Step Three Is a Deal with Higher Power and Every Sharp Curve I Try to Grab the Wheel Back — Searcy W.

My name is Cersei and I'm an alcoholic and I'm glad of it. With the help of people like you and the AA program attempting to follow the 12 steps of AA, and the help of God, certainly, I've been sober since May 10, 1946. I'm not going to talk long and couldn't say much if I wanted to talk a long time. I could take a lot of time, but I still couldn't say much. We do have some wonderful talkers yet. As Buck said and Nita thinks, also I do, that Macon is one of our great fellows in AA. He can always bring us a spiritual message. A message on Sunday morning that's good for all of us. I always enjoy hearing Macon. I always enjoy hearing every AA talk. I've never been to a bad AA meeting yet. I've never heard an AA talk, regardless how long they'd been sober, how short a period of time they'd been sober that it wasn't good. And oftentimes, I think we in our groups, we talk about AA. Maybe we don't like to hear some fellow talk. But I look upon people and certainly I want people to sympathize with me trying to talk. That all of we who get up, if we just get up and state our name and our dry date, and that we're glad to be sober, we're grateful, and sit down, it's wonderful. Be free. Be happy. Be happy. Be well. And I'm a big believer in AA because in that person we see someone who is attempting to get well. We see a person who is making an effort at least to stay well. And I believe it's necessary for all of we alcoholics to have recognition in our group or in an AA group someplace. I don't believe any alcoholic will remain sober over a long period of time unless they receive recognition within their group or among people who understand them. It isn't very hard for Buck or myself to get recognition. If we don't get recognition, we'll take notoriety. Hell, we'll pull some kind of deal and get on somehow. So we as alcoholics may accept notoriety if we don't get recognition, but you can notice any member, any new member of AA coming in, and if they come in these doors two or three or four times, and nobody pats them on the back, nobody says anything to them, nobody says, oh, boy, I'm glad to see you out this morning or tonight. We're glad to have you. We're glad you're with us. You can watch. You can watch them three or four times, and he'll come to meetings, and if he doesn't get some recognition, you'll finally say, well, I wonder what happened to Joe or Jim or John or whoever it may be. I think it's necessary that we spend some time with the new members, that we make them feel that they're important to us, and they are the most important person in our group, the new members. All right. Thank you. Of course, we in AA place principles before personalities. We may mention a lot of names, and we talk about a lot of people. Most of us here are AAs or families of AA. I don't know of anyone I'm as glad to see in AA as I am Alfred. He was a hell of a guy to get a check case from. He was tough as a boot. I used to say if a alcoholic had a problem drinking, maybe I could get a pint this morning. But he was pretty hard-hearted and pretty tough. The guy Buck was talking about who saved a lot of people, including me, He's a great guy in AA. Most of you know who Buck was talking about. He's a guy that I went over one Sunday morning and drunk, been drunk all night before, and went over in a Mexican town trying to find some bootleg whiskey and couldn't find any, and I ran into a bunch of dogs. Margaret had always wanted a dog, so this Mexican and I crawled under his house over and pulled out these collie puppies, and I got two or three of them and loaded them in the car, and I was thinking like the devil from whiskey and all that other stuff. By the time I got out of that Mexican's house with all those puppies, I was thinking a little worse, if possible, and I went over to this drugstore Buck was talking about, and I got in there and I told him, I said, I've got to have a pint of whiskey. Of course, on the cup, you know, I was working up to it, and he said, I'm going to give you a half a pint of whiskey, but I want you to get the hell out of here with those dog fleas and all, the whole business. I said, I had fleas all over me, so I had to go get dipped and cleaned up. I got that half a pint out of my belt. I didn't care what happened. They hadn't fleas or anything. There's nothing here because of those freaks. But telling him to make his way to text on the nossos OK, he should be booked not a place to stay but there I was starting to worry about and I just knew for a second I wasn't going to tell the whole thing. It was because they were on nearby. I couldn't keep up and I was told I wasn't本当 to come. I told myself that father was going to want to say it was so extra now. I was like what does this young man want to do. Quite Foster. What does it mean to you watching all this static free out there? over a long period of time. You don't see them around AA much. Maybe they go to church some. Maybe they're this and that and the other. That's all right. Each individual has to stay sober however they see fit. But for me, I know that the only way I can remain sober with any degree of peace of mind is in AA. Because I know that the only way I can remain sober is to work with others who are sick just like I was when I came into AA. Certainly we have all improved and we should improve as we go along. If we don't improve, we'll certainly go backwards. That's this program. The program is a program of recovery. It's a program of improvement. It's a program of growth. It's a program we need to put a lot into if we get anything out of it. But who am I to tell the other fellow how he must do or what he must do in order to stay sober? In order to be happy, in order to have the things that we need and we're looking for in AA? I know a lot of fathers who never attend AA. They don't know what and they ain't meeting yet, they're sober today. I know a lot of men and women, both, who maybe have found a place in church or this and that. That's all right. It doesn't make any difference how you stay sober, if you stay sober. And it doesn't make any difference how you understand these 12 steps and how you apply them the way you understand them. And thank God for that guy who held out time and time again when they were putting these 12 steps together. I've heard Bill talk about it many times. This one fellow held out for this one phrase in one of the steps. It says, as you understand, as you personally understand, not anybody else, not what the other thoughts are expecting, but he held out for that one thing, and thank God he did. Because each of us as individuals can take this program. And I can't do it. I like making. I can't do it like books or maybe a lot of others. But I can take these 12 steps, and as I understand them, my own self, I can apply them to my life and apply them to my daily living to remain sober the way I want to do them. Nobody tells me that I have to do anything. Nobody says, these steps you have to, Leo. Not even Bill, not even the ones who wrote these. These 12 steps. Up at the top in all of them, it says, these are suggested steps. And I think if we alcoholics had been told when we came into AA that you have to do this. You have to take these 12 steps, and you have to apply them. You have to go to AA meetings. You have to attend every meeting. You have to do this and that and the other. I don't believe a darn one of us. I'm not a darn. I'm not a darn. I'm not a darn. But as they are, they are as you understand them, as you apply them to your life and your everyday living, as you see them. So thank God for that. In 1949, at the Yale School, we had a Mexican boy named Andrew Hernandez from the Three-Fort Louisiana group, an AA. And he talked. He talked. He talked pretty good English, but he couldn't understand a lot of phrases and a lot of things because he didn't understand English very well. But during that school, we had an AA meeting, and in this meeting, we had this Mexican boy, Andrew, talk. And it meant a great deal to me. He didn't say a lot, but I could apply that to my own self. This Mexican boy got up, and he said, you know, this AA program and the whole thing, to me, I have to keep simple. He said, you know, I have a simple mind, and this is a simple program, and I have to keep AA simple. Well, that made more sense than all the other scientific analysis and all the other stuff we've heard in the end time media, to me. And I remember in 19, I think it was about three years ago, when they were having the Chi State Conference in Amarillo, and I was working with Albert Randall on some of the program things and this and that and the other. And we had written Dr. Bob Nance-Smith, the co-founders of AA, Dr. Bob, all of you know, asking them to come. And they said, well, we're going to come to that meeting. And time rocked along, and about ten days before this meeting, we received a wire from Ann, Dr. Bob's wife. And she said this, and it made a lot of sense. She said, we can't be with you. Dr. Bob had had a stroke or something that happened, some heart trouble. And she said in this wire, in this short wire, we can't be with you because Dr. Bob has had a heart attack. But if we could be with you, if we could be there with you, the greatest thing we could say to you would be very simple, very short. And it would be this. Remember, AA started in our kitchen. Lois and Ann and Bob. Bill and myself. Just over a little percolator of coffee. And talking AA, talking our problems over, understanding each other. And things like, I said, remember, AA started like this. Let's keep it like that. It's simple. And AA isn't, there's nothing hard about it. It's about AA in my way of thinking. I think those words were very well put. I think so long as we remember to keep this program of AA simple. It's a program of action, yes. It requires some footwork. You know, we just can't in the morning get up and then say, God, I'm turning my life over to you this 24 hours. I'm just living 24 hours at a time. So you take my life over and I'll sit back in the rocking chair and let it go. And I made a hell of a mistake when I came into AA. They told me to take it easy. And I thought they meant from now on. So I've been in that rocking chair all along. I thought they meant just staying. So we can do that too. Mental laziness. Just pure damn laziness. And mental laziness and those things. I don't believe you get us any place in AA. I think if we, the more we, as was said last evening, and you hear it many times, the more we put into this program, the more we give away, the more we make ourselves available, the more we understand this program so we have something to give away. Then the more we're going to receive from the program. You know, this is one place, Big Spring, where I do not have to qualify myself as an alcoholic. I lived here drunk 10 years. So, I mean, I existed. So all of you and all of this bunch in the local group, I do not have to qualify myself as an alcoholic. Most of them have seen me on the streets here many times drunk. And while we're talking along the lines of what AA will do for you and what it does for our families, I don't know. I don't know of anybody who has improved as much. Of course, I've improved some, but my wife has improved more than anybody I know of. She is not here as mean as she used to be. And we seem to get along better than we did when I was drinking and drunk all the time. So this program has helped her a great deal, and I'm grateful for that. AA to me, these 12 steps of AA, these 12 traditions weaved together, mean to me the difference between life and death. I know that I could have not continued on as I was any longer. I had come to the end of the rope, and had tied a knot in it, and that was all there was to it. There was no other way for me to go. I had no other place to go. I had no alternative but to accept some way to get well. And to me, this is just a simple program of recovery. I believe that we can get maybe two wrapped up in AA, and I did for a long while. I just didn't do anything but AA. I didn't want to do anything but AA, because I had found the very thing that had made me happy and had made me grateful for even being drunk all those years. And a program that would make you be grateful for going through all the suffering that we have to go through with, and still be grateful for that being sick, and then, then, then, that time. And we have to even be grateful, because we're the only people in the world who have to get so doggone sick to get well. And we have to get very, very, very sick, very, very sick, before we're willing to get well. If people don't understand, and it's not hard to understand why they wouldn't. And he explained to people something about drinking, well, about the alcoholism that compels you to drinking, why we say that we drink to get away from the effects of drinking. That doesn't make sense to them. You keep drinking to get away from the effects, sure. When we start, we have to keep on. There's nothing we can't stop. There's no stopping the flow. We're forced, we're compelled to drink against our own will and our own better judgment. So I don't know. I, I, uh, slips, and, and returning to our active illness in AA, I know nothing about. The only thing I know is that I want to continue sober, as I have in the past, worse than anything in the world. I, I, I, I, I, so terribly much want to remain sober, uh, regardless of what condition I may get into, uh, regardless of what may happen to me today or tomorrow down the line. I don't care how bad it may seem, uh, no matter what could happen, nothing could happen to me that taking a drink wouldn't make it worse. I've tried that so many times. Just, just various little things happened to me, and the only, uh, way I knew to recuperate, to forget about this thing was to take a drink. But to me today, nothing in the world could happen. I don't care how bad it may, may seem or how bad it might be. I know that a drink couldn't help it at all. So to me, in the first step, where we admit we're a palace over alcohol, and our lives have become unmanageable, certainly, I, I realized that my life was unmanageable to begin with. I know that my life will never be manageable. And I turned my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand it. So if I do that, then I don't have to worry about the other thing. Uh, but many times, uh, going down the road, uh, along with God in this deal we made, uh, I'm prone to, to, uh, going around these sharp curves and things that happen and, and to upset me emotionally. I'm prone to grab the wheel and try to take over again. Uh, take things back in my hands and handle them like I want them. Uh, no, I can't do that. I have to think then, no, we made a judgment. Uh, we made a deal. Uh, I said that I would turn this, uh, over to God. That I would get completely out from under the driver's seat. That I would turn the whole mess over to him. Uh, I tried to handle it for many, many years and I made a mess of it. So I promised to turn it all over to him. So then I must remember when I want to take my life back over. When I want things to go my way, I have to remember that no, I promise to turn those things over to God. To God in the sense. So, this morning, uh, every Sunday morning, I think I'm more grateful than any other time. 9,000 different mornings I've waked up out here in the big screen. And no matter how much whiskey I bought on Saturday night and stashed away, I was always out Sunday morning. Hardly ever Sunday morning passed that I wasn't up looking for a drink. Uh, all over the backyard, if you know what I mean, some of you drunk. Uh, under the mattresses, in the bathroom, and I had some damn good places to hide it too. But, just the, the terrible fear of, and can you imagine, uh, they were talking about this being a disease. Now, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm going to go out in the middle of the street, and I'll be in the living room, and I'll be out there, and I'll be out there at the end of the day, and I'll be out there, and I'll be out there at the end of the day, and I'll be out there. And no, I can't say it's a disease. No, AA doesn't say it's a disease. Science and medicine and those things, they say it's a disease. But, AA doesn't get into that because it's controversial stuff. But anybody who couldn't understand that a person is ill who can't live without a clear substance called ethyl alcohol and, and has to have that clear substance in order to survive, we have to have it. We can't do without it. Once we take one drink, then that's all there is. We have to have alcohol in order to survive. We don't drink it to have fun. Our fun's all gone. We know we're not going to have any pleasure. But we have to have that drink in order to live. So I think the greatest time in all of our lives is when we drop the divorce proceedings to ethyl alcohol. We completely divorce her and we forget about her and do something about it. And the only way I know to do anything about this problem we have over a long period of time, the only people I know who have stayed sober and remain happy with any tranquility and peace of mind are people who are working and are working and are living. And I think that's the greatest time in all of our lives. And I mean working at the AA program and with the AA program and are trying to give away what has been given to them. So indeed this morning, on Sunday morning, I'm especially grateful. I'm grateful to each one of you here. I don't care whether I know you or not, you've helped me in some way. You're interested in AA or you wouldn't be. You either have a problem or you're interested in our problem, so I'm grateful to all of you. And the only thing I can say is my prayer and my thoughts shall ever be thanks to God and to you who have helped me take over. Thank you.