Spiritual Death at Twenty Years Sober and Starting the Steps Over from Scratch – Clint H.

Thank you, Steve. I'm Clint Hodges. I'm an alcoholic, and I appreciate the fact that I'm included here in this weekend of unity, the fourth annual Spring to Sobriety.
Did I get that right? It's good to be here in Florida again. I come from Los Angeles, and it's a little tricky being here, only because in L.A., when we inhale, we know we're inhaling.
We can feel it. There's a bite to it there, and you don't have that here. But there's a great enthusiasm in A.A. there.
And I feel it here. I feel a great respect for this program here. And I know that where guys like Steve and his sponsor are holding forth, there's good stuff happening in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And so I'm glad to be here. Is anybody relatively new in A.A.? If you're in your first 30 days of sobriety, would you raise your hand just briefly, please, so we know who you are?
Oh, we've got a pretty good bunch.
Okay. All right.
There's an alert group. One guy stood up. They were going to have seconding speeches. Jesus, it's a weekend of unity.
Man, that has to really ring in your head.
If you're new here, huh? I mean, it's like, what would that mean? Why would we be here like that? And it really basically means that those of us in Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon that are here are very, very committed to the same general set of principles.
Because our lives depend on them. Because our sobriety is contingent upon our obtaining and maintaining.
And a spiritual condition that allows us to live in the world. We are really here finding a way in which we can live in a world in which we feel welcome and loved and comfortable.
If you're new, you'll get the idea perhaps that the thing here is about quitting drinking. And it is not. We know how to quit.
I quit several times a day for several years. I am a good quitter. I quit several times before noon. This is the last half pint I'm ever going to need. I'm quitting.
And I'd be back down at that. If it was like Al read the steps tonight, if it was about quitting, I guess it'd go like this. Step one, quit.
Come on now.
Knock it off.
It's not about quitting.
And it's not about learning how to drink without getting into trouble.
It felt like we could do that for a while, but you know what happened?
We drank ourselves beyond human aid.
We drank ourselves beyond human aid.
No human power is going to get this done.
Certainly not our power.
And I've never...
I've never in 27 years of Sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous met anybody that was able to make a difference in the amount I drank.
That happened outside of the human realm of experience.
It certainly happened amongst you, but it did not happen at the hands of any human beings.
If it would have been that way, we wouldn't be meeting here.
I'd just touch bases with you once in a while, and I'd go on my way.
Or I would have caught it like an allergy to strawberries, and that would be the end of that.
But we're caught up here in something much different than that.
And the fellowship, this idea of unity, is based on a couple of things according to the book.
It's based on, number one, a common problem, and number two, a common solution.
And it's important.
It's important that we know it takes both of those things, I think.
I mean, I've been in places with a group of people where we all had a common problem.
And that's all we had, and it didn't seem to help much.
It was the drunk tank.
Everybody there had the same problem.
And we didn't fall on each other's necks with glad cries.
And I've been in places where they offered a common solution.
And it didn't make me feel part of.
Church is an example.
When I was a little kid, they took us to church four and five times a week.
And I never felt safe in church.
I never felt like that was going to be the place where I would gain peace in my heart.
People do.
My mother and my grandmother seemed to.
They said they did, and I have no reason to doubt it.
But I never felt safe in church.
I never did.
And the questions that were asked of me were questions that baffled me.
Like, where will you spend eternity?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Or,
have you found God yet?
No, I don't want to find God.
I understand He's a little annoyed with me.
And I,
my mother liked to say,
what will you do when you meet your Maker?
Apologize, I guess.
I don't know.
What the hell I'm going to do.
And yet, that environment provided a common solution to a lot of people.
And not for me.
Not for me.
I found mine with you.
And so, what we have here is a common problem.
Our total defeat.
Our absolute powerlessness.
A serious spiritual deficit in our lives.
Which leads to a total unmanageability.
And we have a common solution.
A solution that enables us to tap into power that we never had.
And so, if you're new here, I welcome you.
You'll get a lot of advice.
I don't know what they do here in Florida.
But in California, we love to give newcomers advice.
Love to.
We like to say,
don't make a mistake.
We like to say, don't make a mistake.
Don't make any important decisions your first year.
And then we give them about 90 days and we slide up to them and say,
we'd like you to make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God.
And the guys...
Don't get emotionally involved your first year.
Hey, give it a shot.
You'll be the first one that tried it.
We don't know if that works or not.
Doesn't say anything about that in the book.
But we like to talk like that.
Don't get emotionally involved.
That is good advice.
I tell that to people.
And they say, did you get emotionally involved?
I say, shut up.
I'm trying to help you.
But you're welcome here.
If you are new here, you may already know that you are welcome here.
But I want to say it.
I want to particularly acknowledge you and say that you're welcome here.
And also to let you know that I understand and everybody here does
that you probably don't think you fit in that well.
I mean, you look around.
When I was new, I got to Alcoholics Anonymous because a bail bondsman took me to a meeting.
That's how I got here.
I was living in Glendale, California in a garage with three other guys.
And my life was not really strong.
I was in and out of the Glendale drunk tank.
I spent a night or two in the park.
And occasionally I'd get back to that garage.
I didn't want to get there too early because the guy that owned it wanted 11 bucks a week.
It had been cut and I never had it.
The garage had been cut up into four little rooms and I had one of those little rooms.
And I was in the garage.
And I guess I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was about quitting.
I guess I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was about, if it isn't about quitting,
it's about controlling your drinking.
Cindy was laughing the other day.
We were talking about this wonderful notion of controlling and enjoying our drinking.
To put those two words in the same sentence is interesting, isn't it?
I don't know.
I controlled it once in a while.
And I enjoyed it once in a while.
But never at the same time.
What is it here?
It's important to kind of get a fix on what the problem is.
I was laughing a couple of, well, it's been a while now.
A guy told me a story about a man that's standing in his kitchen.
And he looks out into the backyard and he sees his dog out there.
And the dog's got the neighbor's rabbit in its mouth.
And he doesn't want any trouble with the neighbor.
And he runs.
He runs out there.
The rabbit's all bloody.
It's dead.
But he brings it inside.
And he washes it off.
And he blow dries the rabbit.
And that night he sneaks it into the cage next door.
A couple of weeks goes by and he sees his neighbor out in front.
And he says, how are you doing?
And the neighbor says, I'm doing good.
He said, how's your rabbit?
Couldn't leave it alone.
The neighbor said, funny thing about that rabbit.
It died a month ago and I buried it.
Now I see it's back in that cage back there.
It's like, what is the problem here?
And so what problem are we here about?
What propels us in here?
I guess you need the problem so you can get at the answer.
I suppose if I tell you seven, that doesn't mean much unless I let you know that the question is what's three and four.
So what is our problem?
Our problem is interesting.
We've been beat.
We've been beat by booze.
And then something happened.
In our total flight from God, we were overtaken by God.
He overtook me.
And he removed the obsession to drink.
I can't quit.
I tried that.
I can't do it.
And in 1960,
in the spring,
on the other side of this country,
looking out over the Pacific Ocean,
on a day when they allowed me to see my little boy for the first time in a long time,
and holding his hand,
it occurred to me,
I haven't had a drink in nine months.
And I began to cry.
And he said, what are you crying about, Daddy?
And I don't remember what I told him,
but I can remember that day.
I can remember knowing
that something profound had happened to me.
The obsession to drink had been removed.
And I had tried everything.
I didn't want to be a drunk.
I didn't want to live in that garage.
I didn't want...
It was an eight by ten room with a sticky linoleum floor.
I never did like it.
I didn't like the temperature in there.
I didn't like the smell in there.
I didn't like that wet mattress in there.
I didn't like the floor that you...
When you walked across it,
it was...
Your feet stuck to it.
Wine and all of that over there.
I did...
I hated that room.
There was a little bulb coming out of the ceiling.
And I'd lived and I died in that little room.
There was no decoration,
nothing on the wall,
a little chilly maybe,
but that was it.
I had an old copy of Playboy magazine.
I didn't want to live alone.
I didn't want to live alone.
Sort of like,
Honey, I'm home, right?
Pick up a lot of social skills that way.
In and out of the drunk tank.
Standing in front of the judge saying,
Guilty, Your Honor.
Guilty with an explanation.
My life had been reduced by other people
to little tight sentences.
I had reduced my...
They didn't reduce it.
They simply described it.
But my commander in the Marine Corps,
when he filled out a fitness report,
said,
Lieutenant Hodges consistently fails
to live up to the low standards
he has set for himself.
And that wasn't really accurate.
I had impossibly high standards,
but it just sort of gives you
the level of power that was in my life.
A cop in Glendale, New York,
Glendale arrested me one morning
at 10 for drunk driving.
Got me out of that car,
had me touching my nose and doing all that.
And a couple of weeks later,
I saw the report,
and he wrote down,
I discontinued the field sobriety test
because the suspect was injuring himself.
And I want a jury trial, right?
Give me justice.
My sponsor, a guy named Clancy,
said,
don't be asking for justice.
You've had all the justice you can stand.
Mercy, maybe.
Go for mercy this time.
Funny guy told somebody,
he said,
don't ever go...
Think of your mind like it's a bad neighborhood
and don't ever go in there alone.
I thought,
I thought,
I thought,
But a bail bondsman brought me to you
out of all of that mess.
Out of broken marriages
and
the ruptured lives of innocent children.
And sad wives and bewildered parents.
Because I have a disease called alcoholism.
And I had been treating my disease with alcohol.
That is a mistake.
And one day,
God removed the obsession to drink.
And it was when I found you,
it was after he overtook me,
and I came here,
and I was touched.
I was touched.
I was glad to be with you.
I sat in meetings after a while
when I began to calm down.
And instead of counting the tiles in the ceiling,
I could get in the room for a little bit.
And that's important if you're new here tonight.
The meetings are important.
The meetings are great
because it's maybe the first time in a long time
you've been able to be in the room
with somebody else
instead of up in your head.
And I, you know,
that's where I lived.
I was always up in my head.
I had no place else to be.
I couldn't be in the room with you.
It's not safe.
And I'd go up here.
I spent a lifetime up here
supervising my problems.
Up here where the sun never shines.
Thinking that I'll just...
My sponsor used to say,
oh, you're going to go home
and get caught up on your worrying, are you?
Why not?
I didn't dare let go of any of it.
As if my thinking...
You know, there is a problem with our thinking.
My thinking.
Maybe if you're new with your thinking.
I know with mine at 27 years,
I've got a problem.
I can't think straight.
And I lack proportion.
Somebody cuts me off on the freeway.
I don't wave them in and say,
gee, they must be in a bigger hurry than me.
I get their number.
I start plotting their death.
I begin to think.
That is no...
It's so tempting to think.
But one think leads to another.
And it begins to really get off track.
She hung up on me.
She's going to do that again.
This is getting crazy.
I'm going to have to teach her a lesson.
I'm going to do...
And about four thinks later,
I'm in trouble.
And within a few more minutes,
I'm thinking,
I could be out in five years.
Can you get that?
The judge says,
do you have anything to say in mitigation?
She hung up on me.
She hung up on me.
Had to die.
If you're new and you identify with that kind of thinking,
welcome home.
Welcome aboard.
We're glad you're here.
There's a place for you.
I was in full flight from God.
Who wants to meet God?
Who wants anything like that?
When you're living like that.
Not me.
And then you come in here.
And then you wake up to the fact
you're not drinking anymore.
And you know you didn't do that.
And it's like, wow.
That's pretty amazing.
That is extraordinary.
Thanks.
Hey.
And I knew I wouldn't see him after that.
I knew he was going to come down here
to Florida and help you.
But I'll make it.
I'll be all right.
I knew that I had passed into a region
from which there is no return by human means.
That's all right.
I'll get by.
It's interesting.
You know, the book gives us some very specific
questions and choices.
Questions like,
are you alcoholic or not?
Oh.
I've been a mild case for about a month now, I guess.
Or, is God everything or nothing?
Well, he's not everything they say he is.
And then we come to this one.
I've passed into a region from which
there is no return by human means.
What are my choices to be?
I can live a life of alcoholic despair.
Or I can accept spiritual help.
Isn't that interesting that that should be a struggle?
I can crawl around on the floor in the garage.
Or I can make a decision to turn my will and my life
over to the care of God as I understand God.
Let me get back to you on that.
Why should that be so tough?
What is the problem with that?
I knew booze had beat me.
I knew it had beat me beyond...
I'll tell you a story that I heard that touched me.
It's not my story.
But this guy told a story.
He's from Colorado.
And his name is Don.
And he said it wasn't his story either.
But there's a big arena.
And in it is a boxing ring.
And it's well lighted.
And there's a crowd.
And there's a high sense of anticipation.
And there's going to be a great athletic event.
A boxing match in the ring that night.
And in one corner,
where in the white trunks
is a fighter named Alcohol.
Alcohol.
Dancing around over there looking good.
And in the other corner in the dark trunks
is me.
And the first round bell goes off
and we go out there
and we kind of work it out a little bit.
Sparring, feeling each other out.
Good exchange.
And I came back feeling pretty good.
And my trainers worked with me.
You know what I'd done?
I had saved a bunch of seats at ringside
for my friends and my family.
I wanted them to see everything.
And there they were.
Smiling.
And I went out the second round
and it was more of the same.
And I came back and everything was great.
And I was beginning to get that sense
that this was going to be fine.
And I went out the third round
and I don't know how it happened
but I got knocked right on my butt.
And he's standing there dancing.
And he's smiling and he looked down
and he said,
Lucky punch.
Lucky punch.
I said, yeah, I know.
And I got up and they dusted off my gloves
and we finished the round.
The next round he got in another one.
He said, lucky punch.
You can beat me.
And I said, you're damn right I can beat you.
And the fifth round was not so good.
And the sixth round was bad.
And the seventh round.
I got back at the end of the seventh round
and my friends are gone.
And my family is saying,
give it up.
We don't want to watch this anymore.
It's not a pretty thing.
We're going to leave.
Don't leave.
Let there be one more round.
And the bell went and I went out
and that round I didn't see much
but the tops of his shoes.
And my eyes are closing
and I can't see much of anything.
And they got me back in the corner
and my family's gone.
And I have to stumble through
a couple more rounds
and I took a bad beating
and I got the fight stopped
and he was the winner.
And I must have gone back to that ring
a lot of times
and he was always there
waiting for me, smiling.
I waited for you.
You're a good fighter.
I knew you'd be back.
I can give you another fight.
You'll probably beat me this time.
And I went on the wagon for six weeks
and then I got to thinking.
I went back to the arena
and nobody was there but alcohol.
He was there and we were fighting again
and I got beat again.
That lasted a long time.
When that guy told that story
and the futility of it
and the knowing that I can beat him,
it touched me much.
And if you're new here
and if that speaks to you,
welcome.
Welcome.
We didn't want it to be this way.
And we come here.
And we're not sure we're like these people.
They look so good.
They seem so nice.
And more than that,
what's the biggest difference
between me and you
when I'm new?
I'll tell you what it is.
You apparently have what it takes
to stay sober
and I know that I do not have
what it takes to stay sober.
And so I don't think this will work for me.
And you know,
an interesting thing happens
along the way to finding unity,
along the way to finding a common solution
and understanding we have a common problem.
Something remarkable occurs to me one day.
And it will occur to you.
And not tonight,
not just because I say it,
but someday it will occur to you.
And that is this.
It isn't that we have what it takes
to stay sober and you do not.
We're all alike
because none of us has what it takes
to stay sober.
And we're sober.
And we're sober.
And that's God's grace.
And I didn't even like that kind of talk
about God's grace.
But you know what?
It's in the fiber of my life.
I heard a guy say,
you have to merit God's grace.
You have to earn it.
And I said, boy, that's the difference.
And he said, you do.
I said, how is that?
He said, well, in order to have God's grace,
you have to be a liar and a thief
and a cheat and a jerk.
And I said, hey, I qualify.
He said, those other people don't need it.
I need it.
And I got it.
And you do too.
He overtakes us in our flight from Him.
And I wound up here.
And I wound up here.
And what every seeker wants
is to see something in somebody
that lets him know that what he seeks is real.
And you showed me that.
You showed me that.
As I sat in these meetings,
new and Alcoholics Anonymous,
I loved them when I began to get comfortable in them.
When I began to be here in the room with you,
I loved these meetings.
And people,
get us in the room.
I remember very clearly
when I was new in Los Angeles,
a lady by the name of Gail
who has since died sober
was at the podium one night
and she got me in the room.
I didn't know her very well,
but she looked pretty
and she looked elegant
and she seemed bright.
And she also had something else going about her
that I liked
and that is she seemed a little skeptical.
And I figured if she was going for this,
maybe there was something to it.
And as she said,
she stood up at the podium that night
and talked about herself.
She spoke of the alcoholic's prayer.
And she described a scene in her living room
when she came out of a blackout
sitting on the mantle over the fireplace
with her cat.
And there was a little cat food and vodka up there.
A little something for everybody.
And as this story unfolded,
the reason that she and the cat were up there
was because there was about eight inches of water
on the floor.
And I'm liking Gail better all the time.
And as it turns out,
the water was on the floor
because she had decided last Tuesday
to take a bath
and the whole deal had gotten away from her somehow.
I'm going,
Yes, Gail!
Made me want to know her better, you know.
Kindred spirits.
And she said,
the alcoholic's prayer goes like this,
God Almighty, what's wrong with me?
And I'd said that prayer.
She got me in the room that night.
She's died since sober.
And she and I never became very close in any sense.
But I was always glad to see her.
She touched me.
She touched me.
She let me know
because she was sober
and had a lot of money.
And she had the dignity that she had.
That what I sought is real.
At least for you.
And the day came when I knew
that none of us had what it takes
to stay sober and we're sober.
Then another dimension comes in.
And I don't really embrace it full out
because I've got a problem.
And the problem is
I can't decide what I want to do.
Crawl around on the floor in the garage.
No.
Accept spiritual help.
No.
And that's an interesting word.
Accept spiritual help.
Not ask for it.
But accept it.
See, there is no lack of spiritual direction.
None.
It's just coming all the time.
There is a lack of awareness of it.
But no lack of it.
Sometimes I've got to have the right sponsor.
I need to tuck into the right group.
I've got to.
There is no lack of spiritual direction
coming to us.
But we don't see it.
It says God will constantly disclose
more to you and to us.
Man, I must be missing quite a bit.
If that's true.
And I think it's true.
If I can't decide
whether to crawl around on the floor in the garage
or accept spiritual help,
what's the problem?
The problem is this.
If I'm crawling around on the floor,
I don't have any control over my life.
If I decide to turn my will and my life
over to the care of God,
as I understand God,
I don't have any control over my life.
So my response is,
what's behind door C?
Can we have another little choice here
where I'm still running the show
and not getting into trouble?
Well,
well,
that doesn't seem to be the way that it is.
Although I gave it as good a shot
as it can be given.
The first thing I did
was move out of Glendale, California.
That's not a power-based NAIA
and I'm interested in my power.
And I moved over to the west end of town
where they seem to be having more fun.
And you know what?
They were.
And we had a lot of fun.
I even started saying,
I'm sponsoring some guys.
Maybe that'll give you some power.
Oh, I don't really want to accept spiritual help, thanks,
but I'll pay enough of the money back
so I can talk about it from the podium.
Will that work?
I'll kind of develop some sort of a little thing
about spiritual life.
I'll kind of dance around all of this business.
I'll write a little bit of an inventory
and read it to somebody.
And I did that.
I took the steps to the best of my ability,
but I have no power to take these steps.
Not really.
Not really.
And if you're new and you're involved in the steps,
do it.
Absolutely do it.
And perhaps if you want to tap into real power later on,
you'll sit down with somebody that's done it
the way it says to do it in that book
called Alcoholics Anonymous
and your life will change.
You'll tap into somebody
that will make a difference for you
as I did eventually.
But on the way,
sober and Alcoholics Anonymous,
the obsession to drink removed from me,
I did what I did.
I sponsored people.
I went to meetings.
I did the whole number
and I did a lot of it
and I love doing that.
I've never stopped loving it.
I love these meetings.
I love them in Florida
and I love them in Los Angeles
and I love the little men's staffs.
And I like the big meetings
where there's a lot of hoorahing around.
I like it all.
I love it.
It's been the central part of my life
since August 14, 1966.
But what am I going to do about my power?
How am I going to get some power going?
Well, when I was five years sober,
somebody told me I ought to go to law school.
Well, that ought to get you some power.
I remember thinking,
that takes a while.
I went back.
I looked into it.
I went back and I said,
do you know how old I'll be in four years
if I go to law school?
This guy said,
how old will you be in four years
if you don't go to law school?
I added it up for him.
They're so dumb.
By the time I was nine years sober,
the state of California gave me a license
to practice law.
That's good.
We're making progress.
I mean, when I got here,
they wouldn't give me a license to drive a car.
And I like doing that kind of work.
I really do.
It's something interesting to do between meetings.
And I enjoy it.
I'm good at it.
And I make a contribution and a living.
Well, there's not enough power.
It turns out there's just another set of people to report to.
Well, I'll tell you what I'll do.
I'll get to be partner in the firm.
Well, I didn't do it either.
I'll go with another firm.
That wasn't enough power.
Start my own firm.
That isn't enough power.
And all this time I'm going to meetings.
All this time I'm talking about a spiritual program.
All this time I'm having a lot of fun in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I meet good guys like Steve.
And we have some laughs.
And it's great.
And then after a while,
something strange happens.
And that is a little secret feeling begins to come in
that this ain't quite it.
This is not enough.
I get a little A.A. slick.
I'm just kind of working the surface of this thing now.
The passion and the fun is gone.
A miracle has taken place in my life.
And it doesn't seem like a miracle anymore.
It just seems like that's the way that it is.
And that's worrisome.
But I decided that I ought to take those steps again.
To get back into this book.
And I decided, I don't know why,
that a good place for me to start would be step three.
Like, it's a multi-level marketing deal.
I'm going to buy in at step three, I guess.
I don't know why.
Or maybe I thought I had done step one and that was all over.
And step two.
So I said that third step prayer.
Just said it.
Now it has an interesting line in it.
See, in my life at that time.
I had a lot of things.
I had the right house.
I had the right car.
I had the right image.
And I'm bonded by my ego to the image.
I'm just hot on this image.
I've got the right income stream.
I've got the right burn rate.
And I've got this image.
I'm the only one that can see the image, but still, it's there.
It's funny about an image.
When I was in the Marine Corps, they said to put branches on those trucks so they looked like trees.
My trucks always looked like trucks with branches on them.
I'm the only guy that can see my image.
But it was important to me.
And I was bonded to it by my ego.
And I'm living my life from my ego.
But I said a prayer.
And in the middle of this prayer is a sentence that says,
Relieve me of the bondage of self, so I may better do thy will.
And he heard that.
And he relieved me of all those things I was bonded to.
It took about 120 days.
And I didn't have the same relationship or the same address or the same law office address
or the same.
My partner came to me and said, I don't want to do this with you anymore.
And the income stream went down.
And I was flabbergasted.
I couldn't believe it.
And I was frightened badly.
Scared me to death.
I was a little long in the tooth to start over.
And I was a little bit into my AA image.
And that's not supposed to happen.
I'm sponsoring guys and doing all that.
And it leaves you just numb.
I didn't know it, but I had died spiritually.
And I had died emotionally.
And the rest of the death that I went through at that time was very painful and very scary.
Since I'm a little boy with my mother and a lot of trouble there in my life,
I have a heck of a life.
I have a heck of a life.
I have a heck of a life.
I have a heck of a life.
I have a heck of a life.
I have a heck of a time trusting women or anybody.
And when you take distrust into a relationship, the relationship ends.
And you go through relationships like that.
And my notion that another relationship was going to get the job done was kind of taken away from me.
And I had nowhere to turn.
And I went back to...
Little Rock.
And I met a guy there.
And he knew exactly where I was.
He gave me a prayer.
And it goes like this.
I'd never heard it before.
Dear God, let me set aside everything I think I know about you and about me.
And about this program and about these steps for an open mind and a new experience of you and me and the program and the steps.
And I love that prayer because I needed an open mind.
And I needed a new experience.
I'd been trying to do business with some God that I didn't have any relationship with.
Based on an experience that happened in 1960.
And nothing had happened since.
I've learned since then that we really need to feel and see the results of the power in our lives.
We really do.
And we get it right here in Alcoholics Anonymous by being a service to other people.
But that had kind of gone out of my life.
In my slickness.
And this guy sat up with me late that night.
And he turned out he lived a few miles from my home.
And that next spring we got together and we began over again in the book called Alcoholics Anonymous at the first step.
And that has been an absolutely remarkable, remarkable thing in my life.
Somebody said once if you want to hide anything from an alcoholic put it in the big book.
And I, you know, there's amazing stuff in there.
Amazing stuff.
Wilson is really quite a poet as it turns out.
I didn't know my life is unmanageable and I found out.
And it doesn't seem such a big deal today.
But when I found it out a few years ago.
I was quite surprised that it was unmanageable.
And just as surprised that I had never noticed it before.
In all my grabbing for power.
All my grabbing for image.
All my grabbing.
Can you imagine grabbing for image in Alcoholics Anonymous?
Isn't that strange?
We're here bonded together by our failure.
And I wanted to look like the most failed person here.
I don't know.
Somebody was telling a story about in a monastery the monks all got together to elect the most humble monk there.
And there was this.
Voting and all of that stuff.
And they finally selected one.
And they had this ceremony.
And they awarded him a big bronze plaque that said humility across it.
It was just a touching ceremony.
And three weeks went by and they had to take it away from him because he was wearing it around his neck.
Unmanageable.
Impossible for me to manage.
But that's step two.
What an interesting thing that is.
I'll tell you.
I always look to see am I insane?
Because step two says I came to believe that a power greater than myself would restore me to sanity.
Am I insane?
That's not the question.
The question is what would sanity look like?
That's the question.
And they made me an interesting promise.
They said if you can form a vision.
Of what?
What sanity would look like at step two.
And if you can take steps three through nine.
By the time you get to step ten.
Where it says every day is the day we carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities.
Not God's vision.
His will.
But our vision of it.
The sweetest vision of it.
If you can do that.
You'll have no more and no less in your life.
At step ten.
Than the vision you formed at step two.
Now that.
I was taken by that.
That's what it is.
And they said the only thing you have to know is where you are.
Powerless and unmanageable.
And where you want to go.
And then decide.
Is there some power that will take me beyond this point?
If there is.
You've got some work to do.
They told me.
And it's going to be contrary to your life.
And against your will.
To do the work necessary.
And so we suggest you turn your will and your life over to the care of God.
So that can happen.
And I found a place inside me.
Where I can go.
Where God is.
Because I was totally defeated.
And one morning.
Looking at this book.
In a hotel in San Diego County.
California.
I found a place inside me.
Because that's where the great reality.
Is.
I looked everywhere.
Everywhere.
For God.
There is a touching bit of poetry.
On a side of a halfway house in Tucson.
There is a great Francisco painting of a drunk.
And the poetry says.
It's true.
I'm a drunk.
And my soul lives in the shadow of my emotions.
But my life has had its meaning.
And there have been songs for me.
And the hands.
That made the spirits.
And me.
And all that I have ever been.
Deserted me.
Would anyone ever know.
That my life with all its ruined hours.
Has been a search for him.
And that touched me.
Because my life with all its ruined hours.
Had been a search for him.
I had.
No idea.
Of where that would end.
But I'll tell you something.
Between that day and right now.
I have been touched.
By God's grace.
In such a way.
That nothing but God will do.
And I have a sweeter life.
Than I have ever known.
I did that fourth step.
The way it says to do it.
And I did that fifth step.
And spent a weekend reading that stuff.
And I did step six.
And made a list of those defects.
And prayed for willingness.
And they said.
Work with a dictionary.
Because you don't know what these words mean.
Well I know what willingness means.
Look it up.
You look it up.
You know what it means?
Cindy looked it up one day.
Gladly ready.
What?
Not to me.
To me it's gun to the head time.
Willing.
Gladly ready.
Am I gladly ready.
To have God remove.
These things that I find objectionable.
No.
How do I get that?
I ask for it.
I pray for it.
And he granted me the willingness.
And the next thing to do is to say.
Take him away.
Take him away.
Humbly ask him.
And I was.
We were up in Northern California.
And a lady named Joyce from Reno.
Told a very touching story about step seven.
And the remarkable power that's here.
She decided.
When she was ten years sober.
That she wanted to get over her fear of heights.
And so she took skydiving lessons.
Yeah.
I wouldn't have been my deal.
But.
And the day she's supposed to solo out of that airplane.
In the drop zone is her family.
And the women she sponsors.
Her ex-husband is there.
Everybody's there in the drop zone.
And the altitude.
The plane gets up to altitude.
And Joyce comes out.
And something was wrong with the chute.
And it didn't open right.
And she hit that ground going a lot faster than she intended to go.
And broke a lot of bones in her body.
And spent the next 18 months in the hospital.
And her husband left.
But her ex-husband who's in AA.
Came back into her life.
And one day about six months went by.
And one day he's in the room with her.
And they're talking.
And they're friends.
And he finally said.
Joyce.
Let me ask you a question.
Why?
Why?
Why did you do that?
She said.
You mean the.
He said.
Yeah.
What was that all about?
And she said.
All I want to do is get over my fear of heights.
And this guy started to laugh.
And she said.
What are you laughing about?
And he said.
All you had to do was humbly ask.
I love that story.
And I'm going.
Wow.
And so I asked.
And things have changed.
Things have absolutely changed.
I have a home.
Today.
And the lady that I love is in that home.
I call that bail bondsman on my birthday.
And I thank him for bringing me here.
To you.
And he doesn't think it's a big deal.
In fact.
He doesn't know what happened.
I say.
His name is Don.
Don.
Every year.
In August.
Don.
Clint Hodges.
And every year it's the same.
Yeah.
Clint.
Where are you?
Where are you?
And you know what I love about AA?
I know where I am and I can tell him.
Isn't that something?
I saw the promises someplace.
They said you'll come to know your full name and address.
And by God.
It happens.
No big deal out there.
But in here.
That's what this unity is about.
A weekend of unity.
We know where we are.
Ain't much.
But it's everything.
Somebody said it better than me.
They said.
We don't know the difference between everything and nothing.
We thought we lost everything and were left with nothing.
The everything I thought I'd lost in 1966.
And again when it all hit the fan.
Turned out to be nothing.
And the nothing I was left with has turned out to be everything.
Because it brought me.
Into a total.
Totally different relationship with God.
I took step eight.
I made the list of people I'd harmed.
I knew what the harm was.
And I went to those people.
They said you know what?
Amends are face to face.
And I traveled up and down the west coast.
And I came to Roanoke.
And I went to Denver.
And I went to Seattle.
And I went.
I had a lot of amends to make.
I had to make amends for some of the amends I'd made when I was new.
When I tried to do it without any power you know.
I went up to that.
When I was 14 my mother died.
And we.
I buried.
I was stood at that grave as they buried her.
And I was full of bitterness and remorse.
And lack of trust.
And I knew she had betrayed me.
And a story that has no meaning.
Except in my goofy little mind.
An old idea went into place.
And I had carried that for a long long time.
And I went up there.
I didn't want to go up there.
I didn't want to go to Billings.
I didn't ever want to go.
And they asked me to go to Billings.
They'd asked me the year before.
And I didn't have time.
Because I don't want to go to Billings.
I know I have to go out to that cemetery.
Now they ask me again.
And I'm under new management.
And I go to Billings.
Because they ask me.
It's sort of like.
There's the orders.
And an Al-Anon lady that traveled up there with me.
A lady named Corinne.
Was unimaginably kind to me.
Because she said.
When we got there.
Are you going out to that cemetery today?
And I said yes.
She said I brought something for you.
And she had a shopping bag.
And in it was a liter of water.
And some flower seeds.
And a pair of shears.
And some cleaning.
And some napkins.
And some paper towels.
And she said you're going to need these things out there.
And I just started.
The tears began then.
And a guy gave me a ride out to the cemetery.
And I finally found that little flat stone.
In the low rent part of the cemetery in Billings.
And my mother's name.
And I kneeled down there to clean that up.
And cut the grass.
And tidy it up.
And I started to cry.
And I cried.
And I cried.
And I cried.
And I thought I was done.
And I went down the aisle a little bit more.
And found my grandma's grave.
And I saluted her.
She was not a kind woman.
But she tried her best.
And I started to leave.
And I began to cry.
There was a guy waiting for me in a car.
He'd see me coming.
He'd start.
He'd start the car.
I'd go back and kneel down and cry.
I thought I'd never get out of there that day.
And they were very kind to me.
That weekend.
That group of AAs and Al-Anons.
They respect one another very much in Billings.
The Al-Anons and AAs.
There's no polarization.
They just love each other.
And I got caught up in that.
And they loved me.
They loved me.
They gave me a little bit of a reason
to have some compassion
for the broken part in me.
To love that part in me
that is never going to get it.
And to feel their love.
I got back and Corinne, this Al-Anon,
who had traveled up there,
called me up and she said,
I forgot to tell you something you should know.
And I said, what's that?
She said, the Al-Anons in Billings
have taken on a special project.
And I said, what is that?
And she said, they've decided
that they're always going to make sure
that your mother's grave looks great.
I thought, God.
I saw a bumper sticker.
It said, practice random acts of love.
And that's random.
That's irrational.
If you're new here,
you will see absolutely irrational acts of love.
It's drive-by stuff.
It makes no sense.
And you will notice, too,
that one of the reasons you feel good here
is because we love you.
That's what this is.
We love you.
And there's a great healing around that.
But it isn't your healing.
It's our healing.
And that's why we're glad you're here.
And the way this deal works is,
in a few weeks or months,
somebody newer than you will come sliding in
and sit down beside you,
and you will find yourself loving that person.
And your healing will begin.
And we call that Alcoholics Anonymous.
And we're in for a wonderful week of unity.
Thank you.
Thank you.