Make Me a Channel – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 21 of 25 – Larry L.

Hi everybody, my name is Larry Thomas. I'm an alcoholic. Can you hear me okay? Thumbs up? All right. Thank You Teresa for that introduction and I was expecting a little more than that but uh but you're cutting into my time as it is all right so anyway i uh i'm glad to be invited out here and uh i don't know if we have any uh any new folks with us i hope so i really do hope so uh because uh alcoholics anonymous when i was new seemed like a nightmare to me it just seemed like you know I'm the type of alcoholic who has that kind of ego where I'm laying in the gutter suffering looking down on the people they hate you know and what had happened to me is Alcoholics Anonymous became a dream come true and after several years and being around you folks and being in your book studies i uh i realized it became an answered prayer it became a prayer come true because i was told early on that everything i needed to be happy will be given to me by the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and anything that hinders that happiness will be removed by the Program of Alcoholic Anonymous that my search was over and for people of my type we've been searching for a long time never knowing really what the problem was and to find that my search was over kind of took a took the heat off a little bit you know um i picked this uh i picked i didn't pick this step but i i picked this topic of make me a channel only because I'm not spiritual but I'm a plumber and it reminded me of plumbing really you know I can either be in Alcoholics Anonymous like a reservoir just keeping everything for myself or I can become a channel and and I like that because in my line of work things are supposed to flow through that channel one place to the other and I believe that's the whole idea of Alcoholics Anonymous it's not so much for me to come and get something as it is for me either come and give something just for the sheer joy of doing it and what made this stepping extremely hard for me to do is my lack of honesty when the young lady was reading and she said willingness honesty and open-mindedness I was willing to give the eleventh step a little bit of attention I was open minded to what you guys were saying but I wasn't honest about my true belief about a power greater than myself because a long time ago now my sobriety date is May 2nd 1982 and if you're new my sponsor tells me I'm living proof that a man can stay sober for a little over 38 years and not amount to a damn thing so I'm here to give you guys some hope and and you know growing up the book talks about that he talks about that we have these childhood conceptions about a power greater than ourself and stuff like that and I had these childhood ideas about a power greater myself and it just it happened to me it stung me when i was about five years old when i was supposed to have a baby brother and my mom and my dad promised me man my dad came down in my bedroom and said you're gonna have a big brother and for nine months man i started oiling up my baseball glove and saving up my baseball cards and thinking about this kid brother me and him are going to go to the drag races and go to the beaches and stuff like that i had a little buddy you know what i mean and uh and when it became time for my dad to take my mom to the hospital he came back that day and came back to that same room that i was in and he told me that my baby brother died and i don't remember having any type of concern about my mom or my father but what it did in this little head is what type of God would create a baby and kill it and I thought my god it and you know my mom was you know a part-time Catholic and so she used to you know have the rosary and you know st. Christopher medals every now and then so you know she spoke to me of God like you keep doing that you'll go to hell that kind of you know I mean and I felt my god what type of god we create it and kill it and i thought my god i'm next and uh what happened to me is it closed my mind from that point on to anything that had to do with the power greater than myself any talk of religion uh and it made me not trust my mom and dad that was my resentment when i come to you guys it was on top of the list with this thing called god and then my my mother and father and uh and i blame them i remember uh sitting down with my dad and talking about this resentment you know and my dad you know i was born in detroit and i come out to california after being in an orphanage for a while and uh my dad was a my dad was a happy drunk. My dad was a Happy Singin' the Blues, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin Drunk man. He used to get drunk and sneak into his own home. It was an amazing team you know he was a window-climbing Malke you know which is a lost art in Alcoholics Anonymous you know. That old drunk standing on that gas meter pounding all night ready to make the magic dive through the window which he hopes is his own you know and and you know he used to tell me you know how good you got it and stuff like that I told him you know he was a World War two vet he was the refinery worker you know he's seen a lot of a lot fights a lot a terror in the ghettos of Detroit in World War 2 his ship got sunk in Midway good buddies of his died and stuff like that so we've seen a lotta things been a lot of places and when I'm telling my dad about this resentment and stuff like that you see because I blame my father you know for something he had no no power I remember running after him with all 70 pounds yelling and screaming you promised me you promised you know and I blamed that dad for something he had power over little did I know he was just as sad and I remember making those amends and I told my dad this little story of woe and he said, I understand. I understand." He says, I would have felt that way too. He says I just need to let you know something. I need to explain something to you. He said, you know for nine months, he says I've been to a lot of places and I've seen a lot of terrible things Larry. And some hard things to live with growing up and going to war and and stuff like that he says but by far by far son the hardest day of my life was knowing that for nine months i watched you save your baseball cards and get your little hopes up and knowing that i had to walk down the hallway in that house and tell you that your dream was a nightmare he says i would have hated me too but i couldn't lie to you son i couldn't lie to you he said uh it broke my heart and i would have hated me too and uh you guys start me on an avenue of of love for my father that i had never experienced i started drinking when i was 11. broke my old man's heart because him and my mom worked extremely hard uh work jobs two jobs and stuff like that just so that their children would not have to live in a depression like they did in detroit and i would sit in this house with this god-awful sense of entitlement that because i am just showing up i deserve everything that a man could want without lifting a finger this sense of entitlement that I don't have to earn what you guys do. This sense of entitlement, that I'm beneath chores. This would follow me my life and into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. That by the time I got to you, I had this entitlement idea that just because I'm in a room, I don''t gotta lift a finger. You guys gotta make the coffee. You guys got to do all this. And you know, and and I'll just wait for the serenity that you guys earned and hope that it's handed to me. This sloth darn near killed me growing up and after I got sober, you know? And when I started drinking at 11 was no fault of my parents. They gave me all the love that two young people could. They were 17 and 18 and they were just babies, man. Babies having babies. And I learned to love both of these folks so well because you know, and started drinking at 11 and you know I didn't wanna do anything good with my life. Alcohol became my God at age of 11 because I know I'm a nobody and you hear it enough you're gonna believe it. I knew I was a nobody and I didn' want nothing from nobody. I wanted to go through life without lifting a finger. And alcohol became my guide. I didn't need a power drinker in myself, I was drinking it. It gave me everything you were getting with hard work and going to church. And for two hours when I was 11 years old, I took a shot of Four Rose Whiskey. And for the first time in my life, an 11 year old nobody became somebody for three hours. and I'll buy that three hours for the rest of my life rather than being nobody when I'm not drinking and I bought into it and I loved it and he gave me everything I needed to became an answer to me you know and uh you know I never laughed so hard as I did that day I never threw up so much as I did that way I remember that evening I kissed my first Latin woman at 11 years old it was my aunt you know I marked it down my uncle did too you know and uh and I didn't head off the skid row that next day and come to the Alano club and join AA you know but I did what a lot of us did I marked that spot because a little nobody found something found an answer where he didn't have to go to school he didn'T have to do nothing everything came to him with a shot of four rose whiskey and i pursued that to the gates of insanity and death and beyond because it always came to me in an answer i'm the type of alcoholist that i have been sitting in rooms my entire life since i was 13 until the time i was 30 with people from the law and in the cloth and and and medical people and church people and legal people all trying to tell me that i'm an alcoholic and they had books and literature to convince me that I was an alcoholic all my life and people have been trying to talk me into this thing and my saving grace is that they couldn't because that would rob me of the most divining moment in my life and that is in may 2nd 1990 1982 in the streets of wilmington california i conceded to my innermost self that i was an alcoholic i believed at that moment i was brushing shoulders with the power greater than myself when you are beaten that low and you become willing to do anything that people tell you to do you. I believe there is a sense of God there right now. You may not look like it, but when you become to do anything to lift that merciless obsession, as my book says, I believe you are at a great starting point and that's what happened to me. In 1973, I got arrested in downtown Los Angeles for being a public nuisance and an out-of-state forger. I was forging prescriptions and uh and i i was across from alvaro street in downtown los angeles at a chevron gas station i was on a pile tires and i wasn't over there vaping you know i was doing what people like me and do you do when you get to that point there isn't anything you wouldn't do for a shot of alcohol there is no oh i can't do this you begin to sell your soul one day at a time. And everything decent that you ever thought you were is gone. All because you need one more drink, all because when you're sober it's the worse you are. The way that you are when you are not drinking drives you to drink time and time and time again. They came and arrested me, and they sent me up to Los Angeles County Jail wayside where I'm going to be sentenced to three and a half years in the state penitentiary. After about two months, they put about 40 of us in a black and white bus and send us to the South Bay Courthouse in Torrance, California. I'm in a holding tank about the size of two big garages, on a concrete floor with a Vons bag and no hope wondering where you're going to send me now. And at four o'clock in the afternoon, oh everybody's gone, all these other guys have been called out and sent away, and at 4 o' clock in the afternoon I was the only one left. I was on a concrete floor, with a vons bag, and no-hope wondering where are you going to send me now? And at 4 O'clock In the afternoon the Scottish man with a patch rolled open this jail door and he goes hi lad he says uh are you larry thomas and i said yes sir i am he says come with me son we're going to aa and i thought oh my god what's aaa you know who's the scottish pirate all of a sudden you know i've been hallucinating so much i didn't know if he was real you know and and what is aa i've heard of or and po you know and looking back well over 40 years I know exactly what he is because this meeting is full of them it's what my book calls a trusted service and what made that man a trusted servant was simply this he had no business being there he wasn't a counselor and he wasn t a probation officer he uh he was a refinery worker and he just got the worst news of his life and that news was that his wife had been have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and he knew she was going quickly and she knew he was in good hands he knew she wasn't good hand but he knew he wasn't you see what somewhere in his book study in Long Beach California somewhere is speaker meeting in Sydney Australia A manner of living that ingrained in a mist, that practical experience tells us nothing will ensure immunity from drinking but intensive work with other alcoholics. That this works. He didn't think of milk and whiskey. It had been removed. Just like I read with you in those book studies when Bill was laying in that town hospital. didn't just lay there and have an experience, Ebby came along and took him through those Oxford proposals. And Bill had this big kaboomy, this blinding flash. One that I never would know. One that would make me feel that I didn't do the right thing for five years. I would wonder why I didn t have this kaboomi? How come I didn d have it after my third step, my fifth step? you know and then still laying in that hospital bed after Bill had his blinding experience he's still laying and that peace that bit the thought came to him that maybe he could help other alcoholic now there wasn't even an AA yet and the thought to him then maybe I could help over how many you had that your first day that's how rare it was And I think maybe for me that my primary purpose, our singleness of purpose if you will, was hatched that afternoon. And I thought maybe just maybe that the thing that happened to Bill suddenly he's hoping will happen to me gradually but the end game is the same. We're going to carry this message to other alcoholics. is no reservoir here we're gonna have a channel you see that's what that step is all about for a guy like me my Steve you can't be told to sponsor people only for so long eventually we're hoping you're going to be inspired to do it you can be told and go to meetings only for so long eventually we're hoping you'll be inspired to do that and that's what happened to me I come in spot and that would that's with desperation is so good for it's not a good long-term remedy for sobriety but man it gets you started because if you're like me we've been desperate before and what happens to me when I stopped drinking desperation wears off in about two months and if I don't replace that desperation with inspiration I'm a dead man and the only thing that's been able to inspire me has been the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and this fellowship because I can't stay sober just on inspiration either eventually I got to add perpetuation I gotta carry this message and when you become inspired to do that I hope you surround people surrounded by people who found that fire because i certainly was and that man in 1975 took me to my first meeting with alcoholics anonymous and i was ready for a long ride up north and maybe some lunch and he takes me for a 15-minute car ride to my first meeting of alcoholics and honors in 1975 rose up to this dingy stinky rotten filthy perverted torrents lamita alano club and i thought my god i've never seen that word before and what is that a hawaiian bar you know and he rolled up to this club and you know there's all the alanos walking around everybody had a nickname with a tattoo and he starts introducing me to these alanos indian genie and captain bob and tennessee bill and singing sam and serenity sam and bicycle ray and santa claus ray and dancing pete and whistling butt i thought oh my god you know i just got me out of the camera real nut house i just left people like this right little moose was 102 years old she comes running across the parking lot hi honey my name is moose and i'm expecting a miracle i said i bet you are i said I'm not it you know and uh and then this big transvestite comes circling me like a helicopter in los angeles you know and you know he come up to me in his new muumuu and he says hi he says uh i can't wait to take you to our candlelight meeting i said i don't think so big guy you know until i get my ear you know and i thought my god if that's aa i don' t want any part of this you know and if that is the effect of that blue book i do not want to crack that thing open either and the long story short is from 1975 to 1982 I came in and out of meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous on a regular basis only because that's the only place that would take me back you know I would come back and I wouldn't drink and I would try to have a material experience where I get my my job and all this together because I'm sure that's going to be answered never once diving into the program of law it became another place for me to try to use the people for me, to try and make another shortcut. And I would run around all those years telling newcomers that AA don't work for me and the miracle of my life as I sit here with you folks is that AA doesn't work for me. I work for it. I try to do everything I can for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and on May 2nd 1982 I made this phone called and every time i remember coming out of this hotel you know panhandled some money and i looked at me and i panhandle some money and i called alcoholics anonymous and i got this guy that was picking me up all these years and i asked him if he would come and get me don this is larry i'm down here at the mission will you come and give me you told me the most profound thing i've ever heard in my life he said no he says you know where we are you know what we got get your rusty rear down here yourself i'm tired of chasing after you and he hung up and i thought my god whatever happened to my a love you know i just heard it for the first time in my life it was up to me to come to you and what happened that morning i'll never forget this is i got my shopping bag out of that mission i was at the beacon light mission and they kicked me out of the mission there was only 10 of us there at that mission and i ran around the corner and i cried because i knew i was going to drink again because that's what i do when i stop drinking i'm like a tail on a kite it's just a matter of the wind hitting me and everything in me didn't want to do this and the only thing that i'd never done is what you people were doing in aa and what happened to me that morning is i started crying like a baby and i came to believe that morning not in god i didn't come to believe in the book or sponsorship i cameto believe in something that i read with you in a book study i cametobelieveinthehopelessnessandthefutilityofmylifewithmerunningitanymore that at 30 years old i was at the top of my game laying in that gutter with me running the show and i had to do the hardest thing for alcoholics to do and that is to reach out and ask for help. Everything in me didn't want to do that. I know I'm a loser, I know i'm a quitter at life, but don't tell me I can't handle two ounces of whiskey and I couldn't. And not only did I come to believe in the hopelessness of my life, I came to believe in simply this, that I'm an alcoholic and the idea of the first step for me is not that I can't drink, the idea is that I'm gonna. If I don't do this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm going to drink. I have not the power to stop it and I walked that 10 miles with my poopy pants and no hope, waddled up to this guy named Don and I asked him that question I never asked a man in AlcoholicsAnonymous. I started bawling like a baby and I said I don' know what to do with my life but you be my sponsor. And that guy lit up like a chandelier for about five minutes. And then he lit into me for a half hour and he gave me the contract. He says, it's simply this son, you make the effort. I'll make the efforts. You don't make the effect. Don't bother me. Lose my number kid. I got guys who want to do this. And I fell in love with that man. And we started working these steps, Alcoholics Anonymous. and i and i did what the people in these clubs told me to do don't worry about that second step don't hurry about god put it on the shelf we'll get to it later you know no make it it's god as you understand it it'll come it'll go worry about it let's get busy and i didn't know that i did that and it worked for a while and then as i'm reading step 11 it reads something like this to me stop through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with god as we understood him praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out prayer and medication are our principal means of conscious contact with god uh-oh now they're calling me out now they are raising that question that they raised this week way back before the third step they had me cornered and now they got me now they've got me at five years sober they've gotten me they got me corner and i'm sitting in your book study and i am doing everything that you guys want me to do but yet i'm blowing off this thing called god you cannot be wrong with people and right with god and at five years sober i'm still wrong with people and looking good for an hour and a half in the meetings and going home and dying trying to work an honest program dishonestly and then i read it this is the how and why of it first of all we had to quit playing god it didn't work next we decided that hereafter in this drama of life god was going to be our director he is the principal we're his agents he is a father and we are his children most good ideas are simple and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arts through which we pass to freedom here we go here we now listen he says when we sincerely when we took such a position all sorts of remarkable things followed now he's talking your language what's it going to be i've never been sincere about anything in my life and i wasn't sincere about this stuff called god in aa it was the judas step it was a one that didn't apply to me i can get around it now he is calling me on it because there ain't nothing going good in my life and rightfully so what's my position going to beat now you're cornered larry what's it gonna be you're still gonna believe all that nonsense about dad and the baby and all that and it was you folks that told me that god didn't take the baby he receives them you did it's not your dad's fault what is your position going to be you can god as you understand but what's he gonna be find a position larry what's it going to be you know what i always wanted to be i always wanted a good son i wanted to a good and i took that position that god is going to my father and i picture my dad's face every time i prayed and i wanted a a good and i started banking on that and thank god for my home group thank god for my home group alcoholics and honors because in this step 11 it reads to certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the aa group as their higher power claims for the power of prayer may despite all logic and experience improve of it it'll be convincing or quite objectionable those of us who have felt this way can certainly understand and sympathize there was something about my home group in bellflower there was nothing going on there that it seemed to me that with my lack of education thank god i wasn't able to separate aa and god because to me they were the same that i couldn't think about one without thinking about the other and I started having a connection. I started seeing the impossible happen to me where I began to have a tangible God. It wasn't something make-believe. It wasn'T something to impress you from the podium. It was something that when I turn off the lights in my room, I can pray to this God in the dark with my eyes open and know that He's listening. And I'm a stickler for evidence. Don't just tell... I am a stickler for evidence. In my own home group, just like it is right now on this Zoom, I see row after row after row of people who should be locked up dead or insane. Look at us tonight. We're happy, we're joyous and we're free. With that evidence, I began to believe of a power greater than myself because I witnessed it. See, when you start sponsoring somebody, thank God for sponsorship. When you start sponsored people and you become inspired to carry this message. Remember that guy when he's a day before he gets to you. And then you start taking them through these steps. And then there's that day when he is going to make that first amends. He's got his hair chopped a little bit. He's gone his hair cleaned up a little. His face is a little washed. he's got a nice shirt on and he's going to make that first admit don't tell me you can't see so no i'm about ready to walk out of here don't tell me that you can see something and i started banking on the thing right before my burial and how i did my meditation i'm gonna i don't go up on a mountain top i don' t go to I love taking them off you know where I found my meditation being with you on Monday night being with You on Wednesday night and I found myself in this place that some people talk about when they meditate when I write when I start writing letters to my daughter how much I missed her how much i want to be there And then I started writing guys in prison. I don't know how I got hooked on that, but I love it and I start writing these guys on prison. And I'll tell you this story and then I'm out of here. About eight years ago I get a call from a guy in central office over there in Santa Barbara. He says, Larry, I've got a guy at Georgia State Penitentiary. going to do 20 to life but he's going to aa and he's got about 10 years sober he's being transferred from georgia to california men's colony prison he don't know anybody can he start writing you i said you betcha and samuel samuel was a man of color and they sent him over there and we started writing and i started writing samuel and i started writing about my home group and he started writing about his meetings in the penitentiary and what would i write him about i wrote him about you i wrote them about where i said on monday the third row of the third seat next to my wife and my sponsor and i starting writing about the first step and then he wrote me about his first step i wrote about my second step he wrote me about his second step lo and behold i'm reading this letter and it goes something like this he says larry i'm out in the yard to penitentiary watching the guys play handball he says i just got done reading your letter on the 12th step and he says I need to tell you this as I sit here in the for the first time in my life I have a dream and that dream is simply this, one of these days I'm going to get out of here. One of these day I'm gonna get out of here, I don't know when and I don' t know how but he says one of those days I am going to get out of here and when I do, he says I'm going to grab that Greyhound bus up here in Northern California and I'm going to ride it to Bellflower on a Monday night and I am gonna go through that hallway and I will look for the third row in the third seat and i'm going to come up to you and tell you hey i'm samuel i'll come here to tell you that i love you now i only thought about that for a couple couple months one monday night we're getting ready to start the meeting they hit the gavel and we're all getting to our seats i sit down third row, third seat and I get this tap on my shoulder. I turn around and there's this man of color about six foot six, 320 pounds and he picks me up and he starts twirling me around like I'm an hors d'oeuvre you know and he sits me down and he says are you Larry Thomas? I said you better hope I am. He says well my name is samuel he says uh i come to tell you that i love you and i'd like to come to this meeting it just knocked me out of my socks something happens to me when i meditate something happens when i prayer my sponsor taught me about prayer my sponsor talked me about a power greater than myself we are in the era of a lot of heroes we've had a lot and I'll close with this because it reminds me of you guys now if you had your choice we all have heroes whether they be baseball players drag racers singers actor actresses we all had heroes wouldn't it some be something that if you found your hero to come down to you wouldn't be easy for you to spend a half a day with your hero talking about stuff wouldn't that be fabulous and here we are in Alcoholics Anonymous and we're introduced to a power greater than ourselves and they asked us the prayer and meditate with this power and we can't give them 10 minutes. I believe there's some investigating I need to do about that. Prayer has become a privilege for me. Prayer is a privilege and with that privilege comes the friendship with a power greater than myself. It isn't just something out there, it's something that you gave me you gave that to me and it all started with a handshake Samuel Shoemaker Reverend Samuel Shomaker has this poem it's called I stand in the doorway and it's about where you are in the doorways are you inside shaking hands are you over there in a corner are you tired of shaking hands you know where are you in that doorway are you a welcoming sight and that's what you guys did no matter what year I came back you welcomed me back to Alcoholics Anonymous and if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous I welcome you thank you