Singleness of Purpose and the Collapse of Every Other Remedy – Johnnie H.

Hi everybody, my name's Johnny and I'm an alcoholic. Hi Johnny. Until I'm a good drunk, I got a drink in my hand. I, uh, before I get... I didn't offend you, did I? Yeah. If you'd had as many shock treatments as I had, you wouldn't touch anything that had electricity in it. I want to thank the committee and all the people who've been extremely kind and generous in their time and efforts to walk me half to death, make me step over horse poop, do all kinds of things like that. But the hospitality of these people, these fine people in Stockholm, but just... just absolutely blown my mind. And if you're new here in Alcoholics Anonymous today, uh... I want to let you know before I ever get started that I'm not a consultant, a counselor, or authority on a program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm an example, good, bad, or indifferent, that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works. That it hasn't been necessary for me to drink anything, smoke anything, stick anything in my arm, have any antidepressant drugs, no near beer, nothing in my system stronger than an aspirin since some time before the fourth day of November, 1959. Now that's a long time between drinks. Sometimes when I'm so dry I think I'm a fire hazard for price taking. You ought to see the candles on my birthday cake. I mean, the last time Clancy gave me a cake, I thought I was going to... I thought I was going to singe my eyebrows off or something. Just... But I got to stay sober for all this period of time because of a number of reasons. Uh... Last night I went into great deal... great detail about what I was like and what had happened to me and what I'm trying to be like today. But there's some very, very important things that have happened to me in my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh... Most of you know I took a drink of alcohol when I was nine years old and I didn't realize then that it had a special effect on me. It does something for me that it doesn't do for maybe nine out of the other ten people who drink. And I pursued that illusion that they talk about in my book, Into the Gates of Insanity and Death and Beyond. Because I went insane one day, standing in front of a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles, California, on my second sentencing to state penitentiary. And what that judge said to me was that I was a blood-sucking parasite in society and that I had no right being around decent people. He told a woman who was sitting in the courtroom who was pregnant with my oldest child that if she cared anything about that child at all, she would never let me lay eyes on it. Now, he didn't say anything to me or anything to that courtroom that I hadn't said to myself time and time and time and time again. But the first time I ever heard it in an open courtroom, it did what to an alcoholic, what an alcoholic would do when he's overburdened with the truth about himself. And the exposure of the truth to a room full of people, my brain exploded. And I spent the next eight or nine months of my life crawling around in a cell in solitary confinement in a maximum-security penitentiary. That's what it finally left. See, that's what being sober for a period of time and facing up with the truth did to me. That's what sobriety was to me. Sobriety was a nightmare. Sobriety was the reoccurring nightmares of the tragedies and the atrocities that I had committed on my selfish, self-centered life. And I was on a self-centered journey through this thing called life, and I didn't know what we were doing. And it had driven me right up into, maybe into a depth of hell that very few people would probably ever understand. And if it had been in my depth moment, standing in front of that judge, if he'd have said to me, you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd have thrown something at him. Because there was no reason for me to go, because I knew what my answer was. My answer was that sooner or later, somebody's going to blow my brains out in one of those street alleys that I lived in, or I was going to spend the rest of my life locked up in some type of an institution somewhere. Because that had been my prognosis, that had been my evaluation from the psychiatrist and the therapist and the penologist and the crinologist and the lawyers and the teachers and the preachers and the coaches, for as far back as I could ever remember. There was a psychiatrist in the San Quentin State Penitentiary in 1951 who tried to talk me into a lot of bottoming. Because he said, son, you're going to die in a penitentiary. People like you are going to die in a penitentiary. Now I don't know what kind of grace that was looking over me. I do know that my little grandmother prayed for me every day of her life. And I do know that some of her grace kept over me, but on a deathbed in the old Los Angeles County jail, I uttered out the only prayer that ever was said in my life. I said, oh God, help me. I can see from the utterance of that prayer to this very moment, my journey through life, how it's taken a different direction and how it's went into a different type of direction. Now I didn't, there's one thing that I have come to understand in the almost 45 years that I've been hanging around you. My little grandmother's prayers may have been some type of a protective agent that helped me until I got here. But I know as well as I'm standing here that if I hadn't asked God for help, I would have never gotten it. I had to ask for it. I had to ask, oh please God, help me. Not even knowing what I'm looking for, not even knowing what I'm asking about, not even knowing what I'm searching for, I just want God to help me. I thought for a long time I was praying for death. But in short order, what it did, it brought me life because it brought me to you on that faithful day of November 1959. And what happened to me is a story all its own. It's the story of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not my story, it's the story of Alcoholics Anonymous. A man walked into a penitentiary one day and told me I didn't have to live like that anymore if I didn't want to. That is the secret and the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. People have been telling me all my life that I shouldn't do certain things, I shouldn't act certain ways, and I shouldn't do this and I shouldn't do that. But this man told me that I didn't have to live like that anymore and none of those people who had diagnosed me and shocked me and hit me with high pressure fire hoses and tried to get me to commit to a load of botany and all these other kind of miracle things to cure for people they don't understand. This man made more sense to me, a little guy that had 23 flat years in the penitentiary who was my baseball coach when I was a star second baseman for the San Quentin Pirates. Now I don't understand why this is, but I've come to understand what it is. This man, through God's grace and his actions and his dedication to service in Alcoholics Anonymous, was so busy trying to give away what he found that he was the essence, the package, that Alcoholics Anonymous came to me in. And what he said was, you don't have to live like this anymore. He didn't say, I know what's wrong with you. In essence, he said the magic word to an alcoholic of my type, I know how you feel and you don't have to do it like this no more. And he gave me the magic ingredient. He brought a singleness of purpose to me that these people who came with him brought a singleness of purpose which is the essence of what Alcoholics Anonymous is really all about tonight. One alcoholic talks to another alcoholic. And even though they don't know the words, they understand. We understand one another. Not mainly by the word, maybe we talk different languages, maybe we talk different dial- we understand this magic language of the heart. And we know more than anything else, when somebody from the depth of their soul tells you, another alcoholic, if an alcoholic tells you this, I know exactly how you feel. And if anybody's ever said that to you in the depth of your despair, you're hooked. There's no way to get around it. That is the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. The singleness of purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is what separates us from everything else in the world. Now, in the 7,000 years of recorded history, my sponsor tells me, there's only been a couple of answers for the disease of alcoholism. One of them happened in the 1840s. A group of five little guys got together in a little bar in Baltimore, Maryland, and decided that they should talk to one another. If they tried to help one another, they could stay sober. And people thought they were nuts. They thought, what do you mean? You're all drunks, for Christ's sake. How are you ever going to stay sober? You're all crazy drunks. All you're going to do is drink with one another. Well, they took the name of the president, first president of the United States, Washington, and called themselves the Washingtonian Movement. And they grew in numbers in the first two or three years of existence, faster than any spiritual movement in the history of mankind. They stretched out over the east coast of the United States without the benefits of television, communication, just word of mouth, word by word, one alcoholic took another. Somebody estimates some of the numbers of this thing of over 300,000 people in a short period of time. Short period of time. But somewhere along the line, one of these geniuses, who was an alcoholic, who was in a thing called the Washingtonian group, got the bright idea that if we could help alcoholics, why can't we help everybody? Why can't we just go out and save the world, save all the pitiful, incomprehensible, immoralization of the world? Why can't we help opium addicts? Why can't we help all these people? So they started on a tirade. And they got into politics. They got into public speaking. They got their names put in newspapers. They got the vying for speaking engagement. They let this alcoholism, this seemingly selfish, egotism driven thing that I have, carry them into heights and depravity that we can't even dream about. And then three, four short years, they completely extinguished themselves from the face of the earth. And what they did, in a small choice, is they lost their singleness of purpose. They got the singleness of purpose and they lost it because they got some type of a... It's not a bad idea. It's a very thoughtful idea. But... The thing that alcoholics get sober for in Alcoholics Anonymous is what that man said to me. I understand how you feel. I understand. I recognize your dilemma. Yeah, I'm like that. What have you done? What should you do for me? The signal is the purpose. The purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is I've come to understand it. The purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous, any gathering of Alcoholics Anonymous, is I understand it. It's to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Now, the alcoholic who still suffers doesn't necessarily mean it's the guy that's not here. There's probably people in this room who are suffering from the disease of alcoholism. And they have some type of a knowledge or idea that just because they're not drinking, they got it whipped. If that was the case, we wouldn't need Alcoholics Anonymous. But we have a signal as the purpose. The signal as the purpose, my signal as the purpose, my book tells me, is to stay sober and carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. To build some type of a bridge of understanding between me and some other person. That's why Bill in his infinite wisdom wrote to us in our book. We share our experience, strength, and hope here. Because experience is what we were like. And the newcomers got to know what we were like. They got to know what happened to us and what we're like today. What are we doing about that today? They don't want to know what I used to be like, what I used to be like, what I used to be like, what I used to be like, what I used to be like. They'd like to know what happened, for God's sake. I remember one time there was this friend of mine. He was new in my part of the world. Every once in a while they asked me to go out and talk. And I'd take one of these jackasses that I'm sponsoring and I'd drag this goof and put him in the car with me and I'd tell him that when you get there, you're going to do a ten minute talk. He said, okay. Well he got up there and he went 20 minutes or so of what he was like, what he was like, what he was like, and what he was like, and what he was like, and what he was like. And he'd sit down and he says, jeep's, Mons. I didn't get to tell them what I'm like today. I said, they know. It's true. I mean if you're like what you were like or what you were like, not much has changed. The man introduced me to the tool that allows you and I to sit in this room tonight, without a garble, without a knife, without a knife. And I said, okay. Well, I told them, I said, you know, you know, I'm going to give you a little message of what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is and don't you believe for a single moment that it's not being garbled in various places around the world. And the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is in a book called Alcoholics Anonymous, at least in the first 164 pages. man called Bill Wilson and a lot of people, maybe a lot of people in Stockholm, understand and believe that Bill Wilson had a spiritual experience to no experience of his own. He just had one because God thought he ought to have it so he could write it in a book. Nothing could be further from the truth than that. If you were to read Bill's story, you would find out that before Bill had what he called his hot flash, that's what he called it. I didn't pick it out of there. He just called it a hot flash. A lot of people have had hot flashes and thinking they're having spiritual experiences. My wife has them from time to time. She's not having a spiritual experience. She's just having a hot flash. It's her time in the world, I guess. I don't know. He essentially, in his story, was a spiritual man, and if you look into the records of his lives, we'd see, his firstящie is Diamond, for instance, at theours. He had a design, and one of his designs, a moment was Paint You With Your Hands. It shows a passage that he fell in love with. When he got a good pampekisa, it'd be a punkt in iophone for him, keep an eye on the time, or get a piece of buddy called a pingong in all thoseituatio. He told him he didn't guess it. That's how And Bill was getting ready to go find AA number two down in Akron, Ohio, and Dr. Silkworth, one of AA's dearest friends, said to him, why don't you quit preaching this spiritual experience business and start talking to people about the physical allergy of alcoholism. And Dr. Bob was the first guy he tried that on. First guy. And it was an interesting story about Dr. Bob because they became a we instead of an I, and so for the first time in the history of mankind, there were two people in Alcoholics Now, Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson. But Dr. Bob was kind of a rebel kind of guy like me, and Dr. Bob told Bill Wilson, his sponsor, I'm not going to work those men's steps. I'm not going to work eight and nine because I've lived in this town all my life and I'm still practicing medicine here and I'm not going to let that lay my dirty linen out in front of these people to see. And so he said, well, I'm going to work eight and nine. And Bill, like any good sponsor, just shrugged his shoulders. I told him, I guess your case is different. You don't have to do this, which seems to be the theme song of everybody who dies drunk here. And a couple of weeks later, Dr. Bob went to Atlantic City on a medical convention and fell off the truck train when he got back in Akron dead drunk. And the next day, he was in the hospital. Bill did something that from time to time I wanted my sponsor to do for me, but he never would. So Dr. Bob was going to have to go have an operation. He was doing the shakes and the whippies. And Bill gave him a beer. Now I've tried to talk my sponsor into that from time to time. He doesn't think that's a good idea for me. But he went out and Bob left and went out somewhere and after the operation he was missing, he was gone all day and late into the evening. He finally showed up. And people said, where were you? We were worried about you. I thought maybe you were drinking. He said, I was out mending fences. In other words, he had finally got beat into a state of reasonable enough when he was ready to go out and clean up the wreckage of his past, which is another single list of purpose here. And from that, he lived until the day he died. And in his last talk on alcoholic autonomy, he voiced the word of caution to the people that he was going to die. And he said, I'm going to go out and I'm going to drink. And he said, I'm going to drink. And he said, I'm going to drink. And he said, I'm going to drink. And he said, I'm going to drink. And he said, I'm going to drink. And he said, I'm going to drink. And in his last talk on voiceover, he wasn't going to drink. He wasn't drinking. He said, I just wanted, you know, to eat. Absolutely not. the mind. Let's remember that Alcoholics Anonymous has always been broke down into two simple words, love and service. And you've got to remember that somebody took the time out of their life to carry the message to you. So let's just keep it that simple. It's basically that simple. One alcoholic talks to another alcoholic and gets them to create and do actions. That they never have any idea about doing. It don't seem right to me. My sponsor told me to do things that I said didn't have anything to do with alcoholism. He told me to do things that were not written in that book. See, I knew the book because I studied it for 19 months. I went through those steps sitting in a penitentiary all by myself with the help of a couple of other guys. But he gave me action. He told me that I should do things that I said didn't have anything to do with alcoholism. And I did. And I did. And I did. I said, I should. I should go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. All the time. He told me that I should have a job in every meeting that I go to. He said, you know, you got to do this. You got to get there early. You got to stay there late. And you got to sit down and shut up. I said, why? I may want to visit with old Martin over there. Why should I shut up? He said, Johnny, I've been married toancellors for over 70 years. And I've been Have you ever stopped to think that maybe somebody else wants to listen? I said, no, I haven't. He said, I didn't think so. Selfish, self-centered people, you don't think about anybody but yourself. Why don't you just shut up, pay attention? Well, I didn't like that. When you're new, you don't want to shut up. You want people to notice you. I was telling some people at coffee this morning, I was a year or so out of the penitentiary and some guy asked me to go give a talk, one of those ten-minute talks with the speaker. And I'm all excited about that. I went out and bought me a necktie even. I was just really going to make a splash, my debut in Alcoholics Anonymous. I called my sponsor up and I said, Norm, Norm. He said, what do you want, jackass? I said, oh, so-and-so has asked me to go give a little ten-minute talk with him. He's giving the main talk. What do you think about that, Norm? He said, well, that's okay, Johnny. I said, what do you think I ought to tell him, Norm? He said, why don't you tell him your name and your sobriety date? You don't know anything else. Which is true. Which is absolutely true. What do you know at one year sober? What I was like, what I was like, what I was like, what I was like, and what I was like. Today, we've got people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, they've been told, you've got to go to AA. You've got to share. You've got to share. Yeah. Get it out. A guy walked up to me the other day and said that. I want to share. I said, mop the floor. You ought to saw the look on his face. What has that got to do with sharing? I said, that's about the best sharing I know of. Grab a mop. It's all relevant about what service is in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not everybody gets to talk. But there's a job if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous, or old or medium in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a job in Alcoholics Anonymous for you to do. It's your job. And if you don't do it, it will never get done. I don't know what it is. So if you're wondering what it is, I suggest you try everything once. I suggest you try central service, general service, sweeping floors, setting up meetings, leading meetings, reading a book. Do all this stuff. All this stuff around here that's essential to keep your mind off yourself. And sooner or later, you'll fall into a pattern of whatever your job is you're supposed to do around here. I'm a coffee maker by trade. That's what I do. I make coffee for 800 or 1,000 people every Wednesday night. You know, they never say that's good coffee. They never walk in and pat me on the back and say, what a wonderful job you're doing, that dear young man. Now when I was new in doing things, they did that. When I was old. I didn't know anything about that. When I was young. I didn't know anything about that. I knew I was back there in the kitchen washing cups, sweeping the floor. Old-timers would walk up and tap me on the back and say, Oh, you're doing a good job, newcomer. Keep it up. Pat me on the back. Now I'm 40-some years sober, and I'm still picking up chairs in my home group and making coffee, and you know what they say? Look at that old son of a gun. He's still trying to run everything around here. It's just the nature of the beast. So it's an absolute necessity. My sponsor, I have a sponsor. I had a sponsor who was probably the meanest man who ever lived, but he loved me more than I could possibly ever imagine loving anybody. He cared more about saving my life than he did about hurting my feelings. He did. I used to call him up in the middle of the night because I just wanted to see if he'd answer the phone. Oh, I didn't want anything. I'd have to make something up. I'd have to make something up on the phone, and I'd say things to him like, Norm! He'd say, What do you want, jackass? Some of us have to work tomorrow. Well, that hurt. But that didn't deter me from my journey. Norm, I'd say to him, He'd say, What do you want? And I'd say, Norm, my program ain't working, Norm. He'd say, Why don't you try ours and hang up? Jesus. Then I'd call him back. You know what he'd say to me? Jackass, your program never did work. You know what my program is? My program, at the ripe old age of 26 or 27 years old, got me crawling around in a cell in solitary confinement at a Maxson security penitentiary, drifting in and out of total insanity. That's my program. That's my best program. Now, on a part-time basis, trying to incorporate our program into my life, I'm a happy, joyous, free individual. I'm of service. I've got a purpose and a direction for being. I've got a direction for God. I've got a thing to do. I've got people to see and places to go. I've got a lovely family. I've got a couple of beautiful daughters. I've got four great grandkids. I've got a lovely wife. I love death. Living in my home, waiting for me. A little dog. You ought to see me sometime. I've got a little grey dog. She's about that tall. She wears purple leash. Got a purple halter. Got little purple things in her hair when I get her done. And I take her down to a store called Petco, California. You can take your dogs in there. I take her down and let her pick out her toys. She grabs one, hangs onto it, looks at me, and I go buy it. And all the time I'm doing that, I'm singing to myself. If they could. See me now. That old gang of mine. It's a funny thing. I can't imagine ever walking back into the penitentiary and saying, you ought to see me walking my little grey dog down there at Petco Saturday. Yeah. But life is a wonderful thing. You know what? I tell you, I had a great experience about two months ago. Two months ago, I was invited to go back and talk in the state penitentiary at Folsom, where I was, and I was a visitor there for a period of time, 46 years ago. And I got to go there, and I was going to talk to the inmates or the convicts, whatever you want to do. And when we got there, we were a little ahead of schedule, and we couldn't get through the one place to get to the other place. And so we stopped right outside of the old mess hall I used to eat in 46 years ago. And right down the hall from that place was a cell block that I lived in 46 years ago. Oh. I walked down to that cell block and walked three cells down on the left of the cell that I lived in 46 years ago. And I walked across that mess hall that I ate in to a cafeteria where they fed the free people, and sit down and spend four hours with 300 convicts, people just like me. And all I could tell them was, you don't have to live like this no more if you don't want to. Because I used to sit on that back row just like you did. I was as full of my skepticism and criticism and doubtfulness as anybody who lived upon the face of the earth. But one day a man who was dedicated to Alcoholics Anonymous and to the service of it, who had fulfilled the conditions of sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, was willing to give up his time and his effort and come to a penitentiary and tell me, that I didn't have to live like that anymore, so I did it for you. And I don't know, it gave me a funny feeling. One of the free people said to me, what's it like after all these years? And I said, same. Hasn't changed. Smells the same. He said, what do you mean the smell? I said, you can smell the fear. It's gripped in fear. Everybody's afraid that everybody's going to find out that they're afraid. And if that's not my entire story, I don't know what it is. I've had opportunities. I know sometimes I almost get to thinking that I never had a break, that I was doomed from time, but it's not true. I've had people come into institutions where I was at and offer me scholarship to universities. I had a talent to play baseball that's beyond belief sometimes, an arm that could throw a ball through a wall, a bat, a baseball that I could hit, no matter how hard they threw it. I could run like a deer. I could do a lot of things. And scouts from universities came in to see me at reform schools and offered me scholarship to go to the university. But I walked out of an institution as physically sober as I am right now and took a drink. And then the drink took a drink, and then the drink took me. And playing baseball in a penitentiary against Major League Baseball players, a scout from the St. Louis Cardinals, came in there and offered me a trial at their training camp when I got out of the penitentiary for the St. Louis Cardinals. But I walked out of there and took a drink, and then the drink took a drink, and then the drink took me, and I never got to St. Louis. See, I never went anywhere when I drank. I have never stopped drinking. My sponsor is probably a great, a great, great reason that I'm standing here tonight. Because even though I was armed with the knowledge of what Alcoholics Anonymous is, and I had incorporated the program of recovery into my life, I didn't know how to behave around you. I didn't know that my actions may affect a newcomer sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know that my doubtfulness and my criticism and my, the way I dress and the way I acted, the way I behaved and my snobbishness and my self-centeredness was going to affect me. I didn't know how to behave around you. I never realized that my purpose in life is to install some type of hope and some type of message to the newcomer. Because I've come to understand that the real payoff in Alcoholics Anonymous is not staying sober. That's not the payoff. If you don't get the payoff, you're never going to stay sober anyhow if you're an alcoholic. The payoff is to watch somebody get this thing that was given to you and watch it come out of them. Watch this light come on and arise. My Papa used to say, to return from the land of the living dead to the land of the living. That's the payoff in Alcoholics Anonymous. It doesn't make any difference whether you sponsor them, whether you know them, or whether you don't know them. You can sit over there in that chair where I sit there and watch these two fine people get up here and talk about what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for them. And so, I don't know how to behave around you. I don't know how to behave around you. I don't know how to behave around you. I don't know how to behave around you. Something happens to me because I understand what's happened to them. And I am able to transpose what's happened to me to them and them to me, which is what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about. That's the singleness of purpose. One alcoholic talks to another alcoholic. And that's the way it works. My sponsor taught me that. And the second thing he taught me more than anything else is the importance of a home group. It's important for me to be somewhere all the time where I say I'm going to be. It's important to know where I am going to be. And it's important to know where I am going to be. It's important for me to sit in the same chair in my home group. I've sat in the same chair on Monday nights for the last 33 years, every single Monday. I can count on my hand the number of times I've missed that meeting. And it's never been because of a business thing. It's never been because of a family obligation. It's never been any other excuse. The only time I've ever missed that thing is when I was in the hospital with an operation. That's the only time I've missed that meeting. I can't understand why I can't be there. My sponsor told me. And it's another thing. Where am I going to tell the guys I sponsor? Come on over here and get in this group and do these things. My sponsor took me down by the hand and sat me down and said, this is it. Be here. Wash them cups and sweep these floors and pick up them chairs. I told him, I want to do something here. He gave me something to do. I didn't know when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I'm like all people who come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I come here seeking something. I come to Alcoholics Anonymous to get something. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a getting program. No matter how far down the scale you've gone, if you came into this room tonight, you brought every single thing you need in here with you. All you've got to do is uncover and discover. You start your situation. It's what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is really all about. It's what our book is all about. And in a home group, what I have found, I have found people there who know me better than I know myself. I have had people that I sponsored walk up to me and say, what's wrong with you? What do you mean, what's wrong with me? Well, you look like you're mad at something. you look like you swallowed something you look like you ate a persimmon or something what's the matter with you sponsor Jesus you're not supposed to talk to your sponsor like that only only if you know that your sponsor is a human being and all human beings have feet of clay all the people that I sponsor have ever done for me just make me be better than I really am at least behave better than I am so when somebody walks up to me and I sponsor I've got to straighten up after all I am the sponsor I guess that's where the old ego takes over that's the importance of a home group it's very important I guess there's a thing that they do in my home group I don't know where it started but it started now and the people are picking up it's almost like it's almost like a thing that they do we have basically the same format on Monday night that you have here and and every single person who gets up there and gives a talk always says the three most important things in my life is a sobriety date a home group and a sponsor in that order isn't it amazing think about it if you don't have a sobriety date it can't be very important if you don't have a home group nobody will ever get to know you if you don't have a sponsor you'll never have anybody to lead you down the path it's a very simple thing singleness of purpose a home group sponsorship they're all very wonderful things but you know to be a sponsor I suppose requires a lot of time and a lot of effort you know and if you don't know this I'm going to tell you there's a big difference between saying you have a sponsor and being sponsored and if you don't know the difference with that you may be in a lot of trouble a lot of people I tell them today having coffee I have people call me from somewhere across the country and say oh so-and-so is by here and says you're a sponsor I don't even know who old so-and-so was I haven't got the clue who he was I've never sponsored him don't know him but I guess he thought it was important to say yeah Johnny Harris is my sponsor you know that's a good thing like that's going to give him something I have people do that all the time with my sponsor yeah Clancy's my sponsor I tell them why don't you do what Clancy does then oh what do you mean answers my question I just turn and walk away and leave them pondering that I've got a little cruel speak to me every once in a while I just bring it out there sometimes the devil just gets a hold of me just kind of hangs in there on me they take it out on the people I sponsor if they're handy but it's a magic thing Alcoholics Anonymous there's another thing I want to talk to you about it's in the book Alcoholics Anonymous in our book Alcoholics Anonymous Bill Wilson our Bill Wilson the guy who wrote our book who shares his experience strength and hope with us talks repeatedly about alcoholics of our type and he says I'm not going to talk about alcoholics of our type I'm going to talk about alcoholics of our type alcoholics of our type he talks about he wrote the book and the program of recovery for alcoholics of our type it's been my experience to understand that he wrote about it in the book Alcoholics Anonymous he says there's a type of alcoholic I suppose who is really nothing more than a heavy drinker that given any type of reasonable excuse he can quit drinking and never drink again the only requirement is he just quit drinking he's not going to lose his job or his wife or his kids or any of this kind of stuff so he just quit drinking he just knocks it off then there's another type of alcoholic he talks about who may become physically addicted to alcohol may even have to be hospitalized that's where they make treatment centers for that's where these treatment centers who boast this great success story come out with this kind of stuff these are the type of people that they rack up with success stories for they can give you names and addresses and phone numbers where these people are but then Bell talks about the real alcoholic talks about the alcoholic of my type who may get sober given any type of reasonable excuse like getting arrested but sooner or later left unchecked I will always drink again so I must find some type of a spiritual way of life that will afford me some degree of comfort where I never have to pick up a drink of alcohol to get that sense of ease and comfort that it takes to come in a few drinks ever again and based on my experience that's what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me it's afforded me the opportunity to live comfortable enough for almost 45 years so I haven't had to take a drink of alcohol or use any mind altering chemicals whatsoever and to live the good life and to be able to walk through the tragedy the mother of my children committed suicide when I was almost 6 years sober you know I don't understand all that kind of stuff my mother drank herself to death after 30 years of me being in AA I've been through business failures I've had divorces I've had bankruptcy not bankruptcy but business failures and financial troubles my youngest daughter went crazy in her senior year in high school and ran the streets for years and years and years but all I've ever done one of those things that hit me just go to other meetings just go to more meetings call up my sponsor and tell him I'm going through all these things okay I'll see you at the meeting how many newcomers you're working with when was the last time you were on a panel somewhere when was the last time you went into an institution and tried to carry the message why don't you do this every single setback that I've had is an amazing thing to me and you know why there's a God I know there's a God of my very own because in every single one of those setbacks and the depressions that they brought about I didn't have to swallow anything to ease the pain I know there's a God I know because I couldn't do it by myself and I couldn't do it without you and today like I told you before I uh I live a life beyond my wildest imagination I just absolutely believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter what my problem may be if I come here and try to stick out my hand to an alcoholic and do what I'm asked to do in Alcoholics Anonymous sooner or later it'll go away when I was a young man in Alcoholics Anonymous I was very close well to Chuck my Papa Chuck he was probably the only father that I've ever known he called me son I called him Papa and I loved him dearly and one time I was very troubled about something I don't know what it was but I know it was real monumental at that moment and so like I always did I was going to go home and talk to my Papa about that and I went down to see him and he was down in Laguna Beach he was down there on the lawn bowling on the lawn down there they wear white suits and they throw little balls down the thing and knock the little balls around kind of a goofy thing but he got great pleasure out of it so he finished his game we sit down we're having some iced tea it was a nice day we're out looking over the ocean and I laid this big monumental problem on my Papa and I said to him what do you think about that he looked at me and he said look out there and I what he said look out there at the ocean I said we're looking at the ocean you know I want some answers I don't want this philosophical nonsense from you I want some answers I didn't say that that's what I was thinking and he said how far can you see I said what he said how far can you see I said I can see the ocean what do you mean he said no you don't understand do you I said no I don't what are you talking about he said it's seven miles to the horizon I said really I drove the old man's been in the sun for a long time he's been in the sun too long that's what I'm thinking he's goof he's foolish his ice tea hasn't hit yet about an hour later we're sitting up at his house up on a hill and we got these two big chairs I'm sitting in one he's sitting in the other he's got a big picture window he looks out over the ocean I thought well I'm going to ask him now he's out of the sun so I said to him Papa I gave him this big deal again and he laughed at me and he looked out at the window and he said how far can you see and I thought oh my God so I gave him an answer I said seven miles he says you don't understand do you and I said I don't even know what you're talking about he said from that point to that point is 120 miles I said really he said you really still don't understand do you and I said no I don't he says the higher you go the further you see and the further you see the more there is to see and if you could see Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 steps of our program of recovery in its entirety it would blind you it would be like looking into the sun it's my experience it's true that's why they say in our book we grow along spiritual lines what I see today I couldn't have seen yesterday what I saw the day before yesterday I couldn't see yesterday as long as I stay active and close to this program of Alcoholics Anonymous my book promises me that more will be revealed to me it promises me that and I'm here to tell you that the promises in Alcoholics Anonymous are true but they will only come if you work for them they only materialize after the 9th step of our program of recovery before the 9th step of our program of recovery there is an awful lot of promises that you don't want to happen into your life that will happen to you if you don't do these things one of them says if you skip this vital step you may drink that's a promise it also says it's easy to let up on a spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels but we're headed for trouble if we do because alcohol is a subtle foe a subtle foe just waits there all it does is wait for me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong set of circumstances it won't matter alcohol won't matter to me that I've been sober 40 some odd years it won't matter to me that I sponsor a host of people it won't matter to me that I have a sponsor it won't matter to me that Chuck and Norm are such a great influence in my life as well as Clancy is it won't matter to me that I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful home and a little dog and two gorgeous daughters and three grandchildren it won't matter at all if I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong set of circumstances and I'm just as apt to get squirrelly tomorrow as anybody else here and somebody hands me the drink I'll take it I have been in that condition sober I have been so dark and so into myself and so guilt ridden about my actions being sober that I was in the wrong place in the wrong time somebody handed me a drink you'd have another speaker here tonight I know that without a doubt but my safe haven is with you when I am troubled I am not home dreaming about my solutions when I am troubled about anything when my self-interest and my self-centeredness is dominating my life when I do not have the ability to drop down on my knees and start saying prayers when I don't have the prayer to say God grant me the serenity this too will pass when I'm goofy I'm goofy and it doesn't make any difference how long I've been sober but I'd rather be goofy with you than I would goofy by myself because by myself I'm very dangerous by myself I think I got it all together here I'm safe harbor being with you is a great thing I hear people say all the time I had to learn to love me before I could love you and that's not my experience I don't even like me sometimes so how in the world could I possibly ever love me but I want to tell you one thing I have never not loved you I've loved you from the moment I sit in your meetings even though I didn't know what it was I was feeling for you today with the actions I've made with the actions I've taken surrounded by the people I've been taken with I realize how much I really really love Alcoholics Anonymous and you people and as long as I'm able to stand and move around I'll be sitting with you I know it's a terrible thing but alcoholism kills many people killed my mother killed a lot of people killed everybody in my family except my daughters and I but I'm here to tell you if anything I could possibly do I'd like to stand here tonight and thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous but I think even more than that what I'd really like to do is I'd like to thank Alcoholics Anonymous for my God thank you very much thank you thank you and I thank you all for eating you place 무고�icallyником