it you'll comprehend the word serenity we will know peace how can he get from there to there jesus i've been trying to get from there to their all my life just be able to lay my head down on the pillow and not feel guilty and dirty and rotten rotten and shameful and in those things and how do you get there and my sponsor done it one step at a time one day at a time we just put one foot in front of the other and life gets better i want to tell you about some of the things that's going on in my life today as a result of the big book of alcoholics anonymous because i have this right here um this is all i'm going to do from the big list and finally we have our colleagues anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance it reminds us for personalities they were actually to practice a genuine humility this to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of him who presides over us all and i have so many blessings in my life today and i don't know even where to begin to give credit for but i do know this that every time i've met a stumbling block in my life since the 13th of november 1978 somebody in alcoholics anonymous has been there to pull me on through to the other side and life is so good now that that what was read before the meeting that that the most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. If that's true, I still have more life ahead of me, and if the most satisfactory years are still ahead, God, what a life I have in store for me because life is just wonderful today. As a result of paying attention to sponsors and doing the things that I'm supposed to do, life is good. I asked Dick to be my sponsor some 17, 18 years ago, he asked me what my, or I told him what my two biggest problems were. And the first one was if you ask me what I want to be when I grow up, I couldn't tell you. And the other one is if you asked me where home is, I could not tell you where that is. I was born and raised in Creston, Iowa. I left there when I was 15. I have been all over the place. Nowhere do I have places called home. And I'm going to move again for three years, and then I'm going to go move again. So I still have those same questions that I asked him some 18 years ago is, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. And he answered that. He said, when you grow up, you're going to be an alcoholic. And I said, and I don' know where home is. And he said, I know where your home is, it's Alcoholics Anonymous wherever you go. And by God, that's been the truth for me. Wherever I go, Alcoholics Anonymous is my home. I find out when I stick close to you, I'm in good stead no matter what's going on in my life. The job I have today, I make more money than I can spend if I spend it responsibly. And I only have it because of a sponsor, because I wasn't even going to fill out the application. I got down to the last question on the application and it says, have you ever been arrested? And I just threw down the pencil and I called Dick And I said, there ain't no sense in me filling that out. He said, oh, it couldn't be that bad. I said I've been arrested more times than I can remember. So there's no sense. He said well if you don't fill it out they ain't going to hire you. If you do fill it and they don't like it they ain' gong to hire either way you ain't going to have the job so why don't you just fill it out and he gave me a way to fill it out. He said why don' t you fill it out like this. He said why don''t you say I've been arrested many, many times for alcohol related instances. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good stead since 1978 and have not been arrested since 1977 let it go so I did that and my wife said now, let it grow but I'm not one to let anything go so when I got down to the interview I called him over and I said come here, we've got to do this right now I said, there's no sense in me wasting your time and your mind. Let's get right down here to this last question. I want you to look at this last questions here right now. And I put it down exactly that way. It's still there. It's copied. I've been arrested many, many, many times for alcohol-related incidences. I'm a member and good stead of Alcoholics Anonymous, have been since 1978. I've not been arrested since 1977. And she said we admire people that can change their life like that. And I have a few children that could probably go to that program, too. And I got the job. I wasn't even going to apply. I got a job. What a blessing. What a blessings. My children are all doing well. My son has his own business. He and I used to scrap. Once again, my sponsor took care of that. And they'd call me every day from school about something, and I'd have to pound on him or hate me or something. And finally Dick said, why don't you do this? And I've got to say this because I knew he was wrong . He said, Why don't just call the principal up there and tell him don't call you no more? That boy either stays in school, or you kick him out. And if he kicks him out, then you give him a couple weeks to get a job where he hits the road. He said, you're going to make him mad, but why don't you do that? He said – and you tell his wife – tell your wife that's what you're gonna do. You're gonna call the principal, and you're telling him, don't call the house no more, and she's gonna get mad at you. And then you tell that boy when he comes home tonight that you're gong to call the principal and you're going to tell him don't call you no more and he's gonna get mad at you and he did and she did and he did they all got mad at me the principal never called me no more he was a junior in high school and he hadn't even finished some freshman classes and he took two years worth of classes in one year he graduated his senior year with Teachers Awards and I didn't even get to help him do it he didn't even let me help him do it. And we have a relationship today. He comes to me with his children, he comes to be with his problems, he come to me to help him with his budgets, he comes for me to helping with his problem in life. Now where does it come from? God, it has to come out of here because this is all I've been taught for 25 years. The only people I hang around are AA people so it has come out the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been falling asleep at work or from well that too but I live in a little town of Boone Iowa and and I I work about an hour away and down in Des Moines and I work the night shift and I'm never going to get off of the night shifts and I have three more years to work and it seems like I work all night and by the time I fall asleep before I get home and it's really becoming very dangerous I almost hit the ditch, and so we made a decision to sell our home in Boone and move to Des Moines. So I'm moving into new territory once again, although I know all of those people and all that stuff, but it's another strange new territory. And we're moving once again and we found a house that quick, put mine on the market, my house sold in seven days and we bought one just a little longer than that and it's just, I can't tell you life is good. I continue to work hard for Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know anything else. I don�t know what to quit, you know? I've been going to the Eldora Boys Training School, that's my favorite. I've been going up in the month of March and the month of September. Been doing that for 18 years. Go up every Thursday night, been doing that for 18 years and may have to give that up now because it'll be a considerable distance more. But I love to do that. All of the fellows that I sponsor are involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. We stay out where people are out and we keep doing what people are doing and I try to stick around the winners I don't know if I can say anything more other than then then if the most satisfactory years of my existence lie ahead what a treat I'm in store for and I think I'll just close at that yeah my name is dick martin i'm an alcoholic everybody by the grace of god and actions of a and sponsorship i've been sober since september the 15th 1965 and i'm very grateful for that i want to thank phil made great talk thank you phil talks about his life coming out of the big book you know i got sober on the east coast and washington dc and uh in 1965 and at that particular period of time uh the big book and the importance of it was being pushed to the back gso itself was not recommending that people buy the bigbook bill wilson was in his latter years and he was getting a little goofy and doing some strange things, and they thought that if he really was doing the right life and living the right way, that he wouldn't be as unhappy and unfulfilled as he was at that particular time. And so they didn't suggest people buy the big book. They figured he was making too much money out of it, and the importance of the big book. I mean, Phil was talking about going to meetings over in Iowa in a particular area where he went, and there not being a big book there. Well, that was the same thing all over the East Coast. I remember talking to one of the old fellows from up there in Iowa. they would bring him to meetings and they had an overstuffed chair that they would bring for him to sit in you remember that I remember him cussing at me one time a big book and I threw mine away years ago and I'm never going to pull one out I said well you've been sober a long time if you had the big book you got when you first got sober it's probably worth a lot of money. You ought to pull it out and sell it. Maybe do somebody else some good. But I was on my, on a crusade, I guess, when the time came that the Foxhole Men's Big Book group started. I don't know what kind of a crusade it was but there's a fellow in Canada and his first name was Tom and I've been trying to think of his last name and I can't think of it to save my life Bream? No, not Bream Grafton Tom Graftan Who said that? Good, good man I'm glad somebody's around to pick up my memory wherever it was. But anyway, Tom Grafton talked about starting a meeting up there in Winnipeg, and it was a men's big book study and so on and so forth. And Nob and I were having a conversation, and we both thought that that was a good idea, so we decided we would do it. and called Tom Grafton and asked him how they did it and he said we just do it one word at a time and he said we have somebody read something in the big book when he or anyone else at the table relates to what has been read they stop and discuss it and so we started doing that there were I believe if my memory serves me correctly there were about 14 people at the first meeting one of those guys got drunk he came to the meeting he was wearing a yellow shirt and he was as yellow as the shirt was he was so badly jaundiced but he left the meeting and started drinking that weekend got drunk and died and died that week there's another guy there named Lenny And Lenny drank a number of times, but he finally got sober in AA and met some gal that was very religious. He decided that he wasn't an alcoholic, and he decided that religion was the answer for him. And it has been up to this time because he stayed sober. I wouldn't suggest that to anybody else. I didn't suggest that to him. Anyway, that's what he chose to do. But I was sitting here trying to remember off and on the names of the people. Jerry Wills was one of them, Nobe Dorsey, and I was there, and Gene Burgess and John Smeltzer was there. And Terry Lindgren was there and I don't remember who the rest of them were. I'm just we all signed a bit a book and uh I think the archives had it or had it may still have it I don't know but I can't remember who else you remember anybody else on there yeah but they're all listed in there and last time I knew uh uh every every other person who's involved with that big book study who came to that first one was sober today. Sober, not only sober, but they're active members of Alcoholics Anonymous and they're doing something going out of their way trying to help somebody else. And that's the way we stay sober. We had to learn to read the big book and read what it has to say in there. And as we learned to read the big book and learned what it had to say in there. We were able to change our lives and redirect our lives so that we were helping somebody else, we were giving out instead of taking in. And it was something that I've read here recently which has really struck me as being important. And just to give you some sort of an idea, it says it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, because alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Everyone has a spiritual condition, whether it's bad or good or somewhere in between or excellent. We all have a spiritual condition because we're spiritual beings. But the shape that we're in, regardless of what time of day or what year or what month it is or how long you've been sober or whatever, your sobriety and my sobriery is not going to be dependent upon my spiritual condition, but it's going to be dependent upon my maintenance of the spiritual condition. And the maintenance of a spiritual condition is such that what that means is that what I do in life today and if I reach out and I try to help somebody else that maintenance, just the maintenance, is going to help me to stay sober. So if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous you've got a lifetime of action ahead of you if you've been here for some time you still have a lifetime of good life ahead of you if you maintain your spiritual condition but you've gotta do the maintenance you take the steps and you help somebody else you live the traditions and pass that along you put on events like this and you do the other things that are necessary for you to let live and to let live. And try not to destroy other people but try to build them up and try to make something out of it. We're all going to make mistakes. We're also going to get confused and go in the wrong direction at one time or another. But by God we can straighten ourselves out and follow the line. And we can do something about it. And be the men that we dream about being or at least we can approach it. I think that the men in this room obviously have, I would presume you that you have all gone to that big book study at one time or another or you've gone to some big book study at some time or other and you've learned that. It's not, it's not it seems to be in vogue today to interpret what the book has to say and to be able to read between the lines and know what the white is and I don't know where that came from I don' t know why it's there but it's an unnecessary thing in Alcoholics Anonymous just read the black and leave the white alone it's really pretty simple every year at my anniversary time, on my anniversary, I start reading the big book. I don't read it from cover to cover. I read through Dr. Bob's story and I quit but I do that every year so you know for 38 years I've done that and I hope I'll be able to do it 39th year I have seen men come to the men's big book study and get and stay sober and form some of these lifetime friendships i know that the camaraderie and the fellowship that's developed there in that big book study as well as the clear-cut understanding that this is how we stay sober by taking these actions is important. It's not only important, it's just absolutely necessary. And I am proud of you guys who have maintained that meeting for so many years. It took us a year and a half, by the way, to go through the big book, the first 164 pages. It�s not because we were slow or dumb, it�s because we just went through it a word at a time. And if someone identified with the word we stopped and talked about it takes a long time to get through the book that way but I'll tell you one thing there wasn't one of us in that first group there's two guys that drank again the rest of us are still sober and active and alcoholic synonymous we're sponsoring people we're taking the actions on a daily basis and God I'm proud of them I think it's a a fine thing. And I think if you're not involved in the men's big book study, you ought to be. Go back and take a refresher course. It's not a bad thing at all. I want to thank you for asking me. My memory doesn't serve me completely so I can remember all the names of those people. But I can tell you this, if you get that list out, I can tell you what they're doing today. And that's the important thing. It' s what we're doing today thanks thanks dick after we close please if you would help us out by putting the chairs on top of the tables just like at foxhall we'd surely appreciate it it'd help us clean up a lot we will close now with a vision for you followed by the lord's prayer our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we only know a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand god admit your faults to him and your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny may god keep you and bless you until then and we'll close with the lord's prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. that is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen keep coming back it works