Step 11 and the Solitude of Listening to Higher Power – Bill D.

Thank you and welcome everyone here today, new, old, and some that are new again. I'd like to say that my name is Bill Dee and I'm a social drinker down on my luck and also a recovered alcoholic. I've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And, you know, with that, the way I do it today is by staying out of the grips of active alcoholism. I try to maintain a good spiritual relationship with my creator. I try do for others and for God in service. And I try be a regular attendance at AA meetings and carry the message to the best of my ability. And I want to thank my creator today for putting me right here at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where I belong. And it's just a thing coming down here. I was thinking so many things hit through your mind. My wife and I, we stopped on the way at the National Cemetery up in Santa Nella. I always want to call it Sentinella, but it's Santanella. and we stopped to visit her parents who were both buried there. Her dad was Margaret up here in the front row and her dad was in the Utah beach on D-Day and he also did the Battle of the Bulge and her mom was a captain in the Army Nurse Corps in the Burmese jungle during World War II and both highly decorated people and it was really an honor to go visit their gravesites there. but just putting a few things getting things out in the open I'm no AA expert and I'm not a spiritual giant and I am definitely not a stand up comedian but I tell you if you want to hear about a guy who was full of fear, anger resentment that was me but I found a way out of it through the 12 steps and 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. And for that today, I am eternally grateful. My home group, in full disclosure, is the Roseville Tuesday Night Group of Alcoholic Anonymous If you're ever up in the Rosevile area, 315 Lincoln Street we're the oldest continually active group in Northern California celebrating January 20th, our 74th birthday and we we have a pretty neat party we put on that we have to rent the fairgrounds out there and we have last year right right around 1,200 recovering Alkies there and that's that's the average but you come in we have a hundred foot long dessert and all kinds of other buffet everything from nuts to cakes the doughnuts to whatever you want all the coffee you can drink usually have in archives we have a fantastic raffle world class speakers if that's what they call them these days and I know it's expensive to fly them in from Montreal wherever we had the last one but we do that and we have a dance at the end that goes on until the wee hours and the cool part about it is it's all free you have no charge so that's the fun part and we do things during the year to raise money for this and so we have a we have great celebration going there and just that this is a H&I speaker style meetings they just open it up to before I share my experience strength and hope my position in the hospitals and institutions of Northern California I'm I'm the major institutions chair say What I do, I cover all 22 Northern California prisons from Corcoran to Pelican Bay and then from San Quentin over to Susanville and then all other 18 in between. And I got Napa State Hospital, got the four major federal penitentiaries, and I got 26 fire camps to keep an eye on. So it's a real fun, busy job. And that's why when somebody, I try to get them to go to one meeting a month, I go, hey, it's three hours out of 720 hours in the whole month. And they can't make it. I usually hand them a crying towel because I know that's what they're going to need. But no, it is just, I know what hospitals and institutions has done for me. And I did all the other service positions. The GSR and central office and Central California Fellowship, all that. But I know when I first walked into that prison out there, I went into the maximum security new side of Folsom, and I knew I was home. I mean, that was something I said, wow, why haven't I done this before? When I saw the reaction, how hungry and thirsty these men were. And so it was a great revelation to me. But I started out my journey in 1944, a little town called Tacoma Park, Maryland, right outside of Washington, D.C. And as my parents got me home, brought me home they left me at my grandmother's and they split for places unknown. And I never did to this day see my dad. He's buried now. We found him about two or three years ago. he's buried in Paramus, New Jersey I never talked to the man never got a card or letter and my mom she was she was in and out of my life mostly out of it because she suffered from a disease called alcoholism and she spent most of my childhood and any part of my adult life even she spent much of that in the jails prisons in St. Louis, St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital in Washington, D.C., due to her drinking and carrying on. So I very seldom got to see her. I mean, honestly, she never cooked a meal for me that I knew of. And so it was kind of a sad deal. My sister and I were both abandoned there with my grandmom, who was raising about 10 other kids at the time. She had 10 of her own. and she was a living saint to me. I mean, she was the rock in my life and she cared for us, nurtured us and did the best she can but even the other people in the family, my uncles, they were all into alcoholism and deep into it and so that was rampant in the community and we had limited education in the families. If you made it to the eighth grade, you were a star and very few ever graduated from high school myself and my cousin Dr. Kenneth Thiel back in Ohio I think we're the only two that ever made it to college and I'm talking out of several hundred people and so it was a it was real poverty situation we we lived in an old house it was built with an old log cabin built in the late 1700s back in Tacoma Park and then boards were added around it and so we had all of us living there my sister older sister Betty my uncle Chuck in Chicago who's been in this program forever he we all shared one bed and there was two more beds in the room that's how we had to share beds because there wasn't any room and when it came time to get up to go to school the first four or five out the door you got a little sack lunch probably a peanut butter and jelly and and one of the apples off the apple tree we had out front. And the rest of us, we had to sort of fend on our own. So if we were a little late that morning and we got to school, we looked around because somebody was going to be missing a lunch, and I was goingto be eating it. And I had my favorites because one little girl there was a little rich girl. They had a $50,000 house. Can you imagine that? They were the rich people. and but her mom always put those little hostess snowballs in her lunch and that was my favorite so i kept an eye on phyllis and god rest her soul in the sixth grade phyllist passed away she had leukemia and uh i know i have to write a dead letter went on that but uh that's the way it was we when i say poverty i seriously mean poverty i took my wife back we've been back a couple times we're going to be back here again next month but just to see how people in my family were living it's a sad thing to see we didn't have a working toilet in the house we didn' t have a refrigerator we had a wood stove and that's what my grandmom had to cook on we had the old galvanized tub that Saturday night we lined up, girls got to go first and then the boys to get our bath and we had a broken down outhouse out back in a septic tank that was leaking into our neighbor's yard. So it wasn't, we weren't the brightest spot. We were of course known as the white trash on the block and it was interesting but one little story that always hit my heart how people helped us out. You know you wake up some mornings there would be a bag of used clothes on the front porch or there would be a bag of, you know, little foods or whatever. Because they knew what my grandmom Anderson was trying to do, trying to raise all of us. And she was working as a nurse's aide at Wakefield Nursing Home. And so we didn't have any real direction or a real discipline. And there wasn't really any men around. The two real men around were my drunken uncles. And so I remember the one deal with the coal company where we used to get the coal delivered. We had a little chute, but we used to cover it up with tin. And the coal man, it was an old black guy from John Micklejohn Coal Company and he comes down to the house, backs in and he let the coal go and I'm out there and it was a little drizzly almost sleet like rain that day and my grandmother and I were there came out and I am sitting there holding on to her hand and the old black guy comes around the corner after he dropped the coal when he lets the truck back down. He goes, oh, Mrs. Anderson, I'm sorry, I'm going, what's going on? I thought he hurt himself or something. He said, no, I just remembered, Ms. Anderson you ordered a quarter ton and I made a mistake and pulled the wrong lever and left you a half ton so you don't have to pay for this and even as a kid, I caught on and my granny's there for a little money trying to pay and oh no, Ms. Anderson, he got in his truck and drove away and I never forgot that and that's the way my grandmom was too. Very caring, she died a pauper. We did our best on many things but that's what she was. She gave everything she had away to help somebody else and somebody's kid on the block hurt, that's who she took in. so that was a real example for me there what I was learning but I was also learning that my uncles were going out and having a good time and I was learning that mom was disappearing and I didn't know and then as I was getting older I was figuring it out and finally when I was about nine years old we all got out into this old Hudson parked out front of our house weeds growing around it tires are flat like the Al Capone cars and we all got in there because we stole my uncle al's fifth of four roses whiskey out of the back of his car and we're in there and uh just recently my cousin naomi she was she was at a car with us and she's back in the virginia beach virginia and she was we were talking a little about it but and we got there we drank oh it was terrible man that stuff was hot and it was burning my throat but you know what happened after a couple three little sleeps of this stuff i'm starting to feel little loose and uh and what it did is i found out it was taking away some of that abandonment stuff and it was it was uh taking away from that loneliness stuff it was taking me out of that poverty stuff and it was giving me some maudlin power and courage and i said wow i gotta try this magic elixir again and uh and that's what we started doing just as young little punks like that we used to go up the pops liquor store and two of us keeping busy up front one of us would get one down in the coat pocket and we'd be set for the weekend and all we couldn't do this all the time but I was starting to find out this is this is a relief man this is good stuff and I hated it but it was good and so I was looking just like our book says we were drinking for results we weren't drinking to check out whether it was four roses or some of that terrible stuff that Steve was drinking. You know, we wouldn't go that low. But that's what happened. And what it did to me also, it led me away from some of this other stuff running through my little head. But it started getting me into trouble. And little Billy Dee started becoming a little thief, a little liar, and a little cheat. And I was getting pretty good at it. But I worked hard also. I used to cut the lawns and the hedges, and I became a little entrepreneur through that. I really, I was never afraid to work no matter what was going on in my life. And the funny part about it though is I started wanting to borrow it when I got up to age 13. I didn't want to wait for that 16 to get my temporary license. I wanted to learn how to drive now. So I started borrowing cars and I didn't ask them first but the next thing you know with this type of stuff going on what happening in my life I'm standing before a man in a long black robe his name was Judge Alfred Noyes of Montgomery County Juvenile Court and he's starting to make decisions for me in my life that I didn't really care for, and one of them was going to be sent off to Lock Raven, Maryland Reform School for Boys outside of Baltimore. Well, thank goodness with that, and just a little side story, when Margaret and I were just back, we were at a little speaker meeting we're doing back in Maryland, and I parked under this sign. We were just going in to catch a quick afternoon 12 noon meeting at this uh saint anthony's church or whatever it was on the corner and i told her i said by god look at this when we got out of the car and i looked up alfred noise drive and that was named after that judge and so we got some pictures of it i said can you believe this but uh the thing was a man who had been in my life from the start was my cousin, Reinhard A. We just buried him two years ago, 35-year member of Alcoholics Anonymous and Good Standing. And he stepped into my life and worked it out with the Montgomery County Court System to get me out of Lock Raven and to send me off to a military academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, right near my friend Steve here, not too far away, and so that's where I went off to and all the rest of the kids I was the only poor kid in that school a lot of them were there for disciplinary reasons but I was there for disciplinary reason and I was poor and the rest they all owned pharmacies or whatever and so the funny thing about it what I got there at Castle Heights was something I wasn't getting at home and I got some discipline and I mean I got it on the first night because I was a delinquent, I was a brat and I was already causing trouble and so remembering plain as day Colonel Morgan comes in that room, everybody over so we had eight of us, we lived in little cubicles like, eight of use and we had to grab our ankles and whack across our butts because they could give you corporal punishment then they had to be signed for but that's the way they did it and I got some corporal, it was major punishment, it wasn't corporal and so it got my attention it got me attention though and I started knuckling down and I stated bearing down and I get out of a lot of the stuff I was doing and I got seriously into my books and I worked very hard there at Castle Heights and my second year I came back and I had a whole different attitude than I had the first year. And I was ready to go, and all of a sudden I'm an officer and they're putting buttons on my cars and stuff, and I became a company commander. And I got really going, but I really was into my studies. I love school all the time anyway. And the craziest part about it, for a little cheat, liar, and thief like me, I got voted on to the Honor Council. Man, that was a big move. And I was talking to Steve who was speaking here last night, and that's one of my roommates there at the time was Eddie Hill, and his dad was a famous country singer there at Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and that is what he became also. He and I were good friends. But the thing about it is, the whole crux of it, after all this, I honestly have still got the newspapers to this day. I set academic records for Castle Heights. I left that school with a 97.4 average, and it was neat. But right before I left, you know what I had to do? I had go downtown Lebanon, Tennessee. It's about 30 miles east of Nashville. And what did I do? I'd go down there, and I had get some of that white lightning in the fruit jar, and I got myself a whole bag of cherry bombs and M-180s. I had take them back to Maryland because I could triple my money, I'm an entrepreneur, remember? And what did they do that afternoon? We're out on the drill field and they were in drilling our lockers and we had a locker inspection and they found all my goods. And so little Billy Dee is walking around what they called at Castle Heights. We had a big circle up here on the hill. It's called the Bull Ring. and that's where I was walking for many, many hours to pay my little debt for being a brat. But I got back to Maryland, and I was going to go there. I was starting school back in St. John's, so Reiner once again footed the bill on that. Now let me remind you, this is an expensive operation this guy is doing. It's equivalent today of sending a kid to Stanford. That's how expensive it was. We were talking this morning about it, but just our uniforms here and our books you could buy a Volkswagen with. And so I got involved there, and I did really good in school. I was always academically on it. And so what happened there, though, I got back with my old buddies, and then I was back into this booze, and now I'm back into the elixir. And then what the bombshell happens at the end of my junior year, Reiner informed me he's just got married, and he married a gal back there, and she said it's either him or me and he told me and I said well I understood even as a young kid you got to take care of her she's your wife man I understood it and uh but that summer I really got into the booze you only have to be 18 to drink in DC and of course I had two or three fake licenses by then and so it really got carried away and I had one credit left in high school and I left and joined the service. I went up and got a hold of the Marine recruiter and all that, but I said, hey, I've got to get out of this place. And it was just the whole world was caving in on me. And, I mean, I was really into the serious part of drinking, and I was celebrating with my buddies all that summer every night. And I was lumping Cokes on a Coke truck, Coca-Cola. and it was just killing me the whole world was coming in I stayed with his mother because I stayed with a cousin and then I'd go back with the grandmother and then that was all over wherever I could get a couch and so it worked out, I'm into service and I got into service and I did a couple of tours over in the Holiday Resort area of Vietnam and that's where my drinking note took off and I went off I was really big for it but this is where I went across that little line that invisible line where the heavy drinker becomes the alcoholic and just like the cucumber once it's a pickle never a cucumber again you can't do it and our book tells us that so that's where I got into and so life was taken on different meaning when I'm coming back to the states my good friend Dave Hurst, Dave said hey Bill will you be best man at my wedding? And I said, sure. So I said why not? So I said here goes another two week party. And we got up to Belmont, California and I met the maid of honor at his wedding and her and I fell in lust and the next thing you know things, she's got a sudden weight gain and so you know how we handled it back in those days. We we would marry the girls when we got them pregnant and we had a beautiful boy out of that wedding and uh as a matter of fact he's a little bit up the street here he's in san francisco he works for fox sports network he's been there almost 25 years now and but our youth uh our youth and immaturity just just couldn't let that marriage survive because i don't want to mention the fact of my drinking involved there it was out of control and i was now seriously drinking for effect uh trying not to be included but to get away and that's what i did so that's what i tell guys that i work with today is if you're not changing not trying to change your perspective of reality you might want to go check it out you might just be a heavy drinker But I was drinking to change my perspective, really, all the time. And this is where I saw my life spiraling down. I had some really good jobs. I worked at it. I was in college. I graduated, did good. Matter of fact, Margaret and I were going to college at the same college at the same time, and we never saw each other or anything to do with each other. And I assured her she didn't want to know me then. And that's what happened. But as things developed there, I call that my dark years. I went through about 10, 11, 12, really what I call the dark years, and that's when I had to live with this temper I had, live with the fact of looking down, becoming a real loser in society because I was just walking on anybody I could walk on, using anybody I Could Use, and my life spiraled further and further down. I had to go into the jails and it wasn't even part of my talk until I was talking to a guy over here this afternoon and just right up the road here in Santa Cruz County I was sitting there looking at 15 to life and thank God thank God things worked out in my favor. It wasn't that I wasn't guilty it's just they worked out in my favour and I got out of that rap I had to sign a piece of paper that I'd never visit Santa Cruz County again and I said gladly if you'll let me out of here and so that worked out but that's where I go and I started going to the Pink Palace in Redwood City and I had it and I went there three or four times because of my behavior and San Diego I'm down to San Diego County Jail stuff like this It's just crazy, you know, spinning out of control. But that's when it came up to I had this time now because, like I said, I like wedding receptions. Don't get me wrong. I always enjoyed a wedding reception, so I've had six of my own. And I'm not really proud of that. It's something I kid around with, but I'm Not Proud of It because I went through five devastating divorces. and I'm talking about not just financially but emotionally, mentally and spiritually and it was a part coming up, I had my three boys now at this time, I'm coming up into the, I couldn't work for anybody I couldn'T have anybody telling me what to do anymore, I wasn't taking anybody's suggestions I was off on my own I opened my own business in 1979 and I drank my way through the first couple, three years of that business and somehow it just worked out for me that business worked and it came about and it worked and it's a it's the business here next year will be 40 years and I still own it today and still work it and my son's running it right now for me why I'm away I hope and but the thing about it was that was the dark years where things weren't going right and it was I finally was starting to get a little hint of that mirror, and I'm starting to find out where the problem is. And the problem's Bill. And I had to start thinking seriously about that. I was burning bridges behind me. I was just making a wreck of people's lives and my own. And finally, that incomprehensible demoralization came. And I called that same guy that's always bailed me out, the guy to put me through school Reiner and he drives from San Bernardino California overnight up to my house in Rockland to bring me this big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and he got up there and I was passed out I hear boom boom boom on my door what is that and I go ahead and answer it here stands Reiner been on highway five all night and uh I said yeah what's going on he said well son you said you might have a drinking problem and uh because i i wasn't going to admit at the time i'm an alcoholic i just had a drinking trouble and so he came in and he actually spent a couple three days with me and i took this book i had he wrote in it he said he said bill he said read this book and your life will change in ways you never dreamed of reiner a and put his phone number in the bottom so I wouldn't read it and he said son you might want to you might want to practice this you might wanna even look at taking in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting so I was too sick I was really hung over then I I said yeah thanks you know thanks for all the info there I appreciate it but what I did when he left I went down and I did my first meetings on Gibbons and Carmichael California and that was my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in April of 1988 and I got in there and if you're new around here don't do what I did. I took this beautiful book put it up on the shelf. I didn't get a sponsor definitely wasn't going to let any religious any of that stuff in my life and I didnít take any steps didnít get any other men to call or any of that stuff and after a couple years of that bullcrap of leaning against the wall back here being a wallflower in AA I finally finally met a girl thank God and so the relationship was on and that was that's the way it went and the next thing you know we're having spaghetti and we're having French bread and man you've got to have some red wine with this and there it went and that started it before the night's over of course I had three bottles of red wine and I was off to the races and I had ruined my dry drunk because I wasn't living in sobriety I was merely sober so it was at that time I knew I gotta get going on this thing and I got my horses back together and it is worse they're not kidding you would say it gets worse every time you go out there, it does and I got serious and I walked in the doors on February 6th after one terrible drunk I walked into the doors of Roseville Tuesday night group and sat down and started listening and that was time because I was truly at step zero, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I said, I got to do something about this crap. And that's when I went in there and sat down and I took my big book and, you know, I started getting involved and I got some numbers. I got it, got a sponsor. And it's so weird how things happen. You know, you go, oh, that's a real coincidence. You know? Just hadn't seen my first sponsor and, you know she's so long who comes in Thursday right before Margaret and I leaving to take off to come down here but Louie L my first sponsor and I had to take him to lunch I could and it was just wild and then that money before what happens on that is the guy that got me involved from Department of Corrections he turns out he's in a and he come in and we went out to lunch all all in one week. I told my wife, I said, man, what's going on here? Is somebody telling me something? But it was really something. But I got involved and then I started taking these steps, started studying this book instead of just reading it. And I started studying it and I got into the book studies and the step studies and The Traditions and we did it. And I got really moving and I was determined. I said I'm sick of this. I'm just throwing my life away. And I got to that point where I was doing all the little deals and the GSR work and the central office work, all that kind of stuff. And so it became a point where I was speaking at a meeting one night, and a little gal, some of you might know, it's been around for about 50 years. She just turned 90 this week. I saw her at our Area 42 meeting last week, Mary R. from Galt, California. and Mary came up to me after this little speaker meeting and said hey I said yeah and she's not I think we had to sign off on her too she can use corporal punishment but she says we need you out at the prison and I said no way you don't need me out of no prison I said I don't do that stuff he said no I'm serious we need your help we need to get you out of the prison I want you to get signed up well who and lo and behold who's standing in the room reiner day my guardian angel and reiner came over and he had a because he was involved with folsom prison he came over in and he reiner hands me a application i said yeah i'll look it over and i'll i'll see what it i'll get try to get it in he said no go over and fill it out so i said what do you mean he said i want you to fill it right now so i went over to the desk And I filled out that application to Folsom Prison. And he took it, turned it in out there because he was very active there. He did a lot of work in H&I and AA in general. But his thing was working with inmates. So that's what I did. And the next thing you know, I got the call that, hey, you're cleared. And I said, wow, that's a miracle in itself. and uh and i went out to that prison with louis l my first sponsor and we go into the prison and we get all the way in through about six different gates we're on the maximum security side and we're right in a facility right by the yard about 500 inmates out there running around jogging and whatever they're doing on the yard these days and the guard comes up one of the ceos and he says which one of you is Louie Lamb and I should have said me but Louie says that's me and he said you've got to leave the grounds you're no longer cleared his clearance had run out so they leave me standing there in the yard and he walks Louie back to the main gate and I said oh my god so when when he gets back I asked him I said do you have a men's room and I wasn't kidding and so I went in he said yeah you can use the staff room and I did and I went into the men's room actually and I shut the light off locked that door instead of prayer and I said Lord if you'll get me through this situation I'll do whatever you want and I got out of there finally we went into the library I'm there with you know 25 uh massive killers and uh and the lord took care of me and i had to keep my end of the deal and i did and i i started really getting i said wow but you know what i found out once again i was home i really felt it it's like to me it's just like a religious calling when i went in there i was hung i said this is where i should have been all along what's wrong with me And so I got really serious, and I started going out a couple times a week. And the guy told me, well, don't do it too often there, Bill. You'll get burned out. And I said, okay. He said, that's all you have to tell me. I started Going three times a Week. And so that's what happened. And we didn't have that many meetings going in. It was really tight. We were just really trying to get a lot more H&I and AA going there, and both in old and new Folsom. And it wasn't long, I get a phone call and it's from the head of Northern California H&I. And he said, is this Bill D? And I said, yes, it is. He said, good. He said I want to let you know that you're going to be the new coordinator at Folsom and I said oh, is that how that works? And he says well yeah. He said i don't have anybody else to call so I'm going to ask you. and you know that was just like let's go for it pal and I said I don't really know what I'm doing yet he says oh you're doing great don't worry I'll check you out so that's what I did I took that puppy over and I thought well what we got to do we got to get more meetings in here and I say we got to get things going so I called up and got right on the phone I didn't even know any better at the time and I'm calling the warden's office and i said hey i'd like to meet with you i got some things i want to propose to you and i told him my name what i do okay and so i go down there and i'm dressed up in a nice little suit and i got my briefcase and i go in the warden's office sit down and i still have it i had i had about three pages of proposals what i wanted to do at this prison this guy you know he's looking at me like what are you a nut and and that's what i did but we started getting more literature in i said we're going to really need help because I'm going to get you a bunch of volunteers in there and he kind of yeah we know all about that and but that's what we did. I started recruiting the heck out of people I had about four active sponsees at the time and that's when I told them I said you're going into the prisons too and I said we got to all start getting a couple new people each and so we started working at it and we got going on it and got this thing really rolling and for we went from about eight meetings a month in there at one point we're up to 81 meetings a months of Alcoholics Anonymous the new Folsom and right now because of budget constraints they had to drop it back down we're down to about 60 meetings a Month in there and we're still doing 44 meetings a month in old Folsom so we've got just about give or take 100 meetings a month going into the two complexes now and we've We've got just about 100 AA volunteers that are going in there. And it worked hard and I said, wow, I said well, I told the warden here's some of the other things I'd like to see done. I'd be able to bring this literature straight in, we're having a problem getting it. I got okayed to bring the literature straight into it so we took in cases upon cases upon cases of literature. And it was crazy, we were getting all the stuff. got step studies going in there we got book studies started we got tradition studies i took into tradition pamphlets and first first week doing them we do six traditions the second week we do the second six and we'd explain them and go through them inmates loved it they said we never did this before i said well we're going to do it from now on and we and we got it going and we started getting so many people involved it was great we had to do a whole spreadsheet still have that. I kept all my materials. My wife yells at me, what are you going to do with this stuff? But it was really great to get that going like that. And you know the fun part, I think the real fun part was just getting started like that got me going on that. But I had to get in now but just stepping back a minute before I get too far into the prison deal I had go from step zero to step one and I did that and i i stood up and i said i got to do this i have to surrender and i knew my life was unmanageable that two-part step i i didn't know anything about two-port steps then later on it was explained well to me but uh that was a part in an old street bum named charlie a explained that surrender part i said uh i said man we're service i was in we weren't taught to surrender back down. I'm not used to this. And he said, well no. He said here it is. He says when General Lee goes up to Appomattox Courthouse to turn over his saber and surrender the southern armies, he hands it to General Grant and he thought all the armies thought they were going to be decimated they weren't going to get any help, they were gonna be imprisoned and blah blah blah President Lincoln already sent the word ahead. When they show up here and surrender, give them food, water, medical treatment, clothing, and send them home. They surrendered and went over to the winning side. And that's what I did in AA. I finally came over to The Winning Side. And I jumbled on to step two and found out all this time I've been trying to straighten my little brain and life out. I found out he would restore me to sanity. I just had to do a little bit of the footwork a little but of the prayer work and he would restore me and I said wow that is that's cooler than anything and step three was a neat one where you know I'm going to turn my life and will over to the care of God that I didn't quite understand yet but no that's what happened and you know how this really worked good for me I heard a guy from somewhere down here taught me about that was taking his car into the garage getting it all tuned up the oil changed greased up windows all clean and all you paid a mechanic and you take the car and go so he was just turning his car over to the care of god and that's what i was doing i was uh-oh i'm making a mess that's What I'm Doing and uh so i was turning my life over to The Care of God and it brought me to one thing i remembered my youngest son and as i said I had three boys, and my youngest son was a great kid. I don't know what was wrong with him. He never drank or smoked, did drugs or anything. He taught first and second grade Sunday school and was a straight-A student at San Juan High School, graduated with cumma sommelardi. And he's going in now this one night for about his 10th or 11th brain surgery because he had a brain cancer, a tumor. And so we're taking him. He had a seizure, and we had to get him to the hospital. And I had a business appointment back in Baltimore, Maryland. And I hade the midnight red-eye flight. And I'm down there. We're at the UC Med Center, and I'm going back and forth, back and fourth, walking. And my son Gregory said, Dad, what's wrong? He's laying there, his head's all shaved on this side. They're getting ready to do emergency surgery. And I said, What's wrong?" I said, I had a flight. I've got to call these people and cancel. But it's midnight in Maryland. And I said I don't know how I'm going to handle this. And he said, Dad, go ahead and take care of your business trip. He said, This is in God's hands now. And I went, Whoa. And that put me on that whole fourth plane we talk about, this new dimension. and I got on that plane that night everybody else was sleeping and I'm sitting there wide awake just me and God talking all night all the way to the east coast and I called, his surgery went well everything was cool and I get back home did a successful business journey and I go back home and that's that was the real eye opener for me there hey, I gotta learn to put it in God's hands not mine and then that doing that fourth and fifth step together i did that fourth step where we have to do it and i was taught thoroughly and honestly that's the two things we want here and i didthat i did it thoroughly and honesty to the best of my ability and i got with that i gotwith that fifth step and that's what we talked about you come in here in the first first couple of months you're on a pink cloud well the first couple months i was on that pink cloud was great but i'll tell you what happened i continued on that pink cloud and when i did that fifth step with my sponsor i stayed on that paint cloud and i'm still on the pink cloud today i love it and it's a it freed me up and i felt so good and i think i really got ahead but i had i could always straighten out later if i didn't but uh to the best of my ability I was doing this so the sixth and seventh step were my hard steps because now it's to me and the boy upstairs and I knew I can't lie to him like I've done to people before in life I canít cheat I canít write down the wrong thing he knows whatís going on and so thatís when I had to go wow he will remove my shortcomings once again dummy old Bill is trying to remove them doesnít work and so finally when I got out of the way long enough let him remove my shortcomings next thing you know things are going great and i i went into the eighth and ninth steps looking the same way and i met at a list my sponsor said bill put your name up top you hurt yourself more than anybody get it up there and then we're going to go from there and one of them that hit me there was uh a deal that i was working on and i was out at the prison on monday monday nights and on wednesdays every third wednesday i go out to Old Folsom, and I give a talk to the guys that are getting paroled. And I have schedules for them for all the local meetings, things like that. Let them know I take the pocket edition of the big book so they can take that with them. And Mrs. Carter was one of our education officers there. Ms. Carter is retired now. But Ms. Carters, she used to sit down and listen to all my little spiel and talking with the inmates. And I gave about a 40 minute talk and so she was a real neat uh old black lady and so we we would talk afterwards and stuff she said bill can you get me these type of i said sure i'll find you some and so as it works out i go into the prison that night in old folsom and monday night one of the inmates comes up to him and he says bill bill yeah yeah what did you hear about miss Carter. And I said, no, what's going on? He said, she had a major stroke. And I said you're kidding. He said yeah, she's over at Kaiser Hospital on Eureka there in Roseville. And I know she'd love to see it. She always talks about it. So I said well listen my son's really near death right now. And I said I got to go see him tomorrow night. I'll be there at the hospital tomorrow night and if I have time I'll leave downtown and I'll get out to Roseville and visit her. So I went in and visited my son, and everything straightened with him. And he was pretty comatose at the time. He was basically coming in on his last legs. And I stopped at Roseville on the way. So I go in there, and she's up on the second floor. And you know what happened years before? I'm pulling into Rockland, and I'm still in my madness. I'm still trying to you know out drink Anheuser-Busch and I get pulled over by a cop and he's just big tall black CHP officer real nice guy only I told him a lot of other things I made a comment on his manly hood I made a comment his race I made it come in on him being a cop, and I was just a trash mouth idiot. And he just kept smiling and wrote me the ticket and he leaves and I drove home and I get home and so that was neat I didn't think much more about it I took care of the stupid ticket and but as I as I there the nurse came back I'm back at the hospital now to see miss Carter and the nurse goes I said well her rooms locked off she's she's in pretty critical condition we know if you can see her so I said oh my goodness I I said, could you tell her? She said, who are you? Are you a fat? I said. I'm Bill. She said. Bill who? I said Bill D. She laughed at that. I said just tell her Bill from Alcoholics and Homeless. So she did. And she came back. She said well Miss Carter can see you but just a minute. You can't stay in there. So that's what I did. I went down to that room. And they let me in. And I go in. And there's Miss Carter laying there in the bed. And who's sitting by the bed next to her? The black CHP officer. And that's her brother. So it's not a coincidence, folks. And if I hadn't have made my amends to that guy, which I'd already done over at Brookfield's Restaurant with one of my sponsees, Mark, and Mark and I were sitting there and that's what we were doing. We were doing the eight-step, nine-step work and I showed him my list and I said, my God, this cop walks in the door. I said man, I haven't seen this guy in a couple years and here he shows up and I did and I went over and made an apology to him said I'm in a program doesn't allow act that way anymore and he said wow I never heard that that's cool and so we talked a few minutes the other officer was coming back from the bathroom so I'd left him said thanks a lot for accepting me and it and we did and that here he was sitting by her bed and if I hadn't have done that thing I'd have been crawling under the rug but on the reverse thing I walked out of there two feet off the ground and that was really something and so that taught me to make these amends and get going on them don't stop and my my sponsor suggested I do the hardest ones first they said then it's a downhill slide so that's what I've always tried to practice to do and so I got onto the tenth step and that's I love because I can continue to take personal inventory and I could straighten things out things I might have forgotten my fourth step and when I was doing my fifth and so that's I like that and the key word up there in that step is promptly admitted it and so, that's what I do now in the mornings. I do my third step thing. I religiously read. I love their daily reflections. I know they wrote every day for me and so I read that every day. I don't leave home. It's just like my American Express card without it and then I go out to the garage I open the passenger door to my car and I go jump in God you're going with me I need your help today and then i shut the door go around i open my trunk put my briefcase in and i go god treat me today how i treated everyone yesterday and it makes me do an automatic 10th step and if i've done something wrong to somebody at taking your pin or told you I was at a meeting last night when I was really at the Kings game, then I've got to get on that horn promptly. I've Got to Get On That Horn and Straighten It Out With You. And part of that is making restitution. I don't keep your pin. I've GOT TO GET YOUR PIN BACK TO YOU. And so that was really good. Step 11, prayer and meditation. I'm getting more. I love the prayer part, talking to God, the meditations listening to god when my old ego raises its ugly head i have a hard time listening sometime but i'm working on that even to this day to just sit in solitude and listen and have my creator talking with me and it's getting better all the time the road's getting narrower on that and then that 12th step there we are we're gonna we're going to do all this stuff and we're going to finally save the world. And so, but I did. I want to carry this message to as many alcoholics as I could and to practice these principles in all my affairs. Not just the ones I like, but all my affaires. And so this was cool. So I had to get really serious with this thing. And so I got up there and I'm going, wow, this is cool. Now, how do I go about doing all this stuff that I've just learned here and studied? And so that's when I said, wow. My sponsor was great on this. He suggested that I build a, do what he did, build a God house. And I said build a god house? He said yeah, what I did, he said I built this big house. And he said what I've did at first, just like I did. He said I put God way up in the corner up here. I hid him out in the attic. and he said but it wasn't long when i started taking these steps and i really started living this program not talking about it he said when i starting living this program i started letting god into my greed room i let him into my hate room a little bit into my lust room and uh like that he said it wasn t long i m letting him downstairs in this big house into my gigantic resentment room he said because bill you came in here like i did and the alcoholics anonymous with a whole basket full of resentments and so he said now what we've learned here the first 11 steps now we're going to go into this 12th step and we're gonna open up the shutters on the windows to this house and we are going to let the sunlight of the spirit in and we will learn to walk in it and he said that's when things start enlightening in our lives and he said we're going to walk in that sunlight of the spirit then we're going to open these two big doors and we're going to invite suffering alcoholics in just like it says here in that fifth tradition our signal is a purpose and he says that's what we have to do if we want the keys to the kingdom and I said all right I'll try anything I was willing I was done. And so that's what I started doing. He said, but what we can't do, we can'T build this house on shifting sands. He said, we have to have a solid foundation. He said, because the first storms that come along, it's going to blow this house off its foundation. And he says, we're going to have what we call a relapse and a lot of us don't come back from those. And he said, believe me, those storms do come along and I thought back when I came in here I was going through a terrible divorce and that's that was one thing it really just ate me alive. And I was going through major divorce there then I had three of my sponsees couldn't quite get what was said in this book right here. Couldn't quite get it and I had to give their eulogies because they died and other things were happening that affected my life in my business i had two guys in robbing my business and i had to shoot and kill one of them and that was uh left me today with the side of my face still paralyzed because i have a i have permanent case of bell's palsy from the stress of that so these things happen and these little bumps keep coming along and he said but what you got to really do is you got to get into the service and that's where we started left off I got into the prison system and he said you're going to be into H&I work hospitals and institutions so that's that's when I got started on that like said I went went out to Folsom for my first meetings and then we got things going next thing when I became the coordinator for that prison and we really got that one going good and that is where you got a watch out folks don't get going too good in this because the phone rang again and it was good old David Powers he said Bill I need somebody over at the old prison my coordinator just quit so that's what I end up doing I'm running both of these things coordinating both of them and it wasn't a project but we got it going in there too and it went great and got things started and so the whole thing I was doing I was coming home, that was just about year 2000 and I'm coming home one night and the phone rings at my house again and I am making sure it is not a Santa Rosa number I wasn't going to answer it and it was a Sacramento number and there was a man on the other end and it were late at night and I said wow who is this calling and he said is this William Dunbar and I answered yes it is and he answered well I am with the California Department of Corrections they weren't rehabilitation yet they were just CDC and I went oh man come on I'm not ready to go to prison so he goes in with me and that's what he did he starts going through it and he said what we'd like you to do if you would, we've come up with a plan here, we'd like youto come down and join our board and I said what board you got? He said well it's the OSAP board, Office of Substance abuse programs. And he said, we'd like you to come down and represent Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, wow, are you sure? And he said, yeah. So anyway, we worked it out, and that's when I started going to my first OSAP meetings. It became substance abuse programs later, and today it's called VAT if I'm still there. You can't get out of some of these things. And today it's the Volunteer Advisory Task Force. And so I serve on that. You have a guy, Tim W. Tim comes up every now and then. I haven't seen him recently, but he's missed the last two meetings, so he's on probation. But that's what I did, and it was great to get involved in some of that part. And another thing, that's why I brought with me today, we got our brand-new handbook from the prison. So anybody here that's working into prison work or wants to get in, But anybody that's at any of the major institutions, we've got a brand new handbook just handed out at our last VATF meeting last week. And it's really interesting on some of the things. They're really working on getting the application system down a whole lot better than we have it now. And people that are brown cards, you won't have to renew except for your TB test. You don't haveと renew anything for five years. So it's going to be a good thing. And there's other things that they're not quite fully up to, so I don't want to say something that I can't back up here. But we've got some really neat deals. Felons can now get back into the institution after one year instead of a minimum of three. And even faster if you talk right directly with the warden, and that's what I did with one of my sponsees who's a felon. I took him in, and after eight months I had him going in. And that same guy is today the coordinator of Folsom State Prison. And so we're working on neat things like that. We worked on the VTRAC system together. And a very important part that people I've talked with here in H&I, nobody seems to be on to yet, is the VAC. Anybody here know about the VAT, V-A-C? Anybody? Raise your hand if you do. Okay, that's – yeah, nobody I've talking to. But we're doing it very active in Northern California, and it's working great. It's the Volunteer Advisory Committee, and it'll be in all the institutions throughout the state prison, not just Northern California where I'm at, but it'll be throughout the whole system. And that's where the coordinator and a couple other people who are going in, you can be on that committee and solve problems right at the prison level without having to go downtown and through the whole thing, through the VATF board and all that, we can take care of them right there. So that's going to be a good thing if you guys get that going, and I can talk to people separately on that later on. But things like that. But I got them started in there. I put videos of AA, HOPE, Sure Beat sitting in the cell, all these type of videos, I put that on the prison private video system. It tells inmates where they can get to meetings, what type of meetings we're having, When they are, where they're located, just check with your inside sponsors and you can get involved. And with Prop 57 right now, let me tell you, we're getting a whole lineup of people lining up. And we've got waiting lists now going because Prop 57, if they qualify for the program, they're doing the deal right, they're showing up for the AA meetings, not causing trouble, doing their part in it, and you're serving, say, a 10-year sentence. If you're doing all that stuff right, you can lop, besides your good time, you can lap another year off of that 10 years. So it's really got the attention of a lot of guys on the inside, and we've got them lined up. So that's a neat thing to see. We're really going to need volunteers like that. But getting literature in now, Northern California part, We spent over $600,000 on literature last year for just the major institutions. So we do a lot in that thing. And like I said, getting the book studies. And that's when I talk to my sponsor now and he goes, what are you doing now, Bill? What's been going on? I said well, it's a home group. We're getting ready for the anniversary. I've been working with this guy. I went to this meeting. Oh, I'm still doing the prison work. And he said, Bill, you're not just doing prison work. You're doing God's work. Don't forget it. And every time now when I drive up to a prison, it hits me. I said, I've got to go in here. I'm not a direct representative of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I am in another way. But I'm a representative of Northern California Hospitals and Institution Committee of Alcoholic Anonymous. And I said, I've got to act right. I've Got to dress right. I've GOT TO speak right. And I've GOING IN THERE FOR THE SIGNALS OF PURPOSE TO CARRY THE MESSAGE OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS TO THE SUFFERING ALCOHOLICS BEHIND THOSE WALLS. AND SO I HAVE TO SHOW RESPECT TO THE INSIDE SPONSORS AND THE OTHER PEOPLE THAT ARE WORKING IN THAT PRISON. I HAVETO SHOW RESPECT TO THOSE INMATES. and guess what the funny part about that is when that happens you get respect back and we get it going good i got them set up now with new york we got all the different groups we got the monday night boys of falston we got tuesday night murderers row we got it all and we register them just like you would register a group here with a a group you might have the the Wildflower Girls or whatever, and we get them registered that way. We have our own bylaws, and I helped in the year 2000 there, I helped clarify some of the bylaws that made it a little more friendly to the volunteer Alcoholics Anonymous groups. I got a copy with me, and make sure that the secretaries on the inside, the inmate secretaries for each group, they know what's going on that they read the bylaws and they can stick with them and we follow them and we have our uh we have our own uh deal right here this is this is our northern california i'm sure a lot of you've seen that and that's that's what we follow here's the rules we follow and we don't use profanity and my sponsor always taught me that anyway he said excuse me if i don't choose to use any profanities that i'm in a spiritual program and that's not very spiritual and so he's uh he's stuck with that and uh but but doing all these other things of of getting the men involved inside because that's why we're there we're there to carry that message we're here to stay sober ourselves i mean that's just another insurance policy i'm putting a coupon in on my policy but we're near to help these men to the best of our ability. And we're there to work with the administration, do all the things necessary on the inside. On the outside of those walls and in my private life, we have to look at the different things that we can do to help from out here. And that's stay in touch with the administration. Take myself, and that's part of my deal I do, I drive all over to the different prisons, and I introduce myself to the wardens and the CRMs, and And I put a face on what HNI is all about. And I take them nice information, I leave them there and doing things like that. When I go to conferences like this, I try to always spread the word what we're doing. When we have other things going, we have workshops that we do on the outside. Three or four of us go to take over a meeting and do a whole workshop explaining what H&I is all about, what the prison life and everything we can in that. Take a sign-up sheet. We've had 8, 10, 12 people sign up each time. They're saying, how do you get all these people? That's how we're doing it. We're working our buns off. This doesn't happen overnight. I can't take this big book, put it under my pillow, and hope for the best. We've got to get in this puppy. A lot of people, I tell them, you ought to open it. There's some neat information in here. If they do, because a lot of people they they hide stuff in here because they know nobody's going to go into it and but that's that's an important part to me and i know right here on page 20 on top of this beautiful book it's uh you know our very lives as x problem drinkers depend on helping others with their needs wow what a deal if we're willing to go ahead and help others the needs you'd be surprised. Just like pointing fingers when we're blaming somebody, you'd surprise. How much comes back to you without ever asking? Don't expect that, but that's what happens. And so we do all kinds of stuff like that. Every meeting I go to, I mention we need help at a Folsom or we need health at Mule Creek or San Quentin, wherever it is. And it's amazing what we can get done if we go ahead and put that effort forth in H&I. and to see the results of it. That's what's the great thing on this whole thing, is seeing the results after we work with this. And I'd just like to say here, I don't want to keep you guys, because I know a barbecue's on the way here, but just in closing, to me, what I love to see about this thing is when we see inmates who are studying this program getting into Alcoholics Anonymous, starting to live it, even though they're behind a wall still. But then some, what, 80%? I forget the exact figure now. 80% will be getting out and they're going to be our neighbors again somewhere in there. And we've got recidivism rates that are actually dropping. And we got population dropping too because of the AD-109 and a few other programs they've got going. But it's a thing when we see that. But I think it's what's important to me is when we see men and women regaining their dignity and self-respect, getting back with families, getting jobs again, getting a higher power in their life, becoming good citizens, becoming job worthy again, and becoming positive role models for their children and their siblings. this is the fruit of all this altruistic work that we're now doing and I hope that he keeps us around as long as he wants us to do this work thank you and God bless you