Step 3 and the Blank List of Problems with Higher Power – Dave

Thank you. I'm Dave. I am an alcoholic. I was thinking during that countdown about how many people are in this room sober today and I thought a little bit further through about the economic impact that we have by being sober. At first, I was saying there's probably a bunch of bars and liquor stores that are kind of angry we're here but then you think it all the way through and the lawyers that aren't going to have work tomorrow because we didn't get arrested tonight The jailers that aren't going to have, because we're not there. All the way down to the guys in the mental institutions. You know, the guys working in the kitchens there aren't going to be able to get a job. They're not going to get jobs because we are here. How selfish of us, huh? But you know, they might get a chance to have a happy family as a result of us being here. As Larry was saying, when we reach out our hand, that when somebody reaches out their hand for help, the hand of aid always to be there for that we're responsible and as we stay responsible we don't know the ripples of this we don'T know the multiplication of this my wife and I this morning were reading the 12 and 12 and it was talking about uh in 1935 there was two score we looked up score which means 20 so there was 40 sober alcoholics you know then in 1939 when they wrote the big book there was about a hundred you know they fudged it i think there was 88, but about 100 sounded better. And then as it's grown exponentially, it's been an amazing increase in the population of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's pretty awesome. But being in Chico, at first I would be remiss if I didn't thank you all very much because I've gotten so many sponsees as a result of Chico State. And I have three guys right now that my sponsor who came to Chico State, none of them completed a semester, but they all came to Chisco State. Yeah. You know, when they were figuring out colleges, they got Playboy and looked at, oh, party school. Chico, I'm on. But I'm really grateful to be here. I thank you, Lyle, for asking me. Thank you all for askingme here. And Linda and Klaus for making chili tonight, which was really awesome. I appreciate that. And I was kind of reminiscing a little bit on the drive up here today because it was long. And this is kind of an anniversary. I got married 25 years ago, I think tomorrow. after the ceremony we were in one of the local bars that I worked at having a reception kind of thing and during the reception about two or three hours into it my wife left me apparently she was angry that I was dancing naked on a pool table with another woman had I been able to see that she had these anger issues and this one-way thing in the four hours of our courtship, I may have declined that wedding. I think our courtships lasted about four hours. We got married, and the marriage lasted three hours. And that's the kind of guy you've got standing up in front of you talking tonight, folks. My sponsor sends his condolences. I was talking to him today. He said, so you're going up to Chico to talk tonight? I said, yeah. He said what happened? They couldn't get any good speakers? He's a sweet old guy. Anyway, I think back on the story and I think back to, it was in August of 1981. I came to in Phoenix, Arizona. I didn't realize until after I got to AA that I came too. I thought I was waking up, but I learned that I came too, and I never woke up, I came two, because when you pass out, you come too. And I was in this apartment, and, and ,and I hurt, I hurt. And I crawled into the bathroom. Excuse me. And I looked in the mirror, I've had to lift myself up by the sink and I looked in a mirror and I said, I looked straight in my eyes. I said damn it David you SOB you did it again. And immediately followed that with the thought I'm not going to do it again today. I'm NOT going to DO IT AGAIN TODAY! And I left the apartment I went to work at the time I worked in a bar where every good drunk got to work, I guess. And I went in and I wasn't feeling well at all. I worked the day shift. I got there, you know, at the crack of 11, I think. And I was setting up the bar and I was feeling poor. And, and I didn't know what to do. And I looked around the bar, and then I saw this big bottle of Amaretto. And my first thought was, that can't hurt me. That'll help. And so I went over and poured myself a little glass, and I took a couple sips of that, and I can still, standing here, I'm sorry I'm getting excited. I can remember the feeling of that warmth just going, and then went, and the shaking stopped, and upset stomach stopped, and the headache went away. The next thing I knew it was the next morning. I was coming to, I crawled into the bathroom and said, damn it, David, you did it again. You SOB, you didn't do it again. And that pretty much summarizes every day that I came to for the rest of my drinking. Damn it, baby, you're doing it again and I didn't want to do it. I swear I didn' t wanna do it, I wanted to do anything but that and I could not get past it and I didn't have any clue that I was powerless over alcohol, had no clue, had no clue what that meant i went to see a counselor or a therapist or psychologist or whatever it was uh these nice gentlemen in blue suits asked me to go see him and uh so i went to see this guy and he said that he could probably help me but if i was ever to come to see him again i needed to come in without having drank anything that day and not hung over. So I never saw him again. I kept making appointments and then I just couldn't do it, you know? And he sent me bills. I love that. Anyway, so... You know how an alcoholic knows bills? If they're not in a pink envelope, they're really not that interested in getting their money, you now? If you want your money, send it in a Pink Envelope. If it's in a white envelope, They're saying, hey, if you happen to have a chance, we'd kind of like this. But the pink envelope, you know they're getting real, especially when it has a lawyer's name. Anyway, so then sometime around then I went out for a couple cocktails. Like I said, I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and I went up for a cup of cocktails, and it was in August, and i came to an anchorage in September. And it was a little different. you know and and in Anchorage Alaska I got to know pitiful incomprehensible demoralization like you can't like I could never understand it. I went to work in a in a bar called Miss Kitty's Saloon and everything you've just thought of everything that just went through your mind like that it was worse. Miss Kitty was where lower companionship sought lower companionsship it's like when you look at the end of the road a half mile past that's miss kitties and i was working at miss ketties and at the time uh bars were open in anchorage from 6 a.m to 5 a. m give me an hour to go outside shake and puke you know and then come back in and start it all up again and uh it was it was just a hard time and and a lot of stuff happened and and i see this sweet little girl over here in this, so I'm not going to repeat any of it. But suffice it to say, a lot of stuff happened in Anchorage, Alaska that just burned it down. And when I was in Anchorge, I don't know about you guys, but somehow I started realizing that they were after me. You know them? And they were everywhere. And the problem with them is you don't Know Who They Are, but you know they're there. And you know they're chasing you down and any minute now they're going to get me. So I got to hide from them. Yeah. And I had longer hair. I had hair. Yeah, I understand last year you had my friend Doug R speak here. He was the hair component, you know, Doug had all that hair. We talked together in another place and he was the guy with the hair and then there was me anyway. And, and, and I had a big bushy beard. SoI, I shaved my beard off and cut my hair and went to the travel agency and got an airline ticket out of town under the name of Steve Austin, the $6 million drunk. Anyway, I ended up back in Huachuca City, Arizona. You've all heard of that, I'm sure. And I got a job at a bar called Stallions, which was a half mile past Miss Kitty's. All the lower companionship from Miss Kitty came down and they were higher companionship at Stallions. And I went to live in government housing, the projects. And I had this place. My rent was, I think, about $3.60 a month. I never could quite come up with it. So I got evicted from the projects There's something for your resume, huh? And I went to live in a motor home A 1973 Pinto The great thing about living in a Pinto Is no matter where you are, you're home You stumble on the bar, go home It's right there The bad thing about Living in a Pinot is everybody knows Everybody knows you live in People would walk up to me and say Do you live In a Pino? I said how do you know and apparently when you pass out on the steering wheel there's this little pony that gets embedded in your forehead that's the Pinto Homeowners Association logo so through a series of events and I don't really remember what all happened but I ended up moving to San Ramon, California I had a brother that lived there and he had stopped drinking him and his wife And I called him one night in a blackout and never call sober people in a blackout. Oh, you got to stop drinking. It's so great. Yeah. I've been looking forward to that someday. Yeah. And for some reason, I allowed him to talk me into moving out here and I, and I moved out. He had a construction company and I went to work for him. Now mind you, I've never worked a day in my life except in bars and restaurants. And now I'm working for this construction company. And they start work at like 5 o'clock in the morning. I didn't even know people got up at 5. I knew people went to bed at 5, I didn'T know people GOT UP AT 5. And it's hard. Now, at the time, I weighed like 135 pounds soaking wet. And so they would put me and give me these five-gallon buckets of mud to carry out from under this Victorian house in San Francisco they were remodeling. And if you could see the little skinny 135-pound guy carrying 10 gallons of mud, it was not funny. But they laughed a lot. I think that's why they brought me out. But my brother, they told me that I could stay at their house as long as I wanted to, as long As I didn't drink in their house or come home drunk. So I stayed in the Pinto a whole lot. And one afternoon after work, I went to my favorite bar. because when I moved to San Ramon, before I went to my brother's house, I found my bar. I mean, that's the place. If you don't have your bar, you can't live somewhere. So my bar was called Selway's, and it was on San Ramón Valley Boulevard and just south of Crow Canyon Road. It's not there anymore. They had to close down after I quit drinking because I'm that important. Oh, anyway, I'm sorry. I'll go in there again. but I stopped at Selway's and I had a few cocktails and then I drove by my brother's house and nobody was home so I stopped in and I went in and while I was there I got hungry and decided to cook one of those frozen pizzas and while it was cooking I must have got tired because I took a nap on the couch and when I came to the house was full of smoke and I was laying on the couch and I looked up and there was my brother and his wife and my nephew and my niece and my nephew and my other nephew. And they all have the look on their face, the look that only alcoholics know from our families, that look of what in the heck is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?" We worry about you constantly. You leave the house. You don't come home for days. We don't know where you are or what you're doing. Every time we hear a siren, we think it's you. You've either gotten arrested, you've killed somebody, or you've been killed. We worry about you constantly. We don't know what's going on. And then we ask you to do one simple thing. Don't bring alcohol into our house in any fashion. And you come in and you almost burn our house down. Apparently those frozen pizzas, you're supposed to take them out of the box before you put them in the oven. And they were really touchy about that. And so my sister-in-law went back to the room I was staying in and grabbed all my possessions, both cardboard boxes, and took them out and threw them on the front porch and said, you're out of here. I said, wait a minute. What? What? Come on! What? It's me, Dave! What? You're out. So through a series of negotiations, we decided that I was going to stop drinking. You know our whole card that we play when we have to. We don't mean it, and we know that they know we don't meaning it, but they took me serious. And my sister-in-law was a nurse, and she was going to help me detox with Valium. The blue ones. I can't tell that story without smiling. What a great deal! So we did the detox thing, and sometime shortly after that, not nearly long enough, she said, you're done. I said, oh, you don't understand. my case is different. I feel pain more than most people. I'll probably need to do this a little while longer, maybe three, four months. And she said, no, you're done. So there I was. No booze. Didn't have anything going with AA. Nothing. And I'm working for my brother and one day, a few days later, and I'm really guesstimating on time. I think it was three or four days later. I came home from working over in the city and I got cleaned up and I was on my way out over to Selway's, not to drink, but to see my pals because I knew they would be worried about me because I hadn't been there in a few days. And I, you know, I was there every day before and I knew they were probably sitting around very worried and concerned. And so I was going to go and lay their fears and let them know that I was okay, and just drink Coke. So I wasn't going to have anything to drink, but you know. And I'm walking out of the house and all of a sudden I have the phone in my hand and I'm calling AA. I don't know how that came about. I had no intention of calling AA, I had no thought of AA, but I got the, I have a phone in hand and this newcomer answered the hotline. I didn't know he was a newcomer then, I know he is now because he was so excited And I called! Dave, I'm glad you called. It's Wednesday! Woo-hoo! We have a meeting for beginners on Wednesday night down at Tri-Valley Fellowship in Pleasanton. You just got to come. You just gotta come. Yeah, I want to be wherever you are, buddy. Oh, sure, I'll be there. Yeah, and then he gave me directions. I didn't write them down. I said, oh, I got that. I hung up the phone, and I headed out to Selway's. Had no intention of going any Tri-Valley Fellowship in Pleasanton. The next thing I know, I pulled up in front of the Tri- Valley Fellowship in Pleasonton. It's this old warehouse building, this metal building with glass in the front and it's in an industrial section and I mean, I can barely find it today. I have no idea how I found it then and I pulled out and they were all with their eyes pressed to the glass like this and he's here! Dave's here. Dave's Here. Yeah, that's the way I want to remember it. If you guys have a different story, keep it to yourselves. I remember them. I saw them. So I didn't want to hurt their little feelings. So I said, well, I'll go in there for whatever it is they do in there, and then I'm heading out to Selwigs. And I walked in, and they were all gone. I don't know where they went. But they had these tables out there, and these guys were playing cards at the table. And this one guy looks up at me and goes like this, points to a door behind him. I said, what? Meeting's in there. I don't know how he knew I needed a meeting. Oh, man, yeah. So I open the door, and there's this other room, and it's a big rectangle of tables. There was probably about 40 people in there, and I did what newcomers do. I saw a chair. I sat down. Don't look at me. Don't notice me. I'm not here. Leave me alone. I don' t want to be here. I don''t know why I'm here. I don't know how I got here. Please leave me alone. And I just sat down. And up in the front of the room, the president and the vice president of AA were sitting up there. I figured that out all by myself. And they were doing president and vice president stuff. And the president says, is there anybody here for their first, second, third meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous? Well, I knew they knew that I was there because doesn't everybody notice me? Anyway, going there again, aren't I? Sorry. And I raised my hand and the president said, could you please introduce yourself by your first name only? This is not to embarrass you. It's too late for that, pal. And I said, my name's Dave and I'm an alcoholic. And they did what we do in AA every night. They all turned their little AA faces to me with their beady little A.A. eyes staring at me, got that little A.'s grin on their face, and then that sickeningly sweet A.I. voice, Hi, Dave! We're glad you're here! Oh, me too. Golly. I can't tell you how thrilled I am. Oh, boy, yeah. And then they did some more stuff, and the vice president started talking. And he started telling this story, and it was the weirdest thing. You know, this guy starts telling you stuff that you don't tell people. And especially in mixed company, you just don't say this kind of stuff. And then you guys are so strange. Everywhere you're supposed to cry, you laugh. And everywhere you're suppose to laugh, you cry. The guy's talking about, and I drove up to my house and all my clothes were hanging in the trees and everything was thrown out the windows all over the place. And you guys were rolling. You guys were rollin' on the floor. And I'm going, his wife threw him out of the house. Have some compassion. And you're like, oh man, you guys just made me sick right from the start. Poor guy. And then he says, and tonight before I came here, my son climbed up in my lap and kissed me and said I love you daddy oh the AA tears were everywhere oh can drunks cry or what oh god how did I get here so then he gets done and then they take turns going around the room taking pot shots at me I'd like to address the new guy and then they start talking in AA code Yeah. They start saying stuff like, easy does it. First things first. Do 90 and 90. And as a new member of alcoholics, I have no idea what they're talking about. But have you ever seen any alcoholic say, excuse me, what are you saying? Oh, yeah, yeah. Easy does it yesterday. Going to do 90 and90 tomorrow. Oh, you got it. Got to learn that code. I love that code You know, you think about that. People come in the rooms and they're suicidal and they just want to die. And we say, easy does it! That means squeeze the trigger easily. If you haven't noticed, it just goes off by itself. I have to carry it around. Anyway, so they're doing this stuff going around and there's one guy, I'll never get this guy across the room. He looked at me and said, easy does a partner. And then he looks at the guy next to him, I just told him easy does. Saved his life. And then they start talking about this sponsor thing. Everybody says, get a sponsor, get a sponsor. Now, I don't know about you, but I got no idea what they're talking about. And probably most of you guys are pretty upstanding citizens. You probably sat in your first meeting understanding everything they said and listening to them. I'd hear a word here and there, and I'd sit there and think about it for a while and have a bunch of fun. And I started thinking about this sponsored thing. And next door across the fence, there was this big ditch. And then there was our office building. And our Pac Bell was in there. And I started thinking. I said, I'm going to have to go over to Pac Bell and say, excuse me. I'm trying to join Alcoholics Anonymous. And I need a sponsor. If you'll send them money, I'll wear your T-shirt to meetings. My name's Dave. I'm an alcoholic. Brought to you by Pacific Bell. The alcoholic is once again your friend. Sorry. And this stuff's going off in my head and these guys are going, and finally it almost gets to the end of the room and this guy starts talking about how the night before him and his sponsor did a fifth. I want one! Why didn't you just say that's what this sponsor thing's all about? You do a fifth with them. uh i learned that was a falsehood too so they get done with the meeting you know they finish it all up and during the meeting people kept telling me oh keep coming back dave come to meeting tomorrow we have meetings 75 times a day and you got to be here and you know okay yeah i can't wait to be back i'm not coming back i don't want to hurt their feelings and and so just about the end of the meeting, the president hands this basket around and people start throwing money into it. And I said, that's their gig. They want my money. I'll put a little money in there and then I'm out of here. And I reached my hand in my pocket to get some dough and this guy grabs my arm. The guy sitting next to me grabs my arms. You don't have to put anything in for your first, second or third meeting. I said, well then what happens? You take it all? The pinot, both boxes, my whole estate? And I'm alright, okay, alright, I'm there, I'll go. He said, no then, if you got a buck, put it in a basket. If you need one, take it out. I'm the last guy they ever said that last part too, by golly. I believed him. So anyway, it goes around and do all this deal and then it gets done and the president says we will now close in the usual way. Well, the usualway for me is to get up and get away from you. So I stood up, pushed my chair out, started to turn towards the door and this guy grabs my hand over here and when I turned to see what he was doing this guy grabbed my other hand. what's going on here then they started praying like only alcoholics can pray loud our mother and they pray this prayer and then they say amen I said alright and I start to leave and they grip down on my hands and they stretch out and they started flapping their arms up and down i mean what the heck's going on here then they start screaming keep coming back it works i've been in some meetings lately that they keep it going so long we're about to get air we're gonna get some levitation keep coming back. It works. So work it if you're worth it and all this other stuff. And I got to tell you what that I found out in my time in Alcoholics Anonymous just quickly is that I found that it works if I keep coming back because most of the time I don't feel like I'm worth it. Most of the times, so much of thetime I don' have the ability to work it. But just because I don''t work AlcoholicsAnonymous doesn''t mean that Alcoholics anonymous doesn't work my life changes when i work alcoholics anonymous but it works every day i see it in you guys and if i keep coming back and seeing it you guys long enough sooner or later i'm gonna say this might work for me too so that's what i keep going back it works the most important thing we ever tell anybody keep coming black and you've heard it so many times we've said it so much no matter where i went before i got a people didn't say keep coming back, Dave. They said, keep getting the hell out of here, Dave, keep going. There's the door. Yeah. And when I got here, you guys said, Keep coming back. And something magical happened there. I didn't know what I didn' t realize it. I din' t know what was going on. But you said, Kep coming back? So anyway, they get done with this. They let go of my hand and I start to turn towards the door again. And here comes the posse. All these guys whose sponsors were there, Larry was probably their sponsor, come running up and they got little pieces of paper in their hand with their phone. I guess they had like one piece of paper. They ripped it in 84 pieces and wrote this little bitty piece of paper with their full number and said, hey man, call me at 2 o'clock in the morning. Here, call me at two o' clock in the morning. And I'm going, why would I call you? I don't like you. I don'T want to know you. And why do you want me to call you at two o'clock in the morning. And apparently they were saying even at two o' clock in the morning, but I heard it two o clock in the morning and I thought, well, I was hoping maybe that's when the sponsor did a fifth with you. Anyway, uh, it did it again all by itself. Uh, so I had this big wad of phone numbers from the posse and there were only men. How in the heck disappointing is that? So I walked out the door, and there was a trash can. I left them there so I could get them later. And I went out, and I jumped in the pinhole, and I was headed down to Selway's. And the next thing you know, I woke up the next morning. I hadn't gone to Selley's. I don't know how that happened. And I was in Selway. I went to work that day, and that night I came home, and I Was getting cleaned up, and my brother says, What are you doing? I said, I'm going down there to one of the M&A meetings. And he said, Again? And I said, yeah. He said, didn't you just go last night? And I say, yeah He said well why are you going back tonight? I said I don't know they just told me to That was the best time in Alcoholics Anonymous I ever had Just doing whatever they said Sit down, stand up Wipe off the table Empty the ashtray That was when we had ashtrays We smoked in meetings That was When You Had To Be Tough To Be An Alcoholic By God We Had Cigarettes With Real Ashtrays and we drank coffee out of cups made out of glass and stuff and you knew the meeting was over when the smoke got so low you couldn't see anybody that was AA by God the good days you guys can't even hope to be there anyway and we drink coffee not decaf we drink it black how do you want your coffee black or black and uh anyway i'm it's all on its own tonight uh so i go to meetings and they say sit over there you know and after the meeting they say empty the ashtrays wipe off the table wash the coffee cups do this stuff you know okay you know sweep the floor okay and i did all this and i was sober maybe 90 days before i found out i could have said no no and i'm so grateful i didn't know i could say no because i was just did whatever they told me to do and after about 30 days they let me pour coffee you know you never let newcomers pour coffee you don't know where that pot's gonna go right on the side of the head uh anyway so i was about 30 days sober they letme pour coffee and i was pouring coffee at a meeting and i started noticing that people would look up over their shoulder and say thanks dave yeah dave i'd like a cup of coffee and I realized I was part of something. I'd never been part of anything in my life and I was a part of something because I was doing something for somebody else for no other reason than just to do it. I didn't know the word was service, I didn' t know anything about that I just, I can't tell you what happened inside me when people looked up and said thanks Dave that hadn't happened in a long time thanks Dave for leaving Yeah. And anyway, I just hung out and did the A stuff. Man, I was there. We did meetings at 630 and 8 o'clock. After the meeting at 8 o', it got over to like 930. We'd go to this place called Carnation and eat ice cream and smoke cigarettes and tell lies until about 2 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Then I'd go home, sleep, get up at 6 o' clock, go to work, come back, 630, 8 o'. The meetings, the weekends were so great. And newcomers, how are yours? On the weekend meetings, people would be so nice. they asked me to come over to their house and help them with something. What they meant was, we don't want you loose. Can you come and help me move a box? And they just let me hang out at their house, and we'd talk and move box or something. And then we'd go to the 630 at Tri-Valley on every Saturday night. At 6 o'clock there was a potluck. You know drunk potlucks, alcoholic potlcks? There's so much food at those things. Anyway, I was excited about that. And there would be a potluck, and then there would be a speaker meeting. And then after the speaker meeting, we played bingo. Yeah. Finally made the big times. I'm doing bingo and AA on a Saturday night. Does it get any better than that? Don't think so. And I had it all going. So I hung around, did all that stuff. just loved the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Loved all you people. I loved it so much that that's all I did, yeah? Because, you know, they had those step things hanging on the wall, but I thought it was to help balance out those tradition things on the other side, you know, so you didn't have just one thing hanging there by itself. I didn't think it meant anything for me except to say I've worked them and I'm wonderful. And because you go to AA long enough, you learn the code. You learn how to talk AA. It doesn't take long. You go to one meeting and you hear somebody say something And people act like it sounded good So you go to another meeting and repeat it And they go, oh babe, you're doing great Are you sure you've only been here 30 days? Yeah Oh, you guys are going to know too much So I'm doing all this stuff And then at nine months When I first got sober They told me Pray every morning and every night And I said, I don't believe in God. And they said, it's okay, Dave. He believes in you. Pray every morning and every night on your knees. I said. He's God. Can he hear me from bed? He said. It's not about him. It's about you. It's a little humility. It's all about you learning how to have a little humility. And I says, what is that? And they say, just get on your knee. And so I started praying every morning and every day. So nine months to the day. I got sober March 24th, 1982. On December 24th. Christmas Eve 1982. I was on my knees and I was praying I said God I'm probably going to be sober forever I got this AA thing down what I really mean now is a her amen and I got up and did whatever it is I did and I went to the meeting that night and I walked in the door and I looked across the room and there she was God's will for Dave and I looked at her through the meeting and after the meeting was over I kind of wandered up to her and said hi my name is Dave and she introduced herself and I said what step are you working which is AA for what's your sign and just because you mentioned it Larry I stole that from Bob E anyway and and and uh we started talking and then i left there and and i'm going god you are awesome just this morning i ordered a girl and here it is you're awesome she is so perfect she's everything i need god you were so awesome every month when i wrote that check for all those years i thought oh what happened it seemed so right at the time anyway we we later got married and started producing young future members of alcoholics anonymous and uh i hung out in aa i hung up you know there's there's three parts of aa recovery unity and service recovery is working those steps unity is being is is the traditions it's being part is being part of the fellowship working together as a group and and service is reaching out and trying to help others trying to do stuff and if if i don't have all three of those going all at the same time i'm gonna i'm headed for trouble i'm going to find trouble it's not going to work well well all i had it's my sponsor used to call it a three-legged stool and he said if one leg's missing, you're sitting on your butt. If two legs are missing, you're in deep trouble. And all I was doing was hanging out at AA. And I was five years sober and I went home after work one night and she said, we need to talk. And then I said, what about? And she said that I think we ought to move. We lived in Dublin, California. She said, I think where to move? And I said, well, where do you want to move to? And he said, Well, I got an apartment in San Ramon. I don't know where you're going. so I said I'm five years sober, I'm Dave C and I raced down to the fellowship because in AA marriage whoever gets to the club first wins amen baby and I was sitting at the table and the chairperson talked way too long and I needed I needed to share i had some issues and so i started talking and banging the table and i started talking about her and and she's not working her program and her this and her program of me and my program and and i went on for very few brief 35 minutes and finally this guy sitting across the table that had just moved to town he had like 20 years sober and you know how those guys are think they know everything finally he slams the table And he says, all right, I've had enough. I said, excuse me, I'm talking. He said, I am aware. He said I have been sitting here listening to you talking about your program this and her program that and this. He said he only knows about one program and it is called the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous and it has 12 steps. If you are not actively working those 12 steps you are NOT working the Program Of AlcoholicsAnonymous. You may be working your program. As a matter of fact, by looking at you, I'm sure you're working your program. But you might want to try working the program. I did the only thing any self-respecting drunk could do. I stood up and cursed at him and walked out of the room. The next day, I called him and asked him to be my sponsor. Because when your butt's on fire, you go to the guy that told you the truth. This guy told me the truth. All my AA buddies that I'd been hanging around with for five years, they stood out there commiserating with me. Oh, man, she'll come to her senses. She doesn't know what she's doing. Dave, you're awesome. I mean, you've been an AA for five year. You're cool. And all this wonderful stuff, and they blow smoke up my butt and tell me how great I am. He told me, you were the problem, pal. So we started working together. We'd get together once or twice a week and have breakfast or lunch and his name was Dick, and that wasn't by accident. He was a mean man. Mean! And he always wanted to talk about these step things. He was obsessed with them. And I said, Dick, I understand, and we'll get to that, but right now I have some issues. I have som real problems. And he'd go, oh my gosh, what have I done? And finally one morning I met him for breakfast and he started talking steps. I said, excuse me, Dick, I was at a meeting the other night. We were talking. I found out what my problem really and truly is. He said, oh, pray tell. I said I'm a people pleaser. He looked at me and he said, let's see, Dave, your wife threw you out of the house. You lost your job. You owe every bill collector in Northern California money. I don't know many people that are pleased with you, Dave. Don't worry about it. I had a new issue. I think that a sponsor's job is really to piss you off so bad that you've got to write a four-step. Resentment. Dick. Anyway, so a week or two later we were talking. and we met and we were talking and he starts this step thing again. I said, oh, Dick. I said... And I might have gotten a tear. A real tear. I said Dick, I know what my problem really and truly is now. He goes, oh, please tell me. I said I was at a meeting the other night and we weren't talking about it. Now this is 1987. Anybody that was around back then will know this one right off the bat. I looked up. Tear in my eyes. I have a deeply wounded inner child. He didn't miss a beat. He looked right across the table at me and said, Well, let's get the little bastard sober, Dave. What do you say? Another issue. Damn! So finally I had nothing left. I had to start doing what this idiot wanted to do. And man, I can tell you how quick my life changed when I started working the steps of AA and listening to the sponsor because he had me doing service work. He had me working the Steps of AA and he got me out of the fellowship where I was because I was too familiar. He said, get out of there. Every time you walk in that door, everybody knows you. They know the Dave show. He used to tell me my favorite radio station was K-Dave. Oh, Dave, all the time. He said, they know the show. Get out of there. Go to these other men. I said, but they don't respect me there. He said you've done nothing to earn any respect, Dave. I said dick. Anyway, kept adding him to the list. And things started changing so amazingly rapid as I started working these steps, as I started doing what he said. He'd say, go there, I'd go there because I just hurt too much. When the pain gets great, finally, finally, I'll say, I'll do what you tell me. But before that, see, I wanted to have a sponsor just so I could say I had a sponsor. I didn't want to actually do anything. I was five years sober. At five years, you've got to know everything about A, don't you? And we got to the third step and I had to promise. I said, Dick, I've got a problem. I said, I just don't have a thing with God. And he said, why don't you go home and write down every problem that you've ever had with God, that you're ever had anybody in any kind of religion, any kind church, anything associated with God? Go home and ride it out and we'll talk about it. So I went home and I worked on that for about a week and we met for breakfast. And he says, let me see your list. And it was blank. I had never, ever had a problem with anybody concerning any religion, with any church, with anybody that had anything to do with God or with God at all. I just had it in my head so much that God didn't like me, that I couldn't get together with God, that I let that be a barrier. And when I finally looked at this, I said, but what do I do? I don't know who God is. He said, I want you to pray for 30 days in the morning and the night. Ask God, say, God, who are you and what do you want with me? Who are you and what Do You Want With Me? And I started doing that. I lived in this little apartment over in Oakland and I started waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning and my mind was just going nuts. It was doing the chapter 5. The results were nil until we let go absolutely. Half measures availed us nothing. Not even half. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. And this kept going over and over until finally one night I fell out of bed. I laid on the, I sat on the side with my, on my knees. I said, all right, God, whoever you are, whatever you are. I'm ready. Do with me whatever you will. Then I gave him some instructions and I went back to bed. Couldn't just leave it alone. A few days later, within the next couple of weeks, I can't remember exactly when, God introduced himself to me in such a real way that I have no way of articulating it to you. I found when I met God, words don't work. There is no way to communicate it. But he introduced himself To me so powerfully. And I found out that the God that I came to believe in, the God That I came To turn my will and my life over, Is the God Who created the whole universe. and he created the whole universe with just a thought. One day he was being God, said I'm going to do whatever God does and he said, yeah, I think I'll have a universe and bam, there it was with just one thought. Just a thought and it wasn't like one of those cheesy universes we used to make in third grade with the cardboard boxes and the styrofoam balls on the string. You remember those? This is the universe where everything works together. The moon controls the tides of our ocean. The sun keeps us warm and it's just far enough away that it doesn't burn us up and it keeps us from freezing all this works together and everything just works together and this God with just a thought created this whole universe and I've come to believe that it's more important to the God that I understand to have a conversation with me or with you than it is to create a whole new universe and when you find out you're that special to the god of the universe nothing is ever the same I matter. You matter. This God built us, and he loves us, and he wants nothing more than to have a relationship with us. That is so awesome to me. That is such an amazing thing to do. It's so awesome because I spent my life running from anybody and pushing people away, and nobody wanted to have a relationship with Dave Seed. They wanted to be as far away from me as possible, and I don't blame them because I wanted to be as much as possible. And this God that I found, this God that introduced Himself to me, wants to love me. He adores us. It's amazing. It's an awesome thing. Anyway, so life goes on. I work the steps. I'm doing the deal. Life's changing. Things are getting awesome. The wife and I, we got back together. We moved out to the valley and doing stuff out there. And over a period of time, after a few years, Dick died. He had cancer and he died. And after that I decided to sponsor myself because I had all his wisdom to pass on to me. And things got crazy. Eight years sober I ended up in the vegetable bin. They call those psychiatric hospitals. And when I was in the psychiatric hospital I was talking to the man who's now my sponsor. He wasn't my sponsor then. We were just friends. I was talking to him on the phone from the day room of the Nuthouse. And I was describing all the people in the room. You know, I said, there's a schizophrenic over there and she's doing this. And there's another guy that just did electric shock too. And I'm going through the list and he says, is there anybody else? I said. Well, I don't think so. He said. There are a bunch of crazies in there, huh Dave? And I said yeah. And he said. You're not a visitor. How can I find the mean sponsors? And it was crazy. It was nuts. And while I was in there, my wife told me that she didn't want to be married anymore, that she was in love with one of my sponsees. I copped a resentment. I had what he wanted and he was willing to go to any lengths to get it. Well, that was a crazy time, I'll tell you. It got crazy. It got nuts. I was not an example of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was an example of Dave Self Will Run Riot. Went through a lot of stuff. I look back on that time, and again, the pain got so great that I finally asked for help again and started really digging into AA. As life would have it, life makes lots of turns and changes. And here I am, I'm 22 years sober. And I started buying my own crap again. Started believing the Dave C. Show. Dick used to tell me the hum of my self-awareness was so loud in my ears I couldn't hear the message, to which I say, huh? And he'd say, exactly. So you're so busy thinking about yourself, Dave, and how everything affects you, Dave. And how everything, anytime anything happens, it's about you that you can't hear the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is that you've got to get out of yourself for at least a second at a time or you're going to die. So I'm sober. It's over 20 years, a little over 20 years, few things happen, life changes. is I get busy. I get busy. The sponsees start irritating me. Anybody that has sponsee's can relate to that. Anybody that has a sponsor can relate to that, you know, they start irritating me. My sponsor starts irritating me. The meetings start irritating me. You know, I'm running around, you know and I'm doing, I've fallen into fear and you know the acronyms for fear, false evidence appearing real, F everything and run. My favorite for guys like me, over 20 years sober that are, what my wife calls it, so dry-ity. Locked in so dryity is fear. Frantic effort to appear recovered. You know? I'm running around. I'm spouting AA, man. I am spouting all this stuff and I don't have any of it in my gut. Man, but I can tell you what you need. Oh, you need this. You need that. I' m doing a deal. I'M RUNNING AROUND AND I'M JUST, PLEASE GOD LISTEN TO ME AND LET ME TELL YOU HOW SMART, HOW MUCH AA I AM, HOW SOBER I AM. They can call me sober man. It's insane. And my guts are dying. And I'm denying it so bad that denial don't even know I'm lying. I haven't got a clue. I think I'm doing everything great. Why aren't you guys cooperating? Why aren'T you doing it? When it talks about not going to do it. It wouldn't be prudent. We tried to carry this message to an alcoholic who still suffered. I wasn't carrying this message that the alcoholic still suffered, I was carrying Dave's message to the alcoholic that still suffered and it wasn't the message of Alcoholics Anonymous and it hurt people. We have the power to kill people by carrying our message. If we do not carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, we are being irresponsible. We're stealing from people and we're actually killing people. And let me personalize that. I am stealing from you by taking up your space in this meeting. I am steal from those about me by taking space in the meetings. I'm stealing from the sponsee or the person that I'm advising by telling them what I think Dave C should be telling them. I'm not telling them the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm no sharing what God would have me share because I'm running around in fear. Easy does it, 90-90. The Stepford drunk, you know? Just... Would you like some coffee? Anyway. Even knocked the podium over on them. So what do you do? What do you want to do? What do I do? I can't ask anybody for help. I'm Dave C. I'm 22 years sober, by God. I start asking for help or saying I don't have it down right. I'm, oh no, no, not good. Not good at all. Well, let's let the pain get a little bit better. Because I truly believe that I was trying to help people. But as I look at it now, it still is self-will run riot. Maybe with better motives. But it's self-willed run rioting. Because in there it says, I stood at the turning point. I asked his protection and care with complete abandon. And when he's pounding on me every day saying, ask for help, Dave. Ask for help. Call this guy. Ask for health. I'm saying, oh, gosh, I'm so busy. You know? That's the direction he's trying to pull me in. Because what I'm trying to do, what I found out, the guy that I'm working with now that's just being a tremendous help, is I'm trying to recreate yesterday's spiritual experience. I want yesterday's Spiritual Awakening. I'm tried to recreate it instead of seeking for God to introduce a new Spiritual Awakened into my life. I want to recreate, I want get back to what I felt like before. And as long as I do that, I'll never know what tomorrow can be. I'll NEVER know where God can take me and where God could use me because I don't have complete abandon. That's an old idea. I'm not letting go of this old idea, I want to be Dave Seed like five years ago, I liked him, it was cool. And God said no, you've got to grow boy, I've gotto grow, I'vegotto keep on, I'vegottogo forward. And this requires more and more surrendering of my will to Him. Requires more and me calling Rick every day and talking to Rick and me telling Glenn every day and talking about what's really going on because what I like to do is do the AA thing, call another dog, hey, how you doing? Oh yeah, hey man, did you see how bad the Niners played yesterday? You can always say that now. Or the Giants saying they lose, or stock went up, stock went down, anything. But my ass has fallen off and I think I'm going to die because it's not sobriety. It's not recovery when I wake up every day hoping today's the day I die. And this happens to more and more people that I know with long-term sobriety because we just get to that place and we forget how to ask for help. And we know drinking is not going to help. I had a friend, 37 years sobriete, last summer blew his brains out. Had that happen over and over and over, people with long term sobrieti because we can't ask for help. And I'm talking long term from five years on, I'm talking more than had way too many suicides. Please, please God, let me let go. Let me seek you on a daily basis. Let me be the man that you want me to be and stop being who I think I ought to be. Let me throw away my goal list for 2005. And let me make let you be my goal. The only goal I have for 2005 is to grow as a man in the eyes of God, to grow and be the man He wants me to be, to be the husband He wantsme to be. To be the father He wantsmeme. To bethe member of Alcoholics AnonymousHewantsmetobe. Be the member of my church Hewantsmeme to be." I only want what He wants. And as I start finally surrendering to that, the peace is returning. The peace is returnig. And it's a good thing. It's an awesome thing. and I know when I look back and when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I came in and things got really good really quick when you move out of a pinto life gets good quickly and I look and I say until it started hurting again I didn't grow I didn' t change I hope that for the rest of my life I don' t have to get to where my butt is falling off before I want to grow and change before I want to be the guy God wants me to be. It talks about in the big book that the whole purpose of that book is to find a relationship with this power greater than myself. I need this relationship. I need to know that I am not the power. In the ABCs it says we're alcoholic and could not manage our own lives, that probably no human power could relieve our alcoholism. And what's becoming abundantly clear to me is no humanpower, even me, can relieve my alcoholism All my running around trying to be an AA guy, doing AA stuff, let me get up and do AA, let me show you AA Dave, isn't going to relieve me of my alcoholism. God could and would if he were sought. I better sought him. I better thought him every doggone day. I better be on those knees every day, sotting God, saying, please, God. There's days, I tell you, I had one other day where I was driving up to do some work And I was in the car, and I was crying out to God, God, make it stop. God, please, please give me the freedom that only you can give. Let me turn my head off because I was thinking about somebody that had wronged me. I'm a sensitive lad, you know. I've got a friend, he had a sponsor when he first came in, and he was like four or five days sober, and they asked him to read how it worked from the podium, and he had problems seeing. He started to read How It Works, and he said, sought through prayer and medication and everybody laughed. And he got done and he went back and he sat down next to his sponsor and he says, I can't believe they laughed at me. Don't they know how sensitive I am? And his sponsor said, sensitive people think about others. You're touchy. Shut up. And the reality is if I'm going to be sensitive, I'm gonna be sensitive to your needs. I'm not gonna be touchy I'm just gonna be sensible that there's somebody else sitting in this room right now whose ass has fallen off and they're dying and they need somebody to come up and put their arm around them. They need somebody come up and say, Hi, they need something. I'm going to be sensitive to that rather than wonder how they like my talk. They like my time? I'm gonna be sensitive to that rather than sensitive to me. In closing, I always close with the same story and I only do it because I'm not real bright and I can't think of another one. It's kind of a cheesy story but it's my story, and I like it. And you guys asked me to speak, so you have to listen to it. Yeah, I got some power now, man. Anyway, my kids were, gosh, seven or eight, something like that. And we lived in San Ramon, or Dublin. In the San Ramón, they had this big Fourth of July celebration. So about 7.30, 8 o'clock at night, we went to this celebration. We're walking up, light outside. I've got my son in one hand, my daughter in the other hand. holding on to their hands, and we're walking into this thing, and these paratroopers are coming out of the sky, and they've got smoke on their boots. But when you're a seven- or eight-year-old boy, there ain't much cooler than smoke on the boots of somebody falling through the sky. He yanked out of my hand and ran into the crowd. And I said, I'm not worried. It's early. We're going to find him. Lots of light. You know, we'll just go find the guys with the smoke on their shoes. So my daughter and I, Jessica, we went wandering around the place, looking around. You know? We're doing stuff and looking around, not really worrying. But it starts getting dark, and I start getting worried. And I can just see my son, you know, looking at all this cool stuff. You know, because stuff's cool. When you're seven or eight years old, there's a lot of cool stuff, you know? There's like rocks and all kinds of cool things. Anyway, I can see him going, man, I better find my dad. It's starting to get dark. And he was starting to look for me, and then seeing something else much cooler over here and wandering off, you know, kind of like we are, kind of like fish, you know, we see a lure. Ooh. And we're going on about it, and it gets dark, and I start getting scared. And I'm holding my daughter, man. I'm holdin' her with a death grip, andI'm not gonna let this one get away. You know, and l go up to this sheriff, andl said, I've lost my son. And l described him, what he was wearing, how tall he was, what color his hair was, what colorhis eyes were. And l knew this because he's my son, and L love my son because she said, dads don't know what their kids wear. You know? They don't knoW what they look like. I know my sonl. I love my sunl. My son is a gift of sobriety, a gift of God. My son and my daughter. And so I describe him. They said, okay. And they told Jessica and me to go wait up at this other place while they looked around for him. And a little while later Dave, his name's Dave, which I think is an awesome name. His sister Daveette. He goes wandering up to this lady sheriff and he says, excuse me, my name's David. I'm lost. And she said, Dave, we've been looking for you. Let us take you to your father. And they got on the walkie-talkie, and they called the sheriff up where I was. And he was in the front by the bandstand, and THEY told us. And Jessica and I went up there. You know, I'm holding her, and we're walking up there, you know. And this is where it gets cheesy. And we get 50 feet, 100 yards, however, you know, where we could see each other. And we started running towards each other, and we ran, and I grabbed him, and I had her in my arms. We fell down in the grass, and I'm just crying. We're all crying. We're so grateful to be reunited. it. He's so grateful to be with his dad and I'm so grateful that he's there and his sister and we're crying and we'RE hugging it's cheesy, I know, but it's I can't tell you the relief. I thought I'd lost my son. I thought I was never going to see him again. I go right there. I don't mess around with oh, he's wandering around the park. No, no he's sold into slavery somewhere, man It's nuts and weREUNITED and we'Re laying there crying and I like to think on March 24th, 1982 I walked in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous us. And I said, hi, my name's David. I'm lost. And he said, ah, Dave, we've been waiting for you. Let us take you to your father. And when he introduced me to my father, he cried tears of joy to have me with him. And I cried tears of joys to be reunited. And I could get nothing more than the blessing you've given me by reuniting me with my father. Thank you very much.