My Gooficity Level Was High — Your Steps Have Considerably Lowered It – Tom F.

My name is Jim Bach, and I'm an alcoholic. This is an open meeting of the Atlantic Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, and all are welcome to attend. It is our belief that our meeting structure is necessary to maintain the integrity of the group so that it may better carry the message of AA, and since the most important aspect of the AA recovery is one alcoholic relating to another, only alcoholics participate. If your primary problem is other than alcoholism, we think it would also be helpful for you to contact an anonymous organization which more specifically deals with your addiction. Our literature persons, Dustina and Kobe, have a list of such groups with their phone numbers. In any case, we hope that what you learn here may be helpful to your recovery and or understanding. Will will read the preamble. My name is Will, and I'm an alcoholic. AA preamble. Alcoholics Anonymous, the Fellowship of Managers. Men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contribution. AA is not allied with any sex denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy. It neither endorses nor opposes any. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to receive sobriety. Please join in the serenity prayer. Billy will read the steps. Hi, I'm Billy. I'm an alcoholic. 1. We admitted we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives, 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives, over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were tirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. 11. Sought 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. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Holly will read the traditions. Hello, good evening. My name's Holly and I'm an alcoholic. The 12 Traditions. 1. Our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. 2. For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Conscience. 3. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. 4. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. 5. Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. 6. Each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 7. An AA group ought to never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility. Or outside enterprise. Less problems of money, property, prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. AA as such ought never be organized, but may create service boards for the AA. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. Hence, the AA name ought never to be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all of our traditions. Never reminding us to place principles before personalities. The format of this meeting is two 10-minute speakers followed by our information break. And then our main speaker who will speak for 30 minutes. Our first 10-minute speaker is Mark. Hi, everyone. I'm a recovered alcoholic. My name is Mark Alexander. Hi. And I'm grateful for those who came before me so there's a solution today. I want to thank Chris for asking me to speak. My sobriety day is May 17, 2004. My sponsor is Mark W., Spring Lake, New Jersey. Thanks for coming up, Mark. I really appreciate it. My home group is the Atlantic Group, Tuesday night. And I'm currently making my 9-step amends and growing in steps 10, 11, and 12. And life is pretty good today. I didn't feel that way when I showed up here in May 2004. As far as I was concerned, it was over. It was like a bad after-school special. And I couldn't figure out how I ended up here. I was supposed to overcome this. I was supposed to be able to grow out of this. But it didn't work that way for me. I don't remember when I took my first drink. I grew up in a European family. I grew up all over the world. And alcohol was such a part of the social fabric of my life that I don't remember when I had my first drink. I know I was drinking before the age of 10. We got served booze at the table. It was just normal. I guess the notion was that if you start them young, they might learn how to drink responsibly. It didn't work out that way for me. But even before I picked up that first drink, I had the feelings of being restless, irritable, and discontent. I remember... I used to go to all these places. Back 10, 15, 20 years ago, they would always have these travel brochures for places. And I looked at the pictures. And I asked my mom when I was 5 years old. I said, Mom, how come it's always nicer in the picture than when you get there? And that was how I looked at life. That was how I experienced life. I was always disappointed. Nothing was ever enough, no matter anything I looked for from outside to put inside me or any type of experience. It just... It lost that luster short after I consumed it or I did it. And so when that continued, that progressed. So even before I picked up my first drink, I had those feelings. I started drinking consistently at age 13 and 14. And I was never really comfortable with who I was in social situations. I was fascinated by women, but I was just intimidated by them. I wasn't good in large crowds. But booze changed all that. I used to refer to alcohol as liquid confidence because that's what it was for me. I could drink and I just became somebody else. All my cares disappeared. And I wasn't worried about anything. I had a lot of fun. I really did. And growing up, my heroes were people like Jim Carroll and Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney and Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey and Neil Cassidy. And my whole... I decided at 16, that this is how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Every moment, I wanted to be drunk. That was just it. It seemed like the most logical decision at that time because everything was better when I was drinking. And I didn't really have a lot of consequences along the way. And I remember in high school, I took this creative writing course. And I used to write about my escapades and missions in the Lower East Side and Spanish Harlem. And I think my teacher had no idea that any of those stories were true. But it was the only A I ever got in high school. But there weren't a lot of consequences. And things were fun. But it was really unmanageable. And I was always trying to manage how I was feeling through booze. And I was always trying to manage my alcohol consumption just because I always ended up taking too much. And I just could never hold on to that desired effect. There was a brief period of time where about a five-year period where those feelings that I had when I was young, that I was always in the wrong place, that there was somewhere else I was supposed to be, booze corrected that. Booze was my solution and it worked. And then over time, that started to change. By 18, I was a daily drinker. By 19, I was drinking in the morning. And that's basically how my last 10 years was. I couldn't get from my bed to the shower without drinking. I couldn't deal with who I was, what was going on. And no matter what, when I opened up my eyes, that resolve of I can't let this happen again, that faded within five minutes. And I found myself doing the exact same thing, trying to stuff all the feelings down and everything that was going on with me that I just couldn't handle being me. And for the last five years, I've been around here long enough to know that my story's not that unique. The last five years was just, it just got to be progressively worse and worse. And it got to a point, I don't know what happened, other than to say God intervened in my life. I didn't see it at that time. But I came to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous because everything I tried had worked, or hadn't worked, sorry. And it was over. I was done. I was done. And I went to, it was that moment, outside the 5.30 meeting in Summit, New Jersey, and I was just like, I was late, and I didn't want to go in. And when I went in that night, I was scared, as we should be when we come here. But somehow, intuitively, I just knew that I was home. Again, I had that feeling that I was in the right place. I wasn't thrilled about being here, but I knew I had to be here, and I was okay with that. And I was so scared, I went to another meeting that night, and they gave me a big book. And I went home that night, and I didn't know what to do, so I started reading it. And I got through about 50 pages that first night, and I was just so afraid. I got down on my knees, and I didn't believe in God, but I got down on my knees, and I asked God for help. And I just said, I didn't ask God to say, I didn't say, God, stop me from drinking, stop me from using, just stop all that. I just said, just make, please let me wake up tomorrow. And just for once, just let me have the feeling that I don't have to use today. And I woke up the next day, and that was the case, and I'm really lucky to say, that I haven't had the desire to drink or use since that time. Now, of course, I forgot about that over a six-month period. My ego started to come back as things got better. But what I found is, someone told me early on, there are two types of people in this fellowship, people who don't drink and go to meetings, or people who do the work. And if you want the results, and you want the promises to come true in your life, you have to do the work. So I was really, you know, at that point, I started going through the steps. But, you know, I was also taught, it was important to talk about how I developed a relationship with God, because, you know, when I first came in here, I kind of felt cheated when I looked up on the board, or when I looked up on the sheets, and I saw that. And it wasn't until I was reading the agnostics, I'm just going to read a short part of this, that I, you know, just really started to develop a relationship with God. Actually, we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. We are obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other, it is there. For faith in a power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself. We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much a feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search, but he was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found a great reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there he may be found. It is so with us. We can only clear the ground a bit. If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then if you wish, you can join us on the broad highway. With this attitude, you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you. And when I read that, I had read that before, but when I read that that one time, it just, it hit me. And at that point, I made the decision that I was really just going to surrender to this process. And go through the steps as they're outlined in the big book. And, you know, it's really made all the difference. I think I rely more on this program now than I ever did before. Because, you know, I still, my thinking is out of whack, you know. And I need, I need help with that. You know, so I go to God. I refer to this book. I talk to my sponsor. And people who have walked this path. How am I doing on time? Another minute. You know, in a few minutes, all the new people, you're going to get an opportunity to introduce yourselves and let us know who you are and where you're at. And, you know, I just want to encourage you to take that opportunity. Everyone's been there. You know, I didn't really enjoy it when I was. But, you know, take advantage of the fact that people here want to help you. You know, and you don't need to reinvent the wheel. And, you know, probably the best thing you can do is just go sign up as a member here. Get a sponsor here and go through the big book. And, you know, I just want to say thanks for my sobriety and I'll see you on campus. Our second 10-minute speaker is Leila. Hi, I'm Leila. I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank the Atlanta Group for this opportunity to be of service and for giving me my life back and welcoming me into the first family I've really felt a part of. I have wonderful Sober Sisters here. I have a wonderful sponsor. Patty S. And Alcoholics Anonymous changed my life. A little background. My mother's side of the family had a number of alcoholics. My great-grandfather was an alcoholic. My grandfather was an alcoholic. One of my uncles and aunts suffer from this disease. I have a cousin who is not in the rooms. So I truly believe now that it is a genetic disease. And some people get it and some don't. And families. The reason I say that is that I grew up with a very different attitude towards any kind of substance abuse and alcoholism in particular than I have now. The stories in my family were famous about how my great-grandfather came home drunk one night and my great-grandmother had gotten the town doctor to help her fake a suicide so that he would stop drinking and she would be able to pay the rent and take care of three small children. My grandfather routinely was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and my grandmother would tell the police to leave him there. So I grew up with the attitude that these people were morally lacking and if they just tried harder and if they just were good people and went to church they wouldn't have these problems. I grew up with the attitude that alcoholism was bad and that you were a bad person if you drank too much. I was a good girl throughout school. I didn't. Drugs were not a part of my story. I never even smoked pot. But when I turned 18 the legal drinking age at the time I turned 18 was 18. When I turned 18 the legal drinking age was 18 and I can remember I had a boyfriend who was a freshman in college and I was a senior in high school and I remember going out and having a Tom Collins with him and thinking I was very, very grown up that he had a car and I could have the Tom Collins and of course I didn't have two because I was saving myself for college and I didn't want him to have his way with me. And I was a good girl. All through my 20s I would go either to a business or if I went to a business function I didn't drink and if I was out with friends I'd have one or two drinks. I never felt that I belonged. I'm dyslexic. I had a very hard time in school. I'm also an actress and a singer. I thought that made me different. I have, as many people do, a difficult family situation and so I grew up feeling not as good as everybody else. Convinced the girls didn't like me. Convinced the boys wouldn't want to talk to me. But something happened when I drank. All of a sudden I was funny. All of a sudden I could talk to everyone. All of a sudden the boys wanted to be around me. And I liked that. I liked feeling that I was part of something. So through my 20s and 30s alcohol became a solution. If I had a bad day if I was uptight if I didn't get the acting job I wanted having a couple of drinks would loosen me up and take care of whatever problems I might have. I moved to New York at the age of 40 with the idea that I was going to be a character actress and be a singer and make my living doing that here in New York and that didn't happen. So I continued with my friend alcohol. And the funny thing was it started not working. It started not being fun. People started saying you know I can't hire you if you're going to be drunk before the show and we're tired of taking care of you at the opening night party and this isn't cute anymore. When 9-11 happened the reason that I was not at my job near the World Trade Center was because I was at the dentist. Had I been down there I could have been killed or hurt. That became an excuse to drink. And I got a lot of sympathy. Any firefighter would give me whatever I wanted when I told that story. So I went from enjoying having a drink and being funny and being told that I was funny at parties to needing a drink to get through the day. I never drank first thing in the morning. But I would have to drink at lunch time. I'd have to drink right after work. I couldn't go to an audition. Or get up in front of a group of people and speak. Unless I'd had at least two or three beers. And what happened I want to spend more time on recovery so I'm going to make this very quick. My bottom was the day after Christmas. I went out and had a very bad blackout. I don't remember a lot of it. But I do remember that when I came to my beloved dog was cowering in the corner. It wouldn't come anywhere near me. And I thought if a dog is afraid of me and afraid of my behavior then there's something wrong here. I've got to do something about it. So I decided I would do controlled drinking for a week. I decided okay I'll you know maybe I have to do this AA thing. Maybe I really am a failure. So for the next week until New Year's Eve I went out and thought I'd have just one and had four or five. On New Year's Eve 2006 I got a bottle of champagne was going to have one drink and ended up drinking two bottles completely by myself. When I came to on New Year's Day 2006 I thought this is it. You're like your grandfather your great grandfather. You're a bad person and you're a failure. And I thought I'm going to have to go to AA and tell these people what a failure I am. And I viewed my first AA meeting as going to jail. I walked in. Expecting people to make me sit in the corner or write a hundred times I'm a bad person and expecting no one to help me or want to talk to me. The opposite was true. When I said I have two days people said good for you and clapped. When women came up to me they wanted to give me their phone numbers. They said why? Well we'd like to call you. Why? Why do you want to talk to me? Well it just we thought we could help you. And I started growing up. I started gradually through this program to understand that alcoholism has nothing to do with your morals or your ethics how you were raised who your family is it's a disease and it's a killer disease. I started working with a sponsor who was gave me a lot of tough love and we started working on the steps and gradually things started to change. I started to enjoy going to meetings as much as I enjoyed going to the bar and getting drunk. I started picking up the phone and calling people when I had a bad day or a problem instead of holding it in and thinking alright I'll deal with it later. I still do that but I'm better at it. In sobriety I went through some pretty serious medical problems. I'm now going through a lot of uncertainty in my job. And I have people I can call. I have a sponsor I can call up and say I'm scared. I have a grand sponsor who says to me ask God for help and I do. Mark talked about a higher power and when I came into the program I believe that there was a force greater than myself. I still thought I was running the show and sometimes I still do think I'm running the show. But whenever I think something's a good idea that's usually when a little light says watch out. And I go to my higher power for guidance. I have a life beyond my wildest dreams. I have a wonderful sober family. A wonderful sponsor. I have people who've welcomed me as a part of their family. And no one has told me I'm a morally lacking person. It makes me sad that my great grandfather and grandfather and uncle and aunt and cousin and everyone else in my family isn't in a room like this. That they're out somewhere thinking that they're a failure. Because I've never met any alcoholic in this room who was anything but a miracle. And I mean that sincerely. As Mark said if you're counting days you're going to get the opportunity to stand up and say your day count. And whether you have 90 days or one day you're a miracle. Get up and say your day count. We're so glad you're here. Thank you. And I have a minute. I have a minute. All I can tell you All I can tell you if you're new is get a sponsor. Do what they say. Even though you may think they're full of it. They're not. They know more than you do. Read the big book. Help other people. And know that this is not the end of the world. This is the beginning of a new life. Thank you for loving me. And thank you for my sobriety. Our main speaker tonight is Tom F. I never knew drugs cleaned up this good. I'm Tom Flynn, an alcoholic. Now I am not a problem drinker. Man, I hear some guys come in and talk Oh, I picked up a drink. I was an instant alcoholic. I could cry. It's so sad. I had a good time drinking for a hell of a lot of years. This poor guy comes in. It's like getting pregnant without having sex. It's a mess. You know. It's sad. I had a good time. Alcohol has taken me to places the National Geographic's never seen. That's the reason I drank. It was an answer. I had a problem. I go and have a few drinks, you know. And my third brain would kick in. The one I hadn't used for a while. It was rested. And so we would figure out something to solve this problem. Like probably the first thought was, let's have another drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, well, we won't have to act on this tomorrow. We postpone it until next week. That kind of stuff, you know. Yeah. Tremendous system. It really worked. It really worked. I'm an alcoholic. I didn't mess with any other crap. Alcohol was enough for me. Had I been younger, I probably would have messed with some other crap. But I'm not younger, so I didn't. It's that simple. See? You know. If you did, I'm glad you're here. Didn't work either. It's all right. It's okay with me. See? I'd get a real long drunk alone. That's a lot of crap. You all know how that goes, you know. I drank to feel good. Just like you. And then I drank so I wouldn't feel so bad. Then I drank so I wouldn't feel nothing. That's how I drank. You know. That's how I did it. And we all did the same thing. Different places, different time. Same thing. So I'm going to get off of that drinking. You know, you can tell I'm not really wired normally. But I won't bore you. I got to Alcoholics Anonymous as a result of some direct hits. Direct hits in my life. That's what brought me here. See? No inspiration or nothing of that type. Total desperation brought this drunk to Alcoholics Anonymous. I got here when all else failed. And it took me a lot of times, a lot of time in my life to try all else. And they got to say, failure, failure, failure. Failure. Failure. You know. You know, it's a... I'm the kind of a guy that would go out 87 times, go out to drink and get drunk 87 times and still believe the 88th time was going to be all right. I would believe that. That's what's called delusional thinking. That's what it is. See? It's not a long psychiatric term. You're goofy, Tom. Oh, okay. That's how it was. That's how it was. I'm just goofy. My gooficity level was high. As a result of your steps, it has been considerably lowered. It's still alive. And I best remember that. For I have a daily reprieve based on my distance from God as I believe Him. That's all I have. Hell, man. I still drive past the cemetery and feel like a no-show. I'm not cocky about anything. I get a daily reprieve. It's no big deal. My God, my teeth get a daily reprieve. Don't they? I pressure... I think my soul should get a little more attention than my teeth. I have just a gut level feeling that my soul has a longer shelf life than my teeth. That's not too tough to figure. You know. I'm not a doctor. But I sort of figured that. So I came to you guys. Direct hits. I was married for 25 years to a very nice girl who had no serious shortcomings except maybe poor judgment. I come from an Irish Catholic background where, you know, guys in my family, girls, they get married. Some better. Some worse. Some just break even. But they stay married, you know. In my case, it's not true. So I got divorced. I got divorced. I had a lot of guilt for that. A lot of guilt. But because of a good sponsor and your eighth and ninth steps, I'm now free from that guilt. I don't know where the guilt went, and I'm not in pursuit of lost guilt. If you find it, keep it. I'm through with it. Me and my ex-wife became good friends. Actually, we became pen pals. She would send me a bill, and I would send her a check. Look, you guys, it's been like that since Eve, and it ain't going to change but Thursdays. Nobody get excited. That's about the way it is. That's a direct hit. You were divorced. Way bye-byes. Everything was leaving now. I helped found the company with two older men. That was February 4, 1950. The company was very successful. Twenty-nine years later, I got fired from that company. I didn't get a letter of reprimand in my personnel file. That's Kleenex material. Here, blow your nose, you snot-nose. You're fired, Tom. Maybe a lot of companies can use a guy of your talent. Unfortunately, we are not one of those companies, and we need your keys at 2 o'clock to say bye-bye. Direct hit. They can't do that, Tom. You were a snot-nose. Yes, they can. How do you know? They did. Okay. That's it. Direct hit. Well, I made a lot of money. On the way up, I didn't get paid. On the way up, I didn't deal with individuals I couldn't deal with. I had that much of a heart. But I dealt with companies and corporations. And I was a shark. And damn, I was good at it. I kept my teeth sharp all the time. And I focused. I knew about singleness of purpose long before I met you. I was one of nine kids. I was the oldest. My father died when I was 18. And in those days, you know, you didn't go anywhere. You took care of your own. I didn't know any better. I'm no different than other guys in that age group. You know, that's what you did. You know, that's what I did. What else are you going to do? I ain't special. You know, I'm good at it. I ain't special. That's what I did. Made a ton of money. Could have retired when I was 34. Could have easily. But I got careless. I got arrogant. I stopped doing my homework. Me and I was on top of everything, see. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. And I start to lose a lot of money. So the best way I could tell it to you, on the way up I was a shark. And on the way down I was beat. That's exactly what happened. I went stone broke. Stone broke. I went from living in a fashionable neighborhood to living under the last bridge you cross over before you go over into historic Fort McKenna. That's where I was living. I lived under that bridge for one winter. I didn't live in a halfway house. I lived under a bridge where you learn what I like to call a bridge etiquette. When you have choices, particularly pick a doubleheader bridge, double-decker, and railroad bridges are good for that. Always get close to the face of the bridge so that on wet days you stay dry. And on those double-decker bridges, sleep on the top shelf like you would in a bar picking poos, you know. You know, the top shelf theory still holds because even on dry days, there are other alcoholics who cohabit there who have careless plumbing problems. So it's a little, you know, bridge-drawing etiquette to be careful of, you know, when you pick your place to rest for the evening. It's sort of peaceful there if you're being harassed by bill collectors, you know. I'll give you a bulletin. U.S. does not deliver mail to bridge residents. So there is a little respite, you know, from that type. It might be a, what would you call it, an amenity of location, something of that nature. That's what it was. That's where I was living there. And I come to in a great big old room, big. And there's a big person standing like that, but it's double doors. But there's a glass, and the person's figure is silhouetted. It's silhouetted by the light behind. As the person approaches me, sitting on a chair, this person, big, big, linebacker, big. It was a female person, real big, serious, big, big. I called her Dr. or Mr. Nurse, really. And Dr. or Mr. Nurse said to me, what's your problem, buster? Buster? Who the heck she thinks he thought? Welcome to. And I told Mr. Nurse I used to be a big shot. And I was smart, too. I won an academic scholarship to John Hopkins University. And I did all this shit, too. Had his stuff anyway. And Mr. Nurse said that she was impressed, but not a whole lot. And I went on to explain to her what my problem was. My problem was there was no knob on my side of this door. I thought it was architectural oversight. And Mr. Nurse didn't see it that way. And she was bigger than me, and she had all the keys, and the subject did not seem to be open for discussion. And Mr. Nurse pronounced her finding and says, you are nuts. Now, she skipped a child within and got right to the point and told me, you are nuts. I felt somewhat relieved, for I had suspected this for quite a while. You guys know and you girls know that's just outside. Inside stuff, and it will heal rapidly. Surpriety alone will help that. How about the inside stuff, the damage that's a little slower to heal? How about guilt? How about looking into the eyes of a person long after the arguments and shouting? Long after all that, all the pleading. And you just had broken your last sacred promise. And her eyes just missed it. And it was all over, nothing was said, and the roar of accusation was deafening, and not a word was said. But what I heard was, how could you? And I just murmured, I don't know. And how about the knife that's already plunged in my heart? It's given such a violent twist that I'm stunned into silence, and paralyzed into inaction. I'm so defenseless. And without direction. I pray to a God I don't even believe in or trust. We don't pray. Men that desperate don't pray. We plead, don't we? And so did I. And I broke that promise too. And that's the measure of my shame. The promise I broke to those humans that loved me is the measure of my guilt. And the promise I broke to an all-loving God is the measure of my shame. So in that condition I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. It was August 14, 1980. I was divorced, fired, broke, nuts. Crushed by guilt, shredded by shame, laying on the sidewalk of life, and I rolled off into the gutter. In that condition I came here. I was willing to turn my will of my life over to Ronald McDonald. That's the kind of shame I'm in. I didn't come here to argue any philosophy or theology or psychology or any other ology. You know? I didn't know what to do. You know? Some guy says, Oh, you've got to appoint somebody you can relate to. Another old-timer wanted to have some fun. He said, We've got another guy came here three weeks at it in Nuthouse. He's over there. You two nuts, what do you relate to him? Well, I intuitively knew that wasn't going to work. I'd had that much going. I did. So I guess I got a sponsor. A guy says to me, How are you? And you can feel a sponsor. Your brain will not be able to do it. He looked at me with his soft blue eyes. He wasn't looking through me judgmentally. We feel these things. And he didn't look past me to see who more important to me came into this room. He slowed his life down to my hopeless present and waited for an answer with politeness and dignity. You got 15 minutes? Thanks. And this way we all know where we're at. Okay? And I thank her. And so I asked her to be my sponsor. He says, I could use a nut like you. Now, how did he know I was nuts? I didn't give him my papers. I had the nut papers in my pocket. You know? You know what I mean? So I felt like, you know, people have what I'm really called as registered dogs, AKA dogs. I felt like a pedigree dog or something. Like, I got nut papers in my pocket. You know? Well, anyway. He says, We're going to do the steps. I said, Well, shouldn't I join an in-depth study group? Well, will we? And he says, Tom, there's nothing to study in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's things to do. If you want to study and polish up, we'll do that after you do them. That way we'll be talking about the same thing. Boom. I said, Uh-oh. This guy looks so gentle. I thought it was going to be a pushover. Another bad judgment, Tom. This guy's going to be tough. He's going to cut you. You won't know it for three days that you're bleeding. He's one of those kind of guys. He says, Are you an alcoholic? Oh, yeah, Wally, I'm an alcoholic. He was sober 16 years. I'm sober 16 minutes or something. He says, You want to stop drinking? Oh, yeah, Wally, I want to stop drinking. He says, Do you know how to do it by yourself? Oh, no, I just got out of a nut house trying to do it by myself. He says, Okay. He says, Are you willing to follow directions? Well, I didn't know what directions were, so I did what I do best. I lied. Oh, yeah, I'm going to follow directions. What the heck am I supposed to say? I don't know. You know, it's the first time ever. When I come to AA, I had never been here before. You know, I just stayed. You know, I was here four months before I knew you could leave. Nobody told me. I thought I had a right to the president of AA or something like that, and say I resigned. And he said, We'll take you off the, you know. Look, I got to go 50 levels high. I told you that. Did you hear me? I meant it. I wasn't kidding. Just because I say it funny. Yeah. So I said, Yeah, we'll do that. I'll follow directions. He says, Good, good. When you pick up a drink, do you always know when you're going to stop? Oh, no, Wally. I don't always know. The arresting officer knows, but I don't know. He says, Did you tell me you stopped a lot of times? Yeah, Wally, I did, but I started again. He says, Do you always know when you're going to start? No, Wally. He says, So it seems to me that when you pick up a drink, you're perilous because you don't know when you're going to stop. And it seems to me that when you're stopped and you're not drinking, you're perilous over when you're going to start. So it don't make any difference whether you stopped or started. You are in a perilous condition. That's what it's all about. I thought, Wow, what a wise man. And then I read page 43 of the big book. It says, Our dilemma was perilousness. And that's what this book's about. Finding the power which will solve the problem. But don't say it will make me smart enough to solve it. A perilousness will solve the problem. And when God, I call God because for three reasons, my sponsor does, it's easy to remember and it's not hard to spell. So I say, God, you know, it just makes it simple for me. And he'll do the job. After God's done the job, there's nothing for you to do. But thank God and go help others and tell them who did what for you. Well, you never will be qualified, but God is. Okay, Wally, don't get tacky. I'm going. Now he says, you got to, you're willing to turn your will and your life over to care of God. You know, just ask God to direct you. That's all. What should I do today? I say a prayer every morning, you know. Good morning, God. This is Tom. I know you know who I am, but a lot of times I forget who I am. What do you want me to do today? I'd appreciate it if you make it sort of plain. I'm alcoholic, you know. P.S. Give me the gumption to get it done. I'm also wayward. That's as plain as I can get, and it's truthful. See? God is always the same. Go help my other kids. And I will say, get over there. And I go. I go. It's just in God's hands. You can't live. How much time do I got? Ten minutes. I cannot get this in there. You got to know this. I got to move this from this spiritual realm we're in right now right to the street. Okay? I had to find out. Can you take these principles in Alcoholics Anonymous and apply them to your everyday affairs in the world? My answer, I wasn't sure. My answer today, I'm 100% sure, and it's yes. That company hired me back to fire me because it went to a couple other guys that, anyway, they did. And I didn't want to make money the way they were making money, so I quit this time. I was 57 years old, and I quit. Most guys are looking for a rocking chair, and I'm looking for a rocking ship. I started a brand new company. Guess what principles I used to found this company? The 12 Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a for-profit company. We don't take no secret or gifts from nobody. And I founded that company in 1987. How many years is that? It's almost 20 years, isn't it? It'll be 20 years soon. Peggy says 20 years, and she's sort of bossy. See, she's probably right. I wanted to keep the company small because I wanted to keep spiritual principles in first place. So I tried everything to keep it small. Everything. Right now, we're doing business all over the United States. I got four guys with average, recovery time of 15 working with me. Jim knows me. It's very successful. Extremely successful. We make more money than we spend. And our advertising budget, since for 20 years, is still under $1. We haven't spent a single dollar. We do work for banks in California. We're licensed in Maryland and Delaware. Virginia and Pennsylvania. And I always got those licenses. I didn't want to expand the company, but I had these men that came to me. See? So, God lets me have this toy to put gas in the damn car. I know that. And he's amused with me. Because once in a while, God likes the way I pray. And you guys taught me how to pray. Hey, look, I studied theology first. Theology four years in a Roman Catholic seminary. Don't tell me I ain't no searcher. When I start to pray, God goes, phew, recess. He knows it's going to be fun and it ain't going to last long. That's how to pray. It comes from the heart. It's okay. It's okay to pray that way. I thought I could impress God. Well, he says, what do you mean? Do you think you could impress the power or whatever you call them that made the Rocky Mountains? You ever see them big mountains? I looked at them and looked. That's the only way I could impress him. I went down and put my hand on one of them little stegma lights down there. They're about 200 feet high. Put my hand on that sucker. Looked up at that deep blue sky. I says, Tom, are you big enough to offend the power that made this big rocky thing here that you don't need a right name for? I looked up, puny me. I said, no way. And I said, no way. And I said, no way. No way. No way. You're not good enough to get to this guy. So one day I was coming into Chicago. I remember Jim and I were talking about this, December 23rd. It just snowed. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. And the planes were stacked up, going, you know, and looking down there. You see all the highways coming into Chicago and the railways. It's like a half a circle because the lake cuts it off there. And the planes are circling around, You know, nothing else to do. I'm looking out the window, and I've got five minutes. We're good. We're good. Well, I'm looking out the window. I have to circle around about five or six times. I'm looking at all these ways you can get to Chicago. And, man, it hit me. God's got to be bigger than Chicago. Look at all the ways you can get to Chicago. There's got to be more ways than that even to get to God. I just thank you, God, for making it clear. So he says, pass it on. So that's what I'm doing. I'm not saying you've got to do it that way. I'm saying that's what I did. That's all. That's my experience, and I'm to share that. What you do with it, it's your business. I mind my own business. And the older I get, the less business I got. I don't have much business to mind. You know what I mean? I don't have much business at all. And let me share this little story with you, and then I can shut up. There were some people here from Philadelphia, friends. My sister, she'd been a nun about 40 years, and she'd been a street nun. She worked on the street a lot. She's a brilliant woman. She taught at McGill University and all that stuff. But you don't hear a lot of that shit. Anyway, she don't either, so what the hell, you know. I'm going to see her Thursday. We meet the nun and the drunk once a year, and we discuss the spiritual changes in her life. And we're going to meet Thursday. We're going to be doing that. One year, she had me come to Paris. And she had me talk to the whole bunch of nuns. Can you imagine that, a drunk like me? With nun papers? Anyway, there was a Spanish nun, Malagra, spoke no English and started to pray for Sister Sheila's brother, the drunk. She didn't know my name, but she knew what I was. She had me described properly. She prayed for me for nine years, and after nine years of her, I was sober for a year, and I went to Philadelphia to thank her. And she was 199, and sitting in a chair with a little blanket. What, Afghans? Maybe that's a bad word now, politically. It's not, okay. But she had a little young nun, bilingual. So I went to thank her, and I said, I told the young nun I came to thank Sister Malagra. And they start talking, and the nuns start crying. I said, what have I done now? You know, we are. So I told her. She said, Sister Malagra says that you are not to thank her. She is to thank you. For all these years, here recently, all the nuns she has been with all over the world, Malagra believes have gone home to God, their father. And up until today, Malagra has believed for some time that God simply forgot where she was. Now, Malagra says, she's reassured that not only does God know where she is, but he still hears her prayers. For Sister Sheila's brother, the drunk, is sober through the grace of God. Alcoholics Anonymous. And the prayers of people who we don't even know are praying for us. So be careful how we thank people. Do not exclude people. You know, it's that simple. So, I'm not going to stretch. I'm out of time. And I thank you, and I love you.